25th April, 1894 — Whitby & Co. Printers
The bell rang from the shop counter downstairs again. “I know,” Tess said over the clanking of the machines, before the either of the men at the presses could give her the look again that said it was her turn to heed it, “I’m going.”
The others had been actually working on paid jobs for them, and her sisters were all still at their respective jobs, so she couldn’t argue about it. Tess, meanwhile, had stopped in the midst of cleaning and putting away the uppercase typeface from the last job to send the latest proof of a pamphlet through – the ink was still shining, but she plucked it up as she descended from the printing room to the counter, too excited to look it over to wait until she was back upstairs. She fluttered it about a little in the air to dry it as she came down the stairs, but set ‘The Angel of the House is Dead’ (another suffragist’s denunciation of woman’s entrapment in the domestic sphere) safely down on a pile of papers as she turned, slightly distracted, to the new customer instead.
“Good afternoon,” Tess said (she had been working since just before dawn so she felt close to yawning as she said it, though it couldn’t be after four, and she might keep going, if she could, until nine or ten tonight). “What can I do for you?”
The others had been actually working on paid jobs for them, and her sisters were all still at their respective jobs, so she couldn’t argue about it. Tess, meanwhile, had stopped in the midst of cleaning and putting away the uppercase typeface from the last job to send the latest proof of a pamphlet through – the ink was still shining, but she plucked it up as she descended from the printing room to the counter, too excited to look it over to wait until she was back upstairs. She fluttered it about a little in the air to dry it as she came down the stairs, but set ‘The Angel of the House is Dead’ (another suffragist’s denunciation of woman’s entrapment in the domestic sphere) safely down on a pile of papers as she turned, slightly distracted, to the new customer instead.
“Good afternoon,” Tess said (she had been working since just before dawn so she felt close to yawning as she said it, though it couldn’t be after four, and she might keep going, if she could, until nine or ten tonight). “What can I do for you?”
