CHAPTER 39
LONDON
MAY 2019
“Then who is it?” James asked, his head turned slightly away as if he didn’t want to confront the photographic proof in front of him.
Without hesitation I said, “That’s the real Precious Dubose.”
Colin shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d gone very still, like a person who’d just been given a terminal diagnosis. Or had just learned that he’d been lied to his entire life.
Penelope moved closer to James, who wore the same expression as his son, and touched his arm. To Hyacinth, she said, “This is all so much to take in. I’m almost afraid to ask you what it is you’ve discovered.”
Hyacinth pulled out a manila folder from her bag. “If you’d prefer to wait, I can leave this for you to look at later.” She held the folder against her chest, waiting for Penelope to speak. But it was James who spoke first.
“No. We’re all here now. And if there’s anything we need to tell Precious, I’m afraid we haven’t much time.”
Hyacinth waited for Colin and Penelope to nod before speaking. “Well, then, let me begin by saying that your Graham St. John was a hard man to find, but I was up to the task.”
“I never doubted it,” Penelope said as Hyacinth removed a piece of paper from the folder and gave it to James, who held it out so we could all see. It was a copy of an official letter with a circular blue seal in the top-left corner, the word confidential stamped in bold black ink along the top margin. The top-right corner, in blue ink, read home office, whitehall and beneath that 29 june 1941.
“The National Archives is releasing new information about the intelligence services during the war every six months or so, which is why I couldn’t find him before. Then, just this week, I found this. Although I do want to prepare you. It’s not good news.”
With a quick glance at his wife and son, James took a deep breath and began to read the letter out loud.
Dear Mr. Eliot,
Thank you for your enquiry. We regret to inform you that Graham St. John has been confirmed dead. His remains were discovered in the burned ruins of a residence in York Terrace East. We have reason to believe he wasn’t killed there, but that his body was brought there to appear as if he had been a victim of an air raid attack. Despite the grave damage to the body, we were able to ascertain that the cause of death was a bullet to the back of the head from a German Luger.
Please understand that the sensitivity and far-reaching implications surrounding St. John’s last assignment require us to move forward as if he were still living and working in deep cover. His family will not be notified, nor will they be able to have an official burial. As of now, his remains are being interred in a city cemetery under a false name. They will be handled with honour and respect. You are not, under any circumstances, to share this information. To do so would be a treasonable offense, punishable by death. You are being made privy to the information solely because of your status with His Majesty’s government, and not because of your familial relationship to the deceased.
Please know that St. John died serving his king and country, and the debt owed to his family can never be fully repaid.
My gaze skipped over the name at the bottom, scrawled in officiously broad strokes. No one spoke as James returned the letter to Hyacinth and she replaced it in the folder on the table. “This is yours to keep,” she said.
Penelope nodded, then smiled. “Thank you so much, Hyacinth. You’ve answered a lot of questions.”
“I’m so glad. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do. If you like, I can begin searching the records for his burial location.”
“Yes, please.” James’s voice cracked, and he paused to clear his throat. “Thank you for all your help.”
Hyacinth gathered up her things and said her good-byes, passing a nurse entering the waiting room.
“Miss Dubose is awake, and she’s asking for Maddie again.” The nurse trained kind eyes on me as I stood. To Penelope and James, she said, “I’ll be sure to alert you if there are any changes.”
“Thank you.” Penelope’s phone dinged. “Arabella is on her way.”
She gave us a worried smile that I tried to return but failed to as I retrieved the ivory dolphin from my backpack, then followed the nurse out of the room.
Precious lay in a single bed in a tastefully appointed room decorated in pale blue and cream, a flat-screen TV across from the bed, a private bathroom attached. A large window spilled treacly yellow light across the white-and-gray linoleum floor, spotlighting a large arrangement of roses I imagined had come from Penelope’s garden.
The slight scents of bleach and disinfectant drifted past my nose, and when I spotted Precious’s pale face and dull hair against the pillowcase, I thought they might have accidentally bleached her, too, along with the sheets and floor.
