I was the least qualified assistant in the Scriptorium; even Rosfrith outranked me, having finished her schooling. But no one brought it to my attention quite like Mr. Dankworth. He had a particular way of interacting with each and every person in the Scriptorium based on where he thought they sat in the hierarchy. He practically bowed in front of Dr. Murray. He deferred to Da and Mr. Sweatman, and he ignored Mr. Cushing and Mr. Pope on the grounds, I suppose, that they were “blow-ins.” He had a strange reaction to Elsie and Rosfrith—I’m not sure he knew one from the other, having never met either’s eye, but he skirted around them both as if they represented a ledge from which he might fall. He never corrected them or questioned them, though, and I came to think their father’s name protected them from his scrutiny and disdain. Those, he reserved chiefly for me.

“This is not right,” he said one day when I came back from eating my lunch. He was standing by my desk and holding a small square of paper in his large hand. I recognised it as a variant meaning I had pinned to the proof I was editing.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your syntax is not clear. I have rewritten it.”

I manoeuvred past him and sat at my desk. Sure enough, a new square of paper was pinned to the proof with Mr. Dankworth’s precise handwriting. It said what it should say, and I tried to figure out how it was different from what I had written.

“Mr. Dankworth, may I have my original?”

He didn’t answer, and when I looked up I could see it was too late. He was by the grate, watching it burn.

Christmas still hung from trees, inside and out. As we walked towards Sunnyside, Da pointed out every decorated version he spied through the windows of sitting rooms along St. Margaret’s Road. We’d made a game of this once, searching these private spaces for the grandest or most charming tree, trying to guess what gifts were underneath and the nature of the children who would rush to unwrap them. It wasn’t a game I wanted to play now. I hadn’t counted Christmas among my losses, but it became clear that I’d given it away when I’d given Her away. As Da tried to pull me out of the reflective mood I’d settled into, I wondered what else I had forfeited.

The Scriptorium was empty when we arrived. We would have it to ourselves, Da said, until Mr. Sweatman, Mr. Pope and Mr. Cushing returned on Wednesday. The Murrays were in Scotland until the new year, and the other assistants would trickle in towards the end of the week.

“And Mr. Dankworth?” I asked.

“First Monday of the new year,” Da said. “You have a whole week without him looking over your shoulder.”