He’d given Wally ear studs. Amber, supposedly, although they’re so small it’s not easy to see what they’re made of.
It’s the Prince’s birthday this week, too, but according to Connie Thaw, they’re born under very different signs. David Wales is Cancer the Crab. He clings to the things he loves and hates to leave his shell. Whereas Wally is an adventurous, quick-thinking Gemini. I’d have loved her to tell me what I am, but then the cabaret started.
I notice Wally’s dropped a year from her age. It couldn’t matter less to me, except that if she does it again, I shall be forced to do likewise.
To Sunninghills.
20th June 1933, Sunninghills, Berkshire
Sunninghills has neither sun nor hills, but the beds are comfortable and Ethel Croker has hired an excellent staff. Pips and Freddie rode down with me in the Bentley and told me all about our forthcoming vacation to Italy. They promise me black-eyed men and wine that tastes of sunshine!
The Trillings and the Erlangers were here ahead of us, also a Canadian couple called Bedaux. Tomorrow the cars take us to the racetrack at noon. The big race is the Prince of Wales Cup. Our Prince of Wales! Wally says Thelma is at Fort Belvedere, but it’s all hush-hush, because Their Majesties expect the Prince to toe the line during Ascot Week. Ethel says she has a surprise for me tomorrow. So that’s what Pips was hinting at. Philip Sassoon, I’ll bet. I saw them in a huddle about something at my soiree.
The forecast warm but overcast.
21st June 1933
A mixed day. Ethel’s surprise was Randolph Putnam. He arrived, creaking in new shoes, in a taxi cab. He’s staying over.
She said, “I never can resist a little matchmaking.”
I’d love to wipe that smirk off Pips Crosbie’s face.
Wore my caramel polka dot with a black straw coolie hat. Wally was all in grapefruit. Pencil skirt, square neckline, and a bolero jacket.
Charlie Bedaux wore salt-and-pepper trousers with his morning coat, which scandalized Ernest but Fern Bedaux says that’s Charlie. Tell him the rules, and he won’t rest till he’s broken them. He’s an ugly little man, like a prizefighter, but worth millions.
The royal parade was very pretty. Queen Mary was in shell pink, Elizabeth York in forget-me-not, and the Princess Royal in kingfisher. Melhuish was in the third carriage with Ena Spain, Bertie York, and the Duchess of Buccleuch. Violet was in carriage number four, with the Nicholases of Greece and Prince Harry.
No sign of Thelma. I expect she stayed at the Fort and read magazines.
Ethel got Wally reminiscing about China over dinner. She said, “Remember the smell, Wally, when we disembarked at Hong Kong?”
Wally said, “Oh yes! Cinnamon. And sandalwood.”
Ethel said, “Was that what it was! I thought it was rotten fish and pee-pee. And Shanghai. What a shambles. Remember that hotel?”
Wally laughed. She said, “It was called the Astor House, but it wasn’t like it sounded. Your shoes stuck to the rugs. And run by a madman. He was ex-Navy, and when dinner was served, he sounded ‘Cook House’ on an old bugle.”
Ernest said, “But still, a great cultural experience.”
Ethel said, “Oh yes. Definitely that.”
Every time I look in Randolph Putnam’s direction, he’s smiling at me. I suppose I have to be thankful he hasn’t tried to steal a kiss.
22nd June 1933
Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot. Wore my lilac-and-white georgette, with a white cabbage rose on the brim of my straw. Wally very severe in a beige turban. Ethel had a picnic catered by Fortnum’s so we wouldn’t miss the procession of Royalties along the racetrack. Dressed crab, tarragon chicken, and a strawberry mousse. Elizabeth York was in the first landau with the Majesties. She wore primrose, and Queen Mary was in ice blue. Freddie said she looked like the Jungfrau, whoever she is. The Princess Royal’s hat was like a speckled hen.
Violet was promoted to second carriage today, but I believe I’ve seen that peppermint toque before. Several times.
