I do not want to die. Never, at any time, think that. The past four years have been the happiest I have ever known.
How does one apologise to the woman you love for dying? For so carefully arranging one’s death? For not warning you, because your shock and rage had to be real for Hannelore to believe it was her associates, not mine, who arranged for my death?
I have faced this last adventure without your knowledge, and that is perhaps the most unforgivable of all. Please believe that, of all things, I wished I could have shared this with you; that I could have had no better companion by my side; that my love for you is almost all of who I am, so much so that writing this I find I almost cannot face what I am about to do. But only ‘almost’. This must be done not just for my country, so that Lily’s, Green’s and Jones’s achievements and networks will continue untarnished by doubt or scandal, but so that you, Rose, Danny, even Shillings, will not bear a scandal that would be laughed at and whispered about for a hundred years, at Rose’s debut, when Danny takes his seat in the House of Lords: ‘You know about his father of course? And (sniggering) Miss Lily?’
I know this too: there is a part of you that holds duty as sacred as I do. I ask for your forgiveness, but I know the woman I was privileged to marry, to know, will not just forgive me, but also understand. No man has ever been so blessed.
I love you, I love you, I love you. I believe in the afterlife too. What will remain of me, after the coffin rests under the soft grass of Shillings, is my love: for you, for Rose, for Danny, for Shillings and my country. The heart of me, since that morning you damply wandered in the garden, that still heart within this spinning world, is you.
Please — tear up this letter, and burn the pieces as soon as you can. After that, the last evidence of the scandal I might bring to those I treasure will be gone.
I love you. I am sorry. I love you.
N
She read it again, more slowly, and then once more. She wondered if she should ask Jones for a lighter now, but a fire on a plane probably was not a good idea. She slowly tore each page to shreds instead. How dare he? How could he?
He had no right to give his life! His life was hers! To love and to cherish until death us do part . . .
But there was nothing in the marriage service about dying without your wife’s permission. There should have been, but there was not. If she had even guessed that something like this might happen, she would have demanded it was there. ‘I, Nigel Vaile, do solemnly swear not to die without the permission of my wife . . .’
If only this letter could seal off her love for him. But it did not.
It wasn’t worth it, she told him in her mind. We could have lived in Australia all our lives. Jones would have cared for Shillings. Rose needn’t ever have a debut, Danny need never take up the title, or if he did, need not mingle in British society . . .
But of course those were not her choices to make, nor even Nigel’s. He had freed his children. He had freed her.
And yet . . .
Nigel had given her nearly four years. Four years, two children (the image of Daniel flashed before her but she shoved it out of sight). Nigel Vaile might have vanished to Japan once more and been Miss Lily. ‘Did you hear the Earl of Shillings has left his wife? Much younger than him, and a colonial. Not One of Us, really. They say he’s travelling in the East, no doubt to stay away from her . . .’
Nigel had not done that, for her.
Because he loved her. No more than that. No less. Even in her loss, she knew she had been blessed.
Chapter 63
You will accept many duties in your lives, my dears. Remember this one above all: the deepest duty of humanity is towards our children. We build the world, maintain the world, for them. I have no children of my body. But every child is a child of my heart.
Miss Lily, 1913
They landed at an airport, a green paddock, a wind sock, a corrugated-iron hut, and autumn green fields hedged with hawthorn.
Three cars waited for them.
Sophie walked from the plane first, hugged Ethel, whispered, ‘Thank you,’ then waited for Nanny to bring the children down the stairs. She smiled at them and took their hands, then turned to Jones.
‘Jones, would you mind driving me and Rose and Danny to a beach somewhere? The rest of the household should go home.’ She realised she had no clear idea of where they were, nor where the nearest beach might be. But they had flown over the coast only twenty minutes before, so there must be one in reach.
‘Of course, your ladyship.’ He never called her Sophie in public. She wished he did. Wished he could. One day perhaps. But this was not the time to begin.
