by Tessa Arlen
“It takes place in the early 1900s, about a young boy, a student at the Naval Academy in Osborne, who is sent home in disgrace for stealing a five-shilling postal order. His father believes he is completely innocent, and his sister, who is a suffragette, has a friend who is a really good lawyer. The family all work to prove his innocence.” I looked up to see that I had lost her. “I know it sounds really dull, but the reviews are wonderful.”
“That sounds exactly like the sort of thing that Philip would like,” Lilibet mused. “Do I have your permission to have a word with Peter Townsend about getting tickets for the play, and maybe recommending a restaurant for supper? He might even know of a reasonably priced hotel close to us. He is awfully good at making things happen. We all adore him.”
* * *
• • •
“This play is very good indeed.” The curtain closed for the entr’acte of The Winslow Boy.
I was thrilled to have provided a treat—for both of us. I had glanced at George occasionally through the first act, and it had made me quite unreasonably happy to see him so completely engrossed. “And the seats, Marion, the seats are absolutely first-class.” I was smiling with delight as he took my arm to steer me through the throng to the bar.
“When I read the reviews, I thought it would be the sort of thing you would enjoy—it’s about all the things you believe in.”
“Which are?”
“Honor, for one thing . . . loyalty.”
“My generation were brought up to believe that honor is sacred. Why don’t you wait here, and I will get us something to drink?” And he joined the queue at the bar.
“So, what are you thinking about? Honor still?” George was back with our champagne.
“I think the thing I find the most touching about the play is just how far the family are prepared to go to prove the boy’s innocence.”
He gave me a glass of champagne, and I lifted mine to salute him.
“Let’s drink to honor and loyalty,” he said. “You know, don’t you, Marion, that I understand your reasons for sticking with your job? For seeing things through.” Even if I haven’t told the queen that I am leaving in July? I felt a stab of panic. Was I being honorable to George by being loyal to Lilibet and Margaret? I will tell the queen as soon as George goes back to Scotland.
“To honor and loyalty!” I raised my glass and sipped that first delectable, teasing taste of champagne. I felt elegant and sophisticated in my dark blue velvet evening dress, surrounded by the stylishly dressed crowd eagerly discussing one of the most critically acclaimed plays of the season.
George touched his glass lightly to mine. “And to us, Marion, and thank you for a wonderful evening.” He looked around the bar. “I think I could get used to living this high on the hog!”
“So could I. But it is Peter Townsend, the king’s equerry, we have to thank. He arranged everything for us. How is the hotel?”
“It is really very nice indeed, comfortable without being grand: a quiet room with its own bathroom.” He drew closer to me. “After we have had dinner, if you are not too tired, perhaps I could take you dancing?”
The bell rang for us to return to the auditorium. “Oh, I won’t be too tired. But I am not sure where . . .”
George laughed. “I don’t know whether to be jealous of Townsend’s flattering attention to detail on your behalf. But there was a note from him in my hotel room with suggestions for two or three clubs in Knightsbridge where we could go to dance. I can’t imagine a better end to a perfect evening.”
I didn’t explain to him that equerries spent their lives pleasing those they worked for, and I prayed once again that Peter Townsend, gifted magician that he was, was also the master of discretion.
* * *
• • •
The taxi set us down in a quiet corner of what I guessed was Leicester Square, and the driver pointed out the discreet entrance to the 400 Club. They’ll never let us in, I worried as an impeccable doorman who stood well over six foot, with shoulders like a navvy, folded his arms at our approach.
George lowered his voice. “We are here for Operation Spitfire.”
“You are very welcome, sir.” And the doors were opened for us immediately.
George eased the starched collar away from his neck. “That was a bit like open sesame, and I was waiting for him to turf us out on our ear.” Our entry into one of London’s most exclusive clubs made me feel that I had become a sparkling socialite, as we were ushered to a table by the dance floor.
