Kat and I return from posting my overdue letter to my mother—one that I’d rewritten half a dozen times—just as a steady rain begins to fall. That we had to venture out under threat of showers was because I had no postage stamps and Martin keeps the desk in the library locked. I know this because I have tried its drawer pulls before—not to pry but because the days are long when Martin is away and there was a day when I thought Kat and I might pay a visit to Mrs. Lewis, since she made it clear to me she wants us to, but I didn’t know how to find her place again. I had hoped to come across her address in Martin’s papers, but the desk was locked. On another day I’d wanted to use one of Martin’s fountain pens, as mine had run out of ink, and the desk was locked. At the time, I’d sat back in the chair wondering why Martin felt the need to lock every drawer in the desk when he was away. If he keeps money inside I could see where he might secure that one drawer, but all of them? It seems he doesn’t want the contents of the desk safe as much as he wants them secret. What could he have in the drawers besides files for his job, ledgers maybe, a bank book or two?

I had asked him about the desk when he was home again, told him I’d needed to use a fountain pen while he was gone because I had no ink for mine, but instead of seeing it as a problem of access he told me I didn’t need approval from him for every little purchase. If I needed ink, he trusted me to use the money he gave me to go to the stationer’s to buy whatever kind of ink I wanted.

Today when I realized I needed a stamp to at last post the letter to Mam, I again tried the desk, on the off chance there were stamps inside and he had left it unlocked. He hadn’t, and Kat and I ambled down to the post office under the grayest of gray skies.

I suppose Martin’s wanting to have his desk all to himself is just how some men are with their desks. I wouldn’t know. Da didn’t have one.

In any case, we are back from our postal mission and are taking off our wraps when I notice a small envelope that was dropped through our mail slot and is now resting on the entry rug. Kat actually sees it first. She is at last wearing her new clothes after my telling her I would make dresses for her dolls from her old, too-small frocks. She bends to pick up the envelope and the crinolines under her skirt sound like they’re whispering, What’s this?

“Why don’t you open it up, love, and we’ll see who it’s from.” I hang up our capes and watch as Kat carefully opens the letter, sealed with just a bit of wax and a monogrammed letter E. She unfolds the single sheet of paper inside and hands it to me. At the top of the paper is the name Elizabeth Reynolds in embossed ink that shimmers like bronze. I read the note aloud.