by Tessa Arlen
She turned from the window with such bright expectancy that a flash of alarm told me to pay attention. “Lilibet, will you be warm enough in that dress?”
“I’m sorry, Crawfie, I must have misunderstood you. My coat is downstairs.” She got up from the window seat and put Susan on the floor, and when she lifted her face, all I saw was a mask of inscrutable politeness. What on earth did you think I said? I busied myself with tying my scarf. I knew how it felt when people intruded when you desperately wished they would just ignore you.
Lilibet brushed dog hair off the skirt of her dress. Normally she doesn’t give a hoot how much of Susan she is wearing. I couldn’t help myself. “You look remarkably bonny today.”
Her eyebrows went up in surprise before her carefully schooled expression covered her thoughts. “And so do you, Crawfie. It’s our Highland blood: bitterly cold weather agrees with us. And it’s Christmas Eve!” She linked her arm through mine as if she were still a little girl, and it occurred to me that Lilibet was on the edge of making a discovery, not only about herself, but about her life as well. On this gray-skied winter morning, it was as if she was teetering on the edge of something enormous, something that was of great importance to her. It isn’t the happily anticipated arrival of her parents that’s causing this distraction.
“A snowy Christmas Eve—what a treat! We had better get a move on—everyone will be arriving soon,” I said as I helped Margaret put on two pairs of gloves. Lilibet gave me a swift, almost triumphant look, and just like that, I understood the excitement of a new evening gown from a young woman who rarely glanced in the mirror twice. Here is the reason for her changeable mood of the last week: dreamy one moment and all business the next.
I put on my beret and started to button up my coat.
“Come on, Crawfie, don’t drag your feet.” Margaret took my hand and pulled me to the door. She was clutching a brown paper bag in her right hand.
“Crumbs for the birds?” I asked.
“No, a carrot and two pieces of coal. And we stole one of the Guards officers’ caps too—she is going to be a military snow woman.”
Lilibet left the world that was so demanding of her time and pushed her sister toward the door. “Come on, Margaret, we haven’t got all day. They’ll be here by half past eleven.” She was laughing as we ran down the curved stairs of the tower.
Which one of our young officers is the reason why she is so excited about this particular morning?
There was no one outside, and the inner courtyard of the upper ward’s lawn was covered in a foot of pristine snow. I hesitated, almost reluctant to walk on its perfect surface. But Margaret had no misgivings at all. She danced forward, leaving a trail of footprints across the snow, past the Guards standing sentry and out of the George Gate.
“She needs to be right there so they can see her when they arrive. Let’s start here and roll it all the way up to the top of the slope!” We barely noticed the cold as we bent to our task and started to roll up a ball of snow. Before we were halfway done, we were joined by a couple of Grenadier Guards officers and a visiting friend.
“Oi there, hold on. Your snowball’s all lopsided!” Captain Lord Rupert Nevill, dressed in his uniform of the Life Guards, came out the terrace door.
“Roll it this way, where everyone will see her!” cried Margaret.
“Her? I think not; this chap looks as stout as our commanding officer.” Nevill pulled on leather gloves and bent to help. I glanced at Lilibet. She was bent over too, her gloved hands smoothing and shaping the second snowball, which was to be the head. It was not Nevill who caused her to stare out the window at absolutely nothing for hours on end.
Margaret, ahead of her sister, stood at the top of the rise to the gate as three men labored behind a mammoth sphere of heavily packed snow. “Push it to the flat place, Teddy; otherwise she’ll topple. Oh no, Lilibet, her head is far too small.”
Lilibet rolled her eyes. “Don’t just stand there bossing, Margaret. Help me! Oh no, it’s rolling backward!” Her cheeks glowed from exertion, and her eyes were a deep penetrating blue from the cold. She braced herself against the giant ball of snow, her hat askew, breathless with laughter, and the three men pushed past one another to help.
“Not too quickly,” Margaret instructed. “Otherwise it will fall apart.” Panting with effort, we lifted the head up onto the body. “Now, that’s quite perfect. Who says snow women can’t be captains? Now, where’s the coal for her eyes? Too wide apart, Crawfie; there, that’s better. And the carrot!”
