by Wendy Holden
Nineteen forty-two had been a terrible year. At times it had seemed nothing but defeats, with the U-boats destroying the Arctic convoys, Stalingrad under siege and the sickening truth about Hitler’s Polish death camps slowly emerging, like blood under a door. Closer to home, the death of the Duke of Kent in an air crash had been a body blow to the royal family. The king and queen had been devastated, and Princess Marina, now left to bring up three children alone, was almost crazed with grief. A long, sad way, Marion thought, from that triumphant girl in the Abbey, sailing up the aisle in Norman’s gown.
But following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the US Pacific Fleet was at anchor, the United States was now in the war, “up to the neck and to the death,” as Margaret put it, with bloodthirsty relish. “Got any gum, chum?” she kept asking Lilibet.
“What?”
“Got any gum, chum. It’s how you’re supposed to greet an American.” Margaret spoke with great authority.
The newly arrived GIs, part of Roosevelt’s “Europe First” strategy, sent electric excitement through princesses and evacuees alike. Reg, predictably, positively haunted the nearby camp, making friends with the Snowflakes, as the white-helmeted military police were called. They would send him on errands, for which he was paid in the only currency that mattered. Whenever Margaret and Lilibet visited, he would proudly display his haul of chocolate Hershey bars, Baby Ruths and Life Savers as well as the “funnies,” American comics featuring Superman, Captain Marvel, Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny.
“Let me have that!” Margaret would insist, imperiously snatching Bugs Bunny.
“Oi!” Reg would reply, snatching it back. From time to time the two of them would disappear and return with a suspicious odor hanging about them.
Ivy would eye the irrepressible boy. “You wouldn’t happen to have any cigarettes about you, would you, Reg?”
“Why d’you ask, miss?” came the cheeky reply. “You want one?”
Susan’s interest in the Americans was of a different order. “Overpaid, oversexed and over ’ere,” she giggled to Lilibet.
“What?”
There was an elder girl evacuee living in Susan’s house who had found her way onto the “passion wagon” that took girls from the town center out to the American base for dances. Susan conveyed, wide-eyed, her secondhand account of the splendor of the dance hall. “It’s hung with Stars and Stripes and Union Jacks together! The music’s wonderful.” She began to hum “Moonlight Serenade.” “And they know all the new dances.” She taught Lilibet the jitterbug and styled her hair into a roll.
Marion watched all this and wondered why she didn’t feel more pleased about it. Combining princesses with East Enders should have been the culmination of all her ambitions. Instead, she found herself wishing that she had not introduced them.
She had not anticipated how sharing the girls with other people would make her feel. It was much harder than expected. She had become accustomed to being their constant companion, their all in all. Others came and went—Toni, Sir Henry, the king and queen, needed in London most days. Even Alah presided over what was mostly hours of sleep. But she, Marion, ordered their days.
Their near-prison conditions, with the ever-present dangers, had brought an added intensity to things. She had relished the girls’ dependence on her, and by extension the dependence of their parents. The feeling that, in some way, the fate of the nation depended on her had been powerfully seductive. But more seductive and powerful even than that was the idea that the girls were, to all intents and purposes, her daughters; she their mother.
And now she had surrendered that power.
Months had passed since she had seen Tommy Lascelles. As private secretary to the king, he was based at Buckingham Palace. Their paths, these days, rarely crossed. Yet here he was, all of a sudden, striding toward her under a late-autumn sun in Windsor’s cobbled courtyard. He greeted her cheerily. “Miss Crawford! Marion, if I may.”
“You may,” Marion said shortly. She was determined not to waste any time on him. He still made something jump within her, but nothing would ever come of it.
She could not help noticing, even so, that he was as attractive as ever. War had made little impact on his looks, but they had been austere to start with. His hair was still thick and black and his figure tall, spare and elegant. From beneath the recesses of his brow, he fixed her with his wry gaze. She felt the familiar surge of longing, and glanced away.
“So how are you finding Windsor? Still sheltering from the Heinkels in the dungeons?”
