by Wendy Holden
George’s enforced return to Scotland, as married couples were not allowed at the palace, was made yet worse by Lilibet’s letters transmitting wedded bliss. The arrival of a baby prince had twisted the knife still further. With her husband permanently absent, the prospects of her own family seemed to Marion more distant even than Aberdeen.
We are only young once. In royal service, her own youth had ebbed away. Soon she would be forty. Yet she was still not in control of her life.
And then, one day, it was all over.
Marion was summoned to be told that she was to retire, and that the king would bestow upon her, for her lifetime, one of the grace-and-favor houses that were in his personal gift. It had been hard to believe. The king and queen had finally accepted the inevitable. And George could join her at last.
She had finished the lavender border without even realizing. She sat back on her heels for a minute, looked up at the blue sky and smiled. Behind her, in the cottage, the angry piano music went on.
George’s permanent move to London should have been the beginning of their happiness. But it seemed, for some reason, to have marked its end. The smile faded from Marion’s face.
Where once they had laughed, now they argued. He was dissatisfied with everything. He felt the cottage too small, for a start.
“But I love it,” Marion had countered. “And it’s free. We don’t have to pay anything. We should be grateful. We—”
“Shouldn’t look a gift house in the mouth?” he interrupted. “But you gave them the best years of your life. What about those old biddies who’ve been given ten-room apartments round here? Purely because they’re relatives?”
It was true that various old princesses had been splendidly accommodated in “the aunt heap,” as Lilibet and Margaret called Kensington Palace. But Marion was more than happy with what she had been allotted.
George was also savagely critical about her pension, claiming that it should have been more generous. He also felt that the CVO bestowed on her should have been the DCVO. “A downright insult,” stormed George. “If you’d been one of those la-di-da courtiers you’d have been a dame.”
Babies would no doubt have made a difference, but they had not come. The possibility that they never would was too dreadful to contemplate, and burdened lovemaking with impossible expectation. At night, where once they had clung together, now they lay apart. Moreover, she had nothing whatsoever to do. Even chivvying Margaret now seemed preferable to the long days she spent waiting for George to come back, or out in the garden.
How had it all gone so wrong? Why had everything she had hoped for turned to dust? Was it her fault? When she looked back, down the chains of events that had led to this decision or that, one person seemed at the end of every one: the queen.
“Mrs. Booth?” Clipped tones broke into her reverie. Someone was standing between her and the sunshine. Someone tall, spare and upright.
“Buthlay. Mrs. Buthlay.” Marion scrambled to her feet, brushing the grass from her dress and looking to see who was raising his hat at her. “Tommy!” she exclaimed.
“Of course, do forgive me. I’m so used to thinking of you as Miss Crawford.”
Thinking of you. It sent a ripple through her even now. She tried and failed not to blush.
Behind her, in the cottage, the piano stopped jangling. George appeared at the window in his suspenders, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He gave Tommy a hostile stare.
Tommy seemed unperturbed. He raised his bony jaw and removed his bowler hat again. “Good morning, Mr. Buthlay. Not at work today?”
Marion hung her head. As everyone knew, George was never at work, today or any other day. The bank manager job had never materialized, after all.
Lascelles glanced around the garden and at the house. She saw him taking in every detail with his sharp dark eyes. “It’s really a most attractive place you have here, Mrs. Buthlay. Quite unlike any other building designed by Christopher Wren, I should think.”
“May I offer you a cup of tea, Tommy?” This prompt, Marion hoped, would encourage him to make his excuses and move on. But the royal private secretary lingered by the fence, his immaculate pinstripes framed by the pointed white palings.
“That would be very welcome,” he said. “As a matter of fact, there’s something I wish to talk to you about.
“Most charming,” Tommy said, looking round the small kitchen. They had been unable to use the sitting room because George was again crashing away at the piano.
“My husband is a great fan of music,” Marion apologized, closing the connecting door. The piano stopped, and a hornlike blare filled the room.
“Indeed. And he plays the trumpet too?”
“Actually, that’s the boiler.” Marion tried her best to ignore George opening the door again. Was he spying on her?
She went on. “It’s rather temperamental. Water gets hot at odd times and you have to draw it off immediately. We have baths at all times of day here.” She tried to make this sound like a delightful eccentricity rather than the inconvenience it actually was. “I was having one the other day when Lilibet and Philip arrived on my doorstep.” She gave an embarrassed smile. Oh, why had she started this anecdote?
But it seemed just what her visitor wanted to hear. He seized on it instantly. “Actually, Mrs. Buthlay—”
“Marion, please.” She suddenly craved the illusion that the old days weren’t quite gone.
“Marion.” Lascelles nodded. “It’s about the princess that I wanted to talk to you. You remember the amazing Mrs. Gould?”
“Vaguely. She wanted the queen to write articles for her magazine. You had to go and see her at the Ritz.”
“Your memory is impressive.” Tommy took another sip. “Which is what I want to talk about, as it happens. Excellent tea, by the way.”
