LATER, OH, SO MUCH LATER, they had brought her that book about her grandfather. By now, it was strange. Her family had become two things. First, it was the collection of those she had known and, for the most part, loved, the people one spent summers and Christmases with at Balmoral and Sandringham, the people inside one’s head. But it had also been something else. It was something she read about, in newspapers and books. And – one thought – are these things true? Are these people, described in this article, or in this book, really the grandparents, or cousins, one thought one knew?
When Lilibet had been a teenager and a young woman, Queen Mary had helped her so much, to prepare herself for what was in store. She had taught her about the constitutional monarchy, what it was, why it was such a delicate, beautiful thing, like the most exquisite piece of jewellery, held together by tiny golden chains. But she had not explained to her what it would be like to read about the family as if they were characters in books, in history – which, of course, they were.
It was always a shock to realize this. Perhaps it was because she was not a great reader, but she always found it worrying, painful even, when the author was trying to be kind. To find oneself a character in a book – like, oh, she could not think of an example, Black Beauty, say, or those immensely brave animals in The Incredible Journey (one of the few storybooks she had actually enjoyed as a grown-up).
This book, though, had been written by one of those journalists Mummie knew. Someone on the Telegraph. She would not repeat what Philip thought about the chap, but Mummie said he was all right, and one shouldn’t listen to Philip, who called him Castrol 7 (‘You could oil a lorry with him’). And in the book, which was a biography of Grandpa England, there was something a proper friend of Mummie’s had heard Grandpa once say – ‘I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.’
You might have thought it was idle tittle-tattle, but Mummie had said – when Lilibet, as Queen, had wondered how true this could have been – ‘Oh, no, darling. I remember when you were so tiny, and you went down to see the King at Bognor. Everyone had thought he was going to die, and when we came in to see him, he said, “David will never take over from me.” We did not know what he meant.’
You could tell that Mummie still thought it was all a bit strange. But one had always known. He had known. Grandpa. It was a strange secret between them, perhaps.
That moment on the beach at Bognor. Looking out of his window in Buckingham Palace and across Green Park to 145, he had known. Accepting her ‘sand and apple pie’, he had known.
She’d often thought it must be so strange for all the clever, complicated and perhaps rather unhappy people who do not believe in God!
Lying there in the dark, wide awake by now, she repeated, as she did every day of her life, some of the familiar phrases – ‘unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid . . . whose Kingdom is everlasting and power infinite . . . so rule the heart of Elizabeth thy Servant, that in all her thoughts, words and works, she may ever seek thy honour and glory . . .’
Like Grandpa, she too had always known. It was something which was going to happen, that was all. It was not planned by her, or by her grandfather, but it was planned. Meant. People wrote in the newspapers, when she began to grow old, that she had shown such a sense of duty. But it had not been like that. Not in the sense of trying to be good. It was simply something given to her. It was meant. It was in the scheme of things. She had quietly accepted it, as something which she, and only she, had been called out to do. She remembered Crawfie reading the Bible to her in that lovely Scottish lilt. The story of the voice calling the Infant Samuel. The little boy had kept running from his nursery into the room of old Samuel the priest – ‘Here am I, for thou didst call me.’ And then Samuel had realized who had been calling, and he had told the child, simply say, when you hear the voice, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.’ That was what it had been like for her. Always.
* * *
This had not stopped it being a terrible sadness, that day – she was just ten – when the news came to Royal Lodge. Grandpa England was dead. The shock was terrible.
‘So, is Uncle David the King?’
‘When you see him, you must curtsey.’
Margaret had said, ‘King David! It’s like the Bible.’
And Mummie had said, ‘No, he’ll be King Edward, like his grandfather.’
And then they’d driven to London, Mummie and Papa, and left behind Lilibet and Margaret Rose with Crawfie at Royal Lodge.
‘Don’t let all this depress them more than is absolutely necessary, Crawfie: they are so young’ – Mummie’s words before she left.
Margaret scarcely knew what was going on, as Crawfie spread out their toys on the nursery floor. In the background, the wireless crackled with music. About every half hour it played the ‘Dead March’ from Saul and Allah would burst into tears.
Lilibet had some of her toy horses-on-wheels. With her brush, she tidied their manes, and groomed them as well as she could, but when the ‘Dead March’ played again, she looked up and said, ‘Oh, Crawfie . . . ought we to play?’
‘Noughts and crosses!’ shrieked Margaret.
So they had an hour of noughts and crosses.
The next day, they were driven up to London. They heard Mummie and Crawfie, in one of their huddles, discussing something. Crawfie was saying, ‘I just feel she is too young,’ and Mummie whispered something back. Lilibet realized they were discussing whether she should go to Westminster Hall to see the lying-in-state.
It was the first time in her life that Lilibet felt what it meant to be the King of England. King of all these people. As the car drew up outside Westminster Hall, she could see the long line of people, thousands of them, shuffling forward in absolute silence through the ice-cold January day. These were the people of England, many of them in dark, or black, coats, or with black armbands round their ordinary clothes. Lilibet had never seen such a huge crowd. And all still shocked. As if something infinitely precious had been taken from them, and all they could do was shuffle along in silence and bow to the infinite weight of sorrow. There was such dignity in the scene.
