Legends of the Lost Lilies

by Jackie French

  ‘Were . . . you lonely?’ the boy asked in a small voice.

  ‘Yes, I was lonely. I was scared too. I cried many, many nights. But slowly life became good and happy, and now you see I am not lonely at all.’ Or not so much, she thought. ‘That will happen for you, Tomas.’

  ‘I do not think it can,’ he said.

  ‘And I am very sure it will, because I will make it happen. And when I say things will happen they do, do they not, Madame Thomas?’

  ‘Always,’ said Madame Thomas.

  The boy did not look convinced, but more of the blankness left his face.

  ‘So, Tomas, would you like to live on a farm, or by the sea, or in a town or village?’

  ‘I do not have to go back into the dark?’

  ‘No,’ said Violette firmly.

  The boy looked around the room. Evidently he approved, or perhaps did not have the strength to imagine yet another new environment. ‘Can I live in here?’

  Violette considered it briefly. But a boy would be too visible and the Gestapo knew she had no family in France, so she could not pretend he was a nephew or even a cousin. Perhaps, if he was not happy elsewhere, he might become Madame Thomas’s nephew, but if she was with the resistance and identified, the boy might be taken as well.

  ‘No, mon petit, I’m sorry. I would have liked you to stay. But you might have to hide in the walls and I think you are better in the sunlight.’

  ‘With a dog?’

  ‘You have a dog?’ A dog could be identified too. She closed her eyes briefly. She could not unite this boy with his dog. It was too great a risk.

  ‘He is dead,’ said the boy flatly.

  Bon. This made logistics easier, even if dealing with emotions harder. Did the Boche kill the dog, or old age, or hunger, or the thousand mishaps a dog might have in war-time? Violette did not ask. ‘Where would you like to live, perhaps with a new dog?’

  ‘By the sea,’ he said promptly.

  ‘Do you know the sea?’

  ‘Yes. I have been there twice!’

  Violette looked at Madame Thomas. ‘A house by the sea then. One that has a room a boy would like, and where a dog who sleeps by a bed will be welcome, too. Do you think that can be found?’

  ‘Yes, Mademoiselle Violette. But these days,’ Madame shrugged, ‘even with ration cards it can be hard to find enough extra food for a boy and a dog to eat, and expensive.’

  ‘Money is no problem, and where money is no problem, food can be obtained. I will pay this household each month and, if Tomas is happy, I will pay double after three months. You have papers for him?’

  ‘They can be arranged. Money would help with that, too,’ said Madame Thomas drily.

  ‘It usually does. Bien. We will discuss these things tonight, after the clients have left. Madame, if Tomas slept here in my room till this new home can be found, and you stayed with him, and Gisette brought meals to you, are there any in Maison Violette you think who might . . . make a phone call?’

  ‘None,’ said Madame proudly.

  A resistance cell, effectively, and with connections to other groups in the resistance. And she had not noticed! She, Violette, with the marks beneath her table, had not even seen what was happening in her own maison. She had picked her staff most carefully and not just for their skills. Of course, the people she had made her new family must have contact with the resistance, and perhaps have done much more.

  And now she could join them. She had money and most excellent hiding places, and other knowledge that might be most useful, too.

  Violette stood. ‘I have an appointment with Madame Caron in ten minutes.’ Who had a face like an eagle’s and hips like an eel’s and whose ensemble required most careful tailoring and many pleats about the waist.

  ‘Call Gisette for whatever you need, Madame.’ She made eye contact with Madame Thomas. ‘We will discuss many things later.’ Tomas would need clothes that fitted him, to begin with, and then more to fit in with whatever household he would go to. And if he did not like them, pouff! they would try another and another, till Tomas found one where he might have a happy home, and a dog . . .

  Violette bent down to him. ‘I have a secret,’ she whispered.

  ‘What, mademoiselle?’ Tomas looked nervous. This boy had lived with too many secrets, Violette realised. She must not add more than needed to keep him safe.

