In Royal Service to the Queen

by Tessa Arlen

  Elizabeth waited until there was a lull in the Gallic conversation, which had all the tone of a first-class spat. “Crawfie, will you come with us to Windsor this weekend? I promise you won’t have to stay in the Victoria Tower.” She lifted her voice: “Will she, Mummy?” I smiled at the memory of wartime Windsor and my long nightly walk from the dining room to my bedroom in the tower. I shivered my shoulders in exaggeration and Lilibet laughed.

  Finally, the queen drew breath. “What did you say, Lilibet? Non, Marguerite, c’est assez.”

  “We must make sure that Crawfie is not landed in the Victoria Tower this weekend, at Windsor.”

  “Now, darling, you know perfectly well that Crawfie can’t come this time. I promised Porchey, Sunny, and Johnny a Windsor weekend. And Hugh Euston is bringing Pamela Mountbatten, Ann Fortune, and Mary Cavendish.” A broad smile of pleasure. “And I have invited Noël to keep us all entertained. The castle will be packed, so I will have to be duenna, not Crawfie . . . Crawfie can have a bit of time awff.” Her voice maintained its playful tone, but the look she shot me was unkind. It was worse than Susan when she nipped Dookie or made a nuisance of herself.

  What have I done? Stunned by her offhand dismissal of my help as a chaperone, I caught my breath and exhaled carefully, so that it didn’t sound like a sigh.

  The queen had rounded up the eldest sons of the richest and oldest aristocratic families: pleasant chinless wonders without an ounce of drive or originality, but assuredly every single one reliable, appropriately grateful, and completely in the queen’s thrall. But what was clear now was that she viewed me as belonging to the other side: a Philip supporter.

  I glanced across at Lilibet’s face. It was a polite blank, but I saw her hands clasp each other so tightly in her lap that her knuckles turned white. The irrepressible Margaret jumped in. “Sounds like you’ve invited your entire cricket eleven to Windsor. Poor Lil, you’re going to have to dance with all of Mummy’s suitable suitors for you. Or perhaps she’s inviting them for Noël!” A shocked silence. Lilibet’s puzzled expression crinkled her brow, the queen’s eyebrows lowered in a full frown, and I wondered how an overprotected sixteen-year-old girl could possibly know about Noël Coward’s fondness for men. The king, whose head had whipped round like a ventriloquist’s dummy, with his wide mouth open in surprise, threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  The queen finished her scone in two delicate little bites, as if Margaret had not spoken. “Crawfie, we are agreed that Margaret”—a fond shake of her head toward her naughty youngest daughter—“will join you in the schoolroom from ten until three on weekdays, unless she has a more pressing engagement, for some serious study of French grammar. Good, that’s settled, then. Thank you, Crawfie, we mustn’t impose on your free time.”

  If she had jerked her head toward the door, she couldn’t have made it plainer, and I rose hastily to my feet.

  “Yes, ma’am, and thank you, sir.”

  Lilibet got to her feet too, and the queen put down her teacup. “Oh, Lilibet, a moment, darling, before you rush awff. Lady Astor told me that Marina telephoned. She wanted to invite you to Coppins this weekend. Will you telephone and tell her that we are going down to Windsor?” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Better do it now, while she is having tea.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder as I scuttled through the door. Elizabeth had already picked up the receiver, but the look she gave me as I stepped over the threshold was anxiously sympathetic.

  I didn’t want anyone to see me gallop to the haven of my rooms, so I made myself walk slowly to the foot of my staircase and strolled down the corridor. I opened the door, stepped inside, and stood with my back against it, as if at any moment the queen might throw it open and accuse me of aiding her daughter in pursuing an unsuitable relationship. My thoughts were so stricken that all I could do was stare blankly at the wall.

