“Oh, don’t mind Hutch,” the king hushed her, as Evangeline twisted round to find out where exactly the unwelcome pinch had come from. “Hutch is such a naughty man, but we forgive him everything for that voice, don’t we?”
A little later a man at a neighbouring table was asked to leave when a waiter spotted a badly concealed camera beneath a bowler hat. The following day the Star newspaper carried pictures of Wallis on the dance floor, although no accompanying text identified her as the woman in the arms of the king, and Evangeline was relieved that the shot had missed the earlier moment of the bottom pinch.
Evangeline’s summer plans took an upturn when Wallis telephoned to confirm an invitation to join the king’s annual summer cruise round the Mediterranean in August. And when a blue envelope arrived in the post at Hamilton Terrace the following day, Evangeline knew the invitation was securely in the bag. The assurances that Wallis proffered when “on the horn” often came to nothing, but if a telephone call was unreliable, the written word counted. Wallis had added a postscript that it would be helpful if Evangeline could accompany her on the way home from the holiday on a shopping expedition to Paris. Mrs. Simpson had evidently become a woman who required a lady in waiting and Evangeline was happy to accept the position, even if she was tactful enough not to acknowledge that this was the service being required of her. The prospect of such a glamorous holiday on the yacht would require more than a little weight loss, Evangeline pledged to herself. She felt distinctly apprehensive at the thought of undressing in front of people with the physique not only of Wallis but also of the alarming Lady Diana Cooper, whose name was also on the cruise guest list.
One Friday lunchtime in the middle of July Evangeline was discussing the holiday wardrobe with Wallis over a rare lunch in the king’s new apartments at Buckingham Palace. The king had never liked the grey building at the top of the Mall, associating it with the stuffy years of his childhood, and as a result he spent as much time as possible at the Fort. But official duties such as Trooping the Colour and the presentation of medals involved short overnight stays in the London residence, and Wallis often accompanied him there.
That day her expansive hand gestures showed off the ruby and diamond bracelet that encased her wrist, while pinned to her navy blue jacket was a huge diamond broach that Evangeline could not remember seeing before.
Fortieth-birthday presents, perhaps, Evangeline wondered, twisting the signet ring on the little finger of her own left hand, a confirmation gift from her godmother Joan all those years ago. The finger beside it seemed more naked than ever. As Evangeline contemplated her absence of jewels Wallis shifted nearer her on the sofa and was now sitting slim thigh alongside thick.
“So, Vangey, perhaps we should think of getting you a new canine friend? I expect you are still missing Wiggle and we have had some happy news. Slipper is about to become a father. Let me make you a little happier, with a new puppy, Vangey. You always look so anxious.”
And suddenly Evangeline’s unadorned fingers found themselves clasped within those encircled by precious stones, the physical contact returning Evangeline in a moment to the distressing events of two decades ago. Confessing to a sudden rush of heat Evangeline got up and moved over towards the open window.
Below her in the Mall all appeared orderly. The Union flags were flying and a small crowd was waiting for a glimpse of the king, who was expected to ride past at any moment. Earlier that afternoon, the wide-open spaces of Hyde Park had provided a perfect stage for Edward VIII’s presentation of the king’s Colours to three guards regiments. Horses huffed and stamped and pawed at the grass. Helmets gleamed in the sunshine. London was July-blowsy with the weight of full-grown leaves on the trees. A military band wound its way through the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner, the drums and trumpets alerting those royalists waiting at Constitution Hill that the king was on his way.
As the small figure on horseback wearing his ceremonial scarlet uniform and bearskin emerged through the arch, he passed a man in a brown suit with a snappy moustache holding a newspaper. Suddenly the newspaper fell from the man’s hand revealing a revolver pointed directly at Edward VIII. With impressive speed, the king’s personal detective knocked the gun from the man’s hand to the ground as a policeman moved forward quickly to arrest the would-be assassin.
