The Royal Nanny (23 page)

When it was all over and I put Johnnie to bed, he was limp and trembling. His naturally rosy skin looked gray. I felt I had not seen him in such dreadful shape since he was born—not even during his convulsions. He fell into more of a stupor than sleep, his head back on his pillow, mouth open, breathing hard.

As the doctor headed for the door, he turned back and said, “Believe me, Mrs. Lala, these anticonvulsive therapeutics are the best we have. It may lessen his attacks, but I must warn you it sometimes causes confusion and abnormal speech for a while.”

Still stunned at the brutality of it all, I followed him out into the hall and exploded, “It
may
lessen his attacks? He already has trouble with reality and speech, as Prince George and Dr. Williams must have told you, doctor.”

“Be that as it may, this is all we have in modern medicine, that and keeping the patient from becoming too excited or stimulated.”

“Both of which he is now to a dreadful degree!”

His eyes widened. His lower lip dropped under his black mustache. I feared he would bring someone else in or convince the prince to send Johnnie away, but I could not abide tormenting the boy like that.

We stared unspeaking at each other for a long moment.

“In this case,” he said, “the ends must justify the means.” He narrowed his eyes, turned away from me, and strode down the hall.

Week-kneed, but feeling fierce, I had a moment's insanity where I longed to send for Chad and plan an escape for the two of us, taking Johnnie and Penny with us . . . to Scotland, even America, to the ends of the earth where the brilliant doctors and powerful people of this planet would never find us.

Oh, yes, mind you, I knew I had overstepped. He was the king's court physician and came here at the request of His Majesty. But if I had to fight him—the king and prince too—over this, I would do just that.

A
lthough Prince George had once promised me a favor, I thought my best hope to fight against the so-called treatments was Princess May. If that did not work, I intended to lie about giving Johnnie those dire treatments. I would dose him with the bromide but never empty his small body out fore and aft the brutal way the doctor had done.

“Yes, Lala. Come in,” Princess May said as Mrs. Wentworth opened the door to her boudoir for me and left the two of us alone.

I curtsied and stood beside the daybed where she had her silk-slippered feet up. She wore a warm-looking mauve satin robe lined with chinchilla, which Johnnie loved to pet as if it were the feathers of one of his peeps.

I cleared my throat. I was not usually so nervous when I spoke to her. “As I'm sure you heard from Dr. Laking, Your Highness, Johnnie had a real setback from the strenuous treatment after his latest seizure. The doctor admitted as much
when he checked on the boy before he left for London the next day. It did more than take the starch out of Johnnie. He cringed and turned away from me twice as if I'd struck him, though the next night he sat on my lap while I sang to him and rocked him to sleep. You know he's delicate anyway with such a loving, trusting personality. I . . . I fear such brutal treatment will harm, not help, him in the future, Your Grace.”

Her eyes misted but she did not cry. She pressed her lips tightly together. “It was—is—a decision his father and the doctors made, and I felt it was the only hope for a cure, Lala. Nip it in the bud, so to speak.”

“But if the bud breaks—is crushed . . . Please, Your Grace, help me to convince the doctors, the prince too, that the result is harmful. He's skittish, and he's never been that way, your dear little Imp. I know how much you love your children, long to protect them, and he needs that more even than Bertie or Harry and—”

She held up a hand at my outburst. Though I wanted to scream at her, I stopped in mid-thought, madly blinking back tears.

“You have been—are—a godsend to my children,” she told me, gripping her hands together in her lap. “I know you vowed you would protect Johnnie with your life. But you do see the difficult situation I find myself in. Their father is not only head of this household but will—that is, may—soon be their king, my king. The prince and I, well, we find it difficult to speak about emotional things, but I will write him. That is what we do to keep things well between us.”

My eyes widened. Somehow I kept myself from saying,
W
rite him?
W
rite your husband about the most important, emotional things?
L
ike
J
ohnnie?
W
rite him?

I decided then I might have to somehow go it alone to help
Johnnie. Indeed, if he had another seizure, I would lock the door and make a game of drinking the bromide and throw the dreadful other poisons and instruments of torture in the chamber pot where they belonged.

I
HEARD
D
AVID'S
loud voice the moment he came into the house. He and Bertie were home for the holidays. They bid their parents a proper hello in the front hall at the bottom of the stairs, then thudded up the steps to the nursery.

