The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor — Part Six

When we sat down in the drawing room after taking coffee, the Prince proposed that we join him in a game of cards, and it happened that I was lucky that evening to a degree that drew attention, especially as he was at my side.. Thelma, near the gramophone, was presiding over the choice of music, and suddenly she proposed dancing. The Prince's face lit up as he agreed to the proposal; then he directed General Trotter to roll up the carpet, and stretched out his arms, inviting Thelma to dance with him.. Then he danced briefly with me and with Connie, and I learned that he was a skillful dancer; but suddenly he seemed tired, and he stopped in the middle of the room, looked at us, and said: Since this is your first visit to the Fort, I want to tell you about the rules here.. There is no trace of any rule... Stay up as long as you like and rise whenever you please.. This is a place for change and rest. And on that he went off early to his bed, so as to wake refreshed and work in the garden.

After the Prince withdrew, the party broke up.. and when I retired with Ernest to our room I spoke to him of my wonder and astonishment at this life the Prince leads, for there was no trace in it of what I had heard about the bachelor Prince who never sleeps before dawn. But Ernest assured me that the Prince's very coming to the Fort was glaring proof of the "bohemian" side of his life: he comes only to escape the monotonous life of the palace and its tedious "routine".. Yet his answer did not convince me, nor did it answer my questioning about the life of this Prince, which I saw as a bundle of contradictions: merry at one moment and sad at others, his personality reveals itself for an instant, only to disappear for hours behind a thick veil.

The morning was of a piece with the night before. When the maid brought our food, she told us the Prince had taken his breakfast an hour earlier and gone out into the garden.. And when I went down with Ernest to the drawing room, I noticed a figure approaching from afar among the garden trees, a pail, shears, and a hoe in his hand.. It was the Prince, with his two dogs, "Cora" and "Jaggs," leaping merrily around him..

I was prepared to accept anything new, but Ernest was not, and so the proposal the Prince put forward took him by surprise.. He invited the guests to help him cut the branches of the "laurel," which choke the growth of the other plantings, and which he calls his sworn enemy, and which he will not cease fighting even if it should cost him his last friend.

When Ernest went up to change his clothes, the Prince took me to the terrace to see the sweep of the grounds surrounding the Fort, and at a great distance I saw a small lake known as "Virginia Water"... He introduced me to the various trees, and to the plantings he had set with his own hands, and from time to time he would remark that this place was not beautiful by London's standards of beauty, yet to him it was paradise. Then, as if catching himself, thinking he had gone on too long about the private things dear to him, he fell to apologizing again, saying there was no need to trouble anyone else with such talk. The guests had arrived with their gear, and everyone looked

like a band of rebels — the Prince of Wales and the weekend guests; we worked for hours, and with Thelma and Connie I left the men to pursue their revolt against the laurel branches, and when they returned to the Fort after us, fatigue had got the better of everyone!..

After lunch the Prince took me, with Ernest, on a tour of the house; he wanted us to see every piece inside his rooms, and he was proud of his little library, which contains some pieces written by Queen "Anne".. His room on the ground floor was splendid, with red curtains hanging against the white walls, its windows looking out on the gardens and the groves..

At the end of the day the Prince left his guests and, in the gardener's company, made the round of the remaining grounds, not returning before dark; I heard him knock loudly at the door and then grow quiet in his private room... A little later I heard the door open again, and Thelma told me he had gone off to take his steam bath.. I had not expected to hear of a steam bath here; but I believed the report when I saw the Prince appear among us again with a rosy face, radiant with gaiety and contentment.

So ended our first visit to the Prince's Fort, and from it I retained what I had never expected to learn in all my life about the Prince's strange way of living...

Hardship spread over England in 1932, as it spread to other countries; Ernest's work at the office increased, and I fell ill during the summer. The "ulcer" in my stomach caused me agonizing pain, and I remained under the doctor's watch for several weeks; and I believe this illness in particular came as a result of nerves and pent-up feeling.

We visited the Fort twice in the autumn: once we were invited to tea, and the second time to spend the weekend.. And in the first three months of 1933 we were invited to spend several days at the Fort, at Thelma's suggestion, I believe.. this before we traveled to the United States. Of course Thelma was always there, and so was Prince George, whom I found charming: he plays the piano well, knows the latest jazz tunes by heart, and is equally good at slipping away from our gatherings to seclude himself out of sight.. And here I declare, with every assurance, that if the Prince had begun to incline toward me in this period, I at least knew nothing of it.

