by Tessa Arlen
“You’re exaggerating quite terribly,” Lilibet said as she blinked away tears. “Philip is really very passable on a horse, for a ‘novice,’ as he calls himself. Though I do believe the bit about being nipped on the backside. I know which horse that is, and you are not riding him next weekend.”
As I watched Philip’s good-natured teasing of Margaret and courteous ease with Lilibet, I realized that he was far worldlier than either of them. I was quite sure that he was used to being surrounded by incandescent females.
Another thought occurred, causing a flutter of apprehension. Lilibet, constant, loyal, and a little bit on the unimaginative side, was the vulnerable one of the pair. She was not a personality like Margaret, who loved to fascinate and demanded attention as her right. If Lilibet were to marry this gorgeous breath of fresh air, would her solid dependability be enough to hold him?
But Philip wasn’t interested in bowling over rabbits. He did not overtly flirt with Margaret, or even Lilibet. If anything, he was rather brotherly, and both princesses were captivated. After the plain bread and butter of young men like Porchey Porchester, Billy Wallace, and even the outgoing Hugh Euston, who deferred, bent their necks, and laughed at everything the princesses said, Philip was a breezy combination of high-seas buccaneer and knight errant. I looked at my watch.
“Oh, good heavens above. We will be late for tea!”
“Unforgivable of you, Crawfie.” Philip opened the door for us. “You know how important it is we don’t keep the grown-ups waiting.”
Chapter Twenty
March 10, 1946
Buckingham Palace, London
Grateful to be a mere onlooker during tea, I quietly enjoyed a plate of superb ham sandwiches as I watched them all sort one another out. Philip, as I had expected, was the center of everyone’s attention.
The queen, a permanent smile fixed on her face, was at her most winning. “Philip, how lovely to see you again!” She went about putting him at ease, with only an occasional sideways glance at her silent brother David, who never took his eyes off delicious Philip for a second.
The king’s welcoming “Good of you to pop by and say hullo, my boy,” although agreeably pleasant, did not pull him out of his preoccupation as he puffed smoke all over the tea cakes.
The queen, naturally, led the conversation. “Now, do tell us all about Singapore, Philip. Duff and Diana Cooper say that the climate is unbearable.”
“Yes, ma’am. Humid and very hot. But there is so much color: the whole of the Far East is a riot of color; it’s a wonderful distraction from the flies and . . . regrettably, the stink at the docks.” A shriek of laughter from Margaret at Philip’s outspoken description. Ease it down a notch, I silently advised him, as Uncle David tittered and gave his sister a discreet nudge with his elbow.
The king accepted his wife’s offer of a sandwich and a cup of tea but touched neither. His large, thoughtful eyes had fixed on Philip’s face at his outspoken remark about the Singapore docks as he lit another cigarette. He laughed at Philip’s jokes, which were many, and every so often, his eyes would slide over to his pride. Lilibet was shining. She sipped her tea and nibbled half a scone, her attention on Philip as he effortlessly kept up with the queen’s interrogation.
“I really enjoyed the food, though,” he said in answer to another question from Her Majesty, “even if I wasn’t quite sure half the time what it was I was eating.”
“I have heard that they eat eggs that have been buried in the earth for a hundred days,” said Margaret. “To preserve them,” she added. “That’s what Lady Cooper told me. She said they are a delicacy.”
The queen laughed her tinkly laugh as if Margaret had said something witty, and David Bowes-Lyon emerged from his watchful silence to be condescending. “I think she was teasing you, Margaret. Everyone knows that Diana Cooper will say anything to be sensational.”
I saw Philip’s gimlet gaze direct itself briefly to Bowes-Lyon. In that second, I realized he wasn’t taken in by the queen’s apparent interest in him, or that of her younger brother. He’s no fool, I thought. Of course he has heard of David Bowes-Lyon’s venomous reputation and his cruelty to those he considers defenseless because they are not quite socially up to the mark. I watched Uncle David give his sister a sly glance, and my greatest fears were confirmed: He is taking notes. He is storing away Philip’s weaknesses and flaws for when he and the queen are alone together. I saw the feline smile on Her Majesty’s face, the gracious dip of her head as Philip of Greece answered yet another of her innocent questions.
It is not Philip’s background that she objects to, I realized as I finished my fifth ham sandwich. It is his self-assurance—his confidence. She wants Lilibet to marry the compliant Porchey Porchester, who will be grateful to Her Majesty for his place as royal stud in the line of succession and submit gracefully to the Dowager Queen Elizabeth as she continues her position of power through her daughter when she becomes queen.
The hairs on the nape of my neck stirred, and I shivered, not because I had been seated farthest away from the fire, in a direct draft from an ill-fitting window, but because David Bowes-Lyon was once again on the hunt for scraps of information that could be useful. I clenched my hands into tight fists. This miserable little viper was assessing the love of Lilibet’s life as potential fodder for some of his more outré all-male gatherings, where he would entertain with brilliantly cruel snippets and sink Prince Philip of Greece and all of Lilibet’s hopes.
My eyes swiveled back to Uncle David’s victim as he dutifully strove to answer more questions from the queen. “What are your future plans, Philip? Will you stay in the navy?” A loaded question uttered in an innocent silver voice.
