Falling for Prince Charles

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  Sheathed in flaming red satin—from thin shoulder straps, through heart-shaped neckline and waist snug enough to please Scarlett O’Hara, all the way down to flared skirt above restlessly tapping foot encased in pinching heels, that were not dyed to match but had actually been created in that color for her alone, she was hoping that, if she could no longer pass for a wallflower, perhaps she might be taken for an original cabbage rose: a relief from the endless, expected expanse of plush red carpeting that seemed to extend as far as the eye could see.

  Daisy’s disenchantment with everything had really all started on the previous day, during a private little luncheon with the Queen.

  Oh, the food had been fine, of course, never anything to worry about there. True, it was a bit on the blandly rich side, as always—all cream and no garlic—but there was certainly plenty of it. No, one would have to really work at it to starve to death around here.

  No, the problem had been with The Bag.

  Right after the Queen had issued the invitation to Daisy, but prior to her attendance there, Sturgess had briefed Daisy on protocol. “The most important thing to remember,” he had advised, “is that, when Her Majesty places her bag upon the table, it means that the interview is at an end, and that the time has come for the guest to graciously, but rapidly, make their exit.”

  And Daisy had relished this information, reveling in the knowledge that she was now “in the know,” had the inside scoop, finally knew what the true purpose of The Bag was: like one of those variety programs from the early days of television, it was the hook for removing acts from the stage who had either failed to or no longer entertained. Rude, perhaps, but effective. And besides, Daisy realized quite sensibly, the Queen—if she wished to maintain her reputation as being “as gracious as you would want her to be, a real lady”—could hardly say to her guests, “Please get out of my house. You are giving me a headache and, worse, you are a bore.”

  But, when it had come time for the luncheon, things hadn’t gone quite the way that Sturgess had described. Right in the middle of the soup course, the Queen had abruptly risen, exiting the room without a word. Perhaps the heavy cream base had proven too much, and a visit to the Throne Room was in order?

  But no, Daisy had thought. The Queen had left The Bag behind. Surely, a lady always brings her bag with her to the Ladies’. No?

  So, there was Daisy, alone in the Chinese Luncheon Room with The Bag.

  Ayup. There was The Bag, and there was Daisy.

  Well, what would you do?

  Of course, she couldn’t resist. Of course, she had to look inside of it.

  Feeling like a thief in the night—or a palace intruder, circa 1982—she cautiously reached under the Queen’s chair, and very quietly, very carefully, undid the heavy gold clasp on the old-fashioned purse. Looking over both shoulders first, as if expecting a counterspy to attack from behind, she gently pried open the rather stiff sides and, placing one eye to the opening, peered inside.

  She drew away, startled.

  She peered again, both eyes shifting back and forth now, to make absolutely certain that she had seen correctly the first time.

  But, no. There had been no sensual deception.

  It was the cleanest, most pristine, handbag interior that Daisy had ever peered into in her life. No gum wrappers. No outdated shades of lipstick. Not a condom in sight. Not even any lint, for crying out loud.

  The Bag was empty.

  Having wanted for so very long to find out what was contained therein, this exposure of the emptiness of The Bag filled Daisy with dismay. And, when the Queen at last returned—offering no explanation for her absence, of course—and began to brief Daisy on the importance of the State Banquet that was to take place on the following evening (who would be there, and what was expected of Royalty on such occasions), she was surprised at how little interest Daisy showed. Surely, one would have thought that even this relatively even-tempered Colonist might show some more enthusiasm at the prospect of sitting down to dinner with her own country’s president. And while one might admit that, sometimes, one might be wrong about these things, one never did.

  Still, one would have thought that at least the mention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s expected presence would have elicited more of a rise. It certainly had that effect on most people.

  Well, one sighed, taking a healthy swig from the luncheon claret. One’s son certainly knew how to pick them.

  6

  Following the luncheon—and The Exposure of The Bag, of course—the day had only gone from bad to worse.

  Daisy had been in a disenchanted panic. And Charley, well meaning though misguided as his intentions were, had been trying to calm her down while being yet another person attempting to brief her on events in her near future. It was fortunate for him, in a way, that, for once, she was not listening to him; had she been, she might have brained him with the nearest scepter, having quite quickly gone from a state of being eager to learn, to one in which she was heartily disgusted with the entire process of others trying to mold her behavior.

  “Do you ever just, like, completely forget what’s inside some of these?”

  While in the process of opening and shutting doors at mad random, she had also gone a trifle retro Valley Girl.

  “And, like, I can’t believe that you people actually number these rooms somewhere for ease, as though this were a hotel instead of somebody’s home. I mean, what is this? Just what exactly is in Room 222 anyway?”

  Charley lifted his empty hands and shook his head, proving that chewing gum while walking just might be in his future after all.

  Daisy, in B.P., was feeling like Alice in Wonderland. “No wonder you always look so lost, Charles,” she stated, projecting her own feelings just a wee bit. “It’s like the red-carpet version of Dante or something.”

  Really, she was quite lucky that he was not a very easy person to offend.

