Green hesitated. ‘There is one possibility. I don’t know if this is the plan we will use — as I said, everything may change. Jones is not just sending a telegram to James — he will wait for an answer, and directions, too.’
‘You obey James?’ It had never occurred to her that James might direct proceedings, rather than simply suggest them.
‘Of course.’ Green seemed surprised at the question. ‘There are several options already, but one is that I become Miss Lily for Elizabat. She has never looked closely at me, a servant, and she has only met Lily once, and briefly. “Miss Lily” will arrive earlier than expected, just after you leave.’
‘But Hannelore will know you are not Lily at first glance!’
Green gave a strained smile. ‘Not at first glance, and not in candlelight. As soon as I hear the car I will go upstairs. Hannelore will see a glimpse, no more.’
‘You will meet Herr Hitler without her?’
‘That is still to be decided.’
‘Greenie, darling, that is going to make Hannelore even more suspicious. The only thing that will stop her blackmail is if Hannelore sees someone she believes is Lily with Nigel, in the same room.’
Green hesitated. ‘Something like that is going to happen.’
‘But it can’t!’
‘There is one way that it might. Only one. One I cannot tell you, one that it is almost too hard to speak of, much less to do. But Lily, Jones and I have spent decades building up a network that cannot be destroyed by rumour. If we do our work well, then after tonight Miss Lily’s network of friends — a network Mr Lorrimer regards as perhaps the most vast and important Britain has because few within it even know that they are linked — can never be compromised.’
You speak like a spy, thought Sophie, not like a maid, nor even a friend. She was only now beginning to realise the significance of Green’s decades of experience. ‘And to do that I must not know what is planned?’
Green nodded mutely.
A deep breath. ‘Very well.’
‘You’re not going to argue?’
‘Cyclone Sophie demanding to take charge? Not this time. Greenie, you three have been doing things like this for most of your lives. I’m a beginner — and I never want to be more than a beginner either. But I wish Nigel had told me that . . .’ She tried to find the words.
‘That we have a plan but have to keep you out of it?’
‘Yes. Exactly that. And I’ll tell him so. Not tonight,’ she added, seeing Green’s sudden alarm. ‘Whatever this is, it’s going to be tricky, and you’ll all need to concentrate. But when it’s all over, Nigel Vaile is in for a lecture on the rights of wives.’
‘When it’s all over,’ said Green, her voice muffled. Was Greenie crying again?
‘Greenie, is this dangerous?’
‘Of course. We are in a foreign country — one where we are still regarded as the enemy. You are visiting the leader of a party known to have street battles with the communists. Not just roughing up, but real fighting where people are killed.’
‘We’re not going to a party meeting, and if we see a street battle we will head in the other direction. Is that what you are worried about?’
‘No,’ said Green.
‘Then what . . .? No, all right. I’ll let you three professionals focus and I’ll be properly decorative, shocked and whatever else you plan that I should be.’
‘Thank you,’ said Green. She crossed the room and hugged Sophie briefly. Sophie could feel her trembling.
‘Greenie, darling, this isn’t putting you in danger, is it?’ Not when your daughter has just found you, Sophie thought, not before you have had a chance to be mother and daughter again.
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Green. ‘Come on. I need to do your hair.’
Chapter 54
A so-called ‘small’ life may have a large effect. You never know which lever will move the world.
Miss Lily, 1913
She found Nigel in the nursery, or rather the rooms that Elizabat had set aside for the children for their stay — a playroom, as well as bedrooms, and rooms for Nanny and Amy. Nigel had Danny on one knee, and Rose on the other. Sophie assumed the action pained him, but not enough to impinge on his joy with his children.
‘And this is the way the farmer rides,
Clop clop, clop clop,
This is the way the lady rides,
Trit trot, trit trot,
And this is the way the gentleman rides
A-gallop, a-gallop . . .’
The children shrieked as his knees moved like a galloping horse.
‘This lady also gallops,’ said Sophie.
‘And this is the way your mother rides,’ amended Nigel. ‘Which is any way she pleases.’ He kissed both small heads, one blonde, one dark, then placed the children carefully on the floor — polished wood, of course, for Nanny would not permit the dust of carpets under her charges.
