Only it wasn’t empty. Three young men were sprawled on the upholstered chairs where clients usually sat, chatting amiably with one another, and they jumped to their feet when they heard her approaching.
Jeremy was one of the men.
Desperate to set the record straight, she took a small step toward him, then another. She hadn’t meant to deceive him, she wanted to say. She had been planning on—
“No,” he mouthed silently, his eyes wide.
“I, ah . . . I hadn’t expected anyone to, ah, to be here,” she stammered, and now she clutched the box of samples close to her chest. As if anything so insubstantial could shield her from what was to come. “I do apologize.”
“No need,” said one of the men in an airy tone. “On your way somewhere important?”
“Yes. I need to take these to Mr. Hartnell.”
“Don’t you want to know why we’re here?” asked the third man, and she recognized him from the night she’d met Jeremy at the Astoria. The chinless Clark Gable.
“Leave her alone,” Jeremy said. “Can’t you see she has work to do?”
“Usually the girls love it when they find out I’m an aide to Princess Margaret.”
“Chief carrier of handbags and lighter of cigarettes,” said the man who’d first spoken to her. “That’s what you are.”
“Laugh if you like. You’d all change places with me in a heartbeat,” said No Chin.
“Excuse me. I must go,” she said, not that any of them were listening, and she backed out of the room. She would return the samples later. After the royal ladies were gone. After Jeremy, who had to be some sort of aide to one of them, had also gone.
There was no chance, now, that she’d see him again. He hadn’t introduced her to his friends, just as he hadn’t introduced her to the people at the restaurant the night before, for what man in his position would admit to knowing a girl like her? He hadn’t introduced her, because he’d at last been confronted with the truth.
He might swear that it didn’t matter, that times were changing and things like class and money and accents didn’t matter, but he was wrong. It was wrong and unfair that they mattered, but they did. Even if, by some miracle, they could ever have managed to paper over those differences in their private life, there would always be someone who would refuse to acknowledge her in a restaurant, or who turned away when she tried to engage them in conversation, or who whispered about her just loudly enough that she heard every word.
If she were honest with herself, it was her own fault. Had she been forthright with Jeremy from the very beginning—had she told him where she worked and where she lived, and had she made certain he understood the differences between them—he would have thanked her and gone away and that would’ve been that.
It was her own fault, as simple as that, and fussing over it or letting herself feel sad wouldn’t do a whit of good. It was a shame she wouldn’t see him again, for she had truly liked him, and in a different world . . .
Enough. Enough. It was done, and over, and she’d forget him soon enough, because she had never been the sort of girl to sit around and lick her wounds and moan about how life was unfair.
That’s what her mum had taught her. “Chin up,” she’d always said when Ann had come to her in tears about something awful that had happened. A teacher had been cruel at school, her cat had run away, awful Billy from round the corner had pulled her pigtails and said no one would ever kiss her because of her ginger hair.
“Just keep your chin up, Ann, and you can face anything,” Mum had said. “And don’t look back, no matter what you do.” Her mum had never been one for hugs or soft words, but she had been honest, and most of the time she’d been right, too.
So chin up it was, and no looking back.
Chapter Twenty
Miriam
October 5, 1947
In recent weeks Walter had taken to sending Miriam a letter when he wished to invite her to supper, and she would then ring him from one of the telephone kiosks in the post office near Bruton Street. This week he had proposed a change to their usual plans.
“You wish to visit your friends on Sunday? And for me to accompany you?”
“Yes. They live in Kent, about an hour’s drive south of the city.”
“Do they know that you wish to bring me?”
“Yes. They’re very keen to meet you. It’s a longish drive, but it’ll do us both good to breathe in some fresh air. And . . .” It wasn’t like Walter to sound hesitant. As if he were nervous of saying the wrong thing. “I am rather keen, as well, for you to meet them. That’s all.”
She decided to ignore the way her heart had begun to flutter. “In that case I will come with you.”
“Excellent. I’ll come to collect you at—”
“No, you will not. If it is south of the city then you will be going far out of your way. I will meet you in London.”
“Very well. Since you’re determined to be sensible about it. I live near Chancery Lane station. Can you meet me there? Say at ten o’clock?”
He was waiting outside the station when she emerged on Sunday morning, and after wishing her good morning and stooping to kiss her cheek, he led her to his car. It was an alarmingly small vehicle, or perhaps it was only the case that his long legs and broad shoulders were too large for an ordinary automobile. He certainly didn’t seem very comfortable once he’d shoehorned himself into the driver’s seat.
“Made for Lilliputians. And this bloody thing is so underpowered I might as well have put wheels on one of the sewing machines from your work,” he grumbled. “I’ll apologize now for my bad language over the next hour. I loathe driving and I particularly loathe driving in London. Once we’re clear of the city I’ll be in a better mood.”
“Why do you have a car if you hate driving?”
“I don’t. This belongs to my neighbor.”
“Then why did we not take the train?”
“Ordinarily we’d have done just that. But there weren’t any running this morning that would get us there for midday.”
