Sophie nodded. It was all that she could manage.
‘Our George is in a car outside. Your Mr Jones called me when . . . when it looked like things . . . anyway, we flew here. The plane is at Tempelhof. George is ready to fly you all back at first light.’
‘I . . . I haven’t told the children yet. I don’t know . . .’
Ethel’s arms were so wonderfully solid. ‘No need to tell them yet, lass. Mr Jones said Nigel’s sister needs to leave, and leave quickly, and her maid too. That right?’
‘Of course. Yes, yes, they have to go too.’
If they left Berlin now Hannelore would never see Green, as herself or as Miss Lily. If they left now then for Hannelore Miss Lily would still be alive, and Nigel dead.
Dead. Nigel was dead.
‘We need to get you and the . . .’ even Ethel hesitated at the word ‘. . . coffin back to England. Don’t want you to be held up here with an inquest. If we leave now we’ll be gone before any officials start asking questions.’
Sophie hadn’t even thought of an inquest, or a police investigation. Nigel had been murdered. The Earl of Shillings, murdered. Of course the police would ask questions, as would a coroner. There might even be a trial, if they found the men concerned. She would need to be a witness.
A trial would also mean a public admission of where he had been killed. And yes, he had been there decorously with his wife, but there might still be whispers.
No. She could not face questions, an investigation, much less a trial. She would not have Nigel’s memory stained by it, nor newspaper reports the children might find when they grew older.
‘Don’t worry, lass. George and I will take care of it all,’ said Ethel.
‘Thank you.’ She had been drowning in elegance, in aristocracy, in assumed and inherited power. None of that could withstand Ethel’s solid Yorkshire strength. She could cope, with Ethel there.
She found that she was crying again.
‘Cry away, lass,’ said Ethel, taking out a plain cotton hanky the size of a bath towel. ‘Best thing you can do now is cry. And then we’ll have a cup of cocoa.’
‘The prinzessin does not allow cocoa. There’s none here.’
‘There is now,’ said Ethel.
Chapter 62
Sometimes I have wished I could have entered a silent order, as a nun, praying, trying to glimpse the face of God, or been the mother of six children, laughing and hearty, and sturdy grandchildren. But I never wanted those enough and nor, I suspect, will you. You will triumph, my dears. But that loss of simplicity will be a tiny tragedy as well.
Miss Lily, 1913
Two cars waited in the dimness of the streetlights as they crept down the stairs, Jones carrying Rose and Sophie cradling Danny, both children heavily asleep. Green, still dressed and wigged as Miss Lily, carried nothing beyond a handbag. Miss Lily would not have been expected to lug baggage.
Violette held a single portmanteau, as did Amy and a bewildered Nanny, with eyes red from crying, though Sophie knew Nanny would have waited till the children were asleep before she indulged her grief. She hoped the children’s portmanteaux carried the teddy bear and toy zebra, or there would soon be wails of protest. But of course Nanny was far too experienced to have left them behind.
She glanced at Hereward. He seemed to be trying to pretend that a midnight flit was nothing out of the ordinary for a well-trained butler. His remaining hand carried a bag that presumably held his own necessities. Lloyd lugged a larger suitcase.
The rest of their luggage could be sent on. Or not. Sophie didn’t care if she never saw it again.
An owl hooted, sounding strangely normal, as they walked through the garden and slid into the cars. They started, motors coughing loudly in the silence. Jones drove the one with Violette, Green, Lloyd and Hereward, with Ethel at the wheel of the second car with Sophie and the children, Amy and Nanny. Sophie glanced behind them as the cars made their way down the road. But no other lights had come on at Elizabat’s, nor had there been any car in wait to follow them, which she had feared, either police or the brown-shirted thugs.
She had left an apologetic note for Elizabat, telling her the truth, or some of it: she was sorry, she was endlessly grateful, but she desperately wanted to get her children home, and that her household was accompanying her. She left no note for Hannelore.
Ethel took the corners faster than Jones, with the experienced competence of a woman who has driven not just cars, but a motorcycle through the highlands.
