TWELVE
Royal Train to Canberra, 1920
I STAYED UP LATE DRAFTING REPLIES, FEELING A JOY I doubt I could convey here without exclamation marks, which my father would have been shocked to see me use. He was against semicolons too, and colons, come to think of it. He felt commas and full stops were the punctuation of pause needed in order to provide clarity and conciseness. I had inherited his hatred for those other less-used marks, which Mr Waters found enormously amusing.
‘What’s wrong with the poor old semicolon?’ he said, as he inserted one to replace a full stop of mine. I had to confess that I adopted without much reflection my father’s view that writers who used semicolons were indecisive and those who used colons were showoffs.
‘I’ve never thought of it that way,’ Mr Waters said. ‘I’ve always been a fan of the semicolon. Does it make me indecisive?’ ‘I’m sure it doesn’t, sir,’ I said. ‘My father has many quirks.’ Mr Waters smiled. ‘The semicolon,’ he mused, shaking his head softly.
Mr Waters was a different kind of writer from my father, I was already learning. If Daddy’s verses approached meaning from an angle, providing plenty of points where a reader might create their own from his words, Mr Waters liked as little ambiguity as possible. He was different too from Helen, who, I was to learn, wanted always to create a ruckus of interest with her words. It was the nature of their tasks, I suppose, but Mr Waters, who simplified everything I ever wrote for him, was also a kind of poet. It wasn’t that my father had been a writer of the overwriting tendency—far from it—but Mr Waters brought such simplicity to my writing. It was thrilling in its way. ‘The prince likes to be direct,’ he said that first night. ‘You’ll be perfect. You have no noise of your own style getting in the way.’
Mr Waters had asked the stewards to remove the upholstered chairs and bring in a card table which I could use to sort the mail into piles. He set up the typewriter, which had been on one side of his desk, for me to start typing the replies. I sat by the long window, although it was pitch-black by six pm, and went to work drafting.
Mr Waters was at his desk, writing notes in pencil on the side of a typescript while the train continued west. His job was harder than mine with the moving train. ‘The schedule for Tasmania,’ he said when he spied me looking over—I had tried to look away and pretend that I wasn’t snooping but he only smiled. Everything interested me. I was madly trying to keep a note of whatever I could, thinking I would write it all down in my notebook as soon as I had a chance.
‘We have to cut the number of functions in half,’ he said, ‘and so I am the bringer of bad news to one half of Tasmania, which is now two islands: one that sees H.R.H. and one that doesn’t. They don’t realise that the prince is one young man not twenty. They have him meeting people from dawn until dusk, official balls every night. We specified hours, numbers, everything, but they have misread by a factor of ten what we meant.’ He sighed. ‘This has happened everywhere. It’s such pressure on one person, even a prince. The admiral is doing his best, but he doesn’t seem to be able to control them, and Grigg couldn’t care less really.’ He said this to himself more than to me. I just nodded.
He sat back in his chair, looked over at the door to the prince’s private study. ‘Let’s hope he likes the speech. We’re running out of time to rewrite it.’
‘Helen said you’ve known the prince for a long time,’ I said.
‘My father is his father’s equerry. The prince and his brother, Prince Albert, and I all did our lessons together, and then we all went to school together until they left for the navy.’
‘Helen says you’re the only one Prince Edward listens to.’
Mr Waters smiled. ‘People say things like that but they don’t understand. He’s born to be king, Maddie. Imagine that load on a person.’
Just then the door at the other end of our carriage opened. It was Colonel Grigg, the man I’d seen with Mr Waters in the morning. He was dressed in his military uniform now, khaki, the leather of his shoes and Sam Browne belt gleaming. ‘Rupert,’ he said, doffing an imaginary cap. He wore a pistol on his side. A pistol!
‘Ned,’ Mr Waters said, his expression hard to read.
Colonel Grigg had to approve all the public speeches and the official meetings, Helen had told me. He was in charge of public functions and liaised with the P.M.’s office back in London on all aspects of the tour.
The colonel didn’t acknowledge me as he walked through to the door of the prince’s study. ‘Are we close?’ he asked Mr Waters, smiling.
