The Queen's Secret: A Novel of England's World War II Queen

by Karen Harper

  “But I do recall,” he said as I added just the amount of milk he had always liked in his tea, then handed it to him, “Kathe Kübler, that dear German friend and governess of yours, wrote to you that she quite liked Hitler.”

  “She was blind on that. Their entire country was—and is. So unfortunate, what happened to her. I’m sure it quite changed her earlier opinion of that madman. I am sorry you did not like her.”

  “I admit she taught you excellent German, but I warrant you’ll not be using it in your next speeches to the nation or mentioning it to anyone. But she quite changed her tune about Der Führer, didn’t she?”

  I sighed again, a habit I was trying to break, at least with Bertie and the girls and most certainly in public. So many worries, including that it was looking dire for Chamberlain in Parliament. Bertie was still fearful he might have to work with Churchill, who seemed a warmonger and a bit of a bully, though we both had to admit he was terribly clever.

  “Lizzie?” David said, using the long-ago pet name only he had ever called me. “An entire farthing for your thoughts. No, I did not like Kathe Kübler from that time she cooked and ate the first rabbit I had ever shot on my own. That was petty, I suppose, but she had no right. She seemed to me to be pushy and possessive—of you. Maybe the whole lot of the Huns are like that. But what did you mean by she changed her opinion of madman Hitler?”

  “I knew you didn’t like her as I did, so I must have not told you, though I suppose you would not have gloated. David, yes, she was more than a governess to me, a friend, a travel companion, and she taught me Deutsch well, though, as you say, I most certainly will not tell anyone that now, but stick with our mother tongue and French.”

  “The French are going to be overrun, I fear. Do you think about . . . about her? Our Marguerite? And did you ever tell Bertie?”

  I shook my head. I could not even say the words, but went back to his earlier question about my onetime governess and friend. “When Frau Kübler returned to Germany before the Great War, she worked her way up to becoming headmistress of a large school in Munich. When Hitler came to power, she wrote me defending that demon. I recently destroyed the letter in which she said the British stories about him were not true, and he had some fine qualities.”

  “So you learned then that she was misguided at best, that she wasn’t so wonderful after all.”

  “There is more. A terrible blow, such irony. You see, she is Jewish and when that was discovered, the Nazis had her sacked in one day from the position she loved and had worked so hard to attain. She became an outcast. I fear for her even now.”

  “Perhaps she was fortunate to be only sacked, for I’ve heard worse than that.”

  “Yes, I know. David, when the king and I were in France last time, I met with a formerly highly placed official who warned me, and I told Bertie that Hitler not only hates the Jews but plans to imprison and persecute them en masse. Of course, the entire world should have learned that in ’38 when Hitler torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes and businesses, and so many Jews were killed. I pray not, but expect worse to come, and I do hope she is able to stay safe.”

  “And now that Hitler’s going to stomp through Europe and try to come here—”

  The door opened, and Bertie sailed in with a smile. David stood and bowed, and I quickly wiped tears from under my eyes. Bertie shook hands with David and gave him a little slap on the back.

  “Good to see you, even in these wretched times,” Bertie told him. “And despite all the water under the milldam, you make me wish I could see my own brother David again too.”

  I said naught to that as I poured Bertie tea with the lump of sugar he favored.

  “So, did my lovely wife explain that she and I have been thinking about a very important assignment for you to help with the war effort?” Bertie asked, sitting in the armchair across from David.

  “I am eager to help any way I can, sir. But we . . . we were catching up on old times.”

  “Call me Bertie when we are here like this. You can forget the bow and the ‘sir’s when it’s just family like this, even for a serious talk.”

  My, I thought, but Bertie was in a good mood today, with a little wordplay and absolutely no stammering. Lately, when he spoke his fears that the rabble-rouser Winston might actually be the next P.M., he became terribly nervous.

  “She hasn’t so much as given me a hint of the offer of some post,” David told him.

  “Elizabeth—go ahead, for it was your idea,” Bertie prompted and took a sip of tea.

  “When we were in America, we made friends with President Roosevelt,” I explained. “We thought he took to us personally quite well, and Bertie trusts and likes him. But the Americans have become, if not isolationists, at least pacifists after their dire losses in the Great War.”

  Bertie put in, “Which, of course, we fully understand and sympathize with. But Roosevelt seemed open and honest with me and wanted to weigh in against Hitler, even though his people and his Congress do not see the need even now.”

  “You are wanting a wartime ambassador to America?” David asked.

  “Actually,” I said, “it would appear to be just a friendly outreach from the royal family, but your purpose would be to convince him to convince his country that we are going to need more shipments of food and armaments, probably much more help. The times are coming when . . . when we fear the Satan that rules the Germans and is tearing up Europe will very soon turn his invasion sights by sky and sea to England.”

  David breathed out hard. “I see. A mission with the touch of the personal and the covert, at least for now. So this is not an offer but a . . . a prediction, and you have to speak to Chamberlain first? But isn’t he going down? I read and hear there is such unrest against him that some in the Commons are insisting he resign.”

