How had he known? Because all at once she did, desperately. Six years pretending that life was good and safe because no one around her was being blown up, but ignoring that vast stain on her life, was suddenly unbearable. Tears that had been stored for years were now flowing down her cheeks . . .
She stumbled from the car and sat on a rock by his fire, a glow of coals now; she found a tin mug in her hands. She sipped it, and faintly tasted sarsaparilla, just like the ‘tea’ Bill the ‘drover boy’ — her chief stockman’s late wife — used to make for her. She sipped, and found she no longer needed to choke back sobs, though tears still wet her cheeks. She looked at the man across the fire, silent on his rock, waiting for her to speak. She liked his face. She trusted it. But there was more.
‘He lived,’ she managed finally. ‘Jean-Marie, the little boy from the village where I started the hospital. And Charlie, he was just a dog. Though I don’t know why I say “just” because . . . because a dog can give as much love as a person. The problem is that most of the time the war doesn’t seem real, any of it, too melodramatic to have existed when it’s so safe here, and then I see a man with his face scarred from the gas, and hear him cough, or that look in another man’s eyes, and the whole five years comes falling down on me like a wave. I’m not making sense, am I?’
‘The war didn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘But what you did in it did. Remember that. You made sense. Your actions made sense. They were good and you did your best and you do your best now.’
She found the tears had stopped. Her hands no longer shook. She felt as if a boulder had been rolled away. ‘Thank you. I . . . I try to do my best.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘How?’ Her gesture took in the isolation of the gate, his hut.
‘Because you cried for others, not yourself.’
She wanted him to put out his hand, so she could hold it. Wanted, suddenly, the comfort of his arms. Felt a stab of shame that she could turn comfort into desire, because his face was beautiful in the firelight, and her body suddenly, deeply lonely. She said quickly, ‘Mrs Harrison thinks I should stand for parliament. Should I?’
He looked at her in the mingling of fire, star and moonlight, considering. ‘Yes. You got used to doing too much in the war. We all did, all of us who spent too long at the Front. You have to tail off gradually. You’ll find peace one day, but not if you try to grab it too soon.’
‘Is that why you carve the crosses?’
He looked at her steadily. ‘Partly. Some men think I’m some sort of a saint. They don’t realise that what I’m doing is selfish. I’m winding down, so one day I will be able to begin a life again. Good luck with the election, Miss Higgs.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘And if you need to talk again, or cry, or just sit and drink billy tea, I’m here.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. Because it was a true gift he was giving her. Midge was wrong. She, who had been trained by Miss Lily, saw in the dark of his eyes, his nostrils widening to smell her, that this man was indeed interested in women, was deliberately here where there would be none in his life to complicate what he saw as the duty to himself and to others.
Offering her advice he might give to a man who’d been in the war could disturb that serenity, and yet he offered it to her. Generosity indeed. Nor would she betray it.
She lifted her hand to wave to him as she drove through the gate. But his back was already to her as he closed it.
Chapter 38
A debutante’s evening dress should have a neckline exactly three inches below the collarbones. After marriage, it can be as low as you wish, as long as you do not display so much that the man seated opposite you finds it impossible to move his gaze from your bosom to his soup. You must be ruthlessly honest with yourself, however, about the first hint of crepe about your skin. After that, a chiffon scarf, in flattering pale pink, will distract from wrinkles.
Miss Lily, 1914
MAY 1925
HANNELORE
One does not open a factory if one is a prinzessin. Only Sophie perhaps could have considered it.
A prinzessin might, however, write to a friend in Australia, might even, just possibly, visit her there. Hannelore would have been tempted if Sophie was just a little less intelligent. Dolphie must find his place in this new Germany. It was essential that no one — particularly a woman who ran an international company — know exactly Dolphie’s role in the lead-up to the mustard gas attack at Ypres.
Sophie’s bank draft had been with a Belgian bank and so could only be cashed in Belgium. Before Hannelore had recovered enough to do so Germany’s reparations to France officially began.
The mark was suddenly worth only a hundredth of what it had bought the day before. Within a month the mark had depreciated by a factor of a thousand. The already generous amount Sophie had given her suddenly become a fortune in bankrupt Germany.
Hannelore bought land, to begin with. Farmland, to grow food, and then the hunting lodge from Dolphie, for he would not accept money from her — especially Sophie’s money — but he needed to look well, and live well, to get a position in the new government.
And then as the government stumbled, recovered, stumbled and recovered again, and Germany sank still deeper into poverty, she visited Dolphie’s sister-in-law for introductions.
And started the factory.
She herself did not start it, of course. A prinzessin could not do that, not and retain her dignity and valuable mystique. A manager was suggested; an old factory site was purchased. Her role was to provide the money, to sign the papers.
She did not even know exactly what the factory produced. Not soup, of course — there was still little surplus food to can — but ‘components’ — metal fabrications that might differ from one week to the next, depending on what the larger companies they supplied needed.
