She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Are we talking a tragedy for Sophie here, or just for your political schemes?’
‘My schemes are for my country, Miss Carryman, not for my own advancement.’ Which he did not need. Independently wealthy, of a family who had been refusing titles since the fifteenth century, James Lorrimer was esteemed by whichever party was in power. ‘But yes, the Empire’s safety would be compromised by what we are trying to avoid. Sophie too would be badly harmed, and so would her children, and the title, for what that’s worth.’
‘It’s not worth a lot to me, but the Shillings people are. I’ll do what’s needed.’
Not ‘try to do’, James noticed with amusement. This extraordinary woman was confident she would achieve whatever she set out to do. ‘I gather your nephew runs an airline.’
Ethel nodded. ‘Five planes now, seven pilots.’
‘Would you trust him, both to be discreet and to fly to Germany and back?’
‘Yes.’
The one word was enough. James had arranged the rest, but this final step was the most important.
Nigel Vaile was his friend. Sophie Vaile, nee Higgs, was the woman James Lorrimer had loved for fourteen years, and had hoped might be his wife. But his personal feelings must remain irrelevant. What mattered was that the extraordinary network of contacts across the world, from Japan to the Middle East, created by ‘Miss Lily’, must not be compromised. Miss Lily herself might vanish, or even die, with no repercussions. But having her demolished by scandal would be disaster.
‘Thank you, Miss Carryman. The . . . arrangements should be finalised tomorrow. If you and your nephew could be ready to fly to Berlin by then, I will explain exactly what will be involved.’
‘Just say the word, and Bob’s your uncle,’ said Ethel cheerfully.
James Lorrimer smiled. He had once met the politician for whom that phrase had been coined, a man who had his position because ‘Bob’ had been his uncle.
‘Excellent.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I wonder, Miss Carryman, are you free for dinner tonight?’ He surprised himself with the invitation, and he saw she was startled too. He didn’t think that happened any more frequently to her than it did to him.
‘I usually just have cocoa and bread and cheese for supper. That “dining” malarkey takes too much time.’ But he could see longing in her eyes.
‘There’s an R in the month, Miss Carryman. They have oysters at the Ritz again now summer’s ended. Do you like oysters? Their soufflé potatoes are also superb. As a change from bread and cheese?’
The grin came again. Not a charming grin at all, but one he found he was enjoying. ‘You’re on,’ said Ethel Carryman.
Chapter 45
Some finishing schools attempt to teach their students to walk elegantly by balancing a book on their heads. This only trains them to walk with a faintly terrified stare, eternally waiting for the book to fall off. Instead imagine a friendly puppeteer holds your head and shoulders erect and still with his strings, and your spine extends deep into the soil, balancing you between soil and sky. Yes, Sophie, I accept that a kangaroo balances on its tail, but hopping around the ballroom — or when being presented to Her Majesty — is not the image one wants to give.
Miss Lily, 1913
‘Unter den Linden,’ breathed Ruffi. ‘The heart of Berlin.’
Sophie looked. Four rows of trees, presumably lindens, with bright green leaves and a slight scent of honey above the smells of horse and car exhaust and pigeons, pretty shops and the solidity of what could only be embassies and banks.
‘And that is the Adlon Hotel — it is where the Palais Redern used to be. Magnificent!’
Sophie was not sure if Ruffi was referring to the hotel or the palace.
He gestured out the window again, his gloves as immaculate as they had been this morning. ‘And that is the Ministry of Culture.’
Another stately building. Culture, it seemed, was most serious in Berlin. ‘And that is the famous Brandenburg Gate,’ which Sophie had never heard of. Miss Thwaites’s education had focused on the kings and queens of England, with a short detour into the ‘gardens of Italy’.
They passed the Ministry of Finance, ‘With cellars full of gold,’ said Ruffi. It was the first time Sophie had heard a note of bitterness in the light voice. But then all of Europe knew that any gold the ministry might glean must go not just to reparations for war damage to France, but to repay loans from the American bankers who had helped finance both sides of the war until the United States of America had thrown its hat in with Britain.
