When I returned to London, I had to look for a new home, and Ernest and I decided to gather in this home of ours the largest possible collection of objets d'art and antiquities.
And for the first time in my life, I was able to arrange the home I had been dreaming of; it was in the modern style, yet it rested on a firm foundation of old history. Our house soon became a center where friends met — a mixture of Americans and Londoners...
It was my habit to return home at six o'clock, however far away from it I might be... and this led our friends to come calling on us at just that hour, when I would offer them a "cocktail" and we would sit down to talk.
Several stories have been told of my meeting with the Prince of "Wales," but this is the story as I know it, drawing for that on my husband's recollections; he believes we met for the first time in the autumn of 1931... He was right about the season, but our meeting goes back a year earlier... At that time Aunt "Bessie" visited us, and
I traveled with her and Ernest to Europe, and our journey ended in Paris... I was thinking of buying a dress from one of the famous fashion houses of Paris, and Ernest and my aunt did not approve of such extravagance, but that did not deter me from the idea of buying a few elegant dresses... This makes me certain of the year of our meeting... "Thelma," or "Countess Furness," was one of the friends who had joined my circle, and it was said in London circles that the Prince was fond of her — some even said she was his mistress; her sister "Connie" was my friend as well, and I once received an invitation from her, telling me to accompany her to her sister's house to help her prepare the house to receive the Prince of Wales, who was going on a hunting trip with some companions, and they would spend the weekend at her place... She told me that we would play the part of hostesses while we were there...
My feelings were a mixture of alarm and joy; like everyone else, I was dying to see the Prince. Thelma was attractive; she had wide eyes and black hair parted in the middle and drawn back in the form of a "chignon," while her complexion had the purity of a camellia blossom, and her figure was slender and willowy.
I kept thinking to myself: whatever would I say to the Prince?... How would I receive him?... And "Connie" increased my self-confidence when she told me that he
was not difficult and that he liked Americans... Ernest consented to accompany me, and so we accepted the invitation together, and on the way he whispered in my ear, saying: All that is asked of you, my dear, is to behave naturally... I had brought with me the dresses I had purchased in Paris;
among them was a gray and blue dress of "tweed" cloth, and a hat "to match it," both of them fit for receiving the Prince of Wales...
It may have been my excessive excitement that brought on an illness in every part of my body; as for the agitation that seized me, it was beyond description... What is it like to receive kings and princes?
And her husband Ernest Simpson with one of her friends, Mary Raffray, who later married Ernest.
Wallis and the Prince of Wales at one of the receptions — what drew him to her was that she read four newspapers a day!