by Karen Harper
“Yes, sir. A small boat for hire, and I loved going out on it.”
“Then you know something of seafaring discipline, so be certain these lads learn that. They will both eventually follow me into the Royal Navy, the best in the world for building men and the empire. Good night, sons. As soon as they’re tucked up, Mrs. Lala, best leave them with a nursemaid and come to the duchess’s bedroom to have a peek at the baby. The doctor’s here for the night, after which you will take over.”
I was hoping he would hug his sons or at least ruffle their hair the way Chad had, but his visit and his words would have to be enough. And so was I truly, at age—well, after all I was twenty-two!—to be head nurse to three royal children.
IN THE DUCHESS’S bedroom, the duke and doctor were not in sight. It was such a beautiful room in lavender and pale yellow, which made its modest size seem larger. A flower-patterned carpet was soft underfoot. The silk, tasseled drapes were closed. Family photographs crowded the dressing table.
Lady Dugdale sat in an upholstered beige silk chair near the large, canopied bed. Her slippered feet rested on an ottoman. Rose busied herself in the far corner, though she shot me a nod and a smile. And, there it was, a white, frilly bassinette next to the bed. I came closer and curtsied.
Lady Dugdale saw me and stood. She bent over the duchess who had her eyes closed. She looked pale and wan but somehow radiant—or at the least, relieved.
“Baby Mary’s nurse is here, dear,” Lady Dugdale told her friend. “I believe the boys have dubbed her Lala.”
The duchess’s eyes fluttered open. “Come closer, Mrs. Lala.” Her voice was hoarse and soft.
I did and bobbed her another curtsy. “Congratulations on your first daughter, Your Grace,” I told her. I glanced toward the bassinette but couldn’t see inside.
“And last daughter, perhaps last child,” the duchess said with a deep sigh. “On top of the heir and the spare, yes, Eva?”
Lady Dugdale patted her hand, then held it, even as she had mine when I was distressed. Indeed, I knew childbirth was a terrible trial. I’d heard my own mother scream for hours, even curse in the pain of it. But once it was over, I thought the joy of it would cover all of that. Well, what did I know of it, virgin and caretaker of others’ babes?
“Take a look at your new charge,” the duchess said, turning her head toward the bassinette. “The doctor will give her over to your care soon, tomorrow, I think, though I’ve quite lost track of time. Say hello to Victoria Alexandra Mary, to be called Mary, my mother’s namesake.”
The infant was swathed in white satin and lace with only a pink face visible, crowned by a touch of hair so blond it looked white, but then many infants were born blond and went to brown. I could see no more of her, but I would, this precious bundle. She opened her little eyes—cornflower blue—to blink once at me before seeming to sleep instantly again.
“Oh, she’s so lovely,” I whispered. “David and Bertie will be in awe.”
“Best they—and you—have a last good night’s sleep,” Lady Dugdale said. “The doctor may have a word with you, but he and the duke are at cigars and celebration drinks right now. And, oh yes, the proud grandparents from the Big House will be here tomorrow afternoon to see her, so best be ready for that.”
“Yes, milady. Thank you,” I said and curtsied again.
“And, Charlotte . . . Lala,” Lady Dugdale said, “the duke and duchess are grateful that you have taken good care of their sons. Your concern for David and Bertie is well noted. And I must tell you what the upper and downstairs staff have already been told by Mrs. Wentworth. Mrs. Peters has become very ill. She has been taken away to get the care she needs. So that will be all for now—as that is quite enough for one day.”
With a last glance at the new child someday destined to be a princess, I walked away, but I could have soared.
Chapter 5
Things were happening too fast, but surely nothing could go wrong now. At least, that is what I kept telling myself the next day. And I was to take the three children, all washed and dressed up, to meet their grandparents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, downstairs straightaway.
My only worry was that since David was now sure that Mrs. Peters had gone away for good, he had turned into a bit of a terror, riding his rocking horse wildly, shouting and bossing Bertie. I could tell he resented my carrying baby Mary about. Setting down strict rules and regulations was of immediate necessity, lest he think punishment of some sort was a thing of the past. Yet how I wished I could give both boys a little holiday from all they’d been through. I reckoned I’d also be giddy with glee to have escaped Mrs. Peters’s clutches.
