The Duchess Of Windsor, page 8
If Wallis was stunned at this development, she did nothing to let on. She told Win that although she loved him, she needed to be certain of her feelings. In any case, she declared, she would have to receive the permission of both her mother and her uncle Solomon.16
“I never expected you to say yes right away,” he answered with a smile, “but don’t keep me waiting too long.”17
After nearly two months, Wallis was finally due to leave Pensacola; during the few short days leading up to her departure, she and Win were nearly inseparable. On the day she left, Win escorted her to the train station and helped her climb aboard her carriage, telling her that he would come to Baltimore on his summer leave and expect a final answer when he arrived. He reached up, took her in his arms, and kissed her goodbye. He stood, watching and waiting, as her train slowly steamed north.18
Before leaving Pensacola, Wallis had dispatched two letters to her mother describing her whirlwind romance with Spencer. When Wallis arrived home, Alice had prepared her arguments carefully. Wallis had only known Win for two months, she declared. His career was a dangerous one, and Wallis might easily end up a young widow, and with growing tensions in Europe, there was every chance that Win might be posted overseas and killed in action. The navy had high expectations for its officers’ wives, and Wallis’s streak of independence would not be appreciated, Alice warned. Moreover, she and Win would have to move frequently and would have little money and few permanent friends. Nor was this the grand society match Alice had anticipated for her daughter: The years of ensuring that Wallis attended the best schools, made the right friends, and had a proper debut would all go for naught if she married a simple lieutenant who had no money of his own and none coming from a wealthy family.19
But Wallis was also prepared. To counter her mother’s arguments, she declared that the adventure of life with Win as a navy wife was what appealed to her most. She did not, she said, want to end her days as a dull Baltimore matron. Unspoken, but also in her thoughts, was the idea that her marriage would relieve her mother of the burden of financial support. With resignation, Alice told Wallis that it was just another example of her stubborn determination to get whatever she wanted.20
When Win arrived in Baltimore, Wallis happily informed him that she would marry him. Whatever doubts Alice might have harbored were quickly set aside once she met Win, whose easy charm and rugged good looks captivated her. Aunt Bessie also liked the young aviator, and even staid Uncle Solomon heartily approved, declaring that Win Spencer was clearly a man who had his feet on the ground.21 In August, it was Wallis’s turn, and she accompanied Win to Chicago to meet his family. His father and mother greeted Wallis warmly but seemed a bit puzzled by the unexpected announcement.22
Before the engagement was announced, Wallis wrote a long letter to Carter Osborne, who had gone to Mexico with the U.S. Cavalry in pursuit of Pancho Villa. She informed him of her intended marriage and wished him well in the future. Although Wallis later dismissed her romance with Carter as merely casual, it was a bit more serious than she herself liked to admit. The very fact that she wrote this letter indicates that their feelings for each other were at one time strong.23
The engagement of Bessie Wallis Warfield and Earl Winfield Spencer Jr. was announced in the Baltimore papers on September 16, 1916. Wallis had the distinction of being one of the first debutantes of her season to become engaged, and she delighted her friends by flashing her diamond ring, which had cost Win several months’ pay.24 The Baltimore News-Post wrote that the engagement was “of unusual interest to Society in Maryland, as well as in Virginia” and described Wallis as “one of the most popular girls in Society since she made her debut.”25
The wedding was set for November 8, 1916 in Baltimore. The two-month interval left Wallis with little time to organize what she hoped would be an extravaganza. There was no trousseau, and she spent frantic days shopping for clothing and housewares. These activities had to be sandwiched between family luncheons and dinners in her honor: Wallis was a member of one of the city’s most socially prominent families, and the wedding and its attendant festivities received a fair amount of publicity in the local newspapers. There was a luncheon hosted by Emily McLane Merryman at Gerar, her house near Cockeysville; Aubrey Edmunds King gave another at the Baltimore Country Club; Mrs. Barnett and her daughter Lelia Gordon gave a tea at their house in Washington, D.C.; and Wallis’s great friend Mary Kirk and her mother, Mrs. Henry C. Kirk Jr., hosted a lavish tea at the Baltimore Country Club.26
