Gone With the Windsors

by Laurie Graham

  Tea tomorrow.

  18th January 1933

  Wally says Fort Belvedere is comfortable, full of good furniture, and generously hung with Canalettos, but lacking a woman’s touch, except in the love nest itself, where Thelma had been allowed a free hand with pink silk. Also that the Prince did wear a kilt to dinner and has good legs.

  She said, “David’s very informal. He even mixes his own drinks.”

  So already it’s “David.” She says she only refers to him as David. When she addresses him, she calls him “sir.”

  She said, “He is the future king, Maybell. Never forget that.”

  20th January 1933

  Freddie Crosbie, Judson Erlanger, Fergus Blythe, and Whitlow Trilling have gone to Klosters, so Pips is giving a ski-widows lunch party. Do I think she should also invite Wally Simpson and Ida Coote? Well, ordinarily I’d say no, because Wally demands opinions of people and tries to belittle them with her grasp of current affairs, and the only thing Ida brings to the table is a love life peopled by freaks, but on this occasion, I think the case for two extra Americans is strong. Hattie Erlanger and Gladys Trilling can be so overbearing, braying on about people one neither knows nor cares about, ancient British families who’ve been lords of the manor since the Stone Age.

  26th January 1933

  Penelope Blythe and Ida Coote got along famously yesterday. They both have men on the brain. I ought to have thought of introducing them sooner. Wally sparred with Gladys, each trying to outdo the other with inside information about the domestic arrangements of royalties.

  Gladys says it’s a well-known fact that Prince George is a drug fiend and Wales is only interested in clothes, so it would be as well for the country if Bertie York is the next king, being a family man and practically a saint. Wally says Bertie York is reputed to snap like a rabid dog.

  What a pity Violet was too busy to attend. I’m sure she could have given us character references on all of them.

  5th February 1933

  Tea at Carlton Gardens, where I was most surprised to find Flora, sent home from Hope House. She had apparently taken to lying on the floor and holding her breath until blue in the face, so the school nurse advised withdrawing her before she damaged her brain. Too late for that, I fear. The situation is to be reviewed after Easter.

  Mr. Adolf Hitler has been hired as the new Chancellor of Germany. Melhuish says this can only be a good thing, because a properly run Germany is all that stands between us and world Communism. How worrying.

  A delicious new cranberry nail polish from Elizabeth Arden.

  6th February 1933

  Lunch with Pips. She thinks getting in with Thelma and the Prince has turned Wally’s head. She said, “I can hear that brain of hers whirring away. I reckon she’s out to scalp herself a duke at the very least.”

  I said, “What about Ernest?”

  “Ernest?” she said. “Oh please!”

  But Pips doesn’t know Wally like I do. All she ever wanted was to rise above that awful mother of hers, to settle down, and have nice things, and in his modest way, Ernest has made that possible. Now she’s making her contribution, using her wits and vivacity to carry them into higher circles. I find them a very well-suited couple. And as for snagging a duke! Wally has certain talents, but I feel entitled to say, as a friend who knows her better than any, beneath all that careful grooming she’s still far too coarse to be a duchess.

  8th February 1933

  A crisis at Bryanston Court. Ernest has gone to New York on business and left Wally seriously short. She says it’s all a silly mix-up, but her cook is threatening to quit and anyway, there’s the humiliation of it. She’s meant to be giving a dinner for Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof and her friends the Eugene Rothschilds, and what’s she supposed to do? Offer them bread and water? If she didn’t have me to turn to, she’d be in an impossible position. I’ve advanced her enough to pay the help and cover the butcher’s bill.

  Randolph Putnam writes that I have nothing to fear from Franklin Roosevelt. He says Brumby Steel and Chemical has weathered the worst of things and is in good health, thanks to our Burma operations. He says my adventurous attitude to life has made him think of visiting London himself sometime. I do hope not.

  I haven’t come all this way to see his shiny face beaming at me across a crowded Grill Room. I’ve written back immediately to warn him that London is wet and sooty.

