The Golden Prince (29 page)

“How
can
darling Eddy believe himself in love with Princess Hélène of Orleans?” Queen Mary clearly remembered her mother saying way back in 1890. “He is heir-presumptive to the throne and she is a Roman Catholic. Does he know
nothing
about the British Constitution?”

Eddy, as everyone was well aware, knew nothing about anything, and it was his grandmother’s opinion that what he needed, in order to make up for his many deficiencies, was an exceedingly strong-minded and sensible wife. Someone who would, in his grandmother’s words, “give dear kind Eddy backbone.” Which was where she, May, had come in, although, as she learned much later, others before her had been given the opportunity also, for with Princess Hélène ruled out as a bride because of her Roman Catholicism, Queen Victoria had taken matters into her own hands.

Her first choice of bride for her heir-presumptive had been his cousin, Princess Alexandra of Hesse. The prospect of a future as Queen of England hadn’t tempted Alix who, instead, had married yet another royal cousin, Nicholas, thereby becoming Tsarina of All the Russias.

Queen Victoria’s second choice had been eighteen-year-old “Mossy,” Princess Margaret of Prussia. She, too, had been uninterested in Eddy. That Queen Victoria had then trained her sights on a young woman whose morganatic blood had precluded any European royal from asking for her hand was typical of her enlightened way of thinking. It was a way of thinking for which Queen Mary had cause to be very, very grateful.

She hadn’t been in love with Eddy either, but she had been familiar enough with the royal way of doing things to know that being in love wasn’t a necessary requirement for a successful royal match.

What mattered was that they knew each other well; they had known each other since childhood. Even more important, marriage to Eddy would bring her all the things she had so long been starved of. Instead of being on the periphery of the royal circle, as
wife of the heir-presumptive she would be at its heart. Dignity and respect would be hers in abundance, as would wealth and jewels.

The latter was important to her because wealth and jewels had been sadly lacking so far in her life, her parents being so short of either commodity they had once been obliged to leave England in order to live more frugally in Italy.

When, at Queen Victoria’s bidding, Eddy had proposed to her at a house party at Luton Hoo, she had accepted him unhesitatingly. How could she have done otherwise when it meant she would one day, after Queen Victoria’s death and Eddy’s father’s death, become Queen.

She rose to her feet and crossed to a small satinwood table crowded with silver-framed photographs. The most recent was one of herself in coronation robes. Yet the King at her side was not Eddy, as she had believed it would be, but George.

That it was George at her side in the picture was yet another thing she was profoundly grateful for.

Eddy had died from pneumonia a mere six weeks after their engagement, and the brilliant future that had lain before her as his fiancée had vanished with such speed her head had reeled.

With George then the heir-presumptive, Queen Victoria saw no reason why May should still not become her granddaughter-in-law and a future Queen of England; sixteen months after Eddy’s death, at Queen Victoria’s bidding, George had proposed to May. Once again she was a Royal Highness destined to be a future queen. And this time her husband-to-be had been far more to her taste.

Fond family affection had always existed between her and George, and in their marriage the affection had turned into devotion. Being alike in many ways, they suited each other. Both of them were intensely reserved and undemonstrative, and they were of one mind when it came to carrying out their duties as King and Queen.

May turned her attention to a photograph of George taken shortly after the announcement of their engagement. A bluff,
uncomplicated, straightforward man, he was also a disciplinarian and a martinet, his main fault being his inability to curb his temper. It was so explosive she often thought that when they were at Buckingham Palace, his angry bellow was loud enough to be heard at Windsor and, conversely, that when they were at Windsor, it was loud enough to be heard at Buckingham Palace.

It was a character defect she had schooled herself to take in her stride, knowing that if Eddy had lived, she would have found his apathy—which bordered on mental retardation—far harder to endure.

There came the sound of the palace coming to life. Any moment now her breakfast tray would be brought in and her woman of the bedchamber would arrive with a batch of correspondence needing attention. Her day, which with her strong sense of duty she thought of as her working day, would begin.

David’s investiture robes were scheduled to arrive midmorning and she wanted to be present when he saw them and tried them on. She found her eldest son an odd boy, restless in a way she couldn’t understand and, until now, very unenthusiastic about being center stage at Caernarvon. Being center stage was, though, something he would simply have to get used to. Not doing so, when he would one day be King, was unthinkable.

“I wondered, Mama, if I might have a word with you alone about something very, very important before I try on my robes.”

Queen Mary’s unmaternal nature prevented her from having anything but a remote relationship with her children. Try as she might, she simply never knew how to communicate with them. David, for instance, was now fiddling with his tie. The fact that he was doing so out of acute nervous tension was completely lost on her. She simply found it an annoyingly irritating habit. His statement that he had “something very, very important” to say to her
annoyed her also. The task in hand was the trying-on of his investiture robes. Any problem he had was something he should be talking to his tutor at Dartmouth about.

“I’m sure it is something that can keep, David,” she said stiffly. “Or that it is probably something you should be speaking to your cadet captain about. As for speaking to me alone, apart from Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber we are alone.”

Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber were the ladies-in-waiting in attendance on her.

David’s disappointment was intense. There was always someone in attendance. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d been truly alone with his mother. If it wasn’t her dressers, it was one of her four women of the bedchamber, peers’ daughters who performed the same function as the equerries of the King’s household.

Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber were not women of the bedchamber. They were ladies of the bedchamber and ranked higher. Their function was to attend his mother on her bigger and more impressive engagements—which indicated his mother would be en route to such an engagement the minute the little matter of his investiture robes had been taken care of.

