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

by Karen Harper

  But was it always right to wave and smile these days? Was I propping up my people or deceiving them? Was I guilty of information fakery?

  To my surprise, Margot must have noticed, though Lilibet on my other side had her eyes closed. My youngest surprised me by slipping her hand in mine and giving it a little squeeze without turning her head my way or whispering something too loudly as she was often wont to do.

  I squeezed her hand back and blotted under my eyes with the fingertip of my glove. It was a great comfort to know Margot had this tender and protective side. It reminded me of how I had consoled my mother at Fergus’s funeral during that first grueling war. And now, who did my ailing father have to comfort him, remembering her too, facing eternity?

  I must go to Glamis to see him again soon. I must call my dear younger brother who was still assigned in Washington, D.C., as a liaison to President Roosevelt. I longed to see that David, perhaps to convince him to come home to see Father again. Loving my younger brother as I did, I had once thought it a great sign of good luck that I had fallen in love with David Windsor, Prince of Wales.

  “Mummy, we’re going to sing,” Margot prompted, pointing at the place in the program.

  “Yes. Thank you, dear girl,” I told her as Lilibet on the other side quickly turned to the correct hymn and traded me books as we all stood.

  I nearly broke into sobs again, but of gratitude this time. For my very different but lovely daughters. And that Bertie would be home soon.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Reunions

  Bertie was coming back from France on 25 August 1944—a belated birthday gift for me. It was a special day in so many ways!

  “There he is, Mummy!” Margot shouted as if I were both deaf and blind, for she thought forty-four years sounded very old. “I’ll run to get him! Be back with him straightaway!”

  As if she were five instead of almost fourteen, she darted away. Lilibet went down the corridor too, but at a more measured pace. I took a last quick sip of my cocktail and hurried myself down the corridor too. Although it was early August and a hot, humid day, the stone walls and windy halls of Windsor kept the rooms quite cool. I did think, though, that my drinks not only calmed me but heated me up a bit, yet nothing could match the relief and joy of actually having Bertie home again. Even better, we were heading for Balmoral soon, and how I had missed Scotland.

  I watched as Margot barreled into the king and Lilibet hugged him next. I strode to him, embraced him, and we shared a quick kiss. To my surprise, my always-shaved husband had beard stubble, which made him look a bit like a ruffian, but then he had been living with the troops.

  “You all look wonderful!” he said as if to counter my surprised expression.

  I wanted so to say the same, but he looked pale and gaunt. No doubt, he had been burning the candle at both ends. Ah, I thought as I hugged him again then released him, at least London was not burning anymore, for the V-1 rocket attacks seemed to have lessened.

  We walked back to our private quarters, arm in arm. “So much to tell,” Bertie said. “But I am so exhausted—though not too much to celebrate a birthday with my three girls!”

  Yes, he smelled of tobacco and exhaustion and did not look well. What would our lives have been like if David had not abandoned his duties as king and Bertie had only captained a warship at sea as Duke of York and not had to bear the yoke of kingship through this great, hard slog of a war? As much as I knew England and the Empire had been better off with Bertie as king, I blamed David for thrusting all this duty upon my beloved—and making him ill.

  He went to freshen up while the three of us waited. I had sent for partridge from Sandringham, a luxury I hoped he would not resent, as a welcome-home dinner and my birthday meal. At his place on the table, the girls had put cards they had made, and my little stack of gifts awaited on the sideboard. But where was he?

  “I’ll go see how he’s coming along,” I told them. “Be right back, and if the footman asks when to bring in the meal or the cake, tell him not yet.”

  I passed my rooms and knocked on his bedroom door. Nothing. No sound. Was his valet at least not with him?

  I knocked again, but my heart knocked louder. I turned the handle and went in, only to find him with shaving cream on his face like a white beard while he sat up against a pillow and the headboard of his bed, as still as can be.

  I gasped. It could not be that . . .

  “Bertie?” I said and ran over to touch his shoulder.

  His eyes flew open. My pounding heart slowed.

  “Oh, darling, sorry,” he said, looking startled, as if he were shocked to be here, to see me. “Total fatigue, that’s all. I’ve seen so much. I don’t want to talk of war at the table, but it’s been so—sobering. Eight thousand Allied soldiers died in the first month since D-Day, more than half of them American, but our men too. Thank God the American general Mark Clark marched victorious for all of us into Rome in June, and our forces are close to taking Paris the same way. Winston said he’d phone if he had news of that.”

  “Let me shave you. I have shaved my papa a few times, wounded or paralyzed soldiers too back at Glamis in the other awful war.”

  I took the razor from his hand and gently skimmed it along his neck and chin, then wiped it off on the towel over his shoulder. He watched me through slitted eyelids.

  “Will we pick up where we were?” he asked. “Between the two of us, I mean. Time moves on, war or not. Why, you are another year older.”

  “Dare you remind me of that when I have a razor to your throat?”

  “I dare much. And I suppose I smell of tobacco, but you, my darling, smell of whatever pre-dinner drink you have had without me.”

