Maiden Voyages

by Siân Evans

  The book that resulted from this tour, The Provincial Lady in America, a breathless journal, was published in 1934, and was based on the writer’s own experiences, though of course it is a work of fiction. The central character’s self-deprecating account of the pitfalls of life on board the ocean liner ship is amusing and acutely observed. Outward-bound, the Provincial Lady travels grandly in first class, is horribly seasick and relies on the kindness of her stewardess. Touted as a celebrity by her publishers, she is besieged by photographers and interviewers on arrival in New York. On her return journey, the literary tour completed, she finds that her publishers have booked her into third class. She is so glad to be almost home that when she finally catches sight of her taciturn husband Robert, who has come aboard the ship as it docks to meet her, she bursts into tears. He concedes that he has missed her, and pats her arm, a remarkable gesture for a stalwartly undemonstrative man.

  Elizabeth Dashwood’s lecture trip to America and Canada not only provided her with ample material for another popular book, it also revealed the mutual appreciation that largely existed in the early 1930s between the British and North American populace, particularly the more literary types living in the bigger cities. As a result of her literary tour and its successful novelisation, Elizabeth Dashwood was offered a very unusual project. Cass Canfield proposed that she should travel to Communist-controlled Russia, to spend six months working on a collective farm, in order to write a book on the subject. It was a dangerous and difficult time even to attempt to enter the Soviet Union: Josef Stalin was consolidating his power, a devastating man-made famine had been inflicted on the kulaks of the Ukraine, and political purges were rife. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was intrigued, especially as she already spoke some Russian. She sailed from London to Leningrad in the summer of 1936 and, despite obfuscation and suspicion from the Soviet authorities, ‘Comrade Dashwood’ found a billet with a farming commune where she underwent considerable privations.

  When it was time to leave, travelling by ship from Odessa, she had to smuggle her 30,000-word manuscript out of the Soviet Union to prevent its confiscation. She ripped the cardboard covers off her notebook, and, with difficulty, managed to squeeze the pages down the back of her suspender belt, the elastic clamping the pages to her spine. The manuscript remained undetected by the Russian customs officer who was checking her cabin and her belongings for prohibited items.

  On publication in 1937, Straw Without Bricks: I Visit Soviet Russia, as it was titled in Britain (in America it was I Visit the Soviets: The Provincial Lady in Russia), startled western reviewers; an author previously known for depicting the mild-mannered minutiae of bourgeois life had produced an authoritative first-person report on conditions in the secretive Soviet Union. But her account was recognised as authentic and truthful by Malcolm Muggeridge, the former Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, and E.M. Delafield’s professional reputation was enhanced; she had started out as a mildly nervous Provincial Lady, had become a cosmopolitan literary lecturer by travelling to and around America, and as a result became an eyewitness to a fascinating, secretive era in Russian history.

  While E.M. Delafield recorded and commented on profound world events as she saw them, in 1934 another woman’s transatlantic experience was to change history. A casual shipboard romance set off a chain of events that led eventually to the abdication of Edward VIII. The Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, was the most famous bachelor in the world. He was a serial philanderer, and his preferred quarry was married women, especially glamorous and soignée Americans. In 1927 the prince dropped his long-standing mistress Mrs Freda Dudley Ward in favour of Thelma Morgan, the American-born wife of Viscount Marmaduke Furness. She was a beauty and an American heiress, whose twin sister Gloria had married Reggie Vanderbilt. The Morgan sisters, whose father came from the famous banking family, were cosmopolitan and inveterate transatlantic travellers all their lives.

