Legends of the Lost Lilies

by Jackie French

  This should be of course the most important news. But her world had narrowed to the people she loved. She suspected it would never widen again to include the business of nations.

  ‘Rose and Danny? Daniel?’

  Another hesitation. ‘They are all well.’

  ‘But what aren’t you telling me? I can read your voice, James,’ she ordered tiredly. ‘No matter how bad it is, I need to know.’

  ‘Daniel is working again at the Bald Hill Clinic. He had a breakdown for a short while a little over two years ago, but is entirely recovered.’ James paused as if wondering how much to tell her.

  ‘Everything!’ Sophie insisted fiercely. ‘Has Danny gone to New Guinea? Is he all right? Please, James.’

  ‘Danny is thriving. After Daniel’s breakdown he left school to manage Thuringa. He is still managing Thuringa, and extremely well. Rose is in charge of the entire Higgs operation — you are going to find it interesting working together because I suspect she has no intention of leaving. She was injured in February last year —’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘The ship she was on from Brisbane was sunk by a submarine. She has scars on her face and I gather her arms and chest too. She also has a devoted husband . . .’

  Sophie managed to lift her head an inch in indignation. ‘What? How could Daniel allow that? She is far too young to be married!’

  ‘. . . who saved her life despite his own injuries and whom she adores. She also has a baby daughter, Lily-Anne.’

  ‘I am a grandmother?’ Sophie asked incredulously, joy sweeping through her.

  ‘Yes.’

  She had never even considered she might have grandchildren so soon. A baby! The world twisted and would never be the same. ‘We’re grandparents,’ she whispered to Lily, suddenly seeing herself and Nigel and Daniel linked in generations of descendants.

  James reached into his briefcase and brought out a bundle of letters, tied with ribbon as neatly as if they were Cabinet documents. ‘Your family were told you were in Europe and unable to contact them, but they kept sending letters in case you could be reached. I’ve kept them for you, nearly three years of them. In chronological order.’

  Of course James would have the letters in chronological order. But she would read the most recent first, then slowly savour the rest. She reached for them with her one working hand, awkwardly because of the tubes, held them to her heart, trying to smell Thuringa, her children, the man she loved. But they just smelled of paper, part of the vast store of papers the war had birthed.

  ‘Hannelore? Violette?’ She still could not believe Violette had betrayed her simply for security.

  ‘Violette has survived, and thrived,’ James said drily. ‘She even joined a resistance group after your betrayal, possibly to avoid the retaliation now being dealt out to collaborators. She seems to have vanished lately, but I am sure she will cope as well with peace as war.’ He smiled, obviously glad to give her good news. ‘Hannelore is safe at the Lodge. They have set up a temporary clinic there — Germany is in a bad way. She was offered a passage to England, but your condition had stabilised by then, and she refused. You don’t remember seeing her?’

  ‘She found me? I think I remember hearing her voice, but not much more. She wasn’t . . .’ Sophie tried not to remember her own torture ‘. . . hurt?’

  ‘I think she was,’ James said quietly. ‘But she seems well now, and strong enough to nurse inmates from Dachau. There’s been a bad outbreak of typhus there, but the Lodge is in strict quarantine. Communication is still limited though. I think it will be a while before we can communicate reliably. Months, or even longer.’

  She had expected that. But James had not mentioned Nigel — Bob. Nor had she asked about him, once he had omitted him from that first reassuring list.

  ‘Tell me the rest, James.’

  ‘Shillings Hall is gone,’ he said briefly. ‘A crippled RAAF bomber crashed into it a couple of days ago. The entire house burned.’

  A couple of days ago. She closed her eyes. Just a few more days and she would have seen it again. The beloved old Hall, gone. She could not bear it. But of course, all over Europe, the unbearable was being borne. ‘Casualties?’

