Christmas with the Queen

Chapter 18 Olive

Chapter 18

Olive

I t was strange to find myself back at Sandringham so soon. I’d presumed my previous visit would be the first and last time I would step inside a royal household, but life was full of surprises lately, and maybe fate was playing a hand, too. The locket had given me a second chance to find inspiration for an irresistible piece for Tom, and to prove that I was worth ten Charlie Bullens or Archibald Maguires. It would also give me a chance to see Jack again, if I could find an excuse to get back into the kitchens.

The temperature had dropped overnight, and a hard frost made the lawns sparkle like diamonds. Evans drove carefully from the station, avoiding treacherous patches of black ice.

“Watch your footing,” he said as I stepped out of the car when we reached Sandringham. “Those flagstone paths can be lethal.”

I assured him I would be careful.

Mrs. Leonard ushered me inside out of the cold. “It would cut you in two,” she said. “Come and get warm by the fire. I’ve ordered tea and scones.”

“Oh, you really didn’t have to go to any trouble,” I said, but I was glad she had. Maybe Jack would bring them out like he had last time, although I didn’t know what I would say to him if he did.

“I’ll run and fetch the locket,” Mrs. Leonard said. “Make yourself at home.”

And there I was, back beside the fireplace in Sandringham’s library, with a curious sense of d é j à vu. It was strange to know that Jack was so close by. I checked my face in the mirror of my compact and fidgeted in my chair. I was nervous—anxious—conscious that I had to make this visit count.

Mrs. Leonard returned shortly afterward with the necklace and a tea tray. “Now, here it is. Thank goodness Mr. Devereux recognized it.”

I took the locket from her. “Yes. It really was fortunate.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

I thought for a moment, unsure how to describe our connection. “An old friend,” I said. “We haven’t been in touch for years.”

“Ahh. I see.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Oh no, I don’t... he isn’t...”

“He’s terribly handsome, don’t you think?” She fanned herself theatrically.

I didn’t know what to think. Seeing Jack again had been so unexpected and unsettling. He’d brought my past roaring into my present, and I wasn’t ready, for any of it.

I turned my attention back to the locket. “This was my grandmother’s,” I said. “A family heirloom. I hope to pass it on to my daughter, one day.” I hadn’t planned to mention Lucy and was annoyed with myself for doing so. I was usually so careful. Talking about her only led to awkward questions and difficult explanations.

Mrs. Leonard looked momentarily startled. “Oh, I hadn’t realized you were married,” she said as she poured the tea. I saw her eyes flick to my wedding ring.

“Widowed,” I said quietly, well-rehearsed in the charade. “I tend to use my maiden name at work.”

Mrs. Leonard nodded. “Just have the one child, do you?”

I opened the locket to show her the photograph of Lucy I kept there. “One is more than enough!”

“She’s a pretty little thing.” She glanced at me and back at the photograph. “She must miss her father.”

“We both do.” I closed the locket and returned it to my purse, conscious, as ever, of the question of Lucy’s father hanging in the air.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Mrs. Leonard added. “I understand the pain of losing a husband.”

I felt like a fraud accepting her sympathies, so I quickly offered my own in return and changed the subject.

“Do you mind me asking: what is it you think people want to know about the queen? I’d like our listeners to get a sense of who she really is, but it is proving difficult.”

Mrs. Leonard thought for a moment. “Well, I know there’s a great deal of interest in the Christmas Day message. Everyone is keen to hear the queen—a woman—speak to them for the first time. Between you and me, she’s rather nervous about it.”

“Really.” At this, I pricked up my ears.

“Her Majesty worries that her way of talking is a little, shall we say, stiff. That she comes across as... detached.”

Here was my chance to strike. “Yes, I can imagine that’s a concern. Radio isn’t an easy thing to get right,” I said. “And the Christmas Day message is such an important moment in family traditions. I can’t remember a Christmas Day without listening to the king’s speech. We always turn the wireless on at three, pour a sherry, and eat our Christmas pudding in bowls balanced on our knees.”

Mrs. Leonard laughed lightly. “His Majesty would have rather liked that. He worried so much, hoping he would get through it without stuttering too much. It was always a relief when it was over.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll mention your Christmas pudding tradition to Her Majesty. She’ll be pleased to hear it. Tradition is very important to her—that’s why it matters so much to her that she gets this right.”

