Sartorial challenge of a royal garden party

IF a cat may look upon a king, then surely a girl from Indiana can have tea with the Queen? That was the logic I used at any rate when fretting about how to properly dress myself and behave at a garden party with the royal family. Between the internet and helpful friends and family I began to get a sense of what one does – and, more importantly, does not do.

Each day here still brings new challenges to my limited knowledge of some things British, and the Queen was at the top of the list of things mysterious. As an American, I was neither republican nor royalist. I was not even straddling the fence on the issue: I simply had no idea what it was like to have a queen. And for seven years I had managed to stay blissfully unaware.

The language on my visa – “no recourse to public funds” – was explained to me more poetically as no pinching the Queen’s purse. Since it seemed unlikely that I would meet her in the Co-op checkout line or on the train to Inverness, and I had learned that she doesn’t travel with a purse anyway, I seemed doubly safe. But the invitation to the garden party in Edinburgh cast a wee pebble in the waters of my equilibrium.

The heavy card stock with our names apparently handwritten on it from the Lord Chamberlain looks like an invitation, but in tiny letters at the bottom left it says simply, “This card does not admit.” I have lived here long enough now to understand both the irony and the language. The invitation-looking card does not do the actual work of inviting (or admitting). This card is the first step in a complex process most of which goes on behind the scenes. I can imagine the hard-working lord-lieutenants of counties in Scotland offering up their lists for card recipients.

The names now so nicely displayed in the middle of the gracious card stock with a gold seal atop was once part of an e-mail and a typed list and some administrative person or persons looked over the list and assessed it by some unknown criteria and others did similarly; and then there was a list and at some point someone near to the queen approved the list and other someones took the list to the Lord Chamberlain’s office and somewhere in between all the names were vetted for our security risks and then the names were placed on the card. At some time, these names would actually have been handwritten. With my penchant for eccentrics and obscure pieces of social history, I expect some day to discover the last scrivener

I CHANNELLED my energies into what to wear. The language scuppered me once again. I wound up getting something called a prom dress. The phrase “prom dress” to my Hoosier ears conjured up images of high school dances, and back then the style was to buy white satin shoes which you had dyed to the exact shade of your dress. It had been 50 years since I last bought a prom dress. This time I didn’t have to worry about a date and a corsage, but did fret about shoes. Some things, apparently, don’t change much with time.

This prom dress was both as uncomfortable and as entertaining as the one 50 years ago. The geometry of formal wear is at odds with the human form. I had to have help to buckle my shoes because the crinolines beneath my skirt obscured my feet.

My breathing and walk had to become more Scarlet O’Hara than trainer-clad woman in a hurry. Adjusting took a bit of doing: I practised walking in heels around the hotel room and I had a dress rehearsal complete with fascinator. On the day of the big event, I stood taller and in this costume, ready to face the world, the first of the transformation began to take place.

I had been so worried about fitting in that I had not stopped to think about what I was fitting into. As I walked the short distance from the hotel to Holyrood – the same walk I had made two days before to see the art exhibit in the Queen’s Gallery, I was painfully aware that I was already part of the event, or the meta-event as social scientists might describe it. My purple-feathered fascinator and I had become a tourist attraction. I will appear in several vacation snaps where I imagine there will be some brief conversation about who and what and where and why that is and then it will languish in the ephemera of their holiday.

After my initial discomfort at being at the centre of attention, I began to appreciate that the costumes of the people attending and those of the Royal Company of Archers and the blue tailcoats of the High Constables are an integral part of holding to and observing traditions, which is an important way of accepting who and what we are. I had expected to feel like an impostor or an actress in a stage set, but as I chatted with the people in line for admission I discovered that they are ordinary people, too.

The man in front of me in the queue explained that he is a cook in the army. He must be there, he jokes, because his “commander thinks he’s done something right for a change”. Accompanying him is his teenage son who has dyed his hair strawberry-Jello red for the occasion. Like me, despite their apparent nonchalance, they are excited to be there.

ONCE inside the palace garden grounds, I am relieved to hear a variety of accents as I stroll through the gardens. I had expected to be adrift in a sea of toffs. A wonderful variety of ordinary people have been selected for some reason – and most of us don’t know why – to see our queen. We are the cats of the proverb exercising that rite of connectedness.

If the Queen weren’t there, what rites or rituals would provide that connection between peoples and time and place to define the country? I am sure there are other ways – I’ll leave it to others to argue if they would be better.

I follow eagerly behind my friend and squeeze into a little throng carefully, gently but firmly lined up behind the archers where we have been told is the best place to catch a glimpse of Her Majesty.

I am stunned to see how small she is. And how focused. She goes about her hospitality with a dedication and a skill no doubt cultivated through years of practise and supported by thoughtful staff.

She reminds me of my grandmother or my favourite church ladies who gracefully combine strength of character and large hats.

Having seen her, I move from the throng towards the tea tent. I have never had a cucumber sandwich and I expect to find some in the tent. I am not disappointed: cucumber with mint. And a cup of the Queen’s tea.

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