by Tessa Arlen
He started the bike and then extended his hand to help me onto the pillion.
I got onto the pillion seat behind him, stunned with what he had told me as he revved the motor, and we accelerated down the dusty lane.
A broken-down old crock? I could have laughed out loud with joy. The man in front of me, so close I could wrap my arms and legs around him, was more vital and alive than the one I had danced with six years ago. Has his second war given George the confidence to release himself from the past? Perhaps I would never know what he had lived through in all his years of war, but here he was back again, apparently neither mentally scarred into silence nor aggressively angry at his lot. He would never tell me the details of his war when he was a boy, and I didn’t want to know them. It just mattered that he was here and that he wanted to be with me.
I gave myself up to the day as we coursed along the glowing green-gold tunnel—now bright sun, now dark shade—of the lane that led to the bridge.
“This is wonderful!” I said to George’s back as he turned onto the narrow road that dipped down to the edge of the Forth. I tightened my grip on his jacket as the bike accelerated, and the hedges blurred to a smudge of soft green. “This is what it must be like to fly!”
I was almost used to the speed and the mixed sensation of exhilaration and fear when we leaned to the left to take the turn and climb the short slope to the lip of the Kincardine Bridge.
We have to cross that on this? One slip and we’d be through those railings. We would drop like a stone into the deep, swift-moving water far below us. My prudent governess’s heart thumped in my chest. I held on to George’s waist as we hurtled forward.
The familiar sweet salt smell of the Forth reassured me that all was well, and I opened my eyes to be amazed that we were still on the bridge—the water still on its way far below us. I tilted my head back to laugh up at the blue void of the sky as the summer air whipped sharp and clean across my face, and the wide river transformed into a band of gleaming, dancing light.
The bike leaned into the curve of the road, and George lifted his left arm and pointed. Ahead of us, sitting on a far-off promontory, was the ship-like shape of Blackness Castle, a black cutout against the sky.
The bike slowed as we coursed along the narrow flint lane with the river on our left. The road became an uneven dirt track, and the bike’s engine made soothing put-puttering sounds as George steered us around its deep ruts.
Almost too soon we were bumping over the short turf toward the base of the castle’s granite ramparts. George switched off the engine, and silence crashed in on our ears. I laughed at the tremor in my legs as he helped me off the back of the bike.
“Looks like we have the place to ourselves,” he said as he took off his helmet and goggles. “You all right? That bridge can be a bit overwhelming on a bike. Not too fast?”
I wasn’t quite sure that I could walk straight with muscles that still trembled from the vibrations of the bike’s motor. “How fast were we going?”
“About sixty back there on the road.”
A strong brackish-laden breeze came up the Forth from the sea, and my tongue tasted salt on my lips. I pulled off the helmet, pushed my hair back off my forehead, and looked at the world through new eyes: it was brighter, greener, and smelled sweeter. The sound of gulls wheeling over the water was strong and insistent. For some inexplicable reason, my eyes filled with tears of complete happiness. For the first time in years, I felt such a strong sense of freedom, of release from duty, from the drab grayness of the war and the constraints of palace life, that I wanted to laugh and then cry from absolute joy.
George unstrapped a green canvas rucksack from under the bike’s pillion. “Shall we eat first or explore?”
“Let’s eat first,” I said with such eagerness that he laughed.
“Picnic spots are important. Where do you want to sit?”
I looked around and saw the ideal place. “There,” I said. “We can look right up the river to the bridge. And if we sit with our backs to the wall, we will be protected from the wind.” And from anyone who wants to explore the castle.
He shook out a square of mackintosh for us to sit on. “I brought a bottle of wine; all I know is that it is white.” The bottle was wrapped in wet newspapers to keep it cool, and with a flourish, he unwrapped a greasy parcel. “Cold chicken. Mrs. Bannock roasted it last night, and the smell was more than I could stand.” He handed me a drumstick. It was as if I had never eaten chicken before; despite the tantalizing ways the royal chefs could devise to tempt the palate, nothing came close to that first bite of cold chicken.
Bathed in sunshine and cooled by salty breezes, we finished it off between us, and then we topped up our wineglasses. George leaned his back against the sun-warmed stone of the castle’s ramparts. “Now it’s time to work for your lunch. Will you tell me about the castle?”
“Strangely enough I don’t know anything about it, except that it belongs to the crown, and we are sitting on the king’s land. So, you can thank my boss for the view and this smooth turf lawn.”
“Your Majesty!” George raised his tumbler with a flourish of thanks as a small herd of black-faced sheep came around the corner of the castle wall. They stopped and, in the foolish way of sheep, stared at us. Their leader bleated a warning before dropping her head to graze.
“Hebridean sheep.” George toasted them with another wave of his wine. “Tough and enduring—just like us Scots.” Was it the ride out to this lonely spot on this glorious day, or was it drinking wine and eating cold chicken in the soft summer air? George’s hair ruffled by the breeze, his eyes shining in his sun-reddened face, he looked as carefree as he must have looked when he was a boy. It was nearly too much to take in, in one day.
