“Will you come to the house?”
David shook his head, twigs snapping beneath his boots. “I’m not done yet.” He knelt to attack another thornbush, his face pale.
Just off the path was a fallen tree trunk, mossy with age and large enough for Thelma to sit on. She navigated her way over and sat, smoothing the hem of her coat beneath her.
“How was your meeting with His Majesty?” she said.
He didn’t answer straightaway, but continued to cut at the thornbush, planting his free hand on the ground to reach the root with his blade.
“Osborne tell you?” He swung the machete a final time and the bush shuddered; he straightened, resting his hands on his knees.
“I can’t do anything right. He’s so stubborn. Can’t ever accept that there are other ways of going about one’s business, better ways...”
“Oh dear,” said Thelma. “What was it this time?”
David half-glanced at her. “Flying,” he said. “That was the start—it rather unraveled from there. Said a sovereign has no business meddling in new technologies. Tells me I risk the monarchy every time I go up in an airplane.” He wiped his face with a muddy glove, leaving a streak of grit across his cheek. “He doesn’t see how much time I would save, getting from one place to another.”
A loud crashing sound came from the direction of the Fort; Thelma turned as Cora, one of David’s terriers, sprinted toward them. Thelma held out her arms and Cora leaped into them, welcoming her to the Fort with wiggling glee.
“What else did he say?”
David watched the dog with sullen interest. “Said the technology is untested—that the train was good enough for him and it bloody well ought to be good enough for me. He’s forbidden me from continuing my training as a pilot.”
“That’s not fair,” said Thelma. David had been solicitous in training with the RAF for months; more than once, Thelma had woken in the middle of the night to find him sitting up in bed, poring over a flight manual. “It’s hardly untested. The RAF have been flying for nearly fifteen years.”
David stood. “Tell him that,” he said, striding partway up the path. He stopped and spun back toward Thelma on his heel, leaving a deep furrow in the mud. “He’d throw the entire country back to the dark ages if he thought he could, but what good is a sovereign who doesn’t keep up with the world? He’s so—so self-righteous. If he gets it in mind that there’s one way to do things, one hardly stands a chance to get a word in edgewise.”
He’d built up enough of a head of steam that Thelma knew it was best to let him continue. She rubbed the terrier behind its ears and it pushed its head up into her fingers, imploring her to keep scratching.
“He’s stubborn,” she said fondly. “It’s a trait you happen to share.”
David laughed. He picked up the machete once more and swung it at a mature beech. The blade bit into the tree with a heavy thud, lodging deep within the trunk, and David left it there, quivering.
“I try so hard,” he said, removing his gloves as he came to sit next to Thelma, “to make an effort. I do think about it all, you know. What sort of—of king I’ll be when the old man goes. But it’s always a fight. He doesn’t see that the people love me because I’m not him. They know that I want to be a modern king, for a modern nation.” He rested his elbows on his knees, the color returning to his face. “Haven’t got a cigarette, have you?”
Thelma pulled cigarettes and a lighter from her handbag. David sat up, taking the case with a nod of thanks. Thelma lifted the small chrome cap of the lighter and turned the striking mechanism; the flame burst into life as David set a cigarette between his lips.
She leaned against his shoulder. “Surely—not to sound indelicate, but surely it’s a temporary problem?” she said. “Once your father goes, it won’t matter what he thinks of you. You can be exactly the sort of ruler you’d like.”
“Ah, but when will that be?” muttered David. “There’s plenty for him to criticize before he goes. My flying isn’t the only thing that’s risking the monarchy. He worries the people may not tolerate my manner of living much longer.”
Thelma took the cigarette from David. “And what manner is that?”
“Modern. Enlightened,” said David. “He thinks I ought to be more traditional. Church every Sunday, marry some European princess. In bed by ten o’clock, stamp collecting in the morning.”
