In Royal Service to the Queen

by Tessa Arlen

  My jaw must have dropped. In fact, I know it did, because Lady Elgin giggled. “Are you telling me, Marion Crawford, that after all these years of working for the family, you didn’t know that Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had a desperate crush on David when he was the Prince of Wales? Long before she met Bertie—of course.”

  I shook my head. “I have to be so careful; the court is full of gossip and rumor. I’ve always found it best to stay away from it.” But my natural curiosity got the better of me. “She must have been so young.”

  Lady Elgin nodded. “She was indeed, and such great company! She was completely bowled over by David—well, we all were. He was so incredibly handsome. Nothing came of it, of course. The Prince of Wales was an odd duck even then. No time for straightforward, fun-loving girls like Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. He liked his women older, preferably married, and very sophisticated. He nearly drove his poor father mad with his affairs. Yes, there was something a bit off about David, there was always . . . that sense—” She stopped herself. “Well, water under the bridge now, poor chap. I wonder if he ever regrets giving up all that”—she waved her hand in the air to conjure palaces, state occasions, and the aching monotony of being king—“for a woman like her.” The image of Wallis Simpson on that afternoon long ago when I had met her in the hall of Royal Lodge popped into my head: the cold, hard stare, her overt sexuality toward the king. The Duchess of York’s trilling laugh and frozen stare.

  “Awful woman—I’ll never understand what he saw in her, other than sex. And not very nice sex at that, or so I’ve heard.” I was spared her outspoken thoughts by the arrival of a maid with a tray. “Ah, here’s tea.” She organized the cups and saucers, searched for the milk jug, and without prompting resumed where she had left off. “Poor David was always rather weak when it came to women. How do you take your tea? It’s been so long I’ve forgotten!”

  We sipped in silence for a few seconds before she was off again. “Bertie must have proposed to Elizabeth at least three times, that I knew of.” She shook her head at the king’s plight. “Poor man—he was so lovesick and so desperate for her.” She put down her tea and leaned forward. “He would propose, she would say no, then he would spend weeks writing her apologies and begging for them to be just friends. In the meantime, James Stuart went off to America to make his fortune, and Elizabeth just threw in the towel and said yes to Bertie! The king and queen were so grateful when she accepted him.” She nodded at her next wise words. “I think they knew, you see, that David would never cut it as king, and they saw Elizabeth as a perfect wife for Bertie if things went awry, as they did. They knew that she would be the one who would hold it all together.”

  “Which she has done, and done well,” I said firmly: all I dared allow myself to say, as my head spun at the thought of the young Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon flirting with the playboy Prince of Wales.

  “Ah yes, underneath all that winsome charm, she is a very practical woman. Who was it who said that she is like a marshmallow made on a welding machine?”

  It had been Cecil Beaton, but I said nothing.

  Now, as I sat in my little sitting room holding my empty sherry glass, I felt nothing but sympathy for the lively young woman who had become our queen. Poor Elizabeth. I remembered the year after the abdication, when the royal family faced its biggest crises since changing their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, during the First World War, to Windsor because everything German was actively hated. No wonder she would prefer Lilibet marry one of the straightforward nice boys of her girlhood. A solid, rather dim English aristocrat who would do his duty as the heir presumptive’s consort.

  Chapter Nine

  July 6, 1945

  Buckingham Palace, London

  Good afternoon, Miss Crawford. We were hoping you would come and see us today; there are so many things to discuss before we go up to Balmoral.” I took my place in the only unoccupied armchair in Alah’s sitting room. “We know that you will be going home to your mother for the summer, but will you be accompanying us on the train?”

  How many years had we played out this scene? Alah asking me if I would be traveling on the royal train. My answer was the same it was every year since 1931. “Yes, Mrs. Knight, I will be on the train as far as Stirling.”

  The old nanny nodded, confirming that once again, I was cadging a free ride in the luxury of the royal train instead of slumming it on the London and North Eastern Railway line.

