by Wendy Holden
Just now she had been telling him about Mrs. Knight and the playclothes. She had expected his usual riveted attention but for some reason it seemed elsewhere. “Am I boring you?” she teased, nudging him.
He looked at her as if he were coming back from somewhere very far away. “Sorry. A bit distracted, that’s all.”
“Work?”
He shrugged. “Can’t complain. Mr. Adams is good to me.”
“The photojournalism, I mean.”
He looked down. He had competition, she knew. Others were catching up. The picture she had seen in Scotland had been not by him, but someone else.
“Is is Kate?” she asked, gently.
But Tom did not seem to want to talk about his sister. He made an obvious effort to cheer up and concentrate. “How’s Operation Normal going?” he teased.
Marion rolled her eyes. “We’re confined to the garden at the moment. The scare at the YWCA put the kibosh on things for a while.” She buttered her scone agitatedly. “So ridiculous, Cameron saying there were photographers. No one knew she was there.”
As Tom stared into his tea, she thought again of his sister and how ridiculously small her troubles were in comparison. Really, why should he care? She should just deal with it, confront the old bat about the missing outfit once and for all. Mrs. Knight was obviously intending to hide the clothes until Elizabeth was too big to wear them. Well, she would not succeed.
* * *
• • •
“MISS CRAWFORD?” MRS. Knight’s tone was predictably hostile. Over her arm, she had one of Margaret’s long white nightdresses, which she was in the act of folding.
Marion was pleasant, but direct. “It’s about Lilibet’s play outfit.”
Mrs. Knight did not reply. She turned and went back into the nursery. A faint sound caught Marion’s ear. The nanny was humming to herself as she continued folding the nightdress. A small smile was playing about the thin lips.
Marion stepped over the sacred threshold and into the room. The nanny stopped humming immediately, whirled and glared at her. She met the glare steadily. “Where are the clothes?”
Flinty eyes met hers. “I haven’t seen them.”
“But they must be here. Where else would they be?”
The nanny said nothing. And she could do nothing, Marion knew. This was Mrs. Knight’s domain. It was out of the question for her to start rummaging in every drawer. She turned angrily on her heel and left.
* * *
• • •
EVEN HAMPERED BY frills, Lilibet had improved at games. Her catching was now expert and her double-skipping of salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper, within the turn of a rope tied to a tree, was now dazzlingly fast. She jumped the hopscotch course with the grace of a Highland dancer.
“And now let’s play Deliveries, Crawfie!”
It was the day after the encounter with Mrs. Knight. They were in the garden for the mid-lesson break. Marion shot an apprehensive look toward the railings that separated it from the park. There had been unhelpful developments here, too.
Some days ago, a picture had appeared in one of the newspapers of Lilibet playing on the lawn. Small knots of sightseers had started to gather as a result.
How the picture had got there, Marion had no idea. The duchess had been outraged. “He must have been hiding in one of the bushes!”
“Surely not, ma’am. Who would do that?”
The blue eyes flashed. “Well, it better not happen again, Crawfie. You know what Alah and Cameron say. There are some dangerous people out there.”
Marion heard the unmistakable sound of a gauntlet being thrown down. If more pictures appeared, the duchess was saying, that would be an end to garden games. This was infuriating in itself; but what was she, Marion, to do? It was hardly her fault.
More exasperating still was the double standard. As she knew from Tom, the duchess actively sought newspaper space for Marcus Adams’ pictures of her daughters. But anyone else’s were considered a gross breach of privacy.
“Come on, Crawfie! Paw the ground! Like this.” The small satin shoe, besmirched with mud, stamped on the grass.
Lilibet had not yet commented on the faces that now lined up daily behind the garden railings to watch her. It was possible she had either not noticed them or, as she had at the dance class, accepted being stared at as her lot.
But Marion, a grown woman in jingling bells and red leather straps, felt not only ridiculous but protective. The princess had so little freedom. Pushing for more was an uphill struggle as it was. Her eyes flicked about the crowd. If someone here had a camera, she would act.
