Sometimes she dropped Sir Philip off at Number 10, sometimes she waited late into the night outside the Houses of Parliament until he emerged looking ever more anxious. The story of “the king’s matter” finally reached the daily newspapers on Thursday 3 December, triggered by a public remark from a voluble cleric.
The Bishop of Bradford had put a question to the diocesan conference about whether the king had a comprehensive understanding of the full spiritual significance of the upcoming coronation. The British press, silent for so long over the king’s relationship with Mrs. Simpson, allowed themselves to interpret the Bishop’s doubts as their long-awaited licence to reveal the whole story.
Each morning for a week Sir Philip had sat in the front seat of the car either on the way to the House of Commons or to Fort Belvedere, reading The Times aloud as May drove him through the streets of London and the lanes of Berkshire. Under a headline entitled “King and Monarchy,” The Times revealed how parts of the foreign press were “predicting a marriage incompatible with the throne.” The prime minister had not yet commented publicly although the surprisingly modest prime ministerial car was often parked in the Fort driveway during those few frenetic days. On Friday 4 December, under another headline, “A King’s Marriage,” The Times reported that Mr. Baldwin had assured the House that “no constitutional difficulty exists at present” and a couple of days later two lines at last gave some information concerning the woman at the centre of the whole drama.
“Mrs. Simpson left England on Thursday night. It is believed her destination is Cannes.”
On Sunday May was again given the day off and went to the pictures with Rachel. Both women joined the cinema audience as they jumped to their feet and sung the national anthem louder than ever followed by a rousing round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
Mrs. Simpson had released a personal statement to the press.
“Mrs. Simpson is willing to withdraw forthwith from a situation that has been rendered both unhappy and untenable,” it read.
“Well I never. The cheek of it!” Rachel fumed. “She might have thought of that before, Simon, don’t you think? What must his mother be feeling now? It’s Queen Mary who I feel sorry for. Queen or no queen, she’s a mother, and must be as worried as any of us would be.”
On each successive day of the following week members of parliament packed the chamber in anticipation of a statement from Stanley Baldwin. Each day they returned home no wiser about the king’s final decision. Sir Philip and Mr. Monckton were only two of the advisors who hurried through the doors of the Fort, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and 10 Downing Street. Chauffeurs in the employ of the archbishop of Canterbury; the prime minister; Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the chancellor; Mr. Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary; and Mr. John Simon, the home secretary, gathered in servants’ halls and in car parks and in the street with the drivers working for Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Duff Cooper and Sir Oswald Mosley.
May was well known to most of these drivers. During the preceding eleven months she had spent long hours in their company, waiting for Sir Philip and their employers to conclude meetings on which major national decisions depended. If at first these hard-talking, tobacco-inhaling chauffeurs had shown surprise at a woman’s inclusion among their number, they, like the taxi drivers, had quickly come to respect her for her professionalism and secretly to admire her for her comeliness. Indeed, there was more curiosity in Sir Oswald’s driver than in May. Over packets of Woodbines and cups of tea the man who had driven the leader of the British fascists to the march at Cable Street and once to Cuckmere Park was asked to justify his presence within this distinguished group.
“From what I hear on my side of the glass screen,” he explained, “Mr. Baldwin thinks Sir Oswald could help in making the king see sense about his fancy woman. And he’s not all bad, Sir Oswald, you know. He has ideas that some people find appealing. Take my missus for example. She says Mosley wants to give women a good deal, what with offering them the same party member rights as a man. Her women friends agree with her that Sir Oswald talks sense. Can’t see it myself,” he added. “But a job’s a job, isn’t it?”
The other drivers muttered their support for Mosley’s inclusion in the king’s team of advisors. All the chauffeurs were united in their fear that the monarchy was on the verge of collapse and when they were joined late in the proceedings by the driver employed by the Duke of York they all speculated on the role his boss might be playing in a few days’ time.
On Thursday 10 December Sir Philip climbed wearily into the front seat of the blue Rolls-Royce. As May pulled away from the kerb Sir Philip took off his hat and buried his head in his hands. The car crossed over Westminster Bridge, the murky grey water beneath running at speed with the turning tide and Sir Philip tugged his fingers through his long uncombed hair. Eventually he spoke.
“Thank God it is all over. Edward VIII has signed the documents and Mr. Baldwin read us the statement this afternoon. By tomorrow Britain will have a new king, and you and I will deserve a rest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sam was on his way home after a pint with Nat in the Queen’s Arms. He was glad it was a Friday and was looking forward to spending the weekend with his sister and their cousins, especially Nat. Sam had come to regard Nat with the affection and trust worthy of brother.
The pub had been packed with regulars, and Danny, Bethnal Green’s most royalist publican, had greeted the cousins with his usual friendly welcome.
“I would be glad of a bit of advice from you two,” he announced as he filled two glasses to the brim with his home-brewed beer. “I’ve got a problem,” he said, gesturing behind him. “I want to know which one of them I should put in pride of place?”
