Coronation Year, page 30
“I see. Well, distant cousins can sometimes prove quite troublesome. I believe the first Elizabeth knew something of that.”
“Yes, ma’am. Fortunately, Miss Howard, Mr. Geddes, and Miss Donati were able to get the better of him. He has since been convicted of attempted murder, assault, fraud, theft, and a number of other lesser charges.”
“But not treason?” the queen asked, and Edie couldn’t be certain if the question was meant to be serious or playful. A glint in the monarch’s eyes made her decide upon the latter.
“I pushed for it, ma’am, but there were concerns it might draw undue attention from the press.”
“I quite understand. How very fortunate that Miss Donati is employed by a respectable publication.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Stella agreed.
According to Stella, the question of Picture Weekly running an insider’s account of Ivor Brooks’s plot to take over the Blue Lion had been rejected from the outset by Walter Kaczmarek, who deplored what he termed “gutter journalism.” Brooks’s recent trial had, admittedly, fanned the flames of interest, but within a few weeks the country’s attention had been diverted by other scandals and stories.
“Nor, I believe, have you sought to make hay of the incident,” the queen stated, casting her bright blue gaze upon Edie.
“No, ma’am. Although, in all honesty, word does seem to have got out. We’ve never had so many people for afternoon tea, and even now, in the low season, we’re almost fully booked.”
“I am very glad to hear of it. May I also offer my congratulations on your and Mr. Geddes’s engagement?”
One week after he had finished Second of June and delivered it to Master Owens, and one day after he’d learned from his art dealer that enough requests for commissions had come in to keep him occupied for several years, Jamie had suggested to Edie that they go on a walk. He’d then led her to the same bench in St. James’s Park where they had first become friends, and he had knelt on the pebbled ground in front of her, taken her hands in his, and asked if she would do him the honor of consenting to become his wife.
She had said yes straightaway, naturally, and once she had admired her ring and they had exchanged a series of delightful kisses, he had explained why he hadn’t asked her earlier.
“I wanted to have some assurance that I wouldn’t be a burden. No—hear me out. You are a successful woman in your own right, and the hotel is yours alone to own and to manage, and that is why I wanted to know that I have some hope of success as an artist. So you will know there is someone in this world who wishes to care for you simply because you deserve it.”
“Oh, Jamie. I’d happily marry you if neither of us had tuppence to spare.”
“I know, and it’s one of the reasons I love you. But only one of many.”
The ring had also been the cause of a small delay in his proposal, for Jamie’s mother had been adamant that it be fashioned out of jewels from her own wedding finery. The stones, which his mother had secretly shown Jamie on an impromptu visit to London, had then been sent back to India to be set by her family’s preferred goldsmith. Altogether the process had taken so long that Jamie had nearly gone ahead and proposed, ring or no ring. Edie was very glad, now, that he had accepted his mother’s guidance, for the result—a cushion-cut sapphire (blue for the Blue Lion) set in filigreed gold, with a surround of brightly sparkling emeralds—had quite literally left her breathless when he’d placed it on her finger.
Jamie had moved out not long after their engagement, though only to a set of rooms above the Queen Bess. There was no view to speak of from the small windows in his little flat, and she worried the pub was too noisy to let him sleep properly, but he was unyielding.
“I can’t bear the thought of your having to endure gossip on my account. I’ll stay put until we’re married, and then back I’ll come to the Blue Lion.”
“When are you to be married?” the queen now asked.
“On the twelfth of February, ma’am,” Jamie answered. “The first anniversary of the day we met.”
“We’re planning on a quiet wedding,” Edie added, “then a honeymoon in Scotland. I’ve never been.”
This provoked a broad smile from the queen. “You’re a brave man, Mr. Geddes, to introduce her to your homeland in the middle of winter.”
The lady-in-waiting, having glanced at her wristwatch more than once, now cleared her throat discreetly. The queen answered with a slight nod, after which she took up her handbag, retrieved her gloves, and put them on. One of the men in dark suits came forward to pull back her chair. Everyone stood.
