Fruity, just returned from his French tour, had received the duke’s permission to go on leave, “H.R.H. was absolutely wonderful all through,” he told Baba. “I think he was better this tour than ever before. He was remarkable. He never gets tired and he was never in a bad temper or a bad humour and interested in everything. There is no question, at jobs like this he is unbeatable.” Soon, these views would alter drastically.
Relations between Wallis and Baba, who kept up a sporadic correspondence, were cordial. On April 8 Wallis wrote from La Cröe, suggesting that Baba came out later in the year. “We have had a lovely second honeymoon. We are delighted to hear that Fruity feels so much better and has gone to England—the Duke wired him to stay as long as he could because it must be a most dreary life at the Ritz marking time for the war to begin. We always want him for dinner at Suchet but that is not very gay—but nothing really is now with this lowering over us always. When will it stop and what then?”
It was a question that was about to receive a terrible answer. All over Europe there was chaos. Britain watched in horrified disbelief as the Nazis invaded first Norway and Denmark (on April 9) and surged toward the Low Countries. Rumor and counter-rumor were rife; as the Nazi forces drew nearer the coastlines of the North Sea and Channel the wildest stories abounded—German paratroopers floating down dressed as nuns, a “fifth column” of spies and traitors who secretly informed Hitler of British plans—and those with any kind of official position were eagerly sought for what they could tell.
Fruity, close to the French GHQ through the duke of Windsor, was one of these, and making the most of it. When Georgia Sitwell met him on April 14 she found herself writing: “Fruity is now so much ‘in the know’ no one else can speak—what the generals think etc.” Baba, too, relished her inside knowledge. When Georgia visited her at Compton she noted that Baba was able to state firmly that although the prime minister had said, “Hitler has missed the bus,” and a number of enemy warships had been sunk, the withdrawal from Norway was inevitable. “She had seen Halifax and Walter Monckton and they both said it was no good going on; the Norwegians offered no cooperation and did not want to fight.”
On May 10, German forces invaded Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. Neville Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill became prime minister in his stead, leading a coalition wartime government. The Home Guard was formed, as Britain’s last line of defense against invaders. Five days later, the duchess of Windsor left Paris for Biarritz. The duke accompanied her and then returned to the Military Mission.
As the Dutch surrendered and the French defenses were pierced (near Sedan), the threat of invasion was in everyone’s minds. Posters went up warning that “Careless Talk Costs Lives,” the Home Guard drilled with what weapons they could muster and contingency plans were laid to prevent the royal family and senior politicians from falling into the hands of the enemy.
Tom Mosley, as Britain’s fascist leader and a man who passionately believed that the war was a mistake, appeared to many an obvious Quisling figure. Even Baba, still in his thrall, had recorded of her first wartime political conversation with him (three months earlier): “I find his attitude quite dreadful; you can’t make him admit Germany is to blame.” On May 16, Irene visited Sir John Anderson, the home secretary, at his request. Anderson asked her if she had any evidence that Tom would betray his country at this moment of its greatest peril, through the “fifth column” or otherwise. Irene replied that, although she had none, “if Tom thought such a thing was good for England in conjunction with Hitler’s regime then he might do anything if he got angry and thought we were mucking the whole thing.
“I gave him bits of conversation from Tom and Diana and I said I had been useless as we had not met for weeks. He said I had given him all he wanted.”
Public opinion had swung violently against Tom. When he spoke on behalf of a British Union candidate at a Lancashire by-election on May 19 he was booed and the BU man polled a mere 418 votes to the Conservative 32,063.
It was clear that France would soon fall—the Germans were turning from the coast to Paris—but the duke, accompanied by Fruity, continued to visit various sectors of the front. By May 19 German troops were approaching Paris; by the twenty-first they had captured Amiens and Arras. “It really is a case of all to stand or die,” wrote Irene that day. “If the Channel ports go, England is bombed and invaded at once.”
