Elsie Murray made her way around the Scriptorium, her hand full of envelopes. I watched as each of the assistants received one, variations in thickness indicating seniority, education, gender. Da’s envelope was thick. Mine, like Rosfrith’s and Elsie’s, looked almost empty. She stopped by her sister’s chair, and as they spoke Elsie re-pinned a lock of fair hair that had escaped Rosfrith’s bun. Satisfied it would stay, Elsie continued towards my desk.

“Thank you, Elsie,” I said as she handed me my wage.

She smiled and put an even larger envelope on my desk. “You’ve been looking a bit bored these past few day days, Esme.”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re being polite. I’ve done my fair share of sorting and letter-writing. I know how tedious it can be.” She opened the envelope, pulled out a page of proofs and slid it towards me. “Father thought you might like to try your hand at copyediting.”

It wasn’t a cure for the mood that had descended on me, but it was welcome. “Oh, Elsie, thank you.”

She nodded, pleased. I waited for her usual questions.

“A new play will be starting at New Theatre tonight,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Will you be going?”

I had been getting an envelope every Friday for six years, and every Friday Elsie would enquire about what treat I would buy myself. It had always been something to brighten our house, but since meeting Tilda my answer had barely wavered: I would take myself to the theatre. “What is so fascinating about Much Ado About Nothing?” she’d asked once. Bill came to mind, his thigh against mine in the darkness beyond the stage, our eyes on Tilda.

“I don’t think I’ll be going to the theatre tonight,” I said.

She regarded me for a moment. Her dark eyes seemed sympathetic.

“Plenty of time. I read it was popular in London, and they’re expecting a long season.”

But I couldn’t imagine another troupe or another play, and the thought of sitting in the stalls with someone other than Bill brought me close to tears.

“Must get on,” Elsie said, touching my shoulder briefly before walking away.

When she was gone, I looked at the proofs she had given me. It was the first page of the next fascicle, and a slip was pinned to the edge with an additional example for misbode.

Dr. Murray’s scrawled instructions were to edit the page to make it fit. I recalled the word coming out of an envelope years before; a lady’s neat script and a line from Chaucer. Da and I had played with it for a week. This new sentence made me pause. Her misboding sorrow for his absence has almost made her frantic.