Chapter Text
When the girls were told they would be getting another woman in charge, they were sceptical- and rightly so. In nine months, they had already outlasted four heads of department. The three of them had formed some form of unknowing alliance; to take down all heads of departments to come this way so they can stay content. They knew very little about the replacement before she arrived in February of 1937, only that she had previously worked in Foreign Intelligence, had taken a year off, then came highly recommended by Colonel Bevan himself.
They had expected a matronly old nun in her nineties who would cane them for talking too loudly or losing focus. What they got instead was Miss Leggatt. She was in her mid-thirties, far too attractive to be hidden away in an office, and staunchly single. Strict, certainly, but fair. In her last office, she'd been cruelly nicknamed 'The Spin', as Bella had managed to find out from Miss Goggins, one of her former colleagues (and much more like the mental image they'd all developed of Miss Leggatt before she turned up).
Miss Leggatt was odd in other ways, too.
The girls had once searched for her in the Post Office telephone registry while trying to arrange flowers for her for Christmas. There was no Miss Hester Leggatt in London. They had only found a smattering of names that aligned with her first, and a small family that aligned with her surname, all resulting in very awkward phone calls on Bella's part.
All the girls agreed she was attractive, hell, so did all the officers. She had blonde hair that she'd pull back into a tight bun, a single curl popping out on her forehead. Prezzo swears she spent a whole thirty minutes watching Miss Leggatt try to put the curl in her bun one day. Her face was lovely too: soft blue eyes, and freckles covering her whole body. It meant that officers that before wouldn't even admit that women worked in the same building as them werem making frequent visits to the typing pool. She was also tall and thin, but rather than haughty, she had a softness that none of them could place. Bella swears under all the ill-fitting blouses, Miss Leggatt is more physically attractive than all of them combined.
Italia thought the softness was in her voice. Miss Leggatt never really raised it. Even when she was furious, she spoke quietly, which somehow made it worse. The first time she'd caught Bella smoking out the window of the typing room, she'd simply stood there with her arms folded and said, very calmly, “Miss Meryl, if you burn down a government building, I should hate to have to explain to Colonel Bevan that I lost three typists and half the War Office because you developed a taste for Turkish cigarettes.”
Miss Leggatt also noticed everything. She noticed when Bella was upset even while pretending otherwise. She noticed Prezzo's headaches before she even admitted them to her husband. She noticed Italia translating French under her breath while typing transcripts and, instead of telling her off, had merely said, “Your accent is very good, Mrs Richardson. Where did you learn?” Italia had nearly swallowed her tongue.
The unsettling thing was that Miss Leggatt seemed to understand them far too quickly. Previous heads of department had tried to control the girls through threats or endless lectures, but Miss Leggatt adapted herself to them instead. She learned Bella could be bribed into efficiency with praise, that Prezzo became impossible when bored, and that Italia worked harder whenever she was quietly encouraged.
So, she was a middle-aged, unfairly attractive spinster who didn't exist and treated them better than some of their own mothers had; the girls were all curious.
Prezzo was always ashamed that she was only middle class; all the other girls were staunchly upper class. She'd fumbled through a second-rate secretarial school, having only just gotten through her grammar school. She couldn't speak French like the other girls, hell, she could only just write down her work in shorthand.
Bella and Italia never seemed to struggle. Bella had glided into the office as though she'd been born for it, all confidence and careless charm, while Italia, for all her social awkwardness, was so elegant and well-spoken that half the officers listened to her simply because she sounded intelligent. Prezzo, meanwhile, still occasionally spelt accommodation wrong under pressure and prayed nobody noticed. Miss Leggatt noticed, of course. That was the horrible thing about her.
One afternoon, only a month or so after she'd arrived, Prezzo had been taking dictation from one of the senior officers while simultaneously trying not to cry from embarrassment. The man spoke far too quickly, his sentences wandering all over the place, and she'd lost track halfway through. By the time he'd left the office, she'd ruined three pages of shorthand and wanted desperately to disappear. Miss Leggatt had said nothing at first. She'd simply walked over after the officer had gone, picked up the pages, and quietly read through them while Prezzo sat rigid with humiliation.
“Well,” Miss Leggatt had finally said, “his grammar is dreadful, so at least half the confusion isn't your fault.”
Prezzo had blinked at her.
Miss Leggatt lowered the papers slightly. “Honestly, if MI5 collapses one day, it shall be because senior men insist on speaking in paragraphs and not breathing in between clauses.”
