“The Earl of Essexshire,” the bearded Prince went on. “The Duchess of Duncansville. Oh, and look,” and here he pointed in what some might say was a rather rude sort of way, “there’s the Laird of Loch Labian. Huh. Rather a nerve, calling himself that. Never does anything for those poor blighters anyway. One would think he should be too busy to venture so far from home.”
Daisy felt as though she had accidentally stumbled into Warp World. Out loud, she said, “What does that mean, the Laird of Loch Labian? I keep getting this strange feeling, like I should be asking somebody ‘What’s the frequency, Dan?’”
But the Prince had become distracted by the flight of some speckled bird, soaring over their heads. “And there’s Charon,” he said, his still upward tilted chin indicating a rather dour looking little man in one of the upper boxes. “Funny, I never noticed him there yesterday.”
“Who?” There really were so many stupid things to know here.
“His official title is that of Her Majesty’s Representative at Ascot. He is the man who arbitrarily controls who can and cannot enter the Royal enclosure.”
“Charming.” Daisy squinted into the sun. “Is that your mother up there?”
The Prince looked at her, an enormously contented smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “How do you and Miss Chance feel about Scotland?”
It might have given Daisy more than a moment’s troubled pause, had she had time to spare a thought for the fact that the Star of David had now apparently taken up permanent residency beneath the front of any garment she happened to be wearing. But she’d had that nasty hat dilemma to contend with of late and, besides, it was tough thinking ethnic when the horses were running. She might not be conscious of it, but she had evidently made the decision to let sleeping religions lie.
She turned her head to meet another Earl, smile at yet more Duchesses, become totally confused by her very first Laird.
She was too busy talking with crowds to be bothered much about her virtue.
Daisy Silverman was now walking with kings.
And one could only pray that she wasn’t losing the common touch.
• • •
The Queen was viewing the proceedings through her binoculars. Having failed to attend the first day at Ascot due to a beastly head cold, probably acquired during the celebration of her Official Birthday, she had pooh-poohed her personal physician’s advice that she spend another day cooped up in bed. She could give a fine fig for the fashionable aspect of the Race Meeting, but she would be damned if she would miss viewing the horses.
Still, it was hard that the racing couldn’t be constant. She felt the need to keep her spyglass glued to her face even between the runs, in order to avoid the boredom of being drawn into unnecessary conversation with the motley crew that her representative had chosen to admit to the box that year. If she could just maintain the pretense of being so wrapped up in anticipation of the next event on the field that she simply could not bear to tear her eyes away, perhaps none of them would try to talk to her.
But try as she might, even that normally indefatigable horse watcher could not keep her eyes peeled on an empty course for very long. Inevitably, the spyglass moved.
“Good God!” she exclaimed, not conscious of the fact that she had uttered the words out loud.
Her Majesty shifted the binoculars downward, peering out over the top as if in an attempt to see something better. She wiped furiously at her cold, damp nose with a linen handkerchief that bore her crest. Unsatisfied with what she had seen, she quickly replaced the glasses for a second look, only to find that her eyes had not deceived her the first time.
A mother would know those ears anywhere.
What in the world was Charles doing with that ridiculous false beard on? Why, along with that nose of his, it made him look downright Semitic, like he could be a rabbi or some other awful thing.
And who was that woman with whom he was so thoroughly engaged in conversation? The Queen had never seen her before.
Peer, wipe. Peer, wipe.
Who was This One?
She was a tiny little thing, so small that one would hardly deign to notice her, were it not for the fact that the heir to the British throne was busily presenting her to anybody who would pay even the slightest attention.
Practical haircut; strong teeth when she smiled, which was often; that nose looked suspiciously Semitic, too… But, no, surely even Charles would not go that far. Didn’t look to be much of a breeder, thank God; an acceptable, but completely unostentatious dresser. Well, the Queen conceded grudgingly, one had to respect that. This One, except for the strength of that smile, did not impress as being at all like The Other One.
The Queen suddenly found herself clutching onto the spyglass with a vise-like grip.
7
It took the castle switchboard a good five minutes hunting, but they were finally able to patch the call through to the Prince’s special friend in the guest suite at Windsor, where he had granted her lodging unbeknownst to his mother.
“Hello?”
“Other people are beginning to watch now. You must learn to be more careful.” Click.
Gee, for such a cute little guy, Pacqui sure was going in for this menacing stuff in an awfully big way.
July
1
From “The Court Circular”, the Times:
… and, in spite of the fact that the inclement weather forecast, predicted for that region, shows no appreciable signs of changing in the near future, select members of the Royal Family will be making the annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh, Scotland. The Queen, Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother are all expected to be in that notoriously wet city for the entire first week in July, conducting business as usual from the Queen’s official residence, the Palace of Holyroodhouse. In a most unusual turn of events, Prince Charles is rumoured to also have plans of being in residency there…
2
As few as twenty-four hours previously, there had been absolute strangers tramping about in Her Majesty’s Scottish digs.