Throughout the day worried officials were shown in and out of the king’s private apartments, trying to unravel the security lapses that had made such an incident possible. Given that two further rounds of ammunition had been found in McMahon’s bag, the fragility of the king’s physical safety as he went out and about doing his “kinging” job had been exposed. Special Constable Anthony Dick, who had been detailed to look after the king that morning, came into the king’s private sitting room to explain what the police had discovered. An Irish journalist, George Andrew McMahon, had pulled a loaded gun on the king, and the quick thinking of the detective had saved the king’s life. Constable Dick confirmed that the assassin was mentally unbalanced. The words “May I love you?” had been found written on his discarded newspaper. The full implications of the gunman’s intentions were received by the king with impressive calm.
An equerry knocked at the door. He was holding a telegram. “Please forgive the interruption, sir, but this is a message of some importance, sir.”
The few words pasted in ticker tape onto the cream paper conveyed the Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler’s anxiety at “the news of the abominable attempt on the life of Your Majesty” and included his heartiest congratulations on the king’s lucky escape.
“Interesting how fast news travels these days,” observed the king. “Who would have thought Hitler had heard of the incident already? He must have his spies everywhere.”
Wallis and Evangeline had been sitting quietly in a corner of the room for the past hour. Wallis had been unnaturally subdued. However, on hearing about the telegram Wallis jumped up.
“That will be down to Ribbentrop, David. He is already taking his ambassadorial duties most seriously, you know, even though he hasn’t yet arrived in London for the appointment. I hear he is due in a month or so, which is rather nice. Even so, he never misses a trick! We must remember to give him a welcome dinner as soon as he arrives.”
Evangeline and the king simultaneously caught Constable Dick’s concerned expression.
“What is it, Constable?” the king asked, a note of defensiveness in his voice.
“Excuse me, sir, but I have neglected to point out one further detail we have discovered about McMahon. He was seen only a few days ago selling the Blackshirt, sir, the Fascist Party newspaper, sir.”
“Yes, well, that is most interesting, Constable. And we are most grateful for everything you have done.”
Realising he had been dismissed, Constable Dick made a neat little bow, and then, as an afterthought, a formal nod of his head in the direction of Wallis before leaving the room.
Wallis was more shaken after the assassination attempt than Evangeline had ever seen her. Despite being kept on the periphery of her friend’s social life, Evangeline remained eager to be useful. The complications of Wallis’s relationship with the king were becoming greater with each passing day and friends should stand by one another no matter what. Although Wallis spent most of her time in the company of the king, her affection for Ernest had never been in doubt. Evangeline wondered how far the tolerance of a husband could be pushed. And she had not been certain where Wallis’s genuine romantic centre lay. Was it with the king or with Ernest? But things were changing. Recently Ernest and Mary Raffray had been spending a great deal of time together and Wallis had begun to mind. Just two days after Wallis’s fortieth birthday on 19 June, a waiter had carried the breakfast tray up to the room occupied by Mr. Ernest Simpson in the notorious Hotel de Paris in the village of Bray. Not more than half a dozen miles from where Mrs. Simpson was in discussion with the fashionable interior decorator Lady Mendl about altering some of the furnishings at Fort Belvedere, the Bray
waiter noticed that a woman in a yellow floral hat who gave her name as Buttercup Kennedy had joined Mr. Simpson under the covers. Whipping out a camera from beneath a white napkin, the waiter took a picture of the couple in bed. That same day, when presented with the photograph, Wallis wrote immediately to Ernest to inform him he would be hearing from her solicitor. Not long afterwards, Wallis made arrangements to move out of her marital home, Bryanston Court, and into a flat of her own on Cumberland Terrace in Regent’s Park.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One day in late July Evangeline was invited by Wallis to join what she called a “family-only” weekend party at the Fort. Wallis’s splendid aunt, Mrs. Bessie Merryman, had arrived for a short visit from New York and soon the three Americans were catching up on news from back home. The Queen Mary had sailed into New York Harbor for the first time to a huge welcome. A heat wave in North Dakota had reached over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in a series of terrible fires that had killed many people. Mrs. Merryman was reading Gone With the Wind, a marvellous new novel about life on a plantation in the Deep South. She recommended it.
