‘No. But there must be a sexual element to entrance him. That corset will give you the boyish shape he prefers, and if he glimpses it, it will excite him more than the sight of your naked flesh.’
‘I . . . see.’ She needed to tell Daniel this. She could not tell Daniel this. She needed to trust Lily, trust Green and James. She did trust them. Though they would put the good of the Empire before the interests of Sophie Higgs-Vaile.
Just as she herself would.
‘Should I read the book of woodcuts again?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
‘No,’ said Lily, a note in her voice that Sophie had never heard before. ‘But I do have a translation of the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing that you may find . . . illuminating. I will leave it in your jewellery case.’
Where neither the stewardess nor Daniel would see it.
Sophie took the corset, examined it, careful to keep her hands steady, hoping neither Lily nor Green noticed her palms were sweaty. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I will practise with this garment tomorrow. I will have had a chance to read some of your book by then too.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I promised the children I’d meet them for quoits.’
She wondered if Violette had shot a tiger yet.
Chapter 23
Our own government supports Mussolini. Winston Churchill himself, as Chancellor of the Exchequer — Winston changes roles and parties more often than he changes hats — has openly praised Il Duce’s strength. Do these people know they lie, or are they able to create a lie and then believe it?
A coded letter from Miss Lily to James Lorrimer, 1935
BERLIN
‘It was a mistake,’ said Mutti on the phone. Tante Liesl’s own telephone had been disconnected so she and Anna had had to walk to the phone box three streets away and wait an hour in the cold for the call to go through. Anna thought Mutti had been crying.
‘The men were stupid men. The visas were quite valid, but there have been so many refugees that the border guards don’t bother to enquire about any papers that are slightly unfamiliar. But the prinzessin has arranged a new visa now, one that makes you immigrants to England, with the same rights as any English person. I should have done that first, instead of arranging for you to come through the embassy. But it will all be well now.’
‘I was frightened,’ admitted Anna.
‘Do not be!’ said Mutti fiercely. ‘This time I am coming to fetch you. I will be there as soon as the prinzessin has the new papers for me to give to you. She has assured me that all will be well this time. The three of us will travel to England together. The prinzessin herself will be on the docks, with a most important man from the British government who will make sure no men will send you back. This I promise.’
Mutti asked to speak to Tante Liesl then, a swift conversation that was hard to follow, for there was no room in the phone box for both of them. Then Tante Liesl handed the receiver back to Anna again.
‘I love you,’ said Mutti. ‘Only a little time and I will be with you.’
‘I want you,’ said Anna in a small voice. It was not what she had meant to say. She had meant to say she would be strong and not afraid. But she wanted to be warm in Mutti’s arms. She wanted Tante Liesl to laugh again. She wanted to feel safe and she did not feel safe. ‘I love you, Mutti.’
‘I love you too, lambkin. I will always love you. I will be with you soon. We will count the days together, every morning, every night. Tomorrow it will be three days, and then two days, and maybe that is all the days that will be needed until we need never be apart again.’
The operator told them the time was up then, for only a twelve-minute phone call had been booked. Anna heard Mutti begin to say she loved her once again, then silence.
They walked back to the house. It did not seem to be ‘our house’ now, but just a house. It was cold, for no one had lit the oil heater and nor did Tante Liesl want to light the fire in the parlour, where neighbours might see the smoke. The only warm room in the house was the kitchen with its oil stove. So they sat there, except when they went up to their cold beds. Tante Liesl shopped early in the morning, at the markets only, where neighbours or friends would be unlikely to see her. She said it was too cold to take Anna with her, and not to open the door but to be very quiet if anybody came.
But no one did.
They ate rolls with butter and jam, and rolls with ham, and rye bread with cheese and apples, and ham soup with noodles, but not fresh meat, for there was no fresh meat butcher at the nearest market. But when Mutti came Tante Liesl had promised she would make roast pork, with roast potatoes and strudel with cream, because once Mutti came with the new papers from the prinzessin they would be safe. Then the next morning they would catch the train and boat to England, the three of them, together.
