6

Mrs. Tilbury and Margaret were waiting at Charing Cross Station by the ticket office at ten o’clock as arranged. All communications concerning this meeting had been made through Mr. Tilbury at the jeweler’s shop. Margaret was dressed in her school uniform with satchel and hat, as Jean had promised she would be back in time for afternoon lessons. Mrs. Tilbury was wearing a green cotton dress embroidered with daisies and a little white jacket, as though she were going to a summer wedding rather than a pathology lab in a dingy hospital annex.

Heads turned as she clipped across the concourse in her strappy sandals, perhaps in admiration or just charmed by the likeness between mother and daughter. Jean smiled to herself. Who on earth would choose to wear white for such a trip?

“That’s a pretty dress,” she said, almost having to shout over the sound of whistles, the shriek and hiss of shunting trains and the unstoppable flow of announcements from the PA system. “I suppose you are going to tell me you made it yourself.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Tilbury replied. “I make all my clothes.”

They hurried toward the exit, buffeted by the tremendous symphony of noise.

“It fits you far too well to have come from a shop.”

Jean plucked at her own formless garment in brown paisley, gathering a fistful of surplus fabric at the waist. It had been chosen to withstand the inevitable dust and grime of the city and fitted her across the shoulders but nowhere else.

“I could make one for you, if you like,” Mrs. Tilbury said as they halted at the curb to allow a black taxi to sweep past. “You could look through my pattern book and choose some material. It wouldn’t take me two minutes.”

“I’m sure you have quite enough to do,” said Jean.

“Oh, but I’d like to. It would be my way of thanking you.”

“For what? I haven’t done anything yet. And I may still not.”

“You have. You read my letter and took me seriously.”

Let’s just see what the scientists turn up, thought Jean as they waited on the Strand for the lights to change. Then we’ll see how grateful you are. She had been in correspondence with Hilary Endicott, the author of the original paper on parthenogenesis, and there was now a team of learned physicians at the Charing Cross Hospital eager to meet and measure and test and analyze mother and daughter.

It was clear from some remarks made by Dr. Endicott that her colleagues were nothing if not thorough and that six months was but the blink of an eye in the life of a research project. They would be fortunate indeed to have any results before the end of the year. Jean had not yet broken this news to Mrs. Tilbury, who seemed to be under the impression that enlightenment was only hours away.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jean said. “If you let me pay your usual rate, I’ll accept. But you’ll have to choose the style and fabric. I haven’t got a clue.”