Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies

by Jackie French

  Was he the one Miss Lily had chosen?

  Mr Jamieson held out a chair for Hannelore. She sat in a froth of butter skirts, her back slightly too rigid for swan-like beauty. Dolphie stood and bowed. ‘Mr Jamieson, I regret to inform you that I have already won Miss Higgs’s hand.’

  ‘Uncle Dolphie!’ rebuked Hannelore, tapping the table with her fan. ‘Behave!’

  ‘But I am being so good.’ He pronounced it ‘gut’. ‘And I meant I’d won her hand when she accompanied me to the supper room. I am sorry,’ he added to Mr Jamieson. ‘We foreigners and our poor English, you know.’

  Somehow, the candlelight, the rising bubbles in the champagne, the music and the laughter made Dolphie seem unbearably funny, the wittiest man she’d met. I am sitting with a princess, and a lady, thought Sophie, who are my friends. I am staying in the house of a duke. I am practically impregnable, thanks to Miss Lily.

  ‘I say.’ Mr Jamieson peered at Sophie and Alison as though conscious of duties not yet performed. ‘An ice?’ he suggested.

  ‘An ice would be lovely. You are so kind, Mr Jamieson.’

  He returned with a waiter who bore a tray with six ices, each in long frosted glasses, touched with dew. Sophie thought back to the ice-cream outings with Miss Thwaites, impossibly far away. She waited for the ice to be set before her: always wait, said Miss Lily. You never know what else might fit into a moment.

  Alison reached for hers without waiting.

  ‘Oh!’ The damp glass slipped from her fingers. The table was silent as Alison gazed at the ice cream that oozed down her dress. She seemed more frozen than the ice.

  Sophie reached over quickly, scooping it up with her napkin. But it was too late: a wet smear slid from her breasts to her stomach.

  She can get changed, thought Sophie. She has to get changed and come back down; it would be a scandal if a girl left her own ball. But to get to the stairway, or even through the kitchens to the back stairway, Alison would have to pass a hundred guests, looking at her wet dress out of the corner of their eyes, laughing at it later. ‘Funny little slip of a thing,’ they’d say. ‘So embarrassing for her. Never thought she’d amount to much. No money either, is there?’

  Alison’s partner was as frozen as she was.

  ‘Lady Alison?’ It was a man she hadn’t seen in the crush of dancers, or perhaps he had arrived too late for the receiving line. Thirty-five perhaps, with a scar like a burn on his neck; an intelligent face. He bowed to Alison, then to Hannelore then Sophie. He knows who we are, she thought. The bows were in exactly the right order of precedence. He turned back to Alison. ‘We have been introduced, but so long ago I’m afraid you’ll have forgotten me.’

  ‘I … I’m afraid …’ Alison’s voice trembled.

  ‘Major Philip Standish.’

  ‘Of course, Major Standish.’

  Major Standish caught the eye of the waiter who had brought the ices. ‘Could you ask Lady Alison’s maid to bring down her wrap? It’s chilly outside.’ He smiled down at them all. ‘A friend of mine told me that the roses in this garden are the most beautiful in London. And roses are always sweetest at night.’ He glanced at Sophie. ‘Will you join us, Miss Higgs? Miss Higgs’s wrap too, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘And mine too. I am most interesting in roses,’ said Hannelore. She tapped Dolphie on the hand with her fan. ‘You will come too, Uncle. It will be educational for you to see roses.’

  ‘I am always most happy to see beauty,’ said Dolphie, smiling at Sophie.

  Sophie let out as deep a breath as her stays would let her. The stain would be covered by the shawl. And what could be more proper after supper than a tour of the rose gardens? For somehow she was sure Major Standish would gather others to come too, to wander the gravel paths, the French doors open, the breeze whispering between the curtains. Many other women, though hot from dancing and the chandeliers, would want their wraps too, would take the air out on the balcony …

  He had managed it in thirty seconds.

  Alison’s hands were still in her lap.

  He’s the one, thought Sophie as Major Standish smiled down at Alison. He is the one Miss Lily has picked. Now Mouse is safe.

