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The talk turned to Wally. I only mentioned that she longs to be presented at Court, and Gladys Trilling practically leaped out of her seat. She said, “Oh but that can never happen. Surely Wally and Ernest are both divorced?”
According to Gloria and Hattie, divorce is death to any Court ambitions.
I said, “But what about Thelma Furness? She’s about to get her second divorce, but that doesn’t seem to deter the Prince of Wales.”
Hattie said, “There’s all the difference in the world between sharing Wales’s bed and being brought into the presence of Their Majesties, and I’m sure Thelma Furness has always understood her position.”
If that’s the case, I’m surprised she hasn’t explained it to Wally. They’re such friends these days, they must surely commiserate with each other about the taint of divorce. How frustrating. A youthful error with Win Spencer and now Wally’s greatest desire is forever beyond her reach. Well, I’m not going to be the one who tells her.
14th March 1933
Philip Sassoon has invited me to his house by the ocean for Easter. A fête champêtre at Port Lympne! Whatever it is, I can’t wait.
16th March 1933
The most extraordinary thing. I was with Wally at Bryanston Court early last evening, when the door opened and in walked the Prince of Wales. He said, “You didn’t invite me, but here I am anyway.”
Wally didn’t miss a beat. She said, “Why sir! I hope you know you’re welcome anytime. We’re very informal tonight, just an old school friend, Maybell Brumby.”
She was pulling faces at me behind his back, reminding me to curtsy. She doesn’t understand that when I was at Carlton Gardens, Violet had royalties trooping through on an almost daily basis.
His Royal Highness has very blue eyes and a rather high-pitched voice.
“Brumby?” he said. “A big name in Baltimore, I seem to remember. Iron, was it?”
Iron, coal, nickel, cobalt, silver, bauxite. Wherever it was in the world, Danforth Brumby would find it and have it grubbed out of the ground and turned into dollars.
I said, “Yes sir, Brumby Steel and Chemical, founded by my late husband. And you may have heard of my late father, too. John Patterson was a legend for his worker housing.”
“Is that so?” he said. “Well, you must tell me about it someday. I’m awfully keen on worker housing.”
Wally didn’t like that. She thinks she’s the only one who knows how to draw people out. She thinks I’m just a pretty face.
The Prince made us all scotches and soda, very much at home. He’d obviously done it before. Wally’s a sly one. He told us about his week. He’d been in the North, cheering up paupers. Wally was plying him with questions, but he really wanted to know about me, what brought me to London.
I said, “Well, funnily enough, sir, you did. I came last year, after my bereavement, to visit my sister Violet. And if it weren’t for you, I very much doubt my sister would be here. If you hadn’t gone to Sulphur Springs with Donald Melhuish all those years ago, Violet wouldn’t have met him and married him and moved to London. So, in a roundabout way, you’re entirely responsible.”
He has a funny little laugh.
“Melhuish!” he said. “Of course! When was that?”
It was 1919.
He said, “And you’re Violet Melhuish’s sister? Remarkable! You look nothing like her. A fine soldier, Melhuish. We were together at Verdun, you know?”
When Ernest came home, he didn’t seem particularly surprised to find the Prince of Wales sitting on his couch, so I wonder how long this has been going on? Great shows of affability, but I believe I noticed Ernest relax when the Prince said he couldn’t stay to dinner.
He said, “No, Ernest. As comfortable as I am, I can’t stay, not even for Wally’s goulash. I have to dine with Their Majesties.”
He kissed Wally on the cheek as he left.
She said, “Oh Maybell, your face when the Prince walked in! I wish I could have snapped it.”
I said, “You might have warned me. You were obviously expecting him.”
She said, “Not really. He’s dropped by a few times but he never calls ahead.”
I said, “But you didn’t even tell me he’d been here. Why the big secret? You were shouting it from the rooftops when he invited you to Fort Belvedere.”
Ernest said, “We certainly did not. We’ve always been discreet about our friendship, and so must you be. Please don’t go telling all and sundry about this evening. His Royal Highness feels at home here, thanks to Wally. She has the right touch. Clever girl.”
So that’s why she’s been shopping with such abandon. Ernest’s paid her a good dividend for hauling in the Prince of Wales. Well, their secret is safe with me. Apart from Pips and Violet, I won’t tell a soul.
17th March 1933
I made a point of speaking to Melhuish on the telephone this morning. He said, “You’ve missed Violet. She had a meeting at nine and then she’s going directly to the Habberleys. We’re there for the weekend.”
