Lilies, Lies and Love

by Jackie French

  The car stopped. The driver alighted, and opened the door for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, keeping her accent East End, for that was Ethel Carryman’s door, not that of Vaile House.

  The driver tipped his cap to her then drove the car away into air only slightly thinner than the cheddar cheese. She heard its engine fade to reveal a small uncoordinated chorus of coughs in the buildings around her — gas coughs from the war, men’s lungs still rotting, and the coughs of children who lived with poor food and even poorer air until they lived no more.

  Ethel opened the now familiar door, dressed in six acres of faded chenille dressing gown. She held out her arms. Somehow Violette found herself in them, warm and safe and trembling, which was stupid, as she had not been frightened, had done most well indeed.

  The arms were strong and comforting.

  ‘No cocoa,’ said Ethel at last. ‘But I brewed up one of those tisane things they were always drinking in Belgium during the war. Thought you might like to have that instead. Hungry?’ She shut the door against the fog.

  ‘No, thank you. Aunt Sophie, is she safe? The driver told me nothing.’

  ‘Probably doesn’t know anything,’ said Ethel, confirming Violette’s assumption. ‘Yes, our Sophie’s safe, back at Vaile House by now — the driver was told to take a more circuitous route back to London for you.’

  Violette nodded. That count would remember the face of the urchin who had clung to his car. It was unlikely they would seek revenge on the Countess of Shillings, but they might very well be both curious and vengeful about her.

  ‘Well, they won’t find you here, and you’ll be back in Paris tomorrow. Doubt they’d recognise you, dressed like you were.’

  ‘As I said, clothes and maquillage, make-up, can transform a woman.’ Yes, I will need to go back to work for at least a fortnight, thought Violette. Leaving immediately, before she gave Madame an excuse to fire her — or at last tactfully suggest she leave, so she did not antagonise two extremely good clients and their friends — might cause comment.

  The kitchen was warm, and smelled of an oil stove and yellow soap. The tisane was good. Slowly she felt herself relaxing.

  ‘We owe you a lot,’ said Ethel abruptly, sitting on a hard chair, slightly battered, opposite her.

  Violette glanced up at her. She should say, ‘I did what I must to save Aunt Sophie.’ Instead she told the truth. Ethel was someone who drew out the truth. ‘I enjoyed it. The excitement, the planning.’

  ‘You killed three men?’

  Violette nodded. She waited for the praise, one young woman against three trained men. She had killed them in silence too, arranged them most perfectly . . .

  ‘I’m a Friend,’ Ethel said quietly.

  ‘Of course we are friends!’ said Violette, puzzled.

  ‘No, I mean the Society of Friends. What others call Quakers. That’s why my dad financed the canteens, because he and George’s dad wouldn’t fight, wouldn’t kill another human being, but it was all right if they were supplying cocoa.’

  ‘And George, he is a Friend like that too?’ asked Violette slowly.

  ‘I think so. He doesn’t come to Meeting much. Me neither, come to that. But I don’t know that he’d come at killing someone.’

  ‘But they were Boche. And I saved Aunt Sophie.’

  ‘And I’ll cheer you as loud as anyone, which is softly, because everything that has happened, will happen, this week must stay secret. But mayhap there was summat good in those three men, or might have been. And mayhap there’d have been a way to rescue Sophie without killing them.’

  But they had deserved to die, thought Violette. Perhaps there might have been a way to disable them, use the drug they gave Aunt Sophie against them, so they slept while she slipped out. But she was still glad they were dead.

  Not glad. Exultant, that was the word. But she accepted the warning. She would not speak of this to George.

  ‘Do you not approve of me for your nephew now?’

  Ethel gazed at her without speaking. At last she said, ‘I should say it’s none of my business, but I reckon it is. I’m closer to George than his own ma, and you’re my friend.’

  Violette felt a glow at that.

  ‘And I trust our George not to get caught up in things he knows at heart are wrong. But also,’ Ethel shrugged, ‘just about everyone I call a close friend has killed, or helped others to kill, given the orders or been prepared to kill. That’s one reason I go to Meeting. Sometimes it seems the only sane place in the world.’