I admired the way Elizabeth had stepped into her father’s shoes and taken on such enormous responsibility. Though I was only four years older than her twenty-six years, we were both women finding our way in a man’s world. Admittedly, that was where any and all similarities stopped, because while the queen’s future was shaped by the traditions she’d been born into, mine would be shaped by the chances and opportunities I did, or didn’t, take.

Opportunities such as this.

“I’d be happy to... help?” I said.

“Help?”

I swallowed hard. It was now, or never. “I could... listen to a read-through. Of Her Majesty’s speech. Before I head back to London? Offer some technical advice, suggest some ways to soften her edges? Of course, this sort of thing comes up often in my line of work and...” I trailed off, not wanting to suggest I had more experience than I did, but eager to seize the chance. “My train isn’t until four.”

Mrs. Leonard frowned in thought. “I suppose it isn’t every day we have someone visiting from the BBC. That’s an interesting idea, Miss Carter. Would you wait here a moment?”

I finished my tea and scones and tried to remember anything I’d ever heard or learned about presenting a program on the radio. There was something about speaking slowly. Holding your chin up to enunciate clearly. Effective use of pauses. Surely, I could make up something plausible. Most of all, I needed to carefully explain to Her Majesty that she should try to relax, that this would allow her characteristic charm to come through, even over the radio. That was what people wanted: a glimpse of the real woman behind the crown.

Before long, Mrs. Leonard returned. “You’re in luck, Miss Carter. Her Majesty has just finished working on a revised draft. She would be very grateful for your advice. Although she doesn’t have long, so it will have to be now.”

My stomach filled with butterflies. I had to get this right. I drew in a deep breath. “Now is perfect.”

“The duke has been helping with the content of the speech,” Mrs. Leonard said as we walked briskly along a corridor. “I don’t suppose every husband would be as interested in their wife’s work, would they?” She chuckled lightly at her little joke.

“I suppose not.”

The issue of my “husband” danced around us again.

“But, I suppose the war changed the way we do lots of things,” she offered. “I try to remain open-minded about the more modern ways of the world, but tradition clings on stubbornly here.”

“Everything must be very different for you all this year,” I said. “A new queen, after so many kings.”

Mrs. Leonard offered a small dip of her head. “Indeed. Christmas is a time for reflection, isn’t it. Old traditions lost. New traditions beginning.”

I wanted to scribble a note on my pad: Old traditions lost/new traditions beginning— that could be the perfect angle for a piece for Tom. But we had reached the end of the corridor, and the conversation.

Mrs. Leonard knocked on a door and stepped inside. “Olive Carter, ma’am.”

A familiar voice replied, “Very good. Show her in.”

I stepped into the room and curtsied as the queen rose to her feet.

“That will be all, Eleanor,” she said.

Mrs. Leonard nodded, whispered a “Good luck” to me, and stepped outside.

“You are from the BBC, I believe?” the queen said, addressing me directly.

“Yes, ma’am.” I hoped she couldn’t tell that my knees were shaking.

She looked at me carefully. “Have we met?”

“Briefly, ma’am. I was here a week ago.”

“That’s right. Bullen’s replacement. And back so soon! Fortuitously, it seems—they tell me you can help with my radio voice.”

“I hope so, ma’am.”

“Well, shall we?” She motioned for me to take a seat on the other side of the desk. “Did Mrs. Leonard explain?”

“She mentioned that you are keen to rehearse your delivery, ma’am.” I decided it was best not to specify that I was to help her sound less stuffy and regal.

“Precisely. Why don’t I read what I have written so far? We shall see how it sounds.”

I found it impossible to concentrate as she spoke. I saw her as both our new queen and as a daughter, sitting in the same chair where her dear father had sat and her grandfather before him. There was so much history, so much tradition to carry on her narrow shoulders.

My eyes wandered around the grand room, taking in the portraits of the kings and queens I’d learned about at school. I couldn’t silence the voice in my head that kept telling me I shouldn’t be here, that I didn’t deserve to be here.

“Was that all right?”

I pulled my attention back to the issue at hand. “It was lovely.”

“Lovely? Or adequate? One would appreciate your honesty, Miss Carter.”

I took a deep breath. “I find it helps to smile as you speak.”

“Smile? But nobody will be able to see me.”

“When we smile as we speak, it comes across in our tone. It makes us sound as though we are smiling. It’s a trick shared among the regular presenters at the BBC.”

“Really? How interesting. Very well.”

She cleared her throat and started again, a wide smile on her face. This time, I gave her my full attention, listening to the cadence of her voice, the beats and pauses, where she stopped to take a breath, how she started and ended her sentences. I scribbled notes and made subtle suggestions when she was finished.