  I looked at Bertie, then at David. “And, if so,” I said, “we would favor someone like Lord Halifax, someone who’s been wary of war, not warning we must wage war, for that is Winston Churchill.”

  “I see,” David said again.

  But he did not see everything I did. Though he and I knew the secret of our real mother, he knew nothing of my other secret, and I feared Winston did. I had been behind that damned China Dossier, which Winston could hold over my head to make me convince and assure Bertie that he was the man to lead our nation and we’d best sanction his plans for war.

  * * *

  “I cannot believe the man is late,” Bertie exploded after pacing and muttering. “Newly elected prime minister and late to his second visit to his sovereign!”

  Winston Churchill had been elected in a contentious Parliament, where some of the members had actually shouted at poor Neville Chamberlain, “Resign! Resign! Resign!” So we were resigned to dealing with Churchill now, and he had been charged with making a war cabinet.

  “It just isn’t done, to keep the king waiting!” Bertie went on, still pacing with his trail of cigarette smoke swirling behind.

  “There must be a good reason.” I tried to soothe him, for I knew if it had been Chamberlain or Halifax calling on us, Bertie would not have been so distraught. We needed to get off to a good start with this man, for the times demanded it.

  I could not allow this sovereign–prime minister relationship to be like oil and water, not in wartime. Besides, I had personal reasons beyond the great national ones for wanting us to get along well with this man, who had once championed Bertie’s brother as king but now, I hoped, saw the man and his wife for what they were. More than an embarrassment. Trouble. Danger. If Hitler seized or colluded with David to make him king in exile or here—disaster.

  “I can hardly scold him for tardiness, as burdened as he suddenly finds himself,” Bertie muttered, more quietly now. “But it is not a time for laxity or slipshod manners, and we have decided to meet weekly.”

  I almost asked, “Who gives a hoot for manners when the Germans are killing innocents and stealing entire countries?” but I hit on another tack: “Here,
my dear,” I told him, scooping up yesterday’s London Times from the side table. “When a man can orate like this—tell the truth and challenge us all to action . . .”

  I began to read from the very meat of the address Winston had given recently in the House of Commons, a short but stirring and brutally honest speech. It was a rallying cry, not glossing things over as, no doubt, Chamberlain had done, and swept the king along with him. When threatened, it was not my way to sit back and take it, and I knew Britain must not either.

  “Here, Bertie, let’s credit the man for this much and give him some time and help to work things out. Listen to these stirring words: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. . . . You ask, what is our aim? I answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terrors, victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory, there is no survival.’”

  He stopped pacing and ground out his cigarette butt in one of the numerous ashtrays. He leaned stiff-armed on the back of a chair as if to brace himself.

  “I greatly admire his oratorical skills,” he said, his voice calm now. He looked past me, not at me, and I wondered what he was thinking. That he had feared for years to open his own mouth to speak in public? “And if he wrote that as well as delivered it, more power to him.”

  “Now here’s an idea,” I said, putting the paper down. “I will walk down to meet him while you wait here. Perhaps he is tardy because of war business.”

  “Can you believe he not only created the new position of minister of war, but named himself to that? He hardly needed extra duties.”

  It was as if he had not heard me, while I expected to be not only heard but heeded. And I relished a moment or two with our new prime minister not only to befriend him, but to see if he was still of the opinion—so I had heard—that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were not to be brought back to England during the war. It was rumored that the Duke was making such demands, and I feared Bertie, loving his big brother yet as he did, might agree to that.

  “I’ll be right back, dear—with Mr. Churchill, so you just have another smoke and calm down. We have to make this work.”

  He sighed, came around the chair, and sank into it. “Don’t know what I would ever do without you,” he said.

  “I think I shall propose to our new—of necessity—friend Winston that he come for luncheon next time,” I added and darted out before Bertie could yea—or especially nay—that.

  I hurried down the carpeted corridor and marble stairs just as I saw a black motorcar followed by another, no doubt security, pull up at the courtyard entrance. Now I was nervous. I cleared my throat and straightened my dress jacket as I waited near the door where some palace staff stood. When they noticed me it was bows and curtsies and a bit of surprise to see me, but I said nothing about the shift in protocol.

  Yes, there he was, puffing on a cigar he handed half-smoked to his chauffeur as he emerged from the backseat. His round face made him look younger and jolly, but when he spoke . . .

  His blue eyes widened in surprise as he saw me waiting a few yards inside the door. “Your Majesty, such an honor. I regret business about embargoes made me late, so is His Majesty boycotting me now?” he said with a grin that crinkled his face. He bowed, and I offered him my hand, which he kissed.

  “I wanted to greet you and welcome you to what will, I am certain, be many a meeting here,” I told him as I gestured him toward the stairs. “And I wanted to suggest we—you and His Majesty—I mean, meet for luncheon hereafter, not so rushed in these busy, dangerous times. ‘You ask what is our aim?’” I quoted his own words from his Victory speech. “It is to get on with each other well and win this war!”

  “I shall consult you on my next oration. And I believe you will be happy to hear—please, you must sit in on this visit and attend the luncheons, ma’am—to hear my thoughts on ‘handling’ the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the chaos of this war, which he and his wife have made a bit worse.”

