The Royal Nanny (17 page)

I turned away, hurrying, not looking back, then realized too late I was heading for the glasshouse his wife had tended, the place where I had once turned him down and had lived these years to regret it—except for my children, all of them, especially my Johnnie.

J
ohnnie! Johnnie, you come back here, you bad boy!” I cried and chased him down the hall toward the study where I knew Prince George was poring over his stamps. That room was off limits to the children, for the vast collection was all neatly labeled and ordered. This time of day His Royal Highness liked to spend time looking through his albums and placing new stamps in them in their proper places.

When I took Johnnie outside, I'd learned to rope him to me, my wrist to his middle, so he would not dart off. In the house, he was easier to watch but he'd given me the slip this time.

His nickname was “the Imp,” and that well earned. Even I was forced to agree that there was something different and difficult about Johnnie. He seemed to live in a world where the only rules that mattered were his, as if he marched to some special music within. He'd been slow to talk, but when he did, he observed the world uniquely and spoke as if he commanded
his own planet. His parents loved him dearly, and I adored him, but not right now!

The Imp managed to turn the doorknob of his father's sanctuary, which I had not entered since the time I'd spoken of the rabble-rouser. Since then, and with my information about the man, the Prince had located him. To avoid my—or Mary, truth be told—having to testify against the rebel, named Barker Lee, His Highness had threatened him with prison but had given him the choice of leaving the estate. Thankfully, he did, taking his family with him to who knew where. I did pity the man. I was glad he was gone, but how I would hate to have to leave Sandringham—almost as much as I hated having to chase Johnnie into the prince's inner sanctum.

“Papa! Papa! Stamps! See?” Johnny cried before I could get to him as he stomped round in a circle, laughing.

I groaned inwardly. Harry and George had been teaching him how to march with a paper hat and wooden sword, and Harry had explained the marching to him as “stamping.” There was always a sort of clever reasoning to Johnnie's foolishness.

“Lala, what is this?” the prince exploded, rising from behind his desk and pointing to his son as the boy whirled about with his arms extended. Unfortunately, the breeze he made sent several stamps flying off the corner of the desk onto the carpet.

“He darted away, Your Highness,” I said, out of breath, as I scooped Johnnie up in my arms, then realized I must retrieve the stamps. No, Johnnie must. The child had to learn to behave, to take orders if he was to live in the real world and not one of his own making.

I pinned Johnnie's thrashing arms to his sides and turned him to face me, risking ignoring his sputtering father. I supposed I
would be in for a dressing down but I was not giving up on this lesson.

“Johnnie!” I said, kneeling and putting my nose right to his. “This is Papa's room. These papers are his. They are a different kind of stamp. They fell on the floor. Pick them up for Papa.”

Johnnie twisted in my arms to regard his father towering over us. It had taken me two years to get the child to wave good-bye. You might know, he did it now, lifting his wagging fingers toward his father. I couldn't decide if Prince George would explode in anger or in laughter, for Johnnie was one of the few who could make him smile these days.

I was there on my knees, holding Johnnie when Princess May came in. “Oh,” she said as she saw the six stamps on the floor. “Oh, my.”

Johnnie shrugged loose, and I let him go. The child was smiling, as if he had not a care in the world, which he probably did not, though I fretted over his peccadilloes all the time. The boy bent and picked up a stamp, looked at the picture on it and handed it to his father. The next one he gave to me, then to his mother and so on until all six were off the carpet. He always had loved counting things, arranging things—his way.

“Thank you, my boy,” Prince George said. “But next time you must knock on the door. Wasn't that good that Johnnie picked up the stamps, my dear?” he asked Princess May, who stood there with tears in her eyes.

Johnnie had baffled her too from the first. She seemed almost afraid of him and what he would do next, and I can't say I blamed her.

“Yes, thank you, Johnnie,” she said. “And Lala too.”

“If you'll excuse us, please,” I said, getting to my feet and hand
ing my two stamps to Prince George. I took Johnnie's hand, and we headed for the door. “I am sure Johnnie will knock next time, Your Highness.”

At the door, the boy turned, tugged his hand free and knocked on the wood
rat-a-tat
as if he was some drummer boy in the army—or navy, around here.

