After Due Consideration

The Madrid radio decided that there was something sinister about Eleanor Roosevelt (see PRESS). Spluttered Madrid: What about the great influence of the "personal whims of the famous lady? . . . Is it a case of feminine dictatorship? . . . Is she the tool of a mysterious international power that gives orders and looks out for its own interests? . . . Is Mrs. Roosevelt a sort of Stalin in petticoats?

Italian Movie Director Roberto Rossellini (Paisan, Open City), separated from his wife and son since 1942, told his lawyers to file divorce papers. He is still on the island of Stromboli in the Tyrrhenian, where he is directing a movie about life among the fishermen, featuring an amateur cast and starring Ingrid Bergman.

Rumors that Washington Hostess Perle Mesta would be the next U.S. Ambassador to Denmark were getting a cool reception in some Copenhagen circles. "Nowadays in diplomacy," the conservative Berlingske Tidende delicately pointed out, "you do not ask questions about sex, but about qualifications."

Cinemoppet Margaret O'Brien, 12, who managed last February to troupe gamely through a few forced smiles when mother Gladys married Bandleader Don Sylvio, now graciously ceded center stage to mother. "It was all wrong from the beginning," declared Gladys, announcing plans for annulment. She was "angry and disturbed" over stories that Margaret had talked her into anything. Said Don: "Some people have an aversion to child actresses, but I haven't. Nor do I have a personal aversion to Margaret, except when she interferes with my marriage . . . I'm the middleman all the way through in this case. I can't do battle with a little child. But there's just so much a man can take."

New York City, where he spent a harrowing fortnight five months ago, seemed like a nightmare in retrospect to Jean Cocteau, France's birdlike little Jack-of-all-arts. "New York is not a city that sits down," he said. "It is not a town that sleeps . . . I am talking about a town that stands up because if it sat down it would rest, and it would think, and if it went to bed it would fall asleep and dream, and it wants neither to think nor to dream, but to divide its time upright, between the two breasts of its mother, one of which gives it alcohol and the other milk. It wants to remain standing up, to forget, forget itself, wear itself out, and to escape by fatigue . . . from that internal questioning that one dares not indulge in, and to which one continually subjects others."

Kid Sister

(See Cover)

In Paris, Princess Margaret, fun-loving, 18-year-old younger daughter of Britain's King George VI, did the galleries, appeared circumspectly at a nightclub, danced until 2:30 a.m. at an embassy ball, and slipped through a garden gate to escape a carload of photographers determined to pursue her on a drive into the country. Frenchmen said of her: "Qu'elle est belle!" Reporters noted with approval that in nine public appearances she had worn nine different costumes. At the airport last week, when it was all over, Margaret murmured politely to her hosts: "I've had such a wonderful time."

It was nice of her to say so, but Margaret's 35-day holiday had not really been so wonderful. For more than a year the exuberant young princess had been nagging her family to let her take a trip to the Continent on her own. When consent was finally given, Margaret dived enthusiastically into her plans. But in almost no time, Whitehall, the Queen, the embassies of two foreign capitals and a clutch of palace aides were all involved. By April, when the princess stepped into one of her father's planes in London to take off for Italy, her holiday had become a royal tour. Margaret showed no disappointment--and no surprise. "Isn't it a pity," she had said to her father on their 1947 visit to South Africa, "that we have to travel with royalty?"

One Dip, No Hips. Hounded by newshawks, plagued by photographers, dogged by detectives and ringed around by protocol, prudence and propriety, the little (5 ft.) princess had not had what could be described as a riproaring time. Many an evening during her holiday, when the stars twinkled over Capri or the lights of Montmartre beckoned, Margaret had sat primly in a hotel room chatting with a palace aide, Major Thomas Harvey, and his wife. When she did go to a Paris nightclub, she sat out all the rumbas to avoid undignified hip-waving. A simple dip she took in the surf at a private estate on the Bay of Naples filled the world's press with bootleg photographs of royalty in a two-piece bathing suit and set editors snarling at one another over problems of journalistic good taste.

On her third day in Paris, Margaret did what any clothes-conscious 18-year-old girl would enjoy--she paid a call on the fashionable dress salon of Couturier Jean Desses, of whom her stylish Aunt Marina, the Duchess of Kent, had spoken favorably. She had a lovely time but rival couturiers were in a dither at the royal honor done a competitor. Next day the princess soothed the tense situation somewhat by dropping in at Christian ("New Look") Dior's. The elegant establishment of British-born Captain Molyneux in the Rue Royale was in a flap of envy until the morning of Margaret's departure, when she at last came by. "We knew," the management purred later, "that she would come all the time."

Royal Boredom. Ambassadors, worthy charities, foreign dignitaries and expatriate dowagers had all to be mollified with the same nice sense of protocol, and vivacious Princess Margaret, with a rather set smile on her long Windsor face, spent hours enduring polite platitudes, visiting the sick and lending her presence to a tedious round of formal receptions. One day, as she was being shown France's historic, baroque palace of Versailles, the whole thing suddenly came into sharp focus for her. As she studied a massive oil painting showing a royal command performance of the Paris opera a century ago, she spotted the look of infinite boredom on the faces of King Louis Philippe and his family. Without warning Britain's princess threw back her head and laughed loud & long.