  Thelma soon became aware that ‘Fiery’ Furness, her irascible husband, was having affairs. Her bruised ego was soothed when the Prince of Wales invited her to cocktails at St James’s Palace, followed by dinner and a dance. By December 1927 the prince and Thelma’s names were beginning to be linked in the society pages of the newspapers. Thelma spent her evenings with the prince in fashionable London nightclubs, and they passed long weekends together at Fort Belvedere, the prince’s home in Windsor Great Park. They entertained friends, she taught him petit point, he played the bagpipes while wearing his kilt, and pottered in the garden. It was all strangely domesticated, though Thelma noted that ‘the outward shyness of the Prince masked a whim of iron’.2

  Thelma’s husband was complaisant, and the Furness marriage finally ended in a discreet divorce in 1933, on the grounds of his adultery. Marmaduke swiftly married again, but Thelma’s status was now somewhat nebulous in an era of more rigid social protocol. She was an American, so held to be outside the definitions of rank in the British class system. This was her second divorce, and Thelma was nominally Catholic, though not apparently to the point of adhering to the Church’s strict views on the indissolubility of marriage. Nevertheless she claimed subsequently that she held out no hope that she could marry the prince and in time become queen, as under the Act of Succession of 1701 no senior member of the British royal family could marry a Catholic without renouncing their rights to the throne. Meanwhile, she was independently wealthy, and felt assured of the prince’s affection for her.

  However, the warning signs were there. Thelma’s predecessor, Freda Dudley Ward, had created a vacancy for ‘married royal mistress’ when she divorced her husband. The prince possibly suspected that Thelma as a divorcee might become either problematically needy, or, even worse, could be casting around for a third wealthy husband. Nevertheless, they attended balls and charity events together, and rented a large house in Biarritz for the summer so that they could entertain friends. Within court circles they were considered an established couple and Thelma’s position as the prince’s maîtresse-en-titre was acknowledged by the upper strata of society, while her discretion and tact were appreciated by the royal family. She appeared to present no threat to the established order, so it is ironic that it was Thelma herself who first brought Wallis Simpson into the orbit of the Prince of Wales.

  In late 1930 or early 1931 her older sister Consuelo asked her if she could bring along an American acquaintance for cocktails at Thelma’s house in Grosvenor Square that afternoon. Sociable Thelma agreed, and liked the new arrival, Mrs Wallis Simpson. Some more friends joined the little party, and the Prince of Wales dropped in. Thelma introduced the prince to Mrs Simpson, and in the following two years Wallis and her husband Ernest were gradually absorbed into the circle of friends around Thelma and the prince. Thelma came to regard Wallis as one of her best friends in England. The Simpsons first stayed at Fort Belvedere for the weekend in January 1932; as usual, Thelma played the hostess.

  Thelma helped Wallis prepare to be presented at court, lending her a formal train and feathers. Meanwhile Thelma’s domestic idyll with the prince continued; she organised the purchase of Christmas gifts for his staff, and wrapped each present with the help of the Simpsons. They put up a Christmas tree at Fort Belvedere, festooned by the prince with decorations. They attended Ascot together, and socialised with the prince’s brothers, George and Bertie, and his young wife Elizabeth. They danced together to imported American records, and on one occasion Thelma and the Duchess of York skated together across a frozen pond, howling with laughter.

  It was early January 1934 when Gloria invited her twin Thelma to join her in New York so that they could travel together to California for a holiday. Thelma was tempted by the thought of a sea voyage and a winter break, and told the prince she would be away for just five or six weeks. He seemed unhappy at the prospect of her absence, but she pressed on with her plans. A few days before her departure, Thelma invited her friend Wallis to lunch with her at the Ritz. Wallis said, ‘Oh Thelma, the little man
is going to be so lonely.’ Thelma asked Wallis to look after the prince in her absence: her exact words apparently were, ‘See that he does not get into any mischief.’

  Thelma’s farewell dinner with the prince at the Fort almost made her change her mind when the car appeared to take her straight to Southampton, as he looked so forlorn. ‘I’ll be back soon, darling,’ she promised. She sailed on 20 January 1934 and returned to London on 22 March. What happened in the intervening two months was to have massive repercussions for Thelma, for the prince, and for the British royal family.

  Thelma and the prince kept in touch through cables and lengthy international telephone calls; he even managed to reach her when she was visiting a film studio in Hollywood. After a sociable sojourn in California, mingling with old friends such as Louella Parsons, Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst, Thelma returned to New York with time to spare before boarding the Normandie back to London and the prince. At a dinner party she was seated next to Aly Khan, the son of the fabulously wealthy Aga Khan, the leader of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims. Aly was a twenty-two-year-old bachelor, an international playboy and racehorse owner, and immensely charming. Aly Khan had some business matters to attend to, so he asked Thelma to cancel her booking and stay on in New York an extra ten days, so that they could travel together to England. She refused, but, undeterred, he invited her to dinner and they went dancing afterwards.

