By a stroke of luck, she had remembered that one of the later drafts of the original had come back from the typing pool at Buckingham Palace with a couple of excellent suggestions, in perfect, idiomatic French. It had occurred to the Queen that the secretary in question might have kept a carbon of her own, and she must have done, because fifty minutes later she was dictating it down the telephone to the private secretary himself. Disaster was averted.
That temporary loss of the original, on its own, one might have put down to misfortune. But all copies and carbons? Really?
And now, on top of those near disasters, the unguarded look of disgust directed at the pressing crowd around her at the Louvre shed a new light on everything. Someone most definitely did not want this visit to succeed. Someone in her own circle. Someone she had always trusted implicitly until tonight.
The Queen recognised that on this evidence of missing carbons and unexpected shellfish and sour expressions, it would be easy to say she had a young mother’s overactive imagination, or that she was tired and emotional after two busy days abroad and developing an unhealthy complex of some sort. None of which she dared be accused of, when this visit was so important.
Anyway, at this moment what could she or Philip do? As the car turned left into the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, she kept her thoughts to herself.
Chapter 2
‘Well done, Your Majesty,’ her private secretary told her the next morning, a trifle patronisingly. ‘I think we can chalk last night down as another success.’
‘Thank you, Hugh. It was a bit of a crush. There were moments I wondered if they were going to swallow me whole.’
Sir Hugh Masson smiled as if her observation were merely a joke. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of that tidal wave of attention.
This morning, her three pinstriped senior courtiers were lined up neatly in front of her at the ambassador’s residence, ready to discuss the new day. Sir Hugh was accompanied by Major Miles Urquhart, the deputy private secretary (or DPS, as he was known); and Jeremy Radnor-Milne, her press secretary. Solid, traditional and dependable, they were chief among ‘men in moustaches’, as Philip called them – a collective term for the old guard the Queen had inherited from her father.
Sir Hugh Masson’s solid grey whiskers were counterbalanced by a large pair of black-rimmed spectacles that emphasised his bookish tendencies. ‘The prime minister wanted me to let you know how pleased he is with how everything’s going, ma’am. Your evening gowns are a particular hit. The choice of flowers of the French fields for the decoration was much admired.’
‘Mr Hartnell did try very hard with the embroidery.’
‘It’s good to see British design compete with the French,’ Miles Urquhart, the DPS, added cheerfully. ‘And outclass them, you might say.’ He sported a russet ’tache that bristled with delight and national pride. Urquhart was always absolutely certain that the British monarchy was the best institution in the world and the answer to almost any problem, even fashion-related. The Queen found it quite challenging to live up to such high expectations.
‘Oh, I hesitate to say we outclass Dior and Balmain,’ she demurred, ‘but I’m glad we can hold our own.’
‘One begins to understand why they wanted you as head of state.’
She shook her head. ‘That was very odd, wasn’t it?’
It was still astonishing to her, and not helpful in managing Urquhart’s expectations, but – unknown to all but the British prime minister and his closest circle – the French prime minister had indeed raised the idea of a Franco-British union on a visit last year, with her as its figurehead. It had taken them all aback.
‘After all they went through to get rid of the last lot,’ she added. ‘Mr Eden was right to say no. Anyway, I get the impression it was all the scheme of Monsieur Mollet alone. Nobody’s mentioned it since.’
Jeremy Radnor-Milne laughed a little too loud. ‘Haha! You’re well out of it, ma’am. France hasn’t covered itself in glory recently. They seem rather desperate, if one may say so.’
The press secretary wore a thin black line of facial fuzz modelled on the actor David Niven’s, in an attempt to suggest the actor’s military derring-do and suave urbanity. Like Urquhart, he was conspicuously patriotic and he was probably referring to France’s ill-fated attempt last year to maintain control of Egypt’s Suez Canal by sending in the troops. However, the United Kingdom had done the same, and come out of last year’s Suez affair equally disastrously.
Gone were the days of gunship diplomacy, when the old imperial powers could sail in and sort out problems abroad with a little show of muscle. One needed the Americans on board now and, as Mr Eisenhower had made it very plain from Washington that he was not going to get involved, the French and British were forced to make an ignominious retreat. At home, Mr Eden had lost his premiership because of it.
‘The talk here is all about making friends with the Hun,’ Urquhart said, with a shake of his head. ‘This new treaty of Rome. The “Economic Community”, whatever they call it. You wouldn’t think France and Germany had been at each other’s throats for the best part of a century.’
‘I suppose that’s what they’re trying to avoid,’ the Queen pointed out. ‘But I’m not so sure everyone’s behind the treaty.’ She addressed herself to her private secretary. ‘I wanted to tell you, Hugh, the Comte de Longchamp is not in favour at all. You know his war record – what the Nazis put him through. And my papers tell me he has the ear of his president.’
‘How do you know, ma’am? Who told you?’
‘I saw it on his face last night,’ the Queen said. This had been the first of the two odd expressions she noticed at the Louvre. ‘A look of pure hatred, directed at the German ambassador standing behind me. I know it was the German ambassador because he has the most frightful breath. Somebody really ought to tell him at some point. Not ideal for a diplomat.’
‘I’ll pass the news on,’ Sir Hugh promised.
‘Not the bit about the breath.’
‘Oh, that, too, ma’am. The Foreign Office will be delighted. Thank you.’
They moved on to her itinerary for the day, which was set out in five-minute increments from now until midnight, describing exactly where she would be and whom she would expect to meet, from the workers at a Renault factory to the Mayor of Paris. She noticed that there were two comfort breaks, of five minutes each, and planned to limit her liquid intake accordingly.
At the end, she mentioned the oysters.
Two sets of bushy eyebrows furrowed in horror and the lips of Jeremy Radnor-Milne pursed in confusion under his thin black moustache.
‘Shellfish,’ Sir Hugh explained in hushed tones, before turning back to the Queen.
‘Did you eat any, ma’am?’
‘No. I was terribly rude. I had some of the sauce mignonette.’
Radnor-Milne’s jaw had dropped. He gaped like a fish. ‘I . . . I . . . I don’t see why on earth they would have—’
‘Some chef must have got carried away with the menu,’ Urquhart snapped, puffed up with indignation on her behalf. ‘I’ll have a word.’
‘Please don’t bother,’ the Queen said. ‘It’s too late now.’
She had been watching them closely. The men in moustaches all seemed equally aghast, just as they had done two days ago when her speech went missing. These were men whose service her father had prized, and she relied on them completely in order to carry out her job. One of them, she now knew, was lying to her. What about the other two?