In Royal Service to the Queen

by Tessa Arlen

  “There is no need to get sharp with me, Marion. Give in your notice, or you might lose George.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Summer 1946

  Aberdeen, Scotland

  George was too busy to come to us the next weekend, and the following Monday, unable to bear not seeing him, I wrote to him and told him that I was coming up to see him in Aberdeen. There was a fine drizzle falling when he met me at the station.

  “Welcome to Aberdeen, Marion.” He took me into a nearby café for a cup of coffee. I wasn’t used to seeing George in his banker’s dark gray pinstripe, and his starched wing-tip collar with a bowler hat on his head. It made him seem distant and formal: armored in his business attire.

  We sipped our ersatz coffee.

  “Last train to Dunfermline is at six o’clock this evening,” I said.

  “That gives us the whole day together. What would you like to do?” He smiled at me, but there was a touch of formality in his voice, as if he was escorting a friend of his mother’s for the day.

  I reached across the table and took his hand in mine, a gesture that was immediately noticed by the prim little woman in gray sitting at the table next to us.

  “I love you very much, George. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Marion, I do. Now, what shall we do with our day? I know.” He patted my hand and let go of it. “The art museum?”

  We made the rounds of the Aberdeen Art Gallery in the morning. We ate lunch in a little restaurant next to the museum: pale, tasteless ground-mutton rissoles that I could hardly bring myself to eat; the mashed potato was lumpy, the overcooked cabbage watery. Just as we were finishing our gooseberries and custard, the sun came out. “How about a stroll in the botanical gardens?” George had eaten both his lunch and most of mine.

  The leaves were turning rich russet and gold as we strolled in the Cruickshank gardens. There was a sweet-sharp smell of decaying leaves and a mist coming up off the river to gather under the trees. “My landlady, Mrs. Patterson, has invited us to have tea before you leave.” George didn’t look too enthralled with the idea. “She is a good person, but perhaps not very . . .” He shrugged. “She has had a hard time of it . . . I could tell her there wasn’t time.”

  But I wanted to see where he lived. “Oh no, let’s say yes. I can imagine you in your home surroundings when I read your letters.”

  He laughed. “I am quite sure she would never let you see my ‘home surroundings.’ Unfortunately she would consider it most improper.”

  “Oh dear, she must be one of Aberdeen’s correct landladies.”

  “Mrs. Patterson has made frugality into a virtue: she is a one-bar-of-the-electric-fire-only sort of woman, but lodgings are hard to find in postwar Aberdeen,” George warned me as we walked up scrubbed white steps to the dark brown front door of the grayest and most austere-looking house in the terrace. Not one late-summer flower hung on in her smoothly raked gravel front garden; no cat slept in the last of the sun on her front-room windowsill.

  Mrs. Patterson of Aberdeen was exactly how I had imagined her: thin, worn, with iron-gray hair scraped back off a face that was as cold and unwelcoming as her house. She cast an appraising glance over me from head to toe and, judging that I was safe to admit, stepped back to allow us to enter. A strong, institutional smell of Harpic toilet cleaner wafted toward us down the stairs, reminding me that all three of Mrs. Patterson’s paying guests were men. We followed her down the narrow corridor to her second-best parlor, where tea was already laid on a round table. Everything in the room was brown. It was like sitting in a sepia photograph.

  “So, you work for the royal family,” Mrs. Patterson stated in a disbelieving voice, and then sat back and regarded me with compressed lips, as if someone from the south might steal her tarnished apostle spoons. She poured tea and handed me a half-filled cup.

  “I suppose you take sugar in your tea, Miss Crawford?” She dipped a tiny teaspoon into the sugar, and I rushed to reassure her that I did not. There were net curtains at the windows, shrouded by a festoon of brown velveteen drapery, so it was difficult to see how much milk to put into my cup. I sipped the weak tea: it tasted sour, and small curds drifted to the surface.