Chapter 24
A Traveller’s Soup, as recommended by Mrs Goodenough to Miss Lily’s lovely ladies in 1905.
Ask the steward, waiter or landlady for two cups of good beef or chicken stock. If the quality cannot be assured, order the fresh meat and chop it yourself finely, then place it in a glass jar and seal it well, and give instructions for it to be simmered for two hours. Strain off the juice; add to an equal quantity of boiled water. Use a traveller’s spirit stove to reheat the liquid, adding a fresh egg, well beaten, and a thimble full of cognac. A tablespoon of grated hard cheese, such as aged cheddar or parmesan, may also be added. Stir till melted, then serve with hot thin crisp toast sopped in the liquid.
This soup may also be heated over a gaslight if necessary.
SHILLINGS, NOVEMBER 1936
The lanes to Shillings were dappled with the reds and golds of autumn leaves. Sophie smelled the scent of the last of the harvest, and pollen still sun-sparkled through the air. Lily sat next to Daniel, silent, their backs to the driver: a new one, unknown to Sophie. He must have been only a boy when she had left Shillings, but Lily knew him, knew his family, asked after his uncle’s rheumatism, his sister’s twin daughters.
Sophie sat with Danny and Rose on either side, with Green and Miss Letitia in the car behind. Green had arranged a maid for her: her niece, the child of her second-youngest sister, who would do whatever mending, ironing and other tasks were necessary, leaving the more intimate ones for Green. Emily had once again found her a temporary social secretary. Mrs James Frogmorton (widow) awaited them at Vaile House in London. But Sophie would see little of Mrs Frogmorton either. Her job was to leave Sophie free of the inevitable and unwanted demands on her time, whether for musical evenings on the river or costume balls. Sophie’s social life would be carefully organised by James and Lily.
The car turned into the Shillings driveway, impeccably free of weeds, and there was the house, mellow brick with the deeper red of autumn vines, beds of asters blooming below in a haze of blue, and two lines of staff in immaculate black-and-white uniforms leading up to the portico. Behind them on each side stood a crowd of tenants.
The chauffeur opened the door. The female servants and tenants curtseyed. The male tenants decorously removed their hats as Sophie climbed over Rose to leave in order of precedence, then held out her hand to Danny. But he took Rose’s hand so both emerged together and stood, staring.
And suddenly the cobbled courtyard erupted with cheers, women clapping and crying, men tossing their hats. The earl had come home, a new earl, but theirs. At last Lily stepped from the car, followed by Daniel.
The family walked along the line of staff, maids bobbing, Mrs Goodenough crying and curtseying, Hereward grown fully into the dignity of butler. Lily greeted them all by name, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. Sophie greeted everyone she remembered, and pretended she remembered those she did not. She didn’t wipe the tears she had not expected till she stepped inside, just as Lily reached unobtrusively for her own small square of lace and linen.
The hall still smelled of potpourri. A well-made potpourri lasted for decades. All was the same, unfaded even, for although Anne and her family had used the house when
they were in England between Mesopotamian digs, many of the rooms had been shut up, the carpets rolled, the furniture swathed in dust sheets.
Vases were filled with hothouse lilies, the scent of them mingling with the lavender oil furniture polish and old wood.
Sophie had not realised how her heart had ached for Shillings, even if she belonged to Australia. She turned to Lily, and found her holding hands with Danny and Rose, her face impossible to read.
And Danny? Awe, certainly, and a little embarrassment, but something almost adult too.
Duty, she thought, in his heart and in his bones. It is as if an infection had lain dormant within him. And now it will grow. Yes, Danny would be the Earl of Shillings.
Rose, on the other hand, looked speculatively at the banisters. ‘No, you may not slide down them,’ said Sophie. She leaned over and whispered, ‘Except if you get up very early before any of the servants are up and don’t tell anyone what you’ve done.’