  ‘I like The Adventures of Tintin. I have all the comic books in the chest by the bed.’

  ‘I like them too, mademoiselle,’ he admitted.

  ‘Bon. You and Madame Thomas can read them while I work.’ He and Madame Thomas would also have a selection of the black-market fare her guests expected — aided by their gifts of butter and sugar to her — the madeleines, the tiny apple tarts with buttery pastry, the macarons, the puits d’amour with their rich vanilla cream, the orange puffs would be brought to this room, too, as well as a substantial déjeuner, for Violette had been a child who peered into pâtisseries, wishing to try just one of the glazed and glowing pastries displayed inside.

  She left the boy burrowing into the chest, almost looking happy.

  I should feel excitement, she thought, as she walked most beautifully down her perfect stairs, smiling ‘Bonjour, Mesdames’ at two less favoured customers, who were excited to glimpse her.

  Instead she felt as if fate had laughed at her, for the last two years, to let her think she need tread so cautiously to protect those of her house. She would still be cautious, of course, and still protect them — the freedom to use the whole maison would be most useful to the resistance, and her other skills even more so. For Violette could take a young man and make him a woman most sophisticated, or an old man and make him a revered grandmère. A dark-haired woman would become blonde, with high heels to give her a different walk, make-up to produce a different face . . . and clothes! So few realised the power of clothes to change someone entirely.

  There would be more marks under the table once owned by a king, and those must still stay secret. But now there would be other work, with her family, all of them together.

  To her surprise she felt tears upon her cheeks. Truly, she was not alone.

  Chapter 39

  Higgs’s Corned Beef Fritters

  2 ounces self-raising flour

  1 egg (fresh or dried)

  Dash of milk

  Pinch of thyme

  2 teaspoons grated onion

  6 ounces Higgs’s corned beef, finely flaked

  A little dripping, or margarine or cooking oil

  Mix flour, egg and milk, then add thyme, onion and corned beef. Form tablespoons of mixture into small flat patties. Fry on each side in the dripping or margarine or oil till crisp. Set aside on a plate. Add 1 tablespoon flour to the pan and brown, then add a cup of cold water slowly, mixing all the time till rich and thick to make a gravy. Serve with mashed potatoes and carrots or a grilled tomato topped with a sprig of parsley.

  Delectable Dishes with Corned Beef, a leaflet from Higgs, the Corned Beef Kings, 1944

  FEBRUARY 1944

  ROSE

  Rose leaned on the rail and watched the waves slapping the side of the cargo ship, as ineffectual as clapping hands might be to halt the war. The wind spat salt into her face. She let it take her hair, pulling it from its neat curls, and probably weathering her skin into wrinkles by the time she turned forty. She smiled for a moment at the memory of Mum insisting on hats and nightly applications of face cream. ‘I still do the night cream, Mum,’ she said softly, knowing the wind would hide her words. ‘I even brush my hair a hundred strokes each side. And soften my elbows with squeezed lemon halves, just like Aunt Lily showed me.’

  She missed Mum like an ache, and Aunt Lily too. Letters came irregularly, so sometimes there’d be months with nothing, then six letters from Aunt Lily and two typed ones from Mum that she might even have dictated to a shorthand typist between meetings, mostly talking about the weather or the new shoes that could have heels and a rosette added to turn them from
an office shoe into an evening one, which meant that whatever Mum was doing in England was so hush-hush she had to be careful not to give any clue about it.

  When Pa’s ‘holiday’ showed no sign of ending by February last year she and Danny had had a long conference with Aunt Midge and Dr Patrick, who had turned out to be a total brick, patient with Pa and a regular visitor to Thuringa. Simply talking about Pa’s and Mum’s absence and the loss of school friends somehow helped.

  All of Bald Hill knew about Pa now. It seemed that the older generation had not only once known their father as ‘John’, but had liked the strange persona, which Dr Patrick said was probably close to the way Pa managed his life now. The locals were strangely accepting of Pa’s need to live away from house walls and other people. Dr Patrick had explained that Mum and Pa would undoubtedly have told her and Danny about Pa’s history, possibly when they left school, for too many people knew of it for it to be kept a secret.

