The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

I leaned forward, putting a hand on the back of her seat. “Did Eva wear it, too?”

After a long pause, she said, “Yes. It was her favorite. She told me that the perfume had been created for adventurous women. That’s why she liked it.”

“And was she?” I asked. “An adventurous woman?”

I heard something in her voice, as if she were telling a memory of ghosts. “She wanted to be. She thought life was supposed to be like the movies she loved. I think she played a character, someone she wanted us to see. I don’t know if anyone knew the real Eva Harlow.”

“And her family—where were they?”

She shook her head slowly. “She had a difficult childhood, and she didn’t like to talk about her past. We’d both been very poor. But being that poor and hungry damaged something inside Eva.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, aware of Colin trying to meet my eyes in the rearview mirror.

Precious’s hand, with its beautifully painted peach nails, stroked the shawl on her shoulder like a child petting a security blanket. “Eva never really knew what she wanted, until it was too late. I think that’s what broke her heart in the end.”

“In the end?” I prompted. “When she left London?”

As if I hadn’t said anything, Precious went on. “At some point, either Eva or I—I don’t remember which one of us—obtained a bottle of Vol de Nuit. We shared it, but that bottle remained nearly full because we were both so careful not to use too much.” She tilted her head. “I wonder whatever happened to it.”

“Maybe Eva took it with her when she left,” I offered.

“Maybe.” She turned her head away. “Have you had any luck finding her?”

“We’re working on it, Nana,” Colin said. “Mother’s friend Hyacinth Ponsonby works with the National Archives. She thinks she should be able to find something about Graham. We’re hoping something in his records will lead us to Eva.”

She nodded. “I do hope they ended up together, wherever they are. They were so in love.” She turned toward the window, ending the conversation.

In the backseat, Arabella began fanning through the folder of yellowed news articles and chuckling to herself. “Colin—Sophia was apparently a big reader of The Tatler and The Bystander. Most of the clippings your mother found are from those—and then after nineteen forty, it’s The Tatler and Bystander because they merged. Still very gossipy, but also literary, so I’ll try not to hold reading tastes against Sophia. Daphne du Maurier published her first short story in The Bystander, after all. And I’m reading some of these articles, and they’re quite brilliant.”

“Really?” I asked. “How so?”

After waiting for me to pull out my notebook, she said, “Here’s an article entitled ‘From the Shires and the Provinces,’ dated February 1939. It’s all about how sad it is that something as inconvenient as a war might interfere with hunting season and British lives in general. Listen to this.” Arabella cleared her throat and began to read.

Political uncertainties no doubt have an effect on hunting and it would be quite possible to work ourselves up into a terrible state of jitters if we allowed ourselves to think of such things as our horses being taken from us, our hounds being destroyed to save food and money, our homes filled with strangers, etc.

“That’s February, did you say?” Colin asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Precious—you were living in London then, right? Great Britain didn’t declare war against Germany until September, so I’m curious—what was it like for you and your friends earlier in the year? Were you all worried about what was happening in Europe?”

She was silent for so long that I thought she hadn’t heard me. When she did speak, she kept her gaze on her folded hands. “We were busy living our lives.” Her shoulders lifted in a tired shrug, as if the burden of memories had become too heavy. “Europe seemed so very far away. It wasn’t until men we knew signed up to fight that it suddenly became real to us. It was as if I’d left my house unlocked. When a thief came and stole everything, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. Those are the worst kinds of surprises, aren’t they? The ones you never see coming.”

The last word caught in her throat. I sat back against my seat, something that she’d said echoing uneasily in my head. Maybe it was her reference to a thief and how I’d always felt my mother and my childhood had been stolen by the same stealthy intruder. But there was something else, something dark moving behind Precious’s words—something in the way her voice changed in the telling, something even more devastating than a declaration of war.

“You Yanks will find this amusing,” Arabella said, breaking the tension. “You’re always joking about British understatement. Here’s an article in that same gossip rag. The title is ‘And the World Said.’ It’s dated September 13, 1939—so a little over a week after the declaration of war. There’s a photo of a wedding party, and the caption reads, ‘Among the many marriages that have been hurried up by the current spot of bother . . . ’ Ha! That might be the first time I’ve ever heard the Second World War condensed so spectacularly. Even I’m impressed, and I’m British.”

Colin turned his head briefly toward Precious. “Was my grandmother’s wedding one of those that were ‘hurried up’?”

Precious shook her head. “No. It had been planned well in advance. The war was the reason why I was in the wedding party, though. Sophia’s original bridesmaids had been quickly married. One got pregnant right away and was very ill from the start, and the other was whisked away to an island off of Scotland to stay with family while her soldier husband was in training. I hadn’t known Sophia for long, but we were already good friends. I was happy to be there on her wedding day.”

“And Eva, too?”

A brief pause.