  Breathe! I instructed myself. I sat down on the sofa. Breathe! I felt like a parlormaid who had carelessly chipped a cup. My face flooded with embarrassment and shame. Why is she so angry with me? For fourteen years there had always been the feeling of “just us girls” in my schoolroom chats with the queen. She had always been welcoming, lighthearted, always willing to see the funny side of life. We had enjoyed each other’s company. I had been part of her family—hadn’t I? Now, all of a sudden, she had become my employer, a disappointed one: cold and admonishing.

  Was I guilty of coming between a mother and her daughter? Had I tried to usurp the queen in Lilibet’s affections? It had always been my conscious intention to not try to replace their mother, but I couldn’t help but feel motherly toward them. And when the war came, we were marooned at Windsor. We lived with an ever-present undercurrent of fear: the bombs, the bleak, implacable blackness of night. And with that a continual nervous concern about the king and queen’s safety at Buckingham Palace. Those years had made us closer, especially my relationship with Lilibet as she had grown into womanhood. She had come to me with all her questions and concerns: the first time she got the curse; the facts of life, and the hysterics we had shared at Alah’s severe hints about storks, cabbage patches, and gifts from God; the mystifying attraction of some Guards officers and the guilty giggling about those we thought repellent.

  I backtracked through conversations I had had with Lilibet about Philip, looking for clues as to whether I was culpable of conniving with daughter against mother for popularity. Surely, all I had done was listen to Lilibet, encouraged her to be open with her parents? I examined my conscience as rigorously as any penitent. No— I dashed tears away with the back of my hand—no, I have not encouraged Lilibet to do anything but be honest and forthcoming to her mother. And neither—more tears rolled—have I tried to take the queen’s place. Perhaps Lilibet had told her mother that she had confided in me, and this was the reason for this secretive woman’s animosity? I shook my head. Lilibet was guarded with her feelings and rarely one to speak out. I searched for my handkerchief and blew my nose. Margaret, then? Chatty, bright Margaret, who would say anything to be the center of attention? But Margaret had no idea that Lilibet had confided in me about Philip. The queen, I realized with a slow and painful exhalation that bordered on a sob, the queen somehow knew that I was her daughter’s confidante, and she didn’t like it.

  “How on earth do I tell her of my engagement and that I will be leaving?” I remembered the conversation we had had in 1940 when I had suggested to the queen that I should join up to do real war work and showed her my half-completed application form to the Women’s Royal Naval Service. “Oh, Crawfie, no! Surely not? I mean the WRNS is a wonderful organization, of course it is. But your war work is here at Windsor . . . looking after the girls. Without you, we wouldn’t have a moment’s peace to do our important work for the country.” Her tone had been light, reassuring, and I had been flattered by how important I was to the family.

  “What will she say if I tell her I am leaving to get married?” I asked the pale green and cream walls of my sitting room. The queen had made it quite clear, several times during tea, as she nibbled at a petit four, that twenty-one was the perfect age for a young woman to think of marriage. “Two more years!” I wailed. “I can’t do it, I really can’t!” The room’s silence closed in, echoing only disdainful disappointment at my disloyalty to a family that depended on me.

  I turned my head and wiped my eyes on the antimacassar on the back of the sofa. Will George be content to wait two whole years? I most certainly would not. How I wished I had listened to my sensible mother and had written to the queen, offering a month’s notice from the safety of Scotland. I isolated the one thing that had become so important to me from the tangle of my shocked and hurt feelings. However grueling my remaining time at the palace might be, I couldn’t bring myself to leave Lilibet in the lurch—not after having heard her brave declaration for Philip.

  I got up from the sofa and walked across the room to my modest drinks
cabinet and poured myself a whiskey. Its peaty warmth was comforting; it was so smooth I didn’t even cough. “Better not make a habit of this, Marion,” I said to my empty glass. Or of talking to yourself!

  Chapter Fifteen

  December 31, 1945

  Limekiln Cottage, Dunfermline, Scotland

  I don’t think we need any of Marion’s lovely Glen Avon now that George has brought us such a generous pile of firewood to keep us warm.” Ma smiled at her hero as George added a last log to the fire and dusted his hands.

