In Royal Service to the Queen

by Tessa Arlen

  I knew she had come to find me, to make sure that I didn’t feel abandoned now that she and her sister were reunited with her parents. She appeared to have little enthusiasm for the balcony. She raised her eyebrows at the prospect of waving to crowds the same way her father was probably doing now. Margaret, I knew, would be standing next to her mother, full of delighted enthusiasm and dressed in her best dress. “We have an hour before we go out with Mummy and Papa. We are waiting for Mr. Churchill. Papa wants him with us.”

  “And Margaret?”

  “She is loving every minute of it. They have put an orange box for her on the balcony, so she can be seen when we do our best Queen Mary waves. Grandmama is with them too: dressed in a tall toque hat and swathed in all her jewels and her furs.” She giggled. I could see Margaret Rose being gracious, carefully patterning herself after Dowager Queen Mary, and so could Lilibet. We sat down on my dusty sofa and tried to smother our laughter.

  “Land of Hope and Glory” echoed up to us from the Mall, and our giggles threatened to become hysterical. Elizabeth dried her eyes. “I think the drive into the city, with its gaps and ruins, the overwhelming numbers of people waving flags and singing, is a bit overpowering, after Windsor. It’s unbelievably loud out on the balcony. But I came to ask you if you would come to the balcony room with me. You will be able to see us go out and wave to the crowds. Papa wanted to be sure we invited you. Please come; there’s champagne. And we have permission to go out tonight—to join the celebrations.” Even Lilibet couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. “Three officers from the Guards will take us. Margaret is in ecstasy.”

  “You’re not going to wear your uniform, are you?” If they were to go out, surely there would be dancing, and how could anyone dance in that narrow and skimpy ATS skirt? I realized that I was far from myself, badgering her this way.

  But Lilibet looked as if she could take anything in her stride. She smiled. “Of course I’m going to wear it. It took me months to persuade Papa to let me join the ATS. I think I look rather dashing, don’t you?” She turned to the looking glass and organized her cap at a jaunty angle. “Everyone will be in uniform, so I must wear mine. Are you going to celebrate?”

  “Yes, with a book and an early night!”

  “You could come out with us. Why don’t you?”

  The thought of disappearing into a crowd of loud, half-drunk, and maudlin celebrators didn’t appeal in the slightest. I knew exactly how I would spend my evening. A nice hot bath; Windsor Castle’s bathrooms were few and decidedly spartan, with water that dribbled sadly into vast tubs marked with a black line to show you what was meant by five inches. I would ring for a supper tray in my room and savor the blissful luxury of curling up in a comfortable bed to read until I fell asleep.

  “If you don’t celebrate, what will you do?”

  “Like I said, I’m reading an awfully good book.”

  “Well, at least come with me now to the balcony room, before Mr. Churchill gets there first and drinks all the champagne.”

  I was easily persuaded; it would be vintage champagne if I knew anything about life at Buck House.

  * * *

  • • •

  If ever there was a man in a less celebratory mood when I joined the family in the balcony room, surely it was the king. He had been his usual courteous and thoughtful self as he had greeted my half curtsy. “C-C-Crawfie,” he had exclaimed as I was given a glass of champagne. “Welcome home. Palace looks a bit battered, eh?”

  “Nothing a bit of paint won’t fix, sir,” I said. Ever the doughty Scots governess, as I thought how much more battered our king looked than his palace. He was even thinner than he had been at Christmas, and it had the effect of making him look smaller. I was glad that I had put on low-heeled shoes with my dinner dress. The last thing I needed to do was tower over this shadow of a man who had diminished in size a little more every year since his coronation.

  There was a commotion of congratulations in the corridor outside the balcony room, and before he could be announced, Churchill came through the door, his arms outstretched as if he would take the tiny king in an embrace. Close to him, I was surprised at how short Mr. Churchill was and how effortlessly his bulk dominated the room. I glanced at the king to see how he was taking his prime minister’s stage entrance, but he was all smiles. “Come in, Winston,” he said, as if anyone could stop the man.

