The slight shaft of light had been moving across my page like a sundial, so I noticed when it disappeared. There was the clang of a bicycle being propped against the Scriptorium, and I leaned towards the hole. I saw unfamiliar trousers and an unfamiliar shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Ink-stained fingers unbuckled an ink-stained satchel. The fingers were long, but the thumb spread oddly at the end. The man was checking the contents, as I would check the contents of my own satchel just before going through the gates of the Press. I tilted my gaze upward, a slightly awkward manoeuvre, in an attempt to see his face. It wasn’t possible.

I pulled back from the hole and leaned a little to my right so I would have a view of the Scriptorium door.

He stood on the threshold. Tall and lean. Clean-shaven. Dark hair, curling. He saw me peering around the bookshelf and smiled. I was too far away to see his eyes, but I knew them to be evening blue, almost violet.

I’d forgotten his name, even though I remembered him telling it to me once, the first time I delivered words to the Press. I was barely more than a girl, and he’d been kind.

Since then, I’d only seen him from a distance when I went searching for Mr. Hart in the Press. The compositor always stood at a bench at the far end of the composing room, practically obscured by the tray that held all the type. He would sometimes look up when I came through the door. He would always smile, but he’d never waved me over. I’d never known him to come to Sunnyside.

The only other person in the Scriptorium, besides me, was Mr. Dankworth. I watched his head jerk up, attentive to who had come in. He took a second to make his judgement.

“Yes?” he said, in the tone he reserved for men with dirty fingernails. My fist closed tightly around my pencil.

“I have Dr. Murray’s proofs. ‘Si to Simple.’ ”

“I’ll take them,” said Mr. Dankworth, holding out his hand but not getting up.

“And you are?” the compositor asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Controller would like to know who takes receipt of the proofs, if it isn’t Dr. Murray himself.”

Mr. Dankworth rose from the sorting table and approached the compositor. “You can tell the Controller that Mr. Dankworth took receipt of the proofs.” He took the pages before they were proffered.

In my place at the back of the room, I held my breath, irritation and embarrassment rising. I wanted to intervene, to welcome the compositor into the Scriptorium, but without his name I would look foolish.