After saying goodbye to his sergeant, he picked up an evening paper at a corner shop. There was a round-up of Her Majesty’s trip to Paris, with a picture of her on a boat on the River Seine, looking very regal in a shiny silver dress and a big white fur, and a tiara like the one she wore to get married in. She must have been having the time of her life.
Chapter 6
By the following Monday, the royal couple were back at Buckingham Palace and life was humming along at its brisk, London pace. One floor below the Queen’s private apartment in the North Wing, the press secretary put his head around the private secretary’s office door.
‘I’m looking for the Eisenhower file. Need it for a briefing this afternoon. HM’s got the call with the president at four. Have you seen it?’
Sir Hugh Masson looked up from the papers he was reading. ‘No, Jeremy. It’ll be in Miles’s office. Did you hear about the first time the Queen encountered him? Or didn’t, rather.’
‘Eisenhower? No.’
Sir Hugh smiled and sat back in his chair.
‘I heard this first-hand from the King. It was ’forty-two, and General Eisenhower was visiting Windsor Castle. Eisenhower was supposed to have a little tour before the official introductions, but the King and the family were sitting out on the terrace when he saw the general’s party heading their way. The King knew it would cause a terrible fuss if the general was made to encounter them au naturel, like that, without warning, so he got them all – the Queen and the young princesses too – to get down on their knees and hide under the tablecloth until the party was out of sight. They were hooting with laughter. Didn’t say a word afterwards. Very funny.’
Jeremy Radnor-Milne smiled politely. ‘How sweet. But as I say, I need the file itself.’
Sir Hugh shrugged. ‘It’s probably on Fiona’s desk somewhere.’
‘It isn’t, I’ve looked.’
‘Have you checked the cabinets?’
The press secretary’s slim moustache wiggled in irritation. He had indeed checked everywhere obvious in the filing room, where the absent Fiona worked occasionally.
‘The thought did occur to me. I’ve got that typist girl helping me look. The trouble is, Fiona seems to keep things in the most extraordinary places. We found the Danish paperwork on one of the radiators in Miles’s office. All the Cheshire research was in a basket marked ‘Dog Biscuits’. God knows how she finds anything. No wonder the speech went missing.’
Sir Hugh rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t remind me. Why doesn’t she leave it to the secretaries?’
The press secretary grimaced in agreement. Though he, Masson and Urquhart all shared the title ‘Secretary’ in one form or another, none of them did secretarial work of any sort, nor would they know how to. That was for the typists. The Honourable Fiona Matherton-Smith was a rare bird indeed: a woman untrained in secretarial arts, who was one of the higher breed designated with a capital ‘S’, like them. Her official title was Assistant Private Secretary and she assisted them all, but she was especially useful – although ‘useful’ was a loose term, in Fiona’s case – when it came to helping the deputy private secretary set up royal visits or manage Her Majesty’s correspondence. She was very easy on the eye, but paperwork was not her strong point.
The sound of pounding leather soles on the carpet in the corridor was followed by the appearance of the DPS himself, Miles Urquhart, looking anxious. ‘Any idea where Her Majesty is? I can’t find her.’
Sir Hugh leaned back in his chair and grinned. ‘You’ve lost the Queen?’
Urquhart glowered. ‘Don’t joke, Hugh. Has she taken the dogs for a walk? Her diary’s empty. I assumed she’d be doing paperwork but she’s not upstairs.’
Sir Hugh checked his own copy of the royal schedule, running his finger down the appointments for the day. ‘She’s having a dress fitting, apparently. Mr Hartnell. It should be in your copy too.’
‘Well, it isn’t,’ Urquhart complained. ‘Dammit! I need to talk to her. Just had Washington on the phone. They’ve brought the call forward. The president can only do it in half an hour.’
Sir Hugh was startled. ‘What?’
Radnor-Milne threw up his hands in horror. ‘That bloody file!’
‘I’ve found it, sir.’
There was a woman standing in the doorway. One of the junior secretaries, in a serge suit and sensible shoes, clutching a familiar-looking manila file. Radnor-Milne groaned at her. ‘Too late now.’
‘I can’t go to HM if she’s in a state of undress!’ Urquhart wailed. ‘That’s what Fiona was for.’
‘We could get a lady-in-waiting,’ Radnor-Milne suggested.
‘It’ll take too long.’
‘Where is Fiona, anyway?’ the private secretary asked. ‘Why isn’t she back yet?’
‘Still under the weather,’ Urquhart complained. ‘Her mother’s taking her away, she said, for her nerves.’
‘Her nerves?’
The DPS’s florid cheeks went pinker with disgust. ‘That’s what she said. What is it with women? Why can’t you trust them? Her nerves? What about my nerves? Christ!’ Urquhart shot an anguished look at the typist in the doorway. ‘Hey, you. McGinty. Jane, is it? You’ll do, at a pinch. Can you take a message to Her Majesty?’
The woman clutching the folder stared back at him.
‘Don’t look like a startled deer, girl! You’ve met the Queen before.’
‘I haven’t, sir.’
‘Oh. Well, you’re doing it now.’ Urquhart checked his watch. ‘Tell her the American president will call in twenty-five minutes, at twelve instead of four, and we know that’s not what we agreed but there’s not much to be done about it. She can make it to her desk if she runs, or of course we can have a telephone brought to her, but I imagine she’ll want privacy.’
‘Runs?’ the secretary asked faintly.
‘What?’
‘Did you say “if she runs”?’
‘Yes. Have you seen Her Majesty run?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, she does. She likes the exercise. You should see her when one of her dogs goes off after a rabbit or the children get too close to the lake.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What are you waiting for? You know where the fitting room is? South Wing, next to the old chapel door. Off you go. You’ll need a decent turn of speed yourself or HM will require a Derby winner if she wants to get to her office on time.’
Joan McGraw (her names included neither Jane nor McGinty, but she was very low in the pecking order and put up with it) paused for a moment outside the private secretary’s office in the North Wing. She couldn’t quite believe what she was about to do. But she had no time to lose and precious little time to think. She flew down the red-carpeted corridors in her sturdy lace-ups, past gilt-edged doors to state rooms and priceless marble statues, sweeping staircases and several frowning footmen, until she eventually reached the dowdy limewash and linoleum of the administrative offices in the South Wing.
She was grateful to have been her school’s cross-country champion, but she was still out of breath. The royal fitting room was to her right, with a page in uniform standing outside the door. She took a moment to calm herself.
The page knocked on her behalf and a very familiar voice said, ‘Come in.’
Joan did so, to find three middle-aged women and a very dapper gentleman in a pinstriped suit standing around the monarch, who was pinned into a white calico dress which Joan recognised as a ‘toile’ – a pattern for the real thing – while one of the women fussed at the fabric round her bosom.