‘I think so,’ Mr Waters said. ‘I hope so.’ He looked at his watch.
‘It’s not me, Waters. It’s your lad and bloody Helen. They want poetry. Silk purse, I say.’
‘Well, he likes what he likes, Ned,’ Mr Waters said. He glanced over to me. ‘He likes what Maddie and I write. And we ought to be thankful for that, don’t you think?’
I beamed with pride that he included me with him as a writer, although I knew the prince was unlikely to have seen anything I’d written yet.
The colonel had been standing at the door, looking back at Mr Waters. ‘I suppose, but getting him to like what we write isn’t the job, is it, man?’
‘It is for me,’ Mr Waters said, and turned back to the papers on his desk.
The colonel rolled his eyes, looking over at me. I had no idea what he meant to convey, but I averted my gaze and went back to my letter-writing. Already I knew where my loyalty lay.
The colonel knocked on the door gently now. I heard a voice within call, ‘Come!’ He went in.
Just after seven, Helen came out of the study. Mr Waters looked up.
‘Ned’s going over it with him,’ Helen said. ‘I have exhausted my considerable store of metaphors, I’m afraid.’
‘Never,’ Mr Waters said. He smiled up at her and there was such tenderness in his eyes. In a very short time, I had become fond of Mr Waters. He seemed to care so much about what he did, a lot like my father had been before the war.
‘A city on a lake,’ Helen said, looking at me. ‘Isn’t that a line from somewhere? Anyway, we’re debating whether to say lake or body of water. I mean, really. I suppose “lake” might raise the prospect of Arthur and Excalibur, and Ned might see a downside for the empire in that. But the prince is not a man for colour when it comes to language. Call a spade a spade, he says.’
Mr Waters laughed. ‘Hear, hear! I’m not a man for colour when it comes to language either. Maddie’s father doesn’t like semicolons.’
Helen looked at him.
‘Maybe it’s too many cooks,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should help Maddie and me with the letters and leave the speechwriting to Ned. He loves all that intrigue.’
She looked over to me. ‘Dinner?’
Mr Waters started to answer and then saw that Helen was addressing me and nodded instead.
Helen took me to the dining carriage through the other staff offices. They were richly appointed: dark wood panelling, leather upholstery, heavy velvet drapes, much more ornate than Mr Waters’s office. I said as much.
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘Rupert does what David does, and David likes simplicity. This is all terribly fussy, don’t you think? I’d say the admiral and Ned probably did their own decor.’ She laughed.
In the dining room, which was in the middle carriage, we were served pea soup with bread and sweet, lukewarm tea. I realised I’d hardly eaten any breakfast and no lunch and so the food was sustaining. There was fresh bread and a slab of butter each.
‘How are you enjoying the H.R.H. circus?’ Helen asked.
‘It’s all so extraordinary,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to say in front of Mr Waters, but I’ve never done anything before. I was at school, then at Christie’s, and now …’
‘Oh, that’s dear,’ Helen said. ‘Truth is, it’s we who are fortunate to have you, Maddie Bright.’
I’m sure I beamed.
We were about to leave to go back to work when a tall slim naval officer i
n whites strode through the carriage from the front.
‘Dickie!’ said Helen, stopping him in his tracks just after he’d passed us by. He whipped his head around. He had a happy face, eyes that looked at a person directly. ‘I thought we’d conspired to leave you in Sydney,’ Helen said.
He walked back to us. ‘Sadly, no,’ he said. ‘Although the Old Salt may have tried.’
‘Halsey?’ Helen said.
‘Yes, Halsey. He and Grigg are now officially convinced I am a bad influence on H.R.H. It’s my great achievement to be the cause of something they actually agree on.’
He leaned down and spoke more quietly so that only Helen and I would hear. ‘As if David needs any influencing at all to be bad.’ He laughed at his joke. ‘But unfortunately for me, Halsey has written to the King that I am the problem, and Grigg has done the same with the P.M. It was my poor mother who told me. Me, sweet boy that I am. Let’s face it. If we were to talk honestly, I think you and I know what’s what.’ He flashed a Cheshire cat grin.
