‘But why did you allow them to be alone at all?’
‘Relatively alone. I did not “allow” it. I engineered it, both for Miss Carlyle and to see if you have absorbed your lessons here. Which you have not.’ She placed her sherry glass on the table. ‘Men such as Mr Porton influence the way others think. Girls such as Miss Carlyle can influence the Mr Portons. After last night Mr Porton will listen to anything Emily says. Mr Porton is an investment, just as my cousin invested with your father. Mr Porton may not change his views or actions easily, or for rational reasons, but when Emily invites him to her dinner table, with carefully chosen companions, he will be there.
‘All this fighting for women’s suffrage.’ Miss Lily waved her hand. ‘How much power will the vote bring? Are there any female politicians in Australia? I thought not. Women have stood for parliament there and failed. Australia, like England, is still governed by the Mr Portons.
‘Here is another cliché for you: the power behind the throne. The throne matters far less these days, although Their Majesties do still have considerable influence. But it is the Mr Portons who have real power.’
‘And you and your friends … and girls like us … are supposed to be the power behind the Mr Portons? Why not influence good men, not fools? And he is a fool,’ said Sophie.
‘For many causes. Primarily, just now, for peace,’ said Miss Lily.
Chapter 31
A smile can be more effective than a thousand placards.
Miss Lily, 1914
The sherry decanter glowed in the firelight. There was always a plate of oatmeal biscuits next to the decanter, smelling freshly baked, though Sophie had never seen anyone eat one. Perhaps the earl liked oatmeal biscuits with his sherry, or the earl’s father or great-grandfather, and they had become a household tradition …
I am thinking about small things, thought Sophie, because I can’t take the big ones in.
She tried to focus. ‘Peace?’
‘My friends work for the many things that women care about more than men. Proper education for girls — and for poor boys, for that matter. Free health clinics. Birth control for those who are too weak or tired for childbearing, or cannot afford more mouths to feed. An end to bear-baiting — one of my friends is passionate about that,’ said Miss Lily. ‘But last night, today, tomorrow, peace between England and Germany, or France and Germany, is our most pressing concern. What use is anything we might achieve if we don’t have peace?’
‘You think England and Germany might really go to war?’
‘Inevitably they will, should relationships continue on their current course. But that course can change, if enough people of good faith act. Because of Emily’s charm, Mr Porton will now dine with those who don’t accept the urgings of, say, young Mr Churchill, who wants us to keep matching Germany’s munitions factories and armies. He will at least listen to those who urge Irish Home Rule, might even accept that free clinics need to be funded for those who can’t afford medical help. I can’t see Mr Porton ever championing either Home Rule or free clinics. But I can see his unthinking opposition perhaps changing over a period of years.’
‘I’m sorry. About suspecting that Emily did anything wrong … about secret plans.’ She tried a smile. ‘Too many romance novels.’
Miss Lily looked at her with a curious smile. ‘If there had been secret plans, I wouldn’t have told Miss Carlyle about them. Emily is, as you have seen, not entirely subtle either yet, nor are her views entirely her own. She is still at the stage where she can be swayed by whoever she is with — or by her self-satisfaction when she makes a conquest. Perhaps she always will be, although I hope not. Should there have been secret plans, it would have been Jones searching Mr Porton’s rooms while Emily entertained him and his valet dined below stairs. But of course I am speaking entirely hypothetically.’
Excitement almost stopped Sophie’s breath. Was this a test, to see if she could be discreet? ‘So you — hypothetically — might have manoeuvred Emily into charming Mr Porton so Jones could search his room? And hypothetically made his car break down?’
Miss Lily gazed at her. ‘Hypothetically — I knew Mr Porton would pass near here on his way to Portsmouth, and if I knew that the meeting in fact involved trials for a new weapon — a weapon that is rumoured to be so dangerous it might change warfare forever — I might have asked a friend to let him know that Shillings had a most charming set of guests just now. Few men can resist being the only stag among the deer.’
