Another Woman’s Husband

by Gill Paul

  Mary sat down to try and read the book Ernest had lent her, Murder on the Orient Express, but it did nothing to calm her nerves. Instead she began to rehearse the arguments she would use when Wallis got home, hoping against hope that she would understand, perhaps even be relieved that the decision had been made for her.

  She had dozed off, lying on top of her bedcover, when she was woken by the sound of the front door banging and Wallis’s voice in the hall.

  ‘Where is she?’ she was asking the maid.

  Mary sat up and adjusted her dress just as Wallis burst into her room, the letter in her hand.

  ‘What on earth is this?’ she shouted. ‘A love letter from you to Ernest? You make me laugh.’

  Mary had to pretend shock. ‘But I wrote to thank you for the handbag . . .’ she said, her voice trailing off.

  ‘Yes, and you wrote to thank Ernest for taking you to the opera, and guess what?’ She threw the letter on the bed and Mary glanced at it then clasped a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Did you think I didn’t guess that you’re in love with my husband? Your eyes follow him round the room like some lovesick ingénue. It’s pathetic in a woman of forty.’

  Mary was shaking, but she screwed up her courage to answer back. ‘You can’t blame us for having an affair when you spend all your time with the King, and treat poor Ernest with shocking disrespect.’

  Wallis took a step forward and slapped Mary’s face with all her strength. Mary’s head snapped back and her eyes watered.

  ‘You’re actually having an affair, are you? You utter bitch!’ Wallis spat out the words. ‘I trusted you, even knowing how you felt about Ernest, because we’ve been through so much together. “Mary will never betray me,” I thought. What kind of fool was I?’

  Mary pressed the palm of her hand against her cheek to ease the stinging sensation and tried to introduce a note of reason. ‘Wallie, this makes sense for all four of us. The King wants to marry you, and Ernest has told him he will divorce you, so why can’t Ernest and I be together? I thought you must have that in mind when you invited us to Windsor Castle for that peculiar foursome.’

  Wallis’s face paled. ‘What do you mean, Ernest has told David he will divorce me? Don’t lie.’

  ‘They had dinner together back in February. Bernie Rickatson-Hatt was there too. The King said he could not take the throne without you by his side and Ernest said he would release you so long as the King promised to take care of you. Ask them if you don’t believe me.’

  Wallis marched to the window. ‘How dare they!’ She twirled round. ‘And how dare you not tell me before now? I will never forgive you for this, Mary. Never.’

  ‘I wish you would calm down, then you’ll see this is for the best.’

  ‘Best for whom? For you and Ernest with your dirty little secret? How long has the affair been going on, as a matter of interest?’

  Mary blushed.

  ‘No, don’t tell me.’ Wallis stared at her with contempt. ‘It was last summer when he was in New York, wasn’t it?’

  Mary started to feel indignant. ‘Yes, while you were traipsing around the South of France with the Prince. All the American papers were reporting it. “Mrs Simpson danced a rumba with the Prince of Wales”: how do you think that made Ernest feel?’

  Wallis slammed open the wardrobe door and began flinging Mary’s gowns onto the bed. Mary leapt to her feet.

  ‘What are you—’

  ‘I want you out of here. Take your things and leave. Now!’

  She swept an arm along the dressing table, so Mary’s hairbrush, lipstick and powder compact crashed to the floor. Mary caught hold of her arm and for a moment it seemed they might start a physical fight, both of them trembling with emotion. Suddenly Mary felt defiant. Anger welled up from deep within: a long-held grudge over years of slights, years of being treated as the understudy, years of enduring Wallis’s fundamental selfishness.

  ‘You only ever think of yourself,’ she hissed. ‘Me, me, me.’

  Wallis broke away from her grip. ‘Get out of my house. If you are not gone in five minutes, I will call the police.’ She swept from the room, and Mary heard her bedroom door slam.

