She didn’t look back. Her heart pounding out of her chest, she ran up the darkened steps, through the garden and garage, and back into the mews. She ran until she could see lights and traffic and safety ahead.
Soon she would be home. She would be home, and safe, and she’d have a hot bath and a still hotter cup of tea, and she would mend the parts of her he’d broken.
He had been a mistake. That was all. The sort of mistake she’d never be stupid enough to make again.
The sort of mistake she would take to her grave.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Miriam
November 10, 1947
Something was wrong with Ann. Miriam was certain of it. About a month ago she had fallen ill with some nameless malady, and it had left her wan and shaky, her stomach so upset that she hadn’t been able to face anything more than tea and toast. Still she’d gone to work, faithful to the dictates of the great project before them, but the long days had left her flattened. It had gone on like that for weeks, and no matter how often Miriam begged her Ann would not go to the doctor.
“All I need is some sleep,” she kept saying. “I’ll feel better after I’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
Miriam had tried to cheer her with news of Ruby’s baby, for was it not the case that everyone loved to hear about babies? She had shown her pictures of the infant, named Victoria in recognition of her parents having become engaged on VE Day, and Ann had nodded and agreed the baby was very sweet, her voice an almost inaudible monotone.
“Is anything the matter?” Miriam had asked.
“No, not at all. Please do pass on my best wishes to your friends.”
At the end of October, when Princess Elizabeth had asked Monsieur Hartnell to nominate three women from his staff to attend the wedding ceremony, Ann, together with Miss Duley and Miss Holliday from sewing, had been chosen for the honor. Ann had smiled, and accepted the other women’s congratulations, and had sworn she was indeed excited beyond belief, but Miriam had remained unconvinced. Her friend was unhappy, deeply so, and her melancholy only seemed to deepen as the day of the royal wedding grew near.
This past weekend, Miriam had watched Ann’s every move, and when she realized, as of Sunday night, that her friend had eaten only a few crackers over the course of two days, she had made up a mug of Bovril and taken it upstairs. It was that or summon the local doctor.
“Ann, ma belle, will you let me come in and give you this Bovril? It smells vile but I know you like it. I am worried that you have not eaten. Will you let me come in?”
Ann had opened the door, still in her nightgown and robe, and had tried to smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“Is anything the matter?” Miriam had asked gently.
“No,” Ann had said, and she’d hidden her face behind the mug of Bovril, and Miriam had known she was lying. She knew it because she would have done the same. “I do feel badly that I didn’t go to church today. Since it’s Remembrance Sunday.”
“It is only one year. And we can observe the silence on Tuesday, on the eleventh, as we still do in France. Even if it is only the two of us in the corner of the workroom.”
By Monday morning Ann seemed a little better, and Miriam began to hope she might be on the mend. She had some porridge for breakfast, and she even managed a bit of conversation as they sat on the train. How awful the weather had been and how cold it was for November, yet not once did she smile. Not once.
They were in the cloakroom with the other women, on the point of going downstairs to begin their day, when Ruthie upended everything. Digging in her bag, she extracted a newspaper and held it up so they all might see the front page. It featured a drawing of a woman in a long white gown, a veil streaming from her dark hair, a small bouquet in one of her hands. Above, in large, jet-black type, was the headline:
EXCLUSIVE TO THE EXAMINER
THE GOWN OF THE CENTURY
“Can you believe it? ‘Gown of the century,’ they say, and it’s not even the right dress! I wonder where they got it from.”
Ann had been rummaging through her own bag, oblivious to the talk around them, and now she grew still, a sudden gasp hitching in her throat. Miriam looked to her friend, but she had shut her eyes.
“Does it say anything more?” Ann asked.
“Hold on . . . here goes:
“‘Our insider source at the Mayfair premises of Norman Hartnell has provided us with this exclusive peek at Princess Elizabeth’s sensational wedding gown more than a month before the rest of the world gets to see it. We can reveal that it is made of white silk and is covered with “a king’s ransom” of diamonds and pearls, in the words of our top secret source. Behind the closed doors and whitewashed windows of his exclusive atelier, Mr. Hartnell has teams of seamstresses and embroiderers working around the clock on the finery that the princess and all her family, including the queen herself, will wear to Westminster Abbey. More news inside, including behind-the-scenes details and an estimate of how much this fairy-tale gown is likely to cost.’”