Authors: Rebecca Dean
A few weeks later, shortly after she turned eighteen, there was different European royal news—and this time every newspaper in America carried it. The headlines were all the same: H
ABSBURG
H
EIR
A
SSASSINATED
I
N
S
ARAJEVO
.
It didn’t arouse much interest at Oldfields. There were only a few days to go before Wallis’s class left, and the topic of the moment wasn’t the Balkans, but the debutante year that lay ahead of them all. Wallis was the exception. The archduke had been the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef, and Emperor Franz Josef’s capital city was Vienna, where John Jasper and his father were. The assassination would have caused great excitement there, and she wondered if he was in the middle of it all.
By the time she received a letter from him telling her that the assassination had caused an enormous fuss, that the assassin was Serbian, and that he and his father had run into a huge street demonstration of Serbian flag burning, she had left Oldfields and, in London, Pamela had been presented at court and was a fully fledged debutante.
The majority of her own debutante dances and parties wouldn’t begin until the autumn, and she was already getting ready for them.
“Or I would be if I had the money for all the gowns I’m going to need,” she said to Aunt Bessie. “I’ve asked Uncle Sol if I can have a meeting with him to discuss the necessary financing, but I’m not sure how much I should be asking for. How much do you think my clothes bill will come to?”
Her aunt’s reply shocked even her.
“Taking into account the Princeton Prom, the Bachelor’s Cotillion, your own coming-out ball, the coming-out balls of all your fellow debutantes, all the tea dances and celebration luncheons you will be invited to, and the fact that you simply cannot be seen in the same outfit twice, you will have to ask for at least a thousand dollars. And don’t look so aghast, Wallis. Solomon Warfield can afford that amount with ease.”
Wallis wasn’t reassured. What her Uncle Sol could afford and what he was willing to part with were often two very different things.
She decided that her best approach was to be businesslike and to meet with him at the bank where he was president. As the victoria was now a thing of the past, she traveled downtown in her grandmother’s chauffeured Pierce-Arrow.
The bank was situated in a fifteen-story building on the corner of Baltimore Street and Calvert Street, and just entering it gave Wallis a good feeling. The foyer was splendidly large, the floor marble, the walls decorated with glittering mosaic-tiled scenes depicting the founding of Baltimore. The whole atmosphere announced that here money was made—and Wallis knew that to a very large extent that money was her Uncle Sol’s.
He greeted her as if she were a client, asking her to sit in the chair facing his desk.
“What can I do for you, Wallis?” he said, eyeing her with satisfaction.
Dressed in a spankingly smart raspberry-and-white striped walking dress, she was as neat and tidy as a bright new pin. Outwardly he could see no Montague in her, for with her dark hair and strong angular jaw she didn’t possess a glimmer of her mother’s blond, delicately pretty, porcelainlike beauty.
That she didn’t was a relief to him. He had no desire to be reminded of Alice, and he liked the very un-Alice-like way Wallis had set up this meeting with him. It showed a commonsense approach to financial dealings—and common sense, where money was concerned, was a quality he admired highly.
“We’ve never fully discussed my coming-out, Uncle Sol,” she said, coming straight to the point. “I’m not quite sure what your plans are for me.”
“I plan to give you the kind of coming-out year your father would have given you if he hadn’t been taken from us at such a tragically early age. Your debutante ball will be as large and lavish as befits a Warfield. Now, does that put your mind at rest?”
Wallis smiled sunnily. It had certainly put her mind to rest where her coming-out ball was concerned, but there was something else that still had to be clarified, something her uncle probably hadn’t even thought about.
“I shall need an allowance for clothes, Uncle Sol.”
““Ah, yes. Of course.” He took out a wallet. “How much do you anticipate needing?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“A thou …?” He tried to finish the word and couldn’t. He took a deep breath and tried again. “A thousand? A
thousand
?”
“Yes, Uncle Sol.” Wallis had no intention of being apologetic or of backing down. “Not only do I have to have an extraordinarily beautiful gown for my own debutante ball, but I have to have other gowns for all the balls I will be invited to. And those balls will be given by people like the Astors and the Schermerhorns and the Van Rensselaers. I can’t possibly wear the same ball gown twice, just as I can’t wear the same outfit to more than one celebration party or luncheon—and there will be lots and lots of those.”
