The shock suffered by Mosley’s children on learning that their father had secretly married the woman so disliked by their aunts brought out the best in Irene. There was no criticism, no repining. She encouraged Vivien’s natural loyalty to her father, listening to the girl she thought of as a daughter explain, in words she must have heard from her father, how inevitable the marriage was. Diana had given up so much for Tom, said Vivien, and her services were so necessary to him—“besides, she adores him.” Viv was showing great sensitivity and unselfishness, thought Irene. It must have been worse for Nick, surrounded by everyone at school. When Tom arrived at Denham, dinner passed smoothly as Irene chatted about her recent U.S. trip; afterward, she took advantage of the moment to discuss Vivien’s debut—Vivien wanted to “do” the season thoroughly, from presentation at court to coming-out ball.
After the Mosley children had gone to bed, it was impossible to avoid the subject of Tom’s marriage to Diana any longer. Irene told Tom that all she wished to say was that the loyalty of his children after the cruel shock they had received was amazing and he must never betray it. Tom took this well-deserved reproof calmly and went on to talk about Denham. He had never wanted Diana to “butt in” there, he said; he simply wanted everything to go on as before. “I think he feels ashamed how it all came out and took place,” she wrote that night. “I definitely know God kept me in the USA away from Baba so I could come back calmly and talk it all out with Tom and get matters settled whilst she is out of the country.”
Tom was grateful for Irene’s rational approach, as his mother told Irene when she arrived at Denham on Christmas Eve. Tom himself only arrived after lunch, in time to do his Father Christmas act and join in the Christmas tea and carol-singing.
Against all the odds, she felt that their Christmas had been a happy one—she had never known Tom so amenable, or so sweet to the children, or so sensible in planning for the future. He even agreed to relinquish Cim’s bedroom to Viv, who longed to have it as her own.
When the meeting with Diana took place, on December 27, 1938, Irene was psychologically prepared to meet her brother-in-law’s new family. Her first impressions were not of Diana’s beauty but of the affectedness of her voice: the Mitford drawl, with its up-and-down inflections, prolonged vowels (“orfficer” and “lorst”) and idiosyncratic “exclamations” was at its most pronounced when Diana was nervous. Irene was surprised that Diana called Tom “Kit” (Diana had done this almost from the start, because her brother was called Tom) and how bad the tea was (“just bits of bread and butter and a tiny Xmas cake”) for what was after all an important meeting. But they chatted easily about Wootton, Diana’s new chef, shooting and, of course, the baby.
As always, Irene’s heart was softened by the sight of a child. Alexander, she thought, looked big and strong for his age, more like a baby of nine weeks than one just over a month old. When Diana’s mother, Lady Redesdale, joined them later the surreal aspect of the encounter struck her forcibly. “How that battered washed-out woman could have produced those six hooligan girls I do not know,” wrote Irene. “What a curious picture of Tom—wife, baby, mother-in-law and monthly nurse, very domestic but somehow not fitting.”
Irene and Nick both thought the meeting had gone well; buoyed up, Irene wrote to Baba in Gstaad, exhorting her to put her own feelings behind her and accept the situation. She read the letter to Lady Mosley and, at midnight, had a long and satisfactory talk with Nanny, who told her how Micky, now almost seven, had reacted. When he read the announcement in the evening paper he said, “This must be some rot or else Daddy would have told US.” When Nanny explained that it was in fact true he said philosophically: “Well, I am no longer his youngest son.”
A moment later he asked what he should call his father’s new wife. If he addressed her as Lady Mosley, they would think it was Granny, if Diana, it would be too like friends of his own age, and she couldn’t be Mummy because she was not his mother. Nanny also told Irene of a revealing incident. Micky, already in bed when Tom called at Denham for dinner on his way to Wootton one evening, was told by Nanny Hyslop to call out a greeting to his father but refused, saying it would be an embarrassment as he had only seen him about four times in his life.
