‘Sophie,’ said Bob Green again. He moved towards her, hesitated, then bent and kissed her gently on both cheeks. His lips were warm, and agonisingly familiar: Bob Green, who had once been her husband Nigel, but was her husband no longer, who had been Miss Lily, her teacher and mentor, and later her closest friend.
‘Lily . . .’ said Sophie brokenly.
‘Shhh. It’s not safe to use that name. Someone might be passing the window.’ Even Bob’s accent was different: the soft burr of a villager, not the upper-class tones of both Nigel and Lily.
Sophie nodded numbly. ‘George said Lily was dead. I had no idea what to say. For one horrible moment I thought it might even be true, till he told me you’d been trapped in France by the Occupation. I thought the story was that Lily Vaile is officially missing in France.’
‘It’s still the story. Lily even corresponds privately with a few people, like you and Rose and Danny, though you may have noticed a Swiss postmark since the Occupation.’
‘I assumed that was because you are supposed to be in France.’ He even speaks of Lily in the third person, thought Sophie with desolation.
‘Exactly. It’s to make sure no one links the Lily Vaile who is in France, either alive or dead, with Bob Green at Shillings. Neither Rose nor Danny have friends in England.’ He smiled, slightly sadly. ‘And those who have known Lily over the years are discreet about their connection.’
The ‘Lovely Ladies’ Miss Lily had trained at Shillings never spoke of her, except to each other. A finishing school in Switzerland or France for a ‘gel’ about to be presented at Court during her season was acceptable. Being more thoroughly trained in the arts of charm, both as debutante and wife, might potentially be scandalous.
‘You mixed socially in Australia.’
‘Lily mixed with the people of Bald Hill, none of whom have connections in Europe. There’s obviously been gossip though,’ Bob added. ‘I suppose it’s natural for people to think that Lily must be dead if there has been no news of her survival. Sophie darling, eat something before you keel over again.’ He sat in the armchair opposite her sofa.
Sophie reached for the teapot. ‘Will I pour?’ she asked the man she knew, and didn’t know, for this man was nothing like Nigel Vaile, and not only because of the balding hair and his shaggy moustache, and even further from Lily. ‘As the only woman present?’
‘This is hard for you,’ said Bob gently.
‘To see the woman I loved most in the world turn into Bob Green, just as in the past she would sometimes turn back into Nigel Vaile, whom I also loved?’
More than ten years ago, on their mission in Berlin, either Nigel or Lily had had to appear to die, to hide the truth that the Earl of Shillings and his illegitimate half-sister, the head of a female espionage network, were one person. Nigel had chosen that Lily should be the one to survive. Now she had been disposed of, too. ‘Yes, it’s hard.’ Sophie acknowledged. ‘I didn’t realise how hard it would be. But Lily will come back after the war?’
‘I’m hoping to be still very much alive at the end of the war,’ Bob Green said evenly, which did not answer her question. ‘Are you going to pour that tea?’
Her hand did not shake as she handed him his cup, black, just as she took hers, too.
The teacup ascended. Even the way Bob drank his tea was different, but possibly that was caused by the moustache. ‘Sophie, this hasn’t been easy for me either. But there’s no choice. This is war-time. If a bomb drops on us it would cause a scandal were Lily Vaile found to be a man, much less the deceased Earl of Shillings.’
She sipped her tea and managed to smile. Nigel . . . Bob . . . had lost most in this transformation: his home, his very identity. What was her loss compared to his? ‘I’m sorry. I thought I did understand. But seeing you, hearing George talk about you . . . I don’t think it had been real to me before.’
‘It was so easy to be either Nigel or Lily as I chose for so long. Shillings used to be one of the most isolated estates in England, inbred, marrying their second cousins, deeply loyal to their earl and employer. I suspect the older tenants, at least, guessed that the earl at times became Miss Lily, and that Miss Lily became the earl.’
‘And they loved them both,’ said Sophie softly. She reached over and took his hand. ‘As I did. And still do.’
Suddenly all that mattered was that he was alive. The shock of seeing him seeped away, leaving happiness so strong she wanted to cry.