  My face heated as I finished cleaning his face off with the towel. I had upped my liquor intake a bit lately, just to take the edge off, just to smooth things over and calm myself—not when I was going out for duties, of course. But I had been worried about Bertie, my father was even more ill—and I still could not rid myself of anger and guilt that the former Prince of Wales had treated me so brutally and cruelly. While Bertie had been gone, I had told Winston in no uncertain terms that I could not abide having that man back in England, whether or not he was with his wife.

  “But,” Winston had said, “he ruins everything he touches elsewhere. He can’t even sit out this bloody war in paradise without getting into trouble. If he were here, I could keep an eye on him, distract him with minor duties.”

  “Winston, he would try to take over, undercut Bertie. You know his, well, his allure, though he is a hollow man. You championed him for a while.”

  He had leaned closer to me across our Tuesday luncheon table. “And did you never feel that allure, as you call it? I swear, Brendan Bracken could use him in the Ministry of Information, which, I admit, dispenses our propaganda too, in bolstering our beaten down populace. The king cares for his big brother, always will, so he would be amenable.”

  “But I am not. He and that woman would make a mockery—a . . . a shambles of things. I have been on your side, Winston, but I ask you not to so much as bring this up to the king.”

  I stared him down, wondering if he would try to use old information he had about me to keep me quiet. That dossier on David’s paramour. Could Winston know about my birth mother? At least I had told Bertie that. Surely, surely, he could not have in his armory that I had pursued the Prince of Wales, nearly thrown myself at him—and worse than that.

  He had nodded and rapped his knuckles on the table as if rendering a verdict in court.

  “You have been more than a wife and helpmeet to the king,” he said, his face and voice serious. “You have been his advisor, his strength, his courage, his brain at times, and I know that full well. So I shall agree with you on this matter—at least for now—and not mention the wild thought to His Majesty, and I trust you will not either.”

  I gave a little, inelegant snort.

  “Darling?” Bertie’s voice broke in, dragging me back to
reality. “I almost thought you had nodded off along with me. I am eager to resume the way we were the night we parted, but I have a feeling it will not be tonight. Let’s celebrate your special day with our girls, just we four, before I fall face-first in your cake.”

  “We have a great deal to celebrate.” I helped him don the jacket of his uniform again. “We are back together, we are going for a rest to Scotland and onward and upward in this war.”

  The moment we joined the girls, Alan Lascelles popped in the door without so much as a knock.

  “Excuse me, Your Majesties, but the prime minister is on the phone, and he’s humming that French cancan dance music. It reminds me of the night he sang ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ when Eleanor Roosevelt was with us.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Bertie said and rushed out.

  “It better be good news,” Margot said with a huge sigh. “We’re never going to have this party.”

  He was back in a flash with a smile on his wan, thin face. “Paris had been liberated just today!” he cried—and I did cry.

  “Rome, now Paris!” he went on. “Next—somehow—the dragon’s lair of Berlin!”

  He hugged me and swung me around once while the girls whooped and clapped. I must admit, it was a marvelous birthday gift.

  “If only,” Lilibet’s calm voice put in when we finally sat at the table again and clinked together our wine or juice glasses, “London could be liberated. You know what I mean, no more V-1 rocket bombs and people huddled in the Underground stations again. During the Blitz they seemed defiant, but now they are depressed.”

  That threw a little pall on our double celebration, but she was right. The bombs, the deaths, the deprivations had gone on far too long, as Winston had put it once, like “great black oxen” dragging us along but slowing us down.

  “Mummy, open your gifts before we have the cake,” Margot prompted, and Lilibet nodded.

  “Would you believe I have brought you a German Luger to continue your shooting lessons with?” Bertie said.

  “Not, I hope, with that horrid swastika on it.”

  “Those things look like ugly spiders!” Margot said with a shudder, though that thought didn’t keep her from popping more blackberries through her already dark-stained lips.

  “No swastikas,” Bertie assured us. “We shall destroy those as we would a poison spider.”

  We raised our glasses again, though I was wishing for something a bit stronger than my wine. I was just ready to cut the lovely iced cake when Alan popped back in.

  “Regretfully, another telephone call. For the queen. From Glamis.”

  I stood and said, “I’ll wager my father is calling to wish me a happy birthday. How I wish I could talk to my brother David today too.”

  “I too—mine,” I heard Bertie whisper as I put my napkin down, rose, and went out.

  But it was my father’s longtime physician.

  “I regret to tell you that the earl’s condition has weakened even more, Your Majesty,” he informed me. “Several of your family have been in to see him, but he is asking for you and David.”

  “He knows David is in Washington, D.C., in the British embassy.”

  “His mind is . . . is wandering, ma’am, and I thought it best to see if you can come. He seems very set that he must speak to you, rambling as he is about the old days. I do think he knows deep down that it is your birthday, for he keeps going back to when you were born, as best I can tell.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see. I’ll come as soon as I can, as we were going to Balmoral anyway on the morrow.”

  I went back in to our now strangely muted celebration and sat, staring at my piece of birthday cake. “Grandpapa has taken a turn for the worse and is asking to see me. His mind is wandering . . .” I began. “Well, let me open these lovely presents, and we’ll be off for Scotland early tomorrow, and I to see Grandpapa.”

