The True Story of Maddie Bright

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  ‘Of course.’

  He looked around, closed the door between our office and the press office. ‘I’ve been thinking about our discussion earlier.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ I said when he paused.

  ‘I wondered if you could tell me what it is that makes you think Helen might have feelings for me. I’m sure you’re wrong, of course, but what is it exactly that you know?’

  ‘Well, sir, she gets quiet whenever I ask about you, and looks sad, and when I asked she told me about meeting you in France, and said something happened, but I don’t know what it was. She did say you were in love with one another.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘She told you this?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ I said. ‘She did, Mr Waters.’

  He nodded and I saw a flicker of hope in his eyes. ‘I’d prefer if you didn’t tell her I was asking, Maddie,’ he said then. ‘It’s quite a delicate matter, as it happens.’

  ‘Mr Waters, mum is the word.’

  What on earth had happened in France? I wondered again.

  ‘Mr Waters, if there’s anything else …’

  ‘No, that’s more than enough, Maddie. That will be all, truly.’

  I hadn’t seen the prince during that first day, although Helen said he’d been running on the main deck and playing badminton with Dickie and seemed quite happy. After dinner, he sent Dickie to call us to the lounge on the main deck for games. When Helen arrived and saw Mr Waters, I noticed the change in her, that hard heart she always turned towards him. You fool, I wanted to say! He loves you and you love him!

  The prince picked Mr Waters, Helen and me for his team. He was in good spirits and I wondered if in private he was upset or if the letters he’d received from F.D.W. contained good news rather than bad.

  We started with a game where you name an animal and the other team has to think of an animal’s name that starts with the last letter: zebra, antelope, eagle, egret, tiger and so on.

  ‘They give me animals, you know,’ the prince said to me.

  ‘Who gives you animals, sir?’ I said.

  ‘The Australians. Your countrymen. I had a bear but I gave it back because it belonged to a little girl and she was devastated when she had to give it up. I have a kangaroo called Digger

  somewhere on board. I also have a tortoise in a tank below.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have them all somewhere on the ship. There are two lizards as well. Rupert suggested we wait until we sail out of the harbour and throw them over. I don’t think I could do that.’

  ‘You mustn’t,’ I said. ‘It would be cruel to the animals.’

  He laughed. ‘And there you have the difference between us,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that right, Waters?’

  ‘Sir?’ Mr Waters said.

  ‘I am kind to helpless creatures, and you are not.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ Mr Waters said. He was smiling.

  ‘What sort of bear was it?’ I said.

  ‘A koala,’ the prince said.

  We played charades then. Mr Waters surprised me for he was immensely funny. He acted out War and Peace. His long slim frame was made for movement, I saw. It wasn’t something you’d pick about him straightaway. He did war marching like a soldier, rhymes with saw, the sawing motion, and then peace as piece of a pie. It was quite clever. Even Helen was smiling at him.

  I noticed when he finished that he looked over at her sheepishly. What’s more, she didn’t stop smiling! I held my breath!

  Perhaps they would overcome whatever it was that kept them from their true feelings.

  The prince and I had the next one, and it was Jane Eyre of all things.

  I hoped Helen would guess if I mimicked typhus, pretending at a sore throat and fever, but it was harder than I imagined. The prince and his cousin were in fits of laughter watching me gag and wander about the stage, looking like Quasimodo more than someone afflicted. I barked like a dog as well and that just made them laugh more.

  The prince himself soon came up and told me he might try something new. He did air for Eyre, blowing out and gesturing, which Mr Waters got straightaway and then his first word, sounds like pain, and Helen got to Jane.

  ‘Have you read Jane Eyre, sir?’ she asked him.

  ‘Of course I haven’t. Who has time for books?’

  ‘I do,’ I said, quite forgetting that I was a servant and he was the Prince of Wales.

