Out of our earshot, Emma and the man I presume is a manager step into a sumptuous room with walls painted a creamy yellow accented by baroque gilt molding and an outsize crystal chandelier suspended from a frescoed ceiling. Given the tables scattered around the room, each topped with a crisp white linen tablecloth and gleaming silver and china, I’m guessing it’s the hotel restaurant. I feel woefully underdressed and messy after the day we’ve had, and I do hope we’ll have a chance to wash up.
“Come along, ladies.” Emma gestures for us to join her. “The restaurant is closed for the night—it’s Monday, after all—but Monsieur Aubert has agreed to open it for us so we can have the privacy we need.”
“Splendid,” Margery exclaims.
“Yes, brilliant, Emma,” I reply when the others seem speechless. “Shall we take a few minutes to freshen up?”
“Time is of the essence, is it not?” she asks, a rhetorical question if I’ve ever heard one. “Monsieur Aubert will make sure that our bags reach our designated rooms while we dine and review the letter.”
Emma, who would normally be the first among us to insist we dress for dinner, will brook no objection, it seems. Her eagerness to hear May’s last words outweighs all else, even her sense of decorum. So, like ducklings, we trail her and Monsieur Aubert to a table near the hearth, where a towheaded young maid attempts to light a fire.
Menus arrive, orders are placed, and drinks find their way into our hands. A few bolstering sips later—which go directly to my head, because I’m famished—I begin. “Are we all calm and ready to hear from May?”
Everyone nods, their embarrassed expressions returning. ButI’m not seeking more apologies, only the somber demeanor May deserves. No more grabbing, as if her testament is a prize for finishing first rather than a legacy to preserve and protect.
Gingerly removing the document from my handbag, I bring out my reading glasses as well. As I survey the first sentence, I think how childish and shaky her handwriting seems. Or could it be that, when she wrote this, she was riddled with fear?
Chapter Forty-Four
APRIL 14, 1931
BOULOGNE-SUR-MER,FRANCE
To whom it may concern,
My name is May Daniels, and I am from Dollis Hill Estate in London. For the past year and a half, I’ve been working as a nurse in training at Chiswick and Ealing Isolation Hospital, also in London. I am here in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on a day trip with my friend and fellow nurse Celia McCarthy.
I am not certain who will receive this letter from the Gare Centrale Left Luggage or when, but I hope the circumstances are less dire than I fear.
Margery gasps, and I glance up. Tears have begun to stream down our youngest Queen’s face. “She knew what was coming.”
“So it seems,” Agatha says, placing her hand over Margery’s.
For the past six months, I have been seeing my first serious beau. We spent time together at the theater and restaurants, but I did not share details about our relationship with anyone because he asked me not to. I naively accepted his explanation that he was embarking on a new career in insurance and wanted to be settled in it before he met my family and friends. Or before I met his.
In the late summer, my innocence was taken from me in anact that brought me great shame. A surprise assault. Against my will.
Upset and stunned, I buried the incident away and still continued to see my beau as we had before, even though my feelings had started to change. I began to have suspicions that he might already be married or have been married at some point. After a lunch date I arranged, I secretly followed him to his place of work, and at the end of that day, I saw him in the company of another woman who I assume is his wife. Enraged and hurt, I refused to take his calls or see him in the weeks that followed. In my mind, the relationship had ended.
But by October, it became clear that I was pregnant—
The tears start to come. We had suspected May was pregnant, but to see it confirmed and to read about her despair brings back my own.
Agatha leans toward me and whispers, “Would you like me to finish?”
I nod, and a torrent of suppressed tears takes hold. I cry for May and myself and all the young women in such straits. Agatha takes the paper from me and picks up where I left off. Her voice is steady and calm, quite unlike what I’d expect from one so familiar with the trauma of deception.
—and I confronted the father. I wasn’t certain what I wanted to do about the baby quite yet, but I knew that if I decided to keep it, I would need financial help. Pregnant women aren’t allowed to keep working in any job even if they are married, and if they are single, well, they are practically run out of the workplace. My sisters are my only family, and while I can count on them for love and support, they have no funds to spare.
“Get rid of it.” That was the first thing he said. The second thing? “I can find someone to take care of it.” The baby didn’tdeserve this heartlessness, and neither did I. This confrontation led to harsh words on both sides as well as threats. I was devastated and beside myself with worry.
Soon afterward, I came across a small newspaper article about a young violinist who had gone missing, and I saw familiar names mentioned as being under suspicion. And I became terrified for my own well-being. What had I done?
A few days before my friend Celia McCarthy and I were meant to depart for Brighton and then Boulogne, I received a letter from my former beau. He apologized for his behavior and invited me to dinner at Rules restaurant, in Maiden Lane. Although I had no desire to rekindle a relationship with him, I agreed to meet him the night before Celia and I were to rendezvous in Brighton. I guess I was more scared of retribution if I didnotjoin him at Rules than if I did.
“You can envision how terrible that moment would have been for her,” Emma murmurs.
“What a bastard!” Ngaio cries out.
