Lost Autumn

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  “I dared him.”

  “I beg pardon?”

  “I dared him to appoint you. I thought it would be fun.”

  “The prince?” I said.

  “God, no! He doesn’t have anything to do with it. Rupert told us your name after the interview. ‘Maddie Bright,’ he said. Well, as soon as I heard Bright and Brisbane, I knew you must be related to Thomas Bright the poet. I was with Vanity Fair during the war, the new American magazine, and we published his poems. Rupert told Ned he couldn’t give you the job on account of your being let go.” She widened her eyes as if relishing a scandal.

  “So I wired your cafe, the one that dismissed you. And then I spoke to the owner on the telephone, Mr. Christie. I knew there’d be more to the story. There always is. We told Rupert what happened and Rupert thinks you have honor. So do I, for what it’s worth.” She smiled.

  Just then I saw Mr. Waters hurrying along the platform toward us with another man. Mr. Waters was unmistakable, even from a distance, those long limbs and that slim frame. He was carrying under his arm a thick wad of papers. His fringe, which he’d kept pushing back the day before, was flopping into his eyes. In his mouth was a pencil. When he reached us, he pulled the pencil out and blew his hair up in an attempt to get it out of his eyes. He was wearing long brown pants with deep pockets, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a brown belt and shoes.

  “Helen, you found Maddie, thank you,” he said. “Perhaps you might show her around?” He smiled at us both. “I’ll see you a bit later on, Maddie.”

  The other man looked at me. “You’re the tea girl?”

  I nodded. I supposed I was.

  “Funny story, that.” He smiled. It disappeared quickly.

  The other man was the same height as Mr. Waters, older by ten or so years, with a mustache that made you think he must have been high up in the army. But he was dressed in a suit with a crisp white shirt and tie, not a uniform.

  He turned to Helen. “We’re going over who said what.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Well, I didn’t say anything. Ned, this is Maddie, and we’re not to call her the tea girl. Also, why aren’t you shooting pigs? I thought you were shooting pigs.”

  “Fine.” He nodded at me. “Maddie, I’m Colonel Grigg.” He turned back to Helen. “I sent Dickie to the shoot. I know you didn’t say anything, sweetie, but Halsey has wired the King and Dickie says he’s upset.”

  “The King is upset?” Helen said.

  “The prince.”

  Colonel Grigg looked at me briefly again and back at Helen.

  “Well, if he wants them to treat him like a prince—” Helen said.

  Mr. Waters held up his hand, the one that held the pencil, to stop her speaking, and frowned in my direction. “Very well, Helen. I think that’s probably enough.”

  “Did you find a correspondence secretary?” Helen asked Mr. Waters. “I can’t keep doing it. I’m sure Ned has made that clear.”

  She seemed brusque with Mr. Waters. I wondered why.

  It was Colonel Grigg who replied. “Well . . .” he said, grimacing, “perhaps just a couple of days, to help Rupert out. He’s in a pickle.”

  “So you didn’t recruit anyone?” Helen was looking at Mr. Waters.

  “No,” Mr. Waters said, looking down toward the platform as if he’d dropped something. “I interviewed for the maid job and we got Maddie . . .” He smiled at me then. “And, Maddie, I am very pleased you’re here. It’s just a bit of a morning, I’m afraid. Anyway, Helen,” he went on, looking at the floor again, “we’ve also hired another footman back at the house and a chambermaid. The housekeeper organized those for us.”

  Helen said, “You promised you’d get someone after we left Melbourne.” Mell-born, she pronounced it. “I already have a job, remember?” She turned to Colonel Grigg. “And you don’t give me any less work. I have two masters, three if you count H.R.H., and I don’t like any of them right at this moment.”

  “Rupert and I met with four candidates but not one of them is what he needs,” Colonel Grigg said. “I agree with him about it, although I have no intention of giving you up.”

  He smiled. I didn’t like his smile. There was something self-satisfied about it.