  But no one locally except for her and Danny and Pa, Dr Patrick and Aunt Midge knew Mum was in England, not overseeing Higgs’s operations in northern Australia. Friends even asked them sometimes to forward letters to her in Queensland, accepting that as Mum was moving from property to property, factory to factory, she had no permanent address.

  The question for their February meeting was ‘How much should we tell Mum?’ About Pa’s illness, about Danny’s taking over Thuringa, or Rose’s successful negotiations with the board?

  The decision was surprisingly easy to make. Mum’s work must be desperately important or she’d not have left them so suddenly, and for so long. It was probable she might not even be able to come back, even if her work made it possible. This was war, and you shouldered the burdens as best you could.

  Nor could Aunt Lily be told. She had all the management of the Shillings estate and farms to cope with. Aunt Lily might also tell Mum, giving her extra worry with nothing she could do about it. But it was strangely good to know that she, Rose, was doing vital war work now, just as they were. And doing it well, too.

  A threatened strike at the Brisbane factory had been easily solved. Like many such strikes it had not been about money at all, but the new foreman who had taken over when the man formerly holding that position was called up. Old Jonesie had thought he would be safe in the part-time Militia reserve, which was not supposed to serve outside Australia, but New Guinea had been designated ‘Australian territory’ and old Jonesie was up there now, bayonet in hand and being shot at.

  The new foreman was a younger man, with a limp from childhood polio that had kept him from the armed forces — and sensitive about it. He’d thought that the way to manage a factory now mostly staffed by women was to strut about like a rooster while they obeyed his calls.

  That could have been tolerated — every woman in these war years was used to men who thought they knew better, or who knew they didn’t and had to prove otherwise. But the foreman’s new demand that toilet breaks be limited to five minutes was totally unreasonable. A bloke could dash off and ‘point Percy at the porcelain’ and be back at the conveyor belt in five minutes. A woman experiencing her monthlies needed to find a cubicle, shut the door, remove her overalls, unpin her pad, place it in a bag for later disposal, tie on the new one back and front, adjust her waterproof pants, then check there was no stain on the back of her skirt or overalls.

  The problem had been solved with a quick vote by the workers. They’d elected one of the older women to replace the rooster — she had five kids, fourteen grandkids and infinite experience in managing them all, as well as understanding the exigencies of corned beef and conveyor belts. The young man was shifted sideways into accounting — he was obviously better with numbers than people and his prospects for promotion were higher there as well.

  The new forewoman would get the full wage, too, not the half pay or less expected when a woman took ‘a man’s role’. Mum had enforced the rule of equal pay for equal work ever since she’d taken control after Grandpa’s death — one reason Higgs Industries had been able to double production so quickly at the beginning of the war, and get the government contracts. When their competitors were struggling with lack of labour, Higgs employees were urging their sisters, mothers and aunts to work at a factory with not just good pay but excellent working conditions, before Manpower called them up to far less accommodating jobs.

  It felt wonderful to have solved what could have been a major problem so swiftly, leaving everyone happy. Two years ago I was pulling on my gym slip at school and those ridiculous bloomers Old Dottie insists on, Rose thought, as a spray of seagulls hovered over the stern, hoping for rubbish, then let the wind veer them back towards the shore.

  She had no regrets at all about leaving school, no wish to attend university, no need to gain qualifications. When Mum returned after the war — and there finally seemed to be an ‘after the war’ in sight now — she would surely agree that Rose should remain on the board, as at least deputy chairman. She and Mum should work together well — Mum had implemented some of her ideas even when she’d been small and, when she hadn’t, she’d given explanations that made sense. It would be good to finally work together. It had early been decided that, subject to her and Danny’s continued agreement, Rose would inherit control of Higgs while he’d have Thuringa as well as the Shillings estates from his father. Daddy had left Rose some jewellery and shares, too, she rather thought, and even some of Shillings’s land that was not entailed, though none of it mattered while her primary focus needed to be Higgs’s colossal operations.

