The Royal Nanny (31 page)

A
pril 6, 1959

T
he
S
andringham
E
state

L
ala, dear,” the Duke of Windsor cried as he entered my flat. He looked as boyish as ever, though he was nearly sixty-five. I still saw the child in him, jumpy, unsure, trying ever so hard to please and charm—and cling.

“Sir, how wonderful to see you and how good you look,” I told him. I bobbed him the slightest of curtsies. At least my temptation to box his ears for letting us all down had passed.

“Now, don't you ‘sir' me. I won't have it,” he insisted as he gave me a quick hug and stepped in past me, then flourished the big bouquet of pink roses I had seen he was trying to hide behind his back. Never had that boy been able to hide anything from me, though, Lord knows, he tried.

“Oh, how lovely and thoughtful,” I told him, inhaling their scent. I closed the door, and we went into the living room. “I'll put them in water straightaway.” He sat where he'd been twice
before in my comfy chair while I popped the roses into my only large vase and ran some water from the tap in my kitchenette. I hurried back in to put the roses on the telly. I caught him staring, almost glaring, at my large framed and tinted picture of Johnnie, but he looked back to me with a beaming smile.

“I hope the duchess is well,” I told him, sitting on the chintz sofa directly across from him.

“Hearty and happy. But to business. Despite your silver hair, you still look like the Lala who saved us all—ha!”

“Ha, is right. I'm eighty-four, my boy.”

“My boy—I'll always be that to you, won't I? But for Mary and Harry, I'm the last left of your brood of the six of us and the last of all the royals you knew when you were in service with us.” He heaved a huge sigh. “But here's my task at hand. I'm writing a second memoir, things I didn't get to in
T
he
K
ing's
S
tory,
which did quite well by the way, especially in America
.
This one's to be titled
A
F
amily
A
lbum.
It will have some photos—of you too, that one with the nursemaids where Bertie and I are in the sailor suits Father insisted on.”

“Did he ever! And shouted at me to sew up your pockets when you put your hands in them. Anyone who slouched or didn't dress proper he called a cad, and we couldn't have that with his two oldest boys, and you the heir.”

As he slowly shook his head, creases furrowed his brow. He fussed with his collar and tie. “Shouted at everyone, didn't he? But my grandparents and you were my refuge.”

We were silent a moment as the bad times as well as the good seemed to hover in the room. He fidgeted, pulled out a gold cigarette case, then slid it back into his pocket as if I'd scold him if he smoked here. I spoke to break the tense silence.

“I thought your first book was masterful, sir—David. Even Mr. Hansell and Mademoiselle Bricka would have been pleased. You have a way with words. May I fetch you some tea before we reminisce?”

“Thanks, but I'm okay. I've taken to American coffee.”

“And speech. Then ask away for your book.”

From his suit coat pocket, he took a small pad of paper and unscrewed a gold fountain pen. “Lala, you'd never consider writing a book, would you? I daresay, you've seen a lot of us from the inside out.”

“Me? Hardly. A retired and tired nanny. Absolutely not. My correspondence with your mother after I left service was as far as my writing talents go.”

He looked relieved. I could still read him after all this time. Something else was coming. His expression was half pout, half fear. How tragic that he and Bertie were so abused in the beginning and that I couldn't quite love that out of them the way I had protected Johnnie.

“You did give back all my letters to Special Branch when they asked for them during the first war, didn't you?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “I mean, if you had kept any of them, I'd like to give them a glance to see if they'd be of any use for the new book. I don't want others scaring things up, misrepresenting me, foibles and all.”

“David,” I said, leveling a stern look at him but resisting the temptation to shake my finger, “you asked me that once before.” In a stern voice, I told him, “Special Branch sent an agent to ask that I hand them over, and I complied.”

“Well, then,” he said, slapping his knee, “on to
A
F
amily
A
lbum.
Any memories of when you first came to Sandringham?”

As we talked, the only thing I mentioned of his childhood nightmare was that his nurse when I arrived used to make him cry so she could have him all to herself. He frowned and nodded. No doubt he had buried deep those dreadful days.

“Yes,” he said, scribbling fast with his pad perched on his knee. “The third nanny was the charm, eh? Someone told me that the first one got sacked for calling my maternal grandmother fat. Well, everyone called her ‘Fat Mary' behind her back, and she was.” He looked up at me. “The duchess and I watch our weight. She has a throw pillow that says,
‘
Y
ou can never be too rich or too thin,'
and she means it, never lets me overeat. She runs a tight ship, and I love her for it, gives me a good whack now and again. Good thing I had strict naval training before she became my captain—eh?”

He forced a laugh, and I smiled, but the biggest puzzle of David's adult life hit me hard. He had always been attracted to women who resembled the worst person he had ever known—not counting Adolf Hitler, of course. Wallis Simpson even physically resembled the woman who had been so cruel to him. Terrible that the poor boy had married Wallis, forsaking his heritage and kingdom for her! Worse, that, even in physical resemblance, I swear, he had sought out women who reminded him of that sadistic Mary Peters—and then, more or less, had married one of them.

He looked up at me. “I've tried not to lord it over others because of being born with a silver spoon in my mouth, Lala, one, I daresay, I've managed to tarnish now and again, though I did dearly care for my people, those down and out especially.”

But for your own little brother, I thought, but I said only, “I know you tried, David.” I was pleased he could be so insightful, but rather than pursue that, off we went again, sailing through memories, some good, some bad. Despite what he'd said about
not lording it over others, he clung to the idea he was special. As firstborn son, the golden boy, the internationally charming and adored Prince of Wales, of course, he had been. But he was never strong enough to overcome. Bertie eventually did. Mary, Harry, and George coped. Even my dear Johnnie, bless his soul, did in his own way. But not the heir.

