Sophie laid down her book. ‘And what is “it”?’
Violette looked at her impatiently. ‘I have seduced a man, of course. It was not difficult,’ she added.
Sophie did not suppose it had been. ‘Violette, we agreed you would ask before you . . .’
Violette waved a hand dismissively. ‘We agreed I would not seduce butchers’ boys nor allow them liberties, nor anyone where my reputation might become déclassé. But that was on land, and this was the second officer. The captain, he is too married,’ she added.
‘Violette, a second officer may be important on the ship —’
‘You do not understand, Aunt Sophie. It is because he is on a ship. He will sail away and no one ever will know and he used a French purse so I will not be enceinte. But I was curious.’
Oh well. What was done was done. ‘What did you think of it?’ Sophie was curious herself.
‘It was quite pleasant, but sticky. I had not expected it to be sticky.’
‘Well, yes, sometimes it can be . . . sticky, especially in the heat.’
‘The marmalade was the worst. I quite liked the strawberry jam.’
‘Marmalade!’ Sophie was not sure whether to laugh or send a telegram immediately to Violette’s mother . . . No, not Green. But Lily might shed some light . . . ‘It usually does not involve jam.’
‘That is good. I think after a while jam would be boring, even apple jelly or pineapple and ginger.’
‘I think perhaps your Aunt Lily might have a book of Japanese woodcuts that will show you . . . more possibilities. But Violette, I think it would not be good to do this too often on the ship. The other passengers may find out, and gossip.’
‘Ah. I did not think of that.’
‘You will find many opportunities for discreet — very discreet — liaisons in Paris. Paris is an excellent city for liaisons.’ There was no use pretending that a virtuous marriage was likely to be in Violette’s future.
‘I am going to enjoy Paris extremely much,’ said Violette.
Sophie smiled, partly from affection, partly relief that between dressmaking and liaisons Violette would hopefully be happily occupied for some time to come, and partly because she could not help thinking of the marmalade. ‘I am sure you will,’ she said.
Chapter 19
Why do adults so often underestimate a child? Is it because, being trivial themselves, they can only remember trivialities of their own childhood?
Miss Lily, 1902
BERLIN, OCTOBER 1936
School was . . . necessary, Anna reminded herself. School was like going to the lavatory or brushing one’s teeth, but more important, because school was giving her skills for a life quite unlike school, where she would wear silk not serge and travel with Tante Hanne and drink chocolate every morning for breakfast.
And this school was more important than most, for other children must only learn knowledge, while she must learn how: how to walk with a stick so she neither crashed into people nor broke her nose on a wall, which too many of her fellow students did too often, so that Gunter’s nose was almost parallel to his cheek.
She must learn braille — though she learned that with the tutor Tante Liesl had found her seeing as the school taught basket weaving instead, which she hated, and how to glue portions of objects together to make new objects. She thought that would be the fate for most of the other students once they had left school, though Hilde wanted to be a telephonist (Tante Hanne had already promised to help with that).
Hilde was her special friend, the one she walked down the corridors with, neither using their white canes but holding hands and with arms outstretched to touch the walls so they could run and giggle to the corridor’s end and know they had triumphed just a little over both school rules and their own lack of sight.
Anna thought perhaps she saw sometimes in dreams, saw swans that were white and a woman with golden hair, like Tante Hanne. Hilde said she never had dreams like that. Hilde’s eyes had not been fully developed when she was born. They were shut now, collapsed in her face, but Tante Hanne had promised that, when Hilde was grown up and did not need her parents’ permission, Tante Hanne would buy Hilde eyes from a man who made them specially. They would be large and blue and beautiful, and she and Anna would be beautiful together, and wear silk stockings, not woollen ones, with velvet dresses for the evening, soft as cat’s fur, like Tante Hanne’s.
Meanwhile it was Friday afternoon, which had meant the students had donned baggy bloomers to mid-calf under their tunics and long-sleeved blouses and done physical jerks and then run three times around the games field feeling claggy from the mud — for it was impossible not to slip over on the wet ground — and then they showered and dressed before dinner.