He noticed me then. ‘And who’s this?’ he said, to Helen not me.
‘I’m Maddie,’ I said, ‘sir.’
‘You don’t have to sir Dickie,’ Helen said. ‘Maddie, this is Louis Mountbatten, Prince Edward’s cousin. Dickie, Maddie Bright is the daughter of the poet Thomas Bright. Will you sit with us?’
‘And I know Thomas Bright?’ He sat down beside Helen, who shimmied over to the window to make room for him.
He smelled fresh, like Sunlight soap.
‘You should,’ Helen said. ‘If you read poetry you would. Maddie’s taken on the role of correspondence secretary for a few days until we catch up.’
‘Well, good for you,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘I was brought on the tour to write those letters, according to Grigg yesterday. At least, he thinks I was.’ He laughed then. In fact, I realised a slight smile hadn’t really left his face since he’d come into the carriage. ‘I’m more the black sheep of the family sort.’
‘That’s the royal family,’ Helen said, ‘where the sheep are generally pretty white.’
‘Just so. Anyway, I am on my way somewhere, but you two have made me forget where.’
‘To remove the admiral’s head on behalf of us all?’
‘Never,’ Dickie said. ‘He’s on our side.’
‘Your side,’ Helen said. ‘I wish I knew how to get on with him. He treats me like I’m stupid.’
‘I think it’s Ned, not you,’ Dickie said. ‘Ned’s always trying to make hay out of everything. Tomorrow’s speech, a case in point. The admiral and I say we should talk about a new nation, a new capital, one of our friends—like in Ottawa—and that’s it, or don’t talk at all. Poor David’s had enough of all the nonsense. But with Grigg, it’s whether the communists are in control or the Fenians or the other Bolshies. Are there any other Bolshies?’
Helen laughed. ‘Ah, so it’s you and the admiral getting in David’s ear. I wondered. Well, Ned has to think of the political ramifications, and I’d just like a bit of poetry.’
Dickie laughed. ‘The secret with the admiral is to act as if you’re interested. It sort of soothes him, I think.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘I’m his best student, he told Mama. Seriously. He’s like all of us. He just wants to feel he matters.’ Dickie took out a cigarette and offered one to me, which I declined, and Helen, which she accepted. ‘He was Fourth Sea Lord and commanded a fleet in the war. Now he’s a babysitter. Who’d want to play that particular role on this particular tour?’
He leaned in to light Helen’s cigarette and then lit his own.
‘He does seem to like you, Dickie. I’ll concede that.’
‘Grigg doesn’t.’
‘No. He thinks you’re stirring the pot. And you are! Do you know what he told me the other night?’
‘No, do tell.’ He looked at me as he spoke. ‘Maddie and I love gossip, don’t we?’
I nodded and giggled. It was as if he’d read my mind.
‘David wrote to his mother that he had to give you a dressing-down after one of the balls in Melbourne. He told Ned he’d done that. Something about you and the drink being too well acquainted. Anyway, Ned told me the only reason David likes you on the tour is that there’s someone who behaves worse than him.’
Dickie laughed, throwing his head back. ‘Ah well, David knows what’s really happening, and so does the admiral. And Waters has always been decent to me. I’m not worried. I can afford to have an enemy in Ned.’
He stood then. ‘Maddie, it is such a relief to know someone is writing those letters. I was terrified they were leaving it in the hope I’d become suddenly inspired. Ships. I like ships. I’m so glad you’re here.’ Leaving his cigarette between his lips, he reached out a hand. I shook it.
He took the cigarette from his lips and blew smoke up to the ceiling of the car.
‘Helen, I’ll see you tonight, I hope.’
He left us.
‘Dickie is so dashing,’ I said.
‘He’s just a sweet boy, really,’ she said. ‘This is all a bit beyond him. Let’s face it, it’s beyond me, and I know how the world works. Dickie’s nineteen, just a baby.’
I didn’t remind Helen I was even younger, seventeen.
It was late that night before Helen finished working with the prince on his remarks for the next day. She came out of his private study and into our office.