  There was nothing for it. She pulled out her trunk and began to throw her clothes in, any old how. She lifted the gowns from their hangers in one big armful and thrust them inside, not bothering about crushing them; piled cosmetics into her vanity case; collected her passport and books from a drawer. In not much more than five minutes she had packed everything she had arrived with. Then she called the maid to ask the doorman of the apartment block to come and carry her trunk and hail a taxicab. There was silence from behind Wallis’s door.

  Mary glanced in the mirror and saw that her left cheek was puce, and there was a scratch by her eye where one of Wallis’s rings had caught her. No time to worry about that now.

  As she hurried out of the flat, she noticed another huge bouquet of blush-pink roses sitting on the hall table. They had just been delivered, and the little envelope containing the card was still with them. On the spur of the moment, she grabbed it. Wallis had secrets; she was the mistress of subterfuge, and perhaps this card would prove it.

  Down on the pavement, the porter was loading her belongings into a taxicab.

  ‘Where to, ma’am?’ the driver asked.

  She had no idea. ‘Just drive,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know when I decide.’

  They headed down Edgware Road, past Marble Arch and into Park Lane. About halfway down, there was a new art deco hotel called the Dorchester. Mary had often admired it in passing, and now she asked the driver to pull into the forecourt while she went inside to enquire if they had a room. The lobby was very smart and she did not like to imagine how much the room would cost, but they had one available so she took it. A porter brought her trunk inside on his trolley and took it to a bedroom on the first floor.

  ‘Where can I make a telephone call?’ she asked.

  The porter escorted her to the operator’s room and she gave the number of Ernest’s office, then was shown to a chair in a discreet booth in reception where she could take the call once it was connected.

  ‘I’ve done the stupidest thing,’ she told him when he came on the line, and she explained the ‘mix-up’ over the letters. ‘Wallis is hopping mad and has thrown me out of the apartment, so I’ve taken a room at the Dorchester for tonight.’

  Ernest seemed to take it in his stride. ‘Yes, I received your note to her this morning. Don’t worry. She would have found out about us sooner or later. It’s probably best if you lie low for a while and I’ll try to make her see reason.’

  Secretly Mary had hoped he would say ‘I’ll be right there’; might even have taken her for dinner that evening in the hotel restaurant. It was time for him to declare his hand. But he made no such offer.

  ‘I have another apology to make,’ she continued. ‘I had no idea Wallis didn’t know about your conversation with the King concerning her. I’m afraid I let it slip.’

  Ernest sighed. ‘How did she take it?’

  ‘Not very well, as you can imagine.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her tonight – if she’s there – and call you from the office in the morning. What room number are you?’

  Mary told him. He said goodbye in a businesslike fashion and then hung up, without a word of affection or comfort. Of course, he was in the office. Perhaps his colleagues could overhear.

  She sat there a moment longer, feeling more alone than she had ever felt in her life. All her acquaintances in London were Wallis’s friends; all would take Wallis’s side. She would have to leave town before Wallis blackened her name. Ernest was kidding himself if he thought she would calm down. Mary had never seen her in such a rage.

  Back in her room, she remembered the card she had snatched in the hallway. She dug it out of her handbag and opened it. See you in Berlin, it read, signed with the initial J. Had von Ribbentrop invited Wallis over there? Mary had been hoping for something incriminating,
proof perhaps that Wallis was having an affair with him, but that wasn’t much to go on. She stuffed it back in her bag, then sat at the dressing table and began writing a letter to her sister Anne on Dorchester notepaper: I am on the outs with Wallis and will book a berth on the next sailing. May I visit you on my return?

  Then she threw down the pen and burst into tears. Why should she leave London? Why should Wallis always get what she wanted? She remembered the way as a fifteen-year-old Wallis had swooped in and grabbed the elder and better-looking of the two Tabb brothers, then didn’t want him once she had him. That was her all over; she hadn’t changed.

  Wallis didn’t love Ernest – she didn’t know the meaning of the word – but Mary did truly love him and knew she was good for him. I should stay and fight for him, she thought. It was scary to think of fighting with Wallis, but it was the right thing to do.