  Mr Waters looked a little taken aback but the prince just laughed. ‘Well, I should hope so,’ he said, ‘given that you’re supposed to be a prince when you write.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I just forgot myself.’

  ‘No,’ Helen said. ‘Don’t be sorry. He should be sorry for not reading! If you read more, perhaps you could write your letters yourself.’ She looked at him, her eyes hard.

  I knew Helen had gone too far; I knew before I saw on the prince’s face that she had gone too far. There was a hint of mockery in her tone and he picked it up immediately. His face darkened.

  Oh, why did she turn this hard heart of hers to the world when what was needed was softness? I didn’t know.

  Mr Waters said, ‘You can’t be expected to do all H.R.H. does and write silly letters to all those folk who want him to write to them.’

  The prince looked ready to say something, but Mr Waters kept going. ‘What we need to focus on is the tour and what it’s about, and H.R.H. is the only one of us who’s doing that properly.’ ‘Well said,’ Dickie chimed in. ‘Come on, David, let’s get ourselves something to drink.’

  The look on the prince’s face was hard to read now. He didn’t look angry, as I would have expected. If anything, he looked sad. Dickie stood and they walked off together. If I hadn’t known he was the prince, I’d have said he was about to cry.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Helen said to Mr Waters after the prince and his cousin had gone. ‘I just didn’t think.’

  ‘Well, you need to start thinking,’ Mr Waters said, getting up to follow the prince and his cousin. ‘Because I have enough on my plate without you upsetting him like that. You know what’s happened with Freda.’ He walked away.

  I found Helen on the main deck in one of the chairs, her legs curled up beneath her, looking at the moon reflected on the sea.

  She had been crying, I was sure.

  ‘I don’t think Mr Waters meant to be harsh,’ I said.

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t even enter his head that it would bother me. But we can’t possibly hurt David’s feelings because that would be the end of the world.’

  ‘The prince did look upset at what you said.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ She sighed.

  ‘And maybe it was a bit mean,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a prince who doesn’t read books. I don’t think it’s necessarily poor form to point that out.’

  ‘He did seem more upset than it warranted. You only really told him he should read and, let’s face it, he probably should if he’s going to be King.’

  She smiled weakly. ‘Exactly. I think he thinks I find him inferior, and perhaps I do. He knows he’s not Rupert. He’s not Rupert’s bootstrap. That’s what really rankles him probably.’

  ‘But he’s so marvellous with the soldiers, with everyone.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s only half of the sky that is the Prince of Wales,’ Helen said.

  She sobbed then and it was such a heartfelt sob.

  ‘Maddie, it’s no use.’

  ‘What’s no use?’

  ‘Rupert and me. It’s too hard for us.’

  ‘But he loves you, Helen. I know he does, and you love him.’

  ‘Well, maybe he does, and maybe I do, but it won’t be enough.’

  ‘Because of the prince?’

  ‘Yes, that, and what happened.’

  ‘What did happen? He says he asked you to marry him and you refused.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  I nodded.

  She sighed heavily. ‘Could we just si
t here together and watch the night?’

  I nodded again, not daring to break her reverie, caring deeply for my friend and also hoping she might tell me more.

  If I’d wanted to help Mr Waters and Helen, I’d have done well to study Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre a bit more thoroughly, for love is never so simple as it is in penny romances.

  Helen didn’t tell me the truth that night. She didn’t tell me until much later, and by then it was too late to help them, too late to help any of us.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Brisbane, 1981

  I HADN’T SEEN ED IN NEARLY A WEEK, AND AFTER ANDREW left with the children I thought I should go and check on him. His father was away for a few days, and it wasn’t like Ed not to visit me every day.

  My leg had started aching again when the weather began to cool down for the autumn, and it twinged on the way down the stairs. I decided to first walk up to the top of Paddington to the post office to get some blood flowing.

  When I got there I found a letter in the box from Mr Inglis, which was a matter for great excitement and so I forgot all about Ed.

