Christmas Lilies

by Jackie French

  Every night now, the Larresse women dreamed sabotage by lamplight while Elspeth fed Angélique, even if they were not yet practising it. Once they had blown up the railway bridge outside the village, said Madame, they would blow up the line that led to Brussels. They would blow up headquarters! The English must send dynamite, as well as the expert to explain its use. Suzanne would seduce a colonel . . .

  Impossible, thought Elspeth. Or was it? These plans were surely no more impossible than the thousands of miles of muddy trenches from which two armies faced each other, only hundreds of feet and tangles of barbed wire apart, thousands of men dying in a single day to gain a couple of yards. Surely a war could not be won that way, not till every man was dead . . .

  She was desperate now to let Huw know about his daughter. To let Lily know: Miss Lily would not judge her, would feel only delight. And if — when — Huw was given leave, perhaps they could marry and then baptise Angélique on the same day, quietly, so she might be legally legitimate. James Lorrimer would help with that. Surely instructions would come from England soon.

  ‘Your letter, ma chérie,’ said Madame, handing Elspeth a brown envelope then taking off her hat, the one with the stuffed dove pinned to its side. She watched as Elspeth opened it.

  ‘My dearest Marie,’ she read in French, ‘I hope you are as well as this leaves me, and that le petite does well. You will be glad to know our hay harvest is good this year. Bernard will be taking a cartload to market tomorrow afternoon. I must tell you of the fish Uncle has caught too . . .’

  She read the rest aloud for Madame, but did not interpret the code within the words. So she was to leave tomorrow. She felt elation, relief and regret in equal proportions, as her mind put each piece of the message together. It would not be a hay cart, of course, but a fishmonger’s cart, and in the morning, not the afternoon. The cart would undoubtedly take her to the coast . . .

  ‘The English, are they sending us an expert yet?’ asked Madame, the eagle eyes observing Elspeth’s face.

  ‘There is nothing in the letter about an expert,’ said Elspeth truthfully.

  ‘Pah! The English. Do they not know they have an army waiting to fight? An army of women. Well!’ Madame looked almost gleeful. ‘We must show the English what we can do. Then they will send us experts, and much more dynamite. We are to begin tonight. It is all arranged.’

  Elspeth felt suddenly cold. ‘The railway bridge?’ Why hadn’t they told her? They are keeping me safe, she thought. Safe for my daughter. But we will not be safe!

  ‘Yes. Suzanne will collect the dynamite just after dark.’

  No! thought Elspeth desperately. Just one more day and she and Angélique would be gone, away from the inevitable retaliation. Or perhaps they would escape it, safe in the fishmonger’s cart before the Germans started combing the village.

  ‘But the curfew?’ she asked urgently. ‘Suzanne will be seen by the patrol!’

  ‘Charlotte will distract the guards just before they begin their patrol. There are only three of them. Suzanne will leave here then, and hide by the bridge with the explosive all night. The train is due to cross the bridge just after dawn, when the curfew is ended. I will join her then, with a basket full of mushrooms, and look for the Boche or any who might see her lay the dynamite. As soon as we hear the train we will light the fuse, then walk slowly, slowly away. And, if we are seen, when we are seen — I am an old woman and her daughter, trying to make soup to feed you and your baby. We are shocked, we are scared. We will cry. Who could argue with that, n’est ce pas?’

  It was possible, thought Elspeth, but no more than that. Too much could go wrong: the explosive might not have been stored correctly, the train might be delayed, the soldiers might even follow Suzanne from the village. ‘Madame,’ she said desperately, ‘the Germans will retaliate. Kill innocents, if they cannot find the guilty.’

  Madame looked at her with eyes suddenly calm. ‘And so we die for our country. Should we leave this only to our men?’

  Elspeth sat, silenced. This was not her plan. They had not even consulted her as they organised the details. She did not know if she was glad or sorry they did not need her, nor did she know if she hoped they would succeed or fail. Not fail and be captured, but fail to even get the explosive to light. For if they succeeded now, Madame Larresse would proceed with even greater schemes. And Elspeth would be back in England. Even the idea of a small life did not seem too terrible now — a quiet cottage with Angélique and a letter from Huw every week.

