The Queen's Secret: A Novel of England's World War II Queen

by Karen Harper

  “Yes, but I know the thought of dealing with him upsets you.” Me too, especially now, I almost said.

  But what I didn’t say—and I prayed Bertie didn’t know and would never know—was that I had been the one behind the China Dossier.

  Chapter Five

  Remembrance Day

  I was extremely nervous about speaking on the wireless to the Empire’s women. As much as I loved talking to people, I could not simply turn on formal oration like a tap, at least not when my words and voice were going out into the vast unknown. But I had rehearsed. And if Bertie could overcome his stammering to speak publicly, I could surely reach out like this. I had often looked over his speeches before he gave them, and he had approved wholeheartedly of this one.

  I glanced down at the bright red poppy I wore on the lapel of my suit, for this was Armistice Day, 11 November 1939, a day of remembrance honoring our losses in the war with Germany over twenty years ago, a war I remembered well. My brother Mike had been sorely wounded and shell-shocked, and the Huns had as good as murdered our dear Fergus. I had helped to entertain and befriend the nerve-wracked soldiers we took in at Glamis. And to face all that ruin, heartbreak, and death again staggered me.

  “Are you ready, Your Majesty?” the BBC man said as I seated myself. I spread my typewritten pages out before me on the desk but held to the top page. “When I give the sign, ma’am, and after the announcer introduces you, you may begin.”

  A camera with a man behind it was trained on me, but I had no intention of smiling or waving today. Let them record a moving picture for later use while I concentrated on being serious, keeping calm, and caring. My hand began to tremble, and the paper shook. I wished I could fan myself with it, though it was not especially warm in here this early November day.

  Oh, we were live and on the air, as Bertie always put it. The announcer’s voice came from another microphone, “To the women of the Empire, Her Majesty the queen.”

  I began by mentioning our seven-week trip to Canada and the United States of America, thanking all for the kind reception we had received there. “I speak today in circumstances sadly different from then. Peace has been broken, and once again we have been forced into war. I speak for the women of the British Empire to offer our deep and abiding sympathy to the women of Poland, nor do we forget the gallant women of France who are called on again to share our burdens of war.”

  My voice quavered over that line. Was she out there, listening, the woman who gave me life, for sadly my beloved English mother, Cecilia, had died last year.

  “To us women has been given the proud duty to serve our Empire in its hour of need. The tasks you are undertaking whether at home or in distant lands are vital.” I tried to keep my voice steady, to sound as if I were sitting in someone’s parlor.

  “It is not so difficult to do the big things, the novelty, the excitement of new and interesting duties, but it is the thousand and one daily, smaller duties and irritations of family life that must be borne. Your husbands go off to allotted tasks. Your children may be evacuated to places of greater safety. The king and I know what it is to be parted from our children.

  “We women, like men, have vital work to do to save our country. The king and I sympathize with your sacrifices. We all yearn for a new day with peace and goodwill. We all have a part to play in this struggle to build a new and better world.

  “Meantime, to you in every corner of the Empire, I give a message of hope and encouragement. We all have a part to play, and I know you will not fail in yours. We put our trust in God, our refuge and strength in all kinds of trouble. I pray with all my heart that He will bless and guide and keep you always.”

  My words were followed by an orchestral rendition of “God Save the King.” Suddenly the music seemed sonorous and sad, rather than martial and uplifting.

  “Well done, Your Majesty,” both men in the room said.

  “As our current and future tasks must be,” I told them with a nod and firm handshake. “We must work together, all of us.”

  * * *

  The winter months stretched out in endless waiting while Hitler’s onslaught continued on the Continent. One thing that lifted my spirits was posing for the famed photographer Cecil Beaton, for I thought his portraits of me were very regal and I hoped my serious and calm demeanor gave people strength and hope.

  “I especially favor this one,” I told Bertie, showing him the close-up where I wore a frothy rhinestone-studded Norman Hartnell gown with a bejeweled necklace, dangling earrings, and a diamond tiara.