  An impatient cluck from Miss Margaret “Bobo” MacDonald. “You see, Miss Crawford.” Bobo’s straight back and gracious smile had become more regal now that she was no longer Lilibet’s nursemaid, but her dresser. “There is very little room in the nursery coach, as I am sure you will remember from last time.”

  “And it’s even more crowded now, with Lilibet’s dog,” Ruby added.

  The MacDonald sisters—one tall, one short, both solid, flat-featured women with heavy limbs, thick ankles, and tightly permed hair—had been imported by the queen eighteen years earlier from a tiny hamlet somewhere in Angus. Trained to Victorian standards of servitude by Alah, they both took over the role of nursery tyrants during the war years. To her infinite satisfaction, Bobo was regarded with acute fear by members of the royal household. Her gorgon stare was fixed on my face. “There are only five couchettes in the nursery coach,” she told me, as if I had never been on the royal train before.

  “Yes, I am quite aware of that, Miss MacDonald. I will travel, as I always do, in the third coach.”

  With an effort at her old vigor, Alah tried to master the situation. “Yes, that might work.”

  I was not going to acknowledge the silliness of Alah’s need to stress arrangements that were the same every year: there was something in her demeanor that troubled me. It was the malice in Bobo’s manner toward the older woman that made me uneasy for her.

  “You might have to sit up all night; there might not be enough room for you—even in the third coach.” Bobo’s smile revealed huge yellow teeth. Both the MacDonald sisters could snap a steel cable in two with those gnashers.

  I made as if to get up from my chair. “Good, that’s settled, then. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “We are concerned about the princess, Miss Crawford. Bobo had to take in her pink evening dress, the poor mite,” Alah complained, her heavy face doleful. “It’s simply hanging off her, ever since we moved back into the palace.”

  Ruby rushed to agree. “She’s lost pounds.”

  “She’ll wear herself out with grief,” Bobo put in.

  It took me a moment to realize that they were referring to Lilibet. “Oh, I think that’s putting it a bit too strongly. Why, for heaven’s sake, is she grieving? The war is over; the family are all back together again. Anyway, I rather like her new svelte appearance.” I caught Ruby’s skeptical look. “Her new adult figure,” I reminded them.

  “A bit too sharp-boned for my taste. But she knows her own mind, does my little lady—she’ll find a way to marry that young man.” Bobo looked down her nose at us.

  I am sure my jaw dropped before I could recover myself. How does this crew of old harpies know about Philip? I racked my brain to think who could have told them and came up with the one person who not only knew but might have confided in her old nanny.

  Alah glared at Bobo, a hard, fierce stare, and suddenly I didn’t feel that she was quite so helpless at the hands of the nursery bully. “Bobo, what are you saying? Lilibet is far too young to know her own mind. If she was older and we hadn’t been cooped up in the castle for years, she would know that that young man is a disaster.” So, it was Alah who had been informed by the queen.

  “And that’s putting it kindly, Alah. It is evident that he’s a leech.” Bobo quickly sided with her old boss.

  Ruby lapsed into her native dialect. “He’s a penniless naebody: nae naem, nae haem, an’ nae coontry.” And kindly translated for Alah: “He has no surname,
and he’s homeless—from nowhere!”

  “That’s quite enough, Ruby. We do not gossip in the nursery.” Bobo’s thin lips almost disappeared with disapproval, and her sandy eyebrows drew together in a tight frown.

  Nursery gossip be blowed, I needed clarification. “But Philip’s father is Prince Andrew of Greece. And Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, was born at Windsor Castle, the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Isn’t that name, home, and country enough?”

  The nannies tittered, united by my ignorance and their desire to set me straight. “Clearly Miss Crawford is ready to believe anything she is told, eh, Bobo?” said Alah.

  Bobo’s smile was patronizing. “Philip’s father, Prince Andrew, was kicked out of Greece, so he’s prince of nowhere. I am surprised you didn’t know this.”

  “But he is Prince Philip of Greece, isn’t he?”