And yet the city looked prosperous, more so than London, despite the thin-faced newspaper sellers, many in tattered uniforms, one armed or one legged or scarred by gas, propped up on shooting sticks along the footpath, despite the match girls whose desperate smiles at potential customers hinted that they would sell far more than their boxes of matches.
Double-decker trolley buses proceeded along the broad, well-maintained roadway, accompanied by more motorcars than horse-drawn vehicles. Even the horses seemed well fed and many of the signs in the shop windows were in English and French as well as German, as if to announce, ‘We live in a cosmopolitan city, the largest in Europe, the industrial centre of the world.’ American loans and investment during the past five years had made the German middle and upper classes the wealthiest in Europe, even if the poor, or those crippled in the aftermath of war, still struggled or died, for the most part forgotten by those who would rather look at a prosperous present, not the tragedy of the past.
Hannelore’s aunt, it appeared, lived at Grunewald.
‘It used to be such a hike to come out here,’ said Ruffi. ‘That is the correct word, is it not? Hike? But now even ordinary people can ride out here on the tram.’ He gestured at a conveyance rattling by on the rails. Apart from the tram’s clatter the street was quiet; it was tree lined, with mansions behind well-tended gardens of more trees and shaped hedges and neat beds of perennials.
The Silver Ghost stopped. Jones opened the door for Ruffi. He bowed to Sophie, clicked his heels and kissed her hand, damply but thankfully without the relish or flourishes of the ex-Kaiser. ‘Vaile, old chap, I will see you tonight, eh? A little fun.’
‘You are too kind,’ murmured Nigel. ‘But I retire early these days, as you know.’
Ruffi’s smile did not waver. ‘Then I will show you Berlin tomorrow. Both of you.’
‘Hannelore may have other plans, or our hostess —’ began Sophie.
‘I will send a message.’ He shrugged. ‘Your hostess does not like the “vibrations” of the telephone.’ Another heel click and Ruffi was gone, back to where the chauffeur waited in his own car, behind those ferried across the Channel from Shillings.
Vibrations? thought Sophie. She had only heard the term from those who believed in séances — and from mechanics, referring to vehicles. But at least they were temporarily free of Ruffi.
The Silver Ghost drove through the gates — quite discreet gates — and up a gravel drive to a stuccoed house, comfortable but not lavish, a pale pink façade above cream marble stairs leading to a modest portico, and no serried ranks of servants bowing or curtseying.
The door opened. A manservant, not quite haughty enough for a butler, bowed, as the other cars drove around to the servants’ entrance. ‘Your ladyship, your lordship. The Prinzessin Elizabat and the Prinzessin Hannelore are in the sun room. Please follow me.’
They followed as a maid appeared to direct Nanny, Amy, Rose and Danny upstairs.
The hall floor was marble, the walls adorned with an astonishing number of niches and plinths holding nude figures, all extremely athletic rather than erotic, with bunches of flowers, a spray of leaves, or even what looked like a large bundle of asparagus, hiding the most erogenous zones. Pilasters were painted, with stucco trim, all in a symphony of creams and pinks.
It also smelled delicious, a perfume Sophie recognised as almost, but not quite, that of the pot pourri that scented Shillings.
She peered into what was evidently a drawing room as they passed. The room seemed strangely empty, with delicate chairs situated where surely no one would ever sit on them, and a pink-tiled stove at one end giving out a small amount of heat that, despite the summer warmth, was welcome, for the marble seemed to breathe out cold.
The manservant turned into yet another hall, slightly smaller, leading to two oak doors carved with leaves and flowers. He opened them and announced quietly, ‘Her ladyship and his lordship, the Earl and Countess of Shillings, Your Highnesses.’
At first all Sophie could see was greenery: ferns twice as tall as herself; full-grown trees, peach trees, lemon trees and, yes, that was a lime. And pineapples and half a million orchids . . .
The second impression was glass — three sides of glass walls, a domed glass ceiling, slightly fogged with moisture, and sunlight, so much summer sunlight, golden beams magnified ten times, so bright she had to blink to clear her sight.
‘Sophie! Oh, Sophie, it is so good to see you.’
Sophie blinked again. Hannelore stood before her, blonde hair in perfect coils about her head, colour in her cheeks and what was surely genuine joy in her voice.