The same three photographs still leant against a collection of dusty bottles of liquor at the back of the bar as they had done since the beginning of the year, Queen Mary in her pearls sat next to George V on his coronation day and they both looked out from their carriage on last year’s triumphant jubilee tour of London. Danny’s wife, Ruth, had put her jubilee embroidery kit beside the picture of George V. Two lines had been stitched onto the outside of the tapestry case:
Prince of Sportsmen, brilliant shot,
But happiest aboard his yacht.
A fourth photograph had been added to the collection since Nat last looked, showing a grinning Edward VIII, a much-reproduced image taken when the king was the Prince of Wales, a cigarette stuck jauntily in one side of his mouth.
“Now, do I dare put up the new one, is what I am wondering?” By now Danny was laughing. “I mean, you never know who is coming next. George and Mary to start with; then Edward, here for a moment and then gone in a blink of an eye; and now Albert. What a merry-go-round it has all been, hasn’t it Nat?”
Nat and Sam drank their first pint at the bar and discussed with Danny the shocking news of the abdication; it was only when they ordered the second pint that Sam suggested they go to a quieter table in the corner. He wanted to talk to Nat alone. Privy as he already was to the knowledge of May’s parentage, Nat did not show any surprise when Sam outlined the contents of the letter sent by Bertha. With considerable relief Nat now confessed how, on his last visit to his mother in Holloway Prison, Gladys had sworn him to secrecy about an exotic Indian who had once loved her sister. Although Gladys was horribly weak from her prolonged lack of food, she was determined that the family secret should not die with her. Despite his young age, Nat had understood the depth of love his mother held for her sister. When he turned fourteen, he had begun to develop a curiosity in the workings of the adult world and had written to his aunt Edith in Barbados, asking her to tell him something of those circumstances which his mother had hinted at during her final days. Edith’s reply, possibly written out of the relief of finally sharing her secret, contained the entire story of her love affair with Nishy. By return of post, Nat promised that if ever she and her children needed help, he would do all he could to supply it, for
his mother’s sake.
“There are two things I want to say,” Sam began with a new confidence that was not lost on Nat. “The first is that I know you’re going to be a wonderful dad to Joshua and I envy him. And secondly,” and here Sam’s voice wavered for a moment, “you are the best cousin May and I could ever have had.”
As they left the pub, both men walked for a while in silence, the younger slighter blond figure contrasting with the elder, robustly built and dark-haired. As they turned the corner to Oak Street Sam stopped in front of the war memorial.
“I remember how you said these men had done their duty,” he said, almost shyly. “I think we could all learn a lesson from them, don’t you?”
Nat linked his arm through Sam’s and together they walked the short distance to number 52.
“Come in, come in, Shalom Shabbat,” Rachel said, bustling them into the kitchen. The table was laid for the Sabbath feast. “We are having our meal punctually, Nat, as we all want to hear the king, that’s the latest old king, if you see what I mean. He is going to be making a speech on the wireless at ten o’clock tonight.”
Rachel had noticed the newspaper in Nat’s hand. “What have you got there? More terrible news, I suppose?” she asked.
“I made an exception and bought myself today’s edition,” Nat told her. “Couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Take a look.”
Rachel, Simon, Sam and May crowded round the paper.
“Well, I never,” Rachel said, sighing loudly. “I mean seeing it written down there like that. He really is going. Makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean who can we trust, Nat, I’m asking you?”
“I agree with you,” Nat said. “It’s hard to believe that a man who seemed to care so much about this country, our country, I should say, has gone and abandoned us. Love is one thing, I know, but perhaps it should sometimes take second place for kings.”
“Mind you, May knew something was up, didn’t you, May?” Rachel was smiling at her approvingly. “I like a girl who keeps a secret when she’s asked to and you’ve done well to respect the monarchy. I am sure Sir Philip respects you for keeping secrets, my girl, and Sir Philip’s judgement is good enough for me.” Rachel was not the sort to hold a grudge, and had quite forgiven May for pretending the king was enamoured of a member of the Greek royal entourage. She could even have a laugh that things would have been different if he had been. Later that evening, after the Sabbath meal, the whole family gathered round the wireless. As soon as they heard Sir John Reith introduce the former king as “Prince Edward,” Rachel insisted they all stand out of respect.
“You must believe me when I tell you,” the former king began, speaking very slowly in his curious accent, that mixture of truncated vowels and transatlantic roll that was so familiar to May, “that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duty as king as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”
In a voice sounding steady and as clear as if he was speaking to them from the leather settee, the man who had once been king lingered over the personal pronoun, emphasizing, lest anyone be in any doubt, that his decision had been taken by him alone. The Oak Street family, along with a captivated nation, heard his entreaty for understanding, a message intended for anyone, even cynics like Nat, who had ever known what it is to be in love. When the broadcast came to an end Rachel was the first to speak.
“And just to think he could have had his pick of those foreign princesses. Princess Wallis, if that’s who she is to be, is no more royal than Mrs. Cohen or me. Still it takes all sorts to make a world. Put the kettle on, will you, Sarah? I think we all deserve a nice cup of tea.”