  Her smile became pitying. “A courtesy title only. His family fled from Greece during the revolution when Philip was a baby. They had to run away to France, without a stitch between them, and with that poor baby stowed away in a bread basket! Was it a bread basket or an orange box?”

  “An orange box,” Ruby said with triumph.

  “Anyway, it was such a grueling experience for her that Princess Alice went insane and had to be locked up.” Bobo lowered her voice. “Prince Andrew left his five children and mad wife to be looked after by his rich relations, while he ran around”—she whispered the words—“with other women!”

  Alah’s voice was more forceful, her eyes indignant as she crossed her arms in judgment. “Shameful behavior. No wonder Princess Alice lost her mind.”

  Bobo lifted her voice to ring over Alah’s. “So, Ruby is right. Philip has neither family nor country, and especially no money. I can’t imagine how he would make a good husband for the future Queen of England.” She glared at the three of us, daring us to disagree.

  Their voices lifted in competitive discord.

  Ruby repeated, “Nae naem, nae haem . . .” like a demented parrot.

  Alah interrupted her with a loud, “Preposterous! A penniless nobody . . .”

  “Pushing himself forward . . . !” Bobo the loudest of all.

  “I think we should lower our voices,” I advised. “Perhaps Lilibet doesn’t know about any of this.”

  “Of course she does.” Bobo’s vociferous impatience gave way to an aggressive hiss. “But she doesn’t think it matters. This is why Her Majesty is so terribly worried. Even though she only wants Lilibet’s happiness, as does His Majesty.”

  “So, now you know the truth of the matter, Miss Crawford.” Alah sat back in her chair, her chin tucked down in disapproval. “Now, come on, you two, we have a lot to do to get us ready for our summer up at Balmoral. Will you excuse us, please, Miss Crawford? So much to do, and His Majesty has still not decided on which day we are leaving next week—because of this travesty of a general election. As if I don’t have my hands full enough as it is with Margaret Rose.”

  “Margaret?” I looked for enlightenment. “But she’s so happy to be home again.”

  “She’s going through a phase,” said Alah with painstaking loyalty. “Just a bit shaken up with all the changes.”

  “What changes?” A long-suffering sigh from the royal nanny, and Bobo sniggered into her handkerchief. “When we come back from Scotland”—Alah enunciated slowly, as if I had lost my hearing—“Lilibet will have her own suite of rooms, with Bobo to look after her and two ladies-in-waiting. She will of course be participating in official state occasions. You have heard this, haven’t you, Miss Crawford? Her Majesty must have told you.”

  “And this has upset Margaret,” put in Bobo, who was not impressed with the adolescent Margaret’s bullying if she didn’t get her way. “And she’s acting up . . . as usual.” A malicious glance as she scored another point against a woman who had been her senior in the nursery.

  “Acting up?” I said with genuine disbelief. “How extraordinary,” I continued, as if my experience of Margaret was nothing but tranquil. “Yes, I had heard of the changes for Lilibet. Ah well, it’s all part of life, isn’t it—change?”

  Their eyes widened at my outrageous remark, glancing at one another as if I had lost my mind. I escaped to my own rooms to pack and ponder Lilibet and Philip’s plight—and what sort of mood the king would be in with a landslide victory for the new Labour prime minister, who had ousted his old friend Winston Churchill.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was interrupted in my packing by the arrival of Percival Blount, a small man with narrow shoulders and ears that stuck out from his well-barbered head and glowed pink if the sun was behind him. Mr. Blount was deeply devoted to schedules, to timetables, and to his boss, the king’s private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles. “Good afternoon, Miss Crawford. My apologies for interrupting you so late in the day.”

  He made a funny little bow and stood stiffly in the doorway of my sitting room. “Please do come in, Mr. Blount.” I closed the door on the evident upheaval in my bedroom. “May I offer you a glass of sherry?”