The twins crawled off. Both walked well now and ran whenever possible, but towards the end of the day they preferred to crawl when they needed to get somewhere swiftly, like to their mother’s stockinged legs.
Sophie quickly held them at arm’s length before they could wrinkle her stockings, then bent and kissed them. ‘We’ll go to the park tomorrow,’ she promised them.
‘Daddy come to park too?’ demanded Rose.
Sophie glanced at Nigel. He shook his head slightly. ‘Daddy may be busy,’ she said, for surely Miss Lily would be in residence then, however that was going to be achieved, or meeting Herr Hitler. ‘Now have a delicious dinner and sweet dreams.’
‘It was nut roast for luncheon, your ladyship,’ said Nanny darkly. ‘Who knows what these foreigners will think is suitable for supper? I have asked for bread and milk, just in case it is indigestible. And they have promised me some stewed apple. We can’t move our bowels properly on rice puddings, can we?’ she asked the children.
‘Zebra,’ said Danny, heading for his toy.
‘Park ’morrow,’ said Rose, making sure.
‘Nigel, we’d better go if we are not to be late.’ He was staring at the twins with an expression she couldn’t quite read. He bent to kiss the children again, then swiftly left the room. He did not look back.
Hannelore’s motorcar was a large one, the driver separated from the passengers in the back. The young man wore what looked like a brown uniform, and a flat brown cap over shorn hair. He opened the door for Hannelore to enter first, then Sophie, then Nigel. He did not ask for instructions but began to drive along the tree-lined streets then back towards the centre of the city.
‘Are we going to the party headquarters?’ asked Nigel.
‘Herr Hitler will meet you at a friend’s house. It is more discreet.’
‘A friend of yours or Herr Hitler’s or both?’ enquired Sophie.
‘A friend of the Führer, a friend of mine, and a friend of the party,’ said Hannelore. She looked out the window instead of at them as she spoke — the only sign of her discomfort. If indeed she felt any.
‘Why the discretion?’
Hannelore didn’t look at her now either. ‘You may be recognised. Nigel may be recognised. The Führer will certainly be recognised.’
‘I thought you wanted us to support Herr Hitler publicly?’
‘Yes. But not too publicly. Not in Germany, and not yet. You must know how much . . . ill-feeling . . . there still is in England towards Germany. Even the queen’s own relatives must visit in secret. We need to build up a league of friendship between our countries and those who rule them before anyone thinks to work against that friendship happening.’
‘A league of friendship,’ murmured Nigel. ‘A kind of private league of nations?’
‘But between people of goodwill, not nations. People of importance across Europe who wish for peace, who understand the threat of bolshevism, who understand,’ Hannelore looked at Sophie, ‘that prosperity leads to a contented people, and contented people do not wish for war.’
‘Y
et Germany already seems to be flourishing.’
‘Some of Germany. The middle classes, buoyed by loans from America. But bolshevism would not be so strong here if there was not widespread unemployment or poor wages even when jobs can be found. It is said that Berlin has even more communists than St Petersburg.’
‘Leningrad,’ corrected Sophie.
Hannelore met her eyes. ‘I will not speak that man’s name. The Bolsheviks killed my cousins, the tsar, poor Nicholas, and darling Alexandra and their children. They were your prince’s cousins too . . . Ah, here we are.’
The house was in a mixed area of family homes, but many with what seemed to be offices on the ground floor — lawyers, perhaps, or doctors — or maybe dog groomers, thought Sophie, as a perfectly coiffured poodle stalked past on a lead held by a woman dressed in a maid’s black dress.
One house even looked like it might be a small private clinic, the kind that middle-class women might stay in if they did not have room — or money — for an obstetrician and midwife team to stay in their own houses, but did not want to go to larger hospitals, filled with undesirables, whether human or germ.
The driver stood to attention — he had not bothered with this back at Elizabat’s house — then opened the door for Hannelore before going around the other side for Sophie and then Nigel.
