The Duchess Of Windsor, page 61
The Duke and Duchess rarely entertained guests overnight in Paris. Two of the most frequent visitors, however, were the dashing Spanish Count Luis Romanones and his beautiful American-born wife, Aline. Wallis had taken an immense liking to the younger Countess, who helped fill the place a daughter might have taken as the Duchess grew older. In addition, their shared American heritage drew the two women together, as did their somewhat sharp senses of humor.
There were only two guest rooms at the Windsor villa in Paris, tucked away beneath the eaves of the mansard roof on the third floor. “I wish we could do better for you, but it’s all we have,” Wallis explained once. “That’s why we never have houseguests.” The two small bedrooms were separated by a large bathroom. The Porthault sheets and pillowcases matched the colors used on the walls, curtains and in the carpets, as did the flowers arranged in crystal and porcelain vases, which were refreshed every day. Guests’ suitcases or trunks would be unpacked by members of the Windsor staff if the guest did not bring his or her own valet or maid. Suits, tuxedos, dresses, and gowns were hung in closets, aligned with matching shoes and accessories; clothing to be worn that evening would be taken away, to be pressed, laundered, and returned before dinner.29
Nothing in the guest rooms had been left to chance. A small tray held a Thermos of cold water, a plate of ginger cookies freshly made by the chef, decanters of whiskey, gin, and sherry, a small ice bucket, and a selection of soft drinks. A large blue folder awaited each guest. Within was the proposed agenda for the guest’s visit, including dinners and luncheon invitations which had been accepted, along with seating arrangements and short biographies of guests invited to these occasions.30
In the bathroom, care had also been taken for the guests’ comfort. Toilet paper was always removed from the roll and cut with scissors in lengths of two squares, folded, and piled on a small tray near the toilet. A perfume burner incensed the room “with the most marvelous scent.” In the evening, baths were drawn by the maid or valet, temperatures measured, the surface sprinkled with Elizabeth Arden’s Fluffy Milk Bath or the guest’s choice of six different bath oilS.31 The medicine cabinets were stocked with aspirin, laxatives, remedies for upset stomachs, bandages, mouthwash, toothpastes, and other needs. Every night, a maid or valet laid out the toothbrush and squeezed toothpaste on it so that it stood waiting by the time the guests retired.32
The efficiency of the staff was truly put to the test on those occasions when the Windsors entertained. No invitation in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s was as sought out as the stiff vellum card bidding a guest to dine at the villa in the Bois de Boulogne. Wallis worked closely with her chef, Lucien Massey, who joined the household when in his late twenties and who proved amenable to her desire to try fresh ideas and create inspired meals. Nothing at a Windsor dinner party was left to chance. Menus were planned weeks in advance, and even the food on each plate was color coordinated, designed to match the selected china service as well as the linens.
Wallis and her butler, Georges Sanegre, would visit the basement storerooms to select the china and crystal. In setting her tables, Wallis benefited immensely from the royal heritage her husband brought with him. Few wives could preside over dinner parties at which her guests dined off china which had belonged to generations of sovereigns. The storerooms were a showcase of fine china and porcelain: There was a Royal Copenhagen service from the turn of the century; services from Limoges, the Nymphenburg works, Royal Doulton, Staffordshire bone china, services which had belonged to George IV and Queen Alexandra, and most famous of all, the Meissen “Flying Tiger” service of Elector Friedrich Augustus of Saxony. Wallis also enjoyed the more fanciful pieces of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century porcelain, including serving dishes designed to resemble frogs, cockerels, and other wildlife. The crystal was engraved with the Windsors’ double monogram “WE,” along with the ducal coronet, designed to match the silver menu holders and crested napkin rings.
Many afternoons, Alexandre, of the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, would come to the villa to set Wallis’s hair; if he was unavailable, he would dispatch his pupil Edouard Orengin. “Alexandre understands my hair,” she once told a visitor.33 Once a week, she had it washed at Elizabeth Arden. “Her hair was rich and full and long, and her wonderful skin was a major beauty asset,” the Countess of Romanones recalled. Wallis once declared, “Aline, the most important thing is to take care of your face. The other end you sit on. My mother used to tell me that.”