  The prime minister bowed low, and straightening up, he took a glass of champagne and raised it in the air. “Long live the cause of freedom, and to your good health, Your Majesty!” he said, and I noticed there were tears in his eyes. I turned my head away, because to drink to the king’s health seemed almost to be courting disaster. As if they had heard Churchill, the crowds outside in the Mall took up the cry: “We want the king! We want the king,” a burst of cheering almost animallike in its ferocity, as if the people of Britain were baying for their monarch’s flesh and blood.

  The king finished his glass of champagne as if it was water.

  “Another glass, Winston, before we brave the mob?”

  They drank to each other, and then the king touched his prime minister on the arm, and the man who had led us throughout the most dangerous years of our war followed his monarch out onto the balcony.

  The cheers grew, and when we thought they couldn’t be louder, they increased in frenzied volume. The queen turned to her daughters; she smiled. “I think it is safe for us to join them now without being completely deafened.” I watched them through the door, and as the queen took her place next to her husband and lifted her gloved hand to stir the air, I could have sworn that the noise reached a level unachieved by the collective human voice ever before.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Was it fun, Margaret?” My youngest princess was yawning her head off over her schoolbooks.

  “Oh, it really was. D’you know, Crawfie, everyone was kissing everyone? Complete strangers, even!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really and truly. I got kissed hundreds of times. It was wonderful!”

  “Something perhaps best not shared with Alah or Her Majesty.”

  Lilibet had collected the morning post and was reading several closely written pages. I glanced down at the return address on the envelope. It had come from the Admiralty. Was her secret love in the navy?

  I caught sharp-eyed Margaret peering sideways at the envelope too. “Navy—Papa’s favorite,” she mouthed at me across the table.

  The image of the king’s exhausted face as he had braved the balcony with Churchill flashed into my mind again. Surely now that the war was over the king could relax and resume the privacy of family life: the “we four” that he cared so deeply for. The “we four” of the little family he had so enjoyed before his brother’s abdication.

  Chapter Seven

  June 1945

  Buckingham Palace, London

  It’s cruelly unfair, Crawfie. I hate being alone, I really do.” Margaret, back rigid, jaw jutting in mutiny, slammed her fountain pen down on the desk. “Papa keeps dragging Lilibet off to do this and read that. He even let her have lunch with him and Mr. Churchill.” She was vibrating with hurt feelings as she hurled her homework into the basket for me to mark.

  “It is important that Lilibet spend as much time with His Majesty as she can,” I explained to tossing curls and folded arms. “The king is teaching her the ropes because he remembers how difficult it was for him to come to the throne untrained. In a few more years, you will be involved too. As the queen often reminds me: the Windsors are a working family, and there will be plenty for you to do when you are old enough. Now, I think it would be a good idea if—”

  “Crawfie, don’t you ever get tired of coming up with good ideas?” I recognized the edge in her voice that signaled a storm.

  My voice was level as I looked her directly in the eye. “It is
my job to have them, Margaret, but if you know what you would like to do this evening, then let’s hear it!”

  I saw the flash and could almost smell the gunpowder.

  The door opened and one of the queen’s pages came into the room. Margaret, with a triumphant smile, slammed her volume of The Tudor Dynasty shut. A pity because I had always thought that the way Henry Tudor first seized the throne after his Lancastrian victory at the Battle of Bosworth and maintained order in his new realm through sheer force of personality, not to mention intimidation, would appeal to Margaret Rose. “Yes?” she said before the page could utter a word. “You may interrupt.” Her voice dripped with gracious condescension, and I turned my head away to conceal my smile.

  “Excuse me, Your Royal Highness. Her Majesty would like to see Miss Crawford in her drawing room as soon as possible.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Crawfie, everyone gets to spend time with Mummy and Papa except me.” I could have ledged a penny on her bottom lip.

