That was what troubled her now. She'd heard, or read, Karolyi's name in some other context. Read, she thought... She couldn't put a pronunciation to the closing yi. Which meant she'd never heard Jamie say it.
She slipped her eyeglasses out from behind a pile of papers- concealing them when anyone entered the room was a lifelong habit-and rose in a rustle of lace, crossing to her side of the bookshelves, where she settled on the floor, her long red hair hanging down her back, her plans to work at the Radcliffe Infirmary's dissection rooms that afternoon laid aside. By the time Ellen reappeared with a tray of sandwiches and onion soup-for it was well past noon- Lydia had remembered when and in what context she'd come across Karolyi's name, and the recollection made her more uneasy still. She left the tray untouched and ascended to the bedroom two hours later to continue her researches in the back issues of Lancet and Medical Findings stored under the bed. She might not remember whether Germany had a Parliament these days or be able to tell a Bolshevik from a Menshevik, but she could remember to within a few months when secretin had been discovered or the address of Marie Curie's laboratory in Paris.
She was still reading at teatime when Ellen came up with another tray and bullied her into eating half an egg and part of a scone while Ellen built up the bedroom fire and turned up the gas. Lydia had tracked down the reference, which had given her, in turn, another name; she was dimly aware that she had begun to count the hours between now and midnight, when, at her best guess, James was due home.