Read Online That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba - Free Book Online Page A
Book: That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba
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Authors: Anne Sebba
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involved with another woman, could do nothing but absorb for herself the mores of the time and the place. She was a novice engaging with a world of deep hypocrisy and it took her some time to learn the rules of this circle. Some got away with scandalous adultery followed by divorce and went on to live a new life with a new partner. Others paid a heavy price. When Polly Peabody met Harry Crosby in 1920 and within two weeks tried to divorce her husband, Richard J. Peabody, who had become a dangerous alcoholic, blue-blooded Boston society was scandalized. Both Crosby and Peabody were wealthy sons of socially prominent Boston families and both were victims and veterans of the recent war. Crosby married Polly in 1922 but, shortly afterwards, he had a passionate affair with Constance Coolidge, the Comtesse de Jumilhac, who later became a close friend of Wallis for a time. In 1929 Crosby committed suicide with his latest young lover, Josephine Rotch, after taking a mixture of drink and drugs.
Espil’s rejection of her for a better-connected rival was publicly humiliating. Wallis, unusually, had lost control of the situation, which represented a crushing defeat. Washington was suddenly cold and unwelcoming. So when Corinne suggested a trip to Paris she jumped at the idea. Ethel Noyes, also getting a divorce at this time, was in Paris just before her marriage to Bill Lewis. The cousins sailed to Europe in January 1924, Wallis half hoping that she might find a divorce easier and cheaper in Paris, or even that Espil might pursue her. He never did and she discovered that a divorce would cost her several thousand dollars, money her uncle Sol had once again declined to provide. Deeply hurt by Espil and, aged twenty-eight, increasingly uncertain of the future, she responded warmly when Win wrote to invite her to forget the past and join him in China. It felt like there was nothing to lose. She would be tougher in future, never lose control. Win sent instructions for her to join a naval transport at Norfolk, Virginia, and then sail on to China at government expense.
Wallis travelled with a cargo of navy wives on the USS Chaumont , arriving in Hong Kong in September 1924 after a six-week voyage. Travelling to China at that time was not only prohibitively expensive for most people, it was also exotic and an opportunity to see something of the world – which she realized had become a necessity, having had a taste of it from the talk of others in the hothouse diplomatic circles of Washington. She badly wanted the marriage to work this time and, for a short while, it did. Win, on the dock to meet her, was looking tanned, clear-eyed and physically fit. He took her back to his navy-supplied apartment in Kowloon on the Chinese mainland and told her that he had stopped drinking from the day he had heard she was coming.
This second honeymoon was, however, short lived. Again, there is only Wallis’s account of the final breakdown. She recounts how Win, after two weeks, returned to his old pattern of drinking and erratic behaviour leading to abuse and violence. There is good reason to believe her. Her frame of mind was such that she would have tried hard to keep the marriage together at this point in her life if she could have, and, revealingly, she admits that perhaps there was something about the two of them together that set off this vicious cycle. When she asked Win if she was responsible for lighting the fire of his anger, he apparently responded that he could not explain what happened but ‘something lets go, like the cables of a plane’. In the days before therapy it may be unfair to blame Wallis for a lack of sympathy, as some biographers have done. But, even assuming Win and Wallis did not encounter a physical difficulty in their relationship which unleashed his fury and determination to punish her, it is clear that Wallis was not interested in trying to understand his problems nor in encouraging him to seek help. This may have been
Espil’s rejection of her for a better-connected rival was publicly humiliating. Wallis, unusually, had lost control of the situation, which represented a crushing defeat. Washington was suddenly cold and unwelcoming. So when Corinne suggested a trip to Paris she jumped at the idea. Ethel Noyes, also getting a divorce at this time, was in Paris just before her marriage to Bill Lewis. The cousins sailed to Europe in January 1924, Wallis half hoping that she might find a divorce easier and cheaper in Paris, or even that Espil might pursue her. He never did and she discovered that a divorce would cost her several thousand dollars, money her uncle Sol had once again declined to provide. Deeply hurt by Espil and, aged twenty-eight, increasingly uncertain of the future, she responded warmly when Win wrote to invite her to forget the past and join him in China. It felt like there was nothing to lose. She would be tougher in future, never lose control. Win sent instructions for her to join a naval transport at Norfolk, Virginia, and then sail on to China at government expense.
Wallis travelled with a cargo of navy wives on the USS Chaumont , arriving in Hong Kong in September 1924 after a six-week voyage. Travelling to China at that time was not only prohibitively expensive for most people, it was also exotic and an opportunity to see something of the world – which she realized had become a necessity, having had a taste of it from the talk of others in the hothouse diplomatic circles of Washington. She badly wanted the marriage to work this time and, for a short while, it did. Win, on the dock to meet her, was looking tanned, clear-eyed and physically fit. He took her back to his navy-supplied apartment in Kowloon on the Chinese mainland and told her that he had stopped drinking from the day he had heard she was coming.
This second honeymoon was, however, short lived. Again, there is only Wallis’s account of the final breakdown. She recounts how Win, after two weeks, returned to his old pattern of drinking and erratic behaviour leading to abuse and violence. There is good reason to believe her. Her frame of mind was such that she would have tried hard to keep the marriage together at this point in her life if she could have, and, revealingly, she admits that perhaps there was something about the two of them together that set off this vicious cycle. When she asked Win if she was responsible for lighting the fire of his anger, he apparently responded that he could not explain what happened but ‘something lets go, like the cables of a plane’. In the days before therapy it may be unfair to blame Wallis for a lack of sympathy, as some biographers have done. But, even assuming Win and Wallis did not encounter a physical difficulty in their relationship which unleashed his fury and determination to punish her, it is clear that Wallis was not interested in trying to understand his problems nor in encouraging him to seek help. This may have been
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