The Gown

by Jennifer Robson

  Miriam thanked those who had put together the exhibition, and she acknowledged her children and their families, and then she paused, her eyes shining.

  “I have earnestly tried to never play favorites among my offspring, but if you will allow me, just this once, to single one of them out for special praise, I shall do so now. My grandson Daniel Friedman is the reason I stand before you now. No, my dear boy, do not shake your head. I shall praise you whether you like it or not.

  “My Daniel is a seeker of truth, a historian, and in that regard he follows in the footsteps of my beloved Walter. He had to convince me to be interviewed, and I will admit it took some time for him to prevail”—at this everyone present began to laugh—“and then, once I had been persuaded, he held my hand as I spoke of long-lost friends and relatives. As I remembered.”

  Miriam dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve and waited for the applause to end, and then she beckoned Heather forward.

  “Yes, yes—you, ma belle. Come and stand next to me.” She took hold of Heather’s hand. “This is my friend Heather Mackenzie. Many years ago her grandmother, Ann Hughes, was also my friend. When I first came to England, in that dark winter of 1947, I knew no one. I had no friends here. So Ann decided to become my first friend. She befriended me, and she gave me a place to live, and when I first began to dream of the Vél d’Hiv embroideries she encouraged me. She believed I was an artist before I dared to believe it myself. She was a true friend, and it is a very great regret to me that we were separated, and that is why I wish to thank you, Heather, for coming to find me, and for standing at my side tonight. My heart is full.”

  With that, Miriam handed the microphone back to the waiting museum employee, and she held out her arms so that little Hannah, who had been waiting impatiently, could run up and give her an enormous hug. Heather inched away, pleading the need for a glass of water to one well-wisher, then asking the location of the ladies’ room from another, and without too much trouble she was able to escape.

  “Excuse me,” she asked a passing waiter. “What’s the best way to get to the exhibition? Can I take those stairs?”

  “Certainly. Two floors down and then follow the signs.”

  She hurried down to the third floor, urgency lending her speed, and walked straight to the gallery, at the very far end of the exhibition space, which held the Vél d’Hiv embroideries. It was darkened, quiet, and empty, apart from a single guard standing sentinel in the far corner.

  Five embroidered panels ringed the room, each about six feet across and nine feet high. Lights were trained on the artworks, leaving the rest of the gallery in shadow, and apart from several introductory paragraphs on a printed stand, and a single line of text to the left of each embroidery, the surrounding walls were blank.

  Heather moved to the first of the panels, Un dîner de Chabbat. A Sabbath dinner. A group of people, a family, stood around a table laden with food, and the oldest of the men held high a silver cup. The colors of the embroidery were extraordinarily vibrant, as if it had been illuminated from within, and the delicately rendered faces were beautiful in their joy.

  On to the second work, Le Rassemblement. The roundup. Some of the people from the first panel were being pushed down a narrow street, rifles at their backs. Their tormentors were in uniform, though they looked more like police officers than soldiers, and several wore the noxious emblems of Nazi Germany on their jackets and hats. At either side of the embroidery passersby looked on, men and women and children alike, their faces blank.

  A figure at the center of the panel caught, and held, her attention. It was a woman from the Sabbath dinner, and she was turning back, reaching for someone, or perhaps she was warning them. The entire panel, Heather suddenly realized, was devoid of color, or rather so bleached of color, set against the first of the embroideries, that it appeared monochrome. The world had been reduced to brown and gray, black and white, and only the stark, sullen yellow of the Stars of David, neatly affixed to the family’s coats, broke free of the deadened palette.

  Then Le Vélodrome d’Hiver, the third panel. The setting was a twisted blob of an arena, its bleachers and field obscured by the huddled figures of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people. Those at the back were silhouettes, hardly more, but the people in the foreground were minutely detailed. In her every line of stitching, every subtle change of color, Miriam Dassin had captured their weariness, their hunger, their fear.

  Again Heather recognized the figures at the center of the panel: the elderly man, the woman, and a second man, taller than the others, his eyes dark with sorrow. He was embracing his loved ones, bending protectively over them. It was all that had been left to him.

  Le Voyage à l’est. The journey east. A train arched across the fourth tapestry, its farthest carriages all but unseen in the gloom, only the train wasn’t made up of passenger carriages but cattle cars, their slatted wooden sides as weathered and barren as the empty landscape through which they moved. Heather could see nothing of the cars’ interiors, nothing that confirmed there were living, feeling, suffering people within, but she knew they were there. She knew it down to her bones.

  And then to Au-delà. Beyond. This, the final panel, was drenched with color, its vivid hues so startling after the monochrome of its predecessors that Heather found herself blinking in surprise. In the foreground of the panel was an archway, its crumbling stones blanketed with a tangle of roses in full, bounteous, exuberant bloom, and beyond was the family, walking hand in hand, their faces upturned in wonderment. Surrounding them was a garden, and it reminded her of Nan’s flower beds with their old-fashioned flowers, only this garden was larger and wilder, its every petal, leaf, and branch a work of glorious perfection.