  “I wish I had the time, Miss Crawford. I am here to run over the travel arrangements for the trip to Balmoral.” He passed his hand in a light downward movement from his nose to his chin, smoothing his mustache. His manner never deviated between a blend of courtly primness to me and a reverent deference when referring to the family. I composed my face to listen to the detailed minutiae that I knew would follow.

  “Everything has been thrown up in the air because of this wretched election.”

  “And who would have thought”—I could not help myself; had the devil got into me today?—“that Mr. Attlee would be our next prime minister! The results were announced in this morning’s newspaper!”

  A cough, a grimace, as he frowned at his clipboard. “I have no opinion on the matter, of course, but Mr. Churchill has served us selflessly throughout the war. I feel”—his eyebrows waggled in consternation—“that we have let him down. Such ingratitude after his great sacrifice to the people.”

  “But a Labour prime minister—and by a landslide too!” I bit my lip. I did not want it to flash around the palace that Their Royal Highnesses’ governess was a socialist! I was not quite sure what Mr. Attlee would bring to our depleted and economically exhausted country and its weary and battered citizens, but I believed it was time for a change. We needed some new blood in government.

  Some pompous throat clearing from Mr. Blount made me tone it down; my upcoming summer holiday with my mother was having a breezy effect on me. “Now that the king has formally asked Mr. Attlee to form a government in his name, we are free to go to Balmoral.” He rustled through the papers on his board. It was time to talk train schedules.

  “I understand from Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth that you will be traveling with us, as usual, to Stirling?” I nodded. “May I ask you to supervise the princess’s dog, Susan? She must be kept in another coach when Her Majesty’s dogs board.” I managed my surprise. “Her Majesty has decided that all the dogs will travel with the family this time.” A brief shake of his head at the challenge this presented. “Which complicates everything because there are eight of them, and Her Majesty won’t hear of them traveling in the guard’s van. Unfortunately, Susan bit Honey yesterday evening and got into a scrap with Dookie, so we must separate them.” I understood instantly! The nannies had refused to supervise Susan and decided to make her my responsibility. “I would be delighted to,” I said. It was entirely typical of the Windsor family that travel arrangements started with the dogs.

  “Apart from that, everything is the same as last year. Now, any questions?”

  “None at all, Mr. Blount. Thank you so much for everything.”

  He placed a small, neat tick against my name on his list. “Yes, well, it has been quite a business, hasn’t it?” Despite himself, he couldn’t leave the election alo
ne—the shock of a Labour government was reverberating throughout the palace. The corridors were alive with the news: the name Clement Attlee had been whispered, muttered, and exclaimed at since the first newspapers had been opened. “If a coalition government was good enough for us during the war, surely we could have continued with one, at least until the end of the year; such inconvenient timing.”

  I nodded and got up from my chair. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Blount, Her Majesty only has one dresser this evening, and I promised to run an errand for her.”

  He was already bustling to the door. “Thank you, Miss Crawford. On that train by seven, if you please—and whatever you do, do not forget Susan.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I walked the half mile between my rooms and the queen’s private apartments with a copy of A. J. Cronin’s popular novel The Green Years. I couldn’t for a moment imagine that she would read it, but it was necessary for her to have a copy lying around at Balmoral in case any of her guests were curious enough to venture beyond the first two pages.

  “Just a moment, Miss Crawford. His Majesty is with Her Majesty right now.” The footman standing outside the queen’s private apartments held out his hand, palm toward me.

  “Where is their ruddy gratitude?” The king’s voice, shaking with rage, came through the closed door. “I could hardly look Winston in the face when he came to give me his resignation. It was sheer bloody hell!” The footman and I stared away from each other to opposite ends of the corridor. This sounded like the beginning of one of the king’s gnashes.

  A murmured response from the queen.

  “Yes, of course I agree! I think Attlee did a reasonably good job during the war in a subordinate role. But he has no real presence, no real personality. Not like Winston. And he has some crackpot ideas . . . he is far too leftist. This isn’t ruddy Russia!”