As Pamela was later to relate in her memoir, Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten, she was protected not only from the Nazis but also from culture while sheltered at Mrs. Vanderbilt's palatial 640 Fifth Avenue residence. On one occasion, Mrs. Vanderbilt hosted a dinner party that posed a scheduling conflict with a Royal Shakespeare Company performance. “A young man at her table [thus] apologized and asked whether he might be excused from the table because he was going to see Hamlet. Mrs. Vanderbilt looked slightly nonplussed and so he explained, 'Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,' whereupon her face lit up and she exclaimed loudly so that everyone could hear, 'Oh, do give the dear boy my good wishes. I knew his father so well.'"