The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Davis, Barbara

  Thia’s eyes go shiny with a sudden rush of tears, and I feel my anger flash, stunned that a father could be so unfeeling. “Actually,” I say casually as I fill my bowl, “the Red Cross sends regular food shipments to the hospital where Anson works, and they’ve turned all the flower beds into vegetable gardens so they can grow their own tomatoes.”

  Owen gives me a hard look. “My son wrote that he met you at this hospital, but not much more. Were you a nurse there?”

  “No, not a nurse. I was a volunteer.”

  “A volunteer. What does that mean?”

  “We looked after the men’s needs.”

  He regards me frostily over his soup spoon. “Indeed.”

  I ignore his tone and the unspoken suggestion that there was something inappropriate in the work I did. He was wounded himself in the first war. He knows very well what volunteers do. “We fed the men who couldn’t feed themselves, bathed them, read to them, helped them write letters home.”

  “Very admirable, I’m sure. And so lucky for our boys. Tell me, how did you and my son become . . . friends?”

  Friends.

  I bristle at the word, clearly chosen to diminish my relationship with Anson. But before I can open my mouth to respond, Thia jumps in. “Oh, I know this! She got sick on her first day at the hospital, and Anson helped her.”

  Owen flicks a look at his daughter before returning his attention to me. “On your first day. Well, well, that was quick work. And it seems you and my daughter have become fast friends as well.”

  “She asked about Anson as we were coming down,” I say, spooning up more bisque. “I’m sure she misses her brother.”

  He puts down his spoon and fixes me with a cold stare. “We both miss him, Miss Roussel. And we’ll be happy to have him back home with his family—where he belongs.”

  I manage a smile but say nothing, unsettled by his use of the phrase back home with his family. Surely he doesn’t think Anson and I will remain under his roof after we’re married. I try to imagine it, living under those cold, watchful eyes, constantly trying to earn his approval—constantly failing. The thought actually makes me queasy.

  Belinda reappears in her ghost-gray uniform, balancing three plates, which she serves without a word. I look at the food, a small green salad and a salmon steak topped with a dill-and-cucumber relish. After weeks of little more than bread and watery soup, it’s an absolute feast, but as I stare at my plate, I find I’m no longer hungry.

  TWENTY-SIX

  SOLINE

  A bride must remember that in being bound to her lover, she is also bound to his family, and that we make no claims with regard to the success of those relationships. Such is not our work.

  —Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

  5 October 1943—Newport

  Two weeks after stepping off the train, things with Anson’s father are no better. He’s civil when he has to be but rarely bothers to speak, even at meals when I’m seated directly across from him. He’s gone most of the time, which is some small mercy, either working late, attending meetings, or dining with clients at his club. And when he does happen to be at home, he’s in his study with the door closed.

  The days stretch emptily, with nothing but the radio for company while Thia is in school. I listen to the news with clenched insides, wondering where Anson is, praying he’s safe and will be home soon. I wrote several times along the journey and again when I got to Newport, letting him know I arrived safely. Weeks later, I still haven’t received a letter, and the waiting is making me restless.

  I haven’t left the house since I arrived, except to sit out by the pool or walk the small stretch of beach beyond the patio gate. The fresh sea air is good for my headaches and makes me feel less claustrophobic. I’m uncomfortable moving about the house, as if I’m somewhere I don’t belong—a trespasser. But I’m not entirely alone. There’s Belinda, who sees to meals, and a cleaning woman named Clara who comes in twice a week, but they treat me like a piece of furniture when they see me. And so I keep to my room with its hideous wallpaper and heavy gloom.

  Thia is my one pleasure. She’s such a delight, so hungry for attention and for love. She receives neither from her father. He isn’t intentionally cruel; that would require more energy than he’s willing to spend. He simply doesn’t see her, which is a cruelty all its own. Perhaps that’s why she’s made me her special friend—her sister-to-be, as she calls me. I confess, it’s a title I like very much.