  There was a bench in the middle of the gallery, and Heather now sat and stared at the embroideries, one after the other, turning and turning. It was impossible to look away.

  “Have you found her yet?” It was Miriam. How had she known Heather would come here?

  “I wasn’t looking for anyone. I just came down to see the embroideries.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I feel like I could stare at them for days, and even then I’d still be trying to figure them out,” Heather said, wincing inwardly at her feeble response. People had written entire books about these embroideries, and that was her answer?

  But Miriam only nodded. As if she approved of Heather’s response. “Thank you. Just now I asked about Ann. I wanted to know if you had found her. She is there in the first panel, you know.”

  “Really? But how . . . ?”

  Heather approached Un dîner de Chabbat, and she searched the faces, one after the other. “Is that her? The woman at the back? I can’t believe I didn’t notice before.”

  “Well, you never knew Ann when she was that age.”

  “I suppose. And I always forget that she had red hair. It was white by the time I came along.”

  “I placed her among my family, along with some other friends. They became my family after my own was taken from me.”

  Heather stared and marveled and tried, unsuccessfully, to smother an unexpected wave of sadness. “I so wish Nan had known. She’d have pretended to be embarrassed, but secretly she’d have loved it. I know she would.”

  “I agree. Come back and sit down, my dear. I have something to tell you, and I also have something to give you. We haven’t much time before everyone else barges in and fills the air with their chatter.”

  “Is it all right if I ask you something first? Actually two somethings. Otherwise I think I’ll lose my nerve.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was wondering, first of all, if you remember the name of the man Nan was seeing. The man who I think was probably my grandfather.”

  There was a long pause. “Jeremy,” Miriam said at last, her voice edged with disdain. “I cannot recall his last name.”

  “What did he look like?” Not like Mom, Heather prayed. Not like me.

&
nbsp; “I only met him the once, but I remember that he was tall, with fair hair. Blue eyes. But there was something too . . . how should I put it? Too smooth about him. Too easy.”

  “Did she love him?”

  “In the beginning, I think, she may have been infatuated with him. She may even have thought she loved him. But that did not last. Not after . . .”

  “After what?”

  Miriam’s expression became unsure. Hesitant. “He hurt her, and the pain of it went very deep.”

  “It must have been so upsetting.” To think of Nan being hurt, even though it had happened so long ago, tore at her heart. Never mind it had happened decades and decades ago and Nan was dead and, very likely, that Jeremy asshole, too. Heather still ached for her grandmother.

  “It was, but your nan was a strong woman. Never did I know her to feel sorry for herself. Never.”

  “Is that why she left? Because she was pregnant with my mom?”

  “Yes. She could think of no other way to protect her child. It was considered a shameful thing, in those days, to be an unwed mother, and she could not bear the thought of her child suffering in any way. So she left for Canada, and she never looked back. We said good-bye, and I never saw or heard from her again.”

  “Didn’t it hurt your feelings? She was your best friend, wasn’t she?”

  “She was, but I knew it was for the best. At least, that is how it seemed at the time.”

  “Did you never wish to see her again?”

  “Oh, yes. I missed her terribly. But the years passed so quickly, and after a while I could not imagine how we should begin again. I expect she felt the same way.”

  “Okay,” Heather said, though none of it really seemed okay to her, not least because she was almost totally certain that Miriam had told her only part of the story. How, exactly, had that Jeremy guy hurt Nan? Had he hurt her feelings—broken her heart? Or had Miriam been speaking in a literal sense? Just thinking about it was enough to turn her stomach.

  “What of your second question? Your second ‘something,’ as you put it?”

  “Oh, right. It’s a long story but I’ll try to boil it down to the essentials. I was talking with Daniel about my job, which I actually lost not so long ago, and how I wanted to try something new.”

  “You are a journalist, are you not? Just like my Walter.”

  “I’m not sure I’d ever dare to compare myself to someone like him. But thank you for even suggesting it.”

  “Are you still a journalist?”

  “I am, I guess. I lost my job at the magazine, and that got me thinking about what I really want to do. How I want to write about things that actually matter to me. So I told Daniel I wanted to write about the work Nan did at Hartnell, and what it was like to be an embroiderer and to work on the queen’s wedding dress. Only I can’t ask Nan about it, and I haven’t been able to find anyone else who was there, except, um . . .”

  “Me.”

  “Yes. I know you don’t give interviews, and I respect that, I do. Only I’m not sure how to write it without you.”

  Miriam set her hands atop Heather’s, and the cool weight of them was like a drink of water on a humid July day. “Of course I will help you. That is what I was going to say.”

  “Did Daniel tell you already?”

  “Yes. I think he was hoping to ensure I would not refuse you. Such a dear boy.”

  “And you’re fine with talking about your time at Hartnell? You’ve never discussed it publicly before.”

  “Would you believe that I did? Only a few times, in interviews when I was just beginning to become known, but none of the people asking questions—none of the men, I should say—seemed to care. The better story, in their eyes, was that I had appeared out of nowhere, a sort of phoenix rising from the ashes of the war. And so my having trained and worked as an embroiderer for many years was at odds with their description of my overnight success. In any case, I stopped giving interviews after that.”

