Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies

by Jackie French

  Jean-Marie’s father was a farmer, it seemed, though the farm was now mud and trenches. Charlie would be happy on a farm. There might even be sheep, one day. She would like to see Charlie with sheep.

  Money from Australia, from her father, sent the family to the seaside for a month. Perhaps when they returned, they would be a family again: a father, not a stranger; a child, not a messenger from aid post to hospital and back; a wife and mother, not a tirelessly, silently scrubbing woman.

  The money would build them a house; would keep them for as long as necessary while a battlefield was turned into a farm again. If only one square of battlefield could be returned to cabbages and sheep instead of mud and poppies, Sophie felt she could leave.

  At last, finally, leave the land of war.

  Chapter 63

  When one reads novels one thinks of beginnings and endings. But really there are very few beginnings or endings that are neat. Even death brings complications to those it leaves behind. Was I happier when I thought the world was simpler? I don’t think so. Happiness perhaps is overrated, but maybe fulfilment lasts.

  Sophie, 1958

  FEBRUARY 1919

  The letter came on Sophie’s last day in the village, in a pile with accounts and letters for other volunteers and staff, now dispersed in all directions, but all going home. She took them from the postmaster, in his postal uniform now, returned from the front. The nuns and the returned Monsieur le Curé would take over the hospital for as long as it was needed, with help from money from Australia. Already the familiar rooms felt no longer hers.

  I have been a visitor here, she thought, just as much as the war. Now it is time to go home.

  But where was home? Australia? The Abbey? Even Shillings called to her. No, as James said, this was not the end of war, just the cessation of the guns, for now the true work of war must begin: rebuilding lives and the land. She must find out, somehow, what had happened to Angus, see that the dowager and the Abbey were in good hands, try to discover the fates of Dolphie and Hannelore and Miss Lily, find out what had happened to Angus … She had written the général a discreet letter, but it had not been answered, had probably never reached him.

  She leafed through the pile of letters automatically — then stopped. This writing was familiar. It was as if thinking his name had conjured him up.

  Her hands, red, work-roughened hands, shook as she opened it.

  Dear Sophie,

  This is a difficult letter to write. Perhaps you know that I was posted as ‘missing in action’. Even if you don’t you must be concerned at not having heard from me for so long.

  The reason is that a shell hit the car in which the général and I were travelling, the day after I returned to him. The général was killed. I was badly concussed, and unconscious, they say, for several days, with damage to my foot and hand. I was taken for an American at first in the confusion — we had been about to attend a meeting with the Americans — and then I suppose the paperwork was mislaid with so many influenza cases. It was only in the past week that I discovered that no one, not even my poor parents, had been informed that I am safe.

  Now for the hardest part: last night I proposed to a dear girl who nurses here, Miss Glenda Quince, and she has done me the honour of accepting me. Her great-uncle, Sir Alan Crabtree, has an estate, and has offered me the job of agent there. It is all I could want in a job, a challenge, but will mean open spaces and peace too after so many years. Glenda and I shall have the Dower House on the estate, and fill it with children — though Glenda would be indignant if she knew I had told you that. It is not a life I think would content you, but it will suit Glenda and me.

  You and I have been through so much together, but I feel you are a woman who will be happy for me. Indeed, you are one of the most magnificent women I have known, and I shall always treasure the time we spent together.

  I wish you every possible happiness, and a man worthy of you, and a lifetime of all things that are good.

  Your friend, always,

  Angus McIntyre

  Her first response was almost unbearable relief that he was safe; her second, angry pride: if she had gone back with him that day, there’d have been no Miss Glenda Quince. And then the realisation that perhaps she had done exactly what Emily had implied, over two years earlier: taken a vulnerable man and made him love her, for a time.

  Now that Angus was no longer with her that charm had lost its hold, and he had found instead a wife who would share his quiet life, content with family and kitchen, rather than one who would demand to take charge and be part of a wider world. A woman who had killed a man in front of him, used him, risked him, in what had been a fruitless, stupid venture, and then abandoned him to drive back alone. Angus had seen her surface charm at Wooten. How could he want the woman she truly was?

