“Wait here,” Rosfrith said when the front door was closed behind us. She went towards the kitchen, and I could hear her calling to Lizzie. A minute later, Lizzie was in front of me, patting me down with a towel warm from the linen press.

“Why didn’t you just wait it out at the Press?” Lizzie asked as she kneeled to undo my shoes and remove my soaked stockings.

“Thank you, Lizzie, I’ll take it from here.” Rosfrith took the towel and led me up the stairs to her bedroom.

I was older than Rosfrith by almost two years, and yet I’d always felt younger. As she searched through her wardrobe for clothes that might fit me, I saw in her the self-assured practicality of her mother. Mrs. Murray was as entitled to a damehood as Dr. Murray was to a knighthood, Da had said. “Without her, the Dictionary would have faltered long ago.”

How reassuring it must be to know how you should act: like having a definition of yourself written clearly in black type.

“You’re taller, and thinner, but I think these will fit.” Rosfrith laid a skirt, blouse, cardigan and undergarments on her bed, then left me to change.

Before I stepped out of my own skirt, I searched the pockets. In one, there was a handkerchief, a pencil and a wad of damp blank slips. I went to throw the wad in the wastepaper basket and couldn’t help but look at the papers on Rosfrith’s desk. Everything was neatly arranged. There was a photograph of her father after receiving his knighthood, and one of the whole family in the garden of Sunnyside. There were proofs and letters at various stages of completion. I recognised the recipient of the letter she’d been working on most recently. It was the governor of Winson Green Gaol. Dear Sir, it said. I wish to object. That was as far as she had gone. Beside it was a copy of the Times of London.

From my other pocket, I pulled out the type I’d stolen from Gareth, and the slip with his name on it. It was almost translucent from the rain, but his name was still visible.

After I’d changed into Rosfrith’s clothes, I wrapped the type in my damp handkerchief and put it in one of the skirt pockets. I picked up the slip with Gareth’s name on it. He knew I’d taken the type. I’d be too ashamed to visit him again. I dropped the slip in the wastepaper basket.