He wiped his hands on his apron. “Well, that’s the thing . . .”
“What’s the thing?”
“There’s been a delay.”
She pressed her lips together and got hold of herself before asking, with what she hoped was merely a tone of mild interest, “May I ask why?”
He reached up and ruffled one of the drying pages. “TheStar’s expanded by four pages.”
“Goodness, how fortunate for them.” What she would do with four more pages. She told herself not to be envious. Perhaps she could write December’s moral essay on the topic. Under a male pseudonym, of course. “Professional Envy When One Isn’t Supposed to Have a Profession to Begin With.”
“As a result,” Mr. Cabot said, “I wasn’t able to print your pages today as planned.”
Julianna schooled her expression so as not to display the irritation she felt at this development. She hated when this happened. Her “little magazine” was deemed less important than the papers, even the mediocre weeklies. “All right. When can you do it?”
“Not until the middle of next week, I’m afraid.”
“No!” she cried and immediately regretted the outburst. She constantly strove to disabuse people—and by “people” she meant “men”—of the notion of the hysterical female. She understood that her job was small, relatively speaking. She grasped the economic incentive of a printer to keep his presses optimally occupied. She understood that the combination of both those facts sometimes meant shifts in the schedule, the displacement of her jobs. But the middle of next week was too far. It would mean delaying the publication of October—she had some slack built into the production schedule, but not that much.
Her printing job was small, but her magazine was not “little.”
Having composed herself, she said, “The middle of next week is too late.”
“I can refund your deposit if you’d like to go elsewhere.”
Shewouldlike to go elsewhere. The problem was, where? Mr. Cabot was her third printer in as many years. At every shop, she encountered the same difficulties. Unforeseen delays, shuffled schedules. At least Mr. Cabot was polite.
She sighed, mentally rearranging her calendar. “Middle of next week, you say? What day? Wednesday?”
“Better say Thursday,” he said. “You may inspect the proofs in the morning and give me your corrections, and I’ll have your job done by the end of the day Friday.”
“Very well,” she said tightly. “I shall return next Thursday morning. Shall we say nine o’clock?”
Mr. Cabot agreed, but Julianna did not take her leave immediately. She gazed at him, waiting for him to apologize.I am sorry I failed to fulfill my end of our contract, Miss Evans. My apologies for disrupting the publication schedule of your little magazine.She wouldn’t even bristle—much—over the “little” qualifier if it came in the context of an apology.
The qualifier did not come, because the apology did not come. Why had she ever thought it would? When had a man with a printing press ever apologized to a woman with a little magazine?
* * *
Julianna’s spirits were very low by the time she reached her sister’s house in Barton Street.
“Is that you, Julie?” Amy popped her head into the foyer as Julianna let herself in. “What are you doing here this time of day?”
Julianna recounted the news about the printer. “I find myself at loose ends as a result.” She had nothing to do the rest of this week. Or next, until nine o’clock on Thursday morning. It was currently Wednesday, which meant she had seven days to fill.
Julianna had never been particularly talented at idleness. She didn’t have hobbies. She didn’t do needlework or play the pianoforte. Those were the pastimes of gentlemen’s daughters, and she was not one. Neither was Amy, despite appearances to the contrary. Amy had married above her station.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Julianna asked. Amy was wearing her spectacles, something she did only when Arthur was out of the house. She was probably going over the household books. Arthur was the youngest of seven, and though his family was genteel, they were not landed, and he had been making his own way since he was a young man. He made a good living as a barrister, but with four children, three of them girls Amy was determined to debut in society, economizing was necessary. Economizing that Arthur wouldn’t have to see.
Mr. Glanvil paid Julianna a pittance of a salary. He pretended his masculine mind was uniquely suited to managing the magazine’s books, but Julianna knew what it cost to produceLe Monde Joli. She knew how much revenue it generated.
She knew how much blunt Mr. Glanvil was pocketing as a result of her labors.
She tried to give the aforementioned pittance of a salary to her sister every month, but Amy wouldn’t hear of it. It wasn’t out of solidarity with Julianna, necessarily, despite the fact that Amy shared Julianna’s dislike of Mr. Glanvil—though she called him Henry, which Julianna had never been able to bring herself to do.
No, Amy’s refusal came from a place of pride. Amy, ever aware that she had married up, often seemed to Julianna to be playing a part. A bit like Mother had with Glanvil Senior—both the marrying-up bit and the playing-a-part bit.
Though of course “marrying up” could mean different things. Father had been an infinitely better man than Glanvil Senior, so in that sense Mother had marrieddownthe second time around. Julianna’s father had been kind and hardworking, and they had been happy and hadn’t wanted for anything.