She was also entirely nude.
Chapter 46
All wise people will tell you that age has beauty. But one must ask why that must so often be so emphatically said . . .
Miss Lily, 1913
The once cruel scar on Hannelore’s hip was now a faint pink line. Her breasts were high and had no stretch marks, thought Sophie enviously. She looked beautiful, happy, and entirely unselfconscious. ‘We did not expect you for an hour at least. Sophie, must I put on a robe? Truly, we would not have taken you by surprise like this. You are not offended?’
To Sophie’s surprise she felt like laughing. She did so, with true delight. ‘On no account. It is beautiful to see you, and I mean no double entendres, or perhaps I do. Nigel darling, you agree, don’t you?’
‘Always,’ he said, though Sophie noticed he tactfully looked at Hannelore’s face, and not below.
‘Aunt Elizabat, may I present Sophie, my dearest friend, the Countess of Shillings, and her husband, Nigel, Earl of Shillings. Sophie, Nigel, this is my aunt, the Prinzessin Elizabat.’
Sophie glanced at Nigel again. He too looked amused.
‘Call me Elizabat, do.’ Another woman walked from behind a tree bearing small red apples, older, also nude and beautiful. She might have been Eve in the Garden of Eden, if it hadn’t been for her hairstyle, softly and far too evenly grey to be natural, and arranged in neat marcel waves around an almost unlined face. ‘I too must apologise for meeting you like this. We expected Ruffi to insist on taking you on a tour of what he believes is the “true Berlin”. All my friends are naturists, of course, and it did not occur to me to tell the servants to ask you to wait in the drawing room rather than bring you straight here. It is such a depressing drawing room, too. No earth, no sky above, no leaves or running water. But Hannelore said that you both have such a love of all things natural. I have heard so much about you, Sophie, not just from Hannelore but from her uncle on her father’s side too.’
‘How is Dolphie?’ asked Sophie, keeping her voice even and her smile, she hoped, perfect.
‘Hard at work,’ said Hannelore. ‘He is at the Paris embassy now. But you must be tired and need refreshment. A bath upstairs, or perhaps . . .’ Hannelore gestured behind the apple trees. Sophie saw a small round marble pool, gently steaming, while what seemed to be a natural waterfall wriggled its way down a scatter of rocks for a final sparkle into the water.
She could feel Nigel’s unspoken laughter, even though she refused to catch his eye. Was this a trick by Hannelore to make sure that Nigel was, indeed, male? But surely she could not think a woman had been allowed somehow to assume the title. ‘Indeed, we are both rather tired . . .’
‘But would love to bathe with you here,’ said Nigel. ‘It is a custom I grew used to in Japan. Mixed bathing is natural there.’
‘It is natural everywhere,’ said Elizabat eagerly. ‘What is more lovely than the human body? It is our clothes that keep us apart, that tell our social rank, that keep our feet from the energy of Mother Earth, keep the caress of wind and water from our skins.’
Another maid — clothed — appeared behind them, evidently to take their clothes. Sophie fixed her smile more firmly, and slipped off her shoes and then her stockings. The maid undid the buttons of her dress. Beside her Nigel too was disrobing. She tried to think of possible punishments for him later, for she was not used to mixed bathing . . .
‘There is no need to disrobe completely if you feel uncomfortable,’ said Hannelore pleasantly.
‘Of course I’m not.’ Sophie made her own smile more brilliant. ‘People bathe naked in the river all the time at Thuringa. The stockmen go for a splash after work most days . . .’ Not that she had ever joined them, nor the school children either who, lacking swimming costumes, always swam nude, the girls at one river bend, the boys at another.
But I’ve been bathed by hired hands ever since I was a baby, she reminded herself. So many maids had washed her, clothed her. Greenie saw her nude every day, and while only two men had ever seen her naked body — she had made sure she stayed well out of sight of the peephole at Ruffi’s castle — one of them was Nigel, who was there and already down to his underpants. He pulled them off, showing the scars, long, purple red and ridged from his groin almost to his waist, even the stitch marks still vivid. He stepped over to the pool, then sank into the water. ‘Wonderful,’ he murmured. ‘There is nothing like warm moving water on the skin.’
