by Wendy Holden
Marion stared at her. Could it be true? She had heard the prince mention the list with her own ears.
“He could ’ave anyone, the Prince o’ Wales could. An’ ’e chooses ’er. A skinny old foreign bag with two ’usbands.”
“Two ’usbands? Husbands? That’s impossible.” And definitely not true.
* * *
• • •
A GOLDEN PERIOD now began. Marion sought, and was granted, permission to resume Operation Normal Life. The duke and duchess gave little resistance; they themselves seemed busier these days. Even the playclothes had been accepted in the nursery. Marion felt that Fortune was smiling on her at last.
The trip to Woolworths was the first triumph. They returned to Piccadilly with a great many small pottery horses, which Lilibet promptly rushed with to her mother’s boudoir.
“Mummy, look! What we got from Woolies!”
“Too sweet, darling,” said the duchess, with a slight shudder.
Next, determined that Lilibet learn the value of money, Marion took her by bus to the Bank of England. “Where’s the old lady?” the princess asked, looking round as she hopped off.
“What old lady?”
“You said we were going to see the old lady in Threadneedle Street.”
“A figure of speech.” Smiling, Marion waved at the pillared edifice. “It’s what people call this place.”
Inside, the frock-coated chairman conveyed them through a sequence of neoclassical chambers to the vaults below. They entered through a succession of iron gates and were shown a bewildering number of curiously shaped keys. In the bullion room, Lilibet’s childish features glowed in the reflection of the masses of gold bars. “If you can pick one up, you can keep it,” the chairman told her. Marion laughed to watch her red-faced charge struggle, unsuccessfully but with typical determination, to raise one of the heavy ingots.
They went to the tiny police station hidden high up in the Wellington Arch, just across the road from Piccadilly. “We could see Grandpapa’s soldiers passing underneath on their horses!” Lilibet excitedly told the duchess later. “And the view was all over London, it was wonderful.” The exhilaration of freedom shone from her every pore. “And oh, Mummy, the best thing of all!” Lilibet was hopping up and down with excitement. “It had a cat! A real cat! It’s called Sherlock and it lives in the arch and solves crimes!” She pointed across the road, where the great white monument was visible through the trees.
The duke looked astonished. “S-solves crimes?”
“Absolutely, sir. That’s what the sergeant in charge told us.” Marion met the duke’s eyes seriously. She had no intention of abandoning the amusing pretense for the sake of mere adult dignity.
“Well, it all sounds too delightful,” the duchess cooed to her daughter. “But you’ll have to say goodbye to your sleuthing felines for now. Balmoral awaits!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Marion was frustrated. The interruptions were over, or so she had thought. The dancing classes and singing lessons were much fewer and farther between these days. But this was the biggest interruption of all. There would be no scope at all for Operation Normal, not in the middle of a country estate.
“What am I supposed to do with Lilibet there?” she grumbled to Ivy. “From the pictures I’ve seen, it’s all towers and tartan.”
Ivy grinned. “And the rest.”
“Please explain!”
They were at 145 Piccadilly, sitting on Marion’s bed. Ivy drew up her knees and clasped them with her hands. Her shoes hovered above the bedclothes, carefully not touching them. “Where shall I start? Queen Victoria’s favorite chair what no one’s allowed to sit in? Even though she’s been dead thirty years?”
“You’re joking!”
“The pipers what march round the dinin’ table every night? Noise blows yer bleedin’ ’ead off, and one of ’em’s always drunk.”
Marion shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Or the ’ead butler what wears a shepherd cloak to serve dinner in ’cos some ’ead butler to Queen Victoria stood in for Prince Albert when ’e were bein’ painted as a shepherd?”
“Say that again?”
“Or the picnics by the lochside with silver, tablecloths an’ footmen?”
Marion had clasped her head and was shaking it from side to side. “No!” she moaned. “No!”
“Yeah!” countered Ivy with wicked relish. “They ’ave their own special tartan too. Only the royals can wear it. Only they’d want to, if you ask me. It’s ’orrible. Oh, and ’Is Majesty takes his own personal parrot with ’im.”