The sardonic nod she gave him in return did not reveal how fundamental even this had become. It was crazy, she knew, to almost relish air raids, but she had grown to derive enjoyment from the intimate darkness of the old prisons, the closeness of the young girls and the triumphant knowledge that she, not their parents, was protecting them in this time of mortal danger. She kept her tone matter-of-fact. “It’s hard to imagine it being any other way.”
He shot her a dark gleam of a look. “Oh, it will be. It’s no longer whether or when we shall beat them, but how we shall dispose of them once they are beaten. America is with us now, don’t forget. Everything has changed.”
He began to talk about the forthcoming visit of Eleanor Roosevelt. “The lord mayor of London’s being rather difficult. Insists on meeting Mrs. Roosevelt on the steps of St. Paul’s.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Tommy’s expression was one of mild exasperation. “Because the main object of her coming is to take home to the USA the impression that we are devoting ourselves exclusively to the defeat of Hitler. For her visit to begin with a piece of medieval ceremony would be unfortunate.”
He had a point, she thought admiringly. “You think of everything.”
“It’s my job.” He looked at her intently. She glanced away. She had made a fool of herself twice, but it would not happen a third time. “Your job too,” he said. “No one else understands.”
“Understands what?” She battled to resist, but there was a dark fire in his eyes that mesmerized her.
“What we do. You and I.”
She swallowed. “You and I?”
“How they need us, the king and queen, and no one outside possibly could understand what that is like. How intense it is, how it never switches off, how it requires absolute commitment. No one knows, apart from us two.”
She looked down, overwhelmed with the truth of what he had said and how passionately she agreed. He was right. No one else understood. Ivy certainly didn’t; Peter didn’t; perhaps even the king and queen themselves didn’t. And if the princesses didn’t either—and how could they, at their age?—she could forgive them that. It was all for them anyway.
Tommy’s voice was gentle. “Shall we sit down?”
They found a bench in the garden against a sun-warmed tower wall. The sweet scent of late roses ebbed about them and they gazed upon the green and rolling Berkshire landscape. “Glorious, isn’t it?” Tommy murmured, but his gaze was fixed on her.
The world around slowed and went silent. No one outside. Us two. He was leaning toward her, breathing rapidly. His peppery cologne filled her nostrils. He was, she realized, about to kiss her. Finally.
She closed her eyes. Nothing happened. She heard him shift in his seat and clear his throat. He had moved away, she sensed.
“I’m reading a most interesting book,” he said, lightly. “The collected letters of one Ponsonby, a former private secretary to Queen Victoria.”
Marion stared out at the landscape, only half listening, face entirely burning. Had she imagined it, yet again?
“Queen Mary objected to its publication very strongly. But surely, if those behind the scenes were never to put pen to paper, history would lose some of its most informative documents. I don’t see how history can arrive at the truth if contemporaries aren’t allowed to wr
ite it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
In the Windsor Castle sitting room, the American First Lady looked moved. Deeply ensconced in a green brocade armchair, Mrs. Roosevelt held that most English of symbols, a cup of tea, along with a slice of that most American of confections, a pumpkin pie. “I’m touched beyond words,” she said, her large eyes glassy with emotion. “What a wonderful idea!”
“The girls thought of it.” The queen beamed. “They hoped you would like it.” She sat opposite her guest on a green silk sofa. Immaculately coiffed, high-heeled, blue-dressed and legs crossed at the ankles, she was the picture of the relaxed hostess. No one would think she was the queen of a threatened country entertaining its most powerful ally.
Marion, sitting at the back by the window, felt it was probably petty to want the credit for what had actually been her pumpkin pie idea. As the king kept telling the nation on the radio, these days they were all in it together.
The fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted into the air as Lilibet shot her governess a guilty glance. “Crawfie’s been teaching us about America and the Pilgrims,” she said in her diplomatic way.
Mrs. Roosevelt looked at Marion with friendly interest. “Is that so? Well done, Crawfie.”