  Ten to dinner tonight. Philip Sassoon, Wally, Pips and Freddie Crosbie, Anne and Billy Belchester, Fergus and Penelope Blythe, George Lightfoot. As Wally will discover, she isn’t the only Baltimore belle who can fill a good table in London.

  9th February 1933

  My dining room looked superb last evening. Ivory candles, Brussels lace laid over a gold undercloth. Mushrooms on toast, saddle of lamb, nougat parfait. I could see Wally noting every detail. Wore my moss-green crepe de chine and amber beads. Wally gave her russet shantung another airing.

  All the talk was of Mr. Hitler. Freddie says he’s the man to destroy the Communists, root and branch. George Lightfoot predicts the working man will rise up, but as Freddie says, with six million unemployed, the working man will do well to keep his nose to the grindstone. Wally said England has nothing to fear from German rearmament. It was the French and the Poles who appropriated all that German soil, so they’re the ones who’d better watch out. I noticed a little twitch in dear Philip’s cheek. He has tribes of French cousins. He said nothing, but I don’t think he took to Wally. I must make sure not to mix them in the future.

  Belchester said if Adolf Hitler wants to reduce the number of men out of work, he can advise him exactly how to do it. One million can be set to paint the Black Forest white, one million can be sent to lay linoleum along the Polish corridor, and another million can busy themselves building a one-way railroad to Jerusalem. Much hilarity over this, but by my reckoning, that would still leave three million.

  Philip was very quiet all evening. He pleaded a sore throat and left early. I believe he may be the kind of man who only sparkles in his own milieu.

  15th February 1933

  Flora’s birthday. Her ninth. Gave her a silver-mounted hairbrush with her initials. Now someone needs to get her into the habit of using it. To a matinee performance of Giselle with Lightfoot, Doopie, and Flora. He’s Flora’s godfather, and Doopie is one of her godmothers, so he takes them to a ballet every year. Of course, if Doopie’s as deaf as they say she is, it seems rather a waste. Flora was in a very cheery mood and properly dressed, too, for a change, in a good wool dress and Mary Janes. There’s talk of a day school after Easter, but it’s to be sprung on her at the last moment. She quite stuck to my side all afternoon, one hand in mine, the other clutching her hairbrush. She said, “I wish you could be my other gobmother instead of Aunt Elsbeth.”

  16th February 1933

  Have loaned Wally my sable. She’s going to Leicestershire, to Thelma Furness’s, and will surely freeze without a decent fur.

  To the Florida Club with Judson and Hattie Erlanger and Pips and Freddie. Pips is wearing her hair and her skirts noticeably shorter. Freddie has told her she has the best legs in London. Who am I to rain on her parade. I do like her bob, however.

  She said, “This Leicestershire jaunt is so typically Wally. She hates the countryside, she hates horses, but she’ll go and endure it because she just might meet someone useful. I’m telling you, she’s on the prowl for someone with a title.”

  Hattie said, “The idea is beyond bizarre. She doesn’t even ride. And why would any man look at her twice? She always looks so … corseted. And that frightful, grimacing mouth. I mean, she’s quite fun, but really … Anyway, no one important ever goes to the Furness house. One simply sniggers about it.”

  20th February 1933

  According to the maid, Wally and my sable have gone direct from the country to The Cedars, for mud baths and facials. She might have asked.

  Tonight to the Yugoslavs. I shall have to wear my mink.

  2
3rd February 1933

  Wally says The Cedars wasn’t her idea. She got dragged along by Thelma and Connie but is glad she went, because she feels greatly rejuvenated. She described the weekend as low-key and cozy. She’d met some new people, the Bernie Cavetts from New Jersey, Humphrey Butler, who equerries for fun-loving Prince George, and the Perry Brownlows, who have a house near Thelma’s. And the Prince of Wales had joined her by the fireside and chatted to her for half an hour at least. She says she wasn’t a bit nervous.

  She said, “I didn’t even think about it. I was just myself, Maybell. I just treated him like I would any other interesting man.”