With the passing weeks, wedding gifts began to pour in: Wallis’s uncle Solomon gave the engaged couple a large silver bowl, while Win’s family sent an elaborate silver cutlery service and a matching silver tea service made by Kirk Silverworks. There were china settings and crystal; linens and picture frames; furniture and housewares, all destined for the newly married couple’s first home in Pensacola.27
The day before the wedding was filled with frantic activity. Wallis had last-minute fittings for her gown and continually fretted over the smallest details. That evening, Win attended a bachelor party given in his honor at the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore; his fiancée and her friends went to the theater to see a performance of the popular comedy His Bridal Night.28
The wedding took place at six o’clock the following evening. The interior of Baltimore’s Christ Church had been filled with flowers: annunciation lilies stood at either side of the altar, while bowers and sprays of white chrysanthemums decorated the aisles and pews. Shortly after five, the doors of the church were opened, and the ushers, all Win’s fellow naval flight officers, began escorting the guests down the aisles. By six, Win stood at the steps to the altar, carefully attired in his full-dress uniform as a junior-grade lieutenant, exchanging whispers with the Reverend Edwin Barnes Niver, who was to conduct the ceremony. At Win’s side stood his brother Dumaresque Spencer, who served as best man.29
The thunder of the church organ signaled the approach of the bride. First came her six bridesmaids: her cousins Lelia Gordon and Emily McLane Merryman; Win’s sister, Ethel Spencer; and Wallis’s schoolfriends Mary Kirk, Mary Graham, and Mercer Taliaferro. Wallis had helped design their gowns herself. They wore orchid-colored faille dresses, with full skirts and tight bodices covered in blue velvet, and large picture hats of blue velvet with orchid-colored faille silk decorated with a single silver rose. Each lady carried a bouquet of yellow snapdragons. Wallis had selected her former schoolmate Ellen Yuille as maid of honor, and she wore a similiar gown in blue, with silver stitching, and a large picture hat of blue satin decorated with a single orchid-colored plume. As maid of honor, she carried a bouquet of orchids.30
Finally, Wallis appeared on the arm of her uncle Solomon. She wore a gown of white panne velvet, its pointed bodice intricately embroidered with pearls.31 Her full skirt opened up to reveal a petticoat of heirloom lace, and a long court train fell from her shoulders. Around her neck she wore a single strand of perfectly matched pearls that had belonged to her grandmother Anna Emory Warfield. A bouquet of white orchids and lilies of the valley was tied with white silk ribbons, while a spray of orange blossoms circled her hair in a coronet, holding her veil of tulle edged with old lace around the sides and back of her head.32
The wedding service was short, and both bride and groom exchanged their vows in loud, clear voices. Immediately afterward, they exited the church beneath the crossed swords of Win’s fellow officers and drove to the Stafford Hotel, where the reception took place. To bursts of applause, the newlyweds entered the hotel’s ballroom, and Win led Wallis to the middle of the room, where the pair opened the reception with a dance. As the orchestra continued to play, they circled the room, receiving the congratulations of their friends and family and much good-natured chiding from Win’s fellow officers. Wallis, holding a sword with Win, sliced through her multitiered wedding cake, and the pair enthusiastically joined in the seemingly endless champagne toasts. Finally, flushed and exhausted, Wallis changed clothes, and the newly married Spencers left the hotel, showered in a cascade of rose petals, for the first night of their honeymoon, at the Shoreham Hotel in nearby Washington, D.C.33
After their first night together, they traveled by train to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to stay at the Greenbrier Hotel. The West Virginia countryside was dappled with flames of brilliant red and orange foliage as they arrived, and the air was cold, a wind rushing through the valley in which the hotel stood. It was here that Wallis had her first real hint of trouble. As they were dressing for dinner that first evening, Win suddenly declared, “Imagine this happening to a man on his honeymoon.” He pointed to a notice atop the table declaring West Virginia a dry state and explaining that no alcoholic beverages would be served at the hotel. “That’s hospitality for you,” he continued. “We certainly can’t stay here.”34