  “Then I will be honored to stay and hear—and help, if I can.”

  “I wager, ma’am, you can. And that you will.”

  Chapter Seven

  Trapped on the Beach

  I stood quietly while Winston greeted the king and apologized for being late. All I could think of was at least Bertie wasn’t quite the stickler his father had been on promptness or this new P.M. might have been thrown in the Tower.

  I thought neither man looked his age, Bertie at forty-four—though a bit thin in body and gaunt in the face, and Winston at age sixty-five, rather portly—physically more of a match for me, truth be told.

  It was their second formal meeting, for the king had officially sent for the new prime minister and charged him to form a government the evening he was elected. This was our first change of P.M. in the three years of Bertie’s reign. We had begun in the chaos of the abdication, the marriage of David and that woman in France, and now this dreadful, looming war.

  When we were seated, I in a side chair while the two men sat more face-to-face, the two of them spoke of many issues, domestic and foreign. I kept still, mourning the fact that Winston vowed that dire times were ahead. I had several points I could have added, questions to ask, but did not, now at least. Finally, Bertie brought up my idea of meeting for luncheon in the future. I hoped this wasn’t the end of the meeting, for I—we—needed a decision on the current fate of the Windsors.

  “The luncheon suggestion is brilliant, Your Majesty, and I greatly appreciate the hospitality as well as the advice and counsel,” Churchill said. “And I shall try to be prompt.”

  “I must tell you, Winston, my father would have had a stroke if you were late—unless you were my wife, who seemed to get past him on that score while my older brother and I used to catch the very dickens from him. And I must admit the luncheon idea was the queen’s. She is one of my closest advisors, you see.”

  “I do see, sir. As my dear wife, Clementine, is to me. Then I am doubly grateful to both of you,” he added with a little nod. “And one more topic before I take my leave, and that a rather sensitive one, namely the former king’s situation during these hostilities.”

  Bertie frowned, and I sat forward a bit. “Yes,” Bertie said. “I hear that the Duke of Windsor and his—his wife—have been at times indiscreet.”

  “Let me lay it out for you, sir. And ma’am,” he said with a nod my way. He pulled a paper from his sheaf of them in his flat black leather case, adjusted his small wire glasses, and said, “The former king phoned me from Nice, France, insisting a British destroyer be sent to pick them up and bring them to London.”

  A destroyer, I thought. How appropriate a request.

  “However, I told him there was but one British ship in Bordeaux’s harbor and that was a scow transporting filthy, black coal.”

  I actually fought to stifle a laugh, though I immediately scolded myself, for the Windsors’ not falling into enemy hands was of great import. I just didn’t want them here, making demands, trying to horn in, especially that woman. And David would not prop Bertie up but would make him the little brother again, when I had worked so very hard to shore him up, and he was doing so well.

  “I suggested that they drive to Spain,” Winston went on, “which they did, and they are staying with the British ambassador in Madrid. The ambassador then telegraphed me with the duke’s demands.”

  “Demands?” Bertie said, sitting up even straighter.

  My heart began to beat harder. I had much to say but forced myself to keep silent. I was starting to trust Churchill. Is this really why he wanted me here, to deal with Bertie on his yet-beloved brother?

  “In a nutshell, here it is, Your Majesties,” Churchill said, reading now from the paper he held. “The duke insisted they be formally received by both of you, saying that he and the duchess were fed up with being marooned abroad. But there is more.”

  I tried to remain immobile, but shifted in my chair, holding tightly to the carved arms.

>   “He demands that the news of that royal welcome and meeting appear in the Court Circular, the official record, and be publicized in the newspapers so that everyone knows.”

  “Impossible,” Bertie voiced my thoughts. “Absolutely out of the question. We’ve heard that his wife has said publicly that she expects bombs to fall on Britain and that she and her husband would accept a German victory. Treason! Outrageous!”

  “Indeed, sir!” Winston said, and I nodded madly. “Unfortunately, I have all that on good authority. For all we know, the former Mrs. Simpson has been stirring up anti-British interests, being soured on not becoming queen or at least not being given the HRH title.”

  I gripped the arms of the chair harder, fighting to keep my anger and angst in check. I did not want to burst out with my feelings, for it might endanger any later advice I could give, nor did I want to let either the king or his new P.M. think I could not be logical and calm if I were to be in their future luncheon meetings. And, I thought, if I showed Churchill my anger, he might indeed believe I could have been behind the so-called China Dossier to ruin Wallis Simpson.

  “So I have a proposal, Your Majesties.” I was deeply grateful that he included me with his words and a look and a nod my way, and it was at that very moment that he truly became Winston to me instead of Churchill. “Quite frankly, I believe we all agree that the Windsors should be somewhere safe, somewhere distant from Hitler’s grasp but somewhere harmless, for what they might say or do. Therefore, I propose that we name the duke as governor and commander-in-chief of the Bahamas. That has been bandied about before, but I say we act on that and now.”

  “The Bahamas?” Bertie repeated. “A place of little power or importance but of great distance from here and Germany. Well, I warrant they can’t get into trouble or danger there.”