For this was mid-performance. Nigel had done his part. Now it was time for hers: the weeping widow, the Dowager(?) Countess of Shillings, arranging the funeral, accepting the condolences, settling the estate. Public duties.
But first a private one.
Jones drove. Sophie held the children in the back seat, Rose on one side, Danny on the other. Only three years old and the most intelligent, beautiful children in the world. She looked down at Danny, cuddling into her, holding his zebra tightly in his hands. Please, she prayed, let Danny at least be Nigel’s. Let Nigel live in his son and his grandchildren.
She looked about her. This was England. Ten years ago she would have seen little difference between it and Germany, equally alien to Australian eyes. Now the slow munch of cattle, smaller, black and white or jersey instead of pale brown and cream, the paddocks of mangold wurzels, that scarecrow with the battered top hat, even the cry of the seagulls, told her where she was.
The car stopped. A line of shingle, rocks and grey water, small waves that lapped the land. And, miraculously — no, not a miracle, just Jones — an ice-cream cart on the boardwalk, with a small ice-cream seller shivering in the salt autumn breeze, that anywhere but England would be called ‘a freezing wind’.
Jones retrieved a lap rug from the back seat, then took Rose’s hand, while Sophie held Danny’s. They walked down to the beach. Jones spread the rug on the shingle.
‘I’ll get the ices,’ he said.
‘Ice cream!’ said Rose. Danny was silent. Both children had been too quiet since they landed, and were obviously confused, despite their joy in the wonder of flying and seeing the world toysized below them.
Sophie gathered them both onto her lap. ‘We are going back home,’ she said. It was only one of their homes and soon she intended them to go to the other. But that could be explained another time.
‘Where is Daddy?’ It was the first time Danny had spoken since they left the airfield. Rose still gazed at Jones, now at the ice-cream stand.
‘Daddy can’t be with us, darling.’
Rose turned at that. Her frown turned stormy. ‘I want my daddy!’
‘Daddy has died, darlings. That means . . . that means we can’t see him again. But his love for you will always be there. Always.’
‘I want my daddy,’ said Rose again, but less mutinously now.
Danny clung to Sophie, looking frightened. ‘Daddy,’ he said again.
‘I want Daddy too,’ said Sophie. ‘I . . . I want him so much. But we can’t have him. Dying means he has gone forever. Like Pusscat in the kitchen died.’
Danny looked up at her, his forehead wrinkling as he worked it out. ‘Daddy buried?’
‘Yes. He will be. Like Pusscat.’
‘No!’ yelled Rose. She struggled in Sophie’s arms, then suddenly grew still. She began to cry in ragged wails.
Danny did not cry. Sophie wished he would. Maybe if she cried, her son could too. She let the tears fall, roping sobs back, because sobs would frighten them. She wanted to scream, to lie in the shingle and beat her fists and feet against the rocks, to yell at the sea ‘Bring him back to me!’ and see him walk out of the waves towards them.
Just tears, and suddenly Danny was crying too. Did he even understand, or was he crying because his mother was upset?
She realised Jones was stand
ing above them, holding four ice-cream cones. She nodded, and he sat on the blanket next to them, then handed Sophie her cone and licked his own. Rose looked up and grabbed another cone, still crying, but licking ice cream too. Danny sat back and watched the others then, at last, the tears still falling, took the cone and licked.
They ate in silence. It was good ice cream. Made, probably, by the vendor’s wife or mother.
‘One hand and a hook,’ said Jones at last.
Sophie looked at him.
‘The ice-cream chap. Don’t suppose he could find a job, but he says he’s doing well.’
You are telling us that ours is not the only tragedy in the world, thought Sophie. She ate the last of the cone, the best bit where the ice cream had melted into a puddle, then began to wipe the faces of her children with her handkerchief, a mix of tears and stickiness and inevitable toddler grime.
‘Time to go home,’ she said, lifting Danny, while Jones carried Rose.
