The Royal Nanny (9 page)

I guess using her name or my kindness took her aback. Her mouth dropped open. I turned to go, but wondered if I should send her the feather picture, or if Chad would be angry at that. I was upset she had ruined the glasshouse as my refuge. As I hurried away, one thing hurt even more than losing Chad. I pressed one hand over my mouth and one over my flat belly, for I had long ago learned to read the signs: Despite the dustcoat she wore over her dark green cotton dress, I saw Mrs. Chad Reaver was several months breeding.

T
ANGLING WITH BOTH
the highest woman in the nation to the lowest flower girl, I'd had a difficult day. So I was happy when Finch let David and Bertie run down the hall to the day nursery to join Mary to recite the creed their father had wanted them to have memorized before he came back from his tour of the empire. Especially today, after coming face to face with Chad's wife, I took
it to heart as first David, then Bertie—he stuttered yet a bit—recited it for me:

“I shall pass through this world only once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

“Very good, both of you,” I told them with a little clapping.

David said, “Bertie says his
b
's too many times like ‘human b-b-being.'”

“Well, then,” I told them, “it's good that the creed has very few
b
's at the beginnings of words. I think Bertie's doing much better with that.”

Bertie beamed but David rolled his eyes. Despite their naughty natures, how I missed tucking them up in bed at night, being with them more. But Finch was good for them, Helene was necessary, and they would soon enough have a tutor for all else but the foreign languages.

“Lala,” Bertie said, “how about a b-bedtime nursery rhyme song?”

I pulled both of them closer. Harry was on my lap and the ever-independent Mary hovered. “Well, now that you are both getting older, shall we say the Lord's Prayer together like we used to?”

David said, “Is the part ‘Thy kingdom come' because Father will be king after Grandpapa and then I'm next? You know, this kingdom and the empire is to come for us? Lala,” he added, lowering his voice, “the thing is, I don't want to be king and have a kingdom. Too much work, even if there are nice parties. I would rather have a bicycle.”

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, especially when Bertie chimed in, “Don't tell Father, but I'm glad I shall never b-b-be king.”

“Listen to Lala now, both of you. Sometimes we cannot choose what we will be, and life can take a sharp turn or go too fast—like a bicycle going lickety-split on the hill to the station, David. I'm sure you will both be given bicycles soon. But just as you have to obey rules to ride a bike and make the turns that are already laid out on the road . . .” My voice caught. My own life and losses rushed at me. “Well, that's enough for tonight. Now let's say the prayer and then off to bed before Finch comes looking for you.”

I was glad the three oldest closed their eyes for the prayer. I dreaded how I'd explain if they saw my tears.

T
he first of November 1901 marked the first time I'd ever been to sea—I mean really out on the water where I couldn't spot land. Once each year Papa had taken us up and down the Thames on the steam launch he captained, but now we were in the English Channel just off the Isle of Wight. Mind you, this wasn't the real ocean but it seemed like it. Chad had said once he'd like to see the real ocean, far from the North Sea with its winds whipping into the Wash just beyond the estate's fields and fens.

I sighed. Chad would like to see the ocean, and I would just like to see him. To say I'm sorry. To wish him well. Maybe it would get me past being haunted, as he'd said, by making the decision I did, a decision I had to make, didn't I?

I was with the children and the king and queen on the royal yacht
V
ictoria and
A
lbert
going out to meet the return of the steamship
O
phir
after its eight-month colonial tour. Despite our craft's seaworthiness, it was tilting through choppy waves. The wind yanked at my hair and hat, and the overhead
flags flapped so hard it sounded like cannon shots. But, even as I held little Harry firm in my arms and kept an eye on Mary, I reveled in it all.

To think that baby Harry had not been walking or talking when the duke and duchess left for their tour, and now he was doing both. What a sacrifice, at least for the duchess, to have missed all that. Yet the letters she wrote to Helene, which she shared with me, were filled with a newfound sense of self-confidence. She had been welcomed and wildly cheered everywhere she went. The newspapers even commented that she was more popular than the solemn duke. Now we waved madly at the still distant
O
phir,
where the triumphant couple waved at us in return. I searched for Rose among the clusters of staff and servants, but could not pick her out.

“Too rough to tie up and board from ship to ship!” King Edward shouted to us. He kept his hand on David's shoulder. “We'll get on a steam barge to go on over to board the
O
phir,
” he told us.

But it was too wild even for that, so it was decided that the barge and the ship would steam up the Solent toward Portsmouth for the reunion. Word of that soon spread, and we were quickly surrounded by pleasure craft of all sorts with people cheering both their present and future kings. As I watched seven-year-old David jump up and down, I saw that they even cheered their future-future king.