As I took his hand again and hustled him out the door and up the stairs, I heard Princess May say to her husband, “He does rather have his own sort of logic, doesn't he? I don't know how she deals with him day and night.”

How did I do that? I loved the boy.

T
HAT SPRING THAT
Johnnie was four, I took him out to see Chad's chicks—mostly partridge, this time—in the closest cage where he kept them until they could be released into the fields and coverts he so carefully tended. Last year, he'd sent a grouse chick to the house for Johnnie for a pet, though he hadn't brought it himself, and I feared he was avoiding me again. When the bird had grown too big to keep inside, we'd let it go in a part of the grounds where the hunters seldom shot, because—though Johnnie didn't know it—I couldn't bear to think “Peeps” would be brought down by a loud, twelve-bore Purdey shotgun like the hundreds of other birds Chad had reared.

“Peeps,” Johnnie cried when he saw the birds. “Lots peeps! On a walk, Lala.”

I gasped. A few were in the big cage, but most were loose, running all over the ground. The cage door stood ajar, perhaps the same one David had once left open to allow a predator in.

Johnnie chased them, laughed, and scooped two up to cuddle. It was then I thought I saw Chad behind a bush, glaring at us. But
as the man darted away, I saw it was a stranger. No, he looked like the ruffian who had stopped the omnibus and scared Mary and me long before that, but I knew he was long gone. Or was he? At least the man had turned tail and run, but it was obvious who had loosed the chicks.

I picked up Johnnie, chicks and all, in my arms, riding him on my hip with his legs clasped around me. I hurried away from there and went out into the road by the church, the way we had come. Thank God, the man was nowhere in sight. It was almost as if I'd imagined him, but the loose chicks were real. Still holding Johnnie, I rushed back to York Cottage and told the prince's butler, who said he'd send someone to fetch Chad. I told him the man had looked like Barker Lee.

“And tell him we have two of the chicks here!” I called as he hurried outside.

We waited in the downstairs hall with all the doors closed so the two partridge chicks couldn't go far. I thought Johnnie would chase them, but he was so good, petting, calming them—and they calmed him. I sat on the next to lowest stair, watching, wondering if Chad would come for these two.

I heard his boots as he came in the side door. Even his tread was familiar, as if I'd dreamed his coming for me. Foolish girl, I scolded myself.

“You say it looked like him, Barker Lee?” he got out before he spotted Johnnie.

I stood and clung to the carved banister. “I realize he's been sent away and his hair looked shorter, but yes, the one married to Lil.”

“I'll have to tell the prince straightaway. He should have been locked up. If he's sneaked back in to cause trouble, maybe
someone's hiding him on the estate. If he's doing this, it could be worse—and serious poaching has started again. Anyhow, with help, I've scooped up most of the chicks.”

To my surprise, his tense stance, his anger seemed to evaporate as he squatted next to Johnnie. I was certain they had never met before, but the boy seemed to have a natural curiosity about strangers. “Good boy,” Chad told him. “Thanks for taking care of these partridge babies.”

“Partridge,” Johnnie repeated perfectly, though he sometimes didn't like strange words and usually made up his own. “Peeps.”

“Yes, peeps. If Mrs. Lala says it's all right, you can keep these two, and I'll send you some feed for them. They'll need water, just like you do.” He looked up at me, then stood. “I'll send some wire so you can make a sort of cage. Wouldn't do to step on peeps in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, yes. Very kind. Johnnie had another one, but when it got big we had to let it go.”

He nodded. As in the past—it seemed like a thousand years and yet just a few moments ago—his gaze held mine, then swept over me, taking me all in, making me want to throw myself into his arms. No, no, I told myself. Not this again. Not this hopeless hunger, this longing that could keep me awake at night, however exhausted I was. No!

Chad said, “Best if you don't take the boy back there or off anywhere alone. Let me know, and I'll show him as many peeps as he wants, keep a watch on both of you. If Barker Lee's come back, he may mean more than mischief.”

“Thank you. You've always been so kind to the boys, Mary too.”

“Have you heard from David?”

I lowered my voice. “His letters are so sad. Chad, they make
fun of him and call him ‘princey.' They dumped red ink in his hair and taunted him. I swear, I thought it would be the other way, that they would be standoffish with him.”

