The Royal Governess

by Wendy Holden

  “Dancing lesson, ma’am?”

  Elizabeth of York was disappearing back through the ornate door. “Lilibet so adores her dancing, Miss Crawford,” she threw over her blue-befurred shoulder. “And of course it is such an important skill for a young lady. Balls will play a huge part in her life.”

  Into Marion’s indignation now came a wild urge to laugh. This faded instantly with the duchess’s parting shot. “And the class will be the most marvelous opportunity for you to get to know Alah better!”

  “Mrs. Knight is coming too?” Why were two fully grown women required to chaperone one small girl?

  But the duchess had gone.

  During the subsequent hour entirely spent waiting in the hall, Marion thought angrily about her curriculum. This morning was to have been math. She had planned to use sweets to demonstrate simple adding and subtracting. Then history, which would have been a perusal of current affairs via The Children’s Newspaper.

  She had studied every detail of the African servant’s livery by the time Elizabeth reappeared. A white swansdown cape had now been added to the frills. A black looming figure followed the girl.

  Mrs. Knight got into the car first, holding the princess firmly by the hand as if to demonstrate that she was her property.

  The gleaming Daimler glided off, slowed down almost immediately and turned through a large white gatepost on which the word “IN” was painted in big white capitals. Inside was a large cobbled courtyard filled with shining black cars just like theirs. The cars were moving slowly forward and disgorging children in frilly dresses similar to Elizabeth’s on a wide flight of stone stairs that led up to the pillared front of an enormous house.

  Marion stared up at it through the windows. This was the dancing class? She had a sudden, piercing memory of Annie McGinty, forcing a barefoot jig on the frozen pavement.

  Inside all was red carpet, chandeliers and loud chatter. The lobby was teeming with children: girls in white frills and bronze sandals with ribbons in their hair and boys in dark knickerbocker suits with rounded white collars. Her initial impression was that there were a lot of them, but a closer look revealed at least half the crowd were black-clad nannies like Mrs. Knight and nervous-looking women with old-fashioned bun hairstyles and badly fitting suits. Governesses, possibly.

  She looked away from this unwelcome reflection and about her at the fluted pillars and marble statues, the gilded mirrors and glowing pictures, the tall stone urns foaming with powerfully scented flowers, and thought that Buckingham Palace itself could scarcely be less grand.

  On the other hand, at least Elizabeth was mixing with children her own age. Then Marion noticed the carpet. There was a good two feet of space between the princess’s white satin shoes and those of everyone else.

  The other children were openly staring at her, as if she were an animal in a zoo. The grown-ups gawped as if at a movie star. Elizabeth looked back shyly, but also as if she were used to it.

  Marion felt a mixture of outrage and pity. Even if she was the most famous six-year-old in the world, featuring on stamps and sweet tins the length and breadth of the Empire, the princess was still a six-year-old. And this was a private event, among peers. She glared at the nannies, who in particular should have had a more sensible attitude. But they were too busy staring at Elizabeth to notice her. And behind the princess stood Nanny Knight, basking in reflected glory like a seal in the sun.

  But now, it seemed, things were about to happen. The children and nannies began slowly moving up a great wide staircase, thick with red carpet and bordered with lacelike gilt balustrades. At the top was a reception committee. A woman with dark hair, long pearls and a silver frock in the fashionable drop-waisted style stood by a haughty-looking boy to whom she bore a strong family resemblance. Were these the dance teachers? They looked to Marion like the owners of the house.

  She was right. The woman curtseyed so low to Elizabeth that Marion felt she might kneel on the floor. “Your Royal Highness,” she said, fulsomely. “We are honored that you could come to our humble home.”

  But it’s only a dance class, Marion wanted to scream. As for the “humble,” that was ridiculous. The level of obeisance was appalling.

  But Elizabeth seemed entirely used to it. “Good morning,” she said in her light, clear voice. She turned to the boy. “Hello.” He bent his smooth, side-parted head and bowed even lower than his mother had curtseyed. The gesture was rendered comic by the necessity of keeping a finger on the bridge of his glasses.