“Lala, what do you think of my new cadet blues?” David demanded as they charged into the room. I gave him a mock salute, and he hit into me so hard for a hug I almost went off balance.

“You look very handsome,” I said, holding him at arm's length. My, he was getting tall, Bertie too. “Perhaps Dartmouth Officer college suits you better than Osborne, David.”

“B-But I'm still there, Lala!” Bertie said as I hugged him too. “I miss D-David; miss you.”

Johnnie came over, all smiles, and Bertie hugged him too. David gave him a pat on his head. “Oh, we're going to have so much fun,” David announced, smiling at me. “I can't wait to see Grandpapa! You know, he said I could drive his motorcar when I'm sixteen, and I'm not so far from that. I'll give you and Bertie rides in it, at least round here, even if they don't let me drive in London.”

“Me too,” Johnnie put in. “Rides just like Chad and me.”

David ignored that. “And the girls will like it too. How I wish that pretty Tatiana was not off in Russia.”

“I didn't think you meant your sister and your mother,” I told him with a smile. “You know, my boys, it wasn't so far back you were both longing for bicycles.”

“I have a pedal car,” Johnnie put in. He did indeed, an early gift
from his grandfather, sent from London. It was all I could do to keep him from dragging it in the house so he could ride inside.

“That's nice,” David said just as Bertie spotted Finch down the hall and both boys ran to him.

I felt deflated at the way David had treated Johnnie, who had always adored him. But, I tried to tell myself, it was just that the two oldest were happy to be home for a while. But no, Finch had said he'd explained Johnnie's condition to David when he'd taken some supplies to Dartmouth. The boy's letters to me were less frequent than when he'd first been away, but he never asked about Johnnie. Well, Christmas always put love in the heart. Before Mr. Hansell read
A
C
hristmas
C
arol
aloud this year, I'd remember to tell David that Johnnie was like our own Tiny Tim and was to be especially loved and protected.

A
S WINTER TURNED
to spring, anyone who knew the king was worried for his health. From Christmas on, he'd had a deep-chested cough that shook his big, barrel-like frame. He was hardly ever jovial now. Even little things annoyed him, so I knew better than to risk asking him through the queen for help with Johnnie. His Majesty was especially on a rant about the dangers of socialism.

On a warm day, when I had the nursery windows open, I overheard the king talking to Prince George. “That man!” he'd ranted, “is preaching class war! He's a danger to the monarchy and the stability of this nation, and don't you forget it. I'm ashamed to have him bear the names David and George, royal names!”

“That man” was Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and he gave all the Waleses fits. They were fearful he would ruin the monarchy and cast them out, though I doubted after centuries the
British would give up their kings and queens. But I knew from my mother's letters that my father had marched in a river workman's parade for more rights and better pay. The other well-argued idea, that of women possibly getting the vote someday, my father said was quite insane. Women's suffrage, they still called it, and over these last years I'd come to think it a very good idea.

“And,” the king had ranted on to Prince George, “I won't abide that sort of socialist unrest on this estate. There's been some rabble-rousing again. Chad thinks that clever bastard Barker Lee might be back, sneaking in, poaching too. We cannot have that sort of thing again, and I've told Chad Reaver so, told him to keep an eye on Lala and the children, since we can't lock them up the way I'd like to do with Barker.”

“Chad's always been staunch and loyal and—”

“Precisely. I'm tempted to make him estate manager but he's so good with the birds and what would you and I do without our shooting, eh, so . . .”

His Majesty had begun one of his terrible gasping and coughing fits, and I closed the window half wishing I had not wanted spring air inside and smelled cigar smoke instead. But it was good to know they admired Chad. But had he been so protective of us lately because of a royal order and not his own desire?

Later that month, I heard that Mrs. Keppel had convinced the king to “take the cure” with her at Biarritz in his beloved France, and afterward, they came straight to Sandringham. We all knew he'd collapsed while in France, but had rallied.

The queen had been informed of his ill health, but she was off in her homeland of Denmark with her daughter Toria and her sister. The king and queen had a strange marriage, I thought, but then so was one in which the husband and wife wrote each other
about important things instead of discussing them face to face. Not only did the royals rear their children in unique ways, but their own relationships seemed to be laws unto themselves.

