‘Then if neither of us has words,’ she kissed him gently, ‘would you mind vanishing in case the stewardess comes to check I really am capable of doing up the back of my frock? Thank goodness for zips,’ she added. ‘I couldn’t have managed buttons or hooks.’
‘She will be tactfully waiting till I leave. I tipped her well.’ Daniel bent and chastely kissed the top of her head. ‘I will see you at dinner.’ His eyes roamed over her appreciatively. ‘Or parts of you, anyway.’
‘Why not join Lily and me with Rose and Danny and Miss Letitia for the children’s supper?’
‘Lily won’t mind?’
‘Lily is glad her children will have a father and that you are that father. The sooner you feel you all belong together, the happier she will be.’
‘I already feel that way,’ he admitted. ‘I always have.’
‘I think perhaps they feel that about you too. But it is time to begin to make it formal. See you soon, my very, very dear one.’
Chapter 16
Meals at sea are an endurance test, not sustenance. Unless you wish to reach shore looking like the ship had captured a whale, I suggest extreme restraint with the menu offered.
Miss Lily, 1901
An art deco curved staircase made almost entirely of glass curved down into a dining room larger than a football field for the seventy first-class passengers, including those with Suites 1 to 12. The twenty-five-foot ceiling was curved too, and gilded where it was not covered with murals of mermaids and fauns.
Sophie gazed at the buffet, a fixture of first nights at sea as was the lack of evening dress. Her own dress was pale mauve. As a member of the aristocracy she would be expected to wear mourning for the late king for a year after his death, but on a ship at the far edge of the Empire she need only avoid bright colours until they were closer to Britain. She would descend to darker mauve by the Equator, then deep blue. Luckily a countess — and one not of the court — need not wear midnight black all the time now that the funeral was over.
But this buffet! Haddock Maître d’Hôtel, veal and ham pie, brisket of beef with jacket potatoes and horseradish, six types of baked ham with varied sauces, salmi of duckling, salad of lettuce and tomato, iced beluga caviar, shrimp patties, boiled codfish with oyster sauce, salmon mousse, fresh turtle steaks, trout meunière, chocolate pudding, chocolate éclairs, plum pudding with brandy sauce, five kinds of ice cream nestled in vast silver urns of ice, jelly omelette, tropical fruit salad, fresh fruits of the season, lemon meringue pie, gâteau mille-feuille, nuts, raisins, cheeses . . . and she refused, simply refused, to take in the rest.
At last she collected some salmi, which looked excellent, a bright yellow rice dish that possibly went with a curry, not yet identified among the array but essential for a ship that would be carrying ‘old India’ public servants to and from Bombay, and some lettuce and tomato salad, and sat as the waiter ushered her to the table, not the captain’s, to which her rank entitled her, but the one next to his.
Luckily tables were assigned for the whole voyage. James had ensured they would have a table to themselves, joined by Green and Jones at Bombay.
Violette must still be primping herself, and probably trying on at least seven dresses to choose the most becoming for her first formal introduction to those who mattered on the ship. Daniel was changing — a slight accident to his shirt with Rose and chocolate ice cream.
Only Lily sat there, with a plate far emptier even than Sophie’s, salmon mousse and shredded lettuce, Sophie saw with concern. Lily’s once healthy appetite was dwindling every week. Lily was dressed in mauve too, but brocade, not silk, except for the scarf draped at her throat, and the matching one serving as a low-slung belt across her hips, its pleats and beading not quite disguising her growing thinness, and the grey silk stockings adding softness to the legs below the skirt.
‘You look beautiful,’ she said to Sophie.
‘Thank you. I do love your dress too.’
‘Violette created it, and even found two seamstresses in Bald Hill who can sew pleats and do beading. She really does have talent. But I was referring to your happiness, not your dress.’
‘I have already blushed too often today,’ stated Sophie.
‘You notice I have tactfully not asked if your fiancé is satisfactory?’
‘Your reticence is noted,’ Sophie took a forkful of duck. Delicious. Why had she taken so little? She would definitely need another helping. She was positively starving . . .
