She was full of these charming and unexpected comments—at once innocent and profound. Questions seemed to bubble up out of her, prompted by anything or nothing. “Do you think Jemimah likes me? I mean, do you think rabbits can actually like people?” “When you look at the sky do you think you see the same color as me?” “If you’ve had one baby does it mean you can definitely have another one?” Jean wasn’t sure how to answer this last one without getting into complicated matters of human fertility, far beyond her remit as unofficial aunt. Given Margaret’s own curious provenance, it was safer to say, “Not always. Babies don’t always come along when you want them to.”
They walked along the Strand in search of refreshment. Margaret was carrying a small shoulder bag—a child-sized version similar to one used by Gretchen—swinging it at ankle-height. Now and then it caught Jean on the back of the leg.
“That’s a dear little bag,” said Jean, sidestepping to avoid another swipe. “What do you keep in it?”
Margaret hoisted it over her head and across her body like a postman’s sack before opening it up to display the contents.
“Handkerchief, purse, toffees, notebook, pencil.”
“What’s the notebook for?”
“It’s for when the angel voices say a word I don’t know, so I can write it down and look it up later.”
“Oh,” said Jean. She hadn’t meant to ask about her voices. Gretchen had said it was best to make nothing of it, but the matter had come up quite naturally. “Have you heard from them lately?” She might have been asking about a pen pal or distant relative.
“They’ve been a bit quiet since I got Jemimah. I think they’re jealous.”
“Possibly,” said Jean, struggling to imagine the human weaknesses of these phantom whisperers. Perhaps it was just loneliness speaking. Perhaps Jemimah really might be a “cure.”
Margaret took out the spiral notebook and flipped it open at the most recent entry.
“Administrator, malfeasance, ormolu,” she read, stumbling over the syllables.
“Good heavens. I’m not sure I understand all of those words myself,” said Jean, wondering again how Gretchen could accept this bizarre phenomenon with such equanimity. If it was down to her she would be all over it until she had these “angels” under a microscope. “You’ll have a splendid vocabulary if this keeps up.”
“My teacher Mrs. Garpitt said I’ve got a reading age of thirteen,” Margaret replied.
Jean could tell she was desperate to tell someone of this accolade but at the same time embarrassed to be thought boastful.
“At least, I’d say,” said Jean. “Shall we have tea at Simpson’s? I’ve got a terrible thirst after all those toffees.”
She was rewarded with a broad smile.
The waiter showed them upstairs to the ladies’ dining room, to a table on the far side of the large, high-ceilinged room, at some distance from the concentration of other diners. Jean had a suspicion they were being put out of the way and was rather gratified when Margaret pointed toward a group of elegantly dressed women near the window and said in his hearing, “That was where we sat last time.”
It was some years since Jean had eaten anywhere smart and she had to hide her surprise at the prices—five shillings for a slice of strudel!
She ordered a pot of tea with scones and jam and Margaret chose a strawberry millefeuille from a trolley of pastries, with a glass of milk. The sight of the strawberries reminded her of her mother and she wondered how she was coping in the village hall. Her stomach gave a squeeze of anxiety at the prospect of the recriminations that might follow an unsuccessful afternoon.
The scone when it arrived was warm, crumbly and scented with rose water. It came with a dish of strawberry jam and some double cream whipped almost to butter. I could easily make these at home, Jean thought, but I never do. She would always rather be in the garden than in the kitchen in the summer. Margaret was deconstructing her millefeuille, eating it from the top down, one layer at a time.
“You could just attack it with a fork,” Jean suggested, observing her struggles.
“But all the insides will squish out,” said Margaret. “It is lovely, though.” She rolled her eyes appreciatively.
She had managed to get cream all over her fingers and a smudge of icing sugar on her cheek. It was a delight to Jean to witness her childish pleasure in things; that interlude between the dawning of consciousness and the onset of self-consciousness was so brief. Margaret was now ten; there were perhaps two more years at most.