Her voice had an unaccustomed edge.
‘Sir Hugh and I have agreed that you’ve served us enough in your present capacity.’
‘I . . . I thought so, ma’am. I realise that I . . . If I can just explain.’
‘I think you’ve earned a very particular next assignment. Sir Hugh has arranged for you to act as our liaison with the local authorities on Ascension Island. It’s a one-year posting, but we’ve extended it to three.’
‘Ascension Island, ma’am?’ Jeremy tried to sound polite and conversational. ‘I don’t think I . . .’
‘It’s a refuelling post in the middle of the Atlantic. There’s a small RAF squadron and the navy come and go. It has plentiful sea life, I understand. The birdwatching is also excellent.’
‘Did you say the Atlantic? Not the Pacific?’
‘No. And if that works out well, there’s a position in the Falkland Islands that might suit you.’
‘Where are they, ma’am?’
‘Near Antarctica.’
‘I have to say, I’m not a birdwatcher,’ he said, with a nervous chuckle.
‘You will be.’
He had always thought of Her Majesty as soft and feminine. There was that impressive bust, that smooth, clear skin. But today she was implacable. She reminded him a bit of Queen Elizabeth I, as he imagined her. Queen Elizabeth I, dealing with one of the traitors against her, he realised. Except, that Queen would have sent him to his end at the Tower.
Perhaps Ascension Island was better. Presumably they had women on Ascension Island? Would his wife be able to come with him?
Would she want to?
‘I’m . . . I’m very sorry, ma’am. It was nothing personal,’ he said with feeling. ‘I think of you as—’
‘I think of you as gone,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Jeremy.’
‘Can I just say—’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘But if I just—’
The military equerry at the door, whose presence Jeremy hadn’t even been aware of, stepped forward, gripped him by the arm and dragged him unceremoniously from the room.
Within twelve hours, he was on his way to the mid-Atlantic in a cold and noisy military plane. At least it wasn’t jail, or the Tower – but then Sir Hugh would have had to explain why to the press, which Jeremy knew he would strain every sinew not to do. His luggage would be sent on, he was told, but his wife and children wouldn’t. All he had was the clothes he was standing up in, and a box that Miles Urquhart had handed to him as he was led from Government House. Opening it on the flight, he discovered that it contained a pair of binoculars and a doodle of a seabird. He shivered.
Chapter 56
Ironically, the Radnor-Milnes and their co-conspirators hadn’t targeted the Canada trip at all, and yet it was still difficult. The Queen never quite recovered her equilibrium. The crowds were large and happy, but Sir Hugh couldn’t hide from her that there were voices that loudly questioned whether Canada should have a queen at all, especially if she cost the country so much money.
The Canadians were still hurting, like the British, after the war. But they felt they were hurting more. Knowing this, Sir Hugh and his team had done everything they could to make the visit as low-key as a historic opening of parliament could be. The Queen worked hard, but wasn’t sure she was quite connecting the way the people wanted. She thought of Joan’s aunt again. She didn’t try to be distant, but sometimes it just happened.
Everyone, however, loved her frocks. So at least there was that. And they were dazzled by her diamonds. So there was that too.
After four days, which felt more like fourteen, they flew to Virginia. She was very nervous now. She could hardly forget that a huge amount depended on this visit. But also, she was a mere guest in a country that had definitively and triumphantly got rid of her great-great-great-grandfather.
The Queen was good at history, because often it was personal. She knew she was only the second British monarch to visit the USA. The first was her father in 1939, but that was in the build-up to the war, when diplomacy was all about defeating Hitler. And it was impossible not to fall in love with her mother, which naturally, the Americans had. Since then, there had been the Suez crisis and all the rest.
Would they use the trip as an opportunity to belittle the United Kingdom? She knew the president wouldn’t, because he was a friend. But what about the press? Could she live up to her mother’s success? You could never underestimate the American news machine, or be entirely sure what it would do.
Philip tried to calm her down. He was good at it, making jokes on the flight and laughing at his own very terrible impersonation of an American accent. He knew about Charles, and assured her that ‘what the boy doesn’t know won’t hurt him’. And then suddenly the plane was landing, and Sir Hugh was reminding her of her schedule. And there was really nothing more she could do.
In a life that largely consisted of travels and tours and being seen in public, this became a visit she would never forget. It started with a visit to Jamestown, which was celebrating 350 years since its foundation – just like Romsey in England, whose charter she had presented the day before she left for France in April. This was ‘old America’, and forty thousand people came out to see her that day, followed by thousands more wherever they went.
By the third day, her fears about this trip had become one of Philip’s standing jokes.
‘D’you remember how jittery you were before we got here? Look at ’em!’
They had been practically mobbed in Virginia and now they were staying in the executive wing of the White House, where Washington had rolled out the red carpet as only the Americans could.
In short, she needn’t have been nervous. It was going well. The Eisenhowers had been tickled when she told them the story of hiding under the tablecloth at Windsor Castle during the war. Bonhomie reigned and the prime minister was ‘ecstatic’. In fact, if she could stay a little bit longer, and if she wasn’t missing the children, she would.
They were getting ready for their final banquet in Washington. The Queen knew it was ungrateful to long for a nursery tea in front of the fire, and tried to put the thought from her mind as Bobo helped her climb into the sequinned net dress that Mr Hartnell had designed for her. Philip came in, looking divine and adjusting his cufflinks, and told Bobo to ‘buzz off’ so that he could ‘appreciate Her Majesty privately for a moment’.
Bobo complied.
‘Not everybody gets to kiss the Queen of England,’ he said, before doing so. Then he stood back to admire her dress. He was learning.
‘Just heard a terribly funny thing,’ he said. ‘My valet told me. There was an actress who tried to get into my room last night. Absolute bombshell, apparently, all glitter and zips. Not like you, Lilibet, you know, very racy.’
The Queen didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. ‘And?’
‘And she insisted I’d told her to wait for me upstairs, because there was something I needed to give her. Can you imagine? Swore blind we’d met. Even produced a note with my handwriting on it, except it wasn’t, obviously. Ha! Poor girl. Obviously, I was in here with you so it would have been a wasted evening.’
‘For you or for her?’
‘For her, Cabbage! Don’t be ridiculous!’ He frowned. ‘You’re not finding this funny.’
‘You know about Charles,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think this might be part of the same plot?’
‘Well, good luck to ’em. I think I can spot when a gold-digging blonde tries to worm her way into my affections. You’re right, it sounds just like the tomfool, half-cocked sort of thing they’d try and do. Presumably they couldn’t call her off. Anyway, she got ejected PDQ, poor thing.’