The Royal Governess

by Wendy Holden

  Quite suddenly, the prince seemed to brighten. “You know, I’ve just had the darndest idea. You and Bertie should be king and queen. Not me and whatever unfortunate Mitteleuropa archduchess I’m forced to pick off Papa’s wretched list.”

  The duchess’s humor had drained away. “Not even in jest!” she admonished.

  The duke appeared now, also with a cocktail, and with the usual cigarette streaming from his fingers. His brother clapped him on the back. “Bertie! How’s the Foreman?”

  The blow to his shoulder blades had made the duke cough hard. “It’s t-t-too bad of you to c-c-call me that.”

  “Not at all,” his brother teased. “Papa was banging on only the other day about some trade union you’d descended on.”

  “The Amalgamated E-E-Engineering Union, yes. It has eighteen h-hundred b-b-branches and over th-th-th . . . oh, blast it!”

  “Three hundred and twenty thousand members,” put in the duchess swiftly.

  The prince did not seem to be listening. He was looking around the hall. “You know, I do love coming round here. Such a jolly little setup. Wish I had something like it.” His tone was wistful. “You’re a lucky blighter, Bertie.”

  He was so ridiculously sorry for himself, Marion thought. Suddenly, he looked up, sending her leaping back in alarm. Had she been spotted?

  He then raised his strange, high voice, still looking up toward the higher floors. “And where are my favorite girls?”

  His listlessness gone, he sprang up the stairs with such speed that Marion had no time to move. She was still rooted to the floor when he spotted her, stopped and stared. Meeting his gaze was like looking into a blue sun. “I say! Who have we here?”

  Marion found that she couldn’t speak. Something had tied her tongue. Despite all she had just seen and heard, she was overcome, dazzled.

  “Oh, it’s Crawfie.” The duchess, climbing after her brother-in-law, now caught up, slightly panting but still clutching her cocktail. “The new governess,” she added, looking quizzically at her employee.

  “Governess, eh?” His strange, darting gaze raked her up and down. “Know anything about books?”

  “Yes, sir.” She had started to recover herself now. He was very small, she noticed. Tiny, actually. He and the duchess were almost the same size.

  He was fumbling in the pocket of his check suit. “Lady Desborough gave me a rum little book today. Ever heard of it?”

  Marion raised her eyes to the cover of Jane Eyre and burst out laughing at the unexpected joke. It was good of the prince to put her at ease, like this. Then she realized he was staring at her. Far from smiling back, he seemed puzzled.

  Yells now broke the peace of the upper story. Two small figures, one on all fours, came tumbling out of the nursery, Mrs. Knight in hot pursuit.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next day, Marion avoided the boudoir.

  “We’ll have lessons in the garden,” she decided. They were less likely to encounter interruptions and it was more in line with the outdoor principles of Dr. Froebel.

  “But I’ll get dirty,” the princess gasped. “Alah will be cross.”

  “You really don’t have any playclothes?”

  She would talk to the duchess about it, Marion resolved. The child could not spend her entire life in goffered ruffles. “Right,” she said, fishing several small white paper bags from her handbag. “Lesson one. Mathematics.”

  She had slipped out early that morning to find a sweetshop. The nearest one was in Victoria Station, a half-hour walk from the Piccadilly house. The results of her foray were supposed to illustrate the principles of addition and subtraction. But Lilibet’s interest was in the sweets themselves. “What is it?” she asked, handling a licorice allsort curiously.

  It emerged that she had never had one before, or a bull’s-eye. Nor did she have any conception of what a Gobstopper was. Her idea of sweets was the elaborate Victorian confections made by the royal kitchens: violet creams, gilded marzipans and the like.

  “So you have ten sherbet lemons,” Marion began, “and if you take five away, what do you have left?”

  “Sherbet lemons?” Elizabeth was staring at the yellow sweet. “Is that what they’re called?”

  Marion repeated the question.

