Queen for a New Day

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"Come on," he said to her as the visit drew to a close. "We're going to talk to the police dogs now." Canine conversation may be one of the few social skills the new Princess of Wales will not have to master, but if her performance at Cheltenham is fair indication, she will be a fast study for all the royal requisites. Right now, with Charles in the midst of a tour to New Zealand, Australia and the U.S., Diana is closeted in Clarence House, the residence of the Queen Mother, getting a cram course in monarchical ps and qs. The presence of Diana's grandmother, Lady Fermoy, lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mum, will bring a reassuring familiarity, just as the Queen Mother herself will set a perfect example. Now 80, the Queen Mother also came to the royal family from titled aristocracy. "Diana will learn simply by being around her," says a longtime friend of the Queen Mum's.

Diana's mother, Mrs. Frances Shand Kydd, is also pitching in with assorted wardrobe advice, and an old friend and onetime assistant private secretary of Charles', Oliver Everett, has been brought back from a diplomatic-service posting in Madrid to help order and arrange Lady Diana's new life. Although she is consulted, all plans for the royal wedding are under the aegis of Lord Maclean, the Lord Chamberlain who is head of the Queen's household and master of pomp and ceremony. Under him, Lieut. Colonel John Johnston and his full-time comptroller's staff of 13 are planning carriage processions and orchestrating protocol with the sort of zealous concentration and elaborate tactical deployment usually reserved for NATO war games.

Even if Lady Diana seems deprived of her nuptial prerogatives, there is more than enough to keep her busy. Learning to accommodate herself—indeed give herself over entirely—to the royal agenda is a daunting prospect. "It terrified me," says Charles of his first forays in public. As the first Princess of Wales since 1910—and only the ninth since Joan,"the fair maid of Kent," hitched up with Edward the Black Prince in 1361—Diana is automatically down on the books for about 170 official engagements a year. Royal Ascot. Trooping the Color. Opening of Parliament. Badminton Horse Trials. Chelsea Flower Show. Wimbledon. Garden parties. Cowes Regatta. Even Opening of Grouse Season. And never mind all those factory visits and ribbon cuttings, ceremonials and inaugurals.

On lengthier excursions, such as voyages of good will to foreign shores, she will tote as many as 50 pieces of luggage, each packed with outfits appropriate for every occasion (even something in black, in case she is called home by a royal death) and complete with careful schedules for repeat wearings. She will be mistress of one London residence and two houses—Highgrove, a 347-acre estate in the Cotswolds, and a bungalow in the Scilly Isles. The Princess will not want for pocket money: her Prince, whose total fortune has been estimated at $450 million, has an annual income of about $1.25 million, half of which he voluntarily turns over to the government (as a royal, he is exempt from income tax, which would be more than 60% in his bracket).