End of an Era XIV.
Back in The Mall, the end of the first part of the funeral proceedings saw the crowds on the move. In the congested streets, the little group of five decided to link arms like the sailors had done as they pulled the coffin to ensure they stayed together as they headed for Admiralty Arch. They were heading for Charing Cross station, as it had the advantage of being closest and also offered both the trains towards Surrey and the underground towards Kensington. They said very little as they walked, until they parted company outside the main entrance to the station.
There Sebastian and Adam said their farewells to Miss Frobisher, who hugged them both. They would head directly from Adam's home village to Heathrow the next day rather than come into London, as that allowed them a little longer in bed. They agreed a time with Jeff and Drew to meet up at the airport, and then they headed into the station, finding a train that would convey them to London Bridge for the service to East Croydon about to depart. What was a surprise to them was that the train was not crowded at all…
The other three members of the group headed down into the tube, and hopped on the first available train towards Embankment, the station less than 35 seconds down the line, where they could catch the District Line service west. They had a short wait, but the platform remained quiet, and the train was too. Drew wondered out loud why it would be, given that so many people would be leaving the centre of the city, particularly when the stops at Westminster, St James Park and Victoria where also quiet. Miss Frobisher hazarded a guess… "They have all gone to look at the flowers laid out in the parks, to have a last look at them before the final moment of all comes…"
As the two small groups headed home from central London to their respective accommodation, to finish packing in the case of those returning to the United States the following day, Trent was now running through the daily briefing for the President, who had just arrived back at Winfield House from Westminster Abbey. They were eating lunch as he did so, and a hurried one at that, as they would be leaving for Heathrow in around 45 minutes to head back to Washington DC. The President for his part largely just listened and made few comments; indeed, he just nodded most of the time as he ate a sandwich. With the briefing done, he spoke to Trent about the events of the morning.
"I have to admit that service was the most apt and fitting tribute to a wonderful lady; the right mixture of tradition, respect, dignity and sorrow. That bagpiper at the end, and that tune… Even my Russian counterpart shed a tear at that moment, as did I…"
"Although you would both categorically deny doing so if the Chinese President reports it to the media," said Trent lightly, which made Kennedy laugh.
"I don't know exactly who created the seating plan, or made the schedule for that shuttle bus, but I sat alongside those two as mourners at a funeral of a mutual friend, and yes, we talked. We talked about our memories of our meetings with Her Majesty, and the reaction of her people and of the whole world, all of us fully aware that we would never command the same reaction, at least in a genuine, unforced way. We did not talk about the things that divide us, those geopolitical issues that tie us in knots, and the ideology that we espouse; we talked about being human and dealing with a sense of loss. I doubt that a meeting like that will ever happen again between us in public, but I do hope that maybe now in private we can act in a more cordial and respectful manner with each other. It would be a fitting tribute to the late Queen if we could, but whether that is possible is a subject for much debate…"
Trent nodded, but he knew in his heart that however well intentioned it might seem, the chances of them doing so were virtually zero; the human need to show dominance and bravado would see to that.
As the presidential party departed for Heathrow airport, over in New York Nick was experiencing an unusually quiet morning in his office at the United Nations. He had arrived in the building a few minutes late, and had hurried up to his level in the building. He had sprinted down the corridor to Miss Worthington's office, ready to apologise profusely to her, but he found that her office was deserted. He wondered if she might be in the conference room, or worse, waiting for him in his office; he dashed back out into the corridor, and almost knocked over one of the administrative team…
She smiled at him, then said, "She isn't in yet, and won't be for another hour. She was watching the funeral with friends in her home town, so she will only just be on the train. I have to admit that I was a little late getting here as well; in fact, I think we all were. That funeral was something that none of us wanted to miss. You have to hand it to the British, they know how to put on a show, as it were… Those sailors pulling her coffin through the streets to the Abbey and the precision of the military in that parade. I have never been to London, but maybe this summer is the time to change that…"
"It is a wonderful city, and this is the perfect time, right before your eldest kids start high school, if I recall correctly," replied Nick. "The one tip I would give you is that you should avoid staying in the hotels right in the centre of the city; if you stay out in the East End, somewhere like Stratford where they have all the accommodation they built for the Olympics in 2012, it can be done without breaking into those college funds, and the public transport around the city and to the airports is good from there…"
The admin assistant nodded, and headed off to get on with her work, whilst Nick did the same. He went immediately into the daily crisis update file, and for the first time ever, he found that inbox empty. He wondered if there was some glitch at first, but then he realised that nobody wanted to harass their fellow man on the day of the late Queen's funeral. He was able then to leisurely go through all of his other e-mail, not that there was much new there either.