Labour was cheap, but Hannelore made sure that her workers could live on their wages, because behind the factory was a farm growing cabbages and potatoes and corn, as well as raising cows and pigs, and each factory family was entitled to a share in its produce as part of their wages. Their children could attend the school at the Lake Lodge.
She desperately wanted to write to Sophie, to say thank you and to tell her the money had been well spent. She did not. That time in both their lives was over. She had no wish to hurt Sophie by making her remember. In ten years’ time perhaps she might send a letter. Sophie might even write back. It was so very hard to lose a friend, but duty, after all, was duty.
A prinzessin could supervise a school, and did. It filled in her days and gave her purpose. It was not the purpose she had longed for, back in the days at Miss Lily’s, when she had hoped to lend her hands to creating peace between the empires. Teaching children who were not ragged only because their mothers were industrious with needle and thread, even cobbling boots from scraps of leather, was not the world of an empress. But sometimes, when a child showed her proudly a whole page of writing with only four spelling mistakes, she might even be content.
Until the weekend (such an unimaginable word for a prinzessin to use before the war, or that she nor anyone she knew might be bounded by a Monday to Friday work regime) that Dolphie brought a visitor to stay at the lodge — a discreet place, for extremely discreet discussions. A most interesting man too, who like them had hated war. A man like them who dreamed of prosperity for Germany, and peace.
A most wonderful man, indeed . . .
Chapter 39
An oyster must be eaten whole. Cutting an oyster before you eat it is as unthinkable as cutting your bread roll. Yes, Sophie, I know you can think of cutting an oyster. That is why you must practise eating them properly until it no longer occurs to you to approach them with a knife.
Miss Lily, 1914
‘An excellent idea,’ said Maria Thwaites, sitting on the edge of Sophie’s bed at the Sydney house, resplendent in a grey satin evening dress, three long strands of pearls and a bandeau with two feathers. She and Georgina had begun their
friendship with memories of English schools and woods and horse rides. Now, with the income from her directorship at Higgs, as well as the lavish annuity bequeathed to her by Jeremiah, and most importantly Green’s refurbishment of her wardrobe, Maria enjoyed bridge evenings, opera at the Conservatorium of Music, mah-jong afternoons and lectures at the university at least once a month or even, with very little guilt, twice or three times a week.
‘Agreed,’ said Georgina, in a mermaid-green crepe. With almost a third of a generation of men lost, women across the world were accommodating themselves to a life without marriage. None of the women in this household had lost sweethearts or husbands to the war, but a household of women was no longer the curiosity it might have been before the war.
A single woman — unmarried or widowed — might even have a social life. Not at dinner parties, perhaps, or not often, as numbers of men and women must be equal at the table. But this post-war world was lavish in producing new social events where women might comfortably outnumber the men, like the bridge and mah-jong parties, or afternoon tea concerts. Or the musical evening Maria and Georgina had just attended.
‘I am sure your father would be proud of you,’ said Green, handing around cocoa, a nightly chore she had taken on to make it clear to everyone, herself possibly most of all, that she was a servant, an employee, although admittedly one who would then sit in a comfortable armchair, her feet on a footstool, to sip cocoa.
Sophie laughed. ‘Dad would have been horrified.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Maria briskly. ‘You only knew your father as a child. Jeremiah,’ it was sad that only after his death could Maria publicly use the Christian name of the man she had loved for nearly two decades, ‘moved with the times. He was always deeply proud of you. If he were alive today, I am sure he would support you in this too.’ She smiled. ‘Especially as your opponent will be Mr Overhill.’
‘You don’t think the Labor Party candidate has a chance?’ asked Sophie.
Maria shook her head. ‘Bald Hill will vote National again, for Prime Minister Bruce if not for Mr Overhill. The main issue at this election will be jobs, and the White Australia Policy — keeping out competition from those who might accept lower wages or, possibly, run businesses more efficiently.’
‘Not more efficiently than us,’ said Sophie with satisfaction. Higgs Industries now paid premium wages. Other factory owners might complain, but Higgs was now so dominant in its field that no cartel of other Australian businesses could hurt it. She looked at the three of them. ‘You should all be telling me I need to find a nice husband, not run for parliament.’
‘Marriage is over-rated,’ said Georgina softly.
‘And unnecessary,’ said Green, who now had recently come to yet another “arrangement”, this time with a stockman twenty years her junior, both at Thuringa and during his occasional visits to the city.
‘I always taught you that women have to choose,’ said Maria. ‘It’s a rare man who can allow his wife a life as full as his own.’
Sophie wondered for the first time whether her father would have given Maria so much control over the factories if she had been his wife, not his mistress and the governess for his daughter. And yet, she admitted, her father was a man who saw women’s abilities. As indeed, he had seen hers.
‘Blue serge,’ said Green. ‘Laced shoes, but a sun hat, not a city hat, with a scarf embossed with poppies. I know just the thing.’
