The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper
“They’ll have to face it now.”
Johnnie’s eyes flickered open. “Chad,” he said. “My head hurts. But can we play with the new peeps?”
“Not right now, my boy. I think we need to get you home in bed, right, Charlotte?”
“Her name is Lala.”
“Yes, all right. You two stay here for a moment, and I’ll tell Prince George, see what he says. I have a cart, but we’ll need the omnibus to get him back home. It’s here too.”
“I want to stay for the party!” The sudden volume of Johnnie’s voice startled me. “Ice cream and fish cake. I want to put them in the sea.”
Chad and I exchanged swift glances. At least Johnnie was talking, remembering. He was slick with sweat and seemed to keep drifting off, no doubt exhausted.
“We’ll be sure you get ice cream and cake later,” Chad told him with a squeeze of his shoulder and then a squeeze of mine. “I’ll be right back.”
“Chad,” I called after him. “Tell only Prince George. They don’t want people to know.”
He frowned, nodded, and closed the door.
I wiped Johnnie’s face with my skirt as I had that day on the yacht. I hummed to him, thinking how many times Chad had helped me over the years. He was, no doubt, partly doing this for Johnnie and the royal family, yet I was so deeply moved, comforted and grateful.
But the horror of something I’d overheard Dr. Laking tell Prince George outside the door months ago when they no doubt thought I couldn’t hear them had haunted me like no ghost ever could: “If it’s only one incident, Your Highness, we can just be watchful, and he’s fine with such a dedicated nanny. But if there are more convulsions, we will have to consider epilepsy, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.”
“Epilepsy!” the prince had cried. “But if Johnnie gets worse, that . . . that doesn’t mean he’s an imbecile, does it? I know he’s different, a bit slow, but we can’t have that sort of stigma for the royal family on view or even whispered about.”
“I can imagine, sir, what effect this might have on the public—and on your other children. We could isolate him, send him away somewhere. Indeed, time will tell.”
CHAD CARRIED JOHNNIE on his back, horsie style, as the older boys had always called it. I held the side door of Sandringham House open for them, and, wrapped in rainwear, we went out where the omnibus had been brought round and left for us. Chad was going to drive it himself, as we needed no others to talk about Johnnie taking ill. The team of two horses waited there, stamping impatiently. It was starting to sprinkle, and thunder rumbled nearby. The coming storm made the blackness of the night even darker.
Chad laid Johnnie inside on the seat closest to the front with his head on my lap. The child was exhausted, drifting in and out of sleep, fighting that because he loved being with Chad, and rides in any vehicle around the estate were one of his favorite things. Chad said he had talked to Prince George, and we were doing the right thing. In the morning he would summon the doctor again. I dreaded that. I would fight to the end for Johnnie to stay with his family—with me.
Chad patted Johnnie’s head and squeezed my shoulder again, but before he could climb out to go round to drive, Prince George appeared up the back steps of the omnibus and climbed in.
“He’s quite all right now?” he asked me. Or he might be asking Chad.
“Papa,” Johnnie said, his voice sounding weak now. “I want ice cream and cake.”
“And you shall have some tomorrow, my boy,” he said and, despite his elegant evening suit, bent down to look closely into Johnnie’s face. It almost seemed he was bowing to us. In the muted glow from the house windows, I could tell his coat and stiff white waistcoat were raindrop-spattered.
He looked up and asked me, “Like the other one on the yacht?”
“Similar, Your Highness.”
“What other one?” Johnnie asked. “Harry and Georgie get to stay at the party, and I don’t.”
“We’ll have our own special party later,” I told him, and the prince, bless him, nodded.
“I will tell Princess May that things are under control,” he told me. “You are both in good hands with Chad. Now I’d best get back before I’m missed.”
His feet sounded on the floorboards as he made a hasty exit out into the quickening rain. I remembered the day I had protected Mary when the rabble-rousers led by Barker Lee had stopped us on the road in this very vehicle. Afterward, Prince George had thanked me and said he owed me a favor. Queen Alexandra had said much the same to Chad—that he should be rewarded—when he had saved the picture of her dead son from the fire. If the doctor diagnosed that Johnnie had epilepsy and must be sent away, could we call in those favors so that he could stay? Would Chad agree to help with that?