  “Do they have sherbet in them? What is sherbet? I’ve heard of Schubert, but you can’t eat him.”

  Marion smiled. “I’ll let you taste one if you do the sum.”

  Something now made her look up. Between her and the sunshine stood the short, fussily dressed figure of the duchess. She wore a fur stole in powder blue and a matching hat whose turned-up brim sprouted tall feathers. Together with the heels they were, presumably, intended to add height. But somehow they had the opposite effect.

  Several rows of pearls glowed softly at her throat, while diamonds flashed at her fingers and wrists.

  “Eating sweets! How too delightful!”

  “Actually, ma’am, we are studying mathematics.”

  The periwinkle eyes blinked rapidly. “Goodness. These modern methods. Well, you are to take Lilibet to Mr. Adams. He is expecting you.”

  Marion frowned. “No one mentioned this to me.”

  “I expect they forgot.” The duchess beamed brightly. “Come on, Lilibet!”

  She was clearly expected to come on too. But Marion stood, or rather sat, her ground. “Who’s Mr. Adams?”

  “Takes photographs. Flash bang wallop!” The duchess flashed her teeth briefly. “Jolly little man. Chop-chop, Lilibet.”

  “But we’ve only just started our lessons,” Marion pointed out. Why was being photographed more important than being educated?

  The duchess’s beam remained unwavering. “You can eat your sweets later. Owen is bringing the car round.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “’ERE WE ARE,” the chauffeur announced. Already impatient at the interruption, Marion now felt ludicrous as she stepped out of the Daimler a bare two minutes after getting in. Before her was an imposing carved-stone facade. “The Children’s Studio,” said a polished brass plate to the side of a shining door. She eyed it with dislike. What a waste of time. Elizabeth should be learning, not posing for pictures.

  That the reception area, which she had expected to be polished and gloomy, was a cheerful yellow and blue was the first surprise. The second was the apparition who came suddenly through the door, tall and beaming, a short white dustcoat buttoned over his suit and a shock of wild white hair framing a vivid aquiline face dominated by an enormous dark mustache.

  “Good morning!” He extended a hand to Marion and grasped hers warmly. “I’m Marcus Adams. Come in, come in.”

  There was something fantastical and eccentric about him, but also reassuring and likable. Beneath dramatic black eyebrows he had bright, twinkling eyes.

  He led the way back through the door he had just entered by. Beyond was what looked like a large playroom. There were shelves of toys, a carpet, cushions. Lilibet went instantly over and got down a model horse. Marion glanced about her curiously.

  Adams chuckled. “You’re looking for the camera? You won’t see it yet. I spent a year designing my children’s studio so there isn’t any paraphernalia about. No dazzling lights, no big lenses and in particular no horrible black cloth to disappear under and terrify the little ones. I want my young sitters to feel completely at ease.”

  Marion stared. A royal photographer’s studio was the last place she expected to find the play-centered principles so beloved of Dr. Froebel. “You have an excellent understanding of the character of the child.”

  The extraordinary Mr. Adams flexed his amazing eyebrows. “Photography, my dear, is ninety-five percent psychology and only five percent mechanical. If your sitters feel happy, happy pictures is what you’ll get.” He looked at Elizabeth, contentedly galloping her horse over
the carpet. “Ready, my dear?”

  The princess beamed and nodded. Adams went to the back of the room, where he swung round a large box on wheels. On top of it was a metal frame with another box mounted within it. The second box was a camera, Marion saw now as he turned it. But it was not like any camera she had ever seen before. It was an eccentric structure with a length of rubber tubing attached to a rubber bulb.

  “Built it myself,” Adams announced, pushing it across the carpet. “Means I can go anywhere in the room, and because it looks like a toy the children regard it as one.” He smiled at Marion. “Off you go then, my dear.”

  The delighted feeling abruptly vanished. “Go?”

  Adams gestured to the back of the room, whose far wall was a glass screen with some chairs behind it. “Holding pen for the parents. Or, as they usually are, nannies.” He gave her a keen glance. “How is our dear Mrs. Knight, by the way?”

