She reached for her pen and notepaper and scrawled a quick note:

Dear George,

I shall be in Windsor for the weekend. Could you come to Snow Hill, in Windsor Great Park, and meet me by the statue of the Copper Horse? Same time, 10 o’clock? I will be there, but only for an hour while the family are at church.

So sorry to be a nuisance. I hope you can be there.

I am so looking forward to seeing you.

Marion

She hurriedly folded the sheet into an envelope, hoping to catch the house post which left at 5.15 p.m. every day. She reached for her little box of stamps but caught it awkwardly so that the lid flew open and her stash of stamps jumped out of the box and onto the carpet beneath her desk. Kneeling to pick them up, she banged her head on the open drawer of her bureau. She crumpled in despair.

Rubbing her sore scalp with one hand, while picking up stamps with the other, Marion was close to tears. She would have thrown herself on the bed for ten minutes of pure self-pity if she had had the time. She could hear her mother’s voice: more haste less speed, Marion.

‘Oh, shut up! Just shut up,’ she said to the empty room. She stuck a stamp on the envelope and pulled herself together. ‘Right, Miss Crawford. Stop your mewling and damn well get on with it.’

She stared at herself in her long mirror, pricked with age spots spreading like lichen across its silvery glass. Her reflection looked back at her: tired eyes, tired hairstyle, tired cardigan and blouse. What would George think of her?

‘No time for vanity, Marion,’ she told herself briskly. ‘He either likes you as you are, or not at all. It can’t be helped.’

She caught the house post, thanks to Ainslie, who called the footman back as he was leaving with the small pile of envelopes.

‘Mr Jordan, Miss Crawford has a letter.’

‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’ She flushed as Ainslie caught sight of the addressee. ‘A friend I haven’t seen for a while,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Just catching up.’

Ainslie was no fool, but he said only, ‘Very good.’

The evening was spent darning her best pair of stockings and ironing her good blouse for tomorrow’s trip. The routine and rhythm of these small domestic tasks soothed her frayed emotions and by bedtime she was feeling calmer. She said a prayer of thanks that George was fit and well as she got into bed. There were just three days until Sunday and it would not do to arrive at the Copper Horse in a state of tearful agitation.

Chapter Twenty-Six

145 Piccadilly, mid-September 1936

Dear Mother and Dad,

Today I went aboard RMS Queen Mary! My first time on an ocean liner and it is the greatest ship in the world. I was in good company: Queen Mary, the Duke and Duchess, the girls and ME!