It was a good house, with no sign in the window advertising professional services. There was a neat hedge on either side of the flagged path, and a carriage house which now seemed to be a garage. The chauffeur presumably lived in the flat above it instead of the groom. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary was a small poster in the window by the front door: a swastika, the insignia of the National Socialist Party.
The door opened at once. Someone had been watching for their arrival.
‘Hannelore, Liebling.’ The woman wore peach-coloured satin, low waisted and almost certainly Parisian, with a single strand of pearls around her neck, instead of wound around her arms in the present style. Fiftyish, with the slightly stiffer air of command of German aristocrats compared to the relaxed but no less imperious English, thought Sophie, though, admittedly, she had known only four German aristocrats to compare to English ones.
‘Liesl, these are my dear friends, the Earl and Countess of Shillings. Sophie, Nigel, this is Liesl von Hargenheim.’
Liesl von Hargenheim inclined her head in a way that clearly meant, ‘My title is as honourable as yours, or better, but, as the Weimar Republic has abolished it, and you are only English, I do not need to impress you with it.’
‘He is in the library.’ The ‘he’ was almost reverent. ‘He is expecting you.’ She crossed to a room down the wide hall — good wood panelling, if a trifle over-carved, and two tiled stoves — and knocked on another door, carved wood once more.
‘Kommen Sie,’ the words from the man inside were perfunctory, the tones middle class and business-like.
Liesl von Hargenheim opened the door. ‘Die Prinzessin von Arnenberg, mein Führer, und ihre Freunde, Frau Vaile und Herr Vaile.’ Hannelore had obviously given her friend her family name.
It hadn’t occurred to Sophie that the Führer might not speak English. But of course from such a humble background he would not have learned it at school or university. Nor had she realised that Nigel’s and her titles, too, might not be used in Germany, especially as Hannelore’s still seemed to be recognised. Was the use of titles in Berlin as relaxed as its sexual mores?
She had thought her title meant nothing to her. It seemed that it did. Or, at least, she resented having it removed by an enemy — a former enemy — and one who might, or might not have, played a part in Hannelore’s blackmail.
Brown leather furniture. Elizabat had said Herr Hitler was vegetarian, but possibly sitting on dead animal hides did not count. Herr Hitler might simply regard eating animals as unhealthy. A brown wooden desk, highly polished, obsessively neat. Another man, ferret-faced and thin lipped, and obviously not the Führer, sat in one of the room’s armchairs. Four younger men, curiously identical as skittles, dressed in the same brown uniform as the driver and with the same straight-ahead gaze of those who saw what they were ordered to see, sat on hard chairs at the back of the room, almost hidden in the shadows. The young men stood as the newcomers entered, not quite at attention, but all facing the desk.
And sitting at that desk: a small man, dark haired, the small moustache, with kind-looking blue eyes that crinkled with pleasure as he saw Hannelore. He stood and made what was not quite a bow, and certainly not one with clicking heels, just a small inclination of the head. But then this man was not a gentleman, had not even been an officer. ‘Prinzessin! Es ist so gut . . .’ The voice was quiet, controlled, almost nondescript.
So this is Herr Hitler, thought Sophie.
Chapter 55
The most powerful people are not strong individuals. They are those who can change their personality to suit their audience. Their souls sway with whatever ‘belief’ gives them control. How do you recognise them? That is the trouble, my dears. They can make very sure you don’t. And too many of their followers do not wish to recognise that they have given their free will away at all.
Miss Lily, 1913
‘Mein Führer, meine Freunde, Sophie Vaile, und deine ihr Ehemann, der Graf von Shillings . . .’ Herr Hitler’s blue eyes met Sophie’s as Hannelore repeated the introductions. He smiled at her, and she felt in that moment that she was the only person in his world, that this man could see into her heart, and truly cared about what he saw there. His eyes held hers, still bathing them in warmth, as he said something too fast for Sophie to follow.
‘The Führer says he is so very happy to meet you at last,’ translated Hannelore.
Nigel stepped forward and held out his hand. Herr Hitler grasped it, shook it twice. ‘Herr Hitler, es ist so gut . . .’ began Nigel.