  He put three glasses down on the table. “Uisge-beatha—the water of life—and a roaring fire! What more do you need to celebrate Hogmanay—except of course each other?” He smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled at some inner joke or secret. “I have a little bit of good news to share with you. I was offered a job at Drummonds Bank in Aberdeen the day before yesterday.”

  “As what?” I asked.

  “Bank manager, of course, but not at first. I’ll be learning the ropes for a month, and then when Mr. Whitelaw retires, I will step into his shoes.”

  “But what about Drummonds Bank in Dunfermline?” The shock of the unexpected made me sound ridiculous.

  “I’m afraid I can’t manage both banks, Marion. I am offered nearly twice the salary in Aberdeen—think of the money we can save for my retirement!” He took both my hands in his. “I didn’t dare tell you about the interview—I was sure they would give the job to a younger man.”

  I didn’t look at my mother because I knew what expression would be on her face. “There is a daily bus service between Aberdeen and here.” I felt the need to reassure her.

  “It takes three hours because of that long stop in Perth,” my mother put in, “and the faster train journey is an expensive one to make every weekend.” My mother launched into a pet theme. “And they never run on time, not since the war. They should get on with this nationalization business—then perhaps we’ll have cheaper fares and trains that run on time. That’s why we voted Labour—so that the government could do something for the country.”

  George put his arm around my waist and pulled me to his side. “The trip to Dunfermline at weekends will be nothing at all”—he waved his arm in the direction of the window—“in my new car: I bought Mr. McAlister’s Baby Austin.”

  It was a fait accompli. I felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under my feet.

  “That little car of McAlister’s? However long will the trip from Aberdeen take in that titchy thing?” My mother’s scandalized face would have been amusing at any other time.

  “Two hours. When Marion is home from London, I’ll leave at five o’clock on Friday and be with you both for supper and leave again on Sunday after tea. Come and see it!”

  He walked me to the parlor window, and we contemplated the shadow of a very small car standing in the lane. “Think of the lovely drives we can make together on Saturdays—even when it’s raining.” George’s voice close to my ear made me shiver in anticipation, and I wrapped my hand in his. “I’ll even pop over to Dunfermline when you are in London and take your mother for lunch and a day of shopping in Edinburgh!”

  Ma appeared and frowned at the car. “Petrol is expensive these days—and then they always announce some shortage or other,” she said. “And Aberdeen is a very expensive city to live in. And where will you sleep when you are here? We have only two bedrooms.” She glanced at us both out of the corner of her eyes, a quick, sly look, and George burst out laughing. “On the sofa, Mrs. Crawford, where else?” He pulled me closer to him. “When Marion retires . . . this summer, I will have enough money saved to retire too! And then we’ll buy that old cottage down the lane, fix it up, and be your neighbors.” He turned me away from the kitchen, and my mother pretended to tut about the cost of petrol, when I could see she was delighted at the thought of us living next door.

  “What do you think, Marion, shall I say yes to Drummonds in Aberdeen? . . . It will only be until the end of August. We can be married in September.”

  “You haven’t accepted already?”

  His brows shot up, his eyes wide. “No, of course not. I wanted to ask you what you thought first. But I must give them an answer on Monday.”

  A horrified squawk from behind us. “Chew it over later—just a minute to go to midnight.”

  George topped up our glasses with the deep amber spirit, and we sang “Bliadhna Mhath Ùr,” a happy New Year, as the silvery chimes of the carriage clock rang out the twelfth hour.

  “Time to let in 1946.” Before we could stop her, my mother threw open the kitchen door, and a blast of air, straight from the arctic, filled the room. “That’s enough, Ma,” I cried, as tears of cold welled in my eyes and oxygen-fueled flames leapt in the grate.

  “Here’s to you both, and here’s to George’s new job!” Ma raised her glass to us, and with the first sip of whiskey warming our throats, we sang:

  A guid New Year to ane an’ a’

  An’ mony may ye see!

