The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor — The Eighth Installment

When a man feels that his wife returns the admiration... and the love of the heir to the British throne!!

The members of the royal family used to await these excursions with the greatest impatience; as for him, he was searching for something — for anything new — to be found among the forests on hunting trips, or over the currents of the seas. He held that these traditions were daughters of the past and would soon fade away into its folds, while the future called for everything new... And I felt, most of the time, that I was a part of this new world. The days brought me ever closer to him, to his dark and mysterious cave, until we came to take luncheon alone together, and not a day passed without his speaking with me — to tell me of an idea that had occurred to him, or to consult me on some matter of his household...

Up to this period I had supposed that Ernest's view of the Prince differed in nothing from my own — that of the family friend; but I began to sense a change in his conduct. He took to inventing excuses to be away from the house the moment he sensed a visit from the Prince; then he could no longer bear my talk of Edward's doings and his activities. And there occurred what I had never before reckoned on at all: it happened that the Prince invited me to Kitzbühel in Austria, together with Ernest, saying that our trip would be for skiing and would come at the beginning of February. Without any hesitation I accepted the invitation for us both, and when I told Ernest of it his face contracted and he shouted in my face, assuring me that he did not like skiing and that he had business more important than these trivialities. After dinner that night — we had been silent the whole time — he turned to me and asked whether I was in earnest in my resolve to go... I remember that I answered: Of course, and I shall do nothing else...

When he rose from his chair he turned to me and said coldly that he had been thinking of a trip to New York, but so long as matters were running this

course, he would not try to stop them... He spoke his last sentence as he stepped into his room, and for the first time in our married life I heard him slam its door violently...

In the early days of February the boat that carried us across the sea set off; on board were the Prince, and Bruce Ogilvy with his beautiful wife and her sister, and Commander James Dugdale... The arrangements were excellent, so that none of us felt any fatigue; so too was the hotel where we stayed. And although the companions came back every day with the stories of their adventures upon the snows, and spoke of the splendor of nature in that corner of the earth, it never once occurred to me to venture out; I preferred the quiet sittings before the fire, sipping tea and listening to music...

Two weeks passed in our visit to the snow country, when suddenly the Prince announced the end of the trip; then he went on to say: We shall not go to London, but to Vienna. And so we crossed the Alps by train until we reached the Hotel Bristol in Vienna. The Prince spent most of his days with the English Minister, Sir Walford Selby, accepting official interviews only, and passing the evenings in waltzing. And one evening he came out with one of his surprises: he said that he loved the dancing of Vienna, yet he admired no less the fire of gypsy dancing and its music. And so the next morning we were on our way to Budapest...

I had lived the splendor of Budapest in stories, and had no notion of the reality of life there... nor did I know what magic music held in that place... And because I still remember that evening: an official of the Foreign Ministry led us to a humble place where, he said, the sweetest music was played. I sat beside the Prince at a table in a corner of the darkened hall; we listened to the music, feeling that all the misery of the world was flowing out with those melodies. I looked into his eyes: in them was the same gleam that flashed in my own glances. I felt that I was in a dream and that the world was reeling beneath me; yet this let no doubt into my soul that I would return to my home, to my husband...

And when I returned, Ernest had changed completely. He showed no interest in me, and paid no heed to my talk of the trip, nor to what had happened during it. I do not think there is anything that troubles a person and robs him of sleep more than a state of doubt and total disregard... Such was my condition with Ernest in the days that followed the trip... I do not deny that I was shaken, yet I saw in the distance new doors and unknown horizons opening before me, flooding my life with a new radiance. The Prince ruled my life; the current was rushing on at a speed I did not grasp; and I surrendered to him my fate, and the fate of my future and my whole being, and I began to taste the true flavor of London life.

Among my friends in this period were two ladies whose connections made their houses a meeting place of intellectual and political discussion; thinkers and men of letters would come from England, and from every part of the world, to Lady Colefax and Lady Cunard... And in the house of Sibyl Colefax I met, for the first time in my life, Winston Churchill...

I was still under the influence of assorted musings; and the lines began to grow clearer; then there drifted to my ears the news of the Prince's interest in me... This news had become the occupation of the English clubs and salons. People's curiosity grew, and they set about searching out this woman who had managed to draw the Prince to herself. The news echoed about like a legend that could not conceivably belong to this earth. And in this very period I was receiving numerous invitations to evening parties and lavish banquets, and the hosts, naturally, expected me to

enter accompanied by Ernest and the Prince at one and the same time... They came to watch in my person the one savior who would bring the Prince back into their circles; and it was of course a matter of wonder that this role should be played by an American lady who had been living in London only a short while... And they had their excuse for that, for the Prince had long since given up attending official parties, and instead would flee to the sweet life and to repose, in the arms of nature or in his castle... The Prince came to find comfort in my presence, with Ernest, within the program of his engagements, and together we would oversee the arrangements he intended to make. Nor can I here deny Ernest his kindness: he played his part in the best possible manner, and never once grumbled or complained, though in his inmost self he was not pleased with all this.

That year was full of gaieties and delights, for in it fell the Silver Jubilee, marking the passage of twenty-five years since King George V's accession to the throne of Britain... Never in my life have I seen parties as sumptuous as those given that year, and I attended every one of them. Nor do I forget the great ball held at Buckingham Palace on the 14th of May... After the King and Queen had taken their seats upon the throne, the dancing began. I danced with the Prince, and all the while I felt eyes pursuing me... The King's eyes searched me out however I moved... and I felt that the hall, with all its warmth, had turned into a block of ice and settled upon my head... He was an aged man, drawing near his seventieth year, and he looked frail;

and there passed through my mind a thought at which my body trembled... I remembered what the Prince had told me about his father, and then what problems his death might drag in its train. The dancing went on, and I alone was thinking of the deep gulf that separated my world from the Prince's beautiful world.

The music rang out anew, and what I had been thinking of melted away, and I returned to careless merriment... The spring of 1935 passed, and David decided to travel to Cannes to spend the summer holiday. We were a group of friends, heightened by the merriment of youth and its freedom; and I did not return to London before the first of October... Ernest had, naturally, been invited to accompany us on this trip, but he excused himself as was now his habit, and traveled during my absence to America... And I learned that there were reasons other than business drawing him to travel to America. We had drawn apart from one another; the heart of our married life had dissolved, and nothing remained but the empty shell to deceive the eyes of the world.

I was occupied all that winter: if I did not go to the castle, I would spend the week-end at the house of one of the friends who grew more numerous day by day. I spent New Year's Eve in David's company, while he passed the traditional Christmas Eve with his parents... And then the events of the following two weeks came one upon another — events I cannot describe better than David described them in his book, 'A King's Story.'