NB Although all of the great houses and historical figures are real, current period characters are purely from my imagination and have no link with anyone living or dead.

Part 8 The Future Lies in Wait

Tristan said “Young Sire, I was merely a yard-boy in a merchants house when the witch put the spell on me. Only since I have been reborn have I found that I am related to grand people.” He then went on to tell the young prince the full story of how he had been turned into a frog, something that we had kept from the media.

The princes’ eyes got very wide when Tristan told him the wording of the spell. “That would make whoever kissed you a princess!”

He was a very bright lad and I said that this was why he saw me today as I am; having been not that much different than him when my transformation took place.

He said “Madame Beverley, even the make-up cannot hide your beauty. I look forward to your presentation today and, perhaps, meeting you again one day without the crowds around us.”

He then left us and Tristan said “I think he is keen on you, my saviour, I wonder if one day, when we are all a little older, he will try to turn you into a genuine princess.”

I gave a little laugh but I had seen that look in his eyes when we were speaking and knew I had a fan in the royal household. I turned to Tristan and said “The chap from NT said that you had a job with them if you like, do you think you may do it?”

He nodded and answered “I think that I will. I do need to learn how to read and write properly and working weekends with them would give me time. Your father told me that he is organising an apartment for the four of you near your schooling and that I could live in your old room, if you do not mind. He would then organise proper schooling for me.”

I laughed and wondered when my folks would get around to telling me that I was going to be fully independent. We strolled towards the others and rounded up our little group, having to peel Alec away from a very buxom strawberry-blonde he was having an animated conversation with.

Stella gave her Hamish a peck on the cheek and Sarah left her parents. Together we went to our ‘jumping off point’ to wait for our signal. The guests were slowly taken out to the lawn where seats were arranged with the most important people at the front.

I said to Tristan “Take a note of the people in the first three rows, if you ever meet them again, be very mindful that they have a lot of power.”

Things settled down and the organiser warned us that we were about to go live and then I was given the signal to start the proceedings. I put on my most serious face as I walked out in front of this august body and started my set-piece but put as much life into it as I could.

I could see nods and smiles as I related the very early days when the land was a hunting ground of the royals and then I got to the de Bourchiers and the main generations we were interest in. There was a gasp when I related the time when the young Earl violated my body in the hunting lodge that had been on the site in front of where they sat.

Then we brought Sarah is as another worker who I told had helped me in my labour. We then brought in Tristan and had a chat about all of the things that went on in the house during the time he was living here. There was looks of amazement at some of the tasks that needed to be done just to keep a couple of noble folk happy and nary a one disbelieved the fact that Tristan lived at that time.

We got to the death of the Second Earl of Essex and the subsequent takeover of the land by his daughter, Anne. Stella and Alec then came out and related their time on the property and their tempestuous relationship, ending with Parr having the land taken away from him.

I then came forward again and said “After William Parr lost the land it was then given, by Queen Elizabeth the First, to Henry Maynard in 1590. Lo and behold, here he comes now.”

We backed off as the bearded Hamish came out in Elizabethan garb and started the presentation of the next chapter of the history, with his house rising from the ruins of the old manor before the present house started taking shape in 1840 on the ruins of the old hunting lodge.

He took us up to that point and then passed to another actor who took us all through to the twentieth century when the house and grounds were sold to Basil Dean, a famous film and theatre director and producer. Then there was a long line of the drama school actors who provided vignettes of the famous people who had been here, mainly in the Barn Theatre that had been converted in 1913 by the Lady ‘Daisy’ Warwick, supposedly the mistress of the then Prince of Wales.

One of the actors was the girl that Alec had been talking to and she played the part of Hermione Baddeley, a brassy actress of the thirties to fifties. Others played H.G Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin, Gracie Fields and George Formby, all had been here among many others.

As they say, all good things come to pass and the last presenter did not take long to take us to the present day, calling on the CEO of NT to start the official proceedings. He joined the rest of us and there was applause as we all bowed or curtsied.

The opening proper then took place with the King giving a nice compliment to us all by saying that he had learned a lot about not only the house and land today, but also about the characters who had walked this ground before us. He hoped that those who come after will continue to make their mark on society and the declared “Little Eastern Manor, a jewel in the fabric of Essex, open.”

I had to wonder why we had spent the best part of an hour getting to the main part which took less than five minutes, but I suppose you cannot take up too much of a Kings’ time. I had thought that the time had come for us all to be put to one side while the royal party was shown around but no, we were all roped in to be part of the processional retinue with the VIPs mingling with the rest of us.

I found my young prince by my side and he told me that for a princess, I made a great actress. And then he said “Miss Beverley, can you sit with us at dinner, Tristan will come too. My father wants to talk to you.”