There was little traffic, and that mostly horse drawn, carts delivering milk or vegetables or meat to market. The few cars seemed to belong to late night revellers. Tramps leaned wearily against buildings, where they’d have been moved on during the day, and even the ladies of the night seemed to have decided that the business of this night, at least, was over.
Tempelhof airport was quiet, grey planes on a grey tarmac in the growing grey of dawn.
No officials came to meet them. Perhaps it was too early; perhaps no one bothered to inspect the papers of those wealthy enough to fly.
The aeroplane was larger than the one Sophie had flown in from Paris to Shillings. They climbed the steps, Jones leading the way, Sophie behind him, the children still asleep, leaving the cars behind. Sophie wondered if Jones had arranged to have them picked up. She found she did not care about that, either.
A nest of blankets and pillows had been arranged for the children at the back of the plane. Rose muttered as they laid her down, opened her eyes, saw her mother’s face, then slept again. Danny hardly stirred. Nanny and Amy settled in their seats on either side of them.
‘Thank you,’ said Sophie quietly.
Amy said nothing, obviously torn between grief for her employer, and excitement at flying. Nanny looked terrified, with the set lips of a woman who refused to show her fear.
Sophie pressed her hand. ‘It’s safe,’ she assured the older woman. ‘I wouldn’t risk anything that might hurt the children.’
‘Yes, your ladyship,’ said Nanny stiffly.
And yet I brought my children to Berlin and to political intrigue, and their father died, thought Sophie. Nanny is right not to trust my judgement now. Nor, of course, was flying entirely safe — every week, it seemed, there was a report of an aviator crashing their plane. But just now it was the best option.
Sophie turned to find Hereward behind her. ‘I will reassure Nanny and the children, your ladyship. It is not my place to say so, but I would give my life to protect his lordship.’
‘But —’ Sophie stopped. She had been about to say that Nigel was dead. Hereward meant Danny.
The butler looked anguished. ‘No one but his lordship’s father would have given a man with only one hand the position of butler. All of us — the entire staff of Shillings, and every tenant too — knows how much we owe the family.’
‘Thank you, Hereward,’ whispered Sophie. She would have liked to say more, but words had left her. Nor could one hug a butler, at least not without embarrassing him.
Jones and Violette sat a few seats in front of the children. Green sat by herself, still dressed as Miss Lily. Neither Nanny nor Hereward had asked where Green was. Did they not want to intrude on Sophie’s grief? Or did they, who knew Green well, recognise her? Both were estate-bred. Whatever they knew, suspected or wondered, they would be discreet, even to members of their own family, their greater loyalty to ‘the big house’ now. Sophie wondered how long the charade must go on for. Till after the funeral, she supposed. The older tenants who had known about Miss Lily’s annual visits before the war would expect her to attend.
Ethel sat on the other side of the aisle from her. She took Sophie’s hand as she passed. ‘It will come right, Soapie lass,’ she said quietly. ‘Try to get some sleep if you can.’
Sophie sat in a seat at the front, where hopefully no one would see her cry. The plane already vibrated. Slowly it began to move, strangely like a car, for so long that Sophie wondered if they were going to drive all t
he way to the Channel. Suddenly the aircraft picked up speed. Its nose lifted, and then they were flying.
Nanny gave a cry, abruptly choked off, as her world tilted upwards, and bumped slightly, as if on a potholed road. The aircraft kept rising.
Sophie looked out the window. Berlin lay below her, enormous, peaceful, with its tree-lined streets, well-tended parks and gardens, with no sign of the turmoil and restlessness at its heart.
‘I am going home,’ she thought. Home to Shillings, home to Thuringa. Home with her children, her friends, with people who liked her and loved her. She had survived most of her life without Nigel. She would survive without him now. Just for a short time though, she did not want to.
She shut her eyes as the aircraft bumped a little more into the clouds, amateur clouds, wispy clouds, that had not yet learned how to grow into dangerous purple castles.
At last she slept.