He knew he should start work on his reports, but he decided that he could quickly check what was going on right now on the other side of the Atlantic, and he switched on the BBC livestream. He saw that the hearse was now being driven slowly up what he knew to be the Long Walk, the road through Windsor Great Park up to the Castle. The sun was now beginning to set in the West, but even in the twilight of a cold January day, the road through the parkland was lined with people…
Unbeknownst to Nick, Jeff was watching the same moment in Kensington, flanked by Drew and Miss Frobisher. They drank tea and ate homemade fruit cake as they watched on the sofa in her sitting room, and saw the moment when the hearse slowed down as it passed the late Queen's favourite horse, the last one she had ridden, standing there with its groom. As the hearse entered the Castle itself, they passed by a liveried footman that was holding the leads of her two dogs, and the demeanour of the animals seemed to suggest that they knew it was their mistress in the coffin…
At last the hearse reached the door of St George's Chapel, the family already inside this time. The pall bearers performed their duty one final time, lifting the coffin out of the hearse and carrying it down the aisle of the chapel, finally setting it down on the spot before the altar, between the two rows of choir stalls, both of which were filled by the closest members of her family. The service that followed was much shorter and less grand than the one in the Abbey earlier, but it was even more personal, and that made it more moving.
Then it became symbolic. With precision and dignity, the orb, sceptre and crown were taken from the coffin, and placed on the altar, just as they had been waiting on the altar of Westminster Abbey back in 1953. She had been given them on her Coronation day for life, and now she needed them no longer. That done, her son stepped forward, and gently placed her own small personal colour flag on the top of the coffin, above the spot her head lay in. The Lord Chamberlain, the man that she had appointed to run her household, symbolically snapped his wand of office in two, and placed it on the coffin, his duties now done…
Finally, as one of the clergy read out the words of Psalm 103, the coffin slowly began to sink down through the floor of the chapel into the crypt below, and his words done, the Queen's piper played once again, another melancholy tune; and as he did so, he turned and walked away out of the Chapel, so that the sound faded into the distance…
That sound, coupled with the coffin disappearing through the floor into the crypt below where she would be reunited in death with her beloved husband and lie alongside her parents and sister, broke hearts around the globe. Even the coldest of people could not fail to be moved by the combination of vision and sound. In Kensington and Surrey, the two households shed tears together, Jeff thinking that that particular moment, planned in meticulous detail by the late monarch herself, had been perfectly judged.
At the United Nations building in New York, the committal service had been on the background of so many offices; in the Human Rights department, Nick had sat alongside Miss Worthington in her office, their phones with them should someone need to contact them. As the bagpiper played, Nick finally broke down in tears, as the sadness of it all reminded him of the day that he and his fellow Warblers had sung Bye, Bye, Blackbird at the time when they had experienced their greatest ever sense of loss, and they had all become a mass of emotions, tears in every eye. It was all down to the choice of tune and the way that it had just faded away into the distance…
Thad did not witness that moment live, but heard all about it from the Carmichaels; he made a point of watching that specific moment when lunchtime came, and found out exactly why half of the world was talking about how it was the perfect end to the public ceremonial…
The family would leave the chapel shortly thereafter on screen, as the voice of David Dimbleby, veteran commentator on so many public events for the BBC, concluded their coverage, which had run almost non-stop since her ill health had been announced. He had come out of retirement without a qualm to cover the event, and it was fitting that he had done so. Miss Frobisher had pointed out to her two house guests that his father, Richard Dimbleby, had been the person that had commentated on the Lying of State of the late George VI, the Queen's father, and had then been the commentator for her Coronation…
That connection had not been missed by Nick either and he thought on it as he took a moment to freshen up and wash his tear stained face before he headed to collect his lunch. Richard Dimbleby had been the 'safe hands' of the fledgling BBC TV service, and he had gravitas and authority. People recalled that he had been one of the first journalists to reach the liberated concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen and had spoken about it on the BBC Radio; he had then been able to explore and commentate on the ruins of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in May 1945.