“Thank you very much for this splendid tea, Miss Howard, and for your courage, and that of everyone here. I am most grateful.”
The queen shook hands with Edie and the others once more, and they exchanged a round of good-byes, and off she went, and that was that. The royal visit was over, and Edie could breathe again.
“How very extraordinary,” she said, once she was sure the front door was firmly shut and the queen had been driven away. “I felt as if I was in the presence of someone who is immortal. I know she isn’t, of course, but she doesn’t feel entirely attached to this mortal plane, either.”
The others agreed; they, too, admitted they had felt a little dazed by the experience, with the exception of Stella, who had behaved throughout with her usual demeanor of unflappable aplomb. “I must return to work, if only to tell my friends there what it is like to take tea with the queen. I am sure Kaz will find it very amusing to know that she described Picture Weekly as a ‘respectable publication.’”
“I’ll be off, too,” said Gordon, who had been on a first-name basis with Edie and Jamie since Coronation Day. “Need to ring up my missus and let her know how it all went. Then it’ll be back to my usual stock-in-trade. Burglary and assault, and if I’m lucky not so much as a whiff of treason. You’ll let me know if you’ve any trouble?”
“I will,” Edie promised, “but things have never been so good at the Blue Lion. So there’s no need to worry on my account.”
It was true. With Brooks’s scheme to divert bookings away from the hotel no longer an impediment, and with heightened interest in the hotel bringing a steady stream of guests to their door, the Blue Lion was on a far better footing than it had ever been. Its accounts had been steadily in the black for months.
Brooks’s mother had known nothing of his machinations, though she had admitted to expressing some bitterness over her disinheritance and the relative penury in which she had been raised. The neighbor who had procured the dynamite for Brooks had been convicted on lesser charges and sentenced to prison, though for a far shorter length of time than the man he had entrusted with enough high explosive to turn Buckingham Palace into a smoking ruin.
At his trial, Brooks had insisted that he hadn’t intended, at least not at first, to kill Edie and the professor; his sole intention had been to convince her to share in its ownership or, presumably by enticing her into a romantic entanglement, to gain control by marriage. Fortunately, the judge had dismissed his claims and sentenced Brooks to something very close to a life sentence in prison. With good behavior, he might hope to be free in time for the queen’s silver jubilee.
He was part of her past; Jamie was her future. Their wedding would indeed be small, with only Jamie’s family and their closest friends in attendance. Among them would be Stella and Win Keller—who had become, in recent weeks, “my Win” when Stella spoke of the man—along with Walter Kaczmarek and his wife, Miriam. Soon Coronation Year would be at an end, and she and Jamie would begin their lives together in earnest.
The comforting weight of his arm settled upon her shoulders, bringing her thoughts back to the present. “What now?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “I haven’t been able to think of anything but the queen’s visit for weeks.”
“Shall we go on a walk?” He held out her coat and hat, and he waited patiently as she put them on, found her gloves in her pockets, and retrieved her scarf from the sleeve of her coat.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“Onward, my darling Edie. Ever onward.”
“I can’t imagine anything better,” she said, and she looped her arm through his, and together they stepped into the welcoming light of their bright and beckoning future.
Author’s Note
Since the publication of The Gown in 2019 I’ve received many emails and letters from readers who wish to know where they can see, or learn more about, the embroideries created by Miriam Dassin. The difficulty, of course, is that since Miriam was a product of my imagination, so too were her artworks; and while I did briefly address this fact in my historical notes at the end of that book, I fear that I was not explicit enough in my explanation. Mea culpa—and my apologies to anyone who has spent time in a fruitless search for the Vél d’Hiv embroideries.