His voice jolted me from my agonizing: “Hang on! Before the rain gets worse, we’re on our way.”
Off we went into the storm. Away from the protection of the Big House, rain thudded harder on the omnibus roof. Thunder rolled, and lightning lit the sky. I held tighter to Johnnie. A huge crack sounded nearby and then some sort of gigantic crunching noise.
“Tree went down on the road ahead!” Chad shouted, his voice barely discernible over the thunder. “Prince George said the guests and their servants have taken most of the rooms back there, so we’d best go on! I’m turning off, away from the forest, across the football field.”
I was amazed he could even see, but he must know every inch of these fields and forests. How long ago that football game seemed when Chad had helped David and Bertie play with the village boys.
“Can we take shelter somewhere?” I shouted to him, not certain he could hear me in the drumming of rain on the roof.
“My house ’til it lets up!”
My house. Simply words. The place he had lived with Millie. The house—the home—that could have been mine with him. I wasn’t even sure which one it was across the field with its front on the village green of West Newton and its garden gate on the field. Would his daughter Penny be there or was she with his sister, who was helping to raise her?
“Lala.” Johnnie’s shrill voice pierced the din. “If we get wet, I won’t have to take a bath.”
Tears burned my eyes, but I had to smile at that. Thunder echoed again like mad applause at the way this child’s mind worked. A “brain disturbance,” Prince George had called the earlier seizure, but it seemed Johnnie’s brain was slightly disturbed all the time. I felt the same in all sorts of ways, and not only because I feared for Johnnie’s future.
I did not know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that, twelve years after I had first met Chad Reaver, though now under wretched circumstances, I was finally going to his home.
Chapter 25
It wasn’t the best of welcomes to what must be a pretty cottage. Sheets of rain poured off the tile roof and washed the ivied, redbrick walls. Lightning stabbed the sky, and thunder growled above the downpour, like wagon wheels going over cobblestones. Chad pulled the omnibus nearly up to his doorway, got down and tied the horses’ reins to a hitching post. The team stamped and snorted at the noise.
He ran round to us and clambered in the back. “I’ll take him,” he shouted over the din.
I helped Johnnie sit up, but he clung to me. “Let Chad carry you,” I told him. “I’m coming too.”
The boy transferred the clamp of his arms to Chad, and we climbed down. The front door opened, and a square of dim light threw itself across our path. With all the newfangled electric in the royal houses, I’d forgotten the dimness of lantern light.
A woman stood silhouetted in the doorway with a child peering from behind her skirts. I thought of poor Millie. Did her ghost still haunt me? She’d borne her baby and should be here now, on this threshold.
“Chad, whatever . . .” the woman cried as we hustled past her and in. Chad was soaked to the skin; I was almost as wet, but at least Johnnie was mostly dry.
“Winnie, this is Charlotte, the royal children’s nurse, and Johnnie, t
“Oh. Oh, yes,” Winnie cried as she closed the door behind us and gaped at us a moment while Chad put Johnnie in the rocking chair by the lighted hearth and then stoked up the fire behind the firedogs and iron grate. I swear Winnie almost dropped me a curtsy. Though I couldn’t quite manage a smile, I nodded to her and hurried over to perch on a stool Chad pulled up for me.
“I can’t hug you right now, precious,” Chad told his daughter. “I’m really wet. How is my girl?”
“I don’t like thunder, Papa. I’m glad you’re home. And brought me a boy to play with.”
“Not right now. He’s a wee bit tired.”
Though I kept my hand on Johnnie’s arm, I turned to look closer at Chad’s Penelope. In the flickering firelight from the hearth, it was as if a little angel had come to greet us. She had curly, white blond hair, wide blue eyes, and a guileless face. Only her gingham dress of blue-and-white print—and the lack of halo and wings—marred the illusion.
