Coronation by Paul Gallico Read Free Book Online Page A

and said, ‘Not yet, luvvy. Have another little nap.’
    Granny said, ‘Why don’t you tell her? She isn’t ever going to see her.’
    ‘I can’t,’ replied Will Clagg in agony.
    For the first time Johnny Clagg became aware of the true nature of the situation. ‘Aren’t we going to see anything ?’ he yammered.
    Clagg had to lie to him. ‘Not yet. Maybe later.’ He wondered whether with the little money he had on him he might bribe the policeman to let them through, and simultaneously knew that never in a million years would he be able to approach the constable with such a proposition, nor in as many aeons would the man ever accept it. In the meantime the rain continued to fall and in the distance there was a pealing of bells.
    And just when all euphoria occasioned by the incident of the police sergeants had been drained away, there occurred another diversion: a party of young people arrived, well bundled up against the weather, three girls and two boys just out of their teens. They had with them an umbrella, a small portable radio and a packet of sandwiches. With that extreme and happy disregard of youth for what goes on about them, they had apparently never heard of or read the long complicated rules laid down by the authorities governing pedestrian and vehicular movement on Coronation Day, and blithely demanded admission of the harassed constable. Denied it, they made no protest but, sheltering the wireless beneath the umbrella, switched it on and formed themselves into a circle to listen.
    The voice of the commentator inside Westminster Abbey came through. Those standing nearby, including the Claggs, moved closer to hear and soon there was a ring of listeners gathered about the young people. They and their portable set were a centre of attraction, and this made them happy.
    The contact furnished by the voice emerging from the little speaker brought the Claggs back to life again. They were filled with gratitude for it and it seemed as though things had suddenly taken a turn for the better and they listened eagerly. It didn’t strike them that they might have been hearkening to the same commentary in the warmth and comfort of their own home.
    ‘Listen to what the man is saying,’ Violet Clagg admonished the two children. ‘He’s talking about the Queen.’
    The subdued voice of the commentator from within the Abbey came through: ‘In a moment you will be hearing the fanfare which will be the signal for the presentation of the Queen to the peers of the realm by the Archbishop of Canterbury—’
    *
    High up in the eaves of the Abbey trumpeters with one unanimous movement set their silver bannereted instruments to their lips and blew a fanfare that went echoing through the great church, shattering the silences through vault and nave. It was the signal for the Ceremony of Recognition, that exquisitely beautiful anachronism in which the queen to be crowned was made known to the nobles of her realm gathered to acknowledge her.
    The Queen, attired in gold-embroidered white, was a tiny figure in a pool of light, standing on the blue-carpeted floor in the centre of the Abbey. The colour of her raiment was symbolic, for that day too she would become the bride of England, wedded indissolubly to the State, the Church and British subjects throughout the world.
    This was one of those astounding moments in the history of the taming and civilising of man in which he relinquished all his great temporal power in the face of the spiritual ideal.
    There stood a lone woman, as gentle and helpless as a butterfly. She had no power beyond the history and the travail of the nation she represented. There were no armies at her back. At her side stood only a benign old man in a glittering green cope, holding a cross.
    The might of man appeared to be personified by the black-clad figure of the Lord Chancellor in his great and terrifying wig, the Lord High Chamberlain, the Earl Marshal, and the Garter King of Arms in his multi-coloured