Rather than risk sending any of you on a wild-goose chase in search of the Blue Lion, the paintings of A. J. Geddes, or Stella Donati’s photograph of the crowning of Queen Elizabeth, I’m going to be honest and admit something right now: I made stuff up for this book. Quite a lot of stuff, in fact.
I didn’t make up, or indeed alter, anything really significant as far as known historical events are concerned. The late Queen Elizabeth II really was crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953, and the events of that day, as I’ve described them in Coronation Year, really did happen. That’s all part of the historical record and easily verified—and if you’d like to learn more, you can find a list of further reading on my website.
Where I let my imagination run wild was in respect to the people who live at the Blue Lion, their actions, their work, and the hotel itself. They are, without exception, products of my imagination, and for that I make no apology; this is, after all, a work of historical fiction.
That said, I think it’s worth adding some context to my decisions; and if, after reading, you still have questions, please do feel free to contact me via my website or on social media.
I think I had better begin with the place at the heart of this book. The Blue Lion, as described in Coronation Year, does not exist, nor did it ever exist in the past. If you are in London and go looking for the Blue Lion, you will find a lovely old building at the end of Northumberland Street, but it is now—and has been for many decades—occupied by the historic public house the Sherlock Holmes. While the building itself does bear a superficial resemblance to the Blue Lion, unlike my fictional creation it is not built upon an ancient predecessor; it, together with most of its neighbors, is only a few centuries old.
You may reasonably ask, having seen the illustration at the beginning of this book, how the Blue Lion can be depicted in so much detail if it never existed. Where the illustration is concerned, I relied upon the artistic talent and architectural acumen of my friend Charisma Panchapakesan, who is a Toronto-based fine artist and architect. I may once have had a vision of the Blue Lion that differed from the illustration you see here, but the wonderful version created by Charisma has since displaced it. Every detail I specified in Coronation Year is present and exactly as I imagined—from the hanging sign to the ancient plaque by the door to the pot of primroses on Jamie’s windowsill. Together (with the lion’s share of the work falling to Charisma!) we were able to create a version of my fictional hotel that is not only possible, in that the structure and general architectural design are what one would expect for that part of London, but also plausible. I hope you will agree that our Blue Lion is the sort of place that might, had history taken a few minor turns, actually have existed.
Since the Blue Lion is fictional, I should also specify that the legend of Queen Elizabeth I taking shelter there is untrue, and moreover is not derived from any existing legend. If that makes you wonder if Queen Elizabeth II ever came to tea at the Blue Lion . . . I think you already know what I’m going to say.
Having declared more than once that I would never include the late queen as a character in one of my books, I now must ask forgiveness for breaking my promise. In my defense, I felt that the events of the book, had they actually occurred, would have merited a visit from the monarch; and where I have put words in her mouth, I have taken care to ensure they are consistent with Elizabeth II’s recorded utterances and opinions, with only a touch of whimsy on my part (specifically when she refers to troublesome relations).
The Worshipful Company of Cartwrights and Wainwrights is fictional, together with Cartwrights’ Hall on Northumberland Avenue. The City of London’s livery companies (both guilds and trade associations) do exist, however, with 110 of them at most recent count. The oldest, the Worshipful Company of Mercers, dates to 1394; the newest, the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars, was established in 2014.
Jamie’s paintings, notably Trafalgar Square and Second of June, do not exist, but I was inspired in my description of them by the work of notable midcentury artists such as Julian Trevelyan and Terence Cuneo.
Picture Weekly never existed, though it will be familiar to readers of Goodnight from London and The Gown. It was inspired by Picture Post, a groundbreaking weekly newsmagazine (1938–1957), and some of the stories I mention as appearing in PW have their origins in the pages of Picture Post.
The Donati Guides, too, are fictional; they had no real contemporary equivalent, but were borne of my decision, when writing Our Darkest Night, to make Stella’s parents the proprietors of a small publishing house that specialized in travel guides. I had no notion, then, that Stella would end up appearing in Coronation Year as well.
