Read Online The Peoples King by Susan Williams - Free Book Online Page A

unhappiness that might result from her intimacy with Edward, she reminded her aunt of her ability to weather storms:
    As you know people must make their own lives and I should by now nearly 40 have a little experience in that line - as I wasn't in a position to have it arranged for me by money or position and though I have had many hard times, disappointments etc. I've managed not to go under as yet - and never having known security until I married Ernest perhaps I don't get along well with it knowing and understanding the thrill of its opposite much better - the old bromide nothing ventured, nothing gained.
    ‘I might still be following ships,' she added, recalling the bitter experi­ence of her marriage to Win Spencer, who was a navy pilot. 61
    She was also liked and respected by her servants. 'All the maids spoke well of Mrs Simpson', said a kitchen maid who worked at Bryanston Court. 62 Her personal maid, Mary Burke, who went everywhere with her and would have known everything about her, was fiercely loyal. So too was Mary Cain, her Scottish parlour maid, who was 'a confidential servant and she never spoke about her mis­tress. If anyone spoke about her mistress she would at once leave the room.' 63 According to the head porter at Bryanston Court, 'there was nothing frivolous' about Mrs Simpson - 'She had a sort of command about her.' 64
    But however worldly-wise she was, Wallis had a warm heart and liked to care for people. 'She was so affectionate, a loving sort of friend - very rare, you know', commented Diana Vreeland. 65 Wallis was devoted to her mother and her aunt, with whom she exchanged weekly letters from London, full of gossip and recipes; she also sent cheques home on a regular basis. When Alice was only fifty-nine, in 1929, she suffered a stroke. Wallis rushed home, taking the next boat across the
    Atlantic. She stayed as long as she could, until Ernest pleaded with her to return to London. Wallis worried incessantly and wrote to her aunt:
    I feel desperate being so far away and knowing she is not getting better and wants and needs me there with her and to think of you having to bear it all alone. I don't think I am much use here as I'm really so sad the majority of the time I'm not a fit companion. 61 '
    She returned to America in the autumn, but it was a brief visit because her mother had fallen into a coma, and died in November. Wallis was overcome by grief.
    Aunt Bessie became even more important to Wallis. Now in her seventies, with an ample matronly figure, Mrs Merryman was loving, affectionate and kind. She lived in Washington, where she was employed as a paid companion to a newspaper heiress. Over the next twenty years Wallis wrote her a stream of letters. 'It was thrilling to hear your voice on Xmas eve. It did make me want to see you so badly', she wrote in 1935. 67 She worried about her aunt's health: 'I am so worried about your blood pressure,' she wrote in 1936, 'and please be sure to do exactly what the doctor tells you.' 68 Edward adored Bessie and delighted in her company. At the end of one of Wallis's letters, he pleaded in a postscript:
    Please Mrs Merryman not to be cross with Wallis for writing you [sic] in so long! it really has been quite a busy time with the Jubilee and various ceremonies and social functions connected with it. I wish you could have seen one or two of them . . . Do come over and see us again soon.
    EDWARD P 69
    How different was Mrs Merryman from Edward's mother, although they did share a gift for plain speaking. On several occasions Bessie warned Wallis against further involvement with Edward. 'You did give me a lecture,' acknowledged Wallis in one letter, 'and I quite agree with all you say regarding HRH and if Ernest raises any objections to the situation I shall give the Prince up at once.' 70 Similarly, Janet Flanner observed that Queen Mary 'can't make a speech but knows how to speak her mind, and gets to the point without shilly-shally.' 71 But there the