  “Despite being married to a journalist like Walter Kaczmarek?”

  “Despite that. We agreed that it wouldn’t be right for him, or his magazine, to run stories about me, and the only journalists I knew and trusted were the people who worked for him.”

  “Didn’t you ever want to tell your side of the story?”

  “But I did. It is there for anyone to see—there in my work.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, and just as Heather was beginning to feel a little steadier and calmer, another worry descended upon her.

  “Do you think Nan would mind? I won’t go into anything about her personal life. About that awful Jeremy or having to leave England. But would she be okay with my writing about the two of you and how you were friends? How you worked on the gown together?”

  “She put your name on the box with the embroideries, did she not? She saved them all those years, and she left them for you to find, and if she had truly wished to shut the door on her time at Hartnell I believe she would have destroyed them long ago.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “She did not, and you were the one who saw the ray of light peeking through, and you were the one to open the door. It is past time that she, along with all of us who made the gown, be recognized for our work. And I will help you do it.”

  “Thank you.” Relief clogged Heather’s throat, and something that felt like joy, too, at the chance to learn more of Nan and her life and the work she had done.

  Miriam patted Heather’s arm, and then she reached for her handbag. “I also have something for you. Do you remember the sprigs of white heather that Ann had the idea of adding to the train? This is the sample she made up for Monsieur Hartnell. I wish for you to have it.”

  As she was talking, Miriam pulled a small parcel from her bag and gave it to Heather. Inside, beneath several layers of tissue paper, was a square of silk about the size of a cocktail napkin, and embroidered upon it was a sprig of heather. The same kind of heather that Nan had always grown in her garden.

  “I remember the day she told Monsieur Hartnell about her idea for the heather,” Miriam said fondly. “She was inspired, she said, by a pot of white heather that the queen had given her. The present queen’s mother, that is. I believe Ann brought it with her when she emigrated to Canada.”

  “She did. It was all over her garden, and when she sold the house my mom and I kept some of it.”

  “It lives on?” Miriam asked wonderingly, tears in her eyes.

  “It does. Maybe I could send you some? Only I have a feeling I’d be breaking about a hundred laws.”

  “It is no matter. To know it is there—oh, Heather. That alone is enough.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ann

  December 3, 1947

  Ann did as Miriam had suggested, and visited her doctor to ensure she really was pregnant. She had been a patient of Dr. Lovell her entire life. He had cared for her parents in their final illnesses, he had comforted her and Milly when Frank had been killed, and she hoped he would understand and have some sympathy for her predicament.

  She was wrong.

  “What would your mother say if she could witness your shame? This is what comes of getting ideas above your station. I always knew it would do you no good to work at such a place.” That, and variations of the same, were all he had to say, and after a solid ten minutes of listening to his verbal abuse she walked out of his examining room, her heart pounding but her head held high.

  She went straight to the post office, for she’d stayed up half the night before writing her letter to Milly, and the only reason she hadn’t sent it off already was the slim hope she’d had, until fifteen minutes ago, that she might not be pregnant. So much for hope.

  She’d paid extra for an airmail form, and she’d written out what she would say to Milly ahead of time on a plain sheet of paper to ensure it would all fit. Not that there was much to say at this point.

  Dear Milly,

  I hope this finds you well and that you aren’
t yet frozen solid by the Canadian winter. This will come as a surprise but I have decided to emigrate. As you know I have some small savings but will need somewhere to stay when I arrive. Do you think your brothers will object to having me if I pay my way? I will explain all when I see you but I am well and happy and certain I am doing the right thing.

  With love from your friend and sister,

  Ann

  A week had gone by, and then another, and Ann had begun to fear that she would never hear back from Milly. She wasn’t showing, nothing close to it yet, but the waistbands of her skirts were getting tight. Before too long, anyone who knew her well would notice, and then they would know.

  Milly’s telegram was delivered three weeks to the day after Ann had posted the fragile airmail slip to Canada. It was Christmas Eve, and she and Miriam were waiting for Walter, who was to drive them out to his friends’ house in Edenbridge.

  There was a knock at the door, and Ann heard the sound of something being pushed through the letter box, so of course she went running in the hopes that something had finally arrived from Canada.

  It had. The telegram was in an envelope, and her hands were so unsteady that she tore the form inside almost in half as she pulled it free.

  DEAR ANN SORRY FOR DELAY YOUR LETTER LANDED YESTERDAY. YES TO EVERYTHING. COME SOONEST. GO VIA HALIFAX THEN TRAIN TO TORONTO. WIRE ME DETAILS ONCE PASSAGE BOOKED. WAITING WITH OPEN ARMS. LOVE MILLY

  “What does it say?” Miriam asked, her anxiety palpable.

  “Yes. Milly says yes.”

  A knock sounded, likely Walter come to collect them, yet still Miriam hovered. “Are you all right?”

  This was not something to cry over. This was good news, and on Christmas Eve besides. She looked up, met Miriam’s questioning gaze, and tried to smile. “I’m fine. It’s only that I’d been worried she might say no. Or that she’d want to have me, but couldn’t manage it.”