  I am not Glenda Quince, she thought, and never could be her.

  Nor would there be a lunch at the Ritz with the général. She wiped away unexpected tears — for the old gallant général, she realised, not for Angus. An almost forgotten warrior, who had done his best, and treated her with honour. And if neither he nor she had been able to stop the hell of mustard gas, the attempt had at least led her here, where she could truly be of use.

  The général had deserved more. Or perhaps, she thought, he had been given what he might have prayed for: an honourable death at the hands of the enemy.

  And Angus? She slipped his letter into her bodice. She felt too many conflicting emotions to read it again now, but eventually she would need to.

  Outside, the car drew up. She picked up her single bag: no waiting for footmen to carry out her trunks now.

  Soon the village, war, and all that had been in them, would be left behind.

  The Ritz’s chandeliers shone. Sophie nodded to a porter to take her bag, instructed a maid to ask the concierge to send up a dressmaker — the best dressmaker, she must know the one — tomorrow, not a second before eleven, along with croissants, butter, jam, coffee. And after lunch, someone for hats, for shoes, for stockings.

  He would arrange it all. Concierges always did, at places called the Ritz, just as the maid would run a bath, all bubbles and hot water, would bring champagne, steak frites, bread with extra butter, salad.

  She sat in her bath: endless glorious hot water. Scrubbed her skin over and over, washed her hair four times before she was sure it was nit-free, and thrust her entire bag of clothes at the astonished chambermaid with instructions to boil them, then throw them away.

  She wouldn’t. The maid, or perhaps her superior, would either sell them or pass them on to sisters, cousins, aunts. Sophie didn’t care, as long as she saw none of them again. She reached for a glass of champagne and realised she couldn’t drink, just as she couldn’t celebrate the peace.

  This wasn’t peace. Perhaps it never would be. This was only the absence of war.

  She was about to pour the champagne away, then looked at the label, repented and called the maid again. She instructed her to share it with the boot boy, or with whomever she wished. She doubted that the top of the hierarchy of servants — whatever it was in a hotel like this — would allow it, but it would give the girl credit of some sort, and the wine would be enjoyed.

  It was as close as she could get to that promised lunch with the général.

  She dried herself, changed into her nightdress and tried to sleep.

  The bed was soft. The sheets smelled of roses, lavender and sunlight. Somewhere music played, and someone laughed, but not too near, or too loud.

  She couldn’t sleep. At last she got up, dressed, wrapped herself in coat, scarf and hat, and headed down the stairs.

  No Angus. Never Angus. No work to do. Experience told her life would be filled again, somehow, some day, but right now she was a shell, the walking dead, like so many of the men still sheltered in her hospitals.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ She shook her head at the night porter. No, she didn’t want a car, or carriage. She wanted …

  She d
idn’t know.

  She walked. The street lamps were lit again — in these streets, at least. A cluster of soldiers, French, drunk, approached her, laughing; they saw her face, then abruptly turned away, as though they hadn’t seen.

  She kept on walking.

  Dawn grey on the horizon. She turned down alleyways now: no need to keep to the gaslit streets. She was lost, but it didn’t matter. When you had money there were cabs, people who would help. Dimly she was aware that her coat was good, if darned; that she could be attacked for money, even raped. On the whole, she thought it was unlikely. She walked too stridently. The shadows would beware.

  She was among cafés now, the shutters still up, no smell of chicory coffee or even smoke. If she could find a baker’s shop, she might buy a loaf of bread, hot from the oven, eat it slowly, tasting every crumb, as she hadn’t had time to do for years.

  The shop ahead was not a baker’s shop, or even a café. It was an art gallery. Its windows were empty but for one small painting. Perhaps it was to show its value; perhaps the rest of the art was still safely stored away in the countryside, and this was all that was left, still on show, to say to any passer-by, ‘This was a gallery, and will be again.’

