Daughter of Empire by Pamela Hicks Read Free Book Online Page A

gâteau d’hier
.
    After Mr Simpson left the next morning, Mrs Simpson and the King remained and there was a good deal of talking among the adults. Towards the end of that year the King gave up his throne so that
he could marry Wallis Simpson and this caused a huge crisis. I was surprised to learn that my cousin Lilibet and her sister Margaret Rose would actually have to live in Buckingham Palace and that,
eventually, Lilibet would be Queen. This took some digesting.
    Now that Patricia had turned twelve, she was sent to school in London, returning home on the weekends. During the week I spent hours playing alone, paddling down the long corridors in our model
four-wheeled canoe or pulling Lottie in the little German wagon we had brought back from Darmstadt. I came out of my imaginary world when I heard the horses being brought round to the mounting
block: riding made me feel real and happy. But this was not a good time for me. Miss Vick had left when Patricia started school, to be replaced by Mademoiselle Chevrier, whom we immediately
christened Zelle. And then Nanny left too. I heard adults muttering that this was ‘a good thing’ as she had become a ‘little too possessive’ of me, but I was not at all
happy. I was puzzled by Miss Crichton Miller, who came to look after me and begin preparing me for school. She kept asking me a lot of questions and she watched me play in a different way to Nanny.
I didn’t know what ‘highly strung’ or ‘not particularly sociable’ meant, but they didn’t sound very good. She did take me to see the deer in Cowdray Park,
however, and was nice in a remote sort of way, completely unlike my much-adored Nanny.
    If Mummy was at home then that meant Bunny would be there too, but they never stayed for very long. During the winter of 1937, the postcards began to roll in again, showing the animals they had
seen in Kenya, Uganda and the Belgian Congo. I stuck the cards in an album but it didn’t really make up for them not being around. I cheered up a lot when I was told that my mother was coming
home for my eighth birthday, especially when the news of her return from Africa was delivered with an air of mystery and none of us could quite work out what was going on. My father left for the
airport with no idea what he would discover, and was amazed to see her descend from the plane with a three-month-old lion cub in her arms. ‘His name is Sabi,’ she told him, ‘his
mother was shot in the Transvaal for attacking a man and poaching cattle. We simply had to bring him back with us.’ It had been easy enough to get the lion cub on a plane in Africa. There was
a momentary hiccup, however, when she and Bunny disembarked in London and the airport authorities told them that Sabi needed to go into quarantine, as they couldn’t think where. My father
– suppressing his shock at my mother’s cargo – reassured the authorities that Adsdean could become an official site for lion quarantine and all was fixed. By now a seasoned
traveller, Sabi settled down on the parcel shelf of the car and was driven to our house by my astonished father.
    Sabi was adorable and became a treasured member of our menagerie. He was as small as the Sealyham terriers and it amused me to watch guests’ surprise as they bumped into him outside while
he was having a tussle with one of the dogs over a towel or a toy. He loved the golf course and would lie sunning himself in the sandy bunkers, although he did unfortunately also like to use them
as litter trays. He also enjoyed lying in wait on the high banks around the croquet lawn, when Grandmama and her friend Mrs Jenkins were playing, gathering himself up then suddenly propelling
himself from his hiding place and charging down towards the old ladies, scattering the croquet balls everywhere. When we had lunch he would lie under the dining-room table and chew any available
walking stick belonging to an elderly relative. He grew so fast that he was soon