Page 9 of Apt to be Suspicious
“Yes, please. I’m taking prelims. Can I bring it back after that?” She could, though with specific instructions about how to return it, since the term would have ended by then. Then the librarian went and did a circuit of the spaces nearby, coming back with three sections of the paper. “Is this what you wanted? Just bring them back to that table when you’re done.”
“Thank you so much.” Pen smiled at her. She’d wondered if asking would be overstepping, that was something Pen hated to do. She’d started with an aversion to it, and that had just got stronger at Bletchley. Now, she took her papers off to her table again and looked at them.
There was nothing that caught her eye the same in the next two, but today’s paper had another message. “Driver, Oxford. Well-trained, handy, and tidy. In service, available in December.” and then that same wording, about writing care of the post office, and that same number, #A54. A look at the other messages suggested that that was unusual.
Logic— and Pen would bring logic in now, to support her initial reaction— suggested that was to be expected. If someone needed a position quickly, they might not want messages coming to their current employer. But Islip was not a large village. It had a coaching inn or two, if Pen remembered correctly from people planning a ramble in that direction. It was maybe forty-five minutes from Oxford by bike. Faster with an automobile, of course, but she couldn’t imagine anyone could get around the petrol rationing to check on employment.
So, presumably, whoever was expecting a contact either lived in Islip or knew someone who could collect a letter. That still meant some delay in response. And who on earth would write an advertisement like that? The first one, on November 30th, barely had any information at all, except for an exceptionally bad bit of negotiation that strongly suggested desperation.
The second one referenced being available in December, but it was already the 3rd. Giving whatever notice was needed would surely take a fortnight, then there were the holidays when a driver might not be needed. Or at least she thought so, not coming from the sort of household that had a driver.
It was entirely baffling. There was something wrong with those advertisements, and she could not figure out what. It almost made her want to lurk near the Islip post office, like some character in a novel yearning for a glimpse of a mysterious figure. She was not at all certain if Islip had a suitable tea shop, and certainly she was likely to stand out. Also, she had maths to do and study. She couldn’t be spending her time wondering if someone would collect the post.
It was going to bother her, though. There was something odd about the notices. Worse, she was going to be away from the university from Wednesday next until the start of Hilary term on January 18th. She could scarcely get hold of the Oxford papers at home. Frustrated, she pushed them aside, then pulled them back, so she could properly copy out all the relevant information.
Bringing them back to the table she’d been shown, she stopped by the desk to ask the librarian one more question. “If I wanted to look at papers while I was on hols, when I get back, do you keep those? Is it a bother to request them?”
The librarian blinked at her for a moment, not upset, but perhaps not expecting that sort of question. Then she explained they kept the most recent month readily available, and before that went into storage. Anything within the past academic year was easy enough to fetch. Pen thanked her again and determined to sit down and do her necessary preparation without further distraction.
Surely she was seeing things out of the corner of her eye because she’d spent so long looking for patterns in what seemed like entirely random collections of letters. Men who’d fought had trouble putting down the war, this was the same sort of thing. Or so Pen could only suppose, since she couldn’t really ask anyone. No matter. Even if there was a puzzle there, it wasn’t like it was hers to solve. Or hers to worry about, even.
Chapter 7
Monday, December 22nd at the Council Keep
Edmund arced sideways to avoid an imminent collision on the dance floor, as easily as he’d do the same while riding. Or, for that matter, navigating the pavement in Oxford, with its many bicycles, undergraduates, visitors, and periodic automobiles. Once he’d guided them to a more open space, he went back to the conversation he’d been having with his sister.
Ros had grown another inch or so while he was away. It was all the more obvious when they were dancing. The rest of her looked more adult as well. Mama had permitted her to put her hair up properly this year. She was wearing a rather flattering sea-green dress. It had belonged to their Aunt Laura and been refitted to suit Ros’s tastes and the current fashion.
All of that realisation made Edmund feel suddenly very old. Also as if he were likely to be called on to duel for her virtue in the imminent future. Papa couldn’t do that kind of thing. It would give too much away. Edmund was known for both his bohort and pavo play, as well as his brains. He had not been deft enough to hide them fast enough earlier in his life. Or the needs of the war had not permitted it.
“What are you thinking about so hard, Ed?” Ros was one of the few people who could get away with that nickname.
“You.” No reason not to tell the truth, and plenty of reasons to do so. “You’ve grown up more. I was wondering if I’d have to duel in defence of your virtue sooner than later.”
Ros snorted. At least that had amused her. “Thank you, no. Not interested in that sort of bother.” To be honest, he’d wondered about that topic for a good six months now. Ros had found a knot of close friends far more competently than Edmund had managed. There were plenty of people he got on well enough with, but what Ros had was different.
At any rate, she’d been clear that she didn’t think of Jasper that way. They’d grown up together, with Jasper’s father as head of Papa’s stables. And he didn’t think she considered Leo Fortier like that, either.
“Not even with your friend Peter?” Edmund would and could press a little. Peter was a different question. He hadn’t seen nearly enough of Peter and Ros together to have a proper judgement.
Ros did not say anything for a moment. Then she shoved one hand against where his met hers, just enough magic behind the push to put him off balance and stumble. “Don’t, Ed.” It was a tender place, then, and Edmund couldn’t figure out how to interpret that. Certainly, he wasn’t up to that kind of puzzle in front of several hundred members of the notable families of Albion while dancing. It might mean she wanted there to be something and Peter didn’t, or that she didn’t want and Peter did.
She went on relentlessly, making it absolutely clear that she had been learning much more than Arabic from Uncle Alexander. “I had been noticing, dear brother, how you have been studiously avoiding dancing with any of the eligible women of your generation.”
“It is also your generation, or near enough,” Edmund protested, but he knew it was in vain. “I danced with Ursula.”
“Ursula does not count. She has made her choices.” Ros said it sternly, and then softened slightly. “You can’t save each other the way you have been.”
“No.” He shrugged. “We both know we couldn’t make a pair. Not with us both Heirs.” He got on well with Ursula. More to the point, he trusted her, and that wasn’t true of many people. He was absolutely certain they’d continue to back each other’s projects and goals for a long time.
But even a companionate sort of marriage wasn’t an option. That had been true long before she’d fallen firmly in love this autumn. Their land, the connection and obligation and responsibility to the land came first. It always would, for Edmund and for Ursula Fortier and for Anthony Edgarton in due course. Thinking of Anthony made him think of Anthony’s sister. “I danced with Rowena.”
“Also does not count. She’s not looking. And doesn’t need to.” That was true. Rowena had her work. She treated it like a sort of vocation that was near enough religious in her case, if more to a particular dance of magic than to a specific deity. Like Merry and Ros, she was free from the familial expectations around the land magic, at least if she chose to be. Ros contemplated for a few steps. “Are you actually considering it?”
“In the abstract, yes. At the moment, not really. Who should I avoid dancing with, in case they get ideas?” Edmund could, at least, enlist his sister in that project. For one thing, she often knew angles he did not, because she knew someone’s younger sister or brother.
“Antigone Howell is eyeing you like some sort of hungry animal.” Edmund would have to ask her the rest of it at home, in private, because Ros’s phrasing made it clear she didn’t care for the woman. Antigone had also just left school in June, and Edmund suspected that experience of the world would be a dividing factor for a long time to come.
