The duchess, p.28
The Duchess, page 28
Ernest raised his eyebrows. ‘And this is the man who worries about the unemployed.’
Wallis leapt to the prince’s defence. ‘But he does! He spent ages tonight telling me about his new campaign for pithead baths. Apparently the mine-owners don’t want to install them.’
‘Let me get this straight.’ Ernest replaced his coffee cup in its saucer. ‘You were drinking champagne so expensive that the label had been removed as some bizarre act of social one- upmanship, whilst talking to the heir to the throne about the ablutionary arrangements of miners?’
‘Well, yes. But what’s wrong with that?’
‘Wallis, doesn’t it strike you as a little weird that he always wants to discuss the poor whilst surrounded by the privileges of the very rich?’
‘Not at all!’ she blazed back. ‘Where else is he supposed to discuss them? He’s the Prince of Wales. That’s his life.’
‘My point exactly,’ said Ernest, picking up his briefcase and leaving the room.
But the prince’s life, the more she saw of it, seemed less a privilege than an imprisonment. The long arm of the king was ever present. He had complained to his son about his nightclub habits.
‘He always goes to bed at eleven and so he thinks staying up beyond that is immoral,’ the prince ruefully told Wallis. ‘The Embassy’s perfectly respectable but he’s never seen it and so he thinks it’s dissolute.’
‘It’s crazy.’ Wallis shook her head. ‘You’re not a boy any more. And how does he even know where you are?’
The blonde brows darkened. ‘Spies. Charles Cavendish tells his mother, who’s Mamma’s Mistress of the Robes. Smarmy as be damned, both of them.’
Wallis sighed. ‘You need to get away from all this. Take a holiday.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, but that will just set off Papa again. He hates my jaunts abroad.’
‘He never leaves the country, though,’ Wallis pointed out. ‘But someone in the royal family has to. On the mystery shopper principle.’
‘The what?’
She raised an eyebrow, teasingly. ‘Well you wouldn’t know about such things, lofty as you are. But in the States they’re a method of research in department stores. I applied to do it, once.’
He brightened immediately. He found her job-seeking stories amusingly exotic. She suspected that he had never had a friend who had had to look for one before. ‘Tell me!’
‘Well I didn’t get the position, obviously. But the idea is that someone from a marketing company goes into a shop to see it as shoppers do. See what’s right and what’s wrong.’
He shook his golden head in wonderment. ‘I never knew. But what’s it got to do with the royal family?’
‘I would have thought it was obvious. Royal family members should go to other countries occasionally and view Britain as foreigners do. Hear their criticisms, which can be more important than their compliments.’
He drew excitedly on his cigarette. ‘Wallis, that’s genius.’
A few days later, she and Ernest met at the breakfast table again. Wallis collapsed happily into a chair and poured herself a coffee. She had some news.
‘David’s taking a house in Biarritz in August. He wants us to come and stay.’
She expected Ernest to brighten, but he did not.
‘Good timing I’d say,’ she added. ‘You’ve been working so hard. You deserve a rest.’ She stretched out a placatory hand and patted his arm.
He looked at the hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. Something in his tone made her gather herself and sit up, tucking her evening dress beneath her. She waited.
He took a breath and raised his head. ‘I’ll be in New York in August,’ he told her.
‘Again?’ She was puzzled. ‘But you’ve only just been.’
His round brown eyes, so open and friendly usually, had a look she had not seen there before. Guilt, with a touch of defiance.
She touched her forehead. ‘Mary,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ How could she not have realised? There had been more than one visit to New York since Mary had been in London. Many telephone calls. They couldn’t all have been about silver hallmarks, Wallis thought now. But in the whirl of her new life, she had not realised. Perhaps she had not wanted to.
‘Have you actually slept with her?’ she asked. He covered his face with his large hands. ‘I’m sorry, Wallis.’
She shook her head. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’ She meant it. What sort of a wife had she been to him? She smiled at him. ‘You deserve some happiness.’ She paused and swallowed before asking, ‘Do you want me to divorce you?’