  “Did you forget to mention they have to write like a prince?” Helen said. She was the sophisticated woman of the world again, I noticed, none of the girl now. She’d quite changed with Mr. Waters and the colonel; I would have said she’d become hard-hearted, if I’d been pressed to provide a description.

  Around the train there was a good deal of anxiousness to leave: porters carrying trunks into the carriages, guards inspecting various aspects of the platform, railway staff polishing shiny brass and cleaning already clean windows, the engines puffing and panting as if taking a few deep breaths before a race. The pigeons were still wheeling above, as if they might have messages for us but couldn’t find a place to land. The train itself seemed to be shrugging its shoulders, hunkering down to take its load.

  “Of course we mentioned it.” Colonel Grigg looked exasperated. “But everyone wants the job. So we had the governor’s cousin’s son, who’s just started at the University of Sydney, followed by the police commissioner’s nephew, and so on. Lovely lads. Not suitable. There’s politics in all this; we have to be careful.”

  All the while the colonel and Helen were talking, I noticed Mr. Waters was looking at Helen. Those lovely clear eyes. Hope. That was the impression I was forming of him. He was a soul blessed with hope.

  “Are you sure not one of them could do it?” Helen asked.

  “I can show you what they wrote, if you like,” Colonel Grigg said. “The prince was right pleased to get your letter and I hope you’ll be a good boy in future—typewritten suture, as I recall.” He waved a hand. “Poor old Rupert is tearing his hair out. Just look at him.”

  Mr. Waters didn’t say anything. Helen didn’t look at him.

  “So if you could help, we’d both be much obliged,” the colonel said.

  I studied him then, Colonel Grigg. I did not find hope anywhere in his features and perhaps this was why I hadn’t warmed to him.

  “Well, I’ll do what I can today,” Helen was saying to him now.

  “Thank you,” he said. “A thousand times. Come on, Waters—let’s face the music, old chap.” And they were off.

  “It may appear chaotic,” Helen said as they scuttled away, “but I can assure you we run a very tight ship here at H.R.H. HQ. It’s just busier than anyone thought possible. In Melbourne”—Mell-born again—“more people came to meet the prince than live in the city. Do you understand what I mean? There were more people on the streets of Melbourne than live in Melbourne. How can that even be? At one stage, he had to be carried out of the crowd by a group of soldiers, in fear for his life.”

  I must have looked confused.

  “The crush.” She sucked her cheeks in.

  I laughed. “Maybe I should be a Fenian after all.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said, mock horror on her face. “It was a Fenian who shot poor Alfred, and he was the Queen’s favorite. Victoria’s favorite and your people shot him, Maddie. If it hadn’t been for his rubber suspenders deflecting the bullet . . .” She made a cutthroat motion.

  Helen had light blue eyes, and when she widened them, as she did now, they were awfully big in her small face.

  “Alfred who?”

  “Prince Alfred. Prince Edward’s uncle. Queen Victoria’s youngest. You don’t know the story?”

  I shook my head.

  “He was shot when he visited Australia, at a picnic here in Sydney, by an Irishman, a Fenian. It was all they could talk about when Prince Edward was leaving England. Will the colonists shoot another royal?”

  “Well, so far, we haven’t,” I said. “That must count in our favor: we haven’t shot him.”
>
  “Quite,” she said, regarding me carefully. “There’s more to you, isn’t there?”

  Helen led me to the second last carriage and I stepped up behind her into what was a beautifully appointed room, so spacious you wouldn’t believe it was only the width of a train carriage. The wall panels were white with blue trim, and a rich dark red rug covered the floor. There were two desks with chairs at one end and, at the other, leather-upholstered easy chairs with electrical lights on two small tables.

  “Is this the dining car?” I asked. I wondered where the table was. I could smell tobacco smoke and wood polish.

  “Rupert’s office,” she replied. She pointed to one of the desks. “That’s him.” She tossed her bag on the other desk. “And this is the correspondence secretary. That’s the job they keep trying to get me to do.” The second desk was a mess of envelopes and papers in various stages of undress.