“David, keep your voice down and don’t muss that new sailor suit. We do not want your grandparents to hear you shouting right through the padded door and clear down the stairs.”
“I call them Grannie and Grandpapa,” he told me, fidgeting with his starched collar and coming over to pat the baby a little too hard on the head, through her frilly bonnet. We were awaiting the summons to take her and the lads down into the drawing room.
“Gently, gently with the baby,” I told him. “And remember, it’s not good for any of you to be crying when we see your father, so don’t you get little Mary all stirred up.”
That mere reminder seemed to settle him, though I hated to invoke the ghost of Nurse Peters. He needed to learn discipline from within—on that much, I’m sure, I agreed with his father. A naval career and making a man of him were the farthest things from my mind. Secretly, I was overjoyed this new child was a girl, because I had no doubt that these lads would too soon have a male tutor, their own valet, and be reared quite away from the nursery. With a girl, it was always different.
I WAS APPALLED that, the minute I entered the drawing room with the three children, David vaulted past his father and threw his arms around his grandfather’s knees. The duchess wasn’t present but the duke frowned and cleared his throat as if that would calm David. Still holding Mary, whom I intended to hand to his grandmother, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, I cringed. But, evidently to the duke’s chagrin and my relief, the Prince of Wales, a huge man, picked the boy up and hugged him close.
“Oh, my,” Princess Alexandra said, “I hope that didn’t startle the baby. David, my dear, you are not one of those wild Indians that Buffalo Bill’s show brought to London and paraded through the streets, you know.”
“Yes, Grannie.”
“Oh, let the boy be,” Prince Albert said and bounced him hard. “He’s glad to see his grandpapa, aren’t you, my lad? High spirits, that’s all. But let’s have a look at your new sister. And there’s my Bertie boy, eh?” he said and sat on the chintz sofa so he could lift Bertie up, one of them on each knee.
“Sit, Mother dearest,” the duke said, “and let Mrs. Lala hand you the baby.”
I managed a curtsy and bent to give Mary to Princess Alexandra. The little mite, praise the Lord, looked alert and was not crying. She even waved a tiny fist as if in greeting, for I had decided not to wrap her arms close to her body. I’d even given her a little kickabout time on a blanket upstairs. Now I arranged the child’s voluminous wrappings and stepped back, relieved to watch what could be a normal family, oohing and aahing over their new addition.
The prince said, “A beauty, just like you, Alix.”
Princess Alexandra said to the baby’s hovering father, “Oh, my boy, I think this child resembles you more than she does May.”
I didn’t think the little mite looked like anyone but herself so far. Truly, babies don’t, though everyone says so. I stepped farther away. This drawing room, which I had not been in, bespoke wealth but not royalty with its stuffed, flower-design, chintz-covered furniture and numerous bibelots and framed photographs, patterned carpet, big roses wallpaper and a huge looking glass over the crowded mantel.
Oh, how I admired Prince Albert for his good cheer and open affection for the boys, even though he paid the baby little heed. And Princess Alexandra, whom the pri
nce called Alix, was as lovely as the sketches I’d seen in gazettes at Dr. Lockwood’s, but even more regal and elegant in the flesh.
Now in her fifties, she wore her dark hair, which looked to be woven with silver threads, swept up but fringed across her forehead, in a poodle style. She seemed grand even in her peacock satin day dress and three strands of big pearls clasped close around her long neck—a swan neck was how I’d heard it described. She seemed especially graceful and slender next to her big bear of a husband. Yes, I thought, the swan and the bear. I tried to study the scalloped inserts and tucked cotton roses on her embroidered lace inset bodice, because I knew Rose would quiz me about the gown the princess wore. Before I knew Rose, I would have just said she was in a pretty blue dress.
At least Duke George had calmed down, but what choice did he have since his parents were so entranced with his children? If only he could show some of the warmth they showered on them. He did look proud at least, when, in truth, the duchess had done all the hard work.