Three times a week, a manicurist from Elizabeth Arden came to do her nails, and on the evenings when the Windsors were giving a party, a consultant arrived to do her makeup as well. Wallis thought her eyelashes were too thin and wore very discreet false lashes. Some afternoons, she might lie down for a massage, but she never napped.34 Clad in a silk dressing gown covered in Oriental designs, Wallis would inspect the house in the early evening, checking that the tables were properly set, that ashtrays had been put out on the tables in the drawing room, and that the flowers had all been placed according to her instructions.
Wallis worked hard at creating interesting guest lists. “She liked people to be expressive,” remembered the Countess of Romanones, “to have a sense of humour, to be attractive and extroverted. For her dinner parties she looked for outstanding people—the best novelist of the moment, or whatever scientist or musician or explorer happened to be interesting at a given time. The Duke liked political people, military personalities, and sportsmen”35 An amazing cross-section of writers, artists, actors, and society members formed the Windsors’ favored circle. In these years, guests were likely to include Baron Frederic de Cabrol and his wife, Daisy; Prince and Princess von Bismarck; Prince and Princess Felix Youssoupov; Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley; Grace, Lady Dudley; Princess Ghislaine de Polignac; the Count and Countess of Romanones; the Winston Guests; Vicomtesse de Ribes; and Gerald Van der Kemp, curator of Versailles and the man who helped shape Wallis’s interest in French art and furniture.
Dinner guests were asked to arrive promptly at quarter-past eight. As their cars pulled up before the portico, two footmen, clad in their formal scarlet-and-gold liveries, descended the steps and ran to either side of the vehicle to quickly open the doors, ensuring that no one had to slide across a seat.36 They entered the foyer, where the butler bid them to sign the leather guest book that lay open on the table at the center of the room. The yellow scagliola walls glowed in the soft candlelight; along the staircase and upon the consoles, enormous arrangements of white arum lilies and orchids, draped with trailing ivy, stood at intervals. As guests handed their coats and hats to a waiting footmen, they stepped carefully, dodging the circling, yapping pugs. “Watch out! Watch out!” she would cry to unwary guests as the pugs swarmed around. “He’ll get your stockings. He doesn’t mean to, but he likes to climb all over people.”37 “Oh my God, those damn dogs!” a friend recalls. “They were the absolute worst animals in the world! All over the place, snorting and rubbing up against you and leaving spit and snot on your clothes. They ruined one of my really gorgeous gowns—the Duchess saw it happen and came over and scolded the damn dog, and of course dispatched a check for the dress—but it made one always on edge in their house.“38
From the foyer, guests entered the drawing room. “Walking through that house was a sensuous experience,” the Countess of Romanones recalled, “because every room had its own perfume burner with its own distinct perfume.”39 The Windsors waited in the drawing room, greeting their guests as they entered. The impression upon first meeting could be indelible. Noted author and historian James Pope-Hennessy wrote that Wallis was
one of the very oddest women I have ever seen.... I should say she was on the whole a stupid woman, with a small petty brain, immense goodwill (une femme de bonne volonté) and a stern power of concentration.... I should therefore be tempted to classify her simply as An American Woman par excellence, were it not for the suspicion that she is not a woman at all. She is, to look at, phenomenal. She is flat and angular, and could have been designed for a medieval playing card. The shoulders are small and high; the head very, very large, almost monumental; the expression is either anticipatory (signalling to one, “I know this is going to be loads of fun, don’t yew?”) or appreciative—the great giglamp smile, the wide, wide open eyes, which are so very large and pale and veined, the painted lips and the cannibal teeth.... She is wildly good-natured and friendly; but with both of them one somehow feels that so much enthusiasm might suddenly gell up and one would be in the limbo reserved for the many, many people who have treated them badly or turned out a disappointment.... Her high smooth flat forehead is cloven by a deep single vertical line of concentration. Her neck makes her age apparent, a tendency to wattles. Her jawbone is alarming, and from the back you can plainly see it jutting beyond the neck on each side.40
Footmen moved in and out of the drawing room carrying silver trays bearing cocktails. Guests who had previously been invited were surprised to be handed their favorite sherry, martini, champagne, or highball; Wallis, with her careful attention to detail, always noted what her guests preferred and made certain that this drink greeted them on their return.41 Guests were served two cocktails, never more; Wallis would tolerate no excessive drinking among her guests. “I remember one night,” says a friend, “when the Duchess and I found [a very prominent French aristocrat] hiding outside on the terrace, flask in hand, sipping away! We had all gone into the dining room and there was this obvious hole where he should have been, so we went looking. It was the most embarrassing moment—I doubt he was ever asked back.”42 At the end of forty-five minutes, the doors of the dining room were opened, and Georges appeared, announcing in a loud voice, ”Son Altesse Royale, diner est servé!”
