Princess Elizabeth's Spy mhm-2

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Maggie had practiced her cover story. “I worked as a typist at Number Ten Downing Street for a while, but I wasn’t that fast. Or accurate, if you must know. When word came the King and Queen were looking for a maths tutor, I was recommended. Seemed like a good fit.”

  “Hmmm. Downing Street, you say? Did you know Churchill?”

  Oh, if he only knew.… “Not really,” Maggie shrugged. “Just in passing. I was pretty low in the pecking order.”

  Gregory motioned to the waitress to bring another drink, and she nodded her assent.

  Maggie noticed his still-full plate. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “I had a late lunch.” Then he smiled. “Of course you must have a beau pining for you.”

  Maggie stopped, fork hovering in midair.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just assumed, pretty girl like you …” The waitress brought his drink and he took a gulp.

  “John Sterling. He’s in the Royal Air Force too,” Maggie told him. “His plane crashed. He is, as they say, ‘missing.’ But I refuse to believe he’s—” The word dead hung in the air between them.

  “Then don’t,” Gregory said, his eyes serious. He was about to say more, when the door to the restaurant opened and there was a loud burst of feminine laughter. “Oh, no,” he groaned.

  “What?” Maggie said, looking around.

  “A gaggle of Ladies-in-Waiting,” he whispered. “I hope you brought cotton for your ears.”

  The gaggle in question was three well-dressed and attractive young women. Without preamble, they descended on Maggie and Gregory, who rose to his feet.

  “London was absolutely mad,” complained the slender blonde in lilac and black, kissing Gregory on the cheek and taking his seat, while he turned to procure more from another table. She had the profile of a cameo. “Lily,” she said to Maggie by way of an introduction, sticking out her hand. “How do you do?”

  Maggie shook the extended hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Barking mad,” amended a ripe raven-haired beauty with glossy scarlet lips and nails.

  “That’s Louisa,” Lily said, pointing.

  “Hello, there,” said Louisa, already scanning the crowd for the waitress.

  “We were bombed out of our hotel,” the short, plump one with pink cheeks said. “Claridge’s! Bombed! Can you believe? It truly is the end of civilization!” Then, to Maggie, “I’m Marion—and you are?” She arched a plucked eyebrow.

  “Maggie,” she replied. “Maggie Hope. The princess’s new maths tutor.”

  “A governess?” Louisa rolled her eyes.

  “Yes,” said Maggie.

  “I loathed my governesses,” she said. “Used to torture them mercilessly.”

  “What a lovely dress you have on,” said Marion. “Glad to see you’ve taken ‘make do and mend’ to heart.”

  Did she really just say that? Maggie thought. She did! What a—

  “Play nicely, ladies,” Gregory warned. “Claws in.”

  Maggie realized she was working, and needed to get to know these women. She took a deep breath, then remembered the newspaper article she’d seen at David’s apartment. “Claridge’s? I heard there was a suicide there over the weekend, a young girl?”

  “Ugh,” said Lily, pushing back a blond wave, blanching. “There were police officers everywhere. We went to London for some semblance of civility, and what did we find? Air raids, bombing, suicide …”

  “And not enough clothing rations to buy anything decent,” sighed Louisa, looking down at her black cashmere cardigan, edged in sable. She looked like the wicked queen from Snow White with her white skin, black bobbed hair, and blood-red lipstick. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl.

  “So, you’re teaching the Princesses?” Polly asked. She affected the same look as Louisa, but her plump face didn’t have the same angles and planes, her bob was dyed an unflattering black, and the waxy red lipstick she chose only accentuated the sallow color of her skin.

  “Oh, the princesses!” Louisa laughed, leaning over to read the menu and exposing impressive cleavage. “Strange little creatures, aren’t they? For years everyone whispered there was something wrong with Margaret, but it turned out Alah just wouldn’t let her out of the pram.”

  “Lilibet’s all right,” Lily said. “But all she talks about are dogs and horses. Horses and dogs. All the livelong day—”

  “Well, I think Margaret’s awfully clever,” Polly cut in. “Maybe a bit spoiled, to be sure. But she does liven the place up. Oh, here we are—you!” she snapped to the waitress. “Yes you, girl. I’ll have a shandy and the soup,” she said to the waitress. “I wish they’d get some decent help in this place—appalling is what it is.” As the other two young women ordered, Maggie caught Gregory’s eye. He was smiling in a bemused way.

