‘She didn’t want to burst your balloon. No, she doesn’t like it. She feels sorry for you. Knows you deserve more. She says it needs pulling down and I have to agree with her. Look around you, Marion. The plumbing, the damp patch by the chimney, and the furniture foisted on you by the old lady!’

‘Queen Mary was very generous.’

‘No, she wasn’t. She wanted to get rid of it and she couldn’t very well take it down to a jumble sale, could she?”

‘Don’t say that. I like having her things.’

‘Well, I don’t. And what about the wedding presents? A coffee set we will never use, a dinner service which would be grand if we could fit more than four people round this table, or had a dining room, and a couple of table lamps? All of it is an insult considering how you have subjugated your life for them.’

Marion started to cry. ‘That’s not true. Please, George, don’t say such things. I have been so happy. It was my job. They love me.’

‘Do you think so?’ He paused and reached into his trouser pocket for his handkerchief. ‘Here. Wipe your eyes. You gave them your whole heart but they saw you coming.’ He feigned a clipped English accent. ‘Give her a hovel to live in, pay her a pauper’s pension and, what fun, the final insult, give her a CVO.’

‘Don’t say that! The CVO means so much to me. It is a very special honour to show their respect for my work.’ She was finding it hard to get the words out through her tears.

‘No, no, my love. You should have had a DCVO. Dame Commander of the Victorian Order. Not just Commander. They cheated you, gave you second best, as they always have. And that is why we are going to work with Bruce and Beatrice.’

Chapter Sixty-Three

Nottingham Cottage, September 1949

The little drawing room of Nott Cott was bulging with the five of them.

Dorothy Black, Beatrice’s typist friend, had set her typewriter up on the Victorian gate-legged table, handed down to Crawfie by Queen Mary. Bruce was explaining how the articles would be written.

‘Dorothy will be immensely helpful in crafting your memories. The Queen will love how our readers take to her.’

Beatrice pulled out a sheaf of news cuttings from her bag. ‘If you are in any doubt, take a look at what the papers in the States are saying about her and the King. They do not make pretty reading.’

Marion scanned them. The headlines were unkind and anti-British as well as anti-royalist. She frowned. ‘Is this what they really think?’

‘I am afraid so. But they are ill-informed and unnecessarily hostile, don’t you think?’

‘I do.’ Marion was shaken by them.

‘Only you can write the truth and help your royal friends.’

‘You have too much faith in me.’

‘Don’t you trust our journalistic experience?’

‘I do, but …’

‘Uh-uh, no buts. This your chance to tell the world what you know, and bring both our great nations together again. You know what?’