MARY HAD HOPED SHE WOULD SEE MORE OF Wallis after the separation from Win, but it did not work out that way. At first Wallis stayed in Baltimore with her mother, then she moved to Georgetown to live with a friend, an admiral’s daughter who was supremely well connected. Contrary to Mary’s fears, people did not seem to have any misgivings about entertaining a woman who had left her husband: Wallis wrote of receptions and parties and tennis tournaments where she met politicians, diplomats and high-ranking naval officers. There was never anything personal in the letters; she gave no hint as to her state of mind, but Mary assumed she was on the prowl for husband number two.
Buckie wrote that Wallis was rumoured to be having an affair with an Argentinian diplomat called Felipe Espil; according to her, ‘simply everyone’ was talking about it. Espil had broken the hearts of many society girls and Buckie appeared to take grim satisfaction in predicting that the same thing would happen to Wallis.
Mary found that hard to believe, as in all the time they had known each other, it was always Wallis who had been the heartbreaker. She waited for her friend to mention Señor Espil, but the name never came up, and Mary felt reticent about raising the subject. Perhaps Wallis was unaware of the gossip; perhaps the rumour was pure invention. The next she heard was that Wallis had gone to Paris with her cousin Corinne in January 1924, and later that year, for reasons Mary couldn’t fathom, she decided to sail out to Hong Kong, where Win had been stationed, in order to give her marriage one last try.
By that time, Mary had taken a job in a small boutique near Fifth Avenue, where they sold the latest Parisian fashions as soon as they could be shipped over. She enjoyed the sociable aspects of the work and found she had a good eye for helping society matrons to choose outfits that suited them. In the evenings, she and Jacques went to restaurants or to shows, they entertained or visited other couples, and often they made up a four for bridge.
One evening Jacques invited a business colleague, Ernest Simpson, and his wife Dorothea for dinner. As the introductions were made, Mary thought to herself how rare it was to find a couple where the husband was better-looking than the wife; usually it was the other way around. Ernest was extremely attractive, while Dorothea was plump, dowdy, and looked much older than him.
‘Are you English, Mr Simpson?’ she asked on hearing his accent.
‘Good question,’ he replied with a friendly smile. ‘My father is English, my mother American; I was born and raised in New York City and went to Harvard University, but during the war I took British citizenship in order to fight for them. And now I am married to an American woman. So what do you think that makes me?’
‘A half-breed,’ Mary replied, returning his smile. ‘But you dress like an Englishman, and your accent sounds British to my ear.’
He was wearing an impeccably pressed pinstripe suit and waistcoat, with a hint of handkerchief showing above his breast pocket in the exact dark blue shade as his tie.
‘Yet the English think I sound American, so I suppose I am neither one nor the other.’
‘Or both,’ Jacques contributed. ‘Now can I offer you a real drink?’ He produced a bottle of bourbon and the men had a glass each while discussing its relative merits compared to Scotch whisky, which Ernest preferred.
‘I normally drink wine,’ Jacques said, ‘like a good Frenchman, but it is difficult to find these days. The bootleggers seldom stock it.’
While the men talked about the difficulties of buying alcohol, Dorothea turned to Mary and asked, ‘Do you have children?’
‘Not yet,’ she blushed, ‘but we would like to.’
‘I have girls. My daughter Audrey is two, and I also have a ten-year-old, Cynthia, from my disaster of a first marriage.’ She rolled her eyes.
Mary was surprised that she would mention on first meeting that she was a divorcee, but she soon learned that Dorothea possessed a refreshing candidness.
Over dinner, Ernest and Mary got into conversation about books, and she was pleased to hear he was a fan of Edith Wharton.
‘I thought her novels were of interest only to women, with their themes of courtship and marriage.’
‘On the contrary. I enjoy her descriptions of the nuances of New York society, and think her a talented wordsmith. She can sum up a character in one brief phrase so that you feel you know not just their appearance but their soul.’
They compared notes and when Mary heard he had not read an early one, Ethan Frome, she offered to lend it to him.
‘Do you enjoy reading, Dorothea?’ she asked.
‘Me? No. I’m a dumb Dora. I don’t have the patience for it. I’m always busy with the children or running the house, but I’m happy that it gives Ernest such pleasure.’
After they had waved their guests off, Mary linked her arm through Jackie’s. ‘I like them,’ she said. ‘Let’s invite them again.’
In the early spring of 1925, when the snow had only recently melted, Mary realised she was pregnant again, four years after her last pregnancy. Her breasts were full and tender, and she had a slight nausea that persisted throughout the day. As soon as her doctor confirmed the diagnosis, she left her job in the shop and gave up socialising, spending her days reading on the sofa or resting in bed. She spoke to the little one growing inside her, and Jacques did the same, kneeling down to whisper endearments to her belly.
‘I’m sure it’s a boy,’ he predicted. ‘My firstborn son and heir.’
Mary felt instinctively it was a girl but did not like to argue. She dithered over names – Evelyn, Gloria, Louise – and decided she would let Jacques choose if it was a boy.
At first she resisted telling anyone, superstitious in case it should go the same way as her earlier pregnancies, but when she was around two and a half months gone, she wrote to Buckie, and her elder sister immediately came to visit, full of advice and caution.