  “How do you know Gregory?” Lily asked, leaning back in her chair. She looked tired now, shadows under her eyes.

  “We met today,” Maggie answered. “I was lost—and he was kind enough to help.”

  “I’m sure,” Louisa said, with a sideways glance at Gregory.

  “Oh, when I first got here I was late for everything,” Polly said. “Where do they have you?”

  “Victoria Tower,” Maggie said.

  The girls all gave one another quick sideways glances and laughed. It was not a nice laugh.

  “What?”

  “We’re there too,” Lily explained. “Fair maidens in a tower.”

  “Ha!” Louisa snorted.

  “You’ll need to know how to avoid Mrs. Lewis, the ARP Witch. I mean, ahem, Warden,” Polly said.

  “And how to sneak in and out without getting caught,” Lily added. “Unless you’re an Edinburgh Mary.”

  Polly gave Maggie a cool look. “You’ll have to come by and meet Louisa’s snake.”

  What?

  “His name is Irving,” Louisa told Maggie. “Delightful creature. And I had a rat named Feinstein, but he got away. Lewis still doesn’t know about Irving, though.”

  Two can play at this game, Maggie thought. “I love snakes,” she said. “And I’d love to meet Irving. He sounds charming.” More charming than his owner, most likely.

  Lily looked over as Maggie took a large spoonful of her shepherd’s pie. “Ugh, how can you eat it?”

  “It’s rather tasty, really,” Maggie said.

  There were beads of perspiration at Lily’s hairline. Then she seemed to gag the slightest bit. “Excuse me, please,” she said, rising from her seat.

  Is she ill? Maggie wondered. When the other girls continued to chatter away with Gregory, she excused herself as well.

  In the ladies’ loo, Lily was already retching into one of the toilets. Maggie waited until she was done, then wet a towel with cold water and handed it to her when she emerged.

  “Thanks,” Lily murmured, wiping her face. She went to the sink and stuck her head under the faucet, rinsing her mouth out.

  “Are you all right?” Maggie asked, concerned. “Maybe you caught something in London?”

  “Oh, I caught something, all right,” Lily said. “But it was about three months ago.”

  For a moment, Maggie didn’t understand. “Oh?” Then she did. “Oh.”

  “The actual reason I was in London,” Lily said, looking into the mirror and smoothing back her golden hair. “I was late, so I went to a doctor. He confirmed what I suspected.”

  Maggie noticed there were no rings on any of Lily’s slender fingers.

  Lily suddenly turned and met Maggie’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone?” the blonde said, suddenly sounding vulnerable. “The other girls—they wouldn’t understand.”

  “Of course not,” Maggie promised.

  “Thanks ever so much,” Lily said breathlessly. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “After you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Maggie had gone to sleep with the drone of Messerschmitts and Heinkels in her ears, on their way to London to drop their deadly cargo—it was no wonder the
next morning she woke with a start and clutched the hand-embroidered linen sheets, her heart racing with fear and her body damp with perspiration. She’d been having a nightmare, something about men parachuting from fiery airplanes, Lilibet being taken away in a black van, the Queen weeping in despair, running through endless stone corridors.…

  Through the door to the bedroom, Maggie could see a young girl with creamy skin and dark eyelashes put down a tray on the table in front of the embers of the dying fire in the sitting room. She was wearing a black dress with a starched white apron, cuffs, and collar. A maid’s uniform.

  Maggie panicked, heart in her throat, at the appearance of the intruder. I suppose I could take her, she thought, if I had to, thinking of the moves she’d learned at Camp Spook.

  “Good morning, Mademoiselle,” the young woman said.

  “Er, hello,” Maggie said, after she caught her breath, heart still thudding in her chest. Good heavens, Ainslie might have warned me. She shrugged into the robe she’d left at the foot of the bed the night before and put on slippers, blinking as the girl pulled back the blackout curtains from the lancet windows and let in pearly gray light. “Who are you?”

