The Gown(52)

The room was even better than she’d imagined. It had a high brass bed piled with pillows and a foofy duvet, a fireplace that she was dying to switch on even though it was boiling hot outside, and an en suite bathroom with a big clawfoot tub and no shower, just an attachment that looked like an old-fashioned phone.

Dermot brought her the tea tray, and wouldn’t let her give him a tip, and said she just had to ring down once she was done and someone would fetch it. There was a small teapot with a silver strainer, which meant there was loose-leaf tea inside, a cup and saucer and spoon, and besides that milk and sugar, a little jar of honey, and a second saucer piled with round shortbread cookies that tasted of ginger. Biscuits, she reminded herself. Not cookies.

After her tea and biscuits she had a bath and washed her hair without too much trouble, and then, dressed in her nightie, her hair still wrapped in a towel, she decided a short nap would be helpful. She’d only sleep for an hour or so, just until the early afternoon, then she’d set off for a wander through the nearby streets. She’d find a quiet place to eat some dinner, come back to the hotel early, and see if anything interesting was on the TV. Then she’d make herself go to sleep early, because she had a full day of sightseeing planned.

Only it wasn’t sightseeing, not really. It was detective work.

Her first stop would be Nan’s old house in Barking, and if she was feeling really brave she might even knock on a door or two and ask if anyone remembered a woman named Ann Hughes who had moved away more than sixty years ago. It was a long shot, but there was no way she was leaving England without trying to find out more. After that, she’d go to Bruton Street, where the Hartnell offices had once been, and if she was lucky someone might agree to let her inside and look around. Last of all she would visit the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Miriam Dassin’s Vél d’Hiv was on display.

The only disappointment was Buckingham Palace, since every last entrance ticket was sold out for the days she was in England. She’d checked online the same day she’d bought her plane tickets, and when that hadn’t worked she’d even called the number on the website. The woman on the phone had been apologetic but unyielding. There simply were no tickets to be had.

“Normally it isn’t this bad. I think everyone is eager to see Her Majesty’s wedding and coronation gowns. I do apologize for any inconvenience.”

But all was not lost. She could still stand outside the palace and watch the changing of the guard, and the gift shop was open to everyone. She’d promised to bring her mom a tea caddy with a picture of the queen on it, and also a Christmas ornament shaped like a corgi if they had any.

It was more than a little crazy, her coming here, since London was ridiculously expensive and there was no guarantee she’d find out anything about Nan, and she’d probably come home to an eye-watering credit-card bill and be no closer, on top of everything else, to finding a new job. It was impractical and self-indulgent and she still was a little bit nervous that Nan would be upset that Heather was prying into secrets she’d kept for almost seventy years.

Yet the box had said For Heather. Nan had wanted her to have the embroideries. She had kept them all those years so Heather might one day find them, and wonder, and understand there was more to her grandmother than she had ever imagined or known.

A SHARP KNOCK on the door woke her. Had Seymour knocked something off her desk again?

Another knock. “Housekeeping!”

No . . . she wasn’t at home. Her bed wasn’t nearly so big or comfortable. She was at the hotel, and she had slept in, and—yikes. It was past ten o’clock already. “Sorry! I’m not quite up.”

“No worries! I’ll come back later.”

Up. Definitely time to get up. She could sleep when she was back in Toronto.

She stumbled to the bathroom, used the toilet, splashed cold water over her face, brushed the fur from her teeth. Dragged her hair into a twisty kind of bun, dug fresh undies from her suitcase, and put on the least creased of her cotton sundresses.

There. Nearly ready. She eyed the room-service menu; they probably weren’t serving breakfast this late. And she did need to get moving.

She dropped off her key at the front desk and set off for the café around the corner. Coffee and croissant consumed, she made her way to Tottenham Court Road and its Underground station. If all went well she’d be in Barking in less than an hour.

The train moved aboveground after a while, which made the ride a little bit more interesting. At least she was getting a sense of what ordinary people had in their backyards. Scrubby grass, rickety sheds, rusty swing sets, and here and there an unruly patch of vegetables.

In the end it only took forty minutes to get to Barking. Heather followed the other passenger who’d alighted, a young mom with a stroller, out to the road, giving her a hand with the stairs. Then she pulled up the map she’d saved to her phone the night before. Right on Station Road, left on Ripple Road, straight ahead at St. Edward’s Road. For some reason, 109 Morley Road hadn’t shown up on the map when she’d done a search, but the road itself was there. It would be easy enough to count along until she found Nan’s house.

The streets were quiet and a little dull, in a way that reminded her of parts of Toronto, only the houses were smaller and much closer together. There didn’t seem to be many shops, only the occasional convenience store, and there wasn’t much traffic either. That made a nice change from downtown London.