She looked tiny under the sheets, her tall form diminished, as if the universe was already downsizing her, preparing her for her next move. An IV, held in place by tape, snaked into the top of her hand. Her thin arms and papery skin appeared as fragile as a kite, and for a moment, I was reminded of my mother and how she’d looked in the hospital bed my father had set up in the living room so she could be near the Christmas tree and her children. That was probably the reason why I hated Christmas but not hospitals. My hatred of hospitals had begun later.
I bent to kiss her cheek, smelling her familiar perfume. I then placed the ivory dolphin in her palm and closed her fist around it.
Precious didn’t need to look at it to know what it was. Her voice remained strong, although thready at the ends of sentences, and her mesmerizing eyes hadn’t changed at all. “Thank you, Maddie.” She frowned. “Where’s your notebook? I have so much more I need to tell you, and it’s all quite good.”
I almost smiled but the thickness in my throat blocked it. “I didn’t bring it, but I’ve got my phone to record you, if that’s all right.” I sat in a bedside chair and turned on my phone recorder, watching the lights of the equipment above her head dancing, as if measuring the amount of life remaining. If only such a machine existed.
“Good.” Precious plucked at her sheets as if waiting for me to speak.
“We found Graham. And I think we found Eva, too.” I looked at her for corroboration. “But you already knew where she was, didn’t you?”
She smiled softly. “Yes.”
I frowned, still trying to make the stray pieces fit. “So, what happened to the real Precious Dubose?”
Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths as if she were a medium summoning the dead. “She died when our flat was hit during an air raid. The same night Graham died.” She paused. “The same night their son was born.”
“James?”
Precious nodded. “David arranged for Precious to be buried anonymously in a London cemetery. He thought of using Eva’s name but wasn’t convinced I was ready to say good-bye forever. And Alex . . .” She paused. “David made sure that’s one body that will never be found.” A grim smile appeared, briefly illuminating her face.
I was missing Alex’s part in her story, and hoped we’d have time for her to share it with me. But I had more immediate questions that needed answers. “And then you gave James to Sophia and David to raise as their son.”
“Yes.” She looked past me, and in her eyes, I imagined I saw the reflection of airplanes in a night sky, of flames bursting through windows. “Sophia nursed me, and then David helped me get to France. I needed to leave England. I needed people to believe I was dead, just in case they came looking for me.”
“They?”
She gave me a lopsided smile that made her look like a much younger woman. “The bad guys. I worked with them, you see. Because I thought I had no choice. It’s not an excuse. It’s simply the truth of who I was: the woman I was before I learned how brave and strong I could be.”
I turned away, unable to look at her, remembering why she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about her heroism in France. Because no heroic deed is done for the simple act of heroism. There’s always some payment due, some penance owed. Some wrong to right.
“That’s why you went to France? To atone for your sins?”
“Partly. And to die.” Her lips wobbled. “But it’s true, you know. Only the good die young.”
Her Southern accent remained true, never straying from the persona she’d portrayed for almost eighty years. I sat back in my chair. “What did you do in France?”
“I’d found someone to sell my jewels and furs to, and I gave all the money to the Resistance, to build their trust in me. And then I did the only thing I knew how—I modeled for various designers and met Coco Chanel. She’d already sold her shops by then, but we became friends. I was invited to her parties, where I listened to her drunk Nazi friends who said things they shouldn’t have. No one ever suspected I was Resistance.” Her cheeks creased in a skeletal smile. “I even had a code name.”
“A code name?”
“La Fleur. They called me La Fleur. I took the name from a very brave and heroic woman I’d only known for a short time. She was an inspiration to me, a reason I worked so hard. But I enjoyed my role, and I was quite good at it, probably because I wasn’t afraid to die. I anticipated it, actually. But the work almost made up for who I’d been before.”
“Because life is about reinvention. You said that to me.”
“Because it’s true. I decided that if I was still breathing, I needed to live.”
“But when the war ended, why didn’t you come back to England?”
