He sounded so disappointed. He said, “Ask her to call me the moment she returns, no matter how late. You can’t imagine how time drags without her.”
I said, “What have you been doing, sir?”
“Oh, just helping Her Majesty with a jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “I expect Wally’s been dancing everyone off their feet?”
2nd January 1936, Wilton Place
We toasted the New Year at the Embassy Club, then went on to the Berkeley in the hope that a change of scene would make us feel peppier, but somehow the evening never took off. Came: the Erlangers, the Cavetts, Daisy Fellowes, Wally, and her friend Kenny Opdyke who’s in town from Paris. I don’t very much like Kenny, he has sly eyes. The Crosbies didn’t show. Pips says Freddie’s in a depression because there’ll probably be another war. Judson says it’s more likely he’s depressed because he’s going to be forty.
Hattie was scandalized by the way Wally was flirting with Kenny Opdyke, but I’m certain there can’t be anything in it. He flaps his hands around like a great big fairy, so I’m sure there’s nothing like that between them.
3rd January 1936
Lunch with Pips and Hattie. Hattie still talking about Kenny Opdyke.
She said, “I think she’s trying to hurry David along. Make him a little insecure, so he settles some serious money on her.”
Pips said, “More likely she’s just plain bored. I never thought I’d feel sorry for Wally, but just look at her. She’s trapped between Boy David and Deadly Ernest, and neither of them will give her an inch to move. It must be a nightmare.”
6th January 1936
Shopping for Palm Beach. A pretty pleated chiffon dance gown and a cotton print playsuit. Wally got two skirted bathing suits and a pair of grosgrain sandals. She says the Bajavidas keep an indoor staff of thirty. She says Kenny Opdyke is an old, old friend and a fruit. I knew it!
9th January 1936
Violet and Melhuish have agreed Flora can stay with Doopie and Lightfoot instead of returning to Rathgussie, but only on condition that she behaves nicely to the tutor they’re going to find her, and works hard at her lessons. Violet says she seems very happy and already has her dolls packed and ready for the move.
She said, “Now, this jaunt to Florida, Maybell? Can’t you talk Wally out of it? Their Majesties are so distressed about it.”
I said, “It’s a private vacation, Violet, which a prince is certainly entitled to. And as for Wally, this situation is hardly of her creation. If anything, she’s the one who tries to get him to spend more time with his family. But he won’t be thrown off. Even if we don’t go to Palm Beach, he won’t be thrown off.”
10th January 1936
HRH has had to cancel our weekend at the Fort. The King has a heavy cold and has deputed him to take over his appointments for the next week. I’m not sorry. I still have a million and one things to do before we sail. How much easier it is for men. A good valet will see to everything.
Wally says the Bajavidas eat everything off gold plates, even hamburger!
13th January 1936
The King’s cold is worse. He should take Dr. Collis Browne’s linctus.
14th January 1936
Called briefly at South Audley Street. Doopie and Lightfoot have engaged a young woman as a day governess for Flora, and they’re getting along very well. She allows the dolls into the schoolroom, including Damned Wales, who, I notice, is back dressed in her flamenco gown. I never saw Flora so happy. Lightfoot says she’s fairly ripping through geography and history. Doopie is quite the chatelaine these days. She still sits with her needlework basket close to hand and pretends to defer to Lightfoot, but I believe he actually does whatever she tells him. She calls him “Dordie darlin.”
15th January 1936
Drinks at Bryanston Court. The Prince left before Ernest arrived home, and so did I. HRH has two engagements to perform for the King tomorrow morning. If he’s still too sick to go out after that, Bertie York and George Kent will have to manage things while we’re away.
He wants Wally to go with him to the Fort for the weekend, but I saw her hesitate. She’s already had a scene from Ernest about our trip, and the very least he expects is for her to stay at home for a few days and do wifely things. How difficult. A prince who behaves like a husband and a husband who’s starting to behave like a prince. No wonder she has ulcers.
16th January 1936
Wally called just before five. We have a crisis on our hands. The King’s condition has suddenly worsened, and HRH has hurried back to Sandringham. I wonder how bad he really is. It could just be a ploy to prevent him taking a vacation in Florida. I suppose the rest of us could still go. The Bajavidas will be so disappointed if we cancel.
17th January 1936
Snow overnight. A scratch lunch with Wally, who was pensive. HRH telephoned twice. The King is comfortable but very weak. I said, “What will happen if he dies?”
She said, “He’s not going to die. He has a cold.”
I said, “But he’s an old man. Just say he did die, where would that leave you?”
She said, “It would leave me very nicely, thank you. If David were King, he could see who the hell he liked and do whatever he damn well pleased, and he’d be kept a lot busier.”
I think she is just a little bit anxious though. All the newspaper placards say is THE KING.
18th January 1936
The King’s condition has worsened. The George Kents and the Princess Royal have gone to Sandringham, but HRH told Wally his father is so confused he hardly knows any of them. He and Bertie York are driving down to see the Prime Minister, but this is not to be generally broadcast. Hattie Erlanger says this undoubtedly means that the King is dying and funeral plans have to be discussed.
