The Gown(106)

Now she sat on the floor of her empty sitting room, the samples in her lap, and tried to decide what she wanted to do with them. Not what she ought to do, which was to quietly return them to Mr. Hartnell or pass them on to Miriam. Certainly she wouldn’t destroy them as she’d done her sketchbook. It had been tainted by Jeremy, but the samples held no such poisonous associations for her. She had been happy when she had made them. She had been so full of hope.

One day, far in the future, she would give the samples to her son or daughter, or even a beloved grandchild, and by then she would know what to say. One day, if she were very lucky, there might be someone who would understand.

Ann packed the embroideries among her other precious things, and that was the last difficult decision she had to make. All that remained, now, was the queen’s heather from Balmoral. She would dig it up tomorrow, and she would coddle it all the way across the ocean to Canada, and there, come spring, the white heather would be the first thing she planted in her garden.

IT HAD BEEN hard to say good-bye to Miss Duley and her friends from work, hard to turn the key in the door of her little house and walk away, hard to visit her parents’ and Frank’s graves for the last time. But hardest of all was her farewell to Miriam.

Ann tried to remain composed when Miriam and Walter took her to Euston Station. Miriam was fretful, asking her to check that she had her train ticket to Liverpool and her steamship ticket to Halifax, and of course her passport, and that her purse was tucked safely into the inside pocket of her coat, and eventually Ann hugged her tight and told her she must stop worrying.

“You know I’ll land on my feet, just the same as you did when you first came here. You know I will, so you aren’t to fuss.”

“Very well,” Miriam agreed. “Only—”

“I will be fine. But I want you to promise one thing in return. You must keep working on your embroideries. No matter how long they take, and no matter what else happens in your life, you must never abandon them. Do you promise? It’s that important to me.”

“I know it is. I swear I will never set them aside.”

A whistle sounded, and Walter came forward, clearly reluctant to interrupt, but mindful of the need for Ann to board her train.

“Miriam, my dear. Ann must go or she’ll miss her train.” He bent down to kiss Ann’s cheek. “Good-bye, Ann, and good luck.”

“Thank you, Walter.” She’d never dared to call him by his first name before. “You will take care of my friend?”

“I will.”

There was so much more she wished to say, but she was out of time, and what would it change? Miriam knew already. She had to know this was their farewell.

“Adieu, Ann. Adieu, ma chère amie.”

They embraced, one last, heartfelt hug, and she fixed the memory of it deep in her heart. She stepped away from her friend. She turned around, and she made herself walk, one deliberate step after another, all the way to the far end of the platform, to the open door of the third-class carriages, and to the new life that awaited her half a world away.

She had cut the final thread. She did not look back.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


Miriam


March 3, 1948

Miriam finished work at half-past five, another quiet day in a succession of quiet weeks at Hartnell. Rather than take the bus or Underground, she walked to Walter’s flat, glad of a chance to stretch her legs and make the most of a mild and clear evening. Winter was over, or inching near to being over, and only that morning she’d seen snowdrops in the gardens at Bloomsbury Square. Flowers were blooming once more, and spring had come again.

She hadn’t thought to ask Walter what they would have for supper. They could go out to one of their usual haunts, but part of her fancied the idea of staying in, never mind that she would need to work some magic to transform his bachelor’s provisions into something edible. The other night his pantry had yielded nothing more promising than a can of baked beans and half a loaf of that ghastly brown bread everyone hated but had long since resigned themselves to eating. So she’d turned to him and raised a single, questioning eyebrow, and he’d put on his coat and taken her to eat at the Blue Lion around the corner.

In recent weeks his flat had become her favorite place in the world. She loved its high ceilings and tall windows with no view to speak of, its walls blanketed with overflowing bookshelves and, where they left off, dozens of paintings and prints and photographs he had collected over the years, none very valuable but all significant to him in some way. Most of all, she loved Walter’s flat because it was so close to her own, new home.

When Ann had decided to emigrate, there had been no question of Miriam staying on in the council house, not least because she didn’t relish being evicted when, inevitably, the council realized only one woman—and a foreigner at that—was living in a house meant for a family of five or more. She had told Ann that she would be fine and she’d never been truly worried, but she had been anxious. None of the other women at work needed a flatmate, and the prospect of moving to a boardinghouse again was distinctly unappealing. Even after almost a year her memories of those dispiriting weeks in Ealing had not faded.

Walter had been just as concerned, and for a while she’d lived in fear of his suggesting she come to live with him in true bohemian style, or even that he might propose they get married and solve the problem in that fashion.