“Yes. We were just visiting.”
“I’m Audrey’s brother, Alfie, and I’m pleased to meet you.” He swept off his hat and his thick shock of hair was the same amber color as his sister’s. He looked every bit the gentleman, even dressed in casual tweeds, and was certainly the most refined man she’d ever talked to—if you could call her nervous stammering talking.
“Y-yes, I know . . . I mean . . . I figured you were. I’ve seen—” She stopped herself before saying she had glimpsed him from behind the servants’ door at Wellingford Hall.
“I hope you aren’t in a hurry to leave. I would love to have a cup of tea and get to know you,” he said. Before Eve could reply, Audrey appeared in the doorway.
“Alfie! Welcome home, darling brother!” Audrey took his hands as he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “Are you home because of King George’s funeral?”
“Yes, for a few days. I just invited your beautiful friend for tea. You’re not going to keep her all to yourself, are you, Audrey?”
“Your beautiful friend.” His words sent a wave of warmth through Eve. She longed to follow him into the house, simply for the novelty of observing his gentlemanly manners up close and listening to the smooth way he spoke. But Audrey seemed annoyed. She wanted her brother all to herself. “Sorry, but I must be going. Maybe another time?” Eve forced herself to turn away and stroll out to the street, looking both ways as she pretended to search for a taxicab. She would walk to the corner and take the Underground as soon as Alfie closed the door.
Eve had taken only a few steps when she felt Alfie’s hand on her shoulder. “Eve, wait! I would like your telephone number, if you don’t mind. I would very much like to see you again.”
“Very much . . .” “I . . . I would, too . . . I would like to see you, too, that is.”
He held her gaze as he rummaged inside his jacket and produced a small address book and fountain pen. He handed them to her. Eve couldn’t move.
“Did you forget your number . . . ?” he asked, laughing.
“No, I didn’t forget.” A pleasant wave of warmth spread through her again as she printed the number. “I live in a . . . a flat . . . with some other girls.” She was ashamed to admit it was a boardinghouse. “Everyone runs to grab the telephone the moment it rings, so make sure you ask for me.”
“Oh, I will! Goodbye, Eve Dawson.” He grinned and disappeared into the town house.
Eve arrived at the town house a little before ten. Audrey watched her glance around the foyer and peer into the front room as if searching for an umbrella she’d left behind. “Do you think your brother would like to come with us?” Eve asked as the butler helped Audrey with her coat.
“I can’t imagine that he would.” Nor could Audrey imagine what Alfie had said to Eve the other day after following her down the sidewalk. He’d been very cagey about it. Audrey didn’t know why, but the fact that he and Eve had met at all was unsettling, as if the two people she felt closest to shouldn’t be allowed to cross paths. But that was absurd, of course.
She and Eve walked part of the way from the town house in the wintry cold, then took the Underground. It was Audrey’s first time to ride the subterranean trains, and she found them horribly crowded and noisy. They walked some more until reaching the parade route, where thousands of silent spectators lined the rain-slicked street, densely packed together and bundled against the chill. Eve towed Audrey down the middle of the empty, closed-off avenue toward Hyde Park Corner, and when a policeman on horseback shooed them out of the road, they ended up in the front row with a perfect view of the procession. “Well, that was a clever move,” Audrey said. Eve simply grinned.
Audrey hadn’t expected to be awestruck by the somber splendor of the king’s funeral procession, but she was. In spite of the cold, she was glad she’d agreed to come. She would long remember this day with the banner-draped coffin perched on a gun carriage, the imperial crown, orb, and scepter on top. The queen and princesses, wearing black, rode in a gilded coach, while the new king and his three brothers, the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and Kent, walked behind the casket. Endless lines of uniformed men saluted their monarch for the final time. Aside from the sounds of distant bagpipes and ringing bells and hundreds of feet marching in step, the funeral procession was silent as people paid their last respects to King George V.
“Do you ever think about dying?” Eve asked after the procession passed and the crowd began to break up.
“I can’t say that I do. I’ve never known anyone who died until now. I’ve never even been to a funeral. Have you?”
“Sure—several of them. Including my granny Maud’s.” Eve spoke the name with reverence. And love. She lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked up again and linked arms with Audrey. “So we won’t get separated,” she said as they surged toward the Underground with the rest of the crowd. “Whenever someone in our village died,” Eve explained as they walked, “everyone would leave school or stop working and go to the funeral. The vicar always made heaven sound like such a wonderful place that you almost envied the dead person. I guess King George is up there now, too.” Eve pointed to the gray, low-hanging sky.
Audrey envied Eve for having been raised in a community that grieved together. Who, besides Alfie and her parents, would attend Audrey’s funeral if she were to die? “Do you believe we go to heaven after we die?” she asked.
“Of course! Doesn’t everybody?”
“I know very little about heaven. It certainly isn’t part of the curriculum at my girls’ school. Nor have my parents or Miss Blake spoken much about it. Father took Alfie and me to church on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.”
“I know. I used to see you there. The whole village would start whispering whenever you walked in.”
Audrey was afraid to ask what they had whispered about.
They slowed as they approached the entrance to the Underground and the crowd had to file down the narrow stairs. Audrey couldn’t bear the thought of being jammed together with so many people. “Maybe we should take a taxi instead.”
“Ha! Everyone in London is looking for a taxi,” Eve said. “But my boardinghouse isn’t far. We could walk there and wait until the streets clear.”
“At least we’ll be out of the cold.” Audrey didn’t have anywhere else she needed to be. Her coat might have been fashionable, but it wasn’t keeping out the January chill, and her silk stockings did nothing at all to keep her legs warm. They walked for what seemed like miles and finally arrived on a block of shabby brick row houses on a narrow back street.
“This is home,” Eve said, leading Audrey up the steps and through the door. She towed her into a front room with dusty knickknacks, a threadbare Turkish rug, a pair of overstuffed chairs, and a worn chintz sofa. The fire in the grate had burned low, but the room felt warm compared to the wintry temperatures outside. Eve sank onto one of the chairs, rubbing her hands together to warm them. Audrey sat down on the sofa and removed her kid gloves. “I’ve been thinking,” Eve said. “Whenever someone in our village died, we would mourn their passing at church. But after the burial, everyone gathered at the deceased’s home or in the pub to celebrate his life. We should do something to celebrate King George’s life.”