He had left the radio and moved into television after the war, and would be there for every major event in the next two decades, and had been able to present the most serious of news stories too without bias or side taking. He had died relatively young in 1965, but by then his mantle was ready to be taken up by his two sons. David had taken a job with the BBC, but his brother Jonathan had taken a role at ITV. They had covered everything from major events to elections on opposing sides thereafter…
Nick took his lunch in the restaurant downstairs in the building, and the funeral seemed to be the only subject of conversation there, in a huge number of languages. On his way back up to his office, he had checked his phone and saw that he had received a message from Trent about the committal service; it read, 'Wow! Just wow! That was worthy of an award for its simplicity and yet, absolute perfection.' Nick smiled at those sentiments, agreeing with them fully. He realised that his fellow musketeer would by know be on his way back stateside, heading home on Airforce One. He also realised that it was an absolutely perfect time to quickly call his husband, who would be nearly home this time tomorrow – and, oh, how happy that made him feel. He went back into his office, shut the door, and dialled, and soon heard the voice of the man that he loved equally as much as one other person in the world; that other person was, of course, their son…
Across Manhattan, Nick's brother-in-law and his main co-star in The Sound of Music had also taken time out from their rehearsals to watch the committal service. They had both watched the funeral service as well that morning before heading to their rehearsal space, but it had proven hard to concentrate on the task in hand, knowing what was going on, and so the director had decided it would not hurt to stop rehearsals and allow his cast to watch events in the United Kingdom. Marley had experienced the whole event from a very different perspective to Cooper and the others in the United States of course, as she and her new husband Ryder had found themselves in the middle of a nation's obvious grief…
The first days of their honeymoon in St Lucia had been all that they expected; there had been sun, warmth and sandy beaches to relax on together as palm trees waved gently in the breeze. The people had been so welcoming, and their hotel was a luxurious paradise of the kind that both of them had only dreamed of when they had been growing up in Ohio. It was the perfect way to start married life…
Then, on the Saturday morning they had woken up late, and the whole atmosphere on the island had shifted. As they went to breakfast they had heard the staff and other members of the local community talking in hushed tones about 'the Commonwealth' and 'the Queen'. They had noticed that the conversations were growing more frequent, and so in the end, Ryder had asked the maid that was assigned to their room – although it was a private bungalow really – what was going on, and she had told them in sad tones the news.
As they had risen late, they headed for lunch late too, at 1.30pm St Lucia time, to the restaurant that they had gone to on their first day on the island, and had enjoyed so much. The staff had been every bit as welcoming to them, but it was obvious that they were distracted by other events. They had paid, then headed back slowly along the beach to the hotel. They had been around half way there when the bell of the local church began to toll, and if they listened carefully, they could hear the bells across the island ringing out at the same time. It was beautiful, but also meaningful in the extreme…
Marley had looked at Ryder then, and he had said quietly, "I think that this means that England now has a new King." Marley had refused to believe him at first, thinking the bells were ringing for another reason, but when they arrived back at the hotel it was to find the housekeeper sitting in her office crying; switching on the television and tuning into the BBC News Channel on the satellite, they had seen all the confirmation they required. Of all of the circle of friends, only Marley and Ryder had been physical witness to the moment that a nation with strong ties to the United Kingdom and its monarchy, through being a former colony and a current member of the Commonwealth, had learnt of the death of the Queen…
"It was as if a close relative, someone that they loved and cherished, had just passed away. She had visited the island twice in her lifetime, although in recent times it was her son, the new King, that came to mark the major events, such as the significant anniversaries of when they were granted independence. The clothes that they all wore changed, and the noise seemed to fade and be less joyful. Our holiday carried on, and the staff at the hotel were every bit as wonderful and attentive to our every need, but you could see that they were all genuinely upset…"
"On the following day, the Sunday, there was a memorial service being held at the main church in the nearest town, and we both decided that we should go, as long as we would be welcome there. We were, and it was so wonderful to witness how they came together to give thanks for her life as well as mourning for her death. There was singing and there were tears… Afterwards, the maids all thanked us for taking time to share their loss, and well, I think that after that we got a little better treatment than the people that had complained that they couldn't get a fresh towel or a cocktail during the hour that they all spent in church…"
Cooper chuckled, and said, "That would not surprise me in the least. People are very passionate about Her Majesty… I know that Adam was heartbroken by her death, and the vast majority of the ex-pat community here either went home or gathered together – and those gatherings weren't just today, but every day since she died. They will be dimming the lights on Broadway again tonight, just as they all spontaneously did on the night that she passed away."
Marley nodded, then said, "I don't envy Adam and the others that actually went to London. I saw the footage of them at the Lying in State, and the interviews that he and Sebastian did, and the fact that they stood in line for so many hours in the cold…I couldn't have done it. When are they coming back?"
"They will all be back tomorrow. I think that Jeff being home will be a relief to Nick; not because he has had to juggle a full time job and a school age son, but because he has been a little lost without the man that he loves so much…"
"Just I can't imagine being parted from Ryder now for any reason…"
Cooper sighed, and said, "Grace sometimes wishes that she could get away from me, but nonetheless I do get exactly what you mean…" That quip made Marley laugh, and once that moment had passed, they both decided that they could not put off their rehearsals any longer…
The sun had by then set over London, the streets of the city still quiet with the majority of the population staying at home, even if some of the pubs had now opened up again to allow people to come together and raise a glass to their late monarch. The flags still flew at half-mast, but they would be raised again at midnight, as the period of official mourning for the nation as a whole came to a close. For her family, however, it would continue for another week or so; they would vanish now from public view to grieve in private, and that was something that the media would respect.