‘I received a wire from James’s secretary,’ said Lily, with the same expression she might have used to praise the mousse. ‘A meeting at Vaile House is of course impossible — His Majesty might simply refuse to come. Nor is the palace suitable. James has arranged for a cocktail party for Mrs Simpson at Emily’s home . . .’
‘Emily!’ Emily, now Mrs Colonel Sevenoaks, had been a fellow student of Miss Lily’s and, to some extent, a rival for the affections of eligible men. While Sophie had married into the aristocracy, Emily’s husband was an MP, and had yet to achieve high political position — and, perhaps, never would.
Miss Lily smiled. ‘Emily has made her own extremely useful circle of influential friends, including Clementine and Winston Churchill. I think you will find she is now helpful. You two always had far more in common than you realised.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Sophie shortly. At least Churchill’s and Wallis Simpson’s attendance would ensure that the king would be there. Unless he was tempted at the last minute by something more exciting . . .
‘Wallis Simpson will make sure he is there.’ Lily was reading her thoughts again.
‘He obeys her to that extent?’
‘Always.’
‘I see,’ said Sophie slowly. ‘Lily, I really don’t think I can rival that. Not with David. He simply never thought of me in that way.’
‘He asked you to be his mistress.’
‘I think he was just being polite.’
‘David is rarely polite when he doesn’t feel like it. He was genuinely attracted to you — a strong young woman who ordered him to eat his breakfast. And you are older now too. It won’t seem strange if you are a slightly different person to him. One who commands him even more, as well as enchants.’
‘And what will la Simpson do, while I am commanding and enchanting?’
‘Emily will take care of that detail.’
Sophie felt a small chill, despite the warmth of the dining room. ‘Emily knows what I am doing?’
‘Yes. And approves.’
‘And is not jealous?’
‘Of course she is jealous. But when you succeed she will be able to take much of the credit. That will mean a lot to Emily. Besides, she likes you now. And she deeply loves her country. Violette, how beautiful you look!’ Lily held up her cheek to be kissed.
‘Thank you, Aunt Lily. Aunt Lily, how many dances with one gentleman is too many tonight?’
‘Three. So perhaps dance no more than two with any particular one. One of the best ways to taste a man is to dance with him. You need to sample all you can before you decide if one is worth more.’
‘Ah,’ said Violette thoughtfully. ‘I had not thought of that. Thank you, Aunt Lily. I thought, perhaps, if any are most particularly attractive, I might take my shoes off and dangle my toes in the swimming pool, to make them think, perhaps, what else might be removed . . .’
Sophie stifled a laugh. ‘Violette, every man here will already have imagined that.’
‘Really?’ Violette looked delighted. ‘That is excellent!’
‘And I would leave the toe dangling for a little later in the voyage. Do not hurry this experience. Taste it all,’ said Miss Lily softly.
Violette nodded. ‘That is most good advice. Your advice is always perfection, Aunt Lily.’
‘Of course,’ said Sophie, smiling, as Daniel joined them wearing a chocolate-free shirt. ‘Miss Lily’s lessons are invariably correct.’
Chapter 17
Life is always too short, my de
ars, no matter how long it may be. Never leave a second untasted.
Miss Lily, 1914
THE SS PORT MORUYA
‘Sophie?’
‘Mmmm?’ She rolled over on the sheet and smiled at him in the light from the porthole. They had been sailing for ten days now: ten days of vast breakfasts of Arbroath smoked salmon fish cakes, shirred eggs and roquefort, Yorkshire ham, scrambled eggs à la Kleber, chipped smoked beef in cream, rice griddle cakes with maple syrup, omelette Sarah Bernhardt, poached eggs Rothschild, Rossini eggs à la Turbigo, Scotch minced collops, buckwheat griddle cakes, omelette à la Jurassienne, shirred eggs Meyerbeer and fricadelles with onion sauce. Of at least four choices of consommé each lunch, of facials in the beauty salon, mornings of deck tennis with Rose and Danny, afternoons with Daniel and nights too, like tonight . . .
