Abdication: A Novel (46 page)

“Mind you, May knew something was up, didn’t you, May?” Rachel was smiling at her approvingly. “I like a girl who keeps a secret when she’s asked to and you’ve done well to respect the monarchy. I am sure
Sir Philip respects you for keeping secrets, my girl, and Sir Philip’s judgement is good enough for me.” Rachel was not the sort to hold a grudge, and had quite forgiven May for pretending the king was enamoured of a member of the Greek royal entourage. She could even have a laugh that things would have been different if he had been. Later that evening, after the Sabbath meal, the whole family gathered round the wireless. As soon as they heard Sir John Reith introduce the former king as “Prince Edward,” Rachel insisted they all stand out of respect.

“You must believe me when I tell you,” the former king began, speaking very slowly in his curious accent, that mixture of truncated vowels and transatlantic roll that was so familiar to May, “that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duty as king as
I
would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”

In a voice sounding steady and as clear as if he was speaking to them from the leather settee, the man who had once been king lingered over the personal pronoun, emphasizing, lest anyone be in any doubt, that his decision had been taken by him alone. The Oak Street family, along with a captivated nation, heard his entreaty for understanding, a message intended for anyone, even cynics like Nat, who had ever known what it is to be in love. When the broadcast came to an end Rachel was the first to speak.

“And just to think he could have had his pick of those foreign princesses. Princess Wallis, if that’s who she is to be, is no more royal than Mrs. Cohen or me. Still it takes all sorts to make a world. Put the kettle on, will you, Sarah? I think we all deserve a nice cup of tea.”

May came downstairs the next morning to find the coal fire in the front room already lit. What with the rustling of newspapers, the voices coming from what felt like the ever-intrusive wireless and the cries of hunger that engulfed Joshua at regular hourly intervals, May needed
some air. She went to find Sarah who agreed at once to go up to Gardiner’s with May to buy Nat his long-overdue tie. A generous bottle of milk before leaving ensured that Joshua slept the whole way in his carriage and while Sarah was choosing the tie, May noticed some pretty photograph frames edged in delicate blue flowers sitting on a nearby counter.

“Forget-me-nots, they are,” the sales lady told her. The frame was the perfect size for the picture that had been strapped face downwards for so long at the back of her diary. The time had come to turn it over. May bought a matching pair. She would write to Bertha and ask her to look for a photograph of Nishy in the old trunk of letters so that she could keep the image of both her parents near her. On their return to Oak Street May went to her room, running through in her mind the muddle that the whole world and specifically her own world seemed to have stumbled into. Taking her blue diary from the drawer beside her bed, she slipped the photograph of her mother out from beneath the elastic band. The picture fit the frame perfectly and with Edith watching over her, May filled several pages of the diary with the confusing sequence of the past days’ events, as if by setting them down on paper they would become real.

During the long hours before the king made his final and lonely decision, May and Valerie Monckton had sat together in the Fort Belvedere kitchen waiting for their instructions. They discovered much common ground between them, indulging their mutual fascination for car engines, an interest they did not often get the chance to air with many others. Sitting in the servants’ sitting room they had both inadvertently learned of the extent of Mrs. Simpson’s unpopularity among the Fort servants. Loyalty was not a quality to be found here, and a maid with a particularly loquacious tongue spilled the beans about how Mrs. Simpson would come into the empty kitchen at all hours of the night
and cook herself bacon and eggs, leaving behind an unholy mess. For months, the Fort staff had despised her insistence on strange American concoctions such as club sandwiches. In fact, Mrs. Simpson’s demands on the staff bordered on the unacceptably high-handed. There was even a story that she regularly snapped off the lead tips of pencils before asking for them to be re-sharpened into severer points. Suggestions of her imminent departure had been welcomed wholeheartedly.

Two weeks before the final crisis, May had been with Valerie in the Fort kitchen comparing the petrol consumption of the Rolls-Royce with that of the Monckton’s Daimler when Osborne announced there had been a change of plan. Miss Nettlefold was leaving immediately for Portsmouth. A ship for New York was sailing the following day and Miss Nettlefold had arranged for an overnight stay in a hotel near the port. There had been no sign of Mrs. Simpson or the king when May had fetched the car from the garage and driven up to the front door of the Fort. Miss Nettlefold was standing alone in the hallway, her small overnight suitcase at her feet.

“I don’t really want to explain my reasons for leaving, if you don’t mind, May,” Miss Nettlefold announced as soon as she was settled in the backseat of the car. Her voice was so weak that May had to concentrate hard to hear her through the open partition behind her. “But I should like to explain to you, a woman who has so often been a friend to me despite your stupidity that caused the accident to my beloved dog, that I have suffered a disappointment of a personal nature and have concluded that I am no longer needed here. It is time for me to return to my own country.” Miss Nettlefold sounded defeated even by the effort of speech. “None of this would have happened if Joan had been able to take care of me,” she said, almost inaudibly, “the mother I had never had.”

The snap of a bag’s clasp being opened was followed by the muffled but unmistakable sound of weeping during which May remained
silent. Eventually Miss Nettlefold spoke again, her voice less audible than ever.

“I want to thank you for being a friend to me, May, and to apologise if there have been times when I have behaved a little curtly towards you. I have only ever wished to protect you from your own innocence. I hope you will learn soon that people, especially men, cannot always be trusted and that friends, however close you may think them to be, can abandon you at their whim.”