Having discussed with her solicitors Tom’s proposal to ask the court for fifteen hundred pounds a year more and to request a further sum to pay for Viv’s coming-out expenses, Irene returned to America early in 1939, accompanied by the future Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk, who was an old friend. Both were desperately worried at the threat to Poland’s three million Jews and were to discuss the question of emigration. Before leaving she put a notice in the papers to say that she would be bringing out her niece, Miss Vivien Mosley, from 10 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park.
With family plans settled, Irene seized the opportunity to enjoy what she felt might be a last season’s hunting. It was brought to an abrupt end when her horse came down with her on slippery mud after jumping a post and rolled on her, breaking her collarbone and four ribs. When found by one of the field staff she was hanging head down and unconscious from the saddle—fortunately her horse was standing still or she would have been badly dragged and possibly killed. By January 14 she was back in Cornwall Terrace, bruised all over and suffering pain from her broken ribs, but delighted to be home.
In Switzerland the unhappy atmosphere between the Metcalfes was more noticeable than ever. “Fruity with us grumbling endlessly about his life and Baba’s unkindness to him,” wrote Georgia Sitwell early in January. “Tea with Metcalfes in their villa, which is absurdly small—poor Fruity.” “Sach, Reresby and I drove in sleigh to see ski jumping. Very exciting. Talked about Metcalfes, of course.” And again on January 10: “Fruity came down and talked sadly for ages.”
Baba’s return in mid-January brought the inevitable family disruptions, as she now immersed herself in the business of Vivien’s coming out, disputing everything from the financial aspects to Viv’s clothes, which, she said, were not “right”—a judgment that caused the eighteen-year-old Vivien much anxiety. Even Georgia Sitwell, fond though she was of Baba, commented, “She is spoilt, irritatingly self-assured and bossy,” though she added, “but not intentionally.” The fact that Irene was conscious that Baba’s taste was far superior to hers did not help matters. However, she was soon in command of the field again as Baba went off on a trip to Tunisia with the Sitwells (“I resent being treated as Baba’s lady-in-waiting,” wrote Georgia crossly, though when Baba actually arrived, on February 15, all was forgiven).
The “small” dance for 150 which Irene gave for her niece on February 10 (there would be a big ball in the season proper) came off well. Viv looked superb in a dress of oyster-gray satin, its short jacket embroidered with red; Gracie Curzon wore black velvet and Irene, supervising from a wheelchair, was resplendent in rubies. The second-floor ballroom at Cornwall Terrace was decorated with white tulips and white irises; there was supper in the Chinese room on the ground floor and a bridge room for the chaperones at the top of the house. The party ended at 2:30 a.m., with a wild race by the young men and girls from room to room, leaping over sofas and chairs. Two days later, the effort caught up with Irene: her right lung collapsed and two pints of fluid had to be drained from it.
It was back to bed, nurses and doctors again. Tom visited her, spending an hour discussing the international situation. “He said the Italians were very inflammable and might ask for a lot but that Musso could not stand a war and it depended if Hitler could control him,” wrote Irene. Tom also told her that he found Hess the supreme party technician, that Diana was greatly impressed by Himmler but that they all hated Streicher—and that what Hitler enjoyed about Goebbels was his wit. Since Diana had been visiting Germany regularly, and had numerous tête-à-têtes with the German leader, this obviously came straight from the führer himself.
A few days later Irene was visited by Nevile Henderson, recovered from an operation for cancer of the tongue and preparing to return to Berlin. The reason Chamberlain was so insistent that Britain would always come to the aid of France, he thought, was partly to frighten Mussolini, whose alignment with the Nazi regime was becoming ever clearer. Grandi was summoned to Rome for a few days at the end of March to be told he had lost touch with Italy and fascism, and reproved for not wearing the new fascist uniform designed by Il Duce himself.
Irene’s injuries took a long time to heal. She was too ill to go to Melton to present the bouquets to the principals in The Student Prince (she was still president of the Melton Operatic Society) and by the end of February she knew she should give up any thought of hunting that year—and possibly forever.