Not wishing to distract him, she turned her attention to the passing view. So much of London was ugly; there was no denying it. Even the most beautiful buildings were marked by neglect, their façades stained with soot, their brasses pitted by tarnish, their paint worn ghostly thin. The strange and sad spaces between buildings, as random as fate, no longer puzzled her.
They crossed a bridge, very long and wide, the waters of the Thames roiling angrily beneath. When she leaned forward to look across him she glimpsed the clock face on the tower in Westminster, and just beyond it the ancient abbey where the princess was to have her wedding.
“There,” Walter said. “We’re across the river. Not long until we’re clear of the city.”
It wasn’t a sudden thing. There was no sign to say they had left London behind. The buildings thinned, a little, and after a while they became a patchy sort of frontier, with glimpses of something calmer and greener beyond. The road narrowed, the hedgerows grew taller and wilder, and then they were surrounded by gently rolling hills and golden fields set aglow by the late morning sun.
“Much better,” he said. “Sorry I was a bear at first.”
“It did not bother me.”
“Good. How are you? Busy, I expect.”
“Yes. It was a busy week. As you say.”
“I expect having the queen to visit didn’t help very much.”
“How did you know?” she asked, a ribbon of dread gathering close around her heart.
“I wouldn’t be much of a journalist if I didn’t. They were photographed leaving the premises.”
Now it would happen. Now he would begin to ask his questions.
“Miriam. Miriam. I am not about to break my promise. Do you hear me?”
She licked her lips and tried to swallow back the fear. “Yes,” she said. “I know you will not.”
“Good. I will say I’m worried about you and your friends. The interest in this gown alar
ms even me, and I’m usually unflappable. People are so avid for details, the Americans in particular, and I’ve got to wonder—”
“They offer us money. The men waiting outside the back door. When we leave work every day they are waiting. They shout their questions and they never move out of the way. Sometimes there are so many we have to push past them.”
“Good Lord.”
“All the windows have been whitewashed over. At first it was just curtains, but then the man who owns the building across the lane came to Monsieur Hartnell. He said an American newspaper had offered him a fortune if they might have his top floor until the wedding.”
“You read Picture Weekly. You know I would never stoop to that sort of thing.”
“I know you would not. I do know. But what if anyone should see us together? I worry about this, for I have only worked for Monsieur Hartnell since the spring. If I were to be seen with a famous journalist—”
“Ha,” he barked, but his laugh held no humor. “That is very kind of you, but I hardly qualify.”
“Very well. The editor of a famous magazine. If they were to find out, I would be finished. No one would employ me. You must know this.”
“I do, though it pains me to admit it. And if you don’t wish to see me again until after the dress is completed and gone, I understand. It won’t be so very long, at any rate,” he reasoned. Always so reasonable, this man.
He was right. It would be sensible, and safe, to do as he said, and it would only be for a month or so. Why, then, did she feel so unmoored at the thought of it?
She had only known him for two months. Added together, the hours she’d spent in his company scarcely amounted to an entire day. She couldn’t properly say that she knew him, or that he knew her, and if she were never to see him again she would survive. She would survive, but another piece of her would be forever lost.
“What if we are very careful?” he asked. “No more restaurants, no more walking about in public? At least until after the wedding.”
“And instead?”
“Time with friends. And you could always come to my flat. I could make you supper.”
“Do you know how to cook?”
He stole a smiling glance at her. “After a fashion.”
“I suppose that would work,” she agreed, her heart suddenly light. And then, curious, “Who are these people we are visiting?”
“My oldest friend and his wife. Bennett and Ruby. I feel certain you will like them. And they you.”
“Do you mean Ruby Sutton who writes for you?”
“Yes. I brought them together—something in which I take rather a lot of pride. They’ve been married for something like two years now. And they’ve a baby on the way.”
“You have been friends with Bennett for a long time?”
“More than twenty years. We were at university together. His parents had died, mine were nearly always abroad, and Bennett began inviting me home. To this house we’re about to visit. We were nearly always here for Christmas and Easter, and we also stayed with his godmother in London. Insofar as I have a family, he and Ruby are my family. My family of intention, as it were, rather than blood. But no less precious for all that.”
He reached over and took her near hand in his, and as the warmth and weight and sureness of his touch crept under her skin, a little of her loneliness began to leach away. Could it be this simple? A resolution, a choice, a path forward?
“What is it like, this house? Is it very big?”
He took back his hand, but only so he might shift gears as they came to a bend in the road. “Not especially. Parts of it are truly ancient, I think as early as the fourteenth century, and over the years Bennett’s ancestors added to it in a rather piecemeal fashion.”
“Is it in a town?”
“Near to one. Edenbridge. Pretty little place. Ah—we’re getting close now.”
They turned onto a winding single-lane drive that led them up and over the crest of a hill, and there, nestled into the slope below, was a rambling old house, perched just so at the heart of an expansive garden, its beds still bright with blooms.
