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Footsteps sounded as Mr. Henbury’s voice echoed from down the hall.
“Tell Edwards that there will be no extension. The calendar will be done by next Friday or I will find someone else to enjoy his position!”
Ellie hurriedly shoved the tumbled files onto Mr. Henbury’s desk, then gave them a quick and uncertain adjustment. Had she set them back at the right angle?
Oh—why was she worrying? Mr. Henbury wasn’t going to notice.
She paused at the psalter. It itched under her fingers, begging to be explored. Before Ellie could think further about it, the stout little book had slipped into the pocket of her skirt. She dashed to her seat and quickly arranged herself as the footsteps neared and Mr. Henbury entered the room.
He was a shorter man, and decidedly balding—however much he tried to hide it by combing the remaining hair across his forehead. It was secured there with a generous quantity of pomade that gave off a special glimmer when Mr. Henbury stood beneath an electric light, as he did now.
“Miss Mallory,” he announced. “I suppose you must be wondering why you have been summoned here today.”
Mr. Henbury had taken on an air of stuffy self-importance. It was one of his favorite airs. Ellie schooled her face into a placid blandness that concealed her frustration.
“I am sure I could not possibly guess, Mr. Henbury,” she replied tiredly.
Henbury straightened his back, puffing his chest out a bit. He believed it made him look authoritative.
“It has come to our attention that you were arrested yesterday afternoon,” he said. “I am sure you must see that such behavior is quite inappropriate for an employee of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office.”
“Is it?” Ellie returned dryly. “I had no idea.”
Mr. Henbury didn’t respond. He wasn’t really listening to her anyway.
“I am afraid I must therefore inform you that your employment here at the PRO is to be terminated, effective immediately,” he continued. “You will collect any personal items from your desk over the next hour and remove yourself from the premises.”
“No letter of reference, then?" Ellie asked in a bland tone.
Mr. Henbury blinked at her, startled.
A reference letter?” he echoed. “You were arrested!"
“Just one little arrest,” Ellie offered cheerfully, “which they aren’t even pressing charges for. It’s not as though I was denying half the population of the United Kingdom one of their most basic and essential civil rights, consigning them to a life of virtual slavery thinly disguised as ‘domestic bliss’ and forbidding them from any meaningful or profitable employment.”
“You don’t require employment,” Mr. Henbury spluttered. “That’s what you get a husband for!”
Ellie’s fury snapped to life.
“I don’t want ahusband,” she seethed, cold and dangerous.
Mr. Henbury opened his mouth to respond—then closed it again, blinking at her. It seemed he hadn’t the foggiest notion of what to say to that.
“In any event,” he went on a bit more loudly, “here is your notice.” He took a neat white envelope from his pocket and held it out to her. “Best of luck to you.”
Ellie wanted to throttle him. She wanted to scream with pure outrage—not just at her dismissal, which she had fully and grimly anticipated since the moment she had been dragged from the gates of Parliament by a pair of uniformed constables, but atall of it. The open disdain of her PRO colleagues. The snide comments in the halls of the university. The insidious, affectionate, unrelenting pressure from even those who loved her.
The dream that she had ached for since childhood—the one the world relished telling her, over and over again, could never be hers.
Ellie calmly extended her hand, taking the white envelope from Mr. Henbury’s grasp and slipping it into her pocket.
“Mr. Henbury,” she acknowledged evenly.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Henbury replied, waving her away as he turned back to his desk. “Oh, and do ask one of the ladies in the typing pool to run me up a couple of biscuits on your way out.”
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Two
