Page 60 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)
‘He did awfully well at the Coronation,’ Verena said. ‘Considering the strain there must have been on him, and all the awkward things he had to say. I was afraid there would be embarrassing silences. You know how he gulps, and his jaw works when he can’t get a particular word out.’
‘Oh, he had a speech tutor, who went through the whole thing with him. Rehearsals every day until he was comfortable with it.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Verena said. ‘Who is he?’
‘The tutor? An Australian fellow – used to help shell-shock victims after the war, who had trouble with speaking.’
‘I haven’t heard anything about that.’
‘I don’t think the King would want it generally known,’ said Oliver.
‘He’s pretty sensitive about the stammer.
But I’ve spoken to the fellow professionally once or twice.
He has rooms in Harley Street, not far from mine.
We’ve consulted about hare-lip patients – I did the surgery, and he did the speech therapy.
He has no professional training – I’m afraid some of my colleagues dismiss him a quack – but he’s had some good results.
He’s a very nice fellow, infinitely patient and kind, which helps when dealing with children. ’
Verena buttered a piece of toast. ‘He must have been working very hard with the King, to get him through the wireless broadcast after the Coronation. I didn’t hear any stammering at all.
There was just that pause at the beginning when nothing happened – I was afraid he’d got stuck and would never speak at all. ’
Oliver smiled. ‘I heard about that from Tommy Lascelles. It was just a mistake of timing. The King was supposed to walk from the anteroom into the studio while the National Anthem was playing, and take his seat in front of the microphone just as it finished. But they’d timed it wrongly, and the anthem finished before he got there. ’
‘I see. Well, it was a very nice speech. I think he’ll do very well, don’t you?’
‘We’re lucky to have him. And the Queen.’
‘It makes you realise how unsuitable the Simpson woman would have been. Imagine her being crowned in Westminster Abbey, kneeling under the canopy, being handed the sceptre and rod and so on.’ She shuddered. ‘She would probably have wanted to “modernise” the whole thing.’
‘She’d have ordered jazz singers instead of the Abbey choir. “I Got Rhythm” instead of “Zadok the Priest”. But it would never have happened: Cosmo Lang would never have crowned her, let alone anointed her.’
Verena put down her knife. ‘Yet here we are, talking about her again. Let’s not. We’ve got the Buckingham Palace dinner party on the seventeenth, and Lady Sutherland’s ball on the eighteenth to look forward to.’
‘Have you decided what to wear?’ Oliver asked. ‘Apparently the King’s asked the Queen’s dressmaker to design her something based on those Winterhalter portraits of Queen Victoria – you know, crinolines and lace berthas.’
‘Hmm. Well, I suppose it would suit her. She is quite … round.’
‘I like roundness. It’s cheerful. Better than being stick-thin and miserable like—’
‘Don’t say it! We are not going to talk about Wallis Simpson any more.’
‘Who? I don’t know who you’re referring to,’ Oliver said solemnly.
‘According to Fruity,’ Kit said, as their car conveyed them to the ball, ‘David caused deep offence to Kitty Rothschild, after she’d lent him her chateau for all those months.
When she left for Paris, he didn’t bother to get out of bed to say goodbye to her, let alone thank her.
Now he’s bundled off to join Wally without tipping the servants, and he’s left behind a socking great telephone bill – all those long-distance chats with his beloved.
Fruity said he asked Wally to ask David to do something about it – even a nice thank-you letter would help – and got a very sharp retort. ’
‘She was never very keen on paying bills,’ Emma said. ‘I can’t see her pressing David to do it. And doesn’t he claim to be hard up, these days?’
‘He pretty much has to, given that he’s trying to prise a pension out of the government. But I imagine her real disgruntlement is about not being an HRH.’
‘I didn’t understand that,’ Emma said. ‘I thought once an HRH, always an HRH. David’s been one since birth, so wouldn’t that make his wife an HRH too?’
‘In normal circumstance, yes,’ Kit agreed, ‘but the argument by the Lord Chancellor was that in renouncing the succession, he also renounced his royal rank. And according to Clive Wigram, by abdicating in order to marry Wally, David accepted that she wasn’t fit to be queen.
So, logically, she must be unfit to be a member of the Royal Family.
Wigram says the brothers agree, and the old Queen does, of course, and the Dominion prime ministers. ’
‘So what are the Letters Patent about?’