Back home in Buckingham Palace last week, Princess Margaret found her desk piled high with invitations. London's fourth society season since the war was just rounding into the straightaway and there was,a heady catalogue of entertainments in the offing: a huge ball for the twin daughters of Lady Alexandra and Major E. D. ("Fruity") Metcalfe, a rout at the Guards' Boat Club, the Cygnettes Ball and a round of parties encompassing Royal Ascot Week. It was a list to make a shopgirl's head spin. But for a princess it meant mostly that her holiday, such as it was, was over. With sister Elizabeth safely settled in matronhood, Margaret is the most eligible partygoer in Britain; it is her chore to play to the hilt the ingenue lead in an elaborate comedy of manners.

A Ripping Time. British society, like an ancient actress who has outlived her time, has fallen into neglect since the war. It has been hard for the old girl even to get her name in the cramped newspapers. But in socialist Britain, royalty's duty is the same as it has been: to set an example of good manners to every class. It is Princess Margaret's particular task to extend her hand to passee old Dame Society, and make it seem that everyone is having a ripping time at her parties. Newspapers write about a party that Margaret goes to; they report her every dance, her every glance, her every girlish gesture. Shopgirls and Mayfair matrons read the story and--for just a moment--austerity England seems to be merrie England once again.

"Look into my eyes," Princess Margaret ordered a startled dancing partner not long ago. "I am looking into them, Ma'am," he stammered. "Well," said Margaret, "you're looking into the most beautiful eyes in England. The Duchess of Kent has the most beautiful nose. The Duchess of Windsor has the most beautiful chin. And I have the most beautiful eyes. Surely," she added, with an impish gleam in her eye, as her flustered partner groped for a suitable answer, "you believe what you read in the papers."

Margaret herself plainly believes none of it. As a younger girl she may often have longed to call less cynical attention to her large, soft blue eyes and to kick up her heels in freer fashion. As a princess, she can only mock, strictly among friends, and make the best of it. "After all," as one flag-waver remarked while welcoming Margaret to Capri last month, "a king's daughter is still a king's daughter."

"Oh, Bother!" Princess Margaret was not born a king's daughter, but even the weather on the night of Aug. 21, 1930 seemed to conspire with a sentimental people to give her birth a special glamour. A howling wind whistled around her grandparents' home, gloomy old Castle Glamis (rhymes with palms), where Shakespeare's Macbeth had long since murdered sleep and Duncan. Lightning flashed and the rain beat down. The announcement of the first royal child to be born north of the Tweed since 1601 was greeted by an ear-splitting squeal of bagpipes.

The baby was christened Princess Margaret Rose of York. Her grandfather, seagoing George V, was still king. Her Uncle David, then Prince of Wales, had shown no signs of relinquishing his heritage when it came. Even should her father, the Duke of York, become king, there was still an elder sister ahead of Margaret. -Five years later her Uncle David became King Edward VIII. Then, suddenly his reign was over, and he went off to marry Wallis Warfield. "Are they going to cut off his head?" Margaret asked her big sister expectantly when she heard the news. When she finally understood that her own father was to be the monarch, her interest gave way to bored impatience. "Oh, bother," said Great Britain's princess, "and I've only just learned to spell York."

Tantrums & Trains. Rapid changes on the throne made Margaret acutely aware of the monarchy, but they did nothing to alter her status in her own family. Both as the child of the relatively obscure Duke of York and as the daughter of the King, Margaret has been a younger sister. She has never much liked the role. Not that she dislikes sister Lilibet or even envies her; she has just never enjoyed second place. In her turn, Lilibet has always treated her little sister as an unpredictable child who must be watched.

The first good look the world had of the sisters together was when they stood side by side at their father's coronation, wearing identical robes of royal purple, trimmed with ermine. Reporters, cameramen and radio commentators were fascinated at the sight of six-year-old Margaret yawning, stretching, tapping her silver slippers, riffling through the pages of a prayerbook, and tickling her sister, while eleven-year-old Elizabeth frowned and nudged her in lofty, outraged dignity. The reporters might have been even more fascinated had they been in the palace earlier and seen Princess Margaret kick up one of her first and worst tantrums. When she learned that Elizabeth's dress was to have a train and hers none, she raised such an unholy uproar that the King himself called in the dressmaker and ordered trains for both girls' dresses. .

Potatoes & Toad. Nonetheless, the two sisters have always been fast friends. Margaret's bubbling imagination and great self-assurance have been a buoy for Elizabeth's shy conscientiousness; dutiful Elizabeth has been a steady rock for mercurial Margaret. When Elizabeth at eleven became a Girl Guide, she insisted that Margaret be enlisted too. The younger sister was signed up as a Brownie, Leprechaun division.