Supper on Fridays was always dumplings, followed by tapioca, which made Fridays probably the worst school day in the world. Anna was thankful that, unlike most students, she only had to attend school during the week. Tomorrow morning after breakfast (rye bread and margarine) Tante Liesl would arrive.
Anna was tying her shoelaces when she heard Tante Liesl’s voice.
‘Lucky goose,’ whispered Hilde, for they weren’t supposed to talk in the showers or locker room.
Anna frowned with concentration as she listened.
‘I am so sorry, Fräulein Verten, but there is a special excursion for the students this weekend. As I told you, it is impossible for Anna to take leave this weekend, and most particularly not tonight. Indeed, she has been given too much latitude already, thanks to the prinzessin’s influence.’
‘And it is the prinzessin who wishes her to be present tomorrow.’ Tante Liesl paused before adding, ‘The prinzessin’s good friend, Herr Himmler, has expressly asked to meet Anna.’
‘A blind girl!’ Fräulein Munch seemed incredulous.
‘We have guests from England,’ said Tante Liesl smoothly. ‘And the prinzessin wishes the English to see the speed with which students in Germany can read, even if they have unfortunately lost their sight.’
‘I am sorry, I cannot permit —’
‘Anna!’
Anna grabbed her stick, though she didn’t need it to find her way through the locker room and out into the corridor. She had only taken a few steps outside when Tante Liesl grabbed her hand. ‘Come now, Anna, we must not keep the prinzessin waiting.’
‘But I must get my bag.’
‘You do not need your bag this weekend.’
‘Fräulein, this is most irregular . . .’
But Anna and Tante Liesl were walking — almost running — from the school, and Fräulein Munch must either chase after them and try to pull them back, leaving the other girls unsupervised, or let them go.
They had stopped the traffic lights before Anna realised Fräulein Munch had not followed them. ‘Tante Liesl, I do not understand.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Tante Liesl grimly. ‘Come, there will be a car waiting for us.’
Then why hadn’t it picked them up from the school gates? Anna only used her stick lightly, for Tante Liesl was a good guide, even on a crowded footpath like this.
‘I have a geography project to do this weekend. We must collect six different kinds of autumn leaves and pin them in our sampler book.’
‘You don’t need to do the project. You won’t be going back to that school.’
‘We are going to England?’
‘Not yet. Soon.’
‘But then why can I not stay at school until we leave?’
‘There are . . . reasons,’ said Tante Liesl. ‘Your mutti rang this morning. We will stay at the lodge until arrangements are settled for you to go to England.’
‘So soon? But I have not said goodbye to Hilde!’
‘No,’ said Tante Liesl, with immeasurable sadness. ‘I am sorry, darling child, that you could not say goodbye to Hilde.’
‘I could visit, just to say goodbye, next week.’
‘I think the school will still be on excursion,’ said Tante Liesl with a bitterness Anna
had never heard from her before.
‘But we were only to pack clothes for two days!’
Tante Liesl did not reply. But Anna felt the movement as she reached into her handbag, drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose.
‘You have the grippe, Tante Liesl.’
‘No. Just something in my eye.’ But her voice was strange. ‘Ah, there’s the car. The driver will take us to the prinzessin’s lodge. We will have kugelhupf and stewed pork with noodles and sour cream for dinner.’
It was infinitely better than dumplings and tapioca. And yet Anna wished she had said goodbye, at least, to Hilde . . .
‘I can write to Hilde?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘Yes,’ said Tante Liesl, after an odd pause. ‘You may write to her. But she . . . do not worry if she does not write back for a while. You will make new friends in England.’
‘But Hilde and I will always be friends! We will be pen friends, me in England and Hilde in Germany.’ Braille was bulkier than ordinary writing, but there was a shorthand form they could use for many words. The letters would not be too bulky.
‘Can we feed the swans tomorrow, Tante Liesl?’
