CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Summer ended. Autumn saw Oswald Mosley and his Fascist following trying to march through the East End; a pitched battle with police ensued. The morning after the battle of Cable Street, as it became known, a group of unemployed shipbuilders set off from their hometown, Jarrow. Unlike the many other such marches that had taken place, this one had caught the popular imagination. It was being led by the fierily determined Ellen Wilkinson, the diminutive redheaded MP for Jarrow. The progress of the march was reported nightly on the BBC, and daily bulletins appeared in the papers.

Christmas approached. Back in Edinburgh, Marion was shocked at the change in her mother. The shakes were worse, and she had lost a lot of weight. “I’ll come back,” Marion promised, as she dusted and cleaned and ironed. Her mother hardly seemed to do any housework now. “Just as soon as the coronation is over.”

“Of course you will,” Mrs. Crawford said placidly from her armchair, which no longer had a sewing box beside it.

Marion shot her a sharp look. “Mother, I mean it.”

“Of course you do. By the way,” Mrs. Crawford said, adroitly changing the subject, “Peter’s moved school again. He’s gone to one in the south, near London. I forget which.”

Nineteen thirty-seven began. Lessons, especially history ones, were now bent toward the coronation, in which both princesses would take part. At eleven and six respectively, they were considered old enough.

For a lover of history like Marion, the coronation was a fascinating subject. The ceremony of crowning was as complex as it was colorful. Much of it dated back to medieval times. Past coronation processions had included the King’s Herb-Woman, who strew flowers before His Majesty. There had also been until recently a King’s Champion, who rode into Westminster Hall in full armor and flung down his gauntlet. They at least had been expunged from the list of offices. The process of modernizing royalty may be slow, but it wasn’t entirely nonexistent.

Margaret seemed determined not to take any of it seriously. She laughed heartily at ancient heraldic offices such as “Blue Pursuivant,” and her sister’s new title of “Heiress Presumptive.”

“I’ve looked it up,” Margaret said triumphantly. “It means ‘impertinently bold.’”

“That’s ‘presumptuous,’” said Marion, smiling at the dismayed Lilibet. “You’ve looked up the wrong word.”

Margaret was jealous, she knew. “It’s not fair,” she sulked. “Lilibet is now third lady in the whole land, after Grandmama and Mummy.”

Perhaps in reaction to all this, as May approached, Marion found herself following the news more closely. As the preoccupations of those around her went back to the twelfth century, it seemed crucial that someone at least was keeping an eye on the here and now.

The daily paper made, as ever, uncomfortable reading. Popular support for the Jarrow Crusade had not persuaded the government to help the unemployed. Rather, on their return the marchers had had their dole money docked for being unavailable for work. But on April 27, a mere fortnight before the coronation ceremony, something happened in Spain that, briefly at least, superseded all other concerns. The small Basque town of Guernica was almost completely destroyed by bombs dropped by German and Italian planes.

Shocked and sickened, Marion read George Steer’s account of the atrocity in The Times. Four thousand bombs had dropped out of a clear blue sky. Innocent civilians—women and children—had died in their homes, in the hundreds. In the thousands, possibly. Were they looking at the future? Everyone knew how massive Hitler’s rearmament program had been; still was. What were his intentions? Did they include Britain?

Between lessons, back and forth from lunch, she paced the palace corridors, fretting. The fact that no one else seemed to be discussing it, or even thinking about it, was more worrying still.

“Oh! Crawfie!”

Marion jumped back. She had rounded a corner to find the queen, sheet pinned to her shoulders, crown on her head, walking toward her over the red carpet. She held an open book before her; to help her balance, presumably.

Marion dropped to a dutiful curtsey but felt exasperation. Had the queen not heard about Guernica? Was she not concerned about Hitler?

“Have you read this, Crawfie?” Marion rose to find the queen waving the book at her. Its cover bore two words in black Gothic lettering: Mein Kampf.

“Even a skip through gives one a good idea of his mentality and ignorance,” the queen said in her high, clear voice. “And, worst of all, his obvious sincerity. Did you know that every newly married couple in Germany is being given it? What a wedding present.”

She swept off, the sheet slithering over the red carpet behind her. Marion looked after her. She felt, if not cheered exactly, then somehow relieved.

Finally, the great day dawned. No one had slept very much. The night had been noisy with the testing of loudspeakers and crowds singing and cheering. At five in the morning a regimental band had struck up, all drums and brass, rehearsing for the procession later.

The girls stood before Marion in their first long dresses—white lace trimmed with silver bows—and the special coronets that had been made for them.

