Read The Duchess Of Windsor Online
Authors: Greg King
The Duchess Of Windsor (12 page)
Wallis eventually decided to go to Peking, where a friend, Col. Louis Little, a Marine Corps officer from Washington, D.C., served as commander of the U.S. Legation Guard. It would be easier, with Little’s help, for her to return to America on her own, without having to rely on her status as Win’s wife. After much argument, she persuaded Mary Sadler to accompany her on the long rail journey, which was fraught with danger. A coastal steamer, creaking, rusty, and tossing about in a terrible storm, took them to Tientsin. When they landed, they learned that a regional civil war had broken out, and travelers were advised of the danger, but they continued on at their own risk. Wallis prevailed, and the two women climbed aboard the battered old carriage as the train set off, its aisles crowded with Chinese passengers. They passed tiny villages left in smoking ruins by bands of raiders and long lines of peasants struggling to flee the onslaught of the hostilities. At one point on the journey, rebel bandits raided the train, climbing aboard the carriages and storming through the aisles brandishing rifles. Wallis pretended not to care, displaying a surprising streak of courage she did not really feel, and the rebels eventually left the train without further incident.
19
19
All around them, the carriage was filled with crying refugees: women and children, victims of famine, typhoid, and starvation. Several of the windows were nothing but shattered glass, and the cold winter wind howled miserably through them as the train chugged along. The journey took almost two full days, complicated by the frequent breakdowns of the steam engine, which left the carriages stranded in abandoned, muddy fields for hours at a time. Colonel Little came out to meet the two women, and ushered them through the dangerous city.
Wallis took up residence at the Grand Hotel de Pekin, near the legation quarters in Peking. The city, beyond the carefully protected and sheltered confines of the legation, was a smoldering mass of uncertainty, anxiously fearing the imminent seizure by Sun Yat-sen’s army. This surreal atmosphere was made even more unbelievable by the character of life which went on around the legation and in the hotel, with its marble lobby and playing fountains. Wallis intended to stay merely for a fortnight, shopping for perfumes, porcelains, and silks. Then, one evening, she attended a dance at the hotel and spotted Katherine Bigelow, a friend from her days at San Diego.
Katherine and Wallis immediately renewed their friendship. Katherine had been widowed young and spent her days working on a Red Cross train in Europe. In 1920 she had married Herman Rogers. Herman had attended Groton and gone on to Yale, where he was a member of the crew team and the prestigious Skull and Bones Society and was a Phi Beta Kappa scholar. He had grown up in great wealth: His father, millionaire railroad tycoon Archibald Rogers, had been a neighbor and a trusted confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, and the two families were neighbors at Hyde Park, New York. Herman himself was able to retire by the time he was thirty-five, and he and Katherine enjoyed a leisurely life of roving the world.
With his handsome looks, intellect, love of polo, and political interests, Rogers greatly reminded Wallis of Espil. For nearly two decades Wallis, Katherine, and Herman would be inseparable companions, which inevitably gave rise to all sorts of gossip. Wallis was certainly fond of Herman, and he adopted a fatherly, protective attitude toward her. Years later, Herman’s second wife, Lucy (whom he married after Katherine died), said, “Wallis was the great love of his life. But it was purely a platonic relationship. He was such a straightforward man that he would not have had it any other way—and he would never have divorced Katherine, who knew how he felt about Wallis but put up with it. But if Herman had become a widower earlier, before Wallis met the Duke, I’m sure he would have married her. In fact, he told me so.”
20
20
Katherine and Herman asked Wallis to stay at their house in Tartar City, near the Hatamen, one of the old gates that ringed the city. The Rogers’s house was set on a small, narrow lane hidden behind a very plain and unassuming, high gray-stone wall pierced by a door opening to the courtyard. Inside, however, was a hidden paradise. The courtyard was paved with gray stones, filled with carefully pruned trees, and crossed by a quiet reflecting pool. The interior was suitably exotic and eclectic, with moon-shaped doors, Oriental carpets spread across floors and furniture, tapestries hung on the walls, and beautiful porcelain and works of art scattered throughout, mingled with fringed lampshades and framed photographs. Wallis insisted on paying rent and helping with the food bills; she also discovered that for fifteen dollars a month she could have her own rickshaw, complete with boy.
21
21
The Rogers often entertained, and Wallis put her poker skills to use. Although they played for small stakes, on the first evening she won over two hundred dollars. In spite of this, she quickly became a popular addition to the Rogers’s set and accompanied them everywhere. “There now began for me,” she later recalled, “without conscious plan or foreknowledge, what was beyond doubt the most delightful, the most carefree, the most lyrical interval of my youth.”