The mention of Astors, Schermerhorns, and Van Rensselaers clinched it for her, as she had known it would. Sol had sent her to Oldfields in order for her to make friends and mix socially with girls from such families. There was no way now that, for the sake of a thousand dollars, he was going to put the friendships she had made at risk by having it look as if she were a poor relation.
“The money will be in your account by tomorrow—and mind you put it to good use. Restrained good taste is the mark of a lady, Wallis. Don’t follow the crowd. Create your own style.”
Wallis, who had been creating her own style for years, rose to her feet, rounded his desk, and gave him a kiss on his cheek. Then she exultantly made her way back down to the grandiose foyer, dizzy with delight at the thought of all the new gowns and outfits that were about to be hers.
Her debut gown was her first priority, and she knew exactly how she wanted it to look. Months ago she had seen a picture of the Broadway star Irene Castle wearing a Grecian-style gown of white satin combined with chiffon and trimmings of pearls. The chiffon veiled the shoulders and fell in a knee-length tunic, banded in pearl embroidery. It was elegant and distinctive—and she knew no other girl would have a gown remotely like it.
The first grand ball of her season would be the Princeton Prom in September, and for that she had her dressmaker make her a floaty gown of lavender blue organdy—going to great pains to make sure the blue was the exact same color as the color of her eyes.
Though she hadn’t yet received an invite to Beatrice Astor’s debut ball, she knew for a certainty that she would be receiving one and that it would be taking place at the Astor mansion on Fifth Avenue, in New York.
“It has to be extra special, Mama,” she said to Alice. “What is the most extra-special material there is?”
Alice, who was enjoying Wallis’s visits to the dressmaker almost as much as Wallis was, tilted her head to one side, thought for a moment, and then said: “Cloth of gold. You can’t have an
entire
gown made of it. It would look vulgar—especially so considering how young you are. But a gown made with a bodice of cloth of gold would look spectacular—especially if it were delicately embroidered with flowers.”
“And the skirt, Mama?”
“A full skirt made of crepe de chine in a shade complementing the gold of the bodice. Something in a sunset color.”
Wallis clapped her hands in delight. In a gown such as her mother had just described, she was going to be the object of all eyes. No one—not even Beatrice—would outshine her.
All through the rest of July and the beginning of August, Wallis thought of nothing but clothes and invitations. On the twenty-fifth of July, a small two-line news piece in the
Baltimore Sun
announced that Austria had broken off diplomatic ties with Serbia.
In a letter she received from John Jasper a few days later, he told her he and his father would soon be heading home, as war between Austria and Serbia seemed imminent.
Wallis didn’t give another thought to the war seemingly about to take place between Austria and Serbia. All that mattered to her was that it looked as if John Jasper would be back in Baltimore in time to escort her to the Princeton Prom.
“Where is this Serbia that is in the news again?” her Aunt Bessie asked a few days later when accompanying her to a milliner’s. “Wherever it is, according to today’s
Sun
, Austria has just declared war on it.”
Wallis wasn’t sure where Serbia was either, and neither did she care. If Austria had declared war on it, it meant John Jasper would be home in time for the prom and that she would very soon have his ring on the third finger of her left hand.
Life had become a hectic round of dressmaker appointments and lunches with other eighteen-year-old girls, whose chatter was constantly about clothes and husband hunting. Wallis never joined in the last subject, because she had no need to. The man of her dreams was already hers, and soon, certainly before Christmas, their engagement announcement would be in the
Baltimore Sun
for everyone to read.
Even when it became obvious that war in the Balkans was going to be the catalyst for a great war, with Germany and Austro-Hungary ranged on one side and Great Britain, France, and Russia on the other, Wallis remained uninterested. The drama was all taking place on the other side of the Atlantic. It couldn’t possibly affect her.
A week after Britain’s declaration of war against Germany, she received a letter from John Jasper telling her that he and his father were now in London.