On May 22 the government rushed through an Emergency Powers Act that gave it almost unlimited authority over the lives and property of all British citizens. One of its regulations, stemming from an earlier Emergency Powers Act, was that labeled 18B: this empowered the home secretary to detain anyone “who he had reason to believe” was of “hostile origins or associations” or thought to have been involved with anything “prejudicial to public safety or the defence of the realm.” This regulation was now strengthened to include powers of detention over any members of an organization that in the home secretary’s view was “subject to foreign influence or control” or whose leaders “have or have had associations with persons concerned in the government of, or sympathetic with the government of, any power with which His Majesty is at war.”
The fascist newspaper Action the following day brought matters to a head. “The question has been put to me why I do not cease all political activity in an hour of danger to our country,” Mosley wrote. “The answer is that I intend to do my best to provide the people with an alternative to the present government if, and when, they desire to make peace with the British Empire intact and our people safe.”
Poised to act, the authorities now swooped. That afternoon the BU offices were raided and over forty people detained. Tom was not among them. An evening newspaper headline announced that the Conservative MP Captain Maule Ramsay had been arrested that afternoon.
When Irene arrived home the telephone was ringing as she walked through her front door. It was Viv—to say that her father had been arrested at Dolphin Square in Pimlico and taken to Brixton Prison. Irene begged her niece to come and stay but she said she would rather remain at Denham and that she would tell Nicky.
Irene passed the news on to Baba and Lady Mosley, then went to the dinner party to which she had been invited. “I felt that if I chucked they would think I was in sympathy so with black grief in my heart I went out. On my way back I saw a light in Donald Somerville’s room and I rang to ask him his thoughts of Tom. He told me to impress on Viv and Nick it was not a disgrace but a precaution. I could only see one thing clearly: Thank God Cim was dead.”
Tom’s detention in prison raised several questions. Who would decide things for the children? Would Diana become their guardian as well as their stepmother? This thought prompted Irene to ask the Canadian high commissioner, Vincent Massey, with whom she was dining, if he did not think Diana was as dangerous as Tom. Should she write to Sir John Anderson to that effect? Massey agreed. Feeling in any case was running high: the Mosley Day Nursery in Kennington was vandalized, its glass sheds and sun parlor smashed.
Baba, still in a state of nerves over her children, was doing what she often did when strung up: flailing out at those nearest to her. The first to fall victim to her black mood were Irene, who had argued strongly against sending the children to America, and Fruity, who was castigated for not writing. His reply, on May 24, contained an unusual touch of sarcasm.
Well, I really should have thought that knowing you are always so well informed with the news, you would have understood why you had not received any letters. Perhaps the short line I did send you, at the first opportunity, explains this, if you have not been getting much war news.
These last few weeks have been a great strain. Today the situation is much the same, if anything it is worse. I am very busy, going anywhere at a moment’s notice, day or night. Each night (and day) we have been expecting the German bombers and tanks to arrive. We have two or three alerts each day.
You ask me if I will still remain in Paris! Good God, I don’t know if ther
e will be a Paris in 24 hours. What or where I will go to God again knows. You speak of an interesting time. Yes, it is all that and more. A lot more. Re your remark about the German tanks having wings or part of the French Army having them, well the latter is very true, unluckily.
As you now know, the 9th Army could not “take it.” The General and all his staff are now either shot or prisoners of war. It has been a terrible shock and surprise. I fear there are bigger shocks to come. HRH came back two days ago. I am uneasy about him. He might do anything. Anything except the right thing. I live from hour to hour, fearing to hear the worst. He talks of having done enough. Of course do not repeat any of this. Gray P is no use in an emergency. None at all. Anything he says is the worst advice possible, or else he sits mute, which is even worse and more dangerous. I do not know what will happen. W. is like a magnet. It is terrible. I have seen a great deal and hear everything. I can’t yet work out what Thomas and I will do, or where even to try to make for, if the situation changes much worse (I refer to one’s life and also should HRH make his fatal decision). I’ll write when I can.
