The Royal Governess

by Wendy Holden

  “That’s ‘presumptuous,’” said Marion, smiling at the dismayed Lilibet. “You’ve looked up the wrong word.”

  Margaret was jealous, she knew. “It’s not fair,” she sulked. “Lilibet is now third lady in the whole land, after Grandmama and Mummy.”

  Perhaps in reaction to all this, as May approached, Marion found herself following the news more closely. As the preoccupations of those around her went back to the twelfth century, it seemed crucial that someone at least was keeping an eye on the here and now.

  The daily paper made, as ever, uncomfortable reading. Popular support for the Jarrow Crusade had not persuaded the government to help the unemployed. Rather, on their return the marchers had had their dole money docked for being unavailable for work. But on April 27, a mere fortnight before the coronation ceremony, something happened in Spain that, briefly at least, superseded all other concerns. The small Basque town of Guernica was almost completely destroyed by bombs dropped by German and Italian planes.

  Shocked and sickened, Marion read George Steer’s account of the atrocity in The Times. Four thousand bombs had dropped out of a clear blue sky. Innocent civilians—women and children—had died in their homes, in the hundreds. In the thousands, possibly. Were they looking at the future? Everyone knew how massive Hitler’s rearmament program had been; still was. What were his intentions? Did they include Britain?

  Between lessons, back and forth from lunch, she paced the palace corridors, fretting. The fact that no one else seemed to be discussing it, or even thinking about it, was more worrying still.

  “Oh! Crawfie!”

  Marion jumped back. She had rounded a corner to find the queen, sheet pinned to her shoulders, crown on her head, walking toward her over the red carpet. She held an open book before her; to help her balance, presumably.

  Marion dropped to a dutiful curtsey but felt exasperation. Had the queen not heard about Guernica? Was she not concerned about Hitler?

  “Have you read this, Crawfie?” Marion rose to find the queen waving the book at her. Its cover bore two words in black Gothic lettering: Mein Kampf.

  “Even a skip through gives one a good idea of his mentality and ignorance,” the queen said in her high, clear voice. “And, worst of all, his obvious sincerity. Did you know that every newly married couple in Germany is being given it? What a wedding present.”

  She swept off, the sheet slithering over the red carpet behind her. Marion looked after her. She felt, if not cheered exactly, then somehow relieved.

  Finally, the great day dawned. No one had slept very much. The night had been noisy with the testing of loudspeakers and crowds singing and cheering. At five in the morning a regimental band had struck up, all drums and brass, rehearsing for the procession later.

  The girls stood before Marion in their first long dresses—white lace trimmed with silver bows—and the special coronets that had been made for them.

  “Do you like my slippers?” Lilibet lifted her glittering hem to show a pair of sparkling silver feet. Above her snow-white socks were a couple of brown knees scratched from tree climbing. The sight made Marion smile.

  “Do you like my train?” Margaret swished around importantly. A length of ermine-trimmed purple velvet slid across the lino bedroom floor.

  There had been ructions when the younger princess discovered her sister’s outfit would have a train and hers wouldn’t. A second had been produced on the double. The velvet was so soft you hardly realized you were touching it.

  Margaret raised a little hand to check the silver-gilt circlet on her shining dark gold curls. She was passionately looking forward to it all.

  But her orderly sister fretted about the vast, uncontrollable ceremony. It would be a huge event, broadcast worldwide on the radio. Stands had been built all along the processional route, and viewing galleries had been constructed in the Abbey as high as the roof. It was easy to see why Lilibet was worried.

  Determined to head off a return of the old obsessive behavior, Marion suggested she write a diary. The idea was seized on immediately. An exercise book carefully trimmed with pink ribbon now stood ready to receive the account. The title was written in red crayon on the cover. The Coronation, 12 May 1937, to Mummy and Papa, in memory of their Coronation, from Lilibet by Herself.

  “Look at Crawfie’s makeup!” said Margaret, staring hard. “Hasn’t she got a lot on?” There was mockery in her tone. “I wonder if she’s hoping to impress someone!”

