Free The Girl Behind The Curtain (Hidden Women) by Stella Knightley Page B

me after all this time. I shouldn’t have kept it. I think it is self-explanatory. Once you have read it, perhaps you could find a way for it to be returned to the owner. Or to her family, if she is no longer alive. I think you will know better how to find them than I.’
    I nodded again. ‘I’ll do my best.’
    ‘It’s getting late. I’m afraid I’m suddenly rather tired,’ said Herr Schmidt.
    ‘Then I’ll say goodnight.’
    I tried not to look too eager to take my new treasure upstairs.
     
    When I got to my room, the Internet connection had still not been restored, so there was nothing to distract me from opening the shoebox Herr Schmidt had rescued from the burnt-out hotel. Why had he picked this up when there must have been so many treasures left in the rubble? I wondered if he had attributed some significance to it precisely because it hadn’t gone up in flames. It wasn’t even slightly singed. But the first thing I noticed – perhaps the thing that had caught Herr Schmidt’s eye too – was that this was an English shoebox. I didn’t recognise the name of the store marked on it, however; it was probably long since defunct.
    I was careful as I took off the elastic bands, but they were old and perished and they crumbled in my hands. The box couldn’t have been opened for years. I thought of Herr Schmidt’s words, ‘It mocks me after all this time’, and wondered why he hadn’t tried to find the owner himself. Perhaps he had. It wouldn’t necessarily have been easy before the Internet became part of everyone’s life. Even with the Internet it could sometimes be hard to track someone down. Not many people who’d been alive in the 1930s bothered to have a profile on Facebook.
    The box smelled musty and damp, as though it had been kept in an attic or a cellar. As I opened it, I imagined a wisp of long-dead spirit smoking out into the air, filling my lungs with the past. I instinctively held my breath.
    Inside the box was a treasure trove. There was a small Steiff teddy bear whose nose was worn bald by kissing. There was a handkerchief embroidered with the initials KH. There were several letters, bundled together with a piece of ribbon in Fortnum and Mason’s distinctive pale green. There were also two diaries, one from 1932 and another from 1933. The diary from 1932 was English. It was made by Smythson, still one of Britain’s best stationers in the twenty-first century. It was bound in red leather and embossed in gold with the same initials as the handkerchief. The 1933 diary was German in make. It was cheaper in construction and had a simple black leather cover. It was not embossed. The writing inside both was English and in the same girlish, neat hand using a fountain pen and blue ink, which had faded over the years.
    Feeling a little like a thief, I opened the first diary and began to read.

Chapter 11
    Surrey,
    Friday 1st January 1932
     
    Dear Diary,
    Happy New Year! Ha ha ha! If only this New Year were happy. What a terrible New Year’s Eve I had. I can only hope it doesn’t set the tone for the rest of 1932.
    As usual, we were asked to join Bettina and her family at their annual New Year’s party at the Grange. It’s always a fabulous affair. They give their terrible cook a night off, get proper caterers in and hire a band. Everyone in the village is invited. Like me, Mummy always wants to get dressed up and join in the fun. And every year Papa says he can’t stand Bettina’s braying parents and all the nouveau showing off and wouldn’t it be much nicer to stay home instead? Well, I certainly wish he had stayed home last night. I wish we all had.
    The party started at seven for the benefit of the old folk who might not make it all the way till midnight. I wore my new dress: the red silk one cut on the bias that Mummy made from a McCall’s pattern. It’s really rather lovely, even if it is home-made. Of course, Bettina’s dress was a Norman Hartnell picked up on a trip to London, but,