Word: duking
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...final hours, the duke was haunted by the realization that all too soon he would no longer be around to shield her. He was right: 17 months after his death, the widow of Windsor, 77, is a bored, lonely and sometimes ailing woman. The duchess continues her usual rounds of the couturiers, hairdressers and restaurants. But more and more she spends her dwindling evening hours with a detective story or TV. She reads the newspapers, French and English, from front to back. ("It is a bombshell world," she says, "full of violence and horror. I no longer understand or like...
...even now, and gives her usual "little dinners." She has a knack for bringing a table to life. "I need company," she says. "Not many at a time, though. Three or four, or half a dozen at most. Nowadays, two tables of ten represent a real gala." In the duke's day it was nothing for 40 to sit down to crested linen and crystal, to incomparable wine and food. "We usually had music. The duke loved to dance and to take a turn at the drums. But I don't dance any more, nor do my friends...
...When the duke died, there were no bequests to church or charity, to relatives, godchildren, lifelong friends or faithful servants. He left his entire estate to his wife, and they agreed before his death how their possessions would be distributed after she goes. Only the duchess and her bankers know the estate's value, which is probably well in excess of $10 million. This does not include the silver services and objets d'art, the superb porcelains, the furniture and paintings. Nor does it take into account such historic treasures as the desk from which he delivered...
Iron Fence. Her desire to be surrounded by her possessions and his explains why she abandoned her plan to move to a hotel: "I like to be with my own things. Besides, the duke wanted me to go on this way." Another reason is her reluctance to disband her staff of 17 servants. Still another factor: Black Diamond and Gin-Seng, the last of the dynasty of pug dogs who pranced about the Windsors in a thousand news photos. "We are all happier here, and safer than in a hotel," says the duchess. "I have always been timid," she admits...
...when she goes out in the evening. She never uses sleeping pills or earplugs. "I want to be alert," she says. Often at night she gets up and goes to the windows to see that the watchman is on his rounds. On her bed table she keeps the duke's pistol...