  “It’s a special occasion,” Marion returned, determined not to appear rattled. But, as ever, Margaret had put her merciless little finger on it, and pressed hard.

  She had done her makeup more boldly than usual, after the fashion the salesgirl at Harrods’ Elizabeth Arden concession had shown her. A touch more eyeshadow, another layer of pressed powder, a darker shade of lipstick. The shade was Carmencita, and one of Miss Arden’s new “wardrobe of lipsticks.” The persuasive salesgirl had succeeded in selling her Miss Arden’s newly launched perfume, Blue Grass, into the bargain.

  Having delivered her blow to her satisfaction, Margaret swished across to the window. “Just look at the crowds!” she crowed. “All come to see us!”

  Marion took the girls down to the reception. The ornate room was full of excited people holding coffee cups carefully distant from ceremonial robes. Hanging in the air was the faint but unmistakable scent of mothballs.

  She gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from a footman. She would need gallons of it. The procession would leave the palace at eleven, but none of them would return before five.

  Lilibet was scanning the room. Her eleven-year-old face wore an expression Marion had seen once before. But Prince Philip, the handsome boy she had met at the Kent wedding, was not present, although his cousin Marina was, exquisite in tiara and silver lace. The Duchess of Kent was smiling gamely, but what was she thinking? Her sister-in-law of York, once looked down on, had now gained unimaginable eminence.

  A tall, familiar figure glided into the room and she felt her chest tighten. Tommy looked splendid in army dress uniform, his Military Cross glinting and his imperious blonde at his side. Joan Lascelles was far more beautiful in the flesh than she’d appeared in her photograph, and evidently very grand, greeting the assembled peers like the old friends they obviously were.

  Marion raised her chin and refused to meet, across the room, a certain naughty, knowing, violet eye.

  “Marion.” He was looking at her wryly. “You look splendid.”

  “Thank you, Tommy. So do you.”

  Was Miss Arden’s scent working? He seemed to be lingering, but that might be just wishful thinking.

  “Tommy!” Joan was calling her husband.

  She met the dark, deep-set eyes. “You’d better go.”

  “I had.” He held her gaze a second longer, then turned. She watched his back recede in the braided coat and remembered the skin beneath, slicked wet from the lake.

  “I would!” The whisper came in her right ear. Hartnell’s wide-set mischievous eyes smiled into hers. His wavy hair was impeccably combed, and his small, powerful body, more a stevedore’s than a designer’s, was encased in a gray double-breasted suit of perfect cut.

  “Norman!”

  “Your fairy godmother. In every sense of the word. Love the slap. Very fetching.” He touched her cheek lightly.

  She smiled at him warmly. “I’m so pleased you’re here.”

  “On hand should anyone burst out of their sequins. Mentioning no names, but some of them are sewn up like sausages in their casings.”

  She giggled. In the corner of her eye someone tall and dark moved toward the door. She glanced, involuntarily.

  “You’re smitten!” cackled Norman.

  “Rubbish. It’s completely out of the question. He’s married.”

  He cocked his head on one side. “Your point?”

 
The room was emptying. Peers and peeresses were called to the coaches lined nose to tail downstairs in the palace courtyard. The princesses’ carriage awaited them in the Grand Entrance.

  Norman gave her a little push. “Off you go, Cinders. Enjoy the ball.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The arches and beams at the top of the Abbey were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned,” Marion read out from Lilibet’s little ribbon-trimmed exercise book. She looked up. “What a beautiful description.”

  They were sitting in the glossy grass in the shade of an oak in the palace garden. Having just completed her diary of the great day, Lilibet was busy on a daisy chain. “Do you really think Papa and Mummy will like it?” she asked shyly.

  “They’ll absolutely love it. I can’t imagine any official historian doing a better job.” Not even the Historiographer Royal. This august-sounding figure remained a mystery, having not yet made an appearance in the Household Dining Room.

  Lilibet flopped back on the grass. “Oh, Crawfie! It really was such a wonderful day. Wasn’t it?”

  “It really was.”