Taking him by surprise, she said suddenly, “As the man from Ede and Ravenscroft hasn’t yet arrived with your robes, please tell me what it is you wished to say.”

David looked toward Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber, and then, since he couldn’t possibly tell his mother about Lily in their presence, he thought up an alternative subject fast. “I was wondering, Mama, why you chose to be crowned as Queen Mary, instead of being crowned as Queen May.”

Queen Mary wasn’t accustomed to being questioned by her children—or by anyone else—but on this occasion she summoned up patience.

“I couldn’t possibly have taken the name May. It isn’t one of my Christian names, merely a name used in affection by the family because I was born in the month of May.”

“But why Queen Mary when Victoria is your first name?” He was genuinely puzzled.

“Both the King and I were in agreement that being called Queen Victoria would cause too much confusion.”

“You could have been known as Queen Victoria Mary. There wouldn’t have been any confusion then.”

This was something Queen Mary was well aware of. Until the question had arisen of what name she would be known by as Queen, she had always signed letters and official papers with the first two of her eight Christian names, liking both the look and the sound of them. George, however, hadn’t.

“I detest double-barreled names,” he’d said bluntly. “I never liked Eddy’s given name of Albert-Victor. I doubt anyone else did either, apart from Queen Victoria, who wanted both her name and her beloved Albert’s to be perpetuated together. It was why Eddy was always known as Eddy. It’s a diminutive of Edward, his last name,” he’d added, just in case she had forgotten.

That she would have liked to have been crowned as Queen Victoria Mary was not something Queen Mary was about to share with her eldest son. It would have been a criticism of George’s decision.

“I much prefer Queen Mary,” she said crisply to him. “It’s beautifully short and simple.” Then, as the man from Ede and Ravenscroft was announced, she turned away, signaling that the conversation was over.

David dutifully allowed himself to be dressed in the robes that someone—he didn’t know who—had deemed suitable for the grand ceremonial of his investiture. The result was almost more than he could bear.

His breeches were of white satin trimmed with gold brocade and knee rosettes. His doublet, barely reaching his thighs, was of crimson velvet worn with a gold sash and edged in ermine. The mantle was of purple velvet. Worn with an ermine cape fastened with gold clasps, it fell into a cumbersome train behind him.

He looked ridiculous. This time he knew that even Lily would agree with him.

With his face pale and set, he said tautly, “None of this fantastic costume has any historical significance, Mama. It’s ridiculous. What will the cadets at Naval College say when they see me in it? I look like a player in a pantomime, and I absolutely and utterly refuse to wear it.”

“You can’t refuse to wear it, David—and you must stop taking things so seriously. I quite agree that the costume has no historical precedent, but as a prince you are obliged to do certain things that may often seem a little silly.”

The prospect of having to do things that “often seemed a little silly” for the rest of his life filled him with despair. “I don’t mind the ceremony, Mama,” he said, trying to meet her halfway. “I wouldn’t even mind wearing my Knight of the Garter robes at it. But not these.” He indicated his white satin, rosette-trimmed knee breeches in distaste.

“I think what you are forgetting, David, are the political aspects of your investiture. Mr. Lloyd George is a radical. He shocked your father inexpressibly a few years ago with a speech attacking inherited privilege. His suggestion that a royal ceremony be revived after many centuries wasn’t done out of respect for the monarchy.”

She smoothed her white-kid gloves over the backs of her hands. “As a Welshman, Lloyd George suggested it because he knew it would appeal to the national pride of the Welsh—and that it would please his constituents and win him political support.”

China-blue eyes, with more than a hint of steel, held David’s steadily. “As a new and inexperienced king, Papa needs to be on good terms with Mr. Lloyd George. He is, after all, chancellor of the exchequer and may very well be the next prime minister. In carrying out the role assigned to you at the investiture—and doing so without causing unnecessary waves—you will greatly help Papa in dealing with a very difficult man.”

It was emotional blackmail of a very tall order and he caved in beneath it.

“All right, Mama,” he said in defeat. “For Papa’s sake, I won’t cause waves. But I do need to talk to you as soon as possible about something truly important.”

With one problem satisfactorily dealt with, Queen Mary was feeling magnanimous. “What is this oh-so-important subject, David?”

“It’s about my future, Mama.” He blushed furiously. “It’s about getting married.”

To his stunned amazement, instead of looking horrified, she looked pleased. “I’m glad you realize an early marriage will be beneficial to you. It’s a subject Papa is eager to talk to you about.”

With that, happy that the tricky conversation King George wanted to have with David wasn’t going to be quite so tricky after all, she exited the room, Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber attentively in her wake.

Rose was in
a tea shop in a small street just off the Strand. Seated opposite her, as if a tea shop was his usual watering hole, was Hal Green. The tea shop had become their usual rendezvous. It suited Rose, who felt uncomfortable at the attention she aroused at the
Daily Despatch
when closeted with Hal in his office.

“That last article was surprisingly good,” he said, helping himself to a toasted, lavishly buttered crumpet.

“Why ‘surprisingly’?” Much as she was beginning to like him, her eyes flashed fire.

He grinned. He loved goading her. It had become his major pleasure in life. “Because young women whose education has consisted of a finishing school in France—or did you perhaps go to one in Germany?—aren’t usually capable of writing a concise news article. Or, I should think, of writing so well.”

“Have you had a vast experience of women writing journalistic pieces, Mr. Green?” she asked, annoyed that he assumed her education had consisted of nothing further than learning to arrange flowers and speak a foreign language, and pleased that he thought she wrote well.