  “Don’t you ever find this all—oh, I don’t know—just a tad ridiculous? And, what about your mother? Do you ever think that she gets overtaken by the urge to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all? And—”

  “What are you talking about, DeeDee?”

  “And the Mistress of the Robes—I mean, what is that? What does she do? I still don’t get it.”

  “Hush, hush, DeeDee,” he soothed, drawing her into his arms. “Now, tell me, what is this all about?”

  Daisy felt the wind deflating from out of her sails. She stood like a wet noodle in his arms. “Skip it.”

  7

  Protocol. Ceremony. Splendour with a “u” on loan from grandeur.

  Bleagh, Daisy thought, as she paced the East Gallery now. Where had the real world gone?

  She was just getting the lay of the land and possibly burning off a little steam, before she was due to meet the others in the Queen’s Audience Room, prior to the group’s joint entrance. She was perhaps not in an appropriately State Banquet frame of mind.

  She passed under a lighted Renoir, a Van Dyck, another Renoir. Well, really, once you’ve seen a half-dozen Renoirs… she thought, in a Philistine-like fashion that made her hard to recognize as the same girl who used to haunt the Reading Room at the British Library.

  In fact, with all of her finery, it was becoming increasingly difficult to recognize our girl at all.

  But, when you get right down to it, you can take the jacket of War and Peace and slam it around a Jackie Collins—or vice versa, though why one would want to do that, one doesn’t wish to hazard a guess—and the only people who would be fooled forever would be those who never actually read the books, but only looked at the jackets. Or something like that.

  At any rate, Daisy, still being Herbert’s daughter down to the minute hand on her new diamond watch, was impossibly early.

  Which meant that there were still quite a few other individuals of interest, some of who probably considered themselves to be Daisy’s equal in importance, who were still readying themselves for the festivities that lay
ahead. One could only hope that they had come prepared.

  8

  Someone was singing in the shower.

  “God, I love this place,” he shouted out, gleefully, as he turned off the gold faucets. “They think of everything around here.”

  The rather tall man emerged from the bathroom in the Belgian Suite—the very same bathroom where the Queen had once birthed her youngest son—a plush towel wrapped around his waist, still glistening from the shower, a toothbrush jammed into the corner of his mouth. His head didn’t even come close to touching the top of the doorway, as he passed from the bathroom into the bedroom. In fact, that was one of the really cool things about being President that Mr. Clinton had never quite really gotten over. For, what with all of the really big places that they got to stay in when they traveled—with the possible exception of China—he never had to worry about clearance or about bumping his head anymore.

  “Hny? Ers mm frit ux?”

  In the bedroom, a woman—who was smartly attired in a rather slimming midnight-blue velvet gown—was wearing a disturbed expression upon her face, as she laid out clothing upon the bed. His wife was prepared, as always: already dressed herself, one step ahead of him, as always, natch.

  “I never can quite understand what you’re saying, when you’ve got that toothbrush in your mouth,” she said, trying her best not to sound like an annoyed schoolmistress. “What was that about an ux?”

  “I said,” came the familiar Arkansas twang, as he removed the brush from his mouth, his lips flecked with tiny bits of toothpaste foam, “Where’s my favorite tux? You know the one I mean. Did they remember to pack it?”

  His wife bit her lip, studying the garments on the bed. She sincerely hoped that what she was seeing wasn’t going to completely spoil her husband’s and, therefore, her evening, for she had so been looking forward to it. And, while she knew that it might not necessarily be the politically correct mindset to have, you couldn’t help but be in awe of Them, she thought, shaking her top a little in order to better redistribute the wealth of her breasts within the snug confines of the designer gown. No matter how determinedly democratic you intended to appear, this, after all, was Royalty.

  But, before she got the chance to say something, anything soothing that might avert the coming storm, her husband caught a glimpse of the distinctly “uh-oh” expression on her face, and his eyes shot to the bed, where he saw exactly what she was seeing.

  “Oh, man!” the Leader of the Free World whined aloud, smacking himself in the head with the palm of his hand. It was a blow that might very well have knocked a man of less strength unconscious but, luckily for him, his head was hard.

  “Now, Bill,” his wife cautioned, “don’t let it spoil the whole evening.”

  “But, Hillary…”

  “Bill,” she warned, “now just stop it. I think you look… fine in this one. Very handsome. Original.”

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  He crossed to one of the many windows of the Belgian Suite, valiantly trying to keep his temper in check, to put a brave front on things. Drawing back the curtain, he placed his forehead against the pane, looking out at the stunning view of the twilit gardens and the moon-shadowed lake beyond. He tried. (He really did.) But it was no use.

  “Shit. I mean… just… shit, Hillary. A man gets to be President of the United States, and you’d think that he could at least not have to look like a royal asshole in front of the whole world all the time. I mean… shit. They sent the goddamned white one again. Now I’m going to look like a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Again. Shit.”

  9

  The Duke of Edinburgh paused for a moment, in the midst of his posturing, admiring the triptych of full-length reflections that looked back at him. Perhaps, if Charles was a very good boy, the Duke might let his son have one of these for his very own one day. He studied the cut of the robes with a critical eye, squinting at the effect of the gilded tassels that befitted his station as a Knight of the Garter.