“Oh yes, ma’am. I think it offers the best career for me.” A good answer: it was a royal duty for princes to serve in the senior service, and it didn’t make him look as if his one purpose in life was the pursuit of England’s heir to the throne.
“And where do you stay when you are in London?” Her smile was winsome, her head tilted in fascinated curiosity.
“With my uncle, Dickie Mountbatten.” Oh dear, this wasn’t such a good answer, but what else could he possibly say? Mountbatten was, after all, his uncle, who had sponsored him in the navy and probably paid his school fees at Gordonstoun.
“Ah, dear Dickie, how is he? And Edwina? I really must congratulate him; what a terrific job he did in recapturing Singapore.” The queen waved a half-eaten eclair at one of England’s war heroes.
“In spite of some spectacular blunders earlier on!” put in Uncle David.
“Mountbatten has just been made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma as a victory title for war service, David,” the king warned him.
Uncle David raised supercilious eyebrows. Dickie might be the king’s cousin and onetime confidant when the king was new to his job and worried about everything, but David knew he was far from a favorite with the queen. I saw her glance at her brother with a brief shake of her head, and he responded with a small moue of contempt for the vulgarly ambitious Mountbatten. I could almost hear his querulous complaints to his sister when they were settled with their cocktails before dinner. “Mountbatten—wouldn’t you know he was behind Philip’s interest in Lilibet? Always so relentlessly ambitious—and so frightfully pushing! Do admit that his shoving in like this is too sickening for words!” he would say in that high-pitched flat little voice that seemed to come from the back of his throat. And his sister would sigh as she picked up her gin and Dubonnet. “I wouldn’t go quite so far as that, David.” A small smile. “But I wouldn’t dream of trying to convince you otherwise . . .” Thus giving permission for David to sink Philip with rumors and innuendo.
A peal of laughter from the queen brought me back to the present, as she glanced at her husband, who was gloomily staring at a half-eaten sandwich on his plate. “Dear Dickie and Edwina, please say hullo to them fo
r me . . . for us.” She beamed at Philip. “Edwina: so talented, so beautiful.”
“Oh yes, indeed.” The king stubbed out a cigarette and opened his case to take out another. “We simply must have them over for dinner sometime. Or better still”—he turned to his wife—“let’s have them up to dear old Sandringham for some shooting. Dickie’s a superb shot.”
“I will do what I can to fit them in.” The queen put down her cup and saucer. “Poor old Sandringham will be packed to the rafters when we go up in October.”
The king knew better than to insist. He forced his wandering attention back to their guest. “Interesting to see what Dickie will do now that there is peace. Did you see much of your uncle when you were over there, Philip?”
“Not really, sir. Lieutenants don’t rub shoulders with admirals much. But I am staying with him while I am in London, so we will have plenty of time to catch up.”
“Somebody had better think of something for him to do.” Bowes-Lyon was sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning forward. “An idle Mountbatten means work for everyone.” A bright little laugh. If you closed your eyes, you would have thought it was the queen speaking.
The king frowned. “I have no doubt at all that he will be given something important to do, David, because Dickie’s gifts are many.”
“They certainly are, sir,” David responded quickly. “Our Labour prime minister is very grateful for the support of the great man, especially one who publicly endorses Bevan’s nationalizing our railways, and this wonderful national health plan for the people I keep hearing about.” I saw Lilibet’s eyes widen in concern and Philip’s half smile, as if he had learned something else about the deeply conservative David Bowes-Lyon.
A brief pause in the flow of chatter, and Margaret jumped in. “Mummy says you are coming down to Windsor this weekend?” And with a glance at her sister: “Let’s exercise all the horses; they were all looking awfully fat when we were there a fortnight ago. The weather is supposed to be lovely.”
“Do you shoot at all?” the king asked Philip, grateful for the neutrality of slaughtering wildlife.
“I’ve never had the time or the opportunity, sir.”
“Done any stalking?”
“Not as much as I would like.”
“Well, we’ll have to change all of that. You had better come up to Balmoral when we go in August.”
“I would enjoy that—thank you, sir,” was Philip’s immediate response.
Lilibet turned a look of gratitude and love on her father of such bright intensity that I stopped fretting about Uncle David for the time being.
Chapter Twenty-One
March 15, 1946
Buckingham Palace, London
I think we’re gaining ground. Windsor went really well.” Lilibet had come to visit, and we sat down together on the window seat of my sitting room at the palace.
“Which part?” I hadn’t seen her since Philip’s invitation to tea and the family’s return from Windsor.
“All of it, Crawfie. The weather was superb, and we rode every day. Papa came out with us twice! Philip made him laugh so much that he had to stop, get off his horse, and have a drink of water, because he couldn’t stop coughing.”
She gazed out the window for a second or two. “And Philip is going to spend four weeks with us at Balmoral in August. He’s going to come stalking with us—Papa and me, that is. And he is coming down to Sandringham for the grouse. So, you see, everything is going frightfully well in that department.”
“And the other department?” I wanted to ask, but she was ahead of me.