Padmore is certainly wearing a funereal face, and my breakfast tray was late because everyone below stairs keeps stopping to listen to the wireless bulletins.
Another heavy fall of snow.
19th January 1936
Wally has invited herself to luncheon. David has been calling her at least once an hour and she feels it would be tactful to leave Ernest to enjoy his Sunday nap in peace. She says HRH is desperate over his father’s condition. Panic-stricken, in fact. She said, “I don’t understand it, Maybell. He’s had forty years to get used to the idea of being King, so why the flap now?”
20th January 1936
This evening we should have sailed away to a month of sunshine, but the King is dead, and everything is changed.
Wally and I were in a movie theater, in retreat from the jangling telephone, when things started to happen last night. They broke into the Frederic March feature to post a news bulletin on the screen. The King’s life is drawing peacefully to a close.
Wally was on her feet immediately. I said, “We may as well see the end of the movie. David will be at the bedside. He won’t be calling you.”
She said, “Possibly. But if anything happens and he can’t get me, he’ll go to pieces.” We went back to Bryanston Court. Ernest was listening to the wireless, very affectionate with Wally, his usual old self with me. Perhaps he feels he’ll soon have Wally to himself again.
The call came almost on the stroke of midnight. I suppose we were among the first people to know. All we heard Wally say was, “Your mother must need consoling, sir. And I’m sure you must have a lot of people waiting to speak to you. But I’ll sleep by the telephone. I’ll be here.”
They played “God Save the King” on the wireless, and Ernest stood to attention throughout. Then he went to bed.
Wally said HRH was almost hysterical. He told her they’d all been at the bedside when the end came. He’s not HRH anymore though. He’s HM the King.
She was talking to him again as I left, soothing him like he was a fretful baby. “There’s nothing to fear,” I heard her say. “Einums Deinums will still take care of her boy.”
She was very tender with him.
Everything today has seemed muffled by fatigue and snow and
a dead king. They fired cannons before it was daylight. Pips says Freddie was in the Commons by seven, ready to swear his oath to the new monarch. He’s to be King Edward VIII, but I shall never be able to think of him as any such thing. To me, he’ll always be yellow-haired David.
21st January 1936
Dinner with Pips and Freddie. Freddie said, “What’s Wally up to? Melting down the Crown Jewels?” I don’t know about that, but she’s certainly at St. James’s Palace taking care of her King.
HRH—except now I must get into the habit of calling him HM—HM and Bertie York flew down this afternoon, ready for tomorrow’s proclamation, which is not the same thing as a coronation, apparently. That will come later, perhaps not till next year. He’s the first King of England ever to travel by airplane. Advance warning to all those wheezing old courtiers that a new era has dawned.
Violet called to see if I wanted to go with her to hear him proclamated. I said, “I’ve already made arrangements. I’ll be watching with Wally and His Majesty.”
She said, “I think you’ve been misinformed, Maybell. A king doesn’t watch his own proclamation. And as for Wally, she might take her cue and fade into oblivion.”
Violet never misses an opportunity.
22nd January 1936
I always thought St. James’s was rather a toy-town-looking palace, and Friary Court made a very dull setting for a proclamation. Oxer Bettenbrooke found us a window to watch from just as the heralds’ carriages began arriving. The trumpeters came out onto a balcony, all scarlet-and-gold, and played a fanfare, and then a twenty-five-gun salute began on Horse Guards’ Parade, so we couldn’t hear the words that were being read.
Anyway, Violet was wrong, because HM did watch with us, the first sovereign ever to do so. Another sign that he’s going to do things in his own, modern way.
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India.
He had Ladbroke drop us off at Bryanston Court on his way back to Sandringham. The King of England dropped us off! We laughed and laughed about that.
I said, “Now what?”
She said, “Well, I can hardly leave him at a time like this.”
23rd January 1936
HM has been dealt a terrible blow. His father’s will was read last evening, and he’s been left nothing. Wally called me first thing.
I said, “Well, he can’t be penniless. He’s the King.”
She said, “He has income from his duchies, but that’s not the point. The brothers and sister get all that money when David’s the one who’ll have the much greater expenses. It’s sheer vindictiveness. He’s always said his father preferred all the others, and there it is.”
Dinner with Lightfoot and Doopie. Lightfoot said, “But he ought to be able to live perfectly well on what he has, provided he eases up on the purchase of sparklers for Wally.”
I said, “I’d have thought the need for the woman in his life to outsparkle all others is greater than ever.”
He said, “That depends on what one means by ‘the woman in his life.’ When he chooses his Queen, she’ll have all the richesse of the family jewels at her disposal, not to mention the Crown regalia. But that won’t be Wally. So, Wally’s sparkle will have to be bought out of income.”
Doopie said, “He good sell Buggingham Balass.”
They brought the old King back to London today for the lying in state. They say there are already long lines to view the coffin, but Wally says we won’t have to queue. The funeral is at Windsor on Tuesday.
