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

very informative, sadly. Just a lot about nearly getting frostbite when flying at higher altitudes.”

I turned to the cut photographs again and tapped my fingers on one showing Precious with Sophia wearing pretty spring hats and linking arms in front of the glass house at Kew Gardens.

“Did you by any chance grab the folder of photographs I printed at Colin’s?” I asked Arabella. “I need to look at them again.”

Arabella chewed on her bottom lip. “I think so. Might be in one of the totes I brought in. Let me go look.”

A small bell from a row of bells on the wall behind the table rang. Penelope stood. “That’s Precious—she still believes we have a houseful of servants. She’ll probably want help dressing and breakfast brought up. I’ll be back eventually.”

She excused herself, then left the room with Arabella. I pulled the scrapbook over to me and began thumbing through the pages, thick with mementos of 1939. The first contained a pressed orchid, still in its wire corsage frame, next to an invitation for a coming-out ball at Blenheim Palace. The pages were full of invitations, race cards, dance cards, train tickets, and photographs of Sophia at boat races and horse races and relaxing on lawns in front of castles with groups of beautiful young people.

“It’s amazing that all this entertainment happened right up to war being declared.”

Colin moved to stand behind me. “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die,’ doesn’t it?”

“Look at this,” I said, pointing to a clipping from The Bystander. Under a subhead entitled “Women in Uniform” was a picture of Red Cross volunteers showing women how to put on their gas masks. It was dated June 1939. “Some people were prepared, at least,” I said.

“Someone had to be,” Colin said as he began rifling through the black box. “Looks like there are a few things that either fell out or were never put in.”

A matchbox cover from the Café de Paris caught my eye. “Isn’t that the club that was bombed during the Blitz? I read that somewhere. A bomb found its way through a ventilation shaft and killed lots of people.”

“The bandleader was decapitated, if I remember correctly,” Colin said. He picked up a yellowed menu from the Savoy. “I wonder when she got this.” He turned it over in his hand. “The Savoy was a hotbed of intrigue during the war. Exiled European heads of state living cheek by jowl with spies, MI-Five operatives, and Nazi sympathizers.” He handed me the menu. “They also had a very luxurious bomb shelter beneath the building—it was known for its five-star accommodations. Apparently, the Savoy believed their guests wouldn’t want to bunk with the average Londoner in a public shelter.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I said, turning the menu over in my hand, noticing the pretty print of a woman with a fan on the cover before replacing it where I’d found it.

“Found the folder,” Arabella announced. She entered the room and slapped it on the table in front of me. “Is anyone hungry for beans on toast?”

“Just coffee for me, thanks,” I said as I opened up the folder. It contained the candid shots of Precious I’d taken as we chatted in her flat. She had the sort of face that looked good from any direction, in any light. Even at nearly one hundred years old, her bones hadn’t softened, as if time’s chisel had sharpened the planes of her cheeks and nose instead of blunting them.

“These are really good,” Colin said over my shoulder. “I especially like this one.” He pointed to the photo I’d taken of Precious sitting in the front drawing room of her flat, looking at the windows as the rain pelted them. She’d been telling me that she’d always imagined Eva and Graham together, in a house by the sea.

“Thank you. I like it, too. It tells its own story, I think.”

I felt him nod, but I didn’t look away from the photograph. There was something about it that drew me in, that tugged on a sense of recognition, a piece of information that kept sliding away from me as I reached for it.

“Oh, and Aunt Penelope would like you to come out on the terrace,” Arabella said. “Precious is skipping breakfast and wants to have coffee outside. She said to bring your notebook.”

I met Colin’s eyes, then stood. “I’ll go get it.” I started to leave, then turned back to grab the menu before rushing out of the room.

“Turn right and then left,” Colin shouted after me as I tried to enter the broom closet again.

—

When I finally managed to find the terrace, Colin was already out there with Precious, sitting under an umbrella in the bright morning sun. Coffee sat next to her in an untouched china cup I remembered from my previous visit, the steam leaking weakly into the air. Sparkling dew capped the leaves and flowers of the garden; it looked magical enough to make a person believe in fairies.

“Good morning,” I said as I approached.

Colin sent me a worried look, and as I bent to kiss Precious’s cheek, I realized why. Her skin seemed blanched under her makeup, the peach lipstick almost garish against the stark whiteness. Her gold hair sat atop her head in lackluster strands like unpolished brass. When she turned to me, her blue eyes were pale and watery, her smile weary.

“Good morning, Maddie.” She spotted the menu I’d laid on the table. “Where did you find that?”

“With Sophia’s scrapbook. We also found a hatbox full of photographs. Penelope said they’d belonged to Sophia. All of the photographs appear to have had something or someone cut out of them, but we haven’t found the missing halves. Do you know anything about them?”

Precious sighed, the weary sound bone-deep. “I don’t.” She placed her fingers on the menu. “Sophia did love her photographs. And her mementos. But then, she had the sort of charmed life she’d want