The Royal Nanny (24 page)

A
t Marlborough House in London, we spent the time the king was on his deathbed watching the crowds of people on the Mall. They did not know that the king was dying. Unlike us, they were not continually glancing at his lighted windows in the palace or at the royal standard flying on the roof. Instead, they were hoping to see the fiery tail from the pass of Halley's Comet this historic day of May 5, 1910.

Finch and I were with the two oldest and two youngest boys because Harry was still in what I considered cruel exile at Broadstairs. Mary was with her mother in the palace.

“His Majesty must be getting a good night's sleep,” Finch announced, “and you boys might as well too. It's late.”

“But the lights are all still on at Buck House,” George protested. “Do you think he sleeps with the lights on?”

“Never you mind. To bed, all of you,” Finch insisted, with a clap of his hands. “If there is any news, anything to be done, your father will send it.”

Bleary-eyed, George obeyed, and I took Johnnie's hand to head him toward their bedroom. David and Bertie lagged behind, exchanging furtive glances and whispers. As reluctant as their parents were to inherit the throne with its public and private problems, a summons to discuss their grandpapa's departure would not be good news either.

“David, Bertie, let's go!” Finch ordered. “Set sail toward bed, you two cadets. Haven't they taught you to take orders yet?”

As they finally budged, David said, “I'm looking forward to the day I will give the orders—when I'm an officer, I mean.”

David and Bertie were in the next room with Finch, while I tended George and Johnnie. I let the two youngest boys chat for a while before tucking them up, not that Johnnie had the slightest notion what Halley's Comet was that George chattered on about. But he was always happy to be with George, since Finch had pretty much taken him over now, leaving me with just Johnnie. It was, I knew, both his parents' and Finch's way of letting me give full-time care to their youngest child, and I considered that a victory. The family and household staff all knew of his epilepsy but were sworn to secrecy. Dr. Laking had been right about one thing: Even seeing their little brother's eyes glaze over and me hustle him from the room and lock myself in with the child upset them. And I absolutely dreaded the possibility that Johnnie might have a seizure in front of his father.

I'm sure we all slept fitfully that night. I know I did. I was barely dressed at dawn's first light when I heard David's and Bertie's voices in the hall. Johnnie and George were still in heavy slumber, so I opened the door and went out just as Bertie was telling David, “I saw it out the window! The royal flag on the p-palace roof at half mast!”

The two of them tore down the hall into the sitting room to the window from which we'd watched the palace last night. I followed just as Finch was coming out of the next room. “What's the ruckus?” he asked me. “I told them to be quiet.” My heart thudding, I gestured for him to follow.

As Finch and I stopped in the doorway, David and Bertie stood shoulder to shoulder at the window. Bertie's thin frame shook. David hung his head, then put his arm around his brother. I stayed put, but Finch went to stand behind them and placed a hand on their shoulders.

“Gr-Grandpapa is . . . g-gone,” Bertie whispered. “That's what that means.”

“I fear so, lads,” Finch said. “A sad day for all of us—the country and the empire. You must both be brave and help your father now.”

David choked out, “My best, very best friend ever, not Papa, but Grandpapa—besides you, Lala—and Finch too.”

Tears blurred my vision as David and Bertie turned toward me. While Finch comforted Bertie, David came to put his head on my shoulder as if he were small again. The two youngest boys, still in their nightshirts, must have heard us and came out and down the hall. Johnnie wedged in between David and me and hugged my waist while David held to my shoulders.

He looked down at Johnnie. “You didn't really know him!” he told the child and stomped off. He went into his and Bertie's room and slammed the door.

That echoed in the hall and in my heart.

D
RAGGING THEIR FEET
at their father's summons, David and Bertie went downstairs at Marlborough House while the city and
nation plunged into mourning. Mary came back from the palace and filled Finch and me in on everything.

“At least now that I'm an adult, I could be a help to Mama,” she told us. She looked exhausted and suddenly older than her thirteen years.