Another visit from Nevile Henderson, soon after the invasion of Czechoslovakia on March 16, 1939, seemed to confirm her fears of war. “He was sad, disillusioned and could see no daylight. He definitely felt the out-and-out lefters, Goebbels, Streicher and Himmler, had rushed Hitler into this,” wrote Irene that night. “Though he realises all about honour, obligation, etc, he is very chary of having several million Englishmen killed for Rumanians, Slavs etc, to resist wars of different nations who could be run over by Hitler in a few hours—long before we could gather strength.”
The visit of the French president in March duly emphasized Franco-British solidarity. Robert Bernays, attending the gala performance of an opera in cocked hat and ministerial uniform in the place of Walter Elliot, wrote of one of the last diplomatic flourishes of peacetime: “It was like pre-War Vienna. The incomparable Opera House was blazing with uniforms and tiaras. There were rows of scarlet-breeched footmen on the grand staircase and the loveliest women in England.”
The bickering over who would “run” Viv’s season continued. Baba was determined to have the final word, saying that she knew best—an unkind dig—through having children of her own. Irene comforted herself, and gathered her strength for the forthcoming season, with her usual remedy: a cruise, visiting Greece, Istanbul and Italy.
Shortly after her return at the end of April she went down to Denham, to find a dozen fascist drummers, young women who traipsed up and down in the pelting rain, rehearsing for forthcoming marches, while their clothes got soaked and their high heels sank in the mud. The drums were a mild irritation compared with what came next: a request from Tom that Diana and their new baby should spend the month of July at Denham. Irene took advice from Andrée and Nanny before finally deciding that Cim would have probably wished this, if only to ensure Tom’s continuing good relations with his two elder children.
With the start of the season and her niece’s debut, Irene’s life was packed, her days full of dressmaker fittings and luncheons as well as a succession of committee meetings and concerts. In the evenings were the parties: Queen Charlotte’s Ball on May 17, where each girl was presented with a red satin heart on a ribbon and a bottle of scent, Sibyl Colefax’s party for the American novelist Thornton Wilder, her own supper party, with the band of the Four Hundred, attended by many of her old beaux like Bobby Digby and Miles Graham.
On June 8 came the event for which Irene had been planning for months: Vivien’s ball. At ten-thirty the guests began to swarm into the flower-bedecked rooms. Baba arrived on her own, as Fruity was having a hernia operation. The duke of Kent arrived at twelve-fifteen and after one dance with his hostess settled down to discuss with her first Baba and Fruity, then Tom and Diana, and finally the king’s speech versus that of the duke of Windsor. The ball ended at 4 a.m. “Baba, Viv and I came home in her car, jubilant and happy at the glorious success of the party.”
The social events seemed more numerous than ever as the last season of peace unrolled. Irene took her niece to Paris for another round of parties: racing with Sir Charles Mendl at Longchamps and a huge ball given by the immensely rich Daisy Fellowes. There the duke of Windsor came to talk to her. “He chatted a lot about Fruity and said he would never get a job because he would not be serious and concentrate on anything,” wrote Irene, apparently oblivious of the fact that exactly the same charges could be leveled at the duke.
Back in London, the season wound to its frenetic climax. There was a dance at Londonderry House, its Rembrandts, Raeburns and Gainsboroughs looking serenely on as the debutantes shook their hips to the latest craze, the Big Apple; a ball at Sutton Place, floodlit for the occasion; a weekend at Walmer Castle in Kent; the Henley Regatta; Mrs. Clifton Brown’s ball in Eaton Square; the Cubitt ball at Holland House, where the pile-up of guests’ cars in Kensington High Street was such that Irene and Viv walked the final mile through drizzle, clutching their trains and tiaras.
The ball at Blenheim a few days later was so wonderful that Irene was thankful Viv had come out that year—perhaps the last time that anyone would see such a spectacle. Guests danced in the huge library, with its organ at one end; the floodlighting, which could be seen for miles, turned the facade of the palace a glowing amber, illumined the cedars, the stone water garden with its two Cleopatra’s Needles, the borders of rambling roses and the lake faintly gleaming through a pearly mist. Small supper tables were set on the flagged terrace, where chefs grilled food to order and any chill was dispersed by two large braziers; inside, there were powdered footmen in red velvet, the beautiful duchess of Kent surrounded by a mass of young men, and supper in the Painted Room.