  I looked at my watch. “I am quite sure I won’t be long, and when I come back, perhaps we could practice the songs you are going to sing tomorrow night for the family?”

  She was instantly all smiles. “Off you pop, Crawfie, and tell Mummy not to make a meal out of it. She only needs an update on how we are settling in.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I dashed into my room to comb my hair and wash my hands before making my way south to descend two floors and walk three corridors to the king and queen’s private apartments. As I paced along, I wondered which sort of meeting I was in for. Will it be the cozy and slightly conspiratorial “just us girls” that we enjoyed before the war, or does she have a formal agenda? I would know the moment I walked into her drawing room. The queen’s opening introduction, however bland it might appear to be, always informed what sort of little chat we were to have.

  The footman opened the door. “Miss Crawford, Your Majesty,” he announced, and I walked into the room. Queen Elizabeth, wearing a pastel blue chiffon, with matching high heels and evening bag, sat in the center of a rose pink and fawn silk damask sofa, surrounded by her dogs. She put the book she was reading on a side table, crowded with framed photographs, as I made my half curtsy.

  “Good evening, Crawfie. Yes, please do sit. Sherry?” She was drinking her customary gin and Dubonnet. I was given a diminutive flute of Amontillado, and we were left alone.

  “So lovely to have you back in the palace again. It’s almost like old times! Now, how are you and the girls settling in?” The queen, like Lilibet, had an electrifying smile. Over the years, Elizabeth’s smile had become an on-off affair: a quick flash of teeth for those who worked for her, a broader welcoming dazzle for those who mattered. Her smile for me today was cozy, confiding. It reached her bright, deep-set blue eyes.

  “Margaret was a little distracted at first, but she is doing well in her studies. She enjoys being challenged, and my only concern is that my curriculum is not vigorous enough for her. I was wondering if Sir Henry Marten might have the time . . . ?” My idea of Eton’s provost, who had taught Lilibet constitutional history, coming to teach Margaret was waved away.

  “Oh, do you really think so, Crawfie?” The queen wrinkled her nose. “Poor Sir Henry must be getting up there in years, and does Margaret really need to know about the constitution? I would have thought that you provide enough history for anyone.”

  Margaret’s intelligent, curious face flashed to mind. The devilish streak that needed an outlet. I pushed on. “Margaret is an above-average pupil, ma’am. She would be a perfect candidate for university.” She was already shaking her head before I had finished. I made one more desperate attempt. “I think Margaret would be happier, more fulfilled, if she was truly engaged in academic . . .”

  The queen smiled her kindest smile as she waved away modern thinking. “No, no, no, Crawfie, we could never agree to that sort of thing. University? Goodness knows where it might all end.” She took a sip of her drink. “Poor Margaret, just imagine it. She would be a fish out of water.”

  No, she would be a fish in water—a happier, more challenged one.

  “The University of Edinburgh was a dream come true for me. It really brought me out of myself,” I persisted.

  “And how is Lilibet settling in, do you think?”

  I continued with my report, determined to visit Margaret’s future another time. “Lilibet has made the transition from Windsor with her usual composure.” I took a half sip of sherry, which drained the flute.

  “Yes.” She tilted her head to one side and looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, as if at a loss to recall the words she had decided upon before my arrival. “Hm, Lilibet. Well, quite.” So, she had an agenda, and it was Lilibet.

  “She seems to be very contented,” I said helpfully, since their daughters’ absolute happiness was important to both royal parents.

  The affable silence between us stretched from a pleasant pause to a yawning chasm into which the unfortunate might inadvertently slip. I looked down at my hands in my lap, but I could feel the queen was watching me. Those shrewd, intensely blue eyes didn’t miss a thing. How had she and the king managed to live in the palace throughout those terrifying years of the Blitz, one might ask. But one look into that resolute, steely gaze was an indication of how strong the queen’s nerves were. I took in a breath and looked up.