There was a silence. The prince skittered across her mind. He could not remain friends with a twice-divorced woman. But the dread now gathering within her was entirely about losing Ernest. His steady companionship and comfort. His sanity and gentle humour. His great good sense. Life without it was unimaginable. She loved him dearly, in her way. But her way was not enough, obviously. How could it be?
Ernest was looking at her sadly. ‘I don’t want you to divorce me. I would hate that. But I can hardly expect you to want to remain married to me.’
Her hand shot out and clasped his. ‘But I would, Ernest. I do!’ She looked at him pleadingly. ‘It’s all my fault anyway. I’ve never been a normal sort of wife.’
His eyes were wet with tears. ‘I didn’t marry you because you were normal, whatever that is. I married you because I loved you. And I still do.’
‘And I you,’ she assured him. ‘You’ve been a wonderful husband to me. And once all this is over …’ She raised a hand in the air which took in the Fort, Mayfair and Mary, ‘we can grow old together. Look back on our memories.’
She went over to him and put her arms round his broad chest. He felt firm and solid, reassuringly real. He put his arms around her and drew her tight. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you,’ he said, into her hair.
She clung on to him, feeling anchored. ‘Nor I you.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘Boulevard de Prince de Galles, Avenue de la Reine Victoria, Avenue Edouard VII. I’m guessing’, Wallis smiled, shading her eyes from the powerful sun, ‘that you’re not the first member of your family to come to Biarritz.’
‘Apparently Queen Victoria used to come and drive round in a donkey cart. But I’m the first to stay here!’
The villa was built in the modern style, low, boxy and white. The material seemed to be concrete.
‘It looks kind of like a factory,’ Wallis mused, following the prince up the steps.
‘It is a factory. A fun factory. And fun is what we’re going to have.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Once we get away from that lot!’
He meant the bevy of Palace officials who the king had insisted accompany his forty-year-old son on holiday. A couple of disapproving Palace equerries, Trotter and Aird, were supplemented by the military establishment in the form of a Lieutenant Commander Buist and his unprepossessing wife Gladys. Given this degree of supervision, Aunt Bessie, whom she had invited along as chaperone in the absence of Ernest, was hardly necessary.
And yet it was a comfort to have her. She watched fondly as the elderly lady moved up the steps to the villa with an agility belying her near-eight decades.
Beyond the wide arched doorway a marble-floored hall was dominated by a curving staircase rising to the rooms above. In front, a vast white salon led on to a huge, white terrace. The views across the bay were spectacular. Wallis went to the balustrade and looked over. Out at sea, white sails ploughed leisurely through the blue. The wide stretch of ocean made her feel restless. She had the impression she was on the edge of something more than merely land.
The prince appeared behind her. ‘Let’s slip off for supper on our own.’ His blue eyes were sparkling. ‘Some simple bistro on the seafront with rough wooden tables and candles stuck in bottles.’
And so they did, he slight in shorts and sandals, she slender in a shirt and skirt. ‘We could be any ordinary couple on holiday,’ he beamed as the waiter, who had evidently recognised him, showed them to the best of the rough wooden tables.
Part of her felt she should point out that they were not a couple, ordinary or otherwise, nor could they ever be. But a greater part was profoundly thrilled. And so she did not correct him. Instead she sipped her drink, a dark orange liquid with a powerful kick.
He stared into the flickering flame of the wine-bottle candle. ‘They were so dismal, these cottages on the riverbank.’ He was talking about a recent visit to Newcastle. ‘I met a man about forty, poorly but cleanly dressed and with an honest face. “What is your trade?” I asked him. “Foreman riveter,” he answered. “How long is it since you have worked?” “Five years, sir.”’
He paused to split a langoustine. ‘Five years without work! Can you imagine? And what was I supposed to say to him? That he just had to be patient?’ He drained his wineglass and thumped it back down on the table, eyes burning.
