To the opera. The Cunard box for Götterdammerung. Wally, Emerald C, Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof, and the Erlangers. Philip Sassoon sought me out during the intermission. He said, “Maybell, I note there are two dazzling emeralds in your box this evening, and one of them is on Brrrunnhilde’s finger. Is she betrrrothed? I think we should be told.”
It’s too late for him to try and humor me now. He never invites me to Trent anymore, for fear of Sybil. Sunday, to Paris.
9th November 1936, Meurice Hotel, Paris
Bought nightgowns at Cadolle and ordered day dresses from Patou, simple crepes. Wally’s not short these days, but she doesn’t seem in any hurry to settle her bills. We’ve gone our separate ways for the evening. I’m dining with Ena Spain, Wally’s going dancing with Kenny Opdyke.
11th November 1936
Ena is very troubled about HM and Wally. She says the old Queen is desperate and the Yorks are furious. She said, “It’s the unseemliness of it, Maybell. The weekends, the niteries. That cruise. He’s tarnishing the crown before it’s even properly on his head.”
I said, “Well, David’s his own man.”
She said, “Oh, I don’t think he is. I think we both know that’s not the case.”
Ena should have someone ease the seams on her bodices. I’m sure she wouldn’t perspire so if she accepted that we all grow a little rounder with the passing years. It’s our glands.
To Schiaparelli for evening gowns, then the boat train to London. HM is inspecting the Fleet. We rendezvous at the Fort for the weekend. The Brownlows and the Erlangers are joining us.
13th November 1936, Fort Belvedere
An unsettling evening. We were at drinks, when a letter arrived for HM. He read it, then asked Perry B. to go with him to his study. He didn’t even show the letter to Wally. He and Perry were closeted for the longest time, then Alex Hardinge arrived. Raised voices. Dinner was delayed until ten-thirty, and was then hurried through without any attempt at gaiety, even on Wally’s part. HM was drained of all color. Wally went straight to bed after the savory. Hattie’s gone up to see whether Kitsie B., knows what’s going on, and Judson’s downstairs playing solitaire, hoping to glean some information.
14th November 1936
Four a.m. and Wally just went back to her room. The letter that blighted our evening was from Hardinge, warning HM that the British newspapers are about to reveal all about the love affair. I said, “But isn’t that good? If you’re getting married in April, surely you need to reveal all before too long?”
She said, “Not by newspaper reports. They’ll get everything wrong, and anyway, there are procedures to be observed. The Government has to give its agreement, and so far it hasn’t even been asked. And apart from anything else, this might cost me my divorce. If this is splashed all over the papers, that old beak might refuse to make my decree final. Birkett said there was a very sticky moment in court when he thought the judge was going to throw out the chambermaid evidence against Ernest. Something like this could finish it. David’s been too damned impetuous. I told him to be more careful.”
She said the letter was signed by Alex Hardinge, but she’s sure the old Queen and the Yorks had a hand in the composing of it, threatening him with the government resigning, trying to spook HM into giving her up.
She feels the only thing to do is to go away until it’s all blown over. Paris, probably. She said, “We’ll go today. Have your maid start packing now. Leave early, before David is up. I’ll make your excuses. Then meet me at Cumberland Terrace.”
I said, “I have commitments. I’m running the tombola at Anne Belchester’s epileptics’ benefit on Wednesday. I can’t just run away.”
She said, “We’re not running away. I’m defusing a delicate situation, and you’re keeping me company.”
15th November 1936, Wilton Place
Padmore is unpacking. We’re not going to Paris, after all. I waited for Wally at Cumberland Terrace all afternoon yesterday, and heard nothing till six p.m. Then she telephoned to say HM had persuaded her to stay at least while various avenues are explored. She said, “I’m sorry, Maybell. He won’t hear of my going away at present.”
All very well, but Anne Belchester has now given the tombola to Daphne Frith.
