Legends of the Lost Lilies

by Jackie French

  She sighed. ‘Kolonel, we have an arrangement. I do not break arrangements. If I have anything for you I will send you a message, just as we agreed.’

  ‘Messages may go astray,’ he said tightly. ‘I need to return to my work in Germany.’

  ‘There has been no message to go astray. I have heard nothing.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘No. But it is true.’ She sipped the coffee. ‘Kolonel, like yourself, I expected someone to contact me from England. No contact has come. Perhaps my parents persuaded those in power not to jeopardise my safety. Perhaps the Anglaise do not trust me for, after all, I am not one of them. Perhaps tomorrow I will find the French Resistance has housed itself in my cellar and is eating my camembert and sending code messages to London. But today?’ She shrugged. ‘I can tell you about the latest mistress of your colleagues, or who among the collaborators is getting rich extremely fast. But that was not the bargain we agreed on.’

  ‘I have other sources for gossip like that. That is not my interest here.’

  She sipped more coffee before she gave her words a carelessness she did not feel. The seamstresses, the embroiderers, the hundred women who worked in some capacity for Maison Violette would lose their jobs — perhaps their lives — if she were to be arrested as a spy or even interned as an English citizen, which thankfully she was not, although she was entitled to be one. ‘You either trust me or you do not. As I must trust you.’

  She poured the last of the coffee from the pot into her cup and smiled at him.

  Chapter 16

  Mock Brains

  1 cup leftover porridge

  1 tablespoon self-raising flour

  1 small onion, peeled and very finely chopped

  1 egg

  ½ teaspoon thyme

  A leaf of sage, chopped

  Salt and pepper

  Plain flour

  Mix and bind together with the beaten egg, form into flat rissoles, roll in flour then fry in hot fat until brown.

  A Ministry of Food Recipe

  24 DECEMBER 1942

  SOPHIE

  The short mid-winter day was greying, though darkness was an hour away, perhaps. Sophie stared at the winter-dull stone walls on either side of them as Bob drove down the lane. It seemed she was not even to take off from the landing strip at Shillings. There would be no farewell dinner from Mrs Goodenough, no few hours in the cottage to still be herself — not even a chance to give the Christmas presents chosen from those of her possessions still stored in the Shillings attics.

  The lane grew narrower, topped with brambles. Bob stopped at a five-barred gate. Sophie automatically scrambled out to open it, then closed it once the car drove through it. She glanced around the field: winter-brown grass, high hedges on either side, sheep that were exactly as active as the ones in the field where George had landed at Shillings, and a hay shed. She slid back into the front seat. Bob drove to the shed and parked next to it.

  The hay was real, exactly one bale deep on every side, with a door that led to a room with shabby armchairs, a carpet no one had swept since the war began and a bench with a kettle, teapot, tea caddy and a can of powdered milk.

  Bob undid one of the two haversacks he carried. ‘Cherry cake,’ he announced. ‘And a shooter’s sandwich. Half the village gave up their meat ration to buy the steak.’

  Sophie nodded, unbearably touched, then realised. ‘They know I’m . . .?’

  ‘Heading off, like all the other women who pass through Shillings? Yes. But not where.’ He moved to put the kettle on.

  ‘Is my luggage in the boot?’ She wanted to do a final check of the frocks she and Madame Portia had chosen for her role.

  ‘It went to France last week.’

  ‘Last week!’

  ‘You’ll find it unpacked and waiting for you, as if you have been driven up from the south of France. I’ve got a light brown hair dye for you. The peroxide blonde is distinctive, especially at night. The brown should wash out in a few rinses, so don’t stand out in the rain too long. Your identity documents, ration cards, a few suggestive postcards and all the rest are waiting for you with those who’ll meet you.’

  It made sense.