For dinners, Wallis preferred two round tables of ten or twelve to one larger table. She was also careful about placing those with a tendency to dominate the conversation together at tables, wishing to spare her guests. Beside each place at dinner was a menu handwritten by the butler Georges.43 Occasionally, there were arrangements of flowers, but Wallis liked to keep everything on her table below the level of her guests’ eyes to help ease conversation and eye contact. To provide more direct, flattering uplight, candles were deliberately low as well.44
Particular care was taken with the arrangement and presentation of food. “I imagine,” Wallis wrote, “one of the most important features about food, assuming the quality and preparation are there, is the way it is presented. An attractive ambiance can work magic with an appetite.”45 She spent many hours planning her menus with her chef. “You don’t get any original food if you don’t work with a cook,” she explained.46 “The worst mistake a hostess can make is to stand pat on the old reliables,” she declared. “A good menu can be repeated only with new people; if friends can say, ‘Well, we’re going to the Dots for dinner tonight. It’ll be roast beef, as usual,’ this is, to my way of thinking, death.”47
At her table, beside her dinner plate, Wallis kept the small gold notebook inscribed with the poem “King’s Cross,” which she had given to the King in the spring of 1936. The staff called it her “grumble book.” In it, she noted any ideas she might have for the next dinner party as well as any comments on service or presentation: “Too hot,” “Too Cold,” and “Cigars handed at wrong time.”48
Wallis usually took one table; the Duke, the other. Her famous quick wit was at its best—sharp, sparkling, entertaining. “I just love your pansies,” a guest complimented once. Without a thought, Wallis shot back: “In the garden or at my table?”49 She expected the same energy from her guests. “Nobody has the right to come to a party and sit there like a piece of furniture,” she told the Countess of Romanones. “You’re invited to contribute to the party.... I resent intelligent, worldly people who won’t make an effort. They’re just parasites, relaxing while other people entertain them.”50
For a first-time guest, these surroundings, the expectations, and the exalted diners could be intimidating. Fearful of a faux pas, guests often said nothing; only later would they learn that by doing so they had guaranteed they would not receive a second invitation. “I was completely reserved and proper when I dined with the Windsors,” recalls a former guest. “I said nothing controversial, joined in the conversation, ate all my food, didn’t drink too much and left before overstaying my welcome. But I never received another invitation either. Later, I heard that the Duchess thought I was a bore! I thought that was pretty ruthless.” 51 Even more wearing on the nerves was the fear that one might accidentally break something priceless. Wallis, however, was always prepared for the worst. Hearing the sound of breaking glass or porcelain, she would simply shrug and say, “Now forget this and get on. If you don’t, you’ll break three more things and I don’t want that.”52
After dinner, the Duchess and the ladies retired to the drawing room and library, leaving the Duke to preside over cigars and port. Within forty-five minutes, both groups had assembled together again, usually grouped around the baby-grand piano in a corner of the drawing room, singing popular songs. Like his niece Princess Margaret, the Duke loved to lead his guests, although, according to at least one guest, Elsa Maxwell, “he had no voice at all.” He liked show tunes, and his favorites included the score from the musical Oklahoma! which he sang at the top of his lungs and distinctly off-key53 Occasionally, he hauled out the record player. “Georges, where’s the gramophone,” the Duke would yell over his guests. Georges would duly appear with a very old, very battered portable machine on which the Duke would play more show tunes, records of Churchill’s speeches, and music from his youth. A few couples might dance or stroll on the terrace if the weather was warm.54
While David was thus employed, Wallis held court on a corner sofa, laughing, exchanging the latest gossip or racy joke, or played bridge with her guests. Once, in the middle of a game, she famously declared, when asked why she had failed to support a fellow player with the three Kings in her hand during a no-trump bid, “My Kings don’t take tricks. They only abdicate.”55 Writer Gore Vidal described her “flapper’s wisecracking charm.”56 When asked why she and David never had any children, she shrugged and laughed. “The Duke is not heir-conditioned.”57