He put his cup down to cover her hands with both of his. ‘Sophie, darling, the estate is now full of strangers — not just those working at the Hall, but newcomers who have married people from the village and come to live here. What if I suddenly needed medical attention? If I collapsed there’d be a dozen capable strangers who’d offer me first aid, then have to be treated for shock themselves.’
She tried to smile. Nigel Vaile, Earl of Shillings, had only just survived surgery for a bladder tumour. The scars had pained him ever since. Almost an old man now . . .
. . . but not a bald one. ‘You shave your head?’
‘Yes. Baldness is an even more useful disguise than the moustache.’
‘And Bob?’
He grinned. ‘There’s always a Bob, bobbing about somewhere. No one notices a Bob. Especially one who has a strong family resemblance to the Greens.’
‘And there is the Greens’ strong resemblance to your father.’
‘Indeed. I have often wondered if Greenie is my half-sister. I sometimes imagine I might truly be Bob Green, living on the estate, working for James just as Greenie does. Have a sandwich. There is even butter on them. With Shillings officially part of the war effort the Home Farm is allowed to feed us all.’
‘You spent the years before the war ensuring that it could.’
‘As you did at Thuringa, and with Higgs’s.’
She bit into a sandwich, felt the world steady. ‘The telegram said that you needed me. So I came.’
‘We do need you.’
‘Ah, “we”.’ She slowly finished her sandwich. ‘Your need is political, not personal.’
‘The political is personal,’ he said tersely. ‘We are talking about the fate of your country, my country, millions of people. How could my personal needs possibly be more important?’
‘Because Miss Lily taught me that we owe most to those we love. No one can substitute for a loved one. There are usually many who can perform a political duty.’
Bob smiled, a new smile created by the moustache, but familiar too. ‘But who do you love? And with what sort of love?’
It had been one of the earliest lessons with Miss Lily, the four girls sitting on the hearth in her drawing room, toasting crumpets on the fire, spreading them with honey from the Shillings bees. There was Eros, sexual love, so embarrassingly but fascinatingly portrayed in the books of woodcuts in their bedrooms; Philia, or deep friendship, which Miss Lily hoped would bind Sophie, poor dead Mouse, Emily and Hannelore; Ludus, playful love; Pragma, long-standing love, which might eventually bind them all too; Philautia, love of one self, which meant integrity, and dignity; and Agape, a love of everyone . . .
The six were not enough. The love she felt for her children was none of those, nor was love of her country, for the bones of the land itself, felt by her for Thuringa and Lily-Nigel for Shillings, unless Agape covered those.
Miss Lily, Nigel, even James, worked not just for love of country, but for humankind. But what was their work in this new war?
‘Is Shillings part of Military Intelligence now? I know James is in charge of it — your letters and his told me that much.’
‘James is part of Military Intelligence — MI5 — but MI5 has no part in this organisation.’
‘So what happens here?’ And she realised. ‘You’re still at it, aren’t you?’
‘Of course,’ said Bob Green. He smiled. ‘Shillings is producing Lovely Ladies.’
Chapter 7
What is love?
I have loved many people in my long and
varied life. I have loved as a friend, a comrade in arms, as a parent, a lover, a spouse. I can even say I have felt that vague but very real cliché: I have loved humanity.
So what is love that can encompass all these things? Love is, perhaps, simply the highest form of empathy: not just feeling for the one you love, but caring more for their wellbeing than your own.
Miss Lily, 1939
Sophie took another sandwich. Suddenly she was ravenous. ‘Why train Lovely Ladies now?’ The girls Sophie had trained with, in the magic summer before the Great War, had needed the skills Lily imparted to charm a husband, a lover, a dinner partner who might be a cabinet minister or a king.
True, those ‘graduates’ of Shillings had slowly been made aware they were part of a wider network of political connections and hopefully shared assistance, even to the extent of becoming agents of information, but they had not known that purpose then. They had certainly not been trained to be intelligence agents, or to liaise with resistance groups.
