Eight
SYDNEY, 1920
Helen pointed to the pile of letters on Mr. Waters’s desk. “Oh God, there’s all this as well. I think that’s only today and yesterday. Rupert hasn’t even put it on the correspondence desk. I have a speech to finish by this afternoon and there’s some government chap wanting a photograph approved. I don’t have time.”
“Are you American?” I said. I’d thought that was her accent before but now I was less certain. She might be English after all.
“Yes,” she said. “Good guess! My mother, anyway. She remarried when I was ten and we moved to England, so hardly anyone picks the accent. It’s all over the place. Since coming on the tour, I’ve become British or Welsh—Prince, Wales—but at home in New York I become quite the American.
“Actually, when the prince asked me to do this, I was on my way back to New York.” She picked up an envelope absently, took the letter out.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with you now,” she said then. “There’s a chief steward somewhere, but I don’t think he’s back on the train yet. He went to Government House to chastise the cooks over something I don’t care about. There are two other girls and Fanny, whose place you’ve taken. Well, enough said.”
Perhaps she had poured tea on someone, I thought.
“Is Mr. Waters nice?” I said. I had liked him very much. I hoped he wasn’t one of those sorts of fellows.
“Rupert,” she said softly. “Rupert is all about loyalty.”
She started to read the letter she had removed from the envelope. “This one. Poor fellow was denied access to the speech the prince gave at the university in Melbourne. He’s a graduate and they couldn’t manage to get him an invitation. I mean, really. He served with the Fusiliers. What should the prince say? I think he takes every war injury personally. It absolutely exhausts him.”
“He should treat the fellow to a train ticket to the next speech he gives.”
“Yes, that’s rather good. Excellent, in fact. Of course that’s what he should do. Aren’t you the clever one? He’s a prince. He can do anything. The minions are part of the do-minions, of course. Can you draft the letter and we can tell someone to arrange it?”
“All right, I will.”
“And then, while we’re waiting for the steward, why not just go through and see if you can sort them into order? I’ve really got to draft his speech for tomorrow. Our prince must deliver some remarks that the colony will think appropriate.”
He could start by not calling us the colony, I didn’t say.
Helen sat me at the desk to start reading the pile of letters. We talked through two or three and agreed what I’d do and then she left me there to go to her own office to start work on the prince’s speech. She told me to come and find her if I had any questions.
I quickly lost interest in the world around me—what would happen, when I’d get my uniform, where the kitchen was, why the steward hadn’t come for me—because the letters received by the prince were so engaging. I entered the worlds of these people who had written to someone who might care. Their families were not unlike mine. They wanted to tell their stories to the prince who had touched their hearts. Perhaps that was why my mother had insisted we come down here. Perhaps she wanted some acknowledgment of what our father had lost, what we’d all lost.
There were so many people harmed. That was the thing that struck me powerfully, skimming the letters. You would never have known it that first day of the prince’s visit, looking out at the sea of people in Sydney who were captured by the great joy of the visit. But there were letters from mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters of those who’d fallen. Loss was the experience they had in common.
From what Helen had said, the prince would want to help them if he could. I wanted to help them too, and that first poor fellow, the one who’d missed the talk, gave me an idea. We could lend a hand where possible, and acknowledge what people had written where there was nothing to be done.
By the time Mr. Waters came back from his meeting, I had the pile divided into three, starting with letters that could be sent a form reply based on one I’d seen on a file on his desk—although it was terribly formal, and from what Helen said the prince was not one for formality, so I rewrote it to some variant of the original:
Thank you for writing to me. It means so much to His Majesty the King and all his family to know that we share so much in common with our friends in Australia. In our hour of need, none was braver than the Australian “digger” who volunteered to fight side by side with his British comrades, because of our long historical bond of friendship. Of all the titles I have been awarded, none surpasses “digger prince.” I know our peoples across the great Commonwealth have suffered, and I feel their suffering.
I wish you every happiness in the years to come and may God bless you.
Edward
“What’s this, Maddie?” Mr. Waters asked.
“That’s a draft reply, sir,” I said. I was proud of what I’d achieved in a short period of time.
“But what are you doing in here?”
“Helen asked me . . .” I hesitated.
“Asked you what?” he said.
Just then, Helen herself came through from the next carriage. “Oh, Rupert, you’re back. Look at Maddie Marvel here.” Helen had come in during the morning and I’d shown her what I was doing.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Helen. “I don’t understand. I thought you were going to help me with the letters today. I came in and here’s Maddie at the desk.”
He looked slightly irritated.
“Yes, and she has made tidy your terrible mess, Rupert. She has taken all the letters we’ve received, the ones sitting in nooks and crannies on your desk, the secretary’s desk, the floor. She has expeditiously opened them and read them and now she is setting about replying to them.” Helen smiled brightly. “Maddie is doing this because she is clever enough to do it, which is what Ned told you, I believe.”
“But, Helen, she’s a servant. We hired her to serve in the dining room.”
“Rupert, did Ned not tell you this morning that the girl you’d put on serving dinner is a Bright?”
“Yes,” he said, “but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”
“Her father is Thomas Bright, the poet. You really don’t need to know any more.”
He looked incredulous. “So you’re saying that Maddie, who I interviewed as a maid, is to be my correspondence secretary?”
“Yes,” Helen said.
“Because her father is a poet?”
Helen nodded. “I know his work, and the literary editor of Vanity Fair counts him among the greats.”
“But I thought you could do it, Helen. Grigg has promised he’ll do more of the speeches, and you’re so very good at the letters. We might work together on them.” Mr. Waters looked at her, his eyebrows raised, a weak smile.
“I don’t want to,” she said coldly. “And you know I don’t.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, I just thought it was something you might . . .” He trailed off, took a breath in and held it for a moment, then breathed out. “Well, that’s that then.”