  As soon as she made this decision, Mary felt stronger. Now she just needed to decide where she would stay. She had some money from her parents’ estate, and a small allowance from Jackie, but apartment rentals in London were bound to be expensive and she did not know how to go about looking for one. She would need Ernest’s help.

  She made some notes on another sheet of hotel paper, figuring out how much she could afford to pay in rental, making a stab at the cost of electricity, a telephone line, one maid and the weekly groceries. When she got hungry, she ordered a club sandwich from room service, and asked them to bring her a whisky and soda as well.

  Later in the evening, she rang for another large whisky.

  Chapter 54

  London, 22 April 1936

  ERNEST TELEPHONED AT NINE THIRTY THE NEXT morning, and a bellhop came to fetch Mary to take the call.

  ‘Let’s not talk on the phone,’ she said. ‘Can you join me for lunch at the Dorchester? I have some practical matters I must discuss with you.’

  He arrived looking as if he hadn’t slept much, and was shocked when he saw Mary’s face, still a livid red colour.

  ‘Did Wallis do that?’ he asked. ‘It looks painful. I’m so sorry, my dear.’

  ‘It’s hardly your fault,’ she replied with a wan smile.

  They chose a discreet table in the corner of the dining room, and as they sat down, he patted Mary on the shoulder.

  ‘This must be rotten for you.’

  ‘I’m sure last night was rotten for you as well,’ she sympathised.

  He cocked his head. ‘For some reason Wallis doesn’t blame me. She thinks you are an evil temptress who led me astray and I am the innocent victim of your wiles. I denied it, of course, but that is how she chooses to view it.’

  ‘What is she going to do?’

  ‘She wants you on the next ship to New York and asked me to promise never to see you again. Of course, I told her I could make no such promise.’ He pursed his lips.

  It wasn’t exactly the reassurance Mary had been hoping for, but it would have to do.

  ‘In fact, I’ve decided I want to stay in London,’ she said, ‘and I need your help to find an apartment. Just a small one. I have my own money.’

  ‘Of course I’ll help,’ he said, ‘but I wonder if it might not be sensible for you to leave town for a while. Until the fuss dies down.’

  ‘I’m not a coward, Ernest. Wallis doesn’t scare me.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m thinking of . . .’ He paused, as if deciding whether to tell her something. She waited.

  ‘You must keep this to yourself, but last week I had a meeting with a senior Conservative politician, Winston Churchill. He told me they are all terribly concerned about the King’s desire to marry Wallis. He said it would be constitutionally impossible since she is a divorcee, and that the British people would never accept her as queen. They want me to refuse to give her a divorce so that such a marriage cannot happen.’

  Mary’s spirits plummeted.

  ‘I told him that I have already promised the King I will stand aside, and he asked that I refuse to honour that promise in the interests of my country and its monarchy. So you see, I am in rather a bind.’ He reached across to take Mary’s hand.

  ‘They have no right to ask you that,’ she objected. ‘Governments can’t tell you whom to marry or divorce.’

  ‘Of course not. Churchill’s a good chap and he accepted that it’s a rum do. The truth is, we both have a feeling the King will push the issue himself and that will force the government’s hand. But you understand that this is a matter of historic importance and I am keen that neither you nor I are cast as villains.’

  Mary saw what he meant. If he left Wallis now, she would run straight into the King’s arms and Ernest would be blamed for damaging the institution of the monarchy; she would be blamed.

  ‘How long must we wait?’ she asked.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ was the unsatisfactory answer.

  They ate Dover sole for luncheon accompanied by a rather good French wine, while Ernest suggested areas of London in which they might search for an apartment for her.

  ‘Will you visit me in my new home?’ she asked, contemplating the long days and nights ahead when she would not dare venture out in society.

  ‘Whenever Wallis is with the King, I will come to you,’ he promised.

  That distressed Mary: yet again her fate was to be determined by the whims of her erstwhile friend. She swallowed hard, not wishing to quarrel with Ernest.

