The Secret Keeper

London, March 1941. Vivien runs into Jimmy on the street and he reminds her that they’ve met before. He says Vivien told him about the children’s hospital, and he wants to visit Nella, the orphan. Dolly has convinced Jimmy to go along with her scheme, insisting that Vivien can spare the money and they won’t hurt anyone—at last, they’ll be together. Jimmy doesn’t think it’s right, but he wants to bring Dolly’s spirit back; she seems so crushed. He continues to visit the hospital, hoping to catch Vivien with her lover, but what he finds surprises him.

Greenacres, 2011. Laurel helps bring her mother home from the hospital. She wants to ask her mother questions, but Dorothy is rarely lucid or awake. Once she wakes from a nightmare and, crying, says, “It was my fault she died” (342). Dorothy also says that she tried to hide, but he found her. Laurel is beginning to suspect her mother did something terrible and she wonders if she’ll be able to forgive her mother when she finds out what it was.

Laurel visits the archives at Oxford University where the letters and journals of Katy Ellis have been donated, but she finds no letters from Vivien, though Katy says that they corresponded regularly. She turns to Katy’s journals and finds her description of bringing Vivien to England. Katy says that the girl sits quietly for long periods and is waiting to wake up from her bad dream. Vivien faults herself for her family’s deaths. Katy worries that Vivien will be taken advantage of as she grows beautiful and rich.

London, April 1941. Instead of a lover, Jimmy catches Vivien surrounded by children. They are rehearsing a play, Peter Pan. Jimmy offers to create Tinker Bell. Vivien tries to discourage him, but he insists. Dolly is happy because she believes their plan is progressing, but Jimmy becomes closer to Vivien. She confides in him that she can’t have children. He gives her a photograph he's taken that reminds him of a story she tells the children; in the picture, a family is emerging from a bomb shelter while light glints on broken glass around them. After he gives Vivien the picture, Jimmy feels a thaw in her demeanor toward him. He feels a growing connection to Vivien and increasing distance with Dolly. Vivien misses a week of rehearsals, recovering from an illness, and Jimmy speaks with the doctor, who was friends with Vivien’s grandfather. Jimmy realizes Vivien doesn’t have a lover—that she is keeping her work with the children a secret for some reason—but when he asks Dolly to reconsider her plan, she refuses.

New College Library, Oxford, 2011. Laurel continues to read Katy’s journals, which report getting a letter from Vivien in April 1941 that suggests Vivien’s spirit has returned. Vivien mentions a young man she’s met, and Katy worries that Vivien will bring trouble upon herself. Vivien asks Katy to burn all her letters, but Katy quotes in her journal when Vivien writes about the photograph Jimmy gave her. Vivien swears she has no designs on the young man—he is going to marry someone else, live by the seaside and have lots of children—but it feels good to enjoy someone’s company and to laugh again. To Katy it is clear that Vivien has fallen in love; she’s even visited the young man in his home, meeting his frail father. Then Vivien sends a letter saying that the friendship is over. She sounds defeated and resigned. Three days later, Vivien Jenkins is dead. Laurel calls Gerry to see what he has discovered about Dr. Rufus and Gerry says that Dolly and Vivien were never actually friends. The call is cut off before Gerry can explain.

London, May 1941. Jimmy is pleased by how much Vivien enjoys visiting Jimmy’s father. He knows Dolly would never take such pleasure in their visits. Jimmy realizes he is falling in love with Vivien, but he is loyal to Dolly. He tells Vivien that she’s met Dolly, and Vivien explains that when Dolly returned her locket, she’d had a bad day and was feeling unwell. She went to apologize later for being rude, but Dolly didn’t answer the door. When Vivien asks why they aren’t married already, Jimmy admits he is saving money.

Dolly and Jimmy quarrel, and she realizes that her plan is driving them apart. She shows him the job offer at the boardinghouse at the seaside. Dolly tells Jimmy she regrets the plan and wants to see their performance of Peter Pan.

Jimmy is delighted by the performance of the play. The children name their ship the Nightingale Star after the story Jimmy’s mother told him. He takes a photograph of Dolly and Vivien smiling together. Jimmy notices a bruise on Vivien’s collarbone. She says she bumped against a lamppost while getting to a shelter in the blackout. Jimmy is worried for her.

Vivien tries to recall her family, but all she can think about is Jimmy Metcalfe. She is in love with him but knows he is in love with Dolly. A man named Dr. Rufus calls and explains to Vivien that Dolly and Jimmy intend to blackmail her. Vivien realizes that it isn’t just Jimmy she loves but the idea of freedom and a life of possibility. She calls on Mr. Metcalfe and when Jimmy arrives, Vivien gives him her copy of Peter Pan, inscribed with a note: “A true friend is a light in the dark” (406). Jimmy is touched until she hands him a check. She tells him to use the money to marry Dolly. Then she kisses him goodbye. Jimmy feels that he’s lost something rare and precious.

Dolly shows him the photograph she took of Jimmy and Vivien together. She developed it herself and wrote a letter demanding money. Jimmy tells her to forget the plan and shows her the book and the check Vivien gave him. Dolly is overjoyed to have the money and takes the book. Jimmy goes home to find a letter from Katy Ellis, and he realizes Vivien’s secret. The blackmail letter that Dolly wrote is found in the rubble when the restaurant where she met Jimmy is bombed, and a woman from the response team mails it, hoping she is helping to reunite two lovers who will go on to have a happy future.

Greenacres, 2011. Laurel speaks with Gerry, showing him the photograph of Dolly and Vivien and the Peter Pan book. Gerry notices that the writing of “To Dorothy” is different from the inscription. Dr. Rufus wrote of Dolly Smitham in his papers. He was researching narcissism and noticed similar traits in Dolly, like a tendency toward obsessive fantasies. When Dolly felt slighted by Vivien, she told a friend of her plan, and the friend told her father, Dr. Rufus. Laurel is sure now that “Ma had been involved in something that turned out terribly, and she became a better person for it” (421).

Laurel asks her mother once more about Vivien and her mother reveals that Henry Jenkins was a vicious man who beat his wife. Laurel has been wondering why her mother hadn’t married her war-time love and asks if Henry Jenkins killed Jimmy. Her mother says yes. When he came to the house that day, he said he was going to destroy everything Dorothy loved. Laurel re-examines the thank-you card she found in her mother’s trunk and realized it was stamped June 3, 1953, and sent from Kensington, London.

London, May 23, 1941. Vivien arranges to meet Jimmy at a café, but he doesn’t appear. When she returns home, Henry assaults her. Vivien never fights back when he hits her; she believes this is her penance, her punishment for being responsible for her family’s deaths. She thinks of the shining lights in the creek and wishes she could be with them. Vivien hopes he might actually kill her this time, but he puts her to bed and tells her to tidy herself up. Henry says that he sent men, and Jimmy Metcalfe is rotting at the bottom of the Thames River.

Though she is in pain, Vivien searches Henry’s desk. She finds the photograph Dolly sent and sees a return address on the envelope. Vivien goes to Dolly’s boardinghouse and asks to speak with her. Dolly brings her inside to her room, and Vivien tries to explain that Henry, who opens her mail, found the letter, sent men to kill Jimmy, and might send men to kill Dolly, too. As bombs fall around them, Vivien says that Dolly has to leave. Dolly shows her the job offer from the boardinghouse by the seaside. Vivien tells Dolly to seize her second chance but doesn’t reveal to Dolly that she, Vivien, plans to kill herself. As the room explodes with light from a falling bomb, Vivien rejoices that she is finally going home.