The 9 by Madalyn Morgan (tools of titans ebook .txt) 📕

‘I wanted to buy you something nice by way of a peace offering, but that’s all they had left.’ He turned his attention from Ena to the waitress and grimaced. ‘It looks a bit dry.’

The waitress looked down her nose, and with more than a little sarcasm in her voice, said, ‘If it isn’t good enough for you, sir, I’ll take it back.’

‘No! Please don’t do that,’ Ena said. ‘It looks wonderful.’ She frowned playfully at Henry before taking a bite of the cake. ‘It’s delicious. Thank you,’ she said to the waitress, who swooped down directly in front of Henry to pick up a used cup and saucer. Ena put her hand up to her mouth and smothered a giggle as she watched the waitress flounce back to the counter. ‘You deserved that,’ she laughed.

‘Her performance has cheered you up, I’m pleased to see.’

‘It has. So has this cake.’

‘Am I forgiven then, for not letting on earlier that I knew you?’

Making a show of deciding whether or not to forgive Henry, Ena looked at him steely-eyed and bit into her cake. ‘All right then. I didn’t have any lunch; I’m too weak to argue!’

Henry laughed. ‘You didn’t miss much. The food in the canteen…’ He shook his head. ‘So, how are your mother and father? And how’s Bess and your other sisters?’

‘Dad’s working at the Foundry in Lowarth. When the lads and grooms were called up, Lord Foxden had the horses taken to his estate in Sussex, so Dad lost his job as head groom. Mother’s well. She worries because Dad joined the ARP and is always in the thick of it. Bess worked in London, as a teacher, until the children were evacuated at the end of 1939. But she’s home now. She turned the Foxden Estate into arable land. Not on her own,’ Ena laughed. ‘She’s got what they call an army of land girls working with her.’

‘And Tom?’

Ena’s expression became serious. ‘Tom’s in the army, in France. We haven’t heard from him for a while. Margaret’s in London,’ she said, brightening. ‘She married Bill Burrell. I’m not sure you’d know Bill.’ Henry shook his head. ‘Anyway, Margaret’s a dancer now in a West End show. She started as an usherette, then got a job in the chorus. She’s having a whale of a time. And Claire’s in the WAAF.’ She thought it best not to mention Claire’s work. She didn’t know anything about it anyway, so left Claire stationed at RAF Morecambe in Lancashire.

Ena ate the last of her cake, washing it down with a drink of tea. She picked at the crumbs on the plate. ‘Thank you, Henry,’ she said, then burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry.’ She fished in her handbag for her handkerchief.

‘What is it?’ Ena shook her head. ‘Come on, it can’t be that bad.’ Finding and discarding the ball of sopping handkerchief from her tears earlier in the day, Ena picked up the paper serviette that the cake had been on, dabbed at her eyes, and pushed it into her pocket. She sat for some time staring at the condiments in the middle of the table. Absentmindedly she lifted her cup. It was empty.

‘Would you like more tea?’ Without waiting for a reply, Henry got up and made his way to the counter. Ena wondered whether it would be safe to tell Henry what had happened. He was a friend of Commander Dalton’s, which might help. On the other hand it might not.

‘Was it that oaf of a security guard who upset you?’ Henry asked, returning with two cups.

‘No! Well, a bit.’ Ena took a sip of her tea. ‘Can I talk to you in confidence, Henry?’

‘Of course you can, Ena.’

‘Commander Dalton had two intelligence officers interrogate me and it’s left me… I was going to say tearful, but truthfully it’s left me terrified. It wasn’t the intelligence officers’ fault; they were only doing their job. No,’ she sighed, ‘the fault was mine. Well, it wasn’t my fault, not really, it was Mr Silcott’s. But he couldn’t help it because he wasn’t there. And,’ Ena let out a loud sob, ‘I don’t know where he is.’

Henry put his hands up. ‘Slow down, Ena, you’re not making sense.’ He took a handkerchief from his coat pocket. ‘Dry your tears, and when you’re ready, tell me what happened.’

Ena wiped her face, looked at her sister’s old boyfriend for several minutes, and decided against it. She desperately wanted to tell Henry, but she had told Commander Dalton that she hadn’t spoken to anyone about the work she did for Bletchley, and she’d promised him she never would. ‘I can’t tell you, Henry, I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.’ Tears began to well up in her eyes again. ‘I can’t tell anyone.’

‘I’ve signed the Act too,’ Henry said, sympathetically. ‘I work with the machines you make parts for at Silcott’s. That’s why I was there when you discovered your work had been sabotaged.’

Unable to keep it to herself a second longer, the words poured out of Ena’s mouth in a torrent. ‘I am suspected of espionage; of leaking information to the person who stole my work.’ Henry’s eyes widened. ‘Which I didn’t do! I would never do anything like that, Henry. And,’ she took a shuddering breath, ‘now I’m petrified that because of me, the commander won’t give Silcott’s any new contracts. If he doesn’t, the women who work there will be unemployed and their families will go hungry – and it will be my fault.’

Henry took hold of Ena’s hand. ‘If you tell me what happened, I might be able to help.’

Ena looked into his kind face. The skin at the corners of his brown eyes creased when he smiled, as he was doing now. She ached to tell him, share the burden, but shook her head.