"Fabricated"

Fortnight ago, Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, dressed in smart black crinoline, sparkling with emeralds and diamonds, patting a neat upswept hairdo, walked into Le Sporting Club International de Monte Carlo to celebrate New Year's Eve. The Duke, Duchess and guests sat down at a long table, washed down caviar, crawfish, pilaff de monton and pear melba with an Alsatian vintage and Champagne rose ('28). At midnight the Duke sidled around the table to his wife's side, and when the lights went down gently kissed her cheek. Such behavior did not jibe with the busybody buzz near the royal table: "My dear, did you hear that the Duke plans to go home without her?"

Last week the Duke's equerry, Mr. Colin Keppel Davidson, Clerk of the House of Lords, spiked the rumor. Tall, fair and 43, Colin Davidson has cavalier manners, wears a black patch over one eye which suggests Wartime gallantry but actually conceals the result of a collision with an Italian cactus plant. The Duke, announced the equerry, was "incensed" over the "fabricated story" that he would return to England without his wife.

Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, would indeed love to see her four sons together but is still not willing to receive Wally. But homesick though the Duke is, he was last week still too attached to the Duchess, on whose strength of character he relies, to prejudice her claim as a Royal Highness by going home without her.

Recently he did his Duchess a little service. He got the British license number changed on the famed black Buick he gave her. The Duchess had noticed that when she was out driving, the French would look at the license, then at her, and laugh. Reason: the number was CUL-802; the French word cul is slang for fundament. New number is EYL-802. Eyl means nothing in French.

Meanwhile, London agitation about Edward's repatriation continued. It was considered likely that he will return with or without his wife for a family reunion some time before his brother, the Duke of Kent, goes to Australia as Governor General. Those who long most for Windsor's homecoming are members of the pro-Edward Octavian Society, who have circulated a pamphlet entitled He Should Be With Us. The sentimental Octavians represent a sizable body of middle-class feeling.

Representing not much of anything, a Manhattan society called The Friends of The Duke of Windsor in America last week issued invitations to a forthcoming dinner. Printed on the inside of the invitation was a quotation from a leading Octavian, Author Compton Mackenzie (The Windsor Tapestry): "To hear the King speaking about peace was almost to restore one's belief that peace really was going to be achieved. The very timbre of his voice had a tonic quality. It was like a light dry wine." Leading Friends: Pastor Christian Ficthorne Reisner of Manhattan's Broadway Tabernacle ("I get in the papers all I can, but it is not personal publicity I seek--I want my Christ played up"); Mizra Ahmad Sohrab, direct descendant of Mohammed and leader of U. S. Bahaism ("There is no saint without a past; there is no sinner without a future"); Editor Josette Lacoste of the U. S. French-language weekly, Amerique ("Only with a baby in arms can one walk safely in Paris"). No matter how many haughty ladies might refuse to curtsy to his wife, the Duke could rest assured that he was daily in the loving thoughts of many a strange individual.

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