Jennifer Robson - Coronation Year

For Matthew and Daniela

(how fortunate I am to be your mum)

Contents

Edwina Duncan Howard

Thursday, January 1, 1953

A gale from the east had swept across the city late the evening before, scouring away the worst of the smog, and the rare sight of Londons night sky had inspired Edie to open her curtains and raise the fraying blackout blind. Shed tucked herself into bed, her spectacles still on, because what was the point of looking at the stars if she couldnt make them out?

But shed been tired, so awfully tired, and shed fallen asleep straightaway. And now it was a quarter to seven in the morning, the stars had faded from the still-dark sky, and before she was even fully awake she remembered it all. Nothing tragic or calamitous; nothing she would dream of sharing with any of the people who worked for her. Just worries, an impatient and none too polite queue of them, each demanding her attention, her time, and every last penny of the Blue Lions ever-diminishing supply of capital.

She threw back the covers, sat up straight, and set her feet on the cold floor. Time to be up, past time to stop fretting and fussing, for it was a new daya new year, the year of the queens coronation, and in six months the world would be coming to London, and by the greatest stroke of good fortune she and her guests at the Blue Lion would have front-row seats for at least part of the festivities.

Even now, months after learning the coronation procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey would pass by her front door, Edie still marveled that some bureaucrat in Whitehall had made the fateful decision to send the procession along Northumberland Avenue, never for a moment considering the effect it would have on the historic, if often overlooked, hotel that Edies ancestor had founded in 1560.

A knock at the door put an end to her musings. Miss Howard?

I wont be a moment. She fumbled for her spectacles, which she fortunately hadnt crushed in her sleep, pulled on her robe, stepped into her slippers, and glanced at the overmantel mirror to ensure her hair was tidy. Only then did she unlock and open her door to the hotels night manager.

Good morning, Mr. Swan, and Happy New Year.

The same to you, Miss Howard. May I bring in your breakfast?

Yes, thank you. How were things overnight?

Nicely quiet. Not a peep from the rooms.

Well. There wouldnt be, given that only seven guests were in residence, among them their three long-term boarders, and none were the sort to stay up late. By midnight they had likely been abed for hours.

Any trouble with the Queen Bess? The public house down the street made for good neighbors most of the time, but bank holidays occasionally meant messes to clear up and, intermittently, broken windows when its patrons turned into amateur pugilists.

He set her breakfast tray on the desk by the window, straightened it with care, and turned to face her. Not as bad as Boxing Day. Quieted down long before last orders.

Good, good. I always sleep well when I know youre at the front desk.

Thank you, miss, Arthur said, his ears reddening at the compliment. Ill see you this evening, then.

The particulars varied, but the essentials remained the same. In the fourteen years Arthur had been night manager, neither he nor Edie had deviated from the established formula for their morning conversation. She knew he was married and that his wifes name was Florence but he called her Flossie. She knew he had two children, Arthur Junior and Gawain, the latter name a startlingly poetic choice for such a placid and practical man, and she knew his address and of course exactly how much he made, since she was the one who paid his wages. But shed gleaned nearly every scrap of information from overheard conversations and secondhand exchanges with other hotel employees. Not once had she and Arthur spoken of his life beyond the hotel, and if she were ever to unbend herself and ask after Flossie and the children, she was almost certain he would faint on the spot.

She never called him Arthur to his face, though she thought of him that way. She thought of all her employees as family, though she could never allow herself the luxury of friendship with them. Be friendly , her father had liked to remind her, but remember that youre not their friend. Youre not meant to be friends .

Edie had remembered that advice, together with everything else Pa had told her, when shed been left with the hotel. A few months shy of twenty-one, still in shock after the death of her parents, suddenly responsible for the livelihood and well-being of eighteen full-time employees, shed clung to her memories of Pa and Mum and the generations of Howards before them. Her family had kept the Blue Lion open and modestly profitable for almost four hundred years. She had only to follow in their footsteps.

Pa had loved to tell her stories of the hotel, so while other girls fell asleep to fairy tales or stories from Schoolgirls Own , Edies bedtime fare had been the unfolding saga of the Blue Lion and its glorious past.

It was our ancestor, Jacob Howard, who founded this hotel, her father would often begin. Mind you, it was an old building even then, never mind the Victorian coat it wears now, and ever since then, for seventeen generations, theres been a Howard at the helm. Your mother and I have the running of it now, just as your grandparents did before us, which means... ?

It will be mine one day.

Left unsaid was all that had happened before she was born. Her brothers, killed during the Great War, lost in the mud and blood of the Somme, and Edie the replacement, conceived so the Howard name would not die along with them. The disappointment of her being a girl was never mentioned, of course.

Think of it, Edieevery timber and flagstone and scrap of plaster and stick of furniture in these buildings will be yours. And that makes you the luckiest girl in London.

She had believed him then, but now? Now she wasnt so sure. It all depended, she supposed, on what one accounted as luck.

The little clock on her mantel trilled the hour. Seven oclock already, her breakfast growing cold, and the entire day yet to get through. One day she would lounge in bed until noon, and she would eat her breakfast without getting up, never mind the crumbs, and shed spend all afternoon reading. One day, after the coronation, when she had restored the hotels fortunes and the weight of it all didnt sit quite so heavily on her shoulders.

Today, however, she could not afford to linger. Instead she ate her toast and marmalade, poured her tea and gulped it down, and then set about getting dressed. She always wore the same thing, excepting the odd evening out, for it saved time in the morning and, more importantly, made her instantly recognizable to both her guests and employees. A white poplin blouse with detachable collar for easier laundering, a charcoal-gray skirt that grazed the top of her calves and was scarcely fuller than the Utility skirts shed worn during the war, a tailored jacket to match, and sensible lace-up shoes with a low heel. On her left lapel was a blue enamel badge, its edges delicately gilded, that read Miss E. D. Howard and, below it, Proprietor . She wore no jewelry apart from her mothers wristwatch.

After making her bed, Edie collected the tray to take downstairs. Her room was on the top floor at the back of the hotel, with a northerly aspect and an unremarkable view of the surrounding roofs. The largest of the staff bedrooms, it was half the size of the best guest rooms at the front of the building, and its furnishings were the same as theyd been when her parents had taken over the chamber at the turn of the century.