  She was still regarding me as if I was a particularly interesting specimen in a lab, her eyebrows slightly raised as she waited for more information on her eldest daughter. I noticed that her lips were thinner and more compressed than they had been before the war. I had never been much good at the she-who-speaks-first-loses game. I am far too obliging. “Lilibet has really come into her own this year, ma’am,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “So grown-up!” I translated as the smile ached on my face.

  A little shrug, as she deliberated over this truism and replied with one of her own. “Nineteen is no age, really, but it is a far cry from fifteen.”

  I acknowledged this accurate observation with a deeply solemn face.

  “I know she had her own sitting room at Windsor, but it is time she had her own suite at the palace so she can entertain her friends. We have started to look about for a couple of ladies-in-waiting, and of course staff. If we had not been at sixes and sevens due to the war, she would have been given her own household on her eighteenth birthday.” The queen nodded, acknowledging that this transition would take Lilibet away from my care, our daily life together. “I know,” she commiserated. “It’s awful when they grow up . . . and you . . . and you have to stand by and just let them go.” Her voice was husky as she acknowledged our loss.

  I felt my throat tighten. You knew this day would come, so don’t get all silly and misty-eyed! I hoped that they had a plan for Lilibet’s future days, weeks, and months, other than representing her mother at the lesser occasions where young royalty cut their teeth, the finishing school where they were groomed for a life of dedicated public service. It was their fate, their lot. But not my bright, astute, and thoughtful Lilibet! Surely Their Majesties would come up with something that would stimulate her and help bring her out of herself, and not reduce her to a dutiful ribbon cutter.

  I should have known better. Lilibet had been forced into the royal mold the moment her uncle had abdicated. Now she would be prized out of it and put to work. “Mr. Hartnell will be over this week so we can plan her official wardrobe.” A fleeting and irreverent image of Lilibet dressed in the misty mauves, powder blues, and pale pinks of the dated, fussy dresses and coats favored by her mother sprang into my mind. I looked down again at my hands folded tidily in my lap so she couldn’t see my face.

  “She wants Bobo to be her dresser, and we have agreed. It is important she has someone she knows well as she begins public life.” It was the perfect choice; Bobo worshiped Lilibet and would sacrifice her entire life to the dedicated self
less service the queen required of the upper servants for her family.

  “Lilibet is more than ready to start her public life, ma’am, and to prepare herself for her future,” I said, and then I took a risk. “I hope there will be many days with the king as her mentor. We lost so many useful years to the war.” For a moment I let myself wonder what would happen if the king became seriously ill—the war years had exhausted, almost depleted, him. If he died, the burden on such a young queen would be incalculable. “I’m sure she would be delighted to be put to work.”

  “Her Royal Highness is delighted, and we must remember to call her that now.” I colored at the queen’s correction. Is she annoyed with me? I wondered. I had never been required to use the princesses’ titles when talking with the family; the king had wanted our relationship to be informal, and surely his wife had wholeheartedly agreed?

  Elizabeth tilted her head to one side, her expression confiding, and I breathed a little more easily. “When we go to Balmoral, I will invite a group of young men to join us: Johnny Dalkeith and Henry Herbert . . .” She waved her hand at the sons of friends, cousins, and minor royalty. The electric smile came and went—on-off. “Are you aware of any of the young Guards officers at Windsor she particularly liked? I am surprised she hasn’t lost her heart to one of them already.”

  “I have not seen her show a particular interest in any young man, Your Majesty,” I admitted, because this was true. I had no idea with whom Lilibet was corresponding so industriously.

  “Really? Not one?” The bright, cozy smile vanished. The lines from her nose to the corners of her mouth down to her chin deepened. “I find that most puzz-el-ing, because according to the princess, she is in love.” She gave me a second to let this sink in. “Oh, Crawfie!” A tinkling laugh. “And you had no idea?’