MARRIED LIFE WITH JACQUES WAS GLORIOUS. MARY loved the way he touched her, making her skin tingle, the way he made love so gently and ardently while whispering in his romantic French accent how beautiful she was and how much he adored her.
She liked arranging their apartment, which overlooked Washington Square in Lower Manhattan, and planning meals to please Jacques when he got home from his new job as an insurance broker. She bought his favourite red wine to serve with dinner, although she didn’t much care for it herself, and she planned entertainments for them: poker evenings, or visits to tiny jazz clubs in the Village, just walking distance from home, where live bands played so close to the audience you could see the beads of sweat on their foreheads and hear every breath they inhaled. They mixed with other young married couples, either neighbours or Jacques’ business colleagues, dining at each other’s apartments, drinking and chatting late into the night. Occasionally they visited the Upper East Side home of Renée du Pont and her businessman husband John Donaldson, but they were hugely wealthy and Mary felt embarrassed about issuing return invitations to her much humbler address.
Her happiness was complete when, a year after their wedding, she discovered she was expecting a child. She had missed two monthly bleeds before she called on a doctor, who confirmed the news. Jacques was beside himself with joy, and every day when he returned from the office he brought some small gift: flowers or bonbons for her, a rag doll for the little one.
‘I see you have decided the sex of our first child already.’ She smiled. ‘Have you consulted a fortune-teller?’
‘I can sense she is a girl, and that she will grow up to have your extraordinary beauty,’ he said, a hand cupping the barely-there curve of her belly.
But one day, as she sat writing a letter to her mother, she felt a twisting of her insides so agonising she screamed out loud. The maid came running and Mary gasped for her to call a doctor and to telephone Jacques. By the time they arrived she was lying on the sofa, blood-soaked towels between her legs, racked with sobs.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she told Jacques. The disappointment etched on his face made her feel a failure as a wife. She hadn’t been able to keep his baby safe.
‘It’s all right, mon amour.’ He clutched her hand, squeezing her fingers hard.
The doctor asked Jacques to leave the room while he conducted an intimate examination. He palpated Mary’s belly, checked the matter that had been expelled, took her pulse and temperature, then asked her permission to examine her private parts. She coloured deeply but gave her consent.
‘You have a little sore patch here,’ he said, touching it. ‘And another. Have you been feeling tired? Any joint pains, or skin rashes?’
‘I thought those were symptoms of pregnancy,’ she replied.
The doctor scraped a little material into a test tube and promised to call on her again just as soon as the results of his tests came back.
It was a week later when he returned, and at first he seemed embarrassed to tell her and Jacques the outcome. ‘I’m afraid to say you have syphilis,’ he mumbled. ‘A disease that is transmitted through sexual relations.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Mary cried, her face burning with shame. ‘I have only ever been with my husband.’
Jacques looked pale and shocked. ‘I had it several years ago but was assured it had been cured.’
‘Which treatment did you use?’ the doctor asked.
‘I applied mercury every day for several weeks and it burned the sores away. How can the disease still be there?’ He seemed close to tears.
Mary stared at him, wondering how he had caught syphilis. She had not known there were others before her. Why had he not told her?
‘Mercury is the old-fashioned approach. We have a new treatment now, a drug called Salvarsan. I will give you both daily injections for a month. If you refrain from marital relations during that time, you will both be cured. Give yourself a few months to recover,’ he counselled Mary, ‘and then there is no reason why you should not fall pregnant again.’
Jacques was crying silently, trying to wipe his tears without her noticing.
Mary had to ask. ‘Is it because of the syphilis that I lost my baby?’
The doctor bowed his head. ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’
Jacques gave a loud sob, leapt up and ran from the room.
Later that evening, he cried on her shoulder as he told her about the girl who had infected him during the first months of the war, when he was lonely and had sought comfort. He had not realised that she had offered the same comfort to many other soldiers, and had been devastated when the army medic diagnosed the disease.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Mary soothed, stroking his head. He smelled of wine and she guessed he had drunk a few glasses to take the edge off his anguish. ‘At least there is a sure way to cure it.’
That should have been the end of it, but Mary found it hard not to dwell on the girl Jacques had taken to his bed. How had she caught syphilis? Had there been any other girlfriends apart from her? He refused to answer further questions, saying it had all happened long before he met Mary and there was no point in dragging up the past because it would only hurt her more, but his reticence led her to imagine the worst. It also made her wary of resuming marital relations, in case the infection recurred, but eventually her burning desire for a child overcame her deep humiliation.