  “Very well.” Marion kept her face carefully straight.

  “So I see, judging from all those bows and buttons. But I’ll do what I can to make her look like a real child rather than a doll.”

  In the parents’ pen, Marion watched through the glass, expecting the photographs to begin immediately. They did not, however. Lilibet continued playing and Adams leaned against his camera, chatting to her.

  “Cup of tea?” someone asked politely from behind. Marion twisted round. She was looking into the face of a young man so handsome it made the heat rush to her face. He was tall and broad with wavy fair hair. His rolled-up white sleeves revealed strong tanned forearms and he had spots of pink in his cheeks. She knew him from somewhere, but where?

  He held out a hand. “I’m Tom Parker, Mr. Adams’ assistant.”

  There was something warm and rolling about his accent. It was English, but not London, she thought. Nor monied upper-class, like the Yorks.

  “Funny handshake you’ve got,” he said. She realized that, flustered, she had given him the royal handshake. Palm up, limp, and, according to Ainslie, who had taught it to her, “on no account must you ever squeeze.”

  “One lump or two? The tea?”

  “Two,” Marion blurted, though she didn’t usually take even one. She now remembered, with a shock, where she had seen him before. Of all places, the procession of unemployed. He was the one with the camera, running alongside.

  “I saw you,” she told him. “At least I think I did. At the march on Piccadilly two days ago.”

  The pink drained from his face. “You were there?”

  “My window looks over the street.”

  He knitted his brows and said nothing more. She had the uncomfortable sense of having unearthed something intended to be hidden. They stared out through the glass of the parents’ pen. Mr. Adams was moving his peculiar camera around, and Lilibet was looking delightedly up at it. That the photographs would be wonderful was obvious.

  “He’s brilliant,” Marion observed.

  “A great artist,” Tom agreed.

  This interested her. “You think photography’s art?”

  “One of the great art forms of the twentieth century,” he said simply. “What Mr. Adams does is the modern equivalent of all those people in the National Portrait Gallery.”

  “I’ve never been to the National Portrait Gallery,” she said, slightly wistfully. “I’ve only just arrived in London.”

  The gray eyes kindled. “In that case,” Tom said gallantly, “let me be the first to take you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE OPPORTUNITY CAME two afternoons later, when Elizabeth had gone to someone called Lady Cavan for singing instruction. It was, after the dancing lesson, all too easy to imagine. Marion was torn between shuddering at the very thought and relief she wasn’t expected to go too, and could escape.

  The gallery visit with Mr. Adams’ assistant was an intriguing prospect. There was a mystery to Tom. Why work for a royal photographer but take pictures of hunger marches? The gallery, too, would be interesting. She would learn something, which she could later share with Elizabeth. And Tom was good-looking, of course, although romance, after Valentine, was the last thing she wanted.

  All the same, she could not help comparing them. Valentine, for instance, had notoriously never been on time for anything. But there Tom stood, waiting as he had said he would be, under the carved stone entrance of the National Portrait Gallery. She hurried toward him, suddenly shy beneath her smile. For the first time since coming to London she wished for better clothes. Her one good suit was not only battered by the Royal Lodge garden, but also exuded a strong scent of Eau de Bonfire.

  Tom, more dashing even than she remembered, and neat in ironed flannels and a well-brushed tweed jacket, did not seem nervous in the least. He greeted her with a warm smile and showed her through the revolving doors—another contrast to Valentine, who always barged in first. She glanced around, impressed, at the mosaic and marble. “Quite a place.”

  “As befits somewhere containing the pictures of the nation’s most inspirational figures,” Tom returned, going on to explain that the genesis of the collection lay in the idea that the public, presented with images of the great and good, might become great and good themselves. “Admittedly, not all of them were terribly morally upright,” he added. They had walked through the galleries and were standing before a picture of a smiling dark-haired woman with a cat whose paw was in a bowl of goldfish. “A very famous courtesan.” Tom grinned. “Her name was Kitty Fisher. As symbolism goes, it’s a bit literal.”

