The Gown(21)

Still she hesitated. Someone from the council might see the notice, or a busybody neighbor might report it, and then she’d be out on the street as soon as the council could issue an eviction notice.

Almost as bad: If she didn’t get on with her lodger? What if coming home from work became something she dreaded? It wouldn’t be fair to evict someone for being dull or silly, or for having tiresome habits. Eating with one’s mouth open wasn’t a hanging offense. There was no way she could really know until she’d lived with the lodger for a while, but no one she already knew was interested in her spare room.

Yet it had to be done.

Tonight, on her way home, she’d get off the train one stop farther, at Upney, and post her notice in the nearest newsagent’s or post office. If that didn’t work, she would look into the rates for the classified pages of the Dagenham Post. Then she might use their reply service to avoid unwanted scrutiny.

“‘. . . and queen announce the betrothal of—’”

Ann dropped the teacup she was washing, ran into the sitting room, and turned up the volume on the wireless. Had she missed it?

“‘—Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, Royal Navy, son of the late Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Andrew, formerly Princess Alice of Battenberg, to which union the king has gladly given his consent.’

The preceding was the official announcement from Buckingham Palace. No further information in regard to the betrothal has yet been announced. In other news . . .”

Thank goodness she’d turned on the wireless when she’d come down for breakfast. A royal engagement—a royal wedding. The last one had been . . . she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester? But that had been well before the war.

Milly would roll her eyes at the notion of getting excited over the wedding of a stranger. And it was true, for Ann had never met Princess Elizabeth. But she had met the queen, or rather curtsied to her when she and some of the other girls had been taken to Buckingham Palace as a treat just before the war. The queen had been ever so friendly, so gracious and kind to everyone, and they’d all felt bowled over afterward.

The royal family had made sacrifices, same as the rest of them. Bombed out more than once, and the king’s own brother killed. The princess deserved a proper wedding in Westminster Abbey with beautiful music and flowers and decorations, a troop of bridesmaids, and a glorious gown. Surely the government would understand. Surely the gray-faced men in Whitehall wouldn’t insist on some dreary affair that conformed to all their tiresome austerity directives.

And if that included a gown from Hartnell, so much the better.

Suddenly Ann was so excited she couldn’t bear to sit in her lonely kitchen and eat her solitary piece of toast with margarine and a smear of watery jam. Today she would throw caution to the wind. She would take an early train, and stop off at the Corner House near Bond Street station, and have something delicious for breakfast. She would buy a newspaper, just in case it had more to say about the engagement, and she’d get to work early and be ready to hear the news when it came. If there was news of the gown, Miss Duley was sure to know.

She left for work a half hour early, so jubilant she all but ran up the road to the station, pausing only to buy a copy of the Daily Mail. On its front page was a picture of the princess from the evening before, a bit blurry, but Ann was almost sure she recognized the gown as one from the South Africa tour. One she had worked on herself.

Nearly the entire front page was taken up with news of the engagement—the betrothal, as they called it. Most was straightforward speculation, as there’d been no official announcement beyond the one she’d heard on the news earlier. There were a few more details about Lieutenant Mountbatten, who was a distant cousin of the princess, and had been decorated for his valor during the war.

She was famished by the time she walked into the Corner House, so she treated herself to a soft-boiled egg, a buttered crumpet, and a small pot of tea. It came to a shilling and tuppence, a shocking amount of money to spend on a single meal, but it had been months—no, years—since she’d done anything so frivolous and fun. If breakfast had been twice the price she still would have done it.

By a quarter past eight she was in the cloakroom at Hartnell, changing into her white coverall and smiling at the sight of her friends, all early for work, and all, like her, bouncing off the rafters with excitement. They were talking so quickly she could scarcely keep track of who said what.

“Remember back in the spring? When he gave up his foreign title and became British? The papers were saying there’d be an announcement any day.”

“I read somewhere that the king didn’t want her to get engaged before she turned twenty-one.”

“Well, that was in April. Why’ve they waited so long?”

“He’s in the navy. Maybe he had to ask for leave.” This last suggestion was greeted with hoots of laughter.

“I doubt that. One word from the king would’ve solved that problem.”

“I think they got engaged a while ago,” Ann said. “I do. And they didn’t say anything right away because they wanted to keep it to themselves for a while. Now that it’s official, they have to share it with the whole world.”

“I suppose that makes sense . . .”

“But we haven’t talked about the most important part: Will they ask Mr. Hartnell to design her gown?”