A marriage. That was the crux of it. Thelma passed the cigarette back, smoke dispersing in the winter air. A squirrel darted through the undergrowth and the terrier on Thelma’s lap began to squirm; she released it and it exploded after the squirrel, crashing through the trees.
“He wants you to give me up?” Thelma asked.
David sighed. “That’s the gist of it.” Without looking down, he reached for her hand. “He found out you were hosting tonight and rather flew off the handle. He’s worried about a scandal—says the newspapers keep quiet on his account, but the people won’t put up with my carrying on much longer. The church won’t abide it...which always seemed so silly to me, their preoccupation with divorced women.” He spoke lightly, but the pressure of his fingers against hers strengthened, and she squeezed back. “Says I’m not getting any younger. I ought to go about the business of settling down. But that isn’t me, darling, you know that.”
But it would happen, sooner or later. Despite David’s impulsive proposals, Wallis’s breezy assumptions—despite Thelma’s divorce, the papers sitting in the topmost drawer of her desk—David would, one day, have to marry someone that wasn’t likely to be her.
He finished the cigarette and flicked it into a pile of damp leaves, where the ember faded amber to gray.
“I know he thinks it would be easier if Bertie had been born first,” said David, his voice hardening. “Wife and children already. No concerns about p-poor little B-B-Bertie.”
“It isn’t Bertie’s fault,” she said. “You’re different people, that’s all.” She kissed him, hoping to ease his sudden bitterness. “Your father thinks he’s right because he’s only ever known his own way forward. He’s been doing the job for so long...but you’re going to forge a different path. You know it and so does he. I’m sure he knows you’ll make a fine king.”
David sighed, staring into the gray forest without any real conviction. “No, he doesn’t,” he said dully. “And he’s right.” He stood and glanced back up the path.
Thelma stood, too. She stepped closer: without the garden-work to keep him warm, David was shivering. “All due respect to His Majesty, my love, but it’s not his opinion that matters,” she said. “It’s yours and mine. And the people’s.” She pressed her lips against his, and could feel him begin to smile.
He pulled away, and she rubbed at the smudge of dirt on the bridge of his nose. “Our guests will be arriving soon. Shall we go and get ready?”
“I suppose,” said David. He went back to the tree and gripped the machete in both his hands. “Couldn’t find my jacket, could you? I think I dropped it somewhere back there.” He set one foot against the tree trunk for leverage and pulled; with a groan, the machete came free.
Thelma handed him his jacket—crumpled though it was, he put it on and smoothed the lapels. He took Thelma’s hand, his palm gritty against hers, and together, they walked back up the winding path.
Someone had turned the lights on in the Fort. The electric glow drew attention to the failing day in the gray wood, and Thelma drew closer to David. The Fort really was so much prettier from the back, she thought as they stepped onto the lawn, with all the windows lit...
* * *
Piers Legh walked across the drawing room, a glass of champagne in his hand. He held it out and Thelma took it with a nod of thanks; beside her, Consuelo and Wallis Simpson laughed at something Elizabeth had said and Thelma picked up their laughter, although she’d missed the joke.
Bertie and Elizabeth
had come over shortly after dinner, providing much-needed levity to the evening. David, still preoccupied by his meeting with the king, had barely said a word over dinner, leaving Thelma and Piers to carry the conversation. Now, with the women clustered by the fireplace and the men seated round a poker table, David had retreated from his guests entirely, standing with a martini in hand by the window as he stared at the black grounds.
Thelma, too, was preoccupied. The fact that she was considered a liability by David’s parents wasn’t news, exactly, but she wondered at the extent of the king’s opposition. Did he know that Thelma had gone through with her divorce—had David told him? If so, had it changed anything?
Not likely, she thought, as Bertie excused himself from the poker table to put on a new record.
