The Gown(29)

The star flowers.

The gown had swoops of embroidery on the skirt and its train, garlands of star-shaped flowers and roses and leafy things that had pearls and little diamonds sewn all over them, and they were exactly the same as the flowers on the squares of fabric that Nan had kept hidden away.

Hurrying into her bedroom, Heather began to rummage through the pile of things from Nan’s house that her mom had insisted she bring home after the funeral. Framed photographs, a big white tablecloth she’d never use, some nice candlesticks that she remembered from every Christmas and Easter. And the white plastic box with her name on it that held the embroideries.

She sat on her bed, dumped Seymour on the floor when he bounced up to investigate, and opened the box. She was right. Nan’s flowers were exactly the same as the ones on the gown.

Her laptop was sitting at the foot of the bed. She opened the browser, typed Queen Elizabeth wedding dress embroidery into the search bar, and hit return. Dozens of photographs filled the screen: stars edged with pearls, roses in full bloom, delicate ears of wheat, and interspersed between them were photographs of the queen on her wedding day almost seventy years before.

Nan’s flowers couldn’t possibly be from the gown itself, for it was in a museum somewhere, or in the attics at Buckingham Palace, and besides, no one was ever going to cut up the queen’s wedding dress. Back and forth she looked, from the embroideries now arranged on her bed, to the images from her search, and back again.

She tried another search. Princess Elizabeth wedding dress 1947. A Wikipedia page popped up—the gown even had its own entry. November 1947, Norman Hartnell design, Botticelli inspiration, English silk, rationing, etc., etc.

Norman Hartnell. The name was kind of familiar, but she’d never been very interested in fashion or designers or anything like that. If he had designed the gown, and Nan had the embroideries, maybe she had worked for him in some way?

Yet a connection with Norman Hartnell raised more questions than it answered. Why wouldn’t her grandmother have told them about something so important? Even if she’d only worked there for a month or two, it was something. It was making dresses for the royal family, and even though people Heather’s age didn’t get worked up about things like that—or at least she’d never found it very exciting—older people sure did.

She decided it was time to call her mother.

“Hi, Heather. What’s up?”

“You know how you thought I should try to find out more about Nan’s embroidered flowers? I finally got around to it.”

“And? What did you find out so far?”

“I’m not sure, not yet, but I think she might have had something to do with Norman Hartnell.” There was a weird kind of gasping noise at the other end of the line. “Mom? Are you okay?”

“Norman Hartnell? The queen’s dressmaker?” her mother finally managed, her voice hushed and reverential and still a little wheezy.

“Yes. You know the embroidered flowers Nan left me? They’re the same as the ones on the queen’s wedding dress.”

“Oh, my goodness. I don’t know what to say. I thought they looked familiar, but . . .”

“And she never mentioned Hartnell or the queen or anything like that?”

“Never. I mean, she loved the queen, and she was so sad when the Queen Mum died. But she never met them. She’d have told me about that.”

“Could she have worked for Norman Hartnell? Maybe as one of his seamstresses?”

“I suppose. Although I can’t imagine why she’d never have told anyone. Why hide something like that?”

“I know. It doesn’t make any sense. Oh—I just thought of something else. Do you have any more pictures from England? From before Nan came here?”

“I don’t remember ever seeing any, but I’ll have a look through her albums. Are you going to bed soon? It’s almost eleven.”

“Very soon,” Heather promised. “Let me know if you come across any other pictures, okay?”

“Sure. Anything else?”

“Let me see . . . I’ve got her date of birth, the town where she lived . . . hmm. I don’t have her maiden name. Hughes was her married name, right?”

“I suppose so.” There was a long pause. “Isn’t it silly that I wouldn’t know?”

“She never said?” Heather pressed.

“She might have. But if she did, I don’t remember. Still. It’s probably written down somewhere. I’ll have a look.”

“Thanks, Mom. Love you guys.”

“Love you, too.”

Back to the search. Unless her mother came up with more photos, she had to assume the one in the studio, with Nan looking all serious, was all she had. The picture was at the bottom of the box, under the last layer of tissue paper, and she now set it on the bed next to her laptop.

Norman Hartnell embroidery studio, she typed, and row after row of images popped up, most of them pictures of 1950s-era dresses. She scrolled down, and there, at the very bottom of her screen, was a black-and-white photograph of a large, high-ceilinged room with hanging electric lights, big windows, and women bent over rows of embroidery frames.

Heather compared the two pictures. The perspective was different, but the room was similar. The light fixtures were a match, and the way the windowpanes were divided. It was the same room.