One element of Coronation Year is, sadly, very much grounded in truth: the racism and abuse experienced by Jamie and his family. In researching his story, I drew upon the memoirs and oral histories of British people of Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan ancestry. I also submitted my manuscript to three friends whose backgrounds differ, but who, as people of color, with families whose ancestors emigrated from the Indian subcontinent to white-dominated communities in Britain and Canada, share an understanding of the challenges that Jamie faced which I cannot truly understand. These readers all suggested amendments to Jamie’s story that not only improved Coronation Year, but also deepened my understanding of the racism that afflicts every aspect of our society, and I am sincerely grateful for their careful assessment of my work.
The events of Coronation Day unfolded as I’ve described them, with the exception of the bomb plot engineered by Ivor Brooks. While authorities were alert to the possibility of an attack on the queen or other dignitaries, and in fact conducted multiple sweeps of buildings along the route, there is no official record of any attempts to harm the queen or anyone in the procession on the day itself. The only disappointment of the day was the weather, which was, as I’ve described (and Jamie predicted) unseasonably cold and rainy.
Acknowledgments
It has been a strange few years indeed, and one constant that sustained me as I researched and wrote Coronation Year was the kindness and support of the readers who bought or borrowed my books, read and reread them, and sent me kind messages that warmed my heart and buoyed my spirits many, many times. I am so fortunate to have such devoted readers, and I thank you sincerely.
In the course of researching this book, I relied upon the digital collections of a number of libraries and archives. I would specifically like to acknowledge the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, the British Newspaper Archive, the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, the Museum of London, the National Archives (UK), the National Library of Scotland, the New York Public Library, the Royal Collection, and the Toronto Public Library.
Charisma Panchapakesan was instrumental in bringing my vision of the Blue Lion to life, and I thank her for the beautiful illustrations she contributed to this book. Thanks as well to Brian Hagood for answering my questions related to architecture both modern and medieval. I am also very grateful to Megan Preece for boosting my confidence with her wonderfully flattering author photograph.
Lt. Col J.G. Lindsay (ret’d) did his best to ensure my descriptions of explosives and amateur bomb-making were technically and historically accurate, and I thank him for his time and patience. John Moir helped me ensure that Stella’s work as a photojournalist for Picture Weekly was rendered with accuracy and (dare I say) focus, and I am sincerely grateful for his advice and suggestions.
Elaine Bowers, Amutha Haslam, and Alpana Piderit read the manuscript of Coronation Year with great care, and I am sincerely grateful for their individual suggestions on how I might ensure my characterization of James Geddes was both sensitive and accurate. Here I would like to emphasize that any errors or inadequacies in my portrait of Jamie as a biracial man and World War II veteran in 1950s England are my responsibility alone.
My literary agent, Kevan Lyon, is an unending source of support, and I want to thank her and her colleagues at the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency for taking care of this Delicate Artist with such patience and kindness.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Tessa Woodward, for her shared love of All Things Royal as well as her perpetually generous and able advice. I am also very grateful to Madelyn Blaney in editorial, as well as my publicists Dave Knox and Jes Lyons for constantly going above and beyond in their efforts to keep me heading in the right direction. My thanks as well to Ashley Hayes and her colleagues at UpLit for their guidance and help.
I would like to thank everyone who supports me and my books at William Morrow, in particular Robin Barletta, Carolyn Bodkin, Jennifer Hart, Martin Karlow, Mumtaz Mustafa, Carla Parker, Shelby Peak, Kelly Rudolph, Elizabeth Semrai, Alison Smith, Liate Stehlik, Diahann Sturge, and Amelia Wood. The producers at HarperAudio have once again created a beautiful audiobook and I am most grateful for their hard work. I also want to thank all of the sales staff in the U.S., Canada, and the international division, as well as the wonderful team at HarperCollins Canada. I would like to especially mention the late Sandra Leff, who championed me and my books from the start, and whose kindness and generosity I will never forget.
