‘What is wrong?’
‘Your aunt Sophie has been missing now for almost a week.’
‘I see,’ said Violette slowly. ‘Taken by the Boche?’
She looked at their expressions of astonishment. ‘I am not a fool. I listen, I hear this and that and put them both together. I read the English papers too. There was a most charming photo of Aunt Sophie and the king who is an animal I would spit upon. Aunt Sophie was to charm the king so that the Germans would lose their influence, n’est-ce pas? And she is succeeding,’ for of course Aunt Sophie would succeed at anything, ‘and so the Boche have kidnapped her?’
‘Yes,’ said her maman briefly.
Why did they so invariably underestimate her? Were all parents as innocent of the intelligence and ability of their offspring as hers?
Violette looked from one to the other shrewdly. ‘And you sit here because you wish my help, because the English police cannot find her, nor Mr Lorrimer’s agents either? Pah! They are fools to try. It is as it was back in the last war, the women and girls of La Dame Blanche were never noticed when a man would always be conspicuous.’
‘We . . .’ Aunt Lily glanced at her parents ‘. . . I have come with a plea. For you to come to London, to help us look for her.’
London! And no more serge. ‘Of course I will come.’ It felt strangely good to be pitted against the Boche again, and of course to find Aunt Sophie, for things must be hard indeed if Aunt Sophie could not rescue herself.
‘But your job . . .’ protested her mother, with something like anguish.
‘It is more important than Aunt Sophie?’ No need now to mention that Violette had been planning not to stay there another week in any case. Her maman had held a paid position for many decades. She, Violette, would not be in anyone’s employ again.
‘It might be dangerous.’ Her father spoke without emotion.
Violette smiled. She hoped it would be. Even the escapades with the gendarme had not been enough to give life sufficient interest.
And besides, if she were the one to rescue Aunt Sophie, when all Mr Lorrimer’s men had failed, then all of them would be grateful. Aunt Sophie would see how necessary it was to set Violette up in her own atelier at once; and to help her lure the most experienced staff to do everything Violette did not wish to do.
And her parents? They had not exactly treated her as a child, for she had never let them do so. But if she succeeded in this they would no longer even try.
‘When do I leave?’
‘Two hours before dawn,’ said Aunt Lily. ‘The Paris airfield has electric light now, but the paddock in England is unlit, so we’ll need the dawn there.’
That sounded truly exciting. And an aircraft again! Violette had enjoyed flying. And the pilot last time had been most handsome, though she had been much younger then.
‘I will go and pack your bag,’ said Maman, standing, her face with more sorrow in it than Violette had ever seen. ‘We will all go.’
A pity, to have one’s parents when one finally could go adventuring. But there was something else in her maman’s face . . .
Violette moved towards her, then stood on tiptoe to kiss her mother’s cheek. It was so useful, to have stayed so small, so slight — she could look so much younger than her years and infinitely more innocent. And the rare embraces that meant so little to her but pleased her maman immeasurably — these were also good. Violette enjoyed pleasing those she liked.
Chapter 40
The lighter the caress, the more intimate, for it implies that there is no need of a stronger touch to enthral.
Miss Lily, 1898
SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, DECEMBER 1936
Darkness. This time Sophie knew exactly where she was when she awoke, or rather, that she was on a bed in the same cellar, even if she had no idea where that cellar was. She made her way to the chamber pot again and found it once more clean. She felt the table — an orange with the apples; more sandwiches; the water bottle filled; the Thermos this time containing tomato soup.
Which meant that either her captors had been extremely quiet when they entered or she had been drugged again. The food? A new spot on her arm felt slightly bruised, which might mean a hypodermic had been used while she slept under the influence of something in her food.
Why two drugs? Why not just rely on the laced food?
Conclusion: do not eat and do not drink. She left the table regretfully, for her body craved water, water to drink, water to wash. She made an inventory of what weapons she had.
Her fists — powerful for a woman’s, but useless against any man likely to be imprisoning her; her wits; the elastic in her knickers that she might use to strangle any man who bent over her. She did not like the thought of being knickerless among enemies, but it was too good a weapon to waste. She slipped them off, managed to bite through the fabric and pull out the elastic, then slid both under the pillow.
What else? Of course, the bottles. She made her way slowly to the wine rack, slid out a bottle, then smashed it carefully, holding it by its neck with its sharp jagged edge below.
She had never used a broken bottle as a weapon, but she had seen a drunken shearer slice another’s nose off with one. She placed it carefully just under the bed, so that she wouldn’t cut herself by mistake.
How long before they visited her again? In her nursing experience no sleeping remedy reliably lasted more than four hours before it must be given again. They would give her an hour, perhaps, to eat and drink, then wait another hour . . .
The door opened. She reached imperceptibly for the elastic as the door shut, the smallest of torches making its way to her. A man, she thought, her eyes carefully almost closed, her breathing even, her body still. She waited till he had lifted the hypodermic and bent over her then slid the elastic over his head, twisted it and rolled off the bed, thus pulling the elastic tighter. He dropped the syringe, grunted, unable to scream, tearing frantically as the elastic cut deeper and deeper into his neck, choking him.