She fell pregnant again just over a year after they finished the course of Salvarsan, but almost as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed, she miscarried.
‘It was too soon,’ the doctor advised. ‘Your body wasn’t ready. Give it time.’
In May 1921, while Mary was still in mourning for the second child she had lost, a letter arrived from Wallis: Dearest Mary, I wonder if I might visit you and Jackie for a few days later this month? I must talk to you on a matter of vital importance.
She was surprised, as they had drifted apart since Wallis had been living on the West Coast. They still corresponded, but much less frequently. Weeks would go by with no news, and when a letter did arrive from San Diego, it was full of descriptions of glamorous parties Wallis had attended in the fashionable Hotel de Coronado and movie stars she had met, including John Barrymore (‘the most hilarious drunk’) and Charlie Chaplin (‘a peculiar little man’).
Mary wasn’t sure what to reply. She didn’t feel like company, would find it hard to put on a gregarious mask and pretend to be the person she used to be as a teenager when she and Wallis were close. But at the same time, she couldn’t bear to let her friend down, so she replied asking when Wallis would like to arrive.
A maid showed Wallis straight into the drawing room and Mary leapt to her feet to embrace her. On first glance, she could tell something was terribly wrong. Wallis had always been skinny, but now she was skeletally thin, with dark shadows under her eyes, and she looked a good five years older than her age of twenty-five.
She threw herself onto a chair and blurted out, ‘I’m leaving Win,’ before bursting into a torrent of weeping, her face buried in her hands.
Mary hadn’t seen her cry like that since Mr Rasin died. She knelt by her feet, and took Wallis’s hands in her own. ‘Oh you poor dear. Are things really so bad?’
‘They’re worse than bad,’ Wallis sobbed. ‘I have to leave him but no one will support me. Uncle Sol says he won’t let me bring disgrace on the family. Mother says that being a successful wife is an “exercise in understanding”, and that I must try harder. But it’s like serving a life sentence in jail. I won’t do it. I can’t!’ She cried even louder, and Mary took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the tears.
‘There, there,’ she soothed. ‘We will think of a solution. Let me call for refreshments.’
Wallis managed to calm herself in the presence of the maid. Once she had left the room, Mary asked: ‘Now tell me what is so wrong with your marriage. Is Win unhappy too?’
‘He’s a drunk,’ Wallis said bitterly. ‘A violent, brutish drunk who doesn’t love me. I don’t think he ever did.’
‘Of course he loves you. It’s clear to everyone.’ Mary wasn’t being entirely truthful; she had rarely seen Win behave in a loving manner towards Wallis. ‘And hasn’t he stopped drinking now that we have Prohibition?’ The 18th Amendment, passed the previous year, had banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol throughout the United States.
‘Of course not! Alcohol is more popular than ever now that it’s hard to buy. Isn’t it the same in New York?’
Mary admitted that they always kept some wine and bourbon in the house; she wasn’t sure where Jacques bought it and thought it better not to know.
‘It’s not just the drinking,’ Wallis continued. ‘It’s his completely unreasonable behaviour. Several times now he has locked me in the bathroom and left me there all day while he went out. Can you imagine? One time he even hog-tied me to the bed. You don’t do that to someone you love, do you?’
Mary was horrified but not entirely surprised. She remembered the smashed glass in Pensacola, the cruel words, the moodiness. ‘Why does he tie you up?’
Wallis turned away. ‘It’s his pathetic jealousy. To his mind, every man I speak to is a secret paramour. If I dare to dance with another man at a party, all hell breaks loose. Win calls me names you wouldn’t believe when he’s fried: tells me I’m a whore and that I have a face like a horse. Oh God, Mary, it’s unbearable.’ Her lip was trembling, and she was clearly on the verge of another crying jag.
‘Does he hit you?’ Mary whispered.
‘A slap now and again. I can put up with that; it’s the way he talks to me that is the worst kind of cruelty.’ She shook her head. ‘I have to divorce him while I’m still young enough to get another husband. I don’t want to leave it too late.’
‘Divorce is a big step, though.’ Mary had heard of couples divorcing but there were no divorcees in her social circle. Adultery was the only grounds on which a divorce would be granted in New York State, and it always caused a huge scandal. ‘What would you live on?’
