‘Yes, all right. Let’s ask her.’
One had to be brave. If one didn’t take on difficult challenges, and overcome them, how could one possibly ask one’s people to do the same?
The Queen put to one side the rumours she had heard that Daphne was the woman Philip had gone to before proposing. His love was never in doubt, but nobody could deny the sacrifices it would take for a proud, successful young naval officer to marry a future sovereign and play second fiddle to her for the rest of his life. If he had spoken to Daphne at Menabilly, she had presumably advised him to go ahead with the marriage, because he had committed himself ardently and fully, as had Elizabeth herself. Doubts didn’t matter, as long as you stuck to your decision. Marriage was a daily act of faith, she realised.
Chapter 34
Balmoral was built for entertaining, and quickly filled with family and friends. The fifteenth of August was Princess Anne’s seventh birthday and one of those glorious, sunny days that the Scottish Highlands do better than anywhere on earth. They marked the day with a picnic in Balmoral’s grounds organised by Philip, and games organised by the Queen Mother, who also participated with great gusto.
She was full of tales about her recent visit to Africa, representing her daughter in Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Queen had been deeply worried about this trip, given what had happened on her own. She had implored her mother’s officials to take the greatest care of her. And they had done. Nothing had gone wrong.
‘Everyone was absolutely delightful,’ her mother insisted gaily. People usually were, in her company. It was hard not to be, when she was obviously having fun herself.
Had a sabotage plan been tried, and failed? Was it luck that spared the older Elizabeth, or was it only the Queen and Philip who were at threat? The Queen didn’t know.
She was distracted watching her children race around the grounds on a treasure hunt. They were giddy on attention and chocolate cake. Philip tried to calm them down a bit, but they didn’t listen. He came to stand beside her, laughing.
‘We’ll pay for this tomorrow. They’ll be impossible to get to bed, and then irritable in the morning. Charles especially. Anne’s indestructible. Look at her!’
This reminded the Queen of something. It had been nagging at her for a long time, and the latest report from Inspector Darbishire had made it worse. She took advantage of her husband’s good humour.
‘That night in March,’ she said. ‘When you came home late . . .’
‘What night?’ He turned to her sharply.
‘You know the one.’
‘No idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. I’d find it very difficult to explain . . .’
His jaw was clenching. ‘What’s that got to with anything? Has anyone asked you?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘A man’s entitled to enter his own home whenever it suits him. And I wasn’t late. It might have been a shade after midnight. If anyone asks you, send ’em to me. Hey! Charles! Wait for your sister, you little monster!’
He stalked off, leaving the Queen standing.
She bit the inside of her lip, hard, and smiled gamely for her mother when she turned to see if anything was wrong.
That night, lying awake in bed, the Queen felt very alone.
She worried for her family. The thing was . . . The Queen normally tried not to follow dark thoughts to their conclusion, because honestly how could one keep going if one did? But, the thing was, if somebody was trying to sabotage her and Philip, if they didn’t want her as queen for whatever reason they might have, then where would it end?
If they somehow got rid of her, then what about Charles, what about Anne? What about Margaret, if her own little family was gone? It was awful to contemplate, but the Queen regularly had to review the secret official plans for just such contingencies. Royal families had been wiped out before. Her cousins in Russia had been obliterated forty years ago; other thrones had been lost this century in Germany, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Italy; Philip’s own family was sent into exile from Greece when he was a baby. She pictured him, a refugee on a boat, tucked up in a simple crate of oranges, reliant on the kindness of strangers. The dangers were real and recent.
She didn’t just have herself to think of. She worried about Charles, who was a sensitive child, already becoming aware of the duties that awaited him and the sacrifices he’d be asked to make. Brave little Anne did seem indestructible, as Philip said, but even she had her vulnerabilities. Which brought one back to Inspector Darbishire’s report.
The Queen propped herself against her pillows, contemplating her precious daughter. Back in the spring, Anne had suddenly come down with a terrible earache, an awful thing that she had probably picked up in the palace swimming pool. It had floored her with pain. Anne never cried usually, unless something happened to one of the animals, but that evening there had been floods of tears, and ‘Make it stop, Mummy!’ after bath time, which was heartrending.
The Queen had spent an extra half-hour with her, singing and reading from the Golden Treasury of Verse, before leaving her in the capable hands of Nanny. But afterwards, she had heard tears wafting downstairs from the direction of the nursery, and it had been impossible to sleep that night, too.
It was the last day of March, she remembered: the Sunday before she drove to Broadlands, where Philip would join her later, and from where they would ultimately leave together for Paris.
On that Sunday night, she had watched the clock tick down the hours, thinking of poor Anne’s misery, until she had given up even trying to nod off again. She had picked up her Bible to read some verses from Psalms and the Song of Solomon, which she usually found soothing.
When she next looked up from the text, it was four thirty in the morning. Something had disturbed her: a noise in the passage outside her bedroom. She had listened keenly, wondering if Anne needed her, but in fact it was Philip, coming in. She had heard him muttering something to the footman at his bedroom door, down the corridor from hers. Then, finally, she had slept.
The next day she was extremely busy, and in the evening everyone had been distracted by a Panorama programme on the BBC about the spaghetti harvest in Italy. Apparently, the pasta grew on trees. Several people in the palace believed it implicitly – it was the BBC, after all – until it was announced to be an elaborate April’s fool joke. Philip didn’t interrupt the lively conversation afterwards to mention where he’d been the night before until almost dawn, and she didn’t ask him: one didn’t want to be a nag.
She had honestly forgotten about it, until the date of the thirty-first of March was mentioned in Paris, in the context of the Chelsea murders. After the brief, unexpected jerk of his hand with the delicate cufflink, Philip had smoothly used her as his alibi for the night. I was in tucked up safe in bed by eleven. I only have my security detail and Her Majesty to plead my case. His security detail were famously discreet. And who would question a queen?
But the footmen in the corridor knew better. And so must the guard at the palace gate that night, and the three or four other servants he would have encountered on his way in. One could rely on loyalty and discretion up to a point. It was dangerous to rely on it forever.
The mention of Cresswell Place had also clearly meant something to him. The Queen had half expected to see something in the police reports that might explain it, which was really why she’d asked for them. But there was nothing. What were they not telling her? The inspector had noted in the first report that the witnesses’ evidence didn’t entirely make sense, but he hadn’t followed up on it in any subsequent update. Why?