  Arriving in her luxurious stateroom prior to sailing, Thelma was gratified to find it crammed with red roses, and affectionate notes from Aly. The ship set sail, and the following morning Thelma was having breakfast in bed when the phone rang; Aly was on the line, inviting her to lunch. To her shock, he announced he was also on board the ship; he had hurriedly completed his business affairs on the Eastern seaboad, had flown back to New York and joined the same ship. Over the following six days he laid siege to her and she was flattered; he was debonair, witty, generous and amorous. She dined with him every night of the voyage and she quickly realised she was out of her depth. She later described the interlude as a mere ‘flirtation’, though some accounts say that he proposed marriage, telling her that she could have no future with the prince. Thelma was a still-young divorcee, and unable to marry her Prince Charming for constitutional reasons, so Aly Khan might have offered her an alternative future. He was certainly keen; desperate not to let her go at the end of the voyage, Aly persuaded her to offer him a lift in her chauffeur-driven car from Southampton to London.

  As they waited to disembark, Thelma received a long-distance call from the Prince of Wales, asking about her travel plans on landing – would she go straight to the Fort to have dinner with him? Thelma said she couldn’t, that she had promised a lift to London to a friend. They arranged instead that the prince would come to her house for supper that evening, as soon as she returned to London.

  Back in her London home, Thelma was reunited with the prince. But their conversation was stilted and awkward, not what she expected after eight weeks of absence. The prince suddenly volunteered, ‘I hear Aly Khan has been very attentive to you.’ Thelma was startled that he knew about her ‘flirtation’ on board the ship, and asked if he was jealous, but the prince would not answer. The evening petered out in further small talk, and Thelma was worried at the froideur of the man she had assumed adored her. He invited her to stay at the Fort for the weekend, but when she got there, she found him formally cordial, and anxious to avoid any intimacy.

  It took Thelma twelve days to learn the truth, and during that time coy references started to appear in the gossip columns hinting at her shipboard dalliance. One gossip columnist reported that she was looking ‘ten years younger’ when she stepped ashore. Seeking reassurance, Thelma phoned her close friend Wallis Simpson, and went to her apartment in Bryanston Court to pour out her worries. What had changed in the two months she had been away? Wallis reassured her in anodyne tones that the prince had probably just missed her company. But then they were interrupted by the housemaid, Kane, calling Wallis to the phone in the next room – the Prince of Wales was on the line. Thelma heard Wallis say, ‘Thelma is here,’ and she expected him to ask to speak to her too, but no summons came. When Wallis returned, she made no reference to the call, and Thelma left, even more confused and alarmed.

  The denouement came the following weekend during a house-party at Fort Belvedere. It was over dinner on the Saturday that a seemingly minor incident revealed the truth. The prince picked up a piece of lettuce with his fingers, and Wallis playfully slapped his hand. Thelma caught her eye and shook her head as if to warn against such familiarity; but Wallis held her gaze defiantly. Thelma realised the truth: ‘Wallis – of all people,’ she wrote.3 Later, when Thelma was briefly alone with the prince, she asked him, ‘Darling, is it Wallis?’ His features froze and he told her not to be silly, leaving the room immediately. Thelma left Fort Belvedere the following morning, never to return.

  Humiliated, Thelma found solace with Aly Khan in Paris. They travelled to Spain, accompanied by his valet and her maid. They motored to Barcelona, with Aly at the wheel, touching speeds of up to 100 mph. Thelma had burned her bridges now, and Aly was exciting, impetuous company. They moved on to Seville, returned briefly to London, then on to Paris, Ireland and Deauville, following the horse-racing circuit. Thelma stiffly denied a press rumour that she and Aly Khan were planning to marry, but she rented his villa at Deauville for the summer, complete with his retinue of Persian servants. They spent mornings on the beach, and evenings entertaining friends, or gambling at the Casino. It was a hedonistic, febrile summer, but within months Thelma realised that she didn’t love Aly.

