MARY WAS KEEN TO SEARCH FOR THE TOMB OF A Kirk ancestor in Westminster Abbey, so one Saturday afternoon, while Wallis was at a dress fitting, Ernest took her there in his yellow Lagonda motor car. As they entered through the Great West Door, she got goose bumps all over and felt for a second as if she couldn’t breathe.
‘I had no idea it was so big . . . so magnificent,’ she exclaimed, then immediately felt embarrassed. Of course it would be: all the British kings and queens had been crowned there since 1066, and many were entombed there.
Ernest was amused. ‘We know how to do pomp and ceremonial in England; it’s our speciality.’
As he led her around, he pointed out the cobweb-like fan vaulting in the Henry VII Chapel, the French-style tracery on the rose windows and the tall, slender proportions of the building. They stopped at Poets’ Corner, examining the memorials to writers from Chaucer and Dryden through to Dickens and Mary’s compatriot Henry James. They wandered for hours, not managing to find her ancestor but enjoying every moment.
Since Mary had shown such interest in the history of the monarchy, on 6 June Ernest arranged for the three of them to watch the Trooping of the Colour from private windows at the Admiralty, which offered a perfect view. First there was the procession of King George V and Queen Mary in state coaches, then Mary was enthralled as they inspected the troops in their dress uniforms glittering with gold.
‘All this could be yours, Mary,’ Wallis teased. ‘Just think . . .’ She turned to Ernest. ‘Mary was crazy about the Prince of Wales when we were at school.’
‘Mary is still a married woman, dear. I don’t think it’s our place to be matchmaking for her,’ Ernest rebuked.
Mary had told Ernest about the problems in her marriage when they were on their own one evening. She liked the fact that he had not offered advice, had merely listened and sympathised. Wallis, on the other hand, was adamant that she should get divorced and find a new husband as soon as possible: preferably one hand-picked by her.
June flew by in a flurry of engagements and visits and Mary barely had time to think about Jacques. Wallis asked her to help pick some new furniture for Bryanston Court and they spent hours wandering round Heal’s department store on Tottenham Court Road, sitting on four-poster beds to test their comfort and looking at the new Bauhaus chair designs of Mies van der Rohe made in chrome and leather.
‘Very stylish,’ Mary said, trying one, ‘but not entirely comfortable. I like more padding.’
‘Look at this.’ Wallis waved her over to an old-fashioned dressing table in rococo style. ‘I’ve seen these before,’ she said. ‘Watch.’
She slipped her gloved hand along the coving on the left underside of the dresser top until she triggered a hidden mechanism and a drawer sprang out. It was about six inches long by four wide and two deep, but when Mary pressed it back in there was no sign of it. You’d never have guessed it was there.
‘How clever!’ she remarked. ‘But whatever would one keep in it?’
‘Secrets, of course,’ Wallis said. ‘Everyone has secrets. Even you, Mary.’
Mary laughed, but the word did not have positive connotations for her. She thought of the syphilis Jacques had given her, and the wartime memories he would never talk about. Secrets were seldom good in her experience.
Wallis and Ernest made her feel so welcome that she began to consider whether she might move to London after the divorce and lease an apartment close to Bryanston Court. She got on equally well with both of them, sharing Ernest’s intellectual interests and Wallis’s love of sparkling conversation. Would they feel she was encroaching on their territory? She was sure they wouldn’t.
And then one evening, as she left the guest room to join them for dinner, she heard them through the open door of the drawing room.
‘Could you bring me a drink, darling?’ Wallis asked, then there was the clink of a glass and the murmur of Ernest’s voice before Wallis continued: ‘Where’s the house pest?’
Mary stopped dead in the hallway.
‘Stop that!’ Ernest snapped in a whisper. ‘She might hear you.’
There was a sotto voce discussion. Mary felt herself flush scarlet. She turned and tiptoed to the bathroom, locking the door behind her, then perched on the edge of the bath, blood pounding in her ears.
Could Wallis have meant someone else? No. It had to be her. She was the house pest. She’d had absolutely no indication that she was outstaying her welcome. Did Ernest feel the same way? It was a horrible thought. She was so hurt, she felt like packing her trunk and leaving that very evening, but then they would know she had overheard. Instead, she decided to plead homesickness and bring forward the date of her return sailing.
She splashed some cool water on her cheeks, refreshed her lipstick, then took a deep breath before walking through to join her hosts, deliberately coughing so they would hear her approach.
‘You can’t possibly leave early,’ Ernest protested, seeming completely sincere. ‘I was planning to take you to Canterbury Cathedral this weekend. And then we are going to Paris next week, and you absolutely must see Paris.’
‘Oh yes, do come to Paris, Mary,’ Wallis pleaded. ‘We can visit the fashion houses and see what’s new for fall.’
Mary couldn’t bring herself to look either of them in the face. She argued that she felt it was time for her to resolve matters with Jacques, but Wallis replied: ‘What’s another ten days? Come to Paris and you can change your sailing to leave from Cherbourg when I head down to the Côte d’Azur.’ She was joining friends for a holiday in the South of France, while Ernest returned to London to work.
Their arguments were determined and their desire for her to stay seemed genuine, so Mary allowed herself to be persuaded. But in bed that night, when she thought of Wallis’s casual words, two tears of humiliation trickled down her cheeks and the hurt nagged like a shard of broken glass in her heart.
As if they sensed her emotional withdrawal, both Ernest and Wallis showered Mary with generosity during her last days in London. Nothing was too much trouble, and both stressed how much they had enjoyed her visit and how strongly they hoped she would return soon. Guilty consciences, she thought to herself.
On arrival in Paris, she was pleased she had let herself be persuaded to come as soon as she saw the wide tree-lined boulevards, the iconic Eiffel Tower, and the bouquinistes selling antiquarian books on the banks of the Seine, where Ernest was soon lost in a world of his own. Mary had never been to the country of Jacques’ birth, and she enjoyed hearing the language spoken all around, and sitting in street cafés with a large bowl of milky coffee and a type of pastry they called a croissant.
On their second day there they were invited to the apartment of Gloria Vanderbilt for a very pleasant luncheon. Gloria was the twin of Thelma Furness and had the same darkly exotic looks. Her seven-year-old daughter, also named Gloria, was there, and Mary enjoyed chatting to the girl, asking the names of her dolls and admiring their hand-stitched clothes.
As the three of them left the apartment, they stepped out to cross the street, Mary slightly ahead. Suddenly there was a screech of tyres, a shout, and Mary saw a speeding taxicab heading straight towards her. She had no time to leap out of its path, no time to react, before there was a thump and she was tossed into the air and landed in the gutter.
Isn’t it strange I feel no pain? she thought, just before she lost consciousness.