The harbor itself was lined with people six or seven deep. I must say, it was the first time since the death of Queen Victoria that I realized the reach of the monarchy itself, how its popularity was passed on. Bands played ashore—I recognized the tune of “Home, Sweet Home”
—
and the cheers were deafening.

Finally, when the ships docked, we all disembarked the barge
and boarded the
O
phir.
The king clapped Duke George on the back and said something to him about soon being named Prince of Wales, that he had earned and not just inherited that honor. The duke seemed deeply moved as he actually embraced David, then Bertie, something I had never seen him do. Bertie managed to greet his father, fortunately without a word that began with a
b.
Four-year-old Mary smiled when she was handed some sort of Oriental doll by her mother, though she then went back to hiding behind my skirts and then her grandmother's. But when I tried to hand little Harry to his mother, the child clung to me and burst into tears and shrieks.

“Oh, dear,” Duchess May murmured as tears filled her eyes. “It's Mama, my darling, it's Mama. Lala, I tell you, there is always a price to pay.”

How well I understood that, but I only tried to assure her, “He'll be running to you in no time, Your Grace.”

“He'll come to me, won't you, sweeting?” the queen asked the squalling child. She edged in between us and stretched out her arms as little Harry nearly dove into them.

It was then I realized what Helene had been grumbling about was true. Despite her power and position, the queen meant to hurt her daughter-in-law. I had also seen that, once Alexandra had become queen, she'd stood up to her husband by always being late to his promptly planned events, or not being there at all. She'd also scheduled visits to her native Denmark, leaving her husband behind and snubbing his closest circle of friends.

Of course, her increasing deafness made it hard for her to cope with a great deal of chatter, but it was her way of getting back at her husband for his women and his Continental ways. Oh, the French loved him.

Granted, the queen had also been hard on her own daughter, called Toria, keeping her home most of the time and fending off her suitors, but should she not be tutoring and building up May to inherit her position as queen someday? It was one thing to cleverly protest her husband's infidelity, but must she mow down Duchess May?

It was then I spotted Rose and managed to edge toward her. She kissed my cheek, and we hugged. “Oh, my goodness, I have so much to tell you, Char! My poor mistress was a triumph on land but spent the hours at sea sick as a dog—
mal de mer,
the French call it. And wait 'til you see the samples of silks I've brought home, and I'm making you a lovely embroidered bed jacket. You can't be dressed like a children's nurse all the time!”

I
N JUST OVER
a week, November 9, 1901, we all celebrated King Edward's sixtieth birthday at Sandringham. I say we, for the event with all its guests kept the staff busy from before dawn to late at night. Even the children were on edge, for they'd been promised what their grandfather called carte blanche for the occasion, which I heard David tell Bertie meant they could have and do anything they wanted.

“Mind you, not ‘anything'!” I corrected the boys. “You will get to meet all his guests and have some lovely cake and see beautiful decorations, but you are still to behave.”

“Righto!” Finch told them. “No bouncing off the walls.”

“We wouldn't d-do that!” Bertie protested, but my mind began to wander again. Chad had often said, “Righto
.
” I felt a stab of pain over losing him at the strangest, random moments. But again, the children needed me. I knew the king's so-called
L
a
F
avorita,
Mrs. Alice Keppel, and her compliant husband, George, were coming
too. Should I explain that to David so he didn't blurt something out if he was introduced to her?

“Mrs. Lala”—Finch's voice interrupted my thoughts—“I said, what time are we to take the children over?”

“Oh . . . yes. The king wanted them to be there for his investiture of the duke as Prince of Wales at eight.”

“Goodie!” Mary piped up. “We get to stay up late. And what about Mama? She will be a princess and me too, someday, I vow I will.”

“B-But,” Bertie said, “I can't wait 'til Grandpapa and Papa show us how to shoot. Chad's going to show us the good places to bring down b-birds, that's what he said, b-bring d-down . . . birds. Then I think we will have them for a b-banquet since they will be d-dead.”

David rolled his eyes either at Bertie's naivety or his stuttering, which had grown worse since his father had returned. I swear, Finch looked at me as if he knew all about my agonizing over Chad Reaver. Of course, the belowstairs staff could have told him how we used to go about together.

As the boys hurried down the hall toward their room, Finch told me, “I wouldn't worry, Lala, about Chad Reaver being around much right now since he's in mourning.”

“Oh, his father died? I knew he was ailing, but I hadn't heard.”

“No. Mrs. Wentworth mentioned that he—that is, his wife—lost their baby, a month or so before it would be born. Of course, they are taking it quite hard.”

