The Royal Nanny (16 page)

With a jolt as the horses started to pull, we headed toward the Big House, ablaze with lights.

O
n a lovely day the next spring—it was 1906, amazingly, six years into the new century—I kept Harry and little George out of the way of flying feet and darting undercooks and two scullery maids in the main kitchen of Sandringham House. Johnnie was taking a nap, watched closely by both of my undernurses, and this was my afternoon off. I planned to meet Mabel and take the boys for a walk with us. The leaves were fully budded and the robins and skylarks sang, so why not?

Poor Harry, recently turned six, had been put in splints like Bertie had, but Harry was also in heavy boots to help straighten what his father called knock-knees. Despite his difficulty walking, the boy always wanted to go along, but I felt so sorry for him as the contraptions made him seem clumsier than he already was. Right now, he and three-year-old George knew they'd be in for a treat from their grandparents' kitchen and Mrs. Grey, the head cook.

I told her, “I hope we're not in the way if we just stand here and smell those wonderful aromas.”

“Never in the way,” the sprightly woman called to me as she supervised pouring and stirring and oversaw the arrangement of several silver food trays. “Not the queen's grandchildren! Edwina here will fetch the little ones some biscuits. It's the lemon sauce for the sponge cake you smell. Her Majesty has three friends and, of course, Lady Knollys to lunch.

“And how's that youngest little angel now?” Mrs. Grey asked as she fringed china plates with springs of parsley. The plates held displays of cold meats; asparagus tips; cucumber; egg sandwiches; cheese canapés with pickles; a salmagundi salad with spring flowers round its rim; and—oh, my—scones with strawberries and clotted cream, my very favorite.

“Johnnie's doing much better now, Mrs. Grey. Still not sitting up well at nine months but breathing easier.”

“Well, good news all round about little ones, since Chad Reaver finally got his child.”

The stone tiled floor under me seemed to tilt. “They— The baby is all right?” My heart thudded in my chest. Finally, a child. How happy Chad—Millie too—must be. Finally, Chad had some good after the bad.

“A girl, what's that name they gave her?” Mrs. Grey asked yet another cook, one who must be new from the village since I hadn't seen her before.

“Penelope, nickname Penny,” the girl said, stirring something on the huge iron stove. “Still so sad, such a price to pay.”

“What?” I cried, thinking of Johnnie's breathing problems. “Is the child all right?”

I caught a look they gave each other just as Mabel appeared
from down the hall with three tall, white-gloved footmen. The men carried the trays out of the kitchen while a third stood like a sentinel in the corner, evidently waiting for the tray with the dessert.

“Sorry I'm tardy, Char,” Mabel called to me over the bustle. “Did the lads get a treat?”

Mrs. Grey was pouring lemon sauce over the sponge cake, set among rosebuds on its own round, cut-glass tray. When I nodded, wide-eyed but didn't speak, Mabel hustled the three of us outside and propelled us over to a bench by the back door herb garden.

“They told you about the Reavers, didn't they?” she asked.

“Yes, just now, about Chad's little girl.”

“I wanted to be the one to let you know. Can you have these two go play by that little horse head swing Her Majesty had built for their sister?” she asked, pointing to the weather-worn swing that dangled from the branch of an old apple tree. “Maybe Harry can swing George.”

I told the boys, “Harry, you watch George and don't swing too hard, then we'll go for our walk.”

“It's swell, Lala,” Harry said, ever the little helper. “I know it's your time off and you brought us anyway.” With his mouth still half full of a biscuit and dragging his feet in his boots, he took George by the hand and tugged him over to the old swing.

Mabel grasped my hands, which I had gripped in my lap.

“There's something wrong with the Reaver baby, isn't there?” I asked. “What if they lose her after all they've been through?”

Mabel's lower lip dropped. She squeezed my hands tighter. “They didn't tell you all of it then. Well, I mean it just happened yesterday evening. Char, their baby's thriving, has a wet nurse
even, because Millie died giving birth. They're burying her day after tomorrow.”