  The crisis came in September 1934, and once again it was a transatlantic trip that forced the issue. Thelma was at a ball organised by Aly for his father the Aga Khan at Claridge’s Hotel in London, when she was called to the phone in the early hours. It was her twin sister Gloria Vanderbilt, who had been separated from her eleven-year-old daughter by a pincer movement from her own mother and her sister-in-law, Mrs Whitney. A bitter custody battle for the child was about to erupt in the New York Supreme Court, and she needed her sister Thelma.

  It was 3 a.m. in London and the Empress of Britain was sailing at 8 a.m. from Southampton. Determined to catch that ship, Thelma telephoned her slumbering household, and her servants hurriedly packed so that her long-suffering maid Elise could catch the early-morning boat train with madam’s luggage. Meanwhile Thelma was driven through the night to Southampton and boarded the ship at dawn, still wearing her silver lamé evening gown.

  Thelma arrived in New York a few days before the sensational case was heard by the New York Supreme Court. Various witnesses testified that Gloria Vanderbilt had affairs with men, but the evidence was inconclusive. However, Gloria’s French maid, Maria Caillot, dropped a bombshell at the end of her testimony, claiming that she had seen Lady Milford-Haven kissing Mrs Vanderbilt in a bedroom in the Hotel Miramar in Cannes in 1929. The court erupted in shock and the judge cleared the room of press and public, ‘in the interests of public decency’. The reporters raced to the public phones to transmit this sensational snippet to their editors. Gloria assured her brief, Mr Burkan, that there was absolutely no truth in Maria’s story, and that afternoon the hearing continued, but without the press and spectators. Consequently, the innuendoes about Gloria’s supposedly adventurous love life were only refuted in the court, not in public, and the many inconsistencies in Maria Caillot’s testimony that emerged under cross-questioning went unreported by the media. The compromise verdict of the court was that Gloria Vanderbilt was to have custody of her own daughter only at weekends and for the month of July. For the rest of the time the little girl was to live with Mrs Whitney, her aunt.

  Dejected, Thelma returned to her house in London alone. It was apparent that her relationship with Aly Khan had petered out while she had been away. Ironically, the original rift between Thelma and her prince had occurred because of her ‘flirtation’ with Aly while she was on a transatlantic voyage
, but her subsequent dash to the States months later in support of her family had given Aly the chance to become romantically occupied elsewhere. Their relationship limped on a little longer, but he was named on 18 June 1935 as co-respondent in a divorce case between Tory MP Loel Guinness and his wife Joan. In a further public humiliation, on 6 August 1935, the Prince of Wales arrived in Cannes on a hired yacht for a holiday, bringing with him a crowd of friends, a terrier and Wallis Simpson, though not Ernest, who had tactfully declined the invitation. The party spent an idyllic two months sailing round the Mediterranean, and it was known in the innermost circles that the prince was now infatuated with Wallis, his previous lover’s erstwhile best friend.

  In January 1936 George V died and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, became Edward VIII. Within eleven months the new king, Thelma’s former lover, renounced his throne in order to be with ‘the woman I love’, Wallis Simpson. Thelma wrote: ‘He had been the Prince Charming of the Empire, a man everybody loved … it seems to me he should have known that the British Empire could not and would not accept as their King a man who deliberately flouted the most deeply rooted traditions of Church and State.’4

  Thelma was aware that her long-standing relationship with the prince was deliberately sabotaged by someone unknown to her. Perhaps she had been tailed by a detective, or reported by a well-connected fellow traveller, or maybe even an officer or a crew member aboard the ship. Whatever the source, the heir to the throne obviously knew about her brief shipboard romance with a practised playboy within hours of her return. Just like Thelma, Wallis Simpson was a twice-married American woman with an eventful past when she first met the prince, and that was part of her appeal. However, unlike Wallis, Thelma had been caught out in a ‘flirtation’ with another man, Aly Khan, seduced by the romance of the setting and the ardour of his pursuit while on a transatlantic voyage, and this was unacceptable to the prince.