  His clear eyes met hers and the idea of a courtesan, with its associations of erotic pleasure, seemed to hang in the air between them. Marion was relieved when they moved on. “This is what I wanted you to see,” Tom said, stopping in front of an enormous picture. “The Marcus Adams of the sixteenth century.”

  They were looking at Hans Holbein’s great sketch of Henry VIII, all broad shoulders, powerful legs, massive chest, challenging gaze. Marion frowned. The thrusting masculinity before her and sugary pictures of a laughing Princess Elizabeth seemed to have little in common to her.

  “An absolute master at creating the royal image,” Tom went on.

  He could say that again, thought Marion, eyes fixed helplessly on Henry’s enormous codpiece. “You mean Holbein?” She was confused.

  “Yes, and Mr. Adams. They do exactly the same thing.”

  She turned to him, bemused. “But it’s entirely different, surely.”

  He shook his head. “Being royal is all about image. The Tudors knew that better than anyone. Come over here.” He took her arm, sending a great judder of pleasure straight to her heart, which seemed to suddenly burst into light.

  Once she had recovered she found herself staring at a picture that seemed to be an explosion of sorts as well: lace, gold, satin, pearls and lavish embroidery. The face in the center of it wore a tight, calm smile.

  “Elizabeth the First,” Tom said. “The most brilliant royal manipulator of her image until Elizabeth of York.”

  Marion stared at him. “What?”

  “The duchess. She’s streets ahead of the rest of them. A genius at PR, Mr. Adams says.”

  “PR?”

  “Public relations. Controlling people’s view of you. Making sure they see what you want them to see and think what you want them to think.”

  He had to be joking, and yet she could see he wasn’t. “But why would she want to do that?”

  He looked at her, amused. “Power, in a word. Monarchs don’t lead the nation into battle anymore. We’ve moved on from the divine right of kings. The throne is a form of celebrity these days. And your duchess knows that better than anyone. Why else have her daughters photographed so much, and supply the papers with the pictures?”

  Marion could see what he meant now, and that it might even be true. She remembered the scene in the hall with the Prince of W
ales. “I had no idea,” she said.

  Tom gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. You’re not supposed to. But it’s only one of the reasons why photography is the most important art form of the twentieth century.”

  She looked at him consideringly. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “One day photographers will get the recognition they deserve. Perhaps one day a princess will actually marry a photographer, not just sit for one.”

  Marion laughed. “Now you really are joking.”

  “Perhaps. Anyway, are you hungry? There’s a good tearoom downstairs.”

  Being the object of Tom’s interest was like sitting in warm sunshine. Over coffee and sticky buns, he asked more questions in half an hour than Valentine had the whole time they had known each other.

  She told him about her training, and Annie. His broad, clear face was incredulous. “You wanted to work in the slums? So what are you doing with the Yorks?”

  She took a deep breath and explained about Miss Golspie, and her mission to introduce the princess to the ordinary. She had feared that he wouldn’t understand, or might even laugh. But he looked interested, even sympathetic. “I’m in quite a similar situation,” he said, pouring them both more tea. “Mr. Adams is teaching me how to photograph the royal family, but that isn’t really what I want to do.”

  She remembered now: the hunger march, him running alongside with his camera, his caginess when she brought the subject up at the studio. The excitement and revelations of the gallery visit had pushed all this from her mind. She smiled at him. “You don’t want to take pictures of princesses?”

  The gray eyes that met hers were serious. “Don’t get me wrong. Mr. Adams has been wonderful to me. Everything I know about photographs and cameras I’ve learned from him. But I want to take it in a different direction.”

  “What direction?”

  “Photojournalism.”

  “What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

  He smiled. “I’ve made it up. The word, I mean. It’s journalism, but with photographs. You record events like reporters do. But you use pictures, not words.”