by Julie Sarff
Oh Mary Beaton, how could you…how could you betray your Queen?
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So, do you think you can help me?” I ask Lady Margaret Jones the following day on the phone. I offered to bring back her evening dress, but she told me not to bother, telling me that she would stop by my place.
“I have to run errands anyway. I’ll be by in the afternoon.”
It’s about two o’clock when she knocks on my door.
“It’s high tourist season at Blenheim and it’s a total mess. There’s no privacy there,” she says, as she steps over the threshold of my cottage door. She is dressed again in a finely tailored suit complete with a matching hat. I offer her some tea. She agrees, and I hurry off to put the kettle on. I return to find her glancing about my living room.
“It’s marvelously devoid of any decoration. Not even a picture of a loved one.”
It’s true. My cottage is empty. I haven’t had much time to spruce it up. I’ve been working like crazy on the biography, and I’ve also become wrapped up in all the problems of the Prince, and to a certain extent, the problems of the long-dead Mary Beaton.
“You need some pictures of your family in simple silver frames,” she proffers. This makes me wonder, should I put up pictures of my parents? I should. And I should bring that black and gray cat in from the mean streets of Bourton and call him my own.
“So,” Lady Margaret begins as she pulls her gloves off her hands (who wears gloves in the middle of summer?) “what is it you want to talk about? What’s the big secret you said we couldn’t discuss on the phone?”
I’m not sure how to begin the conversation; whatever I do, I can’t give up the Prince’s secret.
I pussyfoot around. I mutter some nonsense about the Prince’s biography.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.” Margaret sounds confused as I return five minutes later with a tea tray that I set on the coffee table.
I cut to the quick. I hand her the piece of paper.
She looks at the paper and arches an immaculate brow.
“Margery Tannebaum, Top Secret” she reads all the visible words on the paper.
“Hmm, I didn’t know anyone stamped ‘Top Secret’ on papers anymore. Couldn’t have been us. We were smarter than that at the SIS. Scotland Yard might have stamped such a stupid thing across the paper. If you want everyone in the world to read something, stamp it ‘Top Secret.’” She puts the paper down on my coffee table and sits on the white lounge chair that matches my couch.
“What exactly is the SIS?”
“Oh, dear. That’s right, you’re such an American. The SIS is the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as Mi-6.”
“Well, what do you make of it?” I ask as she stares at the paper.
“Nothing,” she answers, but when she picks up her teacup I notice a little tremble in her hand.
“Nothing? This is the nanny who--”
Margaret holds out a hand to stop me. “My dear, I know exactly who Margery Tannebaum is. The world knows who she is. She is the poor unfortunate creature who was blamed for the death of Prince Albert. How did you get this?” She holds the paper aloft. She no longer looks like my precious Fairy Godmother who gave me a dress to wear for the charity ball. She looks like the hardnosed field agent she must have been once upon a time when she worked for Mi-6.
“I…um…I found it when I was going through the Prince’s Year Five box of memorabilia.”
“Sloppy…very sloppy…” she mutters under her breath, and then she leans back in my lounge chair and closes her eyes.
“Margaret?” I ask, wondering if she is feeling alright.
She opens her eyes. “My dear girl, I have no idea how this got in the Prince’s Year Five box of memorabilia, as you call it. And I have no idea what it means but that poor woman deserves to rest in peace.”
I say nothing. I must look quite forlorn because suddenly Margaret adds, “Why do you want to be involved with any of this…this nonsense? Sometimes the past is best left in the past.”
“And sometimes learning the truth about the past helps set us free.”
“Oh my God!” Margery claps a hand over her mouth. “This is about the Prince, isn’t it? Did you tell him that you found this paper?”
I don’t know how to answer the question without betraying the Prince’s secret, so I simply stare at my shoes.
“That poor boy. I’ve heard rumors that he always held himself responsible. That’s nonsense. That’s stuff that was planted in his young, impressionable mind by conspiracy theorists. I mean, goodness knows, if you google the young Prince’s death today there are rumors that Prince Alex pushed his brother out the window. It’s garbage, and that poor boy has grown up under that specter for his entire life.”
“That poor boy has grown into a man,” I say, feeling as if the cat is entirely out of the bag now, “and he deserves to know what was written on this piece of paper. Margaret, I am asking you straight out; do you know anything about this?”
“I do not,” Margaret affirms, and takes another sip of her tea, but her hand betrays her by shaking again.
“Lady Margaret Jones,” I huff, “I’ll just get your dress and then I think it best you go. I have no time for liars.”