  Mr Inglis is the son of the Mr Inglis I met when Mr Barlow offered to publish Autumn Leaves. They are both gone now, Mr Barlow and old Mr Inglis, but young Mr Inglis, who seems very like his father, is now running the publishing house, he said. That’s how many years I’ve been on the planet. The executives have changed generations.

  I did meet old Mr Inglis once, although he wasn’t old then. He was a tall slim fellow with a good head for figures, that last being something Mr Barlow told me about him when he met me to tell me they would publish the book. I haven’t met the younger Mr Inglis. His letter is very polite. I don’t know if he inherited his father’s head for figures but he said something about royalty payments and a bank account. I hadn’t realised that Autumn Leaves was still earning money for anyone.

  I had told Mr Barlow everything, and he told me he would take my secret to his grave. I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone about Autumn Leaves, he said. He would do that for me. He would look after everything. He was very kind.

  The only thing Mr Barlow asked of me was that I write the next book, the book I told him I might write—the sequel, as he called it.

  As far as I know, Mr Barlow kept his promise as he is now in his grave and there has been no scandal. Sometimes, in some small part of myself, I wish he had blabbed, or someone had. I wish there had been a scandal, especially now. It would make my writing task easier. Perhaps it would ease Helen’s burden too.

  The letter says young Mr Inglis is keen to see the manuscript and to meet me in person. He looks forward to publishing the ‘long-awaited sequel’ to Autumn Leaves. He’s read the chapter I sent and he’s very excited to see what became of that ‘poor mother of the lost baby’.

  I suppose my life has been a sequel of sorts.

  Action–reaction: the first rule of physics.

  Action–reaction: the first rule of life.

  The next morning, I telephoned Ed’s house and no one answered, which was not unusual. But, by afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from him or seen him and it was late and it’s bin day tomorrow and he always takes my bin out the night before. I managed the bin myself, not wanting to bother Andrew Shaw when he rushed in to pick up the children, although it nearly carried me off down the driveway in its wake, heading for the car belonging to my terrible uphill neighbours, a Volvo they park all over the street and not in their own driveway, something about not wanting to run over the children. If they didn’t want to run over the children, then they should look where they were going rather than park all over the street.

  Proud I’d stopped the bin in its tracks, I walked across the road to Ed’s house.

  I knocked on the door. I noticed the front veranda was swept, work boots neatly under the eaves as if he was about to go to work at any given moment, which I knew was impossible.

  No one answered the door after a few minutes and I could hear no voices within.

  I called out.

  No answer.

  I went around the back and found the door open.

  Inside, the little kitchen looked as if no one had ever used it. The cups and saucers were in a display cabinet above the bench. They were lined with dust but not as much dust as I might have expected. Someone had used them, or taken them down and dusted them.

  Light came in through a curtain on the right. It was worn thin but looked clean.

  I called Ed’s name again and I thought I heard a noise like a throat clearing.

  I walked down the hallway. I didn’t even know which room was Ed’s. The first door on the left was closed. I listened but heard nothing. I knocked on the next door. I heard the noise again, like someone trying to talk underwater, so I opened the door.

  Ed was not in the bed. He was on the floor, with sheets wrapped around his legs and torso. He was wearing striped pyjamas and I could see his ankles, blue, and his manly hair through the open fly of the trousers. His face was a terrible colour, blue-grey, more grey than blue, and his eyes were glassy. I could smell the metallic smell of sickness in the room.

  ‘Maddie,’ he said, although he didn’t quite get the word out.

  I sat down on the floor beside him, felt his forehead which was hot. ‘Don’t talk,’ I said. ‘You’re sick. I’m going to telephone the doctor and get you some water to clear your throat.’

  Having gone to Ed without thinking, I hoped my leg would not fail me now as I attempted to get up from the floor.

  He only nodded and closed his eyes.

  Then I saw, shoved under the bed, the handkerchiefs, half-a-dozen of them, covered in blood.

