Page 50 of The Number of Love
“I haven’t decided. When I do, I’ll let you know.” His mother would have given him a tongue lashing for even considering courting such a girl. One who was unsure about marriage and wanted no children? Who intended to work outside the home rather than in it, even when war or finances didn’t demand it? Oh yes, she’d have had a strong opinion on that.
But as he watched Margot move to the door so she could open it for his sister, he knew that her answers hadn’t done a thing to squash his interest. If anything, they’d raised it. Because never in his life had he met anyone like Margot De Wilde. Never would he again, he suspected. But did that mean he ought to pursue her romantically? Would it be worth the certain headache—and likely heartache?
He was none too sure. But he had nothing but time, just now, in which to decide.
15
Why are you going this way? Not that I mind your company for a little longer.”
Margot turned the same corner as Dot, where usually she would continue straight along the street on the shortest route to her flat. They’d walk by the park if they went this way, and she needed to see if Redvers Holmes was waiting. She had the grey scarf in her bag, though today was warm enough that he wouldn’t need it. Who was to guess as to tomorrow, though? It was November, after all.
She touched a hand to the knitted belt of the cardigan Maman had made for her. It could well have been intended as a birthday gift, rather than a Christmas one. Her mother wouldn’t mind her wearing it now. Today. It had seemed like a whisper of assurance when her eighteenth birthday had dawned warm enough that she didn’t need her coat. Just this. A piece of Maman.
No numbers to sayIt’s all right. She wouldn’t mind. OrSave it until Christmas.No numbers other than those painted onto the thermometers. They had two, because England still used the imperial measure, but Maman couldn’t get used to Fahrenheit and had invested some of their precious funds into a centigrade thermometer too.
There were no numbers for anything these days. None to tell her whether today had been the best day to approach the admiral abouther concerns. None when she’d dropped a note to the Duchess of Stafford into the post, requesting that audience to discuss Einstein. None to tell her whether today would be the day that Redvers Holmes would be waiting by the park.
“Margot?”
She darted a glance at Dot and realized she’d yet to answer her friend about her direction. “I asked a new acquaintance to see if he could discover the name of that fellow at the park, and he said he’d meet me there one evening at five-thirty to let me know what he’s discovered.” She didn’t mention that the chap had begged a few coins from her, or that she had a scarf for him in her bag. No numbers told her not to, but even so. Pride she understood without assistance.
Dot shook her head. “You always have to have answers, don’t you?”
Her rebuke wasn’t about the Go player in the park, Margot knew. It was about her determination to discover if Maman had been felled by anthrax. Margot had seen her press her lips together today when she asked DID if she could speak with him.
It was statistically inevitable that she and this new friend of hers would disagree about something. Probable that the something would be important.
But she wishedthishadn’t been their first disagreement. This, of all things.
If the numbers hadn’t told her to befriend Dot to begin with, perhaps she’d shrug it off and simply drift away. But the Lord meant for them to be friends. She wouldn’t forget that now, despite the fact that the numbers had gone silent.
And so Margot said quietly, “I realize you don’t think my questions about Maman’s death are worth asking. But I have to ask them. I have to know. I’m sorry if that bothers you.”
Dot touched her arm, then withdrew her fingers. “It doesn’tbotherme, Margot. Itworriesme. Because I don’t want you obsessing over this instead of simply healing.”
Healing? Margot sucked in a long breath and scanned the distance ahead of them. She’d already lost one parent. It wasn’t a wound thathealedper se. It was simply one she’d learned to live with. LikeRed Holmes’s missing limb. Something that had once supported him, gone forever. He’d learned to walk again, and so would Margot. The flesh could be stitched, a prosthetic attached. It didn’t bleed forever.
But healing meant returning to a state of health, being restored to the original condition. Drake Elton’s gunshot wound would heal. Red Holmes’s amputation would not.
“Death isn’t a gunshot, Dot. It’s an amputation.”
Dot’s pace slowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“It doesn’theal. We’re never restored fully, whole again, after we lose someone. We just learn to go on with the pieces missing.”
Holmes was there, coming even now from the park with that peculiar gait reserved for those using artificial feet with ankle joints—the ankle that released the foot all at once when he put down the heel, rather than rolling onto and back off the ball. She didn’t know how long he’d had the thing, but it must have been a few months, at least. From what she’d read on the subject, it took a considerable while for patients to adjust to the wearing of such a device, and he seemed to have mastered it as much as it allowed.
She would too. She’d learn how to walk without Maman, as she’d learned without Papa. But it would never be the same. She would never stop missing them.
Dot was frowning into the distance. “Who did you say you’re meeting?”
“I didn’t. But a young man named Redvers—”
“Holmes! Red!” Dot lifted a hand and picked up her pace, leaving Margot behind.
They knew each other? What an odd turn. Margot hurried to keep up, arriving just as Holmes was tipping his hat and bowing a bit at the waist.
“Miss Elton! How do you do? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
