The Queen's Secret

by Karen Harper

  “I admired him so,” he choked out. “We needed him to finish the war, reparations, loans . . . Elizabeth, please break the news to the king before Churchill does, so he won’t fall apart like I have. President Roosevelt is dead!”

  * * *

  The king urged Winston that we not fly to America for the president’s funeral but instead have a memorial service for him here. Franklin Roosevelt, at age sixty-three, had died on 12 April, and we planned the service for 17 April in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Though that great building had been damaged, it still stood strong.

  European royalty representing the Netherlands, even Yugoslavia, as well as other countries attended. Of course, there was a large American diplomatic contingent, here to help orchestrate the war, some in uniform, some in dark suits. Meanwhile, a memorial mass was also being held in Notre Dame Cathedral in liberated Paris. Of course, Winston had already paid tribute to his friend and fellow soldier in the war during a speech before the House of Commons.

  And the greatest honor of all, I thought, as Bertie, Lilibet, and I emerged from our motorcar to enter St. Paul’s, the streets were awash with Londoners, standing silently in mourning. I wore black, the king his Navy uniform, and Lilibet her Auxiliary Territorial Service skirt and jacket. And so many in the crowd wore black or grey.

  The prime minister greeted us at the top of the steps. He scanned the huge crowd below and took off his top hat, blinking back tears before we went in. I said a grateful prayer that the war must surely be coming to an end. Winston would now have to work with the new president, a man named Harry Truman whom we had met briefly, and I had even forgotten his name at first in my shock and grief.

  The long nave of St. Paul’s was filled with black-clad mourners, most there by invitation, others having queued up for hours. So solemn, so sad.

  During the service, the elaborately robed archbishop asked for prayers for the new president and spoke of Roosevelt’s long struggle with infantile paralysis, for which he was being treated at Warm Springs when he died so suddenly.

  The band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Winston’s shoulders shook as he cried through that, wiping his face and nose with his handkerchief. Ah, he had not learned to be a royal, to hold back one’s emotions, but he was royalty to me.

  The archbishop’s voice droned on. I noted Lilibet—Princess Elizabeth I must call her today—sat ramrod straight, her expression set but impassive. A monarch’s stance and look, I thought before my memory flew back to the days before the war when we had first met the Roosevelts. The ticker-tape parade in the New York City heat with the skyscrapers towering over us as the columns and walls of St. Paul’s did now. The visit in the cooler weather to their private home at Hyde Park. Eating with plates on our laps—hot dogs, of all things—and chatting with Franklin’s elderly mother, Sara.

  She has been a real mother to me all these years, and I love her dearly, Franklin had said in his informal remarks that day. Yes, I shared that with him, that both of my mothers were real mothers to me all these years.

  And Eleanor, capable, take-charge Eleanor with her own agenda. With her own person to love, David had said, a woman—and David would pick up on that. Did Eleanor care about Franklin’s mistress of long years or had she simply moved on? Should I just move on from the only way I could see to keep the Duke of Windsor and his mistress-wife away, live with that and not tell Bertie, even if his horrid brother returned? No, I could not abide that, nor, I believed, could our king and country survive it.

  I jolted back to reality as we stood to sing a hymn, a favorite funeral song for us royals, and Franklin was American royalty. The organ seemed to shake the very stone walls and floor as we sang, I am weak, but Thou art mighty. . . . Bid my anxious fear subside. . . .

  When it was over, and we went back outside, I nodded to the crowds but did not smile or wave. Sitting in the middle, I held to Bertie’s arm as we drove away. Lilibet waved out her window, her face solemn. I was so proud of her. And nervous too, for her dear Philip was coming home for a visit soon. Ah, to be so excited to see someone . . . I had been that way once years ago, so foolish. But I recalled how happy I was when Bertie came home from France safe and sound this last time. Surely, that was a real and lasting love.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Victories

  I could tell Winston had been crying, but evidently—with the news he had to tell us that last day in April—with relief.

  “The war is as good as over, for our enemies are gone!” he told us the moment he came in the door to the private room where we met for lunch.

  “Mussolini and Hitler?” Bertie asked as I clasped my hands and pressed them to my breasts in anticipation.

  “Mussolini’s death has been confirmed. When he tried to flee Milan where he’s been holed up, he was captured in a small village and shot to death—with his mistress. But worse, their bodies were displayed in a public square, hung upside down, and abused, to say the least. Your Majesty,” he added, turning to me, “I shall not go into more detail in front of you, but you both have been my bulwark of strength, and I wanted you to know about him first.”

  “First before Hitler?” I asked when I saw Bertie was so happy he could hardly speak. “Did the Russians find him? He might have dubbed me ‘the most dangerous woman in Europe,’ but I call him ‘the most deadly dangerous and ungodly man’!”

  Despite my relief and bravado, my emotions had been pent up today, and not only because I was anxious to learn the fate of our enemies. I believed David, Duke of Windsor, was also a dangerous and ungodly man. Bertie had decided he would invite the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to come home when hostilities were ended. Was I dangerous to my marriage if I told him what I had bottled up inside me for so long? A danger to my family? But I had to risk all to keep that damned David from returning and undermining Bertie.

