The Gown(103)

“Is it all right if I ask you something first? Actually two somethings. Otherwise I think I’ll lose my nerve.”

“Go on.”

“I was wondering, first of all, if you remember the name of the man Nan was seeing. The man who I think was probably my grandfather.”

There was a long pause. “Jeremy,” Miriam said at last, her voice edged with disdain. “I cannot recall his last name.”

“What did he look like?” Not like Mom, Heather prayed. Not like me.

“I only met him the once, but I remember that he was tall, with fair hair. Blue eyes. But there was something too . . . how should I put it? Too smooth about him. Too easy.”

“Did she love him?”

“In the beginning, I think, she may have been infatuated with him. She may even have thought she loved him. But that did not last. Not after . . .”

“After what?”

Miriam’s expression became unsure. Hesitant. “He hurt her, and the pain of it went very deep.”

“It must have been so upsetting.” To think of Nan being hurt, even though it had happened so long ago, tore at her heart. Never mind it had happened decades and decades ago and Nan was dead and, very likely, that Jeremy asshole, too. Heather still ached for her grandmother.

“It was, but your nan was a strong woman. Never did I know her to feel sorry for herself. Never.”

“Is that why she left? Because she was pregnant with my mom?”

“Yes. She could think of no other way to protect her child. It was considered a shameful thing, in those days, to be an unwed mother, and she could not bear the thought of her child suffering in any way. So she left for Canada, and she never looked back. We said good-bye, and I never saw or heard from her again.”

“Didn’t it hurt your feelings? She was your best friend, wasn’t she?”

“She was, but I knew it was for the best. At least, that is how it seemed at the time.”

“Did you never wish to see her again?”

“Oh, yes. I missed her terribly. But the years passed so quickly, and after a while I could not imagine how we should begin again. I expect she felt the same way.”

“Okay,” Heather said, though none of it really seemed okay to her, not least because she was almost totally certain that Miriam had told her only part of the story. How, exactly, had that Jeremy guy hurt Nan? Had he hurt her feelings—broken her heart? Or had Miriam been speaking in a literal sense? Just thinking about it was enough to turn her stomach.

“What of your second question? Your second ‘something,’ as you put it?”

“Oh, right. It’s a long story but I’ll try to boil it down to the essentials. I was talking with Daniel about my job, which I actually lost not so long ago, and how I wanted to try something new.”

“You are a journalist, are you not? Just like my Walter.”

“I’m not sure I’d ever dare to compare myself to someone like him. But thank you for even suggesting it.”

“Are you still a journalist?”

“I am, I guess. I lost my job at the magazine, and that got me thinking about what I really want to do. How I want to write about things that actually matter to me. So I told Daniel I wanted to write about the work Nan did at Hartnell, and what it was like to be an embroiderer and to work on the queen’s wedding dress. Only I can’t ask Nan about it, and I haven’t been able to find anyone else who was there, except, um . . .”

“Me.”

“Yes. I know you don’t give interviews, and I respect that, I do. Only I’m not sure how to write it without you.”

Miriam set her hands atop Heather’s, and the cool weight of them was like a drink of water on a humid July day. “Of course I will help you. That is what I was going to say.”

“Did Daniel tell you already?”

“Yes. I think he was hoping to ensure I would not refuse you. Such a dear boy.”

“And you’re fine with talking about your time at Hartnell? You’ve never discussed it publicly before.”

“Would you believe that I did? Only a few times, in interviews when I was just beginning to become known, but none of the people asking questions—none of the men, I should say—seemed to care. The better story, in their eyes, was that I had appeared out of nowhere, a sort of phoenix rising from the ashes of the war. And so my having trained and worked as an embroiderer for many years was at odds with their description of my overnight success. In any case, I stopped giving interviews after that.”

“Despite being married to a journalist like Walter Kaczmarek?”

“Despite that. We agreed that it wouldn’t be right for him, or his magazine, to run stories about me, and the only journalists I knew and trusted were the people who worked for him.”

“Didn’t you ever want to tell your side of the story?”

“But I did. It is there for anyone to see—there in my work.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and just as Heather was beginning to feel a little steadier and calmer, another worry descended upon her.

“Do you think Nan would mind? I won’t go into anything about her personal life. About that awful Jeremy or having to leave England. But would she be okay with my writing about the two of you and how you were friends? How you worked on the gown together?”