  She finds me each day when she arrives home from school, eager for her lessons. She has asked me to teach her French so she’ll be fluent when she moves to Paris and becomes a famous painter. But today, she has come to my room with one of her sketchbooks under her arm. She drops down on the bed and waits for me to join her, then opens the book and slides it into my lap.

  My throat catches as I look down and see Anson’s face captured in three-quarter profile. “This is wonderful,” I whisper, tracing the outline of his face with my finger.

  “I miss him.”

  “Me too.”

  She tips her face up, trying to smile. “He’s brave, isn’t he?”

  “Oui, chérie. He’s very brave. The bravest man I know.”

  She blinks several times, her lashes spiked with tears. “I hope he comes home soon. Then you can get married and I can come live with you.”

  My heart cracks as her words sink in. At her age, I desperately wanted to leave Maman and live with Tante Lilou, to escape my cage as Lilou had and follow my own dreams. But this feels different, not the restlessness of a spirit who longs to spread her wings but the deep sadness of a child who knows she isn’t loved.

  I press a kiss to the top of her pale head and try to change the subject. “I used to draw when I was your age. Pages and pages of beautiful dresses I was going to make one day.”

  Her eyes go wide. “You did?”

  “I was going to be famous once. Not for my drawings but for the dresses I would make. Dresses with my name on the labels.”

  “What happened to the drawings?”

  “I had to leave them in Paris. They weren’t as good as yours, but they didn’t need to be. They were only ideas.”

  “Did you ever make the dresses?”

  I smile wistfully. “I made one. But then the war started, and no one was buying dresses like mine anymore.”

  She sighs dreamily. “I wish I could have seen it. The dress, I mean. I’ll bet it was beautiful.”

  I touch a finger to my lips, then go to the closet, pull out the box, and carry it back to the bed. Thia’s eyes turn to saucers as I lift the lid.

  “It’s a fairy-tale dress!”

  “Yes,” I say softly. “It is . . . sort of. It’s my happy ending dress.”

  She cocks an eye at me. “Your what?”

  “It’s something my mother and I used to say.”

  “Did you really make it?”

  “I did.”

  “All the way from scratch?”

  I smile at the turn of phrase. “All the way from scratch.”

  “It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” She sighs, fingering the beads almost tenderly. “Did you make it to wear when you marry Anson?”

  I think about how to answer as I fold the dress back into its box. The truth is, I started the dress long before I knew Anson, when all I cared about was proving myself to Maman. But even then, there had been the dream of someone like Anson. A prince of my own, kind and brave and handsome. Like Lilou’s Brit.

  “Yes,” I say finally, softly. “I made it to marry Anson.”

  She looks up at me, eyes shining. “I can’t wait till he sees you in it. You’ll be the most beautiful bride ever.”

  I swallow past the tightness in my throat, surprised by the deep attachment I’ve come to feel for her. “And you’ll be a beautiful bridesmaid. What color would you like for your dress?”

  “Blue,” she answers at once. “Mummy liked me in blue. She said it brought out my eyes. I had a blue dress a few yea
rs ago, with pretty puffed sleeves, but it doesn’t fit anymore. None of my good dresses fit now. But Daddy says it’s wrong to want new clothes while our boys are going without. We have to do our part.”

  I suppress a scowl as I return the dress box to the closet. I’ve heard Owen’s mantra often enough now, and I recognize it for what it is—a way to keep his daughter in line. But an idea begins to form as I eye Thia’s shapeless jumper and too-tight skirt, a way to help her without depriving American GIs, but I won’t say anything until I speak to her father.

  Owen is both surprised and annoyed to find me waiting when he comes home from wherever he’s been. I’m seated on the cream-colored sofa, pretending to read a book I borrowed from his library. I feel all wrong sitting here, worrying about what I look like, how my legs are crossed, what to do with my hands, but he pretends not to see me as he goes about pouring himself a drink.

