But while he was concerned with the news from Berlin, for once Sarah was paying no attention. She was busy with Lizzie, who had had a ferocious cough since March, and was still weak and ill at Easter.

“I don’t know what it is,” Sarah complained to him, one night in her kitchen.

“Some kind of influenza. They had it in the village all winter.” She had taken her up to the doctor at the château, who assured her it wasn’t pneumonia, but the medicine he’d given her had done nothing for her either.

“Do you think it’s tuberculosis?” she asked Joachim worriedly, but he didn’t think so. He had asked the doctor to get more medicine for her, but they hadn’t been able to get anything lately. All their supplies had been cut off, and one of their doctors had already left for the front, the other was leaving in May. But long before that, Lizzie lay in bed again, with a blazing fever. She had lost weight and her eyes were glazed, and she had that terrible look that children get when they’re being beaten by a fever. And little Phillip sat at the foot of her bed day after day, singing to her, and telling her stories.

Emanuelle kept Phillip busy during the day, but he was frantic now about Lizzie. She was still “his” baby and it frightened him to see her so ill, and his mother so worried. He kept asking if she’d be all right, and Sarah promised she would be. Joachim came to sit with them every night. He bathed Lizzie’s head, and tried to make her drink, and when she coughed too hard he rubbed her back, just as he had when she was born to help her breathe and bring her to life. But this time he couldn’t seem to help her. She grew worse day by day, and on the first of May, she lay blazing with fever. Both of their doctors had left, and all of their medical supplies had been sorely depleted. He had no medicine to bring, no suggestions to make, all he could do was sit with the two of them day after day, praying that she would get better.

He thought of taking her to Paris to the doctors there, but she was too sick to make the trip, and things weren’t going well there either. The Americans were advancing on France, and the Germans were beginning to panic. Paris was being stripped, and most of the military personnel were either being sent to the front, or back to Berlin. It was a dismal time for the Reich, but Joachim was far more upset about Lizzie.

In early May, he came back to the cottage one afternoon, and found Sarah sitting beside her, as she had for weeks, holding her hand, and bathing her head, but this time Lizzie wasn’t moving. He sat with her for several hours, but eventually he had to go back to his office. There was too much going on there now for him to be absent without explanation. But he came back again late that night, and Sarah was lying on the child’s bed, holding her in her arms, as she dozed there. He looked down at them, and as he did, Sarah looked up at him, and he saw real agony there, as he sat down gently beside her.

“Any change?” he whispered, and Sarah shook her head. She hadn’t woken up since that morning. But as he stood watching them, Lizzie stirred, and for the first time in days, she opened her eyes, and smiled up at her mother. She looked like a little angel, with curls of blond hair and huge, green eyes like Sarah’s. She was three and a half years old, but now that she was so sick, she looked older, as though the weight of the world had been on her shoulders.

“I love you, Mommy,” she whispered, and closed her eyes as Sarah held her, and suddenly Sarah knew. It was as though she could feel her begin to slip away. She wanted to hold her or pull her back. She wanted to do something desperately, but there was nothing she could do. They had no doctor, no medicine, no nurse, no hospital to give her … only love, and prayers, and then, as Sarah watched her, she sighed again, and Sarah touched the fine curls and whispered to her baby that she loved so desperately.

“I love you, sweet baby. … I love you so much…. Mommy loves you … and God loves you too… You’re safe now….” she whispered over and over as she and Joachim cried, and with a sweet smile, Lizzie looked up at them for the last time, and then drifted away, her little spirit lifted up to heaven.

Sarah felt it when she’d gone, and it took Joachim a moment to understand. He sat down on the bed next to them and sobbed, holding them both in his arms as he rocked them. He remembered how he had brought her to life, and now she was gone… taken so swiftly and so sweetly. Sarah looked up at him with broken eyes, and she held little Lizzie for a long time, and finally, she set her gently down, and Joachim led her downstairs, and went back up to the château with her, to speak to someone about making arrangements for the funeral.

