The King's Speech - Mark Logue [62]
Logue was overcome with emotion, and it was as much as he could do to stop tears trickling down his cheeks. They then walked through into the reception room and he, the King and the Queen sat in front of the fire for nearly an hour, talking through the many things that had happened in the seven months since the coronation.
Just before it was time for tea, the King stood up. ‘Oh, Logue, I want to speak to you,’ he said. Logue followed him to the library. He took from his desk a picture of himself, the Queen and the little princesses in their coronation robes, which they both had autographed, as well as a box. Inside was a beautiful replica of a silver tobacco box, and a pair of gold sleeve links in black enamel with the royal arms and Crown.
Logue was too overcome to say much, but the King patted him on the back. ‘I do not know that I can ever thank you enough for all that you have done for me,’ he said.
Tea was another informal meal: the Queen was at one end of the table and Lady May Cambridge at the other. Afterwards, they all went down to the big decorated ballroom, where Logue was to receive an insight into the highly organized ritual of royal present-giving. In the centre of the room was a large Christmas tree stretching up to the roof, beautifully decorated. All around the room huge trestle tables had been put up, covered in white paper. They were about three feet wide and divided every three feet by a blue ribbon, giving everyone a space three feet square. Each space was marked with a name tag, starting with the King and Queen, and inside was that person’s presents.
The King had given the Queen a lovely sapphire coronet, but Logue was struck by the simplicity of both the whole procedure and the other presents, especially those given to the children. Then they all played ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ with the two princesses and the other royal children.
For Logue, the time went by almost in a dream until at 6.30 Commander Lang, the equerry, pointed out that if he was going to make his train back to London he would have to set off presently, especially because of the fog. Earlier that afternoon, the Queen had offered to Logue to stay the night if he wanted, but he was reluctant to outstay his welcome. There was also the matter of his own guests waiting for him back at his home in Sydenham.
In the meantime the King, his wife and mother had gone into the nearby long room to hand out presents to staff and people on the estate, but when the equerry whispered to them that Logue was leaving, they broke off to bid him farewell.
So Logue bowed over the two queens’ hands and they both thanked him sweetly for what he had done, and then the King shook his hand and said how much he appreciated his having sacrificed Christmas dinner on his behalf. ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘as there is no dining car on the train I have arranged for a hamper to be left for you.’
Outside it was now terribly foggy, but the driver somehow made it to Wolferton in good time and Logue was soon on the train back to London, accompanied by a hamper containing a beautiful Christmas dinner with the King’s compliments. Despite the fog, the train pulled into Liverpool Street three minutes ahead of schedule. Laurie, who had left his own Christmas dinner, was waiting to bring his father home. By 10.45 Logue was receiving another welcome in his own home where all the guests seemed well and happy. And so ended what he described as ‘one of the most wonderful days I have ever had in my life’.
Myrtle did not join her husband at Sandringham. That spring, she had begun to suffer from an inflamed gall bladder, and on 5 July was operated on. The surgeon removed fourteen stones, ‘enough to make a rockery’, as she put it in a letter to her brother Rupert. She spent more than three weeks in hospital before she was discharged, but suffered a relapse ten days later, when a splinter of stone left behind began to move. As she lurched from crisis to crisis, Lionel was distraught at the possibility