“Nothing that can’t be sent on, if Esme doesn’t mind lending me some clean clothes.”

Gareth put on his jacket. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours to walk you to the station.”

“I don’t need a chaperone.”

“Yes, you do.”

Gareth left. I tip-toed upstairs and found a dress that I thought Tilda could tolerate. It would be a bit long and barely fashionable for a woman like her, but needs must. When I returned to the lounge, Tilda had fallen asleep.

I put a rug over her and wondered when we would see each other again. I loved her, and I feared for her. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a sister. Not a comrade—I knew I wasn’t that—but a flesh-and-blood sister. Like Rosfrith and Elsie. Like Ditte and Beth. I watched the breath go in and out of her, watched her eyes twitch. I tried to imagine what she was dreaming.

When the day shone pale through the front windows, I heard the gate sing.

The Oxford Times ran the story of Rough’s Boathouse. The fire brigade could do nothing to stop it burning to the ground and estimated the damage bill to be more than three thousand pounds. No one was hurt, it said, but four women had been seen fleeing: three in a punt, and one on foot. None had been caught, but it was generally suspected they were suffragettes, following the distribution of pamphlets targeting rowing clubs for their objection to women joining the sport. The act of arson signalled an escalation in their campaign. In a show of concern and opposition to militancy, Oxford’s established suffrage organisations had already condemned the act and were collecting money for the workmen who had been laid off because of it.

When Mrs. Murray came into the Scriptorium the next day with a collection jar, I gave all the change I had.

“Very generous of you, Esme,” she said, shaking the jar. “An example to the gentlemen of the sorting table.”

Da looked in my direction and smiled, proud and oblivious.

May 1913

I never said goodbye to Da. When they took him from the house, one side of his face had collapsed, and he couldn’t speak. I kissed him and said I would follow with pyjamas and the book that was beside his bed. His eyes were desperate as I babbled on.

I changed his sheets and put the vase of yellow roses I’d arranged for my room on his bedside table. I picked up his book, The Getting of Wisdom. “An Australian novel,” Da had said. “About a bright young woman; it’s hard to believe a man wrote it. I think you would like it very much.” We might have talked more, but I couldn’t. Australian. I’d made an excuse and left the table.