Abdication: A Novel Read online

  England, 1936.

  The year began with the death of a beloved king and the ascension of a charismatic young monarch, sympathetic to the needs of the working class, glamorous and single. By year’s end, the world would be stunned as it witnessed that new leader give up his throne in the name of love, just as the unrest and violence that would result in a Second World War were becoming impossible to ignore.

  During the tumultuous intervening months, amidst the whirl of social and political upheaval, wise-beyond-her-nineteen-years May Thomas will take the first, faltering steps toward creating a new life for herself. Just disembarked at Liverpool after a long journey from her home on a struggling sugar plantation in Barbados, she secures a position as secretary and driver to Sir Philip Blunt, a job that will open her eyes to the activities of the uppermost echelons of British society, and her heart to a man seemingly beyond her reach.

  Outwardly affable spinster Evangeline Nettlefold is a girlhood friend to the American socialite Wallis Simpson, a goddaughter to Lady Joan Blunt and a new arrival to London from Baltimore. She will be generously welcomed into society’s most glittering circles, where one’s daily worth is determined by one’s proximity to a certain H.R.H. and his married mistress. But as the resentment she feels toward Wallis grows in magnitude, so too does the likelihood of disastrous consequences.

  Young, idealistic Julian Richardson’s Oxford degree and his close friendship with Rupert Blunt have catapulted him from excruciating hours in his mother’s middle-class parlor to long holidays spent at stately homes and luxurious dinners in the company of a king. But even as he enjoys his time in this privileged world, his head cannot forget the struggles of those who live outside its gilded gates, and his uneasy heart cannot put aside his undeclared affection for May.

  May, Evangeline and Julian will all become embroiled in the hidden truths, undeclared loves, unspoken sympathies and covert complicities that define the year chronicled in Abdication. In pitch-perfect prose, Juliet Nicolson has captured an era in which duty and pleasure, tradition and novelty, and order and chaos all battled for supremacy in the hearts and minds of king and commoner alike. As addictive as Downton Abbey, as poignant as The Remains of the Day, Abdication is a breathtaking story inspired by a love affair that shook the world at a time when the world was on the brink of war.

  Advance praise for Abdication

  “A vivid reimagining of the crisis surrounding King Edward VIII’s abdication through the eyes of three intriguing outsiders from very different worlds. In her thoroughly absorbing novel, Juliet Nicolson combines an historian’s deep knowledge and eye for telling detail with a keen sense of drama, a dash of romance, and an understanding of the complex motivations of human nature.”

  —Sally Bedell Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen

  Praise for JULIET NICOLSON’s previous books

  “Brilliant. … Lucid, entertaining and fascinating.”

  —William Boyd (for The Perfect Summer)

  “[A] vivid account of the aftermath of the carnage we glamorize as the Great War. . . . Magnificent.”

  —The New York Times Book Review (for The Great Silence)

  JULIET NICOLSON is the author of The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm and The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age. She read English at the University of Oxford and has worked in publishing in both the UK and the United States. She is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and the daughter of Nigel Nicolson. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in Sussex.

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  JACKET PHOTOGRAPH BY © HULTON COLLECTION/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES AND © TOM WOOD/ALAMY

  AUTHOR PHOTO BY AXEL HESSLENBERG

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

  ABDICATION

  Also by Juliet Nicolson

  The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm

  The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Juliet Nicolson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Atria Books hardcover edition May 2012

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  Designed by Dana Sloan

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nicolson, Juliet.

  Abdication : a novel / by Juliet Nicolson. — 1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894–1972—Fiction. 2. Windsor, Wallis Warfield, Duchess of, 1896–1986—Fiction. 3. Aristocracy (Social class)—Fiction. 4. London (England)—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction. 5. Secrets—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6064.I27A23 2012

  823'.914—dc23 2012006993

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-5883-5

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-5884-2 (ebook)

  For Clemmie and Flora and Charlie

  with all my love,

  and more.

  Contents

  Part I: Winter: Arrival

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part II: Spring: Discovery

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part III: Summer: Expectation

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part IV: Autumn: Loyalty

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  On a gloomy February afternoon in 1936 a young woman of nineteen years brought the dark blue Rolls-Royce slowly to a halt. Managing the mahogany steering wheel with surprising ease for someone so slight, May Thomas parked the car outside the country home of a middle-aged man and his married mistress.