“I wonder why Operation Spitfire.” George helped me off with my wrap before I was seated.
“The only thing I know about Wing Commander Townsend is that he has a drawerful of decorations for valor and courage as a fighter pilot in the war. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the doorman of this very select establishment is aware of that.” I laughed. “He might even be ex-RAF.”
Intimately lit tables were grouped around us, and on the edge of the dance floor, an eighteen-piece orchestra was playing. “Have we been somehow transported to an American film? That band is awfully good. I had no idea there were places like this in London!” George sat forward in his chair as he looked around at the fashionable crowd.
“I recognize all the tunes because Margaret spends most of her time singing and dancing, and since she lives in the rooms just below mine, I often have to ask her to turn down the volume on her gramophone.” I hummed along to a favorite with the girls from the show Oklahoma: “People Will Say We’re in Love.”
A waiter appeared with a bottle of Pol Roger and an ice bucket. George raised his eyebrows at me across the table. “Throughout all the years I have known you, my darling, the one thing I have been consistent in asking you is will you dance with me?”
He took me out onto the dance floor and drew me to him. “Far too crowded for Scottish reels.” His breath in my ear made my arms shiver and I stepped in closer. He gave me an experimental whirl. “Oops, I think we need another glass of champagne.”
* * *
• • •
The taxi pulled up outside the entrance to the Rembrandt Hotel, and the porter came down the steps to open the car door. I turned to George. “I don’t think I could bear it if there are sly, knowing glances from the hotel staff.”
He held the door closed. “I can tell the driver to take us back to the palace, and we can meet here tomorrow morning for breakfast. I don’t want you to be embarrassed or feel awkward. You know that, don’t you?”
The porter turned away from the car; perhaps he thought we were having a tiff: an overtired middle-aged couple out on the town, bickering about the cost of dinner.
The giddy effects of champagne and dancing dissolved, leaving me nervous and unsure. “I feel as if I am doing something wrong.”
“Of course, Marion, of course I understand. I just can’t imagine anything more right for us.” His hand closed on mine, the touch light; there was no pressure. “If you want to wait, then that is what we will do.”
But wait for how long? Another year? Two? Empty years pushing me further into middle age? Someone told me that if we are still virgins at forty, we simply shrivel up. My mouth was dry from the champagne. We had toasted to honor and loyalty. Why hadn’t we toasted to love? I closed my eyes and listened instead to the refrain of the sentimental song we had swayed in time to at the 400 Club: “It had to be you . . . It had to be you . . .” George’s arms holding me close, his warm breath in my hair.
What do I want to do? “I want to be with you, George,” I said.
He raised my hand to his lips and kissed its palm before he opened the door of the cab and held out his arm to me.
“Good evening, Major Buthlay, Mrs. Buthlay, I hope your evening was enjoyable.” I was neither dressed like, nor young enough, to be the sort of girl men took back to their hotels after a night of dancing and champagne. I lifted my c
hin as I slipped my arm through George’s. The porter opened the door for us, and we sailed into the hotel lobby as if we had been married for years.
“Good evening, sir, good evening, madam.” The lift operator closed the doors. “What floor?”
I glanced up at George’s face as he put the key in the lock of his door. “I thought for one moment your Presbyterian upbringing would win out down there,” he said.
“It nearly did. Where we come from, it’s no holding hands until you are engaged.”
His face was studiously solemn as he pushed open the door, and before I had a chance to worry that the entire royal household would know by breakfast time tomorrow morning that the princesses’ governess was carrying on in South Ken with a man who she said was her fiancé, George took me in his arms.
Chapter Eighteen
March 1946
Windsor Castle, Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, England
Do you have time to go for a walk, Crawfie?” Lilibet’s clear, bell-like voice in my quiet room took me by surprise. My head came up so swiftly from the book I was reading that she laughed and took my beret and scarf off the hook by the door, holding them out to me. “It’s quite brisk outside—so wrap up.”