Lilibet stretched up on the toes of her boots and tried to balance the cap on the smooth surface of the head.
“Isn’t that mine?” A tall young man with a long, straight nose and a perfectly trimmed mustache took the cap from her and turned it in his hands, smiling with pleasure. “It is mine! You swiped it—no wonder I couldn’t find it. Of all the cheek, Lilibet!” He set the cap at the correct angle for an officer in the Grenadier Guards, stepped back, and saluted.
“Is it really yours, Hugh? I am sorry, I thought it was Teddy’s. Anyway, it’s just until everyone has arrived. Do say if you need it now.”
Lilibet’s apologetic tone sent Hugh into stammering reassurance. “Oh no, no, really . . . Don’t need it at all. Not until church tomorrow.” Scarlet to the roots of his dark hair, Hugh couldn’t make Lilibet’s taking his cap all right enough for her.
Hugh who? I tried to remember the officer’s last name. Euston! It has to be Lieutenant Viscount Hugh Euston, the Duke of Grafton’s eldest son. My eyes slewed over to see how Lilibet was taking his blushing, stammering delight, but she turned away, all interest in the snow woman and Hugh Euston gone. She was staring down the Long Walk past the sentries standing at the castle gates and beyond them to the drive that continued, straight as a die, to Windsor Great Park. A quick glance at her wristwatch and then back to the drive, as if she expected to see a car pull up at the gates.
“I’m freezing, and I’ve got hot ache.” Margaret’s wool gloves were heavy with melted snow.
There was no time to lose; her health was often precarious at this time of year, and that, combined with show nerves, would be a disaster for her part in the pantomime if she caught cold. “Inside with you, Margaret. It’s time for hot cocoa.” We left Lilibet standing by the snow woman, watching the drive.
“Yew know what ’er problem is, doncha?” Margaret imitated Mrs. Mundy, the head cook at the castle, who had a strong East London accent and a voice that could splinter glass. I raised my eyebrows. “Love,” Margaret answered with conviction and in her own voice. “Know who, Crawfie?” I laughed; Margaret was a ruthless blurter of other people’s secrets.
Chapter Four
Christmas Eve, 1944
Windsor Castle, Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, England
The damask walls glowed silky red in candle- and firelight. Men and women, cocktails in hand, chattered in small groups, broke away to greet old friends, to kiss cheeks and shake hands, to laugh and exclaim how long it had been.
“Pity we can’t use the White Room. I simply can’t get used to Windsor being half closed up.” Lady Airlie, lady-in-waiting to Dowager Queen Mary, paused in her social round to say good evening. The old queen sat in state near the center of the room, back erect, her white wig crowned with the Vladimir tiara, and diamonds covering her large-bosomed front from neck to waist.
I preferred the family’s private apartment at Windsor to the grandiose White Room. “Most of the staterooms are completely empty. Chandeliers, furniture, and paintings in storage, cabinets turned to the walls, and sandbags blocking up the windows.”
She closed her eyes in mock martyrdom. “When will it ever end—this awful business? The war simply has to end soon, so we can enjoy visiting our dressmakers again. Look at us; we are getting shabbier by the year—almost threadbare!” Queen Mary turned in her chair, and the candelabra caught the light
house glare of diamonds. “Thank heavens we still have our jewels—even if they all need a good cleaning.”
No one here tonight looks either threadbare or tatty. I thought of my mother in her old Shetland wool cardigan and her serviceable but worn boots. Lady Airlie needed to catch a crowded train from London to Birmingham in a third-class carriage if she wanted to see what shabby really looked like.
To my relief she drifted away—Lady Airlie’s generation did not hobnob with the staff for longer than they needed to. The crowd parted, and there was the queen dressed in her favorite misty blue, her vivacious smile more brilliant than the thousands of carats that gleamed at her bosom and neck—not one of them needed cleaning, I noticed. Every so often the outer press around her would shift, and I would catch glimpses of her in a series of vignettes: head on one side as she listened with a grave face to Lord Wigram, the governor of the castle; her mouth half open in laughter the next; turning to bestow a friendly pat on the shoulder of Sir Gerald Kelly, who was still at work on the coronation portraits, and probably would be until the end of the war. But underneath the gay smile, when her face was composed, she looked tired and her face powder did not quite conceal the dark circles under her eyes.