‘Yes, darling child. You will feed the swans. Every day you wish to for a long and happy life.’
Tante Liesl was crying. She should not be crying, for it was Anna who was leaving her friend.
But Tante Hanne had promised Hilde new eyes and to help her become a telephonist. That must mean they would come back to Germany for holidays or, perhaps, Hilde might come to England, for her parents did not care for her to come home for holidays, so they would almost certainly be glad if she stayed with a prinzessin, even if it was in England. It wasn’t long until the Christmas holidays. Anna wondered how they celebrated Christmas in England. Tante Hanne had told her about carol singers and plum puddings, and Mutti reassured her there were Christmas trees in England too. But there would be different things as well.
It was exciting, she told herself, and not frightening at all.
And kugelhupf tonight. And no more physical jerks, ever. And possibly a fluffy puppy with a damp nose and Mutti to hug each night and Tante Hanne, who smelled more beautiful than any flower and made every room she entered seem like a garden, for her voice was as lovely as a nightingale’s, which was something you could be taught, for Tante Hanne was teaching her to make her own voice beautiful as well. A woman’s voice should be a song, Tante Hanne had told her, even if the melody was limited. A woman should never bark, like Fräulein Munch.
Tante Liesl opened the back door of the car. Anna climbed in and sat, moving over so Tante Liesl could sit too. ‘To the lodge, Clements,’ said her tante.
And suddenly her voice was determined and not crying at all.
Chapter 20
I do not know what frightens me most: the politicians who lie so easily, like Herr Hitler, or those like our own who do not bother that they are being lied to. Yes, dear friend, I admit I am frightened, not for myself, but for those I love, which includes my country, as well as this land of strange straggly trees and too much sunlight I have grown so close to.
A letter from Miss Lily to James Lorrimer, 1934
THE SS PORT MORUYA
Whatever matter had called Jones and Green to Japan had apparently taken longer and had been more complex than expected. While both boarded the ship, only Green would remain, to visit Paris briefly with Sophie and Lily and ensure they were perfectly ensembled, while finalising the details of Violette’s apprenticeship. Jones and Violette would be the guests of a maharajah for a month, before going directly to Paris, to stay in an apartment Sophie’s agent had rented for them.
‘A maharajah, Aunt Sophie!’ Violette looked at her seriously. ‘Is it permitted that I kill a tiger, if we go hunting? I said that I would ask you on matters like this,’ she added virtuously.
Sophie glanced at Green, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug, as if she knew her daughter would not take her advice on this, or many other matters of consequence. Green had not learned that her daughter had survived until seven years ago. Sophie suspected she longed to be close to Violette, but had no idea how to achieve it.
And tiger hunting? Sophie hated blood sports — even fox hunting — especially when the animal was as magnificent as a tiger. But tiger hunting was even more prestigious among Those Who Count than fox hunting, so would Violette regard it as unreasonable if she said no? A refusal could mean losing much of her influence on a girl who so badly needed it.
‘There is an etiquette to tiger hunting,’ she said at last. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, but it would be extremely unfortunate not to follow it. I suspect your father however will know exactly how you should conduct yourself. It will be with firearms,’ she added quickly. ‘One does not hunt tigers with knives.’
Sophie herself had shot many rabbits when she’d been much younger. How was that different from killing a tiger, except in the degree of admiration of the onlookers? But then rabbits were a plague, debasing the land of grass till it washed away into barren yellow gullies, whereas a tiger was beautiful, all teeth and muscle.
‘I am most skilled with many firearms,’ Violette assured her. ‘My father says I have a good eye, almost as good as my mother’s.’ Sophie was reminded once more of the decades Lily-Nigel, Jones and Green had spent together.
‘I’ve had more practice,’ said Green quietly. Sophie looked at her sympathetically. Green could manage anything from blowing up an enemy railway bridge to mixing a starch that would keep a linen dress unwrinkled all through a garden party. But she had yet to work out how to manage her daughter. Possibly no one could, thought Sophie.