  She handed us each an oatmeal biscuit as thin and dry as hardtack.

  “Well, I am sure you would like to visit awhile before you leave for the station,” she said in an offended tone.

  “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Patterson.” She left us, her mouth drawn in tight with disapproval because George was sitting next to me on her hard and unwelcoming dun-colored sofa. She also left the door open so we would not be encouraged to misbehave. No wonder George is miserable, I thought. No wonder he feels as if life is passing him by.

  * * *

  • • •

  My suitcase lay open in my room, and I was packing in a distracted and disorganized way. I folded a sweater, dropped it onto the floor, and used language the king would be ashamed of. George had been working hard at his bank and had not managed to get away for the last two weekends.

  “I should have gone up to Aberdeen today, to see George, and caught the train to London from there,” I told Ma when she came into my bedroom with a pile of laundered underwear.

  “It’s not too late, Marion. You could catch the ten thirty; you would be there in an hour! I can finish your packing for you. But you would have to come back; there is no train from Aberdeen to London until tomorrow morning.” Was it her intention to drive me into leaving the palace by reminding me that there should be no improper access to my fiancé? I didn’t put it past my determined little mother.

  Anguish swept through me. Tears pricked behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. If I cried I wouldn’t stop. Am I being stubborn about not leaving the Windsors? I gulped down the agony of indecision. I don’t know what to do! It was hard to rely on my judgment for years and then throw it to one side. There was comfort in knowing what I must do, having practiced it all my life, and complete fear in jettisoning what had become a habit. Is this all my working life has been? I asked myself. A habit? Perhaps it is too late for me, I thought as I rolled stockings, snagging my nail and laddering a perfectly good pair. I stood looking out of my bedroom window, biting my thumb. Perhaps I have already become a narrow, closed-off spinster, with no room in my life for anything but my job.

  The lump in my throat grew until my breath was coming in short gasps. I had lost him! I had lost George. I had disappointed him so often that he couldn’t bear to care anymore. It was easier to shut himself away in his bank and worry about other people’s money. I turned to my suitcase, my eyes blinded by tears of despair. I wouldn’t go; I wouldn’t get on that train and leave Scotland.

  “What on earth is all that commotion? I thought you ordered the taxi for Monday morning.” Ma bustled back into my room, went to the tiny window, and poked her head through. She laughed and waved. Turning back to me she said, “Go wash your face and comb your hair, my darling girl. You have a visitor.”

  I put my head out the window. It was George, his tired face alight with pleasure as he honked his car’s horn. “Marion, I worked overtime on Friday. So here I am.”

  I ran down the steep stairs at breakneck speed and into his arms. “Did you think I wouldn’t come?” he said as he caught me to him. His hand stroked the back of my head. “We will make it work, my love. Somehow it will all come right for us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  September 1946

  Buckingham Palace, London

  Hullo, Crawfie. It’s good to be back.” Lilibet greeted me in a voice so flat, so expressionless, that my head came up from my book like a hound scenting danger. I was up out of my chair in a moment. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek before sitting down on the window seat. The clocked ticked the seconds away as silence built, until I couldn’t bear it.

  “How was it?” I asked. “Philip’s visit
to Balmoral?”

  She lifted her head. “It was very pleasant.” There was a frog in her throat. “I have a bit of a cold, which is surprising because the weather was spectacular.” She smiled—at least her mouth performed the job—a joyless excuse for one. It was hard to read her expression with the sun coming in through the window behind her, but she radiated misery.

  I swallowed down unease. “Philip enjoyed his first experience of deer stalking?” My encouraging inquiry rang across the room, and she cleared her throat again. “Oh yes, it was perfect weather for it. We only got one good shot in, but I know Papa loved showing Philip the ropes—like you, Crawfie, Papa is a natural teacher.” Her voice fell away, and she returned to removing dog hairs one by one from a skirt covered in them.

  “Well, that sounds like good news. His Majesty rarely bothers to spend time with those who bore or annoy!”