  Several days had passed since the coronation and she still felt suspended in a glamorous dream. The horses and carriages had all been put away now, the panjandrums and crown princes all returned overseas. But, in the words of the song, the memory lingered on and no one was talking about anything else.

  “Let’s play Did You See,” Lilibet suggested excitedly. It was her favorite game, and one in which she had the advantage. Not only had she walked in procession up the Abbey nave, but her view from the royal box just behind the queen’s throne had been vastly superior to Marion’s up in the roof. But the privilege had not been wasted; Lilibet had missed nothing. The game produced new details every time.

  “Did you see Mrs. Ronnie?” Lilibet began, giggling. “She was wearing the biggest diamonds ever. Even bigger than Granny’s.”

  It was true that the diamonds were enormous, visible even from an aerie in the vaulting. But it was no more than one would expect of Mrs. Ronnie Greville. “She told me she was a beeress, not a peeress,” Lilibet chuckled.

  The daughter of an extremely rich Scottish brewer, Mrs. Ronnie was a social lioness and collector of celebrities. She had become a close friend of Queen Mary’s through the simple but brilliant ruse of promising to leave her magnificent Surrey mansion to the king in her will. She now had a permanent place right at the center of the royal circle.

  “And did you see the maharajahs and princes with their turbans covered with diamonds?” Lilibet especially loved to talk about them. “The horses pulling their carriages had the most gorgeous tack on.”

  Marion remembered the miles of jewel-encrusted potentates, escorted by high-stepping horses. They had looked like something from a fairy tale. The colors had glowed, the silk had shone, the gold had glittered, the feathers had nodded. At the ends of arms solid with bracelets, jeweled hands had waved.

  “Our soldiers looked so handsome,” Lilibet said, a little wistfully. She liked a uniform.

  “And walked in such straight lines,” Marion added, recalling the rigid box formations in which they had marched. Not a man had been out of place. You could have laid a ruler under the feet of the regiment in front of the palace.

  Carriage after carriage had passed up a Mall hung with long banners bearing the royal arms and flanked with specially built viewing stands. Among them had been Queen Mary, magnificent in gold behind beveled glass, with her sister-in-law the queen of Norway. Behind her, the princesses, peering excitedly from the carriage of the Princess Royal.

  “Margaret waved so much that her coronet fell off.” Lilibet shook her head indulgently. “And Crawfie, the noise was simply deafening. People were screaming more than cheering.”

  The crowds, packed into every inch of park and pavement, even climbing the Victoria Memorial, had seemed to exceed even those of the Jubilee.

  “People were in the trees, and in their best clothes too.” Lilibet’s voice was full of wonder.

  But as the king’s gold state coach swung into view, there had been the briefest beat of silence, perhaps in awe at the fantastically theatrical conveyance, covered in gold leaf and carved with plumes and tritons, topped with a crown and pulled by eight white horses, each with its own gold-braided groom. Following it were beefeaters in Tudor red, mounted cavalry with flashing helmets and all manner of other uniformed magnificences. Gentle sounds had filled the air: the jingle of harness, the trot of hooves, the rumble of carriage wheels.

  Then came the noise, cracking like thunder, the fanfares and drum rolls, the thunderous cheering, wave after roaring wave of it. On and on the cavalcade went: Highland pipers, Canadian Mounties, Sikhs on foot, prime ministers from all over the Dominions; each new appearance a new sensation.

  Marion’s own journey to the Abbey was in a staff car, not a carriage. The route had been via the back streets, away from the procession. But she had seen coaches, albeit ones gone astray. Family carriages from stately homes in the provinces were accompanied by staff with little knowledge of London. Thunderous peers were to be seen sticking their heads out and shouting, “Go right at Piccadilly Circus!” Owen had several times to stop and offer his assistance.

  “What did you see in the Abbey?” Lilibet asked. “Could you see us?”

  “I did, and you both looked splendid.” The two small but composed figures in their furred and braided cloaks walking up the aisle had been impressive. But what had stirred her emotions was the warning look Lilibet had given her sister as they settled into their seats in the royal box. Margaret, about to fidget and swing her legs as she did in the schoolroom, sat up instantly.