  ‘So you went through the war with no gun to protect you?’

  Ethel grinned. ‘I’m not saying there might not be a major or two who didn’t almost die of fright when I told him off for marching his troops too long, or not seeing they got clean water or some grub. But no, I’ve not carried a gun.’

  ‘What would you do if a thief came in here?’

  ‘Sit on him,’ said Ethel cheerfully. ‘He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Then I’d yell for the neighbours to help me. Though if he was only after food or money I’d give it to him, and for his family too, then give him a good jawing about how his life might be different. I’ve done that a few times. Mayhap it even worked. Come on lass, you’re the heroine of the hour, but it’s time you got some sleep.’

  Bed, thought Violette longingly. Soft sheets. She stood up. ‘I have planned the dress for you. It is like the ones Queen Elizabeth’s ladies wore.

  ‘That’s hundreds of years ago, lass! I’d look a fright.’

  ‘No, it will be most modern, for their shirts were wide and yours shall be straight. It will have dark sleeves and a dark fitted surcoat, but white with bright green leaves in the centre, so all people see is a slim bright outline. I will do the measurements before I leave. Two dresses, one just below your knees and a longer one for evening wear. The surcoats will be black silk, fastened with green cords to your wrist, so the silk will shimmer most beautifully as you move.’

  Ethel looked as if, for once, she didn’t know what to say. ‘They sound grand,’ she said at last.

  ‘They will be low-necked. You have a good poitrine? Not wrinkled?’

  ‘Bust? Well, there’s enough of it, anyway. And it hasn’t ever seen the sunlight, so I reckon it looks all right.’

  ‘Excellent. And for day wear, I have planned fitted dresses from good cotton, with panels of darker drapes at both shoulders, gathered at a low waist then flaring to just below the knee. And stockinged sleeves.’

  ‘I didn’t understand a word of that,’ said Ethel.

  ‘You will look beautiful,’ Violette assured her once again.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s not a waste, spending time and money on how I look.’

  Violette shrugged. ‘Some women, like most who came to my employer, dress to please themselves when they look into their mirrors. But others know that any beauty makes the world happier for a little time. Your ladies here will get pleasure, a little, from seeing you. Inspiration, even, for themselves or to make clothes for others, if they are needle women.’

  Ethel lumbered over — she was light on her feet, but not graceful; Aunt Lily might help there — and kissed her cheek. ‘Go to bed, you brave young girl. We can talk miracles and possibilities in the morning. Come on, I’ll show you were the lav is. Sorry if it stinks a bit.’

  Chapter 48

  There are times I bless the woman who invented rouge.

  Miss Lily, 1901

  Frozen Melon Daiquiri

  Ingredients

  half cup caster sugar

  half cup water

  half cup lime juice (about 3 limes)

  5 cups chopped melon, red, yellow or green

  2 cups vodka

  Method

  Simmer sugar and water for 10 minutes. Add the lime juice. Bring to the boil. Take off the heat. Cool. Add the vodka.

  Put the melon flesh through a mouli legumes. Mix with syrup. Pour into a tin — it should be fairly shallow — and freeze until almost
set, or about half an hour. Break up the crystals with a fork, and beat well. Refreeze for another two hours, whipping well with the fork every half an hour. Serve in chilled glasses.

  Green dressed her, for Sophie’s hands shook too much. Green had been crying. Had Green been with Violette? How much did she know?

  Sophie could not ask, not now. She had other duties and must keep her strength for them. An evening dress of blue silk with silver flames, and a bandeau of tiny diamonds that matched their shine. A silk chiffon shawl draped across her arms to hide the needle marks, their bruises already disguised with powder. She must look as if she might be going out to dinner or to a dance club, a night of pleasure, not of duty, a woman of David’s sphere, not the world of guards and cellars and syringes.