As if in mind of high temperatures, the king announced he was going to have a steam bath and disappeared into the basement, reemerging some time later dressed in his evening clothes, scarlet in the face, and beaming as he gleamed. The steam bath, along with the bathrooms en suite and the central heating system, were all additions to the Fort that the king had made himself under the influence of the luxuries of the New World, which he had visited several times when Prince of Wales. Not even Chatsworth could boast such modern comforts, he told his guests with pride.
After dining on oysters brought up from the duchy’s own oyster beds in Cornwall, accompanied by several glasses of pink champagne, the king had impressed Wallis’s aunt by playing a song from the Scottish Highlands on his bagpipes. Gratified by her applause, the king told her that there were some who failed to share his passion for the pipes. The conductor Thomas Beecham had once been bold enough to remark to the king himself that he preferred the sound when safely seated the other side of a mountain.
The next morning, after standing on the highest point of the garden and showing “Aunt Bess”—as the king affectionately called her—the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral through his eyeglass, the king had insisted on a Saturday afternoon expedition to have tea with his brother Bertie.
“David just loves his new car,” Wallis explained to her aunt indulgently. “It’s an American station wagon, would you believe? Yes! And he far prefers it to the stuffy old Rolls.”
“And where are we going in this lovely new car, Wallis darling?” her aunt asked, amused by her niece’s sudden enthusiasm for machinery.
“Oh, we’re going to take a short hop over to see the Duke of York at Windsor,” Wallis replied as she went to her room to put on her driving hat.
As the party from the Fort arrived, whirling with a dramatic flourish twice around the circular driveway at Royal Lodge, the Duke and Duchess of York were waiting for them at the front door.
“Don’t you think it’s a bbbbb, a bbb a bbb-it rrracey for the lanes of BBBerkshire, David?” Bertie began.
“Oh goodness, Bertie, you are an old stick in the mud,” retorted his brother, grinding out his cigarette in the gravel. “This car is all the rage, don’t you know? Have you seen the way it moves? Wallis arranged it for me! Isn’t she the most clever girl?”
Elizabeth stood at her husband’s side, her brilliant blue eyes radiating scepticism. Evangeline knew of Wallis’s suspicions that “Bertie’s little wife” disapproved of her and assumed this disapproval to be founded on jealousy. Wallis was convinced that the Duchess of York secretly regretted settling for the second son in the family. Bertie was without doubt the less exciting brother and Wallis was keen to cushion these tense family meetings with other people, preferably outsiders. However, on that particular afternoon the atmosphere over at the lodge was lightened by the arrival of the king’s young niece Elizabeth.
“You like my new car, don’t you, Lilibet? More fun than others, isn’t it? It’s like settling for a bowler instead of a stuffy old topper, isn’t it?”
Elizabeth and the king got along famously with one another. They had a running joke that involved Lilibet curtseying to her uncle every time she saw him. At her every appearance, whether emerging from the shadow of a tree, peering round a door or popping up from behind the car, the sight of this charming child always prompted the same question from her uncle. “Have you forgotten your manners, Lilibet?”
In response the curly-blond ten-year-old would stretch the pockets of her jodhpurs outwards with her hands as if she was wearing a full ball gown and drop down to the ground in one respectful sweep. And every time uncle and niece would roar with laughter.
Inside the lodge tea was served, with orange juice for Lilibet and her six-year-old sister, Margaret Rose. Evangeline was enchanted by the girls. Lilibet reminded her of Florence down at Cuckmere Park. Both girls were exactly the same age, but Evangeline was conscious of the difference between them. One had all the freedom in the world, while the other was restricted by the weighty protocol that came with being the niece of a king.