22
22
If Hong Kong and Shanghai had been disappointments, Peking was a place of enchantment. The skyline, low and gray, was dotted with brilliant red and golden roofs, guarded by vicious dragons that lay curled at the corners. Pagodas and temples, markets and restaurants, snaked their way around cobbled squares, enclosing hidden alleys and tiny warrens leading to the massive gates that studded the walls around the city. Peking seemed isolated, broken into compartments, a cloistered world filled with foreigners, spies, diplomats, and secrets. Its ancient face glimpsed through dirty streetcar windows and from the plush rear seats of imported limousines, and the gentle sound of its tinkling temple bells were pierced by shrill cries of hawkers in their stalls, screams of children, honking horns, and shouted warnings from rickshaw boys as they raced their passengers along narrow lanes.
The cost of living in Peking was modest, and Wallis found that she could buy recently imported fashion magazines at a news agent, take them to a local seamstress, and for a few dollars have a quality reproduction in whichever glittering Oriental silk she chose.
23
She managed to collect an impressive assortment of carved jades, elegant porcelains, and a few lacquer boxes exquisitely painted with scenes of the city. Wandering about the walled city, she visited the Imperial City, pagodas, street markets, and the old palace. Each night, the gates were closed, locking in the inhabitants and underscoring the unique feeling of isolation. The small foreign community in the city banded together, and all of its members knew one another. Single men—new young diplomats, bankers, and merchant representatives being posted at regular intervals—were also plentiful.
24
23
She managed to collect an impressive assortment of carved jades, elegant porcelains, and a few lacquer boxes exquisitely painted with scenes of the city. Wandering about the walled city, she visited the Imperial City, pagodas, street markets, and the old palace. Each night, the gates were closed, locking in the inhabitants and underscoring the unique feeling of isolation. The small foreign community in the city banded together, and all of its members knew one another. Single men—new young diplomats, bankers, and merchant representatives being posted at regular intervals—were also plentiful.
24
“The social life in Perking of those days has probably never been duplicated,” one journalist recalled, “and will certainly never be restored. Aside from the Legation Guards there were only an average of 2,600 Americans and Europeans in the huge city. Foreign money went very far, and much of the entertaining was on a lavish scale. The Peking Club, the French Club, the German Club, and the Golf Club out on the Hill of the Eight Sacred Treasures, were all delightful places. The Race Club, with its track a few miles outside the city walls, was gay.... In the fall the duck and goose hunting was superb, and the pheasants and quail were so thick they damaged the grain crops. Every winter there was about three months of ice skating.”
25
25
Wallis’s days were lazy. Each morning, if the weather was mild, she took breakfast in the open courtyard. Mornings and afternoons were spent shopping, visiting friends, riding horses, playing tennis at the British legation, or swimming in the pool at the U.S. legation. Together with Katherine and Herman Rogers, she often attended matches at the Polo Club and dined out in the evenings, riding to restaurants through the crowded streets in rickshaws, enveloped in the scents of night air, thick with the perfume of flowers and smells of cooking and spices.
26
26
The trio spent weekends in the country. Katherine and Herman had rented the old Black Dragon Temple in the Western Hills as a summer house. On Friday afternoons, they would set off in a car, driving from the city to the surrounding forests, before the roads eventually ceased. There servants would be waiting with donkeys on which they continued their climb into the foothills. Abandoned, crumbling temples dotted the landscape. The Rogerses had selected a well-preserved example, with a multicolored, tiled roof, bells hanging from the eaves, and a large central hall surrounded by several smaller rooms, all brightly decorated with old murals. An enormous Buddha, its gilt peeling away, surveyed the main chamber. There was no electricity: Servants had come before their arrival, bringing candles and lamps and hampers of food. They picnicked at twilight in the open courtyard, with its old fountain and clusters of plants and trees, watching the neighboring hillsides grow pink and blue, the flashing fires from the open braziers around them shining upon the old faded colors and gilding of the temple.
27
27
After a year spent with the Rogerses, Wallis left Peking in early spring and went to Shanghai. During her brief stay there, she fell violently ill and spent several weeks in a hospital. This incident, in the hands of gossips, quickly turned against her. It was whispered that Wallis had had a love affair with a young Italian count, Galeazzo Ciano, by whom she is said to have become pregnant, and that an abortion was performed which went tragically wrong, leaving Wallis permanently unable to have children. This is theoretically possible, but there is simply no evidence to support it. Contrary to this, it is known that Wallis had already suffered the ill effects of one of Win’s tantrums; therefore, it is entirely possible that she suffered a relapse of the injuries or infection while in Shanghai.