  Neither the child nor his mother took the slightest notice of Marion, although a murmur was made at Mrs. Knight, who inclined her head grandly in reply. The three of them moved on, through a vast and ornate doorway.

  The room inside was as enormous as it was palatial. The walls were paneled with pale blue scrolled with silver and interspersed with mirrors. Children scampered about, pursued by their nannies. Elizabeth watched, rather longingly it seemed to Marion, as if she would like to join in but did not know how.

  A plump woman, her white hair set in precise waves, stood smiling at the front of the room. She held a long wooden cane in her hand. A few feet away was a magnificent black lacquered grand piano, at which a woman with a beaky nose turned pages of music.

  “Are you with Princess Elizabeth?” A breathless voice was at her elbow. Marion turned. One of the crumpled women was staring at her with an eager, toothy face.

  “Well, yes,” Marion admitted, adding, so there should be no confusion with Mrs. Knight, “I’m her governess.”

  “I’m a governess too,” the woman said dolefully. She looked very tired. Her large eyes had beneath them dark, exhausted circles, matching her drab suit.

  “Don’t you enjoy teaching?” Marion was curious.

  “Enjoy teaching Lord Peregrine and Lady Annabel?” A wild expression briefly lit up the tired eyes, as if she were about to burst into hysterical laughter, or scream. She leaned forward; the movement sent out a strong whiff of mothballs. “It’s a bit like teaching a pair of animals,” she whispered. Her teeth stuck out alarmingly.

  The children named were currently capering around the ballroom, presumably. “Oh dear,” Marion said, sympathetically.

  The woman now steered the subject back. “But you are Princess Elizabeth’s governess! That must be so wonderful!”

  “It’s a job,” Marion said. “And the princess is a six-year-old girl.”

  Her point was that her charge was just a child, like any other, and the duties of a governess were the same everywhere. But this was clearly not how her words were interpreted. The exhausted eyeballs shone. “Yes! And what a job! To live with the royal family!”

  “I’m not one of them,” Marion countered, with a smile.

  “No, but you know what really goes on! You’re on the inside and everyone else is on the outside.”

  “I’m here to teach.” Marion felt impatient. This downtrodden creature with her protuberant teeth made her uncomfortable. Obviously lonely, probably unmarried, clearly unvalued, she made her feel trapped, almost as if she were looking into her own future. “And it’s only temporary, anyway,” she added, firmly.

  The white-haired dance teacher now thumped on the polished wooden floor with her cane. The sound bounced off the mirrors. “Good morning, children,” she declaimed operatically.

  The chatter stopped. The young faces looked up, some nudged to do so by their nannies. “Good morning, Madame Vacani.”

  “Take your partners, the class is about to begin!” She gestured at the henpecked woman. “Music please, Miss Bird.”

  Miss Bird struck up a tune. At a nod from his mother, the host moved in purposefully on Elizabeth. Perched on one of the decorative chairs that lined the walls, Marion watched in amazement as about twenty small children went through the intricacies of a waltz, their every movement accompanied by the thud of Miss Vacani’s stick. “One two three
, one two three.”

  What on earth could be the point of this? What preparation was this for modern life?

  The next dance was a quadrille, which made Marion think again of Alice in Wonderland, where it was performed with a lobster. As this progressed haltingly through its paces, with Madame Vacani shouting encouragement or offering correction (“Yes, Algernon! No, Celia!”), a group of footmen appeared carrying trays of glasses and plates, which they took to a table at the back of the room. Their costumes, erect carriage and gliding movement made them look more like dancers than the children.

  A minuet followed. Marion had to hand it to Madame Vacani, the children seemed well-disciplined, performing the movements accurately, if without marked enthusiasm. Only one child seemed to be behaving badly, clowning around in the back row and pulling faces.

  Then came a break. From the chairs around the room’s edge, the nannies rushed in like a crowd invading a football pitch and milled around their charges.