  If she had been going as a normal agent — if any agent’s work could be considered normal — she’d now be heading for Beaulieu to learn how to survive interrogation and to learn maps off by heart, as well as how to be profoundly inconspicuous. But she knew nothing, except a little about parts of France and Germany, and her few visits to Paris. The comtesse had spent only a few months in Paris before her marriage fourteen years ago, as well as the one concocted visit, and it would seem odd if she knew Paris too well, did not stare at landmarks, or ask questions.

  The comtesse had been so young. Sophie thought yet again about the woman she was going to impersonate. It would be so easy to assume she had been a gold digger, a self-centred opportunist. That would presumably be how she would be remembered, too, after Sophie’s portrayal of her.

  Amelie, Comtesse de Brabant, deserved better, but then so did everyone caught up in war.

  Bob picked up the second haversack and handed it to her. ‘There’s your flying suit, clothes to wear under it as well as French underwear, whatever else you need. Better get ready before you open the letters and parcels, in case you need to leave earlier than planned. The lavatory is through that door there.’

  She had been naked in front of him more times than she could count, though not for many years, and never as Daniel’s wife. He seemed to guess her thoughts. ‘Someone may come in.’

  She took the haversack and slipped off to the lavatory, which smelled like every government lavatory she had ever been in. There must be a special disinfectant only available for government agencies, she thought as she unbuckled the haversack.

  It contained slacks and a blouse of a subtly French cut, a headscarf, presumably to be discarded when she was united with what would soon be her possessions, socks and low-heeled, well-worn shoes. The flying suit itself was multi-pocketed, for knife, revolver, a shovel to bury her parachute, a small flask, emergency rations. A money belt to go under the flying suit contained five hundred thousand francs, not quite two and a half thousand English pounds, enough to buy a comfortable middle-class home: her ready money, although household and other bills would be paid with the comtesse’s new chequing account — her husband had not permitted her that freedom. But black marketeers would require cash in large amounts, and cash must be withdrawn in person. It was just possible that the comtesse had been known by staff in their local bank, and one of those had moved to head office in Paris.

  The haversack also contained the L pill. Sophie had been warned about this: a quick and lethal escape if she could endure the agony of torture no longer.

  She would not swallow it. But it might, perhaps, be even more useful in her role than the revolver, which she must discard on landing, as well as all but the money. She wriggled the L pill through the minute hole into a pocket in her knicker elastic, brushed her hair with her fingers and scurried back to the hayshed room again.

  Bob had been watching the door intently, though the hands resting on the arms of the chair were relaxed, the hands that had always seemed slightly large for a woman. Sophie felt he was capturing every second they were together.

  Would this be ‘the last’? There had been so many ‘last minutes’ in their varying relationships. She had expected never to return to England until the war eventuated and then was over, by which time she’d known one or both of them might be dead . . .

  I do not want to die, she thought. Even more, I do not want to die so far from those I love.

  Bob poured the tea, English tea, strong enough to dissolve a spoon. Whoever stocked this room paid no attention to rations. She drank, nibbled the cherry cake, though she had no appetite. But it had been made with love. She would eat the shooter’s sandwich on the plane, sharing it perhaps with the pilot. George? She hoped so.

  ‘I left some
Christmas presents at the cottage. Would you mind sending them up to the Hall for me? Perhaps you could give Mrs Goodenough’s gift to her yourself.’

  ‘What have you chosen for her?’

  Sophie blinked. He spoke in Nigel’s voice, not Bob’s softer burr. His shoulders were subtly straightened, too, his gaze more direct.

  She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Do you remember that diamond necklace I brought from Australia? A gift from my father and totally unsuitable for a debutante.’ And too ostentatious for her to have worn since, too, but she could not bear to have something given with so much love reset.

  ‘I remember everything.’ He sat silent for a moment then added, ‘She will protest wildly that it is too extravagant, and adore it forever. She can wear it with the hat with peacock feathers my great-aunt gave her the first year she came to work at Shillings. She was a kitchenmaid, but one day Cook was ill and Mrs Goodenough took over. She made that cherry cake — I believe the recipe was her grandmother’s. My great-aunt relished it and Mrs Goodenough’s career was set.’

