Gone With the Windsors

by Laurie Graham

  Peals of laughter.

  With Wally to Nardi to help her pick out a pair of blackamoor earclips. Venice is the most inconvenient of cities. One trudges over bridge after bridge, and none of the streets is wide enough for a limousine, so it’s impossible to have a driver waiting. If they only filled in the waterways, the locals would notice an immediate improvement in efficiency. They should send someone to Baltimore, to see how a modern city should be run.

  2nd August 1937

  The Crosbies left this morning, but not before Pips brought up the subject of money with Wally. She said, “You know, Forwood gave Maybell a load of your bills to settle, and she would have done, too, if the rest of us hadn’t stopped her. She won’t bring it up herself, but I think it’s time you were clear about money. Tell her you don’t need her picking up your checks anymore.”

  Wally said, “It was a misunderstanding, Maybell knows that. Fortunately, she doesn’t worry about such things, but for your peace of mind, Pips, I can promise you Borsodivanka isn’t going to cost her a cent. Charlie Bedaux is paying for everything.”

  I do wish Pips wouldn’t interfere. Now I feel cheap.

  9th August 1937, Borsodivanka Castle

  Like Candé but smaller and wilder. Lots of dark wood and boars’ heads. The footmen wear baggy trousers tucked into high leather boots and are rather fiercely good-looking. Fern is in Paris, Charlie comes and goes, always busy, busy, busy, sending wires, making calls. Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof has driven over with the Cavetts and some jolly Austrians in national costume.

  14th August 1937

  Wally has been so disagreeable, picking on HRH all through dinner. She’s bored and seems to have spent the afternoon brooding over the events of last December, especially Esmond Harmsworth’s morganatic proposal, which she now regards as a major mistake.

  She said, “You should never have given Baldwin an excuse to go to the Dominions for an opinion. It was obvious they’d raise objections. You never stop to think.”

  He said, “But darling, you seemed so keen on the idea.”

  She said, “Don’t blame me. All those advisors you had on the payroll. What were they thinking of? You as good as handed the Yorks your crown on a plate. You should just have gone ahead with the Coronation, to hell with the goddamned Dominions, to hell with marrying. We could still have seen each other. We could have worked out something. But no. You’re such a fool.”

  It was a very unhappy moment. Herman tried to change the topic, and so did I, but she wouldn’t be stopped, and poor HRH just chewed the inside of his cheek.

  15th August 1937

  Kath says it’s time to go home. She says the whole thing is too gothic, sitting here with the rain lashing against the glass, playing checkers and listening to Wally lambasting David. Today’s bugbear is Walter Monckton. She wants to know what he’d been doing allowing Bunny and Cook to cheat her out of her rightful title. She said, “He knew the New Bunch would be looking for ways to spite me. It was a fundamental point, and he should have been watching out for their dirty tricks. Calls himself a lawyer! Well, I hope he hasn’t been paid, because he doesn’t deserve a penny.”

  Forwood said Monckton quite definitely hasn’t been paid.

  It’s all very well to talk of leaving, but we’re not even sure what country we’re in.

  Zita says it doesn’t matter, as long as our drivers know where we are. I suppose.

  20th August 1937

  The Rogerses left this morning. Herman said, fond as he is of Fern, he, too, is beginning to have second thoughts about Charlie’s German connections. He says Mr. Ley, who Charlie talks of all the time and who features so prominently in plans for our tour of Germany, is nothing but a thug in a suit. Forwood agrees.

  He said, “His Royal Highness has had a year of bad press. He should be thinking about ways to repair his reputation, not make matters worse. In my opinion, he needs to be very careful about where he goes and who he’s seen with.”

  Of course, scratch Forwood and you’ll find a Foreign Office clerk. A belt-and-suspenders man. He doesn’t at all understand Charlie’s grand plan. Or Wally’s flair for putting on a good show.

  22nd August 1937

  Calisthenics with HRH this morning. Quite like the good old days at the Fort.