Four days later Viv was presented. As only married women (who had themselves been presented) could in turn present a debutante, this had to be done by Baba, to Irene’s frustration. The pair set off at 7 p.m., equipped with sandwiches, brandy and smelling salts and, for Baba, elegant as ever in gray organza and aquamarines, her Red Cross examination books, so that Vivien could question her during the long wait in the Mall. With the threat of war increasing daily Baba, with her usual thoroughness and efficiency, was training to be a nurse.
Reality intruded with a jolt when the faithful Nevile Henderson next called on Irene.
He is bitterly out of sympathy with the Government’s policy with Poland, Rumania and Russia. He thinks Hitler knows well enough we would fight over Danzig and will behave unless he gets convinced that we want to fight him anyhow and that then he might steal a march while he was still ahead in armaments. It pains me how Nevile dares say the occupation of Czechoslovakia was right and that the Czechs are rapidly turning pro-German. He thinks Danzig should go back too. He agrees with me that Winston Churchill in the Govt would convince Hitler we were going to fight against him and he implored the P. M. not to put him in. He does not see the Germans’ faults enough. His spectacles are too rosy and it pains me.
On July 16, 1939, Tom held his last and greatest meeting in London. He had managed to hire the enormous new auditorium at Earl’s Court and filled it with an audience of more than twenty thousand. Irene attended with Viv, Nick and Lady Mosley, Baba with Mike Wardell. There was the usual panoply of banners and standards of the various fascist “districts,” stewards, rousing pipe-and-drum bands and Tom’s solo march down the center aisle in the beam of spotlights to mount the high rostrum. Speaking, as usual, without notes, against the background of an enormous Union Jack, he talked of how the whole of Britain’s international trading system, foreign policy and even Britain’s various conflicting political parties were “maintained for one reason; and for one reason alone—that the money power of the world may rule the British people and through them may rule mankind.” His audience were in no doubt that it was “international Jewry” to which he was referring.
Even more contentiously, he went on seemingly to defend Hitler:
I am told that Hitler wants the whole world. In other words, I am told that Hitler is mad. What evidence have they got so far that this man, who has taken his country from the dust to the height in some twenty years of struggle—what evidence have they got to show that he has suddenly gone mad? Any man who wants to run the whole of the modern world with all its polyglot population and divers people and interests—such a man is undoubtedly mad and I challenge my opponents to produce one shred of such evidence about that singularly shrewd and lucid intellect whom they venture so glibly to criticize.
Somewhere about this point in the two-hour oration Winston Churchill’s son Randolph, sitting with the dancer Tilly Losch directly in front of the Denham party, got up and walked out. For those who stayed, there was a spectacular peroration extolling the splendor and virtues of Britain and its historic past and saying that no true Britons would die “like rats in Polish holes.” It was an extraordinary and hypnotic speech that brought the crowd roaring to its feet—and it said in the clearest possible terms that Britain should not go to the aid of Poland.
Afterward, the family went back to Lady Mosley’s flat for supper, where Baba joined them. While they were eating, to their surprise, Diana’s brother, Tom Mitford, arrived without warning. At 11:45 Tom Mosley appeared. Then, at 12:15, there was a mass irruption of Mitfords: Diana, who had been giving interviews to German reporters; her mother; her youngest sister, Debo; and a couple of friends. Baba, unable to face her successful rival, left at once.
The hypnotic spell woven by Tom’s oratory quickly wore off and Irene seized the chance of what she was increasingly coming to think might be a last foray abroad: a quick trip through the Low Countries and Scandinavia. On her return she heard that Dino Grandi had been recalled to Rome.