  Nope, as Charles’s friend was always saying. Nope, this wouldn’t do at all. He was going to need a much bigger kick than this, if he was going to get through the entire evening.

  Exiting his own dressing room and suite, he hurried down the King’s Corridor to his wife’s dressing room. He knocked at the door and, when there was no answer, quickly looked both ways to see if the coast was clear before turning the handle. A moment later, he reemerged, one of her robes now thrown about his shoulders, and looked both ways again before crossing the Corridor to achieve his ultimate destination.

  Once safely ensconced in the Throne Room, he sat in his favorite chair—HERS—his robes arranged around him, his long legs draped over the gilded arm. He felt free now to engage in one of his pet pre-State Banquet fantasies: the one in which he were the King, and she had to walk the requisite three paces behind him.

  In spite of the lift that such a daydream usually gave him, however, he found that, oddly enough, on this occasion he was not amused. He kept hearing the voice of that annoying little American, the words echoing in his head over and over again. “Just get over it, Phil!” she had said to him, yet again, in exasperation the evening before.

  He looked down at his present attire, experiencing a novel feeling of dismay. Was it just barely possible that the little tramp had something there?

  He hurried back along the King’s Corridor, hoping to replace his wife’s things before she and her own Dressers appeared and found them missing. It would never do for her to catch him out. He would never hear the end of it.

  And as he hurried along, his black-booted feet silently causing tiny dents to appear in the crimson carpeting, a rather strange thought occurred to him: for the very first time, in his entire married life, he felt as though he had figured out something important before anybody else had had a chance to catch on.

  Now, if only he could figure out just what that something was that he had figured out, why, he would be sitting very pretty indeed. Right in the catbird seat, as it were.

  10

  The Archbishop of Canterbury was hoping, yet again, that the theories that he had espoused from the pulpit were indeed true, and that there really was a hereafter. For, surely, there must be some greater reward for the pains that one was forced to endure in the course of this vale of tears that some termed “life.”

  Take this placard, for instance. This item, this thing of protocol issued by the Master of the Household to announce the proper processional to the evening’s State Banquet. The Queen and President Bill Clinton—not even William, mind you! Must they always familiarize everything?—were to lead, followed at the requisite three paces by the Duke of Edinburgh, squiring that political distraction that some liked to call Hillary. If not all well and good, at least that was as it should be. Then they were to be followed by the Queen Mother on the arm of her inevitable escort, Prince Charles. Nope, as any Colonist might tediously say, nothing out of the ordinary there.

  And the Colonies certainly were of relevance here, because the problem with which he was faced was a decidedly American-inspired one. For, after the Queen Mother and the Prince, there was to follow the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of the Church of England—him—who was to have as his companion… Daisy Sills?

  What the Archbishop could not know, was that Charles had lobbied for, and won, the right to have Daisy escorted into dinner by him. It paid to know people in high places, and the Lord Chamberlain—following a more than gracious contribution to his own personal Fresh Air Fund—had been more than willing to jockey others around so that Daisy might have the position opposite Charles at dinner. And nobody else had seemed to mind this highly irregular state of affairs in the least. Nobody, that is, except for the A. of C., of course.

  What that man did know was that he had been forced to suffer many indignities in his time, but that this really was the limit! To be saddled with an unknown American quantity, and not even a Royal one at that! Never mind a Princess, nobody had ever heard of her befo
re. She wasn’t even a politician’s daughter. Why, at least when he had had the job of waltzing into dinner with The Other One…

  Oh, he waved the past away with his hand, thinking that tonight might not be as awful as he had previously let his mind run away with imaginings that it would be. Fie on the Lord Chamberlain’s Byzantine seating arrangements for dinner, his exacting charts that followed a pecking order that only he knew the secret behind. And maybe the L.C. had something there, maybe it was necessary to have all of the earls and dukes put in their right places. For, elsewise, anarchy might reign, and then how would a Field Marshall ever be able to prove that he was more important than an Air Chief Marshall? One means, really…

  In fact, he told himself with a grin, as he studied the chart again, an evening spent with the American nothing, Sills, might afford him a rather pleasant change of pace. Nope, nothing awful there at all.

  But, try as he might, it was impossible for the A. of C. to maintain such a Pollyanna-ish worldview for very long.

  Of course it would be awful, he finally decided, letting the grin die away like a Briton under a Saxon siege. The whole night was going to suck.

  11

  Elsewhere, the ladies were having their own set of problems.

  In a flat in Dolphin Square, a Princess could be heard to be knocking on the loo. If the Archbishop thought that he had problems with his designated escort, they were as nothing when compared with Princess Anne’s.

  “You must come out!” shouted Anne, as she pounded on the door with one closed fist, while she tried, single-handedly, to insert an earbob into her hole. The bordered flounce on the bodice of her pink dress betrayed it as being a few years out of date, but then, she thought, who the hell really cared? Besides, pink was such an insipid color anyway.