“So we thought we might celebrate Thanksgiving, while you were here,” the queen put in, smoothly. “A little early, I know.”
Mrs. Roosevelt raised her silver fork, took a bite and looked enchanted. “The early bird catches the best pumpkin pie!” Everyone laughed politely. The rest of the group comprised Mrs. Roosevelt’s secretary, a lady-in-waiting and a dark-haired male figure next to Marion that she was trying her level best not to look at.
The queen gaily clapped her glittering little white hands. “Well done, Margaret and Lilibet!”
The group obediently clapped, and the activity gave the dark-haired figure the opportunity to shift toward her. The familiar cologne ebbed at her nostrils. She kept her head facing front. She would show no interest; none at all.
“I’m guessing that it’s actually well done, Miss Crawford.” His low voice was warm with amusement.
“The girls did help,” she said stiffly. “They collected everyone’s sugar rations.”
Lascelles snorted. “I imagine that went down a treat.”
Marion kept her eyes facing front. “But I hear you’re the one who should be congratulated, Mr. Lascelles. Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit has been a huge success.”
Tommy had indeed done his work well. The lord mayor and his entourage had been nowhere to be seen. From the moment she arrived, Mrs. Roosevelt’s experience had been of a Britain battered by its enemies but standing firm. From Paddington she was whisked straight to Buckingham Palace, where she saw the boarded-up windows and the black line painted round every bath. From here to the East End, with its glass-crunching streets and heaps of smoking broken brick, and St. Paul’s with its nave open to the sky.
“I can’t take all the credit,” Lascelles muttered. “The cupboards were Her Majesty’s idea.”
Cecil Beaton, an up-and-coming photographer, had been summoned to the palace to take pictures of Mrs. Roosevelt in front of miles of empty kitchen cupboards. The king, reluctant to show his nation in quite such an abject light, had not been keen. But his wife, her PR touch as sure as ever, had prevailed.
Nor had she stopped there, making sure Mrs. Roosevelt slept in her own bedroom with a one-bar electric fire and boarded-up windows. She had eaten off gold plates, but the menus, handwritten on monogrammed cards, had been utility ones. The First Lady had enjoyed, if that was the word, “mock goose”—layers of potatoes and apples baked with cheese and pickled onions, with beetroot pudding for dessert. No wonder she was so pleased to see the pumpkin pie.
The Windsor tea was her last engagement before leaving. And perhaps this was the queen’s greatest coup de théâtre of all, because above the green brocade chair in which Mrs. Roosevelt sat were holes in the ceiling where glass chandeliers, now removed for safety, had once sparkled. Wires hung down like black roots. Antique cabinets and tables, their carving and gilding shrouded under sheets, were turned to the tapestry-covered walls.
Beside Marion, Tommy spoke again. “I am,” he murmured, “in possession of some very interesting information.”
Excitement shot through her, despite herself. Reports from intelligence agents the world over passed daily over his desk. Was she about to hear some incredible secret? Something was happening in Egypt, she knew. The king was like a cat on bricks almost as hot as the Western Desert, where Montgomery and his Eighth Army currently were. Now, finally, she turned to look at him. The dark eyes were glinting mischievously.
“I hear,” he said, “that you are organizing a pantomime.”
“That’s your interesting information?”
“Isn’t it true?”
“Well, yes. As it happens. We’re doing Cinderella.”
It had begun as a casual suggestion in the air raid shelter, born out of the Midsummer Night’s Dream acting sessions. Margaret and Lilibet had taken the idea up eagerly, and so she had floated it with Ivy and Peter, both of whom thought it the ideal distraction for their pupils.
The latter, with his knowledge of classical drama, had even offered to write it. “Don’t make it too miserable,” Ivy warned.
Peter gave her an indulgent look. “The ancients invented comedy as well as tragedy.”
“If you say so.” Ivy shrugged, but fondly.
“I hear Princess Margaret has the lead role,” Tommy said.
“Who else?”
“Always one of my favorite fairy tales,” he went on. “The humble girl elevated to great and glorious heights.”