Ernest left to go to his office immediately after they’d run Gold Cup, as did Freddie, the Trillings, and Fern and Charlie Bedaux. Fern is so gracious and Charlie is so florid and common-looking. They make an odd couple. I have an open invitation to visit them in any of their many lovely homes. Ethel says their French chateau is divine.
Randolph is staying on in Maidenhead for a further week and hopes we’ll have time for another talk. Oh dear.
24th June 1933
Having begged a ride with me and Pips, Wally has now taken off to Fort Belvedere. There’s a lunch party for the Prince’s birthday.
26th June 1933, Wilton Place
Wally says Connie and Thelma are very concerned about their sister Gloria Vanderbilt, who stands to lose her only child. Gloria lives in Paris and always has a very hectic schedule, so she left the little girl with her sister-in-law in New York, for safekeeping. But now the sister-in-law is refusing to give the child back, and it may come to a court case. No faster way to beggar yourself. And I wonder why Gloria wants the child back all of a sudden. Better to leave her where she’s settled, I’d have thought.
Daphne Frith on the telephone. She and Prosper want me at Hoxney Court for a weekend before everyone disperses for the summer. Pips and Freddie are also invited.
27th June 1933
Lunch with Randolph. He said, “I’ve so enjoyed seeing you in your new life, Maybell. I can quite see you’re not ready to leave it just yet. But we Putnams know a good thing when we see it, and I’m prepared to wait.”
My only consolation is that he’s cheerful in his disappointment. He sails on Friday.
28th June 1933
Dinner at the Crosbies. Freddie says Hoxney Court will give me a true taste of rustic England. I already hear the clank and splutter of ancient plumbing.
1st July 1933, Hoxney Court, Kent
Hoxney Court is a great creaking hull of a place. Daphne says it’s been in Prosper’s family for more than three hundred years and still has many of its original features. Indeed, I believe the mattress on my bed may be one of them. A sultry night forced me to risk an open window until I heard a band of lunatics cackling out there in the dark. Prosper says it was only frogs, but my window will now remain locked.
Today we meet the natives. Pips and I are assisting Daphne in the judging of an embroidered-tablecloth competition. Freddie and Prosper have to crown the Carnival Queen.
We’re only fifteen miles from Lympne. I put a call through to Philip, who was expected although no one seemed to know when.
2nd July 1933
Freddie is laid up with an ankle sprained during yesterday’s sack race, and Daphne and Prosper had to put in an obligatory appearance at church, so Pips and I motored over to Port Lympne on the off-chance. Philip was at home and made us very welcome. He gave us champagne and took us down to watch the dragonflies dancing on his new pond. Not his usual bubbling self though. Her Majesty the Queen has proposed herself for tea this afternoon, so he’d been up till very late, painting modesty shorts on those saucy Egyptians in his dining-room frieze, in case she decides to tour the house.
What a chore. After all that, I hope she doesn’t cancel.
Daphne has been quizzing me about Wally and Ernest, but never when Prosper’s within earshot, I notice. She said, “How thrilling for two such ordinary people suddenly to find themselves whisked into the Prince of Wales’s circle. And how odd that he should choose such people. He’s certainly going to be a very different style of king than his father. If he ever becomes king.”
I said, “Why wouldn’t he?”
She said, “Because he may burn himself out with fast women and smokey niteries. Prosper believes, and he’s not alone in this, that Bertie York should be our next King.”
4th July 1933
To the U.S. compound for drinks. Ernest yawning constantly, because Thelma and the Prince kept them out until three last night. As Wally says, he has no pep. At thirty-six, a man should be good for a
little dancing after dinner.
6th July 1933
To the Army & Navy store. Pips says silk beach pajamas are essential for Italy. Chose fuschia and oyster.
Padmore is so excited about the promise of foreign travel. When she worked for Mrs. Orr-Tweedie, they never ventured farther than the Suffolk coast.
Rory says he’d like to go to the circus for his birthday treat but doesn’t think Flora will be allowed, and then there’ll be a scene. He said, “We could pretend you’re taking me to the dentist.”