  Lily’s gentle hands managed her make-up: a little powder, rouge, which Sophie had not worn before but no doubt needed, a thick skin-coloured substance under her eyes that hopefully would cover the shadows as well as the bruise she had seen on one cheek. No kohl, but a bright lipstick . . .

  Another hypodermic. She forced herself not to draw away. She thought perhaps Daniel had been crying as he pressed it to her arm. She lifted her other hand and stroked his cheek.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered, then realised that Lily had heard, and Greenie too. But Daniel looked only at her as he said, ‘And I will luve thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry.’

  Those words would carry her through this better than the contents of the syringe.

  A cup of tea with dry toast, cut thin. She managed almost all of it and then felt steady.

  Hereward appeared. ‘His Majesty has arrived, my lady. Mr Lorrimer and Mr Churchill have accompanied him.’

  ‘Such bad manners, to have a king welcomed only by a butler. I should have been downstairs, waiting.’ She stood and found herself steady, then looked at Daniel, Lily, Greenie. Lily shook her head. ‘You alone,’ Lily said. ‘But take Daniel’s arm till you are down the stairs.’

  Such a long staircase. Why had she never noticed it was so long before? But she managed it. It were as if Daniel gifted her his own strength, for he almost seemed to tremble as he kissed her lightly at the drawing room door. Hereward opened it.

  David stood by the piano, pale, half annoyed, half petulant and wholly nervous as he turned to her. James stood slightly behind him. Churchill had effaced himself as much as any man of his bulk might, against the curtains. She could smell his cigars and the faint tang of his sweat.

  David did not move towards her. ‘Sophie! I have been asking for you every day! I needed you!’

  ‘I am so sorry, David. That wretched lobster. And at a time like this.’ She carefully did not acknowledge James or Mr Churchill.

  David looked at her, both truculent and defiant, totally a little boy. ‘I have announced that I will marry Wallis.’ He did not add that Wallis would not have abandoned him for a case of food poisoning.

  ‘David, I entirely understand.’ Her tongue felt thick, her mind as gluggy as Irish stew. ‘I am your friend, remember? I will always be your friend. I want what is best for you.’

  ‘But it was her ladyship who found the way out of this.’ Winston Churchill stepped forward, into the full light of the chandelier. James stayed where he was, quiet, inscrutable.

  ‘A way out?’ David looked from Churchill to James. ‘There is no way out. I will marry the woman I love even if I have to travel to New York to do it and that will be the end of it. I am the king! The people love me. They will support me, even if parliament and the Church of England do not!’

  ‘But of course you will marry Wallis,’ said Churchill, as if there could be no doubt about it at all, as if the choice of the people of Britain could overrule its laws. ‘My dear man, her ladyship has seen what we could not. There’s a way to get around any parliamentary veto. Her ladyship has been talking to your brother on the telephone. Even in her grave illness, she thought of you, has been working for you . . .’

  ‘Albert? What has he got to do with anything? The fool couldn’t speak properly to defend me, even if he wished to.’

  ‘He only has to make a statement,’ said Churchill, in that commanding voice that was impossible to argue with, that carried you with it so all doubts fled. ‘Doesn’t he, your ladyship?’

  Sophie had no idea what she was agreeing to. But she still said, ‘Yes. David, you are not to worry. Truly, it has all been worked out.’

  Had she said the correct thing? But Churchill was smiling and David looked almost reassured. James met her eyes and gave her a tiny nod. Possibly she was the only one in the room to notice his tension, even excitement. This was not some attempt at a quick recovery of a situation ruined by her kidnapping. James had been playing a long game, and could see the winning post in sight.

  She sank into a chair, hoping her action looked swan-like, and not as if it was a collapse, not to mention totally against protocol when her sovereign still stood. So this was to be her role now. Agree with everything, know nothing . . .

  ‘Her ladyship understands it is Mrs Simpson who you really need in your life,’ said James quietly. ‘A woman who knows the politics of the world as a colonial never can.’

  ‘I’m sorry, David,’ said Sophie, taking her cue. ‘I would try. I would do anything for you. But I am more . . . more used to kangaroos than parliaments.’