“Yes, of course. I daresay.”

“There's a service tomorrow at the village church. Not a small one, I warrant, because Chad is so popular, and the nearby folk will turn out.”

“Finch, thank you for telling me,” I said and hurried back into the nursery. Trembling, I leaned my elbows on the windowsill from which I'd often watched Chad go by and wave at me the first few years I was here. I thought of Millie, loading flowers on her cart in the glasshouse where she had rebuked me for keeping Chad from her. And I recalled my father once saying that “People who live in glass houses mustn't throw stones.” I had truly meant to give the feather picture to Chad and Millie for their child, but now there was no child, though I had no doubt they'd try again.

They say there's nothing worse than a dead child, stillborn or once living. But really, which was worse, to have never known the little laugh and cuddles or to have loved and lost? Heavens, what good was all this agonizing doing me? My children were down the hall and in this very room. A man who had once been very kind to me was lost in grief and lost to me and that was that. Or so I tried to tell myself.

N
EVER A DULL
minute with the royals, and I was ever grateful for that. I had a ride in the king's newfangled electric car with the Prince of Wales driving. I had Harry on my lap and Mary next to me, pretending she was riding a horse. David and Bertie sat in the backseat with Finch. Soon we were all to go to London for the king's coronation on the twenty-third of June. The new tutor for the boys, an imposing tall man, I had heard, would be here soon, and that had us all on edge.

Princess May was now pregnant with her fifth child, so I had much to look forward to. “Well,” the newly named Prince of Wales had said when he heard that news, “soon we shall have our own regiment.”

“To fight in the Boer War in Africa, Father?” David had asked.

“No, to guard Sandringham,” the prince had said, though he seldom joked with the boys.

“I think we'll need to have horses for that,” Mary dared.

David said, “Or bicycles to guard the gate and the train station.”

“Stop your wish list!” the prince had scolded. Even I had flinched at his sudden change of mood and harsh tone. Being named Prince of Wales had set him on edge, for he was truly at heart a country squire who didn't like meeting new people the way his father did. He would rather build up his bird coverts than build an empire.

When he'd stormed off, back to his stamp collection, I'd told the children, “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

Mary spoke first. “We don't have beggars around here.”

“It means more than that,” David said. “Like wishing isn't enough to get what you want, right, Lala?”

“You are very right, David,” I had told him. “Whenever your new tutor, Mr. Hansell, gets here, I hope he challenges that smart brain of yours, and Bertie's too.”

“Let's go, lads,” Finch had said. “We need to make very sure you have all the suitings you'll need for the coronation events in London, and we are going to review how we are to behave. Your grandfather loves ceremony and pomp, and we must all do him proud. He's in London already, practicing everything, but he'll want a good report of you.”

I had backed up Finch on that, but right now Mrs. Wentworth stood in the nursery door, wringing her hands. Mary, Harry, and I were the only ones in the nursery. All I could think of was that something dreadful had happened to the princess . . . that the child she carried . . . like Chad's wife's baby . . .

I stood so fast, I nearly dropped little Harry off my lap.

“What is it?” I demanded of the poor woman. Ever in charge, she looked like the world had turned upside down.

“The king. He's very ill, like to die, Princess May says. A phone call—he . . . he . . . Appendicitis something terrible, and they are going to operate on him, try to save him, right at the palace. The coronation—all postponed—for now. The children's mother is comforting the prince and asks you to break it to the boys. Prayers—prayers and hope,” she added and burst into tears. “'Tis complicated—the operation—the royal physician says, by his age and girth.”

She had not seen Mary behind me, who now clutched my skirts about my legs so I could hardly move. She also began to cry.

“Mrs. Wentworth,” I told her, fighting for calm, “please go down to the kitchen and send both of my undernurses up here to sit with Harry and Mary while I talk to Finch and the boys. I am sure all will be well. It has to be.”

“Yes, Mrs. Lala. Yes, of course, it will.”

I held on to that “of course,” and held both boy's hands when I told them the news shortly after. David took it the worst of anyone, fuming, angry, balling up his fists and pounding the wall until Finch pulled him away, but the boy kept muttering, “He's my best friend! Loves me, not like father. Best friend, along with you and Finch, Lala, he's my very best friend, you know like Chad used to be to me and you, but now he stays away. But we can't lose Grandpapa, can't, can't, can't! Then father will be king, and I'll be next, we can't, just can't, Lala, can't!”

I knew how he felt. While Finch hugged Bertie, I held David as if he was young, like I used to when things first went so wrong in his little world. God forgive me, but how I wanted someone to comfort me.