Whatever Elizabeth did, Margaret followed in her own unpredictable way. When Elizabeth set out a neat garden of daffodils and tulips, Margaret planted rows of potatoes and pulled them all up to see how they were doing. While Elizabeth fondled her ponies and puppies, Margaret made pets of a salamander and a speckled toad. When Elizabeth won a certificate for lifesaving, Margaret had her day: she heaved her sister's pet Corgi into the pond on the day of a Buckingham Palace garden party and dived in after him, triumphant and heroic in her best party dress.

In their studies together, Elizabeth applied herself with diligence while Margaret romped and pranked. But what Elizabeth achieved by perseverance, Margaret seemed to absorb with much less show of effort. Elizabeth played the piano with skill and polish. Margaret switched from Handel to boogie-woogie when her teacher was out of hearing, but played even better. Music, like everything else, came easily to Margaret; her maternal grandmother once vowed that she heard her, at the age of eleven months, hum The Merry Widow waltz. But despite her own talents, no one was quicker than Margaret to recognize her sister's solider qualities. Once, at the end of a stern lecture on behavior, she remarked philosophically to her mother: "Isn't it lucky that Lilibet's the elder?"

Tapioca & Lipstick. Margaret's only real concern during her childhood was to make sure that she was left out of nothing and never went unnoticed. When Margaret felt neglected, she dropped salt in her sister's tea or put tapioca in her bathtub. As Elizabeth grew older and began entertaining mixed company at the Palace or Windsor, Margaret cheerfully crashed the parties. It soon became evident that her glib tongue and her talents for imitating Bing Crosby or Burl Ives more than made up in the eyes of the young men for her gawky lack of years. At ten, she shocked Elizabeth by remarking that Buckingham Palace's footmen were a handsome lot. At 14, she was caught redhanded sampling her father's champagne. At 16, she was dabbing herself with Schiaparelli's "Shocking," and insisting on her right to wear lipstick. The Queen tried a tactful remonstrance. "Do you really think it's becoming?" she asked. Margaret answered by dragging her mother in to see a movie short in which Elizabeth had been allowed to use lipstick, while she and the Queen went without. "See, Mummy," said Margaret, "you and I look like suet dumplings."

Sometimes the King tries to lay down the law to his younger daughter, but when thwarted, Margaret, whose temper can flare like a flash-fire, has been known to fling books and other missiles around the palace. Mostly, her parents have found that the best way to keep their daughter in line is to give her her head.

Roses & Overalls. Princess Margaret floated out into the social swim in Elizabeth's wake. At her sister's wedding she finally succeeded in coming into her own. There, for once, Margaret's taste and imagination were put to use by the family. When the problem of choosing dresses had to be faced, the two Elizabeths, who have never been noted for their chic, were glad enough to listen to Margaret. "I do not desire to be a leader of fashion," said the Queen. "Well," replied her younger daughter, "I do."

Along with this belated family nod came recognition from other sources. With Elizabeth married, newsmen took aim on Margaret. They described her clothes, noticed her lively good looks and her beautiful eyes. They followed her to nightclubs and peeped under tables to see whom she might be holding hands with. With wedding bells still ringing in the public's ears, every youthful Guards officer, every handsome lordling with whom Margaret danced twice, was touted as a possible husband for the young princess.

There were also new official responsibilities. Even before Elizabeth's wedding, Princess Margaret performed her first unassisted public duty, the launching of an ocean liner at Belfast. She made a pretty little speech, and when a young shipworker came to present her with a bouquet of roses, she graciously selected one and tucked it in his overall's bib. A nervous nation was relieved and pleased.

No Future. Last August Margaret came officially of age. In the eyes of Parliament, she was old enough to be a Counselor of State, along with her sister and her uncles, and govern in the King's absence. She will still have to wait three more years before she comes into her own money (a -L-6,000 annual allowance from Parliament and numerous legacies), but to all intents she is a grownup, with her own suite of rooms at the palace. The yawning gap of years that separates her from her elder sister is all but closed. There is only one minor difference left: one day Elizabeth will probably be Queen and she, in all likelihood, will not. For Margaret that difference means only more freedom for herself. She may marry whomever she pleases (provided, of course, that he is not a Roman Catholic, that she gets her father's permission if she is still under 25, or, failing it, gives a year's notice to both houses of Parliament). She may go where she likes (provided it is decorous, proper, dignified and offends nobody). As heir to the throne, Elizabeth will continue to carry the heavy share of chairmanships, launchings and dedications. By day, Margaret will have plenty of time to entertain girl friends at gossip fests in her rooms at the palace. Of an evening, she may go with a few carefully chosen girls and young men to the theater and a nightclub. The one thing she must not do is act like a commoner.

Last week Margaret's few close friends flocked by to hear about her trip and perhaps persuade her to do a really sharp imitation of some pompous continental dignitary. But before the girlish giggles began, they still remembered to call her "ma'am," for Margaret is the daughter of the King. No matter how seductively the moon may shine as she drives home from a party, there can be no stolen kisses; a Scotland Yard man is always present to see her indoors; often a lady-in-waiting is at the door, too. As one young Briton remarked last week, "I don't think she's much of a threat to the other girls. After all, how can you get romantic about someone when there's no possible future in it?"

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