  David looked relieved. ‘I . . . I can’t manage everything alone. I need the woman I love by my side. It’s all too much, too complicated.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie, because she could think of nothing else to say. James did not point out that a king had advisors, intelligence reports and parliament to guide him, all more qualified to determine British policy than an uneducated socialite. And David, of course, would never even have considered that the business empire Sophie had built up gave her far more understanding of the world than a woman who had never organised more than a cocktail party.

  Winston Churchill smiled. ‘Your Majesty, it is an infallible plan. Truly brilliant.’

  ‘Well, what is it, man! Out with it!’

  ‘Tomorrow morning you announce on the wireless that you must abdicate.’

  A moment, full of one man’s outrage and another’s calm and calculation.

  ‘That is insane! How dare you? You of all people. I would never abdicate. I’m king!’

  ‘Please hear me out, Sir. It would not be a true abdication. But you will say what you have so movingly told us tonight.’ Churchill’s voice gained the depth and drama that made him so charismatic whenever he used it. ‘You cannot bear the responsibility of the Empire without the woman you love beside you. You have served the country and the people you love for twenty-five years. You will praise the kindness of the English people, how it is only because you wish to serve them best that you do this now, but that abdication is your only choice. You will make them weep, Your Majesty, everyone who hears you, everyone who reads your speech.’

  ‘I don’t care if they weep or not. Churchill, I don’t know what foolishness you’re playing at, but I certainly will not abdicate! I am king, my good man. And as king I will marry whom I choose. Wallis and I will marry in America. I dare parliament to say that we are not married when we return, simply because they have not given permission. The members of parliament are not my peers, they are my subjects, and they must learn to accept it.’

  ‘And risk a revolution?’ asked James softly.

  It was perhaps the one word David would hear properly. Since 1919 he had been terrified that he too might face a firing squad like his godfather the tsar and his family.

  ‘The people will support me!’ But for the first time the king’s voice sounded uncertain.

  ‘Sir, the newspapers have been on your side until now. But Mrs Simpson is . . . not popular. You must realise this.’

  ‘They will change their minds once she is queen, once they know her as I do . . .’

  ‘But with parliament, the press, the people all against you even for a short time? Sir, can yo
u risk it? You know the risk of creeping communism, Sir, the strikes that almost paralyse your nation. The men who are behind those will act at the slightest opportunity. We cannot give them that!’

  ‘You are right about the communists . . .’ said David still uncertainly. His tone grew stronger. ‘But that is why I must remain king. The country needs a strong hand, who will control the under classes . . .’ Sophie could hear Mrs Simpson’s words in David’s voice. ‘It is too much for one man! But with Wallis as my queen I can do it.’

  ‘But she cannot be queen without a coronation, Sir, and there can be no coronation without the archbishop’s consent. But her ladyship’s plan can give you it all. You will marry whom you choose. And stay king,’ announced Churchill. ‘With the woman you love on the throne beside you.’

  ‘But you said —’

  Churchill smiled. ‘You will abdicate.’ He held up his hand. ‘No, let me speak, Sir. We will give the public three hours to weep for you, for their anger to rise as you know it will. And then your brother will announce that he too abdicates. The Duke of York will say he cannot take the throne under these circumstances. You know he has always dreaded the possibility that he might become king. We will write simple sentences even he can say without stammering too badly. Which leaves his daughter as the heir.’

  ‘Lilibet is only ten!’

  ‘Exactly. By afternoon you will be appointed King Regent. A King Regent can marry who he wishes, for he is not the head of the church, nor an heir to the throne. Parliament has no power over who he marries. But he is still king. And there are eleven years till the Princess Elizabeth achieves her majority.’

  Eleven years, thought Sophie. Eleven years for David and Simpson to forge an alliance with Germany or, worse, launch a war we lose within six months. James, Churchill, they cannot be serious . . . This plan will give Hitler everything he wants.

  ‘And when Lilibet turns twenty-one?’ demanded David.