Other Women (10 page)

If Edward thought his time in Canada was too long to be away from Freda then his trip to Australia and New Zealand the following year was even worse. His letters complain of his position and how he detested it; visiting numerous institutions and greeting hordes of people was something he thought he would never get used to or enjoy.

What did Freda think of it all? How did she cope with her lover being away for so long and so often? Apparently she was already tiring of the affair and on the lookout for someone less dependent on her. Over the next few months she gradually weaned him off her. Their sexual relationship ended, much to the relief of the prince’s relatives. Freda maintained a steady friendship with Edward for years later, acting as his confidante and adviser in romantic issues.

After his affair with Freda Ward, the prince met Thelma Furness, whose story will be told after this one. Freda stayed in contact with Edward all the time he was seeing Thelma and there was never a problem between the two women. Then, in the early 1930s, Freda suddenly found that she was no longer able to contact him. Her calls, she was told abruptly, would not be accepted. And that was the end of the relationship entirely.

Freda lived to the ripe old age of 92; she died in 1983. When her family cleared out her house, 313 love letters were found from Edward, Prince of Wales, to Freda Dudley Ward. They were very intimate and revealed much about the prince. Freda must have answered at least some of them but no trace of these has been found. Speculation is that they either belong in the royal archives or were destroyed as embarrassing evidence – or that Mrs Wallis Simpson did away with them through jealousy.

Exit Freda Ward, enter Thelma Hays Morgan (1905–70). Thelma and her identical twin, Gloria, were born to an American father and a Chilean mother and were two of four children. Harry Hays Morgan was a diplomat and had postings all around the world. The twins were actually born in Switzerland when he was posted as American consul there. The children all spoke Spanish as their first language and English, or rather, American, as their close second. The three girls were brought up by nannies and governesses; Harry, the only boy, was sent to boarding school as soon as he was old enough. As part of a lady’s upbringing at the time it was still considered appropriate for the girls to learn how to dance, sing, draw and write elegant letters. Consuelo, the elder of the three sisters was also a bookworm, while the twins were not. All the children were multilingual.

When the siblings grew up Harry went straight to Hollywood; Consuelo was forced into an arranged marriage with a man who turned out to be a trickster and which ended in a very quick annulment; the twins were convent educated and excelled in dress design and sewing. Consuelo quickly found a suitable husband for herself in a young American diplomat. In the meantime, the twins would stay at a finishing school, preparing for a sensational debut into society. Finishing school was not what the girls had in mind for themselves at all and they contacted their father for help. He gave them an allowance between them so that they could live independently in a flat in New York.

At the age of 16 the twins decked themselves out in stunning dresses of their own design and began telling people they were older than they were in order to get invited to parties, hoping to find suitable husbands rather than be forced into some dreadful relationship by their mother. Unfortunately Thelma fell into the same kind of trap as her older sister, only unlike Consuelo, Thelma had only herself to blame. James Vail Converse was indeed who he claimed to be, part of the wealthy Bell telephone clan. What he was not was an independent, hard-working member of that family. He’d gambled and drunk his inheritance away and was on the lookout for a wife with lots of money.

Thelma’s marriage to him was a disaster. Her sister Gloria also chose a man of her own. Another wealthy family with another spendthrift son: Reggie Vanderbilt. He had been married and divorced before and had two children whom he had provided for by putting money in a trust fund for them. Reggie’s mother, aware of her son’s position financially and his spending habits, gave the couple an allowance that would keep them very comfortably. Reggie was more than twice Gloria’s age, had been a heavy drinker and had a seriously damaged liver.

Apart from these trifles Gloria’s marriage turned out to be relatively happy and their daughter, Gloria Laura, was born in 1924. She too would inherit from the trust fund when her father died. Alice Vanderbilt bought her son and daughter-in-law a beautiful house in New York in which they could entertain and bring up the children in the way Vanderbilt children were supposed to be, very wealthy.

Thelma was able to divorce her husband with the help of her two sisters. She then went to live with Harry in Hollywood, where he had not managed to make his fortune. Thelma, always a promising dancer – in fact she had wanted to be a professional dancer from childhood – found work alongside Mary Pickford, though it did not seem to get her any further in her aspirations to be a movie star. She received a divorce settlement of US$100,000 (around $1 million today) when she came of age and used it to set up her own film production company, probably inspired by the one Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks had started. As head of her own production company Thelma could choose her own stars – and she chose herself. Co-stars included the well-known Clara Bow and Lionel Barrymore, amongst others. If she had persevered with the company and taken on new technology, gone into talkies, then maybe Thelma could have made a name in cinema. But she let her mother talk her out of it; she sold up and went to live with her sister in New York. It was there, at one of their many dinner parties, that Thelma met her second husband, Lord Marmaduke Furness, a widower. He was wealthy and an aristocrat, charming but also boring; his favourite hobbies were fox hunting and riding. Thelma detested horses: it should have been a warning to her.

Lady Thelma Morgan Furness

By their third date he had proposed and she had accepted. To be fair, though, Thelma did get a taste of what life with Furness would be like, as they began a sexual relationship as fiancées. They were married at a registry office in London in 1926 with only a few guests, two of whom were Consuelo and her husband Bernie.