  “Did Margaret behave nicely?”

  “She was wonderful,” the elder sister said loyally. “I only had to nudge her once or twice when she was playing with the prayer books too loudly. Tell me what else you remember.”

  “Let me think.” Marion shut her eyes. Pictures rolled through her mind. The blaze of gold plate on the altar, hung with embroidered silk. The balconies of the Abbey hung with red and gold brocade. The Coronation Chair in its sea of golden carpet, so plain amid all the pomp and panoply, and yet so much more important. The peeresses, all curtseying as one to Queen Mary, swaying like a field of graceful reeds. The bended knees, the oaths and fealties, the swords, orbs and scepters. The glitter of tiaras and necklaces under powerful lights. Abbey bells mingling with the blare of trumpets and the boom of cannon fire. From all these dazzling sights and sounds it was difficult to select just one.

  “Did you see the peers?” The princess’s fingers were busy with the daisies. “They kept their sandwiches under their coronets!”

  “I loved ‘Crown Imperial,’” said Marion. The rousing march, by the rising young composer William Walton, had been especially written for the event.

  The organ was directly below where she was sitting and she had felt the notes through her feet. A small group of choirboys had been on a balcony nearby. She had watched them, immaculate in their snowy robes and smooth, side-parted hair, pinching each other during particularly long parts of the service.

  “Which procession did you like best? Mummy’s or Papa’s?”

  She thought. The king’s, while impressive, had featured two rows of rather doddery old churchmen. A single splendid page had held the thick fur end of his train. Holding the queen’s even more sumptuous embroidered cloak had been six aristocratic beauties whose gowns Norman had designed. He had particularly liked the small one with the widow’s peak, Lady Ursula Manners, whom he said was “larky.” He had been less keen on the “terrifying old bat” otherwise known as the Duchess of Norfolk, Mistress of the Robes, who followed immediately behind the train in a furred gown, the epitome of magnificent hauteur.

  Norman’s dresses had looked stunning: fitted white satin with puffed sleeves and embroideries of corn sheaves down the front. �
��Not embroideries, dearie, those are for tray cloths,” she could hear him saying. “These are paillettes.”

  They were interrupted now as Margaret came running over the lawn, released from her portrait sitting. She flopped herself down.

  “I liked the queen’s procession best, I think,” Marion said to Lilibet.

  Margaret looked up. “Oh, you’re playing Did You See. Can I join in? Did you see Dr. Lang lose the thread?”

  This had become something of a cause célèbre; the archbishop, worried about putting the crown on the wrong way round, had tied a colored thread at the right end. But at the crucial moment the scrap of scarlet cotton had disappeared. The archbishop had been seen fumbling frantically with the heavy jeweled object, trying to spot it.

  Lilibet frowned at her sister. “You know Papa doesn’t like that being talked about. The moment he was crowned was very serious.”

  “And it was beautiful,” Marion assured her, flashing a warning look at Margaret, who was drumming the heels of her sandals on the grass to release some of her pent-up energy.

  “Papa looked like a medieval knight,” Lilibet agreed, mollified. “In his lovely long gold mantle.”

  “I thought it looked like a dressing gown,” giggled her sister.

  “It looked wonderful,” Marion said firmly. And it had been. The moment of crowning had been the point at which every other detail faded away to nothing and everyone’s entire attention was on the slim, pale figure on the throne.

  Lilibet took back the exercise book now and began reading. “And when Mummy was crowned all the white-gloved peeresses put on their coronets simultaneously, it looked wonderful to see arms and coronets hovering in the air, and then the arms disappear as if by magic.”

  Margaret had abandoned her efforts at a daisy chain. Dying flowerheads lay strewn around her dress hem. “Lilibet and I got more cheers than anyone else,” she announced. “When we came back from the Abbey in Grandmama’s carriage. There was a machine on a roof somewhere, a special one that measured noise. Our noise was louder than even Mummy and Papa’s.”