Page 9 of The Number of Love
The sigh Dot let out trembled. “The work isn’t too hard. I’ve taken to typing rather well—Lady Hambro called me a natural at it this morning.”
Dot’s response didn’t even pretend to answer Margot’s question. She started forward at the same pace Dot had been going a moment earlier. Within a step, their gaits matched. “If only work were all we dealt with in a new position.”
Dot’s shoulders sagged. She wore rather typical attire for a secretary—a simple blouse, a simple skirt, a simple jacket. Her hair was pulled up into a simple bun. But there was something not so simple about the way the muscles in her face moved, as if she were trying to force them into an expression they refused to take. “How long have you worked here, Margot? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Three years.” At the girl’s quick glance, Margot renewed her smile. “I was among the first people hired, as was my mother. Before Lady Hambro, even.”
Dot clasped her own elbows, creating a barrier across her middle. “I can’t imagine.”
“I love it here. You’ll find the team to be an exceptional group of people. All so very different, all working in unique ways, but all toward a common goal. I do realize that we take a bit of getting used to, but—”
“It isn’t that.”
It wasn’t? After Margot made such a valiant attempt to be personable? Apparently her skill at getting to the heart of a person came far short of Dot’s brother’s. She still couldn’t quite fathom how he’d managed to plant her so firmly back in her childhood with one well-placed question.
Her lips twitched. No, she was no Drake Elton. So she would be herself, instead. After a moment, when Dot didn’t volunteer whatitwas, Margot nodded toward the building across the street at which Dot now stared. “Eight thousand seventy-eight.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Bricks. In that building.”
A few of Dot’s facial muscles smoothed out. “You counted?”
“Of course not. I calculated.”
A bit of a smile snuck into the corners of her mouth. “What of that one?” She motioned to the next building down, which, much like the OB, was a combination of white blocks and red bricks—though much smaller.
“Two thousand bricks. Nine hundred twenty-two blocks. Thirty-four windows.”
Now the smile even reached the young woman’s blue-grey eyes. “What about ... stitches in my blouse?”
“Hmm.” Margot leaned close enough to see how small they were, approximated the length of seams and hems and cuffs. “Ten thousand, three hundred sixty.”
“Really?” Dot lifted her sleeve and studied the cuff. “That many?”
“Give or take twenty, depending on how the seams are joined.”
A droning sound filled the air. They both stopped and tilted their heads back. Margot’s every muscle went stiff until the aircraft zoomed overhead.
Dot visibly relaxed. “Sopwith.”
“One of the new Camels, I think.” Hand up to shield the sun from her eyes, Margot watched it as far as she could. Definitely not a German Gotha, which was the important thing. Only a few of them had made it all the way to London, but when they did, hundreds died.
Not today though. Not here.Thank you, Father. Eight, sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-six...
“Would you like to sit and eat with me? I’ve been finding a bench facing the arch.”
“That sounds lovely.” She was a bit surprised at how true her statement felt. But thus far, Dot was certainly the least objectionable of all the young women around. Margot could even come up with what she assumed Maman would deem reasonable, friendly questions to ask. “Are you from London?”
“All my life, yes. Well, mostly.” Wincing, Dot led the way around the corner. “I’m not much of one for travel. There was one time when I went to visit my mother’s family in Spain. And another time when I went on holiday with my friend, Ada, to the Cotswolds. Perfectly pleasant journeys by all accounts, but ... I prefer to stick close to home.”
“Spain! How interesting.” To look at the Elton siblings, she wouldn’t have thought they were Spanish. But that was no doubt silly of her, to expect them to fit some sort of mold when it came to their coloring. “Given your surname though, I’m assuming your father is English?”
“Was.” A few clouds shadowed her voice as she said it. Dot motioned to a bench. “He passed away just before the war began. Some sort of cancer. My mother—she died in a boating accident when I was only nine.”
“I’m very sorry.” Margot slid to a seat on the bench. “My father died not long before the war began as well. I still miss him. Every day.” She missed him every time that she picked up pen or pencil, let the numbers flood her mind, and used it to turn an encoded message into plain script. Every time she drew out a notebook in their flat and set to work on a theorem. Every time she read a newspaper and looked for secrets hidden within, though she well knew there was no one to plant them for her now.
He’d be proud of her. Proud of what she did. Perhaps he was looking down on her from heaven and smiling ... but it wasn’t the same. She hated that she’d never get to show him all the discoveries she’d helped make, the codes she’d helped break. She didn’t get to come to him in joy whenever a codebook was recovered from a sunken U-boat or German agent. He was so much a part of who she was. And yet he was gone.
