Empress Bianca (58 page)

Grateful to her friend for the tip-off, the princess agreed to do so immediately. And she did.

‘Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s Private Secretary just called,’ John Lowenstein explains over the phone to Bianca, as her Rolls Royce continues on its way to Brunswick House and the unveiling ceremony.
‘He said Her Majesty has come down with a chill, and the doctor has ordered her to bed. He says she’s been fighting it all day and had hoped to honour the commitment, but she’s got steadily worse, and he’s had to call in the doctor. He rang as soon as the doctor left.’

‘This is a disaster,’ Bianca said.

‘It is. Had the old biddy given us more time, we could’ve got one of the other royals to fill in for her. As things stand, we’ll just have to go ahead without any royalty at all.’

‘So who’s going to unveil the plaque dedicating the statue to Philippe?’

‘You’ll have to do it.’

‘I’ve wasted over £1,000,000, and all I have to show for it is a brass plaque engraved with some nonsense about how Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother unveiled it? It’s outrageous, and I’m not having it! Tell them to honour their pledge to replace her if she’s dropped out,’ Bianca ordered.

‘The pledge actually says that they’d replace her if she died. But she’s not died. She’s gone and caught a cold on us,’ John patiently explains, seriously worried that his retainer is now in jeopardy.

‘I don’t care. I want another royal. What about one of her daughters or grandchildren?’

‘I asked. He said everyone’s otherwise committed and at such short notice it wouldn’t have been possible to get them to cover for her even if they had been available.’

‘I’ve never been so humiliated in my life,’ says Bianca, distraught.

‘We can turn this around. I’ll get Clarence House to put out a story that she’s taken ill, then I’ll run with it and get us even more column inches than we would otherwise have got. What’s better news? A Queen Mother who’s unveiling a statue or a Queen Mother who can’t because she’s at death’s door, but is so taken with Madame Mahfud that she was intent on honouring her commitment until her doctor ordered her to cancel an hour before the ceremony? The latter story is far more newsworthy…and you’re still linked to the British Royal Family in the public mind. Who knows, Bianca? This might even be a blessing in disguise.’

‘In very heavy disguise,’ she says disconsolately.

Suddenly Bianca sees that, no matter how many column inches she
gets, and no matter who ladles praise over her in the press, her detractors will use this no-show as evidence that she really is the social pariah they have been making her out to be.

‘I’m turning into a freak in a freak show,’ she wails. ‘I must find a way to turn this around, otherwise this will destroy me.’

And, although Bianca has only a glimmering of it, the actual fact is that she is at the beginning of a life sentence. The world has become a prison, and she its most celebrated occupant. Justice in a very real sense has been done. Wherever she goes and whatever she does, she will know that a healthy proportion of the people around her will either despise her or laugh at her. All her money, all the influence she has so avidly courted, the people she has just as avidly cultivated and all the manipulations to which she will resort in the future are powerless to bring this punishment to an end. As long as she exists, Bianca now clearly understands, so will it. And the thought of it starts tearing slowly away at her insides.

‘To that end, Lady Colin Campbell is publishing her first novel in 2005.
Empress Bianca
is about “a woman who murders two husbands and makes off with billions of dollars”. She pooh-poohs any domestic homicide Freudian score settling connection. “Darling, I don’t have murderous instincts,” she grins. “I am not a vengeful person.”’ -
Jeremy Hilder, Independent on Sunday

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