Lilies, Lies and Love

by Jackie French

  She felt the beloved arms around her one more time. They moved apart. Sophie dabbed her eyes, refreshed her lipstick quickly, checked her hair, while Lily watched her, smiling now. Just Lily, Lily-Nigel no more. Their eyes met. Their smiles joined.

  Then Sophie opened the door, and stepped down the corridor again, to Daniel, Rose and Danny, to friendship, and so many kinds of love, and with each step her happiness grew.

  Epilogue

  Once I would have told you that a woman can achieve little except by charming men. Now I know a woman can succeed in any role they choose if she has determination, luck, and yes, charm, as well as the discretion not to let men feel outdone . . .

  Miss Lily, 1937

  SHILLINGS, JANUARY 1937

  Snow had drifted in the night, large wet splodges, too lazy to form snowflakes, melting now in the winter sun. The orchard rested, its lichened tree branches bare of leaves or fruit. Gladys pushed old Mr Hereward’s wheelchair down the lane. Above them the grey sky hovered, ready to release snow or rain or sleet at the time of its choosing. But for now, at least, a walk was possible.

  Gladys turned at the gentle murmur of a car’s engine. She stopped and turned the wheelchair around so her father-in-law could see it too. First that German Princess Whatshername, blonde hair and white fur coat.

  Gladys had no time for Germans, but the princess had been one of Miss Lily’s ladies, so she must be different. A younger girl emerged next, sixteen perhaps, dark-haired, a slightly foreign look about her, in a plain wool coat suitable for her age, but which even Gladys could see was perfect and elegant. The girl seemed scared, but trying not to show it. Another girl scrambled from the back seat: English, thought Gladys, though she could not say exactly how she knew. The girl stooped a little.

  Gladys smiled. The girl would not stoop after her months here at Shillings. She would fly like a swallow, out into the world, just like all the lovely ladies Gladys had seen come and go so many years ago. And now the lovely ladies had returned.

  There was her Albert, looking so handsome in his butler’s uniform, opening the front doors to welcome the girls to Shillings. He would tell her and his grandfather all about them, of course, as well as all he had overheard of Miss Lily’s lessons, on his afternoon off, and of course she would not breathe a word of it, except to Margery perhaps, and Jennifer and Denise at the home farm. She would make a seedy cake, Gladys decided. Albert loved her seedy cake.

  And there was Miss Lily, in a white dress to match her hair, a fringed silk scarf trailing gently from her throat down past the low waist of her dress. Such lovely hair, in a gentle wave about her shoulders. Miss Lily smiled. The stooping girl straightened; the other lost her look of fear.

  Then they were gone into the Hall. Albert gave his mother and grandfather the smallest of nods before shutting the doors against the cold.

  ‘I told you he’d be back,’ said old Mr Hereward, looking at the door where Miss Lily had vanished. ‘I told you the old earl wouldn’t let us down. He’ll still be here for us when that Mr Hitler comes.’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa,’ said Gladys gently, for what was the point of saying that Mr Chamberlain had promised he would make sure they did not have to face war with Germany again. Grandpa was always stubborn and, anyway, Grandpa was right, which was why they were clearing the bottom field to plant potatoes come spring.

  She turned the wheelchair around, and began to push again, down to the plantation Grandpa had helped plant after the last war, after so much of Shillings’s timber had been cut for pit props, as necessary a harvest as its men. The trees were nearly twenty years old now, as thick as her waist. Ready for the next war, thought Gladys. Much of England might choose to think peace possible, but not here at Shillings.

  Gladys smiled as she pushed the chair. They’d all known Miss Lily would be back for good one day. The old earl would never leave them now.

  Author’s Note

  This book is fiction, but it is based on a very reasonable proposition: that Winston Churchill, in particular, and others, including members of the royal family and British Intelligence, conspired to trick King Edward VIII into abdicating, as a desperate act to save their country from de facto control by Hitler. Prime Minister Baldwin then prevented him from directly appealing to the public to reinstate him.

  The most implausible elements of this book thus are based on what — probably — actually happened. The more recent evidence about the Windsors’ activities comes from the archives of what was once Communist East Germany. There was considerable effort in the last months of World War II to retrieve the Duke of Windsor’s letters and papers from Germany before they could fall into American or Russian hands. It is likely that those who ordered it knew, or suspected, that the material contained opinions and plans that might have deeply damaged the royal family’s reputation, or even that of Britain and members of its government and intelligence agencies. It is unlikely that material survives.

  During the late 1930s the then Duke of Windsor wrote that he had been tricked into abdicating ‘by those I trusted most’ and that he had expected his brother to abdicate by lunchtime, and by evening he would be King Regent for the Princess Elizabeth, with the full power of a king, but no longer in line for the throne, and thus able to marry whoever he wanted to.

  This is backed up by witness statements that he did not even read the abdication papers, and that he was later shocked to find out he had signed away not just most of his income, but his right to even visit Britain without permission. Baldwin’s statements, only recently made public, substantiated this, revealing that the famous ‘woman I love’ renunciation speech was not the one originally written by the ex-king.

  There seems ample proof that Wallis Simpson did not love him then, before, or later, that she did want money, and was mistress of at least three men during the years when she was also mistress to the Prince of Wales/King Edward VIII. One of her lovers was von Ribbentrop; ‘red box’ material did vanish to Berlin. Both the Duke and Duchess of Windsor displayed fascist beliefs and a continued close relationship with Germany.

  There seems to be no proof that she was a formal German agent paid and acting under instrucdtions, despite continued suspicions that she may have been. She was, however, very openly a supporter of both Hitler and the Nazi party. The plans for the duke and duchess to become King and Queen of Britain once the Germans conquered the country only come from German sources. Although the Windsors undoubtedly knew of these plans, and would have accepted the roles if offered, there is no evidence available that they actually conspired for Germany during World War II. On the other hand, they were quickly moved to a remote area where they would be unable to do any harm to the British cause, and the Germans left their home in occupied France untouched, apart from cleaning and maintenance, ready for them to return at any moment.

  My interpretation of the Windsors’ relationship is just that: that of an outsider looking at their actions, and especially at the emotions expressed in Wallis Simpson’s letters, in which she was openly dismissive and insulting about the man who was first her fiancé and then her husband, and complained of the never-ending boredom of having to live out ‘the greatest love affair in history’.

  She did not love him. He loved her, almost certainly, and needed her, to the moment of his death. He called for her as he lay dying, but she was out, as she was so often, partying with someone who may have been yet another lover.

  Her most famous remark is: ‘A woman can’t be too rich or too thin.’ Wallis Simpson was both rich and thin, but probably had very few happy years in her life — possibly only the ones where she had captivated both the heir to the throne and von Ribbentrop. Her last husband, probably, had no years of happiness or fulfilment at all. David/King Edward VIII/the Duke of Windsor is truly, as Sophie says in this book, a tragic figure, a man who should never have been king, but who might have been a happy husband, father and friend if he had been born a butcher, baker or candlestick maker, and into a family who loved him. />
  While that should be a good dramatic note to end on, it’s also necessary to add that unlike those in some of my other books, the fictional characters in the Miss Lily books are not based on any person, alive or dead. There is, however, more probability than possibility that people much like them existed.

  The Miss Lily series

  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

  Copyright

  Angus&Robertson

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia

  First published in Australia in 2020

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Jackie French 2020

  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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  Cover design by Lisa White

  Cover images: woman © Alexia Feltser/Arcangel; A monograph of the genus Lilium by Henry John Elwes, illustrated by W.H. Fitch, courtesy of Peter H. Raven Library/Missouri Botanical Garden