‘Can you tell me about Lily?’
She sat up. ‘What do you mean? You’ve known her for years now. Dinners, lunches, picnics. You’ve danced with her every New Year’s Eve. She even made a speech when you officially opened your clinic.’
Daniel switched on the bedside light and sat up beside her, moving the pillows into a more comfortable position. ‘I mean the Lily I have not known. I know this is not the best time to ask someone about her ex-husband’s most private life. But it’s also a time when we won’t be overheard or interrupted.’
‘Not unless Violette is practising her espionage skills by hiding in the wardrobe,’ she said drily. ‘What do you want to know?’
He hesitated. ‘Firstly, I think, whether Lily would mind you talking to me about this. She told me, back at Thuringa, that she wanted you to tell me everything and anything I needed to know, because she is and will be part of your life. But giving you permission to talk about her doesn’t mean that she could not be hurt by what you tell me.’
‘If I thought anything I might say would hurt her, I wouldn’t answer.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you for that. I do love you, you know.’
‘I know. Daniel, your being here — accepting what I am about to do — shows extraordinary trust. Not just that you love me enough to do it, but that you trust enough in my love for you.’
He kissed her lightly on the lips, then drew back. ‘Thank you. But I . . . I want to understand the person the woman I love cares about so deeply. Professionally, in cases like Lily’s, there is often some childhood trauma that makes a person wish so deeply to be another that they become two or even more personalities.’
‘You’ve met others like Lily?’
‘No. It is relatively common to find a person who feels they have been born into the wrong body — a man into a woman’s, a woman into a man’s. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Lily and Nigel. Lily and Nigel seem to be two fully integrated personalities or, rather, two aspects of the same person.’
‘I think that is exactly the case,’ she said slowly. ‘Lily once told me that if she could choose, she would be Lily-Nigel: both of them together, not one or the other. But even then Lily was the name she used first — though perhaps that was because she spoke to me as Lily at the time.’
‘Was there major trauma?’
‘Nigel’s entire childhood, I think. Nigel is kind — deeply kind. He seems to have been brought up by those who believe that any kindness or compassion is effeminate. Lily told me Nigel joined the army and went to the North West Frontier partly to try to “cure” himself of that feminine side.’
‘Maybe as a child he grew to believe that the only way to be kind was to be a woman. So much of what we think of as male and female behaviour is learned as a child. Little boys are not allowed to cry, girls must nurse their dollies and play house. Nigel must have had that even more than most. Could he have assumed that the gentle side of his nature must be a woman?’
‘Perhaps. But a woman like Miss Lily? Daniel, I don’t know what it is to be female . . .’
He laughed. ‘Sophie!’
‘I’ll throw a pillow at you in a minute. Yes, of course I know what it’s like to be a woman myself. But for others? Women are not clones of Eve, darling. The differences between women are possibly even greater than the differences between an average man and woman, if such a thing as an average one were to exist. But Lily is . . . more feminine than anyone I know. She is perfect.’
‘She’s worked at it.’
‘That’s true,’ said Sophie slowly. ‘She spent years in Japan learning the arts of femininity, and more years learning how to be a European woman, the most charming woman possible. I think Nigel worked at being Nigel Vaile when he was younger, but didn’t bother to try much until the war, and just after it, when Shillings needed him and he thought the House of Lords needed the Earl of Shillings. Daniel, when Nigel was first in the army on the North West Frontier, something happened. I . . . I think that is what Lily meant when she said I should tell you about her. You need to know as her friend, as part of her family, even, perhaps, as a doctor.’
He took her hand. ‘Tell me.’
‘He was on leave. The house he was staying in was attacked, the men killed, the women repeatedly raped and then killed. But Nigel — and he was Nigel then, a very young Nigel — was raped as well, then left for dead.’
‘And that was when he left the army and became Miss Lily?’
Sophie nodded. ‘He was discharged on medical grounds — he was badly wounded, apart from the assault, too badly they thought to survive the journey back to England.’