“Penelope, I am so happy to meet you and your aunt,” I told her. “Johnnie doesn’t feel well right now, but he’ll be better another day. Maybe the two of you can play then.”
Though her aunt Winnie made a grab for her, Penny came even closer to peer down at Johnnie. “I got wet swimming with fish,” he told her.
She nodded as if that was the most logical statement in the world. Chad hurried away, then back to us with a blanket for Johnnie, and Winnie darted off only to again appear with mugs of steaming liquid and two towels. I quickly dried Johnnie’s face and hair, then put the other, dry towel around his neck and shoulders. When Chad saw that, he put the one he’d evidently fetched for himself around me.
I put my free hand up to cover his on my shoulder. We linked fingers. I wager the four of us made a silent tableau with Penny leaning close over the other arm of Johnnie’s rocker. Winnie ahemed, then said, “Chad, I’m going to put my shawl over my head and go next door to see all’s well with my two, despite this downpour. Will all be well here?”
“I can’t thank you enough for staying with Penny tonight when you have your own to care for,” he told her.
“Well, they are not four years old and . . . and it was lovely to meet you, Nurse Charlotte and Sir . . . Johnnie.”
She shot Chad a look somewhere between I don’t believe they are here! and What should I call this royal boy? She kissed Penny on the top of her golden head and hurried to the door. Flapping her wool cape open above her head, she plunged out into the rain, closing the door behind herself.
So there we sat before Chad’s crackling hearth like a little family.
WE DRANK OUR tea, and Chad fetched slabs of bread with honey. It seemed finer fare than Poached Salmon and French Ice Cream. I still sat by Johnnie’s rocker—he dozed off and on—and Penny climbed on Chad’s lap in the other hearth chair.
“As soon as the rain lets up, I’ll get you to York Cottage,” he told me.
Penny said, “Papa, I don’t want to stay here alone.”
“No, you can go too,” he promised.
“Did you put those feathers on the walls and on the dogs?” she asked him with a huge yawn.
I jumped as Johnnie spoke instead of Chad. “He used a lot of them. Lala, did the queen’s dogs run around and bark?”
“Yes. I’m glad you remember,” I told him. “The king’s little Caesar scared the bigger dogs, the queen’s dogs.”
“If she has bigger dogs, she should be king.”
Penny giggled. And bless her, Johnnie smiled before slipping back into sleep again. I took the empty cup from his limp fingers and rose to get theirs from Chad and Penny too, then realized I should not take over like this. But it seemed so . . . so very right.
I glanced around the small, cozy, low-ceilinged room with its wooden table and four chairs. Fir boughs and pinecones made a pretty little centerpiece. From the windows hung white curtains, looking starched and ironed. The cottage was plainly furnished with no upholstered pieces, though there were plump chintz pillows along the window seat. Two well-worn woven rugs covered the floor. On the whitewashed wall behind the table hung a feather picture, perhaps the mate to the one I’d had for years, the one I should give to Chad for Penny now. This one was of the lake near York Cottage, very pretty, with waterfowl amidst the gentle waves and aloft in the air.
I went into the kitchen alcove, for it was not a separate room. I put the cups down on the smooth oak counter. The iron stove was a small one, but neatly blackened. A corner cupboard displayed rose-patterned bone china, which looked unused. The daily dishes were heavier brown-and-blue pottery ware. As accustomed as I was to fine, expensive things, I still felt right at home here. It all made me homesick for the house where I’d been raised.
As I turned back toward the hearth, I saw two bedroom doors across the parlor and open steps that must lead to a loft or attic. That was all. But somehow it was—I know it would have been—enough.
Penny had fallen asleep in Chad’s arms, and Johnnie was dozing. As I walked back toward the hearth, Chad held out his free hand to me and I took it. I standing, he sitting, we held hands, and it made me want to cry—either that or the fact I feared I’d have to fight for Johnnie in the morning if the prince and the doctor wanted to send him away. That seemed to be what the royals did to their own flesh and blood, to a boy who cried too easily, to the heirs who hated naval school, but not to my Johnnie!