  George took me in his arms and slowly waltzed me out of the kitchen and around the ground floor of the cottage. At the bottom of the stairs, we got ourselves caught up with the coats hanging on their pegs, and he gave me a long, malty kiss. “A happy New Year, my beautiful Marion. I think 1946 is going to be our year.”

  We were standing at the foot of the stairs that led to my bedroom, and the thought of my quiet room with its welcoming bed was nearly my undoing. If my mother had not been scurrying around our kitchen tidying things away, I would have taken him by the hand and led him up those stairs. The whiskey made me laugh at such wicked thoughts. Presbyterians didn’t melt with longing, their legs were strong and steady to keep them upright in God’s service, and Scots governesses, even in our modern century, did not imagine what it would be like to be in bed with their fiancés, however thoroughly they were kissed. But I was betrothed to this man; we would be married; surely that took the shame out of our desire?

  I laid my head against George’s chest. I could feel his heartbeat quicken as my lips touched the skin above his tie. He lowered his mouth to the top of my head; I could feel his warm breath in the parting of my hair. In that moment, I made my resolution for the year: there would be no more dithering and procrastinating about how or when I would tell the queen that I would be retiring this July when they left for Balmoral. I lifted my head. “I think you should say yes to the Aberdeen job, George. I will arrange with the palace to leave in the summer.”

  · · ·

  “Someone here to see you, Marion.” My mother’s voice came up the stairs as I pulled a heavy sweater on over my blouse. The windowpanes were covered with my frosted breath from the night’s heavy freeze. I scraped away the rime with a fingernail and peered out into a glittering winter world. Icicles hung along the undersides of the bare boughs of the mulberry tree outside my window, and the waiting pond was a disk of pewter ice. I glanced at the alarm clock next to my bed. George is here awfully early for ice-skating. I brushed my hair and put on my shoes.

  “How he got that ridiculous motor up our tiny little lane, I’ll never know.” Ma greeted me at the bottom step. “No, Marion, it isn’t George.” Lowering her voice to an audible whisper, she said, “It’s someone from the king!” Her eyes gleamed with excitement. After all these years of hearing about kings, queens, and courtiers, one of them had turned up on our doorstep. I walked past her into the kitchen.

  A uniformed chauffeur stood with his back to the fireplace, his eyes watering with cold.

  “Mr. Hughes!”

  “Good morning to you, Miss Crawford. Sorry to arrive unannounced, but something has happened, and you are needed at Sandringham.”

  The king! I composed myself to hear the worst. Ma pulled up on the pump handle at the sink and put her half-filled kettle down. Drops of water plinked on the kettle lid. The king was dead. The silence in the kitchen was like a shout. If the k
ing is dead, Lilibet will be queen. No—I shook my head at my thoughts—not yet! She’s too young!

  “What has happened?” I heard myself ask.

  Mr. Hughes glanced at my mother as she wiped her hands on a tea towel.

  “Mrs. Knight died in her sleep the night before last.”

  “Alah?”

  He nodded. It wasn’t possible. She hadn’t been that old, surely? Poor lonely old woman, I thought, as relief flooded through me that Lilibet was spared the monarchy.

  “And Their Royal Highnesses, the princesses, are very distressed; the Princess Margaret is inconsolable.”

  “What sad news,” my mother said. “But surely, Mr. Hughes, you can’t be saying that Marion should leave with you?”

  He looked so baffled that I stepped in.

  “Alah was like a mother to the princesses and to the queen. She brought them up, looked after them, cared for them as if they were her own children.” I could only imagine how grief-stricken the princesses must be. Their indomitable nanny, the life force of their childhood, had gone from them so suddenly.

  Mr. Hughes turned from my fierce little mother with relief. “How long would it take you to pack, Miss Crawford? Her Majesty asks that you come to Sandringham as soon as possible. Both the Misses MacDonald are in shock. And Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret has been asking for you. You . . . you are needed.”