She was still ill when she sailed for America on the liner
President McKinley;
upon docking in Seattle, she had to have emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage. Alone in this strange city, she telephoned Win, who happened to be back in the United States. He met her in Chicago and accompanied her on her train trip back to Washington, D.C. It was to be the last time they would ever meet.
28
President McKinley;
upon docking in Seattle, she had to have emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage. Alone in this strange city, she telephoned Win, who happened to be back in the United States. He met her in Chicago and accompanied her on her train trip back to Washington, D.C. It was to be the last time they would ever meet.
28
Wallis spent several months with her mother, who, by this time, had married again, her third husband, Charles Gordon Allen, a legal clerk in the Veteran’s Administration. Wallis discovered that she could obtain a decree of desertion after three years’ separation from Win if she had a year’s residency in Virginia. She eventually moved to Warrenton, in Fauquier County, near the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a slightly faded, small southern town with dusty streets and little excitement.
29
29
Her new home was the Warren Green Hotel, an old brick inn where she took a second-floor single room measuring fifteen by twelve feet, at a cost of seventy dollars a month.
30
Here, amid the faded, peeling wallpaper, battered furniture, and lingering aromas, Wallis was to spend the next year. She decorated her room with Chinese jades and a lacquer screen she had brought back from the Orient, but the effect was still somewhat shabby. She spent long hours sitting on the hotel’s second floor veranda, reading Sinclair Lewis, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, and Will Durant’s
Story of Philosophy.
31
There was nothing for her to do but wait.
30
Here, amid the faded, peeling wallpaper, battered furniture, and lingering aromas, Wallis was to spend the next year. She decorated her room with Chinese jades and a lacquer screen she had brought back from the Orient, but the effect was still somewhat shabby. She spent long hours sitting on the hotel’s second floor veranda, reading Sinclair Lewis, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, and Will Durant’s
Story of Philosophy.
31
There was nothing for her to do but wait.
7
Ernest
I
N 1926, WALLIS ACCEPTED
an invitation from her old friend Mary Kirk to spend Christmas with her and her husband, Jacques Raffray, in New York City. The Raffrays lived in an elegant flat facing Washington Square, and Wallis and Mary happily spent long days sight-seeing and shopping. Mary was bright and vivacious, and she and Wallis got on well together, for both loved gossip, parties, conversation, and mischief.
N 1926, WALLIS ACCEPTED
an invitation from her old friend Mary Kirk to spend Christmas with her and her husband, Jacques Raffray, in New York City. The Raffrays lived in an elegant flat facing Washington Square, and Wallis and Mary happily spent long days sight-seeing and shopping. Mary was bright and vivacious, and she and Wallis got on well together, for both loved gossip, parties, conversation, and mischief.
It was Mary who introduced her friend to Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Simpson. Ernest Aldrich Simpson had been born in New York City twenty-nine years earlier, the son of an English businessman and his American wife. His father had opened a ship brokerage firm, Simpson, Spence and Young, with offices in New York and London, and made a great success of it. Their position enabled them to send Ernest to Harvard, and he enjoyed summer holidays in England, where he often stayed with his older sister, Maud Kerr-Smiley, in London. During his last year at Harvard, he quit school, went to London, joined the Coldstream Guards as a second lieutenant, and became a British subject.
1
1
Tall, of comfortable build, with a dark mustache and brown hair, Ernest seemed calm and reasonable and affected an air of studious interest in the finer things in life. Barbara Cartland, a friend of Maud’s, would later describe him as “good-looking, with a very square chin,” although his somewhat serious appearance “gave the impression his collar was too tight.”
2
He was sophisticated and intelligent, slightly reserved but with an impressively quick, droll wit which Wallis found enchanting. He dressed in the finest English suits from the best tailors on Jermyn and Bond Streets, spoke well, and enjoyed theater, dancing, and dining. His peculiar half-English, half-American accent set him slightly apart, as did his indulgence in Havana cigars and his somewhat arrogant manner.
2
He was sophisticated and intelligent, slightly reserved but with an impressively quick, droll wit which Wallis found enchanting. He dressed in the finest English suits from the best tailors on Jermyn and Bond Streets, spoke well, and enjoyed theater, dancing, and dining. His peculiar half-English, half-American accent set him slightly apart, as did his indulgence in Havana cigars and his somewhat arrogant manner.