“Then he's got to learn to stand up for himself. I just hope it doesn't turn him against us commoners in the future. Maybe it will help when Bertie goes too.”

“Which he will as soon as he's thirteen. And it will be even harder for him—the bad without much good, I fear.”

He nodded, then bent and ruffled Johnnie's hair as he used to do to David's. “I'll send wire for the cage,” he said and started away, but he turned back and smiled when Johnnie's high-pitched voice piped up.

“Papa says I can't make a peep,” the boy announced, “but I like to keep these peeps.”

It was the longest sentence the child had ever uttered. I was so happy—so pent up—I leaned down and hugged him and cried.

T
HAT SAME SUMMER,
much later, nearly July, York House was abustle with preparations for all of us to visit the Isle of Wight for a family reunion with the prince's cousins, Tsar Nicholas and Tsaritsa Alexandra of Russia. All the Wales children would be there, and Their Imperial Majesties were bringing their four daughters and their heir, Alexey, the young tsarevich, a boy about Johnnie's age. The older children were learning a spattering of Russian words, though their cousins were said to speak perfect English.

I was overseeing my undernurses' packing of my three youngest charges' clothes when Mrs. Wentworth rapped on our open door. Usually, she sent one of the maids up with messages or to fetch me if I was needed downstairs or in the princess's room.
Princess May and I had come to an understanding to speak freely—when we were alone. She fretted that something was wrong with Johnnie, but it only made me want to protect him more. I know I made excuses for some of the things he did and overlooked others.

“Mrs. Lala,” Mrs. Wentworth said, “you have a visitor.”

My stomach did a little cartwheel.

I motioned for Martha to keep an eye on Johnnie, who was playing with one of the peeps, one that was getting much too big already and must be released soon—perhaps just before we headed for the royal yacht and the Channel.

“Who is it, Mrs. Wentworth?” I asked as I walked out into the hall with her. “I'm not expecting anyone.”

“Came in on the train and walked all the way up the road, a Mrs. Margaretta Eager.” She handed me the woman's calling card.

I wracked my brain. I knew no one by that name. Could she be a friend of my mother's? Did this mean trouble?

Mrs. Wentworth went on, “A lady who runs a boardinghouse in Holland Park in London, so she says.” Mrs. Wentworth was obviously enjoying doling out her information when I was nearly champing at the bit. “A friend of your family, I take it, but she says she brings no bad news, kind of her to say that right away, I thought. I put her in my sitting room, and you may join her there. I'll have some tea sent in.”

“Thank you so much,” I said as I fingered the card. It did not have embossed letters, so it was not an expensive one.

I followed Mrs. Wentworth down the back servants' stairs, smoothing my hair, stiff white cap, and my skirt. Too much chasing Johnnie and playing with him on the floor, which I'd never done with any of the others at that age.

The door to Mrs. Wentworth's sitting room, with her small bedroom beyond, stood ajar. I went in and closed the door. When I saw the woman in a straw hat with a flower band that looked the worse for wear, I realized I didn't know her.

“I hope you don't bring bad news,” I blurted, no matter what Mrs. Wentworth had said, as I sat in the other chair across a small, cluttered table. “I'm sorry, but I can't place you, Mrs. Eager.”

“Actually, Miss Margaretta Eager,” she said with a nervous nod at the card I still held in my hand. “Thank you for seeing me, Miss Bill—or I hear they call you Mrs. Lala here.”

Probably in her mid- to late thirties, she had a round, flushed face. The walk from the train station had put pink in her cheeks, and she was perspiring through the dark blue jacket of her walking suit. Her handbag and parasol lay on the floor. Her fading reddish hair was speckled with gray, and her blue eyes looked faded or sad. Though she had said little, I picked up a slight lilt to her speech—Scottish or Irish, I thought. So whatever could this stranger want from me?

She clutched her crocheted gloved hands tightly in her lap and, keeping her voice low as if we shared a secret, said, “You see, Mrs. Lala, I was royal nanny to Tsar Nicholas's children in Russia before I had to leave, sent away, I was. Today I spent the fare to take a railway carriage clear out here because I hear you will be seeing them soon and I am desperate for your help.”