The Lily and the Rose

by Jackie French

  ‘. . . Miss Macintosh. So delighted you could come. Please do make some time for the buffet.’

  The room had more knees than any she had seen in London — their owners wore short beaded or fringed gowns — but the women’s faces were strangely the same, with rouge and lipstick and powder, and the jewels familiar from years earlier, or at least post-war good copies.

  ‘They are divine musicians, aren’t they, Sir Marmaduke? Yes, I do agree that modern dances are not like those in our day, though I have to say your day will last a hundred years at least!’

  ‘Excuse me, we haven’t met. And Ethel is too busy hatching another scheme across the room to introduce us. I am Anne McHenry.’

  Sophie turned to see the Honourable Anne, the third in the canteen trio with Midge and Ethel, now married to an archaeologist — no, an archaeologist herself. She of all people must stop categorising women by their husbands’ careers.

  Sophie examined her — a scarred face, brown skin, a firm handshake. ‘I am so pleased to meet you at last. Look, there is no way of having a decent conversation in this crush.’

  Anne laughed. A good laugh. ‘I would never say such a thing to my hostess, but agree entirely.’

  ‘Come to lunch, tomorrow, with Ethel too, if she is not engaged already down at the East End. You will like my husband, and adore the twins.’

  She turned again, caught in the tides of the crowd.

  ‘Ah, my dear Comrade Sophie!’ Lady Mary greeted her. The elderly peer looked much the same as she had more than a decade earlier, when she introduced her to the Workmen’s Friendship Club during her debutante season. That club, of course, had been charity, not bolshevism.

  Hadn’t it? Had she let the affairs of the world pass by her for far too long, as she focused on cans and tomato markets?

  ‘Heard about your sterling work getting the Labor chappie elected. Well done, my dear! We must get you on the strike committee.’ Lady Mary took out a small leather-covered notebook, with a silver pencil attached by a ribbon. ‘Are you free next Tuesday?’

  ‘I will have to ask Miss Pinkley,’ extemporised Sophie.

  ‘Ah, this mad social whirl. It will be different after the revolution!’ said Lady Mary.

  Oh dear. ‘Quite. Lady Mary, have you met Ethel Carryman? Lady Mary, Ethel’s doing sterling work up north, and managed a miracle of a canteen in France. Ethel, Lady Mary runs a soup kitchen in the East End — it’s a wonder you have not met.’

  A smile to excuse her as she met the eyes of another guest, remembered from her season. ‘Colonel, I do hope you approve of the curry.’

  ‘Quite as good as Bombay, my dear. The memsahib approves of your chutney too. So hard to get a mango chutney in England.’ His nose was the shape and colour of a plum and his walrus moustache was stained curry or tobacco yellow. Ah, there was Georgina talking to Anne’s husband and a man with the brown skin that suggested he was also an archaeologist; Timothy had found young Sophie and was explaining Australia’s varieties of snakes in great detail. ‘Some of them are not poisonous at all.’

  ‘You look beautiful, Sophie dear.’

  He had strategically placed himself in a corner. A small almost dance-like few steps and they could talk almost privately. Sophie made a note of the manoeuvre. ‘Thank you, James. You’re looking well.’ He was: hair a little thinner; his eyes amused, as if he saw what lay below this social posturing, but had compassion enough to keep it — or at least its players — safe.

  ‘Bored with being wife, mother and countess yet?’

  She laughed. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You will be.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Both you and Nigel. You have your heir, and Shillings and Higgs Industries are thriving. I predict you will be bored extremely soon.’

  ‘And you’ll have a job for me?’ she asked lightly. ‘I’m not planning on travelling anywhere, except to Australia.’

  ‘The . . . task . . . I am thinking of is closer to hand.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Was he talking about Lady Mary? The ‘comrade’ had been a shock, but she had always been eccentric, and good hearted.

  James smiled. ‘I think you will know what I mean by the end of this afternoon. Perhaps I’ll call on you in a month or two.’

  ‘Of course, we would love to see you at Shillings. Come and stay, and your aunt too. But I really can’t see —’

  ‘You will,’ said James calmly. ‘Ah, Winston, my dear chap, just the man I hoped to see.’

  ‘Sophie?’

  Her world stilled. She turned.

