...
The public duties she performed were not onerous. When one is being feted like that, it can be quite enlivening. She did alright. It was in her character.
I wouldn't be so sure she didn't expect to be Queen. It was in the cards given how David was proceeding with his life. It was generally conceded that the Princess Elizabeth would one day be Queen. That being so, she knew she would be Queen one way or another. Top of the social ladder. I think she was fine with that...
If David died without issue, a big if as he was a relatively young man when he abdicated, then yes, Princess Elizabeth would have become Queen, but assuming David had chosen to stay, the only scenario where the then Duchess of York would have become queen would have been if David and both her daughters had predeceased her and Bertie and been childless. There's no way "she knew she would be Queen one way or another."
An even casual reading of the letters she wrote at the time of the abdication gives a great deal of insight into just how the Queen mother 'felt' about becoming Queen.
From just before David made up his mind:
11/20/1936 to Queen Mary "...it seems almost incredible that David contemplates such a step, & every day I pray to God that he will see reason and not abandon his people."
11/23/1936 to Helen Hardinge "...It's bad whichever way you look at it, both from our point of view and the country's...I feel very depressed and miserable..."
12/3/1936 to Hon. sir Richard Molyneux "...we both are unhappy & terribly worried...It is all so dreadful and
wasteful..."
12/6/1936 to Mary Elphinstone "...Bertie & I are feeling very despairing and the strain is terrific."
After David decided to abdicate:
12/12/1936 to Archbishop Cosmo Lang "...we were miserable...over his [David's] change of heart and character during the last few years, and it is alarming how little in touch he was, with ordinary human feeling..."
12/16/1936 to D'Arcy Osborne "...everything seems like a bad dream..."
1/14/1937 to Archbishop Cosmo Lang "...I feel now, rather as if I was coming to after a heavy blow on the head. I think that the shock of those terrible days in December was literally stunning, and a merciful numbness overcame one at the time. The return to life is rather unpleasant - we shall need all our courage in the days to come...."
And indeed it was courage, and faith and steadfastness that enabled the Queen Mother to confront the unexpected hand that life dealt her and play it well.
I think it's important to remember just how grim and desperate times were during the war. The terror of watching country after country fall to the German aggression until Britain basically stood alone in Western Europe. It's easy to look back knowing who won, but at the time during the heavy bombing & the massive casualties, when it was very much in doubt who would prevail, it was a very different story.