  HRH asked me how I think Wally seems. Very irritable is how she seems, but I didn’t really feel I could say so.

  I said, “She’s a little strained. It’s been a big year.”

  He said, “It has. She’s suffered terribly. And she’s being so unfairly treated by certain parties. That’s why the German trip is so very important. She’ll receive a very warm welcome from the Germans. Bedaux’s doing a marvelous job. It’ll be as good as a State visit, and that’s what Wally deserves. She’s going to be so awfully good at this.”

  Charlie has left for New York. He’s going to prepare the way for a November tour of the United States. Oliver Templemore and Oxer Bettenbrooke are coming here for the chamois hunting. Also the Humphrey Butlers.

  It seems a very social time, considering it’s a honeymoon. Brumby and I had a few days at Marshalls Creek, just the two of us and a stock market tickertape machine, but Wally and David seem to thrive on company.

  27th August 1937

  We hear that the Reverend Jardine has surfaced in America. He’s announced his intention of writing his memoirs and opening a wedding chapel, something exclusive, suitable for Hollywood stars.

  Wally said, “Bumptious little chancer. He’d better not include us in any memoirs.”

  Hardly fair. After all, he did travel a long way at short notice and defied his bishop and destroyed his chances of preferment. No one else volunteered, and if he hadn’t come along when he did, Wally and David would have had to make do with being married by a Frenchman draped in a flag.

  Zita said, “If you don’t want to get memoired, you’d better have a word with Maybell. She writes us all up in her diary.”

  Wally said, “Do you still do that, Maybell? Did you ask His Royal Highness’s permission?”

  I said, “Hardly. They’re just my own little musings. Current affairs. Family things.”

  “Oh,” she said. “How dreary. If people must keep diaries, they should make them worth rereading.”

  Zita said, “Yes. When I went into show business, my Ma said, ‘Keep a diary, Zita. Some day it may keep you.’ But I never did.”

  2nd September 1937

  The Humphrey Butlers have arrived. Walter Monckton has also asked to make a flying visit. Wally said, “He’d better come with an apology from the Yorks and my rightful title.”

  I made noises about returning to London, but Wally won’t hear of it. She said, “We have to go to Paris, Maybell. I don’t have a thing to wear. And then I’m going to need you in Germany. You’re my lady-in-waiting.”

  Poots Butler says only Royalties have ladies-in-waiting.

  4th September 1937

  Monckton has brought neither an apology nor a title for Wally. He’s come to try and talk HRH out of going to Germany. He says Charlie Bedaux’s German friends are all Nazis, and the trip will be a great embarrassment to the British government. Wally said, “He’s been sent by the New Bunch, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts. They’re nervous about David getting back in the public eye. Serves them right. It’s their own damned fault for sending him to the scrap heap. Well, we’re going to Germany, whatever anyone says.”

  We head for Paris next weekend. Poots says she discerns a pattern with Wally. Two happy days followed by twenty-four hours of snapping and paranoia.

  I don’t think she’s paranoid at all. I think she’s being treated very unkindly indeed.

  5th September 1937

  Today’s subject has been HRH’s banishment. Wally says much as she adores Paris, England is where they really belong. She said, “It’s a terrible waste of a king. David knows everything there is to know about running the country. He was trained for it, unlike Bertie York. He should be asked back and given somet
hing useful to do.”

  Humphrey Butler said, “The problem with that, Wally, is that no new king wants to have an ex-king watching over his shoulder.”

  Wally said, “Well, he’ll have to be given something to do. I can’t have him under my feet for the next thirty years.”

  6th September 1937

  HRH says he won’t go back to England until and unless Wally gets her due rank and is properly received by the two Queens. Walter Monckton told him he sees no reason why this can’t be achieved, given time, patience, and tact.

  Wally said, “Patience and tact, fiddlesticks! Go and phone your brother and tell him you have to have a job. And this time, don’t allow him to fob you off.”