He’d picked up one of the letters to which I’d drafted a reply—it was from a mother who’d lost a son—and he still had it in his hand. He read in silence now, narrowing his eyes. After he’d finished reading, he looked at Helen, and then at me. “All right, Maddie?” he said.
I nodded.
“Good then. Keep going. We are getting dozens every day and H.R.H. is determined that each should receive a personal reply. Do you type?”
I nodded. “My father taught me, sir.”
“Excellent.” He turned to Helen. “Then I will ask Mrs. Danby to send one of the girls from the house with us on the train and Maddie can help out with the correspondence. When we get back to Sydney, I’ll find a proper correspondence secretary to join us for the rest of the tour. Is that what you’d prefer?”
“Yes,” said Helen.
He looked again at the draft in his hand. “This,” he said, tapping the piece of paper in his hand, “this is him.”
Helen just rolled her eyes.
It was late afternoon by the time the train pulled out of the station. A few minutes before, I thought I’d glimpsed the prince, walking hurriedly past the window with a taller, willowy young man at his side. There was a frisson around them, a silent, excited moment as they passed, the crowd of railway staff quietening and moving aside.
I didn’t poke my head out the window to see where they went, although I wanted to. I could hardly believe I was there, on the train the Prince of Wales was taking to our new national capital, now in charge of writing letters in his name. (In truth, I wasn’t in charge, Mr. Waters was, but I felt as if it was all up to me now.)
The prince must have entrained in one of the forward carriages. Mr. Waters soon flashed by, on his way to join the prince, I assumed. Not long after, the train rolled out of the station, quickly picking up speed, the whistle blowing its farewell to the city of Sydney.
We were passing through the outer settlements of the city—people waving us by with flags in every village—when Mr. Waters came back to the office. He put some papers down on his desk. “I managed to get us a maid on loan from the governor,” he said. “This is Ruby Rivers.”
She came in behind Mr. Waters, all breasts, hips, and bright red lips. She wore jewelry on her wrist and neck.
We said our hellos, and Ruby stood waiting for Mr. Waters. “So, Maddie, you’ve changed jobs and we’ll have to talk about your recompense,” he said.
“I don’t mind,” I said. I was loving what I was doing and didn’t want to stop. I knew the work of a maid would be harder. “Is it a lot less?” I thought of my mother and how much she needed these two days’ wages.
He laughed. “This pays more,” he said. “We’ll—”
The door to the carriage in front of us opened then and there was a hush that preceded the beautiful young man who stepped into the light. He commanded every speck of attention in the room. He was smaller than Mr. Waters, not much taller than Helen or me, and it contributed to an impression of boyishness you noticed and then forgot, because you then remembered him as tall until you saw him again.
Dressed in a dark tweed coat and slacks, with brown brogues, he smiled at Mr. Waters and then his gaze fell on me. “I’m David,” he said. “Rupert tells me you’re going to get us out of a fix with all these letters we’ve been receiving. I’m so very happy.” I might have melted into a puddle on the floor, but he extended his hand for me to take and I managed to make mine do what it needed to. I couldn’t speak. I took his hand, so soft and warm, mine all calloused and cold, I was sure.
I thought then, I will cherish this moment as long as I live, the light coming through the window to our left, late afternoon, the look on his face, the soft chug of the train. My mother would have fallen into a dead faint, I was sure. Up close and in real life, he was even more beautiful than his pictures, especially when he smiled, as now. It was a smile that lit up a room. I had no knowledge of the world in which to place this new experience. He looked just like an angel, I thought, with his rosy cheeks, eyes of a blue I’d never seen before and I’ve never seen since, a cherub mouth and that blond hair.
“I believe your father served,” Prince Edward said then. “God bless him, Maddie. And your brother made the ultimate sacrifice. I’m so very sorry.”
He knew my name. He knew my father had been in the war, my brother. I thought I might cry.
“Sir,” I said, my voice high and reedy.
He smiled again, smaller this time, and then turned from me. It was as if the light had been sucked out of the room. I could see only black. I heard his voice again. “And who’s this now, Rupert?” My vision righted directly and I saw his gaze had fallen on Ruby, the serving girl Mr. Waters had found at Government House, who was grinning like a lunatic.
Mr. Waters was about to introduce them when Ruby herself curtsied perfectly and said, “I’m Ruby Rivers, sir.”
“Your initials are R.R.,” he said. “If I pick Richard as my regal name, I will be R.R. too.” He laughed. “And how old are you, Ruby Rex?”
“I’m seventeen, sir,” she said. “But it’s Rivers.”
“Well,” he said, looking at Mr. Waters.
Helen had come in behind the prince.
“Rupert, tell Helen that we can’t deliver that speech,” the prince said.
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s what we discussed last night,” Helen said. “Colonel Grigg is convinced you need to speak on the issues again.” She looked to Mr. Waters, who was studying the floor. When Helen was around, I’d noticed, the floor often needed Mr. Waters’s total attention. “‘The Bolshies are everywhere’ is what he said.”
The prince laughed. “I bet he did. Well, I won’t do it. It’s boring. Let’s find something else to say. See what we said in Ottawa—that went down a treat. Grigg wants to whip them with the empire at every turn. People are in terrible pain, in case he hasn’t noticed.” He looked over at Mr. Waters, and his mouth moved as if to smile but it was more of a twitch, a grimace almost.
“Of course,” Helen said. “So what do you want, sir?”
He smiled properly then, that lovely boy’s smile, and his eyes moved to Helen. “There are so many different wants on this train I find it best not to want anything.”
He left us there, Mr. Waters looking concerned, Helen totally deflated, and Ruby Rivers with a grin as big as the train itself.