‘My aunt is now my hostess,’ he explained. ‘I’d like you to meet her.’
She had dressed to dine with him, had even hoped he might ask her. But she had too much to evaluate now — and to do. She stood. ‘Another time. I’ve arranged for a new lady’s maid to meet me at the hotel — she used to work for a close friend. I will need to . . .’
‘Explain that her duties include a short journey into enemy territory?’
She met the smile, this time. ‘Exactly that.’
James took her hand in its kid glove and kissed it. ‘Keep safe, Sophie. Please don’t stop writing to me even after you leave Germany and have no official information to send. I have . . . valued . . . your letters for four years.’
‘Even though there can never be anything of interest to the Empire in Australia except our wool, wheat, corned beef and cricketers?
‘There will be Sophie Higgs. That is interest enough.’
Yes, she liked him. Even with this new knowledge of him — perhaps even especially with this new knowledge — she suspected that marriage with James could be both interesting and happy.
But she would be sharing his life, not creating her own. In this world after the war, where women had tasted challenge, that would never be enough.
She remained thoughtful as she walked through the doors of the Ritz, smiling automatically as the doorman held them open for her. Was James correct? Had she misinterpreted Dolphie’s letter? Was the expression ‘I remain yours, always’ not an expression of love but just Continental chivalry?
Was she charging futilely into danger, as she had two years earlier? No, that had not been futile, for even if she had not been able to protect the men from the gas, she had achieved a lot in France and Belgium. She had also found herself, her father’s daughter, at heart an organiser, a businesswoman. And a good one.
She stood at the hotel counter in the lavish lobby, waiting for her key. A young man glanced at her, then smiled. She smiled back, automatically, the slow smile that began with the eyes then quirked the lips: another legacy of the months with Miss Lily. The young man wore evening dress, with one of the ‘King George’ short beards newly fashionable after years of regimental shaving in the trenches. She tried to think where she might have met him. Probably he hadn’t had the ‘beaver’ then. The young man held out a silver cigarette case. ‘Gasper? Only stinkers, I’m afraid.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t smoke, but thank you.’ She still couldn’t place him. She waited for him to remind her when they had met. In France, or perhaps he had been a patient at Wooten . . .
‘Sensible girl. I say, would you like to join us for dinner? A rum crowd, but great fun.’
She blinked, startled. He was a stranger. Had he taken her for a woman of easy virtue? Surely not in the Ritz. She was used to men speaking to women without an introduction these days, but not offering an invitation to dine. Surely manners had not relaxed that much with the war!
She really did need a maid and a companion, to ward off attentions like these.
The young man was waiting for an answer. What was the etiquette? She settled on a smile, trying to make it businesslike, not feminine. Maybe she needed lessons now in how not to be beautiful . . . ‘No, but thank you.’
‘Hope you don’t mind my asking.’ He looked slightly anxious.
‘Not at all,’ she lied. She watched him saunter past the pillars to the dining room, then noticed the man behind the counter holding out her key. ‘Miss Higgs, if you will pardon me, I am sure the young gentleman meant no harm. Modern manners, you know.’ The receptionist lowered his voice discreetly. ‘Sir Humphrey Teaser’s son. A good family.’
And regular guests here, obviously. Would Lady Georgina know how one was expected to behave in this new world of peace? But possibly, probably, it would be all quite different again back in Australia.
‘Oh, and Miss Higgs, there is a visitor in your sitting room. The Earl of Shillings. He said he was expected.’ A note of concern now. Sophie wondered if the Ritz would evict a male visitor — even an earl — if she looked shocked and said, ‘I cannot possibly meet a man alone.’
Pleasure fizzed through her. She had assumed she wouldn’t see Nigel again until . . . until . . . no, there was no ‘until’, for just now she could not imagine visiting Europe again, not for many years and then both their lives would necessarily be so different . . .
He must have motored up to town as soon as he had heard her plans, she thought, as she hurried, still swan-like, along the corridor. Had Nigel come to dissuade her? She unlocked the door, then stared at the figure in the armchair.