Furness was away on business much of the time and he gave his wife a sports car so she could go gadding about the countryside. Then the truth about the fabulous, generous husband began to emerge. He was an alcoholic who got violent; he wouldn’t let Thelma have an allowance of her own, although she was allowed to buy lots of clothes and finery as long as it was charged to his account. And, worst of all, he hated children. He hated his own two from his first marriage in particular. His son tried to have as little to do with his family as possible and was at Eton most of the year. Averill, by the time she was 18 – and not very attractive – was the butt of her father’s cruel taunts. Both Thelma and Averill were in trouble when Averill’s debut into society failed to produce her a suitor. And to add another thing to his list of grievances against Thelma, she had not yet got pregnant.

Enter the Prince of Wales. He and Thelma met at a ball in 1926. Thelma hadn’t been long married to Furness. Edward found Thelma exotic and glamorous having come from Hollywood. He invited her and her husband to a jazz concert but Furness declined because of business commitments; Thelma later found that a ticket had been sent to her London address – and she went.

They drank champagne, talked and danced, drank more champagne, confided in each other and then went to bed together in a hotel. The next step was a weekend in the country. From then on Thelma would spend as much time as possible with her royal lover, which meant any time her husband was away.

In 1928 the Furnesses were set to go on an African safari, it was business for the husband and supposedly pleasure for his wife. The Prince of Wales was able to comfort Thelma with the promise that he would be in Africa at the same time, also on safari. He would send them an invitation to join his travelling party. Once again Furness declined the offer but was only too willing for his wife to go, where she could make useful contacts. Thelma enjoyed herself immensely while travelling with her lover, the only blight being the possibility she may be pregnant and would not know who the father was, her husband or her lover.

Furness was delighted to hear the news that his wife was expecting a baby, and she had a story readily prepared in order to explain any colouring the child might exhibit at birth – neither Furness nor Thelma were fair haired or blue eyed. Thelma did actually have some Irish ancestry and she would use that as the reason, although she had given nothing away that might let Furness suspect she had been unfaithful. The baby was a boy, much to his father’s delight – although he did not take any other interest in him – and he had dark hair like his mother.

Thelma’s life went along in a comfortable way. Her husband was frequently out of the country on business (or more likely gambling), she had her prince to keep her happy and her beloved older sister Consuelo, she had a darling baby boy and lived in luxury. Then something happened that was to ruin everything.

Enter Mrs Wallis Simpson. After having been introduced to Thelma by her sister, Thelma invited the Simpsons to a dinner party she was giving in honour of the prince’s return from an overseas trip. Nothing of any significance happened at the dinner – that was to come later.

It was Maria Dudley Ward who had met Mrs Kerr-Smiley towards the end of the war when she took shelter in her house during an air raid: Maria had met the prince there and become his mistress, then his dear friend in whom he often confided. Now here was Mrs Kerr-Smiley’s sister-in-law Wallis wanting Thelma to help her get an introduction at court. Thelma didn’t know it but Maude Kerr-Smiley did not like Wallis, did not trust her and thought she was just after her brother’s money. She was not going to introduce her at court. Thelma arranged for an acquaintance of her husband, who had performed the same service for her, to do it in return for a cash payment.

Thelma attended the presentation and the evening ended with a congenial supper at her own house for the Simpsons and the prince. The meal was reciprocated by a dinner at the Simpsons’. The friendship grew between Wallis and Thelma, and Wallis and the prince. The two women would spend time at the prince’s estate, Thelma feeling safe in the knowledge that if Furness were to get curious he would find his wife had a worthy chaperone and that the two of them were overseeing young women being presented as potential wives to the prince. Furness was busy having an affair of his own anyway, so was probably too wrapped up in his other woman to notice.

Thelma’s marriage finally ended in divorce. She had discovered her husband’s other woman and he in turn had accused her of having an affair with the Prince of Wales, although she denied it. He threatened to divorce her on those grounds. Her lawyers suggested she put forward the proceedings for divorce first and get an affidavit from an employee of Furness’s mistress to say she had seen the two in bed together. When Furness told his lawyers he’d push his claim through, they told him very decisively that he would be mad to involve the prince in any way.

When the divorce came through there was little money for Thelma and she lost custody of their son. Furness married his mistress as quickly as possible. The two young children from the mistress’s previous marriage, and Anthony, were looked after in a separate wing of the great house Furness owned and looked after by a series of nannies.

Thelma’s life took a downturn from then on. She was free to see the prince although she knew she could never be married to him, her son was banished from her and she had no money. To top it all, Wallis Simpson was becoming increasingly attractive to the Prince of Wales.

At the same time that Thelma was losing custody of her son, Gloria was battling for custody of her daughter. Gloria’s husband had died and his sister Gertrude Vanderbilt was trying to get hold of her brother’s little daughter. Gloria begged Thelma to help her through the emotional turmoil. Thelma obliged and set off for New York, promising the prince she would see him again as soon as she could.

While in America Thelma met a very handsome man, Prince Aly Khan, with whom a casual dance led to a brief fling. On her return to London Thelma found that photos of her with the prince had made it into the hands of Wallis Simpson, who had shown them to Edward with the purpose of turning him from his mistress. When Thelma asked to visit him Edward suggested they have a break from each other. Thelma drove to the prince’s estate only to find that her place at his side had been well and truly usurped by Wallis Simpson. And that was the end of the affair between Thelma Furness and Edward David, the Prince of Wales.

Thelma embarked on a relationship with Prince Aly Khan, although she knew it was no more than an extended fling. Finally, after a huge battle with Furness’s third wife over Anthony’s inheritance, Thelma returned to Hollywood to live with her widowed twin sister. She died in 1970 in New York.