  I advised my legs to stand me up quick smart and run me to the telephone to call for the ambulance. They did not let me down.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  H.M.S. Renown, Southern Ocean, 1920

  I WAS ON MY OWN IN THE OFFICE ON THE MAIN DECK ON our first full day at sea. Helen and the trip photographer were taking pictures of the admiral and officers for the official record. Dickie was with them as he was keeping the unofficial trip diary for the prince.

  I had seen Helen briefly that morning and she seemed a little brighter. Hope, she said to me. ‘Perhaps I still have a glimmer of stupid hope. Perhaps Rupert and I can overcome.’

  She looked as if she might cry.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, although I hadn’t spoken. ‘There’s no hope.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Mr Waters will be different today. He’s under enormous pressure with the tour. It’s not you. I’m sure it’s not.’

  She made herself smile. ‘Ned said to me this morning that he thinks I am the loveliest woman he’s ever known.’

  ‘Perhaps I should I tell Mr Waters,’ I said. ‘It might wake him up.’ I tried a smile.

  ‘No,’ Helen said, tears threatening again. ‘That’s not what this is about, Maddie. And poor old Ned is not my type, I’m afraid. He doesn’t … believe.’

  I thought I knew what Helen meant. To me, Mr Waters was twice the man Colonel Grigg was. Mr Waters was loyal. His sense of duty was written into his bones. Colonel Grigg’s loyalty was much harder to discern. Perhaps he reduced everything to its political meaning and manipulated it for political gain. Perhaps even Helen, if it came to it.

  I was working away at the letters Mr Waters had asked me to draft—for his signature rather than the prince’s—when the prince himself came in. He was smiling, his blond hair combed back, wearing gaiters over his pants and sporting shoes, as if he’d just been for a run around the deck.

  ‘Mr Waters is with the admiral, sir,’ I said.

  ‘I know. I just left them after they took my picture. They’re all being terribly sweet with me today. It’s you I wanted to see.’

  ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘Maddie, I’m terribly sorry about last night, deserting the team and all. We were doing so well.’

  ‘You were doing well, sir,’ I said, deciding to ignore his apology, since I had no idea how
to respond to it. ‘Your Pain Air got Jane Eyre across better than my typhoid.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing? I thought you were choking to death. I didn’t know the book, as we later discovered.’

  ‘Well, yes, but it really only affects a minor character and I will know next time that acting out typhus is not a recommended option for charades. You were the quicker thinker.’

  ‘Was I?’ He looked as if he meant the question.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘You played the better game by far.’

  ‘Well, thank you, you’re very kind. Too kind, as it happens. But that’s not why I came down. I apologise. I am doing my very best to behave as befits my office, but sometimes I hit a snag. I have a dear friend, Mrs Dudley Ward, whom you may have heard about.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘And my father is doing his best to stop our friendship out of some archaic view of propriety. As if I would ever act any way but honourably.’ He looked angry.

  ‘I don’t believe you would, sir,’ I said. I nearly added that Mr Waters had explained the nature of the prince’s relationship with Mrs Dudley Ward, but I wasn’t sure whether it was said in confidence so held my tongue.

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t have left last night without excusing myself, no matter what the circumstances. I am, after all, the Prince of Wales. I just … Sometimes it all gets too much. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t, sir, although I imagine it would be very hard to have so many people wanting things from you.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘It is exactly that, and one needs to be more like one’s father to really do well.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I think anyone as kind as you were towards those soldiers in Canberra and the ones in Sydney couldn’t help but feel sad sometimes. It would have to affect you.’

  ‘You think that? You really do?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I do. And I don’t know your father the King, sir, and I know it’s very bad to say anything against him and I wouldn’t do that, but I can’t imagine he would ever be as kind as you were with those soldiers. I can’t imagine anyone could do that as well as you do, sir.’ I had tears in my eyes as I spoke, and I’m sure he noticed.