We lazed on the ramparts to finish our wine and watched stately clouds coast in from the dark horizon of the North Sea. Sunlight and shadows dappled the grass around us, and within minutes the first drops fell. When the wind shivered the surface of the water, we were already sheltering in the old guard room that looked out onto the stone pier below.
“It’ll soon pass.” George wrapped the mackintosh around my cold arms, and my heart started to bump as his arms tightened around me. We stood for a moment and watched the rain jumping up off the water below us. “Marion.” The way he said my name made the tiny muscles around my mouth tremble. I turned my head to lift my face for his kiss, and my heart bounded up into my throat. His mouth, soft against mine, was warm and the winey taste of him so sweet that I fell against him.
The kiss, longed and hoped for, made me feel languid and ardent in the same moment. I was so swept away with delight I couldn’t bear for it to end. As we clung together, all I could hear was the rain drumming on the river and every pulse in my body skipping for pleasure. Who would have thought that this quiet, reserved man was capable of such passion—or that I was?
The kiss ended, and we stood close in each other’s arms, our lips still touching, unwilling to release. George smoothed my hair back and pulled away to look down into my face. “Such a rich, deep auburn,” he said, and he put his nose into my hair and inhaled. “You could only be taken for a Scotswoman, with your wide slate gray eyes and your lovely hair: beautiful Marion.” He took my hand in his and raised it to his lips to kiss. “I know you take your work very seriously and that you really care for your girls, but surely there will be a time when Lilibet is married off and you are free?” He let go of my hand and pulled me to him; his chin rested on the top of my head. His warm breath made me shiver and step closer. “You see, I have cared for you . . . loved you . . . for so long, another year or so won’t make any difference. Would you . . . would you consider?” He hesitated for a moment to laugh his silent laugh, at himself. “I mean, Marion, will you marry me?”
He loved me—he had always loved me! I was not condemned to keep living my lonely life on the fringes of someone else’s fuller one. I
would share mine with George: kind, gentle, and passionately caring George.
“Yes, yes, I will.” In my happiness I saw Lilibet dreaming on the window seat of my room. He bent his head and kissed me again, and I hoped it would rain for the rest of the afternoon.
* * *
• • •
I skipped up the path to the kitchen door like a silly young thing and stopped in the scullery to comb my hair through with my fingers in the tiny mirror over the sink. Why, I look almost normal—no one could possibly guess how I’ve spent the afternoon! My cheeks were perhaps a bit pink, but only from riding on the back of a motorbike. Were my eyes too bright, too wide? Easily come by from an afternoon of fresh air and a windswept river. I smiled at my everyday self in the mirror and called out, “Hullo, Ma. I’m back!” as if I was still plain Marion Crawford.
She was in the kitchen making bread. There was a smile on her face as she dusted flour over the dough. She looked up at me and her smile broadened.
“George . . .” My voice broke in elation. “Has asked me to marry him . . . and I . . . I said yes!”
“I knew it the moment I saw you both.” My mother put a floury hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “It took the poor man long enough; all these years?” She dusted off her hands and took mine in hers. Her eyes swam with tears of happiness and something else. It was relief. My mother had guessed at my isolated loneliness in the palace, and she had prayed for George Buthlay to declare himself.
“We’ll have to wait another year.” The practical governess emerged.
“Another year?” Her incredulity filled the kitchen, and her hand latched itself onto my arm, a familiar emphatic grasp. “Whativver fur? Surely, those two great gurls have enough fawk tae look after them? Nay, Marion, you go back to London and tell Her Majesty that you are to be wed.” She drew in a long breath, her eyes fixed on my face as she shook my arm. “No more waiting, Marion: start your life with George!”
She must have seen the consternation her outburst had caused me. She lifted her floury hands and took my face tenderly between them. Her voice softened. “Listen to me, my darling girl, it’s time to say goodbye to the Windsors.” Her gray eyes peered up into mine. “And be firm the way you put it to the queen.” She took a tea towel to dust off my cheeks then folded her arms. “If you ask me, which I know you won’t ’cause you didn’t when you took this job, your Queen Elizabeth enjoys wielding her bit of power—she’s not afraid to put a bit of stick about, is that one. So you need to be firm.”
Her dislike for the queen jabbed through her practical words of counsel. “George understands, Ma. He is quite prepared to wait.”
She shook her head and turned back to kneading dough. “No man”—she dusted more flour over the dough and herself—“is prepared to wait for long, Marion. Ye’re thirty-six years old. Do yerself a favor and give them a month’s notice as soon as you get back.” She picked up the dough, slapped it back on the board, and gave it a good thumping. “Their Majesties can look about and find some nice young woman to look after things.”
Despite the warmth of the kitchen, my hands felt cold and stiff. I reached for the kettle to make tea.
“George said he would wait,” I said.
“Aye, and the next time you see him, when they give you a bit of time off, the first thing you’ll hear is that he’s been a-walking out with that Miss Stewart at the grammar school—she’s got her eye on him has that one.”
All girlish thoughts of weddings and, dare I say it, babies were blown away like smoke in a sharp breeze. My mother might have been narrow in her view, but she understood human nature. I had felt happiness for a day, and now I began to worry that it might be taken from me.