I took a sip of champagne from my glass as I considered the woman I had worked for, for thirteen years. Never underestimate her; never assume that the bright chatter is all there is to her. I smiled at my own advice. A powerhouse of resolve and tenacity burned beneath the queen’s deceptive exterior: light, sweet, and brittle as French meringue.
The war years have given her poise and greater dignity. I watched the queen nod a gracious welcome to a woman in beige silk who rose from a deep curtsy, the wife of an armaments industrialist, delighted to have finally breached the unscalable social divide of the castle walls. She lifted her chin in acknowledgment of the woman’s husband: short, wide, and perspiring into his starched wing collar. Her gaze was serene, her gloved hand extended to him slowly, as if she were bestowing a blessing. She closed her eyes and smiled, accepting his gushing gratitude.
She lost her girlish manner when her brother-in-law abdicated, but not her ability to charm when something needs to be accomplished. I finished my champagne. Now it is her approval they clamor for.
Almost on cue there was a shout of laughter from the group standing around the queen. “Good evening, Crawfie.” Lady Spencer’s voice interrupted my thoughts. She followed my gaze to the queen and smiled her grim, thin-lipped smile. “Even when she’s exhausted, she’s always ‘on.’ Who would have thought that being our queen would suit her so well?” I turned my head in surprise as Lady Spencer echoed my own thoughts. “Anyway, how are you, Crawfie? It must be awfully difficult being shut up in this cold old fortress, year after year, and hard on the girls too.”
“They seem to take everything in their stride, Lady Spencer; nothing seems to bother them,” I said, rather too proudly.
She laughed. “Well, keep your eyes wide open. In my experience that’s when young women like to put a spin on the ball—when everything appears to be going smoothly. I wonder how well Her Majesty will handle the domestic dramas of two young women in their teens who have been cooped up here for the last four years, without the distraction of war duties to fill her time.” I bit my lip to stop myself from replying as I remembered Lilibet standing in front of the pier glass in her new dress. Lady Spencer bustled off to join her friends at the other end of the room, and I searched the crowd for the king.
Like me, he was standing on the edge of things, observing rather than participating. His newest best friend, Winston Churchill, talked steadily into his ear, his right hand jabbing his cigar in the air to punctuate his words. Over their heads hung a mingled cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke to keep the social mosquitoes at bay.
Surely, no one is as worn or as lined by these terrible years as our king. King George stubbed out his cigarette, and an equerry stepped forward, lighter at the ready. Without lifting his eyes or taking his attention away from Churchill, the king slipped his hand into his pocket and opened his cigarette case. At this distance the equerry’s face wasn’t easily recognizable. I frowned and narrowed my eyes to bring him into focus. He said something, evidently amusing, because the king’s wide mouth broadened, and Churchill, renowned for his bawdy humor, clapped the young man on the shoulder, laughing at what had obviously been a risqué joke. The king responded and the three of them laughed.
“Lady Airlie, who is the king’s new equerry?” She had circulated back to my side of the room to be near to the old queen, who was staring uncomprehendingly at someone in earnest conversation with her.
“She can’t hear a word he is saying. Doesn’t he know she’s deaf?” she said in exasperation. “Who?” She followed my gaze to the man in the Royal Air Force uniform, who had stepped respectfully back so that Churchill and the king could continue their conversation. “Ah yes, he was temporary until this summer. Wing Commander Peter Townsend. Fighter pilot, a war hero. Drawerful of decorations, Her Majesty told me. Lost his nerve, apparently, poor chap—but they all do, those Spitfire and Hurricane boys. Good-looking, though, isn’t he? And very personable! Watch out for that one, Crawfie. Pretty young women always end up marrying their father’s equerries.” She turned away, hailed by one of her gossipy friends.
How has Lilibet managed to get to know this handsome face? I paused for a moment to consider the idea that it was this new equerry who had brightened Lilibet’s serious demeanor. It was a ridiculous one: Townsend was far too old for her. The king opened his cigarette case again; the lighter flashed as he bent his head. Churchill was still talking as the flame lit up the king’s weary face.