  They ate early that night. Mushroom soup — for it really was a good autumn for mushrooms — with the bread that now was half barley husk, with potatoes from the garden and a soft-boiled egg for Elspeth, the only one the hens had laid, which Madame Larresse and the girls insisted she have to make good milk for the baby.

  And then Suzanne left, with a kiss from each of them, slipping down the back garden, through other gardens, towards Henri the butcher’s shop, while Charlotte stood by the front path and flirted with the guards. The girls of this village did not flirt with Boche. And so the three men stayed, and even laughed, and only left as the shadows faded into darkness and the moon rose, calm and yellow as a cheese, as if blood and anguish were impossible under its gaze.

  My last night here, thought Elspeth. Perhaps it was right that she would leave after the first true killing blow had been struck. On the battlefields, tens of thousands of men might die in a night. This evening women would begin the fight, as well. And surely the Germans would take at least some hours to retaliate. By then she would be gone, taking no luggage, leaving only a note to say that her sister needed her.

  But I will come back, she thought. One day, when the war is over. I will bring Angélique, so she can see where she was born, meet the women who helped her birth and sheltered us. I will explain to Madame, to Suzanne and Charlotte, and they will forgive me, and we will talk of these days, and they will tell me too of all they did to sweep the Germans from their land while we drink tisane and nibble apple cake, the same cake that Madame dreamed of poisoning for the enemy . . .

  They did not sleep, but Elspeth dozed, Angélique in her arms. Each time she woke she saw Madame Larresse’s face, white in the light of the single candle, waiting for the dawn.

  Should I have tried to stop them? she wondered belatedly. James Lorrimer sent me here to lend experience as well as liaise. But, the women of this village would not listen to a stranger, not with Madame Larresse as their commanding Valkyrie. And yet the Valkyrie were German . . . Elspeth dozed again.

  And woke, at a small cry.

  She blinked into the shadows. Madame Larresse was hunched over, clutching her heart. ‘My drops,’ she muttered. Charlotte ran.

  Madame Larresse put the drops on her tongue and waited. ‘A glass of water. No, a tisane of hawthorn and linden flowers!’

  It was the tea Madame drank six times a day. Elspeth looked at her in horror. Why had no one told her, why had she not realised, the woman had a bad heart?

  ‘Suzanne will be waiting,’ muttered Madame, her face still white.

  ‘Madame,’ said Elspeth, ‘you must not go out.’ Heaven help us, she thought, and it was a prayer, not blasphemy.

  ‘I must —’ But Madame’s words were a whisper. ‘Suzanne cannot leave the explosives there. They will be found! Nor is it safe to carry them back in daylight. She will wait for me, wait in danger as it grows lighter . . .’

  ‘I will go,’ said Charlotte.

  And leave Madame Larresse alone with an almost-stranger? Madame needed a doctor, but none could come till curfew was lifted. She needed a daughter by her side. And besides, if they were accosted by the Germans, Elspeth would be more use. Charlotte could charm, but Elspeth had been taught charm by Miss Lily herself. Elspeth could charm and mislead.

  She should only be gone from the house for an hour, at most two. Plenty of time to meet the fishmonger’s cart. And, even more importantly, if there was any doubt at all about the explosive or the fuse, she would thr
ow it in the river. Tell Madame Larresse it had failed to detonate. Did Madame Larresse know if dynamite went bad? Probably not. Elspeth knew it did, but not how to recognise spoilage.

  Madame Larresse would be angry if the dynamite was lost, but Elspeth would soon be back in England, to enjoy what she had never wanted but now longed for: a small life and a simple one, a refuge from plans for death and hate.

  She slipped from the room to fetch her coat and hat, and to place her sleeping daughter in her cradle, to kiss her soft cheek.

  Chapter 6

  The dawn smelled of forest, wood smoke and chicory coffee as she slipped down the street, basket in hand. The village was waking up. There was no sign of the German patrol. She hoped, desperately, that they had not found Suzanne, that the girl would be waiting for her.