This was because on May 22, the “Pact of Steel”—the military alliance between Hitler and Mussolini—had been signed. The last thing the popular Grandi wanted to see was war between his country and England; when ordered by Mussolini to make a speech publicly and uncompromisingly justifying Il Duce’s policy, the ambassador at first refused. Then, under threat of being outlawed by his own country, he delivered the words he had been sent. Though only the staffs of the Italian and German embassies were present, Mussolini’s son-in-law and Italy’s foreign minister, Count Ciano, had already released the text to the Rome newspapers, whence it was picked up by the naturally hostile British press.
The next day Grandi called on Halifax, now foreign secretary, who (according to the count’s memoirs) said: “Dear Grandi, don’t take it to heart. Everyone understands. All that matters is that you should stay to work with us for peace.” But Halifax’s good wishes were of no avail and Grandi received a cable ordering him to leave for Rome forthwith. From Rome the count wrote a “touching” letter to Irene dated August 9; to his adored Baba he wrote elegiacally: “There are moments which mean a whole life. An afternoon at Kew Gardens in early spring. Two children playing at life, hand in hand. Blossoming trees, a golden rain of blossoms everywhere. Your dress, I remember, was designed with blossoms too. Both happy like birds. Was it a mistake not to end our day like birds do? It was.
“And you again, smiling, forgiving, heavenly, lovely and beautiful, on the dark platform of a station, going away forever . . .”
That last summer of peace, the Metcalfes had again been asked to stay with the Windsors at La Cröe so that Fruity could recuperate from his hernia operation. He was well aware that the gilded life, with its make-believe royal court, continued as if in a sealed capsule, with dinner parties in the white-and-gold dining room, neighbors like Maxine Elliott curtseying to the duchess, the duke scrutinizing every bill for possible economies while showering the duchess with jewels and furs, and therefore wrote to warn his friend that he would be a bit of a “washout” as a guest. “I am still walking with the aid of a stick . . . then I have to go to bed every night at 10:30. I would have to bring my servant and I would have to ask you and Wallis if you would permit me to wear a soft silk shirt and short coat [dinner jacket] as I just couldn’t face dressing up with a stiff collar or shirt etc. In other words your old friend Fruity would be an infernal nuisance and not worth the trouble and would only occupy one of your much-sought-after rooms and give little in return!”
The Windsors were undeterred by Fruity’s caveats and the three Metcalfes duly arrived at La Cröe. After Baba and David left at the end of July, Fruity stayed on, fulfilling, as he had done so many years earlier, the duties of a temporary aide-de-camp.
On August 1 he described in a letter to Baba
terrible wailings coming from the woods and first of all thought that one of the little dogs had got a slight go of rabies but after listening intently I heard the bagpipes. At 6 p.m. some very strange people arrived, evidently some “old time” friends of Wallis’s, and the Rogers family. Then H.R.H. appeared, escorting Wallis (I having acted up to this as ADC in waiting, introducing etc). His appearance was magnificent if a little strange considering the tropical heat. He was completely turned out as the Scotch laird about to go stalking— beautiful kilt, swords and all the aids. It staggered me a bit and I’m getting used to blows and surprises. Then from the woods rushed what might have been the whole Campbell family, complete with pipes and haggis etc. I was told they were Folk Lore dancers, here to promote better international feeling. Personally, I think that if they got into Germany I wouldn’t blame Hitler attacking anyone . . .
Over the next three weeks, the Riviera emptied. On August 19, Leslie Hore-Belisha, the war minister, who had been over for cocktails a day or two earlier, flew back to London. Walter Monckton had to cancel the visit to La Cröe that he had planned for the end of August; in London he sought to make arrangements to bring the Windsors home in the event of war. Irene, staying with friends in York, learned that Lord Halifax had gone south from his estate of Garrowby “in acute worry over Danzig.” The arrival of Vivien from Wootton just before dinner struck a further note of gloom: she told her aunt that her father was very worried, as Diana, having recently seen much of Hitler, said he was determined to seize Danzig. Irene was further depressed by the description of the telephone system at Garrowby. “It seems inconceivably incompetent for a Foreign Secretary. A private phone rings in the Tower, which is seldom heard, or Halifax is too bored to go up to it. I gather Chamberlain has no phone at all.”