She woke to yells of wonder: two small children bounced at the back of the plane. She turned to see Ethel presenting Nanny with a couple of Thermoses and a small picnic basket. The other occupants of the aircraft seemed to be eating and drinking already.
The plane still bumped, sometimes deeply, but already her body was used to it. She watched Ethel make her way up the aisle. She said something quietly to Jones, nodding to Sophie, then walked forward again, stopping to retrieve yet another small basket from an otherwise empty seat.
I have spent my life in the moments between picnic baskets, thought Sophie vaguely, suddenly longing for coffee, vast amounts of it, without whipped cream.
And then remembered. Nigel was dead. How long must her brain keep shocking her with the news? When would her body know it, accept it?
Ethel plonked herself in the seat next to her. ‘How are you feeling, old thing?’
‘As if I lost myself somewhere and haven’t quite caught up again.’
‘Well, you’ve seen enough loss to know what you need.’
‘Time, more time, and home?’
‘That’s it, lass. How about some cocoa?’
‘Is that what the others are drinking?’
‘Milk with a cinnamon stick for the littlies, cocoa with a good slug of brandy for Nanny, and the rest are having tea or coffee, courtesy of Carryman Airlines.’
‘Coffee sounds wonderful. Do all passengers get this treatment now?’
‘Well, we can’t always arrange a moonlit flit, or a dawn flit anyway. But we serve “refreshments”.’ Ethel’s Yorkshire accent became refined at the word. She burrowed in the basket, and handed Sophie a Thermos with a lid that unscrewed to become a mug. ‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Neither, thanks.’
Ethel rummaged in the basket again. ‘We can do you cheese sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, currant buns, plum cake or Bath biscuits if your tummy is wobbly. Rose and Danny got buns,’ she added. ‘There’s apples too.’
Suddenly Sophie was hungry, or rather, aware her body needed fuel, and was now capable of absorbing it. ‘Sandwiches. Thank you.’ She undid the lid of the Thermos and breathed in the wonderful scent of plain coffee.
She sipped, hoping it would remove the strangeness still buzzing in her head.
Things did not fit. The world was crooked with the death of Nigel, and yet it was more than that. Nothing mattered, of course, nothing compared to Life Without Nigel, Rose and Danny Without Nigel, Caring for Shillings Till Danny Turned Twenty-one Without Nigel.
But despite that, something else vibrated, a wisp of not-quite thought that would not leave. She drank more coffee, then ate a cheese sandwich, and found her puzzlement had grown, not lessened. Only one of the events of the past twenty-four hours truly mattered, the loss of Nigel. But now the first shock was over, questions were taking its place.
She turned to Ethel, and found her watching her. ‘How did you get here?’
‘By plane.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’ve got a letter for you,’ said Ethel abruptly. ‘Nigel gave it to me before you left England. Said I was to give it to you at the right time. Reckon that time is now. With a bit of luck it’ll give you all the answers you need for a bit, then maybe you can sleep again.’
‘I don’t understand.’ How often had she said that? I am Sophie Higgs, she thought. I am the Countess of Shillings (or am I the Dowager? I must find out. Jones or Green will know . . .) but all my life I have had a need to understand.
She took the letter, which was sealed in an envelope, and closed with the wax of the Vaile seal too.
‘I’ll go and sit with George in the cockpit for a bit. Might even let me take the controls,’ said Ethel. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be there if I head towards the ground or Ethiopia and, anyway, I’ve been taking flying lessons.’ Somehow the plane stayed steady as her bulk moved down the aisle.
Sophie broke the seal, then opened the letter, careful not to tear the envelope. This would — probably — be the kind of letter one kept, even if it had to be hidden in an 1890s encyclopaedia, Volume V–W, that no one would ever read.
The paper was good Shillings stock, thick and linen based, with the Vaile crest. The handwriting was Nigel’s, which was not the same as Miss Lily’s. She had never known if that was deliberate, or cultivated to keep their identities discrete. I will never know now, she thought.
She shut her eyes briefly. She had been mourning Nigel. Suddenly the loss of Miss Lily as well was too much to bear.
Except, of course, one did bear things, and went on.
