The Gown(61)

It would have to be stretched on an enormous frame, with everyone working from the center to begin, and Miriam was already dreading it. She hated working with others at her elbows, for there was always someone who bounced her knee or dragged at the frame as if she were reclaiming her share of blankets from a sleeping bedmate. Worst of all, it was impossible to empty her brain of everything but the embroidery taking shape before her when a buzz of someone else’s chatter took up residence in her mind.

She much preferred to share a frame with Ann alone. Her friend was a comforting and steadying presence, and while they did talk on occasion, most of their days were spent in a companionable silence. They had time after work, after all, to sit at the kitchen table and chat about their day and draw in their sketchbooks.

Once a week at most, she stayed in London after work and had supper with Walter; but he was a busy man, and could rarely spare much time during the week, and she was anxious, too, to have some time to herself so she might think about the embroideries that had decided to colonize her thoughts.

Five large hangings, as big as she could manage, for there were five images in her mind, and waking or sleeping they never left her. She wasn’t yet certain how she would begin—would she create smaller panels and join them together? Would she make single figures and appliqué them onto a larger backing, then further embellish the whole?

It would come to her eventually. For now, she was content to experiment, using the linen Ann had so kindly given her, scraps from the workroom, and her own tentative flights of imagination. It was hard, at times, to ignore the disquieting voices that told her she was fooling herself, that she would empty herself into this misguided project, and when she finished, it would be to find that no one was interested. That no one on earth, apart from her, cared to know what had happened to those she loved.

The doubt pushed at her, woke her in the middle of the night, curdled the food in her stomach. But she was stubborn, and it became easier, after a while, to ignore all else and continue on. Worrying about what would become of her work once it was finished was a waste of time, she told herself. The act of creation was what mattered.

If she were to set aside her ideas now, if she were to turn her back on them, she would be abandoning her parents and grandfather and the millions who had been vilified, betrayed, tortured, murdered, erased. It was unthinkable. It was impossible.

Some mornings she woke, and she had been dreaming of the panel all night, had been watching herself work at it, a mere bystander to the act of creation. It was a relief, come morning, to set it aside for a matter of hours, have her quiet breakfast with Ann, walk to the station, and go to work. And then, once there, to lose herself in the familiar motifs of the princess’s wedding gown. Yet by the end of the day, every day, she longed to continue where she had left off the night before.

“Can I not help you with the chores?” she asked Ann one evening. Her friend was doing the mending, having insisted she was happy to do so.

“No need. The house is clean, the kitchen is tidy, the garden is weeded, and I’ve almost finished turning this cuff. Why shouldn’t you work on your embroidery? Isn’t that the mark of an artist, anyway? Someone who has an idea and can’t rest until they find a way to express it?”

“I am no artist—”

“Because you aren’t carving marble sculptures or painting oil portraits of politicians? Here—I want to show you something.”

Ann set aside her mending, took down a teacup and matching saucer from the highest shelf on the dresser, and placed them on the table. They were painted with scenes of the countryside, with shaggy cows in the foreground and a misty look to the landscape, and the edges of both the cup and saucer were gilded.

“These belonged to my grandmother. I loved them because of the Highland cows. She would take them off the shelf and hold them so I could get a better look, and when Nan died and left the cup and saucer to me I started to wonder. I mean, I never had a thought of selling them, but I did worry they might be too valuable to keep out.

“So I took them down to the antiques shop on Ripple Road, and the fellow there looked at the pieces and said they were Royal Worcester, and they were worth something but not a king’s ransom, which was a relief, since I’d have hated to tuck them away. He told me they were painted by a man called Harry Stinton. He said Harry Stinton was one of the best artists of the last hundred years. And you can’t tell me the paintings on this cup and saucer aren’t art, because they are.”

“And you tell me this because . . . ?”

“Because I think this, what you are doing here—this is art.”

“If that is true, then are we not all of us artists? Everyone who works for Miss Duley?”

“I don’t know about that. What we do takes a lot of skill, and a lot of practice, but nearly anyone can figure it out with some training. This, though”—and here Ann touched a finger to the square of embroidery on Miriam’s lap—“this is different. This is the sort of thing people will line up to see, and when they do it will change the way they see the world, and when they go away they won’t forget it.”

“I wish you would not say such things.”

“Fine. Forget I said them. What does Walter think?”

“I . . . I want to tell him. But I am afraid.”

“Why?”

“I have not yet told him of what happened,” Miriam confessed. “Before. In France. I want to tell him, but there is so much to say. I do not know where to begin.”