  I bet she didn’t.

  She said, “Strictly between you and me, I think he finds Thelma rather limited. She’s sweet, but she doesn’t have any conversation, and His Royal Highness has a wide-ranging mind. He wants to know about the lives of ordinary people, and who better to enlighten him on that subject than me.”

  She’d even told him about her mother’s boardinghouse.

  She said, “He was fascinated. He’s never met anyone like me before, not socially. He found it refreshing.”

  Perhaps so, but I don’t think Ernest will thank her for making such a feature of her regrettable background.

  Philip Sassoon’s sister has invited me to a musical soiree.

  26th February 1933

  To tea at Carlton Gardens. Fish-paste sandwiches and seed cake. Bertie York’s wife, Elizabeth, was there with Ena Spain and a couple of Greek princesses who never smile. Only Ena could perspire in February. Flora was allowed down briefly to say “good day.” She doesn’t appear to be using her new hairbrush.

  27th February 1933

  To Sibyl Chumley’s, spelled Cholmondeley, nota bene. Her husband, Rock, was present, charming and dashingly handsome but impatient to get away, it seemed. He kept popping open his Hunter to check the time. And dear Philip wasn’t able to attend, being horribly busy with something called Air Estimates. Lucky Philip. It was such a long program and then, as if we hadn’t had quite enough, one of Sybil’s cronies asked Mr. Rubinstein for an encore, as if he needed any further encouragement. It didn’t seem to occur to them that some of us had had a strenuous day and still weren’t finished. I had the Erlangers and the Trillings waiting for me at the Paradise Club.

  28th February 1933

  The German Parliament has been burned down by Red agitators. Boss and Ethel Croker are taking a house for Royal Ascot this year and I am invited, as are Wally and Ernest. I’ll just keep the information up my sleeve until Violet starts talking about squeezing me into Lady Desborough’s attic. Ernest is expected home at any moment, and the sooner the better. Wally’s in a flap about ordering gowns. I’m thinking pale lavender and the softest camellia pink. Wally says hats are absolutely de rigueur, a great shame for a natural blonde like myself.

  4th March 1933

  Lunch with George Lightfoot. He was at the Century Club last night and saw Wally and Ernest at the Prince of Wales’s table. Poor Ernest. He’s not a night person at the best of times, and he’s only been back on dry land for five minutes.

  6th March 1933

  Five hours of shopping. We’ve decided on midcalf bias-cut for summer, which we’ll follow with a shorter, more tailored look for the fall. Wally is so particular. She examines linings and seams practically with a magnifying glass. She says if she had my money, she’d have everything hand-finished. Our needs are different, of course. Curves like mine may not be the height of fashion right now, but let’s face it, I’d look good in a sugar sack, whereas Wally has to rely on good window dressing to cover all those bones and angles.

  At any rate, Ernest is so thrilled by their growing closeness to the Prince of Wales that he’s lifted the latch on his cash box and told Wally to buy whatever she needs.

  We didn’t even stop for lunch, and then she dashed away in a cab. She’s suddenly very assiduous about being at home with a welcoming drinks’ tray when Ernest comes in from business. That’s the deal, I suppose. She’s paying for her Ascot gowns with wifely attention.

  Called in at Carlton Gardens. Violet was running out to a Soup Kitchen committee. She said, “You should come with me. Do something useful. This has been a hard winter, Maybell. People are cold and hungry.”

  Well, I was in no condition. I’d been on my feet since ten o’clock.

  I said, “I’ll write you a check. I’m going up to the nursery to have tea with Flora and Doopie.”

  She said, “Then be aware that Flora is being punished. She stuck out her tongue at Lady Londonderry, so be stern with her and please don’t give her candy.”

  I must say, Flora seemed to have forgotten she was in disgrace. We found some chocolate in my purse and made chocolate sandwiches, and then she and Doopie danced Giselle for me in their bedroom slippers. I don’t think chocolate counts as candy. Chocolate is chocolate.