  “I hope his mind doesn’t wander to that ghost,” Margot said, gripping her hands by her dessert plate. “You know, that monster of Glamis people always ask about. Mummy, you said it is just a frightening fairy tale, but I think some people believe it can still sneak up, scream, and scare people and ruin things.”

  “That,” Lilibet said, with her fork and cake halfway to her mouth, “sounds as if you are describing one of those horrid V-1 rockets.”

  Or, I thought, as I reached for a birthday gift to unwrap, it sounded like my private life navigating minefields set one way or the other by family, friends, and foes.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Past and Present

  As we rushed to Balmoral and I was motored on to Glamis to see my failing father, a line from Bertie’s D-Day speech kept revolving through my head: We are not unmindful of our own shortcomings, past and present. Now one more supreme test has to be faced.

  I had been over that speech so much with him, nearly had it memorized after listening to him practice it. He was proud he did not need Lionel Logue to help him, that he could stand and deliver it himself.

  And now I had one more supreme test of the several I yet faced. I feared I must bid farewell to my father and calm his ravings about past sins, if that’s what he was tormented by. And when I came to die, what regrets would torment me, and would I blurt out my shortcomings?

  For once, I did not look at the outer façade of the castle where the monster had supposedly been imprisoned. Papa’s rooms—Mother’s too—were on the other side. Despite having separate suites, de rigueur for the times, they had almost always shared the same sitting room and bedroom. Ah, such a love story.

  As my driver opened the door, the house butler came out to greet me. I hurried inside, up the familiar stairs where David and I had played. I planned to telephone my dear brother after I saw Father, not just send a telegram this time. How I missed him, two peas in a pod Mother had said once, but now I knew the pod had been the womb of a rural French cook.

  The doctor met me in the hall, so someone must have told him I had arrived. “Your Majesty, some good news,” he said with a bow. “The earl is a bit stronger today, but still talking a blue streak. Perhaps you can calm him. The nurse has stepped out too. Shall I go in with you or come back later?”

  “I thank you for your care of him, and please take a bit of a rest until I send for you.”

  He bowed again, backed away, then came back to open the door for me. The room was in semidarkness and smelled of salves and bedpans.

  “Papa, it’s Elizabeth,” I said, putting my purse and hat down on the end of the big canopied bed. I sat on the side of it and took his hand.

  He felt cold, his skin papery, and I saw purple bruises there.

  “My dear girl! Is that imp David with you? You two are the last, you know, but that does not mean you are not our dearest.”

  I was not sure whether to try to tell him David and I were in our forties now, or just play along. Couldn’t he see I was full grown and leave the past behind?

  “Yes, we are the youngest of your brood. I loved having a big family growing up.”

  “Quite right. And now that you are old enough, your mother and I need to tell you and David something about your beginning, so to speak.”

  I hoped he had not been telling the doctors and the servants what it sounded as if he would say. Could he be so demented that he was going back that far?

  “It’s all right,” I said, trying comfort mixed with a dose of reality, because I could not bear to hear all that again. “David and I know about the arrangement.”

  “Whoever told you? Did your mother tell you on the sly?”

  “It’s all water over the milldam, Papa. And Mama has loved us like her own, so it’s all right.”

  “It wasn’t all right, really. I was not always faithful to her. I told her everything, that’s what a good, strong, and true marriage needs, to share everything.”

  It was as if he were telling me—without knowing so—that I must tell Bertie about what the Prince of Wales had done to me, however I had pursued him, pushed myself o
n him. But Bertie was so weak, exhausted—oh, bloody damn, was I just looking for reasons to keep quiet on all that?

  “You know, my dear,” Papa broke into my agonizing, “I feel better already now that you are here and understand about the situation. She was a wonderful person, beautiful and bright, like you.”

  “I miss Mama too.”

  “I mean Marguerite. One of your middle names is from her, you know. I just wanted to tell you about her and, as soon as David gets here, I shall tell him too.”

  * * *

  Papa had rallied so strongly, at least physically, that I soon returned to Balmoral. I shared with Bertie what had been said, but went no further with my own confessions. Would I ever share them, even on my deathbed? Besides, Bertie needed his rest and slowly began to rally too.

  That night I used the telephone cable line we had at Balmoral to call David at the British embassy in Washington, D.C.

  “Dearest, so good to hear from you!” his voice came strong and sure. “I got your message you were going to see Father, but when I didn’t hear right away, I thought he might be better.”

  “Indeed he is, in body if not in mind. His thoughts wander terribly. He seemed obsessed with wanting to tell us about our real mother, and I am afraid he has probably babbled about it to the doctor and staff.”

  “Then I pray they consider his state of mind and are all loyal to the Strathmores—and their queen. I’ve told no one about all that but my wife.”

  “I finally told Bertie, and he took it very well. Let’s face it, everyone has some sort of secrets in the closet.”

  “Like me, you mean?”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking of you, dear. Do the people you work with there know you—that but for your wife, I mean—favor men?”

  “They may suspect, but my ties to you and my lovely conventional family keep my preference private and protected. Listen, Elizabeth, I agree with you that everyone has their secrets and peccadillos.”