Chapter Twenty-One
23rd June 1920
I felt a change in myself when we drove through the gates at Solvtraeer this morning. I had forgotten how it feels to be away from the city. I suppose I have become too used to the constant busyness of the place – people coming to visit every day, parties and luncheons. Even a stroll in the park is a social occasion. And then, of course, there is the noise. The traffic grows daily, it seems.
But here, you can actually hear the wind in the trees and the songs of the birds. The clock hands always seem to tick more slowly in Hornbaek. It is Henrik’s first visit but he loves it here already, I can tell. Lilja was very gracious about the news of our engagement and I could see she was trying to be happy for us. She looked better than I was expecting. When she left Copenhagen, she was like a rag doll that had had the stuffing pulled from her – so tiny and limp – but there is a very little roundness now to her cheeks and she has some colour back. She says that is down to her walks on the beach every day. When we arrived, she was standing barefoot on the lawn, talking to Old Sally as he dug up the weeds, and I must admit it was a curious sight to come upon; but we must remember things are different here to the city, and it is precisely this being at ease which Doctor Beck said would help salve her spirit.
I hope this place will do its work quickly. Mama has the wedding arrangements all in hand and the minister will marry us in the cathedral three weeks from now. Lilja is my sister in spirit and law, and I couldn’t bear to think of her not being there, but she is still so fragile, it is hard to believe she will be strong enough to attend. I am going to mention her in my prayers from tonight to help her rally. Casper will be coming back from London especially and after all the sadness they have endured, any opportunity to celebrate would be healing for them both.
I know Mama feels it isn’t right that Lilja should be spending her convalescence here without a companion; in that regard, my engagement is terribly timed. But she and Papa are so taken up with their commitments in the city that it’s almost impossible for them to get away either. Lilja assures me the solitude suits her very well but she has always been a stoic. I am resolved to try to come down here at least two more times before the wedding. If I can.
14th July 1920
Summer is in full blaze at Solvtraeer! Lilja is taking a nap and I finally have a moment to set down these precious memories. We are just returned from a walk on the beach, which gladdened my heart. I always forget how the sun carries in the wind here and Lilja had to remind me to bring my parasol, lest I should walk down the aisle with burnt cheeks, five days from now!
She cares not herself whether she is as brown as a berry and she has taken now to wearing her hair in a braid, as we did when we were very young girls. She says it is easier than struggling to shape a bouffant in the sea breezes and I must admit, my combs required repositioning on our return, but it seems to me a shame to fall back into girlish ways when we spent so long yearning to be fashionable young women.
Her convalescence appears to be coming along well, however. She reads and paints and sews most days; Papa has decided to have a pianoforte sent down here as a surprise so that she might play at her leisure. She used to enjoy it when we had our lessons together and as Mama always says, any house becomes a home when it has music within it.
This has been the first time in years that Solvtraeer has been inhabited continuously through the colder months. The old place usually has a neglected, forlorn feeling when we visit in summer but it almost feels as though the house has woken from a long sleep and is breathing deeply again. Lilja has become quite adept at flower-arranging. Old Sally brings baskets of flowers through into the cutting room every other day so that there are now posies and bouquets in every room in the house. The fragrance is quite astonishing, and I am resolved to do the same in our new home in Toldbodgade after the wedding. Henrik is keen that I should pursue some hobbies, so this shall please us both, I think.
However, I cannot put a brave face on everything. As feared, my dearest sister shall not be coming to the wedding. It is not that she does not wish to but that Dr Beck has advised against it. Her constitution is not yet robust and the melancholy is proving difficult to lift. Some days she does not remove from her bed at all and Mrs Sally has to bring her food in on a tray. Lilja says those days are increasingly rare but that when they come – and she cannot predict when they will – she is quite helpless. It is frightening to think of her like that and I know it troubles my brother that he cannot support his wife in the way he would like, but we must remind ourselves it has only been a few months. Better days are coming.
