CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Death came peacefully to the king at 11:55 p.m.,” announced the radio on January 21. Dutiful to the end, he had held a Privy Council in his Sandringham bedroom and attached a wavering signature to a parchment.

Marion saw the pictures in the newspapers. Crowds at the entrance to Sandringham, huddled in winter coats, to read and reread the framed bulletin. It felt strange seeing from outside what she knew so well from within.

The decorative wrought iron of the Norwich Gates, through which she had passed so many times. The distant factotum coming down the snowy drive from the Big House, his gloved hand holding the cardboard envelope. Did she know him? She could almost hear the eager, questioning Norfolk voices in the crowd, an accent that had once been new to her but was now familiar.

She wondered about Lilibet and Margaret. How were they coping? The duke and duchess were sure to be swept up in procedure and protocol. Who was with the princesses? Alah, presumably. Marion could hardly bear to think of the flint-faced old stoneheart being their only source of comfort.

“I should go to them,” she said to her mother.

“No, you shouldn’t; it’s your holiday,” Mrs. Crawford pointed out. “And you’ve just said you’re leaving them.”

But then the telegram arrived. Marion read it, walking slowly back from the front door. “The duchess wants me to go back,” she told her mother.

“What?” Mrs. Crawford looked up from her sewing. “Cable her and say you can’t.”

But the lines were down, the telegraph boy had said. It was the snow. There was no way of getting in touch.

“See it as an opportunity,” said her mother. “Now is a good time to break with them. A new king, a new start.”

“Yes, but I can’t get in touch,” Marion fretted. “They’ll think I’m ignoring them.”

“They’ll understand. Wait until the snow clears, and then tell them.”

“They won’t, Mother. I’ll have to go down and do it in person.”

The journey was endless and freezing. It was like the first time, but a hundred times worse. The first thing she heard on entering Royal Lodge was sobbing. It was a dreadful keening, expressing a world of terrible agony. It echoed round the green-paneled entrance hall. The girls? Horror clutched Marion’s heart.

Dumping her suitcases in the hall, she dashed up to the nurseries. In the gloom of the upstairs passage, two small figures were visible. Neither seemed to be crying.

“Crawfie!” yelled the taller child, hurtling across the lino. “We’ve been waiting for you to come!” Margaret rushed after her sister. Laughing and gasping at the force of the assault, she held them tightly, her nose buried in their silky hair, breathing in their soapy, little-girl scent, hugging one and then the other.

The howl of anguish sounded again. “It’s Alah,” Lilibet said.

“But we don’t know why,” Margaret added scornfully. “She didn’t really know Grandpapa.”

“But everyone’s sad about His Majesty,” Marion pointed out. “And most people didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t know about the rabbit,” Margaret conceded.

“What rabbit?”

George V had, it seemed, once bought a half share in a rabbit. The animal had been the joint property of a small sister and brother. Discovering that, to the dismay of his sister, the brother intended to sell his half, the king had bought the boy out for ten shillings and presented the share to the little girl. “Wasn’t that sweet of him?” Lilibet asked.

“He never bought me a rabbit,” Margaret grumbled. “He didn’t like me. Only Lilibet. She said goodbye to Grandpapa. But not me.”

Lilibet described how they had learned about the king in the Sandringham gardens. Her account was simple yet vivid and Marion could see the dark berberis, the rhododendrons thick with snow, the flower beds hidden, the lawns wide, white and empty apart from two excited little figures sticking a carrot nose on a snowman. The carrot nose glowed, a brave dash of bright orange in the somberly monochrome scene.

Then, out of the great redbrick house with its gables, chimneys and pepperpot turrets had issued a tall, forbidding figure. Gliding toward them over the snow had come Queen Mary in her long Edwardian skirts. It was time for Lilibet to say goodbye. “Just Lilibet,” Margaret repeated. “Not me.”

Lilibet looked agonized. “I’m sure Grandmama didn’t mean anything—”

“She did. She doesn’t like me.” The littlest princess paused and assumed a familiar frown and heavy German accent, “You are so small, Margaret! Venn are you goink to grow?”

Now that Alah had stopped yowling, Royal Lodge seemed very quiet. “Are Mummy and Papa here?” Marion asked.

“They went to London. But Mummy left you a note.”

In her familiar, leisured, looping handwriting on thick cream crested paper the duchess had written two sentences: Don’t let all this depress them more than is absolutely necessary, Crawfie. They are so young.

Not a word of thanks, Marion thought. She had moved heaven and earth to get here. Had she done the right thing after all?

Lilibet wanted to tell her every detail. Grandpapa’s bedroom, she reported, had lots of words in frames hanging on the walls. One said “There Is Nothing the Navy Cannot Do” and another “Teach Me to Be Obedient to the Rules of the Game.”

“But what rules does Grandpapa mean, Crawfie?” Lilibet looked puzzled.

“Noughts and crosses,” Margaret declared authoritatively. “Tell Crawfie about the deathbed, Lilibet. The doctor had a funny name.”

“Oh yes.” Lilibet grinned. “Sir Farquhar Buzzard.”

“Hee hee. And what was that sign about the beast?”

“If I am called upon to suffer, then let me be like a well-bred beast that goes away to suffer in silence.”

“But Grandpapa never suffered in silence,” Margaret pointed out. “He was always shouting.”

Mrs. Knight’s sobs struck up again.

“Why not play with your farm set?” Marion suggested to Lilibet.

A pair of doubtful blue eyes met hers. “But, Crawfie—ought we to play?”

“Of course you should. Grandpapa wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.”

Margaret was certainly not unhappy. She was dancing around the landing.

“Uncle David’s going to be king now,” she declared. “He’s Edward the Eighth. I’m the niece of the king! Hooray!”

Marion looked from one to the other: the sober elder princess, the cock-a-hoop younger. That she was in charge of the king’s nieces had not occurred to her before. From a position on the sidelines, she was now right at the center of the national drama. She could not, like Margaret, help feeling excited too. Perhaps, for the moment, she would stay. Until everything calmed down. Then she would go.