Wallis looked worried. ‘Win must surely pay me some alimony; don’t you think? And I suppose I could get a job . . .’ she continued doubtfully.
Mary knew Wallis had never wanted to work; she would consider it beneath her to be tied to an office or a shop job. No, she would want to find another husband as soon as she possibly could. And no doubt she would succeed.
Wallis changed her clothes before Jacques arrived home from the office and greeted him in a black organdie dress trimmed with white lace.
‘You look très élégant,’ he told her admiringly.
‘Black is the spring colour in France this year,’ she told him. ‘If a frock isn’t all black, then it’s black and white.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mary remarked cheerily, looking down. ‘I’m completely out of date with my cerise gown from last fall. You’ll have to buy me a new one, dear.’
Jacques embraced her. ‘Anything you want, mon amour.’
Over dinner, Wallis monopolised the conversation to ask Jacques’ advice on her situation. ‘Perhaps you can recommend insurance products to suit impoverished single women,’ she suggested. ‘Once I am on my own, I will rely on my gentleman friends.’
‘You won’t be single for five minutes when word gets out,’ he replied gallantly. ‘In fact, I’m sure I spotted a line round the block. Perhaps we can invite them in for interviews later.’
‘Oh yes!’ Mary giggled. ‘Can we choose your next husband for you? Two heads are better than one.’
‘Of course,’ Wallis agreed. ‘But I want someone just like Jackie: every bit as handsome, with his wit and perspicacity and that divine French accent. Do you by any chance have a twin?’ She placed a hand on his arm and Mary felt a fleeting twinge of irritation.
‘You should visit Paris,’ Jacques suggested, shifting his arm to pick up his glass. ‘You won’t be able to move for Frenchmen falling at your feet.’
‘Doesn’t that sound fun?’ Wallis twinkled. ‘I’ll book my ticket next week.’
As they got ready for bed that night, Mary asked Jacques what he thought of her friend. They had only met fleetingly at the wedding so it was the first time he’d had a chance to make lengthy conversation with her.
Jacques paused. ‘You’ve spoken so highly of her in the past that I was curious to compare the real Wallis with the legend. And you were right in most respects: she is clever and entertaining and gay.’ He put his arm round her. ‘But I was disappointed to see that she is not very loyal to you. I would be wary of her.’ He kissed the tip of her nose.
‘Do you mean because she flirted with you? Wallie can no more keep from flirting than she can from breathing.’
‘No, because she will be your friend only for as long as you are useful to her.’
Mary didn’t reply, but the words stuck in her mind long afterwards.
Over the course of the week, Wallis and Mary went shopping together and lunched in some of the city’s top restaurants: Delmonico’s, Sherry’s and Henri Mouquin’s. They had tea with Mary’s lady friends and illicit cocktails with Jacques’ business partner and his wife, and all the time they talked endlessly about Wallis’s problem.
‘Is it completely hopeless with Win?’ Mary persisted. ‘Are you sure it cannot work if he promises to mend his ways?’
‘I know. I should try again. That’s what everyone says.’ Wallis stared at her lap. ‘You’re right, of course.’
It felt strange being the wiser of the two; it was a reversal of roles for them. Mary was pleased that Wallis had turned to her in her hour of need, and glad to be able to help. She had a deep love for her childhood friend that had taken root in their teenage years. Secretly she hoped that if Wallis did divorce, she would settle in New York and they could be close again: like sisters but better, because they had chosen each another.
Before she left New York, Wallis said she had decided she would give Win one last chance. But two weeks later, a letter arrived saying that she had moved into her mother’s apartment in Baltimore. She simply couldn’t bear to spend another night under the same roof as ‘that man’.
Mary told her mother, who told her sisters, and all were horrified.
You must cut your ties with Wallis, her mother wrote. She can blacken her own name if she likes, but I will not have any stain on you because of your association. Her family must be livid.
Ignoring the instruction, Mary sent a long and sympathetic letter to Wallis, saying that any help she and Jacques could offer was hers, and that their door was always open. She was worried about her friend. Divorced women were generally excluded from polite society, which would make it difficult to find another husband of suitable rank. Wallis might find herself alone and struggling to make ends meet if Uncle Sol refused to support her, and Mary shuddered to think where a woman in that position might end up.