  Sophie stopped and stared.

  It was square, with a frame of tarnished gold. There was an orchard, a fraction of a house — just a verandah, a table with a cloth, beyond it flowers and trees and fruit. Apples, she thought. I know what apples look like on old trees. Apple blossom with Angus at the Abbey. Ripe apples, bees crowded at the bird-pecked fruit, at Shillings.

  Where was Miss Lily now?

  A shaft of sunlight shone onto a single piece of fruit.

  That is peace, thought Sophie. Somehow she knew that soon someone would put a pot of coffee and a treat onto that tablecloth, that there’d be fresh bread and laughter.

  Somewhere, perhaps, Jean-Marie was dreaming of paddling in the sea, with Charlie sleeping at his side.

  It was a shred of peace, no more. But just at that moment it was enough.

  She turned towards one of the larger streets, then signalled to a cab with its thin, weary horse to take her back to the hotel.

  Madame Pierre showed no astonishment at a client dressed in three of the Ritz’s large soft towels. She clucked at the loose skin of too much weight lost around the bust and hips; folded her tape measure and promised a day dress by the next morning, the tailored suits and the evening dresses to arrive day by day over the next month. Sophie didn’t intend to stay here a month, but the Ritz would forward them. Nor did she think she could find a passage to Australia on any ship within a month, not with armies to demobilise.

  Madame Pierre hesitated as she was leaving. ‘Mademoiselle Higgs — you have been in France for some time?’

  ‘For over a year now.’

  ‘So.’ To Sophie’s shock, the old woman stepped up to her and kissed one cheek then the other twice, three, four times. Madame Pierre stepped back. ‘You too have been fighting for my country, mademoiselle. I thank you.’

  The door shut quietly behind her.

  More letters had arrived. Sophie redirected the business ones to Mr Slithersole. A letter from Her Grace, not written by her arthritic fingers but by those of her new companions, one of the nurses who would stay on at Wooten, moving to the Dower House with the dowager when His Grace returned, bringing his new duchess, the widow of a chaplain he had met in the Middle East. There will be children in the Abbey, she thought, and laughter in the Dower House. As in Angus and his bride’s Dower House — but she thrust that thought away.

  Letters from James Lorrimer — less personal than the one in which he had admitted to what might, in another man, have been despair — telling her of political manoeuvrings and acquaintances in common. Letters from Miss Thwaites and Sophie’s father, one stained with what might have been seawater; strange to never know what peril it might have been through. The letters said little, but that little said it all: five of the men from Thuringa were dead, and one had lost an arm; he would cook for the shearers now. She supposed he’d learn to manage somehow, like Sergeant Brandon, who couldn’t see and learned to use an abacus. Her father was managing; he needed his daughter but, man-like, would never say so.

  Malcolm’s letters were slightly indignant that she had not been in England to meet him; the third was written just before he embarked for home. He’d had a reasonable war. He would have a good peace too, she was sure.

  She sat with his last letter, watching the coal fire, remembering: the golden boy with his brown arms, riding beneath the trees …

  She had loved the boy, for a time, even if she didn’t love the man. It was because of him that she had come to England; because of him that she was the Sophie Higgs who had now emerged from the war.

  Would there ever be a letter from Hannelore again? Germany was perhaps too chaotic for mail still, even sent via Switzerland. I will wait a year, she thought, in case questions from a former enemy might harm her, then ask Mr Slithersole or someone like him to find her in Germany, and Dolphie too.

  No, that was not true. She would wait a year, hoping — because she had left Dolphie wounded on a battlefield, stranded between two enemy lines, vulnerable to both. If Dolphie had died there, she had caused his death.

  Or had his sense of humanity done that, as he risked both life and reputation on the same grim task as her? He had risked his men, even if she had been the one to pull the trigger. Perhaps her true sin had been the one he had smilingly accused her of. She had not understood him. ‘I made most sure that you would not.’