Herself wearing a black coat and a little black hat, she climbed out of the car and was led into the Hall. The coffin, draped in the Royal Standard, was placed on a high catafalque, and at each corner stood four men in uniform. But they were not the ordinary Guardsmen. They were Grandpa England’s four sons – Papa, Uncle David, Uncle Harry and Uncle Edward. She looked intently at Uncle David, but he did not meet her gaze. He was looking at the ground. He was as still as a statue. His eyelids never flickered. Everything was still. It was as if the old man was asleep and they were afraid to wake him. But it was also as if something had been lost which no one would ever get back.
* * *
Then, after the funeral, everything turned rather horribilis. There were many moments, at luncheon or tea, when Papa started to speak, and Mummie gave him one of her looks.
‘Bertie, not in front of the children.’
They spoke of ‘Her’ and ‘She’ and ‘That Woman’.
Grannie, all in black, and with her little black veil over her black toque, said one day, ‘She’s been staying at the Fort.’
‘Huh-huh-huh-who has?’ Papa had tried to say.
But they all knew, of course. That Woman. Her. The Fort was Fort Belvedere where Uncle David lived, not far from them in Windsor Great Park.
Margaret did not seem to notice these observations and muttered remarks, which spread over the summer months.
They saw much less of Uncle David, even when they were all, the four of them, at Royal Lodge, and Uncle was still staying at the Fort. He had not moved into the Castle as they expected. That Woman again.
‘N-n-nothing wrong with having p-p-p—’
Poor Papa could not get out the word ‘parties’.
And Mummie had said, ‘We’re still in mourning! Apart from lack of respect, it’s such a lack of good manners. And such parties. You know what I mean.’
Dear, innocent Papa! He looked so baffled when this was said. When she thought about it in grown-up life, Lilibet realized he did not know what sort of parties. He never had raffish friends, and his idea of fun was playing Racing Demon with his daughters, or fishing, or doing a bit of rough shooting at Sandringham or in Windsor Great Park.
Oh, the games of Racing Demon they played that summer and autumn! And then there was that awful day when Mummie came into the nursery, where Papa and the girls were playing with Crawfie, and said, ‘He’s coming to luncheon.’
‘We . . . kn . . . knew that.’
‘He’s bringing . . .’
‘You can’t be ssss . . .’
The cards were put away. They all stood at the front door, as Uncle David pulled up in his car. It was one of those moments when you realized how clever Mummie was. She stage-managed it so brilliantly, and it was all so natural-seeming. Uncle David came forward and kissed his nieces as usual, and lifted Margaret Rose in the air, which made her shriek with laughter. And then, as soon as her little Start-Rites hit the gravel again, Crawfie said, ‘We’re going to play in the garden,’ and led them off.
Turning back, Lilibet could see the thin lady who had got out of Uncle David’s car.
Turning back, Lilibet could see the thin lady who had got out of Uncle David’s car. Lilibet immediately thought, ‘Olive Oyl.’ When they did not have Mickey Mouse films, they sometimes watched Popeye the Sailor Man and he had a thin girlfriend, with black hair cut in a tight bob round her head. That was who the lady reminded her of.
They had their luncheon in the schoolroom that day, and it was only at four o’clock, when Uncle David and his friend had left, that the little girls joined Mummie and Papa for tea. Papa hardly ate anything and smoked cigarette after cigarette.
Later – some days or perhaps weeks later – Lilibet heard Mummie saying, ‘Not marry her? He must be going mad!’
* * *
That miserable winter day, as the horrible year was coming to an end, they were all back at dear 145. Papa was in the hall, wearing the uniform of an admiral of the Fleet. There had been explosion after explosion with the equerries, the footmen. When he blew up, Mummie stroked his arm and looked compassionately at the latest victim. He couldn’t help blowing his top, poor Papa. Anything set him off – a smudge on a footman’s button; a pair of shoes insufficiently burnished. Some poor admiral – a real b-b-bounder, Papa said – had come wearing his sword on the wrong side. ‘Where do they f-f-f-find these people?’
The house was thick with cigarette smoke.
‘You’ve got to remember,’ Mummie said, ‘that Uncle David has decided he doesn’t want to be the King.’
These words were so shocking that Lilibet had not questioned them.
Every day, she had prayed for Uncle David. ‘So replenish him with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that he may always incline to thy will and walk in thy way . . .’
But he hadn’t walked in that Way, had he? It must be because he can never have felt ‘it’ – what she and Grandpa England had felt on Bognor Beach. He’d never felt that it was the will of God that he should be the King.
‘So, because Uncle David has gone abroad – with – with his friend – it means that Papa . . .’
Mummie did not need to finish the sentence, and she did not need to tell their elder daughter what to do when Papa returned to 145 Piccadilly in his admiral’s uniform.
Rather than running up to him and kissing him, she walked, in a stately way, towards him and fell into a curtsey. Poor, poor Papa was now the King.