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.”
“I think your Milly would do a great deal to help you. And her letters make Canada sound like a wonderful place. Cold, yes, but with many consolations.”
There was just enough time, on their drive to the house in Edenbridge, for Walter to explain to Miriam, with Ann’s help, some of the rituals of a traditional English Christmas. Caroling and wassailing and paper hats, the king’s message on the wireless, the tree with its paper chains and treasured ornaments, and the spectacle of the pudding, already sodden with brandy, being set afire with even more spirits.
She and Miriam were given a room to share, and she spent ages holding baby Victoria, and in the morning there were stockings laden with little gifts that Ruby had painstakingly amassed for everyone, even Ann. And there were moments when she forgot to be sad and was able to let herself be buoyed along by the others’ happiness. Only for an instant, but it was enough. It would have to be enough.
ON DECEMBER 29 SHE booked her passage to Canada, all but emptying her modest savings account in the process. On December 30 she told Miss Duley.
Ann waited until the end of the day, after everyone had left for home, and then she sat the other woman down and told her that she was emigrating to Canada. Not as baldly as that, of course, for she tried to couch it in terms that would make it rather less of a shock. She explained that she missed her sister-in-law very much. She said she wished to see more of the world. She claimed to believe that Canada was the sort of place where a hardworking young woman like herself might better herself.
Miss Duley didn’t believe a word of it. “The truth, Ann. This has something to do with that young man, doesn’t it?”
“Please, Miss Duley. Please.”
“I don’t blame you one bit for leaving, my dear. Only I will miss you. I hope you know that.”
“I do. I love it here. I always have, and I don’t want to go. I truly don’t. But everyone here knows I’m not married. All the other girls. Mr. Hartnell, too. I can’t bear the thought of everyone knowing, and thinking the worst of me. I just can’t.”
“Could you go away? Have the baby and give it up? There are so many families who’d be grateful—”
“I would, only I want this baby. I never saw myself getting married, you know, not really, but I did want to be a mum. Now I have the chance.”
“I see, and I don’t disagree. But why go so far away? Why the other end of the world?”
“He doesn’t know, and I don’t want him to find out. Not ever. He might try to take the baby from me. Don’t you see? I can’t take that chance.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about him. Mr. Hartnell did confide in me, not so very long ago, that he had put a word in the ear of someone at the palace, just a quiet word, and naturally the wretch was given the sack straightaway. It then came out that he’d run up a number of debts. Very large, I gather, and when they came to light he did a midnight flit.”
“He . . . he did what?” Ann asked, not quite able to believe her own ears.
“He vanished. Made for somewhere in the Far East? Or perhaps it was Australia.”
“How did Mr. Hartnell know who he was? I never told him.”
“Nor did I. I don’t suppose it matters, does it? The scoundrel is gone, and is in no position to be a threat to you ever again. Surely that must be a relief. Now—tell me when you are leaving. I know Mr. Hartnell will be very sad to hear of it.”
“My ship leaves on January fifth,” she answered, though saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any more real. Not until the coast of England had faded from view would it truly feel real to her.
“Then you’ll just miss him. He won’t be back from the south of France for another week after that. Oh, well. I’ll write you a splendid reference, of course, which will certainly carry some weight with the Canadians. Presumably they have one or two decent dressmakers there.”
“Thank you, Miss Duley. I’ve never said so before, but I’m very grateful for all you taught me.”
“And I’m every bit as grateful for your many years of hard work. I’m also rather concerned that if we continue on in this vein we’ll both end up in a puddle of tears. So why don’t you let me treat you to supper at Lyons? Only a small token of my esteem, but no less sincere for all that.”
ANN WAS ABLE to put a few more pounds in her savings account by selling the wireless and some of the better pieces of furniture, and as she’d always been a tidy and frugal sort of person she hadn’t much in the way of smaller things to pack. Photographs of her parents and brother, her nan’s Royal Worcester cup and saucer, the rose-patterned china that had been her mum’s.
The sketchbook would not be coming to Canada. She had only used up a third of the pages; these she ripped out and burned in a small but satisfying bonfire in her garden. The rest of it, still perfectly serviceable, she left on a shelf in the pantry for the next tenants of her house to find. There would be children, like as not, and they could use it for their schoolwork.
It took much longer for her to decide on what to do with the samples of embroidery Mr. Hartnell had given her. After the shock of seeing Jeremy on the day of the royal ladies’ visit, she’d taken the box of samples back to the embroidery workroom and promptly forgotten about them. It was only after the wedding, when Miss Duley had insisted on a long-overdue tidying up of the room, that Ann had remembered the samples.
“I can’t believe I forgot to take them back, Miss Duley. I’m so sorry.”
“No need. And besides, Mr. Hartnell wants for you and Miriam to keep a few each of the ones you worked. A memento of the day, he told me.”
In the end Ann had chosen three—the single York rose, the star flowers, and the ears of wheat—and when Miriam had hesitated, Ann had encouraged her to keep the smaller sample of white heather. “For good luck,” she had explained.
Now she sat on the floor of her empty sitting room, the samples in her lap, and tried to decide what she wanted to do with them. Not what she ought to do, which was to quietly return them to Mr. Hartnell or pass them on to Miriam. Certainly she wouldn’t destroy them as she’d done her sketchbook. It had been tainted by Jeremy, but the samples held no such poisonous associations for her. She had been happy when she had made them. She had been so full of hope.
One day, far in the future, she would give the samples to her son or daughter, or even a beloved grandchild, and by then she would know what to say. One day, if she were very lucky, there might be someone who would understand.
Ann packed the embroideries among her other precious things, and that was the last difficult decision she had to make. All that remained, now, was the queen’s heather from Balmoral. She would dig it up tomorrow, and she would coddle it all the way across the ocean to Canada, and there, come spring, the white heather would be the first thing she planted in her garden.
IT HAD BEEN hard to say good-bye to Miss Duley and her friends from work, hard to turn the key in the door of her little house and walk away, hard to visit her parents’ and Frank’s graves for the last time. But hardest of all was her farewell to Miriam.
Ann tried to remain composed when Miriam and Walter took her to Euston Station. Miriam was fretful, asking her to check that she had her train ticket to Liverpool and her steamship ticket to Halifax, and of course her passport, and that her purse was tucked safely into the inside pocket of her coat, and eventually Ann hugged her tight and told her she must stop worrying.
“You know I’ll land on my feet, just the same as you did when you first came here. You know I will, so you aren’t to fuss.”
“Very well,” Miriam agreed. “Only—”
“I will be fine. But I want you to promise one thing in return. You must keep working on your embroideries. No matter how long they take, and no matter what else happens in your life, you must never abandon them. Do you promise? It’s that important to me.”
“I know it is. I swear I will never set them aside.”
A whistle sounded, and Walter came forward, clearly reluctant to interrupt, but mindful of the need for Ann to board her train.
“Miriam, my dear. Ann must go or she’ll miss her train.” He bent down to kiss Ann’s cheek. “Good-bye, Ann, and good luck.”
“Thank you, Walter.” She’d never dared to call him by his first name before. “You will take care of my friend?”
“I will.”
There was so much more she wished to say, but she was out of time, and what would it change? Miriam knew already. She had to know this was their farewell.
“Adieu, Ann. Adieu, ma chère amie.”
They embraced, one last, heartfelt hug, and she fixed the memory of it deep in her heart. She stepped away from her friend. She turned around, and she made herself walk, one deliberate step after another, all the way to the far end of the platform, to the open door of the third-class carriages, and to the new life that awaited her half a world away.
She had cut the final thread. She did not look back.