‘For the same reason as always. Women may have more rights and opportunities than twenty years ago, but they are still powerless compared with men. The powerless are usually overlooked. A woman secretary, who chooses which files go onto the desk and which are buried, or who sees the minister. The secretary may write the speech or policy briefing even if it has a male’s name on it. Women are the drivers in this war, as well as the nurses — both places where information can be discreetly obtained. Women serve tea and buns at railway canteens in occupied Europe as well as Britain, and can note the number of trains, their times, the number of troops and their directions.’
‘The women men don’t see.’ Sophie sliced a generous hunk of cherry cake. No one made cherry cake like Mrs Goodenough, even when using the cook’s carefully handwritten recipe, presented to each girl who left Shillings. ‘Even after all these years running Higgs Industries, most of the mail I receive is addressed to Mr Higgs, not Mrs Greenman or even Miss Higgs. As soon as I train one supplier to work with a woman they retire or enlist and I have to deal with yet another who simply doesn’t notice that the letterhead says Mrs Greenman, Proprietor.’
‘Exactly. Have you heard of the SOE?’
‘No.’
Bob gave a grim smile. ‘It is not the kind of information included in a war-time letter. The SOE, Special Operations Executive, sends agents into occupied Europe. Its agents are superbly trained — a commando course in the Scottish Highlands, night-time parachute training, all the finest arts from how to kill silently using a knife or a garrotte, to picking locks, jumping out of moving vehicles or blowing up railway lines and bridges and, of course, sending codes in wireless messages. They have two problems. The first is that it is a male organisation, run by men and, until recently, they used only male agents.’
‘I see,’ said Sophie slowly.
‘I thought you might. MI5 has had to lower its standards slightly and admit those who did not play cricket for either Eton or Harrow, but a pair of testicles is still essential for any senior position. None of them seemed to realise that male strangers are obvious in war-time. But a woman? She is someone’s aunt whose home has been bombed, or a cousin come to help a family in illness, or to take the place in the shop of Uncle Pierre who has been taken as forced labour to Germany.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘There is also what might be called the Duke of Windsor problem.’
‘That many in the British establishment have fascist sympathies?’
‘Exactly.’ Bob gazed out the window. ‘It became obvious some months ago to all but the most stubborn in MI5 that every long-standing British agent has been either killed or imprisoned or their place has been taken by a German agent who continues to send coded messages. Fortunately, as good German officers, they send extremely well written fake messages. The women who decoded them became suspicious when the usual spelling mistakes and sending errors vanished. It took them some time, however, to get the men in charge to listen to their suspicions.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Sophie drily.
Bob nodded. Sophie still could not get used to the shine of his scalp, as if he’d polished it with the same pomade he used on the ends of his moustache. ‘With the greatest reluctance, SOE has begun to send women agents instead. They have been far more successful, both in gaining information and in liaising with the French Resistance, but all our agents, at some stage, are betrayed.’
‘By Nazi sympathisers within British intelligence?’
‘Or collaborators who infiltrate the French Resistance. Which brings us here, to Shillings, which is not under the direct control of MI5 nor SOE, nor connected with Générale de Gaulle’s forces or with the resistance groups.’
‘And so free from betrayal to the enemy?’
‘So far. We’re just one of many small, semi-autonomous units set up since Dunkirk. It’s the desperation gamble — there is even an official secret organisation of assorted fiction writers somewhere planning the kind of cunning plots that make their heroes so successful in their books, in the hope that at least one or two of their ideas might be useful in real life.’
‘And at Shillings?’
‘The trainees at Shillings Hall are taught how to blow up a bridge, if it should be necessary, and how to parachute into enemy territory at night. But their work is not to liaise with the local resistance groups nor engage in sabotage. Instead they become that amiable bombed-out sister-in-law who suddenly needs a home, or the charming old friend who needs a little flirtation to brighten her last few years of loss and heartbreak. SOE operatives may work for weeks or months till they are relieved or their mission is completed. The Shillings agents stay with women who are already part of the network, or who might resume their part in it with encouragement.’
