Other Women by Fiona McDonald Page A

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