I climbed the stairs to large double doors that opened into the Dictionary Room. It was airy and light, with stone walls and a high ceiling held up by Grecian stone pillars. The Dictionary deserved this space, and when I first saw it I’d wondered why Mr. Bradley and Mr. Craigie had been given the honour of occupying it instead of Dr. Murray. “He is a martyr to the Dictionary,” Da said, when I asked. “The Scrippy suits him perfectly.”

I looked around the vast room, trying to work out which assistants were behind the mess of papers that covered every table. Eleanor Bradley looked above her parapet of books and waved.

She cleared some papers off a chair, and I sat down. “I have a letter for your father,” I said.

“Oh, good. He’s hoping for Dr. Murray’s agreement on a question that he and Mr. Craigie have been discussing.”

“Discussing?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, they are polite, but each is hoping for a nod in their direction from the chief.” She looked at the envelope in my hand. “Pa will be glad to have it resolved one way or another.”

“Is it about a particular word?”

“A whole language.” Eleanor leaned in, her wire-framed eyes huge with the gossip. She spoke quietly: “Mr. Craigie is wanting to take another trip to Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Apparently, he’s thrown his support behind a campaign to recognise Frisian.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s Germanic.”

“Of course,” I said, remembering a one-way conversation I’d had with Mr. Craigie at the picnic for O and P. The subject of Germanic languages had animated him for over an hour.

“Pa thinks it’s outside the scope of an editor of our English dictionary. He fears R will never be completed if Mr. Craigie keeps pursuing other goals.”

“If that’s his argument, I’m sure he’ll have Dr. Murray’s support,” I said.

I stood up to go, then hesitated. “Eleanor, have you read about the suffragettes in gaol in Birmingham? They’re being force-fed.”

She coloured and clenched her jaw. “I have,” she said. “It’s shameful. Like the Dictionary, the vote seems inevitable. Why we have to suffer so much and for so long I cannot fathom.”

“Do you think we will live to enjoy it?” I asked.

She smiled. “On that question, I am more optimistic than Pa and Sir James. I am sure we will.”

I wasn’t so sure, but before I could say any more, Mr. Bradley approached.

I pedalled as fast as I could between the Old Ashmolean and Walton Street. It wasn’t so much the darkening sky that spurred me on as my fears for Tilda and women like her—and fears for all of us if their efforts should fail. The exertion didn’t quiet my worries.