“I won't hide Johnnie in this book, like they tried to do,” he promised, putting pen and paper away. “Full disclosure in these modern times.” When he rose, I stood to show him out. He seemed in a hurry now, glancing at his watch, probably needing to report on time to his wife, just as he used to do to his father. “Yet I am always surprised to see you still have him here,” he went on, in lecture mode now, gesturing at the portrait, “reminding you of the tragedy. You should put up that feather picture from Chad over the hearth instead.”

“It's in a place of honor in my bedroom.”

“At least I see you have a photo of the rest of us too on the mantel.”

I did indeed, but it was normal-sized, not life-sized like the framed one with Johnnie as a baby all decked out—from his layers of muslin, cambric, and lace to his white stockings and buttoned shoes. I'm sure it would have pleased David mightily if I'd taken it down while he was here, but Johnnie wasn't going anywhere, not from over my mantel and not from the memories of my years with the royal Yorks, the Waleses, the Windsors, my own family album.

I
HAVE BEEN
content these many years since Chad and Johnnie died, I told myself as I strolled the Sandringham grounds alone after David's chauffeur drove him away. After I left service, Mabel
and I ran a boardinghouse in Slough, and later we traveled the world. We both put a bit of money into Rose's tailoring shop in Piccadilly, for she never became the designer she longed to be. I still enjoyed her company from time to time. Margaretta went back to Ireland but never quite recovered from her losses and died early. I warrant that I could have done that too, but I was too stubborn and built of sterner stuff.

I see my siblings in London, and I've coddled their children and grandchildren. I live near Mabel in the grace-and-favor flats Bertie arranged for when he was king. He used to visit too, so Sandringham no longer makes me sad, only sentimental. I often rehearse for myself memories of my little brood. Johnnie's happiness and Chad's love gave me the strength to do that.

But I never forgave David for giving up the throne when his father died. And I never forgave him for one more thing: shortly after Johnnie died, David wrote his mother that his youngest brother had not been much more than an animal and it was a blessing he died. Rose had told me that the queen had sent her son a scathing letter, forcing him to apologize.

Queen Mary never told me that, although the two of us corresponded and occasionally saw each other here. I believe she was a better grandmother than she was a mother, for Bertie's daughter, Queen Elizabeth, treasured her so. Queen Mary has been gone now for eleven years, and I do miss her. One Christmas at the Big House, Queen Elizabeth told me she did too.

And now that David has just visited me in my old age, I feel softer toward him, but I still need this walk on the grounds today. How many more times will I be able to do so? And, still, everywhere I look, I see Johnnie, Chad, the others—and my younger self.

I visited Chad's grave today and then walked to Johnnie's. I put one of the roses David brought me on my boy's grave, then went on, past the Big House where the queen and her family still celebrate their Christmases. I like her immensely, because she reminds me of Bertie with her kind eyes and kinder heart. She knows her duty as did the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, the Yorks, the Waleses, and the Windsors—all but David—before her.

How proud I was of Bertie, picking up the pieces of David's derelict duty to his country. Bertie married a fine woman and found a way to stop his stuttering, though the few of us who knew his struggles noticed that he carefully paused before attacking a sentence.

Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood through her marriage, was named Princess Royal in 1932 by her father. Harry, Duke of Gloucester, did well for himself and served as regent for the young Princess Elizabeth until she was of age, lest Bertie die early. My dear Prince George, Duke of Kent, married Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark and had three lovely children, while Mary and Harry each had but one. Sadly, George died in the Second World War at age thirty-nine in a military aircraft, which crashed in Scotland. He had been a proud RAF captain. It is the way, I consoled myself, he would have chosen to die.

How I mourned Queen Alexandra when she passed away here in the Big House in 1925 at age eighty. David once called her wonky, and I knew her thoughts often went astray, but, good gracious, so do mine at times . . . back to that first day I stepped off the railway car on the Wolferton platform and there was Chad waiting for me, and now I wait to see him again. Pictures of him flying a kite with my dear Johnnie or pointing out a bird in flight, even throwing a net over me and knocking me to the ground where I too shall sleep someday . . .

But now I see someone coming toward me on the path near the village, a young woman with a baby in her arms. It is as if I am seeing myself, young and eager and happy again, but I recognize who it is. Our dear Penny was wed here years ago and moved to King's Lynn seven miles away. I've helped tend her four children, but she's a new grandmother now, and dare I hope . . .

“Lala, there you are! I had to show you my first grandchild, and can you guess his name?” she said as we hugged with the baby between us.

“Oh, he's just lovely. Is he to be called Chad?” I asked, blinking back tears. “They don't dare call him Chadwick the fourth because your father didn't like that name. Too pompous.”

“Yes, meet just plain Chad Johnson,” she told me. “Isn't he perfect? Someone said they'd seen you walk this way, so let's go back to your flat and you can give him one of your famous cuddles. Once a nanny, always a nanny, even a royal one.”

“Yes,” I told her, smiling down at the new little one. “Yes, indeed.”

N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
and
USA Today
bestselling author
KAREN HARPER
is a former university (Ohio State) and high school English teacher. Published since 1982, she writes contemporary suspense and historical novels about real British women. Two of her recent Tudor-era books were bestsellers in the UK and Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she likes nothing more than to research her novels on site in the British Isles. Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for
Dark Angel
, and her novel
Shattered Secrets
was judged one of the Best Books of 2014 by
Suspense Magazine
. The author and her husband divide their time between Ohio and Florida.

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