She pushed herself to her feet again. Daddy said he’d asked both Mr. Marin and Lieutenant Clarke to share Easter dinner with them, which was lovely. But she’d have to be careful to remain unseen at the office. She could always explain her presence in the building easily enough, saying she was there to see her father. She’d done so, in fact, other times when acquaintances Daddy had invited to their table had later spotted her and said hello. But on Room 40’s floor? That would be a bit trickier to excuse.
She’d have to have a story ready to tell if it happened. That Daddy had asked her to run something down to Admiral Hall for him on her way out, perhaps.
Or perhaps it would be wiser to simply let someone else deliver her finished photographs to the admiral. Keep to the basement entirely.
Lily’s shoulders sagged. If Room 40 was a family, then she was naught but a Cinderella of her own making—hard at work but self-banished to the fringes where no one could see her. A situation she had crafted rather carefully. Why was it only now beginning to chafe?
“Lily?”
She paused midway to the door and looked back at her friend, who had straightened as well. Ara’s tall form had angled toward the framed photograph on the wall, and her lips had turned again into a smile. She nodded to the photo. “I’ve been meaning to ask you if I could get another print of that. I’d like to send one to my father in Mexico.”
That, at least, was easy. Lily grinned. “Of course. I can have it for you when I come in on Monday.”
“You’re a gem. Now go, enjoy your Easter. I’ll tackle Mount Paperwork.”
With a laugh, Lily opened the door and slipped out, closing it again behind her. It wouldn’t stop the other nurses and VADs from interrupting Ara for serious matters, but perhaps it would deter those who wanted an idle chat. Because it was going to take a rather large swath of uninterrupted time for Arabelle to turn that mountain into a reasonable molehill.
A few minutes later, Lily was striding down Agar Street, aiming herself toward Mayfair. It was a lovely day, all sunshine and soft breezes and the glories of spring, so she decided to forgo the tube and walk home. Actually, she’d go the long way round and call at the school first and see if Ivy was still there. There were no classes today, of course, but her sister had said something about rearranging her classroom before the students returned from their holiday.
A smile pulled at Lily’s lips. Ivy was all the time rearranging the furnishings. Even back when they were both in the nursery, Lily could remember awaking from a nap to find that three-year-old Ivy had pulled her bed over to the window, or half into the closet, or piled every pillow in the house on top of it to make it look “pretty and new.” A habit that had increased with age . . . and perhaps with strength. At least once a month, Ivy would enlist the help of their shared maid in scooting this piece of furniture over there or that other one into the corner or whatever suited her fancy at a given time.
After leaving St. James’s Park, she crossed Piccadilly and aimed toward Hyde Park and the school perched near its westernmost edge. She slipped easily through the familiar wrought-iron gate and climbed the steps as she’d done nearly every day for the last decade. First when she attended the girls’ school, and then to walk home with Ivy when she was a student, and now to walk her home when she was a teacher. The walk along parts of the park to Curzon Street was one they’d always enjoyed taking together. Whenever possible, they still did.
The corridors of the school were empty of all but that silent echo that signaled the absence of life usually filling a place. She knew Ivy loved that unnatural quiet. It had always felt a bit spooky to Lily. But after she’d trotted up the stairs inside, the corridor did magnify the few noises, assuring her Ivy was in her classroom.
Lily leaned into the doorway with a smile. “You know, most teachers enjoy their holiday away from school.” It was still odd sometimes to come and see her baby sister about her work. Teaching—something she never imagined her sister taking on before war changed the landscape of their lives. All grown up.
Ivy looked up with a warm smile that said she was right where she belonged. “What do you think?” She motioned toward the room.
Last week, when Lily had stopped in, the desks and benches—wide enough to fit two students at each, though occasionally three were squeezed in—had been arranged in a circle, with Ivy’s tall chair and blackboard in the middle. Today they were back in neat rows, but angled toward one another in a V, giving them a view not only of Ivy and her board by the window, but also of each other.
Lily tilted her head. “Do you really think it a good idea to give them such a clear view of the window?”
“Given that we’re charting the blooming of the tree and keeping an eye on the newly built nest in that limb, yes. Yes, I do.” Ivy grinned and picked up a slate pencil that must have rolled from someone’s desk when she was moving it. “Only for a week or two, though, or I daresay there will be a lot more of this required.”
Lily followed the motion of Ivy’s hand to the blackboard, where a student had written I will not chatter in class twenty or so times. She chuckled. Chattering had never been her particular problem, but there had been a time or two over the years when she’d had to write I will not daydream during lessons or I will not draw in my copybook on the board. “Diana Oglesby again?”
“Who else?” Ivy shook her head, but amusement lit her eyes.
“Perhaps she needs a ruler to her knuckles.” Lily said it solely because she knew well her little sister could never bring herself to resort to the typical punishments. She’d instead devised a merit and demerit system that seemed to keep the girls in remarkably good order, what with the promise of rewards for those who had accumulated a surplus of merits and some rather interesting punishments for anyone with a deficit, like picking slugs off the school garden’s plants in the mornings before class.
Ivy rolled her eyes. And then they flashed bright, and she motioned Lily to join her at the window. “Come here. They ought to be coming by again any moment.”
“Who? Diana Oglesby?”
“No, Silly Lily.” The window was open to let in the spring air, and Ivy poked her head out, bracing her palms against the sill. “There. I can just see them emerging from that copse of trees.”
Curious now, Lily slid into place beside her sister, her hand reaching by habit for the camera in her pocket. She didn’t know who had caught Ivy’s attention, but if it was so notable, perhaps it called for a snapshot. She squinted into the distance, her brows drawing tight together when she saw Ivy was pointing at two figures far too tall to belong to her eleven-year-old pupils. No, they were clearly men. Men moving at quite a quick pace along the path inside the park.
One of whom had a stride so smooth and graceful that she had a feeling she knew exactly who it was long before she could make out any features. “Is that . . . ?”
“Clarke and the Russian.” Ivy leaned her elbows into the sill and rested her chin in her hands, looking more the schoolgirl than the teacher. “This will be their fourth lap of the mile circuit, if you can believe it. And their pace doesn’t seem to have lagged.”
She wouldn’t have thought Zivon a runner. And yet, perhaps it explained that way he moved—almost without friction, it seemed. Lily quickly adjusted the focus and light settings on her camera and had it in position by the time the men drew near enough. Her fingers trailed the cord, found the push-pin.