By May 25 the British army was separated from the French and Boulogne was in German hands. As the Channel ports fell one by one, Britain waited in suspense. Everyone believed that invasion was now days rather than weeks away. In Paris, Fruity followed the routine set up by the duke. Sometimes the arrangements for the following day were already known or could be made the evening before; when this was not so, Fruity would telephone the following morning for orders.
One evening toward the end of May Fruity said his usual “Good night, sir. See you tomorrow.” When he made his customary telephone call the following morning at eight-thirty and asked to be put through to the duke he was answered by a servant who said: “His Royal Highness left for Biarritz at six-thirty this morning.”
Fruity, who had worked for months without pay, doing everything he could to support the duke and make the lives of the Windsors easier, found himself abandoned without a word by the man he considered his best friend, to find his own way home as best he could.
He wrote to Baba at once, a letter that was a paean of rage, misery and disillusionment. After advising her to take the children for safety at once to Cornwall or Devon where, with luck, there would be sun, bathing and tranquillity, he went on to say that his own situation could not be much worse.
Re my Master, he has run like 2 rabbits. He never made one single mention of what was to happen to me, or his paid Comptroller Phillips. He has taken all cars etc and left not even a bicycle!! He intended to go at 6:30 a m. the morning before he did go without even telling me he was going but was held up for petrol or something. He has denuded the Suchet house of all articles of value and all his clothes etc. After 20 years I am through—utterly [several underlinings]—I despise him—I’ve fought and backed him up (knowing what a swine he was for 20 years), but now it is finished.
Live at Suchet, you suggest. No thank you—I’ve been busy doing anyone’s job, taking papers etc, but only used when there was no one else. Everything is packed up at the Mission. I cannot yet figure out where I go or what I do—but I will do something, believe me. I have ideas, as I always have, I guess they will not come off but it will not be for want of trying! Our rifles are at Purdeys—get them. I am like a sheep without any fold—Mission No I is not on the map for me. Now no more. Fondest love to you and the children.
PS Re Walter M I cannot of course advise him to any kind of action. But, I say this, if Walter works once again or does anything for HRH then I say he is demented. The man is not worth doing anything for. He deserted his job in 1936. Well, he’s deserted his Country now, at a time when every office boy and cripple is trying to do what he can. It is the end. He said to Gray something about coming back later on!!! Yes, he’d come back and her when things are OK. F
To the duke he wrote briefly from the Travellers Club in the Champs-Elysées on June 3:
I am leaving for England this evening. I hope there to work in some way more actively than I have been able to do for the past few weeks. I do not mind what I get to do but I will then feel that I am helping my country more than I have been doing lately.
My position here since you left has been impossible and one I cannot stand. I have had not one word from you, Sir, and so can only surmise that you intend to stay where you are now.
I am sorry, Sir, to leave your service, but I feel sure that it is the only thing to do. I thank you, Sir, for all your past kindnesses to me, also for helping me to come out to France with you in September.
I will say Goodbye, Sir, and wish you and Wallis the very best of good luck. Please remember me to Wallis.
He ended the letter “Yours ever.”
Baba never forgave the duke for abandoning Fruity in Paris. She felt he had behaved appallingly and it increased her protectiveness toward her husband—although it did not alter her behavior one whit.
As for Fruity, he struggled back to England, arriving on June 5. The effect on him of this total and unexpected betrayal by the man he had loved, trusted and faithfully served was disastrous. At a stroke, he had lost not only one of the two main pillars of his life but a job that had given him back much of his self-respect after years spent helplessly watching his wife’s affairs with other men.
Irene’s days passed in committee meetings, war work, good causes and speeches—to the Federal Union Club, the Sisterhood in Lees Hall, the Canning Town Settlement, where she spoke as the sponsor of a movement called Responsibility, which aimed to inculcate in everyone a sense of personal responsibility. “I am convinced that we must put our own house in order, during this tragic conflict, before we try to tidy up Europe after the war,” she said, using as example the poor housing, nourishment and education brought to light by the mass evacuation of underprivileged city children. She spoke well and fluently, with all the force and passion of someone who believes deeply in what she is saying.