  Chapter 34

  A true friend is honest, and that of course is why I have so few true friends. I am so lucky in those I have, like you.

  Miss Lily to Isobel, Dowager Duchess of Wooten, 1914

  5 June 1914

  Dear Dad and Miss Thwaites,

  Alison is engaged to be married!

  The wedding will be at the beginning of August, because after the 12th everyone goes back to the country to shoot grouse — they call it the Glorious Twelfth, but I don’t imagine that is how the grouse feel about it. The bridegroom’s name is Major Philip Standish. He is very nice, a bit older than Alison. He is an officer in the Guards but is going to resign his commission, as when he is married he will inherit money from his great-uncle and do what he really loves, which is painting. His uncle left the money to him ‘on the condition he marry a suitable girl’, and Alison is very, very suitable.

  I will be one of her bridesmaids and THE KING AND QUEEN WILL ATTEND. Imagine, Their Majesties sitting down at the front, watching Sophie Higgs walk behind Alison down the aisle!

  I am still enjoying myself, though being a debutante is a lot of work. I can see why women in society all have secretaries to sort out their invitations and arrange fittings for dresses and hair appointments. Her Grace has her own secretary for the season and an assistant each for Alison and me. I have been fitted for new dresses every second day; it is not ‘done’ to appear in the same dress twice and some days I need to wear five different outfits, though usually only two or three. They are very lovely, of course, but somehow it is easier to be excited over ONE beautiful ball dress than fifteen, especially when you have to stand still for so long during the fittings, in case the pins stick into you. Her Grace has a ‘shape’ made to her size so she doesn’t have to put up with the pinning. But as we are just ‘gels’, our shape will change, so we can’t escape the pinning.

  I’m sorry: I sound like I’m complaining! It is all very, very wonderful and I can’t thank you enough for arranging all this for me (and Alison), but I don’t think I’d want to do ‘the season’ again. There are so many people to meet that there isn’t even time to have a proper conversation with any of them.

  Maybe I am just a little homesick. But don’t book my passage home quite yet. I want to see snow again and more of the English countryside. Her Grace has kindly asked me to stay at Wooten Abbey after Alison’s wedding, and I would like to very much. There are also other invitations to stay at house parties for MONTHS after that, and she will chaperone me to them.

  Love,

  Sophie

  As John the coachman handed Sophie and Alison down from the carriage the Grosvenor Square gaslights were sheathed in fog — four am fog, wispy like chiffon scarves, as though trying to work out whether it wanted to join the coal smoke to make a pea souper. Ffoulkes held the front door open for them. He looks more tired than I do, thought Sophie.

  In fact she was more bored than tired. She had so little in common with the young men she danced with, having to endure endless conversations about horses and other parties, endless repetitions of ‘I say, do you know …?’ Could any one of these men have run a property, or forged a corned-beef empire?

  She kissed Alison good night at the top of the stairs, still thinking about it. Yes, of course they could … or some of them could; they were probably already learning how to manage their estates. But balls were parrot chatter, nothing more.

  She opened the door quietly, then stood, staring.

  Doris sat with her back to the door, waiting up for her mistress, as a good maid did every night — catching a few minutes’ sleep sitting in a chair perhaps, but never going to bed until her mistress was settled.

  Doris wasn’t dozing that night. Instead she held one of Sophie’s white kid gloves. Each one had been tailored to cling
to Sophie’s fingers, made from the thinnest, most blemish-free leather. As Sophie watched, Doris rubbed the glove delicately across her cheek, then looked at it and smiled. She reached down to the powder bowl at her feet, lifted the puff and then shook a tiny amount of powder into the glove.

  It was curiously intimate — the girl, the glove.

  Sophie spoke softly from the doorway, trying not to startle her maid. ‘I wish you’d have a nap in the dressing room on these late nights.’

  It didn’t work. Doris jerked up. The powder spilled onto the carpet.

  ‘Oh, blimey’, and then, with even more mortification, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Sophie, I shouldn’t of said that!’

  ‘I shouldn’t have startled you. Here, let me help clean it up.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. I mean, I’m sorry, I can manage it, Miss Sophie.’