“I'm proud of you, Mary,” I told her. “Remember, I told you once that you would be called upon for important tasks.”

“But strange now to think she is not only Mama anymore, not even Princess May, though she said Papa will always call her May. She's decided to take the name Queen Mary at the coronation. She's really Victoria Mary, you know, but she could never be called Queen Victoria. Papa—I mean, King George—says there could never be another one of those. But in all this, I think it's Grannie they are worried for. Papa says she's adrift without the king.”

Finch said, “And a shock not to be queen anymore.”

“Well,” Mary said, leaning forward as if the walls had ears, when it was only Johnnie playing with a toy wooden wagon and painted horses across the room, “Grannie is insisting she's still queen and should take precedence over Mama. And she won't give up Sandringham House, because she says the king left it to her. She may even refuse to give up the palace. Papa's very upset that she closed off Grandpapa's bedchamber where he still lies and won't let others in.”

“Oh, no!” I blurted when I should have kept calm, because Johnnie looked up and came over.

“Yes,” Mary said, mouthing the words now. “Papa says just like Queen Victoria did with her Albert, and Grandpapa hated that, but it is all rather romantic, isn't it?”

It wasn't my idea of romantic, but I kept quiet.

“Something bad happened,” Johnnie informed us solemnly. I reached out to put an arm around him, and he leaned his elbows on my knees. “Did someone get sent to his room? I hope it's not me.”

“It's not you, my good boy,” I told him with a quick hug. “And how are the horses?” I asked him with a nod at his toys on the floor.

“Not afraid. The ones Chad drove Lala and me to his house—they were scared of the storm.” He went back across the floor to shove his horses around again.

Mary's comment about it all being rather romantic still bounced through my brain. There was a moment's lull where Finch looked at me with one eyebrow raised and Mary tilted her head. I felt my cheeks flush. Chad and I had told no one we had stopped at his house the night of the queen's—the former queen's—birthday party. It was our secret, as were our feelings for each other. He knew I couldn't leave Johnnie, but he also knew I loved him. Despite that dilemma, for now, we had to be content.

“And that's not all,” Mary said when I added nothing. “I overheard that Grannie invited Mrs. Keppel in to say good-bye to the king and when she left his bedroom, she—Mrs. Keppel, not Grannie—was so distraught she could hardly walk or breathe! I heard she cried and cried!”

Who needed the London gazettes, I thought, when we had Mary—Princess Mary—on the scene?

“So sad too,” she whispered with such a serious look on her face, “that little Caesar followed Mrs. Keppel out of the room and then the king died, as if his pet had been his spirit leaving. What if Grannie tries séances that are all the rage, that's what Papa said.
And Caesar's going to be in the funeral procession, walking before the heads of state, because that's what Grandpapa wanted.”

Johnnie stopped giddyapping his horses long enough to put in, “If Caesar's in a parade, I will be too. With my peeps.”

On that note, David and Bertie came into the room, both looking somber. “Tomorrow,” David said, “we are all to stand at attention from designated places here at Marlborough House while Father is officially proclaimed king from the balcony of Friary Court at St. James's. Even the new king and queen will watch it from the window here, because that's the best view, but Bertie and I will be in our cadet uniforms, watching from the courtyard below. And George and Johnnie—with you and Finch at the back of the courtyard,” he added, with a “that's where Johnnie should be” glance at me.

David went on, “When we told Papa about the flag on the palace flying at half mast, he said that the nation's flag must fly at full staff for the new king—him. Then he ordered a flag to be flown on Marlborough House, right on the roof above our heads, to show everyone that . . . that . . .” He faltered and tears sprang to his eyes.

Bertie put a hand on his arm and said, “That the king is d-dead, but long live the king!”

I couldn't help but blink back tears at all I'd heard—and at how grown up my first three children were now. I was proud that Mary seemed to be coming into her own. Poor, beleaguered Bertie had shown both compassion and strength. David stood strong, and his voice, but for that blast of emotion, suddenly sounded older than his years. Though he'd often declared to me that he never wanted to be king, he looked, at least, like someone who could be Prince of Wales. The way he treated Johnnie, I could only hope he would learn to be a compassionate one.