“You want to talk about my memory?”
A furtive expression crossed Tommy’s face. “Mrs. Gould wants Princess Elizabeth to write the articles this time.”
Marion frowned, confused. “You’ve lost me, Tommy.” The music from next door had stopped altogether. Even the boiler’s brass section stilled. “Lilibet can’t possibly do that. And what has it to do with my memory?”
Tommy let pass a beat or two. “There is some interest in the idea of articles that promote, er, international ties between women.”
Marion stared at him.
“I’m paraphrasing Mrs. Gould here,” the private secretary went on, uncomfortably.
He passed a thin hand through his still-thick dark hair. “She’s extremely determined, as you know. She is, if you’ll pardon the expression, absolutely hell-bent on these articles and has support in some very high places. Lady Astor is behind her, as is the American ambassador. And the Foreign Office.”
“The Foreign Office?” Marion was astonished. “She’s got them on her side?”
“Indeed, and they’ve got on to the palace. It’s known as lobbying. Persuasion. Pressure.” He sighed.
Marion turned her teacup in her hands. “I still don’t see what any of it has to do with me.”
Tommy bent toward her. A gleam had entered his dark gaze. “Quite a lot, actually. I’ve got a plan. Princess Elizabeth can’t write these articles personally, you’re quite right. The solution that has been hit on is a series of pieces about Princess Elizabeth, but written by someone else.”
The blood beat in Marion’s ears. “You mean me? You want me to write them?” She thought of all the letters she had written to her mother. And her long, purposeless days. It would give her something to do. A purpose in life. “I’d love to,” she said, feeling a pleasure and excitement unknown for months.
She stopped. He was holding up a long pale hand. “Not you. Of course not.” His tone was mildly incredulous. “The writer has already been commissioned by Mrs. Gould. For quite a considerable sum, I understand.”
Marion stared. She had not even thought about the money angle. “Who is it?”
“A good friend of mine. Name of Morrah. Dermot Morrah. Excellent chap. We played chess together all the way to South Africa. And back.”
South Africa. So he had gone on the tour she was dropped from. Dermot Morrah. She did not recognize the name. But if Tommy played chess with him he must obviously be of a certain class.
“And the queen wants him to write these pieces?” But what did Morrah know of Lilibet? “I’ve been with Princess Elizabeth for sixteen years,” she pointed out. “I know her better than anyone.”
She had expected Tommy to look irritated; he looked gratified instead. “Precisely. So you can talk to him, tell him everything you know. Then he can put it all in his articles.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The journey from Kensington Palace to Buckingham Palace was a short one. Ordinarily, Marion would have walked, but today she called for a car. The reason was not laziness, nor the wish to avail herself of her perquisites, which, besides a free house, included the services of a chauffeur. George used him far more than she did.
It was because today she had something to carry. It was a box, the polished chest made from the scuttled ship that her mother had given her long ago. It had always been a lovely thing but it was even more beautiful now. Over the years, the color of the wood had deepened and mellowed so her initial on the curved lid, in paler wood, stood out in sharper relief.
It sat on Marion’s knee as the car glided along Kensington Gore. She held it carefully in both hands in case a jolt made it tip over and the contents spill out. Inside, neatly tied in separate bundles, were sixteen years’ worth of letters from Lilibet and Margaret. All had been written to her during her short holidays with her mother in Scotland. All told her how much they missed her, urged her to come back soon and gave snippets of news.
The handwriting was a calligraphic history of the girls’ development, ranging from the very first childish penciled scrawls, lavishly illustrated with crayon, to rounded early-teenage hands and, latterly, elegant young-lady script. All were on the embossed notepaper of the various royal residences and all ended with lavish expressions of affection, From Your Loving Lilibet or With Lots of Love from Margaret.
Marion looked in the box often; more and more frequently, in fact. During her years with the girls it had been mainly a repository, a useful place to put things. But now it was her most treasured possession. It held precious memories, assurances of affection from the two beings she had loved most in the world. And still did, there being no children arrived in the interim for her to lavish her affections on.
The chest reminded her that, while George scoffed at her and criticized, she had been truly needed once. Respected, depended upon, sought out, adored. Lifting out the bundles, carefully untying the faded ribbons and smoothing out the paper so she could read the loving words written there, she felt soothed, sad and happy all at the same time.
George had no idea that the box existed. Keeping it from him was no easy task; he had a suspicious, devious streak, which was the reason that, in her purse, there was often less than she expected. He had only to ask for money, but he didn’t. Always at the back of her mind was the fear that, should he come across it and realize what it was, he might offer the contents of her precious chest for sale. She hid it on top of her wardrobe, behind a pile of hatboxes.
But now she had taken it down. It was coming with her to see the queen—proof, were it needed, that no one knew the story of Lilibet’s childhood better than she.
“Good morning, Miss Crawford,” the Buckingham Palace policeman said with a smile. “We haven’t seen you for a while.”
Marion, her box held carefully under one arm, drew herself up. “I’m Mrs. Buthlay now, Constable Jenkins. I’ve left the palace.”