  Hannelore, thinner, but still square and short, her hair still in a chignon, not bobbed, in a dress of blue lace and truly excellent diamonds, even better than her own, though she would not wear diamonds at a luncheon. But she was not a prinzessin, and Hannelore carried them well. She always had.

  ‘I did not think you knew I had been invited,’ said Hannelore, with a swan’s grace and a smile perfect for the occasion. Only her eyes were watchful. ‘I have been most careful to be on everyone’s guest list this year. Your secretary is excellent at her job.’

  ‘Is . . . is Dolphie with you?’

  ‘He sends his apologies. I am his hostess these days, for his embassy work here in England. Herr von Munster accompanied me in his stead.’ Hannelore waited for Sophie’s response.

  And suddenly there was nothing but joy, and friendship. ‘I am glad. So glad,’ said Sophie, taking Hannelore’s hands. Scars, almost invisible, under blue lace gloves, just as her own hands were scarred, and Anne’s, Sloggers’s, and Ethel’s. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘I have a factory, most profitable, though it is not like your factories. I will not even try to thank you for giving me the means to start it. But it is managed well while I am here, as I am sure yours are managed excellently also. I am enjoying London . . .’ Hannelore laughed at the look on Sophie’s face. ‘Oh, no, I have not changed that much. I am not here for the parties or, yes, I am here for the parties. I am truly working, Sophie, working at last as we dreamed so many years ago. Working for peace.’

  ‘For the League of Nations?’

  A shrug, as if that earnest but powerless organisation might make any difference, as so far indeed it had not.

  ‘No. For true peace. For our country to be prosperous again, to take its place in Europe. A united Europe, free of Bolshevik rebellions, an alliance of strong governments and able people.’

  ‘It is a wonderful dream,’ said Sophie carefully.

  ‘We need to dream it to make it real. We must talk,’ said Hannelore, kissing her cheek. ‘Come to the embassy. I have met a man.’ She laughed at the hopeful expression on Sophie’s face. ‘No, not that kind of man. This man is a leader, one who will finally lead us to peace.’

  ‘And I will find him at the German embassy?’ asked Sophie, smiling. Cracked pieces of her life were finding their right places again. Her friendship with Hannelore could not just be healed, but strengthened, and an alliance made. Peace in the world that now contained her twins was the best of all ambitions.

  ‘No, for that you must come to Germany. But we can talk of his ideas. His name,’ breathed Hannelore reverently, ‘is Hitler. Herr Adolph Hitler.’

  Chapter 68

  I dream of many things: a world of peace; a world where all can show what is in their hearts and never be condemned. And sometimes I dream of something I have accepted is unattainable but still grieve that I will never have, for I will never be a mother, nor a grandmother.

  Miss Lily, 1912

  The guests had gone.

  Sophie sat in the quiet nursery, next to the cribs where their babies slept, Daniel with a milky smile as if the world was love; Rose with fierce concentration, as if sleep too demanded unrelenting focus.

  The door opened. Miss Lily entered, as beautiful as the moment Sophie first saw her, her face half shadowed in the late summer dusk through the window, perfect, swan-like.

  She wore pale pink silk, fringed at the knees and elbows (‘A
fter forty a woman’s elbows should only be seen by candlelight, my dears,’ she had said so many years earlier). A matching chiffon scarf was draped gently around her neck. A new dress, thought Sophie, recently ordered from Paris. Her hair was fashionably shingled, a style that could convert from a man’s hairstyle to a woman’s in skilled hands like Green’s. Green, back at her old duties and, Sophie imagined, greatly contented.

  Sophie smiled from her chair by the cribs. Happiness began to glow, like a small sun that must never be contained. She held out her hands. Miss Lily took them, the bare scarred hands in her silk-gloved ones, then she drew up a chair to sit next to her.

  ‘I hadn’t known if you would want me to be part of this,’ said Miss Lily finally.

  ‘I love you. I will always want you with me. And these are our children.’ She bent over to kiss the lightly powdered cheek.

  ‘But as they get older?’

  ‘We’ll find a way. They are our children, after all. They will be intelligent, compassionate and change the world.’ She laughed softly. ‘Or maybe all mothers feel like that.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Miss Lily dryly. ‘Most parents want their children to be inconspicuous, change nothing and be an extension of themselves.’

  ‘Normal is deeply overrated then.’

  ‘I have always found it so,’ said Miss Lily.

