The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor — Episode Seven — The World Talks of Our Love

Spring of that year came round, and my life with Ernest was immersed in the Prince's private world. I had begun to feel at home at the Fort, and the Prince, admiring the way I ran our own house, would consult me from time to time, that I might give some directions at the Fort; and so I found myself suggesting new dishes to be added to the menu, or making changes in the arrangement of the furniture, and other things besides...

The Prince mentioned to me once that he wished to return to Biarritz in the month of August, and to rent a house where he would spend the summer holiday, and he invited me, with Ernest, to stay with him. But I informed him that Ernest would be traveling to America on business, and I had asked Aunt 'Bessie' to stay with me in the meantime... whereupon he welcomed my staying, with my aunt, as his guest...

And so Aunt 'Bessie' arrived in early July, and Ernest left a week later; and on the first of August we were with the Prince and the rest of his guests, among them Hugh Lloyd Thomas, General Trotter, John Aird, and Lieutenant Colin Buist and his wife. The Prince rented a splendid 'villa' overlooking the sea and the little bay... and soon I found myself alone with the Prince, from time to time, taking luncheon out... At the end of the month Mrs. Kenelm Guinness joined us — we called her 'Posy' — a fair-haired friend, all liveliness and merriment... She was a relative of Lord Moyne, of the well-known Guinness family... Lord Moyne was cruising nearby in his yacht 'Rosaura,' and 'Posy' suggested that we join him on his cruise. The Prince agreed to the suggestion, having grown weary of Biarritz; but Aunt 'Bessie' wished to travel to Italy, and refused to be turned from her resolve...

The yacht carried us to the shores of Spain, and before the sun went down a thick fog spread, the storms blew, and the sea went mad; everyone took refuge in the cabins, fleeing nature's wrath. Though I love the sea, I could not hold out, and threw myself upon my bed, exhausted, praying that we would reach any shelter at all; and I do not know what would have become of us had the Prince not gathered his strength and summoned a vessel that carried us to the nearest port, where we waited for the storm to subside... 'Posy' and I were persuaded that he was the savior of our lives.

The voyage home went very happily, and we passed the following days between merriment, eating, and rest, and visits to the neighboring harbors... From time to time I would find myself sitting beside the Prince on the deck of the yacht, each of us sharing with the other a silent conversation, watching the open sky and the waves... To this voyage I trace the growth of our friendship into what may be called love... Perhaps it was one evening, as we walked on the sands of the beach at Formentor, in Majorca... But how is a woman to know?... How can she tell?

After eleven days we returned to 'Cannes,' and the world came back to meet us with its parties, its clamor, and its problems...

And one evening, after we had attended a dinner given by Herman and Katherine Rogers, the Prince took a velvet box from his pocket and placed it in my hand... It held an ornament of diamonds and emeralds...

The Prince had promised his mother and father to attend the launching of the ship the 'Queen Mary' on the river Clyde... We all went to Lake Como, where we spent a week, and from there we set out for Arona, in order to travel on to Paris... The Prince returned from Paris by airplane, accompanied by Jack Aird, while we stayed on in the City of Lights to do our shopping...

On the night of the twenty-sixth of September, 1934, I sailed with Aunt Bessie aboard the 'Manhattan' from the shore of Le Havre; she was on her way back to the United States, while I had decided to land at 'Southampton.'

And though the Prince had vanished from before my eyes, the merry wave of his hand kept returning to my mind, and I lived in a sea of sweet mystery, asking myself: Where am I going?... Shall I allow myself to slide down this dangerous slope?... Or is all this a summer's dream on the shores of the Mediterranean?...

It seems my aunt sensed what was passing through my mind, and this is what moved her to ask me, as we sat at luncheon: Wallis... don't you think the Prince is smitten with you?... And I knew her: she was not the sort who likes to thrust her nose into every matter, nor had she ever once tried to force an idea upon me; and I knew at that moment that her question came of her concern for me and nothing else... I asked her in turn what had prompted her to this declaration... She laughed and answered: An old woman's eye does not miss what plays in the glances of a young man like him.

I answered only with a shiver that ran through my limbs; in truth I did not know what to do, or what to say?! Was the Prince enamored of me?... Or was he taken with the delights of that voyage, and the dreaming air in which we had lived, far from his world and from mine?... And I found myself answering Aunt Bessie with perfect composure: It pleases me to be the object of the Prince's admiration!

