One day in late July, Charlotte brought home from the fabric store in Moreton a bolt of checked muslin that had been stained and that the owner of the store could not sell. It wasn’t the entire bolt; the flaw hadn’t shown up until the owner had already sold half of the yardage. But it was more than enough for Emmy to try her hand at making her own pattern pieces. It didn’t matter if she made a mistake and cut pieces she could not use. Charlotte had acquired it for next to nothing because the owner was a close friend.
It was slow going, sewing everything by hand, but Emmy found she made fewer mistakes than when she was using Mrs. Crofton’s impressive Singer. And she sketched two new dresses in July, one based on the basic design of Charlotte’s dress and another on one of the dolls’ ball gowns.
As the days leaned into August, Emmy found herself feeling sad that she would have to sneak away fromThistle House to meet with Mrs. Crofton’s cousin and that perhaps she would not be returning. If Mr. Dabney planned to offer her an apprenticeship, Emmy was prepared to accept and to ask him if she might be able to sleep on the floor of his studio at night. She would not be going back to Mum’s flat. Emmy didn’t even want Mum to know where she was if it came to that. Emmy was not bothered that Mum would likely be furious or even that Julia would miss her, because Julia would be safe and cared for at Thistle House for as long as the war lasted.
But Emmy was bothered that she would be disappointing Charlotte. She didn’t think Charlotte would be angry like Mum would be, nor even sad like Julia. Emmy was afraid Charlotte would be hurt. Emmy didn’t want Charlotte to think that, after all her kindnesses, Emmy wasn’t grateful. At night in her bed, Emmy would imagine what she would write in the notes that she would leave behind for both Julia and Charlotte. She would have to be vague as to where she was going so that neither one would alert Mum to the location. And she had to communicate that it was simply wise and practical to think ahead to the life that she would live when the war was over. The time for Emmy to prepare for that life was now. The opportunity was now. There was no way for her to know whether a chance like this would come again.
If it came.
Mr. Dabney might not have any interest in mentoring Emmy at all. Perhaps his idea was to buy her designs. She would not sell them.
What would happen then? Would that be the end of it?
Emmy refused to consider that that was all he wanted.
A few more letters came from Mum. She hadn’tmuch to tell them, and she didn’t speculate on when she might come to visit, even though the Moreton billeting official, a Mrs. Howell, had told them she was free to do so as often as she wished. Emmy wanted to believe it was because seeing them in the environment Julia had described in detail—with a lot of help with spelling—would be hard for Mum. Charlotte had provided for their every need, given them chores to do, a schedule to keep, goals to meet, and encouraged their budding talents. And she hadn’t had to resort to anything disreputable to do it.
The more time chipped away at August, the more restless Emmy was to hear from Mrs. Crofton.
Two things happened at the end of that month. On the night of August 24, a Saturday, the Luftwaffe dropped a collection of bombs on London, destroying several homes and killing a number of civilians. Until that Saturday night, Londoners had heard distant gunfire, and seen the far-off vapor trails of dogfights in the sky over the English Channel. They had heard about the ongoing war in newspapers and on the radio. But this was the first time that London was bombed at night. Bombs fell at Aldgate, Bloomsbury, Bethnal Green, Finsbury, Hackney, Stepney, Shoreditch, and West Ham. Emmy heard on the radio the next day that fires had broken out all over London’s East End, with blazes belching out of factory windows and walls crashing down as if they were made of paper. Ramsgate was also hit. Thirty-one people were killed in the seaside city and more than one thousand houses were destroyed and damaged. Emmy assured Julia, who managed to hear people discussing these terrible details despite her and Charlotte’s attempts to shield her from them, that the bombs had fallen nowhere near Whitechapel and that Mum was quite safe.
For a few tense days after that, everyone waited to see what would happen next. The BBC announced that the RAF retaliated with attacks on Berlin. And then London was quiet again.
