A Royal Pain

by Rhys Bowen

  “And are you fully occupied in London?”

  “I keep myself busy. I have friends. I lunched at the Savoy yesterday.”

  “It’s always good to be busy,” she said. “However, I do hope that there is more to your life than luncheons at the Savoy.”

  Where was this leading? I wondered.

  “At this time of crisis there is so much that needs to be done,” she went on. “A young woman like yourself, as yet unencumbered with husband and children, could do so much good and set such a fine example. Helping out in soup kitchens, giving advice on sanitary conditions to mothers and babies in the East End, or even joining the health and beauty movement. All worthy causes, Georgiana. All worth devoting time and energy.”

  This wasn’t going to be too bad then, I thought. She clearly expected me to stay in London if she was suggesting I help mothers and babies in the East End.

  “Excellent suggestions, ma’am,” I said.

  “I am patron of several worthy charities. I will find out where your services would be most appreciated.”

  “Thank you.” I really meant it. I would actually quite enjoy helping a charity to do good. And it would give me something else to do between house cleanings.

  “We’ll put that suggestion to one side for now,” Her Majesty said, taking a sip of China tea, “because I am hoping to enlist you as a coconspirator in a little plan I am devising.”

  She gave me her frank stare, her clear, blue eyes holding mine for a long moment.

  “I am desperately worried about my son, Georgiana.”

  “The Prince of Wales?” I asked.

  “Naturally. My other sons are all proving satisfactory in their own ways. At least they all seem to have a sense of royal duty in which David is hopelessly lacking. This American woman. From what I hear, his fascination for her shows no sign of abating. She has her claws into him and she is not going to let go. Of course at the moment the question of marriage cannot arise, because she is married to someone else, poor fool. But should she divorce him—well, you see what a predicament that would be.”

  “His Highness would never be allowed to marry a divorced woman, would he?”

  “You say never allowed, but should he be king, who could stop him? He is then the titular head of the church. Henry the Eighth rewrote the rules to suit himself, didn’t he?”

  “I’m sure you’re worrying needlessly, ma’am. The Prince of Wales might enjoy the playboy life at this moment but when he becomes king, he’ll remember his duty to his country. It is inbred into all members of the family.”

  She reached across and patted my hand. “I do hope you are right, Georgiana. But I can’t sit idly by and do nothing to save my son from ruin and our family from disgrace. It is time he married properly, and to a young woman who can give him children of the proper pedigree. A forty-year-old American simply won’t do. To this end, I’ve come up with a little scheme.”

  She gave me that conspiratorial look again.

  “Do you know the Bavarian royal family at all?”

  “I have not met them, ma’am.”

  “Not related to us, of course, and unfortunately Roman Catholic. They are no longer officially the ruling family, but they do still enjoy considerable status and respect in that part of Germany. In fact there is a strong movement to restore the monarchy in Bavaria, thus making them strong allies against that ridiculous little upstart Herr Hitler.”

  “You are planning a match with a member of the Bavarian royal family, ma’am?”

  She leaned closer to me, although we were the only two people in the room. “They have a daughter, Hannelore. A beauty by all reports. She is eighteen years old and has just left the convent where she has been educated for the past ten years. Should she have a chance to meet my son, what man could fail to be attracted to an eighteen-year-old virginal beauty? Surely she would make him forget about the Simpson woman and return to the path of duty.”

  I nodded. “But where do I come into this, ma’am?”

  “Let me explain my little scheme, Georgiana. If David felt that he was being forced to meet Princess Hannelore, he would dig in his heels. He has always been stubborn, ever since he was a little boy, you know. But should he glimpse her, across the room, should it be hinted that she is promised to someone else—a lesser princeling—well, you know how much men enjoy the chase. So I’ve written to her parents and invited her to come to England—to bring her out into society and improve her English. And I have decided that she shouldn’t stay with us at the palace.” She looked up at me with that piercing stare. “I’ve decided she should stay with you.”

  “Me?” It was lucky I hadn’t been sipping tea at the time. I should have spluttered all over the Chippendale. As it was, it came out as a squeak and I forgot to add the word “ma’am.”

  “What could be more pleasant for a young girl than to stay with someone her own age and of suitable rank? As you say, you mingle with friends. You dine at the Savoy. She will have a lovely time doing what young people do. Then, at the right intervals, we’ll make sure that she attends the same functions as my son.”

  She went on talking easily. The blood was pounding through my head as I tried to come up with the words to say that there was no way I could entertain a young lady of royal blood in a house with no servants and in which I was living on baked beans.

  “I may count on you, mayn’t I, Georgiana?” she asked. “For the good of England?”

  I opened my mouth. “Of course, ma’am,” I said.

  Chapter 5

  I staggered out of Buck House as if in a dream. Well, nightmare, actually. In a few days from now a German princess was coming to stay at my house, when I had no servants and certainly no money to feed her. Queens never thought about little things like money. It probably never crossed her mind to inquire whether I had the funds to entertain a royal guest or whether I might like some help in that department. And even if she had promised me an allowance to help with the entertaining, that still neglected the fact that I had no maids, no butler, and worse still, no cook. Germans, I knew, liked their food. Baked beans and boiled eggs, which were the sum of my repertoire to date, simply would not do.