The crisis escalated at terrifying speed. On August 21 came the news that destroyed the last faint hope of peace: Hitler had concluded a nonaggression pact with the Soviets. All hope of an alliance between Britain, France and Russia vanished and, with his eastern front secured, so did the sole remaining obstacle to Hitler’s plans. From now on, war was a matter of days away—although there were still those who refused to believe it. The king had no illusions, leaving Balmoral for London on August 23 for a privy council and visits from his prime minister and foreign secretary. Halifax gave a talk on the radio that evening which Irene found trite and uninspiring.
The countdown began. On August 25 all British nationals still in Berlin and all Germans in England were asked to leave. Passages to America and Canada were fully booked and the admiralty closed the Mediterranean to British shipping. The roads out of London were congested: many were getting away while they could before the evacuation of one and a half million people commenced in a few days’ time. The telephone system ground almost to a standstill with the number of calls, which took up to six hours to be put through by the overworked operators. The Emergency Defence Act was rushed through, giving the government the authority it needed to put the country on a war footing, and the acting Socialist leader [Arthur Greenwood] gave Labour’s assurance that the House would stand united against aggression. “The peril of war is imminent,” the prime minister told the House, “but I still go on hoping.”
Irene drove to Denham on August 26, to find Nick and Diana there with Tom, who asked her to take his mother, Viv and Nick up to Wootton the following day—he expected air raids to start the moment war broke out. Back in London she packed up her pictures and collection of crosses and sent them down to Denham. The next day her chauffeur drove them all to Wootton, which she thought Diana had furnished very badly (“only one small window in each bay opens so one suffocates”), perhaps because she so resented the sight of Hitler’s photograph by Diana’s bed. She removed the photographs of Göring and his baby from the sitting-room mantelpiece.
By August 29 the tension was palpable. German troops were massed on the Polish border and the midnight news reported that Nevile Henderson flew back to Berlin after the cabinet meeting and was still with Hitler and Ribbentrop at 11:30 p.m.
On September 1 Hitler struck, his troops invading Poland at dawn. Britain and France instructed their ambassadors to inform the German government that unless Germany withdrew, their respective countries would be forced to fulfill their obligations to Poland. In Britain the navy, army and air force were mobilized, blackout orders were given and the evacuation of mothers and children from large cities began. Irene learned that a group of six would arrive at nearby Uttoxeter from Birmingham the following day and somehow managed to find and hastily furnish a suitable cottage for them.
On her return to London she learned that James the footman had been called up; after saying goodbye to him, she and the cook covered the hall light and all the passage lights with blue paper to dim them, took out every plug in the drawing room and morning room and decided to live in the dining room with its thick curtains. “I feel that dear Viv is suffering very deeply underneath,” she wrote that night. “It is so cruel that she is facing what I did in 1914—all my world in ashes round me. How can such horror triumph? An unbounded conviction like Hitler’s moves mountains. I loathe his photograph by Diana’s bed and long to smash it to atoms. I wonder what Tom and Diana are thinking of their hero?”
At La Cröe there was nothing to indicate that either Windsor realized the true gravity of the situation. True, the duke had sent a personal telegram to Hitler, followed by one (on August 29) to the king of Italy, asking him to intervene for the preservation of peace. Even when he was told on September I that the Germans had invaded Poland, he still refused to believe that Europe was teetering on the edge of war. “Oh, just another sensational report,” he said impatiently. When, that evening, the duke received a message from the king of Italy telling him that Italy intended to remain neutral, he was jubilant. The duchess was so convinced that the crisis would blow over that she was making arrangements to have the new butler’s wife brought out from England.
Fruity was under no illusions. That afternoon, he drove first to Cannes to see the British consul and then to Nice, to visit the travel agent Thomas Cook where, through charm, persuasiveness and the duke’s name, he managed to reserve a compartment on the 7:30 a.m. train to Paris the following morning for seven of the duke’s servants, his own valet and a secretary. Apart from the Windsors, only Fruity, the duchess’s Swiss lady’s maid and a few French servants were left at La Cröe.