Not Dolphie. She knew Dolphie’s smell and this was not it. She reached under the bed and found the bottle, but the movement relaxed the elastic enough for him to draw a breath and yell a word she did not recognise.
But it was enough, for the door was flung open, showing a dim wooden stairway leading upwards, and another man who reached for her as she slashed downwards at the face of the man who lay on the floor, and then upwards as the second man grabbed her. The jagged edge connected both times, though she did not know where. The first man snorted something indistinct. The second screamed, but did not let her go, forcing her arms down, till the bottle dropped from her fingers. She felt dampness on her face, her neck. Blood, and not hers.
And then the jab of the hypodermic, not gentle at all now, hitting bone perhaps. Surely they needed to find a vein . . .
She fell into the sea and found it cold and black and then it was nothing, she was nothing and everything was gone.
Chapter 41
Each of you has been chosen because of who you are. I do not mean in wealth or family connections, though those matter. You can know a child for who she is even at three years old. The world will change you as you grow older and I hope, perhaps, each of you may change it in the right ways a little too. But your intelligence, your courage, your sense of duty — all these you have already. Equally important, my dears, is what you do not have: ruthlessness, that deep self-centredness of a person who sees the world only as it relates to herself. That, I am afraid, cannot be changed once it has burrowed deep into the human spirit.
Miss Lily, 1901
PARIS TO ENGLAND
The Rolls-Royce rumbled over the cobbles through the darkened streets of Paris, her father at the wheel, Aunt Lily beside him. The window was up between front and back seats, so she was unable to hear their quiet conversation.
Maman sat next to her. ‘You are not old enough. Experienced enough.’ Her mother almost seemed to be saying this to herself.
‘Maman, I am old enough and
I am experienced,’ said Violette, surprising even herself with the tenderness of her tone. Somewhere, somehow, she had found love for this mother, found so late, this mother who was trying, just as a mother should, to keep her daughter safe. Her daughter who had known all her life that there was no true safety except for the small space you created, temporarily, for yourself or those you love.
‘I didn’t want this life for you. I wanted you to be happy, secure.’
‘Maman.’ Violette spoke gently again. ‘Has the life you have lived been happy and secure?’
Her mother looked at her with honesty. Violette, who was not honest, still liked that quality in others. ‘It has been eventful and at times dangerous. But not often. I have had the security of friendship, freedom from fear of poverty or want. And a good part of it has been happy.’
‘I am happy too, Maman. Most happy since I have been with you and Papa.’ And Aunt Lily and Aunt Sophie, but her mother would like to feel more special to her daughter even if, in truth, she was not. Miss Lily had given her the most useful of all the lessons in their years at Thuringa, lessons her parents and Aunt Sophie knew nothing about.
Aunt Lily turned, as if hearing Violette’s thoughts. She smiled reassuringly at Maman and then turned back. Her father stared at the road in the headlights, with that angry blankness men had when they feel helpless.
And now Violette understood part of her parents’ frustration. They were not just worried for her. For years they had worked with Aunt Lily, and Mr Lorrimer too, but this most important job of all, only their daughter could do. Nor could they help her.
And Violette wanted to do it. She felt truly alive for the first time since seven and a half years earlier when she had attempted to kill her mother. This was who she was and, as Miss Lily said, she must use what she was for good.
She did not need to finger the knife in her garter — kept there even as she swept the cottons and fragments of cloth from the floor of the atelier — to know its blade was sharp within its sheath. It would be good to feel its power in her hand again.
The aircraft loomed in the headlights. The airfield lights, it seemed, would not be lit till take-off, in case of watchers. No cars had followed them through the streets, but even though Aunt Lily had not departed from a regular airfield in England, it was possible all avenues were being watched.
If watchers waited in the darkness here, they would be unable to see who boarded the aircraft or even, possibly, how many they were.
So this was far more important than saving Aunt Sophie because she was so rich and a countess too. It was also interesting that there had been nothing in the French or English papers about the young missing dowager. But Violette’s short experience with Mr Lorrimer and his organisation — and Aunt Lily’s too — had taught her that if she had been told only so much of this plan in which she would play such a vital part, then it was for a reason.
And so she did not ask.
Two dark-coated figures, male, crossed from the aircraft and took their cases from the back luggage rack. Her father joined them. She and Aunt Lily and Maman waited until a dim figure gestured from the aircraft door.
It was a large plane, easily big enough to carry them all and their luggage, just like the one that had flown them from Germany. She followed Aunt Lily and Maman up the steps to the door, taking the hand held out to steady her, not because she needed it, but because it was a very nice hand indeed. And, yes, it was the same young man who had flown them before, the Mr Carryman who was the nephew of the extremely large and most competent woman who had escorted them from Germany.
‘Mr Carryman!’ Violette presented him with her best charming smile, looking down and then up at him through her eyelashes, just as Aunt Lily had taught her, as if overawed by his magnificence, leaving her hand in his for a few seconds longer than expected, and then removing it so slowly, as if reluctant.
He grinned at her appreciatively. ‘You’ve grown up, Miss Jones.’
