I folded the pages around the tiny news clipping and put them in my pocket. For the first time in a long time I would have something to put in the trunk when I visited Lizzie’s room.

“What’ve you got there, Essy?” said Lizzie, coming into her room and pulling her dirty pinny up over her head.

I looked at the tiny article clipped from the paper. It was just a single sentence, no more than a quotation. A teacher has been dismissed from Cauldshiels School for Young Ladies following the admission of a student to hospital.

“Just words, Lizzie,” I said.

“There’s no ‘just words’ for you, Essymay, ’specially if they end up in the trunk. What do they say?”

“They say I wasn’t alone.”

September 1898

During the day I helped Mrs. Ballard in the kitchen, and I only ventured towards the Scriptorium in the late afternoon, when almost everyone had left. I’d hesitate in the doorway, like Lizzie used to do, and watch Hilda moving around the pigeon-holes. She filed slips and removed them; she wrote letters and corrected proofs. All the while, Dr. Murray sat like a wise owl at his high desk. Sometimes he would invite me in and sometimes he wouldn’t.

“It isn’t because he disapproves,” whispered Mr. Sweatman once. “It’s because he’s so single-minded. When he’s puzzling over an entry, his beard could be alight and he’d fail to notice.”

One afternoon I approached Da at the sorting table. “Could I be your assistant?” I asked.

He put a line through something on the proof he was working on and wrote a note beside it. Then he looked up.

“But you’re Mrs. Ballard’s assistant.”

“I don’t want to be a cook; I want to be an editor.”

The words were a surprise, to Da and to me.

“Well, not an editor, but an assistant maybe, like Hilda…”

“Mrs. Ballard isn’t training you to be a cook, just how to cook. It will come in useful when you’re married,” said Da.

“But I’m not going to get married.”

“Well, not right away.”

“If I get married, I can’t be an assistant,” I said.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I’ll have to look after babies and cook all day.”

Da was silenced. He looked to Mr. Sweatman for some support.

“If you’re not going to get married, then why not aim to become an editor?” Mr. Sweatman asked.

“I’m a girl,” I said, annoyed at his teasing.

“Should that matter?”

I blushed and didn’t answer. Mr. Sweatman cocked his head and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Well?”

“Quite right, Fred,” said Da, then he looked at me to judge the seriousness of my statement. “An assistant is exactly what I need, Essy,” he said. “And I’m sure Mr. Sweatman could do with a hand every now and then.”