  Why had I not spoken up and told the queen the truth? After the fact, it seemed quite silly that I had agreed to something so preposterous. But with those steely eyes on me, I simply didn’t have the nerve to refuse her. In fact I had followed in the footsteps of countless antiques dealers who had never intended to let the queen walk off with one of their prized pieces and yet had found themselves graciously handing it over to her.

  And now I had no idea what I was going to do next. I needed to talk to somebody, somebody wise who would see a way out of my predicament. Belinda would be no good. She’d think it was all a huge joke and be eagerly waiting to see how I handled it. But then she really couldn’t imagine how penniless I was. She had come into a small private income on her twenty-first, which enabled her to buy a mews cottage and keep a maid. She also made money from her dress designs, to say nothing of her gambling winnings. To her, “broke” meant going without champagne for a few days.

  Oh, God, I thought. What if this princess expects fine wines and caviar? What if she expects something other than baked beans and tea?

  Then suddenly I had a brain wave. I knew the one person in the world to whom I could turn for help—my grandfather. Not the Scottish duke whose ghost now haunts the ramparts of Castle Rannoch (playing the bagpipes, if one is to believe the servants, although this does take a stretch of the imagination, as he couldn’t play them in life). I’m talking of my nonroyal grandfather, the former policeman. I hurried to the nearest tube station and soon I was heading through the East End of London out to the eastern suburbs of Essex and a neat little semidetached house with gnomes in the front garden.

  I went up his front path past a pocket handkerchief–sized lawn and two meticulously kept rose beds under the watchful eye of the gnomes and knocked on Granddad’s front door. Nobody answered. This was an
unexpected setback. It was six o’clock and I had felt sure that he couldn’t afford to dine out. Fighting back my disappointment, I was about to go home. Then I remembered his mentioning the old lady who lived next door. “Old bat” was his actual term of description for her, but in a fond way. Maybe she might know where he had gone. A shiver of worry went through me. He hadn’t been very well last winter and I hoped that he wasn’t in hospital.

  I knocked on the second front door and waited. Again no response. “Damn,” I muttered, then glanced up to notice a net curtain twitching. So someone was there and watching me. As I turned to go, the front door opened. A large, round woman wearing a flowery pinny stood staring at me.

  “Wot do you want?” she demanded.

  “I came to visit my grandfather,” I began. “I’m Georgiana Rannoch and I wondered if—”

  She gave a great whoop of delight. “I know who you are. Blimey, what a turnup for the books. I never thought I’d have royalty on the doorstep. Am I supposed to curtsy or something?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I just wondered if you knew where my grandfather might be. I came all the way to see him and—”

  “Come on in, ducks,” she said, almost hauling me inside. “I’ll tell you where your granddad is. In my living room, having his tea, that’s where he is. And you’re more than welcome to join us. Plenty for all.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it, love. Don’t you mention it,” she said expansively.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “It’s ’uggins, love. Mrs. ’ettie ’uggins.”

  I thought that this was a rather unfortunate choice of name for someone who dropped aitches, but I smiled and held out my hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Huggins.”

  “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure, your ’ighness.”

  “I’m not a highness, just a lady, but Georgiana will do splendidly.”

  “You’re a proper toff, miss, that’s what you are,” she said. She was halfway down the hall when my grandfather appeared.

  “What’s going on, Hettie?” he asked. Then he saw me and his face lit up. “Cor, strike me down. Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “Come and give your old grandfather a kiss.”

  I did so, enjoying the carbolic soap smell of his skin and the roughness of his cheek.

  “I almost went home,” I said, “but then I remembered your speaking of your next-door neighbor so I thought I’d just try, on the off chance. Then when Mrs. Huggins didn’t answer her door to start with—”

  “She’s a bit jumpy right now,” my grandfather said. “On account of the bailiffs.”

  “The bay leaves?” Images of Mediterranean casseroles swam into my head.

  “That’s right. She don’t want nothing to do with them and they keep coming round.”

  I was rather confused by this statement. Why this irrational fear of bay leaves? Where did they keep coming around? In stews? In which case why couldn’t she remove them?

  “Bay leaves?” I asked. “What is so terrible about bay leaves?”

  “They’re trying to throw me out, that’s what,” Mrs. Huggins said. “Just because I fell a bit behind with the rent when I was poorly and had to pay the doctor.”

  Light finally dawned and I blushed at my stupidity. “Oh, bailiffs. Oh, I see.”

  “She don’t own her house like I do,” my grandfather said. “She weren’t lucky enough to have a daughter who did right by her, were you, Hettie love?”

  “I got four daughters and they all married rotters,” she said. “It’s me who’s had to help them out, not the other way around.”

  “Any sons, Mrs. Huggins?” I asked before this conversation turned completely maudlin.

  Her face went blank. “Three boys,” she said. “All killed in the war. All three within a few days of each other.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s not much we can do about it now, is there. Wishing won’t bring them back. So I tries to muddle through as best I can. And enough of gloomy talk. Come on in and take a load off your feet, love.”