With Tom in prison, the question of the guardianship of his children came up. On June 10—the same day that Italy declared war on France and the Windsors, now at La Cröe, were entertaining Maurice Chevalier—Tom’s lawyer, who had seen him in Brixton Prison, told Irene that Tom had said he would have nothing more to do with his children if their guardianship was taken from him—and Denham would be barred to them. The next day Irene’s lawyer met Tom’s, who took a more sober line than his client by suggesting joint guardianship between Tom and Irene. Irene’s response was that she thought the difficulties of the situation and their divergent views would make this unworkable, an opinion strongly endorsed by her solicitor. The matter, he said, would be settled in court.
Less than a week later the first German troops entered Paris, making the collapse of France a virtual certainty and Britain’s peril even greater. All that Tom Mosley stood for was more than ever abhorred and, as stories of the infamous behavior of the Nazis in occupied countries began to trickle back to England, those in authority who knew of Diana’s close friendship with Hitler scrutinized her more closely than ever.
When Irene saw her close friend (and former father-in-law to Diana) Lord Moyne, he told her that he felt Diana was more dangerous than Tom but that she was to be allowed to continue her life at Wootton “in case she was useful to the Home Office.”
On June 25 Irene’s solicitor passed on the guardianship verdict. Although the judge was willing to waive all question of guardianship and cooperate with Tom on important issues, Tom had flatly refused this. “He wanted entire and complete control of the boys—he was not interested in the girl!” reported the solicitor. As Tom had said that he wanted sole guardianship—obviously impossible from prison—or nothing, after much deliberation the judge had no other course but to request guardianship from outside. Irene’s name was put forward and accepted. Tom’s reaction was to send Irene a message that he would never again have anything to do not only with the guardianship but with the care of his children.
That night, Irene wrote in her diary: “God in his
inimitable way has handed me Cim’s children. May they see the possibilities and not blame me and may Cim from afar be assured I will do my duty.” What effect this total rejection from their surviving parent might have on the children she did not speculate.
That evening, June 30, Diana was arrested at Denham and taken to Holloway Prison, leaving behind her Alexander and her second son, eleven-week-old Max, whom she had been breast-feeding. No one knew how long she would be detained but it looked as if the problem of Denham would soon be resolved: the War Office had sent someone down to inspect Savehay Farm with a view to renting it. Agreement came through in a few days and, stifling her revulsion, Irene kept all Diana’s jewelry, brought up by Andrée, in her own house for safety.
In July 1940, after the Windsors’ flight to the South of France had taken them through Spain, Portugal and a series of indiscretions, the duke was reluctantly offered, and as reluctantly accepted, the governorship of the Bahamas. The duke, ran one of the protocol instructions that preceded him, was to be accorded a half-curtsey, the duchess was to be called simply “Your Grace.”
As her husband’s late employer sailed with his duchess for Bermuda, Baba took her family to Scotland. Here Lord Halifax wrote to her, gossipy letters full of inside knowledge. “Hitler hasn’t invaded us yet. The latest date to be tipped is [July] the 11th when I hope to be at Garrowby. Full moon 15 or 17 and the waning moon doesn’t suit. So I am counting the days off till 17th!”
For Irene, a bank holiday visit to Cliveden and to a nearby military hospital churned up some painful memories of that earlier war in which she had lost so many friends and potential suitors. “I could not face the ward, the medics, the nurses, the blue uniforms of the wounded, the sickening smell of ether again—the whole of me revolted in anguish.” After this wretchedly evocative experience, she too set off for Scotland; here, much of the time was passed in inconclusive but increasingly angry rows about the various possible permutations of Micky’s schooling, punctuated by outbursts from the unhappy Fruity—“a most ugly diatribe on Baba’s selfishness in not wanting to come north and when he was ill spending all her time with Lord Halifax.”
The Viceroy's Daughters Page 38