  ‘I’ll mention at breakfast that I spilled some powder when I got up. They’ll never know it was left all night. Please, Doris.’

  ‘Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.’

  ‘Good night, Doris,’ said Sophie, as Doris turned down the gaslight and stepped quietly out.

  She was too tired to sleep. There was a silver flask of cocoa wrapped in a wool cloth by her bed, and a plate of Bath biscuits in case she felt hungry in the night. She took a biscuit and nibbled it.

  More dress fittings in the morning. A demure ride along Rotten Row in Hyde Park; a dinner at night; the Ascot races next week, which would be interesting, especially as she would be admitted to the Royal Enclosure.

  For some reason the scene with Doris had upset her, the intentness on the girl’s face over something as trivial as gloves. This season mattered far more to Doris than it did to Sophie

  Yet this was what she had travelled across the world to do.

  ‘I don’t want to marry any of them,’ she said softly into the darkness. ‘This is the season to be married, and I’m not in season yet.’ Then she giggled, and wished Alison or Hannelore were there to share the joke.

  Marriage to Malcolm had seemed like her only escape from the world of corned beef. But now even as a single woman back in Australia she would be invited to Government House. She was no longer limited to Suitable Friends, but could visit dukes’ estates in England or castles on the Rhine.

  She was hungry for a conversation beyond pins and polo. No man had even mentioned Irish Home Rule, universal suffrage or the military budget, not to a debutante; nor had she been able to coax even Dolphie into talking about more than German Wildschweine and Australian kangaroos.

  Miss Lily had let her glimpse a world that might be hers if she married the right man: a world that a debutante could only trust existed after the life-changing procession down the aisle.

  But how could you find the right man among the peacock posturing?

  She met him at a Friday-to-Monday.

  It was at Fenthorpe Hall, Emily’s home: an invitation Sophie suspected was a duty, left until it could no longer be denied that Sophie was accepted by society, and thus any excuse to leave her out of invitations had vanished. It was a large house party, one where one debutante more or less wasn’t likely to matter. Alison, indeed, had made her excuses, but the dowager had insisted for some reason that Sophie accept.

  Dappled greens flashed by on either side of the duke’s motorcar, zipping along at a daring thirty miles an hour, until the dowager duchess tapped on the glass between them and the chauffeur. Even the shadows here were green, not purple. England in June was … magic: every stretch of grass printed with flowers, as if an eager housewife had covered half the countryside with chintz; flowers even in the hedges; a sky as soft as a silk scarf; days that lingered into impossibly long dusks, the light slowly seeping from the world, as though in summer England only needed a brief nap before the new day.

  Two flat tyres later, the gates of Fenthorpe Hall appeared: tall wrought iron, open, with half a house on either side. A man in a cap appeared from one side, his hand to his forelock.

  She had expected something sharp and modern, like Emily herself. But this house was beautiful: mellow stone, one pure tall length unadorned by anything other than steps and a portico and three lines of windows, growing smaller with each storey.

  By the time they had parked on the gravel out the front, a butler had already descended the stairs, accompanied by three footmen for their luggage: six trunks and eighteen hatboxes for a two-day stay, all packed into the back of the car with the three maids.

  Mrs Carlyle swept the duchess straight to her own sitting room, leaving Sophie with the butler. ‘Miss Carlyle is still out, Miss Higgs. There is tea in the library, or shall I show you to your room?’

  Sophie noticed there was no mention of the master of this house, confined to his bed and small world upstairs.

  ‘She wants tea, don’t you, darling?’ Hannelore emerged from a doorway further down the hall, her dashing uncle behind her. She looked deeply weary, as did Dolphie, but smiled as she pressed her lips to Sophie’s cheek. ‘Lots of English teacakes too, and buttered crumpets.’

  Dolphie bowed over her hand. She was glad to see him. The season was too hectic ever to know if there would be someone you were acqainted with — or, better still, liked — at any of the places you were invited to. Dolphie had been at most of the London affairs she had attended, but they had been too crowded for her ever to have a long conversation with him, or any other man. A Friday-to-Monday might give them time to talk about things that mattered. Even things worth writing about to Miss Lily …

  ‘The other guests are out walking up hills,’ said the count. ‘If I had wanted to go on a march up hills, I could have stayed at home and joined the army.’