Recognising the signs, she sought to distract him from his fury. She had grown adept at managing his moods. She saw that she needed to act or he would just drink more and become more angrily despairing. ‘I once tried to get a job in the steel industry,’ she said.
His face lit up at once. ‘Did you, Wallis?’
She nodded. ‘A friend in Pittsburgh, whose husband owned a steel firm, thought I could sell tubular scaffolding.’
He snorted into his drink. ‘Tubular scaffolding!’
‘Actually, I rather fancied the idea,’ she went on. ‘I saw myself in my best suit, heels and hair perfect, but with a head full of rock-hard figures.’
She saw that his face had lost its stiffness and was mobile and lively again. ‘And what happened?’
‘Well I went to Pittsburgh and saw my friend’s husband. ‘Know anything about construction?’ he asked me. I had to admit that I didn’t. Then he asked me if I’d ever studied engineering. I told him never.’
The prince was laughing loudly. She frowned, taking on the personality of the steel factory owner. ‘Can you use a slide rule?’ she growled. ‘Can you do calculations on the spot?’
‘No, sir!’ the prince protested, in a falsetto meant to be her.
She shook her head sadly. ‘The world of the steel tycoon was not for me, it turned out.’
‘And thank goodness it wasn’t!’ the prince exclaimed. ‘I’d have never met you otherwise!’
They ordered more wine. Music struck up, some folk band with violins. It was melancholy, the notes drawn out and sobbing, reminding her of the way he played the bagpipes. She thought of all he had endured, all they both had. His mood had dipped again too. ‘I can’t imagine it, being free to look for work,’ he said glumly. ‘I’ll never have that opportunity. I’ve had a job waiting for me all my life.’
‘Yes but you can do such good with it!’ she reminded him, as always when the talk reached this point. ‘You can help so many people when you are king.’
He gave a determined sort of nod. ‘Yes I can, can’t I?’
‘Of course you can! You’ll bring the monarchy close to the people. Make it relevant.’
He nodded, happy again. ‘What would I do without you, Wallis? No one else believes in me.’
The water was silver beneath a pearly sky. Yachts had moored for the night. Wallis narrowed her eyes to see the name of the nearest. Rosaura.
‘Isn’t that Moyne’s?’ The prince drew on his cigarette. ‘Didn’t realise he was here. I was at Oxford with him. He’s one of the Guinnesses and quite staggeringly rich. His mother was worried about him underspending his student allowance. Nice problem to have, I always thought.’
She stared at him, a thought starting to form, but then he laughed, fixing her with his blue eyes so everything else dissolved and she laughed back. ‘Wonder if he’ll lend it to me for a couple of days,’ he added, looking speculatively at the boat then back at Wallis. ‘One can get tired of Biarritz.’
Whatever his real feelings, Lord Moyne was only too delighted to hand over his yacht to the heir to the throne. The chaperones at the villa were less than delighted to hand the prince his freedom, but the yacht’s small size and the resident crew meant a strict limit on passengers. Wallis found herself ploughing through a sparkling but choppy sea with her euphoric companion manning the wheel and setting the course down the coast. She settled herself in the most sheltered spot she could find and watched the red rocks of the west become the golden bays of the Riviera, always with the steep and snowy mountains behind.
They disembarked at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where they wandered the Old Town’s narrow, shady streets and explored the cool and ancient churches with their incense and Madonnas. The market with its wealth of flowers and food amazed her. Beneath the striped awnings of the stalls was astonishing abundance and variety: tomatoes, potatoes and onions of every size, shining green courgettes, marbled mauve aubergines, sea-fresh silver fish.
‘Do you know what I’m pretending?’ he said, as they walked along.
‘No, what?’
‘That we’re just an ordinary couple doing the shopping.’
She smiled at him. ‘A lovely thought.’
‘Isn’t it?’ There was real yearning in his voice. ‘I would so adore to do just normal dull everyday things with you, Wallis. Live a normal life.’
She caught his mood, and briefly imagined a world without Win, without Ernest, without all the mistakes and complications. To start all over again with a clean slate. With him. She looked up at him and he tilted his head towards her and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her and then for a second he did, grazing her lips with his for the briefest moment.