Sophie removed her own chemise, her stockings and garters, then her camiknickers, trying not to compare her body to Hannelore’s. Her breasts were definitely lower than they had been three years ago, her nipples a mother’s, not a maiden’s. She reminded herself yet again of aspiring to swan-likeness, and stepped into the water.
It was less confronting once she was sitting down. The water was almost opaque, turning their bodies into flesh-coloured squiggles, and covered her breasts. Elizabat sat on one side of her, Hannelore on the other.
‘How long have you been a naturist, Prinzessin?’ asked Nigel pleasantly.
The prinzessin beamed at him. ‘Elizabat, please. Since 1919. My Jakob died of influenza. I was so cast down, cast out, perhaps, of all that I had known. Our estates lost, so many of our family lost, Hannelore I knew not where. The whole world seemed insane.
‘A friend took me to a lecture. That was all we had, back then, parties and lectures.’ She smiled and added, ‘And if we were lucky, a potato. The lecture was by Dr Hirschfeld. The dear doctor! He explained that war is an illness, an illness of society. Until we embrace our bodies, our sexuality, society will always sicken, and look for war or other vices to distract us from what we have avoided for so long. Ah, Gerda, thank you.’
The maid who had taken Sophie’s clothes now proffered a tray: tall glasses of what looked like orange juice, slices of very brown bread spread with a substance that was definitely not butter, and slices of an orange-coloured melon arranged with raspberries, strawberries and dates.
Sophie took the juice, sipped and smiled. ‘Passionfruit as well as orange?’ she asked.
‘How clever of you!’ said Elizabat.
‘We have passionfruit growing at my home in Australia.’
‘Wild? They must have a greenhouse here. Such a healthy country to grow up in Australia must be. Do try the bread. It is home-made, as is the nut butter. What kind of nut today, Helga?’
‘It is Brazil nut and walnut today, Prinzessin.’
‘It sounds delicious.’ Sophie took a slice. Actually it wasn’t bad, especially after the pig-based cuisine of Castle Ruffi. She took a strawberry and then a slice of melon. To her surprise the water was soothing her, relaxing her. She leaned back and felt her body lift slightly, almost floating. She shut her eyes, then opened them to find Hannelore smiling at her. ‘I knew you would like it after the
first shock.’
‘All right, it was a bit of a shock. But all this,’ she gestured at the trees, the flowers, the fruit, the arch of glass glowing in the afternoon sunlight above them, ‘it’s truly wonderful.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Nigel. He too looked peaceful. This will be good for his scars, thought Sophie, and Hannelore too leaned back, as if all good things had come to pass now her friends had joined her at last.
The peace vanished. Sophie suddenly realised that this must be the most cunning part of Hannelore’s plan. A man might seem to be a woman, carefully dressed, but not nude in a marble pool, and not when his hostess had seen a scar that could not be faked or disguised. Now Nigel had bathed, it would seem odd if the broad-minded Miss Lily did not.
As if to echo her thoughts the prinzessin asked, ‘Your sister arrives late tomorrow night, I believe? Hannelore says you are all meeting this Herr Hitler she is so interested in.’ The tone could refer to a stamp collection or a passion for mah jong. Prinzessin Elizabat was not a National Socialist, it seemed. It also appeared that Miss Lily was assumed to be Nigel’s sister, or half-sister. It would be useful to know which, thought Sophie, trying not to giggle at the thought of asking these people exactly who her husband’s presumed relation might be.
‘The Führer is looking forward to seeing the two of you and Miss Lily at five o’clock tomorrow.’ Hannelore smiled too innocently at Sophie and Nigel. ‘He has also kept the entire afternoon free for you the day after. It will be so good to have two whole days with Miss Lily again. Just like the old days, but now with Nigel too. And the children. I cannot wait to see the children. Will you have them brought down before dinner, or should I go up to them? They must have grown so much over summer.’
Sophie tried to find a crevice in the conversation, to say that . . . that they had just had a telegram from Lily, that she could not arrive until the day after tomorrow, and so would not be staying there. Impossible that she could stay there now.
The Lily in the Snow Page 26