  7th September 1937

  So far, the King hasn’t been available to come to the telephone and speak to David. Wally said, “Of course he’s available. He just daren’t contradict orders from the Scotch Cook. She’s the one who wears the pants. You wouldn’t think it, to look at those dimpled cheeks, but she does. And she’s the one who has it in for me.”

  We sensed another rant coming on, but Poots headed it off by asking Wally’s advice on hemlines.

  HRH is acting so forlorn about us going to Paris. He keeps saying, “Must you go, darling? After what we went through last winter, I don’t ever want us to be separated again.”

  It’s so silly, because Wally’s organized a lovely shooting party to see him through her absence. And his night table is covered with photographs of her.

  10th September 1937

  Charlie now has everything in place for our first two tours. Forwood is preparing a bulletin for the press. We go to Germany on October 11th, for two weeks, then back to Paris, just long enough for the maids to turn everything around and repack before we sail for New York on the Bremen on November 6th.

  12th September 1937, Meurice Hotel, Paris

  Wally is lunching with Elsie Mendl and has left me with lists to go through with her lingère. I’m sure I’m efficient enough to manage lingerie lists and go to Trianon for lunch. Ena Spain is still in Scotland.

  Bought stockings.

  13th September 1937

  No sign yet of Wally. Her maid says she didn’t come in till two a.m. If HRH was trying to get through to her for his goodnight kiss, he’ll be frantic.

  Appointments at Chanel and Main Bocher. Tomorrow, lunch with Kitty Rothschild.

  Instead of Prunier, we’re going to go to a real Parisian market, buy ingredients, bring them to the house, and cook them ourselves. What unusual lives people lead in Paris!

  14th September 1937

  Wally was at the Bricktop last night with Kenny Opdyke and his crowd. She says there were naked black girls in the floor show.

  She’s having new buttons put on her dark blue coatdress. She evidently plans to meet Mr. Hitler dressed like a Bible class teacher, to impress upon him her seriousness of mind.

  The Rothschilds have a very modest apartment. They are staying liquid until they see what Germany’s intentions are. Kitty says if Hitler takes Austria, they stand to lose Enzesfeld. It’s the Jewish question. She says we’re going to be very shocked by what we see on our trip. Thuggery in the streets. Shops that are barred to Jews. She made it plain she doesn’t approve of HRH’s visit, but he’s only going to study labor conditions and housing and all those things he’s keen on. I see no harm in it. And what can we do if German shopkeepers choose not to serve Jews?

  Anyway, it’s all arranged.

  She said, “I only hope Charlie Bedaux doesn’t turn the Windsors into a pair of performing pooches. That man never does anything for nothing.”

  Lunch was exhausting. First, we went all the way to St. Germain with Kitty’s friend Winnie Gulliver, battling through the crowds to buy mushrooms and salad greens and cheeses, then we carried them home by taxi cab and made our own omelettes. Thank goodness, she had the help clear away. Playing house is good fun, but it takes up so much time.

  Winnie Gulliver says she cooks for herself all the time, but she’s English and quite down on her luck, by all accounts. Rather like Ida Coote, except Winnie does afford a daily.

  18th September 1937

  Called Pips but got Freddie. He said, “This German jaunt is a wholly bad idea. It’s going to send completely the wrong message to Hitler.”

  I said, “It’s a private visit. A few folkloric pageants and luncheons with dignitaries. It’s going to have no more significance than if we motored down to Menton for a weekend.”

  He said, “Private visit! That’s not how it’s going to look, and David knows it.”

  Lightfoot has been heard from, apparently, and is alive and well, or, at least, alive. Doopie volunteered, too, for nursing duties, but is still at Carlton Gardens. Well, I’m sure they won’t take her. She can’t even say “bandage” properly.

  A valet has arrived with the dogs. HRH will be here tomorrow. That will put a stop to late nights at the Bricktop.