In 1923, Ernest had married Dorothea Dechert, daughter of a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge, and the couple had one child, a daughter, Audrey. By the time Wallis and Ernest first met, however, the Simpson marriage was in deep trouble. While Ernest was clearly drawn to Wallis, his wife, not unreasonably, felt quite differently. Dorothea later said, “From the moment I met her, I never liked her at all ... she moved in and helped herself to my house and my clothes and, finally, to everything.”
3
3
At first, Wallis continued to meet the Simpsons at the Raffrays’ apartment. Gradually, however, as he and Dorothea drifted apart, Ernest began to see Wallis alone. She was impressed with the depth of his knowledge. They visited art galleries and museums, and Wallis eagerly listened as he pointed out favorite paintings, spoke about artists and writers, and then escorted her to lunches and dinners at the city’s fashionable restaurants.
Eventually, Ernest and his wife began divorce proceedings. His growing attraction to Wallis most likely accelerated the decay of a relationship that was already doomed and had hung together simply because of convention and their daughter. During one of their evenings together, Ernest asked Wallis to marry him when they were both free. Although she had grown closer to him and fallen under his stabilizing influence, she was uncertain of her own feelings and told him she must wait despite her fondness for him.
4
4
In the midst of her developing relationship with Ernest, Wallis received a welcome invitation from Aunt Bessie asking that she accompany her on an extended trip to Europe. Wallis agreed, and in the summer of 1927 she and her aunt sailed from New York for the Mediterranean. They visited Naples, Palermo, and the Dalmatian coast before leaving their ship at Trieste, where they had booked a car for a trip across the Continent.
5
After stays in Monte Carlo, Nice, Avignon, and Paris, Wallis chose to remain in a small hotel there after her aunt returned to America that fall.
5
After stays in Monte Carlo, Nice, Avignon, and Paris, Wallis chose to remain in a small hotel there after her aunt returned to America that fall.
On October 25, Wallis happened to be strolling through the streets of Paris when she stopped at a news agent to buy a paper. Turning it over, she was startled to read that her uncle Solomon had died the previous day; a cable from her mother informing her of the details awaited her at the hotel. Wallis returned to America for the funeral, but the reading of his will which followed proved a disappointment. Solomon Warfield had left most of his estate, estimated at roughly $5 million, for the formation of a home for impoverished ladies, in memory of his mother.
6
This was a blow to Wallis, who had almost certainly been his favorite niece; she had failed to recognize that her divorce had poisoned Solomon’s mind against her. She was mentioned once: “If my niece, Bessiewallis Spencer, wife of Winfield Spencer, shall survive me, I give to the Continental Trust Company the sum of $15,000 in trust, to collect and receive the income arising therefrom, and to pay over the income to my niece in quarterly installments, so long as she shall live and not remarry.”
7
This infuriated Wallis, and she, along with several other relatives who had been all but ignored, hired an attorney to contest the will. Eventually, the suit was settled in their favor, but by then the Great Depression had all but decimated the money which had been left.
8
6
This was a blow to Wallis, who had almost certainly been his favorite niece; she had failed to recognize that her divorce had poisoned Solomon’s mind against her. She was mentioned once: “If my niece, Bessiewallis Spencer, wife of Winfield Spencer, shall survive me, I give to the Continental Trust Company the sum of $15,000 in trust, to collect and receive the income arising therefrom, and to pay over the income to my niece in quarterly installments, so long as she shall live and not remarry.”
7
This infuriated Wallis, and she, along with several other relatives who had been all but ignored, hired an attorney to contest the will. Eventually, the suit was settled in their favor, but by then the Great Depression had all but decimated the money which had been left.
8
Her divorce from Win was finally granted on December 10, 1927, by the circuit court of Fauquier County, Virginia, after four days of proceedings heard by Judge George Latham Fletcher. Wallis was represented by her attorney, State Senator Aubrey Weaver.
9
Weaver entered into evidence a letter Win had written to Wallis: “I have come to the definite conclusion that I can never live with you again. During the past two years, since I have been away from you, I have been happier than ever before.”
10
There can be little doubt that both Wallis and Win obviated a bit where the rules of the divorce proceedings were concerned, for this letter was almost certainly backdated to help fulfill the necessary three-year separation required. Thus, it is likely that Win’s attesting to his intention of living apart from Wallis and her own deposition that they had not seen each other for several years thereafter amounted to perjury. However, at the end of the day, both parties had what they wanted: freedom.