It was like a bomb going off inside. The shock flashed along her nerves, roiled in her stomach. She felt no revulsion or terror. Only desire and want and need.
Her lips burned and seemed to swell like something budding and bursting into bloom. She felt herself open up like a flower. She wanted to be touched again, kissed again. She breathed fast, shallow breaths, struggling to regain control.
‘This is the best holiday of my life,’ he said, looking straight into her eyes as if swearing a sacred oath.
She had now recovered enough to speak. ‘Mine too.’
‘Let’s not go back! Let’s run away together!’
‘Ha! We can’t do that! I haven’t got any clothes.’
‘We can buy clothes wherever we end up! Where should we go?’
There was a wild light in his eyes; he really meant it.
‘David,’ she said gently. ‘We can’t. Not in real life.’
He groaned. ‘I can’t bear it any more.’
‘Bear what?’
‘I’m not entirely sure how to live without you.’
The sky seemed to tilt and the surroundings to blur. She reminded herself fiercely that he must have said the same things to Thelma, to Freda. The thought was like treading water, keeping her head above the surface.
‘You lived quite well without me before you met me,’ she said.
‘Yes, but it’s killing me now.’
‘Don’t say that. Be sensible, David.’ But even as she spoke she felt the water closing over her head.
‘I can’t bear to think I could have gone my whole life without meeting you.’
‘I’m a dime a dozen.’ But she was below the surface now, sinking, sinking.
They sailed back under a great yellow moon. They stood on the deck and studied the rippling path of light that it cast. It stretched brightly to the horizon, dancing with promise. He stood close but did not touch her and the warm air between them seemed to crackle with desire. She felt the stars pulsing above and the ocean swelling beneath. He moved and she held her breath. His mouth met hers, at first lightly and then more urgently.
‘Are you sure,’ he murmured into her shoulder.
‘No. I’ve had bad experiences at this sort of thing.’
He laughed. ‘So have I. But shall we give it a go anyway?’
They lay on the deck and explored each other. He was slow and careful. He stroked her like a frightened animal might be stroked, delicately building trust. Rigid at first, she gradually relaxed. She had not realised that what Win had done so brutally could be done so gently. Afterwards, they clung together. He was so light, she thought. She held on, so he could not float away.
‘There,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
‘No.’
‘Shall we do it again?’
‘Let’s.’
‘I love you, Wallis,’ he told her afterwards. She smiled back at him, sure that he didn’t mean it but grateful for this to have happened. He had freed her. She felt full of a new joy.
On their return to the villa she found a concerned Aunt Bessie on the terrace. She snapped shut her book and got straight to the point. ‘Bessiewallis, what’s going on?’
‘Going on?’
‘These old eyes aren’t so old that they can’t see. What on earth happened on that boat?’
I realised what I had been missing all these years, he restored a part of me I thought gone for ever, I found joy.
Wallis turned and looked into her aunt’s anxiety-creased face. ‘You don’t have to worry about me. I’m having a marvellous time. It’s all great fun.’
‘That’s exactly why I’m worrying,’ the old lady flashed back. ‘If you let yourself enjoy this kind of life, won’t it make you restless and dissatisfied with everything you’ve ever known before?’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Wallis said testily. She was nearly forty, after all.
Bessie sighed. ‘Have it your own way. But I tell you that wiser people than you have been carried away and I can see no happy outcome to all this. If it goes on something terrible will happen.’
‘Like what?’
Aunt Bessie sighed. ‘Let me be blunt. This liaison could wreck your marriage and leave you high and dry at the end. If Ernest divorces you and the Prince moves on, what then?’
Wallis stared back out to sea. She could hardly tell Bessie what she and Ernest had decided between them. Let alone that Ernest had a mistress of his own. ‘The prince will move on,’ she said. ‘He has to get married.’ But she knew even as she spoke that she felt differently about it all. The prince finding a bride would be more complicated now.
