In Royal Service to the Queen

by Tessa Arlen

  “My mother and I came to Aberdeen from Gatehead when I was a little girl; I was about nine at the time. My brothers were killed in the war. My father made it through, but he died, months later, from the aftereffects of mustard gas.

  “We lived with my aunts until I was fourteen. My mother taught in the local primary school. It’s just up the road from here—the one on the corner. My aunts Madge and Mary looked after me. I walked to school, came home to warm shortbread and a glass of milk, and two determined middle-aged women to help me with my homework. Then Ma got a job teaching in Dunfermline and we moved to Limekiln.”

  George hesitated in the doorway of my old room, and I watched him take in the rows of schoolbooks lined up against the wall on their shelves, the little blue painted desk and its chair, and the unadorned cross hanging over the narrow bed with its white coverlet. His eyes widened at the room’s scrupulously clean emptiness; it was a shrine to schoolgirl chastity.

  “It feels awkward being in here. I feel as if I am trespassing.”

  “This has always been my room. Please don’t feel strange. I’m inviting you!”

  We stretched out on my narrow single bed and took an entire afternoon to rediscover each other.

  “I think I have been very shortsighted about my life with the Windsors,” I said as he drew the coverlet up over our legs and backs, to our chins. “I never meant to be. I just couldn’t see a way. I didn’t know how to leave them: Lilibet and Margaret.”

  He stroked my hair and kissed my face. “Beautiful Marion.” His fingers lifted my chin for more kisses. “There is no fault—just the habits and duties of adult lives, of the time we found ourselves in. I was quite convinced that when I came home from India and saw you again, you would have found someone else. You can’t imagine my joy when your mother told me you were still single. And when you said yes to marrying me, I wanted everything, immediately. I tried to be understanding about a job you obviously enjoy: a place where you are truly needed with two little girls you love. Most of the time I managed it, but I felt such resentment.

  “When your mother told me that you had gone to South Africa, I thought you had made a choice to travel rather than come back to Scotland. I wondered if we had made a commitment to each other too late. That you didn’t care quite enough to leave the Windsors, and that I was still trying to recapture my youth, to recover it somehow, by marrying you. I can’t imagine how you must have felt when you got my prissy letter.” He put his hand over his eyes briefly and shook his head.

  I tried to smooth away the lines of regret around his mouth with my finger. “We none of us ever have a complete choice; we are never completely free. Fate interrupts our plans—our lives. But I want to be with you, before anything else. You do believe that, don’t you? When the family come back next week, I’ll leave. I truly will.”

  He took my hand in his and kissed its palm. “No, don’t go back on your word to her, to the queen. God only knows what that poor girl will have to endure before they will let her marry the man she loves. But when you come north in July, let’s be married then. You can finish your commitment to them, but there is no need for us to wait; we can be married this summer. Then whenever you come home, it will be to me in our own house in Aberdeen. What do you think? Would that work?”

  All is not lost! “I think we should start looking for a place together here in Aberdeen before I leave to go back to London.” His arms tightened around me as he planted firm kisses on the crown of my head.

  “Do you think your mother would agree to moving here?” He turned on his back, nearly falling off the narrow span of my bed. “I hate to think of her living alone in that cottage; she looks so frail.”

  “I have no idea if she will agree—I doubt it,” I said. “She is an obstinate one is my mother, but”—I kissed his warm mouth and inhaled his sweet breath—“I think we should ask her.”

  He moved into the middle of my bed, and we were pressed together by an unyielding wall. Our breath quickened and I closed my eyes.

  Chapter Thirty

  April to May 1947

  Buckingham Palace, London

  Margaret swept past me at the turn in the great stairs, the wide skirts of her fashionable dress brushing against my legs. “Philip has just driven through the gates.” She glanced back at me over her shoulder, trying out her insouciant, careless, woman-of-the-world look. It was evident she had been practicing on someone who appreciated it. “We have only been back a day.” She pulled me to the window that looked down on the family entrance to the palace. “Just look at that darling little car. It’s an MG—Peter says they go like the wind!”

  Peter? Peter who?

  I put a restraining hand on her arm, but she shook it off as she continued down the last flight to the hall. “Where are you off to, Margaret?”

  Lilibet in a midnight blue dress with a tall collar that stood around her neck appeared at the top of the stairs. She frowned down at her sister. “Thank you for making Philip feel welcome,” she said as she pulled on long gloves, “but I think I can manage on my own.”

  If she was beside herself with the anticipation of seeing Philip again, Lilibet appeared as serene as a summer day in June. Her shining eyes reflected the blue-violet lights of her silk dress, its tightly fitting waist emphasizing its narrowness and the fullness of her bosom. Her mouth was a sensuous, red-lipsticked curve of a smile as she smoothed her gloves and waited at the top of the stairs, her eyes on the door below.

  The trip has changed her, I thought. She has become a self-possessed woman with no doubts at all about her destiny. Her speech to the world on her twenty-first birthday had been evidence of that.

  “You look perfect,” I said as I looked up at her and remembered the words that had meant so much to me as my mother, George, and I had listened to her birthday speech broadcast to the world. The twenty-first of April—the day Lilibet had turned twenty-one and the day George had signed a short lease on a tiny little two-room flat in Aberdeen.