9
Weaver entered into evidence a letter Win had written to Wallis: “I have come to the definite conclusion that I can never live with you again. During the past two years, since I have been away from you, I have been happier than ever before.”
10
There can be little doubt that both Wallis and Win obviated a bit where the rules of the divorce proceedings were concerned, for this letter was almost certainly backdated to help fulfill the necessary three-year separation required. Thus, it is likely that Win’s attesting to his intention of living apart from Wallis and her own deposition that they had not seen each other for several years thereafter amounted to perjury. However, at the end of the day, both parties had what they wanted: freedom.
Wallis returned to the Warren Green Hotel, for she had no other option except to move in with her mother. During her stay there she mixed and mingled with quite a few eligible suitors. One of her friends, a young banker named Hugh Spilman, recalled: “She must have had thirty different proposals while she was here. I know I proposed to her regularly once a day.”
11
11
Now that she was free, Ernest again asked her to marry him. After some thought, Wallis agreed. For her, however, the marriage was not so much romantic fulfillment as a sort of fatalistic realization that an opportunity had presented itself which might not be bettered. If her approach appears cold, it should be remembered that Wallis had, by this time, been seared by two very unpleasant relationships: an abusive, humiliating marriage with Win and an unfulfilled passion for Espil that had been sacrificed on the altar of his ambition. As to Ernest, Wallis explained to her mother: “I am very fond of him, and he is kind, which will be a contrast.... I can’t go wandering on the rest of my life, and I really feel so tired of fighting the world all alone and with no money. Also, 32 doesn’t seem so young when you see all the really fresh youthful faces one has to compete against.”
12
12
Ernest had to return to London, and Wallis accepted an invitation from Katherine and Herman Rogers to stay with them at their new villa in the South of France. Villa Lou Viei stood high on the hillside above Cannes and overlooked the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean. From the stone terrace, staircases descended to a lush and fragrant garden filled with jasmine and roses and shaded by palm and cypress trees.
Wallis and Ernest were married on July 21, 1928, at the Chelsea Registry Office in London. “The setting,” she recalled, “was more appropriate for a trial than for the culmination of a romance; and an uninvited sudden surge of memory took me back to Christ Church at Baltimore, and the odor of lilies and the bridesmaids in lilac and the organ playing softly.”
13
She wore a bright yellow dress with a blue coat made in Paris for the occasion as she stood next to Ernest and his father in the small, cluttered office while a bored official conducted the civil service. “A cold little job” was how Ernest later recalled the occasion.
14
He was described on the marriage certificate as “the divorced husband of Dorothea Parsons Simpson, formerly Parsons, Spinster,” while she was “formerly the wife of Earle [sic] Winfield Spencer from whom she obtained a divorce.”
13
She wore a bright yellow dress with a blue coat made in Paris for the occasion as she stood next to Ernest and his father in the small, cluttered office while a bored official conducted the civil service. “A cold little job” was how Ernest later recalled the occasion.
14
He was described on the marriage certificate as “the divorced husband of Dorothea Parsons Simpson, formerly Parsons, Spinster,” while she was “formerly the wife of Earle [sic] Winfield Spencer from whom she obtained a divorce.”
After a quick champagne wedding brunch at the Grosvenor Hotel, Wallis and Ernest climbed into his new Lagonda touring car and, driven by a chauffeur named Hughes, set off for the Channel ferry. They spent a week in Paris at the Hotel St. Regis on the rue Jean Goujon visiting churches and museums and dining in small, hidden restaurants. Wherever they went, Ernest continued to instruct Wallis in his two loves: architecture and the arts.
Returning to London, Wallis and Ernest took up temporary residence in a small hotel. While Ernest spent his days at work, Wallis began to hunt for a house, assisted by Ernest’s sister, Maud. Eventually they found a house in the West End, at No. 12 Upper Berkeley Street, near Portman Square and Marble Arch. The house was owned by Lady Chesham, and Wallis managed to secure a year’s lease, which included the furniture.
15
15
The house stood on a short street. An iron balcony crossed the first floor of the tall, red-brick building, which blended easily with those of its neighbors. From the sidewalk, a short flight of steps led to the front door, painted a bright green. There was a dining room with walls of pale wood on the first floor; up a flight of stairs was a large drawing room painted green and filled with Chippendale furniture. A large bedroom with a bathroom and dressing room, occupied the third floor. The kitchen, as well as rooms for servants, was in the basement. Although they were not rich, the Simpsons managed to keep a fairly large staff for such a modest house: They had a butler, a cook, a personal maid for Wallis, a Scottish parlor maid, a housemaid named Agnes, and the chauffeur, Hughes.