  She propelled me through into a tiny dining room. Not only did it have a table and four chairs in it, but armchairs on either side of a fireplace, and a sideboard with a radio on it.

  “I hope you don’t mind being in ’ere,” she said. “We don’t use the front parlor, except on special occasions. Sit down, ducks. Go on.”

  She motioned to a chair. I sat experiencing the feeling of unreality that always came over me in normal houses. I had grown up in a castle. I was used to rooms bigger than this whole house, corridors long enough to practice roller skating and great whistling drafts of cold air coming from chimneys large enough to roast an ox. A room like this reminded me of the play cottage that my cousins Elizabeth and Margaret had in their garden.

  “I’ve just come from tea at the palace,” I said as my thoughts returned to the royal family.

  “The palace, well, I never.” Mrs. Higgins looked at my grandfather with awe on her face. “I’m afraid you won’t get nothing posh here, just good plain food.”

  I looked at the tea table. I had expected something similar—thin sliced bread, little cakes—but this was not tea as I knew it. Slices of ham and cold pork, half a pork pie, a wedge of cheese, a big crusty loaf, pickled onions and a dish of tomatoes graced the table, as well as a moist brown fruitcake and some little rock buns.

  “This is some tea,” I said.

  “It’s what we usually have, ain’t it, Albert?”

  My grandfather nodded. “We don’t have no dinner at night, like the posh folks do. We have our dinner in the middle of the day and then this is what we have in the evening.”

  “It looks awfully good to me,” I said and happily accepted the slices of ham he was putting onto my plate.

  “So what brings you down Essex way?” my grandfather asked as we ate. “And don’t tell me you was just passing.”

  “I came because I need your advice, Granddad,” I said. “I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

  “Is there a young man involved?” he asked with a worried glance at Mrs. Huggins.

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just . . .” I looked up at Mrs. Huggins, sitting there all ears. I could hardly tell her why I had come but I couldn’t drag him away without seeming rude. The matter was solved when he said, “You can say what you want in front of Hettie. She and I don’t have no secrets, at least only the ones concerning my lady friends.”

  “Get away with you.” Hettie chuckled and I realized that their relationship had progressed since I had last visited.

  “It’s like this, Granddad,” I said, and related the whole conversation with the queen. “So I’ve no idea what to do next,” I said. “I can’t entertain a princess, but I dare not face the queen and tell her the truth either. She’d be so horrified that I’m slumming without servants that I know she’d send me off to the country to be some royal aunt’s lady-inwaiting.” My voice rose into a wail.

  “All right, love. Don’t get yourself into a two-and-eight about it.”

  “A what?”

  “Two-and-eight. Cockney rhyming slang for a state. Haven’t you never heard that before?”

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t, would she?” Mrs. Huggins demanded. “They don’t use no rhyming slang at the palace.”

  Granddad smiled. “This wants a bit of thinking about,” he said, scratching his chin. “How long is this foreign princess coming for?”

  “I’ve no idea. The queen did mention that she’d want us to come to Sandringham and there are house parties that we should attend.”

  “So it might only be for a week or so?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Because I was thinking,” he said. “I know where I might be able to supply you with a cook and a butler.”

  “You do? Where?”

  “Us,” Granddad said, and burst out laughing. “Me and
Mrs. Huggins. She’s a fair enough cook and I could pass as a butler when needed.”

  “Granddad, I couldn’t expect you to be my servant. It wouldn’t seem right.”

  “Ah, but you’d be doing us a bit of a favor yourself, love,” he said, with another glance at Mrs. Huggins. “You see it might be useful to be away from home if that bailiff is going to show up again with an eviction notice. He has to deliver it in person, don’t he?”

  “But I couldn’t afford to pay you.”

  “Don’t you worry about the money right now, my love,” Granddad said. “We don’t need paying, but you will need enough money to feed this young woman.”

  “She’s probably going to expect the best,” Mrs. Huggins agreed. “I’d say it was wrong of the queen to expect you to pay for this out of your own pocket.”

  “She just doesn’t think of such things,” I said. “The royal family never has to consider money. They don’t even carry money with them.”

  “Nice for some,” Mrs. Huggins said with a knowing nod to my grandfather.

  Granddad scratched his chin. “I was thinking that you should write to your brother and ask him for some help. He owes you a big favor, after all.”

  “You’re right, he does, but he’s awfully hard up too.”

  “Then tell him you’re bringing the princess home to Scotland. From what I know of your snooty sister-in-law, she’d do anything rather than have to entertain visiting royalty at her house.”

  “Granddad, that’s a brilliant idea,” I said, laughing. “Absolutely brilliant. And I’ll remind Binky he promised to send me my maid as well. Oh, Lord, I’m sure the princess will expect someone to dress her.”

  “I ain’t volunteering to dress no princesses,” Mrs. Hug-gins said. “I wouldn’t have no clue how them fancy clothes do up and my rough ’ands will probably scratch her delicate skin.”

  “If Binky sends my maid from Scotland as he promised, then she can wait on the princess,” I said. “I’ve become quite used to doing without a maid myself.”