King David. King Edward, she corrected herself: it was a future that she couldn’t quite picture. Would there still be weekends like this, laughing by the fireplace, cutting laurels in the forest? She pictured David’s beloved Fort, abandoned not by choice but by duty, his spare hours taken up by tours, diplomacy—all his hard work, crumbling into obsolescence; the Fort an escape to be made only once, twice a year when custom allowed it. The Fort, transformed into a memory of happier times.
Thelma turned back to Elizabeth, who was discussing the renovations she and Bertie had made to their own Windsor Park estate.
“It’s more conventional than this, of course, all square rooms and plasterwork, but we’re making it our own,” said Elizabeth, her chest slumping, ever so slightly, over the round of her stomach. Compared to Wallis and Consuelo, Elizabeth looked a bit dowdy: she still hadn’t lost the weight after giving birth to Margaret in August. As if to distract from her figure, she had wreathed her neck in pearls and the excess reminded Thelma of Reggie’s mother, Alice Vanderbilt. “Bertie, of course, has no eye for it—he wanted to paint the drawing room mauve, bless him.” She looked at her husband, the corners of her eyes crinkling fondly. “But we hired someone, and it’s all turning out rather beautifully.”
“It must be quite different from here,” said Consuelo, looking at the drawing room’s clean lines and strong colors, its wood panels and warmth. “This really is more of a bachelor’s space.”
“Well, with the girls we wanted a homey feel,” said Elizabeth. “It’s a cozy spot, really. We spent a few days there over Christmas and it looked delightful, all decorated with pine boughs and tinsel.”
Cozy, to Thelma, seemed a massive understatement, having called at Royal Lodge for tea with David two Saturdays ago. The drawing room, with its sea-foam walls and family crests, its identical chandeliers dancing down the ceiling, was immense: were it not for the Axminster and upholstered furniture to dampen the sound the room would have echoed with their conversation. For all that, though, Thelma had been utterly charmed by Bertie and Elizabeth’s daughters. Margaret, only an infant, had been brought down by the nursemaid and sat in her mother’s arms, while Lilibet, at five years old, was engaging and energetic, running across the room as David chased her with exaggerated slowness.
“Well, I can’t vouch for the Lodge, but His Royal Highness has done a lovely job here,” said Wallis. She raised her voice, looking round at David’s turned back. “Am I right in thinking that’s a Canaletto above the fireplace, sir?”
David looked round, his eyebrows slightly raised as if he’d forgotten the room was full of people. “Hmm? Yes, part of the Royal Collection. Freddie chose it. Useful, really, to have masterworks at one’s disposal.”
Bertie nodded. “Q-quite so,” he said, as “Tea for Two” piped through the bell of the gramophone. “We’ve p-plundered several pieces for the L-Lodge, haven’t we, darling?”
“One of the perks of being part of the family, I suppose,” said Wallis. She leaned back in her chair. “Imagine, Thelma, having a warehouse of family heirlooms...when my mother died she left me an incomplete set of silverware, a bible and a pair of glass earrings.” She bit into the olive, sliding it off the toothpick. “I can’t find replacements for the silverware set and the bible isn’t much use, but those earrings go with just about everything I own.”
“Well, dear,” said Elizabeth, her blue eyes turning to ice, “we can’t any of us choose our breeding, can we? We can only choose whether or not to appear well-bred.”
Wallis smirked—a quick tug of her lips—and set down her glass. She inclined her head in the duchess’s direction, and Thelma couldn’t help comparing the two again: one, the blade beneath softness; the other, manicured bravado.
Wallis slid to Ernest’s side, resting a red-nailed hand on his shoulder as she studied his cards.
“I’d like to have a go—are you boys nearly done?” she said. “Or perhaps—” she looked up. “Can I tempt you to a game, sir?”
David looked over, with an expression that made Thelma think perhaps he had heard the exchange between Elizabeth and Wallis. “Why not? Are you familiar with Red Dog?”
Wallis picked up a spare deck and walked to a separate table. “I’m not, but you could teach me.”
“It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Simpson.”