“Mummy was very nice to him too.”
She always is. I remembered the encouraging peal of laughter as the queen pried information from him. And after a session or two with her younger brother, all sorts of rumors will start to fly. His older sister made the bullets for David to fire.
“Philip is quite a good horseman, actually. I mean, he doesn’t ride often, but he is naturally athletic, so everything comes easily to him.” Lilibet’s voice brought me back into the room.
“Everything is going well.”
“Yes, it really is. Now, come on, Crawfie, what do you think of him? You can be quite candid.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I was really candid with the family since they had become the Windsors. “I like him. He appears to be open and direct, which I find refreshing. He is certainly good company.” I paused before the important part: “I am very pleased that the king has invited Philip to spend more time with your family so you can get to know him better too.” I said the last bit with conviction. Of course, Philip has taken your breath away and undoubtedly you are in love. What I felt she really needed to discover was whether she actually liked him, and if that liking could be sustained over a four-week-long country-house shooting party, and then hopefully for the rest of their lives together.
A question popped into my head from the David Bowes-Lyon tea. “What did your uncle David mean about Lord Mountbatten’s support of the present government?”
She closed down, as she always did when politics came into the conversation. She considered for a moment. “I suppose what he was driving at was that Philip, like his uncle Dickie, is very modern in his thinking.”
That was what I had gathered at tea. I remembered her father’s reaction to Clement Attlee’s Labour Party winning the election. Clearly Dickie Mountbatten, and perhaps his nephew Philip, batted for the wrong side. The taint of socialism, of a government voted in by the people for the good of the common man and not leadership by the ruling class, was calculated to panic even the most stalwart of families who had governed for centuries.
“Good, I’m glad you like him, Crawfie,” she said. “Because Papa has also given me permission to invite Philip to dinner here in my apartment, whenever I want to. With you as our duenna and Margaret as chaperone, of course! Now I must rush.” She was so pleased at the way things were progressing that she swooped down on me and planted a kiss on my cheek. “You have been such a good friend to me, Crawfie, really you have. I can’t thank you enough.”
* * *
• • •
A relentless April rain had driven down all day, and by ten o’clock I was tucked up in bed with a book and a hot-water bottle under my cold feet. But my thoughts kept straying from the plot of my Agatha Christie, and in the end, I gave concentrated thought on how things were going for love. Not just on the main stage of the palace, for Lilibet and Philip, but off in the wings, for George and me.
I plumped up my pillows and lay with my hands folded on my stomach, and with the blankets and eiderdown pulled up to my chin, I schemed.
His Majesty’s invitation for Philip to join the family at Balmoral was a significant step forward. I saw the three of them walking the rolling heaths with Lilibet adoringly between the two men. The king impressed by Philip’s athletic skill and patience, and his future son-in-law as a respectful and attentive student. The lonely beauty of Balmoral would provide a perfect backdrop for a proposal, with a benign father smiling on the two young people as they picnicked in the heather!
I beamed up at the ceiling, enchanted with my fantasy, and took it one step further: Philip, dressed in his slightly dilapidated dress navy uniform—it was a pity he could lay no claim to a tartan; he would look marvelous in a kilt—gallantly dancing with the queen in an enthusiastically executed eightsome reel. There would be no David Bowes-Lyon to mess things up for him, and with his vitality and determination to have a good time, Philip would win over Queen Elizabeth in short order, and when they all came back to London, Philip and Lilibet’s future would be in the bag. They could be married as early as this September, or October at the latest!
Which meant that when Margaret turned eighteen next August, I would be free to marry George, having fulfilled my duty to Lilibet and to the queen.
My water bottle had lost its comfo
rting heat as the spring rain pounded against windows that rattled in the cold north wind and wailed down the vast chimneys. Its dreary, insistent voice showed me all the miserable cons to my lofty pros. The king did not want his daughter to marry—anyone—and his wife didn’t want her to marry a man she had not chosen for her. And I wouldn’t be there, at Balmoral, to counsel Lilibet over any little setbacks that occurred, because I would be taking my summer vacation in Dunfermline.
I thrashed onto my left side. My feet were clammy and cold, my forehead dry and hot. I pushed the hair out of my eyes. All my dark fears that David Bowes-Lyon would make trouble for Philip flapped around my bed like crows. Thoroughly demoralized, I flipped my pillow to its cooler side and tried to distract myself with Christie’s bestselling Sparkling Cyanide.
* * *
• • •
I was red-eyed and tired the next morning, so it didn’t take much to push my already overtaxed imagination over the edge. Still lost in thought, I dropped off my household expenses for the nursery at Percival Blount’s office and turned into the main corridor of the official wing of the palace. Courtiers’ offices lined its sides, with two lanes of traffic traversing the center: one coming east from the staterooms, the servants’ quarters, and the private residences, and the other returning west. As I plodded along, Tommy Lascelles, the king’s private secretary, and his assistant private secretary, Michael Adeane, striding side by side, swung out from Adeane’s office. I was almost on top of them.
“Where did you say he went to school, Michael?” Lascelles asked his subordinate.
“Gordonstoun, sir.” Michael Adeane shot his cuffs and smiled.