The next morning, back at Fort Belvedere, Wallis was busy attending to matters of the household, instructing the servants to anticipate her guests’ every whim. Wallis’s preference for blond-haired staff was evident beneath the white lacy caps of the housemaids. The king was pruning his ubiquitous rhododendrons as he did at every spare opportunity, as well as weeding the herbaceous borders. Mrs. Merryman was catching up on her sleep in the blue bedroom upstairs, just across the corridor from her niece. Evangeline seized her moment. Struggling into her stretchy black swimming costume with its clever front fastening and thigh-concealing overskirt, it occurred to her that it was not unlike a ballet dress that might be worn by Tchaikovsky’s black swan. Fleetingly she wondered if Julian was enjoying those cunning elasticated swimming trunks she had given him before adding her raincoat over the top of her costume as an extra layer of concealment and hurrying out of the front door.
Passing the old battlements, with some two dozen ancient cannons ranged along their front, Evangeline half slithered down the slope that led to the high walls surrounding the swimming pool. Climbing roses tumbled over the stone, and a few petals had fallen in the wind, making a confetti puddle on the grass below. Several years ago, the king had transformed the area around an old lily pond into something resembling an outdoor sitting room with comfortable upholstered chaises to stretch out on and little trolleys filled with everything necessary to fulfil the urge to drink and smoke.
At the centre of this beautifully arranged scene, the pool glittered in the morning light. The pool was the hub of summer life at the Fort. On tables in front of the curved wall into which a long low stone bench was set, the drinks trays were already in place. A dazzling choice of wines, spirits and jugs of freshly squeezed orange juice faced the thirsty guest. Any Sunday morning weariness might be relieved by a champagne cocktail or the restorative elixir of a Bloody Mary, a mixture that had arrived two years earlier on the menu at the St. Regis Hotel in New York when Wallis was visiting friends in the city. Wallis liked to be up with the very latest in fashion so Evangeline was not surprised to see this spicy concoction of tomato juice and vodka make its way to the Fort luncheon table. Buffet lunch would follow a few hours later, a meal unrecognisable from an average British alfresco menu. Evangeline had been to several lunch parties in Philip’s constituency half an hour’s drive from Cuckmere, where undercooked slices of chicken accompanied by slices of overcooked egg and congealed swirls of mayonnaise meant that she returned home ravenous.
Lunch at the Fort was eaten on guests’ knees while seated in the cushioned cane chairs by the side of the pool. The spread changed in composition daily and was always supervised by Wallis. The Fort staff would lay monogrammed white cloths over the trestle tables, spread out the buffet, cover the dishes with little bead-scattered cloches made of fine
-meshed wire to keep the flies and wasps away, and retire to the kitchen, leaving the guests to help themselves. There was a deliberate code of informality. The king insisted it should be that way. Guests could choose to eat as much or as little as they wished and although people may have remarked on the extreme slenderness of Mrs. Simpson’s frame, everyone agreed there was no faulting her when it came to providing mouthwatering menus.
Those fortunate enough to be staying for the weekend would find thick ham roasted in honey, piled high onto blue willow patterned plates. There would be a whole salmon, cold with an herb dressing, and biscuity pastry cases filled with mushrooms settled within a rich cheese and parsley sauce, still warm from the oven. Silver lids concealed mounds of waxy new potatoes with knobs of butter melting and seeping deep into the dish. Bowls of homegrown baby broad beans, as small and irregular as green-coloured sea pearls, sat beside plates of tender stemmed asparagus tied in bundles with black cotton bows. Nutty avocados, sent down each day to the Fort in a green Harrods van, were added to lettuces picked from the kitchen garden only moments earlier. And club sandwiches of cold turkey, tomato, and pickle were piled between layers of toast and pinioned to avoid collapse by a wooden sausage stick. The Fort staff was sceptical about this American innovation but there was no deterring Mrs. Simpson about something when she had made her mind up. For pudding there were bowls of sweet strawberries and raspberries and blueberries gathered from the Fort fruit cages and trays of meringues sandwiched together with whipped, sugared cream from the Windsor Home Farm. There had been one much talked of error when Wallis had served a local dish from her home in the southern United States. A diamond-backed terrapin had been sent over in a refrigerated container from Baltimore. Wallis explained that her mother had often prepared the dish and that it had become a family favourite. Apart from the single portion that Wallis placed on her own plate, complete with a wedge of lemon, the rejected reptile was returned to the kitchen intact.
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