Page 50 of The Dressmaker's Gift

I’m sure that Claire was only trying to protect her own child, my mother, by not telling her about what had happened in the war. All my mother had known was that it was something terrible, shameful, somehow, something never to be mentioned by either of her parents in case the healing scars were reopened. And she had known her aunt Harriet’s name. I wonder what she had known of Harriet’s story. Had Claire ever talked about the guilt? Was Felicity aware that both her parents felt responsible for the suffering and death of the friend and sister they loved so much? And was naming me after my great-aunt Harriet an attempt by my mother to put the past to rights?

I wish my mother had known the whole story. Perhaps she would have understood, then. Perhaps she wouldn’t have felt so alone. She would have felt, as I do, that no matter how dark the night became she could make it through. Because she would have known that Harriet and Claire were a part of her, as they are a part of me.

I think of the three girls in the photograph who brought me here to tell their story. Their faces are even more familiar to me now because I can see that they live on. In Mireille’s face, her dark eyes sparkle with the same humour and kindness as the eyes of my friend Simone – the friend who is alive today because her grandmother saved my grandmother all those years before.

In my grandmother Claire, I see the loving gentleness that is reflected in the photograph of my mother, holding me in her arms as a tiny baby.

And then there is my great-aunt, for whom I am named. Harriet, who took the name Vivienne because she was so full of life. I know I have a little of her courage. I know, if I am called upon, I will stand up, as she did, and turn to face danger. I won’t run away. I will fight for what is most important. For life.

I open the locket that I wear around my neck and I look at the photographs of my grandmother Claire and my great-aunt Harriet that are held safely within.

The light in their eyes shines, even in the darkness of the shadows that partially obscure their faces in the small black and white photos. Just as the silver beads still shine on the neckline of the dress as I turn out the last of the lights in the gallery and the display case is plunged into darkness.

And as I close the doors of the exhibition hall behind me, I sense that they are here with me, Claire and Vivi, reaching out across the years to take my hand and to whisper, ‘Hush now. We are together. Everything will be alright.’