“I wanted to. I’d planned to go live with my mother in Bournemouth. When I left, Sophia and David promised that they’d look after her and let her know that I was safe. That I would return when I could.”
I sat up, seeing another piece of the puzzle fall into place. “K. Nash?”
“That wasn’t her real name, you know. I made it up when she moved to the coast to escape my father.” She smiled to herself, opening her hand to see the ivory dolphin. “Graham loved the architect John Nash—that’s where I got the name. I had dreams that he’d join me there after the war. That he’d build us a house by the sea.”
I didn’t ask her what had happened, because I already knew. I’d seen the pictures, the obliterated row of homes. And Graham had died. “Why did it take you so long to come back?”
“London was full of Graham and my memories of him. My past had become the ghost that haunted me. I think you know what that’s like, don’t you, Maddie?”
Grief is like a ghost. I looked away, then answered with a question of my own. “Was it Sophia who asked you to come back to England?”
She nodded. “To be near Graham’s son. She knew James would help heal me. And she was right.”
I nodded, understanding. “That’s why she took the photos of Precious out of her wedding album, and cut you out of the pictures of the two of you together. That way, no one would ever suspect that you weren’t the real Precious.”
“We looked so much alike, Precious and I. Of course, I was the natural blond—she was born a brunette.”
I almost laughed at this small nod to her vanity. “And Sophia didn’t want anyone comparing the photos of you and Precious side by side.”
“But she didn’t throw them out. Sweet Sophia. Precious was her friend, too. She didn’t want to get rid of her completely. She never expected that those photos would be found. Or that anyone would ever go looking for them.”
“So you never thought to come back as Eva? Surely the people who were looking for you were gone after the war or no longer cared that you were alive.”
She shook her head slowly. “Possibly. But Eva died with Graham. And for all those years in France, I’d reinvented myself as Precious Dubose. The new personality suited me.”
I nodded, the words and pieces of the story loosening like an unfurling knot. “Why did you ask me to find Eva? Weren’t you afraid we’d discover your secret?”
Her eyes brightened. “It was time. I owed it to Precious, to her son and grandson. They should know who she was. That, at the end, she was brave. And I wanted you to be the one who discovered the truth.”
“Why? Because I’m kin?”
“Partly. But partly because you, dear Maddie, needed to learn how to free your own ghosts.”
I sat back, my chest heavy with the burden of secrets that still carried the power to wound. “So, whose story do you want me to tell? Yours or Precious’s? My article—it needs to be about so much more than fashion in a time of crisis. I can’t write the story of the clothes without sharing the lives of the remarkable women who wore them.”
She squeezed my hand, the ivory dolphin digging into my palm. “It doesn’t matter to me, Maddie. I won’t be here. I’ll leave it to you to write the ending.” She let go, leaving my palm cupping the dolphin. “I want you to have that. To remind you that there is always beauty and love waiting for us, even during the darkest days of our lives.” She focused her remarkable blue eyes on me. “Your story is still unwritten, Maddie. I’ve been given all those years your mother and grandmother were denied so I could have all of their wisdom to share with you before I die.”
I wanted to tell her not to talk about dying, that she’d be going home soon, but I didn’t want to lie. She had the waxy look I remembered my mother having, the skin pulled taut over sharp bones, turning a face into a skeletal mask.
I leaned forward, knowing I hadn’t yet asked the most important question. “Tell me, then. Who are you, really? Because I’m pretty sure that Eva Harlow never existed.”
“Oh, she did, Maddie. She was a woman who made mistakes, who was brave and strong. Who loved fiercely. And she was a formidable woman. Like you.”
I started to argue, but she held up a finger to stop me. “I was born Ethel Maltby in Muker in the county of Yorkshire in nineteen nineteen, the daughter of a drunk and a seamstress. Ethel died the day Eva Harlow was born. The day I decided to become more than what I was. And it’s taken me nearly one hundred years to learn that we don’t need a new name or identity to reinvent ourselves. We only need to believe ourselves worthy of love.”