… and when Pa has finished meeting up with people here, we’ll be booking a sailing aboard the
Mauretania
and heading home at full belt for Baltimore. I can’t tell you how much I’m missing you, Wallis. The first thing I’m going to do when I have Baltimore soil under my feet again is to ask your uncle if I can have an interview with him. How does a Christmas engagement sound? Wouldn’t it be swell? I love you with all my heart, sweet Wallis—and I sure as heck don’t want anyone else escorting you to the Princeton Prom—or the Bachelor’s Cotillion!
Just as the war wasn’t affecting her, so it didn’t seem to be affecting Pamela—or at least not adversely.
Dear Wally
,
In London every eligible young man is now in uniform—and they look spiffing. Tarquin’s youngest brother joined the North Somersets the instant war was declared and has just set off for France, taking with him his two best hunters, a valet, and a cook. Tarquin is hoping he’ll come home laden with medals. The Prince of Wales has been given a commission in the Grenadier Guards. Enclosed is a newspaper cutting of him in uniform. Doesn’t he look handsome? At my presentation to King George and Queen Mary he was standing a little to the left of Their Majesties, and though it was bad form of me, as I made my curtsey to the king I looked directly at his heir. Not only did I get a smile of recognition, I got a wink! Of course, afterwards, everyone said he’d simply got something in his eye and was trying to blink it away, but I know better! Rose Houghton has left for France in order to work as a nurse in one of the field hospitals. Her uniform is so divine I’m half tempted to go with her
.
At the end of the month, as Wallis waited in a fever of impatience for news of John Jasper’s sailing on the
Mauretania
, she received a letter from him filled with disappointment.
My Dearest Sweetheart
,
I don’t know how to tell you this, but Pa now says he has no intention of returning to Baltimore until the New Year
.
The only glimmer of good news about this is that he has booked passage for the two of us aboard a liner sailing from Southampton January 1st
.
There was much more to his letter, but Wallis scarcely read it. The devastation she felt at knowing he would not be her escort at either the Princeton Prom or the Bachelor’s Cotillion was too deep. With the letter still in her hands, she fought against giving way to tears. Tears wouldn’t solve the problem she now had—and that problem was an urgent one. Who was going to be her escort on her big night at the prom?
“What about Cousin Lelia’s boy, Basil?” Aunt Bessie suggested. “He’s very good looking. Even though he’s your second cousin, you’ll still be the envy of all the other debutantes.”
There were forty-nine other debutantes that year, and to be the envy of them all had become Wallis’s main ambition in life. That weekend she paid a self-invited visit to Wakefield Manor to speak to Basil. His reaction wasn’t at all what she had expected.
“I can’t possibly, Wallis,” he said apologetically. “I’m dating Miriam Foxwood. If I escorted you to the prom, she’d be so mad at me I might never see her again.”
To Wallis that didn’t matter a jot.
“You
have
to be my escort, Basil! Every other boy I know is already spoken for!”
“Nick Rhodes isn’t. He’s my best buddy. And he’ll be over the moon to escort you, Wallis. I just know he will be.”
“Is that because in the looks department he’s nothing to write home about?”
Basil grinned. “Nope. I’ll introduce the pair of you; then you can see for yourself.”
Though Nick Rhodes didn’t send her pulse racing and her heart hammering, he was presentable enough to have that effect on other girls and, with his agreement that he would be her escort, the prom was one social event nicely sorted out. It still left the Bachelor’s Cotillion, though—and the Bachelor’s Cotillion was
the
important event of the season.
In the end, that problem, too, was solved by family—and in a way that amused Wallis greatly.
“Your cousin Henry would like to escort you to the cotillion,” her Uncle Sol said, well pleased at the idea.
As Henry’s engagement had long since been broken off, Henry was
very
suitable. Even though she no longer had a crush on him, Wallis was gleeful. Henry was exceedingly good-looking, and in white tie and tails he would be even more so. At the cotillion she was going to be the envy of every girl there. She wrote Pamela with news of all the arrangements that had been made, describing what gown she would wear to each function. Pamela wrote back with news of her own.