But in the end, Joachim did it all himself. He drove into town to get a tiny coffin for her, and together, crying softly, they put her in it. Sarah had combed her hair, and put on her prettiest dress, and put her favorite doll in with her. It was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to her, and it almost killed her when they lowered her into the ground. All she could do was cling to Joachim and cry, as poor Phillip stood by, clinging to her hand, unable to believe what had happened.

Phillip looked angry and afraid, and as they began shovelling earth into her grave, he leapt forward and tried to stop them. And as Joachim gently held him, he cried, looking furiously at his mother.

“You lied to me! You lied,” he screamed, trembling and sobbing. “You let her die … my baby … my baby….” He was inconsolable as he clung to Joachim and suddenly wouldn’t let Sarah near him. He had loved Lizzie so much, and now he couldn’t bear to lose her.

“Phillip, please …” Sarah could barely gasp the words, as she caught the flailing arms in her own, and held him as he hit her. She took him from Joachim then and carried him gently home, as they both cried. And she held him long into the night as he sobbed agonizingly for “his baby”

It was unbelievable for all of them, Phillip, Emanuelle, Joachim… Sarah…. One moment she had been there… and the next gone. Sarah felt as though she were in a trance for days, as did Phillip. They just kept ambling around, waiting for her to come home, to go upstairs and see her there, to find out that it had been a cruel joke and she was up to some mischief. Sarah was so blind with pain that Joachim didn’t even dare tell her what was going on, and it was four weeks later when he had to tell her that they were leaving.

“What?” She sat staring at him, still wearing the same old black dress she had worn for weeks now. She felt a hundred years old and the dress hung on her like a scarecrow. “You’re what?” She seemed truly not to understand him.

“We’re leaving,” he said gently. “We got our orders this morning. We’re pulling out tomorrow.”

“So soon?” She looked sick when he told her. It was one more loss, one more sorrow.

“It’s been four years.” He smiled sadly at her. “That’s rather a long time to have houseguests, don’t you think?”

She smiled sadly at him too. She couldn’t believe that he was leaving. “What does this mean, Joachim?”

“The Americans are in Saint-L⊚. They’ll be here soon, and then they’ll move on to Paris. You’ll be safe with them. They’ll take good care of you.” At least that relieved him.

“And you?” she asked with a worried frown. “Will you be in danger?”

“I’m being recalled to Berlin, and then we’re moving the hospital to Bonn. Apparently someone is pleased with what I’ve been doing.” What they didn’t know was how little his heart was in it. “I think they’ll keep me there till it’s over. God knows how long that will be. But I’ll come back as soon as I can afterwards.” It was amazing to think that after four years he was leaving, and she knew how much she would truly miss him. He had meant so much to her, and she knew that he always would, but she also knew that she could not promise him the future he wanted. In her heart, her life still belonged to William. Perhaps even more now after Lizzie’s death, it was like losing a part of him, and more than ever, it made her long for William. They had buried her at the back of the property, near the forest where she had always walked with Joachim, and she knew that nothing that ever happened in her life would be as terrible or as painful as losing Lizzie. “I won’t be able to write to you,” he explained, and she nodded her understanding.

“I should be used to that by now. I’ve had five letters in the last four years.” One from Jane, two from William, one from the Duke of Windsor, and another from William’s mother, and none of them had ever brought good news. “I’ll listen for the news.”

“I’ll contact you as soon as I can.” He came closer to her then and held her close to him. “Good God, how I’m going to miss you.” As he said it, she realized how much she would miss him, too, how much lonelier she would be than she was even now. And she looked up at him sadly.

“I will miss you too,” she said truthfully. She let him kiss her then, as Phillip stood watching them from the distance with a strange look of anger.

“Will you let me take a photograph of you before I go?” he asked, and she groaned

“Like this? Good Lord, Joachim, I look awful.” He was going to take the other one with him anyway. The one of her with her husband at Whitfield, when they were all carefree and young, and life hadn’t taken such a toll on them. She was not quite twenty-eight now, but at the moment, she looked somewhat older.

He gave her a small photograph of himself, too, and they spent all of that night talking. He would have liked to spend the night in bed with her, but he never asked, and he knew she wouldn’t. She was that rare breed, a woman of integrity, a human being of extraordinary merit, and a great lady.