Pips and Freddie gave me dinner. Freddie said Wally’s name has been mentioned in Parliament. She’ll be thrilled. He thinks HM is hoping to talk his mother round to accepting Wally. If the old Queen relents, something might be managed. Pips thinks he’s already decided to give up the throne. He’ll be wasting his time if he does. Wally’s not interested in ex-kings.
16th November 1936
Violet was shown into my morning room at the ungodly hour of nine-thirty. I received her in my wrap. She said, “I can’t be long. I have my Pit Ponies at ten. Is it true you’re going away with Wally Warfield?”
If you want news spread in London, just allow a boot boy to overhear it. It’ll travel from Belgravia to St. James’s via Mayfair faster than a hackney cab.
I said, “We’d thought of going to Paris for a while, but now we may not.”
She said, “I very much hope she does go to Paris, or somewhere more distant. It may be the only way to shock His Majesty into sanity. But you mustn’t go with her, Maybell. She’s going to be remembered evermore as the hussy who almost ruined a king, and you’ll be remembered as her friend.”
I remarked that even a hussy is entitled to a friend. Violet said, “Well, let it not be you. Let it be that silly Hattie Erlanger, or one of those gangsters’ wives, but not you. You’ll be ruined.”
I said, “Well, we’re not going. David won’t allow it. He’s talking to the Prime Minister and the old Queen. It’s all going to be worked out.”
She said, “Worked out? Worked out! This isn’t a quarrel over a grouse moor. There isn’t anything to work out except how far away that woman can be sent and how fast. David Wales is going to be anointed and crowned six months from now, and he has to start behaving correctly. Wally must go. There is no place for her in the Royal Family.”
I said, “Don’t you feel sorry for him? All he wants is to marry her.”
She said, “Yes, I do. But sympathy doesn’t come into it. Kings have to put duty first.”
I said, “Pips thinks if he can’t have Wally, he’ll walk away from the job.”
She said, “A very good example of the silliness surrounding His Majesty. Anyone who understands anything about this country knows that kings don’t walk away. He needs stiffening, Maybell, not tempting with idiotic fantasies. Well, until you come to your senses and distance yourself from the affair, please stay away from Carlton Gardens. I have Melhuish to think of, and my boys.”
And out she blazed.
Treated Ida Coote to the Dorch. She now eats only vegetables and nuts. Daphne Frith cut me.
17th November 1936
Freddie Crosbie has come up with an idea and has asked to see HM tomorrow. He thinks the answer is simply to take a more leisurely approach. To silence all talk of marrying until after the Coronation, giving Wally time to set out her stall. Do some volunteer work. Make carefully selected public appearances. Let the British public get to know her and take take her into their hearts.
HM is dining with his mother this evening, then leaving first thing tomorrow morning on a tour of shipyards.
18th November 1936, Cumberland Terrace
Wally has asked me to move in for a few nights. Her ulcers have flared up, and she’s finding it hard to sleep. We’re supposed to have an armed guard outside the house around the clock, but all we seem to have is two dopes in a car and a bobby who bicycles past once an hour.
HM’s dinner with the old Queen didn’t go well. All he got was a sermon on the subject of duty. When he gets back from Wales, he’s going to see George Kent and Harry Gloucester to try and get them on his side. Also Mr. Beaverbrook. If he were to come out in favor of Wally in his newspapers, it would make an enormous difference.
Freddie’s proposal fell on deaf
ears. HM says he doesn’t want Wally laboring away at charity galas and consigned to the tail-end landau. He wants her at his side.
19th November 1936
The newspaperman Harmsworth has asked Wally to have lunch on Thursday. He says he’d like to help.
To the Rialto with Lightfoot and Doopie to see Show Boat. The newsreels showed HM surrounded by cheerful welders. I’m sure simple folk like that would be perfectly happy for him to marry Wally. It’s all so silly.
It turns out that Mr. Beaverbrook is on his way to Arizona for his asthma, but he’s been told to sail right back. His King needs him.
