The next morning, she startled awake, bleary-eyed and nearly late. After a particularly unsweetened cup of tea and bite of toast with barely a scrape of butter, Grace bundled up against the harsh cold for the trek to Primrose Hill Books.
The quick walk that had seemed so brief and pleasant in the summer and fall had become grueling in the winter. The wind pushed at her, making her forward progress all the more difficult as a deep wet cold sank into her bones.
She was nearly to Farringdon Station, lost in reliving what she’d read in The Count of Monte Cristo, when a peal of laughter pulled her attention to a side street. Two children bundled against the dismal weather raced back and forth in what appeared to be a game of tag, their cheeks red from the nip in the air and their laughter fogging in front of their mouths.
Once those giggles had been ubiquitous, blending into the roar of traffic and chatter of passing people. It struck Grace suddenly how the sound of children had become foreign.
Not all mothers had sent their children away to the country, of course, but with so many who had, there were few left to be seen.
And yet, the children playing were not the only ones she spotted that morning. As she continued on toward the bookshop, she came upon several little girls whispering together with a toy pram holding their dolls.
Were children returning?
Buoyed by the possibility this might mean an end to the war, Grace pushed into the store and immediately addressed Mr. Evans. “Have you seen the children? It looks as though they’re returning.”
Mr. Evans waved emphatically, nearly upsetting a jar of sharpened pencils. “Shut the door, Miss Bennett. It’s cold as brass monkeys out there.”
Grace did as she was asked, pushing the door against a gust of wind trying to curl its icy fingers inside. Once the chill was thoroughly blocked out, the warmth of the shop tingled at her cheeks and hands, making her almost hot in the bundle of her winter clothes.
“The children have been coming back since Christmas.” Mr. Evans squinted at something in the ledger. “What does this say?” He turned it toward her.
She looked down at his jerky script and ignored the ache pounding in her head from lack of sleep. “It says five copies.”
He hummed in acknowledgment and wrote something beside the note. “I don’t know how you’ve come to read my writing better than I do.”
“I think we ought to order children’s books and create a new section.” Grace set her handbag on the counter with a thunk, its weight considerable with the combination of her gas mask and book.
“They’ll all be sent back now that Christmas is over, I wager.” Mr. Evans lifted his generous brows as he wrote, as though doing so made it easier to see.
“A small section then.” Grace unbelted her coat and tugged the muffler from her neck as she scanned the shop, envisioning where a space for children’s books might go.
A center table had been prepared for the newest popular book, What Hitler Wants. The attention-grabbing orange banded dust jacket promised to delve beyond Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf, to offer insight into what drove Hitler’s decisions and what he might be motivated to do going forward. It was an atrocious publication in Grace’s opinion, but the masses clearly disagreed and wanted to know more.
Maybe there was something to Mrs. Weatherford’s claim that having knowledge truly was the best way to fight off fear.
Grace indicated the table set aside for the book on Hitler. “Here.” The space would be better used for a children’s section.
Mr. Evans grunted, which she’d come to take as his form of agreement. Or at least, it wasn’t ever a no.
She set to work that afternoon, putting together a list of books for Simpkin Marshalls to fill. The wholesale book distributor was located on Paternoster Row and had an uncanny knack of prompt delivery from its massively stocked warehouse.
Yet through it all, she couldn’t dislodge The Count of Monte Cristo from her head. Edmond had only just crawled through the tunnel toward the abbé’s prison cell.
What would he find in there? What if they were caught? The very thought sent her pulse racing.
After ordering new stock for the returning children, she slipped the thick book from her handbag and snuck between two large shelves near the rear of the store. Immediately, she fell into the story and the fog of exhaustion in her brain cleared away.
“Miss Bennett.” Mr. Evans’s voice cut into the stone-walled dungeon cell and slammed her right back in the middle of the bookshop.
She leapt and slapped the book closed, immediately regretting not having noted the page number first. Never in all her time at her uncle’s shop had she taken even a moment from her tasks for herself in such a way. She slowly looked at Mr. Evans, tense with guilt.