She pushed the volume back towards me. I wrapped it in the brown paper and tied the string. “Can I pop upstairs, Lizzie?”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to hide it away!”

“Not forever. But I’m not ready to share it.”

“You are a funny one, Essymay.”

If Gareth had fitted, I’d have locked him in my trunk and hidden the key. But it was too late for that. Mr. Hart and Dr. Murray had been writing letters for months to get him into officers’ training.

May 1915

Officers’ training finished on the 4th of May. We were to be married on the 5th, a Wednesday. Dr. Murray gave everyone in the Scriptorium two paid hours to wish us well.

I slept in Lizzie’s room the night before, and in the morning she dressed me in a simple cream frock with a double skirt and high lace collar. She’d embroidered leaves around the cuffs and hems, and added tiny glass beads here and there, “so when the sun shines on you it will look like morning dew.”

Dr. Murray was unwell, but he offered to accompany me to St. Barnabas in a cab. At the last minute, I declined. The sun was shining, and I knew Gareth would be walking from the Press with Mr. Hart and Mr. Sweatman. I hadn’t seen Gareth for the three months of his officers’ training, and I liked the thought of bumping into him as our routes converged on Canal Street.

Mrs. Murray took three hasty photographs of me under the ash tree, one with Dr. Murray, one with Ditte, and one with Elsie and Rosfrith. As she was packing the camera away, I asked if she would take one more.

Lizzie hovered by the kitchen door, awkward in her new dress. I waved her over. She shook her head.

“Lizzie,” I called. “You must. It’s my wedding day.”

She came, her head slightly bowed against all the eyes turned towards her. When she stood beside me, I saw her mother’s pin, brilliant against the dull green of her felt hat.

“Turn this way a little, Lizzie,” I said. I wanted the camera to catch the pin. I would give her the photograph as a gift.

Gareth wore his officer’s uniform for the wedding. He stood taller than I remembered, and I wondered if it were an illusion or the benefit of being released from the work of typesetting. He was handsome, and I was as beautiful as I had ever been. These were our first impressions as we approached St. Barnabas from different ends of the street.