  Sophie watched the even breathing of her children. ‘What world are they going to grow into? I lost track of it while I was pregnant. But it is seeping back now. The Austrian revolution, the strikes, the Bolsheviks.’ Her voice broke slightly as she whispered, ‘I don’t want them to grow up in a world of war. Anything but that.’

  Miss Lily was silent. At last she said, ‘Once I thought that keeping countries from preparing for war was a way of ensuring peace. I was wrong. If we had been better prepared, the war would have been shorter.’

  ‘But we have the League of Nations now. And Hannelore’s Herr Hitler, working to move Germany away from the Prussian militarists to true peace and prosperity.’

  ‘We can hope our children will be safe,’ said Miss Lily gently. ‘But mostly we can give them joy now. Show them the beauty of the world, of books, of music. Teach them love and friendship. Those last, in spite of war.’

  Sophie shivered. ‘You make it sound as if another war is inevitable.’

  ‘There is still war, Sophie. Even if it is not here, and now. You have always known the Great War has never entirely ended.’

  Daniel smiled in his sleep. Did babies dream? If so, his dreams were good. And here and now was good as well. More than good.

  They sat in silence, side by side, as outside the mid-summer sun collapsed, as gracefully as if it had been taught by Miss Lily, into the sea of London’s smoky yellow sunset.

  The curtains fluttered, as dusk brought a breeze. Nurse would shut the window for the night in a little while, but for now, the room was theirs and the children’s. She could almost hear cows lowing back at Shillings, in the meadow where once a zebra bit the Prince of Wales, and the swish of owl wings, hunting.

  Rose stirred, her eyes opening. She gurgled, a notice-me demand.

  ‘So like her mother,’ Miss Lily murmured.

  Sophie stood, bent and picked up her daughter, then laid her in Miss Lily’s arms, such expert arms, cradling the baby’s head, just as she would cradle its future.

  ‘Meet your Aunt Lily, Rose,’ whispered Sophie. Was ‘Aunt’ the best compromise they might find? Her eyes met Miss Lily’s and saw a joy too deep to speak.

  This, at least, was peace.

  About the Author

  JACKIE FRENCH AM is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator, the 2014–2015 Australian Children’s Laureate and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 Jackie became a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to children’s literature and her advocacy for youth literacy. She is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction for many different age groups. ‘Share a Story’ was the primary philosophy behind Jackie’s two-year term as Laureate.

  jackiefrench.com

  facebook.com/authorjackiefrench

  Book 1 Miss Lily's Lovely Ladies

  MEET MISS LILY AND HER LOVELY LADIES . . .

  BOOK 1 – Out now

  ‘The story is equal parts Downton Abbey and wartime action, with enough romance and intrigue to make it 100% not-put-down-able’ Australian Women’s Weekly on Miss Lily’s

  Lovely Ladies

  A tale of espionage, love and passionate heroism

  Inspired by true events, this is the story of how society’s ‘lovely ladies’ won a war.

  Each year at secluded Shillings Hall, in the snow-crisped English countryside, the mysterious Miss Lily draws around her young women selected from Europe’s royal and most influential families. Her girls are taught how to captivate a man – and find a potential husband – at a dinner, in a salon, or at a grouse shoot, and in ways that would surprise outsiders. For in 1914, persuading and charming men is the only true power a woman has.

  Sophie Higgs is the daughter of Australia’s king of corned beef and the only ‘colonial’ brought to Shillings Hall. Of all Miss Lily’s lovely ladies, however, she is also the only one who suspects Miss Lily’s true purpose.

  As the chaos of war spreads, women across Europe shrug off etiquette.

  The lovely ladies and their less privileged sisters become the unacknowledged backbone of the war, creating hospitals, canteens and transport systems where bungling officials fail to cope. And when tens of thousands can die in a single day’s battle, Sophie must use the skills Miss Lily taught her to prevent war’s most devastating weapon yet.

  But is Miss Lily heroine or traitor?

  And who, exactly, is she?

  Copyright

  Angus&Robertson

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia

  First published in Australia in 2018

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Jackie French 2018

  The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  ISBN 978 1 4607 5359 0 (paperback)

  ISBN 978 1 4607 0195 9 (ebook)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

  Cover design by Lisa White

  Cover images: Woman by Ildiko Neer / Arcangel; coat and rose by istockphoto.com; all other images by shutterstock.com