Rose grinned. Sophie squeezed Daniel’s hand. She had expected him to be awed, but his family were, after all, wealthy and well connected too. He must have been invited to homes like these during his periods of leave during the war. He simply smiled at Lily and said, ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Always,’ said Lily, as Hereward asked Sophie, ‘Would you like refreshment first, your ladyship, or to be shown to your rooms?’
It still felt odd to be given precedence over Lily in this house. Sophie looked enquiringly at the others. ‘We will freshen up a little, I think. Tea in the library in an hour? With cherry cake and crumpets?’
‘Certainly, your ladyship.’ Hereward gave an almost imperceptible bob in Lily’s direction. ‘The fire will be lit to toast the crumpets. The honey was especially good this year.’
‘Thank you, Hereward.’ Miss Lily’s voice was warm and . . . comfortable, thought Sophie. No tears now, no sign at all that she was overcome. Just deep contentment.
Miss Lily had come home.
Trees to climb; late apples to pick; hothouses with ripening peaches and pineapples to examine; attics with hundreds of years of memorabilia, including crinolines and even a cavalier’s hat, which kept the children in constant dress-up games for a whole day.
A walk along a lane, a few late blackberries for Rose and Danny to pounce on, skylarks sky larking and a haze of treetops where post-war there had been sky, the wood cut for pit props. Lily had remained to discuss matters with the agent.
Sophie might officially be Danny’s guardian, but all accepted that Miss Lily, who had for so long helped manage the estate for her half-brother, would continue to do so. Daniel had gone to visit the war memorial and then, he said, to sit in the church a while, reading the names inscribed in gold, which reassured Sophie rather than worried her. John had lived with his ghosts. Daniel would acknowledge them but, she thought, no more than that. His work was strongly with the living now: not just the family he was acquiring but his patients, with whom he shared frequent letters and, now they were on dry land again, even phone calls, not about the maladies, which would reveal far too much information to the varied telephone operators listening as they sat at exchanges across the world — and especially at Bald Hill — but the kind of ‘Hello, mate. How are you? You wouldn’t believe how cold it is over here and not even winter yet’ kind of calls that made them feel not only that they had not been forgotten, but that the man they relied upon still intended to return, even if possibly with an earl as a stepson.
The Shillings tenants lived either on the farms or in the cluster of houses around the Shillings and Sixpence hotel. But Rose Cottage stood by itself, a remnant of a former smallholding now incorporated into a larger one, the house traditionally occupied by a widowed mother tactfully removed from what was now a daughter-in-law’s kitchen.
Despite its name its garden was roseless, but honeysuckle covered the fence and a bed of chrysanthemums showed that the son made sure his mother’s flowers were as carefully tended as the rows of leeks and potatoes, carrots and beetroot, cabbages and Brussels sprouts in the half acre of vegetable beds out the back.
The front door opened as they drew near. Sophie was not surprised — she had seen the lace curtain twitch as they walked down the lane.
‘Your ladyship! How lovely! And Lady Rose too. Did you know this is Rose Cottage, your ladyship? And I have just this moment taken an apple teacake out of the oven and there’s a loaf of bread made this morning to have with the first of the crabapple jelly . . .’
Impossible not to go in; and there, of course, taking up half the kitchen table, was the son, Bertrand, Green’s second cousin once removed if Sophie was correct, and his wife, who had donned lipstick and beads for the occasion, had probably done so as soon as a call from the Hall notified them that the party was walking this way.
‘Perfect apple cake, Mrs Coggin, and your parsnip wine is as delicious as it always was.’
‘Another glass, your ladyship?’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ said Sophie again with perfect truth.
‘More lemon barley water, your lordship and Lady Rose? And how about you come and see the new kittens in the barn?’ Young Mrs Coggin stood. ‘Hereward — he’s my older brother you know, your ladyship — was saying how they need a new kitchen cat to keep the mice down. Maybe you could choose one . . .’