  21st September 1937

  HRH says he received a letter from Prosper Frith, asking him, for the sake of Great Britain, not to break bread with Adolf Hitler. Prosper Frith! He’s got some nerve, after the way that wife of his switched camps. Anyway, we’re not breaking bread with Mr. Hitler. We’re having afternoon tea.

  Ena Spain is back.

  25th September 1937

  Fruity Metcalfe has now joined the throng telling us to cancel our trip. Wally says he’s just disappointed not to have been asked to equerry. Well, Forwood suits us better. He has the language and he doesn’t presume upon an old friendship.

  Ena Spain is terribly depressed about the war. She says the Godless are fighting the Godless, and it’s the poor little people who are being squeezed between the two.

  I wonder if Lightfoot realizes he’s in the ranks of the Godless. He was always pretty keen on churchgoing at Easter and lowly mangers on his Christmas cards.

  We have received our program for the United States. Charlie Bedaux has been very busy. HRH will start by visiting industrialists in Rochester, Schenectady, Wilmington, and Bayonne. Wally and I will have our own activities in New York. We’ll all then make a brief stop in Washington to see Wally’s Aunt Bessie, and Baltimore, for old times’ sake. This is going to give Nora Sedley Cordle and Brumby Junior something to think about. If they make any approach, hoping to use me as a conduit to the Royalties, I shall snub them. As far as I’m concerned, the only friend I have in Baltimore is Randolph Putnam.

  The tour will then resume, with HRH going to Detroit, but Wally and I may go directly to San Diego and then meet up with him again in Honolulu.

  Charlie says he can arrange further fact-finding tours for next spring, too. There’s interest from Sweden and Argentina. What wayfarers we’re becoming!

  3rd October 1937

  It seems that no one wants us to go to Germany except the Germans. The newspaperman Beaverbrook is trying to dissuade us. He says it’s too controversial a thing to do so soon after the abdication, and that having clashed head-on with Stanley Baldwin, the last thing HRH should do is set a collision course with the new Prime Minister. He says if HRH and Wally hope for an early end to their exile, they must make a friend of Neville Chamberlain.

  Now Forwood tells us that the British Embassy in Berlin has been instructed to offer us nothing more than powder rooms and a cup of tea. Wally says it’ll be the doing of Bunny and Cook.

  She said, “They know we’re going to be a big success. They’re terrified David’s going to stage a comeback.”

  I said, “Is he going to?”

  “That,” she said, “remains to be seen.”

  I wish they’d make up their minds. The last I heard, she had Elsie Mendl’s people combing Paris for a suitable townhouse.

  The maids and valets start off with the luggage in the morning.

  8th October 1937

  A little farewell dinner at the Tour D’Argent. Came: the Ambassador Bullitts, the Marquess of Graham, Fern Bedaux, and Elsie Mendl. The Eugene Rothschilds sent reg
rets. Jimmy Graham says Adolf Hitler doesn’t have any policies as such, only random thoughts, some of which are followed through but many of which are not. According to Elsie, the man to watch is Dr. Goebbels.

  11th October 1937, Kaiserhof Hotel, Berlin

  Charlie Bedaux has been as good as his word. Everything got off to a wonderful start. We were met at the railroad station by a very smart contingent of top Germans. By contrast, the British Embassy sent only a Third Secretary—the Ambassador and most of his suite having chosen today of all days to leave town. So mean-spirited. But Charlie’s friend Mr. Ley had organized sparkling Mercedes limousines to take us to our hotel, with brass bands and an escort of storm troopers and hundreds of smiling Germans lining the route. I can’t say I noticed any of those anti-Jewish shop signs Kitty Rothschild talked about.

  Tonight, dinner with the Otto Bismarcks at the Eden.

  12th October 1937

  Wally and I shopped while HRH visited a ball-bearing plant. He was most impressed by what he saw. He says the workers are given a free meal that provides them with all their daily nourishment, and they have glee clubs and inoculations and beautiful flower beds all around the factory. I wonder what Brumby would have thought of that! We had mines and smelters all over the world, and they were perfectly productive without us going to the trouble of flower beds.