Although he said this with a smile on his face, Wallis realized that Win was annoyed. However, he quickly solved the problem by pulling a flask filled with gin from his suitcase and settled down to his drinking. When Wallis tried to question him, Win cut her off with a dismissive laugh. She said nothing more and convinced herself that her hardworking husband deserved to be left alone. But a troubling suggestion had planted itself in her mind; and as the honeymoon progressed, she would learn that Win and his precious flask were inseparable.35
5
Marriage
AT THE END OF TWO WEEKS, the Spencers returned to Pensacola. Wallis was delighted to find that their new house, at 6 Admiralty Row, was on the same street as that of her cousin Corinne. From the main gate to the U.S. Naval Air Station, Admiralty Row gently descended past the commanding officer’s mansion down to the long white beach. The house itself, like the Mustins’, was a single-story frame bungalow, painted white and faced with a large veranda. Aromatic and colorful oleander and roses bloomed in the neat yard, and it commanded a lovely view of Pensacola Bay.1
The house was fairly large, with a living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. This was the first opportunity Wallis had had to decorate a home of her own, and she filled the house’s rooms with white-painted furniture, plants and potted palms, wicker chairs, and chintz curtains, which helped enliven the somewhat stark Craftsman-style interiors. The crates of wedding gifts were carefully unpacked: Family photographs topped tables, china filled the shelves, and the Kirk silver service glistened on the dining-room sideboard. Carefully arranged vases of flowers added color. Although Win’s salary was tight, they found money to hire a maid and a cook, the latter a necessity, for Wallis had not yet learned the culinary arts.2
At first, life in Pensacola was easy and comfortable for Wallis. The weather was usually good for late-afternoon walks, and Win’s pay was enough to keep Wallis in the latest fashionable, if slightly practical, clothes. She had security previously unknown in her life. Corinne escorted her to luncheons, where she met the officers’ wives. Wallis was sociable but found she had little in common with these rather quiet, reserved women who spent their afternoons discussing children, gardening, and needlework—all topics which held absolutely no interest for Wallis. The wives, in turn, found Wallis unconventional: She was bold, she spoke her mind freely, and she laughed easily. Perhaps inevitably, Wallis got on better with their husbands, whom she and Win frequently hosted for evenings of bridge or poker.
On Saturday evenings, they often drove to the San Carlos Hotel for dinner and dancing. It was only after dinner on Saturday nights that officers were allowed to drink, but Win and his comrades circumvented this by sneaking martinis at dinner in soup bowls. On occasion, the alcohol got the better of Win, who once grabbed a neighbor’s cane and hat and danced around the dining room, pretending he was George M. Cohan. Wallis said nothing; her husband’s performance was slightly embarrassing but harmless enough.3
Each morning, Wallis saw Win off to his daily flights. A gong was stationed at the edge of the airfield and was rung to alert the entire station whenever an accident occurred. “Whatever else we might be doing on our own account,” Wallis recalled, “our subconscious was always waiting for it to sound. Then, once it had sounded, the first frightening thought was ‘Has it sounded for me?’ “ Telephone use was forbidden on the base during an emergency, and Wallis, along with the rest of the wives, could only sit and wait. The minutes and hours of uncertainty seared themselves into her consciousness, leaving a fear so intense that she would refuse to fly for the rest of her life except in cases of the utmost emergency.4
For all of her worry, however, Wallis could not prevent the inevitable. One day, she learned that Win had crashed; although he had somehow managed to escape unharmed, the danger was a terrifying jolt to Wallis. She began to loathe his hours in the air, the tenor of the times leading to war, and the dreaded anticipation underlying life at Pensacola.
The regularity of life at Pensacola soon proved monotonous to the young woman who had so craved her freedom. To relieve the pressure of worry over Win’s safety as well as her increasing boredom, Wallis often sat through repeated showings of the same films at the local cinema, happy for whatever distraction she could find.