  She turned down a lane, then began to climb the slight rise into the wooded area below the train line. The sun shone gold tendrils through the trees. She was late, she realised. Perhaps Madame had felt ill before her cry, had delayed hoping she would feel better. But already Elspeth could hear the chug of the train, smell its smoke in the early breeze.

  She gazed up as it passed, automatically counting the carriages, trying to see if they were crowded with troops, or only sparsely filled. It rounded a bend, and chuffed towards the railway bridge.

  She would not make it in time. She could only hope that no one had seen Suzanne . . .

  The train began to cross the bridge just as she spied the girl in her dark blue dress, strolling casually down from the railway bridge. Thank goodness! Suzanne must have realised that Madame Larresse was not coming and decided not to . . .

  The wind hurled her down. The noise came next, filling the world. And then it rained.

  Rained burning wood, hot metal. Rained parts of men — a hand, a leg, what must have been a head. The rain became a deluge, chunks now, half railway sleepers . . .

  She tried to see Suzanne. But where she had been there was only a pile of smoke and debris. Suzanne could not have survived, so close to the blast. Suzanne. Bright, brave Suzanne who had never been taught how to use explosives. Her death was Elspeth’s fault. She should have insisted, somehow, that they wait for an expert . . .

  I must run, she thought. Escape, before I am seen so close to the destruction. But she could not run. She had to move. She could not move. She had to find her baby. Even the sun had somehow vanished, darkness eating the world, almost swallowing the pain.

  She stood, then found she hadn’t. Her legs would not obey. She reached for a tree trunk, used it to haul herself upright, then stood, the agony unbearable. But there was no choice but to bear it.

  She managed a step, and then another. And she was running, even if every movement had to be pushed through an avalanche of pain. With every step the world seemed to cloud further, till all she could think of were the two words, ‘escape’, and ‘Angélique’. She did not know how far she had run. She did not know . . .

  Then nothing.

  She woke to voices, pain and something bitter in her mouth. She tried to stand, to run. She had to run! She had to find her baby! Hands held her down. More bitterness in her mouth.

  And blackness.

  The blackness shifted now and then, but never entirely vanished. Murmurs, and once yelling, and sometimes screams. Sometimes she thought she felt the smoothness of sheets and, at other times, hands that were businesslike, no more. She tried to speak, but no sound came. She tried to see, but that had gone. Time after time she tried to rise, to find her daughter, to find anyone with the kindness to find her daughter, bring her to her . . .

  She knew she was moved, once, twice, and then again. She did not know if it was to another room or town or country or even to the moon. She could not speak, could not think long enough to speak. Thoughts came in bursts of seconds, then vanished into fog. Time had no meaning, only loss and pain, for Angélique, for Huw, for poor dead Suzanne, for Madame, weeping for the loss of her daughter.

  Daughter. Angélique. Where was her daughter?

  She was going to die. She accepted that. But Angélique would live. Huw would live! He must live! And James Lorrimer knew where Angélique was. When she died, James Lorrimer would bring her daughter home, unite her with those who’d love her, make sure she was safe and cared for till Huw returned, and Lily.

  Such good people to love her daughter, Huw and Miss Lily. But her arms were empty. Her heart was so full it hurt even more than her legs and lower body, but the empty arms were worse.

  And finally she woke.

  Seagulls squalled. It was the call of Dover seagulls — she had heard them often, knew that their cry was slightly different from seagulls elsewhere. This must be England then, and she was still alive.

  She managed to raise her head. A long ward in what had probably once been a school, for there was still a blackboard at one end of the room. Neat beds of women. Injuries, she thought. They’d not put contagious cases with the injuries. And soon there will be a VAD to empty chamber pots or take our temperatures. And there was a window and blue sky. A miracle of blue sky instead of English rain, which meant that the contact had finally arrived in the village, that she and Angélique were home.

  She shut her eyes, and slept.

  She woke as a hand took her wrist, to feel her pulse. She opened her mouth, asked, ‘Where is my baby?’ It came out as a croak.