Inevitably, such evenings showcased the talents of the Windsors’ servants, who were known to be among the best trained in Paris. Their demanding routine was duly rewarded every year at Christmas. “Since the Windsors had no family of their own,” the Countess of Romanones recalled, “they derived an enormous amount of pleasure from a big Christmas celebration for their servants.”58 Wallis regularly purchased hundreds of presents for those in her service; not only the men and women who worked in the house but those who worked on the grounds, those at the Mill, their husbands and wives, and their children, all received gifts from the Duke and Duchess. These gifts varied from year to year and according to the recipient’s position and length of service, but male members of the household typically received leather wallets, watches, gold cuff links, and shaving kits, while the women were given small pieces of jewelry, cashmere sweaters, leather purses, or in the years immediately following the Second World War, nylon hosiery Wallis had brought back from the United States. Their children always received toys and books, and the Duke and Duchess favored anything from Walt Disney.59
In addition, the Duke and Duchess gave all of the household and staff an extra month’s pay each December and threw an enormous party and dinner for them in the villa in Paris. It was a chance for the Duke and Duchess to relax and enjoy themselves as well; they hired caterers, brought in a band, and happily danced with their servants in the candlelit foyer of the villa. “No one who ever spent their Christmas with Their Royal Highnesses,” recalled a former staff member, “had any doubt as to their happiness. It was infectious, and both took a great delight in the children, who, although warned by their parents to be on their best behaviour, inevitably wound up racing through the rooms. Once, a boy playing with some tin soldiers accidentally knocked over the vase which was serving as his castle. It broke of course and he burst into tears. But the Duchess took his hand, helped him clean up the pieces, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing soldiers with him on the Grand Staircase.”60, 61, 62, 63
42
American. Adventures
EACH YEAR, in the midst of the bleak Parisian winter, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor abandoned the chill winds and sleet of the French capital and sailed to America. Until the end of the 1950s, they always booked passage on the Queen Mary, where they had become well-known and respected additions to the valued Cunard client list. As the years passed, the Windsors became more comfortable in mixing with other passengers and even joined in the last-night dances, trading partners with anyone bold enough to approach and ask for a turn on the floor.
From the middle of the 1950s onward, the Duke and Duchess switched their allegiance to the SS United States, the proud, sleek flagship of the United States Line and holder of the coveted Blue Riband for fastest Atlantic crossing by any ship. The decision was primarily financial; unlike Cunard Lines, which charged the Windsors the full price for the suites aboard the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, the United States Line allowed the Duke and Duchess to occupy a special suite of rooms, whose ordinary cost would have been $1,200, and pay only the regular first-class passage of $340.1 In return, the Duke and Duchess agreed to attend at least several of the onboard functions during the voyage, pose for the ship’s photographer, and hold a small end-of-voyage press conference in the tourist lounge.
The Windsors always occupied cabins U87, U89, and U91, known as the “Duck Suite.”2 This consisted of two bedrooms, with a sitting room between; for the valet and maid, they took inside cabins nearby, and a third cabin was always booked to serve as a wardrobe and linen room. As on all of their voyages, the ship’s linens in their suite were always replaced prior to sailing by the Duchess’s maid, who also supervised the placement of the framed photographs, bits of porcelain, and other souvenirs with which they traveled.3 “They were always very easy to travel with by my standards,” recalled Comdr. Leroy Alexanderon, captain of the ship. “They never made any special demands and it was a feather in our cap to have them.”4