  ‘I’m glad. She has been a good friend to you. To us both. That’s what I put on her card: To my dear friend always, with love, Sophie.’ She managed a grin. ‘The card will shock her even more than the diamonds.’

  ‘What did you choose for me?’ he asked lightly.

  ‘You’ll have to open it and see.’

  He opened the first haversack again. There were envelopes in it carrying Daniel’s writing, Rose’s, Danny’s, Midge’s. Sophie picked out one of the small parcels and watched as Bob . . . no, Nigel opened it. She had asked Daniel to send the gift in her second letter to him, so it might reach England by Christmas, though she suspected James had a hand in making sure the Thuringa mail reached her.

  It was a two-sided photo frame. On one side Lily sat on the verandah reading to Rose as she careered about on her tricycle, while Danny sat neatly on a small chair at her feet. Daniel had taken the other photo, a lucky shot down by the river, Sophie laughing as Rose leaped to dive-bomb Danny, who was innocently smiling up at the camera.

  She had expected him to smile. Instead he seemed to be thinking. ‘Thank you,’ he said at last.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘I’ll need to tell Mrs Goodenough to remove it quickly if anything happens to me, in case someone wonders why I have it.’

  ‘Nonsense. The photograph is a gift from your war-time house guest, to show you her home. Put it on the mantelpiece.’

  Nigel nodded, his face blank, as men affected when they did not want anyone to know they cried. Lily would have cried.

  No, she could not think of Lily. Because every day she had repressed what felt like the deepest betrayal of all: she had come to England because Lily had needed her. She’d had Bob, and Nigel too. But Lily? Lily had been teacher, mentor, almost the mother she had only known in that one brief disastrous meeting at the end of the last war. Lily had shown her the world, and herself, and what she might be. Lily was her sister, her dearest friend.

  And Lily had abandoned her.

  She forced herself to smile. This was war. Her journey would be dangerous, but even to be in England was a risk now. These moments must be savoured.

  ‘This is from me to you.’ The gift was no larger than a tennis ball, wrapped in antique paper decorated with dragons. She opened it carefully, for the paper was a treasure too. ‘It’s beautiful. Perfect.’ She gazed at the deep red antique Japanese pot, broken and repaired, with a loveliness that was felt, rather than described.

  ‘I’ll keep it for you until you get back. I’d like to imagine it at Thuringa. It’s three hundred years old, perhaps. The Japanese have a special reverence for things that are broken, where you can touch and see their history in their repair. You don’t mind having a Japanese gift?’ He shook his head. ‘They are one of the most civilised cultures in the world. This is military madness. When the generals are defeated sanity will return, and beauty.’

  Sophie nodded. She found it hard to speak. Was this a gift from Nigel, or from Lily? For while it had been Nigel who had gone to Japan, who had met Misako there, it had been Lily who had returned.

  She opened the next present, small enough to fit in the envelope with the card, which simply said With all my love, forever, Daniel. It was a ring, not costly but valuable: quartz with a thin vein of Thuringa granite, set in gold. Holding it, she could almost feel the sunlight of home.

  She opened the next parcel, unevenly bundled and made secure with a vast amount of tape, wondering how much time they had before the plane arrived to carry her away. Knitted gloves from Rose, made from wool unpicked from a too-small jumper, and a triumph, with all four fingers and thumbs on each one suspiciously neater than the main body of the glove. She smiled as she held the gloves to her cheek, wondering which friend had helped her.

  A kangaroo, lying exactly as the roos did in the shade of the red gums, Danny must have carved in woodwork at school. She marvelled that a young man had been able to recreate the grace and poise so perfectly. The wood looked like casuarina, brown-gold tinged with red, and may have been from home, too. She stroked it, finding it hard to put down, this link with her children. Cards that she read over and over, as Nigel watched her silently.

  She would have loved to take the cards with her, the gifts, slip the ring upon her finger. But none fitted the life of the Comtesse de Brabant, and if she was caught all would be taken from her.

