The Royal Nanny

by Karen Harper

  Chad had said this many-roomed mansion wasn’t all there was to see. Out back, where I had not been yet, stretched the estate gardens, stables, kennels, a model farm and stud farm, where the prince’s racing Thoroughbreds were housed in fine style. Chad had also described glasshouses for vegetables and flowers and a pheasantry he and his father tended where thousands of game birds were raised for estate hunting.

  Lady Dugdale said, “Come on, then, Bertie, don’t dawdle. Mrs. Lala can’t carry you and Mary too. You know how your grandfather is about being on time. Mrs. Lala, have you heard he’s set his clocks an hour ahead to save extra light at the end of the day for his shooting parties?”

  “I did hear. And that Princess Alexandra is the only one who dares to be frequently late.”

  “Lala,” David said, turning back toward me. “Do not repeat what we hear others say. You said so.”

  “So I did, David. We shall talk more about that later.”

  “Good luck with that,” her ladyship said. “Each level of servants has its own grapevine, not to mention juicy tidbits always flying round among the uppers of dear England and all those between who read the gazette rags.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  I would have straightened David’s sassing me out promptly, but not with Eva Dugdale here. I felt momentarily overwhelmed by the task facing me as head nurse to the innocent in my arms and her two older brothers who had been abused by that horrible woman. But I vowed to heal them, to help them be the very best they could be.

  Still, I could not help feeling the weight of this big house that cast such a huge shadow. I took a last breath of sweet spring air before we approached the front door, which swept open as if by magic and in we went.

  Chapter 6

  Bertie, don’t touch,” I told the boy as he grabbed a carved animal statue off Princess Alexandra’s side table. I was fretful something would go wrong on my first visit to the Big House—and baby Mary’s first visit too.

  “Oh, that’s quite all right,” she told me. “They are allowed to play with the Fabergé agate collection.”

  I’d never heard of Fabergé or agate, but I was relieved. So far, I thought our visit to Sandringham House was going well. I’d noted from the first that the boys’ grandparents seemed to work wonders with them, and I soon learned the prince was not the only fun-loving one. Alexandra let them play on the flowered carpet with her zoo of exquisite agate animals, which looked carved from many-hued, veined marble. She held the baby again while Eva had tea with them, and I took my tea with the boys at a smaller table set up near the unlit hearth. Bertie had an agate lion with him that zoomed around the jam tarts, and David, a ruffed grouse.

  I must admit I kept one ear cocked to adult talk, which, I suppose, proved big pitchers had big ears too. David had already reminded me that I too, especially when I was with Rose, could be a gossip.

  “And how is your dear sister-in-law, Daisy?” I heard the princess ask Lady Dugdale.

  The boys chattered on but I froze. Among the Marlborough Set, as the intimates of the Waleses were dubbed, there was only one Daisy. The noble beauty had even inspired a song, Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. But surely, Alexandra knew Daisy Warwick was the prince’s longtime lover, his semi-official mistress, some said, though I’d overheard at York Cottage—and Rose had said it was true—that he preferred a woman named Alice Keppel now. So was it a fact that Princess Alexandra abided his paramours? But poor Eva, sister-in-law to Daisy, to be put in the middle of that.

  “How kind of you to ask, Your Highness,” Eva said, her voice calm and warm. “I believe she is quite busy between her duties at the castle and in London, where she’ll be for the season, entertaining. She loves people and, I’m sure, would love to see you there.”

  “Yes,” Alexandra said, not looking at her husband, but her tone was cutting and her voice, as usual, loud. “I heard she does love people. Alas, I may have some Danish relatives here to entertain on my own at that time.”

  The prince said not a word but lit a cigar and came over to tell the boys, “Line those beasts up for battle on the floor, and we’ll have a little war.”

  To my amazement, the big man sat down on the carpet with them, and they maneuvered carved mice and ducks, partridge and grouse, elephants and other little pieces by someone with that French name I could not recall.

  Even after the princess’s salvo at Eva, which was, no doubt, intended for her husband, it was decided Eva would stay for a tour of the stud farm and I would walk the children back with a Sandringham housemaid who was just returning from her half-day free. We bid good-bye to the doting grandparents, and I was pleased that the maid turned out to be sister of my nursemaid Martha Butcher. I carried the baby, she held Bertie’s hand, and David strode a few steps ahead of us.

  “I didn’t know,” I told Mabel, “that Martha had a sister close by.”

  “We’re from Slough, Mrs. Lala, both come to the estate the same time, her at the cottage, me at the Big House. I may be the youngest housemaid but I mean to rise high, be housekeeper someday. I mind my p’s and q’s and keep my eyes open, work hard, I do. Bothers me a bit, though,” she confided, lowering her voice, “that if Their Highnesses pass by in the hall, we’re to turn our faces to the wall and stay still—mostly never to be seen. That’s one reason I’d like to be housekeeper, because she talks with the princess real regular. You—with the royal little ones and all—that’s the way with you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I talk with Their Graces, especially their mother, about the children. But you have the downstairs folks for friends and I really don’t, except for one. I feel caught between both worlds and not in either.”

  “Oh, Martha never thought of that.”