I said, “It was you I wanted. I was with the Prince of Wales last evening and he most particularly asked to be remembered to you.”
Stopped him in his tracks. “Wales?” he said. “Really? Were you at the Belchesters?”
I said, “No, at the Ernest Simpsons.”
“Simpson, Simpson?” he said. “Know the name, but can’t place him.”
I said, “You met him at my soiree. He was in the Guards, and his wife is called Wally. She talked to you about salmon flies. She was a school friend, but these days Violet disapproves of her.”
He said, “Does she? Well, Vee’s a good judge of people. As for Wales, these days I’m not entirely sure how sound he is. There was a time. We had a good war together, but he doesn’t appear to have done much since. From what I hear, all he does nowadays is plague his tailor and run his valets ragged. He’s a bloody clotheshorse, Maybell. If you ask me, we’re going to get a dandy for a king.”
It says it all. The Prince is so modern and unstuffy, and Melhuish is so set in his ways. How left behind he must feel.
Stood Wally lunch at the Dorch. Penelope Blythe came to our table and said, “Oh Wally, I hear His Royal Highness is back from Northumberland. How is he?” I could have killed her. I’d sworn Pips and Hattie to absolute secrecy.
Wally doesn’t seem as anxious about things as Ernest, though.
She said, “Well, of course, nothing the Prince of Wales does goes unnoticed. And why shouldn’t he call in on friends at the cocktail hour?”
I said, “I suppose what’s remarkable is that he comes to an address like Bryanston Court.”
“Not at all,” she said. “That’s the kind of prince he is.”
The Erlangers want me to dinner. The Trillings are begging me. Pips absolutely insists on having me. Wally’s schedule may suddenly be full, but they know they can get the story from me, and without earnest Ernest sucking on his pipe and pontificating about discretion.
20th March 1933
To the Crosbies. The Prosper Friths were there, also the Erlangers and the Belchesters. Billy Belchester said it didn’t surprise him to hear that the Prince of Wales had taken up with people in the suburbs. He said, “It’ll be his latest fad. That’s Wales all over. Picks things up and then drops them. I hope your Simpson friends are prepared for that.”
Freddie said, “Still, I think it was very astute of Maybell to get him onto worker housing. He’s not the easiest of conversationalists, but that is a subject dear to his heart. Golf, too.”
Prosper Frith said it was all very well for Wales to be keen on worker housing when he didn’t have to find the money for it. He said, “Ask me, he should attend to his own affairs. Cut ribbons. Settle down and produce an heir. Leave politicking to those who understand it.”
Daphne Frith said, “Well, I’d hate to have Royalties suddenly proposing themselves for cockers. It’d be such a strain, always being prepared.”
Not for Wally, of course. Being prepared is what she does best. I do wonder about Violet and Melhuish though. The Prince is so agreeable, I can’t think why they allowed the friendship to wither. Tea parties with the Bertie Yorks are all very well, but Wales is the one who’ll be king someday.
Freddie says His Royal Highness is a big campaigner for pit head baths.
21st March 1933
Harrold’s Lending Library had nothing on pit head baths. Ida says they are facilities to allow coal miners to perform their toilette before going home to dine. All at the mine owner’s expense, you can be sure.
22nd March 1933
Lunched with Wally. The Prince of Wales has asked after me!
She and Ernest had dinner with him last evening at the Benny Thaws.
She said, “He loves Americans, you know. He finds us much more in tune with his thinking than those English stuffed shirts. And he’s often at a loose end in the evening, especially when Thelma’s in the country. Really, if we want him, he’s ours for the taking.”
She’s talking about offering him a dinner. Not a potluck with just her and Ernest, but a proper dinner, where he can meet lively Americans. With only a cook and two maids, it sounds overambitious to me. Wilton Place would be far more suitable, but she didn’t like my saying so.
She said, “I can manage perfectly well at Bryanston Court, thank you, and the Prince feels at home there. Obviously, I’ll get in extra help. But don’t be disappointed, Maybell, if you’re not invited. The guest list will be out of my hands. That’s the protocol, you see? David will have to approve everything.”
Minnehaha Warfield lecturing me on protocol!
27th March 1933
Lunch with George Lightfoot, who didn’t seem at all interested in the Simpsons and the Prince. He said, “It’s no great coup, Maybell. I could introduce you to any number of people who spend their lives avoiding royalties. They’re costly to maintain and have the habit of encouraging familiarity, then suddenly frowning on it. Befriending them is like venturing onto creaking ice.”