I wondered if I should step out into the hall to give them privacy but I stayed mute, blended with the walnut-paneled door, until the princess looked my way. “The new nurse’s name again?” she asked her son, none too quietly. Did all three of these royals bellow?
“Charlotte Bill, Mother dearest, but the lads have dubbed her Lala.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling at me and talking loud enough that little Mary began to fuss, “like a stanza in a song. Mrs. Lala, the baby’s great-grandmother Queen Victoria would like to see her soon, so we’ll all be heading for London when the duchess can travel, but the christening will be here on the grounds at St. Mary Magdalene. We’ll bring in the Archbishop of York—so appropriate, isn’t it, George?”
“Yes, very good, Mother dearest.”
He really called her that? I marveled. Each and every time he addressed her?
“Very good, Your Royal Highness,” I told her and went over to lift the child from her lap, but my heart was beating hard. Not only to be so close to the Waleses, but to think I might catch a glimpse of the queen. “We will be eager and ready for that, won’t we, David and Bertie?”
Bertie nodded, mumbling something about jam tarts. David, thank heavens, politely informed me, “Great-grandmother, the queen, we call her Gangan.”
“And,” the prince puts in, “she likes that name, Mrs. Lala, so don’t scold them for that.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness. I shall scold them as little as possible but try to keep them, as His Grace, their father, says, shipshape.”
I don’t know if I had dared to say more than I should, but the duke nodded and managed to pry David from his grandfather’s knee. He turned Bertie about to head him toward the door after me.
“And you just bring all three of them to see us at the Big House tomorrow for tea,” the princess called after me. “George, you too, if you wish, though it will be a bit too early for their mother to be going out.”
“I may have to send Eva Dugdale over with them as I have business with some of the estate staff.”
I realized that all three of the adults had been intentionally raising their voices. The duke often shouted, as if giving orders, but why did the princess too? Perhaps she or the prince were hard of hearing. My grandmother had been. Yes, I recalled Princess Alexandra had cupped her hand behind her ear before she held the baby.
As I went out, the butler and a footman were carrying in silver trays with tea and little sponge cakes and raspberry scones, so I was grateful Bertie was too short to see all that. “Come on then,” I told them, being mindful of my long skirts as I climbed the front stairs with Mary held close. “David, take Bertie’s hand since I can’t right now, and we’ll have our tea upstairs.”
“Rice pudding?” Bertie asked.
“I think that was special just for yesterday,” I told him.
“Because Mrs. Peters left,” David said. “And she’s going to the same place some lady named Mrs. Mordant got locked up for going to the fair with Grandpapa.”
It took me a moment to unscramble what the child must have overheard, and I couldn’t hold back a gasp. Not “going to the fair,” but “having an affair”? I blushed to think what might have happened if he’d blurted that out back in the drawing room. Rose had said that for years Princess Alexandra had bravely borne her husband’s marital infidelities. And, I’d heard, his longtime mistress was named Daisy Warwick, and, I figured, she must be sister-in-law to Eva Dugdale, who was sister to Daisy’s cuckolded husband. I’d only meant to concentrate on the children here but the adults came with tangled strings attached.
“Who did you hear say all that about Mrs. Mordant?” I asked David as we reached the second floor.
“Nursemaid Jane. She said so to Nursemaid Martha,” he told me, his voice almost belligerent.
So I now had to put a stopper in three mouths, and one of them who would only be too happy to say bad things about Mrs. Peters and Lady Mordant. To his parents? Grandparents? The queen?
“We see Mama today?” Bertie asked as we passed the duchess’s bedroom door.
“I bet we see her tomorrow. She’s sleeping today.”
“And that’s what Mrs. Mordant did with Grandpapa,” David declared. “Took a nap.”
Oh, dear. At least the boy must have interpreted “gone to bed with” or “slept with” as took a nap. If I didn’t want to cry, I could have laughed.