  Lilibet folded her hands in her lap. I could have screamed with impatience as I waited for her to make up her mind what, or what not, to reveal. “I’m rather afraid to tell you this, and I really shouldn’t. I think Mama and Uncle David have it in for Philip.”

  David Bowes-Lyon! I clamped my jaws tightly together to stop myself from blurting. So, Uncle David had braved the discomforts of a summer at Balmoral to be at his sister’s side. I saw him standing in the drawing room, surrounded by old pals, with the newest American cocktail in his hand: the polished clubman telling stories about how much the tweedy set and their heather-covered moors and craggy outcrops of rock bored him to death.

  Perhaps she sensed my anger, because she lifted her wrist and looked at her watch. “I don’t know, Crawfie. Perhaps I have been rash in wanting to marry Philip. Anyway, I’ve got to run. We have to go to Windsor this weekend—Mummy wanted to make sure you knew you were coming too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Things were all right in the beginning,” Lilibet finally admitted the following morning as I packed my overnight bag for Windsor.

  “Between who?” I asked.

  “Oh, between Papa, Philip, and me. We set out after breakfast with a picnic lunch to stalk. And”—her laugh was warm with affection—“Philip was particularly good at it. He had an expert ghillie, and Papa helped him understand the subtler points of stalking, but he’s a natural sportsman.”

  For the life of me I couldn’t understand why anyone wanted to spend the day trudging the tundra in the pursuit of an animal that was inevitably doomed to die. What were shotguns for but to kill prey at long distance and get the whole thing over with quickly?

  “So where was the difficulty?”

  “There really wasn’t one. Except perhaps that Philip sometimes says things that are . . . you know . . . a bit . . . off course.”

  Off course? What did that mean? Vulgar, unmannerly, too outright? I shook my head. “He always strikes me as being willing to fit in—to get along with everyone.”

  She folded my handkerchiefs into rigid little squares and put them in my bag. “When everyone else arrived, it was as if he was trying too hard. And . . . sometimes he is a bit boisterous, and . . . well, you know, rather forceful.”

  A horrible thought struck me. “When did your uncle David arrive?”

  “About four days after us. He had a cold, so he couldn’t join the rest of us on the moor. He stayed inside and kept Mummy and Tommy Lascelles company.”

  I almost snorted in disgust. David Bowes-Lyon wouldn’t join anyone, except by the fire in a drawing room for the sort of gossip that demolishes reputations.

  “Unfortunately, Philip pulled Uncle David’s leg about his cold: told him to gargle with warm seawater and advised him to get out on the moors and walk it off rather than shut himself up in a stuffy drawing room.”

  Well, good for him! I was glad that he hadn’t put up with any of Uncle David’s sniping in corners.

  “It didn’t go down too well with Mummy . . .”

  “Who else was there when Philip was with you?”

  She counted their names off on her fingers: a few of the king’s ponderous old shooting cronies and their wives, and the effete bachelor friends of the queen. No wonder Margaret was at a screaming point when she came back from Balmoral or Sandringham.

  I watched her struggle with being too critical of the man she loved. “Oh, I think I am making too much of it.” She shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

  “So, tell me.” I was as direct as I dared to be, and I saw her eyes widen at my candor. “Apart from Philip not getting along with Uncle David?”

  She laughed. “He thinks him a witless pea brain. I am afraid that Philip rather put their backs up,” Lilibet admitted.

  “Whose back up? How?” I asked.

  “We-ll, Tommy Lascelles for one. I know he doesn’t like Philip. And he tries to trip him up, rather, which Philip deals with very patiently. But then Tommy keeps on picking and in the end Philip bristles.”

  “Tommy is a bit of a fossil.”

  She brightened. “Yes, he is, rather, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, it’s his job. What was he picking about?”