Sophie had not realised that Nigel’s German was so fluent. She had known Lily had many close German friends and had spent time in Germany. Some of Nigel’s war (of which he spoke little) had been spent interrogating German prisoners, trying to gain their trust. Yet, strangely, she had never made the connection that of course her husband would have learned German too.
The brown-uniformed young men sat down again on their hard chairs. Herr Hitler gestured to the thin man on the other side of the desk.
Hannelore sat in another of the armchairs then gestured for Sophie to sit in the one next to her. Herr Hitler seemed to be introducing Nigel to the ferret-faced man in the other armchair.
‘That is Herr Joseph Goebbels,’ said Hannelore quietly. Evidently she was to translate, as well as explain the situation to this ignorant ‘Australien’. ‘Herr Goebbels is one of the most important men in the party, the Gauleiter of all of Berlin. Three years ago, only a week after he had been placed in charge, he organised a march of our Sturmabteilung, or storm troopers, through one of the areas where the communists hold sway.
‘It was dangerous — terribly dangerous. The communists have their own local army, the Roter Frontkämpferbund. Their motto is “Beat the fascists wherever you encounter them!”’
Herr Hitler was conversing with Nigel now. Hannelore continued her explanation, as Sophie tried to pick up some of the few words of German that she understood.
‘The communists attacked our march. It became a full-blown battle but we won.’ Hannelore’s face shone. ‘Since then the Sturmabteilung has disrupted every communist meeting they can, a hundred men, two hundred men at a time.’ Hannelore met Sophie’s eyes. ‘The Bolsheviks are our true enemy, Sophie. The ones who kill those who do not agree with them, who steal property and call it liberation.’
Sophie looked at Nigel. Herr Goebbels had joined the conversation with Herr Hitler now. ‘What are they saying?’
‘Nigel is explaining that David asked him here informally, because of course David cannot come himself, but that David is vitally interested in peace between our countries.’ Hannelore paused than added, ‘Nigel asks how the Füh
rer became interested in politics.’
The small man at the desk spoke. Sophie did not understand most of the words — Herr Hitler must know she did not understand. And yet it was as if he spoke to her too, spoke to her very heart, spoke to the young men who sat behind them too.
‘Now he is telling his story,’ said Hannelore. Sophie was shocked by the adoration in her voice. ‘It was 9 November 1918, two days before the Armistice. The Führer was in hospital, blind after a mustard gas attack, his eyes burning in his skull, his lungs dissolving, unable to see, to speak, hardly able to breathe. He knew he was going to die.’
Sophie shuddered. She had tried so hard to stop that gas being used. She’d failed. Thousands had died; thousands more had been blinded, horribly burned or lost their voices for life. This man was one of them. And yet his face was unscarred, his voice clear, his eyes tired but bright.
‘He heard the whispers down the line of beds, how the communists in our army had betrayed us, were refusing to fight; how they had allied themselves with those who had been our allies but were now our enemies, the Russians.
‘We outnumbered your forces. Even with America joining your war effort, we had more men, better equipment and superior training by far. We were winning the war! But when our soldiers were corrupted and would not fight . . .’ She shrugged. ‘The strike spread. And so even though our armies were winning our soldiers began to desert, the Kaiser must resign, and we must agree to a ceasefire.
‘The terms Germany agreed to were fair, but as you know, no treaty was signed for almost a year. By then our army had been disbanded but yours had not. And when the French demanded our lands we had no choice but to sign a treaty so different from the one we had agreed to the year before. Betrayed by the rot in the heart of Germany.’ Hannelore’s voice shook. How much were those Hitler’s own words, wondered Sophie, and how much were they Hannelore’s?
The small man was still speaking, his eyes bright, his voice calm but passionate. Hannelore translated again. ‘I was a man destined for eternal night, enduring hour upon hour on my pitiless Calvary. On that day 9 November, the little sight I had began to vanish and turn black. Stumbling, I groped my way back to my bed. I threw myself down, trembling, anguished and burying my burning head under my pillow and the covers.
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