A
S A GROUP
of men assembled on the balcony at St. James's Palace, I held Johnnie tight before me and Finch kept his hands on George's shoulders as the boy stood ahead of him. How I wished Harry could be here, but things were happening too fast. Ministers and privy councillors were in uniforms as were the king's heralds and others clad in costumes of scarlet, blue, and gold. The King of Arms began to read the decree in a loud voice that echoed down to us and gave me chills up my backbone.

“The high and mighty Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful right Liege Lord, George the Fifth, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Sea, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, to whom we acknowledge all faith and constant obedience, with all hearty and humble affection, beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Prince George the Fifth with long and happy years to reign over us.”

I heard George say under his breath, “I hope we don't have to call him that long name now. Do you think someone might think I've just been named king?”

My clever, funny George. And, despite the momentous occasion, I nearly laughed when Johnnie said, “Happy years in the rain sounds good, if we don't all get wet. I'm always getting wet when I have my fall downs, and I don't want to do that anymore.”

We all jumped when the trumpets sounded and distant guns boomed. I watched Johnnie closely to be sure he would not have a bad spell—a fall down—as he'd come to call his fits, but as loud as it all was, he seemed to like the music. I'd been teaching him “God Save the King,” which he hummed when someone in the crowd began to sing it and the anthem was picked up by others until it swelled the skies.

My boy raised his hands and seemed to rhythmically conduct the music. I only hoped, now that we had a new king, he would not want to send Johnnie away and that we could indeed have a reign of “all hearty and humble affection” and “long and happy years” to come.

O
N
M
AY 20,
1910, the formal funeral procession seemed unending as it headed out from the palace to Westminster Abbey. Finch and I watched with George and Johnnie from the window. David, Bertie, and Mary rode in a coach with their mother, though Queen Alexandra's coach would take precedence when they reached Westminster Abbey. Insisting that he looked “just fine,” lying there in his bed, it had taken the widowed queen nearly a week to allow the king's body to be placed in a coffin and moved to the throne room of the palace. Though she had been a bit dotty at times, his death seemed to have unsettled her thoughts even more.

Music came and went from the massed bands, the endless, solemn drumbeats and wailing bagpipes below. Johnnie directed each mournful or majestic melody with his hands and even marched in place. Amidst the tight ranks of blue-jacketed sailors in straw hats, we saw the coffin on its bier roll past. It was draped with the royal standard on which were perched Saint Edward's gold crown at the head and the scepter and orb at the feet.

The king had been such a life-force and I had seen him so few days before he died that I almost thought he would sit up, throw back the coffin lid, and grab the crown again. Maybe that's why his poor widow had tried to hold on to her unfaithful husband. After all, lying there dead in his bedroom, the loud, dynamic man
was, at the end, hers alone, not Mrs. Keppel's, not his friends'. In death, “King Teddy” seemed to be as beloved as he had been in life. I wondered if old Queen Victoria would, at last, have been proud of her son. And I prayed our new king would be proud of his and let them know so.

When we saw a kilted Highland soldier walk past with little Caesar on his leash right behind the symbolic riderless horse, Johnnie shouted out to the sprightly little terrier, “If you are in the parade, I guess you are better than Grannie's bigger dogs! I'm smaller than all my brothers, Caesar!”

Of course, no one below heard him. Would they ever hear his voice? I wasn't even certain people knew he existed.

Behind the coffin walked kings, presidents, and heads of state, including Kaiser Wilhelm, whom we heard was furious to be placed behind a pet dog. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, as ambassador of the current American president William Taft, was there too, in plain black, carrying his coat because the day was warm. He was dressed more plainly than the dignitaries in uniforms, laden down with ribbons and medals and wearing ornate hats or shiny helmets with fluttering feathers.