  ‘Water,’ she said instead, but there was no need. The woman in grey serge — not a nurse, nor VAD, but evidently a trainee volunteer — held a glass to her lips. She sipped, managed not to retch, sipped once more and croaked, ‘My baby?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lorrimer. But your husband will be in soon. I’m sure he’ll tell you baby is well and happy. Now we have to make you well too.’

  ‘What . . . how . . . Am I crippled?’ For her legs were on fire. She reached for her ring. It was not there, hanging on its chain, but on her finger, where it had been in Belgium to help the pretence that she’d been married. Jewellery was usually taken from patients. This meant someone of importance had insisted the ring be left where it was.

  ‘Doctor says you will recover. Your husband brought a Harley Street specialist down, just for you.’ The words were faintly reproachful: a busy doctor wasting time on a mere woman during a war. ‘Dinner will be round in half an hour. Your husband has hired a nurse to feed you. Oh, here she comes. Mrs Lorrimer is awake now, Sister Donovan.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the woman who must be Sister Donovan.

  The woman sat, sharp faced, capable and not reproachful at wasting time. Which meant she knew enough of Elspeth’s ‘husband’s’ network to know that Elspeth offered as much to her country as any man.

  Elspeth waited till the volunteer had worked her way down the ward. She glanced at the beds on either side. An old woman, muttering in her sleep.

  ‘A foot ulcer gone septic,’ said Sister Donovan, following her look. ‘She won’t survive much longer. Mrs Tantry on your other side is deaf. She is dying too — septicaemia from a cut finger gutting fish — but you will recover. No, don’t try to speak. I can tell you what I know.’

  Sister Donovan took a breath. ‘You’re here as Mrs Lorrimer. That means it’s been possible for Mr Lorrimer to give all the permissions needed for your care, otherwise they would not have allowed another doctor to attend you, even one from Harley Street. You nearly lost a leg. You haven’t,’ she added. ‘You’re healing well. They were more worried about your continued concussion, but,’ Sister Donovan managed an almost professional smile, ‘I assure you that you seem lucid.’

  ‘My baby?’

  Sister Donovan shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, even more quietly. ‘Mr Lorrimer did not tell me your family circumstances. He warned me not to ask you any questions, either. I’ve only been told that you were brought here,’ she lowered her voice, ‘from Belgium in a fishing boat.’

  The contact who was to have collected her and Angélique must have found her, taken her aw
ay before the Germans could associate her injuries with the explosion. Which meant Angélique must be safe, for he would have brought her, too . . .

  And Suzanne? She must be . . . had to be . . . dead.

  The elderly woman in the next bed groaned again. ‘She is in pain,’ whispered Elspeth.

  ‘Morphia is in short supply.’ Sister Donovan did not sound unsympathetic, but practical. Pain relief must be kept for those who might live, even just for those who might be useful in this war.

  The world faded again. But this time dreams flickered as she slept. Suzanne’s body falling, a leg against the sky looking as if it had been cut by a butcher’s saw, falling, blackness falling, falling so she was lost . . .

  She woke, vague, aware she must be drugged to keep her calm; she knew her body had been washed; she even remembered her head propped up and a spoon that slowly fed her something stodgy and completely tasteless. Or perhaps her sense of taste had gone too, like her legs.

  No. Pain. Her legs were still there. She tried to measure her own pulse. The world vanished again.

  James Lorrimer was there when she woke the next time, grey suited, hat on the bedside table. ‘Good morning. I am afraid I had better kiss you, as we are supposed to be married.’

  She managed a hoarse, ‘Of course.’

  His lips were gentle and affectionate. She realised he liked her, not romantically, nor just as a colleague. Strange: she had thought his friendship was with Miss Lily, and her own association with him was an accidental result of that. Women of her class were used to liking men who never truly noticed them.

  James Lorrimer did notice.

  ‘Angélique? Where is she?’

  ‘Your baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Suddenly she knew, a pain throughout her body, a mother’s knowledge, not just a deduction: if Angélique had been brought to England James Lorrimer would have brought her here today, playing a fond papa, the baby, her baby, her miraculous baby, too young to contradict him.