Well, I mustn't complain because Princess May had managed to keep Dr. Laking far from Johnnie, and if he had a seizure—he had one at least every fortnight—I dosed him only with bromide dissolved in apple juice, as well as tenderness and love, and no one had again mentioned sending him away.

S
UNDAY,
M
AY
D
AY,
1910, Chad, Penny, Johnnie, and I took a lovely walk together on the estate. It was a rare treat. The two children got on famously—as did Chad and I. I hated that he now carried a pistol and was more nervous—watching for Barker Lee, I surmised. I didn't want to ask, for I feared he wouldn't go round about with us if he believed I thought we were in danger. I could not fathom that man would dare show his face in daylight, in the forest or not.

Somewhere in the bushes, we heard a dog barking over and over. We saw a squirrel scoot up a tree.

“That doesn't sound like one of the queen's borzois,” Chad said, “though I've seen the whole lot of them taken for a walk on paths here while she's in Denmark.”

“She's coming back soon, I hear, since the king's been so ill. Imagine, a legal, royal wife far away and—”

“And the illegal, scandalous, and real one staying in the Big House,” he finished for me. He lowered his voice, though the children were ahead of us on the path, looking for the dog. They'd been picking daisies, for both loved flowers. Johnnie had permission to have his own garden this year. I had not tethered him to me today, for when Penny was along, he quite readily stuck with her.

“My definition of a wife,” Chad went on, “is one who sticks by in hard times, and that's Alice Keppel, not the queen. Still, I can understand that Her Majesty resents his long string of lady friends.”

The dog turned out to be the king's terrier Caesar, trotting smugly toward us on the path with the silver tag on his collar jingling. That meant the king—and, no doubt, Mrs. Keppel—were not far behind. Johnnie and Penny called to the dog, who came over, happy to be petted. The king almost exploded around the turn in the path, walking fast, though looking wobbly, swinging a walking stick. A few steps behind, hustling after him as best she could, came Mrs. Keppel, using her closed parasol like a cane.

“Well, well, little Johnnie!” His Majesty bellowed. “Ah, Mrs. Lala and Chad out for a walk.”

He was out of breath, so I couldn't fathom why he'd been going at such a clip. But it was as if Mrs. Keppel had read my mind. “Must you do everything so fast?” she scolded the king. “I can barely keep up.”

Chad and I bowed and curtsied, but Johnnie just hugged his grandfather's knee. Chad whispered to Penny to curtsy, but misunderstanding, she hugged his other knee.

The king shouted a laugh, which turned in a coughing fit that seemed to shake him. When he stopped hacking, Mrs. Keppel, as if nothing were amiss, smiled at Penny and told him, “You always did have a way with pretty girls, sir.”

He turned to me and asked, “How is the lad getting on then?”

“Still some problems, Your Majesty. Mr. Hansell is going to begin working with him soon, so we shall see about reading and writing. But he is—well, a bit better. And being in the arms of his family does him wonders.”

“And in your tender and capable arms, I don't doubt, Mrs. Lala.”

“I'm better,” Johnnie said. “Not butter like on your knees.”

“Good memory, my boy. We will have to do that again someday, won't we? I see you've been gathering flowers.”

“For you and the lady to give to Grannie,” he said, and offered the long-stemmed, ragged bunch of wilting flowers to Alice Keppel.

“Why, thank you, Johnnie,” she said, not reacting to the mention of the queen at all. “How very kind of you.”

“A prince of a boy,” King Edward said. “And good day to you all. Chad, keep an eye out for local socialists, like Mrs. Lala keeps an eye on the boy.”

He was off at a fast pace again with Mrs. Keppel in his wake. What he'd called Johnnie—a prince of a boy—stuck with me the next few days after the king had gone back to London with Mrs. Keppel, and Queen Alexandra returned from Denmark to Buckingham Palace.

The king's cough got worse, and his boisterous grip on life faded fast, we were told. We were all summoned to London, including David from the Dartmouth Naval Academy and Bertie from Osborne, though Harry was still at Broadstairs. Just four days after we had seen him on the forest path at Sandringham, King Edward VII suffered a fainting fit at the palace and took to his bed.

All this made me remember what the king had said last to Johnnie. After all, if His Majesty died, Prince George would be king, Princess May queen, and my Johnnie a prince of a boy indeed.