The Dressmakers of London

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jack picked Izzie up in a civilian car at five o’clock sharp on the ninth of June.

“How did you manage to borrow a civilian car and find enough petrol to run it?” she asked in wonder as he held the passenger door open for her.

“I have my ways,” he said with a grin.

She climbed in and, once she was settled, held her hands on her lap to keep them from shaking.

The rest of the unit thought that Jack was taking her to the train station to visit an aged aunt just over the border in Essex, but when Alexandra had shot her a look as though to say And what aged aunt would this be exactly? , Izzie pulled her away and confessed.

“Going away with a man?” Alexandra asked, sounding impressed.

“You don’t think it’s a bad idea, do you?” she asked.

“Izzie, all I’ve ever had are a few chaste kisses. What do I know?”

“There’s always Ben,” she teased.

Alexandra made a face. “Ben Martin is the kind of man who doesn’t think he’s looking for a wife but most certainly is, and I’m not looking for a husband quite yet. I still have some adventures I want to live. Anyway, this is about you and your night with Jack. Just remember, don’t do anything you don’t wish to and make sure that Jack takes precautions if it comes to that.”

“Alexandra,” she hissed, blushing fiercely.

Her friend shrugged. “I’m simply saying, it makes sense to be sensible if you don’t want to be bounced out of the WAAF for falling pregnant. Otherwise, go enjoy yourself. It’s boring being too good.”

Now, bolstered by both her sister’s advice and Alexandra’s endorsement, Izzie sat nervously but happily while Jack rounded the bonnet and climbed behind the wheel.

“Nervous?” he asked as he turned over the ignition.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

She smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

He sighed as he pulled into the road. “They’ve had me on the move. I’ve covered so much of East Anglia, I’m surprised I’m not dreaming of maps at this point. What about you?”

“The replacement units still haven’t come, and the other day one of the units stationed here lost another balloon.”

“How did they manage that? The things are bigger than a football field,” he said with a chuckle.

“It wasn’t secured properly and it broke away. It’s the second we’ve lost in a few weeks. They’re both probably somewhere over the North Sea,” she said.

“If the Luftwaffe hasn’t shot them down,” he said.

They drove on, chatting away about the men from his unit she’d met and the girls in the balloon unit. When she told him about Sylvia’s letters, he called Hugo a son of a bitch and then apologized for his language. When she told him about her sister’s plans to save the fashion show, he asked questions about her designs.

Finally, he turned off the road and parked next to an old coaching inn. He twisted in his seat and took her hand. “Are you sure this is okay?”

She nodded, liking the pressure of his hand on hers.

“In that case, let’s go.”

At the front desk, Jack signed the book as Sergeant and Mrs. Jack Perry and collected their key from a rosy-cheeked woman who gave Izzie an indulgent smile. Then, lifting her small bag for her, Jack led her to room twelve.

He unlocked the door and let her inside. She stepped in, taking the room in. It was large enough for a dressing table and mirror, a chest of drawers, and an old-fashioned ceramic basin and jug that she suspected would have water for washing already in it. In the middle of all of it was a double bed with a wooden headboard and a pale blue duvet spread over it.

Her eyes were fixed on the bed when she felt Jack come up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. He kissed her on her neck, and she closed her eyes as she let her head fall back to rest against his chest.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

She turned in his arms, tilting her face up. “I’ve missed you too.”

She expected him to kiss her then, but instead he set her back with a determined look.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

Her heart began to beat faster, every possible scenario racing through her head. He thought this all was a mistake. He’d just been being kind when he asked her to go away with him because he’d never thought she would say yes. He was engaged to be married. He already was married.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her throat dry.

“The thing is, it’s really out of my hands,” he began, pacing back and forth before the foot of the bed. “I tried to say no and stop it, but there’s nothing I can do. That’s the military for you.”

“To stop what?” she asked. “Jack, you haven’t told me what’s wrong.”

He looked up and shot her a sheepish smile. “They’re sending me away.”

“What?” she asked.

“The reports I’ve been working on are done. It’s now up to the top brass in the air force and the RAF to work out which bases will be used for what and by which country. I’m being sent away to do this all over again somewhere else,” he said.

“How long have you known?” she asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I found out I was moving on the morning of the day I drove out to Great Yarmouth to see you. They told me yesterday it’s going to be down south. A place called Portsmouth.”

Emotion began to rise in her throat. She hadn’t known him long, but she saw such promise in him and he’d understood her enough to help her repair things with Sylvia. Surely that meant something.

“Is this supposed to be goodbye?” she asked.