“Do you like my slippers?” Lilibet lifted her glittering hem to show a pair of sparkling silver feet. Above her snow-white socks were a couple of brown knees scratched from tree climbing. The sight made Marion smile.

“Do you like my train?” Margaret swished around importantly. A length of ermine-trimmed purple velvet slid across the lino bedroom floor.

There had been ructions when the younger princess discovered her sister’s outfit would have a train and hers wouldn’t. A second had been produced on the double. The velvet was so soft you hardly realized you were touching it.

Margaret raised a little hand to check the silver-gilt circlet on her shining dark gold curls. She was passionately looking forward to it all.

But her orderly sister fretted about the vast, uncontrollable ceremony. It would be a huge event, broadcast worldwide on the radio. Stands had been built all along the processional route, and viewing galleries had been constructed in the Abbey as high as the roof. It was easy to see why Lilibet was worried.

Determined to head off a return of the old obsessive behavior, Marion suggested she write a diary. The idea was seized on immediately. An exercise book carefully trimmed with pink ribbon now stood ready to receive the account. The title was written in red crayon on the cover. The Coronation, 12 May 1937, to Mummy and Papa, in memory of their Coronation, from Lilibet by Herself.

“Look at Crawfie’s makeup!” said Margaret, staring hard. “Hasn’t she got a lot on?” There was mockery in her tone. “I wonder if she’s hoping to impress someone!”

“It’s a special occasion,” Marion returned, determined not to appear rattled. But, as ever, Margaret had put her merciless little finger on it, and pressed hard.

She had done her makeup more boldly than usual, after the fashion the salesgirl at Harrods’ Elizabeth Arden concession had shown her. A touch more eyeshadow, another layer of pressed powder, a darker shade of lipstick. The shade was Carmencita, and one of Miss Arden’s new “wardrobe of lipsticks.” The persuasive salesgirl had succeeded in selling her Miss Arden’s newly launched perfume, Blue Grass, into the bargain.

Having delivered her blow to her satisfaction, Margaret swished across to the window. “Just look at the crowds!” she crowed. “All come to see us!”

Marion took the girls down to the reception. The ornate room was full of excited people holding coffee cups carefully distant from ceremonial robes. Hanging in the air was the faint but unmistakable scent of mothballs.

She gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from a footman. She would need gallons of it. The procession would leave the palace at eleven, but none of them would return before five.

Lilibet was scanning the room. Her eleven-year-old face wore an expression Marion had seen once before. But Prince Philip, the handsome boy she had met at the Kent wedding, was not present, although his cousin Marina was, exquisite in tiara and silver lace. The Duchess of Kent was smiling gamely, but what was she thinking? Her sister-in-law of York, once looked down on, had now gained unimaginable eminence.

A tall, familiar figure glided into the room and she felt her chest tighten. Tommy looked splendid in army dress uniform, his Military Cross glinting and his imperious blonde at his side. Joan Lascelles was far more beautiful in the flesh than she’d appeared in her photograph, and evidently very grand, greeting the assembled peers like the old friends they obviously were.

Marion raised her chin and refused to meet, across the room, a certain naughty, knowing, violet eye.

“Marion.” He was looking at her wryly. “You look splendid.”

“Thank you, Tommy. So do you.”

Was Miss Arden’s scent working? He seemed to be lingering, but that might be just wishful thinking.

“Tommy!” Joan was calling her husband.

She met the dark, deep-set eyes. “You’d better go.”

“I had.” He held her gaze a second longer, then turned. She watched his back recede in the braided coat and remembered the skin beneath, slicked wet from the lake.

“I would!” The whisper came in her right ear. Hartnell’s wide-set mischievous eyes smiled into hers. His wavy hair was impeccably combed, and his small, powerful body, more a stevedore’s than a designer’s, was encased in a gray double-breasted suit of perfect cut.

“Norman!”

“Your fairy godmother. In every sense of the word. Love the slap. Very fetching.” He touched her cheek lightly.

She smiled at him warmly. “I’m so pleased you’re here.”

“On hand should anyone burst out of their sequins. Mentioning no names, but some of them are sewn up like sausages in their casings.”

She giggled. In the corner of her eye someone tall and dark moved toward the door. She glanced, involuntarily.

“You’re smitten!” cackled Norman.

“Rubbish. It’s completely out of the question. He’s married.”

He cocked his head on one side. “Your point?”

The room was emptying. Peers and peeresses were called to the coaches lined nose to tail downstairs in the palace courtyard. The princesses’ carriage awaited them in the Grand Entrance.

Norman gave her a little push. “Off you go, Cinders. Enjoy the ball.”