M
ABEL WALKED THE
boys back to York Cottage for me. I sat on the bench, queasy and crying, watching the wind move the empty horse head swing that creaked as if a ghost sat there. And maybe it did. Not Millie's to haunt me, but strange regrets. Grief for Chad. Torment that maybe I should have married him. Agony over whether to try to write him, comfort him, attend the funeral or just stay away.

And could this mean another chance for us? He'd said he still loved me, but my way was set now with protecting Johnnie just as he must care for his Penelope. I'd vowed to Princess May I'd never leave Johnnie, and I felt fierce about protecting him.

I sat there until Mabel came back, pulled me off the bench and made me walk and talk. She and Rose were the only ones who knew my feelings for Chad, but I'd not told them that he had declared he loved me yet after all these years. The first day I'd met him, he'd said one had to learn to take the bad with the good.
T
he
L
ord giveth and the
L
ord taketh away,
my mother would have put it, though she would have had my head on a platter with lemon sauce if she'd known I loved a married man.

But he was not married anymore.

T
HE NEXT YEAR,
the king decreed that David was ready for the Royal Naval College. “Midder” Hansell had objected, Finch was stoic about it, and I was appalled. Since David was so immature and shaken, I had tried to enlist the support of Princess May to appeal to the prince for more time. But she had said she could not interfere with his decision that “The Navy will be the making of
him.” In her own words, she had added with a sad smile her usual comment, “After all, Lala, we must keep in mind that his father may someday be his king.”

The poor boy passed a three-day battery of grueling tests—of course, dare they deny a future king?—to become a cadet. This morning, his family and the staff who had been close to him were assembled outside York Cottage to bid him farewell for the months he would be away until Christmas.

At least, I had said to buck him up, the college was on the beautiful Isle of Wight, at Osborne House, though that held no fond memories for him. Soon after Queen Victoria had died, King Edward had given her beloved place to the nation, so David had no ties to it. I had been hoping the king would overrule his son about sending David off—with Bertie and the other boys to follow when they also turned thirteen—but the carriage was waiting to take David to the railway station.

I could see the poor child was trembling. He dreaded leaving here, and I could not blame him. What ties had he ever had to “regular lads,” as Finch called them? And, even more than his brothers, he had chaffed and suffered under his father's strict rules and regulations. For their whole lives, it seemed to them, they had already had a strict commander, and today Prince George was decked out in his full uniform as if reliving his beloved naval days.

By contrast, David looked as if he were pained by his blue jacket with its brass buttons, stiff white collar, and sharp navy cap. Under his parents' watchful gaze, he went down the line of the house servants, then to his personal staff, Finch, Mr. Hansell, even Madame Bricka, with whom he had never gotten on. Then me. I held little Johnnie in one arm, a full family member though
the sweet, little blond boy had no notion of what was going on or what lay ahead for him. When I gave David a one-armed shoulder hug, for we had said our tearful good-byes earlier, he threw his arms around me and held tight.

But he knew better than to sob as he had earlier, “Lala, I don't want to go! I don't want to leave here, leave you and Finch, and what will Bertie do without me? But I'll write, Lala, I will write!”

Then, silent, still trembling, he loosed me, stepped back, and squared his shoulders. He hugged his sister, then shook hands with Bertie, Harry, and George. But I did regret the fact he didn't so much as pat Johnnie on his head or grasp his little hand. The more I'd tried to get him to warm up to Johnnie, the more coldly David had treated him. It both angered and hurt me.

His face looked pinched and pale as he mounted the carriage steps. His father, who had surprised us all by deciding to accompany him from here to London, then to Portsmouth, climbed up and sat beside his heir. The prince had a large traveling trunk, but David only his single packed dressing case. As they slowly pulled away, I saw Chad had been standing on the other side of the carriage.

