CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Nineteen forty-seven was promising to be the worst winter in living memory. Everything was frozen. Roads were either impassable with snow or hopelessly ice-bound. Shops emptied as supplies failed to get through. Marion had woken one morning to find her face bleeding, cut on an icicle that had formed on the sheet from her own breath.
The papers carried pictures of sheep frozen stiff in the fields, some near the Balmoral estate. Marion sent copies to South Africa in reply to the regular letters from the girls. Lilibet’s missives were full of distress at what the British people were suffering. She made no mention of her own suffering. But Philip’s photograph had disappeared from her bedroom, presumably taken with her. Lilibet had been white-faced and sad on departure. All the papers had carried the image of the princess at the ship’s rail, face turned wistfully back toward England. They had thought it was the country she would miss.
Margaret’s letters, on the other hand, radiated excitement. South Africa was glorious. The White Train was wonderful. But the real excitement was not referred to. There was no mention of Peter Townsend.
“I could leave now, while they’re away,” Marion told George. It was Sunday morning and they were in his Earl’s Court boardinghouse. This required ingenuity; Marion evaded the eagle eye of Mrs. Batstone, the landlady, by dressing up in one of George’s suits and pretending to be a colleague. “But that might look sneaky,” George pointed out. “You don’t want to leave under a cloud. Not after so many years.”
“Don’t I?” But the weeks were slipping by, and with them her chance. Resigning while her royal masters were out of the country was the obvious thing to do. She felt restless. The old urge to make the most of her opportunities had returned. Once, long ago, she had been a modern girl, in what had been a largely old-fashioned world. Now she was a relic of the feudal past in a brave new Britain.
The postwar wind of change had blown through the nation, sweeping away the old deference, sweeping away even Winston Churchill, whose supporters had failed in their arguments to “Let Him Finish the Job.” He was no longer prime minister; Clement Attlee was, and his Labor government was busy founding a free health service, knocking down slums to build decent houses and establishing a welfare state that would help the very poorest in society. There was no place for governesses in a world such as this. Possibly no place even for royalty.
“No, you don’t,” George said firmly. “You need to leave with your head held high. Garlanded with gongs and with a nice fat pension.”
“Gongs?” She stared at him. She hadn’t even thought about a pension. She would work as a teacher; she had years ahead of her.
“Well, the OBE, a damehood, you know. And there’s bound to be some grace-and-favor house they can give you.”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not. I’m just thinking of you.”
The family returned. Philip’s natty sports car soon became an evening fixture at the palace’s little side entrance, and Marion could hear, even from the distance of her bedroom, the uproar in Lilibet’s sitting room, where she, Philip and Margaret would have supper and afterward chase one another about the corridors.
She herself was never asked to the suppers. It wasn’t that Philip disliked her; it was worse than that—he didn’t notice her. To him, she was a servant, of no interest or consequence. Marion did not care what Philip thought. But that Lilibet might, under his influence, start to feel the same way was unbearable.
Marion had no kind feelings toward the prince of Greece. Philip’s sense of humor tended toward the boorish. But Lilibet, previously so sensitive and sensible, clearly found it hilarious. She happily joined in the shooting of balls at the lightbulbs—lightbulbs that represented the rare luxury of electricity and that someone would have to replace. Lilibet would have cared about all this, once.
One night, against a background of crashing metal trays on which Philip and the princesses were sliding down the staircases, Marion decided to go before she was pushed. As soon as she had passed the note to the footman she ducked out of the palace and called George.
“I’ve asked to see her on a very important and urgent matter of a personal nature,” she told him.
There was a pause on the other end. “I see.”
Unease squirmed within Marion. “Don’t you want us to get married?”
“Of course, of course,” he said immediately, soothingly. “It’s a bit awkward, is all. Ulick’s just got me a job. As a bank manager.”
Marion was stunned. “Ulick? Sir Ulick Alexander?” The distant, dignified Keeper of the Privy Purse? She hadn’t realized George had even met him.
“Well, he offered,” George said. “Majors together, you know.” It was rare for him to refer to his war record.
She put the receiver down, confused and suspicious. Was this the queen’s doing? Drawing George into the royal toils as well, to make it harder for her to go? Time really was running out now.
At the appointed hour, she hurried to the queen’s study, churning with panic.
“Crawfie! Do come in!”
She was behind her desk, almost hidden by the clutter of fringed lamps and silver-framed photographs. The room, as ever, was hot and powerfully rose-scented.
As the footman unobtrusively closed the doors behind her, Marion inched forward. She was wearing, to boost her confidence, her newest outfit, a red silk frock that George had urged her to buy. It was flashy and fashionable with a narrow skirt and modishly wide padded shoulders. The spike heels he had also recommended were sinking into the carpet, and maintaining her balance was difficult, especially given that she was carrying a large framed photograph. That too had seemed a good idea at the time, but now she was less sure.
The queen, who was meant to register it immediately, had not even noticed. She had noticed, instead, a bee on one of the roses. “Something simply too amusing happened with bees in the Orange Free State,” she said brightly. “When one of the local worthies took off his hat, it was full of them. His hair pomade, apparently. Too amusing!”
Marion was almost at the desk now. Curtseying deeply with a picture under her arm would be even more of a challenge than walking. Slowly, wobblingly, she descended. The queen went on in her breezy way. “On St. Helena we met a two-hundred-year-old tortoise. It must have known Napoleon intimately.”
Marion’s fingers crept to the picture frame. The moment could no longer be put off. She rose, and thrust the photograph forward. “This, ma’am, is the urgent personal matter I have come to see you about.”
The queen stood up, revealing her usual pastel chiffons, and took the picture. She stared at its plain wooden frame. She did not speak, and the silence, or perhaps the bee, buzzed in Marion’s ears.
“What’s his name?”
“Major George Buthlay. He’s from Aberdeen.” She spoke proudly, and with hope. The Scottishness generally and promixity to Balmoral particularly would surely recommend her choice of husband.
The queen handed back the photograph and sat down again behind her screen of silver frames and lampshades. “You can’t leave us,” she said simply. “A change at this stage for Margaret is not at all desirable.”
Panic swept Marion. “But Your Majesty. I . . .”
The telephone on the royal desk shrilled. The queen picked it up and exclaimed, beaming, “Hello, Fatty!”
LATER, STILL STUNNED by her failure, Marion was in her room when someone knocked at the door. The hope rose in her, wild but strong, that the queen had come to give her blessing to her departure after all, and would release her immediately. In her creased red silk and stockinged feet, she rushed to answer.
In the entrance stood Lilibet, radiantly beautiful in a dress of optimistic yellow and blazing with happiness like the sun.
“Crawfie!” She came in, closed the door behind her and held out her left hand. Sparkling on the pale, well-shaped finger was a large square diamond with smaller diamonds either side. “Isn’t it wonderful!” She began excitedly explaining how Philip’s mother had sent her tiara from Athens to be broken up to provide the stones. “Philip was too poor to buy one, you see. Absolutely penniless! So sweet! Don’t you think?”
Marion’s words would not move from under the stone in her throat. This was interpreted as joy. “It’s finally going to happen!” exulted Lilibet. “Philip and I are getting married!”