20th November 1936
Wally went to Claridge’s to meet with Esmond Harmsworth and hear his rescue plan. I lunched with Penelope Blythe. Fergus dined with Humphrey Butler last night, and Humphrey told him the latest from the Royalties. Apparently, the Kents and the Gloucesters are lukewarm about Wally, but if it comes to it, they’d prefer accommodating her to losing HM. For one thing, if HM goes, Bertie York will have to be King, and the rest of them will all have to do a whole lot more prince-ing. The Yorks absolutely won’t accept her, but they don’t want the throne, either. They seem to want everything their own way. And poor HM is caught in the middle.
21st November 1936
Wally is in much better spirits. Esmond Harmsworth has come up with a very clever idea and has offered to take it to Mr. Baldwin on Monday morning. It’s called a morganatic, or “left-handed,” marriage, and they were apparently once popular with the Prussians. Even the old Queen’s grandfather did it that way.
It would mean Wally agreeing not to receive and never to seek the title “Queen.” She says she’d be quite contented to settle for Royal Duchess. Also, any children of the marriage wouldn’t be eligible to succeed, but as Wally says, there aren’t going to be any children. The simple beauty of it is that HM could marry her and still remain King. I don’t see how anyone could object to it. Not even Violet.
To the Fort.
21st November 1936, Fort Belvedere
HM doesn’t like Harmsworth’s left-handed idea. He said, “Darling, I won’t have you shortchanged. I want you to be my Queen, not the Duchess of Lancaster. And anyway, Baldwin and the whole bally lot of them would still have to approve it. I don’t see why we should make all these concessions. It smacks of groveling.”
Wally’s asking Fruity Metcalfe to try and make HM see the beauty of the morganatic solution.
The Crokers and the Cavetts are coming to dinner, and Wally’s ordered a gypsy band from the Hungaria. We have to do something to lighten the mood.
HM said, “I’ve had the most marvelous welcome in the Rhondda this week, Maybell. They sang Men of Harlech for me. Everywhere I went, they lit their Davy lamps and cheered me. I’m still their Prince of Wales, you see, even though I’m King.”
22nd November 1936
Fruity played golf with HM and persuaded him to look again at Esmond Harmsworth’s proposal. They took beer and sandwiches into the study and came out an hour later with HM all in favor and wanting it put to the Prime Minister immediately. Walter Monckton’s been sent for.
Wally said, “David’s so alone with all this. If only he had a few wise heads to advise him.”
Fruity said, “He had plenty of wise heads. Somebody sacked them.”
Dinner with the Crosbies. Freddie said, “The morganatic idea will never succeed, but it may buy us some time. At least while Baldwin’s looking at it, HM isn’t likely to do anything rash. Between us three, things are far worse than he understands. It’s not just the divorce. There’s a whole dossier on Wally. Family, husbands, various goings-on in China. And then there’s the von Ribbentrop business. Did you know she gave him a signed photograph for Hitler?”
I thought Mr. Hitler preferred blondes.
23rd November 1936
To South Audley Street. I may be banished from Violet’s hearth, but at least I’m still welcome there.
Lightfoot says there’s a growing body of opinion that HM should go, even though the Bertie Yorks are reluctant to be King. Melhuish told him confidentially the old King always hoped HM would neglect to marry, so the succession would pass to Bertie York and then his girls.
I told him about the morganatic idea. He said, “It might have worked if Wally was a pious, virginal Citizen Jane, but as things stand, there’s too much against her. Two husbands too many. Not to mention her gate-crashing the Kents’ wedding ball, and all those courtiers she trampled over to get to the bridge of the Edward VIII. No, I really don’t see the Archbishop of Canterbury buying it.”
He agrees with Freddie that whatever else happens, the Coronation should come first. Doopie busy with some item she’s crocheting for Marina Kent’s baby. Flora reading The Fortunes of Philippa, following the words with her finger.
Lightfoot said, “Of course, Archduke Franz Ferdinand made a morganatic marriage, and we all know what happened to him.”
Flora asked what I dared not. Apparently, the Franz Ferdinands were shot. What an unhappy thought.