  Beaton had taken pictures of me in profile and looking straight into the camera. In neither did I appear as plump as I was, but could I help it if tenuous times made one crave food and sweets even more?

  “Very stunning,” Bertie said with a little smile. “Very you—always lovely inside and out to me from the very first. But,” he said, clearing his throat, “that is only one reason why I persisted when the lady said no.”

  I did not like it when he went off on that tack, for indeed I had refused his proposal of marriage twice before accepting. I had not been in love with him and there was the embarrassment with David—including the fact that some of our friends knew I had set my cap for the so-called catch of the century, the Prince of Wales, and been roundly rebuffed. Well, at the time I could not fathom becoming Bertie’s wife, paramour, and duchess. But he had been so doggedly determined.

  “I was overwhelmed when you proposed,” I told him now. I’d mentioned several excuses over the years, none of which seemed to fly quite right.

  “The third time’s the charm, they say,” he said as he rose and came round his desk in his private library where I had popped in to show him the sample photographs. “That and the fact you had a bit of pressure from my mother, no doubt.”

  “The queen—Mama—did not pressure me.”

  “Not directly, but I think you did get the word she was going to cut you and the Strathmores from the approved invitation list because I was miserable mooning over you. And then, your acceptance put me over the moon, so there!”

  He embraced me and began to move in the steps of a slow dance, pulling me ever closer. “I know it was my charm and charisma that made you say yes, my dearest,” he said in my ear as he turned us a bit and chuckled.

  “It was your bedrock character and honesty,” I told him, looking up into his face.

  For one moment, however much under duress we both were, it was like going back to those days of fun after the war—the earlier German war. How open he had been with me. How protective, gentlemanly, and kind. No mystery in the man then except when he might propose again. One thing that had convinced me—yes, in addition to the word that came to my mother that his mother thought I was leading her dear second son a merry chase—was how much Bertie loved my fun family. He had confided that his childhood had been difficult and strict and had vowed he wanted just the opposite for his own children someday.

  He whispered as we still swayed a bit together, “Let’s keep Christmas at least as we always have, this wretched waiting be damned. Sandringham with the girls, little gifts, walks outside, we four together. And maybe dancing close like this, maybe more.”

  He pulled me even tighter, and my breasts pressed against his chest. Our thighs shifted together, my nylons and silk slip and light wool skirt sliding between us. For a moment I felt the glimmer of sensual desire for him, which I had always needed to summon, though he could be so easily swept away in lovemaking. My hesitation at full intimacy and possession had been the only barrier between us.

  “To be continued,” he whispered. “Ah, now what did you come in to say and where was I in reading these wretched war dispatches from that ever-present red box?”

  We laughed together uneasily as if we were awkward youths, meeting secretly. Something sweet—and sharp—sparked between us and flickered out as he turned back to his desk.

  “Our going to Sandringham, yes,” I said, but my voice did not sound like my own. “After all, i
t will be four months since you will have seen your girls then. War or not, a good time will be had by all!”

  That crooked half smile of his lifted, and he winked at me. “You are more beautiful than Cecil Beaton has made you. I shall hang that one above my bed wherever I go, and you may come to see that I am telling you true if you choose to visit me privately—day or night.”

  I nodded and nearly forgot what I had come in for. We had not had a discussion or a row over my wish for a celibate marriage since before Margot was born. And now—when things were so busy and so tense?

  I left the profile portrait leaning in a chair, staring at him as he bent over his desk, reading dispatches again. I fled the room and the well-aimed bombardment of thoughts and leashed passion he had just thrown my way.

  * * *

  “Whatever happens with—and in—the war, I want to remember this day,” I told Bertie as we walked the wintry grounds of our Norfolk estate at Sandringham. It was where Bertie had been reared, and his memories of it were mixed: his formal mother, strict father, loving nanny, and his brothers and sisters, including David, of course.