Jones and Violette were playing horsey with the children at the back of the plane. ‘This is the way a gentleman rides,’ Nigel had sung. This was not the time to tell them their father would never sing it again.
She glanced out the window, trying to put off the anguish of reading, but still only grey cloud was visible. She looked back at the pages in her hand.
My darling Sophie,
I am writing this at Shillings. We leave for Germany in a week’s time, and you are picking roses in the garden. I think that was where I first fell in love with you, as Lily gazed out the window at that impossible colonial, Miss Sophie Higgs, walking before breakfast in the Shillings garden, a girl who could take on anything and who has, including the most impossible of husbands.
I am impossible, my darling, I know it. For a while, after the war and then when you flew back so dramatically to Shillings, I thought my love for you might make Nigel Vaile real, forever. But he is not.
Always, while Nigel Vaile lives, he will be a potential scandal, one I will not have my wife and children face. Do not blame Hannelore too much for this, or for what I am fairly sure is going to happen next, if the plans James and I concocted come to fruition. If it hadn’t been for Hannelore we might have had a few more years . . . but I cannot write of that because I cannot think of it, nor fool myself any longer. I must both think and write this: that the time has come for Nigel Vaile to die, as he should have died, had not Sophie Higgs delayed it.
So this is the plan that has been carefully wound about you, without your knowing. James wishes to keep His Royal Highness out of the web of fascism for as long as possible. I doubt David has bothered to read Mein Kampf, except a few pieces here and there, but there is much in it that will appeal to him, including casting the blame for the war on a convenient, non-existent, conspiracy of Jewish bankers, and the blame for the poverty and flightiness that has blighted the decade since the war on Jewish propagandists.
It may seem ridiculous to you and me, but if this man Herr Hitler has managed to snare Hannelore — who has twice the intelligence and ten times the wisdom and integrity of His Royal Highness — then he is quite capable of capturing a man as uncertain, resentful and, to be honest though disloyal, as dull-witted as the Prince of Wales.
If you are reading this, then the plan has worked. Nigel Vaile has died in Berlin, carrying out the request of his prince, but you and the children are safe. Hopefully, David will feel enough guilt to stay away from National Socialism for a few years yet, though hi
s attention span is never long; nor does he like feeling guilty. I predict he will not even be free to come to my funeral, but will send regrets.
If all goes as we have so carefully organised, you and I and Hannelore have seen Herr Hitler. I have insulted him, threatened to turn the prince from his cause, then we three have gone to a location we shall have chosen in time to let James know about, so the assassins know where and when to find me. I will be killed by hired thugs dressed in the fascist uniform. One can hire anything, it seems, in Berlin these days. But they will have strict instructions not to hurt you, or any others. I deeply hope that you are safely reading this, and did not fly to my aid — or that if you did, Jones prevented you.
So it will not have been Hannelore’s friends who killed me, though she may think so. Hopefully, perhaps, she may not even believe the party’s denials when they say they had nothing to do with it. I do not know. It would be good to think this might make Hannelore look more closely at those she has allied herself with. If possible — if you can bear it — stay in contact with her, and keep at least the tatters of a friendship which may be useful to England in times to come. But if you cannot do this, James and I entirely understand.
The admirable Miss Ethel Carryman will do as her name suggests. She and her nephew will have you all safely out of Elizabat’s house that night and away from Germany by first light. James will use his considerable influence to deny any requests for you to return to Germany to answer questions.
There will be publicity. This, I am afraid, was James’s price. The death of the Earl of Shillings at the hands of storm troopers while his young wife looked on is what I must pay for his cooperation. My murder will alienate potential fascist supporters in England. I am glad that, at last, Nigel Vaile has been of some use politically.
But you are the one who is going to have to endure the avid interest from the press and public until another scandal takes its place. I hope this will be weeks, not months, and that the journey to Australia will give you some respite as soon as you can resume it. I have left my affairs in as much order as possible without causing suspicion, but there is still going to be an inordinate amount of work for you to cope with. I so deeply wish I could help you. I wish, even more passionately, that I could be alive to do so.
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