Open daily to the general public, for a modest admission fee, Holyrood was closed during all Royal visits. The house staff, having arrived the evening before in order to commence preparations, had removed all cigarette butts from around the entryways, every guide brochure that they could find (some of which turned up in the most startling of places), and one particularly persistent tiny set of chocolate prints from the braided cord of a fragile pair of tartan draperies dating back to the time when the palace was inhabited by Mary, Queen of Scots. Yes, an optimist might say that the nearly 500-year-old edifice had been exorcised of all evidence of alien intrusion.
Nonetheless, there was one American who, having traveled for ten hours from London by train, was so totally enthralled with the 150-foot-long Picture Gallery, that it would prove difficult to separate her from it; and one very tenacious Scot, with his own agenda, who had every intention of holding a war council there.
“She must always be addressed as Your Majesty, never Your Highness,” was Sturgess’s advice, an item that he had mentioned to Bonita, oh, perhaps a good half-dozen times already, as he hustled to remain in her wake as she traversed the length of the gallery. It truly was amazing to him how brisk the stride was on this relatively Lilliputian being. “You must see to it that your charge is cognizant of that fact, Miss Chance, and that she behaves accordingly and appropriately.”
“People are themselves. Right from wrong. Certain point? On your own.” She squinted up at the vast melancholy face of a purportedly Scottish monarch. “Huh. These are really all fakes? Or are you pulling the leg just to see what it feels like?”
Sturgess reddened. “I assure you, Madam, that I would never presume to make such a ridiculous thing up. And certainly not for such a purpose.” He indicated the long line of portraits and continued in the tour guide tone of one who had already covered this ground many times.
“What you see before you is a prime example of Scots humor. The nearly
ninety oil portraits of Scottish monarchs ranged here were all actually painted by the same Dutchman. They were mass-produced by him—pumped out, you might say—at the rate of over one per week. A large portion of them is, in fact, fictitious—”
“Don’t get it at all. What’s so funny about bad art? Foolish him to waste a year doing this in the first place. More fool, you folks, to hang the art and not the artist.” She shook her head. “Don’t believe it. Never held with capital punishment, even for bad art.” She continued her fast-paced patrol of the gallery. “Can’t believe you’d let it hang here for so long. Like any joke: okay, maybe mildly amusing the first time, ha-ha. But letting it hang for generations? For three centuries?” She shook her head, and a huge hank of hair unfurled from the precarious topknot. “Can’t think what you were thinking of, thank God. All must be out of what’s left of your minds!”
“Be that as it may, Miss Chance,” Sturgess sought to yank the conversational flow back to the pressing matter at hand, “someone must speak with Miss Sills.”
Sturgess had originally determined to pull Daisy aside for another informal tutorial, in this instance regarding the proper form of address when speaking with the Ruling Monarch. He had been aimlessly pacing about the rooms of Holyrood, crossing his fingers that, this time, the talking-to would take, when he had fortuitously stumbled upon the gallery-stalking form of Miss Chance. Being greatly worried about the unpredictability of Daisy’s behavior upon being presented to the Queen, he hoped to find in Daisy’s traveling companion a co-conspirator to join in the mission of bringing Daisy to heel in the delicate matter of court protocol.
Bonita, keenly attentive to the frayed note of desperation that had crept into the normally stalwart valet’s voice, tore her gaze from the latest in the long line of phony Scottish monarchs, and fixed it firmly on him instead. Bewildered by what she saw, she moved closer to him for a better view. Huh. He didn’t come across today as being as obnoxiously tall as he usually did.
Feeling sympathetic, she shrugged a peace offering. “What help?”
For his part, Sturgess thought that the wee American might be just barely tolerable, were it not for the aromatic halo of salt and vinegar potato crisps that was orbiting around her.
“Perhaps, it would be best if you were the one to speak with her. She cannot very well address her as ‘Lizzie.’ Surely, even you must realize—”
Bonita snorted. “What does this body look like to you—a turnip?”
Failing to grasp the obscurely allusive Yank reference, but deeply embarrassed by the creative visualization of the naked physicality evoked, he elected to plunge on, despite the sense that he was being sucked into a circular verbal morass. “Root vegetables being neither here nor there, Madam…”
3
The Queen was daydreaming of Balmoral.
Unfortunately for her, that favored haven lay one hundred and fifty miles to the north, while she was stuck within the confines of Holyrood, a place that always succeeded in putting her in a foul frame of mind. She positively hated it there, even if it was for just one short week out of every year. It was cold and damp and draughty and, as if that were not all bad enough, the archaic heating system and electricity were always going on the fritz. Were it not for the fact that the call of duty demanded her annual presence there for such important events as the Ceremony of the Keys, she would have given up a goodly portion of her Civil List allowance in order to find herself elsewhere.
“Did you shoot this, too, Philip?” innocently enquired the Duke’s mother-in-law, indicating with a nod of her head to the waiting server that she would very much like some more of the sherry.
The grim person being so addressed took another violent jab with his fork at one of the tough birds that the three elder Royals, with some degree of difficulty, were dining on. “No, I did not,” the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been having a rather rough go of it lately in the bird-bagging department, groused huffily.