  He continued: ‘I may not find the right apartment straight away, especially as I have promised to accompany Wallis to Fort Belvedere this weekend, but I hope I shall find something next week.’

  Despair threatened to engulf Mary at the thought of him visiting the Fort. She took a deep breath to control herself. Ernest needed one of the women in his life to be even-tempered, and it would have to be her.

  ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I will ask Eleanor if I might spend the weekend with them. She is the only friend I have in this country who is beyond the reach of Wallis’s tentacles.’

  Suddenly they were interrupted by a plump woman Mary vaguely recognised, who stood right next to their table and jabbed Ernest in the shoulder. He rose to his feet and gave a slight bow.

  ‘Mrs Campbell.’

  ‘Mister Simpson,’ she replied in an accusatory tone. ‘I had your wife on the telephone in tears yesterday. Yes, tears, sir. She says you have taken her oldest friend as your mistress, and I suppose this’ – she pointed at Mary – ‘is the guilty party. How could you, sir? Poor dear Wallis.’

  Before Mary could say a word, Ernest replied in icy tones: ‘Mrs Campbell, you are not in full possession of the facts and nor should you be since you mean nothing to me, or to my wife. Please desist from repeating such rumours or you will be hearing from my lawyer.’

  Mrs Campbell scuttled away, muttering about his rudeness, and he sat down again, smoothing the napkin on his lap. Mary looked at him with fresh eyes. She had never heard him be impolite to a lady before and had thought it alien to his nature, but he had done it to defend her, to defend both of them, and that was comforting.

  Chapter 55

  Paris, 16 December 1997

  AS SHE SAT ON THE TRAIN TO GATWICK AIRPORT, Rachel tried to formulate a plan. Surely when the police saw that the platinum heart was so tiny – not even a complete piece of jewellery but a bit ripped off Diana’s bracelet in the collision – they would not press charges? It was insig nificant. They must see that. She wondered if they might at last find out who had given Diana the bracelet and what the engravings signified. Life had been so busy that it had not been at the forefront of her mind, but now her curiosity returned.

  Poor Alex must regret that he had ever picked it up. What must he be thinking, stuck in a cell and not even able to make phone calls? A criminal record would affect his entire life, all for a spur-of-the-moment decision. Her heart ached for him.

  At the airport, she went first to the British Airways desk, where they told her that all their Paris flights for the day were booked up. She tried Air France ne
xt, and they didn’t have a seat till evening. Fog earlier in the day had meant some flights being rerouted, so they were all in the wrong places now. The counter assistant gave her the telephone number of Eurostar and she managed to secure a seat on their 12.20 service that reached Gare du Nord around four in the afternoon.

  She caught an express train to Victoria station only to find the District and Circle underground lines were not running so she had to zigzag between Tube stations, out of breath and panting. It was as if the world was conspiring against her. At Waterloo, she caught the Paris train with minutes to spare and slumped in the seat, heart thumping.

  For the first part of the journey she watched the countryside flit past, trying to calm down and think logically about what she should do next. She was dressed smartly, in a belted slate-grey wool dress under her green Jacquard coat, and she’d brought her black Chanel bag; appearances were important when dealing with police. She planned the words in her head, rehearsing them in schoolgirl French in case there were no English translators available.

  Once the train emerged at Calais, into weather that was much sunnier than it had been in Brighton, she took out her make-up bag and began to apply her make-up carefully, to the fascination of a little girl sitting across the aisle. Highlighter, concealer, blusher and eyeliner, all painted on with fine-bristled brushes, followed by mascara and lipstick. She smiled and the girl hid behind her mother’s shoulder.

  At Gare du Nord she changed some English money into francs and caught a taxi to the Criminal Brigade headquarters on quai des Orfèvres. So much depended on what she said next: Alex’s future, their wedding, the children they might one day have . . . She felt tight with nerves but at the same time utterly determined.

  ‘Mon fiancé est ici,’ she told the policeman at the front desk. ‘Alex Greene. S’il vous plaît, pourrais-je parler à quelqu’un? C’est très important.’