Read Online The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper - Free Book Online Page A

shoot them at one of the duke’s or prince’s Saturday to Monday parties?
    On my first journey to London from Sandringham, I took both nursemaids, though we left our nursery footman, Cranston, behind and would use one of the queen’s footmen there, since he would know the place. But a lodge instead of the palace? I knew not what we’d find.
    I should have known the lodge would be a mansion. With its grand, exterior staircase and elevated pillars, portico, and porches, the three-storied White Lodge stood stunning in the brightness of the June sunshine. Set in a finely trimmed lawn, this was where David had been born, where Duchess May—named for the month of her birth—and her brothers had been reared and her mother, a first cousin to the queen, now lived as a near invalid. So we would have grandmothers galore to look pretty for and amuse—and behave for.
    I’d heard that the queen hated the new modern advances like electric lights and telephones. Yet I could not wait for my firstclose glimpse of the woman who had been on England’s throne for sixty years. How exhausted she must be after all her Diamond Jubilee appearances. I’d heard they tired her so she could not even walk up the steps of St. Paul’s for the celebration, but the people on the program had come down to her while she sat in her carriage. I hoped that she was better.
    To my surprise, when our three carriages pulled in after collecting us from Paddington Station, she was pushed out to meet us in a rolling chair. Was she a cripple now? A heavy woman in face and form, she was swathed in layers of black, despite the heat of the day. The way she squinted and searched faces, I could tell that her eyes were weak, but she had no trouble picking out her son’s big form.
    â€œBertie,” she clipped out to the prince before any sort of general greeting, “I believe I suggested to you that one of the new child’s names should be Diamond for the occasion, even though you have used Victoria.”
    â€œI mentioned it to George and May, Mama. After all, they are the parents. But Victoria—Victoria Alexandra Mary—it is, and she’s a charmer. We’ve got lots of Berties too. I’m sure you want to greet everyone, especially David and Bertie the third, before scolding me again.”
    Shocked by this good-natured man’s flip tone with the queen—and her scolding of him—I pushed the boys forward. True, I’d heard no love was lost between the queen and her heir, that she and his long dead father, Albert, had despaired of their son’s modern, decadent ways. Some even said the queen had blamed him for Prince Albert’s early death because he’d caught his fatal malady traveling to undo a mess with a woman their son had gotten into at Oxford.
    I blessed Princess Alexandra for stepping forward to hover over the boys, who greeted their “Gangan” just as I had made them practice. Duchess May took the baby from my arms to show her to the queen, who pronounced her pretty and well behaved.
    â€œWe’ll have a photograph later,” the queen declared. “The children and I, and the Prince of Wales, George, and his heir.”
    â€œThat’s me,” I heard David say.
    â€œMe too,” Bertie blurted.
    Well, I thought, I’d need to explain that to Bertie sooner than later. David would be king, and then it would be David’s heir, not Bertie, on the throne. I prayed he would not only accept that but welcome it someday.
    Later, I too was in a photograph with the queen, though no one could see me any more than they could the small Pomeranian dogs she favored that hid under her skirts. Her Majesty was so shaky that I crawled back behind her and supported little Mary on her arm so the old woman would not drop her.
    I thought then of Mabel, who was bothered by having to keep out of sight of her betters, and my own awkward plight of having to blend into the