I don’t think I’m inclined to tell a lie. Better to say nothing and proceed by stealth.
12th July 1933
To Bertram Mills’s Circus and to a Corner House for high tea. I simply waited until Violet had left for her Fallen Women committee and then collected them all. Rory, Flora, and Doopie. It was the greatest fun. They had chimpanzees dressed in adorable little romper suits, and when they brought them out into the audience, one of them tried to climb onto Doopie’s lap.
Flora kept saying, “Won’t Mummy be surprised.”
Rory was anxious though. He said, “Mummy might be surprised in a bad way, Flora. I think it’d be better if we didn’t say too much about it.”
That was what was agreed. Even Doopie understood. Then, when I dropped them off, Flora burst straight into the drawing room, crying, “Mummy! Aunt Bayba took us to the cirgus and then to the Gorner House but we’re not going to say too much about it!”
Ulick said, “I thought she was gated until further notice?”
Rory said, “It was for my birthday.”
Ulick said, “The whole point of a gating is to make one realize the error of one’s ways, not to have exceptions made because it’s someone’s birthday.”
Flora said, “Anyway, a bunkey sat on Doopie.”
Violet said, “No more fibs please, Flora. Now run upstairs.”
Rory said, “Aunt Maybell’s going to the Venice Lido, Ulick. Don’t you wish we could go?”
Ulick said, “No, I do not.”
13th July 1933
George Lightfoot has gone to Yorkshire. He’s visiting Viscount Minskip, then traveling with him to Drumcanna. Wally is taking a prevacation cure at The Cedars with Thelma and Connie. She and Ernest leave for the Tyrol on the 20th.
Thelma and her Prince will be apart through August. Thelma’s going to Biarritz, and HRH has to go yachting with the King and then hurry up to Balmoral for the shooting. Penelope Blythe is pleased. She says if Wales is going to be around, there’ll be a good chance of some proper dancing.
“And if not,” she said, “next summer I shall tag along with you to foreign parts. I couldn’t be more bored with Drumcanna.”
15th July 1933
Lunch with Pips. She says Gladys has bought a very daring bathing suit. I’d say any style of bathing suit would be risky on Gladys. When a person has been delivered of two children, she’d do well to keep herself artfully draped.
17th July 1933
Gladys Trilling on the telephone. I seem to have drawn a shared berth with her in the wagons-lits to Nice. Whitlow can’t get away for another week at least.
She said, “Isn’t it a lark? We can get to know each other much better.”
I said, “Do you snore?”
“Like an old sow,” she said, “but don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll be too busy chatting to do much sleeping.”
18th July 1933
The kitchen maid has revealed herself to be in the family way, put there by the outdoors boy. Just what I need on the eve of my departure. A major domestic crisis.
19th July 1933
The kitchen maid and the outdoors boy have been sent packing. They can argue about their nuptials in their own time. As Padmore says, it’s a saving. There’ll be no fires needed and no entertaining, so we can make a fresh start with new help in September. What a sensible girl she is.
21st July 1933
Violet predicts that come September, I’ll be looking for a new lady’s maid, too.
She said, “Taking a girl like that to Italy. She’s bound to fall into the clutches of some oily Romeo and that’ll be the last you’ll see of her. I don’t know why you insist on keeping a lady’s maid anyway. I’ve managed without one for years.”
All too obviously. And a smoothing iron. And a clothes brush.
23rd July 1933
Zita and Bernie Cavett have taken a villa in San Remo. They’ve invited us all to visit on our way back from Venice. The Trillings won’t be able to, of course. Gladys frets about the children.
28th July 1933, a train, approaching Genoa
No sleep. Pips and Hattie were in and out in their pajamas and face cream, tight on champagne, and then Gladys kept me awake with her latest notion about Wally. She thinks she’s a man masquerading as a woman.
I said, “I was at school with her. She used to sleep over at our house. I’ve known her since she was fifteen.”
She said, “Yes, but did you ever see her in the altogether?”
I don’t need to have.