******
It’s not like me to be so rude and I think Margaret was very angry when she left. But I could tell by the look on her face that she does know something and it incensed me because…
Why? Why was I so rude?
Because Alex deserves to know the truth. That’s why. Whatever happened in the past, he deserves better than everyone running around telling him that it was all fine, all an accident. If it was all an accident then why is there a paper stamped “Top Secret” with Margery Tannebaum’s name on it? A paper that was shoved in his Year Five box of memorabilia?
I sit down at my desk. It’s not every day I call perfectly respectable women liars and ask them to leave my home. I need to compose myself. After a long period of staring blankly at my computer, I turn it on and google Margery Tannebaum again. This time, I am searching for her death record. I’m not sure why, but I want to know where she’s buried. I search all afternoon but find nothing except an article that says, given all the conspiracy theories about her murdering Prince Albert, Margery’s family buried their daughter in an undisclosed location in an unmarked grave.
How sad. I read on about Margery and learn that both her parents succumbed to cancer soon after she died, adding fuel to one of the conspiracy theories that the Tannebaum family were foreign spies and were murdered by His Majesty’s Secret Service.
“The only surviving member of the family, is a sister, Agnes Tannebaum,” I read in Margery’s mother’s online obituary
“Agnes Tannebaum, I’m coming to find you,” I say, and quickly google her name, but to my surprise, the name “Agnes Tannebaum” returns no results.
Chapter 13
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From across the miles and miles that separate Bourton-on-the-Water from Buckingham Palace, I can feel Schnipps give a shudder of delight.
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..in so far as by diverse her previe letters writtin and subscrivit with hir awin hand and sent by hir to James erll Boithvile chief executor of the said horrible murthour, ..., it is maist certain that sche wes previe, art and part (complicit) and of the actuale devise (plot) and deid of the foir-nemmit murther of her lawful husband the King our sovereign lord's father.>>
From across the rainy country, I am positive I hear Schnipps squeal with delight.
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Chapter 14
“You want me to do what, Lizzie?”
Oh dear, was I wrong to tell the Prince about all of this? There were two reasons I decided to tell Alex:
a.) he was the one who helped me find the diary of Mary Beaton.
b.) I wanted to get his mind off the death of his brother.
“I need to find the final resting place of Jane, Countess of Erlington. She died in 1596. On her original tomb was a cherub.”
On the other end of the phone, the Prince is silent.
“She was buried at Holyrood Abbey,” I continue.
“Right, well there’s no one buried there now.” Alex is short and snippy. I was wrong to tell him of my quest. It only serves to remind him of my failure to find anything regarding his brother’s death.
“How would I find out where her tomb was moved to?” I press.
“Really, Lizzie, what do you hope to find by all this?”
“They were friends Mary Beaton and the Countess. According to Mary, she gave the evidence that she had written the Casket Letters to Jane. The Countess was ill and promised Mary that she would…” Here I clear my throat and read directly from Mary’s pages that are up on my computer screen, “Take the proof with her to her grave.”
“Oh come on, Lizzie? And how do you know it’s inside the cherub?”
I read the next part of the diary which states quite clearly that the Countess had commissioned a hollowed out cherub for her tomb to hold what Mary Beaton called “proof of her transgression against Mary, Queen of Scots.”
“Oh, so that’s how you know,” the Prince gives half a laugh. “Alright, let me call the curator at Holyrood.”
“Wait, no. Will he report this back to Schnipps?”
“Probably.”
“That’s no good.”
“Why not?”
“Why not, why not? Because nobody is going to allow us to go search for ourselves once this information is out. In fact, they might not allow us to search at all. This tell-all…journal…whatever you want to call it will be sent off to be verified by some expert and it will be years before…”
“Before someone goes and tracks down this cherub?” Alex hazards.
“Right…tracks down the cherub and does a proper examination.”
From the other end of the phone, I believe I hear the Prince scratching his head. A second later I hear a female voice. This startles me so that I jump. I assumed the Prince was alone while I was explaining all this over the phone.
The voice speaks again, sounding like she is whispering something in the Prince’s ear. “Come back to bed,” she murmurs.
I go still as a rabbit. Where is he? I thought he was all tucked up in Buckingham Palace with his mommy and daddy.
“Sorry, Lizzie, I don’t think I can help you,” Alex responds, sounding very sullen. “You should give this information to Schnipps, it’s the right thing to do.” Click. He hangs up the phone.