‘What are you doing sitting in the dark?’ Viggo asked as he came down the stairs into the oval office. He was carrying a bag of groceries for his dinner; he had bridge club tonight and there would be no time for shopping later.
‘Oh, just flicking through a million and one slides of how the other half lived in the 1920s,’ she sighed, twisting and tipping back on her chair to see him. She was in the west wing beside the glass cabinet, the lights off. The slide projector was positioned to shine onto the bare expanse of white wall at the end there, the small remote in her hand.
‘Comparison is the thief of joy, Darcy, always remember that,’ Viggo counselled, hanging his coat on the stand and checking the kettle for water. ‘Found anything interesting?’
‘Define “interesting”. It’s an assorted mix, managing to show everyone but the two people I want to see: there’s pictures of the new Madsen mansion; their dogs; Lotte and Henrik’s wedding; some photos of Bertram and Gerde at some horse race—’
‘Probably the Trotting Derby at Charlottenlund. A very prestigious event.’
‘Mm. Well, I’ve just moved on to what I’m hoping are pictures taken at Solvtraeer. So far, there are lots of garden and beach pictures, so I think I’m on the right track.’
‘What are you hoping to find at Solvtraeer?’
‘It seems Lilja pretty much relocated there after her baby died. It was the Madsens’ summer place on the coast.’
‘Yes, I know, in Hornbaek. It’s an hour from here.’
‘Well, Doctor Beck advised plenty of fresh air and exercise and according to Lotte’s diaries, it seemed to suit her far better than the city.’
‘It probably felt more like home to her there, too, if the girls were based there during the war years.’
‘Oh yes, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Darcy pondered for a moment, remembering the picture of them both in the garden, on the picnic blanket. June 1915. ‘...You know, I have a bad feeling that she never saw her parents again. I think she died before they were released.’
‘ If they were released,’ Viggo shrugged. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
She turned back and flicked to the next slide. It showed a slender woman in a long white cotton dress on the beach, standing by the water’s edge. Her back was to the camera as she stared out over the sea.
Darcy gasped, immediately leaning forwards for a better look. Even without a face, without words, the photograph spoke to her.
‘That’s definitely her,’ she murmured, still scrutinizing the image as Viggo came back down the corridor with their coffees several minutes later.
‘How can you tell for sure?’ he asked, handing one to her.
‘See her hair?’ She pointed to the braid. ‘Lotte mentions it in her diary. She thought it was a backwards step for Lilja not to style her hair up as per the ladylike fashions of the day. But the poor girl was grieving her baby. What did she care for hairstyles?’
Darcy stared at the young woman’s back. Even from behind, she looked so young. She could only have been sixteen, maybe seventeen, here. Already, to all intents, an orphan. Already a wife. Already a mother. Already bereaved.
She wondered who had taken the photograph. Lotte? Casper? Had they seen, too, in that moment, her broken spirit – a heart that could never heal?
She turned back to Viggo, remembering something. ‘Viggo.’
He turned at her questioning tone. ‘Yes?’ he asked warily. They both knew they were not supposed to collaborate.
‘Do you know anything about the circumstances in which Lilja died?’
‘Yes. She drowned.’
‘I know – but do you know how it happened? Was she in the bath? Swimming in a pond?’
Viggo hesitated. ‘Does it matter? The outcome is the same.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t,’ she shrugged. ‘But if I’m writing her biography, I ought to know the specifics, don’t you think?’
He looked uncomfortable and for the first time, she could see he was hedging a reply to her.
‘Viggo?’ she pressed. ‘Please tell me. It’s just a matter of fact, surely?’
His clear-eyed gaze met hers. ‘Not necessarily.’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The death was recorded as an accidental drowning.’
‘...But?’ she prompted, hearing it hang in silence.
‘There were rumours—’ He looked pained. ‘...That she walked into the sea.’