He gave her a wise look. “You’ll always be Miss Crawford to me. And no one ever really leaves the palace. You know that.”
“Too true.” Marion smiled back, hugging her chest to her side.
It felt strange to be back amid the great red corridors and gilded ornamentation. She had forgotten the vast distances, but she had forgotten none of the people. And it seemed, like P.C. Jenkins, none of them had forgotten her.
Housemaids nodded and smiled. Footmen grinned. Familiar figures appeared in the distance. There was Mr. Linnet, who came daily to fill up the flower vases. Round the bend of a corridor she spotted the man—she had never learned his name—whose daily job it was to wind up the hundreds of palace clocks. And, no doubt, somewhere within the vast building, the Vermin Man was going about his business.
A powerful nostalgia seized Marion as she followed the queen’s page down the passages. She had lived here for sixteen years. Every corner had an association. She could almost hear the little girls shrieking with joy in the corridors, thundering happily past visiting prime ministers and princes, often with herself in their wake.
It was true. You never really left the palace.
She waited as the queen’s page knocked. “Mrs. Marion Buthlay, Your Majesty.”
The queen was sitting not behind her desk as expected but on a chintz sofa in front of a roaring fire. She wore a dress of pale lavender, and several strings of pearls. A near-empty box of chocolates sat on a small polished table beside her.
She laid down her copy of The Times with a sigh. “Such ghastly news, Crawfie! Cripps is devaluing the pound so rationing gets even worse. And this dreadful Mao Tse Tung. He’s just declared China a Communist republic, did you know?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She still read the papers. It was one of the few things that filled her day.
The queen smilingly patted the cushions beside her. “Well, Crawfie, come and sit by me and we can forget for a while the poor torn world and its problems!”
The warm welcome made Marion’s heart sink. It was one of the queen’s toughest tactics and brought back many memories of similar past encounters. Her heart was hammering hard. She wished that it was her husband, not herself, who now approached the woman on the sofa.
George had been a man of burning purpose from the second Tommy Lascelles had left Nottingham Cottage. All his aimlessness, restlessness and discontent had disappeared with the click of the latch. He had overheard the entire conversation and deplored it.
It was outrageous, he maintained, for anyone but Marion to write about Princess Elizabeth. She must go to the queen and obtain for herself the permission that had been granted Dermot Morrah. He had been given the task not because he knew the first thing about it but because he was a courtier. The implication, George said, was that Marion, despite knowing the subject backward and forward, was of the servant class and unworthy of it. After so many years of loyal service, it was beyond belief.
Marion agreed. George’s raging had keyed her up to a similar degree of self-righteous fury. She tried to summon it now as she lowered herself on the edge of the sofa. Her foot made contact with something; the paw of an animal. From under the sofa came a frenzied yapping.
“Crackers as usual.” The queen smiled.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” She must look even more unraveled than she thought.
The blue eyes widened in surprise. “No, Crackers is his name.” She burst into peals of laughter. Had she made a fool of herself, Marion wondered, or had the queen made a fool of her? As ever, it was hard to tell. But it was not a good start, certainly.
Dabbing her eyes, the queen rearranged herself. “So, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Crawfie?”
She was thundering with nerves, but pulled herself together. Briefly, she explained her mission. The queen heard her out in silence. When she had finished, she looked away. The seconds pounded in Marion’s anxious ears.
Presently the queen turned back. Her eyes lingered on the box, whose purpose Marion had explained. “You were with us such a long time, Crawfi
e,” she began. Her voice was gentle. Hope began to steal into Marion’s heart.
“Indeed, ma’am. Sixteen years.”
“You have good sense and have always been affectionate and loyal.”
“Thank you, ma’am!” The relief was almost overpowering.
The queen raised her plump chin slightly. The blue eyes blazed into Marion’s like a searchlight, although the voice remained light and pleasant. “But I do feel most strongly that you must resist the lure of American money. You must ignore persistent editors. You must say no to offers of dollars for articles about something as private and as precious as our family.”
Marion was confused. “But Mr. Morrah . . .” He hadn’t resisted any of this. Dollars, editors, the invasion of privacy. He had royal sanction for all of it. As George had pointed out, over and over, why was it different for him?
The high, light voice went pleasantly on. “It is fine for your memories to be incorporated into his articles. But you can’t write under your own name. That might lead to”—the thin red lips twitched—“embarrassment.”
Marion was aghast. “But I would never write anything that might upset the family, ma’am. I would never dream of doing such a thing.” She swallowed, blinking back sudden tears. “I love your daughters as if they were my own, ma’am. And they were very fond of me.” She held the box forward, as proof.
The queen looked away as if from something distasteful. “You have,” she said to the fireplace, “been wonderfully discreet all the years you have been with us. But I do feel, most definitely, that you must not write and sign articles about the children. We could never trust anyone again if you did.”
But she trusted Morrah. And had he worked for her devotedly for sixteen years? Given up his youth, his hopes of family life?