She settled back on her pillow and closed her eyes so that I thought she was going to sleep. But instead she began to talk, telling me the story of how a young, beautiful girl from Yorkshire became the fierce and brave Precious Dubose.
Arabella and Laura had arrived while I’d been with Precious, and everyone had a chance to spend time alone with her. We didn’t say it aloud, but we knew we were making our good-byes. We were all together in the room with her when the alarms sounded. Doctors and nurses rushed in. Precious took her last breath two weeks shy of her one hundredth birthday, surrounded by people who loved her. Which, considering her age, was a testament to who she was, and to the person she’d been, regardless of which name she’d claimed.
Although her death hadn’t been unanticipated, we still found ourselves stunned by it, walking stiffly like silent zombies as we left the hospital.
Despite Penelope’s invitation to stay with her and James and Colin at their town house, I insisted on returning to Precious’s flat, where I could touch the clothes that had illustrated her stories and imagine Eva and Precious, Graham and Alex, sitting around the wireless, listening to a declaration of war. Where good and evil weren’t as clear-cut as I’d once thought.
And I needed a good cry. I hadn’t cried yet, feeling that I shouldn’t; I hadn’t known Precious for long. Yet I felt as if I’d always known her, that what she’d said about her capturing the lost wisdom from my mother’s and grandmother’s shortened lives made her part of my own life in turn.
So I returned alone—Laura having to fetch Oscar—to the quiet flat, and walked into Precious’s room, which smelled of Vol de Nuit. I looked out of the window toward Regent’s Park, trying to picture the hellish night when she’d sacrificed one love for another. It was terrible and awful and wonderful all at the same time, the swirl of emotions draining me as I paced, listening to the creaking floors beneath my feet.
I cried then. Not just for Precious, but for Eva and Graham and all those who’d died before their time. For my mother and grandmother, too. And I cried for the burden of Precious’s story, of which I alone knew the full extent. I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do about it.
For a long time, I stood in the guest room, where the dresses and gowns of a bygone era hung on racks, each one with a story. I flipped on the light and spent two hours finishing the hangtags, remembering Precious with each story I noted. Laura returned and Oscar surprised me by licking my hand, as if sensing my sadness. As if knowing I needed to be alone, Laura disappeared into her room and closed the door.
I allowed my fingers to caress the fur collar of a once-white cashmere cape and the beaded chiffon of an evening gown that had danced at the Dorchester during an air raid, the bandleader conducting the music in time with the exploding bombs.
I paused in front of a fine navy wool siren suit, a version of a onesie designed to be pulled over nightclothes as the wearer scrambled to a shelter. It had been artfully tailored to cinch in the waist, the trousers skimming tactfully over the thighs. I straightened it on the hanger, documenting on the tag how Precious had told me it was made to look as if the wearer was attending a slightly chilly cocktail party, rather than about to spend the night in a communal shelter beneath the street.
As I continued with my pacing, I found myself overcome with a horrible homesickness, thoughts of my family and the town in which I’d been raised like a rope around my heart, gently tugging. I felt like a survivor of some sort of internal catastrophe I could not name, and I wanted to curl up in the one place I knew I’d be sheltered. It had been too long since I’d been home, and I missed it now with all the longing of a wandering soul who’d finally discovered a soft place to lay her head.
I stopped pacing and began packing, washing sheets, and making up my bed. Throwing out old food in the refrigerator, including a jug of Laura’s terrible sweet tea. I opened my airline app and checked for availabilities and booked a ridiculously expensive ticket on a flight from Heathrow to Atlanta.
Then I texted Arabella, telling her I was done with the hangtags and was now going home to work on the article and that I’d be in touch. I couldn’t stay for the funeral—I hadn’t been to one since my mother’s, and I had no intention of ever going to another one before my own. I did tell her to say good-bye to Penelope and James. And to Colin.
It didn’t really count as saying good-bye, but it was the best I could do. It was time to go before any more damage was done. But I was afraid I was already too late.