‘For what?’ asked Sophie.
‘Campaigning, of course,’ said Green patiently. ‘You and your supporters go from door to door, asking for votes, shaking hands, kissing babies. There will probably be a meeting of candidates at the church hall.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Miss Lily was most active in supporting the right candidates at each election. I don’t suppose procedures here in Australia are much different, even if the candidate is a woman and you have compulsory voting and those preference things.’
‘And women are used to voting here,’ added Maria. ‘But your friend Mrs Harrison was quite correct. I doubt many women have ever truly considered how to make their vote matter. They vote as their husbands do.’
‘Then their husbands will need to vote for me too,’ said Sophie. Her friend, Mrs Harrison? But Maria was right. Even in that one afternoon and evening, Midge Harrison had become a friend. And this election would cement the friendship.
Chapter 40
The world will always be run by men, my dears. Has there ever been any civilisation where it has been different? Yes, a woman may be a figurehead. She may even change the world — but only if her influence is discreet. Cleopatra was one of the most famous queens — and powerless. Think of Queen Elizabeth, and how carefully she made it seem that she followed her council’s advice. The more influence a woman has, the more discretion is needed.
Miss Lily, 1914
31 OCTOBER 1925
Midge organised the door-knockers, recruited from the Bald Hill Country Women’s Association. Sophie privately suspected that most of the door-knockers were unsure about the advisability of a woman MP. They might not even vote for her themselves, in the privacy of the voting booth — and had probably assured their husbands of their true Nationalist Party allegiance.
But the Harrisons were admired; Higgs-owned properties and factories were the district’s largest employers. And every woman who had been roped into the campaign could casually remark she had drunk tea and discussed women’s rights with Lady Georgina FitzWilliam ‘. . . so lovely and unaffected and her voice is beautiful’.
Tomorrow evening Sophie would speak on the stage of the church hall with the other candidates. Today she would go over her speech with Midge. She had brought chocolates from Sydney for her and the children, as well as ice cream, which she hoped was not melting in its canvas bag of dry ice in the back of the car.
She had also packed an old fruit box to give to John when she met him at the gate. He seemed almost like an old friend now, after opening and closing the gate perhaps twenty times for her as she drove to the Harrisons’ and back, though since that first evening they had never spoken more than pleasantries. Nor had she given him money again. Coins seemed too cold, as if what he’d given her could be bought. Instead she offered food, which he accepted gravely, and with thanks.
Today’s box held a loaf of fresh Thuringa bread, a pat of Thuringa butter, cheese, two cans of Higgs’s corned beef and the bulk catering can of ‘fruit cocktail’, which at this season was mostly late apples, pineapple, jam melon with passionfruit that travelled by ship down from Brisbane, as well as an apple pie. She hoped the selection was not too lavish, either for the life he had chosen or in a way that implied a condescending ‘lady of the manor’ generosity.
The car rounded the bend towards what everyone now called John’s gate. Yet for the first time he did not appear to open it for her. Instead a song floated up from the gully behind his shanty.
‘Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.’
She had first heard the song in 1915, sung by a man whose hand had been amputated and who was recovering at Wooten Abbey. By 1917 it was being sung everywhere. She had hummed it herself: it was one of the few songs that made a man with shell shock weep, but with tears that healed instead of hurt. She shut her eyes and found herself singing too:
‘But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow —
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so!’
She opened her eyes to see the singer coming towards her. He was bare chested, water gleaming on his skin. His hair was wet, and the shirt he carried in his hand. He must have been washing in the gully. He hesitated, but she kept on singing. And then they sang together
:
‘But come ye back when all the flowers are dying,
And I am dead, as dead I well may be.
Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.
‘And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.’
John had been right. Last time she had cried for others. She hadn’t really cried for herself since she had wept for her loss at her father’s death. But now she did. She wept for all her loss: the dear friends who had died, like Alison and Dodders; and those who had chosen to leave her, like Angus. She wept for the loss of those she had loved, but known she must leave, like Nigel and, yes, Dolphie.
She rested her hands on the steering wheel, put her head on her hands, and simply sobbed. He waited, letting her, then said, ‘Billy’s almost on the boil, if you want a cup of tea. Real tea, this time.’
She did not want tea. She wanted peace and suddenly she had found it there, among the stones to the dead. But a cup of tea was as good an excuse as any to stay here longer. She nodded, scrambled out of the car and hauled out the box from the back seat.
‘There’s an apple pie,’ she said, suddenly feeling foolish, her arms full of . . . things . . . when things no longer seemed to matter. And yet they did, of course they did. Souls and love could not last without feeding, many kinds of feeding, but one that included bread and cheese and even apple pie.
He took the old wooden fruit box from her. ‘Excellent,’ he said, hefting its weight. ‘It’ll make a kinder seat than a rock. And that big can is a good size for a billy of stew.’
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