The small collection of people looked harmless enough. She looked closer and harder. Still nothing.
“Crawfie!” cried Lilibet, jingling the reins. “Do gallop faster!”
She had no choice but to comply, and to charge about, neighing and pawing. But was that, now, in the garden corner, at the edge of the shrubbery—a flash of light on glass? “Go to the garden door,” Marion whispered to her charge.
“But, Crawfie!”
“Go!”
As soon as Lilibet was safely by the house, Marion charged over to the shrubbery. Still in her harness, bells jangling with fury, she wrenched back the branches. As she had suspected, the lens of a small camera stared back at her.
“How dare you!” she yelled. “This is a private garden! You are invading the princess’s privacy! Have you no shame?” The idea of someone making money out of her innocent charge, and imprisoning her yet further in the process, filled her with a violent anger. “You are disgusting!” she screeched at the hapless cameraman, who had now lowered his lens to expose his face. Shock barreled through her as she saw, looking back at her, a pair of level gray eyes; Tom’s eyes.
“You!” she gasped, staggering backward. She clutched at the bush to stop herself falling. The world stopped for a moment, immobilized by the sheer impossibility of it all. Then it started again and got faster and faster as not only did she realize it was happening and real, but that the duchess was quite right; this probably was all her fault. Tom knew every movement of her day, after all. Only one aspect was unexplained: why? What on earth had possessed him?
“Are you mad?” she yelled. He stared back at her, his face expressionless, but something in his eyes, something hard and defiant, gave her the clue. A cold surge of horror rose within her.
Cameron had not been imagining it. There really had been a photographer outside the YWCA. Tom. He had known all about the planned trip. He knew everything, and that was why he had cultivated her. He had never cared for her. He had deliberately seduced her. When she had thought he was sympathizing, he was merely intelligence-gathering. All he had ever wanted from her was information. She had been deluding herself. Yet again.
The realization made her dumb. She could only watch him turn and walk rapidly away, then drop her eyes to the sooty grass. A great wave of self-pity broke over her; her vision blurred and she wanted to fling herself on the ground and howl. But she had Lilibet to think of, and so she raised her chin, blinked hard and forced a smile as she hurried to the garden door, the bells tinkling ridiculously as she went.
In the hallway, Lilibet was beaming. “Crawfie, you were savage!” she said in delight. “I’m sure he thinks now that Crawfies bite!”
* * *
• • •
LATER, MARION WAS in the lift. It being a Friday, they were going to Royal Lodge and she needed to collect her few things. There was another passenger—a young woman with a turned-up nose and pert air. Marion knew her by sight well enough; she was a housemaid, and one of the group that traveled between Piccadilly and Royal Lodge. She had an idea that her name was Ivy, but along with her colleagues, the maid had never said a single friendly word.
Accordingly, Marion avoided looking at her. This was easy to do as the girl was a good fo
ot shorter than she was. She fixed her gaze high on the gleaming paneling and abandoned herself to her miserable thoughts. The first shock had given way to disbelief. He had seemed so genuinely fond of her. And he was a photojournalist, crusader for truth, devoted brother of a sick sister. It was incomprehensible.
Tears swam before her eyes; she blinked them back. Feeling confused was a luxury she could not afford. She had to think. This could get her in a lot of trouble. She was implicated; she had been intimate with Tom, told him things. Should any of this be discovered, she might even be dismissed. The fact that she had been entirely innocent, her only crime being to trust him, would count for nothing with her mistress. Beneath her soft exterior, there was something ruthless about the duchess. “Y’all right?” came an unexpected voice from below. “If yer don’t mind me sayin’ so, yer look in a right two and eight.”
Marion looked down into a pair of sharp black eyes. “A what?” she asked, coldly. When she’d first come to this house, she would have been glad of a friendly word from a colleague. But now, what did it matter? What did anything?
The girl grinned, showing small wonky teeth. “State. Condition of considerable agitation.”
“You could say that,” Marion said shortly.
“So what’s the matter? That old bat Knight upset you?”