  I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

  I had been so moved that I had had to duck my head and clear my throat. Lilibet’s bell-like voice transmitted from Cape Town in South Africa was as clear as if she was with us in my mother’s cottage in Dunfermline. “Now, that’s what I call a commitment.” My mother turned to George and me sitting on the sofa, our arms around each other, as she recharged our glasses for a toast. She raised her glass of champagne. “To a long and healthy life to the princess”—she extended her glass to us—“and a happy and speedy marriage to you both.”

  Margaret brought me back from my mother’s cottage to the ornate Victorian panels of the palace staircase. “I can’t wait to go to the 400 Club.” Her voice was wistful. Her eyes flashed up the stairs in an appeal to her sister. “I’m sure if you asked, they would let me . . .”

  Lilibet gave her gloves a final tug and settled her fur stole around her shoulders. “Crawfie, would you do me a favor and take my sister off to your rooms and offer her a glass of something? Lemonade, perhaps, although I am quite sure she will twist your arm for Glen Avon.”

  We laughed at Margaret’s tut of exasperation, the whirl of her full skirt as she turned to walk back up the stairs. I almost expected her to cry out, “It’s just not fair!”

  “Of course you will come to the 400, but not tonight!” Lilibet’s mouth widened to a full smile as Philip came into the hall, his hat held under his left arm, his right smoothing his hair into place.

  He looked up in the bright light at us, grouped together on the stair. “Hullo there. Welcome home . . . all three of you,” he said, but his eyes were on Lilibet as she continued on down the stairs in a heavy rustle of silk and floated across the hall to him.

  He took her hand in his and bowed his head. Then, straightening up, he ki
ssed her on each cheek. “The European way,” I heard him say.

  * * *

  • • •

  There was none of her customary reticence as Lilibet came through my sitting room door the next day.

  “Everything is going to be perfect, Crawfie.” Her radiant smile flashed her happiness. “Philip asked me to marry him last night!” She perched herself on the arm of my chair. “While we were away, his mother told him to take her tiara to Antrobus and have him break it up for an engagement ring. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing you have ever heard? Her tiara—her last piece of good jewelry. The kindness . . . generosity.” I looked down at the diamonds on her left hand.

  “Oh, Lilibet, it’s quite beautiful. I am so happy for you.” In that moment I decided my own announcement should wait; nothing must be taken from her on this day.

  “But no one knows, only Mummy and Papa.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my hairline and she laughed.

  “No, Crawfie, not exactly ecstatic—especially Mummy, but she had to honor the agreement we made before we left for South Africa. They knew that the only way they could get me onto that ship was to promise that if I felt the same way about Philip when we came back that I might marry him. The first thing I said to them when we docked in Southampton was ‘I want your blessing to marry Philip.’ They had to agree.” She pressed her lips together and gave me a gruff nod, the way her father did, and I laughed.

  “Then apart from your parents, let me be the first to congratulate you.”

  “Thank you, Crawfie.” She took my outstretched hand. “You have been so kind to me, so understanding. Now I wonder why we were ever worried that it might not happen!”

  I remembered the nights I had lain awake, worried that if my fate was allied to hers, it would be years before I would be free to marry George.

  A shaft of sunlight made the ring sparkle on her hand. “Princess Alice picked up the ring from Antrobus Jewelers, just to keep the press off the trail, because we have promised Papa there are to be no announcements—for another month or two.”

  Aha, then they are still holding out. How cautious they were, how unprepared to let this lovely girl marry her threadbare prince. Did the queen imagine that Porchey Porchester or Hugh Euston would find what it took to sweep Lilibet off her feet at the last moment? I laughed at the idea.

  “Where did you go last night, you and Philip?”

  “We danced.” She got up and twirled across my room. “Danced until three at the 400.”

  “Did you go alone?” I was curious how these things were managed if the press were eagerly trailing Lilibet and Philip for news.

  “Oh no, we can’t do that; it would be in all the papers. We made up a party.” She reeled off the names of the old set, the ones who had come to Windsor for her mother’s cricket-eleven weekends.

  How difficult it must have been to be so well-known, so beloved by the people, that the press must pursue their princess and now her fiancé wherever they went. Camera bulbs flashing, questions shouted from the crowd: “When are you going to marry him? Where’s Philip?”

  “Have you set a date?” I asked.

  “No, not yet. We are giving the parents a week to settle to the idea. But I want to be married soon . . . no long engagements.” Her mouth was set in an uncompromising line. I supposed when you had publicly promised to dedicate your whole life to the service of your people, little things like wedding dates were yours alone to decide.

  I got up from my chair and put my hands on her shoulders. “Well done,” I said as she tightened her arms around my waist—a hug, then a quick release; she had never been one for long embraces, not like her little sister. “Well done, Lilibet. You managed it all quite beautifully: grace and dignity, backed up by steely determination, will get you everywhere.” We laughed. “I am so proud of you and so happy for both of you.”