  She had already told Nigel about the gifts Danny and Rose were getting, just as she always had tried to share news of the children who had been legally and quite possibly biologically his.

  She glanced at him now, this man whose outward image changed so much, yet who was always the same person, even if he could not show all he was to the world. Did it really matter that she had not spent time with Lily these last months? She loved the person beside her still.

  What would he do once the war was over, if it ever was, if somehow the Allies won? Would Lily Vaile reappear? He had never actually stated that she would. Lily Vaile had a claim on Shillings, as Nigel’s sister, the earl’s aunt and legal trustee. ‘Bob Green’ did not even own the cottage he lived in.

  ‘You have lost everything, haven’t you?’ she said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your title. The right to claim Rose and Danny as your own. Even your home.’

  ‘I’m comfortable where I am. It’s Shillings I love, not the Hall. I was never keen on being the earl.’ He smiled at her. ‘I somehow don’t think our young man will turn me out when he turns twenty-one.’

  ‘You can’t be Lily again at Shillings, can you, even after the war?’

  There would always be newcomers at Shillings now. Headlines in the newspapers, photographs, even the discovery of who Bob had been, a legal mess as well as a scandal, for if Nigel Vaile, Earl of Shillings, was alive Sophie’s marriage was invalid and the money paid out by his estate illegal too, though that complication would be the least of it.

  He stilled. ‘You want her to return?’

  ‘Of course. At least some of the time. Don’t you? You told me when we last met that you were Lily-Nigel.’ Surely that identity was too strongly forged to change.

  He gazed at her, his expression impossible to read.

  Time, she thought desperately. England’s thinness extends to time, too. We have just minutes now, instead of the hours, days, years we need to talk. She chose the most pressing question. ‘You didn’t choose to be Lily so I could marry Daniel, did you?’

  He smiled, an expression of love and infinite regret. ‘No. Though the knowledge that there was a good man, and one I admired and trusted to help care for our children, helped me with the choice.’

  Her heart cracked, just a little. ‘There is a place where Lily would always be safe. Thuringa, especially once we tell the children. Daniel would be your doctor there. Bob could visit and become Lily between Sydney and Bald Hill.’

  ‘This isn’t the time or the place for decisi
ons like that,’ he said gently. ‘When you get back, before you return home, let’s talk. Fully and openly, as I have never been able to do. But no matter what happens, remember I love you, have loved you and always will.’

  Why had he never been able to speak openly? All those years at Thuringa, even these past months too. Surely they had shared all that was possible between two people? But before she could ask, an engine growled above them and then came nearer, on the ground this time.

  Sophie stood, knowing he would stand automatically too. A gentleman did not remain seated when a lady stood. She stepped towards him and put her arms around him.

  It was the kiss of a wife for a husband, a husband for a wife. It was, she realised vaguely, infidelity, but Daniel had always known that Nigel — Lily — lived and that love remained too. A single kiss . . .

  They moved apart as footsteps headed to the door.

  ‘Sophie, my love, I’m sorry . . .’ he whispered.

  The door opened.

  ‘Mrs Greenman?’

  ‘George?’ Her smile, her eyes reassuringly meeting his, were automatic. ‘I hoped you’d be the pilot.’

  Nigel gave a brief nod. Sophie realised he had moved to the shadows by the doorway. George was unlikely to see a resemblance to Lily, and if he did, might assume that Bob Green, too, owed some of his genes to the Vaile family.

  ‘Our hearts will go with you,’ was said in Bob’s gruff vowels, as he slipped out the door. Darkness had thickened over the land while she had been inside. The Morris Minor engine started almost immediately, though its headlights stayed off till it reached the lane, and even then only the faint light permitted in the blackout shone above the stone walls as the car drove down the lane.

  Our hearts, thought Sophie, watching that faint light vanish. George might think Bob meant those at Shillings or even those involved in this project, which must have a name, though she had not been told what it was nor any other detail that could help the enemy. Perhaps that was what Nigel had meant also. Or maybe not.