‘Mr Porton arranged his own breakdown,’ said Sophie slowly. ‘So what — hypothetically — might the plans be for? What — hypothetically — will happen to them?’
‘I might, entirely hypothetically, pass them to Hannelore’s aunt in Germany, just as the baroness might, again hypothetically, pass documents to me for my cousin to pass on to his contacts in the Admiralty. Thus do we keep the balance.’
‘No one is even supposed to see us walking in the village. But Mr Porton is going to be talking about his dinner here for months, a houseful of “lovely ladies”. What was worth risking your secret for?’
‘A new weapon,’ said Miss Lily slowly. ‘One that doesn’t kill at once but keeps on killing. Soldiers can ignore dead bodies, but not their comrades screaming in agony for days around them as they die, or linger neither alive nor dead for months or even years. No nation can afford the burden of ten thousand screaming veterans.’
Sophie stared at her. ‘What weapon could do that?’
‘I can’t tell you.’ She held up a hand. ‘No, I do trust you, Miss Higgs. You must know that I do, or I wouldn’t be telling you even this much. But I can’t tell you what this weapon is. Only a … a strange mind could have thought of something as horrendous as that man carried last night. But once the idea is known, perhaps it wouldn’t be impossible to recreate it. The fewer people who know just what it is, the better.’
‘But if the Germans make it —’
‘If the inventor knows that we have it, and believes that the Germans have it too, then perhaps both sides will not develop it further. A weapon one side holds can start a war … a weapon both sides hold may stop one, especially if it would cause extreme destruction. But in this case,’ she shrugged, ‘the plans will vanish, embarrassing Mr Porton and those who believe this weapon should be developed. War is played by rules, Miss Higgs, at least here in Europe. After last night perhaps the men in power may stick to their machine guns and warships.’
‘But Mr Porton will know his plans disappeared here.’
‘Mr Porton’s valet will vanish at Portsmouth. To an extremely good job, incidentally, in South Africa, where his brother already lives. He will inevitably be blamed for the loss of the plans.’
Sophie was silent for a moment. ‘This matters to you, doesn’t it?’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not just moving pieces on a chessboard to make life more interesting. But I don’t understand. War … it’s men’s business, not women’s. Women can’t be soldiers.’
Miss Lily stared at her for a moment. ‘My dear, you speak like a colonial, from a country that has never known a major battle on its shores. Soldiers have wives, sisters, mothers whose lives can be destroyed along with the lives of the men they love. War takes over the land where it is fought. Women, children, everyone is caught in it. Battlefields are not set aside, like cricket pitches. They are highways, farms, villages full of civilians.’
‘You speak as though you’ve seen it.’
‘I have,’ said Miss Lily. She stood and walked to the window. ‘War is unthinkable till you have experienced it. The Mr Portons, even the Miss Carlyles, cannot believe war could ever come to England’s “green and pleasant land”. But it has, in the past, and it can again. Hannelore understands, I think, but that is because she has seen violent death at first hand.’
‘What war did you see?’ asked Sophie, trying to juggle dates. The Franco-Prussian War …?
‘You make it sound like a painting to be viewed at the Tate. I experienced war on the
North West Frontier,’ said Miss Lily.
‘But that’s where my father served! And your cousin, yes?’
‘I would appreciate it if you would not mention this to your father. I am sure he doesn’t connect me with … with what happened then.’
‘What did happen?’ asked Sophie slowly.
Miss Lily turned. For the first time the colour of her lips and cheeks looked artificial. ‘I had gone there for adventure. So many girls go to India — they call them “the Fishing Fleet”. Shiploads of husband-hunters. But for me …’
‘You were visiting your cousin?’
‘Yes. Exactly that. I hoped it would be a fascinating place, exotic, if not comfortable. And it was fascinating, for a while. The bazaar with its piles of rugs, the spitting camels, women draped like lampshades and others wearing a hundred bangles and necklaces that caught the sun. The heat, the smells …’
Miss Lily looked down at her hands. ‘To this day I don’t know if the local Pathans broke the truce. Later they claimed it had been strangers from the hills.