  She stood back from me, her tranquil gaze fixed on my face. “He is wonderful, Crawfie. I am so awfully lucky. There is no one quite like him, you see, certainly not for me.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “All bloody hell to pay, Crawfie.” Margaret came through my door for her French history lesson, cigarette holder in her right hand, poised like a dart.

  Why is she smoking? What on earth is she thinking?

  I waved a disapproving hand at the cigarette and her language. “Good heavens, Margaret, I thought for a moment that I had been transported to a dive in Soho! There is no smoking in here; that is the rule and it hasn’t changed.” She stopped mid-stride; a mutinous glance, her right shoulder raised in defiance.

  “Do your parents know about the smoking?” I pointed to an ashtray on a side table. She shrugged off her parents’ fuddy-duddy opinion and walked, ever so slowly, toward the table, took the half-smoked cigarette out of its holder, and tossed it into the ashtray. “It isn’t quite out,” I said. She ground it out with emphasis before she looked up, her mouth sulky.

  “You said something had happened,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. I crossed my fingers and prayed that the queen had not discovered some new social horror committed by Philip’s family or, even worse, that David Bowes-Lyon knew the name of some sophisticated nightclub chanteuse that Philip had met in Singapore during the war.

  Margaret’s eyes shone with glee—mischievous glee. “Papa has been shouting at Tommy Lascelles and Michael Adeane for the past twenty minutes. He even shouted at Mummy. Tommy is running around like a chicken with its head struck off. And poor old waste-of-space Clement Attlee is on his way over to the palace. And all because a member of the press—which newspaper I do not know, so don’t ask—saw Philip’s dear old mum walk into Antrobus’s jewelers. How did he know she was Philip’s mum? Because nuns rarely visit Bond Street jewelers, and while they wait for the package they have come to pick up, they certainly don’t light up a fag.” Margaret’s vulgar use of the term for a cigarette was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as her news. “Yes, Crawfie, the cat’s out, all right, and Papa is hopping mad.” She looked up at me, laughter creasing the corners of her eyes. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that what started as a wonderfully generous act, made possible by the loving sacrifice of Princess Alice of Battenberg’s only piece of remaining jewelry, should end in such a catastrophe.”

  I bit my lip. Why is she looking so pleased? Surely this loving little sister was not crowing because, once again, there was a hitch to Lilibet’s happiness? Play it down, I advised myself. “It is hardly a catastrophe, Margaret, just a hiccup. Of course the king is angry because he expressly asked that no announcement be made—yet. But it is the sort of thing that happens, and he will come around.”

  “Well, he’s absolutely livid, so don’t count on it.”

  Poor man, I thought, unsurprised at the king’s anger. Mr. Ainslie had told me that the king’s tailors had arrived the day after the Windsors’ return to the palace to alter suits that hung off the king’s thin shoulders. Even his favorite equerry, Peter Townsend, was not immune to the king’s irascible tongue. “I think a lot of your father’s concern is because this winter has left the country tottering, Margaret. If Britain was in bad financial shape after the war, we are in dire straits now. Thousands upon thousands of livestock froze to death in the fields this winter. And the resulting floods caused massive damage. It probably means another massive loan from America, and a royal wedding after a long, stressful trip is probably not the best of news for your father.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, I know all about that.” Her shrug at Britain’s economic plight betrayed her superficial maturity. “That’ll all sort itself out. What Papa is struggling to come to terms with is the fact that Lilibet is going to get married,” she said with finality. Her mouth twisted up at the corners—I couldn’t call it a smile. “Ring’s too big anyway. It has to go back to the jeweler.” But there was none of the snap and spark in Margaret’s ey
es when she was making trouble for the pure hell of it. Her shoulders slumped as she stood by the window looking down into the garden.

  “What’s troubling you, Margaret?” I put my hand on her shoulder and turned her to me. Her face had lost all its gleeful malice. It was long, and sad with misery. I pulled her down next to me on the window seat.

  She shook her head and pressed her lips together. “Nothing.”

  “It is about Lilibet getting married, isn’t it? For the longest time we had to champion her cause, be in her corner, and now all of a sudden it’s happening. It’s really hard to get used to the idea after all this time, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, and a tear made its way out of the corner of her tightly shut eyes and flashed down her cheek. I handed over my handkerchief. More tears; a deeply steamy sigh. “What will happen?” she said, her voice thick with distress. “What will happen when she goes away to be with him?”

  So, this explained the I-could-care-less attitude, the cigarette, and the cruel remarks about catastrophes. Margaret’s big sister, her companion and her protector, had someone else in her life, and Margaret saw herself forsaken and isolated in a palace full of courtiers, advisers, and her doting parents, who had spoiled her and now couldn’t cope with her tantrums.

  I smoothed her hair back from her damp forehead, and she leaned into me.

  “She is always the first,” she muttered through her tears. “The first to leave the nursery, the first to fall in love, the first to marry.”

  I heard the six-year-old Margaret Rose pounding after her sister down the corridors of Royal Lodge: Wait for me, Lilibet; wait for me!

  What would there be for this princess, who would only be next in line—until Lilibet and Philip had a son? What was the function for those who had no real role to play in the monarchy? Margaret would chair charities and open hospitals—neither of which required the sort of flair and imagination she possessed.