‘Lilja killed herself?’ Darcy gasped. She fell still as he nodded. ‘...But that can’t be.’
‘Why not?’
She thought back to the certificates she had laid out: one marriage, two births, three deaths. ‘She’d just had another baby.’
‘Exactly why they wanted to stop speculation.’
Darcy stared at him. ‘So you’re saying the Madsens hid the truth?’
‘I’m saying they didn’t reveal the whole truth,’ he said carefully. ‘These were different times—’
Like a pubescent age of consent? Arranged marriages between young girls and older men? Adolescent pregnancies resulting in death and trauma? Those different times, Darcy wondered? Were any – or all – of those reasons why Lilja might have done it?
‘You have to understand, there was a certain stigma around suicide in those days,’ Viggo went on quickly. ‘Great shame was attached to the act back then. They had to think about what was best for the baby – what she would learn, growing up. Not to mention, when Casper died just a few days later, the family knew their high profile meant the double tragedy would become the subject of salacious gossip, not just in the capital but nationwide . It was bad enough that they had lost two young members of their future generation. They needed to grieve. If the whole story had been known, shame added to tragedy...It would have followed them everywhere.’
Darcy couldn’t imagine the level of despair it must take to wade into the waves and hold oneself under the surface. To leave a baby without its mother...
‘At the end of the day, the poor girl drowned. How or why she died was no one else’s business.’ He looked at Darcy. ‘Do you see?’
She nodded. Never underestimate the importance of reputation. Otto had told her that.
She looked away, bothered by what she had learned and knowing she would need to consult with Otto on it. Whatever the family’s best intentions had been back then, revealing the truth of Lilja’s death was surely the right and honourable thing to do now? Although she could well imagine Helle Foss’s response to this discovery.
She clicked onto the next slide, staring blankly at the image of a garden in full bloom.
‘It’s such a shame these pictures aren’t in colour,’ Viggo said. ‘It would look like Giverny, I’m sure. Old Sally knew what he was doing. They don’t make them like him any more. He could make anything grow, they said.’
Darcy rallied herself back to concentration. ‘Old Sally’s the gardener?’
‘Yes. He worked at Solvtraeer for over fifty years. His son worked with him too, when he came back from the Great War.’
‘...I thought Denmark was neutral?’ she frowned.
‘Yes. But the Sallys were from Schleswig, close to the German border. A more complicated picture there. They felt it was their duty to fight.’
‘Oh.’
‘Little Sally came back when it ended and stayed at Solvtraeer for the rest of his life. Never married. They were loyal sorts and excellent at what they did. The garden came to be regarded as a sort of attraction in the area. So many people would come by and stand at the gates to look in, that eventually Sofie Madsen – Frederik’s wife – decided to charge a fee for them to enter the grounds for an hour each morning, from May through to July.’
Darcy arched an eyebrow. ‘The rich lady charged a fee for people to look at her flowers?’
He smiled. ‘The money went to charity.’
Darcy looked just as sceptical. ‘The Madsen Foundation charity?’
Viggo laughed and she grinned, feeling her mood improve again as she flicked through the next images. There were many of the garden – blowsy flower beds, wheelbarrows filled with heaps of earth, baskets of cut flowers. Darcy wondered who was taking all these slightly chaotic snapshots that stood in such contrast to the stylized, formal images she had seen taken of the family in Copenhagen.
She found her answer in one image. It looked to be almost a misfire, showing just thick, lush grass, but the hint of a bare foot – pretty toes, shell-like nails – in the lower edge, strongly suggested it was Lilja who was trigger happy.
Darcy thought again of the fragile-looking young woman staring out to sea, her hair roped behind her, toes burrowing in the sand. She had been trying to find happiness in nature.
Beauty outdoors.
Joy in the small things.
Darcy still hadn’t seen her face clearly, but she could feel Lilja’s spirit beginning to creep up on her, making herself known at last.