  We still stood at the door, though Winston finally reached back to close it behind him. “It seems our enemies all had their mistresses, not true wives, like you have been a help and strength to the king these long years, ma’am. As for Adolf Hitler, he committed suicide in his bunker with his—well, I believe he finally did marry her—Eva Braun. The Russians were denied their final prize for a show trial. Evidently Hitler ordered his body to be burned when he heard what the Italians had done to their Il Duce. Sic semper tyrannis!”

  “Yes,” Bertie said. “Thus always to tyrants.”

  “And thus,” I put in, “never take on the British Empire and the Americans!”

  Bertie and I heaved huge sighs of relief, though Winston still seemed a bit subdued, even gloomy, as we sat down at our usual places at the table.

  “Even if it is noon,” I said, “let’s have a toast. The end is in sight and happier days are here again, as the song says.”

  “There is something else,” Winston said. “If we could just get to that too—before our well-deserved celebrations. As I explain this, let’s remember the big picture here, finally, as poor Neville Chamberlain read so wrong, that we will now have peace in our time.”

  “Whatever is it?” Bertie asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “What is left undone? I realized we cannot declare total victory to the public yet.”

  Winston, his expression still so serious, said, “We must remember that sacrifices have been made and are yet to be made as we rebuild our cities, our country, and our lives. Sir, I have it on the best authority that the former king, your brother, and his wife do not have the best of intentions for their long-range plans once they return to England.”

  “David?” Bertie said, seeming to bristle. “He has assured me he wants to be a country squire, quite retired from affairs of state unless I ask him for advice or a particular service.”

  “And I assured you,” I could not help but put in as my heart started to pound, “that is not the life for him, and he knows it. It hasn’t been ever and won’t remain so.”

  Bertie actually glared at me. My insides flip-flopped.

  “Hear
me out, please, sir,” Winston said.

  My hands were shaking, but I saw that his were too. He knew well the bond between the two royal brothers, stretched thin now but never broken.

  Bertie nodded and lit a cigarette. For once, Winston did not reach for his cigar.

  “The former king of England, Edward VIII, now Duke of Windsor, is not only keen to return here after the war, but to become a close advisor to you. You see, someone I greatly trust has come across correspondence with a friend of the duke’s in which he admits that he hopes to become a ‘caretaker king’ should anything happen to Your Majesty. The war has taken its toll on you and the princess Elizabeth is young, he says, and he would be best to counsel her should she come to the throne. And, at one spot in this rather lengthy correspondence, the former king intimates he would even consider pushing the young Elizabeth aside so that a man could rule in these trying times.”

  Bertie’s eyes were huge. I was so frightened and furious that for once I could not speak.

  But Winston could. Winston always could.

  “It smacks of family concern, I suppose, sir, but it also smacks of more than tampering with the kingdom and the Empire. It smacks of treason, and I have not a doubt the Duchess of Windsor is complicit and perhaps controlling on this. That is her character, I believe we all know.”

  My pulse pounded even harder. I wanted to say “Here, here!” but I sat stock-still and silent.

  “She—that she-wolf,” Bertie choked out, then paused. “She p-put him up t-to this.”

  “I know you have, at least informally, invited him back, sir, but I believe we have just spoken about two vultures circling above your head and that of your rightful heir.”

  I found my voice. “Is the person he is corresponding with Dickie Mountbatten?”

  “It is not, ma’am. I guessed that too at first, but it is a friend of his whose name I did not know, and we are just plain lucky to have come upon that correspondence.”

  Turning to my husband and laying a hand on his arm, I said, “I’m sorry, Bertie, but he always was indiscreet at best. But this—”

  Bertie interrupted and exploded, “The princess Elizabeth’s dear uncle David shall not advise her from there, from here, or from exile, which is where he should remain! I shall tell him that I have been advised to rescind my offer. I shall have to deal with my mother, of course—”

  “I will help you,” I said, thinking this was going to be a double victory day indeed. Without my having to risk any sort of rift, David’s treachery—his treason—had finally done him in with Bertie, I could tell. It was one thing to hope my telling him of David’s treatment of me years ago would alienate them, but to have even the merest hint of danger to our beloved daughter had settled the matter.

  “Thank you, Winston, for delivering that difficult news,” I said.

  Bertie reached to squeeze my hands gripped together on the table. “It is as if,” he told Winston and me, looking dazed now again, blinking back tears, “David believes he would be more than a caretaker monarch. He must not trust us or wish me well to hope I would not be on the throne after he insinuates himself with our next monarch. And if that is true, as you intimate, Winston, he must not really want Elizabeth to rule at all.”

  “After all, sir, people tried to horn in with undue influence on young Queen Victoria. Excuse me, ma’am, but even her own mother did not have her best interests at heart.”

  I simply nodded, and Bertie gave out a huge sniff. We were both so stunned that it was still sinking in.

