The American Duchess. Anna Pasternak

the silver syringe’, she was addicted to heroin, cocaine and morphine. In the summer of 1929, Edward tried to intervene and even drew closer to his parents, the three of them united in their concern for George. Eventually, Edward persuaded Mrs Preston to move abroad and more or less incarcerated George in the country. He took full responsibility for helping his brother beat his addictions, telling Freda Dudley Ward how exhausting it was to be ‘doctor, gaoler and detective combined’. Aiding Prince George come off drugs illustrated Edward’s capacity for kindness and commendable behaviour. Even King George was impressed. He wrote to his son: ‘Looking after him all those months must have been a great strain on you, and I think it was wonderful all you did for him.’

      Sadly, Edward could not hold his father’s praise for long. Eschewing stuffy court life, he began to drop in on the Simpsons at Bryanston Court for tea or cocktails, enamoured with the ‘gay, lively and informed company’ Wallis liked to keep. Young British and American businessmen, foreign diplomats and Wallis’s girlfriends would gather. The prince found the conversation ‘witty and crackling with new ideas’. Edward later wrote: ‘Wallis had an intuitive understanding of the forces and ideas working in society. She was extraordinarily well informed about politics and current affairs. Her conversation was deft and amusing. But most of all I admired her forthrightness. If she disagreed with some point under discussion, she never failed to advance her own views with vigour and spirit. That side of her enchanted me.’

      Where Wallis was not honest with the prince was concerning the financial strain that she and Ernest were under, constantly trying to keep up with the prince’s set. Entertaining lavishly was beyond their means. Although Ernest’s father, ‘Pa Simpson’, helped financially, from time to time he would withdraw his allowance, creating huge pressure on the couple. Wallis wrote to Aunt Bessie that ‘Pa S – the most selfish old pig’ – had stopped their allowance. They could only afford to host one dinner party a month.

      On 19 June, the Prince of Wales threw a surprise dinner party for Wallis’s thirty-seventh birthday at Quaglino’s, a restaurant off Jermyn Street. Edward gave Wallis an orchid plant as a gift. As it was the prince’s thirty-ninth birthday four days later, she gave him a present that she had put much thought and effort into. She had borrowed a royal spoon from Osborne, the butler at the Fort, and had the prince’s cipher copied and engraved onto a silver matchbox holder. The first letter the prince preserved from Wallis was the note she wrote accompanying the birthday present:

      Sir – Many happy returns of the day.

      This small ‘presy’ is to conceal Bryant and May’s (match) books on your dining table at the Fort. I am also enclosing your own spoon which I borrowed from Osborne for the marking.

      Your obedient servant, Wallis

      ***

      That summer, news of the Prince of Wales’s interest in Wallis reached his mother, Queen Mary. Elizabeth, Duchess of York wrote to her mother-in-law about the matter on 1 August 1933:

My darling Mama, when I was at Cowes with you, Papa‡ one day mentioned to me that he had heard that a certain person§ had been at the Fort when Bertie & I had been there, & he said that he had a good mind to speak to David¶ about it. I never had the chance to reopen the subject, but I do hope that he won’t do this, as I am sure that David would never forgive us into being drawn into something like that. I do hope that you do not mind my mentioning this Mama, but relations are already a little difficult when naughty ladies are brought in, and up to now we have not met the ‘lady’ at all, & I would like to remain outside the whole affair.

      With again all my grateful and loving thanks darling Mama for all your kindness and sympathy which I appreciate more than I can ever say,

      Ever your loving daughter in law

      Elizabeth

      Although the Duchess of York had not met Wallis at Fort Belvedere, she had in fact been skating with the duke and the prince’s party, which included Wallis and Thelma, five months earlier. Queen Mary replied on 20 August, reassuring her daughter-in-law:

      Darling Elizabeth,

      I am so sorry, I quite forgot to answer yr letter to me at Cowes. Of course Papa never said a word to D about Belvedere so all is well for I agree with you that it wld never do to start a quarrel, but I confess I hope it will not occur again for you ought not to meet D’s lady in his own house, that is too much of a bad thing!!!’

      The Yorks had never been frequent visitors to the Fort. The duchess, ever conscious of her position, was not comfortable with its air of informality. A photograph taken by Thelma Furness during her reign as chatelaine shows a group of eight guests; seven are sitting around the pool relaxing in swimming costumes, while the Duchess of York sits alone, resplendent in a dress, hat and pearls.

      Wallis and Edward went on separate summer sojourns in August. The prince holidayed in Biarritz, while Wallis and Ernest extended a business trip of Ernest’s in Norway, staying with their friends, the Thaws, who were stationed in Oslo. That autumn, they were again regulars at the Fort while Wallis stoically nursed her private strain: more frantic concerns about money. She and Ernest faced the prospect of having to sell Bryanston Court. Dinner parties were reduced to eight guests, every six weeks, and she was restricted to having one girls’ lunch a month of no more than four women. She continued to lunch at the Ritz or Claridge’s with Thelma, à deux, and in November was excited to be invited to a dinner that Thelma gave where she met Noël Coward. (Coward later said of the Prince of Wales: he ‘had all the charm in the world with nothing to back it up’.)

      The prince had started giving Wallis gifts: a photograph of himself in a leather frame, a table for her drawing room – that she chose – for Christmas. Wallis declared Christmas ‘lovely and gay’ and that New Year’s Eve, she and Ernest partied with the playboy prince until five in the morning.

      On 25 January, Thelma left for a three-month trip to America to visit her family. In November, Wallis had written to Aunt Bessie: ‘I am going to miss Thelma terribly when she goes to NY after Christmas.’ The day before she sailed, Thelma and Wallis met for cocktails. ‘We rattled along in our fashion,’ Wallis remembered, ‘as we said goodbye, she said, laughingly: “I’m afraid the prince is going to be lonely. Wallis, won’t you look after him?” I promised that I would.’

      Thelma’s recollection of events is subtly different. In her memoirs, she wrote: ‘Three or four days before I was set to sail, I had lunch with Wallis at the Ritz. I told her of my plans, and in my exuberance I offered myself for all the usual yeoman’s services. Was there anything I could do for her in America? Were there any messages I could deliver? Did she want me to bring anything back for her? She thanked me and said suddenly: “Oh, Thelma, the little man is going to be so lonely.” “Well, dear,” I answered, “you look after him for me while I’m away.”’

      On Monday 12 February, Wallis’s letter to Bessie illustrated the extent to which Wallis heeded her friend, and in the process became indispensable to the demands of the prince. ‘Darling – I have been very slow with letters these past 2 weeks. We have inherited the “young man” from Thelma. He misses her so that he is always calling us up and the result is one late night after the other – and by late I mean 4 a.m. Ernest has cried off a few but I have had to go on. I am sure the gossip will now be that I am the latest.’ Six days later, she wrote: ‘Am also behind on my letters to you on account of the prince who is here most of the time or telephoning 2 and 3 times a day being completely at a loose end. However Thelma will be back very shortly.’

      The prince’s interest in Wallis intensified during a dinner that he hosted at the Dorchester Hotel for some American friends on 30 January. Earlier that day he had been in Yorkshire, visiting social welfare projects, villages and working men’s clubs. He was astonished that evening, while the other guests were away from the table dancing, when Wallis sat with him, enquired about his day and actually appeared