‘More ice cream?’ Rose, naturally.
‘No,’ said Sophie.
‘Want more ice cream!’
‘No more,’ said Sophie, beginning to walk towards the car. She glanced at Rose and saw her daughter’s face relax. The world still had rules, like ‘no more’ and ‘no’.
‘Daddy,’ said Danny softly and Sophie saw Jones was weeping too. Together they carried the children back to the car and settled them in the back seat. Within minutes both were asleep.
Chapter 64
People cope, my dears. They say, ‘It can’t be done.’ But, mostly, then they do it. We really are a somewhat amazing species.
Miss Lily, 1913
Shillings lay like a painting, clothed in the golds and reds of early autumn. The haws on the hawthorn hedges were fat and scarlet. The first chill had come early. But the air was still as they drove through the gates, not a leaf moving.
Hereward stood at the head of the staff, all lined up to meet them, dressed either in black, or with black mourning bands on their arms. Sophie felt reality quiver again. Hereward must have reached there only an hour earlier, but already he was in charge. The household had been informed of Nigel’s death, of Danny’s ascension to the title, and whatever else Hereward felt they needed to know.
A good butler could perform miracles. It would not be polite to ask how he had managed this one. Despite the glimpse of builders’ carts, a small pile of debris, and an unpainted shed that must contain the batteries, all indicating that the electrification of Shillings and its new bathrooms were still in progress, she knew that the family rooms would be immaculate, the sheets aired, their beds warmed. There would probably even be cherry cake . . .
She stepped from the car, realising for the first time the significance of her black dress, the one Violette had put out for her back in Berlin. She was in mourning, would remain in mourning, in black dresses, for a year.
And there was Green, herself again. Miss Lily might appear for the funeral, heavily veiled. If anyone asked — but possibly no one would — she was tactfully staying with close friends, an illegitimate sister keeping discreetly out of the way.
It was Green who must be present now, so that it would seem she had been herself the whole time, in her black serge dress. And if some of the staff and tenants suspected or even knew about Miss Lily, they would be discreet about Green, too, from duty and from love. Violette wore white, a child’s dress, and had even assumed a child’s look of innocent grief, which, quite possibly, was what she felt, though with Violette one never knew.
Mrs Goodenough was crying, tears coursing down her face as she stood steadfast in the line, till Sophie stopped, and put her hand on her shoulder. The older woman collapsed into her arms. ‘Oh, your ladyship. I loved him like a son. Pardon me, your ladyship, I didn’t mean to presume.’
‘He loved you like a mother,’ said Sophie quietly. Which had enough truth in it for her to say it easily.
Mrs Goodenough wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, your ladyship, the house is a trifle . . . upset. Only one of the bathrooms is installed but I have told the builders they must now wait until . . . that they must wait to do the rest. But the electric stove is in and —’
Sophie stopped her with a touch to her shoulder. ‘You have done miracles, Mrs Goodenough and will keep doing miracles. Thank you, not just for . . .’ She found she could not speak. The two women gazed at each other. Mrs Goodenough gave a nod, which Sophie copied. She moved on to Ackland then Malachi the head gardener, to every one of the Shillings staff, there to see their family home.
And the new earl, staring at it all, confused but secure in Jones’s arms.
The new bathroom next to her bedroom was all mahogany and brass and the smell of fresh paint. Its plumbing, miraculously, also worked. Her bedroom now had an electric-light switch, even though the hall still had loose wires carefully tucked up, almost out of sight.
Violette helped Sophie bathe and dress. Her demeanour was not exactly maid-like, though Green had trained her well. Green herself did not appear. Sophie assumed she and Jones were together, sharing both their grief and shock, and, possibly, finalising whatever else needed to be done. Sophie no longer resented her exclusion, but was grateful for it. Her world had narrowed to her children, and must stay like that, till they had absorbed the change and smiled again.