  It was good to see our own children enjoying themselves so. Both Lilibet and Margot had pink cheeks, had been laughing, and were out of breath from pretending to fight a duel with each other wielding two of Queen Mary’s old walking sticks like sabers, whacking away.

  “En garde!” Lilibet kept saying, though they were well into the duel.

  “Touché!” Margot shouted back, though it came out more like touchy.

  And then we all heard the roar and squinted up into the winter sun through the bare-limbed trees.

  “Bertie, did you arrange some sort of an RAF flyover as a surprise?” I asked. He had given me several gifts beyond our usual exchange of Yuletide presents. However laden as he was with cares and fears about the coming war, he had tried to be lighthearted and attentive this holiday week.

  “Girls, come here!” he commanded, looking back to see where his bodyguards and equerries were.

  The four of us huddled together, looking up. “Are they friendly?” Margot asked when the planes screamed overhead.

  “They may make another pass,” he said, ignoring the question. He pulled the three of us close to the solid trunk of a chestnut and squinted up again at the sky as his bodyguards and others of our party ran closer and the roar became deafening as the planes passed overhead again. Yes, three bombers, flying low.

  Lilibet shouted over the roar, “What if they have those horrid spider swastikas under their wings? What if they are heading for London?”

  “Stay back!” Bertie shouted as his entourage came closer. “Let’s not give them a clump of human targets—any targets at all!”

  My heart thudded in my chest and, with Bertie, I held the girls against the rough tree bark. I reached for him, pressed shoulder to shoulder against him. I should shelter him, my mind screamed. God save the king!

  “Sir! Sir! They’re ours! They’re our boys!” one of his equerries shouted. “Some sort of salute, I hope, and not reconnaissance or warning!”

  “Not the time for a flyover, like on the Mall,” Bertie muttered. “Not here at peaceful Sandringham.”

  Margot piped up, “So will the bad Nazis only drop their bombs in London, so that’s why we have to stay in Scotland or maybe at Windsor someday like you said, Mummy?”

  “We shall talk about it all later. Let’s head back in. We are going to sing Christmas carols again tonight. Come on then, and best bring Granny’s walking canes with you.”

  “In case we need to fight the Germans!” Margot said as she ran to retrieve her “sword.” “Crawfie said they might be behind every tree!”

  Bertie and I just looked at each other. Did the war—which was not on our sacred soil yet—have to hover over us even here?

  * * *

  Although I had met and knew Winston Churchill, I did not really know him, so I was looking forward to chatting with him at the dinner Bertie and I were giving at the palace for the war cabinet members and some other ministers and officials. It was possible that Winston could become prime minister should Chamberlain be forced to resign, so I was prepared, Bertie too, to work with him through the war if it came to that.

  Since both of us still held some things against him—his early support for David staying on as king even if he wed that woman—I wanted to be certain he knew I would help the war effort in any way I could. I had even copied out for Churchill the William Wordsworth poem titled The Excursion, which I supposed the poet had written when Napoleon was trampling Europe.

  As the poem goes, At this day, when a Tartarean darkness overspreads the groaning nations . . . and it ends with lines about fighting evil with good. Now if I could just corner Churchill for a moment in this shifting crowd of men where I was the only woman. He and I were both rather centers of attention with the voices getting louder, but I did manage to approach and offer the poem to him.

  He skimmed it, and tears gilded his eyes. “Very thoughtful and highly appropriate, Your Majesty, very much so,” he said and bowed to me a second time. “I shall treasure it in coming days and all my days. I do remember this poem from my school years and am honored to have a copy of it in your own hand.”

  “If I can do anything to help—beyond my public talks and visits, I mean.”

  He glanced quickly around, evidently to see if anyone was in earshot. “Of course, His Majesty is torn about having to deal with the Duke of Windsor,” he said, that often-stentorian voice quite muted now. I startled at his quick change of topic, and to one that bothered me greatly. Did this man read minds?

