wasn’t their fault. Their fellow cadets had all had the advantage of a preparatory-school education before going to Naval College. He and Bertie had only had a private tutor who had abysmally failed to teach them subjects such as mathematics and science, which they should have had a grounding in.
“House rules mean Bertie and I can only meet up in a far corner of the playing fields and we can’t do that very often, sir. And sixty-first isn’t really so bad—not for Bertie. He really is trying to work harder.”
There was a deferential knock on the library door.
“
Come!
” his father barked deafeningly.
The door opened and a footman said nervously, “Your Majesty, Lord Esher has arrived.”
The King’s mood changed instantly. Esher was an old and trusted friend and an adviser he relied upon greatly.
“You may go, David,” he said, to David’s vast relief. To the footman he added, “I’ll receive Lord Esher in here.”
Once on the other side of the library door, David hesitated. Hismother and his sister would be expecting him to join them, but he was far too emotionally disoriented to want to do so.
The news that he was to leave Dartmouth before achieving his goal of the last four years—the final training cruise and graduation—had come completely out of the blue, as had his father’s announcement that he would be embarking so soon on what would be a lifetime of public duties. What hadn’t been mentioned were any plans for his further education—plans that must, surely, be in place.
That he was always the last person to know of the plans made for him rankled deeply. How long ago, for instance, had plans for his investiture at Caernarvon been made? The answer, he knew, would have been months and months ago.
Two footmen in brilliant livery, their hair powdered, were standing impassive faced at either side of the library door. As he looked down the corridor he could see at least half a dozen more footmen at strategic points. At dinner that evening two of his father’s equerries had dined with them, as had one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting. David assumed that there were times when his parents dined without the presence of courtiers, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember them doing so.
At this moment, though, he, for one, wanted to be alone in order to mull over what his father had said and to indulge in the pleasure of reliving his afternoon at Snowberry. Although the presence of footmen would, in royal terms, still equate with his being alone, he wanted to be really alone, with no palace flunkies in his field of vision. At Windsor there was only one place for such absolute privacy.
The roof.
As boys, he and Bertie had often escaped to the castle’s battlements, the excitement of the adventure intensified by the knowledge that they were doing something dangerous and utterly forbidden. It was years since he had made his way up the many staircases and along the warren of passages that led to an access door, but he remembered the way perfectly.
As he stepped out onto the vast expanse of lead he could see,ghostly in the moonlight, the dark expanse of the Great Park and, if he turned round a little, the twinkling lights of the little town of Windsor, lying at the castle’s foot. A little farther away was the silken sheen of the river Thames winding its way languorously east, toward London. In the other direction, far too far away to see, lay Snowberry.
He leaned against an enormous chimney stack and lit a cigarette. The contrast between life at Windsor—or at any other of the royal palaces—and the kind of life he had glimpsed being lived at Snowberry was colossal. When he thought of the careless informality he had enjoyed that afternoon, he knew he wanted to experience it again and again. The question was: How would he be able to?
He blew a plume of smoke into the air. As far as the immediate future was concerned he could detour to Snowberry when traveling back to Dartmouth in
“House rules mean Bertie and I can only meet up in a far corner of the playing fields and we can’t do that very often, sir. And sixty-first isn’t really so bad—not for Bertie. He really is trying to work harder.”
There was a deferential knock on the library door.
“
Come!
” his father barked deafeningly.
The door opened and a footman said nervously, “Your Majesty, Lord Esher has arrived.”
The King’s mood changed instantly. Esher was an old and trusted friend and an adviser he relied upon greatly.
“You may go, David,” he said, to David’s vast relief. To the footman he added, “I’ll receive Lord Esher in here.”
Once on the other side of the library door, David hesitated. Hismother and his sister would be expecting him to join them, but he was far too emotionally disoriented to want to do so.
The news that he was to leave Dartmouth before achieving his goal of the last four years—the final training cruise and graduation—had come completely out of the blue, as had his father’s announcement that he would be embarking so soon on what would be a lifetime of public duties. What hadn’t been mentioned were any plans for his further education—plans that must, surely, be in place.
That he was always the last person to know of the plans made for him rankled deeply. How long ago, for instance, had plans for his investiture at Caernarvon been made? The answer, he knew, would have been months and months ago.
Two footmen in brilliant livery, their hair powdered, were standing impassive faced at either side of the library door. As he looked down the corridor he could see at least half a dozen more footmen at strategic points. At dinner that evening two of his father’s equerries had dined with them, as had one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting. David assumed that there were times when his parents dined without the presence of courtiers, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember them doing so.
At this moment, though, he, for one, wanted to be alone in order to mull over what his father had said and to indulge in the pleasure of reliving his afternoon at Snowberry. Although the presence of footmen would, in royal terms, still equate with his being alone, he wanted to be really alone, with no palace flunkies in his field of vision. At Windsor there was only one place for such absolute privacy.
The roof.
As boys, he and Bertie had often escaped to the castle’s battlements, the excitement of the adventure intensified by the knowledge that they were doing something dangerous and utterly forbidden. It was years since he had made his way up the many staircases and along the warren of passages that led to an access door, but he remembered the way perfectly.
As he stepped out onto the vast expanse of lead he could see,ghostly in the moonlight, the dark expanse of the Great Park and, if he turned round a little, the twinkling lights of the little town of Windsor, lying at the castle’s foot. A little farther away was the silken sheen of the river Thames winding its way languorously east, toward London. In the other direction, far too far away to see, lay Snowberry.
He leaned against an enormous chimney stack and lit a cigarette. The contrast between life at Windsor—or at any other of the royal palaces—and the kind of life he had glimpsed being lived at Snowberry was colossal. When he thought of the careless informality he had enjoyed that afternoon, he knew he wanted to experience it again and again. The question was: How would he be able to?
He blew a plume of smoke into the air. As far as the immediate future was concerned he could detour to Snowberry when traveling back to Dartmouth in
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