Marion flopped back on her pillow and stared at the ceiling. She had no idea if any of this was true, but experience told her it could be. She would, she resolved, find something normal even at Balmoral. It would be a challenge.
In the meantime, there were preparations to make. Sartorial ones in particular. Ivy warned that visitors to the king’s Scottish holiday home were expected to change three times a day, and while different clothes for lunch, tea and dinner would not be expected of a governess, there was clearly a high degree of formality. Marion wrote to her mother to tacitly inquire after the new outfits that had been promised her.
Balmoral would also be a good opportunity to get Margaret out of the pram. Rumors were starting to spread. She and Lilibet had overheard some women on the bus discussing the fact that, as they put it, “all wasn’t quite right” with the youngest York. Lilibet had looked at Marion gleefully.
“If only they knew! Bud is so naughty!”
And so clever, Marion thought. The littlest princess was barely three, but she could already pick out tunes by ear on the piano.
Margaret would need playclothes too. Otherwise she would be plodding through the heather, satin shoes soaked with bog water, frills dragging on the gorse spikes. Marion sought out the duchess. This would be a difficult one.
“Really, Crawfie, I think that’s a decision for Alah, don’t you?”
Marion felt exasperated. “Perhaps a hint from you, ma’am? Margaret is obviously feeling restricted.”
The duchess smiled. “Bud never feels restricted! She has her ways. She has large blue eyes and a will of iron. Which is all the equipment a lady needs!”
Marion said nothing. A lady needed considerably more equipment, in her view. But arguing would be unwise. The blue-eyed duchess also had her ways, and those who overstepped the mark felt the will of iron. Sudden, capricious displays of power were not unknown.
The duchess leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. “But if she disguises her will and uses her eyes, all will be well!”
Marion smiled and bobbed a curtsey, preparing to leave.
But the duchess was looking at her. “There’s something different about you. Is it your hair?”
“Possibly my clothes, ma’am.” The new outfits had arrived, one an exact copy of a Jaeger suit that Marion had seen in the fashion pages. It was blue, with a jazzy, modernist print. Lilibet had loved it. “Crawfie! What lovely patterns!”
“That’s a very striking outfit.”
Marion smoothed down the blue jersey, reddening with pride on her mother’s behalf. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“But I think brown is more your color,” the duchess went on, brightly.
Marion blinked. “Brown, ma’am?” She hated brown. It made her look sallow.
“We all have our colors, the ones that suit us best. I always feel blue is mine. I rather wonder if two of us can wear it in the same house.” The duchess put her head persuasively on one side. “Don’t you agree?”
* * *
• • •
THE ROYAL TRAIN rolled up the country, its gleaming length sneaking unnoticed through the sooty outskirts of industrial towns with their dank canals, dirty tenements and factories with black chimneys. Looking out, Marion glimp
sed sooty washing strung in the narrow gaps between houses. Seeing the gaunt young women pushing prams, wearing men’s caps against the rain, she felt horribly uncomfortable.
She was used, by now, to the Yorks’ privileged existence. But even that had not prepared her for the pomp and circumstance of the monarch departing on holiday. There was a private platform at King’s Cross, and a train whose luxurious carriages—one for each royal family member—were furnished not only with silver-framed beds, but baths encased in gleaming mahogany. There were sitting rooms with lampshades, carpets and curtains. Armchairs and gold-framed paintings. A chef in a white hat, with a full kitchen brigade. Looking at it all, as she went in search of her own much simpler berth, Marion was swept once again by feelings of defeat. In the face of all this, her efforts to normalize Lilibet stood as much chance of success as a matchstick in the sand stood to hold back the tide.
“Come on, Maz,” said Ivy, who had the bunk above hers. “Balmoral’s not going to be that bad.”
Marion was indignant. “You made it sound awful.”
