The American Duchess. Anna Pasternak

      As the train hurtled north from St Pancras to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, Wallis Simpson stood in the aisle of a compartment, practising her curtsy. No mean feat, given the lurch and sway of the carriage. She was being instructed that the trick was to put her left leg well back behind her right one. Wallis’s balance was further challenged due to a streaming cold; her head was bunged up, while a voice rasped in her ears as she tried to master an elegant swoop down, then up. This comical scene was being watched by her husband, Ernest Simpson – always gently encouraging – and their friend Benjamin Thaw Jr, who was delivering the etiquette tutorial. Benjamin, known as Benny, first secretary at the United States embassy, was married to Consuelo Morgan, whose glamorous American half-sisters were Thelma, Viscountess Furness, and Gloria Vanderbilt.

      Benny and Connie Thaw had become close friends of the Simpsons in London. Wallis and Ernest mixed in society circles thanks to the introductions of his sister, Maud Kerr-Smiley. Maud had married Peter Kerr-Smiley in 1905. He became a prominent Member of Parliament and it was the Kerr-Smileys who facilitated the Simpsons’ entrée into the upper echelons of the aristocracy. It was through Consuelo that Wallis first met Thelma Furness. Consuelo had told her sister that Wallis was fun, promising Thelma that she would like her. In the autumn of 1930, she took Wallis to her sister’s Grosvenor Square house for cocktails. ‘Consuelo was right,’ said Thelma. ‘Wallis Simpson was “fun”, and I did like her.’ ‘She was not beautiful; in fact, she was not even pretty,’ she recalled of thirty-four-year-old Wallis – who was accustomed to an ever-present scrutiny of her looks – ‘but she had a distinct charm and a sharp sense of humour. Her dark hair was parted in the middle. Her eyes, alert and eloquent, were her best feature.’ Wallis was blessed with riveting sapphire blue eyes.

      That November, 1930, Wallis received a tantalising invitation. Connie Thaw asked her if she and Ernest would act as chaperones to Thelma and the Prince of Wales at a weekend house party in Leicestershire. Connie had to leave for the Continent at the last minute, due to a family illness, and wondered if Wallis and Ernest would accompany Ambassador Thaw to Burrough Court, Viscount Furness’s country house, instead. The Simpsons had heard the rumours that Thelma Furness was ‘the Prince’s Girl’, having stolen the maîtresse-en-titre role from his previous lover, Mrs Freda Dudley Ward. The prince’s pet name for Thelma was ‘Toodles’ and she was said to be madly in love with him. It was an open secret in society circles that Thelma was unhappily married to Marmaduke, the 1st Viscount Furness. Known as the ‘fiery Furness’, he had red hair and a temper.

      Wallis’s first reaction to the invitation was ‘a mixture of pleasure and horror’. ‘Like everybody else, I was dying to meet the Prince of Wales,’ she said, ‘but my knowledge of royalty, except for what I had read, had until then been limited to glimpses at a distance of King George V in his State Coach on his way to Parliament.’ Though unsure of royal etiquette, she was at least confident of looking the part, having been on a shopping spree in Molyneux, Paris, a few months earlier. Her attractive blue-grey tweed dress, with a matching fur-edged cape, ‘would meet the most exacting requirements of both a horsy and princely setting’.

      It was past five o’clock on Saturday afternoon when Thaw and the Simpsons arrived at Melton Mowbray, in the heart of fox-hunting country. A thick fog choked the county. Burrough Court was a spacious, comfortable hunting lodge full of traditional mahogany furniture and lively chintz. Thelma’s stepdaughter, Averill, greeted the guests, informing them that the rest of the party had been delayed out hunting on the road, due to the fog. Taken into the drawing room, where tea had been laid out on a round table in front of the fire, Wallis could feel her skin burning. Suspecting she had a slight temperature, she hankered to go to bed. Instead, they were forced to wait a further two hours until the royal party arrived.

      After what seemed an age, voices were heard in the hallway and Thelma appeared with two princes: Edward, Prince of Wales, and his younger (favourite) brother, Prince George. To her surprise, Wallis’s curtsy to each prince came off well, to the Simpsons’ shared amusement. Thelma led everyone back to the table in front of the fire and they had tea all over again.

      Like many who meet celebrities in the flesh for the first time, Wallis was taken aback; she was surprised by how small the Prince of Wales was. She was five foot five and Edward less than two inches taller. Prince George was ‘considerably taller’, she noted, ‘with neatly brushed brown hair, aquiline features, and dark-blue eyes. He gave an impression of gaiety and joie de vivre.’ Facially, Edward was immediately recognisable. ‘I remember thinking, as I studied the Prince of Wales, how much like his pictures he really was,’ she recollected. ‘The slightly wind-rumpled golden hair, the turned-up nose, and a strange, wistful, almost sad look about the eyes when his expression was in repose.’

      At eight o’clock, Prince George’s friends arrived and took him to another house party. Finally, the Simpsons could retire upstairs to change. Wallis had a much longed-for hot bath and took two aspirin, while Ernest – from America but naturalised British – remarked on the charm of the two royal brothers and how they instantly put everyone at their ease. ‘I have come to the conclusion,’ he added, ‘that you Americans lost something that is very good and quite irreplaceable when you decided to dispense with the British Monarchy.’

      The dinner party that night for thirty guests was late even by European standards, past ten o’clock. Ernest and Wallis knew no one and were at a conversational loss as they had no knowledge of, or curiosity about, hunting. A fact not lost on the prince. ‘Mrs Simpson did not ride and obviously had no interest in horses, hounds, or hunting in general,’ Edward later wrote. ‘She was also plainly in misery from a bad cold in the head.’ Discovering that she was American, the prince kicked off conversation by observing that she must miss central heating, of which there was a lamentable lack in British country houses and an abundance in American homes. Wallis’s response astonished him: ‘On the contrary. I like the cold houses of Great Britain,’ she replied. According to the prince ‘a mocking look came into her eyes’, and she replied: ‘I am sorry, Sir, but you have disappointed me.’

      ‘In what way?’ said Edward.

      ‘Every American woman who comes to your country is always asked the same question. I had hoped for something more original from the Prince of Wales.’

      ***

      Wallis, born Bessie Wallis Warfield on 19 June 1896, took pride in coming from old Southern stock. ‘Wallis’s family was very old by American standards,’ said her friend, Diana, Lady Mosley, approvingly. Wallis’s mother, Alice, gave birth to her in a holiday cottage at Blue Ridge Summit in Pennsylvania,