‘Miss Lily!’
Chapter 7
I once met a woman who had a nose like an eagle, a squint, and a complexion like crocodile skin. Yet she was beautiful, as soon as she met your eyes, or smiled.
Miss Lily, 1914
She looked exactly the same — the soft gold hair, still worn in a loose chignon, a long closed blue-grey silk evening coat with a matching chiffon scarf at the neck, sapphire earrings glinting in the firelight, her posture inexpressibly graceful in the chair next to the fire. But as the shock ebbed away Sophie realised Miss Lily had once again sought out the shadows of the room, the flickering firelight to smooth reality: the shadows under the eyes, the weariness the smile could not disguise.
The slightly anxious smile. The Miss Lily she had known before the war had never seemed anxious.
‘Sophie, darling, I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Mind? No. It’s wonderful to see you. I was so afraid I’d never see you again! I’ve missed you so much. So incredibly much.’ Without realising it she had already run to the chair, bent to kiss the smooth cheek, smelled roses and lavender and the scent that was Miss Lily’s own, felt Miss Lily’s graceful gloved hands hold her close.
Then let her go.
Sophie stepped back reluctantly, found a chair, sat. She stared at the woman in front of her. Miss Lily had vanished in 1914. Her attempts to keep the balance of power equal between Britain and Germany and stop any war between them had become treason once battle began.
Nigel had said Miss Lily had gone forever. Why had she returned now? And in Sophie’s hotel suite?
‘Jones is downstairs with Green.’ Miss Lily smiled, still nervously. ‘You needed a driver.’
‘Jones? But can you spare him?’ She didn’t mean from his job as Shillings’s butler, or even as secretary, whichever Jones was now.
‘If you need protection, there is no one I trust more than Jones.’
The kindness and the generosity almost made her cry.
Miss Lily seemed to regain her confidence and her composure. ‘I also have contacts throughout Europe that may be useful, especially in Germany.’
‘Of course,’ said Sophie slowly. Miss Lily had been training her ‘lovely ladies’, from the most influential families of Europe, for many years. Hannelore’s aunt was — or had been — one of her close friends.
‘May I see the letter from Hannelore?’
She had hesitated before showing it to James, but even now the habit of obeying Miss Lily was strong. She took out the letter again. ‘It is actually from Hannelore’s uncle,’ she admitted. ‘James Lorrimer — I’ve just seen him — says it is really a politely veiled request for money and an invitation to Australia. I . . . I’m not sure any more.’
Miss Lily took the letter. She read it wordlessly, then looked up. ‘I think it leaves the course of action up to you. But one can deduce something more from the wording.’ She smiled at Sophie, the old Miss Lily smile of charm and understanding. ‘The man who wrote it loves you.’ She paused. ‘Or wishes you to believe that he does.’
‘You . . . you think so too?’ It should be incongruous discussing Dolphie’s feelings for her with Miss Lily, of all people. But Miss Lily made all confidences possible.
‘Of course.’ Miss Lily watched her intently. ‘You knew the count before the war, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Then Dolphie and
I met again in Belgium in 1917,’ said Sophie quietly.
Miss Lily raised the perfect eyebrow that Sophie had imitated a few hours earlier. ‘In a war zone, in the middle of war with Germany? That, perhaps, is a story for another time. Sophie . . .’ No one says my name quite the same way Miss Lily does, thought Sophie, ‘I think we can assume that this . . . Dolphie . . . of yours does, indeed, have feelings for you. You are extremely lovable, despite your fear that it was only your father’s wealth that was attractive.’
‘I think you cured me of that,’ said Sophie, smiling. She had not felt like this since before the war, she realised, this feeling of a world of two, her and Miss Lily.
Miss Lily regarded her. At last she said, ‘I do not have the right to ask you what you feel for him. I suspect, despite whatever meetings you may have had, you do not truly know. War is — a different time. Its emotions are not necessarily the ones you may feel in peace time. I know too well . . . and that too is a story for another time. Shall we just say that a German count and a colonial . . .’ She hesitated.