And suddenly she felt something new, something never experienced with Bill (still unscathed back at Thuringa), with the officer on the ship whose name she had already forgotten, nor with her Parisian gendarme. They had been like a breakfast croissant, eaten because she was hungry and so wished to eat. Delicious, but insubstantial.
But this . . .
My Carryman showed her to her seat, touching her shoulder lightly as he said, ‘Soon have you back in Blighty, Miss Jones.’
‘Thank you, Mr Carryman,’ she said demurely, looking up at him again. ‘But now I am old enough to be Miss Jones, I am also old enough to ask you to call me Violette.’
The grin again, an even longer look. She was glad she had worn the autumn silk she had completed only last Sunday, in oranges and browns and gold embroidery, for it sat smoothly upon her breasts, concealing and revealing their shape at the same time.
‘My name is George.’
‘George,’ she said, making the word a caress and bestowed her third smile upon him, even slower than the first two. He lingered for long seconds before finally remembering his duty to fly the plane.
She watched him walk up the passage, gangway, aisle . . . yes, that is what it was called in an aircraft. She must ask him more about aircraft. And whether he was married. It had been convenient that her other lovers had been married, but she hoped that George Carryman was not.
She found her maman next to her, her expression hard to read. Annoyed, perhaps, at her flirting but also, just possibly, evaluating George Carryman, who she knew now must be heir to a most profitable cocoa empire, as a potential husband.
A husband? Violette smiled a different smile this time. She did not need a husband for money, not with Aunt Sophie in her life, nor did she need marriage for a social position. The Carrymans, in trade, were less acceptable than Aunt Sophie who, while a merchant of sorts, was also a countess and had dined with His Majesty numerous times, as well as having met the queen mother, wife of the late king.
But a husband might be useful in other ways, and one who flew would not always be there getting in the way, which she had realised was the great disadvantage of a husband.
And his muscular back as he ducked into the pilot’s cabin was extremely beautiful.
The engine grumbled, then began to roar. Bright light erupted around them as someone on the ground, perhaps waiting for that roar, flipped the switch of the field’s electric lighting. The plane began to move, bumping slightly at first, then smooth and fast, then even smoother as it rose into the air.
And George Carryman controlled all this. She looked down, as the airfield vanished into dimness again, then at the stars, fading as if they had been washed with lye soap, not burnished as jewels should be.
This was a most enjoyable day indeed.
Dawn grey smudged into grey light, grey sky, grey sea and then a lighter patch of shingle. The sun emerged and lit a patchwork of green and brown ploughed fields, and cows and horses grown incurious regarding this once-new flying beast.
The aircraft turned gently, then began to descend. It landed with the most gentle of bumps, then rolled across the grass. Violette peered out. Hedges of berry-spangled hawthorn, touched with frost. The land around them rose gently in a series of fields and small lanes almost buried by the accumulation of houseleeks and brambles grown on top of them.
A single car waited in the field. Violette stood, then sat again as Miss Lily shook her head. ‘Miss Carryman will meet you after we have left,’ she told Violette. ‘She will take you to her home, and explain what you need to do. It’s best if no one knows you are with us, and especially does not know what you look like now.’
Violette nodded that she understood. Excitement sparkled like champagne. She waited as the other passengers left, each with a different kind of kiss upon her cheek. She reciprocated. Her maman hesitated before entering the car, giving her one long deep look of regret.
Then the car was gone.
‘Cocoa?’ George Carryman held out a vacuum flask. Violette did not partic
ularly like cocoa, but was about to accept with due delight when he added, ‘Or there’s coffee if you’d rather. Only black.’
‘You are a genius, Mr Carryman. I would love coffee.’
‘George.’
‘George,’ she said softly, looking up at him again.
‘What would you say if I told you I’d nipped out and found a baker just taking his croissants out of the oven before we left?’
‘I would say you are the most wonderful man in the world and I will adore you forever.’
He blinked. Violette realised he was possibly not used to declarations of such fervour, not from young ladies quite as beautiful and most perfectly attired as she was.
‘I might just hold you to that,’ he said quietly.
‘I do not think you will need to hold me to anything. I keep hold of exactly what I want. And I keep my promises.’ Violette lifted the vacuum flask lid, which did service as a coffee cup. ‘Shall we toast that? When will your aunt arrive?’ she added.
‘As soon as the others are well away. They’re taking a roundabout route down to Mr Lorrimer’s home in the country. You and Auntie Eth will head for London.’
‘You like her, this Auntie Eth?’
‘Best one in the family. She could have managed Carryman’s Cocoa just by lifting her little finger, but my old man and granddad won’t be having a woman in the business. She gets a decent allowance though, and used that to train me up.’ He grinned. ‘I’m doing all right myself by now, though I spend more time in the office than in the air these days.’
And that office could with ease be relocated to Paris, she thought, in this world of telephones and telegrams and travel that took only a few hours to cross from one country to another.
He looked at her seriously. ‘This stuff Auntie Eth has you mixed up in. Is it dangerous?’
Lilies, Lies and Love Page 21