As soon as she was dressed — black linen, low waisted, exactly the correct length below the knees — she helped Nanny and Amy give the children an early dinner: stewed chicken and vegetables, carefully cut into tiny pieces by Mrs Goodenough, for surely no hands but hers would have prepared the first dinner back at Shillings for the new earl and his sister, followed by semolina pudding with blackberry jam.
‘Ice cream?’ asked Rose hopefully, as Sophie tucked her into bed, a real bed now, not a cot. All her other carefully acquired words seemed to have gone.
‘No,’ said Sophie, kissing the petal of her cheek. She stepped over to Danny’s bed. He clutched the sheet, looking very small and very scared and as if he dimly realised the weight of all he had inherited.
Sophie sat on the bed and took one of his hands. ‘We will look after you,’ she promised him. ‘We will look after everything. You have so many, many people who love you. Never think that you are alone. Never.’
The boy said nothing. Surely he couldn’t understand what she had said, but she felt he had understood the tone. Sophie turned off the new electric light, and smiled at Amy and Nanny, sitting either side of the fire, knitting, identical poses, in identical guardianship, the old woman and the young, their faces glowing in the firelight.
She walked down the stairs, wondering why it felt so odd. But of course there was no Nigel waiting for her, and no Miss Lily. Even in the brief period when she had looked after Shillings for Nigel while he was still in the army, she had known he waited for her somewhere, or that Miss Lily did.
Now she was alone. Or not. She opened the library door and they were there for her: Jones standing, as befitted a gentleman when a lady entered a room; Green toasting her stockinged feet at the fire, unthinkable in a maid or guest, and surely a declaration: ‘I am home. I am your friend. None of that has changed with Nigel’s death’; and Violette in a slightly too sophisticated black mourning dinner dress, sitting in the armchair, unaware it was where Nigel had always sat. But that was perfect too, for Sophie could not have borne an empty chair.
Hereward brought in a tray, followed by Samuel, also holding a tray. Both most deliberately did not notice Green’s stockinged feet. It was impossible to read Green’s emotion, now or on the journey home. Shock, at losing her oldest friend and mentor? Or perhaps she did not even know what she felt, except the impossibility of playing social roles tonight, in shoes or sitting at a table.
No soup. Blessed Mrs Goodenough, for soup was invalid food and when your soul was damaged but you had to carry on you could not afford to feel like an invalid. Instead there was roast lamb, from the Shillings estate of course, and roast potatoes, and peas and glazed carrots and two
gravy boats and mint sauce, and it was perfect — the four of them, eating an English meal that this soil had produced.
Hereward and Samuel reappeared, at the exact time the plates needed to be cleared, two of the kitchen maids (Hereward must have debated this informality, but chosen it quite correctly) following with a bowl of fresh peaches, another of the mottled yellow and red apples only found at Shillings, which went floury two days after picking but which Sophie loved, a blackberry tart, a bowl of strawberries and another of clotted cream and a dish of sugar. The Shillings plates, hundreds of years old, the silver knives to eat the fruits with, the spoons and forks for strawberries and cream.
They helped themselves. They ate. And finally they talked.
‘The necessary conversation,’ Sophie began.
Jones didn’t look up from his strawberries. ‘Of course we are staying.’
‘With me, or with Shillings? And Violette too.’
‘I am your family,’ said Violette indignantly, clanging her spoon against her plate. ‘I will be where you are.’
‘Of course you will. But if you want to . . . to learn to fly or something —’
‘You need me now,’ said Violette flatly.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘I do.’
‘When you need me, I am here. That is what family does.’
Green sniffed, refusing to shed a tear.
Sophie leaned over and hugged Violette. Violette endured it. ‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘That is what family does.’
‘And when I am twenty-one I shall have pearls like yours, and a party —’
‘But we need not discuss that now,’ said Jones quietly. ‘Green and I are going to Australia with you. I cancelled the other arrangements, but will book again as soon as you think it suitable.’
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