Which was exactly what Emmy wanted to hear, because on September 2, a Monday, she received her second letter from Mrs. Crofton.
Dear Emmeline:
My cousin, Graham Dabney, has at last returned to London. His father-in-law, God rest his soul, passed away two weeks ago. His wife is settling the last details and then taking over ownership of the house he left behind. I have some exciting news for you. At least I hope you will find it exciting. You wrote in your last letter that it would be no trouble for you to return to London to meet with my cousin about an apprenticeship. If possible, I would like you to meet me at his flat in Knightsbridge at four o’clock on Saturday, September 7, so that we might discuss our idea. Bring all your sketches, dear. And do bring your mother along, too, as she will need to give her permission for what we would like to do.
Running out of room on this notepaper. Will explain all when you get here. For now, just know that my cousin and his wife and I wish to do our part in the war effort and the protection of its youngest citizens. If you are to be evacuated somewhere, why not be with someone who can mentor you for the duration of your time away from home? Graham’s address for now is 14 Cadogen Square.
Safe journey,
Eloise Crofton
Emmy read the letter three times, needing to convince herself every few seconds that she was not dreaming andthat at last her patience had been rewarded. Mr. Dabney not only wanted to mentor her; he and his wife wanted to be her foster family. They wanted to be her Charlotte. Mr. Dabney wanted Emmy to bring her sketches to a meeting in London.
But they also wanted her to bring Mum, the very thought of which set Emmy’s heart to skipping beats. She could not think of that now.
She would not think of that now.
Her only focus was getting herself to London on Saturday without anyone noticing.
Fourteen
THEplan began to form in Emmy’s head as she lay in bed that night.
She had to be at the Knightsbridge station by four o’clock in the afternoon. From their travels to get to Stow, she knew that meant she had to be on a train out of Moreton no later than noon. It was an hour to Oxford, where she would have to change trains, and then an hour and a half to Paddington station in London, and then another twenty minutes from Paddington to Knightsbridge, plus the transfer times in between. If she left any later than twelve o’clock, she would be at risk of missing the appointment.
Emmy was sure there was at least one train bound for Oxford that left Moreton before noon. That detail didn’t cause her concern. Getting to Moreton on Saturday morning without being seen was going to be the most difficult leg of the journey.
There was only one way to accomplish it that she could see—she would have to sneak away in the middle of the night and walk the five miles to Moreton in the dark. If she left at three in the morning, she wouldn’t be seen by anyone; not even the milkman was out and about that early. She would take only what could fit inside her satchel. Emmy estimated she would need no less than two hours to walk in the dark to Moreton, which would put her at the train station a bit before sunrise. She would have to lie low for an hour or two and then when the station opened, buy a ticket to London on the first train out. If everything went as planned, she would be at Knightsbridge before one o’clock, a good three hours before she was to meet with Mrs. Crofton and her cousin.
All she had to do between now and then was write the two letters—one to Charlotte, and one to Julia—and think of a way to convince Mr. Dabney that he didn’t need to involve Mum, and manage to pretend for the next three days that nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
Writing the letters was more difficult than Emmy initially thought it would be. With so little privacy at Thistle House, she’d have to write the letters by candlelight in her room or find a quiet spot during her Friday visit to town. Since she didn’t know where Charlotte kept her candles and couldn’t think of an excuse for why she wanted one, she opted to write the letters in the little triangle-shaped bit of parkland in Stow, just across the street from Charlotte’s church. Friday afternoon she left for the village right after lunch, barely saying a word to anyone lest Julia or Rose ask to come with her. After stopping for Charlotte’s newspaper, Emmy settled herself on the lone bench in the little park. She was still in view of anyone walking past, but surely she appeared as only ayoung woman writing an ordinary letter to a relative or friend. Once she was settled with pen and stationery in hand, the difficulty became not finding the privacy to write the letters but the words to put inside them. Julia’s had to be worded simply and so that she would not panic, and that proved to be the stiffest challenge.
My dear Julia,