“No! No.” He crossed to her, catching her hands up in his. “Izzie, listen. I’ve been going over this in my head ever since I found out I was leaving. I don’t think this should be goodbye. I don’t want it to be.”

“But what do we do?” she asked softly.

“We write to each other. We’re good at that already, aren’t we?”

“We are,” she said cautiously.

“Any leave we have, we use to try to see one another,” he continued.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said.

“Why not? It would be a chance to see one another.”

“I told you I’m planning to use most of my leave to go back home to London.”

“Maybe I could figure out a way to meet you in London then,” he said. “We could kill two birds with one stone.”

She let out a breath and nodded.

His hands slid up her arms until they rested on her shoulders. “And then, at some point, maybe we can talk about what’s next for the two of us.”

“After the war,” she agreed.

He brushed back a bit of hair that the wind had stolen from its neat, regulation roll. “Unless you didn’t want to wait.”

She searched his face. “What are you asking me?”

“I don’t want to scare you off, Izzie,” he said.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she asked.

“You are.” He dipped his head close to hers, their lips almost touching. “I’ve thought about you so much. I’ve thought about what life would be like with you if we were together, married.”

Married . Goodness. She’d never really thought that she would marry—that had been her sister’s prerogative. After all, she’d expected to run the shop as her mother had. However, during this past six months in the WAAF, a part of her had woken up. She had friends who, as far as she could tell, couldn’t execute anything more complicated than a running stitch, and one of whom was an earl’s daughter. She’d danced until the wee hours of the morning, drunk beer, and kissed a handsome American. She’d lived more of life than she had in her first twenty-eight years, and she’d surprised herself by loving every moment of it.

“I can’t wait to show you Iowa. Louis and Muriel will love you. My mother will think you’re heaven-sent,” he said.

“If I said yes,” she said with a smile, “when would we go?”

“As soon as the war is over.”

“If it ever ends,” she said with a sigh.

“Everything ends eventually, Izzie.” He grinned. “You’ll love it in Newton. I have a bit of land picked out on the edge of town where we can build a house, exactly the way you want it.”

She pulled back with a frown. “A house?”

“Or if you want to live somewhere in town, we could do that too. That might be a bit more sociable for you,” he said.

“Jack, I’m confused,” she said.

He laughed. “About what?”

“I can’t move to America.”

He smiled. “Of course you can’t. Not yet. You’re a WAAF. Can’t have you earning a reputation as a deserter. We’ll have to wait until you’re demobbed.”

She shook her head. “No, Jack, you don’t understand. I can’t move to America at all.”

“Why not?”

She eased a step back from him. “Because I have a life here.”

“In Norfolk?”

“In England,” she said, beginning to grow exasperated because really, was he trying to be difficult? “I own a business—or at least half of one.”

“Exactly,” he said. “You own half of one. It sounds like your sister is managing just fine. You could sell the business to her.”

Izzie laughed in disbelief. “I can’t do that, but, more importantly, I won’t do that.”

Jack frowned, what she was saying seeming to finally make its way through to him. “But I thought that we—”

“We like each other, but we hardly know each other really,” she said, good sense finally penetrating her romance-addled brain.

His brow furrowed deeper. “I already said we would write to each other. We would see each other whenever we could. People have married after less. Didn’t you say your friend Nancy was ready to get married to that RAF pilot who died?”

“But you don’t love me,” she said.

“Sure I do,” he said. “You’re beautiful. You’re caring. You’re intelligent. I think you’re just about the best girl I’ve ever met.”

They were all compliments, so why, when he strung them together like that, did it all feel so… impersonal?

“Izzie, I know this is all very new to you, and maybe it was a bad idea to spring it on you. Why don’t you take some time while I’m gone and think about it?” He caught her hand and shot her that smile that had made her so weak when she first met him. “Miss me a bit.”

She freed her hand again and crossed her arms over her chest. How was it that all his flirtatious, chipper confidence now felt as ill-fitting as a badly cut jacket?

“If I did decide that I loved you and I wanted to marry you, would you move to London after the war?” she asked.

He hesitated but then shook his head. “I have a business back home, Izzie.”

“ I have a business back home, Jack.”

“Come on, now. There’s no need to take that tone.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I thought that you might like the idea of starting again. Getting away from it all.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, a little sheepishly. “I just thought most women don’t want to work if they don’t have to. I’m telling you that you don’t have to work.”

“Make no mistake, Jack, I want to work,” she said firmly.

“That’s fine. You could start a shop in Newton or Des Moines. Bring a little bit of British tailoring to the Midwest,” he said.