Of course, not all of the family could hide away for much longer, especially those with school-age children, as they would need to return to the classroom. That fact meant that the new Princess of Wales would be back out on the school run the following morning, ferrying her three children to their two schools, now that Prince George was in high school. That scenario would soon have to change, as some advisors were already pointing out that it was no longer all that advisable to have the second, third and fourth in line to the throne travelling together every morning; it had been suggested that a protection officer could drive George to school each day…
Time spent with their children was a touchy subject for any mother, and that was the reason why Jeff's phone began to ring just after 7pm. He answered it without looking, and to say that he was surprised to hear her voice was an understatement to say the least; however, he did not go straight into the formal tones that he had always used when he was talking to the late Queen, and Kate was grateful for that after so many days of formality. She explained to him that all she really wanted to do was to chat to him about the children and about how their entire family life had been turned on its head in a moment, and he was the best placed person to have that chat with, as he was not British.
She started by confirming to him in confidence that the rumour that they would be moving into Windsor Castle itself was entirely true… "I am barely settled into our current home after so long living in the apartments in Kensington Palace, and now we will have to move again. The good news is that contrary to what people believed, Her Majesty's taste in private was actually quite modern, so we can make the move without too much fuss or work needing to be done. It was all rewired and given much better heating and insulation a few years ago, and the telecoms are all state of the art too. Some people would say that I will have more staff to cater for our needs, but we will also have much less privacy. We will be open to the public there quite literally, and there will be a lot more visitors wanting to come to the Castle when they open the vault in which Her Majesty is now lying up to the public. The stone is already in place now, with the dates inscribed upon it…"
The Princess paused then for a moment, and in a low voice said, "It was only tonight, when I was in there at the private service, that I suddenly realised that I will be in there one day too, as a Queen consort of a future King…"
"That will not happen for a very long time yet, and you will deserve to be honoured in that way," interjected Jeff.
"Moving into Windsor Castle is not what is bothering me the most about our change in circumstances; it is the whole issue around the schooling of my children. I am so used to taking the three of them to school each day, and the very thought of not taking George and leaving him to travel with a minder makes me feel unwell. At least I do not have the worry of him going off to boarding school and never being at home. If he does end up going to his father's old school, then he will be able to come home every night."
"In that you're lucky," said Jeff in reply. "If Wes decides that he wants to do that, he will have to be a boarder, as there is no way he could come home from Ohio every night. We would miss him terribly, but if that is what he decides he wants to do, neither Nick or I would try to change his mind. Of course, Wes is lucky to have the option to chose what he does; I'm guessing that neither George or indeed you and William will be given much option…"
Kate let out a laugh at that, then whispered, "Oh, they say that we do, but in reality, that isn't the case…"
Jeff felt an overwhelming amount of sympathy for the woman at the other end of the phone call. Some would have said of course that she knew what she was getting into when she had agreed to marry the heir to the throne, and that she had a title, staff to assist her, and of course, money; she would never have to scrimp and save like so many of the population of the United Kingdom. That much was true, but she did not have one of the most basic of human rights, namely the freedom to choose exactly what she wanted to do and when, both for herself and her children; nor could she express an opinion without the risk of censure from the family and the media.
"I wouldn't want to be in your position for the world," he replied quietly. "I am guessing that George will be attending Eton like his father and uncle?"
"Of course, and I accept that, because it isn't Gordonstoun, where his grandfather the King was sent by his father. I would never have accepted that under any circumstances, and especially not at the age he is."
Jeff thought for a moment, and then said, "In a way I am always glad that my biological father washed his hands of me and dumped me in that orphanage; that the Sterlings came along and adopted me as their own before my mother could find me and bring me home. Had that happened, I would have been sent off to military school, forced to be a soldier and certainly never would have been allowed to have a career in art. I would never have met Nicky had all that happened, which would mean that there would be no Wes, and no living in London. I would never have met you and all of the family…"
"I am glad that your life worked out the way it did too, because I regard the fact that we met that day in the grounds of Kensington Palace as fortuitous. If I hadn't come out, filled with curiosity, to see exactly who was drawing so intently in the grounds, then Her Majesty would have missed the chance to meet the man behind her favourite artwork. I hope that now she might have met the man that was portrayed in that piece as well," replied the Princess. Jeff said nothing, even though he knew that she had, as that would be too much.
"Well," she said, "I need to go now, but I would like to thank you once again for being here, on behalf of not just myself and William, but the entire family. It meant so much to all of us, and well, let's just say that I expect I will be seeing you and your family again in the summer…" With those words, the Princess was gone, leaving Jeff to wonder quite what she meant by that, and he could only assume that she might be in New York later in the year…