She measured me with her gaze, then went on to say: But do you not feel that this is casting you into dangerous pitfalls?... If you allow yourself to enjoy this kind of living, nothing of your present or your past will ever content you again. I was frank, and answered her in the same tone, giving her to understand that she did not know what she was talking about, and that all her worries were nothing to me so long as I was enjoying my life and knew where I was going...

My words only made her cling the more stubbornly to her idea, and to her warnings of the grave consequences of recklessness, and on this subject we ended our luncheon... I remained floundering in a world of doubt and questioning... My instinct told me that what had passed in the preceding weeks was no more than a mirage... while another force rose up in my head, opposing and contending against this thought, and pointing another way...

And I turned back to ask myself the reason for this Prince's attachment to me... I was no beauty, and he could gather the pick of the world's lovely women about him... Nor was I a young girl; in my country, women of my age are counted matrons whose day is done... And I thought that the one thing that could draw him to me was my independent American nature, my frankness, my spirit of fun — and then, of course, my interest in him as a human being... And then, he was lonely, and perhaps I was the only one who had managed to pierce the icy curtain through to the depths of his soul; beyond that, there was no tangible substance to feed the supposed affection.

And I come back to myself... What was it that drew me to him?... He was the magic door to the world of fame and glory; and he was natural in his conduct, simple in his way of living, though he had a vast world at his command to turn however he pleased.

And when I thought of all this, that evening, I asked myself: is it conceivable that I — Wallis Warfield of Baltimore, Maryland — should become part of this magic world?... And even as I questioned, I was wishing that this beautiful evil would come to pass.

Ernest was at Southampton with his car, and when he showered me with a stream of questions about how my journey had been, my whole answer was that I could not describe it...

Ernest's view of the Prince changed from that moment; and life went on in this lukewarm air, while the Prince spent a spell with his family at Balmoral... After his return he came to us for luncheon, then invited Ernest and me to spend the weekend at Fort Belvedere...

During that autumn I learned many lessons I had not known about the Prince's life. His brother and friend George intended to marry Princess Marina of Greece on the 29th of November, and this event was enough to occupy society for weeks; yet I noticed that the Prince was living in a gloomy, silent air. He and his brother loved one another; over and above the tie of blood, there was between them a firm spiritual bond... George used to visit the Fort every weekend before his marriage, and I too visited it with Ernest...

Princess Marina was in Paris with her family, preparing the wedding trousseau, and the Prince was to stand beside George at the wedding ceremony. We spent a happy time with George, who loved the beautiful Marina and rejoiced that he would have a home of his own.

Several official parties were held at Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the happy wedding, and I was invited, with Ernest, to every one of them. The wedding was set for eleven o'clock in the morning, at Westminster Cathedral, where the great men of the land and the nobles and members of the royal houses from every part of the world had gathered... The Prince had reserved two seats for me and Ernest in the side gallery of the cathedral, from which we could watch the moving procession and the course of the ceremony... And with the parting of Prince George —

for he had become 'Duke of Kent' — I noticed the gloom deepening in Edward's spirit, its traces showing on his face... It moved me to see a man who had been all vitality, merriment, and energy fading away like this into the mirage of doubt... I did not know whether he too felt it, or pondered it within himself; but I do know that he was searching for some unknown thing upon which to build his life... It is easy for us ordinary people to change our lives as the fancy takes us; for him, that was impossible... And his search for the unknown stirred in me feelings I had never known before... I came to sense a double struggle between his past life and that dim future before him. At this time, too, other changes came about at the Fort; the circle that had wound itself around the Prince's life began to come unstrung, and of his old friends there remained only his cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Duke of Burma. He was no stranger to me, for I had come to know him and his wife Edwina in my Washington days, and I counted him among the attractive personalities... He served in the navy, but his companion soon discovers that this post fills only a limited corner of his mind: he would talk on every subject, just as he showered the Prince with books, manuscripts, and magazines... Yet with all this, the empty circle went on enclosing the Prince's life, and it had clung to him ever since the marriage of his brother George; nor did the traditional journeys through God's wide lands, which it was the royal family's custom to make each year, avail him anything... these journeys availed him nothing, and neither eased his loneliness nor filled his empty days...