This was a surprise. Marion had imagined complete solidarity behind the nursery door.
“Bloody old tartar,” Ivy went on, resentfully. “Got more airs and graces than the bloomin’ duchess ’erself. Won’t even pick up anything off the floor. Muggins ’ere ’as to scrabble about after ’er if she as much as drops ’er ’anky.”
“She says she doesn’t know where Lilibet’s playclothes are,” Marion said, dully.
Ivy put out a narrow finger and pressed a button in the gleaming brass panel. The lift juddered to a stop immediately. “She bleedin’ well does. Saw ’er shove ’em in the Mother ’Ubbard meself.”
“Mother ’Ubbard . . . Hubbard?”
“Cupboard. She’s ’idden ’em, the old bitch.”
Marion narrowed her eyes. Just as she had thought.
“Want me to get ’em back for you?”
Marion stared at Ivy. “Could you?”
The sharp face had a resolute look. “Reckon so. Don’t think she saw me watchin’. I’ll just wait for ’er to spend a penny. She always takes ages.”
“Why are you helping me?” Marion asked. “No one’s as much as spoken to me until now.”
Ivy shrugged. “Reckon it’s a bit unfair, meself. You don’t seem a bad sort to me.”
Given her current troubles, it felt like a vote of confidence. Marion smiled back, grateful.
But nothing had happened, either about the clothes or the photographs, by the time, that afternoon, they set off for Royal Lodge. All the way there, as Lilibet chattered, Marion churned inwardly with self-recrimination and dread.
How could she have gotten Tom so wrong? How could he do this to her? It might cost her her career. The papers’ late editions must be out by now. What if a picture of Lilibet had appeared? Possibly with her in it too, complete with bells and reins. What if the duchess thought she and Tom had colluded, for money? The thought made Marion feel sick.
The loss of Tom seemed nothing beside the loss of the job. Now that she risked losing it, she wanted desperately to keep it. She had planned to leave in the past, of course. But that was entirely different from being sacked in shameful circumstances. What would her mother say? Miss Golspie? They would be so disappointed. And the thought of never seeing Lilibet again was unbearable. That was the worst thing of all.
Later she sat in her room, trying to read, but her eyes slid off the lines on the page. She expected a knock at any moment. When one finally came, she almost shot ten feet into the air. She composed herself as best she could and opened the door to receive her fate.
“Wotcha!” Instead of Ainslie, come to escort her off the premises, Ivy stood there, her pinched face flushed, a red jumper and a tartan skirt in her arms.
Marion stared at her. Compared to what she had been expecting, the friendly gesture meant as much as the clothes. Inexpressibly moved, she flung her arms around her. “Thank you!”
Ivy looked surprised, but pleased. “Anything to get one over on that old cow. Pain in the Khyber, she is.”
“Khyber?” repeated Marion, struggling with her emotions.
“Khyber Pass. Arse.”
Marion laughed. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Why would yer? You’re pimple and blotch.”
Marion raised her hands to her face, indignant. Her skin was excellent, or so she had thought.
Ivy cackled. “Scotch, I mean. Don’t yer know rhymin’ slang? You speak it if you’re born in the East End. Like me. I’m one o’ nine bin lids.”
“Bin . . . ?”
“Kids.”
“Ha.” Marion was beginning to get the idea now. She felt encouraged by Ivy’s friendliness. “Want to come in?” she asked, holding her door open. It suddenly felt like a long time since she had talked to someone her own age.
Ivy came in and sat down on the bed. “So ’ow d’you like it ’ere?” she asked.
“I’m getting used to it.”
Ivy snorted. “There’s a lot to get used to.” She flicked Marion a sharp glance. “Got a young man, ’ave you?”
The almost brutal directness was a relief. A more sympathetic approach might have been an invitation to throw herself on Ivy’s scanty bosom and confess all. As it was, Marion shook her head vehemently and stared at the lino. “Absolutely not.” And that, she was quite determined, was the way it would remain.