‘You must take it easy. Twenty-nine is very old to carry your first child. Your body is not so resilient as when you were younger.’
‘If I took it any more easy, I would be asleep the entire time,’ Mary joked.
She was deliriously happy, and with Buckie’s help began to plan the decoration of a nursery and discuss the hiring of a nanny.
And then she woke in the middle of the night with fierce cramps gripping her stomach and warm stickiness between her legs, and knew straight away what it was. Jacques ran to fetch Buckie, groggy in her nightgown, and then to telephone the doctor.
‘Perhaps the baby can be saved,’ Mary begged her sister, clutching her arm. ‘Perhaps she is all right.’
‘That bloody man and his syphilis,’ Buckie muttered under her breath as she mopped up the copious blood with fresh towels. ‘We Kirks have never had a problem carrying babies.’
Mary wished she had never mentioned the syphilis. ‘Tell the doctor I need this baby. He must save her.’
But the blood kept coming, viscous and dark, with a metallic smell, and she knew it was the end. She stayed in bed for over a week, refusing food, turning her face to the wall, crying bitter tears that left her chest aching. Jacques cried too, and clutched her tight, seeking comfort she was unable to give.
The doctor said it might be nothing to do with the syphilis, but in her heart Mary couldn’t help blaming Jacques, although she never said as much. Buckie had no doubt who she blamed, and went home to Baltimore grim-faced to share the news with the family.
All through the summer, Mary did not leave the house. She couldn’t bear to socialise, did not have the energy to drive to the beach for fresh air, as Jacques suggested. She knew he was sad too, as he poured himself a glass of red wine when he got home from work every day, and drank several more over the course of the evening. She often caught him with fresh tears in his eyes and she felt for him – it was his loss too – but was sunk too deep in her own grief to be able to help.
Friends sent invitations but she refused them all, citing ill health. Some delivered cut flowers, others sent their servants round with healthful broths or light custards, but still she could not face company. And then one Saturday afternoon, when Jacques had gone for a solitary walk, the bell rang and her maid announced that it was a Mr Ernest Simpson and he was most insistent upon seeing her.
‘Bring him in,’ Mary agreed, and blotted the letter she was writing.
‘You’re so pale,’ Ernest exclaimed as soon as he saw her. ‘I’m sorry you have been poorly but I simply couldn’t let any more time go by without calling.’
‘It was kind of you,’ she said. ‘Let me ring for tea.’
‘I’ve brought you a book that’s just been published.’ He handed her a brown paper package. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.’
Mary untied the string, opened the paper and read the title: ‘The Great Gatsby. It sounds unusual. I haven’t read anything by Mr Fitzgerald, but I’ve heard of him, of course.’
‘It’s had mixed reviews but I find it a literary gem, and I would appreciate your opinion. We usually see eye to eye.’
Ernest pulled a chair close to where she was sitting and they talked of books for a while. She asked after Dorothea and the girls, then there was a lull in the conversation. Ernest studied her face, trying to gauge her mood, and Mary broke the silence.
‘I expect you are wondering about my illness but you are too polite to ask. Well, I feel drawn to tell you the truth, but I ask you pray be discreet about it . . .’
‘Of course.’ He shifted in his seat.
‘I lost a baby in May. It was the third time I have fallen pregnant and then lost the baby quite soon after, and I am in mourning for the child it seems I am destined never to have. That is why I cannot face society. It’s something I must come to terms with in my own time.’
He looked so unutterably sad that Mary was touched.
‘I am sorry to hear it,’ he said. ‘You would be a wonderful mother. Perhaps you still can be, as you are young enough.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so, but I’ll be thirty next year and I suspect time has run out. Not everyone can be as blessed as you and Dorothea. I will find some other focus for my life.’ It felt good to put this into words. For the first time she felt a sense that life might be valuable without children.
‘Perhaps you will be a writer,’ Ernest suggested. ‘A poet.’
She laughed, an unfamiliar sensation. ‘Goodness, I doubt that. At any rate, thank you for not telling me that it was God’s will, as my mother keeps insisting. I’m not very impressed with God, if that’s the case.’
He looked up at the ceiling, then back at her. ‘Nope. You have not been smitten with a thunderbolt from the heavens. That’s a relief.’
They chatted for over an hour and Mary had a curious sensation of stepping outside herself and observing that the heavy cloak of grief she had been smothered beneath all summer had lifted. She saw a woman who was interested in life again and she knew that something had shifted. At last she was ready to re-enter the world, as the first leaves cartwheeling to the ground presaged the arrival of autumn.
Letters from Wallis had been few and far between while she was in the Far East, but in December 1925 one arrived from close to home.
I’m back and am living in Warrenton, Virginia after receiving a tip-off that it’s just about the cheapest place to get a divorce. I have to be resident here for a year and it will cost three hundred dollars, but what a bargain at the price!
There are two or three agreeable people in Warrenton but I fear I shall tire of them before long and I hope you and Jackie will not mind if I land on your doorstep, luggage flying, begging you to revive me.
Mary smiled. Perhaps a touch of ‘Wallisification’ was just what the doctor ordered.