  From her position in bed, Maggie could see, through leaded glass squares, the vast expanse of grayish-brown land that surrounded the castle and the shadows of ancient trees in the distance.

  “Don’t mind me, Mademoiselle. My name is Audrey Moreau.” she said in a thick Parisian accent. “But you are supposed to call me Audrey. Ainslie said I should tell you that, because you are American and probably do not know these things.”

  Thank you ever so much, Ainslie. “Audrey’s a beautiful name.” Maggie wrapped her robe around her, walking to the sitting room, and perching on the sofa. “And I’m British, despite my accent.” She’d never been woken up with a tea tray, and took a bite of toast as her tea steeped. “Thank you very much, Audrey. Have you been at Windsor for long?”

  “About eight months ago, Mademoiselle. I was able to get out of Paris before France fell, Merci Dieu! I’m cousin to Cook’s husband—that’s how I was able to secure this position.”

  “Merci Dieu, indeed,” Maggie said.

  “Because of rationing, one egg—a real one, not the powdered sort—will be served to each castle resident only on Sundays,” Audrey told her. “By order of the King. He, and the Queen, and the Princesses, all adhere to the same rules.”

  “Really,” Maggie said, thinking of the vast quantities of rationed food Mr. Churchill would put away on a daily, let alone weekly, basis. Still, no one on his staff begrudged him his extra meat and eggs and cream.

  “Chance of rain today, Mademoiselle,” Audrey warned as she finished the last of the curtains. “Oh, and before I forget, Miss Crawford would like to see you in the Princesses’ nursery at nine. It’s Saturday, I know, but she insisted.”

  Maggie’s eyes went to the small clock on the mantel. “That’s in half an hour! Oh, dear!”

  Audrey left. As she dressed, Maggie turned on the wireless for the news. The BBC was issuing reports about Coventry, which had been demolished. “The German Luftwaffe has bombed Coventry in a massive raid which lasted more than ten hours and left much of the city devastated.

  “Relays of enemy aircraft dropped bombs indiscriminately. One of the many buildings hit included the fourteenth-century cathedral, which was all but destroyed. Initial reports suggest the number of casualties is about one thousand. Intensive antiaircraft fire kept the raiders at a great height, from which accurate bombing was impossible.

  “According to one report, some five hundred enemy aircraft took part in the raid. Wave upon wave of bombers scattered their lethal payloads over the city. The night sky, already lit by a brilliant moon, was further illuminated by flares and incendiary bombs.

  “The German High Command has issued a communiqué describing the attack on Coventry as a reprisal for the British attack on Munich—the birthplace of the Nazi party. The German Official News Agency described the raid on Coventry as ‘the most severe in the whole history of the war.’

  “Home Secretary Herbert Morrison was on the scene within hours of the all-clear. He met the mayor and other local officials and afterward paid tribute to the work of the National Service units of the city, who had ‘stood up to their duty magnificently.’”

  Horrible, Maggie thought. Horrible, terrible, awful, tragic … And yet we’re supposed to keep buggering on.

  On time but out of breath, Maggie made it back to the nursery—thanks to the maps Gregory had drawn out for her and with glances out windows to orient herself.

  Miss Crawford was already there on the long damask-covered sofa. She was a young woman with a largish nose, thin lips, and dark-brown hair set in neat rolls. “Please sit down, Miss Hope,” she said with a Scottish lilt, indicating a pink brocade chair. She did not look pleased.

  “Did you hear about Coventry, Miss Crawford?” Maggie asked, still struggling to breathe from the long walk and trying to come to terms with the magnitude of the attack.

  “Yes, Miss Hope,” Miss Crawford replied. “However, I’ve made it my policy that the war stops outside the nursery door. I’d appreciate it if you’d adhere to it. And please call me Crawfie—everyone does.”

  “Of course.”

  Maggie looked down at the schedule on the table.

  “The Princesses are riding right now?” Maggie asked, feeling a sudden stab of fear over their safety. “Who’s with them?”

  “The Princesses have been riding for years, Miss Hope. They are quite accomplished horsewomen.”

  “Of course,” Maggie said, but she wondered if this was perhaps a lapse in judgment.

