Overnight, Camilla’s fortunes plummeted. The British press declared that the public would not tolerate Charles’s seeking solace from his mistress. She canceled the charity ball and reportedly remained in her country home (located 16 miles from Prince Charles’s) during Diana’s funeral. The couple called off a vacation planned for Balmoral later this month. With the country watching how sincerely he grieves and assumes his role as a single parent, Charles will have to stay away from Camilla for months, at least. ““Diana’s death has set Charles and Camilla back years,’’ says Judy Wade of the British celebrity magazine Hello! ““If Camilla’s car is seen near Highgrove for the next six months, it could be the end of them. The public simply won’t tolerate it.’’ Talk of marriage has been postponed indefinitely. ““If Charles intended at some future time to marry the woman who has been his mistress for 25 years,’’ says the Daily Mail, ““he knows, and Camilla knows, that this must now be put off to a date so far in the distance that some of their circle are actually using the words “for ever’.''
Ironically, Diana’s death makes it easier for Charles to remarry, at least in the eyes of the Church of England. While the church permits divorce, it curiously does not allow divorced people to remarry while their ex-spouse is alive. Charles is now technically a widower, even though his divorce was finalized a year ago. Whether he could wed Camilla–whose ex-husband, Andrew, is still alive–is another matter. For the moment the bigger concern is whether their on-and-off, 27-year love affair can survive yet another blow. ““Camilla has been remarkably supportive in the past, but there is only so far one can go,’’ says Chris Wilson, director of the TV documentary ““Camilla.’’ ““She is being pushed further and further towards the margin, and it is not somewhere she wants to be.''
But Camilla has spent the past two decades enduring difficult circumstances for the man she loves, from the ““Tampax’’ tape to the time when pro-Diana ladies in a supermarket reportedly pelted her with bread. In fact, she’s become adept at laughing off adversity. When word leaked years ago that Diana referred to her as a certain ferocious breed of dog, Camilla took to answering the phone, ““Rottweiler here!’’ Despite her recent brush with public approval, she’s used to downsizing her expectations. Though she may not be able to see Charles, she has reportedly spoken to him on the phone almost daily since Diana died. Friends say Camilla never wanted to marry Charles anyway. ““After all these years,’’ Charles’s longtime friend Patti Palmer-Tomkinson told The New Yorker, ““they’re just happy to breathe the same air.’’ The question is, how long can they wait to exhale this time?