Who would have thought, eight years ago, that this oversensitive, stammering younger brother would have stepped up to become our country’s most loved and respected king? I set down my empty glass and took a full one from a passing tray. Champagne didn’t come our way often at the castle, and this was the best there was.
He could never have done it without her, I thought as the king inhaled smoke and chased it down with a mouthful of scotch. But what a price he’s paid. Whereas she has . . . I glanced back to the queen. It was almost as if Elizabeth had increased in majesty. She must have sensed my attention because she looked up, caught my eye, and half raised her hand in salute and flashed her brightest smile as she walked toward me.
“Crawfie, Merry Christmas.” Her blue gaze swept over me, appraising and approving at the same time. “Such a pretty tartan sash—it’s Campbell, isn’t it? Of course, your mother’s clan! And the lace jabot, such a graceful touch.” She lifted her hand, and her empty glass was replaced immediately. “Well, the girls look so happy and pretty. You have done wonders with them, Crawfie. Now, how is your mother? And your aunts? We really must make time for you to go north to see your family.” She put her hand on my arm briefly, the lightest touch and slightest pause, and she was off again. “Lord Scarborough told me that the trains are terrible at this time of year. Well, aren’t they always? But if you can stand hours in a cold carriage clanking slowly north, then we will arrange something!”
She drew closer and lowered her voice. “Lilibet looks absolutely lovely in that dress. I had no idea Bobo had such a talent!”
My shoulders came down a notch or two at her reassurance that she had seen Lilibet in her new evening gown. She gave my arm a congratulatory pat and, turning back to her guests, called out, “Time for carols before we open presents!” in her bright, birdlike voice. She took a tiny sip from her glass and walked across the room toward the piano. Someone, it looked like Noël Coward, struck up the opening chords of “Once in Royal David’s City,” and a lump filled my throat as willing voices lifted to join in one of my most-loved carols.
“Here we all are, bright fires burning, the Christmas tree tow . . . towering over us and lit with candles. We only have each other, after all.” It was the king at my side. “Merry Christmas, Crawfie.” It wa
s a hard phrase for him, bristling with r’s, but this evening he was relaxed in the company of old friends and his family, not the tense man who had arrived at Windsor this morning. “Did the queen tell you that . . . if you can get north in this horribly icy weather, you must go home to your mother to celebrate . . . the New Year?”
Hogmanay was more important to us Scots than Christmas, but of course he would know that; his wife was from the Highlands too. I allowed myself to think of my mother for a moment and said, “Merry Christmas, sir—and thank you; my mother will be delighted.”
He nodded and looked around the room. The queen was standing close to the piano; she had a contented Margaret pulled close to her side. “Lilibet?” I could see the king looking for his eldest daughter. “Margaret is my joy,” he always said when he and the queen arrived at Windsor for a rare weekend with their girls, “and Lilibet my pride.”
But the king’s pride was nowhere to be seen. He looked perplexed for a moment, eyebrows raised in question. “She was here a minute ago, sir. I’ll go and find her.” He nodded, walking back toward his guests and lifting his pleasant light baritone to join them in song. When the king sang, his words were clear and his consonants free from the stopped speech that had plagued him since early childhood.
· · ·
Lilibet was in the anteroom surrounded by a group of young, laughing faces. I looked for Hugh Euston, of the snow woman expedition, but he was off in a corner talking with such an intense expression to Ann Fortune that I felt just by noticing them together, I had intruded. So, definitely not him, then, I thought as I tried to catch Lilibet’s eye. “Your Royal Highness, His Majesty asks . . .” She turned back to her friends, and I saw her radiant smile, so bright her pearly complexion looked lit from within. “Carols, everyone? I think Noël is playing. Sounds like him anyway.” There was no trace of the hesitant young girl I had known since her sixth year. I had never seen Lilibet this self-assured, this vivid and alive. I searched the group for a new face and saw only cousins and the offspring of friends known to the Windsors for years. Who is having this effect on her? I asked myself as I walked ahead of the group back to the great room.