Free The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper Page A

and I felt like wailing too.
    All four children—David, now nearly seven; Bertie, at five; three-year-old Mary; and the new baby, Harry, nine months, formally dubbed Henry William Frederick Albert—were recovering from the German measles. I’d been told their grandfather had joked last week that they might as well have the German kind, since they were all related to more Germans—and Russians, and Danes, etcetera—than to British.
    With tears in my eyes, I watched the children wave good-bye at the nursery window while their parents traveled in a closed carriage to the railway station and from there to London. It was bitter cold and snowing. In a few days, David and Bertie would go to Frogmore at Windsor for the queen’s burial service, and we’d all be joining the family at Buck House, as they called it, after that.The coronation of the new king with all its pomp and planning was months away, scheduled for good weather in the summer. I wondered how much the queen’s death would change the yearly routines of her heirs—and my life too, for I had come to accept the set pattern.
    The royal York family I served was always together on the estate for Easter and Christmas, and the hunting season for the month of August—and any other time the prince or duke could bring a hunting party of friends here. During May and June, the social season, they were in London, but I was here with the children before the rest of the royal schedule took us far and wide: Frogmore at Windsor for the ten days of Ascot every year; autumn in Scotland at Abergeldie Castle near Balmoral, or York House at St. James’s Palace in London; several weeks on the royal yacht V ictoria and A lbert each year, especially during August for the races at Cowes. Each place had suited the duke’s schedule, but that might all be different now, especially if he were to be named Prince of Wales soon.
    But there was another big change coming. Finch, the handsome, black-haired, and dark-eyed new footman who would soon take charge of David and Bertie, did his distinctive knock on the nursery door. “Come in, please, Finch,” I called, and he entered.
    Already, he had much more power than Cranston, who still fetched bathwater and most meals for the youngest Yorks. I knew Finch—Frederick was his given name—had been hired by their father and was being groomed to be David’s valet. He was good at romping with them as he was strong and muscular, strict but good-humored, so I had no objection there. To top that off, all too soon, a male tutor and a French governess would arrive to teach the lads to whom I’d taught basic sums and writing. How fastthese years had flown, but Victoria’s death seemed to me the end of an era for my life as well as for England and the Empire.
    â€œBack in bed, lads,” Finch told them with a clap.
    I say again it was difficult to get used to someone else bossing the boys. If they had not come down with the measles, I was sure Finch would have had permission to move them already to the new quarters he’d been preparing for them at the back of the hall.
    When the boys lingered at the window, Finch said, “Your parents can’t see you through the snow anyway today, and it’s cold for boys who have been ailing to be standing at the window, eh, Mrs. Lala?”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said as I pulled Mary closer and bounced little Harry on my lap. “Back in bed, you two.” At least Finch recognized my place with them, and I hoped that in the future the two of us could work together.
    Once the boys were settled and I had tucked them up, Finch gestured me out into the hall, so I put Harry in the crib. The boys whispered to each other about going to London soon, while Mary looked through a picture book. She never had much to do with the lovely, painted, porcelain-faced dolls she had been given but seemed a bit of a tomboy, trying to keep up with her