I knew we had to get home, though the queen’s birthday celebration could go on for hours. The raindrops on the roof were dwindling now. I blinked back tears at the precious beauty of this moment and this place. Johnnie, ill though he was; Chad, though he’d never be mine either; little Penny born but one month after Johnnie, both of them angels unaware.
I sucked in a sob and pulled my hand back. Chad rose and put the sleeping girl in his chair, then came over to me and drew me back from the hearth a bit. I threw myself into his arms before they encircled me, and we both held tight.
“Whatever happens with the boy,” he whispered in my ear, “I will try to help.”
“You do help. You always have, and I appre—”
The kiss was mutual and fierce. I might as well have been back out in the storm. He was so strong, and I felt swept away. I needed him and always had. Propping my knees against his, I pressed to him, flattening my breasts against his chest. Why had I said no to him years ago? But then there would not have been his beautiful Penny, and I would not have been here to help my Johnnie. No, surely I had done the right thing and I must hold to that. But now I only wanted to hold to him.
All thoughts blurred as I opened my lips to return his crushing kiss. His hands not only held me, but moved over my back, waist, and bum, crushing my gown in back. He tipped me in his arms and began to trail hot, openmouthed kisses down my throat to the lace at my neckline and my collarbone. The entire world turned upside down and began to whirl.
“Lala, a fire!” Johnnie’s shrill voice sounded. Chad jerked alert and released me. Penny woke up. I rushed to my boy so he didn’t tip out of his chair.
But it was only a fallen hearth log that threw sparks and burned brightly anew. “It’s all right,” I comforted Johnnie as I stooped to hug him.
“It’s all right, for certain,” Chad said. “And, I agree there is a fire, one that’s been smoldering for years. Now let’s bundle up Penny, I’ll put the screen over the hearth, and we’ll take you two home.”
Funny, I thought, but I had felt at home.
THE NEXT DAY, wringing my hands, I paced in the corridor outside Prince George’s study, waiting for a summons to join him, Princess May, and Dr. Laking, who’d been in there over an hour after he and two medical colleagues had examined Johnnie—without me in the room. I kept rehearsing what Helene had told me. Some famous, brilliant men had been victims of the dread disease of epilepsy: Socrates, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Britain’s onetime enemy, Napoleon. And they had done well enough
But I scented raw royal fear that news of the Waleses’ strange, “different and difficult” son would leak out. I guess it just didn’t do for Britain’s royal family in these tenuous times of liberal policies and social unrest to have an epileptic boy. Some said that meant he was an imbecile, when he was not!
After what seemed almost forever, Dr. Laking opened the door and nodded to me. I felt as if I were walking into the lion’s den. The prince and princess were standing—Prince George by his desk, Princess May by the window. The other two doctors I had not met huddled near the sofa, looking as if they would like to sink onto it. I curtsied to Their Highnesses.
The prince said, “This is Johnnie’s nurse and nanny, Mrs. Charlotte Bill, whom the children call Lala. I have told you all she has conveyed to me about the two seizures the boy has suffered.”
“Two, but months apart,” I dared to put in.
“However,” Dr. Laking said, “we believe they will come closer together, and you—all the family—need to be prepared. It sounds to us as if the child is having grand mal convulsions—epilepsy—and there are no cures, only treatment for that. So do you know, Mrs. Lala, if he has had any petit mals before the big ones—a fixed, blank stare, for example. Maybe his eyes rolled up, muscles twitched, or there was a sudden forward slump of the head?”
“Yes, a bit. And now that I know what to look for, it will be easier for me to get him into a private room before anything else happens.”
My stomach knotted as the doctors glanced at each other. Again I prayed that these medical men would not counsel sending Johnnie away from his family and from me.
“His parents want us to try to treat the malady, and we hope you will help with that.”
“Oh, yes, anything to keep him here with us.”
“Well, then, we shall have it all explained and hold you to it. We realize that your title of nurse means caregiver, a nanny, not a medical nurse, but the prince and princess feel we should try that first—keep it in check. But they also say you are so dear to the child, and he to you, that you may not be able to administer the doses. It can be rough going.”