24th January 1936
Penelope Blythe forced herself on me for lunch. She says when the gun carriage was bringing the coffin to Westminster Hall, the jeweled cross on the top of the Imperial Crown fell off and rolled along the street. She says it’s an omen. Penelope is one of the silliest people I know.
To Selfridges for black stockings.
25th January 1936
To Westminster Hall with Wally and Pips. We were ushered in through the Private Members’ entrance. The coffin is covered with a purple cloth. There’s the crown, back in one piece, and one small family wreath. There’s an officer of one of the Household brigades guarding each corner of the catafalque. I never felt such cold. When we came out, there was a car waiting to take Wally to St. James’s Palace.
Pips said, “She’s going to find it very hard to give up the Waiting Car treatment.”
I don’t know that she is going to give it up.
Tea at Carlton Gardens. Anne Belchester was there, and Ena Spain, come for the funeral. According to Melhuish, it was a Grenadier sergeant major who saw the cross fall off the crown and scooped it out of the gutter, without even breaking step.
Anne Belchester asked after Wally. She said, “I suppose she’ll retire to the country now?”
Ena Spain said, “I don’t see why? As long as she behaves in a seemly way. Kings always have mistresses.”
Anne said, “But one would expect her to withdraw, at least while he’s choosing a Queen.”
Violet said, “And anyway, Ena, you’re wrong. Kings don’t always have mistresses. His father never did.”
Ena said, “Then he was the exception. I should know.”
Poor Ena.
26th January 1936
Ernest has had to go to Hamburg on business. Freddie saw him at his club and he told him that he believes everything will now be resolved. He said, “A King is a very different person than a Prince, Freddie. His Majesty will now move far away from our humble orbit.”
Loelia Westminster’s mother is making one of her windows available to me and Wally for the funeral procession. They have to take the coffin from Westminster Hall to Paddington Station for the journey to Windsor. Imagine having to go to a railroad station even in death!
28th January 1936
Another gray, bitter morning, and Pall Mall was lined with gray, silent people. The only sounds were the muffled drums and the boots of the Foot Guards. The coffin was borne on a gun carriage, with HM walking behind. He looked up at our window. He knew exactly where Wally would be. I thought how small he seemed in his greatcoat and that funny old bicorn hat. Bertie York, George Kent, and Harry Gloucester walked behind him. Then, as they turned into St. James’s Street, the Queen’s carriage came into view. She sat very stately, in a black cloth coat and a fox capelet.
All the shops were closed for the day, so we rustled up Pips and Hattie and went to the Savoy for an early lunch. Wally says she’s going to get Elsie Mendl’s decorator boys in to redo Buckingham Palace. She says it needs a clean sweep and not only the décor. There are courtiers who are practically mummified they’ve been around so long. Perry Brownlow’s going to be Lord-in-Waiting, which will be a very good thing. But Rock Cholmondeley is the new Lord Great Chamberlain, which may not be such good news, with Sybil thick as thieves with the Bertie Yorks and the old Queen.
Hattie said, “Well, you can’t sack the Lord Great Chamberlain, Wally. It’s hereditary.”
Wally said, “Has been hereditary. Don’t forget, Hattie, you’re under new management now.”
I don’t think the Lord Great Chamberlain is likely to give Wally much trouble, whoever’s in the job. From what I’ve gleaned, he’s only a kind of stage manager. Once the Coronation’s been held, he doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do.
Alex Hardinge is to stay on as Private Secretary. Wally said, “We’ll see about that.”
She won’t even consider rebooking our passage and going to the Bajavidas. She says the King can’t go, and if he can’t, she can’t.
1st February 1936
With Pips to buy a christening gift for some distant Crosbie infant. When we got back to Halkin Street, we found Freddie in the drawing room, struggling to find the right thing to say to a clearly overwrought Ernest. Freddie must have been praying for our return. As soon as Ernest saw me, he erupted. He said, “She’s at Windsor, Maybell. Did you know she was going? Windsor! And the old King bare
ly cold in his grave.”
I can honestly say I didn’t know. I’d rather assumed our weekends would go the same way as Palm Beach house parties, for a while. Violet gives the impression that we’re all supposed to sit around dabbing our eyes with black-edged handkerchieves for six months. We’re even excused from going to the opera.
Ernest said, “I may not have as much pep as His Majesty, but I think I know how to behave. Well, the King obviously takes Court Mourning rather lightly, so I see no reason to hold back. I’m going to speak to him. The time has come.”
Pips said, “Better not to go to the Castle, Ernest. You could get arrested.”
He said, “Don’t worry. I shall simply wait for him to turn up for cocktails. I’m sure I shan’t have long to wait. He seems so very attached to my drinks’ cart.”
He went off very pink and puffed up, his good-byes rather formal.
He said, “I bear you no ill will, Maybell. I know Wally inspires great loyalty, and I’m glad she has yours. She’s sailing into uncharted waters. She’s going to need her friends more than ever.”
Pips said, “Poor sap. The sooner he leaves London the better.”
Gone With the Windsors Page 26