Prezzo had laughed before she could stop herself. After that, Miss Leggatt began staying behind with her twice a week under the excuse of “speed exercises.” The first evening Prezzo had assumed it was punishment. Instead, Miss Leggatt had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, sat opposite her at the typing pool, and dictated increasingly ridiculous sentences until Prezzo was laughing too hard to feel ashamed anymore.
“The ambassador's wife,” Miss Leggatt read from a file one evening with complete seriousness, “has once again stolen cutlery from the Italian delegation.”
Prezzo snorted so violently that she mistyped half the sentence.
“You see?” Miss Leggatt said calmly. “Perfectly realistic government correspondence.”
It became their secret after that. Prezzo never told the other girls how much easier shorthand had become, nor how Miss Leggatt had quietly begun leaving French vocabulary cards on her desk without mentioning them aloud. She especially never mentioned the fact Miss Leggatt always pretended not to notice whenever Prezzo got something wrong in front of the others, correcting her later and privately instead. It was unbearable, really, people were not supposed to be kind in offices like this, certainly not to girls like Prezzo, girls who were much better off being left to go get married and become housewives.
Miss Leggatt, however, seemed personally offended by the idea. One rainy evening, after Prezzo had stayed late retyping a stack of transcripts she'd managed to ruin with carbon paper, Miss Leggatt had appeared beside her desk holding two cups of tea.
“You're still here,” she said.
Prezzo immediately started apologising. “For the typing, Miss Leggatt, I know I should've checked the copies before-”
“Good Lord, girl, breathe first.”
Prezzo stopped speaking. Miss Leggatt handed her one of the cups and perched herself carefully on the edge of a nearby desk, entirely unconcerned with how improper it probably looked.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “the first time I worked in an intelligence office, I accidentally sent an internal memorandum to the wrong department entirely.”
Prezzo stared at her over the rim of her teacup. “You?”
“Oh yes.” Miss Leggatt nodded gravely. “Unfortunately, the department in question happened to be the Admiralty. I was in the foreign office at the time.”
Prezzo blinked again.
“I spent three days convinced I was going to be dismissed for treason.”
That didn't sound remotely believable. Miss Leggatt was too composed for mistakes like that. Perhaps sensing this, Miss Leggatt smiled slightly. “Competent women are rarely born competent, Miss Prezzo. Usually, we simply become very good at hiding the early stages.”
Prezzo looked down at her tea.
“I don't think I'm really suited to this sort of work,” she admitted quietly before she could stop herself.
Miss Leggatt was silent for a moment. Then, very gently, “Who told you that?”
Prezzo opened her mouth, then closed it again. The truthful answer was everybody, really. Her mother, in subtle little comments before she passed, about not exhausting herself now she was married. Her old teachers, who'd always sounded surprised whenever she performed well. The girls at secretarial school who spoke French and German and wore perfume too expensive for Prezzo to pronounce. Even her midwife, when she had her daughter. Miss Leggatt seemed to understand anyway.
“There's a great deal of snobbery in offices like these,” she said coolly. “Particularly from people who mistake confidence for intelligence.” She glanced toward the piles of work on Prezzo's desk. “You work harder than most of the men upstairs. That's considerably more useful than knowing which fork to use at dinner.”
Prezzo laughed weakly into her tea.
“And for the record,” Miss Leggatt added, “your shorthand has improved dramatically.”
Prezzo nearly smiled at that. “Really?”
“Yes. Your spelling remains tragic, but one cannot expect miracles.”
Prezzo choked on her drink while Miss Leggatt calmly took a sip of her own tea as though she hadn't said anything remotely funny. That was another strange thing about her. Miss Leggatt hardly ever laughed at her own jokes, even when everyone else did. By the following week, Prezzo had begun sitting a little straighter at her desk.
Bella noticed immediately. “Oh, she's become teacher's favourite,” Bella announced dramatically one morning after catching Miss Leggatt leaving another set of vocabulary cards beside Prezzo's typewriter. “That's it. We've lost her.”
Prezzo went scarlet. “We have not.”
Italia picked up one of the cards curiously. “‘Le secrétaire.’ Well, at least she's teaching you relevant words.”
“Give that back.”
Bella grinned wickedly. “Honestly, Prezzo, if you start speaking fluent French before summer, I shall report Miss Leggatt for witchcraft.”
“I heard that, Miss Meryl.”
Miss Leggatt's voice drifted out of her office. The door was open, as always, but she wasn't visible from where they sat.
Bella didn't even look ashamed. “You were supposed to.”
Miss Leggatt sighed the sigh of a woman already exhausted by them all, and somehow that only made the girls like her more.
Yes, Prezzo liked this new head of department.