Walter parked the car on a raked gravel forecourt and switched off the engine. Miriam got out and stretched, though it hadn’t been such a long drive after all, and saw that he was doing the same.
“Brace yourself for the welcoming committee,” he said, and she was about to ask him what he meant when she heard it. Them. The din of a pack of dogs, barking and braying and howling, and they were getting louder and louder.
The front door of the house opened, and before she could react, let alone flee, five—no, six—dogs came running out, directly at them, at her. The largest was an Alsatian, with enormous paws and a head almost as big as a man’s, and the noise they made was burrowing inside her skull, making her head pound, but she couldn’t cover her ears. If she moved they would bite her, one after the other, and even a man as big as Kaz would not be able to stop them.
Once, long ago, she had loved dogs. She’d never had one of her own, but her parents’ next-door neighbors had kept spaniels, and she had loved playing with them and brushing their silky fur. They had been such sweet animals, and she’d had such fun teaching them how to sit and fetch and shake her hand.
Before Ravensbrück she had loved dogs.
In that place of horrors, she had seen what evil men could train a dog to do. She had seen what happened to prisoners who tried to run, and so she forced herself, now, to stand perfectly still. The dogs were far less likely to attack her if she didn’t move or resist in any way.
Walter had come round to her side of the car. One by one, he was introducing her to the animals. “And this one is Joey, and this shaggy fellow is Dougal—yes, yes, I am glad to see you. I am. And this one is— Miriam? My God, you’re frightened of them. What an ass I am not to have noticed.”
“I can’t . . .” Her throat was closing in. She couldn’t breathe.
“I want you to sit back down, in the car, and I’ll shut the door. I’ll be right back.”
Walter whistled for the dogs, and they listened to him and followed, still barking, as he led them inside. He returned a moment later, his shoes crunching loudly on the gravel, and then he opened the car door and crouched low beside her.
“What did you tell your friends?” she asked worriedly. “They will be annoyed with me.”
“Over being nervous around dogs? Of course not. And there are rather a lot of them.”
“I do like dogs. I did, before . . .”
She told herself that Bennett’s dogs were friendly animals, trained only to sit and roll over and play dead. Not to chase. Not to snarl and snap and bite at anything, or anyone, that moved. Yet her heart kept racing.
“Can you hear me, Miriam? I am here. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just breathe. In and out. Slowly, now.”
It felt like forever before she was able to look up. “I am so sorry. I hope—”
“Please, Miriam. Please don’t apologize. Do you feel able to go inside?”
At her nod, he helped her out of the car, tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, and led her across the forecourt to the door. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
The front hall was lined with coats on hooks and boots on trays, and there was a jumble of dog leads in a wicker basket and an umbrella stand crammed with walking sticks and a lone fishing rod. Framed maps and a watercolor portrait of the house hung on the walls, while a battered Persian rug, its colors faded almost to nothing, softened the ancient flagstones underfoot.
“I’ll take your coat and add it to the collection here, and we’ll hang up your bag, too, so the dogs can’t get at it. Right. Let’s go find everyone.”
The sitting room was a close cousin to the entrance hall, with fraying rugs and slipcovered sofas and oil paintings gone dark with age, and at the far end an enormous old fireplace, the sort that might have been used for cooking when its stones had first been fitted together.
A pretty young
woman, only a few years older than Miriam, was seated in a chair drawn close by the fire. She was enormously pregnant, her face rounded and rosy, and next to her stood a man about the same age as Kaz, his dark curling hair cut very short. He bent to kiss the woman’s brow, and then, his expression sweetly solicitous, helped guide her out of the chair.
They came forward, and the man held out his hand for Miriam to shake. “Mademoiselle Dassin. Nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue.”
She looked at Walter in surprise. Why had he not told her that his friend spoke perfect, unaccented French?
“Show-off,” Walter said, and made a childish face.
“I’m merely welcoming our guest,” the man said. “I’m Bennett. Delighted to meet you at last. And I do want to apologize for the dogs just now. Kaz tells me you had a bad experience when you were younger.”
“Please, I—”
“All that matters to us is your comfort. And it will do them no harm to stay out of the way for a few hours. For that matter, we’ll enjoy a far more civilized lunch if we don’t have to shout over the barking.”
The young woman now took Miriam’s hands in hers. “Bennett’s right. And we won’t have them pestering us for table scraps either. I’m Ruby, by the way. It’s just wonderful to meet you. I’ve been asking Kaz for weeks now.”
“Thank you. I, too, am very glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Lunch is almost ready, but until then I want you to sit next to me. You can have Bennett’s chair, and he and Kaz can perch on the sofa.”
“When is the baby expected?” Miriam asked once everyone was seated and Bennett had made sure his wife was comfortable.
“At the end of the month. It’s only in the last week or so that I started feeling like a hippopotamus. I can’t even tie my own shoes, and if I need to roll over in bed I have to wake up poor Bennett so he can help me.”
“Good training for when the baby comes,” he said, grinning at his wife. “I’m a light sleeper at the best of times.”
The Gown Page 22