  “Do you want to do something? Do you want to go to the place?” they whispered urgently. They meant the loo, Marion realized scornfully. So why not say so?

  Elizabeth did not seem to need the place. She was edging toward the table of food at the back. Here were plates of sandwiches—triangular ones of egg, sardine or honey, or circular ones made of strawberry jam—and plates of tiny cakes: heart-shaped, star-shaped, circular or three-cornered, iced with chocolate or lemon-and-orange-flavored icing, all copiously decorated by silver balls. There were big crystal jugs of lemonade and orangeade, all evidently freshly made. For a break in a dance class, it was unexpectedly lavish. Marion wondered if all this, too, had been especially contrived to impress Elizabeth.

  If so, it looked as if it might fall on stony ground. As the princess hovered over a plate of chocolate biscuits, Mrs. Knight’s large square form loomed behind her. The little girl turned. “Can I?” Her tone was imploring.

  But the nanny shook her head. “We stick to bread and butter.”

  “Not even a jam penny?” the princess pleaded.

  Mrs. Knight’s large, square face turned stern. “We have our acid tum.”

  Seeing Elizabeth’s face fall, Marion tried to come to her rescue. “Does she really have an acid stomach?” she asked as Mrs. Knight pointedly ignored her and Elizabeth, resigned to her fate, took a plate and dolefully transferred a piece of bread and butter to it, while all around other children piled theirs gleefully with sardine sandwiches and chocolate biscuits.

  A few minutes later, Mrs. Knight disappeared. Marion looked around and eventually spotted her halfway down the room, the center of what seemed to be an admiring circle of fellow nannies. Seeing Elizabeth’s golden head bent obediently over her restricted tea, Marion stepped close to her. “I don’t think one chocolate biscuit would harm. Do you?”

  The big blue eyes looked wonderingly up at her. She seemed about to reply when someone else butted in.

  “Lilibet!”

  A girl had come up. She had tousled mouse-colored hair, a very straight, long nose and possibly the wickedest eyes Marion had ever seen. It was the child who had been behaving badly during the dancing.

  The princess turned. “Oh, hello, Magdalene.”

  “I say, I’m starving.” Magdalene grabbed a plate and piled it with everything she could lay hands on. Elizabeth watched admiringly as an unsteady tower of sardine sandwiches and jam pennies began to rise.

  Magdalene spoke through a mouthful of jam penny. “Show me your toes, Lilibet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the girls at my school say you’ve got webbed feet.”

  “The girls talk about me at your school?” Elizabeth sounded surprised as she obediently peeled off a sock. Marion looked round swiftly. Mrs. Knight was still nowhere to be seen.

  “Everybody talks about you all the time, silly,” Magdalene said matter-of-factly. “And even more about your uncle.”

  “Which uncle?”

  “The one who’s heir to the throne and won’t get married.” Magdalene took another chomp of sandwich. “I heard the rentals talking about it. Parentals,” she added, before Elizabeth could ask. “Georgie and May are very worried, apparently.”

  Marion interrupted. “Magdalene, it’s not very respectful to refer to Their Majesties as—”

  The long-nosed child gave her a contemptuous look before turning back to the princess. “They’re quite beside themselves,” she went on unrepentantly. “All your family are.”

  Grinning, Magdalene shoved in yet another jam penny. The princess, meanwhile, frowned and stared at her bitten nails. Then came the thump on the floor and the class began again.

  Watching from the side chairs, Marion wondered whether this exchange in any way explained Elizabeth’s obsessive orderliness. Because it makes me feel safe. That might make sense, if there was a deep-seated worry within the family?

  But who would have imagined that worry to be the golden Prince of Wales, heartthrob of an entire empire? The thought was an amazing one. To the outside world, Prince Edward, handsome as a film star and with the charisma to match, was the absolute epitome of the perfect heir to the throne. To hear, especially in these circles, that he was not sent a strange excitement churning through Marion. This was how it must feel to be on the inside of things, to know the truth. As the downtrodden governess had said.