‘May I borrow your pearls, Aunt Sophie? I will be expected to dress most perfectly at dinner.’
‘Sophie, I’m sorry,’ said Green quickly. ‘I told her she was not to ask you. Her own pearls are perfectly adequate.’
Violette smiled most beautifully. ‘But I do not want to be “perfectly adequate”. Aunt Sophie, may I? Maman told me that you will have the Vaile jewels to wear in England, that she has already arranged for them to be taken from the bank and cleaned for you. She says they are most magnificent.’
Sophie was intensely attached to her pearls, but while Violette might not care about the fate of tigers, she would take extreme care of a double rope of pearls. And the Vaile collection did include pearls of extraordinary beauty, not large, which would be vulgar, but in their almost glowing mauve colour, and they were perfectly matched. There was also the tiara, refurbished with new diamonds on her marriage, and rubies and sapphires collected and set by various generations of Vailes. Diamonds had only become fashionable with the arrival of electric light, which showed the brilliance of their facets. Sophie would be sufficiently adorned.
‘Yes, you may borrow my pearls.’ She did not add instructions on their care — shielding them from light whenever they were not being worn, wrapping them in silk then velvet. Green would do that, and Violette would ensure they were cared for.
‘I will wear them draped twice around my hair,’ said Violette dreamily. ‘That way I will look casually rich, and my neck and arms bare so they can be admired. Maman brought me some silk brocade from Japan. I have designed a sheath and already cut out the pattern for it. It has long pleats for its waistline. Maman will help me sew it before we leave.’
Which meant that Green would be working till late tonight while Violette danced and flirted without her mother’s gaze.
‘You will be beautiful,’ Sophie told her.
Violette smiled. ‘But of course.’
The ship sailed on. Life was . . . calmer . . . without Violette. Sophie suspected Green felt the same way. The baby Green had adored and lost could never quite be reconciled with the young woman Violette had become.
Meanwhile there were quoits on deck at which Danny was particularly adroit; a dinner dance that the adults agreed that the twins might attend for the first hour, Rose dancing only with Daniel and Danny only with his mother or
Aunt Lily. After an hour some of the younger passengers who imbibed too much might become a trifle squiffy — but an hour helped Rose and Danny feel that they were not entirely excluded from the adult world.
The acquisition of a king, even the idea of the king himself, seemed remote on this tiny, bobbing craft churning across the endless black ocean, the even deeper jewel-studded night above it.
‘It’s going to be hard for the children in England,’ Lily remarked as they sat at their table while Daniel and Miss Letitia took the children back to their staterooms. Miss Letitia did not care for dancing, but allowed a stewardess to sit in her stateroom each night so she could play her beloved bridge. Her skill made her a most acceptable bridge partner, despite her position as an employee — even one who travelled in first class.
‘They will have the most wonderful time!’ Sophie and Miss Letitia had compromised on Miss Letitia’s wish to peruse the museums, art galleries, libraries and monuments of historical significance. The zoo and changing of the guard and pantomimes now also figured in their schedule.
‘I don’t think you understand the implications of being the Earl of Shillings and Lady Rose,’ said Lily quietly.
‘Darling, I am the Countess of Shillings. I experienced it for several years.’
‘But this is a new earl — a young one. People’s expectations will have been built up, and about Rose too. The children will need to meet every tenant, talk to them, play cricket with them . . .’
‘Rose will play cricket too, I hope.’
Lily smiled. ‘Unconventional, but a Lady Rose may be unconventional. She may also surprise the boys — I have taught her to bowl overarm. She is surprisingly good.’
Typical English understatement, thought Sophie. ‘Good’ probably meant that Rose could play at Lords — if Lords ever allowed any female other than a pigeon on its hallowed turf.
‘So how do we prepare them?’
‘Just as we have been. Love them. Make sure they know who they are, which is not necessarily as others see them. But they will find it strange at first to have so many people think they know them, who already love and trust them, even believe they own them, to some extent . . . while to Rose and Danny those people at Shillings are complete strangers all of whom they must learn to know.’
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