  The journey from London to Sunningdale had taken about an hour and shortly
before reaching the town May edged the car along the boundary of Windsor Great Park before turning off the road into an unmarked opening. She was enjoying the unaccustomed feeling of stylish authority given to her by the new chauffeur’s uniform of blue trousers, jacket and matching navy blue cap with its shiny patent leather peak. Driving through a pair of wide open and crisply painted white gates, she took the car slowly up a rising avenue of plump-trunked oak trees and thick rhododendron bushes. There were signs that substantial clearances had been made within the undergrowth but in some places, where the tangle of branches at the top formed a thick canopy, the snow had failed to make its way down into this melancholy landscape.

  As the sand-coloured house—although no one could actually call it that—appeared round a bend, lit up by an ingenious series of concealed electric floodlights, May was relieved that she was only dropping off her passenger and would not be required to stay the night. The series of battlements surrounding the central tower that protruded from a mass of crenelated buildings were very un-house like; and yet the building’s diminutive size made it ineligible for the status of castle. May was reminded of a picture she had seen in one of her brother Sam’s old cowboy books, a turreted fort out of which an invading Red Indian leapt complete with bow and arrow.

  A woman in a slim-fitting and tightly belted black dress with long sleeves and a white collar was standing at the front door. She looked a bit like a nurse or a school matron. As May eased the car slowly alongside her, the woman stepped forward and opened the car door.

  “Evangeline, my dear!” said the woman in a hard-edged accent that sounded like coins rubbing up against each other in a pocket. “You have no idea how pleased I am to see you!”

  May’s passenger was struggling to get out of the car. In fact, Miss Evangeline Nettlefold was wedged between the back seat and the back of the front passenger seat and the harder she struggled to get free the more stuck she became. A little dog, a Pekinese that had been sitting on his owner’s lap throughout the journey, appeared to be having an asthma attack and when May ran round to the other side of the car to release her passenger she saw that the dog had drooled onto a patch of Miss Nettlefold’s grey wool skirt, leaving a black stain on the front panel.

  After an awkward tussle between May, Miss Nettlefold and a now frothing dog, the large woman found herself suddenly catapulted into the open air.

  “Oh, Wallis, you know me! Too many delicious English cookies for my own good!” she apologised, in a surprisingly unflustered and rather beautiful voice. Her chubby cheeks resembled pink gobstoppers. “But how divine it is to be here at last.”

  And with a wave to May, she turned towards the front door, her fur coat flapping open in the wind. The two women immediately fell into conversation, glancing briefly backwards in May’s direction before vanishing inside. Miss Nettlefold’s arm had been tucked tightly into that of her hostess, a woman with an unnaturally wide smile, a doll-like body, high shoulders and an enormous head. She reminded May of someone, although May could not quite identify the memory. After several deep breaths of cold winter air May returned to the car, removed her cap and shook her hair free. She was about to resume her place at the wheel when she noticed the flat square package on the front seat. The brown paper parcel was imprinted with a store logo, a sharp-edged four leaf clover separating the letters “H” and “K.”

  “I brought this all the way from Baltimore,” Miss Nettlefold had told May when they set off from St. John’s Wood that afternoon. “Can you put it somewhere safe for me? Knowing my luck, if I find a space for it here in the back with me and Wiggle, I will probably sit on it, and records have a funny way of snapping when sat on, don’t you find?”

  With the parcel safely under one arm May returned to the front door and pulled the bell. A black-suited butler answered the ring. He was as compact and elegant as a Russian Sobranie.

  “Sorry to trouble you, sir, but Miss Nettlefold has left something in the car.”

  “I will make sure she gets it immediately,” he replied with unequivocal authority. But May felt uneasy. From early on in her life she had discovered that trust must be earned.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said, raising her voice to a level beyond the tremble that threatened to unseat her resolve, “Miss Nettlefold left the package in my care and I would like to make sure she gets it myself.”

  “I assure you, Miss, that if you give the package to me it will be delivered safely to Miss Nettlefold.”

  But May kept her composure, holding on to the parcel tightly and wishing she had remembered to put her cap back on her head. A short silence elapsed between them.

  “Oh well, you better follow me,” the cigarette-slim butler snapped, before moistening his lips with a thin tongue.