‘They took the fort, then broke into the compound at night, slit the guards’ throats, then killed every soldier, every woman and child. But first …’ She sat back against the sofa, for once graceless, as if charm had slipped off her like a shawl. ‘They raped. I heard the screaming, ran into the corridor. Two men held a child, a little girl, three years old. I had bought her a bracelet in the bazaar for her birthday the week before. I ran to her.’
‘Miss Lily —’
Miss Lily held up a hand. ‘I managed to grasp her for perhaps a second before they tore her from me. Her mother was already dead, her nightdress up over her face. Then they raped me. I struggled. At first they thought that was funny, and then one hit me across the head. When I awoke it was hard to move. I was sick, over and over again. The house was so quiet. They were always quiet houses, with those thick mud walls, but now there was no sound at all.’
‘The little girl?’
‘I crawled over to her. Dead. Her body was quite cold. Her blood was all over me. I think that saved me: the men thought I had been stabbed too. I checked the other bodies, still crawling. I was the only one alive in a house of death. Flies feasted on the blood, and at night the rats came out of the walls to eat the flesh. I tried to keep them away, but I grew sick and lost consciousness again.’
‘Miss Lily, I’m so sorry. So sorry. I should never have asked.’
‘It is a long time ago,’ said Miss Lily gently. ‘Strange: talking about it hurts less than I thought it would … A party of British soldiers arrived the next day, or maybe a few days after that.’ Another shrug. ‘Your father was one of them. He wrapped me in a rug. He even tried to convince my cousin when he returned that it had not been my cousin’s fault. They struck up a true if unconventional friendship. I think that incident was why both men left the army; why, perhaps, my cousin lent your father the money to found his first factory and helped him gain his first major army supply contract.’ For the first time her voice broke. She looked out the window. ‘I should not have said this,’ she whispered. ‘Not to a young girl.’
‘Perhaps girls like me need to know what the world beyond our drawing rooms can be like,’ said Sophie quietly. ‘What did you do then?’
‘I stayed in India, up in the hills. I couldn’t come home — couldn’t face finding life here going on as normal when for me so much had changed. After that I travelled — families like mine have friends and relatives across the world. My people became used to my absence. The place I might have occupied in English life just … closed over. I have been forgotten, I think. Travel, however, is a diversion, not a cure.
‘Unhappy people draw others to them who are unhappy too. It was at that time that I met Alison’s grandmother; she was a drudge, with no hope of anything more. Hannelore’s aunt too; the baroness had lived through a Russian invasion. I have never heard her story, but suspect it is no less horrifying than my own.
‘I began to see other people, Miss Higgs. I had lived in a cocoon of my own needs and desires until then. Slowly, my friends and I began to realise we might use our needs and desires to try to gain some control over the life others’ expectations had forced on us. Lady Alison’s grandmother learned enough not just to escape her drudgery but even to become a duchess. The baroness hosts hunting parties that even Kaiser Wilhelm attends. Hers is the sort of life Hannelore will have too, if she learns her lessons here.’ Miss Lily tried to smile. ‘Have you any more secrets you wish to prise from me, Miss Higgs? I seem to be vulnerable in telling secrets today.’
‘Only one,’ said Sophie slowly. ‘While … while you are in a mood to tell secrets. You said you’d never met my mother. But you do know more about her, don’t you?’
Miss Lily smiled tiredly, and Sophie years later would remember that, and realise it was the smile of an elder, resigned to the self-absorption of youth. ‘My knowledge of your mother is simply one of life’s coincidences. She was the daughter of a Captain Dodds. Your maternal grandmother died of fever, I believe, and her husband lost his life on the Frontier a few years later. Your mother was perhaps seventeen when she was orphaned. She became a governess in the household of the colonel of the regiment and his wife. I knew the colonel and his wife slightly.’
‘My father never speaks of her.’
Miss Lily inclined her head. ‘That is all I can tell you, I’m afraid. Well, Miss Higgs, may I repair to my room now? I think, perhaps, I will forgo luncheon in the dining room today.’