  Dolphie had absolved her of that guilt too. He had loved her.

  After four years of war and an influenza epidemic, there were many closets in her memory that must remain dark and locked. Dolphie’s was the one that needed the strongest chains, at least until she had healed enough to look inside.

  There was one final letter, only one. She had kept it till last, deliberately. Now she rang the bell and ordered dinner. A bottle of claret — yes, a whole bottle, please — no, not roast pigeon: she shuddered at the thought of the tiny feathered bodies carrying messages from one post to another. Impossible ever to eat squab after that. Roast turkey, then, potatoes, petit pois; bombe impératrice, coffee. Bring them at the same time, please. She didn’t want to be disturbed.

  And more towels. At least a dozen towels. She needed to bathe yet again, hunt for any elusive lice once more. How long would it be before that habit left her?

  She opened her final letter.

  Shillings

  February 1919

  My very dear Sophie,

  Please excuse the brevity of this. I am here only for a short time, but hope to return soon. I have heard of all you have done from Her Grace, of course, with pride in your courage and your resourcefulness. I expected nothing less. You always had the rare combination of kindness and ability to succeed at all you tried.

  I would very much like to meet you again, to explain much that I was not able to say before. The earl echoes my sentiments. I also deeply wish for you to meet him at last, my dear.

  Her Grace tells me you will pass through Paris on your way to England. I once promised you an address for Mrs Higgs. You will find it on the enclosed card. I also offered you an explanation, which I would prefer to give to you in person.

  Mrs Goodenough sends her very best regards, and Jones too. I would say he sends his love, but of course he has not said that. But from me, most certainly, my love.

  Yours,

  L

  Chapter 64

  In novels it is always one big adventure. However, life always has so many loose stitches to tidy up.

  Miss Lily, 1919

  It was a good address. Somehow Sophie had known it would be a good address. A tree-lined street of houses, not apartments. Hedges, stone walls, wrought-iron gates and a sign saying Attention, chien méchant.

  She checked the number — two down from le chien méchant — and knocked. A pale blue door; grey stone; a scent of
honeysuckle.

  A maid answered the door. Fifty perhaps, in a white cap and apron over a black dress. Sophie placed her card on the silver tray and waited as the maid assessed her quickly then said quietly, ‘Please come in, Mademoiselle Higgs. Madame is expecting you.’

  Sophie allowed her coat to be taken. She could smell cakes cooking, sweet and buttery. ‘If you please, mademoiselle.’

  She followed the maid down the hall. Her heels clacked on the parquet. Good heels. New, like her dress, her silk stockings, her corset, stifling after a year without one. A blue dress, grey stockings, grey gloves; her pearls, sent from Wooten. What else would one wear to meet one’s mother, but blue silk and pearls?

  My sweet little grey-haired mother, she thought …

  She saw the woman before she saw the room, and not just because she was looking for her. This was a woman who was always seen first, who had created the room as a frame for herself.

  The woman before her was not grey-haired. Small, yes. Fine-boned. Her hair was perhaps too evenly mid-brown, the dress pale yellow silk, softly draped in a style that was not pre-war.

  She might have been Sophie’s age. This woman still had the face of a child, unlined, and there was something else childlike about her too.

  The room was perfect. Off-white silk walls, pale wooden furniture upholstered in yellow brocade, Chinese silk carpets over the parquet, decorated with peacocks and griffons. No clocks. No ornaments at all besides three porcelain vases, each filled with different flowers. At least two must be gifts: a servant or a mistress would have chosen bouquets that matched.

  The woman on the sofa held up a hand. Was it to be kissed, or pressed? Sophie handled it lightly, her grey kid gloves touching white lace. I have not yet touched my mother’s skin, she thought. Not for over twenty years.

  ‘Please do sit, darling.’

  She sat.

  The woman looked at Sophie critically. ‘Good. You are pretty,’ she said. Her voice was light and high.