Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner Page A

city.”
    The woman laughed, a short little chortle shrouded in lassitude. “Oh, the confidence of the young! You would have us all drinking victory champagne by Christmas. My neighbor’s son is in the British navy and she told me he has no idea how long this will last. I’m not getting any more dresses from my suppliers in Paris. It will be hard to sell wedding gowns when I haven’t any to sell. And if all the London designers head to the hills, where will that leave me?”
    â€œYou could sell mine.”
    Her laugh this time was full and loud. “Made from what, hospital sheets? And who’s going to spend money on a wedding dress if food gets really scarce like they’re saying it will? Or if bombs are dropping every night? Don’t they teach you current events in school?”
    â€œSchool’s not in session. And war makes brides as easily as it makes widows. You told me that yourself.”
    â€œBut not as plentifully. I’ve had no customers yesterday or today, except for the young woman who bought that veil.”
    â€œGive your cousin the sketches, Mrs. Crofton. Please? I promise I will come back as soon as I can. War or no war.”
    She exhaled heavily. “All right.”
    â€œAnd you’ll let me know when he returns to London.”
    Mrs. Crofton nodded. “Send me your address when you’re situated.”
    They stood there for a moment looking at each other.
    â€œI don’t have any work for you today, Emmeline,” Mrs. Crofton finally said.
    â€œYou can teach me how to line a bodice.”
    She lifted up the corners of her mouth in a half smile. “I almost envy you. Getting out of here like you are. Away from all this. You don’t know how good you have it.”
    â€œI’ll trade places with you.”
    Mrs. Crofton laughed gently. “If you were my daughter, Emmeline, I would do the same as your mum. I’d send you away to safety, too. I had a daughter once, you know.”
    Emmy didn’t.
    Mrs. Crofton stared at the wall behind her as if it were a window to the past. “She died of a fever when she was six.”
    â€œI’m so sorry, Mrs. Crofton.”
    Her employer hovered there, on the edge between the present and past, and then she turned toward the wall and plugged in the electric teakettle that sat on a little table by the door to the loo.
    Emmy waited to hear more about the daughter who had died, but Mrs. Crofton only said she was terribly sorry that she’d run out of sugar and there wasn’t any more at the grocery.

Eight

    THE day Emmy and Julia left London, the June sun spilled cheerfully out of the sky, dousing everyone with extravagant and unnecessary warmth. A somber fog would have suited Emmy better, or a pelting downpour. She didn’t want the heavens affirming this plan as she and her sister trudged to Julia’s school, suitcases in hand, nor as they waited in a sunny sea of emotional mothers, wide-eyed tots, and uniformed officials pretending that what they were doing was perfectly normal. From the school, the sisters would continue by bus, then by train, and lastly by motor car or delivery truck or gypsy cart—who really knew?—to wherever it was they were to call home.
    Emmy’s solitary consolation as she packed her satchel was that she had discovered the key to Primrose’s back door, which she had forgotten to return to Mrs. Crofton when they said their good-byes. It was like an omen thatshe would have to come back to London to return it to Mrs. Crofton. She slipped the key into her skirt pocket, letting her fingers linger over its shape before she withdrew her hand.
    They arrived at the school fifteen minutes after the time Mum was told to have them there but their tardiness didn’t seem to matter. The queues of parents waiting to register their children were long and curlicued, and the general feeling, despite the happy sun, was one of quiet desperation.