‘That would, indeed, be enough trauma to create a Lily for Nigel Vaile,’ said Daniel quietly.
‘It was my father who found him, helped him hide the worst details of what had happened. That kindness was why Nigel financed my father’s first business, why I was the only . . . well, commoner, I suppose, Lily trained. And even so I was only there, at first, to learn to be socially acceptable.’
‘And Jones and Green?’
‘Jones had been his batman. Somehow he found out what had happened — I have never asked the details. Jones and Nigel . . . can one say that two men love each other, without ever wanting to be lovers? Their closeness dates back to those days, anyway. Green arrived later. She had been Nigel’s mother’s maid. Lily — or perhaps Nigel — was taught how to be a woman by a retired geisha, Misako, in Japan. But Misako couldn’t teach him to be a European woman, to dress perfectly and appropriately. Green went to join Nigel and Jones and Misako.’
Sophie paused then added, ‘I know Nigel — not just Lily — loved Misako until her death. After that it was the three of them, Lily, Jones and Green, doing the work of the British government, at first for the man who founded the organisation James now runs, and then for James. The kind of work where a woman might have more influence or find out more than a man. I was jealous, for a while.’
‘Not now?’
‘No. I’m happy. Lily is happy to be going back to Shillings and in her old role, now there really is another Earl of Shillings. Green and Jones are together again — theirs has been an extremely on and off relationship. And I have you. Danny and Rose are excited at finally seeing “their other home”. Even Miss Letitia is ecstatic about visiting the Victoria and Albert and the Bodleian.’
‘And Violette is being . . . ?’
‘Utterly, totally perfect and slightly terrifying,’ said Sophie lightly.
‘Darling, of course she is terrifying. She’s a sociopath.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Violette will kill, if she wants to. She will do anything she wants to. She does not feel herself bound by the laws of others. Luckily, in her years at Thuringa, she has been surrounded by people she likes and admires, in a land of peace. I suspect this will not be the case in Europe.’
‘Yes, but —’
‘Be wary of Violette, Sophie.’
‘She wouldn’t hurt me.’
‘No, I don’t think she would. Nor any of those she feels are her family. But she would kill for us without hesitation.’
Sophie shivered, surprised not j
ust by his comment, but that she so easily believed it. ‘Violette will be safely in Paris doing her apprenticeship.’
‘But will Paris be safe from Violette?’
He was only half joking.
‘If not, at least we probably won’t hear about it. Violette is . . . capable.’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. He glanced at the clock. ‘I had better go back to my stateroom before an insomniac calls for hot milk and the stewards roam the decks again. Sleep well, my darling.’
‘Sleep well, Daniel. And John too.’ Trauma. She thought, as he quietly closed the door behind himself, Daniel must understand the division of personality extremely well.
Chapter 18
A nifty nighty is the most useful of garments — a damp cotton shift, worn where the breezes will evaporate and cool you. In India one can employ a small boy to turn a punkah. Onboard ship an electric fan is indispensable.
Miss Lily, 1936
Heat settled on the ship as it surged quietly across the Equator. Many in second class or steerage took to bringing their mattresses out onto the lower decks to sleep.
But the top staterooms not only had windows that opened to private decks, but electric fans that blew air over bowls of ice set there morning and night by the stewards. The nights were not cool, but bearable.
Sophie, who had crossed the Equator before, was excused the ritual throwing into the swimming pool by the third officer dressed as Neptune. Instead she sat on one of the deckchairs in the shade and tried to read an Agatha Christie.
But the book failed to hold her. Christie’s books always ended neatly. You felt nothing more of note would ever happen to her characters once the final page was read. In Sophie’s experience, you could never write The End on any part of life. Even at a funeral there would be a will to read, relatives to argue, a cat that must be found a new home . . .
‘Aunt Sophie, I have done it!’
Violette sank beautifully into the deck chair next to her, dressed in loose cool white lace, lined only in the most strategic areas for modesty.
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