Page 110 of Guardian

At the desk sat a young man scribbling on a page in front of him.

“What’s the name of the young woman who works here?” I asked.

“Miss Mitford,” he replied without looking at me.

“Is she in?”

“Dunno.”

Clearly, he didn’t think much of her. And nothing of me. Well, that was no matter. Most men wouldn’t admire Miss Mitford for what she was doing or welcome another woman newspaper writer.

However, I wasn’t disheartened. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d made my way into a place I didn’t belong and left with what I wanted.

“Can I go up?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Please yourself.”

I walked up to the first story, where the typesetting room was noisy with chatter and the click of metal type into lines. I poked my head in to watch for a moment, liking the very smell of the metal and ink and the busyness of it all. As I watched, the press started belowstairs, beating a steady thump. It gave me the odd fancy that I had placed my fingers on the very heart of London, the pulse of life in every borough, the tide of the Thames, the turn of the railway wheels. Motion, all of it—people everywhere, waking to their cold rooms or to the sound of curtains being drawn by servants, selling fruit from their carts or buying it to feed their children, offloading barrels from a French ship or sipping tea brought from India. Most of us simply wishing to keep ourselves and those we loved safe and warm and well-fed, wanting to find our place, to feel we belonged, to believe that when we spoke, it mattered.

I took the stairs and followed the hallway. When I reached Miss Mitford’s door, it was open. Her head was bent over a pamphlet, the toe of her boot jiggling under the desk as she read.

I knocked on the doorjamb, and she looked up in surprise. Then her face transformed with a smile. “Ah, the girl with a story.”

“Kit Jimeson,” I said. “And you’re Miss Mitford.”

The chair scraped as she stood and stuck out her hand cordially across the desk for me to shake. “Frances.”

“I was wondering what you’re writing about.”

She turned the pamphlet upside down on the desk, tenting it to hold her place, and pointed to the chair by the wall, which I pulled toward her desk so I could sit.

The wooden chair creaked as she resumed her seat. “At the moment, I’m writing an article that concerns meat that is improperly butchered and prepared, leading to disease. Mostly I report on social problems.”

“Women write those stories?”

“Of course. Why not?” she asked. “Have you not heard of Eliza Meteyard? Frances Power Cobbe? Mary Howitt? They all write for the papers. There’s an entire cadre of us and more each year.”

“I don’t know the word ‘ca-dray,’” I admitted, grinning. “It sounds vaguely improper, like a ring of thieves.”

She laughed. “Rather, though I suppose we like to think of ourselves as doing good rather than harm.”

“I didn’t realize women did this, until I saw you here.”

“Well, we women can often get stories the men can’t,” she said frankly. “We’re not so intimidating, so people talk to us. But it isn’t for the faint of heart.” Her expression sobered. “I’ve been threatened twice by managers at the slaughterhouses for what I’ve written so far.”

“I can imagine.”

She studied me. “Are you looking for a position?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“You can read and write, I assume?”

I bristled a bit. “Of course.”

“No offense meant,” she said, amused. “Which papers do you read?”

“TheDover Chronicle, the KentAdvertiser, theCanterburyJournal, theDaily News, theStandard, theTimes,Reynolds’s, theFalcon—”

Her eyebrows rose. “So many? Why?”

“I’m from Elephant and Castle,” I said, thinking of the six roads converging, not to mention the railway bringing people and news from all over England. “All the papers come there.”

Her eyes narrowed, then sparkled, as she put this bit of information together with my allusion to the ring of thieves. “Ah.” Her mouth crooked in a funny smile as she sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me a bit more about yourself.”

I told her a quarter of an hour’s worth of truth, with her startling at parts and chuckling at others. At the end, she smiled in satisfaction and rose from her desk. “You certainly have the knack of telling a story. And I assume Mr. Fuller would vouch for your character?”

I wondered about that, but I nodded as if I was certain.

She marched around her desk. “Come, shall we go and see the editor, Mr. Murdaugh? I believe he shall be intrigued.”