  “No, she wouldn’t, since she’s downstairs fetching and fixing things nearly as much as she is up with me in the nursery, and she sometimes takes her meals with them downstairs too.”

  “I know Nursemaid Martha,” David, ever all ears, piped up as he came back to walk with us. “I’m going to show her and Nursemaid Jane this before I give it to Chad.”

  From under his coat, he produced the agate grouse.

  “Oh!” Mabel cried. “I dust the big lot of those every morning, every bit of them!”

  “David, stop!” I ordered, and we all stopped walking. “I did not see your grandmother give you that.”

  “No, but she has a lot of them. We can play with them, but we can’t with all of Mama’s collections.”

  “You cannot just take things without asking, even from someone who has a lot, even someone in your family. You can tell that those mean a great deal to her because she has so many.”

  “Too many. She gives me things. She loves me.”

  “Yes, she loves you, but because you love her too, you will not just take something that belongs to her, something she paid for or was given as a gift, something she likes. We need to march right back and give that to her, tell her you’re sorry and will not do it again.”

  He stuck out his lower lip and frowned. Was he going to buck me on this? “It’s for Chad,” he said, shooting me a hopeful look. “He likes birds, and you like him.”

  I was once again shocked the child was so perceptive. No simpleton, little David, though his learning to recognize alphabet letters and write his name seemed to bore him at times. “That has nothing to do with this,” I told him. “I know he likes birds, ruffed grouse too. But what if you gave it to him and someone found out he had an agate grouse instead of the real kind he loves? What if they thought he went into the Big House and took it, even if you gave it to him? You see, we can’t just take things we want, because something bad could happen to someone we care about.”

  “Don’t tell Father.”

  “I won’t if you do the right thing, but I can’t promise you that your grannie or grandpapa won’t tell him.”

  He heaved a huge sigh. “They won’t. They’re on my side,” he insisted and turned back toward San
dringham, dragging his feet so badly I figured the footman Cranston would have a terrible time polishing the toes of his shoes. But since I needed to pick my battles with this boy, I decided to handle the thievery first, scuffed shoes later.

  Back at the Big House—the side door this time—I sent Mabel ahead to fetch the butler to announce that we were back because David had something to say to his grandmother. In again we went. I was grateful that the princess came out into the hall without the others and—it was the first time I noticed she limped—walked to us. I gave David’s shoulder a little shove and, head hanging, he shuffled toward her.

  “Look at me, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David,” she told him in an unusual stentorian tone. “You will be a prince and a king someday, God willing, so chin up. Now, whatever is it, my boy?”

  He looked up at her. I wished I could see his face. “Grannie, I made a mistake and had this animal with me when we left. Lala says bring it back right now. I didn’t think you’d miss it.”

  She leaned over to take the finely carved little piece. “Mrs. Lala was right to make you return it. Someday, I will see that you have it back with some of the others, but your grannie loves that Fabergé collection. Are you sorry you took it?”

  “Well, I know I should be, and I do love you dearly.”

  “I believe you have told me the truth. But I do not expect you to take things not yours, and not to keep secrets, not from those who love you. Someday, you will be given much, understand?”

  His blond head nodded, though I doubt if he fathomed that final thought.

  Tears shone in Alexandra’s eyes as she stooped to hug the child. It was the first day I realized that David might have learned more from his grandfather than just how to have fun. The prince evidently took women who were not his and tried, at least, to keep it a secret, but if word got out, he bluffed or charmed his way out of trouble. It was also the first day I warned myself against being manipulated by this boy, who would someday be king. And I realized too that I wasn’t the only one who would like to have given that precious ruffed grouse to Chad.

  ABOUT A WEEK later, I found David had hidden two other Fabergé animals, a horse and a stag, under his bed, tied to the slats with string so the maids wouldn’t see or hit them when they dusted. Clever boy, devious too at almost age four, since he’d obviously managed to filch them at great risk to himself while Mrs. Peters still ruled the roost.

  I know I should have marched him right to his father or to the Big House, but I talked to him again and made him sit in a corner during outside playtime for two days straight, one for each stolen—yes, I used that word to him—animal. So there he sat, hurt and upset, glaring at the wall with Martha watching him while I took Bertie and the baby outside. It was not a punishment, I told him, but a reminder. I hoped the lecture about to whom much is given much is expected—right out of the Bible too—somewhat sank in that wily little brain.

  That day I found his other loot, I took Mary and Bertie over to the Big House and, at the side door, asked to see Mabel Butcher. She’d promised to keep quiet on what she knew of the first theft, and evidently had, since her chatty, cheeky sister said naught of it.

  When Mabel came to the door in her black uniform with white starched apron and cap, I said, “Mabel, we didn’t have much time to talk before, but I think we can be friends.”

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Lala. Martha says you’re firm, but real kind to her and the children, and much appreciated, especially after—after, you know—that other head nurse,” she said with a glance at Bertie who was turning in circles to make himself dizzy on the grass near the rose garden.