The Queen swirled the wine in her own goblet, studying the play of flickering lights on burgundy liquid, before taking a fortifying swallow. “Do you think, perhaps, that we should show some sort of—oh, I don’t know—an interest?” She reached for her glass again, one slug having proved insufficient. “That is to say, do either of you think it necessary that we meet Charles’s new friend this evening?”
Earlier that same afternoon, the Queen had observed Daisy’s arrival. By peeking out through a crack formed by heavy tartan draperies, she had witnessed the convergence of the Americans as they had passed Queen Mary’s Bathhouse, the turreted lodge on the left-hand periphery of the grounds, approaching from Canongate.
Charles cannot be serious, she had thought, upon this second inspection of Daisy. This One was far too short. Why, put her behind a podium with a microphone, and This One would be no more than a talking hat.
Experiencing a rare reversal of opinion, the Queen had groaned inwardly. At least The Other One had been tall enough for making fashion statements; This One looked to be only capable of fashion clauses, at best.
Thankfully, however, the nostalgic reversal proved to be merciful in its brevity. One would simply have to wait and see.
The Queen was called back from her reverie by the grunting sounds that her husband was making as he bared his teeth, rending the last shreds of meat from the carcass.
“If you’re asking for my advice,” he said, “I say that it’s best to leave it for as long as you possibly can.”
“He’s right, dear,” said the Queen’s mother. “You know that you always dread coming here enough as it is. No point in spoiling the entire holiday for everybody else by becoming intolerably pettish before you absolutely have to.”
The Duke of Edinburgh, basking in the warm glow brought about by his mother-in-law’s rare concurrence with his point of view, waxed expansive. “Leave it until the party, day after tomorrow,” he generously suggested, referring to one of the four Garden Parties that the Queen hosted each year.
He picked a stubborn piece of pigeon from between his teeth and sat, examining it where it was now wedged beneath his fingernail. “That way, we can enjoy at least one or two nights’ good rest, before learning what fresh horror that son of yours has chosen to visit upon us this time.”
At last, he succeeded in dislodging the last smidgen of pigeon from under his nail, and dismissively flicked it away. “Surely, even this palace is large enough to avoid her until then. Isn’t it?”
Before the Queen had the chance to respond to this query, the questionable light fixtures flickered once (ominously), twice (dangerously), before the entire structure was plunged into darkness, granting dismal gloom free reign for the remainder of the evening.
From out of the encroaching darkness, as servants scurried to locate candles, there came a single plaintive request from the Queen Mother.
“Has anybody seen my wineglass?”
4
“Well, there goes Mother, off to work again, I see,” the Prince said, indicating with his chin the water-blurred but nonetheless purposeful stride of the stolid figure as glimpsed through one of the rain-drenched windows.
What did she carry in that bag? Daisy silently wondered, referring to the inevitable purse that could be seen dangling from the Royal wrist. A spare lipstick? A dime for an emergency phone call? The world’s finest electronic organizer?
Daisy had always previously assumed that the Queen carried her tampons in there. But, surely she was past that point at this stage, no? Not to mention, that it was difficult to feature the Monarch as ever having been the victim of bodily functions. What was the protocol, for example, if the Queen were to fart?
Then Daisy remembered something that she had read somewhere. Out loud, she asked, “Charley, what does the Chief Clerk of the Privy Purse do?” Perhaps this would provide the answer that she was looking for. “Is he the man in charge of that little bag that your mother’s always clutching?”
“Not at all,” a bewildered Charles replied. He failed
to see any connection. “Actually, his duties involve…”
But Daisy was off again in handbag speculation land, and would thus never know what the Chief Clerk of the Privy Purse’s job description entailed. An emory board? Mace? House keys?
“… so, as you can readily see, to some people’s way of thinking, he is a very important man.”
The Prince leapt down from his perch on the back of a velvet sofa, where he had been sitting, feet dangling over the side.
“At any rate,” he said apologetically, “I’m afraid that I shall have to leave you for a few hours, as I must be off to work as well.” His brow furrowed. “A distillery opening? Ground-breaking for an orphanage?” He shrugged. “Well, no matter. Sturgess will have it all written down for me somewhere. Speaking of whom, I shall leave him behind with you. Should you require anything, do not hesitate to call upon him. I am sure that he would be only too glad to help you out. I shall try to return as early as possible. But until then, by all means make yourself at home.”
Hmm. What to do, what to do, Daisy wondered. Left to her own devices, she was idly swinging her arms back and forth, clapping her hands together.
Then her eye chanced to fall upon a discarded tour brochure, sticking out from underneath the drapes. It had been abandoned there by one of Daisy’s fellow countrymen, the same little urchin who had deemed it necessary to also leave behind his chocolate mark.
Daisy thought of the oak-paneled walls of Holyrood, the portraits of Scottish nobles, the oak chests, the candles, crepitating floorboards, and small windows. Not to mention, enough tartan to gag a warhorse.
She thought of the howling wind. Thankfully, the on-again-off-again heating system was presently in ‘on’ mode, because the downpour was turning it into a particularly frigid day. Even Edinburgh did not normally get this chilly in the month of July.
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