Flora is in trouble again. Violet took her to an outfitters to buy her clothes for starting at Miss Hildred’s Day School after Easter, and when they got home with their purchases, Flora hacked her new straw hat to pieces with Doopie’s sewing scissors.
Lightfoot said, “I’m afraid it won’t save her from Miss Hildred’s, though. She’s going, bonnet or no bonnet. It’s a shame really. I shall miss her singular ways. It’s not often a child reaches the age of nine without being tamed.”
Disappointed to find he’s not coming to Philip Sassoon’s at Easter. We could have traveled together. He was invited but had already accepted for something in Gloucestershire. The girl named Belinda with the jutting jaw.
I said, “Are you in love with her?”
“No,” he said, “not noticeably.”
2nd April 1933
To Carlton Gardens. The boys are home from school. I’d promised Rory we’d go to a cartoon theater this vacation, but now we have the complication of Flora, who was supposed to come with us but is in the doghouse. He was pleading Flora’s case with Violet, and Flora was doing nothing to help herself, sitting on the stairs, shouting, “I’m not going to Miss Dread’s and I’m not wearing a banama hat.”
Ulick said, “It seems very clear to me that she hasn’t yet learned her lesson. It’ll do her no good at all to be let off scot-free. Melhuishes know how to take their punishment like a man.”
Rory said, “But she’s a girl. And if she can’t come to see The Three Little Pigs, I shan’t feel decent about going.”
To be resolved.
4th April 1933
Saw Lightfoot on my way to Monsieur Jules. He says Rory took his appeal to the House of Lords, but Melhuish told him he never overturns Violet’s decisions.
He said, “The only thing I can suggest is that I play the Christian mercy card. I am her gobfather, after all. I’ll see what I can do.”
5th April 1933
Violet has agreed to a compromise. Flora will be allowed to come out with Rory for a high tea, but there will be no cartoons until she has behaved herself for a full term at school. Lightfoot said, “There are conditions, of course. We’re not to indulge her too much, or in any way let her forget her misdemeanors. Doopie said, ‘Bedda nod smile doo mudge, Dordie. Bedda pud on gumby vayzes.’”
I don’t see why Doopie always has to tag along on these occasions. And I wish she could be trained to say “George” instead of “Dordie.”
7th April 1933
To Ruddle’s for a fried-fish supper. Flora behaved impeccably. I don’t know why Violet has such problems with her.
Rory asked about Wally. There’s obviously been talk in the drawing room at Carlton Gardens.
I said, “You may very well see her yourself at Easter. You’ll be at Windsor, and she’ll be just along the road, at Fort Belvedere with the Prince of Wales.”
“Gosh,” he said, “even though she’s poor? Are you going, too?”
I said, “No, I’m going to Kent to stay with Sir Philip Sassoon.”
“Oh,” he said, “the gaudy Semite.”
Lightfoot said, “I say, Rory! Where did that come from?”
“Ulick,” he said, “after Aunt Maybell told us he gave her luncheon on a lapis lazuli table. Ulick said he’s a gaudy Semite and not our kind of person.”
Doopie not following things at all, looking perplexed, asking Lightfoot over and over, “Who Horty Zeemide?”
We should leave her at home really. She never does well in restaurants.
Flora said, “Gaudy Semite is a nice name.”
8th April 1933
A wire from Randolph Putnam. Franklin Roosevelt has announced that in the future, only the government may own gold bullion, and those of us who thought to put our hard-earned dollars into gold are going to have to sell it to the Federal Reserve. At a very poor price, you may be sure. How sound Brumby’s judgment was. Never trust a lawyer.
10th April 1933
Two days to reach Randolph by telephone, then, when I did get through, he did nothing to put my mind at rest. If I don’t turn in my gold, I can be prosecuted for hoarding and, as if that isn’t bad enough, he’s coming to England in June. I said, “I shall be at Royal Ascot.”
“So will I,” he said. “I’ll be staying in a town called Maidenhead. I have a Putnam cousin there, twice removed. Now Mother has passed over I’m going to start seeing the world and I’m holding you to dinner, Maybell. We have a lot to catch up on.”
I doubt that anything of interest to me has ever happened to Randolph Putnam.
15th April 1933, Port Lympne, Kent