  The thought made her pull herself together sharply. She remembered how less than impressed she had been when the Rosyth cook had described Lady Rose’s brief princely entanglement. She must not, she reminded herself, become dazzled by the royal family. As she had told the governess earlier, she was not one of them. Far from it. She was here to do a job. And Magdalene was only a child, and an obviously naughty one. She was probably talking absolute rubbish.

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER, MARION WAS in her room when a commotion downstairs sent her outside to the banister rail. Someone had just come through the front door. Someone with side-parted golden hair and a suit of a check so loud you could hear it four floors up.

  A hot tide of excitement flooded right to Marion’s toes and fingertips. Here he was in the flesh. The famous Prince of Wales! The Empire’s darling! The thrill was so strong it made her head spin, and it took some seconds to remember that she was not supposed to be impressed.

  “Shop!” shouted the idol on whom the sun never set. “Shop!”

  The duchess appeared in a pale, glittery evening gown. She had a cocktail in her hand, and the hall chandelier gleamed on her bare arms and shoulders. She kissed her brother-in-law warmly, even lingeringly.

  “Elizabeth!” He took out the cigarette to kiss her back. “How’s my favorite girl? Been stunting?”

  She giggled. “Always stunting. Tomorrow I’m making a speech to the League of Women Helpers.”

  Stunting? In the gallery, Marion frowned. Was that what they called their official duties?

  The prince gave a bitter-sounding laugh. “Well, I hope you find some women to help me!”

  “You’re incorrigible! You just need to find a nice princess and settle down!”

  The prince responded to this lively chaffing with a groan. “Don’t. Papa’s drawn up a whole list of them. Ranging from Ingrid of Sweden to Thyra of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who is literally fifteen! And I’m expected to pick one! God, how I hate being the Prince of Wales!”

  Up in the gallery, Marion felt a ripple of surprise. She could see now why his parents and family might be worried. Magdalene had not been making it up after all. A whole list of princesses?

  The duchess seemed less surprised. She had clearly heard it before. “You know you don’t mean that,” she said briskly.

  “I do! It’s all silly princing and stunting. The older I get the bigger a fool I’m made to look, and God knows that’s not too difficult. Why should anybody care? I’m no better than anyone else
!”

  “Perhaps not,” returned his sister-in-law, lightly, “but the monarchy rather depends on people thinking it’s better than they are. A better version of themselves.”

  Marion’s fingers tightened on the banister rail. Irredeemably thick was how the duchess had described herself at Admiralty House. Hardly. She seemed to have a firmer grasp of the royal role than the heir to the throne did.

  The prince snorted derisively. “Well, I’m not a better version of anyone! Some men are chained to their desks! I’m chained to the banqueting table! In this last week alone I have inspected the Welsh Guards, awarded prizes at the Police Boxing Tournament, opened the new premises of the Chartered Auctioneers and Estate Agents’ Institute and awarded certificates to the Society of Apothecaries.”

  “And,” said the duchess, as this amazing speech ended, “I’m sure they were absolutely thrilled.”

  “But it’s so boring!” The prince sounded resentful and frustrated. “So relentlessly bloody boring.”

  His sister-in-law gave a silvery giggle.

  “Nonsense. It’s easy. You just have to act.” She began to walk about the hall, hand outstretched, greeting invisible admiring crowds. “Have you come far?” she asked the grandfather clock. Then, to a side table: “How old is your delightful baby?”

  “You see! You’re so much better at it than I am!”

  “What a nice coat!” the duchess complimented the front door. “Goodness, the weather’s cold today, isn’t it? And you’re a plumber?” This, to a window. “But how utterly too fascinating. I’ve always absolutely longed to know how pipes work!”

  She really was brilliant at it, Marion, from above, conceded. The prince refused to be placated, however. “Tomorrow I have to open a hospital ward,” he sulked. “I hate hospitals. Beastly places.”

  “No, no, no, darling,” the duchess gaily corrected. “You’re quite wrong. We’re the British royal family. We love hospitals!”