Murder Most Royal

She told Philip about Ivy’s passionate stance on livestock, because she wanted to see how far he could raise his eyebrows.

‘Pah! Does the girl want us to live on lentils?’

‘And who will grow them? Could she bear for the precious little things to be harvested?’

‘She would manage,’ the Queen said drily.

‘I heard a very funny joke about lentils and chickpeas at Christmas. Gerry Harcourt told me. What’s the difference between a lentil and a chickpea? You wouldn’t pay a hundred pounds to have a lentil—’ He stopped abruptly, mid-flow.

‘Never mind. Actually, I heard about a man in Suffolk who’s going to grow them commercially next year. Interesting crop. I must talk to Charles about it. Mind you, I suppose if Miss Ivy Raspberry had her way, even Sandringham would end up as a wild reserve.’

‘I rather think so.’

‘How will Charles and William support seven hundred people if they can’t work the land, I ask you? Or shoot? God, by the time we get to poor George the place will be nothing but a glamping fest for butterfly fanatics – if he’s lucky.

’

Philip spat out the words, but he grew thoughtful. The Queen sensed he would rather love being outdoors, surrounded by butterflies. He certainly had on various trips to the jungle they had enjoyed during their royal tours. It was better than her vision of theme parks and golf courses: a sign of the return to the wild nature of their youth, when the countryside was messy and teeming with life, before all the hedgerows were scrubbed out and fields enlarged to feed the nation, and drenched with the pesticides of which Ivy Raspberry so vehemently disapproved.

‘I’m off. I have work to do,’ he said, shaking off his brief reverie and heading towards his library.

The Queen went upstairs to change. By the time little George was in charge, it would be entirely up to him how to run the estate, of course. One left it in as good order as one could, and hoped for the best. Who would win? she wondered. The farmers who wanted every bit of utility from ever-depleted soil, or the wilders who seemed to think the nation could live on bees and birdsong? She could see that both had the best interests of the land at heart, and one could only hope they would find a way of working it out together.

It saddened her, and struck her as somewhat ridiculous, that they were constantly at each other’s throats. They were really so close to each other in what they loved and cared about, if only they knew.