  Walking a pace behind the stiff back ahead of her, May followed the butler into a short passageway, which billowed out into a high-ceilinged hall painted white, the starkness relieved by eight bright yellow leather chairs positioned in each of the octagonal corners. May’s hard-soled driving shoes clicked in echoing reply to those of the butler as they crossed the black and white marble floor. A pretty maid in a pink uniform, a lace-edged hat perched on her blond hair put her head round a corner.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Osborne,” she said. “Miss Spry is on the telephone and wants to know whether it would be convenient to come over later and do the flowers for the weekend?”

  “Tell her to check with Mrs. Mason if that will suit. We don’t want the housekeeper upset. You know what she’s like,” Mr. Osborne replied abruptly and crossed the hall ahead of May.

  A cloying sweetness came from the vases of lilies that sat on tall plinths at every few feet. A faint sound of barking could be heard from behind a closed door far away. May felt unnaturally hot. There was no warning, no time to ask for a mirror to check her newly bobbed hair, no time to think before she found herself at an open doorway and saw two faces turned towards her in surprise.

  “Why May? Whatever are you doing here, my dear? Is something wrong?”

  But the butler spoke before May could answer.

  “Forgive us the interruption, Madam. Your driver insisted on bringing this parcel to you herself.”

  “Please bring her in, Osborne,” Miss Nettlefold’s friend instructed. “And by the way, have you ordered a car to meet the hairdresser from the train?”

  The butler’s previously impassive expression reflected irritation. “I have of course,” he retorted, adding “Madam” in afterthought.

  Bending over a tray laid with china cups as thin as eggshells, he poured out the pale tea before offering Miss Nettlefold a plate of miniature salmon sandwiches.

  May wondered what sort of impression she was giving in her dark suit, her fringe still clamped damply onto her forehead. While reminding herself in future to remove her cap when driving, she struggled to place the familiar face of Miss Nettlefold’s friend. Had she seen her in a famous painting, maybe? Miss Nettlefold took a step or two nearer.

  “Waaaah-llis,” Miss Nettlefold began in her long-vowelled, slanted voice, “I would like to present my driver, Miss May Thomas, a most unusual young woman who I dearly wanted you to meet. You know? Remember I just told you how, like me, she has recently crossed over the sea to England?” Turning to May with a reassuring smile she said, “May, I would like you to meet Mrs. Simpson.”

  “Most delighted to meet you,” said Miss Nettlefold’s friend with her mesmerising symmetrical eyebrows. But she did not sound delighted at all, and shook May’s hand with an aggressive grip. “You are very young,” she remarked, in a tone of accusation, her face close enough for May to smell the strangely pleasant combination of musky perfume and eucalyptus that scented Mrs. Simpson’s breath.

  “I am nineteen, Madam.”

  “Nineteen,” Mrs. Simpson repeated, rolling the word around her mouth like a boiled sweet. “Nineteen. I was married at the age of nineteen. First time round, mind you. I was far older and more prepared for the second attempt!” Lau
ghing at her own youthful absurdity, she turned her attention to the package in May’s hand. “Is this really meant for me?” she asked, looking at Miss Nettlefold.

  “I think you might be able to guess what it is!” Miss Nettlefold replied with a little excited clap of her hands. “I hope your dancing shoes are in need of a little exercise!”

  “Oh David, do come over here and have a look.” Mrs. Simpson glanced over in the direction of the window, across which yellow velvet curtains had been drawn.

  A man was sitting on a sofa next to a grand piano, a couple of sleeping terriers lying at his feet, their heads resting on his shoes. His own head was bent over a tapestry canvas that he was poking at rhythmically with a needle threaded with green wool, but at the sound of his name he looked up.

  “Come on, Cora, move off. And you too, Jaggs,” he said, shifting the dogs off his feet and onto the floor. Putting the embroidery down on the sofa he reached for the heavy silver monogrammed box on the table beside him and, lighting a cigarette, came to join the others. May had seen photographs of him, of course. In fact there was one hanging in a gold frame in the schoolroom at home, a cigarette in his mouth. But, for the second time in a month, it was a shock to see that black-and-white picture not only in colour but moving and breathing. He looked thinner than he had in the photograph and even smaller than the mournful figure he had presented to the crowds at the recent funeral of his father. His face was the colour of a plum and his left eye drooped a little as if halfway towards a wink. He was wearing a grey and red kilt with black checks and a thick blue jersey. A couple of small burn marks on one of the sleeves were just visible beneath a dusting of cigarette ash. He was clearly as unprepared for introductions as May was.