‘Your Lovely Ladies across occupied Europe?’
Bob nodded, and suddenly, in that movement she saw Nigel again, felt the world tilt almost back into place. ‘Some continue to send information. Others have been quiet, either from loyalty to their country, or because they see no way to stand against the Nazis. But I know the women who studied here.’ The soft voice was suddenly familiar, too. ‘There isn’t one of them who condones what the Nazis are doing in the lands they control. They may not spy for their country’s enemies, but in every case so far they have accepted the women from here into their households, or found them a position where they can remain in occupied Europe indefinitely, slowly gaining trust and making contacts.’
‘And sending information?’
‘Yes. But their main task is to do what charming women have always done — persuade men to change their minds.’
‘I can’t see any woman changing Hitler’s mind,’ said Sophie mildly.
‘No. But there are many in the German military, especially among the aristocrats, who believe Hitler has become unreliable, too extreme. Hitler came to power with a coup. He may lose power — or his life — in one, too. There are already mutterings. A little . . . encouragement . . . and the mutterings may mature into action.’
‘Is that what Hannelore is doing?’ How many years has it been since I mentioned Hannelore’s name? thought Sophie. She had most carefully not asked about Hannelore in her letters, even in code.
Hannelore, Prinzessin von Arnenberg, had been the first true friend Sophie had ever made. It was a closer friendship than could have been expected between a German princess and the daughter of an Australian corned-beef king, meeting as Miss Lily’s students in that final glorious season of 1913 and 1914. But Sophie had not written to Hannelore for over twelve years, since her attempt to lure Lily into supporting the political upstart Hitler had led to what almost everyone — including Hannelore — believed was Nigel’s death.
‘Does James still count Hannelore as one of his agents?’ The last time Sophie had been in England and free to speak away from the eyes of those who might open letters or listen at telephone exchanges, James had told her that Hannelore had offered herself as a spy for England — which is what a double agent might do, of course.
/>
‘I don’t know,’ said Bob tightly.
Sophie put down her teacup, her hand trembling slightly. ‘Nigel . . .’
‘I’m Bob.’
‘Bob, then. What am I here for? Is it something to do with Hannelore?’ she added warily. Messages from Hannelore had led her to plunge into danger in Europe three times now.
He tapped his napkin to his moustache, a gesture so obviously accustomed that she felt the shock of his transformation all over again. ‘No, not directly.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘James says that Hannelore has given him good and, several times, vital information. She remained close to her uncle — Count von Hoffenhausen is now one of the highest-ranking Gestapo officers and holds an army rank of colonel as well. He’s been in charge of hunting down any Hapsburgs and their supporters — Austrian and even many German royals are strongly anti-fascist. As a count, he is ideally situated to know who may be disaffected or could be blackmailed, or who could be seduced by the thought of a camp of handsome young men in black leather boots. Germany and Austria still take their royalty seriously. According to Hannelore, there are a growing number of aristocratic army officers who feel that Hitler and the Nazis have gone too far, who might even be planning their overthrow.’
Sophie absorbed this. She had assumed that the only way to victory was a military one. Yet the stalemate of the Great War had been ended when German troops began to desert, no longer following the Kaiser. Could the same thing happen to Herr Hitler? ‘How has Hannelore been sending information?’
Nigel — Bob — took a sandwich, but made no move to eat it. ‘You know better than to ask that question.’
She nodded, accepting she would have only the facts she needed. Hannelore had sent her a coded letter from Germany in the first war, via a friend in neutral Switzerland. Sophie imagined there were many ways a prinzessin might transmit useful information to England.
The realisation hit her so suddenly she would have spilled her tea if she had still been holding the cup. ‘You said every long-term agent has been captured or killed. Hannelore too?’ She could not bear it. That first year she had promised her friend kangaroos and sunlight, a respite from royalty and duty. Still, somewhere, she had a dream that one day, when the war was over, Hannelore might finally visit Australia. ‘Ni— I mean, Bob, please. Is Hannelore safe?’
Legends of the Lost Lilies Page 4