  I watch mutely as he drops two cubes of ice into a glass, then adds a splash of amber liquid, and I find myself wondering how the ice got into the bucket. Belinda, I suppose. But Owen isn’t the least bit curious about the ice. He’s used to everything being exactly as he expects it to be. It’s why he doesn’t like me, because I’m not what he expected for his son.

  Finally he turns, pivoting stiffly on his bad leg. I close the book, waiting while he takes a pull from his glass. At long last, he fixes me with a chilly stare. “What is it that has you up so late, Miss Roussel?”

  Two weeks and he still refuses to call me by my first name, as if our relationship is a temporary one. “I was hoping to talk to you about Cynthia—about her clothes.”

  “Her clothes?”

  “Girls are different from boys.”

  “You don’t say.”

  There isn’t a hint of humor in his tone, but I push on, determined to make my point. “Girls reach an age where they start comparing themselves to their friends. How they look. What they wear. They worry about fitting in. Cynthia is at that age now.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my daughter’s clothes.”

  “Not wrong, no. They’re just a bit . . . plain. And they don’t fit her as well as they could.”

  “We’ve all had to do without a great deal since the war started. Gasoline. Cooking oil. Even paper. With the men off fighting, there’s no one to cut down the trees. It’s easy to take things for granted until you suddenly have to do without. It’s a matter of sacrificing for one’s country.”

  I stare at him, piqued by his platitudes. From where I stand, there is precious little the Purcells have gone without compared to the people of France and England. No bombs have landed on American soil, no businesses looted or seized, no oafish soldiers plundering their store shelves. It’s true that their men are across the sea, fighting the Nazis, and that it’s a great sacrifice indeed, but it isn’t the same.

  “We’re well acquainted with sacrifice where I come from, Monsieur Purcell. We learned about it the day the Germans marched into Paris and hung their swastikas all over the city.”

  He eyes me coldly, but there’s a glint of surprise in the look too. He isn’t used to anyone talking back to him, and certainly not a twenty-year-old seamstress without a sou to her name. “How fortunate that my son came to your rescue when he did.”

  I smile meekly, pretending not to register the dig. “I was fortunate. Not only because Anson and I met and fell in love, but also that you’ve been kind enough to open your home to me. In fact, I’ve been thinking about how I might repay that kindness. I thought perhaps I could make a few new dresses for Cynthia. She’s such a pretty girl, and a new dress or two would mean so much to her.”

  His eyes narrow, as if sensing some trap in the offer. “She put you up to this, did she?”

  “No. It was my idea. She doesn’t even know I was planning to ask. I wanted to be sure I had your approval before saying anything.”

  He takes another pull from his glass, eyeing me over the rim. “My daughter’s dresses are perfectly suitable for the times, Miss Roussel. Good, sturdy clothes.”

  Ugly clothes, I think to myself.

  “Actually, she’s outgrown most of her dresses. She hasn’t mentioned it because she doesn’t want to be selfish. She understands that things are in short supply and that the war effort must come first, but I’ve had an idea.”

  He rattles the ice in his glass, signaling his impatience. “Have you, indeed?”

  “In Paris, when the Nazis came, they went through our stores like a swarm of locusts, snapping up food, shoes, even books, until the shelves were bare. And then the rationing started. There were no clothes to be had and nothing to make clothes with. So we learned to make do. By the time I left, women were pulling apart their husbands’ suits to make new clothes for themselves. So I thought, if you had some older things lying around, some things of her mother’s perhaps, I could rework them for Cynthia.”

  “That won’t be necessary. My secretary—”

  “Just a few pieces,” I persist. “Please. It would be so nice for her to have some of her mother’s things—to remember her by.”

  Owen lowers his glass. For a moment, his face seems to soften. “There are still some of Lydia’s things in her dressing room. I suppose you could take a few pieces. But only a few. And nothing too fussy or grown-up. She’s eleven.”

  “Yes, of course.” I swallow a smile, unwilling to let him see my triumph.