  ‘Three. They managed to evacuate everyone in the building, but it collapsed on them before they could get out.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Jones and Miss Green had returned and were living in the Hall again. They and For the first time Sophie saw James fumble, unable to continue, as her heart shredded. For who had died in that fire? Lily? Nigel? Bob?

  Or none of them, she thought with sudden hope, grief receding to clarity. Just as Nigel had become Lily, who sometimes changed to Nigel, then Lily had become Bob, this was a perfect way for Lily-Nigel to evade post-war complications, including any expectations from James or others in intelligence. Lily could not be dead!

  ‘He is to be buried in the family plot, but as Bob Green, with Jones and Miss Green in the plot next to him.’

  Sophie nodded, trying to keep her face set in unspeakable grief. Burials meant nothing. Nigel Vaile, Earl of Shillings, was supposed to be buried in the family plot, too. The three of them would still be alive, because of course the three of them must be together. New faces, new names, new roles — they had trained for this most of their lives. Jones had been butler, batman, gentleman farm manager, and other roles she knew of but hadn’t seen. She had seen Greenie become Lily for a few confusing moments, and turn from lady’s maid to warrior in an instant.

  Because Nigel could not be dead. Not when she had come so far. He had promised her. They would talk when she returned, and now she had, and somehow, somewhere . . .

  ‘Daniel and your children have been told, of course, but only what will be placed in a notice in the Times, that Lily Vaile has died, after a long illness. I didn’t want to make anything public until you’d been informed.’ He hesitated. ‘There will need to be a grave for her, of course, as well as for Bob, and possibly a memorial ceremony. But those decisions are for her family to make.’

  ‘Thank you. That was . . . considerate.’

  ‘You may wish to tell Rose and Danny more, of course. Their father’s death was heroic, as was so much of his life.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again, keeping her voice calm while frantically trying to think where they might have gone, and how. A car waiting, then a fishing boat? They’d had papers for so many identities over the years. Travel was difficult now, but the world’s chaos also meant it would be very easy to vanish, too.

  ‘He left a letter for you,’ said James. ‘In point of fact he left many letters with me over the years, to be given in case of his death, with orders each time to destroy the one before. He wrote this one only a few weeks before he died.’

  Of course he did, she thought. They must have planned this for a long time — not the tragedy at the Hall, though they’d taken advantage of that for their disappearance. Lily would want me to know as soon as possible she isn’t dead, she can’t be dead . . .

  James pulled out the envelope, pre-war parchment, with Lily’s sloping handwriting on its face. Sophie took it in her good hand. Her mind was clearer now, the pain medication wearing off, for her left hand throbbed slightly.

  The letter was sealed, but of course James would have unsealed it, perused the contents, then sealed it again. Whatever message was in it would be discreet.

  ‘Will I leave you to read it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Would you like me to return, after that?’ He pulled a slim volume from his pocket. ‘I will sit in the corridor and read, if you would like company.’

  How had he known she did not want to be alone? Because even though everyone she loved was safe . . . of course, of course Lily and Jones and Greenie were still safe . . . she did not want to be left in this quite lovely room with neither friends nor family. James was so very good at knowing so many things. Why hadn’t he guessed they weren’t dead? ‘Yes, please,’ she repeated. She waited till the
door shut, then slid the note from the envelope.

  My Dearest Sophie,

  If you are reading this then I am dead, and you have survived. Your survival, and your happiness, mean more to me than anything in my life, except perhaps our children and the grandchild whose existence is a miracle, as great as any of those you brought to my life.

  You told me, long ago, that you always knew my heart truly lived at Shillings. I did not correct you. I love Shillings, and not because it is my duty to love it. But there has never been any element of duty in my love for you. It came unlooked for, a gift beyond any I had hoped for, and will be the greatest part of me until the moment of my death.

  My death also means that this is my only chance to explain to you what to many may seem to have been a complex life, but to me has seemed simple, even if eventful.