  She gestured to the door at the rear of the compartment. “The prince’s private dining room and beyond that his chamber, where only Dickie can follow.”

  I was still carrying my portmanteau and Helen took it from me and put it down on one of the easy chairs. She pointed to the forward carriages. “The other staff offices and the newspapermen. Rupert is here because the prince cannot survive without him.”

  “And who’s Dickie?” I asked.

  “The prince’s cousin, Louis Mountbatten—eyebrows, perpetually grinning—who’s allowed in to see him. So is Admiral Halsey, actually, if the mood takes him.

  “And then there’s Godfrey Thomas—Sir Godfrey, the principal private secretary, Rupert’s boss—and Ned, Colonel Grigg, who you just met, my boss. You’ll learn. Rupert is the one who steers the ship, despite its many captains. If Rupert weren’t here, they’d never get David to do anything.”

  I looked at the blue door that separated the office from the private dining room. I’d be serving the prince his meals for the trip to Canberra, Mr. Waters had said, when he telephoned to tell me I’d been successful in my application.

  Discretion was the main thing, Mr. Waters had said in the interview, although Helen didn’t seem at all discreet. “We’re a loyal bunch,” Mr. Waters had said earnestly. “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Really, Mr. Waters,” the housekeeper had said then, “I don’t think this girl meets our requirements. A pot of tea, sir, on a guest.” She had been wanting the interview to come to an end for some time, I surmised, but Mr. Waters had kept on with it.

  “There might have been mitigating circumstances.” He turned to me, frowning slightly, fiddling with his spectacles on the table then looking up at me without donning them. “You say it was on purpose?”

  I only nodded.

  “Did you have a reason?”

  “Yes, I did, sir.”

  “And are you going to tell us the reason?” Mr. Waters asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think it would contribute to your view of me as discreet, sir.”

  He’d laughed then, a loud belly laugh that stopped only when he caught sight of the housekeeper, whose visage would wipe rust from steel, as my father might have said.

  He’d smiled again as I left. “Well, Maddie, thank you for coming to see us.” He glanced at the housekeeper. “I don’t think we’re in a position to . . . All the best, at any rate.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  “When it comes to H.R.H. himself,” Helen Burns said now, taking a seat at Mr. Waters’s desk and gesturing for me to sit at the other desk. “Well, the truth is . . . I couldn’t say I know how to accurately describe him.”

  “I saw his hand,” I said. “I came in with my family the first day he arrived.”

  “Good for you,” Helen said.

  “It may have been someone else’s hand.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Quite possible. I should say at the outset that I’m not like the rest of them. I’m not born to love him or anything. No King and Country for me. Frankly, I wasn’t a fan of the prince. I wasn’t in his circle, like Godfrey, or his father’s idea, like the admiral, or the PM’s voice, like Ned. And I have no stupid loyalty to the throne like Rupert, I can assure you.” She paused, lit another cigarette, taking time to strike the match. She inhaled deeply. “I’m here because I was summoned to the palace, as it happens.”

  “By the prince?”

  “Yes, by the prince. He’d read a piece of mine about the treatment of soldiers after the war, darling. Beastly, it’s been in Britain. That’s one reason I wasn’t a fan. He was part of the empire that did all that. Anyhow, he saw my story, apparently. Frankly, it’s hard to believe Mr. George is still in office. That’s what the prince said to me, a journalist! It amounted to a rift in the separation of powers or something and I could have written it, as we were not officially off the record. Wouldn’t it have caused a stink!

  “He said that the Prince of Wales couldn’t say those things I wrote, and if I worked for him, I couldn’t say them either, but we could think them, he said, and we could act on them without saying them. Did I understand his meaning? he asked. He looked at me with those eyes of his that could melt the polar ice caps. I thought I did understand, although he hadn’t offered me a job at that stage.

  “Actually, he quite impressed me, which I hadn’t expected. I have reason to dislike him specifically.” She looked around as if someone might be listening. “Perhaps he’s not terribly bright. Perhaps you just end up on his team out of curiosity and then you come to know him and like him and you forget what you disliked him for. You start to see what others see in him, I suppose. Now I’m even fond of the dear little fellow.