  “When you dust the agate animal collection,” I told her, “I’d like you to put back two other animals David had, but I don’t want you to take a chance getting caught with them yourself. Go fetch the housekeeper please now so I can explain to her where I found them and that David has sent them back. I ought to let David take his medicine for this, but he’s been through a lot, and we’re building from here. Will you help me? And please call me Charlotte when we are alone, or even Char. My sisters call me Char.”

  “Thank you, Miss Char. I would like to have a friend—besides my sister, I mean.”

  So that deed was done. David learned he could not misbehave or pull the wool over my eyes, however much I lavished affection on him and his siblings. I kept quite calm after that, until word came that we were to all go to London to attend the queen.

  Chapter 7

  Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated in London and across the nation and empire on June 22, 1897. The Waleses and Yorks were attending the London festivities, but the children were not included, so we didn’t budge from the estate. In West Newton village, I watched the fireworks over the fields with David, Bertie, the baby, and Chad, though I had to go in early because the baby squalled at the noise. Soon after, I tried not to look crestfallen when I learned we were being sent to join the queen at White Lodge in Richmond Park instead of Buckingham Palace, but who was I to wish such things?

  It was the first time of many, I supposed, when I would oversee packing for three children, though the nursemaids did most of that work. Chad trundled the nursery household to the railway station in the estate’s omnibus, while their parents, who had come to collect us, rode in a carriage.

  I hardly had time to say more than two words to Chad, whom I had enjoyed seeing off and on. He shook my hand good-bye, gave it a special squeeze, and saved a smile just for me. Rides about the estate on my afternoon off each week were the only times we really had together, and that scarce enough because he was often busy. So I sometimes spent the time with Rose or Mabel if we could coordinate our schedules.

  But when he could manage it, Chad always found me, and we visited the beautiful sites of the area while he pointed out the coverts with nesting birds. He fretted much over the fact that ladies who visited Their Royal Highnesses here liked to collect the nest, eggs, then prick the shells and blow out their innards and display them under glass amongst other bric-a-brac. If they destroyed the nests, he had muttered, how was he to protect and tend the birds until the ladies’ husbands could shoot them at one of the duke’s or prince’s Saturday to Monday parties?

  On my first journey to London from Sandringham, I took both nursemaids, though we left our nursery footman, Cranston, behind and would use one of the queen’s footmen there, since he would know the place. But a lodge instead of the palace? I knew not what we’d find.

  I should have known the lodge would be a mansion. With its grand, exterior staircase and elevated pillars, portico, and porches, the three-storied White Lodge stood stunning in the brightness of the June sunshine. Set in a finely trimmed lawn, this was where David had been born, where Duchess May—named for the month of her birth—and her brothers had been reared and her mother, a first cousin to the queen, now lived as a near invalid. So we would have grandmothers galore to look pretty for and amuse—and behave for.

  I’d heard that the queen hated the new modern advances like electric lights and telephones. Yet I could not wait for my first close glimpse of the woman who had been on England’s throne for sixty years. How exhausted she must be after all her Diamond Jubilee appearances. I’d heard they tired her so she could not even walk up the steps of St. Paul’s for the celebration, but the people on the program had come down to her while she sat in her carriage. I hoped that she was better.

  To my surprise, when our three carriages pulled in after collecting us from Paddington Station, she was pushed out to meet us in a rolling chair. Was she a cripple now? A heavy woman in face and form, she was swathed in layers of black, despite the heat of the day. The way she squinted and searched faces, I could tell that her eyes were weak, but she had no trouble picking out her son’s big form.

  “Bertie,” she clipped out to the prince before any sort of general greeting, “I believe I suggested to you that one of the new child’s names should be Diamond for the occasion, even though you have used Victoria.
”

  “I mentioned it to George and May, Mama. After all, they are the parents. But Victoria—Victoria Alexandra Mary—it is, and she’s a charmer. We’ve got lots of Berties too. I’m sure you want to greet everyone, especially David and Bertie the third, before scolding me again.”

  Shocked by this good-natured man’s flip tone with the queen—and her scolding of him—I pushed the boys forward. True, I’d heard no love was lost between the queen and her heir, that she and his long dead father, Albert, had despaired of their son’s modern, decadent ways. Some even said the queen had blamed him for Prince Albert’s early death because he’d caught his fatal malady traveling to undo a mess with a woman their son had gotten into at Oxford.

  I blessed Princess Alexandra for stepping forward to hover over the boys, who greeted their “Gangan” just as I had made them practice. Duchess May took the baby from my arms to show her to the queen, who pronounced her pretty and well behaved.

  “We’ll have a photograph later,” the queen declared. “The children and I, and the Prince of Wales, George, and his heir.”

  “That’s me,” I heard David say.

  “Me too,” Bertie blurted.

  Well, I thought, I’d need to explain that to Bertie sooner than later. David would be king, and then it would be David’s heir, not Bertie, on the throne. I prayed he would not only accept that but welcome it someday.

  Later, I too was in a photograph with the queen, though no one could see me any more than they could the small Pomeranian dogs she favored that hid under her skirts. Her Majesty was so shaky that I crawled back behind her and supported little Mary on her arm so the old woman would not drop her.

  I thought then of Mabel, who was bothered by having to keep out of sight of her betters, and my own awkward plight of having to blend into the woodwork at times.