  “I believe,” he went on, speaking quietly but quickly, “you have seen, more clearly than the king, that the former king is—or could be—a liability in all this, especially the public perceptions of him. Anything you can do to convince and assure His Majesty that the duke and his wife be assigned somewhere harmless but safe—outside of England, if I have any say in it—will be most helpful.”

  “Good. Yes, I see.”

  “I’m sure you do. Ma’am, I never did support his marrying Mrs. Simpson, I assure you. I thought she could be his mistress en-titre, but it didn’t do for her to be entertaining at Balmoral with him, nor to be the wife of a king, morganatic or not. Not only indiscreet of the Prince of Wales, later king, but dangerous. For whatever reason, I believe you felt the same.”

  “I did. Yes, that’s exactly it.”

  “I am pleased we agree, and I have this opportunity to clear the air with you on that before events go further. We do not truly know what is coming, ma’am, yet I dare say some sort of trying times. I realize what a close and important advisor you are to His Majesty, and should I become such also, I would hope and pray that you and I could also work together.”

  I remembered then that Bertie had said Churchill had tried to discover who was behind the China Dossier. What if he had learned it was me and would hold it over me and—

  “Ah, there you are,” Bertie said to me, coming up behind. “Winston, we shall have to include your Clementine for dinner next time here and without all the dire war talk.”

  “Very kind of you, Your Majesty. I believe with our clever wives supporting us, we shall forge ahead in these dark days, and our ladies shall lighten our steps.”

  So good with words, so very clever, I thought. So had he guessed or learned how far I had gone, how much I had risked to sully David’s paramour? And should this clever and powerful man become P.M., could I work with him as Bertie must do? I wondered in our current situation what Winston would think of the line in the Wordsworth poem, The bad have fairly earned a victory o’er the weak. And who was who?

  Chapter Six

  Beloved Brothers

  Captain David Bowes Lyon, I presume,” I told him with a smile, but tears blurred my vision as I hugged my youngest brother. “How are you, my dear?”

  He hugged me back hard, then set me at stiff arm’s length to look closely into my face.

  “I
see all these war threats and queenly duties have not aged you one bit. And I’m fine. Waiting to be called up. You look quite splendid, even without all the ermine, crowns, and that fur of an entire fox you like to wear that looks as if it might take a bite out of you. I shall have to start calling you Queen Foxy.”

  “Ever the tease. Well, perhaps I have put on a stone or so,” I admitted to him as I never did to others. So however did he keep himself so trim?

  He was so handsome with his classic good looks and wavy brown hair. I loved him dearly and always had, my childhood playmate, my friend—and fellow keeper of the secret of our heritage, though he had told his wife.

  But David had another closely kept secret, for, despite his wife, for whom he cared deeply, he much preferred the intimate company of men. He was two years younger than I, but we had seemed almost like twins as we grew up, sharing our happy childhood days, even singing and acting together in amateur performances on the Glamis Castle stage to amuse everyone before he left for school at Eton. So in polite society and even at home, he was still playacting about his romantic preferences.

  When Margaret Rose was born, I had asked him to be amongst her godparents, though that wretched David, Prince of Wales, became the second David to so serve. But rather than recall that, I asked about his family as we sat on the chintz sofa in my drawing room.

  “How are Rachel and the divine Devina and Simon?”

  He went on in some detail. Bertie would be joining us soon, for I had come up with an idea I was pleased he would champion. It was a way to keep David safe from serving in combat, yet he would do a very delicate, important service for our nation in wartime.

  “The family keeps me hopping,” he said with a smile. “And I’m still keen to garden, but there are rumors that, if we are attacked—even if we are not and there is a sea embargo of goods—we will be asked to ration food.”

  I sighed and poured tea from the service I’d ordered—with scones, his favorite blueberry ones—as I told him, “Yes, times are tense. I fear the masses are getting bored with war talk but nothing happening here yet, thank the good Lord. Here at the palace, we are waiting for the other shoe to drop—in the form of bombs. How can the Huns put up with that madman Hitler?”