There was a crash now, as of doors bursting open. A woman stood in the doorway, a dark-haired woman in a neat navy suit with a tight waist and a widely flared skirt. She had toweringly high heels, bright red lipstick and quick, sparkling, dark eyes that danced assessingly about the room. Her swift, sharp survey struck Marion as being at odds with her attitude of cartoonish apology. “Excuse me, ma’am, ma’ams,” she gasped, waving her hands helplessly and curtseying wildly to all and sundry.
An out-of-breath footman in the battle dress issued for the war’s duration had now caught up. He was evidently anguished. “Your Majesty, I apologize, this lady insisted you were expecting her.”
The queen remained composed on her sofa, legs still crossed at the ankle. Her face evinced nothing but mild surprise. Beside her Margaret and Lilibet were agog. Marion slid a glance at Tommy. His aristocratic ease gone, he looked frankly horrified. Lady Delia Peel, the lady-in-waiting, was scarlet. Confusion, meanwhile, was written all over Mrs. Roosevelt’s large, jowly features.
Entirely unabashed, the newcomer ran straight up to the queen. She swept a low, elaborate curtsey. “Your Majesty,” she exclaimed, batting her eyelashes, “we met at Lady Astor’s. I was there with Mrs. Roosevelt, if you remember.” She flashed a great toothy beam in the direction of the First Lady. “Mrs. Roosevelt mentioned this tea today, and suggested I come along.”
Puzzlement now joined embarrassment on Mrs. Roosevelt’s big, good-natured face. It was clear she had no memory of any such invitation, but could hardly contradict her countrywoman in the queen’s presence.
Marion, like everyone else, could only stare in amazed silence. Was the woman unaware, or just simple? This was not the first royal gate-crasher she had seen; people annually tried to slip in uninvited to the palace garden parties. But this, a private gathering where the queen of England was entertaining the First Lady of the United States, and in wartime too, was on another level. She had never seen anyone attempt anything like it, let alone succeed.
The woman gushed on, completely without embarrassment of any kind. “I’d have been here earlier,” she exclaimed, “except that I’ve had a little trouble with the beefeaters and soldiers and all.”
Mari
on, glancing round, saw it dawning on everyone that this woman had just fast-talked her way through the entire Windsor Castle guard. Who on earth was she?
The queen was evidently wondering the same thing. She swung her blue eyes inquiringly at Mrs. Roosevelt. “Ma’am,” the embarrassed First Lady began, “allow me to introduce Mrs. . . .” She hesitated, evidently struggling to remember.
“Mrs. Gould, Beatrice Gould.” The dark-haired woman beamed, utterly unabashed. She turned now to the queen. “We spoke at Lady Astor’s, ma’am. You very kindly agreed to write some articles for my magazine.”
“Your . . . magazine?” the queen repeated, faintly.
“That’s right, ma’am. The magazine of which I’m the editor. The Ladies’ Home Journal of America!”
Marion could only stare, amazed by the sheer scale of the woman’s nerve. This was no simpleton, she was sure now. The scatty breathiness was an act. She had caught Beatrice Gould’s glance as it switched from the wife of the president to the wife of the king, and something about its black glitter stayed with her. It had been a look of absolute, ruthless determination.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The Princess Margaret Rose,” Alah said, “is absolutely pea green.”
“You’re joking,” said Marion. But Alah never had, in all the years she had known her. “Margaret’s too ill to act?”
“Pea green, Miss Crawford.”
Marion groaned. The Princess Margaret Rose had been absolutely fine earlier. Moreover, everyone was ready. Ivy’s evacuees. Peter’s Etonians. Toni, whose Gallic flair had come in handy with costumes and makeup. Various members of the Windsor Castle Guard. Literally hundreds of people were expected. Tickets had been sold at rates ranging from one shilling for the cheapest right up to seven and six. Close to nine hundred pounds—a stupendous sum—had been raised for the Queen’s Wool Fund. Lilibet had been shocked. “No one will pay that to look at us!”