Well, well, well…who would have thought there would be a fourth man to let down Mary, Queen of Scots? I bite down on my lip in disappointment.
I won’t let her down. Somehow, I’ll find the long-departed grave of the Countess. I’ll find the cherub, and “the proof” of Mary Beaton’s transgressions against the Queen.
Chapter 15
After a few calls to the historical society in Edinburgh, I learn that the Countess of Erlington’s tomb was reinterred at the cemetery at Greyfriars Kirkyard on the southern edge of the old town section of Edinburgh.
I am just packing up my things and getting ready to drive for an overnight trip to Scotland when my doorbell rings.
“Lady Jones,” I exclaim with surprise at the sight of the woman on my doorstep. She brushes back a stray grey lock.
“I’ve something for you.” She thrusts out a piece of paper in my direction.
“What’s this?” I ask startled.
“Agnes Tannebaum’s address. She was Margery’s sister,” Lady Jones answers without a smile.
“Come in.” I motion.
She steps through the door looking both uncomfortable and highly irritated. No sooner do I shut it behind her than she snaps, “Look, I have no idea what happened back then --with the death of the Prince. I know Scotland Yard investigated it thoroughly and up until you showed me that piece of paper, which looked like an authentic memo, well, up until then I thought that this was a cut and dry accident. But when I saw that memo, I knew there was more to the story. If everything was cut and dry then why the need for ‘Top Secret’ stamped across the top? Like I said, it seems like an absurdity to stamp ‘secret’ on top of something you want to keep confidential, but who knows how they did things at Scotland Yard? All our classified information was encrypted somewhere and couldn’t be printed out at SIS. Anyway…it just seems strange to me. And who takes a memo typed ‘Top Secret’ and places it in the Prince’s files? That’s another question. Why would someone do that?”
I shrug. “Maybe it was in his memorabilia by mistake. I don’t know.”
“Well, I made some calls to some friends who worked on the case for Scotland Yard. Found out three out of four of them have died, God rest their souls. But my old friend Ted and I, we cooperated on cases for 15 years. Well, we got together for a drink and I told him about the memo. I didn’t tell him who had it or how I’d seen it. Anyway, Ted looked nervous, really nervous. Then he broke down and told me that things had gotten so heated over Prince Albert’s death, that Margery’s whole family received death threats.”
I sigh again. That doesn’t surprise me. Hidden behind their computers, people willy-nilly send out crazy, sometimes threatening messages. I heard the other day some actress received a death threat for tweeting in favor of her alma mater’s hockey team. Don’t even get me started about the hateful reviews people leave about my biographies on online sites.
Yeah, it’s easy to imagine that Margery and her family received death threats.
“Anyway, after Margery committed suicide and her parents died from serious bouts of cancer that were probably brought on by stress, Ted said he was assigned to put Margery’s sister in
a program.”
“A program?”
“Yes, a program. Something like a witness relocation program. That is, the sister was given a completely new identity and relocated to…” She motions at the piece of paper she has just handed me.
I open it and read aloud, “564 High Street, Portstewart.”
“That’s right. She was given a house and a new identity. I asked Ted for her new name, but he said he never knew that part --he was just the one who found her and purchased a house for her. But the name she chose after she moved to Northern Ireland was only known to those who reissued her documents. Ted only told me this when I informed him it was the Prince who was searching for Margery --Ted felt distraught about that. If Margery told anybody what happened, it would have been her sister. But this information is confidential. I must have your word on that. It is to be kept between you, me, Ted and, of course, the Prince.”
I agree wholeheartedly and two minutes later I shut the door behind Margaret, scrambling for my cell phone.
“Lizzie, how are you?” the voice at the other end asks.
Chapter 16
I’m not sure if we are the happiest two people to ever go on a road trip. It has taken the Prince a week to get out of all his charity engagements. He told everyone at Buckingham he wasn’t feeling well and asked to take a mini-break away from the crowds while recovering. That didn’t go over well with his mother, who wanted him in bed at Buckingham while he recovered.
“What will people think if you miss the National Breast Cancer Society Gala and go gallivanting off around the countryside.”
“I won’t be gallivanting. I’ll be resting, at a friend’s house in peaceful Scotland,” he told her, and sealed the deal by getting one of his old buddies from Eton to call his mother and assure her that “Alex will be fine, he’s staying with us in Oban, and we’re just having a few quiet days. Not to worry, your Royal Highness, nobody will ever know he’s here. He can get as much rest and relaxation as he needs.”