I sailed with Ernest for America on the

"Mauretania" in the month of March, and before we reached the Isle of "Wight" I caught sight of a messenger hurrying toward us with a telegram in his hand, signed Edward.. wishing us a pleasant voyage and a speedy return to England.. And I ascertained afterward, from the respect that surrounded us and the extraordinary attention lavished upon us by the ship's captain and his officers, that everyone took us for official envoys sent by the King to America.. and here I cannot deny my joy and delight at that imaginary piece of news.

We stayed two months in America, during which I recovered many of the friendships I had almost lost through distance; and in mid-May we arrived in London... and the old life returned, with many visits to the Fort.

My birthday falls on June 19, and that year Thelma and the Prince prepared a great surprise for me: they gave a dinner in my honor at the famous restaurant "Quaglino's," near "Jermyn" Street, and the Prince presented me with a pot in which an "orchid" plant was set, assuring me it would bud the following year if I kept tending it faithfully.. Of course I kept the injunction, and the Prince had by now become an habitual visitor, dropping in on us without warning; and the plant surprised us with its magnificent blossoms at the very time we had expected, and I began to feel it was the symbol of something I had never noticed at all... For I was thinking, with Ernest, how we might repay the Prince this kindness and generosity; and the Fourth of July drew near, the day the Americans residing in London celebrate, and we thought of giving a party in the Prince's honor. I wrote the invitation in my own hand, and of course he accepted it without hesitation.

I had begun to know some of the foods the Prince likes — he prefers simple dishes — and I made the dinner in the American style. The Prince sat at the head of the table and Ernest at the other end, and so everything went smoothly, and the Prince showed great pleasure in the dinner.

Not long afterward I made a tour with Ernest to Ireland and Norway, and we returned to London at the end of September... We had scarcely arrived when we received an invitation from the Prince to spend the weekend at the Fort; he had been away during the summer, at Biarritz. And I had understood, at the time, that what drew him to us was Ernest's intelligence and his breadth of knowledge; as for me, I was no more than one member among the many who made up Thelma's friends.. whom she chose to invite to the Fort whenever she pleased.

The Prince was still a mysterious legend to me, surrounded by a thick halo which he guarded closely, fearing lest anyone come near it.

I saw Thelma often, and we would lunch together, but a mysterious veil remained between us; our relation was no more than a surface friendship. One day she invited me to a cocktail party on the occasion of her departure for America, and at the end of the party she whispered in my ear that I should look after the Prince during her absence, since he would be lonely — though I had my doubts about the Prince's loneliness... or his need of a companion.

A few days later I was startled by my maid running into my room, saying that the Prince of Wales wished to speak to me on the telephone... It was the first time he had telephoned me himself, and he invited me with Ernest to a dinner he was giving at the "Dorchester" in honor of two American friends, Fred and Jibby Bate... I still remember that dinner for a particular reason: the Prince lifted a corner of the mask from his inner self, and while the guests went off to dance, he began to speak to me of his kingdom, his far-flung duties, the dispersion of self he felt, and then the importance of the role the Empire plays in this age... It was wonderful, and it let me look upon a deep loneliness and a spiritual isolation that no one knew of in him. Again he apologized for troubling me with talk that did not concern me, but I begged him to go on speaking of himself, and I listened to him with my whole being.. And while he was studying me with a searching look, wondering how far my sincerity went, the music stopped, the guests gathered round the tables, and he said: "Wallis, you are the only woman who has shown an interest in my work"... And when

we rose to dance, he asked me to receive him at our house from time to time, when his engagements allowed.. He found pleasure in the ever-changing guests at our home; and one day he stayed on even after the guests had gone, and dinner time came without his noticing the passage of time, so I asked him to join us at dinner that night; and he then shared in many of the dishes he relished, asking for more of them.

It was as if he chose the evenings on which Ernest worked at home: Ernest would excuse himself from staying with us, and the field would be clear for the Prince to talk of his new projects, the growth of his plantings, or the latest American records. And on our visits to the Fort, he would single me out for his company apart from all the other ladies.

Thelma returned to England at the beginning of spring, and it was as if something had happened between her and the Prince. She came once to the Fort, but the old relation had faded; and she came to me one day in the most wretched state and told me that the Prince was avoiding the sight of her without any reason: he would not speak to her himself on the telephone, nor invite her to the Fort. At last she begged me to tell her plainly how far the attachment with the Prince went.. I had been expecting such a question, and so I answered her frankly: I told her that he liked me with the affection of friendship, and I assured her that this did not mean he was in love with me..