As they smiled up into their father’s weary face, Crawfie witnessed something she’d never forget. The King was taken aback. It was as though the reality of his position had swamped him again. His eyes glistened with tears as he stooped and took both girls into his arms. Time stood still for them.

Crawfie turned her gaze from the intimacy and melted back into the shadows.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Buckingham Palace, 17^th February 1937

‘Margaret, would you please stop cycling up and down this corridor!’ Alah was rubbing her shin.

‘Why?’

‘Because you have run into me twice. And it hurts.’

Lilibet was grooming one of her toy horses. ‘Come and help me, Margaret. We have to get all our horses to feel happy in their new home.’

‘But it’s so boring.’

Crawfie arrived. ‘Alah, it’s the oddest thing. I don’t have a light switch in my bedroom. I looked everywhere and it’s outside in the corridor, at least six feet from my door. Ouch!’

‘Sorry!’

Alah lifted Margaret off her tricycle. ‘That’s it. I’m putting this away. Go and help Lilibet, please.’

Margaret immediately burst into tears and ran into her room, shouting, ‘I don’t like living here! I want to see Mummy!’

‘Difficult morning?’ Crawfie asked.

Alah sighed. ‘You could say that, yes.’

The day continued in similar vein. The entire palace was overrun with removal men, painters and cleaners.

The Queen was busy with her maid, making her bedroom cosy and homely. The King had rejected the old King’s bedroom and chosen his father’s smaller dressing room. It held happy memories of watching his father dressing for dinner when he was a boy.

Life here was certainly very different. The Palace was the opposite of the homely warmth of 145 Piccadilly. It was enormous: endlessly long corridors, draughty rooms, vast and important works of art at every turn. Liveried staff and footmen with powdered wigs scurried through the unseen rat runs behind secret doors. All was pomp and ceremony.

The Palace steward headed up a staff of four hundred servants, including equerries, ladies of the bedchamber and ladies-in-waiting. Dining tables were laid with golden candelabra and bowls of red tulips.

The Queen’s diary was heavy with appointments: dressmakers, ambassadors, letters to answer and portraits to sit for. Crawfie had twice seen her walking the corridors in full evening dress and a tiara at half past nine in the morning!

The King spent most of his days in his office, dealing with matters of state and practising his new signature: George R VI.

There were no more afternoon naps, and very few bath-time romps for the Princesses.

Crawfie, Alah and Bobo took a while to find their way around the miles of corridors and antiquated plumbing. The building was full of history, rusty pipes – and mice. When Alah found a mouse climbing her stocking, she shrieked, but the Princesses laughed. ‘It’s only a little mousie,’ said Margaret. ‘Lilibet and I feed him crumbs when he comes into our bedroom at night.’