  I’ve won this round at least. But there is truth in what I said to Owen. I do want to express my gratitude and to make myself useful until Anson returns. And I’ll be making clothes again. Not bridal gowns meant to guarantee happy endings, but dresses that might perhaps bring about a new beginning for all of us.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SOLINE

  For the novitiate, la magie can be draining. One must be fully rested before beginning The Work and remember to take frequent breaks to replenish one’s energy, lest her power become depleted and ineffective.

  —Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

  22 October 1943—Newport

  Once again, I find myself sewing in secret. Only this time it’s for Thia instead of me. Ma pauvre fille. How can I not be worried for her? She was eight when her mother died, her father is little more than a ghost in her life, and her brother is half an ocean away. That leaves only me, her sister-to-be, to comfort her, and while I’ve come to adore her, I’m a poor substitute for a parent.

  Things with Owen are no better. I had hoped our conversation about Thia might help thaw him toward me, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. He no longer takes his meals with us and is rarely home before midnight. I wonder sometimes if there’s a woman somewhere he spends time with, a mistress who helps fill the empty space left by his wife’s death, but it’s hard to imagine any passion in the man or warmth of any kind.

  But then this morning, as he was putting on his hat and preparing to leave for the day, he asked if I’d had a letter from Anson since I arrived. The question took me by surprise. He never mentions Anson to me. When I told him I’d written but hadn’t had a letter back, his face darkened, and for a moment I almost felt sorry for him.

  I tried to reassure him, explaining that Anson is very dedicated to his work and that I’d seen him go days without sleep when there was a rash of new casualties. I finished by reminding him that the French post is hopeless with overseas letters. He nodded to all of it, but the weight of Anson’s silence hung heavily between us, because I’ve begun to feel it too. I’m also worried that there might be something wrong with me. I feel so tired all the time, weak and sick and unable to sleep, and with no word from Anson, the days drag on, empty and exhausting.

  At least I have Thia’s dresses to keep me busy. It was strange to find myself picking through Lydia Purcell’s closet, through her everyday dresses and Sunday suits. They were hand-tailored, even the simple ones, tasteful but clearly expensive. It was from those that I made my selections. But there were evening clothes too. Jewel-toned satins, velvets trimmed with rhinestone
s, chiffon and lace and shimmering silver lamé. I peered at their labels: Worth, Dior, Lanvin. They were stunning things, the kind I used to dream of designing myself when I was a girl. But compared to Lydia’s daytime clothes, they felt startlingly lavish, as if they belonged to another woman entirely, and I found myself wondering which dresses belonged to the real Lydia Purcell and which had been chosen for the woman Owen Purcell expected his wife to be. I’ve made a mental note to learn more about her when Anson returns home. Until then, I will focus on finishing Thia’s dresses.

  I’ve already completed two and should finish the third by day’s end. I smile as I pick up my needle again. Thia is home from school and I can hear her banging around in the kitchen, letting me know she’s there—and that she’s still angry with me. I’ve said nothing about the dresses, letting her think I’ve passed on our daily French lessons to create something for myself. But tonight after dinner, I’ll show her the dresses, and she’ll finally understand why I’ve been so secretive.

  Dinner is a plate of beef, potatoes, and carrots, swimming in a sea of oily gravy. Belinda has been making less of an effort since Owen stopped taking his meals at home. The greasy smell turns my stomach, but I push the food around my plate for show. Across from me, Thia pokes sulkily at a bit of carrot, hiding her face behind a sheaf of heavy blonde hair.

  I lay down my napkin and turn to her. “Would you like to come to my room after dinner? I have something to show you.”

  Her head comes up slowly. “What?”

  She’s trying to look petulant, but I feel her curiosity. “It’s a surprise,” I half whisper.

  “For me?”

  For an instant, she looks so much like Anson it takes my breath away. “Oui, ma fille. For you.”

  “Oh! Yes, please!”

  And just like that, we’re friends again.

  She follows me up the stairs and along the gallery. I make her close her eyes before I open the door and steer her to the bed.