But the hostilities in Europe were soon to take their toll. As war fever increased, so did the population of the air station; every week, trains deposited new recruits, whom Win supervised in their flight training. His hours at work grew longer, and he returned home exhausted. Inevitably, he began to drink more and more; not sociably, with Wallis, but alone, with his flask. Some nights, he would return home already drunk; other evenings, he would disappear to the beach or lock himself in the bathroom, only to stumble out a few hours later, intoxicated. Wallis’s despair was coupled with loneliness: in January 1917, Henry Mustin was transferred to Washington, D.C., and with Corinne gone, she found herself alone except for Win.5
Finally, on April 6, President Woodrow Wilson went before the U.S. Congress to declare war on Germany, news which those at Pensacola greeted with relief. Win was promoted to full lieutenant and in May received orders to go to Squantum, Massachusetts, near Boston, to help organize a new naval air station. He had hoped to be posted to active duty in Europe and was disappointed with his new assignment. His brother Dumaresque had joined the famous Lafayette Escadrille; his two youngest brothers, Egbert and Frederick, were members of the U.S. Army’s Expeditionary Forces and were on their way to Europe to join in the combat. For a man who prided himself on his abilities, having to remain behind in the United States while others had the excitement of fighting the war was a blow to his considerable and increasingly fragile ego.
The Spencers took a small apartment in a residential hotel in Boston’s Back Bay. Each morning, Wallis was up at six to cook Win’s breakfast; by seven, he was on his way to work. He rarely returned before eight at night, often later. He was frequently too tired to do anything but join Wallis in the hotel’s dining room for dinner and go straight to bed.6
Their time in Boston was lonely for Wallis. There was no established base and therefore no opportunity to mix with other navy wives. She knew no one, and even had she made friends, their apartment was too small to entertain properly; the only alternative was the hotel’s dining room. Instead, she spent her days sight-seeing, touring the various monuments and historical landmarks connected with the American Revolution. When this diversion wore thin, she discovered a rather surprising new activity: attending trials. Wallis found that she could sit in courtroom galleries for hours on end, watching the latest cases; this soon became an obsession. Entire weeks were lost attending one murder trial, and she later sheepishly admitted that she had been fascinated by the grisly proceedings.7
Win ushered his new recruits through an advanced eight-week course in seamanship, navigation, gunnery, meteorology, signaling, aerodynamics, and aviation basics. Once they had successfully completed their initial training, he supervised their flight instruction. He had only been given a handful of petty officers to assist him, none of whom knew much about flying. Through his sheer energy, Win toiled and managed to create the Squantum Naval Air Station.8
His accomplishments were clearly recognized, for in October 1917, Win received orders to transfer to California, where he was to organize a new naval air station on North Island, near San Diego. Once again, he was not happy, having campaigned for an overseas combat assignment. He felt worthless and despondent and questioned his abilities; he seemed unable to comprehend that he was more important as an instructor to thousands than as a single combat airman. But the transfer, as Wallis repeatedly pointed out, was an immense promotion: at San Diego, he was to supervise hundreds of others and once again be responsible for the establishment of a station.9
After a long train ride, the Spencers arrived in San Diego on November 8. San Diego was a prosperous town at the time, with a population of nearly 100,000, and Wallis was enchanted with the palm trees, semitropical flowers, and warm climate. Their first home was a furnished, two-room ground-floor flat in the Palomar Apartments. Although the rent was slightly higher than in Boston, the management provided a Japanese houseboy to look after tasks, and Wallis fell in love with the views to adjacent Balboa Park, the tiled patio bordered with flowers, and the inviting atmosphere.10
The extra expense of their new apartment meant that Wallis had to do without a cook. She bought a copy of Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book and read it from cover to cover. When she felt sufficiently prepared, she sent out invitations to a young army couple for her first dinner party. The menu was carefully planned: Campbell’s cream of tomato soup, roast beef and gravy, roast potatoes, artichokes with hollandaise sauce, and ice cream with chocolate sauce.11 By the time Win arrived home, however, he found Wallis a nervous wreck. He made her a double martini, which she quickly downed. Within a few minutes, she recalled, her worries had disappeared, and she was utterly unconcerned as she watched the hollandaise fly off her spoon and slide down the walls as she stirred wildly. From that moment on, Wallis was convinced of the benefits of a daily cocktail hour.12