‘Corned-beef heiress?’
‘As I have told you many times, do not define yourself by corned beef. I know the Count von Hoffenhausen’s family very well indeed. His expectations of life, and yours, may not have been the same, even in 1914.’
‘His life is gone now,’ said Sophie. ‘His estates. The whole of the Germany that existed before the war.’
‘Perhaps. And for a time. As you know, Germany was not defeated militarily, but by its own revolutions at home and in the trenches. Germany accepted the ceasefire, thinking it was simply an end to the war. Now it is France that is war-like, demanding conditions and reparations impossible for Germany to fulfil. If Europe is to have a lasting peace, Germany must have a prosperous peace too. But we shall see.’
‘Miss Lily, there is one thing I do finally understand.’ Sophie met Miss Lily’s eyes, those kind, wise eyes. ‘I am corned beef.’ She laughed at the ridiculousness of her statement. How long had it been since she had laughed so freely? ‘No, I don’t mean I am made of it — I have eaten less corned beef in my life than possibly anyone else in Europe. Even in France when corned beef was all we had, I rarely ate it. But at heart I am a . . . a purveyor of corned beef. I like feeding people. Organising people. I will be representing Higgs’s Corned Beef in Europe and in Germany too. It’s not just a cover. I hope to persuade my father to let me take over the business when I return.’
Sophie felt the smile flow across her face again. ‘Dad hoped my husband would do that. But if I can’t present him with a husband, perhaps he will accept me in his place. He knows the work I have done in France, and approved of it . . . and me.’
‘Running hospitals is perhaps more womanly than managing factories,’ said Miss Lily dryly. ‘Though both require similar aptitude and skills.’
‘Perhaps. I can only try.’
With relaxation had come tiredness. Sophie had not realised until now that she had not really rested for five years. The voyage home booked for the previous week, before her sudden change of plans, would have meant six weeks of quiet routine, with nothing, absolutely nothing, to organise. Not the war-wracked Shillings estate, neither Wooten Abbey nor hospitals nor refugee relief . . .
‘Have you dined?’ asked Miss Lily softly.
Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m not really hungry. But you must be.’
‘I will ring for crumpets,’ said Miss Lily. ‘The Ritz should be able to supply crumpets and honey. Not Shillings honey, of course, but I am sure it will be good.’
Tears stung Sophie’s eyes again. Crumpets and honey and Miss Lily had been her dream of comfort all through the war. And here they were again, and yet, not quite . . .
Miss Lily gazed at her with sadness and perfect understanding. ‘But as it was the earl who entered your suite, perhaps it should be the earl the chambermaid sees.’ She stood, pulled the bell for service then looked at Sophie with an expression hard to read. ‘May I have one last embrace, my dear?’
‘Of course.’ Once more the feel of Miss Lily’s arms, the breath of her perfume. Then Miss Lily stepped back.
‘You may prefer to look away.’
‘No,’ said Sophie quietly.
‘You’re sure? Very well then.’ Miss Lily removed her earrings, and then her evening coat, showing the shirt and waistcoat and the trousers held up by garters beneath, incongruous over silk stockings and women’s shoes. The gloved hands removed the high heels, the garters, pulled men’s shoes and socks and jacket from behind the chair and put them on. The gloves went next, and then the wig . . .
‘And just in time,’ said Nigel quietly, at the knock on the door. He went to answer it, speaking softly to the chambermaid. He shut the door again and looked at Sophie. ‘Well?’
She didn’t know what to say. Nor what to feel. For the last twenty minutes she had been with a woman — a woman who she loved and felt she knew as deeply as anyone on earth. And now she was with a man, who she also loved, but in a different way . . .
‘You’ve plucked your eyebrows,’ she said inconsequentially.