I gasped and clutched Johnnie closer. For months I had only laid eyes on Chad from a distance—including when I stood far back in the crowd of villagers and estate workers at Millie's funeral, and I'd never glimpsed his daughter, which I longed to do. He still wore a black mourning band round his shirtsleeve. He looked thinner, older, sadder, and yet strong and solid. And he'd finally grown a fashionable mustache, one tinged with silver I could see in the slant of sun.

“Chad!” I heard David cry out as the boy twisted around in the carriage. “When I get back for the holidays, I can help you again
with the grouse! I didn't mean to break the latch on the cage so the fox got some of them. I—”

His father pulled him back in his seat as the carriage rolled away, down the road where we had all once ridden our bicycles so happily to the railway station.

My gaze locked with Chad's before Princess May called to me and I had to turn away. Here, I thought, Chad had lost some of his fledgling chicks to a fox, and today, I knew just how he felt.

D
AVID'S FIRST LETTER
to me was dreadful, and I could only pray the ones to his parents were not of that ilk:

        
D
earest
L
ala:

M
y bed is hard iron, but that is the least of it.
W
e live in huts, thirty of us packed in round what was once the
O
sborne
M
ansion.
W
e rise at six and rush about.
I
t is so cold.
W
e have to take a wash in icy water in a pool.

I
do get ragged on by the other cadets.
I
am just not used to their type.
I
should have played more with village lads to get the hang of things.
T
he senior cadets are pretty hard on us.
I
'd take a scolding from my father and lessons from
M
adame
B
ricka in place of this.
I
suppose you are helping
B
ertie with his “stammers” and “
H
awee” with his lisps.
A
nd when you hug
J
ohnnie, don't forget your first care, and
I
hope you still care for me,
D
avid

T
HAT
C
HRISTMAS, WHEN
Johnnie was two and a half and starting to come into his own as a sweet, slow, and stubborn self, poor David returned home with a sealed, bad report for his first term.
Of course, when his father opened it, he was enraged. I could not keep from crying as I knew David was being fiercely scolded in the library. I heard later from Finch that the prince had hired one of the toughest teachers from the naval college to tutor him over the holidays. Worse, he had told David he would do his extra studying during the time the boy had hoped to spend with his grandfather at the Big House.

I respected and honored Prince George, but, I swear, I could have told him off that day. When I laid Johnny down for his nap, I bundled up and rushed outside to vent my anger away from people, and ran into Chad Reaver at the side of the house where he was leaning an animal cage doorframe against the wall.

“Oh!” I cried out, sounding so stupid to myself after all this time when I wanted to say so much to him.

“Hello, Charlotte. I thought it might divert David—make him feel better, because Finch told me he hates navy life—if he could repair the door he left damaged so the fox got in. I fixed that long ago and bred more chicks, but he needs to know he can set something right, so I'm going to have him fix this one.”

“Yes, he does need to know he can set something right. I've had letters from him, bad and sad ones.”

“How is the youngest lad then?”

“Much better than I could have hoped at first. Johnnie has a naughty streak, not that they all don't.”

“Not my shiny Penny!” he said with a quick grin that lit his face. “You should see her, looks like my sister, her aunt Winnifred, who is helping to tend her when I'm out and about like this.”

“I never said how grieved I was for you, but Millie left you a great gift.”

“I do blame myself for her loss. We should not have tried for
a child again. I've been punishing myself in a way and trying to keep from blaming Penny.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn't do that.”

“You think you know me? Charlotte Bill, you and I haven't exchanged a word for ages, namely twenty-five and one-half months. When Millie died, you see, I vowed I should not have still cared for you all those years, so I steered clear of you. Millie and I weren't meant to be, but neither were you and I, even though I wanted to think so. Well, as they say, ‘Water over the mill dam.' Excuse me, but I was told I could see David for a few minutes now, and if he spots you, I won't get this done.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking. “I'll be on my way then. You know, Mr. Chadwick Reaver, you told me there would be bad mixed with the good that day you picked me up at the train station some ten years and I don't know how many months ago—an eternity, I guess. Thank you for caring for David. He needs that . . .”