A Death in Diamonds

After all that excitement, it was comforting to be among the familiar art and antiques of her mother’s residence at Royal Lodge in the castle grounds. She declined a spot of champagne in the sunny morning room because she had several meetings coming up, but her mother and sister both accepted a glass from the butler’s tray.

‘What’s Philip up to this afternoon, do you know?’ the older Queen Elizabeth asked.

‘Flying. He wanted to take advantage of the good weather. Down to Southampton, I think.’ The Queen smiled gamely, as if every minute that Philip was in the sky didn’t worry her just a little bit. It wasn’t the flying so much as the landings. A wartime Spitfire pilot had once said every landing was just a controlled crash, really. There had been one or two close shaves in the past. Philip thought them terribly funny. She didn’t.

‘Lucky him,’ the Queen Mother said with a grin, knowing exactly how her daughter was feeling and choosing not to get involved. ‘You were both so marvellous in Paris. Weren’t they thrilled to have you back?’

‘Mmm,’ the Queen agreed with a shy grin. ‘A little bit too much, sometimes.’ She told them about the crush at the Louvre.

‘God, a museum,’ Margaret groaned. ‘They might have at least taken you to Montmartre, or a show. I hear the new one at the Crazy Horse is eye-popping.’

‘They’d hardly have taken me there!’ the Queen protested. ‘And we did see Édith Piaf last time.’

‘Édith Piaf!’ Margaret made a face like a squeezed lemon. ‘Yves Montand, he’s the one these days. Did you see Mr Dior, by the way?’

‘We did,’ the Queen agreed. ‘Very briefly. He wasn’t looking terribly well, poor man. He was very complimentary about you, Mummy. He told me that whenever he wants to think of something really beautiful, he remembers the clothes Mr Hartnell made for you in ’thirty-eight.’

The Queen Mother glowed with pleasure. ‘My white wardrobe? For the Paris trip? What a darling man. One was in mourning for your grannie, of course, but French mourning is so very interesting. Le deuil blanc. Like Mary Queen of Scots.’

‘But with parasols,’ Margaret added. She turned back to her sister. ‘I do think you might have worn one Dior gown. You’re in danger of looking old-fashioned.’

Their mother’s smile became a little more fixed. It wasn’t always easy to have a younger daughter at home, still rather pointedly recovering from the most famous broken relationship of the decade. Especially when the older one was happily married. And the sovereign of countries whose land mass circled the globe.

‘Lunch is served, ma’am,’ the butler announced, to her great relief.

They went through to the dining room, where the table was set and the footmen were ready to serve. The older Elizabeth knew her elder daughter’s tastes were simple, so she had asked for just a consommé, a little salmon en croute, some green vegetables and potatoes from the gardens at Sandringham and a light lemon posset, served with a rather good Pouilly-Fuissé from her personal cellar. Conversation over pudding turned to Clement Moreton, the poor Dean of Bath, whose unimpeachable life as a cleric was currently being dissected by all the newspapers.

‘I feel so sorry for the man,’ she said. ‘He’s a delight. A very good card player, but not in that way, you know. Just a charming, sensible companion. And his sermons are always so short. Cissy’s beside herself. They all are.’

Cissy, the dean’s cousin and childhood friend, was one of the Queen Mother’s ladies-in-waiting. She was good with dogs and very popular. The Queen made brief noises of sympathy, and asked if he was friends with Philip, which her mother thought she should be more likely to know herself.

‘They might have made friends in the war,’ the Queen Mother acknowledged, ‘but Philip was at sea and Clement was with the Royal Artillery, so I doubt it. Clement served with great distinction, you know. It’s quite impossible that he was involved in this business, and not just because Cissy says so. I have literally seen the man upend a glass on a piece of paper to transport a spider safely outside. Admittedly, he did see some horrors in Germany, but war is war, isn’t it, and quite a separate thing? And then there’s the question of the tart in the tiara. What did they say she was called?’

‘Gina Fonteyn,’ Margaret said promptly. ‘Like Margot.’

‘Who?’

‘The ballerina, Mummy.’

‘Margot Fonteyn? My God, are they related?’

‘No! Margot’s called Peggy Hookham really, and goodness knows what the tart’s real name was. The papers said she was Italian.’

‘Anyway, what about her?’ the Queen asked her mother.