She should be feeling shocked. But she had seen a man die hand in hand with his friend who was not ‘just a friend’, both admitting only in those last minutes the love they had kept hidden. She had seen women run through mud where shells still burst in flowers of shrapnel, to fetch wounded men that they had never met. That was love too. She had known a million kinds of love, the last few years. How could she not love a man who admired women deeply, who felt pride in feeling that he, too, was female?
And yet, of those million kinds of love, how many were the basis for a fulfilling marriage, or even one that society would allow?
She did not know. She did know that just now, physically and emotionally exhausted, she could not face a . . . complicated . . . love. And yet wasn’t that exactly what Miss Lily had warned her she might face with Dolphie.
Nigel carefully did not meet her eyes as he crossed back to the armchair. He shrugged, as he sat in its shadows again. A very different shrug from Miss Lily’s. That was where the true difference lay, Sophie realised. It was not the clothes or make-up, which she had suspected Miss Lily of using discreetly before. The man in front of her wore none. Even the eyebrow plucking was subtle, a mild shaping that didn’t look incongruous on a man’s face. It was the tilt of the head, the position of the hands, the way the body flowed, the confident posture that said ‘This is who I am, and happy with it’ that created the image of male or female, young or old, beautiful or ugly.
‘Shall we go over your plans?’ asked Nigel quietly, leaning back in his armchair. ‘I can see then where possibly a note to my friends may help you.’
Miss Lily had assumed she would be indispensable. Nigel did not know.
She longed to comfort him. Reassure him that the Earl of Shillings would find a place in this new world, where he might find both duty and fulfilment.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘There are no words to say how grateful I am. For everything.’
That was the only reassurance she could give.
Chapter 8
What is love? Simply caring for another person, or even a place, so deeply that you never count the cost of helping them.
Miss Lily, 1914
2 MAY 1919
HANNELORE
The shots woke her. Distant shots and screams.
And silence. She hadn’t realised there had been a constant drone of voices nearby, the clop of hooves, the occasional stutter of a motorcar. Now even the pigeons had retreated.
Or hidden. For suddenly the building erupted around her . . . more shots, yells, the descending scream that meant a man was dying. More footsteps on the stairs. But this time, when the door was flung open, no gun was pointed at her. A voice said, ‘Just a woman.’
The steps retreated. And again there was silence.
The silence continued. Not even a floorboard creaked indoors. Outside gunfire sounded spasmodically, and more cries of terror,
agony or triumph. She was, however, very clearly the only living person remaining in this building.
But how long could she survive? She would have laughed, if she’d had the energy. Because only her captors had known she was here — had known that as a prinzessin she was of value, to someone, somewhere, even only as an example when they took her life.
If she wanted to live, she had to find help. No one would come for her. Whatever revolution was intensifying outside it would be days, weeks, months or even years before order was restored; it would be months, perhaps, before anyone even thought to look up here, and found her decayed body in the bed. She had always assumed her eventual death would be accompanied by a mahogany coffin, with flowers, and burial in the small, walled open-air crypt, dappled with ferns and age, where five centuries of her ancestors rested.
She did not want to die there, bloated, rat-eaten. She did not want to die there, alone.
She did not want to die at all.
She passed her hand carefully over her two wounds, the one where a bullet seemed to have passed through the side of her breast, missing her heart; the second where one had lodged in her leg and, she thought, had been dug out, though she had lost consciousness at the beginning of the procedure; nor had her captors informed her if it had been successful. Both bandages were dry, but the pain surrounding them suggested both injuries would bleed again if she tried to move.
She slid from the bed and found herself collapsed on the dusty floor. The bandages were already spreading with bright red. She felt no pain. This agony was too great for a body to comprehend, just sweat and trembling shock.
She could lie there and die, or continue.
She crawled, stopping only when the world grew too cold and black, continuing as her vision cleared.
Did the journey take minutes, hours or days? The door was the first objective and then the stairs, rough wooden stairs, taking them one by one, hauling her body bump, bump from one onto the next, pausing to catch her breath at every one, one flight, and then another. On the second landing a man leaned against the wall, staring at her, blood still bubbling from his mouth.
The Lily and the Rose Page 5