25th November 1936
HM has sent for Mr. Baldwin. The man has had Esmond Harmsworth’s proposal on his desk for almost two days and seems to lack any sense of urgency. Wally afraid we’re all being spied on by Alex Hardinge. She wishes she’d gotten rid of him while she had the chance. She has gowns waiting to be fitted in Paris, but HM won’t let her go. He’s afraid she won’t come back.
26th November 1936
Mr. Baldwin is not being helpful. He told HM the morganatic idea would have to be put to Parliament, where he had every reason to believe it would be rejected, and that it would also have to be put to the Dominions, whoever they are, and they would certainly reject it.
Boss and Ethel are getting up a crowd to go to the Paradise Club, but neither Wally nor I are in the mood. Freddie Crosbie talked to the lawyer Monckton. Monckton says HM isn’t willing to wait to get married till after his Coronation, because it would mean swearing the Oath with a lie in his heart.
Wally thinks David should go on the wireless and speak to the nation. She says if the ordinary people knew how unfairly he was being treated, there’d be riots in the streets and Stanley Baldwin’s head on a pike.
Beaverbrook’s boat docks in the morning. He’s going straight to the Fort to meet with HM.
27th November 1936
Beaverbrook’s advice is to withdraw the morganatic proposal immediately. He says Baldwin is holding a very strong hand, and the most sensible course is for Wally to go away, for the Coronation to take place, and then, in the fullness of time, for the nation and Commonwealth to become properly acquainted with Wally through her charitable works and occasional, decorous appearances. He says if it’s put to the Dominions, Eire will vote against anything involving a divorcée, and so, in all likelihood, will Australia and New Zealand, because they have Roman Catholic Prime Ministers.
I often think politics would be more agreeable in the hands of women. What could be a more sensible arrangement than a happy King and a Wally satisfied to be a Royal Duchess? Pips says Wally’s satisfaction may be one of the problems.
She said, “She might agree to ‘Duchess of Lancaster’ now, but she’d soon start wheedling for more. You know Wally.”
Hattie said, “And what if a baby were to come along? It’s not out of the question. Jane Habberley’s sister had a child when she was forty-six.”
What a very unsettling piece of information.
Wally is now cooling on the morganatic option herself. At dinner, she said, “Have your bags packed, Maybell. I’m reconsidering plan A.”
28th November 1936
Cross words between Wally and HM this morning. I heard her say, “It’s a goddamned fiasco! What does Monckton say? Why don’t you listen to him?”
She was blazing when she came off the telephone. It transpires it’s actually too late to withdraw the morganatic idea, because it’s already been put before the Dominions. That little man Baldwin certainly moves fast when it suits
him.
She sat for a minute, then she said, “There’s nothing left but to disappear.”
I said, “But Sir will never allow it.”
She said, “He should have thought of that before he bungled this business with Baldwin. Well, now he’ll have to manage without me. We’ll go tomorrow, early. But whatever you do don’t tell anyone. Not Pips, not Ethel, not anyone.”
She had a headache, so went back to bed. I took a stroll toward the new rose gardens but soon turned back. There’s no place more chilling than a London park in November.
My luncheon soup had just been served when HM arrived. He ran straight up to Wally’s bedroom and didn’t say a word to me. It was almost two when they came down together, Wally still pale but sporting a new star sapphire pin on her lapel, HM fussing about whether the coast was clear out in the street. He might have thought of that before he left his Daimler standing there for an hour. All Wally said was, “Maybell, I’m going to the Fort. I’ll send for you.”
I said, “Is it still plan A?” From the way she hushed me, I think it is.
David said, “Hurry along, darling. I want to get you to a place of safety.”
The maids went in Wally’s car. Now there’s nothing to do but wait.
29th November 1936
I was woken just after midnight by the sound of breaking glass. The footman found a brick end thrown through the dining-room window. The kitchen maid had hysterics and went home to her people in Hackney, still in her nightdress.
Gone With the Windsors Page 31