Sophie stood. The cascade of information and emotion deserved words far beyond those Miss Sophie Higgs could fashion. At last she said, ‘Thank you, Miss Lily. I’m … so very, very sorry. Thank you for trusting me.’
Miss Lily stood too, and took Sophie’s hands in hers, the large-knuckled fingers in their lace mittens that still seemed the most graceful Sophie had ever known. ‘Thank you, my dear, for being someone I can so deeply trust.’
And that, thought Sophie, is a truth.
Chapter 32
Make plans for whatever disaster might befall you, then once you have planned, look forward to good things too. Take joy in small things while you can. The taste of tea, the butter on the muffins. It will break your heart otherwise.
Miss Lily, 1914
Muffins steaming on the salver. Emily and Alison sitting on the hearth, each holding one on a toasting fork in front of the flames; Sophie spreading them with butter and honey; and Hannelore and Miss Lily with sticky fingers, crumbs on their laps.
Their last teatime together at Shillings.
‘Not the last,’ said Miss Lily. ‘I hope you’ll visit again. All of you. Whenever I am here.’
The others have homes to go to, thought Sophie. The only home I have in England is here. She would be staying with Alison at the duke’s London residence, but that was not a home. One of Hannelore’s many uncles had taken a house in Grosvenor Square for the season too, only a short distance from Alison’s cousin’s town house. But Sophie had no one this side of several oceans.
Not true, she corrected herself. I have Alison, and Hannelore would convince her uncle to let me stay. Emily? No, she thought. Emily will see me as a competitor, at least until she is safely engaged. Hannelore will have her husband chosen for her; and despite the last four months of training, Alison will never aggressively seek out a man to marry. But each year there is only a certain number of eligible men for the new market of debutantes. If there is a prize catch this year, Emily will want him for herself.
To Sophie’s surprise, she felt amused by the thought of Emily peering across ballrooms, evaluating each available man. She had told Malcolm the truth about feeling too young to make a decision about marriage.
She was just beginning to understand what Miss Thwaites had for so long tried to show her: her father’s money would mean there would always be suitors. She could wait ten years for marriage, if she wanted to. Hard to imagine life more than ten years from now …
Alison turned her muff
in over to toast the other side, then blew on her fingertips. ‘I wish you’d come up to town with us, Miss Lily, just for a few days.’
‘You won’t,’ said Miss Lily gently. ‘Not when you are there. You’ll have other things to think of, and your own life to create. But I hope you will write to me — not just about political and social matters where shared information will be useful, but also about the dinners, the afternoon teas, the hunting parties, where I hope all of you will delicately urge your companions towards viewing the Empire as one of peace and prosperity, not war.’
She met their eyes, one by one. ‘I hope that in the years to come we will not be students and teacher, but friends. I hope you will stay friends with each other too.’ She glanced at Emily. ‘But do not feel betrayed if you do not. People change, and you will as well.’
She accepted another muffin from Sophie, then licked a drop of the honey from its edge with the tip of her tongue. She is perfect, thought Sophie. Everything she does is perfectly judged.
She says that she has love. How can she stay here, then, for so many months, alone except for the girls who come here?
‘So,’ said Miss Lily. ‘This is the last lesson.’
‘What is it?’
‘Dear Sophie, always so direct. No, that wasn’t a criticism. Your questions have a softness now that they didn’t when you first arrived. You no longer seem to challenge the world. So, the lesson …
‘Enjoy yourselves, my dears. I wish I could give each of you the promise of a life of happiness to come. But I can remind you that even when things are harshest there are good things too. There are friends, there is the opening of a flower, and somewhere there is laughter, for others if not for you. Think of that and be happy for those who can laugh. Take pleasure in doing your duty, because you are going to have to do it anyway, so you may as well make the most of what you can.’ She hesitated. ‘Be there for each other, if you can. If I have given each of you anything at all, I hope it is a taste for friendship.’
Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies Page 22