She said, “You must admit, she does look terribly manly. Those great big hands. And no bosom at all.”
I said, “You seem to be forgetting she’s had two husbands and quite a number of sweethearts.”
She said, “That doesn’t signify. Some men like that kind of thing.”
Some men may, but not Ernest Simpson, I’m sure. I never met a more vanilla character.
She said, “Well I shan’t be convinced until I’ve seen what she’s got inside her bloomers.”
And they call Wally vulgar.
30th July 1933, Venice Lido
I adore Italy. Sunshine, smiling porters at the railroad station, and a sleek, shiny launch to whisk us to the Excelsior. The chandeliers are exquisite. The linens are sumptuous and the sands are kept immaculately raked. All I ask is to be left in peace beneath this perfect blue sky.
1st August 1933
Pips and Hattie are attacking the sights of Venice, and Freddie and Judson keep disappearing to the tennis courts, which leaves me with Gladys, who insists on reading aloud from an Italian phrase book. I wish Ambassador Bingham would hurry up and release Whitlow from his desk.
4th August 1933
Freddie had promised us drinks in a real Venetian palace, with an old college friend, Bobo Farinacci, but Bobo turns out to be in Switzerland. Pips says his palace is locked and shuttered. Gladys’s monumental thighs have turned pink. She’s convinced she has a poolside admirer. I hate to disappoint her.
Whitlow is rumored to be on a train heading toward Nice.
7th August 1933
Pips seems to have wrung the city dry of Tipolettos and Tintiolos and has now moved on to mosaics, but Hattie has had enough. She’s offered to help me improve my game of tennis, which will certainly be preferable to listening to Gladys’s fevered fantasies every time a pool boy lights her cigarette.
8th August 1933
I have sacked Hattie and hired a professional tennis instructor. She deliberately tried to befuddle me with technicalities: tram lines, backward forehands, lets, lets-not. Surely the main thing is that the ball travel back and forth over the net at an agreeable pace, without people yelling “out!” all the time.
10th August 1933
A very exciting development. The Prince of Wales arrived this morning. He’s not yachting in the Solent, not shooting grice on Deeside, but right here on Venice Lido. And not with Thelma. The concierge told Padmore he’s traveling alone, apart from two detectives and a valet and an equerry.
Hattie has sent him a note. When we reckoned up, she has known him longest.
11th August 1933
We heard nothing from HRH. So much for Hattie Erlanger’s credentials as an acquaintance of many years’ standing.! Then, as I was going up to change for luncheon, I bumped into him coming out of an elevator. He greeted me very warmly. “How splendid,” he kept saying. “How splendid!”
He’s in Italy on a fact-finding tour, apparently. The conditi
ons of the working man. He’s proposed himself for dinner. Joey Legh is equerrying. Now there’s a man who should be told that a smile costs nothing. Freddie says if I had to pick up after the Prince of Wales like the equerries do, I wouldn’t find much to smile about.
Venice is a very strange resort. There are perfectly lovely beaches here, but everyone makes a beeline for the canals. Stinking little alleys with water the color of gasoline and everything needs fixing up. I refuse to be dragged over any more bridges or gaze at any more crumbling palaces. Palaces! I’ve told Pips she can come and find me at Quadri’s café. I’ll be there in time for my afternoon ice cream, observing the fashions and listening to the band.
12th August 1933
HRH looked for Wally and Ernest when he joined our table last evening. I think he was disappointed not to find them. And then Hattie and Gladys would gush so. Little wonder he became rather subdued. I’ve seen it happen before. It takes someone like Thelma or Wally to draw him out when he’s in that mood. Sometimes I sense a very lonely man.
There had been talk of going to the casino, but he suddenly decided to turn in early. Freddie stayed down and had a nightcap with Joey Legh. Legh doesn’t care for Italy. He told Freddie he couldn’t understand why HRH couldn’t just go to Balmoral, like a normal prince. Captain Legh has obviously never felt the prick of a Deeside midge.
Gone With the Windsors Page 12