  ‘I am sure you march divinely, Dolphie.’

  ‘I waltz divinely. I march reluctantly. Do you know German officers are forbidden to waltz? It might corrupt them.’ Dolphie waggled his eyebrows at her. ‘Will you waltz with me one evening, Miss Higgs?’

  ‘I would adore to waltz with you.’ She gazed at him through her lashes. ‘I would adore to talk to you properly too.’

  Dolphie bowed over her hand again. ‘Conversation with you is almost as good as a waltz. Come, I will beat away the English hordes to find you an egg and lettuce sandwich. Do you know the English feel that egg is naked with no lettuce? I assure you, I have noticed this is true.’

  She glanced at him more closely. There was something behind the frivolity. His eyes were shadowed.

  Had this tea with Dolphie and Hannelore been contrived?

  There was a fire in the small room to which he and Hannelore led her, which was not a library. Why had Hannelore drawn her in there, and not to the library where the other guests might join them? And why was tea set here too, when the butler had said tea has been served in the more public room? The table was laden: a samovar steaming gently over its burner, a silver teapot and a coffee pot, and, yes, the buttered crumpets and the teacakes, a Dundee cake, scones and sandwiches.

  She sat on the elegantly uncomfortable sofa next to Hannelore, bit into an egg and watercress sandwich and leaned back lightly, elegantly. Elegance was too deeply ingrained in her to be abandoned now. ‘You promised me lettuce,’ she complained.

  ‘It is green. Possibly for the English that is enough.’ Dolphie raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Alone at last!’ It was a line from a melodrama they had seen the month before. ‘I never see you alone,’ he added plaintively — and yet there was something else in his flirtatious tone, something she had never heard before. ‘How can I ask you to marry me unless we are alone?’

  ‘We’re not alone. Hannelore is here,’ Sophie pointed out. Nor did she think a proposal was why Hannelore had brought her to this room.

  ‘Nieces do not count. Besides, Hannelore wishes you to marry me, don’t you, my dutiful niece?’

  Hannelore reached for a teacake. ‘I would rather you married Sophie than a Krupps heiress. My cousin’s wife has a moustache,’ she added.

  ‘No wife should have a moustache larger than
her husband’s. If I married a Krupps heiress, I would have to grow a much larger one, and that would be a nuisance.’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Dear Dolphie. If I accepted you, you’d probably faint.’

  ‘Only with joy.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. But once again she felt his playfulness was forced.

  Hannelore frowned at him. ‘Stop that. You are not to kiss her hand until she is married.’

  ‘But this is Sophie! She is our friend! And I am just a dear old uncle. Besides, she might marry me and then I may kiss any part of her I like.’ He raised his eyebrows again suggestively.

  Sophie took a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich — they really looked very good — bit it, and glanced up at him through her eyelashes, an automatic semi-flirtatious gesture. ‘Dolphie — joking apart — you don’t really want to marry me, do you?’

  For the first time the laughter left his eyes. ‘I think it would be good for me. You have money and charm and intelligence and much beauty. But for you — no, I do not think you should marry me.’

  ‘Since you only want me because I don’t have a moustache?’

  ‘No.’ He gazed at her over his coffee cup, the laughter gone. ‘I would like to show you how the leaves herald the sunlight in spring, in the woods at home. England has no old forests left, the ones where the trees have stood for thousands of years, and you can feel each century as you walk through them. I have seen paintings of Australia, its bare plains and thin trees and forests with blue leaves and strange dapples. I would love to show Miss Sophie Higgs a true European forest. You do not truly know Germany until you know our forests. That is where you will find the heart of every true German.’

  She had never heard Dolphie sound poetic. Or serious.

  Dolphie smiled at her, the brown eyes sad. ‘If we were living in a different time, I would ask you to marry me, even if you had no money, and perhaps we would be happy. I think perhaps there is a forest in your heart too, even if it is an Australian one. I wish you could show me your forests too. But in a few weeks there will be war between your country and mine. I must go back to Germany tomorrow, and I will take my niece with me.’