May came downstairs the next morning to find the coal fire in the front room already lit. What with the rustling of newspapers, the voices coming from what felt like the ever-intrusive wireless and the cries of hunger that engulfed Joshua at regular hourly intervals, May needed some air. She went to find Sarah who agreed at once to go up to Gardiner’s with May to buy Nat his long-overdue tie. A generous bottle of milk before leaving ensured that Joshua slept the whole way in his carriage and while Sarah was choosing the tie, May noticed some pretty photograph frames edged in delicate blue flowers sitting on a nearby counter.
“Forget-me-nots, they are,” the sales lady told her. The frame was the perfect size for the picture that had been strapped face downwards for so long at the back of her diary. The time had come to turn it over. May bought a matching pair. She would write to Bertha and ask her to look for a photograph of Nishy in the old trunk of letters so that she could keep the image of both her parents near her. On their return to Oak Street May went to her room, running through in her mind the muddle that the whole world and specifically her own world seemed to have stumbled into. Taking her blue diary from the drawer beside her bed, she slipped the photograph of her mother out from beneath the elastic band. The picture fit the frame perfectly and with Edith watching over her, May filled several pages of the diary with the confusing sequence of the past days’ events, as if by setting them down on paper they would become real.
During the long hours before the king made his final and lonely decision, May and Valerie Monckton had sat together in the Fort Belvedere kitchen waiting for their instructions. They discovered much common ground between them, indulging their mutual fascination for car engines, an interest they did not often get the chance to air with many others. Sitting in the servants’ sitting room they had both inadvertently learned of the extent of Mrs. Simpson’s unpopularity among the Fort servants. Loyalty was not a quality to be found here, and a maid with a particularly loquacious tongue spilled the beans about how Mrs. Simpson would come into the empty kitchen at all hours of the night and cook herself bacon and eggs, leaving behind an unholy mess. For months, the Fort staff had despised her insistence on strange American concoctions such as club sandwiches. In fact, Mrs. Simpson’s demands on the staff bordered on the unacceptably high-handed. There was even a story that she regularly snapped off the lead tips of pencils before asking for them to be re-sharpened into severer points. Suggestions of her imminent departure had been welcomed wholeheartedly.
Two weeks before the final crisis, May had been with Valerie in the Fort kitchen comparing the petrol consumption of the Rolls-Royce with that of the Monckton’s Daimler when Osborne announced there had been a change of plan. Miss Nettlefold was leaving immediately for Portsmouth. A ship for New York was sailing the following day and Miss Nettlefold had arranged for an overnight stay in a hotel near the port. There had been no sign of Mrs. Simpson or the king when May had fetched the car from the garage and driven up to the front door of the Fort. Miss Nettlefold was standing alone in the hallway, her small overnight suitcase at her feet.
“I don’t really want to explain my reasons for leaving, if you don’t mind, May,” Miss Nettlefold announced as soon as she was settled in the backseat of the car. Her voice was so weak that May had to concentrate hard to hear her through the open partition behind her. “But I should like to explain to you, a woman who has so often been a friend to me despite your stupidity that caused the accident to my beloved dog, that I have suffered a disappointment of a personal nature and have concluded that I am no longer needed here. It is time for me to return to my own country.” Miss Nettlefold sounded defeated even by the effort of speech. “None of this would have happened if Joan had been able to take care of me,” she said, almost inaudibly, “the mother I had never had.”
The snap of a bag’s clasp being opened was followed by the muffled but unmistakable sound of weeping during which May remained silent. Eventually Miss Nettlefold spoke again, her voice less audible than ever.
“I want to thank you for being a friend to me, May, and to apologise if there have been times when I have behaved a little curtly towards you. I have only ever wished to protect you from your own innocence. I hope you will learn soon that people, especially men, cannot always be trusted and that friends, however close you may
think them to be, can abandon you at their whim.”
May was uncertain to what the older woman referred. Miss Nettlefold had, it was true, made some unkind remarks about Julian but May could barely remember what they were. When Miss Nettlefold asked her to send her clothes to Baltimore, May confirmed that of course she would. On arrival at the Portsmouth hotel May considered whether it would be in order to attempt the intimacy of a farewell embrace. But Miss Nettlefold had folded her arms across her chest and was looking out to sea as the hotel porter retrieved the small bag from the boot. Both women stood by the car and for a moment looked steadily at each another. And then May Thomas watched Miss Nettlefold walk alone into the small quayside hotel, her broad shoulders hunched beneath the flapping fur coat. May had rarely seen anyone look so lonely.
Shortly after Miss Nettlefold’s voluntary exile, Mrs. Simpson also fled the country under cover of darkness and no one, let alone Mrs. Simpson herself, knew when she might be reunited with the man who was no longer king. In a way, May felt sorry for Mrs. Simpson. May knew what it was to be separated from someone who you longed to be with every moment of the day. As if the distressing circumstances of the departure had not been enough, Valerie had told May of the sad news of the death of Loafer, Mrs. Simpson’s puppy. When Osborne, the butler, found Loafer in a cupboard at the top of the stairs, he initially thought Loafer had gone into hiding to escape the raised voices and unsettling hurly-burly of the house, but the body had obviously been stone cold for a while. The local vet made some tests on the dead animal and was puzzled to discover that Loafer’s blood had been contaminated by an inexplicable and lethal dose of rat poison.
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