  “Your Majesties, I believe you will understand today that I must not linger with you as I so often have during these precious times we have shared food, information, and thoughts.” He rose slowly, amazingly looking for the first time like an old man. “There is much to do. Sir, I would advise telling your brother through a liaison—perhaps through Her Majesty’s brother David—that you have reconsidered the invitation he should come back and feel it best if he stay away and enjoy his friends in Paris, New York, and Palm Beach. Best perhaps not to deal with him directly, at least for a time.”

  “Yes,” Bertie said. “Yes. And thank you for the g-good news about our enemies—all of them.”

  I walked Winston out into the hall and down the corridor a ways.

  “You did not trust the Windsors either, ma’am. Am I reading that right?” he asked, looking like an innocent cherub, but how much did he really know?

  “Why do I think you know the answer to that already, Winston?”

  “There are some things I do not know. Reading old dossiers is one way to stay informed, but some things are best not put in writing, and your brother-in-law should ponder that in his coming years of exile, in his continued party-boy days with his very ambitious wife.”

  “I never say her name,” I blurted, as if this were confession time all round.

  As his aide, who apparently was surprised to see him emerge so soon, came hurrying down the corridor, Winston whispered, “I don’t know what I, the king, or this country would have done without you, ma’am. Victory in every quarter. And, Your Majesty, please remember I owe you a great debt. We all do, and I am ever your liege man.”

  He bowed, backed up a few steps, and turned away. I was deeply touched. Now I would never have to tell Bertie what David had done to me, for the mere hint of his hoping for Bertie’s demise and his plans to control Lilibet or set her aside had damned him as surely as if he were Hitler or Mussolini.

  I rushed back in to comfort Bertie. He cried in my arms, even on this international, if as yet informal, day of victory.

  Epilogue

  Seeing It Through

  Victory in Europe Day was declared on 8 May, though the day before the formal announcement had simply read, The mission of the Allied forces was fulfilled May 7, 1945. Bertie was planning an address to Parliament next week, but today was just for rejoicing.

  “Mummy, can we both go out into the crowd?” Margot pleaded for the fourth time. “We will wear hats. They won’t even know it’s us. Everyone is just screaming and dancing with joy!”

  Finally, I gave in. “If you take some security with you.”

  “Well,” Margot went on, “no one will be angry today, except they might kiss us! Everyone is simply kissing everyone! I won’t mind, but if it isn’t Philip’s sweet lips, then Lilibet will—”

  “Stop your teasing,” her older sister ordered. “He isn’t back yet, Mummy said we can go, so let’s go!”

  “Be back in an hour!” I called after them. “Papa says if they keep shouting, ‘We want the king!’ we must all go out, at least when the prime minister gets here through that press of people.”

  Out they went by a side door, and I could not spot them in the cavorting crowd. Everyone was waving and jumping about. Dancing, shouting, singing. It seemed all of London had pushed toward the gates of the palace, expecting us to make a victory appearance. I had dressed for that, plumed hat and all, but still Winston hadn’t made it here yet and now the girls were gone.

  Bertie, nattily attired in his Navy admiral’s uniform awash with medals and gold buttons, joined me at the window. “I hear Trafalgar Square is packed, but they all seem to be heading this way,” he told me. “We must go out. Winston has already made a victory statement from loudspeakers he ordered set up near Parliament Square. He phoned to say that, when he was done speaking, the crowd sang ‘God Save the King.’”

  “God has saved the king,” I told him, putting my arm round his waist as we stood there looking down at the packed Mall. I did not say the rest of what I was thinking—that his brother’s not returning to England was the ultimate godsend.

  And God has saved the queen, I told myself. Saved me from having to deal with that treacherous Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Saved me from having to risk hurting myself as well as the duke by having to tell Bertie what had happened so terribly long ago. Besides, my dear brother David was home safely. Lilibet was elated that Philip would be back soon, and then we would see about that—and
find a way to keep Dickie Mountbatten at bay.

  It was only Bertie’s health that worried me, but Winston had been ailing too, and somehow, I would manage to bolster both.

  When he finally arrived and the girls returned, so excited, Winston was actually hesitant about stepping out onto the crimson-and-gold-swagged palace balcony with us, but we convinced him and put him in the very middle of the four of us. Lilibet and Bertie looked splendid in their uniforms. Margot and I wore light-hued spring suits. We could not have stayed inside if we had wanted to, for the deafening crowd cries of “We want the king! We want the queen!” had not ceased. Yet it was music to our ears, ears that would not have to hear the roar of bombers nor the screech of deadly rockets anymore.

  Winston smiled, and the four of us waved our upright, stiff-armed gestures to our beloved countrymen and -women. The oversized Union Jack shifted in the breeze and then lifted to flap like cannon. Still, we smiled and waved.

  Waved, just as I had that day in the New York City ticker-tape parade. As we had waved to bombed-out East Enders, trying to lift their spirits. As, I prayed, we would wave to our workers in the future as we rebuilt London, England, and Europe together.

  I glanced sideways. Winston beamed with pride and nodded but did not wave. Bertie looked serious and exhausted yet elated. Lilibet smiled with excitement and expectation in her eyes, and Margot grinned at the roar of cheers and shouts.

  After waving, waving, we stepped back inside together. Whatever the future held, we—I—would see it through.

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