“I guess I could try.”
And yet. For all that Nan had never shared the details of her life before she came to Canada, she hadn’t seemed like the sort of person whose past was brimming over with secrets. She’d been Nan, honest and kind and generous, a good neighbor and friend. The sort of person you tended to take for granted until she was gone.
If Nan had kept secrets, it had been for a reason. What point was there in unearthing them now? What if, in searching for answers, she discovered something unsettling, even disturbing?
“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” her mother said. “Let’s put these away, now, and get to bed.”
“Okay. It’s just . . . what do you think she would want me to do?”
“Oh, honey. I wish I could say for sure. Maybe she did want you to know, and putting your name on the box was her way of telling. Of asking, in a way.”
“Maybe.”
Nan had never been one for answering questions; that was a given. But perhaps, just perhaps, she wouldn’t mind if Heather went looking for answers.
Chapter Seven
Ann
July 10, 1947
Milly had left for Canada a month ago, but it had only taken a few days for Ann to decide she hated living alone. It wasn’t as if she needed someone glued to her side every hour of the day, for she’d always been an independent sort of person. But this was different.
Without Milly, the house was empty. Hollowed out. Ann was lonely, with no one to share the little details of life, things that weren’t important on their own but, added together, made up the warp and weft of her life: an interesting person she’d noticed on the Tube, a conversation she’d had with Mr. Booth about his prize sweet peas and how they were suffering in the near-tropical summer heat, a new song she’d heard on the wireless.
She was lonely and getting poorer by the day, because the rent on the house was more than she could manage without help. After Milly had fixed a departure date, Ann had asked around at work, but the few girls who were interested in lodging with her had balked at the commute out to Barking. Never mind that it might easily take just as long to travel from Mayfair to their current lodgings in London; it was the idea of living in the suburbs, far away from the lights and fun and glamour of the city, that put them off.
All she had to do was write up a notice and post it in the newsagent’s.
Female lodger required. Rent 15/- p.w. Private bedroom. Furnished. Friendly accommodations. Reply to A. Hughes, 109 Morley Road, Barking.
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.