Chapter Forty-Four

Tuesday, December 14, 1926

Harrogate Hydro, Harrogate, England

I stare at the evening dresses hanging in the wardrobe. Like a pastel-colored rainbow, they shimmer against the dark, burnished wood, and I can’t resist running a finger along their silken lengths. Each gown is lovely in its way and newly purchased from the local dress shops in Harrogate and Leeds. But which to wear? I want to look especially nice. No, that’s not right, I think. I want to look perfect tonight, but only for myself.

My gaze rests on a salmon-colored georgette gown. With its drop-waist silhouette and its alternating lace panels with subtle pearlescent beading, it is particularly flattering, or so the salesgirl at the exclusive Harrogate store told me. She’d sounded sincere, but was she simply trying to lure me into a purchase? Let’s see, I think as I pull it out of the wardrobe and twirl it around on its hanger.

I slide the gown on over my new ivory satin slip. I walk over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the hotel room, avoiding my image until the very last second. It’s been quite some time since I enjoyed my reflection. Opening my eyes, I almost gasp. Could that really be me? The gown skims my newly slim figure, and the salmon color gives my complexion a healthy, dare I say younger, glow. For the first time in a very long time, I feel attractive.

I brush my hair until it has a sheen, tucking a wayward curl behind my ear and arranging another curl to mask the small cut and bruise that are fading on my forehead. I add a sheer coat of apricot-shaded lipstick and dab cologne behind my ear. Strapping my delicate silver heels on around my ankles, I turn this way and that in front of the mirror. A shawl around the shoulders will be the final touch, I think as I drape a finely embroidered swath of fabric around me. A last glance in the mirror confirms that I am ready. This is indeed the perfect gown for this evening.

The crystal handle feels heavy in my hand as I turn it to swing open the door to my room. An unusually loud din sounds on the hotel’s ground floor, just below the staircase outside my room. Unused to the noise, I shut the door closed, returning to the safety of my room. I’ve grown used to the quiet ebb and flow of the hotel over the past week; I can predict a bustle of activity around breakfast, teatime, and the cocktail hour but a gentle lull in the hours in between. I always choose this hushed hour—the gap between cocktails and dinner—to enter unobtrusively into the hotel’s evening fray and settle down to dinner with one of the books I’ve selected from the Harrogate library for company. Or perhaps a crossword.

On instinct, I pull aside the heavy brocade curtains covering the main window of my room. The glass looks out at the manicured gardens that serve as the entryway to the hotel, resplendent even in winter with viburnum, holly, and laurel interspersed with flowering hellebore, otherwise known as Christmas rose. I notice that the lot is full of automobiles and that three small groupings of people are outlined against the gaslit lamps that line the gardens. Ah, I think. Here is my explanation for the unexpected racket: a party is assembling in the hotel’s ballroom, perhaps an early Christmas gathering. Or perhaps it is something else entirely, something as well planned as a holiday soiree. Either way, I feel prepared. I have been planning for this moment for some time.

I open my door once again. My heels make a satisfying clip as I cross the hallway from my room to the wide, impressive staircase that leads down to the lobby. The crimson-red and golden-yellow Persian carpet that lines the stairs muffles my step but not the drama of my entrance. A sea of faces stares up at me as I descend.

I nod at Mrs. Robson, with whom I’ve shared a cup of tea and a lively discussion about gardening. Mr. Wollesley, with whom I’ve played several jolly rounds of billiards while discussing the spa’s various services, gives me a wave. I smile at the sweet waitress, Rose, who serves at breakfast and dinner but returns home during the lunch shift to care for her elderly grandmother. What a lovely array of folks I’ve met here at the Harrogate Hydro, I think. In this place, with these people, outside normal time, I feel safe. I am in a cocoon of my own making, in a protected realm that hovers beside reality, and I wish I could stay here longer. Sometimes I long to stay here forever.

But then I see him, as I knew I would. There, at the base of the staircase, to the side of the column that separates the lobby from the tearoom, stands a man. He looks so small and insubstantial, so different from my memories that, for a moment, I almost don’t recognize him. But then he steps under a pool of light, and suddenly, it is absolutely him. And I know that it is time.