16
16
Wallis found her new country a rather curious place. England was only beginning to recover from the devastating effects of the 1926 General Strike and was still in the midst of a severe economic depression. The second Labour government, headed by Ramsay MacDonald, faced rising unemployment and dissatisfaction. Unrest filled the air, a powerful remnant of the suffering and shock left from the war.
In the midst of these hardships and doubts, society thrived with a vibrance unequaled before or since. The great houses of London, shuttered during the long years of the war, now pulsed with the gathered royals, politicians, and literary and artistic stars of the era. At the very apex of society stood the Royal Family, headed by King George V and his consort, Queen Mary. The monarchy was above reproach, staid, formal, and even dull but was ultimately held in awe by the majority of the old King’s subjects. This was the age of cafe society, of flappers and “Bright Young Things.” Every night, the young and privileged packed the smoke-filled rooms of the most fashionable nightclubs: the Night Light, the Kit-Kat, and the Embassy. It was a society patrolled and reported on by
Vogue
and the
Tatler
—set against glittering art-deco backdrops, peopled with the svelte figures of shapeless women in shimmering silver lamé gowns, with their bobbed hair and bright red lipstick and nail polish, and gentlemen in white ties and cutaways—filled with the sounds of jazz and the clink of martinis, all viewed through the haze of cigarette smoke.
Vogue
and the
Tatler
—set against glittering art-deco backdrops, peopled with the svelte figures of shapeless women in shimmering silver lamé gowns, with their bobbed hair and bright red lipstick and nail polish, and gentlemen in white ties and cutaways—filled with the sounds of jazz and the clink of martinis, all viewed through the haze of cigarette smoke.
Wallis entered this new and strange world with reluctance. She knew no one and often felt awkward. She particularly stuck out as an American and was determined to do all she could to learn British manners and customs; she began by devouring the daily papers and reading the Court Circular, which listed the activities of the Royal Family. She had learned, as a navy wife, to be witty and entertaining, but what worked in America did not necessarily translate to London. She soon discovered that her independence and outspokenness were both a subject of amusement as well as condemnation.
17
17
As much as she tried, however, Wallis could not hide her heritage. Eventually, she began to feel a bit too conspicuous and spent more and more of her evenings at home. Her stubborn streak was still intact: Deciding that she could never truly fit in, Wallis began to emphasize her American roots, speech, and habits.
Barbara Cartland, who happened to meet Wallis soon after her marriage to Ernest, recalled her unfavorable impressions: “I was frankly disappointed.... Wallis wore a dowdy black dress and a shapeless hat which accentuated her very bad complexion. She had large hands and used them too much. She was however very vivacious, but was too obviously determined to be aggressively American.”
18
18
Wallis was often lonely in London. She was accustomed to phoning her friends, dropping in unannounced for tea, and spending afternoons shopping. None of this ease seemed to have settled upon London, where she found that most relationships were conducted with a stiff formality. She often kept to herself. She loved to stroll around London and adored the thick fogs and mists and gray rain which enveloped the city during her first winter.
19
As she had in Boston while married to Win, Wallis played tourist while Ernest was at work and visited the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Houses of Parliament. She was eventually taken under the wing of her sister-in-law, a slightly older woman who was separated from her husband. Maud often invited Wallis to the parties and luncheons at her big house near Berkeley Square; in the evenings, Wallis and Ernest would join dinner parties and stay until the early morning, playing bridge or poker.
19
As she had in Boston while married to Win, Wallis played tourist while Ernest was at work and visited the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Houses of Parliament. She was eventually taken under the wing of her sister-in-law, a slightly older woman who was separated from her husband. Maud often invited Wallis to the parties and luncheons at her big house near Berkeley Square; in the evenings, Wallis and Ernest would join dinner parties and stay until the early morning, playing bridge or poker.
Other books
PowerShift: Skid Row Kings Series, #2 by Winter Travers
Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) by Christina E. Rundle
Garden Witch's Herbal by Ellen Dugan
Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa by OSTOW, MICOL
Glass Ceilings by A. M. Madden
Selected Poems by Byron
The Border Part Five by Amy Cross
A Chorus Lineup (A Glee Club Mystery) by Charbonneau, Joelle
Endangered Species: PART 1 by John Wayne Falbey
FEARLESS: The King Series, Book One by Kandle, Tawdra