  “They’re usually accompanied by one or more of the Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting,” Crawfie added. “And there are Coldstream Guards patrolling, of course.”

  All right, then, Maggie thought.

  “And you should know the Princess Elizabeth takes her history lessons privately with the Headmaster of Eton,” Crawfie added.

  “Yes,” Maggie replied, trying to tread delicately. “I’ve heard Eton is close to Windsor Castle.”

  “You know,” Crawfie said in a burst of rapid-fire words, eyes flashing, “you might think I’m just a simple, uneducated Scottish girl, but I am quite qualified to teach the Princesses, let me assure you. I was going to get my degree in child psychology, you realize. But then, you see, the King and Queen wanted someone young to be for the children. Someone to go on long walks and have lots of energy. So …”

  “Of course. Child psychology, really? How fascinating—you must tell me all about it. Jean Piaget and The Moral Judgment of the Child, yes?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even know why the Princess Elizabeth needs additional work in maths.” She sniffed. “It’s not as though she’ll ever have to do her own household books.”

  Well, I’m not really here to teach maths, Maggie thought impatiently. But, still—why shouldn’t all women, let alone one who might be the future Queen, learn maths?

  “But, Crawfie—maths are important. The study of mathematics develops the imagination. It trains the mind to think clearly and logically. Elegantly, even. It challenges our thinking. It forces us to make the complex simple. The Queen-to-be will most certainly need to understand economics, statistics, all the maths related to the military. Yes, and perhaps she doesn’t have to do her own household books—but she might very well want to keep an eye on them.”

  Maggie stopped to breathe. She’d forgotten how passionately she believed in the importance of mathematics, and how she’d missed it. “In short, it’s exactly what the future Queen of Britain needs to study.”

  “Well,” Crawfie managed. “I never thought of it quite like that.”

  They heard footsteps and voices from the hall. Princess Margaret cried, “Lilibet, Lilibet—wait for me!”

  The Princess Elizabeth burst through the door. “Crawfie! The most horrible thing’s happened! She Lady Lily’s dead!”

  Crawfie blanched.
She looked over at Maggie, then back to the Princesses, still in their riding habits and tall boots. “Girls, this is no time for games,” she said sternly.

  “No, Crawfie, no!” Lilibet’s words tumbled out. “We were out riding and I said I wanted to gallop. I went ahead, and then, and then …”

  Crawfie held out her hands to the girl, who was visibly shaken. “Come, now,” she said in gentle tones, wrapping her in her arms.

  Since Crawfie was occupied, Margaret went to Maggie. “I was with Michael, the groom. On my pony. I didn’t see anything.” She sounded just the slightest bit disappointed. Still, Maggie took one chubby, sticky hand in hers and pulled Margaret in, to give her a hug. Margaret wrapped her arms around Maggie and let herself be hugged, then climbed next to her, putting her arms around her and snuggling close. Maggie could smell her—a combination of fresh air and sweet apples.

  “She’d fallen off her horse,” Lilibet continued in her clear bell-like tones. “And she was very, very still. And so I dismounted, to see what was wrong with her. And then I realized—” She struggled to continue.

  “Yes?” Maggie said softly.

  “She—” Tears filled the Princess’s deep blue eyes. “She was missing her head.”

  As Crawfie called for Alah and the two women bustled about with cool cloths and tea trays for the Princesses, Maggie excused herself.

  Taking another look at the maps in her pocket, she went back to Victoria Tower for her coat and hat, then left the castle, its high walls encrusted with moss and lichen, and wrapped in gauzy spiderwebs.

  She made her way in the damp chill toward the castle’s stables. And she wasn’t the only one. There were Coldstream Guards, with their tall bearskin hats and red plumes, patrolling outside, while inside the main stable, the King and Queen were being briefed by Lord Clive. Maggie was used to seeing official photographs of King George VI and, of course, photographs of both him and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, in the newspapers, but it was another thing to see them in person. She was surprised by how much smaller they seemed than she imagined, the King with fair slicked-back hair and a tweed suit, the Queen with her old-fashioned bangs, periwinkle-blue wool coat, and a jeweled brooch in the shape of a corgi.