After the inspection tour we were allowed to get back to the marquee where we removed our costumes and were kitted out with our dinner outfits and then made up to suit. The lass that did my make-up took extra care, telling me that she had seen a few of the people that had spoken to me today and that I had to look my best. We had a slight break where we could relax, relieve ourselves and chat before we were ushered to the Barn where the meal was to be served.

As I had been told, Tristan and I were taken in hand and led to the top table where we were shown our seats. Everyone stayed standing as the royal party came in and no-one sat until the king sat.

I found myself between the young prince and his father with Tristan between the princess and her step-mother-in-law. Looking out at the others I noticed that Alec was next to the buxom one while Sarah was in deep conversation with an older guy who, I remembered, was the director of the filming today.

As the meal progressed I was in the middle of gentle banter between a father and son and it took a strange turn when the father asked me what my plans were and if I was going to study history.

When I said that I was enrolled in a history course at university he nodded, saying “That would be about four years?”

I said it was and he said “Perfect. Miss Fulton, you have impressed three generations of my family today with your knowledge and love of the history you portrayed. It is too early yet but we plan to properly catalogue my grand-mothers collections in all of the houses and castles. It will be a lifetime job and we have been looking for someone young enough not to be hide-bound by tradition yet good enough to know what they are looking at. There are a few things I have seen that do not throw a good light on our, and other families. If you are half the researcher your father is you will be perfect for the job, with a crew to help you. We will give you full access as you need it and I expect that you may find yourself almost part of the family. What do you say?”

I thought for a moment or two and then said “Your Highness, nothing would give me greater pleasure, as long as you write the preface to the first book.”

He laughed and said “Not yet on the payroll but already making demands, you are wonderful.”

The son then said “Miss Beverley, when you start I will be eighteen and ready for university myself. Can I be one of the crew?” I smiled at him and said “Certainly, your Highness, it would be wonderful working with you.” The rest of the meal passed in a haze as I contemplated the opportunity that I had been offered.

The collections went back into very early days and even I knew that there were papers in there that had never been published as too inflammatory. This new incarnation of the dynasty was going to shake things up, that’s for sure.

After that day my life took a whole new direction. We got back to Coggeshall and things settled down. Tristan and I saw out the season at Paycockes, Alec spent time with buxom Jennifer from Jasper’s Green. Sarah was very much the third point of our Paycockes trio.

Stella gave up her thoughts of university and married Hamish to set up a home in Stansted Mountfitchet where he followed his father into working with an airline. Sarah and I were bridesmaids. When I did start at the University of Essex I was living at an apartment with Sarah and Tristan had moved into my old room.

Over the four years we made that apartment our home as Alec had transferred to Chelmsford for his tertiary studies. He and Jennifer started their family a bit early but her family were very supportive and we enjoyed the odd times we saw them.

Tristan became learned in all the ways he needed to for his future life. There were strings pulled which gave him a genuine identity and he was also given an honorary school certificate which allowed him to make a living. And what a living!

The King had taken a shine to him and appointed him to the royal household as an advisor, making sure, or so he said, that he was kept in tune with the earlier kings; there was, eventually, an Earldom. Tristan and Sarah married in Windsor and I was Maid of Honour.

Sarah had kept in touch with the director she had been speaking to at the opening and was now seen quite often on TV as a presenter of, you guessed it, historic documentaries, sometimes with Tristan helping her delve into Tudor life. They made a wonderful couple, and also wonderful parents much later.

And what of me, you may ask. Well, I was urged by my father to follow up on the offer that had been made so, when I graduated, I contacted the Palace and they invited me and my parents to lunch. Things had progressed behind the scenes and I was told that Oxford University had come forward to take me through to a doctorate which would be based on my first book as my thesis if I did the cataloguing as offered.

I, of course, took the job, went through the process of getting my ‘access all areas’ pass and then found myself deep in the cellars of the grand houses, talking to those who had worked in the archives before. My father was very helpful as I found my feet but when I was joined by the young prince my father made excuses to stay at home.

The young prince was extremely bright and would be doing his university course in history as a remote student while being my assistant. Once he was on board a lot of doors that had been kept closed by old-world employees were suddenly opened and the scope of what we had started was revealed.

He and I spent hours together and, although I was some four or five years older than him, it didn’t seem to matter. Soon we were being seen together at big events, openings and galas, often with his parents.

Not everyone could say that they did their quiet necking in the depths of a Royal Palace but we did that and much more. We did, however, get a lot of work done and the crew that gathered around us was very keen and mostly very young as well. The first book, and my doctorate, would take another couple of years but I expect that I will attend that investiture with my new family by my side.

Tomorrow I will be walking down the aisle at Westminster, thanks to the King, now getting ready to step down so that my future father-in-law can take the throne.

When I walk back out into the sunshine with my handsome husband by my side, the spell would have finally come to pass. ‘The kisser of the frog shalt be a Princess’.

Marianne Gregory © 2022