Patrick Jephson - Shadows of a Princess

- She cares about the extra workload now shouldered by the other staff. Here was a classic example of ‘caring Di’ behaviour that was not quite what it seemed. By expressing concern for her remaining hard-working staff, she was actually isolating the absentee and preparing the ground for the execution to follow.

For added emphasis, the rest of the staff – even those notoriously less dedicated than Charlotte – would receive redoubled praise and interest from the Princess, now advancing on them with a careless laugh and a prepared ration of girly gossip.

It took a curious form of toadying to enjoy favours thus received, but some managed it. For most, though, it was enough just to keep your head down and hope that it was not going to be your turn as victim just yet. Perhaps it would not come at all. Such comforting thoughts came easily when the big blue eyes looked on you favourably. The gaze seemed full of trust and expectation then; quite incapable of measuring you for your professional coffin.

Being frozen out was a lingering death in which messages would be unacknowledged, memos ignored or even destroyed, and mere physical existence ‘blanked’. This was especially easy when chances to ignore a desperate bow or curtsy were so abundant. For people chosen for their sense of loyalty, it was a torture few could bear for long. Many saved the Princess the trouble of sacking them and quietly took their leave, usually with great dignity.

I looked at the unhappy secretary standing by my desk, and she looked back at me. We both knew she had done nothing to warrant her dismissal. We both knew life would be unbearable for her if she stayed. I could not contain my revulsion; I had to get outside. I took her for a walk round Green Park and asked her how the parting could be made easier for her. References, medical insurance, gratuity – I promised, and delivered, them all. Her quiet tears diminished me even further.

I ran into her again some years later. Being the sort of person she was, she had quite forgiven my part in the shameful charade. Curiously, and not untypically, she had forgiven the Princess too. It is an astonishing fact that such forgivability was freely conferred on the Princess by a sacked secretary and a besotted world. It was surely her greatest and most exploited talent.

The executions continued throughout my time with the Princess: two ladies-in-waiting, a butler, a cook, three secretaries, a chauffeur, a housemaid, two dressers, and others I cannot now recall. Most went quietly. When the time came, few had any regrets. The Princess saw to that, which I suppose was a form of unintentional kindness, if a cruel one.

In its extreme forms the softening-up process could be actively hostile. In one case, the Princess started a rumour about a secretary’s personal life, waited for it to gain currency and then cited it as damning evidence of unsuitability. (The secretary left, but only out of disgust.) In another she launched a bitterly resentful assault on a junior member of her staff whom she observed enjoying a happy relationship with another. (They are now married.)

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