“Well, there are compensations,” Ivy said, mysteriously. “The servants’ quarters are pretty close. Men’s and women’s, I mean. Corridor creeping isn’t unknown.”
“You mean Alf’s coming, I suppose.”
From the bunk above came giggling.
“Well, lucky you,” said Marion. She turned over again, but the bunk was uncomfortable—tiny and narrow and hard—and the unheated carriage was cold. Yet the real discomfort, she knew, was inside her. Mixed with her guilt and sense of futility was an aching longing. She envied Ivy her simple happiness. If only she had someone to creep down corridors to as well.
But footmen, with their breeches and powdered hair, did not appeal. Yet Ivy was right—men outside the royal circle were now out of bounds. Tom and his camera had almost ruined her. That he had not appeared on any of the recent outings was a huge relief. He had, she heard, also left Mr. Adams’ studio. Hopefully she would never see him again.
She sighed, long and heavily, but tried to turn it into a yawn.
Ivy obviously wasn’t fooled, because now she struck up again. “You’ll enjoy the ghillies’ ball, Maz. Their Majesties dance with the estate staff.”
“Very gracious of them,” said Marion, sourly. She shifted onto her back and lay staring into the darkness, breathing in the musty air.
“It’s a larf,” insisted Ivy. “None of the men wear anything beneath their kilts. Prince Henry sits with his legs wide apart so you get a good butcher’s at his crown jewels.”
Marion turned over. “Ivy, you’re really selling it to me.”
A silence followed and she was almost asleep when Ivy spoke again.
“Heard the latest about Mrs. Simpson?”
“No.” Marion still wasn’t sure this fascinating personality actually existed. She had scoured the papers for news of her, but there was never a word, not even in the social columns.
“They say she can fire Ping-Pong balls out of her you-know-what.”
Marion was suddenly wide awake. “What?”
“Well, that’s what they’re saying.”
The Prince of Wales was on board, she knew. If Mrs. Simpson was joining him, Balmoral might be bearable after all.
* * *
• • •
MARION OPENED HER eyes. It took some seconds to recognize where she was—in the train. Mixed in with Ivy’s deafening snores from the bunk above was the sound of bagpipes from outside. “Scotland the Brave” was being played at full blast.
Blinking, she twitched back her window curtain. A red-faced piper in a kilt was marching up and down the platform. His eyes were bulging and his scarlet cheeks inflated to an improbable size. The platform sign said “Ballater.” The nearest town to Balmoral.
“Ivy! We’re here!”
There was as yet no sign of the royal family besides plenty of their luggage. The little platform was heaped with traveling wardrobes, hatboxes and vast heaps of shoes, all polished to a mirror finish and tied together by their laces. There were trunks of plates and silverware. But no parrot, from what she could see.
Ivy had been joking about that at least.
Or had she?
Two footmen in red-coated uniforms now descended, the powder in their hair dissolving in the drizzle. Marion recognized Alf. He carried a huge gold cage containing something large and gray. Alarmed by the bagpipes, it started to squawk indignantly.
Alf raised the cage and muttered something that did not sound especially polite.
“CHARLOTTE, M’DEAR!!” a great roar echoed down the platform. The king was emerging from his monogrammed carriage. “HAD A GOOD NIGHT, HAVE YE?”
He wore a kilt, a short tweed cape and a tam-o’-shanter with pom-pom and feather. Below astonishingly knobbly knees were thick socks complete with silver dagger and a pair of Scottish brogues, elaborately laced up the calf. The look was completed by an immense sporran with tails so long they touched the ground.
The Duke of York, sporting similar knees, kilt, brogues and dagger, followed his father. The Prince of Wales followed, and after him Prince Henry and Prince George, the king’s younger sons. All seemed nervous as the king looked them critically up and down, as if inspecting a parade ground.
“NOTHING LIKE THE GARB OF OLD GAUL, EH?” His quarterdeck boom echoed round the platform.
The Prince of Wales slapped some insects from his bare knees. “Hello, Midge Heaven,” Marion heard him mutter.