* * *
• • •
Ma was sitting at the kitchen table with her breakfast cup of tea and the Aberdeen Press and Journal when I came down the next morning.
“Japan surrendered,” was all she said and continued reading.
“Then it really is the end.” My mind immediately went to Prince Philip of Greece. With Japan’s surrender, he will come home now. Lilibet must be beside herself with excitement. “What else does it say?”
“Not much.” She took a sip of tea and read: “ ‘Newly elected Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, broke the news of victory in a midnight radio address. Relaying Japan’s acceptance of defeat, Mr. Attlee thanked Britain’s allies and her people, saying, “Here at home you have earned rest from the unceasing efforts you have all borne without complaint through so many dark years.” ’ Someone needs to tell that wee man that we are still living in the dark years. It would be nice to have some sugar for our tea and a bit of coal for the winter. Doesn’t he know firewood is getting scarce here in the north?”
“Anything else?”
“ ‘Declaring a three-day national holiday, the prime minister concluded, “For the moment let all who can, relax and enjoy themselves in the knowledge of work well done.” ’ Just you tell me what that man has done all these years—sitting on his backside talking, that’s what. Lord, how these men like to jabber into a microphone!”
I poured tea and scraped margarine onto my toast. “A three-day national holiday, now, that’s something. Let’s make up a picnic and invite George to come with us to Culross woods—it’s only a thirty-minute bus ride!” The sun streamed in through the windows. “What a perfect day to finally end the war!”
Ma was up out of her chair. “I’ll check the hens; we can take egg-and-cress sandwiches, and there are some oatmeal biscuits, and look”—in triumph—“Mrs. Ross swapped eggs for cheddar. I’ll make cheese-and-pickle sandwiches too.”
I picked up the newspaper. “I wonder what made the Japanese surrender so quickly.” I read through the brief account again. “We thought the war in the Pacific would go on for months.” I scanned columns for more information.
“Don’t worry about all that now, Marion. I have no idea where Japan is, and neither does anyone else in this part of the world.” My mother bustled back in with a basket of eggs and an apronful of apples. “Run upstairs and put on something pretty while I make the sandwiches!”
Chapter Thirteen
September 1945
Dunfermline—Buckingham Palace, London
It was raining. Dark spots spattered George’s gray mackintosh. Behind him a train pulled out of Platform 2 bound for the Hebrides. I hung out of the window of my second-class compartment, my hand so firmly held in both of his that my engagement ring cut into my fingers. I remembered our last walk together. “I almost forgot, Marion, that I should give you a ring, and so—” He took a battered square case out of his pocket and flipped it open with his thumb. “This was my mother’s ring, and before that my father’s mother’s ring.” It lay in his palm: a rich gold band with a bright sapphire in its center. “It is a modest ring,” he said as the little jewel winked at me in the sunlight. “But I know my mother would have been proud to know you—delighted that you would be my wife.” He had slipped the ring onto my finger and, turning my hand, kissed the palm.
“Well, this is a bit of a change from the way I arrived,” I said to break the tension of our parting. I wanted to lean out and kiss away the tense lines around his mouth, but I caught the eye of a disapproving matron holding the hand of a solid, dull child and behaved with the required Scots propriety. George nodded; there were deep creases at the corners of his eyes, a sure sign that he was hiding behind his bank manager’s face. I stretched out my other hand to stroke the creases away and tried to swallow down the tight, awful feeling of dread. I am going away from everything and everyone I love the most. London and the palace were not my home; they belonged to a world apart from cottages and homemade oat bread, from motorbike rides and picnics, and from kisses in country lanes that made each walk shorter in length than the last.
“Don’t go, then, Marion.” My mother’s firm voice rose above my panic
and the clash and clatter of steam engines pulling into the station from the south. But I must, it is my job, and Lilibet needs me.
“Will someone pick you up at King’s Cross? Your suitcase is very heavy.” I was grateful for George’s prosaic inquiry, his calm voice, his warm hand tightly holding mine.
“A porter will help me with the luggage, and I’ll catch a taxi to the palace.” He nodded, unused to women fending for themselves in large city stations. The life I led was already pushing me away from George—from home.
“I’ll write as soon as I get back, and we can plan your visit to London this winter.” The thought of him coming to London took the edge off my fear about leaving.
He held my hand tighter. “Let’s plan for before Christmas, rather than after?” A pause, and I waited for what I knew would come next. “Will you tell the queen of our engagement?”
“Yes, of course I will.” Just how would I phrase the news of my engagement to her? I heard my mother’s urgent voice telling me to be firm.
He sensed my withdrawal: our goodbye. The door opened, and he stepped up into the compartment and took me in his arms. He kissed me gently on the mouth. “Don’t worry, Marion, just think about the time when we can be together.” He kissed me again. The shrill whistle of the stationmaster and his cry of “All abo-aard!” made me jump, and George got down onto the platform and slammed the door closed.
As the train pulled out of the station, he took off his hat and waved it, and covering the side of his face with it, so no one could see, he blew kisses.