She did it again and again, until I forgot that she was the queen and I was Olive Carter who had bluffed her way into this entire situation. We were just two women, sharing a productive half hour together.

Eventually, she seemed satisfied. “You have been a great help, Miss Carter.”

“I’m sure you’ll be wonderful, ma’am. We are all on your side. Cheering you on.” The words were out before I could stop them.

She studied me. “Well, that is jolly reassuring to hear.”

“It will make a nice change to hear a woman’s voice.”

“Yes, history in the making, as everyone keeps telling me.” For the first time, I saw the flicker of nerves. “Mrs. Leonard mentioned your family’s tradition of a sherry and Christmas pudding while my father delivered his Christmas Day message.”

“Yes, ma’am. Nobody would miss it. My daughter is especially excited to hear the queen—you—speak this year.”

She smiled. “Well, I must do my very best for your daughter then.”

She rang a bell on the table and asked the footman to show me out.

I curtsied, wished her a happy Christmas, and before I’d fully processed what had happened, I was back with Mrs. Leonard.

“Well?” she asked. “How did it go?”

“Very well, I think. She seemed to find it helpful.”

“Well, isn’t that wonderful. A bit of Christmas magic. Maybe your grandmother had it planned all along!”

At this, I smiled. “Maybe. It would be just the sort of thing she might have done!”

“Now, Evans is ready with the car to take you back to the station. The poor man is like a yo-yo today, coming and going!”

I noticed a slight blush in her cheeks as she mentioned Evans.

“Actually, could I use the lavatories before the journey back?”

“Of course. Would you mind using the facilities in the kitchen block? Just out of the door, turn right, and you’ll see the building ahead of you. I’ve to rush off, I’m afraid. Never a moment’s peace.”

I stepped outside and hurried along, ready to burst after all the tea I’d drunk. In my hurry, I forgot about the icy flagstones, and as I rushed around the corner, my feet went clean out from under me and I landed awkwardly, twisting my ankle painfully beneath me.

My shriek drew the attention of a passing gardener, who came to help. “Don’t move, miss. Are you hurt?”

“It’s my ankle,” I gasped. “I think I might have broken it.”

Within minutes I was surrounded by several members of staff, who helped me up and carried me inside. I was given a brandy for the pain and settled on a sofa with my foot elevated on a mound of cushions.

The doctor was summoned, and within the hour, he’d diagnosed a badly sprained ankle. “Needs to be kept elevated and rested as much as possible,” he said.

“But I’m traveling back to London today. I have to get home.” I’d promised to make paper chains with Lucy and hated to let her down.

He smiled. “I’m afraid you’re going nowhere today, miss.”

“You can take one of the cottages in the grounds,” Mrs. Leonard offered. “Stay and rest your ankle overnight.”

There wasn’t much I could do, other than quietly admit defeat.

It was decided.

I would stay.

I telephoned home, glad to get Dad rather than Mum, who would have made an enormous fuss. Lucy was perfectly happy to make paper chains with Granddad, and was far more interested in the fact that I was staying at the queen’s house. Then I telephoned the office to explain the situation to Maguire who told me to “bloody well make the most of it then.”

I’d already planned to do exactly that.

I was escorted to a lovely red-brick cottage on the grounds of the estate. Christmas roses bloomed in planters beside a gravel path that led to a blue front door, a wreath of glossy green holly leaves adding a festive welcome. Above, pink clouds promised snow. It felt magical, like something drawn into the pages of a storybook.

I was given everything I could possibly need and encouraged to relax and make myself comfortable for the night.

Before Mrs. Leonard left me, I asked her if there might be a typewriter I could borrow.

“A typewriter?”

“I’d like to write a piece for work. I might as well make myself useful while I’m laid up.”

Mrs. Leonard smiled. “Of course. I’ll see what I can do.”

I had an idea for a piece that couldn’t come from anyone but me: CHRISTMAS WITH THE QUEEN—Olive Carter reflects on the importance of the Christmas Day message and speaks to the queen as she prepares to take her place in the history books.

When Mrs. Leonard had left, I looked around the room and hopped toward the window. Sandringham House gleamed in the afternoon sun. Despite my throbbing ankle, a wide smile spread across my face. I was a guest of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. At Sandringham. This was the best Christmas gift ever!

I reached for the locket at my chest. “Thank you, Granny,” I whispered.