Scarlet Simpson

A scarlet evening gown, high-necked in front, sleeveless and backless was completed by the Paris House of Worth last week to the exact measurements of Mrs. Simpson, rushed to Madame Tussaud's waxworks, London. There dextrous British Mr. John Theodore Tussaud, great-grandson of the original French Madame, was personally finishing up a wax head of Mrs. Simpson while four trusty Tussaud modelers made the rest of her.

Next morning Londoners queued up early to gaze at waxed Mrs. Simpson who was placed in the niche occupied previously by George V. Her brilliantly blue glass eyes were fixed on the waxwork of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at some distance the figure of King Edward VIII also faced Canterbury.

"Why don't you put them side by side, the King and Mrs. Simpson?" asked a disappointed client of motherly mien.

Replied one of the uniformed guards severely, "We cannot do that until they have been married, Madame."

Meanwhile the real Mrs. Simpson in Cannes continued to receive sackfuls of most vile letters from England, suddenly began to get from the U. S. for the first time sackfuls of friendly letters. Apparently these were written by people who listened to the abdication broadcast of the Duke of Windsor, a broadcast so moving that last week the official B. B. C. in London for the first time refused to let His Master's Voice Ltd. make and sell in England phonograph records of a royal broadcast.* It would be a travesty of British facts not to say roundly that there was "the heaviest possible British censorship emanating from official quarters" last week. Actually this never ceased. Before, during and since the crisis, no London newspaper has seen fit to print anything seriously embarrassing to His Majesty's Government. By printing the clowning jibes of G. B. Shaw and the earnest expostulations of H. G. Wells an appearance of non-censorship was being maintained at latest reports. This enhanced the effectiveness of a general "smothering campaign" which was an excellent thing in some respects. If the Duke & Mrs. Simpson can be minimized, belittled and extinguished from English minds, the Duke and his problematical Duchess can soon come back to England and live more or less happily ever after. In preparing the docile minds of English newspaper readers for this, London's Sunday Referee printed very quietly indeed that "soon after the Coronation" next May the Duke will have returned to reside in Fort Belvedere, bringing with him "his wife." As though it were the most natural thing in the world, the Sunday Referee mentioned in passing that the Duke told his servants before leaving England that they could have their jobs back in less than a year. "For a part of every year," firmly insisted the Sunday Referee, "he hopes to lead the homely life of an English country gentleman at Belvedere."

In these circumstances neither Mrs. Simpson's having begun to go to select little bridge parties in Cannes last week, nor the Duke of Windsor's convalescence from his abdication jitters in the hands of Austrian doctors seemed exactly news (see p. 31). In a formal statement, which badgered Mrs. Simpson released at Cannes, it was stated that "no rift of any sort" had come between herself and the Duke of Windsor. In the Austrian Castle whose chatelaine is beauteous Baroness Rothschild, the Duke several times each day last week telephoned Mrs. Simpson.

He sent her photographs and plans of residences he might rent. It was also definite that His Royal Highness made a number of calls to England and expressed regret to certain loyal Gentlemen of the Palace and others to whom in his agitated state of mind he used harsh words during the crisis. It was not a matter of apology or forgiveness, but of right royal regret.

* Once again British censorship was defeated, even before His Master's Voice Ltd. were squelched. Within a few hours after the broadcast, Manhattan's mammoth Macy's department store was selling excellent records at $1 each, shipping them on request to England as forbidden fruit.

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