Thelma caught David’s eye and he winked. Wallis tapped the cards out of their box and split the deck, shuffling the halves together in a brisk snap as David explained the rules of the game. She spared one final glance at Elizabeth before turning her full attention to the prince.
* * *
Situated on the east side of the house, the breakfast room at Fort Belvedere was designed to catch the morning sunlight—although, taking advantage of David’s insistence on informality, most guests missed out on the room’s merits by sleeping through breakfast altogether. When Thelma came down, she was unsurprised to find half the company missing: only Wallis, Ernest and Piers were at the table, with a thick pile of newspapers scattered between the place settings.
“Good morning,” said Thelma. She took a piece of toast and a grapefruit half from the buffet. “Have you been up long?”
“We came down five minutes before you,” said Wallis. She folded her newspaper and tossed it back on the pile. “Coffee?”
“Please,” said Thelma. “How did you sleep?”
“Like logs,” said Wallis. “I don’t think Ernest moved in the night at all, did you, darling?”
“Mmm—very comfortable,” said Ernest, setting down one paper and picking up another. “I’m done with The Manchester Guardian, Wallis.” He handed her the paper and she put it next to her plate without looking.
“Have you seen His Royal Highness this morning?” said Thelma.
Piers chuckled. “He’s in the garden. Hoping to finish his path, I think.”
“Goodness, that’s a tall order,” said Thelma. “I hope you’ve brought your Wellingtons, Ernest.”
Ernest frowned as he leafed through the front section of The Telegraph. “Doesn’t he have staff for that sort of thing?”
“From Monday to Friday, yes, but he likes to work the grounds when he has the chance,” said Piers. He peered at Ernest over his newspaper. “You’ll notice that those who offer to help get invited back.”
“I see,” said Ernest, looking less than enthused at the prospect of manual labor.
“It’s not a command, exactly,” added Thelma, “though I’ve never known anybody to refuse.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pill, dear,” said Wallis. “After all that London smog, fresh air would do you good.”
Ernest’s retort was interrupted by a dull knock on the windowpane. David was standing outside, a heavy set of garden shears slung over his shoulders. He waved; Thelma waved back, and David dropped the shears before jogging out of sight—to the side door, Thelma supposed.
He was preceded into the room by his dogs, who skittered under the table in search of scraps. David, in muddy trousers, smiled.
“Good morning!” he said heartily. He took an apple from the buffet and bit into it, juice erupt
ing in a small sunburst. “It’s a glorious day out there, Thelma. We ought to ask Osborne to arrange a picnic.” He thumped across the carpet and kissed Thelma’s cheek. “Good morning, darling.”
“Hello, you. Have you made much progress?” she asked.
David squinted out the window, his hands on his hips. “Plugging along.” Beneath the table, one of the terriers nudged Thelma’s shin and she slipped him a crust of toast from her plate.
“Good morning, sir,” said Wallis. “Thelma’s told us about your gardening—we’re trying to convince Ernest to join you.”
“Another victim? Don’t worry, old boy—I want a pound of flesh and nothing more,” said David. Wallis smirked at Ernest before returning to her newspaper.
She turned to a new page and gasped.
“Dear?” said Ernest, frowning. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, my. This is all rather...” Wallis exhaled and passed Thelma the newspaper, her usual gloss shattered in a moment of sheer discomposure. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
Thelma’s heart sank. She could guess what the paper contained: she’d been expecting it all weekend, a letter, a telephone call, a telegram, all but delivered on a card with a black border.
She lowered her gaze to the newspaper.
WEDDING OF PEER’S DAUGHTER—
A STRANGE SITUATION
Events of an unusual character have followed the wedding in Kenya by special license of the Hon. Averill Furness, the daughter of Viscount Furness, and Mr. Andrew Rattray, the white hunter to Viscount Furness’s hunting expedition.
According to the Central News the wedding took place while Lord Furness was away shooting, and arrangements were made to acquaint him by air messenger of what had happened.
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