I didn’t have time to exclaim with shock as a north wind hit me like a sledgehammer and my eyes filled with freezing tears, because the minute we were outside, she caught me by the arm and turned me to her. “He’s coming home, for good!” Her hand was clasped tightly around my wrist and she shook it in time to her next words. “He’s . . . coming . . . home!” she shouted as if the bitter wind that swept up the hill might scatter her words and Philip’s homecoming would no longer be real.
I gently detached her grip, my teeth chattering with cold. “When?” Was she completely impervious to this penetrating cold?
“Any day now. He could be docking at Southampton within the week. And as soon as he is done with all the red tape and navy bumpf he is going to drive up to London—to be with me!” Another gust made me wish we could have had this chat indoors. The cold dry air and her long-hoped-for news whipped color into her cheeks, and her eyes blazed such a deep and ecstatic blue that somehow the cold didn’t matter to her any longer. “My dear, how wonderful.”
To my utter surprise, the staid Lilibet lifted her arms above her head and did a high-stepping jig of triumph, clapping her hands together and uttering sharp cries of Celtic delight. She took me by the hands and whirled me in a circle as the wind blew our hair about, and I lost my beret to another blast from the north. There was nothing like a state of anticipation for stirring the emotions, and the poor girl had been on edge for weeks.
“Is Philip just going to arrive at the palace and have dinner?” I asked.
Lilibet was laughing as, still holding one of my hands, she pulled me through the Henry Gate. Obviously, she had a good deal to tell me, if we were off for a walk in Windsor Great Park. I steered us down the west side of the walk, out of the wind.
“I have made a plan,” she said. A quick glance out of the corner of her eye to catch my approval. “No slapdash approaches, because first impressions matter.” I liked her practical determination. “First of all, I have to talk to Papa. Actually, I’ve been talking to him quite a bit about Philip, and I think he is coming around.”
And the queen, is she coming around too? “So, the king is on board?” I asked the easier question.
“Not quite on board, but he is getting used to the idea of Philip. I bring him up quite often and in a very casual way, so Papa can get used to hearing me say his name. Nothing too shattering, no declarations of love or sentiment of any kind, because it would embarrass him and make him nervous,” she said with complete understanding of what made the king tick. “I tell him about Philip’s navy duties in the Far East—it fascinates him, even if some of the details are rather depressing.”
She stopped, and we watched a herd of deer amble across the Long Walk. “Look, they have their babies with them.”
“Yes, so they have.” We watched the dappled flanks of the fawns fade into the trees. “Have you told the king that Philip will be home this week?”
“No, not quite just yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
A prickle of unease made its way up my spine, and I huddled down into the protection of my tweed coat, pulling the rabbit-fur collar up around my ears. The last thing I wanted to do was to conspire with Lilibet against her parents. The queen had been particularly affable to me since Alah’s death, and I was trying to pluck up the courage to tell her of my seven-month-old engagement.
Lilibet’s next words banished any complacency I had about sharing my own happy news. “You see, Crawfie, it doesn’t really matter what Papa thinks about Philip, whether he likes him or not, because it is Mummy who matters. And she is pretending she has never heard Philip’s name at all. She is still inviting all her favorite young men for me to Windsor weekends. She favors Hugh Euston right now. It’s quite exhausting.” She closed her eyes, and I laughed at the picture that sprung into my mind: Hugh Euston’s earnestly serious face as he asked her to dance.
“You have no interest in any of them, not even Lord Porchester?”
She shook her head. “Porchey? No, of course not, not in that way,” she said in her brisk, no-nonsense voice. “And don’t be silly and ask me about Patrick Plunket either . . . he is more like a brother to me than anything. They are all of them good friends, but they all know they will only be friends without me having to tell them, which is a relief.
“So, what do you think the best plan would be, Crawfie? Go to Mummy and ask her to include Philip in a Windsor weekend? Or would it be better to tell her that I would like him to come to dinner at the palace, with just the family?”