Ivy was stepping out with a footman from Buckingham Palace. “You’ve met ’im,” she said. “When you went to see Queen Mary.”
“Oh yes!” Marion smiled at the memory. “We had to turn to the wall when Princess Mary went past.”
Ivy cackled. “Unbelievable, ain’t it? Alf says that even when they’re eating on their own the queen wears her tiara.”
Marion shook her head. “Ridiculous.”
“Word to the wise, though.” Ivy shifted closer to her on the bed. “If you fancy a bit of the other, make sure ’e’s someone from inside.”
Marion tried, and failed, to decode this remark. “What?”
“Boyfriends. Make sure they work for the royal family. Know the rules. That way, you won’t get into any trouble.”
Marion tried to look suitably grateful, and not at all as if she had learned this lesson the hard way.
When Ivy had gone she looked at the little tartan outfit and felt warmed. She had that. She had a friend. She had Lilibet. She would put Tom behind her and forge on. If she was allowed to.
It looked as if she would be. She was down first thing to monitor the papers as they arrived, perusing them to the screams and thumps of the early-morning romp. To her vast relief, there was nothing.
The Royal Lodge day unfolded in the usual way: lessons, followed by playing in the Little House, now shining and clean in every respect. Lilibet set about polishing her set of scaled-down silver cutlery stamped with her monogram, an “E” with a crown above it, while Marion admired the miniature oil painting of the Duchess of York above the tiny fireplace in the sitting room. The artist had rendered beautifully her subject’s vivid coloring. “Mummy really is so pretty, isn’t she?” Lilibet said lovingly. “She’s quite perfect; everyone says so. Daddy says she’s the most wonderful person in the world.”
Marion was surprised to feel a powerful twinge of jealousy.
In the afternoon, also as usual, everyone put on their gardening clothes and took up their billhooks. Marion was almost glad to take part today. Relief seemed to have brought with it a new capacity for appreciation. The fresh air was delicious and the soft warmth of the afternoon sublime. Above the lawns, flower bed
s and shrubberies rose a blue dome of sky into which curled billows from the duke’s ever-larger pyre of burning rubbish. She breathed it in, the smell and the crackle, the bright flash of fire, the sparks whirling up with the smoke. Perhaps the duchess was right about Eau de Bonfire.
Next to her, Ivy grumbled as she yanked out her namesake from the wall to which it clung.
Marion pulled up a dandelion with a long, thick yellow root. “Look at it!” she cried in triumph. “It’s the size of a parsnip!”
Ivy aimed a kick at the passing Dookie, who was eyeing up her ankles. “Bugger off, you bloody animal.”
Marion had to agree. Even in her new rapturous mood she could not love Dookie. While a dog had been her idea, he was the very last she would have chosen. The corgi was an arrant snob, drawing blood from those belowstairs while crawling shamelessly to their masters. “With any luck,” she said to Ivy, “they’ll soon get tired of him.”
Ivy snorted. “They’re saying the same thing about the Prince of Wales an’ Mrs. Simpson.”
“Who?”
The housemaid gave her a wise look. “You mean you ’aven’t ’eard?”
“’Eard, I mean heard, what?”
Marion sat on her heels in the grass and listened as an entire unsuspected world was revealed. The royal family seemed rather like the moon; you saw only the shining parts while the rest was unknowable darkness. Within these mysterious shadows, Marion learned, the Prince of Wales had been having sex every afternoon for fifteen years with Mrs. Dudley Ward, the wife of a Labor MP. More recently, he had added to his harem Lady Thelma Furness, the titled wife of a shipping magnate. But both of these had now been dispensed with in favor of Mrs. Simpson.
She stared at the grass. She had thought the royal family had no idea of what was going on in the world outside. But the world outside had no idea of what went on within the palace. “It’s unbelievable,” she said eventually. By which she meant that she, personally, didn’t believe it.
Ivy’s next words made her think again. “It’s doin’ all their crusts in. ’Is Majesty’s especially. They’ve drawn up this big list of princesses for ’im to choose off, but ’e won’t even look at it.”