  “Anyway, by the time he said he wanted a woman who could handle the newspapermen on future tours of the empire, I was more than willing.”

  “So the prince asked you on the tour?” I said. Helen was so very glamorous to my mind, and held such an important role, telling newspapermen what to do! I couldn’t imagine it.

  “Yes,” she said, as if still surprised, “and here I am.” She paused then. “And there,” she said finally, “when I arrived”—she lit up a cigarette, took a deep draw—“was Rupert.” She made a little hmph noise and smoke came out her nostrils, like a dragon. “The prince didn’t tell me that part, that Rupert was coming on the tour.” Her face hardened. “Although I suppose I should have known. Anyway, I report to Grigg.

  “Truth is,” she went on quickly, a tight smile now, “H.R.H. is difficult to refuse. Rupert’s his favorite whipping boy, as you’ll see. He always takes it back, though, because he knows he needs Rupert. I think he knows he has no real compass without Rupert.”

  “Compass for what?” I said.

  “Living morally, for a start.”

  “So Mr. Waters knows the prince well?”

  “He and Rupert are like that.” She crossed her fingers, a bitter smile on her lips. “They grew up together. Rupert’s like the big brother he never had and badly needs. He’s the only one of the lot of them who’ll take David on when he’s in one of his moods.” She looked hard again then, like she’d looked when Mr. Waters found us.

  “And who’s David?” I said, feeling stupid.

  “The prince. That’s his name, or one of them. It’s the one they use at home. We all call him David. He asked us to. He’ll do the same with you. He doesn’t want to be a royal highness. He’s terribly informal. You’ll see. He’d prefer none of the pomp. Unfortunately, he was born into the pompiest pomp on earth. As I say, I feel as if I shouldn’t like him, but I find that I do.” She gave a little sigh.

  “And here: the problem!” she exclaimed suddenly. On the floor beneath both desks there were envelopes, hundreds of them. “Mail.”

  “Mail?” I said. I was finding Helen a little overwhelming, to be honest. My mother had said no one would
notice me or speak to me. I would be a servant and that meant I was no one. “Do you understand, Maddie?” she’d asked. “A servant is no one.” She looked so sad. Yes, I said, I do understand, although in truth I didn’t know why it would make Mummy so sad. And now, to have Helen not only speak to me but take me into her confidence so fully was quite unnerving.

  “They are delivering it daily from Government House,” she said. “This is all from Victoria. Sydney is just starting. They write to the prince and tell him their stories.” She sighed again. “The war,” she said. “I don’t know why they write to him. Perhaps they think it will help. There’s so much . . . unhappiness in the world.”

  I thought of my father.

  “Did you know someone in the war?” I asked.

  “Who didn’t?” she replied, and then laughed lightly. “But all that is past. Now we are an empire united, happy in our glorious victory.” She didn’t look happy. She looked almost teary. I imagined we both did. “And we have our prince, shining himself upon his dominions.

  “Rupert,” she said quietly after another moment, her eyes glistening now. “I knew Rupert in the war.”

  “How?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Never mind.”

  From Autumn Leaves by M. A. Bright

  FRANCE, 1918

  “You’re British?” she asked, lifting the blanket that covered him.

  He felt the rush of cold air. Any sensation other than pain was welcome. He tried to focus on the cold.

  “Last time I looked, yes,” he said, controlling the fear in his voice, which would explode into panic if he didn’t keep it in check. He could taste iron in his mouth.

  He would keep his voice even. No matter what, he would manage that.

  “What I mean is: What are you doing here?” She spoke slowly.

  She wasn’t British, or she was British with something else. Canadian?

  He wanted something rough, not that sweet voice. There was no place for sweetness here.

  He looked up, squinted in the sunlight. He focused on her face, a silhouette at first and then as his own eyes adjusted he saw hers, a pale blue like the sky above her, her pretty face, hair tied back, strands escaping.