‘Hot dog!’ yelled Danny, who had learned the appalling American expression on the ship and used it whenever he had no Miss Letitia to reprove him.
‘A tabby cat!’ Rose shouted after him. The older and younger Mrs Coggins followed.
‘Excuse them,’ said Sophie, half laughing. ‘Their colonial upbringing, I’m afraid. Though they are usually far better behaved than this. It’s the excitement of being in a new place.’
‘But it’s their place,’ said young Mr Coggin and he wasn’t smiling.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie, now not smiling either. ‘They know it. And we will make sure they know all that will mean.’
‘It means the world,’ said Mr Coggin simply. ‘Shillings is the whole world to us. And if we need to go away and fight, it’s to keep this world of ours safe, this little bit of it. Your ladyship . . .’ He hesitated, trying to find the words.
‘Yes?’ replied Sophie encouragingly.
‘You don’t need to be worrying we won’t look out for the young master, when the time comes. That’s what we did for the old earl too. War or . . . or whatever else. And we looked after Miss Lily. We’ll look after the young master too.’
Sophie sat quite still. She had always understood the duty of the earl to his estate, just as she owed duty to her employees. Why had it never occurred to her that duty went two ways?
If Higgs Industries were in trouble, would her employees help? Probably, she realised, most of them anyway, as much as they were able.
‘We stand by our own,’ continued Mr Coggin.
‘Thank you,’ said Sophie, for she had no other words to say and falling onto his shoulder in tears would be embarrassing to them both.
‘Mummy, I want the tabby one! But Danny says he likes the black one best . . .’
‘Could they have both? Would you mind?’ Sophie asked, as the Coggins women took off the pattens that kept their indoor shoes out of the mud — some of which, sadly, had been trekked indoors by Rose and Danny.
‘Of course not, your ladyship,’ which was undoubtedly sincere, as most farms had far more cats than needed, even when the mouse population built up after harvest time.
The kittens were left with their mother till weaned. Sophie accepted a jar of crabapple jelly and watched as her two children nodded in response to curtseys from both Mrs Cogginses as they left.
It was the first time she had truly grasped that her children had two homes where they would be loved.
‘Mummy?’
‘Darling, what is it?’ Sophie slipped the book under the bedcovers so Danny wouldn’t see its title, then held out her arms to him. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
He shook his head, snuggl
ing into her.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Do I have to look after all these people?’
She held her breath. The correct answer was ‘yes’. But there was another correct answer too. ‘We all need to look after each other. Just like at home.’
He considered that. Thuringa had less than a quarter of the houses on this estate, but there were enough similarities for Danny to find the comparison comforting.
And enough differences to puzzle him. ‘Do I own it all?’
‘You inherit this house when you are twenty-one, but half of the rest of the estate is mine and Aunt Lily’s, and the other half is divided between you and Rose. But you don’t inherit that till you are thirty.’
‘Why?’
Because only the house was left in the entail, and Nigel’s will had been extremely carefully considered. Rose and Sophie would always have a home there, as would Jones and Green, though there was no need to mention that tonight. ‘Because the house belonged to the earldom, but all the rest belonged to Daddy in his own right.’
She waited for another ‘why’. Instead he asked, ‘Was Daddy nice?’
‘The nicest daddy in the world,’ she managed. ‘He loved you both so very much.’
‘More than Uncle Daniel loves us?’
‘I don’t think love works like that,’ she said carefully. ‘Uncle Daniel loves you right up to the top, just like Daddy did. And just like I love you, and so does Aunt Lily. None of us could love you any more.’
‘Oh.’ He considered that. ‘Why does everyone here look sort of the same? They all speak the same too. Sort of funny.’
That was harder to answer. Danny was used to a home with many shades of skin, hair, face shapes . . . ‘It’s called a local accent, darling. Back home we all come from different places, except for people like Young Bill or Gwenda, whose families have always been there. But most people at Shillings have lived here all their lives. They marry people who live here too. And people don’t often move here from other places.’
Lilies, Lies and Love Page 12