‘Finally, we get a speech he’s happy with,’ Helen said to me. ‘And then, five minutes ago, he said he really doesn’t need to speak at all tomorrow. Has the admiral been in to see him?’
I didn’t know.
Mr Waters, who’d been working at the desk beside me, looked up but didn’t say anything.
‘I’m serious. We’re back to, “I don’t want to do this.” I don’t think the week off helped at all,’ Helen said, looking at Mr Waters now. ‘I think he’s worse.’
‘He’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep,’ Mr Waters said. ‘What’s he doing now?’
‘James is in there.’ James was the prince’s valet. I’d met him during the afternoon when he came in looking for the prince. ‘I think he’s planning to go to bed. But I am serious. The admiral and Dickie have been bothering him about what to say.’
‘Good then,’ Mr Waters said.
‘No, not good then. There are too many whispers in his ears. It’s my job and Ned’s job, not theirs. Or yours.’
Mr Waters didn’t reply.
‘You’re still up,’ Helen said to me. I didn’t like to say I didn’t know where I was sleeping and hadn’t wanted to ask Mr Waters. I didn’t even know where the servants’ compartment was. I was happy to keep working, but I was getting tired. My little bag was still beside the desk. I hadn’t stopped except for the quick dinner break.
I’d started typing once Mr Waters had read the first twenty draft replies and pronounced himself happy with them. He made changes along the way and it helped me learn. He said we’d give typed versions to the prince, ‘in the hope he doesn’t change them’. He smiled as he said it. ‘But, Maddie, he probably will. He’s quite particular about some things, and no one can quite work out what they’ll be on any given day. I did show him the standard letter and he was awfully happy, so bravo.’
I didn’t care if he rewrote them from scratch. Having a chance to write something he would read was enough for someone who, until a week ago, had one experience of work: having been fired from Christie’s cafe for bathing a customer in his tea.
‘Come on,’ Helen said now. ‘You need your sleep.’ She looked at Mr Waters. ‘No one likes a sycophant, do they, Rupert?’ Her voice took on an edge.
‘Certainly not,’ he said, either failing to notice the edge or choosing not to. ‘Off you go, Maddie. To bed.’
I picked up my bag and followed Helen down the corridor past the other offices, the government carriage and the dining carriage and kitchen.
Helen was the only woman on staff and she had a large
compartment at one end of a carriage with its own bathroom. The train had been fitted out for the prince’s tour and they’d specified the need for female staff accommodation, she said.
‘I got the steward to make up the second bunk. I hope you’ll be comfortable.’
I knew that Helen would have had the whole compartment to herself if it hadn’t been for me. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s like school. We can be just like school chums.’
‘Really, I’d be more than happy to sleep with the servants.’
‘It wouldn’t be right,’ Helen said. ‘You’re one of the prince’s personal staff now. You bunk with the staff. Anyway, I’m glad for the company.’
We changed into our nightdresses—mine poorly mended, Helen’s a lovely apricot silk with a matching long gown she draped neatly on the hook behind the door—and crawled into our bunks.
Helen hung her head over the edge of her bunk. Her blonde curls fell around her face. ‘See? Like boarding school.’
‘I never went to boarding school,’ I said.
‘My parents sent me,’ she said. ‘I think Mummy wanted me out of the house after she remarried. God, I hated it, but home was worse by then—a horror, actually.’ She looked terribly sad, and I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘I just wanted to go back to America. I hated England. I hated it.’
‘Didn’t you say you were an orphan, like the other Helen Burns?’ I said.
‘I did,’ she said, ‘but only for the sake of a good story.’
I laughed. ‘You can’t just make your life up.’
‘Why not?’
‘I loved school,’ I said, thinking suddenly about Daddy, who’d taught us English. I sighed.
‘Did you tell me you knew Mr Waters before?’ I said then, wanting to change the subject. I had spoken to Mr Waters during the evening while Helen worked with the prince on his speech. I had noticed him watching the door to the prince’s study.
‘Yes, in the war,’ Helen said. ‘Rupert was wounded in France. I was working at a hospital.’
The True Story of Maddie Bright Page 11