“Why should I be the one to leave my business behind?” she asked.

“You have Sylvia,” he said.

She had Sylvia, and for the first time in a long time that felt like it meant something.

“And you have Louis.”

Jack stared at her and then stepped back. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth.

“Maybe this all was too fast,” he finally said.

“I think it probably was.” She’d become swept up in the romance of him, the good looks and the charming ease with which he moved through the world. He’d given her all the attention she’d never experienced from a man before and it had been intoxicating, but she was not a naive ingenue. Far from it. She was a woman with her own life and her own dreams, and she was not willing to throw them away on a man who didn’t understand the most fundamental thing about her.

“There’s something here, Izzie. I know there is.”

“I think you’re right, Jack, but I also don’t know that either of us will ever be willing to budge.” One of them would have to accept that unhappiness would be a part of their life.

“I think I could love you,” he tried again.

She shook her head slowly. “I’d like to go home now.”

His shoulders slumped, but he picked up her case without protest and retraced their steps back to the car.

Jack pulled up to the gate of her base and killed the engine. The silence stretched between them until he finally asked, “Will you still write to me?”

She stole a look at him staring clench-jawed out of the windshield. It would be so easy to say yes, but she couldn’t risk falling any further.

“I don’t know.”

He let out a long sigh, his head falling back against the headrest.

She leaned across the gap between them and kissed him on the cheek. Then she collected her things. When Jack reached for his door handle, she stopped him, saying, “Stay. Please.”

She climbed out of the car and walked up to the gates, refusing to allow herself to look back as the guard examined her pass.

“You still have a lot of leave left,” he said with a nod at her pass.

“Things didn’t turn out as I thought they might,” she said.

He gave a grunt and handed it back to her.

She made her way across camp and back to her hut, her head and her heart warring with every step she took.

What if she was wrong?

What if Sylvia didn’t need her after all?

What if she came to regret choosing the shop over Jack?

She opened the door to the hut and was relieved to find all the bunks empty except for Alexandra’s. Her friend looked up from a magazine and immediately jumped out of bed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Alexandra, rushing up to her.

“Jack’s going away,” she said.

“Away?”

“He’s being sent to Portsmouth.”

Alexandra pursed her lips and then gave her a nod. “It’s not ideal, but it’s perfectly possible for you two to—”

“That isn’t it at all. He wanted… He talked about marrying. One day.”

Alexandra stooped a little to examine Izzie’s downturned face. “You’re not jumping for joy.”

“He had it all planned out. We would marry, and we would build a house in Iowa. I would love his family. They would love me.”

“And you would love none of it because it isn’t what you want,” said Alexandra, understanding her completely.

She burst into tears.

“Oh, Izzie.” Alexandra pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

Izzie sagged against her friend until, finally, her sobs began to subside. Then Alexandra held her at arm’s length and peered at her tearstained face.

“What will make this better?” asked Alexandra.

“I don’t know.” She wanted to be in her bed in the flat above the shop. She wanted to be surrounded by the familiar. To feel the weight of tailor’s shears in her hand. To sketch and sew and be.

“I wish I could go home,” she said miserably. “Just for a visit. I miss it.”

“Of course you do,” said Alexandra.

“It’s silly, but I wish I could see the fashion show my sister is putting on.”

Alexandra’s lips fell into a thin line. “When is that?”

“Next Tuesday,” she said.

Alexandra nodded, and then announced, “We need tea. If you’ll be all right for just a moment, I’ll go to the NAAFI and find us some and something sweet to go with it.”

She gave a watery laugh. “That would be lovely.”

“Unpack your things and then put on your most comfortable clothes and climb into bed. The other girls are all watching the film tonight, so no one should disturb you. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” said Alexandra.

Izzie did as she was told, pulling on a jumper and a pair of socks even though it was practically the middle of June because she needed the comfort of warmth. In her bunk, she pulled her sketchbook to her and began to draw, losing herself in the soothing rasp of pencil on paper.

She didn’t know how long Alexandra had been gone when there was a noise at the door and she looked up to see her friend walk through, bearing two cups of tea, two chocolate bars sticking out of her tunic’s breast pocket.

“Here you are,” said Alexandra.

Izzie accepted her cup and sweet gratefully.

“I’m sorry I took a little longer than I expected, but I had to send some telegrams and then there was a telephone call,” said Alexandra as she sat on the edge of Izzie’s bunk.

“Telegrams? Telephone call?”

Alexandra grinned. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good,” said Alexandra. “Then here’s what we’re going to do…”