May was uncertain to what the older woman referred. Miss Nettlefold had, it was true, made some unkind remarks about Julian but May could barely remember what they were. When Miss Nettlefold asked her to send her clothes to Baltimore, May confirmed that of course she would. On arrival at the Portsmouth hotel May considered whether it would be in order to attempt the intimacy of a farewell embrace. But Miss Nettlefold had folded her arms across her chest and was looking out to sea as the hotel porter retrieved the small bag from the boot. Both women stood by the car and for a moment looked steadily at each another. And then May Thomas watched Miss Nettlefold walk alone into the small quayside hotel, her broad shoulders hunched beneath the flapping fur coat. May had rarely seen anyone look so lonely.

Shortly after Miss Nettlefold’s voluntary exile, Mrs. Simpson also fled the country under cover of darkness and no one, let alone Mrs. Simpson herself, knew when she might be reunited with the man who was no longer king. In a way, May felt sorry for Mrs. Simpson. May knew what it was to be separated from someone who you longed to be with every moment of the day. As if the distressing circumstances of the departure had not been enough, Valerie had told May of the sad news of the death of Loafer, Mrs. Simpson’s puppy. When Osborne, the butler, found Loafer in a cupboard at the top of the stairs, he initially thought Loafer had gone into hiding to escape the raised voices and unsettling
hurly-burly of the house, but the body had obviously been stone cold for a while. The local vet made some tests on the dead animal and was puzzled to discover that Loafer’s blood had been contaminated by an inexplicable and lethal dose of rat poison.

During the car journey down to Cuckmere, at the end of a week in which a king had chosen the love of a woman over duty to his country, the subject of Miss Nettlefold had arisen between May and Sir Philip for the first time since Miss Nettlefold’s unexplained flight. Something had happened the day she spent with Sir John at Crystal Palace to prompt Miss Nettlefold’s immediate exile and yet May doubted whether she, Sir Philip or anyone would ever be able to guess the truth.
A good lunch with Sir John Reith in the club might shine some light on the mysterious affair
, Philip thought to himself.

“I wonder whether she would have allowed herself to become so unhappy if Joan had been here to help,” Sir Philip said aloud after May had described how she had driven Miss Nettlefold to the hotel near the Portsmouth docks. “She always seemed like a lost soul to me. The world is an indiscriminate place,” he said. “There are those who succeed despite themselves, and there are others who cannot escape the weapons of sabotage that they wield on themselves. It is as if an instinct for self-preservation sometimes fails us.”

As Sir Philip brought out his handkerchief and blew his nose, he brushed both of his eyes lightly with the palm of his hand before picking up his pipe and packing the bowl with tobacco. A little embarrassed by his emotion May looked away but not before noticing that Sir Philip’s favourite photograph of Joan was once more sitting in its old place in front of him on his desk.

Mrs. Cage finally left the seclusion of her bedroom, her usual energy restored together with an air of purpose as she set about the complex
business of decorating the large house for Christmas. The Blunt children would both be joining their father for the holidays and were each bringing a friend to stay for the festivities. Mrs. Cage asked Mr. Hooch to select a suitable spruce from the estate and to position it in the echoey stone hallway. Florence was looking forward to helping with the decorations. Cooky had begun drawing up mouthwatering menus and gradually a sense of gaiety and optimism returned to the servants’ hall. Florence had secretly persuaded her mother to buy May some skates for Christmas and was planning to show off her skill at balancing on ice as soon as the water in the lake froze over. And Mrs. Cage had promised Florence a special holiday early in the New Year. She was waiting for the right moment to divulge to her daughter that they were going to spend a few days with her friends in Bavaria.

On the morning after the king signed the papers renouncing the throne, May joined Mrs. Cage in the smaller spare bedroom at Cuckmere. Together they began to sort through Miss Nettlefold’s possessions, packing them into one of Rupert’s old school trunks. Miss Nettlefold’s sad final request had touched May and she was determined to protect the woman from any further indignity. But the box containing Miss Nettlefold’s wigs was already full, each wig wrapped in the tissue paper Mrs. Cage usually reserved for Lady Joan’s own clothes. Not a word had passed between May and Mrs. Cage of Florence’s confession about Mrs. Cage’s son. May had decided that she could only stick to her promise to Florence by steering clear of the whole subject. It was Mrs. Cage who broke the silence.

“Poor Miss Nettlefold. I wish her well. And I think all we can both do is to agree that there are some things in life and some ways of behaving that are best left unexplained, don’t you agree?” Mrs. Cage stretched her hand out to May, who was putting the wig box carefully in the trunk next to a small silver letter opener, and touched her gently on the arm.

“Yes, Mrs. Cage, I could not agree with you more,” May replied abruptly, and, excusing herself, went next door into the adjoining bathroom. The room smelled of antiseptic and the shelf above the basin was quite empty except for a couple of unused crêpe bandages and two brown bottles half-full of liquid. She recognised the labels at once, surprised to find the poison Mr. Hooch used on the rabbits and rats in Miss Nettlefold’s bathroom cupboard. It was not long however before she remembered how Mr. Hooch had mentioned only a few weeks ago that he must order a new supply of poison.

“Either I have miscounted my supply or this year I have got through the stuff at a faster rate than ever before.”

An image of Loafer lying in the back of the car unconscious on the rise and fall of Miss Nettlefold’s ample stomach was in May’s mind as she emptied the remaining liquid into the basin, put the bottles in her pocket and, thanking Mrs. Cage for her help, went to find Mr. Hooch to take her to the station. On the way to the garage she passed the garden dustbin, opened the lid and buried the two empty bottles among a wheelbarrow load of dead plants. Miss Nettlefold would at least be saved from one final betrayal.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
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IVE