On Sunday, September 3, the duke, about to have a swim, was told that the British ambassador was on the telephone from Paris. Ten minutes later he came back. “Great Britain has just declared war on Germany,” he said—and dived into the pool.
The duke’s solipsistic approach to a war that might see the end of his country, let alone of millions of lives, finally proved too much even for the loyal Fruity. As he wrote to Baba that momentous Sunday: “Certain people here are quite extraordinary. No one could understand how their minds work. On Friday it had all been settled for a plane to come out early Saturday morning to bring us home etc. At about 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. Walter [Monckton] spoke again. The conversation had to be in French which didn’t help any as Walter is about as bad as the Master here! It went on in the library. I went on reading my book in the drawing room as I did not think that anything could go wrong.”
Walter Monckton was telling the duke that he would arrive the following morning at ten in a plane to escort them home. The duke asked him petulantly why he, Walter, was coming since (as Monckton’s notes record) “he would take up space that could be occupied by the duchess’s luggage.” When the duke was told that he would be staying with the Metcalfes he said he would only come if his brother and his wife were prepared to have them at one of their houses; informed that this was impossible, he refused to leave. Fruity’s letter describes what happened next:
Well anyhow they came in to me after about half an hour and said “We are not going—the plane is coming for you and Miss Arnold [secretary] tomorrow.” I looked at them as if they really were mad—then they started off—“I refuse to go unless we are invited to stay at Windsor Castle and the invitation etc and plane, are sent personally by my brother etc.” I just sat still, held my head and listened for about 20 minutes and then I started. I said: “First of all, I’ll say that whatever I say is said speaking as your best friend. I speak only for your good and Wallis’s—understand that. After what I’ve said you can ask me to leave if you like but you’re going to listen now.
“You have just behaved like two spoilt children. You only think of yourselves. You don’t realise that there is at this moment a war going on, that women and children are being bombed and killed while you talk of your PRIDE. God, it makes me sick. You forget everything in only thinking of yourselves, your property, your money and your stupid pride. What you’ve now said to Walter has just bitched up everything. You talk of one of H.M. Government’s planes being sent out for Miss Arnold and for me!! You are just “nuts”! Do you really think for one instant they would send a plane over for me and Miss Arnold? It’s too absurd even to discuss.”
I said a lot more in the same strain. They never uttered. After this I said: “Now if this plane is sent out to fetch you, which I doubt very much, then get into it and be b——y grateful.” I went to bed then, it was 3:15 a.m. Well at 7:15 I was wakened by her maid telling me to get up! To arrange for a car to go to the flying field etc. Then at 8:00 “he” came into my room fully dressed and said: “We’ve decided to go on the plane.” I said: “Okay—if it comes—and now I’ll have a bath!” Of course there never was any plane as I knew they’d never send it— of course Walter would have repeated all the rot talked on the phone to the Head Boss in England.*
The Lady (?) here is in a panic, the worst fear I’ve ever seen or heard of, all on account of the aeroplane journey. Talks of jumping out etc. Every half hour it’s “I won’t go by plane! We will motor to Paris! Or Boulogne etc.” I point out the impossibility of doing this—roads blocked with troops, no hotels, etc. Today there is talk of a destroyer being sent out. Oh God, it’s such a madhouse. Now Winston is head of the Admiralty he will I think send a destroyer if the little man asks for it. It seems she would rather go by boat. We’ve got no servants here except Marcel and Robert and a pantry boy and two French maids. You should see “him” packing—it really is funny.
I am to go with the boss here, wherever he will go in this war, so please do this for me. Get in touch with Scotland Yard and let Major Whittle or Whattle (the awful thing is his correct name has gone clean out of my head) know that I am going to do this for the war and therefore cannot do Special Constable. I hope he will understand—speak to him yourself.
Fruity had made his choice. Fortuitously he had cut the cords that knotted him and Baba in such an unhappy tangle of emotions. By casting in his lot with the person who was, in one sense, his first love, he had released the two of them from the miseries and jealousies of their life together. Above all, while remaining married to the woman he adored, without either scandal or humiliation he had made it possible for each to lead their own life.