  I have already written to Rose and Danny, as their Aunt Lily, explaining that the letters they now have are only to be sent if I am dead. Rose and Danny may show you the letters, or not, as they choose, but I have reminded Danny that while he holds the title, he may at any time choose to renounce it. He has a right to choose to whom and what he owes a duty, but should not feel bound by an old and increasingly irrelevant title. Apart from Shillings Hall, its garden, and a few cottages, the estate is all leased to tenants. I suspect many, or even most, will wish to buy the properties after the war. Shillings is no longer isolated from the world, and its newcomers and even the children who have grown up during the war almost certainly will not want to inherit feudal rights and duties.

  I do not know what condition the Hall will be in once it is no longer required by the nation, but might I suggest it be given to the National Trust, with one wing retained for family, and those like Hereward for whom the Hall has become home. As you are all so enmeshed in your Australian lives, this might suit you best. But while Danny has already inherited the title, you are his trustee for the unentailed property until he is thirty. I hope Danny is able to make any decisions slowly, in the knowledge that he, and Shillings, will change as the decades go by.

  Other explanations must wait till you and Daniel decide the time is right for them, but I have sent a letter to Daniel, too, to be given to Rose and Danny when you think they are ready to know more. That letter is unsealed, so you and Daniel can read it first, but I hope you will agree with what I have chosen to tell them, and what I have not. Children deserve the truth from their parents, but they also deserve not to be burdened with what they do not need to know.

  This then, is only for you.

  I told you, several times, and also let you assume, that I am Lily-Nigel, that Lily was born in war on the North West Frontier, and in my time with Misako in Japan, as I gradually realised that one aspect of myself could only be expressed as a woman.

  I lied.

  I am Lily Vaile, and always have been, but until I met Misako I knew of no way to be myself. But I am also Earl of Shillings, with duties to my people and my land that could only be fulfilled by a man, for as Lily I have no right to Shillings, nor the ability to protect it. James might suspect this, but Jones and Greenie are the only ones who have always known. Jones and Greenie, too, never fitted the lives into which they were born. Class differences, now thankfully growing outdated, have meant that we were forced into a variety of roles, but those have always been a façade, instead of who we truly were, the three of us together.

  Then you arrived. I loved you at first sight. That love changed, and grew. I realised you were a woman who might, miraculously, accept a Lily-Nigel, and after all, that is what society forced me to be, two instead of one. Lily Vaile could not marry you, just as she could not protect Shillings and its people as the Earl. I assumed, too, that you loved Nigel, for it was Nigel to whom you flew back, Nigel to whom you proposed. I stayed as Nigel Vaile, most of the time, for you. It only gradually dawned on me that your love for Lily was the deeper. Forgive me for my stupidity, for underestimating you, for taking so long to realise that at some level you intuited that Lily was all of me, and Nigel only a part.

  My choice in Berlin was for myself, and for you. I did not choose to be Lily for the sake of the network I’d established. That could have been run by others, and indeed it is now.

  Nigel Vaile died, and Lily Vaile lived. I thought I would finally be Lily Vaile forever, with you and Jones and Greenie, and I had come to love and admire Daniel too. Yet as time passed, I still did not trust your love enough to tell you the truth, that though the years with you as Nigel were the happiest I had known, the years with you when I was Lily were happier still.

  But war meant that Nigel Vaile had to play a part again, even if his role was Bob. My deepest regret is that I didn’t tell you all this openly, on the first day George Carryman delivered you to England. For the reasons you well understand, I had decided that it was now too dangerous to continue to be Lily, but we could still have had some small moments. That was cowardice, for I did not know if I could bear to become Bob again, after being Lily, even for a short while. But of course I could, and if you are reading this then I wasted our last chance to be together.

  In any life there must be ‘might have beens’. What might have been, if I had never attempted to continue as Nigel after the Great War? Would you have still proposed to me, if I had been Lily, knowing that Nigel was a mask I must put on sometimes for society? There is also the greatest ‘might have been’ of all: life as Lily again, somehow, somewhere, if I survive the war. But not ‘Miss Lily’, for I do not think there is a need to train lovely ladies to wield power in the background now. You have helped lead the way for a woman to be her own person, striding out from the shadows that have kept women hidden for so long. ‘Miss Lily’ can truly vanish now, but some of her insights, perhaps, may live on.