As we went through the green baize door into the back hallway, I hesitated to scold him, but how to explain that some things were not to be repeated, even if he didn’t really understand? Mrs. Mordant was one of several women rumored to have had an affair with the prince, whom the gazettes liked to call “Edward the Caresser” for his dalliances, and that one, though some years ago, so I had heard, had nearly blown up in his face.
There had been a public divorce scandal between the Mordants, during which the prince had been named as one of her paramours. Indiscreet but not, at least, damning letters had been found by her husband from the prince. Worse, the woman had borne a baby not her husband’s, for he had been away when it was conceived. She’d then been declared insane and had been locked away in a lunatic asylum ever since, so that must be the connection to Mrs. Peters being sent to one. David must have overheard that too, for I’d only told him she’d gone away, not that she had been committed.
Well, I had to talk to my two nursery maids about gossip, and David too, so it didn’t pop up as teatime talk tomorrow on the very first day I was going to visit Sandringham House.
“NO!” ROSE CRIED with a gasp, wide-eyed when I told her what David had overheard. “He thought someone said, ‘took a nap with her’ instead of ‘slept with her’?”
We had a giggle over that. Sometimes children said the funniest things, even though what David had overheard was no laughing matter.
“I’m afraid so, on top of ‘he went to the fair’ with Mrs. Mordant.”
“Out of the mouths of babes indeed!” she said as the two of us continued to stroll round the lake near York Cottage. “You know, I’ve heard Daisy Warwick dresses like a dream, but Mrs. Mordant didn’t have an ounce of fashion sense, and the prince’s new love, Mrs. Keppel, is even worse. Well, I’ve seen that, so she must have ‘other things’ than clothing in her corner. Which reminds me, Her Ladyship has given me a castoff gown of hers that she thinks is plain, but you would not believe it! I’ll show it to you soon.”
“Is it damaged?”
“She said it didn’t quite look right over the Paris lingerie she likes now that her stomach hasn’t quite gone down from bearing number three.”
“Lingerie—what? A combination garment, you mean . . . underwear?”
“Charlotte, your isolation with the children does keep you behind the times with things! Lingerie is all très French right now, and you know that’s where the latest ideas some from. At least when referring to ladies, you must learn to say lingerie and not underwear or combinations.”
“Well, pardon me!”
/> But she was hardly listening. “Oh, it’s all so beautiful, the layers of what the luscious gowns and negligees hide these days,” she went on, as if enraptured. “I mean, I know you dress the little ones in layers but not six or seven of them, I’ll bet, from the satin vest and ribboned corset, silk faille camisole. You should see the princess’s newest watered silk and Valenciennes lace knickers. Granted, you and your nursemaids have to change the children’s clothes now and again, but I change the princess five to six times a day, from skin out—more if we’re on one of the king’s Saturday to Monday gatherings here.”
“And you treasure every bit of those lace and silken things. No, just give me a good linen or polished cotton children’s sailor suit to put on the boys,” I teased and squeezed her arm.
As time went on, I grew to consider Rose a good friend. We laughed a lot and sometimes argued. I would have hated to lose Rose, and I missed her when the duchess traveled for long periods of time. I never knew why Rose took such a shine to me from the first—perhaps I was her fashion project. I knew she loved that I believed in her, that, in her head and in her sketchbook, she could create fine fashions, even if she never got to make them real.
WHEN I HAD a serious sit-down with David, he’d promised me no more talk about Mrs. Peters or his grandfather and someone named Mrs. Mordant. He was not to repeat things he overheard, except to me. And I gave what for to my two nursemaids, making them repeat, as if they were children too, “Little pitchers have big ears. I will not gossip around the children. Little pitchers . . .”
Yet I was still a bit nettled as Lady Dugdale walked ahead of me, holding David and Bertie’s hands, and I carried the new baby toward massive Sandringham House. I reckon I would have gone in the side door, but milady took us round to the front, of course. I fought not to feel overwhelmed by my new duties, by a mere visit to grandparents, and by this massive house and tended grounds. Why, it could have swallowed York Cottage for lunch with its massive red and blond brick facades, gables, and numerous chimneys. Mind you, I’d been reared in a small house with one chimney, and right grateful we were for our single hearth on winter nights.