  Life was — good, she decided. Yes, she was worried about Mum, but Mum had survived one war already, and probably a lot more, too. Pa was . . . Rose shook her head. Pa seemed oddly happy, but every time she sat with him by the tree, drinking river peppermint tea or some bitter brew from wattle sap, she’d felt anguish lurking under the calm.

  Aunt Midge had told her more about that time of Pa’s life now. Aunt Midge said that Pa had recovered when he met Mum, which meant that when Mum returned — it was most definitely when, even if Rose had to remind herself ten times a day that if was not an option — Pa would get better again.

  Meanwhile Danny had everything in hand at Thuringa, with Aunt Midge’s help, tactfully advising how many steers to sell that month, just as Mr Pinkerton occasionally telephoned her with a suggestion or an observation he carefully did not voice when others might hear.

  Danny was happy, even if guilt troubled him that he could not join in with his friends’ plans to enlist. She had guessed that he’d hated the thought of joining the army. He had endured school as something that must be gone through to return to his beloved Thuringa. Thuringa seemed to love him, too. Last year’s calving was up; he’d put down four trenches of silage in case of a dry winter and employed almost every teenager in Bald Hill last holidays to help stack hay.

  The stockmen admired him, the land girls obeyed him — and that Rita kept giving him the glad eye, which he never seemed to notice — and Mrs Taylor thought the ‘Earl of Thuringa’ should have a red carpet rolled out before him over every dusty paddock, and hunted out every spare strawberry in the district and probably sacrificed her own sugar ration, too, so ‘their lordship’ could have his favourite jam.

  And her? She’d been born for Higgs’s Corned Beef, trained since she was a child for it. No life could be better.

  But she would still take two days in Sydney before returning to Thuringa and the small hill of paperwork that would have grown in her absence. A holiday, the first two days she’d spent just on pleasure since Pa had left for his tree. She’d needed far less time than expected in Brisbane and this ship’s captain had offered her passage down to Sydney, a two-day journey instead of waiting for a week at least for a permit to be put on the waiting list for a seat — or standing room — on the train service used almost exclusively to transport service personnel to and from northern Australia.

  Officially, she was on the ship to ensure that the shipment of corned beef was safely unloaded in
Sydney then loaded again for England without waiting on a pallet in the sun for twelve hours. Corned beef was hardy enough to have been an army staple for centuries, but if the cans were subjected to too much heat, moisture, even cold if shipped via the Southern Ocean to escape the Japanese submarines patrolling the rest of Australia’s coastline, the cans could swell and burst so the entire shipment and all those vital calories needed to keep England fighting would be lost.

  But even this was a holiday: blue waves and dappled clouds, the blue haze of gum trees far off on the shore. She had seen a pod of whales the day before. War was a holiday for whales, she supposed. These days men and ships hunted each other and left them alone.

  From what she had been able to gather through her Higgs contacts, attacks by Japanese bombers and submarines were now focused on Darwin and the north of Australia, and the Coral Sea, as the United States followed up its victory at the naval Battle of Midway the year before last. The peril of the last few years along this coast had dwindled.

  She turned her back to the waves. This ship should be as safe as any place on the east coast. What seventeen-year-old would not enjoy being the only woman present till the crew met ‘Rosie the Riveters’ on the Sydney waterfront? Her mother had left a whole drawerful of lipsticks in many shades, as well as face powder, as had darling old Aunt Lily. Easily enough to see one girl through the next few years. Her poinsettia-flowered dress — a delightful change from school uniform and business suit or farm moleskins — fluttered at her knees.

  ‘Lady Rose?’ The first mate was perhaps twenty-five, tanned and what the girls at school would call ‘a dish’.

  She grinned at him. ‘I usually answer to Miss Higgs-Vaile, but plain Rose will do today.’

  He returned the grin. She liked the way his eyes crinkled. ‘You could never be plain. I hope you recognise my enormous bravery.’