  10th March 1933

  Dinner at Judson and Hattie Erlanger’s. According to Pips, Hattie’s family owns much of Eccleston Square. All the more regrettable then that she doesn’t invest some of her wealth in getting her teeth straightened. And why don’t the English keep their diamonds clean?

  The talk turned to Wally. I only mentioned that she longs to be presented at Court, and Gladys Trilling practically leaped out of her seat. She said, “Oh but that can never happen. Surely Wally and Ernest are both divorced?”

  According to Gloria and Hattie, divorce is death to any Court ambitions.

  I said, “But what about Thelma Furness? She’s about to get her second divorce, but that doesn’t seem to deter the Prince of Wales.”

  Hattie said, “There’s all the difference in the world between sharing Wales’s bed and being brought into the presence of Their Majesties, and I’m sure Thelma Furness has always understood her position.”

  If that’s the case, I’m surprised she hasn’t explained it to Wally. They’re such friends these days, they must surely commiserate with each other about the taint of divorce. How frustrating. A youthful error with Win Spencer and now Wally’s greatest desire is forever beyond her reach. Well, I’m not going to be the one who tells her.

  14th March 1933

  Philip Sassoon has invited me to his house by the ocean for Easter. A fête champêtre at Port Lympne! Whatever it is, I can’t wait.

  16th March 1933

  The most extraordinary thing. I was with Wally at Bryanston Court early last evening, when the door opened and in walked the Prince of Wales. He said, “You didn’t invite me, but here I am anyway.”

  Wally didn’t miss a beat. She said, “Why sir! I hope you know you’re welcome anytime. We’re very informal tonight, just an old school friend, Maybell Brumby.”

  She was pulling faces at me behind his back, reminding me to curtsy. She doesn’t understand that when I was at Carlton Gardens, Violet had royalties trooping through on an almost daily basis.

  His Royal Highness has very blue eyes and a rather high-pitched voice.

  “Brumby?” he said. “A big name in Baltimore, I seem to remember. Iron, was it?”

  Iron, coal, nickel, cobalt, silver, bauxite. Wherever it was in the world, Danforth Brumby would find it and have it grubbed out of the ground and turned into dollars.

  I said, “Yes sir, Brumby Steel and Chemical, founded by my late husband. And you may have heard of my late father, too. John Patterson was a legend for his worker housing.”

  “Is that so?” he said. “Well, you must tell me about it someday. I’m awfully keen on worker housing.”

  Wally didn’t like that. She thinks she’s the only one who knows how to draw people out. She thinks I’m just a pretty face.

  The Prince made us all scotches and soda, very much at home. He’d obviously done it before. Wally’s a sly one. He told us about his week. He’d been in the North, cheering up paupers. Wally was plying him with questions, but he really wanted to know about me, what brought me to London.

  I said, “Well, funnily enough, sir, you did.
I came last year, after my bereavement, to visit my sister Violet. And if it weren’t for you, I very much doubt my sister would be here. If you hadn’t gone to Sulphur Springs with Donald Melhuish all those years ago, Violet wouldn’t have met him and married him and moved to London. So, in a roundabout way, you’re entirely responsible.”

  He has a funny little laugh.

  “Melhuish!” he said. “Of course! When was that?”

  It was 1919.

  He said, “And you’re Violet Melhuish’s sister? Remarkable! You look nothing like her. A fine soldier, Melhuish. We were together at Verdun, you know?”

  When Ernest came home, he didn’t seem particularly surprised to find the Prince of Wales sitting on his couch, so I wonder how long this has been going on? Great shows of affability, but I believe I noticed Ernest relax when the Prince said he couldn’t stay to dinner.

  He said, “No, Ernest. As comfortable as I am, I can’t stay, not even for Wally’s goulash. I have to dine with Their Majesties.”

  He kissed Wally on the cheek as he left.

  She said, “Oh Maybell, your face when the Prince walked in! I wish I could have snapped it.”

  I said, “You might have warned me. You were obviously expecting him.”