‘He’s gone, God bless him, God bless the King,’ said Nannie, greeting Flora as she arrived on the nursery floor the following morning. ‘The girls are inconsolable. Perhaps you’d come and see them?’
‘Of course.’ Flora walked in and found them huddled together in an armchair with Panther sprawled across their laps.
‘Oh Flora, Kingy has died in the night! Isn’t it awful?’ cried Sonia.
‘Yes, it’s terribly sad.’
‘What will Mama do now? We will never go to Biarritz again, and she will never be a queen,’ said Violet.
‘Kingy will always be a king, and your mother will always be a queen,’ Flora said gently as she gathered them to her and they leant into her embrace.
‘There are thousands gathering outside the Palace, but a lot’s outside our doorstep too,’ said Nannie, who was by the window, peering onto the street below. ‘They want her to say something, but what can she say? Mrs Keppel was the people’s queen, you see, but of course, she’s not here.’
‘Where is she?’ asked Flora.
‘Gone with Mr George to stay at the James’s in Grafton Street,’ Nannie said quietly. ‘We are to follow soon. You stay with the children and I’m going to pack.’ Flora nodded.
‘I want to see Mama,’ Sonia sobbed into Flora’s shoulder. ‘Why has she gone with Papa and left us?’
‘People who are sad often want to be left in peace.’
‘Then why can’t we just draw the blinds in our home and be sad here?’
‘Maybe that’s quite hard to do with lots of people making noise outside, darling,’ she said, stroking Sonia’s hair.
Violet pulled away from Flora and stood up. ‘Why have they gone to the James’s? It is the most dreadful house and they are the most dreadful people.’ Violet’s lips tightened as she looked down onto the crowd outside the front door. ‘Why are people so nosy? Why can’t they just leave us alone?’
‘They too are mourning and want to be close to those who were close to Kingy.’
‘I wish I could join all the people outside the Palace . . . just be invisible and mourn him.’
‘Well, you are all who you are, and there isn’t a lot to be done. Now, Nannie is packing, and you must both be big and brave as Kingy would have wished you to be.’
‘We will try, but we are not grown-ups yet, Flora – merely enfants,’ Violet said haughtily, sweeping out of the day nursery.
Flora duly followed her to find Nannie.
‘Do you know if there is any directive for me? Am I to join you?’
‘Mrs Keppel didn’t mention you, Miss Flora. My instruction was only to take the children and Moiselle to Grafton Street.’
‘I see.’
‘Well, you are to be married in a week’s time. Maybe she thought you would go to stay with your sister or your fiancé’s family?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘This is the end of an era, Miss Flora.’ Nannie shook her head and sighed heavily. ‘After today, nothing will ever be the same for any of us.’
Flora waved the girls a tearful goodbye from the entrance hall as she watched them being bundled into the brougham with Nannie and Moiselle, the reporters and the public held back by policemen. Mr Rolfe closed the door of the car and Flora thought how like vultures the onlookers appeared in their black mourning clothes. As she walked upstairs, she wondered if she would ever see any of the Keppels again.
Back in her room, the house eerily quiet, Flora wrote a telegram to Freddie to ask whether it was convenient for her to arrive at Selbourne tomorrow, then handed it to Mr Rolfe to send. She knew there would be no refuge at High Weald.
After packing her clothes in her cases, she went again to the window, and saw that the crowd was beginning to disperse. And as night fell, the street grew silent – silent as a grave, she thought. She tried not to feel hurt or abandoned. After all, as Nannie had said, Mrs Keppel had almost certainly presumed Flora had at least two sanctuaries to go to, if she had thought at all in the midst of her enormous grief.
Flora opened the window in her room and sat on the sill with Panther in her arms, looking up at the clear night sky.
‘Goodbye, darling King. And Godspeed,’ she said to the stars above her.
31
‘A visitor for you, Miss Flora,’ said Peggie as she entered Flora’s bedroom.
‘Who is it?’
‘The Countess of Winchester. I’ve put her in the drawing room downstairs and given her tea.’
‘Thank you.’
Flora was relieved that the Countess had responded to her telegram only a day after she had sent it, though surprised that Daphne had come to see her in person. She walked downstairs and opened the drawing room door to see Daphne sitting on the chaise longue, wearing a sumptuous dark velvet gown, black sapphires glittering on a band in her greying hair.
‘Dearest Flora, I am so very sorry for your loss.’ Daphne stood up and took Flora in her arms.
‘It is hardly my loss, rather the country’s, and the world’s.’
‘Well, we have all lost,’ said Daphne. Taking the natural role of hostess, she invited Flora to sit down. ‘’Tis all so tragic, is it not? And the timing simply couldn’t be worse.’
‘Perhaps no time is good to lose the King of England.’
‘Of course, but now the wedding simply cannot take place next week. Any form of celebration will be seen as a slight against the King.’
‘I understand that it will have to be postponed.’
‘Yes, I am sure you do. Especially under the . . . circumstances.’
Flora didn’t quite understand her obviously barbed comment but continued regardless. ‘I assume you received my telegram. The Keppels have left the house and I feel it is not right for me to stay here either. I was hoping I could come and stay at Selbourne until Freddie and I are married.’
‘Surely you can stay at your sister’s house in Kent?’
‘That would not be . . . convenient.’
‘Really?’ Daphne scrutinised her. ‘I thought that dear Aurelia relied on your company?’
‘She does, yes, we have always been close . . .’ Flora grasped for a suitable explanation but was at a loss. ‘I cannot stay there and that is that.’
‘I see.’
Silence hung about the room.
‘My dear,’ Daphne sighed eventually. ‘Given how things are now with the King passing on, I must inform you that the wedding can’t ever take place. I am sure you understand.’
Flora looked at Daphne in total confusion. ‘It is cancelled?’
‘Yes.’
‘I . . . can you tell me why?’
Daphne took a long time to gather her thoughts before she spoke. ‘May I pour you some tea?’
‘No thank you. I beg you to tell me why my marriage to Freddie won’t happen. I understand the need for postponement, but—’
‘Because of who you are, my dear. Surely you can see that, at a time when everyone is feeling for the Queen and her dreadful loss, it would be totally inappropriate?’
‘Oh,’ said Flora, the penny finally dropping, ‘because of Mrs Keppel.’
‘Yes, that too.’