I wondered how Philip would cope with one of the queen’s especially penetrating looks as she relentlessly pried information out of him to be used against him later. How old was he anyway? Five years Lilibet’s senior made him twenty-four. What man in his mid-twenties would be a match for Her Majesty, with her soft, cozy charm, her flashing smile, and her will of iron?
Lilibet’s eyes were crinkled at the corners with anxiety, her hands twined into each other, the skin drawn tight across her knuckles. I didn’t hesitate. “Not dinner: too formal and too long. Keep it short the first time. And luncheon won’t work because His Majesty is always so . . .”
“Grumpy at lunch?” Lilibet laughed.
“I was going to say that he is often too busy to come to lunch, and you need Margaret there to lighten things up if they get bogged down.” Loyal and loving Margaret could be trusted with her role as court jester, but only just so far.
“Tea, then. If we have tea together, Papa will be more relaxed, and Margaret will be there in case we need a diversion.”
Yes, that would work. I narrowed my eyes as I schemed. Teatime is the queen’s affable hour. Alarm fluttered through me: I had been pulled into conspiracy again. “Tea will be perfect. A relaxed gathering where you can get up and wander around. That way Philip won’t get trapped by too many probing questions.”
“Should I alert Margaret?” Lilibet asked.
I could quite clearly see Margaret, eyes snapping with delight as she strutted around the Victoria drawing room in her new high heels. “I would just play it by ear with Margaret. If Her Majesty agrees to your inviting Philip to tea, I am quite sure Margaret will be at your back, so to speak. But I wouldn’t tell her just yet—you know, sometimes she anticipates a bit too wholeheartedly.” More strategic advice; what was I thinking? In for a penny, in for the whole blasted shooting match. Come on, Marion, there’s no need to get in a fluster. I pushed windblown hair out of my eyes and said rather recklessly, “If the queen agrees to tea, tell Margaret after lunch on that day. We are polishing up our French verbs in the afternoons; that will take the steam out of her a bit.” I was already embroiled, so what did it matter if I gave unasked-for advice? �
��When will you know that Philip’s ship has docked at Southampton?”
“He will write as soon as he arrives.”
“Good. Wait until you get his letter, and ask the queen to invite him to tea when she is with the king, since you have already prepared the ground there.”
“Oh yes, of course I was going to do that!”
I laughed as she brushed my contribution aside. “What on earth do you need me for?”
“Because it is very important that you come to tea too. I want you to meet Philip. You know how I feel about him, more than anyone else.”
“Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of you, Lilibet. I can’t wait to meet him.” But this left me with a quandary of my own. Should I tell the queen of my engagement before tea with Philip or after it? You’d better get it over with before you lose your nerve entirely.
* * *
• • •
I was ushered into the queen’s presence at half past seven in the evening, the day after we returned to the palace from Windsor. My mouth was a desert, my palms damp with humidity. And if that wasn’t enough, I had started a cold, thanks to my walk with Lilibet, so I was as deaf as a brick in one ear. I took the chair closest to the queen on her right side.
The queen shot me a suspicious look. “Not coming down with anything, Crawfie? You look a bit peaked.”
“No, ma’am, just a little chill. Nothing infectious.”
“Good. Inhale a drop of eucalyptus oil in a bowl of hot water under a towel. Then you won’t be so stuffed up. But first of all, Crawfie, I really want to congratulate you. I am so pleased with Margaret. She seems to be coming out of her awkward phase at last. It’s incredible how quickly they mature these days. I can’t believe she will be seventeen when we go up to Balmoral this summer.” I allowed myself a long sigh of relief that Margaret’s French was no longer a vexing issue. “Now, what is it you would like to chat about? I only have a few minutes because my brother David is arriving at any moment.” She had not offered me sherry, which was an indication that she was eager to get on with the rest of her evening.