Queen Mary came out next. She too was wearing the garb of old Gaul, but as a long Edwardian skirt. Her customary toque was firmly in position, and she clutched a tartan parasol. “Ah, ze gut loyal Highlanders!” she remarked, watching various station personnel stagger past under her luggage.
“So blissful!” exclaimed the Duchess of York as the piper blasted past again, his cheeks like red footballs.
“Crawfie! Crawfie!!” Lilibet leaped out onto the platform and grabbed Marion’s hand. At her touch, a world that had seemed surreal and ridiculous suddenly righted itself again. Marion would cope with all this. Somehow.
The procession of cars drove through the lush and ferny valley. The Prince of Wales sat in the front of Marion’s, next to the chauffeur. In the rear, facing forward as ever, was Mrs. Knight. On her dark-uniformed lap, also as ever, squirmed Margaret.
Marion looked out of the window. There was little to see. The drizzle at Ballater had become a full-blown downpour. Sheets of water hammered on the car roof.
“Good old Deeside,” the Prince of Wales remarked ironically. “Lowest rainfall in Scotland, they say.”
The gray wall running along the roadside now gave way to an imposing entrance. Two tall black-and-gold gates, with “VR” in wrought ironwork, stood open. A crowd of people stood just inside: housemaids, gardeners, cooks and footmen, Marion realized in astonishment. They were all sodden. The rain had detached well-combed hair from its moorings and rendered well-ironed aprons transparent with wet. Soaked shoes, thoroughly polished, were planted doughtily into muddy grass bubbling with moisture.
All bowed and curtseyed as the royal entourage swept past. Marion slid a look at Lilibet, who was waving regally, and felt her spirits slump again. What did her recent triumphs mean beside this level of accrued entitlement?
The castle came into view, much bigger than Marion had expected. It sent her thoughts flying to the little fort near Royal Lodge. This too looked improbable, but in a different way. If that was Arthurian, this was the Brothers Grimm. It was spiky and spiry, a great tower with pepperpot turrets rising from a roofline of domes. Behind were huge mountains covered in cloud and before it stretched a wide green lawn. It looked as if hordes of midges lived in it.
The inside was breathtaking—wall-to-wall tartan, as Ivy had said. Every square inch was decorated, and heavily at that. A slightly stunned Marion followed the royal gr
oup through rooms that lurched wildly from fan-vaulted cathedral Gothic to gilded Baroque with molded ceilings. The walls of the passages endlessly repeated Queen Victoria’s initials. Even the fire buckets bore her monogram.
Tartan was not the only emphatic reference to Scotland. That the actual place was visible through the windows had clearly not been enough for Victoria’s husband, Albert, who had apparently designed everything. Antlers sprouted from walls like the branches of invisible trees. The wallpaper in the passages bristled with thistles.
Prince Albert himself was the other leitmotif. Standing in the hall was his white marble statue in a white marble kilt; a first in Marion’s experience. He featured in endless paintings, mostly violent and gory. She walked past them: Albert on a mountain astride a recently slaughtered stag. Albert before the deer larder with piles of dead animals, his wife looking on in ball gown and tiara.
Having briefly mustered in a huge dark drawing room, the royal party disappeared in different directions. A bewhiskered and very wet gamekeeper had taken off the king and dukes. A housekeeper who seemed somehow to have sidestepped the soggy reception line had borne away Lilibet, the queen and the duchess. Mrs. Knight, firmly clasping a struggling Margaret Rose, had ostentatiously gone off to rekindle some belowstairs acquaintance. Ivy, of course, had long since disappeared.
In the gloomy, silent drawing room with its view of dark hills, Marion felt as though she were in a mausoleum. What a place for a child to spend a summer holiday!
Tiredness dragged at her eyelids. A small chair—covered in plaid, naturally—was positioned nearby. She was lowering herself down when someone cried out. In the silence it was like a brick smashing the window.
“Crawfie! Stop!”
Marion shot to her feet. “What’s the matter?” Her nerves were jangling painfully.