‘Well, the King is still fond of him, even after all he’s done. So the Letters Patent say that the D of W shall, notwithstanding the Act of Abdication, hold and enjoy the style of Royal Highness, but that his wife and descendants shall not. A wee wedding gift from one brother to another.’
‘A gift that will annoy the recipient no end,’ Emma remarked. It was raining again, the drops slapping against the window beside her and running diagonally down the glass. It had rained most of Coronation Day, too.
‘Apparently Wigram hinted the same thing, and the King said that, far from taking anything away from David, he was giving him a title he would otherwise have forfeited when he abdicated.’
‘David will never see it that way.’
‘No. Even after all this, he’s incapable of understanding the pain he caused everyone. Fruity says he’s simply bewildered by his family’s inability to see how wonderful Wally is.’
‘Oh, well, it’s all over now,’ Emma said, as the car glided to the kerb in front of the lighted building. ‘Let’s forget about it and enjoy the evening. I don’t suppose we’ll ever see them again, anyway.’
‘Almost certainly not. They are now in the category of old, unhappy far-off things and battles long ago, and we shall think of them no more. Here we are, beloved, and may I say you look ravishing tonight?’
‘You may, provided you promise to dance with me and not spend all evening frowsting in the smoking-room with your chums.’
‘The only thing that would stop me dancing with you is not being able to get near you for your hundreds of admirers.’
There was a saying: God laughs when men make plans. It was the next day that Kit was called from the breakfast table by a telephone call.
‘That was Fruity,’ he said, returning to Emma.
She studied his face. ‘Something wrong? They’ve heard about the Letters Patent? What did they say?’
‘David said that Bertie would never do such a thing, and that it’s a plot by the Hardinges to insult Wally.’
‘What does she think?’
‘Fruity says she wasn’t surprised – she’s been telling David ever since she left England that his family would never allow her to be an HRH.
She said that the British monarchy is a matriarchy in pants: the King’s wife runs the King and the King’s mother runs the King’s wife. But that’s not the worst thing.’
‘Oh dear. You’d better tell me. I can see it’s shaken you.’
‘Fruity says David wants us at the wedding on the third of June. We are commanded to propose ourselves, on pain of – well, whatever level of displeasure we care to imagine.’
‘Oh, heavens! I don’t want to go.’
‘You still haven’t heard the worst. Despite the Letters Patent, he says everyone has to call Wally HRH. And to get into the swing of it, he’s making everyone curtsy to her.’
‘Kit, I can’t, I really can’t, curtsy to the double-divorcée from Baltimore who left me to pay restaurant bills even when she ’d invited me . And who borrowed a pair of pearl and diamond earrings from me and never gave them back.’
’Did she, by gum! Then I shall wrestle them out of her if I have to pin her to the floor.’
‘You don’t mean you’re thinking of going?’
‘Sweetheart, I think we have to. Apart from Fruity and Baba, and Kath and Herman Rogers, there’ll be no-one there.’
‘Whose fault is that?’
‘Don’t be so unforgiving. The poor old chap can’t help being a little bit mental. He was hoping that one of his brothers would come and be his supporter, but the King’s forbidden it. Monckton’s on his way, but David’s down to one equerry – Dudley Forwood – and a detective.’
‘You used to be sorry for Wally, now you seem to be sorry for him,’ she accused.
‘I’m sorry for both of them. When I think of the future that awaits them, I shudder. They ought to have one happy day to look back on.’
Emma stared at him. ‘You want to go,’ she accused him.
He gave her a shamefaced grin. ‘Come on, don’t you want to be able to say you were there? It’s a little piece of history.’
‘I’d be happy to say I was there,’ Emma grumbled. ‘It’s the having to be there I mind. And I haven’t anything to wear.’
‘Bless you, you’ve days to choose something. We won’t stay afterwards, I promise. They’ll go straight off after the wedding breakfast, and we can leave the next morning.’
‘Wally will expect a wedding present.’
‘There’s that silver chafing dish she gave you for your birthday last year. Give her that.’
‘She didn’t buy that for me, you know. I saw it at the Fort. David took it from Buckingham Palace.’
‘So that makes it a fittingly royal gift,’ said Kit.
‘You are very wicked,’ Emma said admiringly. It seemed she had agreed to go, without ever agreeing. ‘But I won’t curtsy,’ she added, in final defiance.