  You and I are grandparents together, and I have known all earthly joy. I have loved you with every kind of love humanity has known, and sign myself, as I have always truly been,

  Yours, past, present and forever,

  Lily

  She did not know when she had begun to sob. She stared at the paper. Lily’s revelation was far smaller than her grief, for this was not a coded message. It was the final letter from the person she, too, had loved from that first moment at Shillings, a love that grew and changed and was as complex as the two people who had shared it.

  Tears fell on the paper, smudging the ink. She waited, as her sobs subsided, then placed the precious letter on the sheet and wiped her eyes with her only usable hand. The grief was still almost too much to bear, but she was still a student of Miss Lily, who had shown her ladies how to grieve yet still see beauty, to cry but know happiness and love.

  She, who had loved Nigel Vaile and Miss Lily, had loved them too much to see the truth behind them, the one who was both.

  Could one even measure love?

  Of course one could. Love was measured all the time. And yes, the most joy-filled period of her life, too, had been those years at Thuringa, with beloved Lily known to the world as her sister-in-law, Daniel beside her, children’s laughter as they climbed the massive magnolia out the front, pretending it was a pirate ship or aeroplane. But there was only one love, even if it was expressed in different ways. The many faces of love, for a person with many faces.

  The door opened. Sophie looked up, expecting James. But Ethel stood there, solid and reassuring and dressed in a perfectly tailored heather tweed, carrying it off with a panache Sophie had never seen in her before. She held the hand of a toddler dressed in a hand-knitted jersey and tartan skirt, the tiny girl’s solid shoulders and lifted chin unmistakably those of a Carryman.

  ‘All right to come on in?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes, please.’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Sophie lass,’ said Ethel quietly. ‘I thought this might be the time to meet little Sophie here.’ She bent to the child. ‘This is your wonderful Aunt Sophie.’

  The child stared at the figure on the bed, unimpressed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she is courageous and w
e love her.’

  The tiny Sophie shook her head. She pointed to the tubes. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she is sick and they help make her better.’ Ethel spoke with the ease of long practice with the questions of the young.

  The child accepted the answer and began to chew her finger.

  ‘She’s mine,’ said Ethel, smiling again. ‘And James’s too.’ She lifted a hand to show an antique engagement ring and a gold wedding band.

  ‘But . . . how . . .?’

  ‘Long story.’ Ethel considered. ‘Actually a very short one.’ She grinned. ‘You know what they say. Strange things happen in war. We’re happy,’ added Ethel Lorrimer-Carryman. ‘Kiss your Aunt Sophie, darling.’

  ‘No,’ said the small Sophie.

  ‘Just like her ma,’ said Ethel proudly, and Sophie laughed. Heartbreak and joy, she thought. And a child who would surely need the wisdom of a Miss Lily, even in the new world born of this war . . .

  People died. Love and wisdom did not, not as long as memory continued. I will never forget you, she thought, as Ethel ushered the unwilling child closer but did not press her to kiss where she was unwilling. All you taught me, all the love. And somehow I always knew the truth of you, or rather felt it. Three faces, but a single, all-encompassing love.

  Chapter 55

  Few people truly see their own face in the mirror. They posture, seeing the person they would like to be. Often we must see others and see ourselves in them to realise who we truly are.

  Miss Lily, 1938

  MAY 1945

  VIOLETTE

  The newsreel wound to an end, but Violette stayed in her velvet seat even as the theatre lights came on. The crowd moved silently, crushed by the same weight that kept her in her seat, the flicker of film that showed the inside of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Black and white, white faces, white bodies, black mud and barbed wire. Only the beginning of the unfolding horror, the newsreader had said.