  “Just little finicky things . . . He had a go at Gordonstoun being too experimental and eccentric, and when Philip sneered at Eton— which he should not have—Tommy went off and told Papa, and Papa told Mummy, who told me that Philip is often . . . ‘tactless’ was the word Tommy used.”

  And there we had it.

  I could hear the spiteful whispers: “Philip is not the one for Lilibet. Philip is an outsider. Not to be trusted. He has sisters who married Nazis. And he is tactless.”

  “Papa was a bit cold with Philip after that.” She turned away, but I saw her eyes stare away tears.

  I folded a shawl, put it in the suitcase, and closed the lid. And we walked into my sitting room as the maid brought in my morning coffee.

  “And after that?” I asked when we were alone.

  “Papa says that I am too young to get married. But his tone to Philip was snubby.”

  And your mother? I silently prompted as I handed her a cup of coffee.

  “And Mummy says the same.

  “Philip did his best, but . . .” She lowered her head and gazed down at the cup balanced on her lap. “Everything is so tiresome, Crawfie. Even Bobo told me this morning that she thinks that Philip is beneath me.”

  I clenched and unclenched my hands. I would have difficulty not strangling that wretched Bobo MacDonald the next time I saw her. But I said nothing about Lilibet’s loyal dresser. “How much influence do you think Tommy Lascelles really has with the king?” I asked her. Lilibet shook her head slowly from side to side and shrugged her shoulders. If I was a fatalist, I would believe, as they say in the American films, that it was “curtains” for Philip.

  “You know something?” I said, trying to be the only one not to put the kibosh on love. “I think this will all work itself out. All these hiccups and reactions are just the result of your introducing the idea of change.”

  She opened her eyes wide and drew in a deep breath. “It is all such a mess. Philip can’t even become a British citizen with all the civil unrest in Greece at the moment. And he can’t stay in the navy if he’s not a citizen.”

  It was time to boost, not commiserate. “First of all, if your father gives his permission for Philip to marry you, I promise you his citizenship will not be a problem. And your mother will come around; she is just being cautious because she worked hard to reestablish the monarchy after all that business with the abdication.” I didn’t know if she was listening or not. She had fixed her gaze at the bottom of her coffee cup as if she was about to tell fortunes. Sad ones. “Lilibet, I think we shall just have to sit tight and wait them all out. All that happened at Balmoral was that your mother and father got to know Philip a little better—people take a while to adjust to change. Don’t back down now.”

  She lifted her ga
ze from her cup. “I don’t intend to, Crawfie. I will simply tell them that the only husband I want is Philip.”

  “What does Philip have to say about it all?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  Finally, she smiled, her sweet, generous smile. “Philip thinks we have to be patient.” A quick glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “But he did ask Papa for his permission to propose to me.” She laughed outright at my expression.

  “Lilibet, why didn’t you tell me this at the beginning?”

  She put her finger to her lips. “Because I wanted your advice on the unfortunate bits first.”

  “And His Majesty said yes?”

  “His Majesty said not yet. That I was only twenty and he would like Philip to hold off until next year, which Philip agreed to.” She stood up and smoothed the front of her skirt. “And that is why we four are off on an official trip to South Africa. We are leaving in February next year. We will be gone for three months.”

  “Three months?”

  “Yes, it was Mummy’s idea that Margaret and I should go with them. It’s a test, of course. To see if I will forget all about Philip.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Something has to be done, Crawfie, and quickly too.” Margaret’s hand on my arm brought me to a sharp halt as we labored up the hill from the Victoria walk later that afternoon, followed by a crowd of panting dogs.

  “En français, Margaret. Nous devons pratiquer nos verbes,” I said, but I was too distracted to care.

  “No, Crawfie, it’s too important for French. The Lilibet and Philip business is serious, much too serious to be fumbling around for the future tense of ‘to be.’ I know Lilibet is all dewy-eyed about Philip and believes quite wrongly that all is going well, but things are unraveling, and she hasn’t any idea how fast.”