Chapter Thirteen #2
Eleanor pressed her lips together so firmly her teeth left indentations in them. Hadn’t she warned her friends not to be fooled by his charm? Mabel was blushing as though he wasn’t a venomous snake.
Mr. Gray waved to the publishers as he climbed the stairs. He then tipped his hat at Eleanor. His kindness raised her hackles. Not that it mattered. Once the competition began, her eyes would close and she would be too focused on what was at her fingertips to pay any attention to him.
“What will we use as the source material?”
The duke held up two copies of The Times. “An article from a few weeks ago.” Opening each paper to a page in the middle, he pulled out a sheet and handed one to her. It was the story about Lady Cordelia’s frantic escape from her wedding.
“I’m the one who typeset that,” Eleanor said curtly, handing it back.
“I know.”
She shook her head. Insufferable man. “I don’t need the advantage. Choose another article.” She looked over at Mr. Gray, who had stood to see what was holding things up. “Unless this article is the one you’ve been practicing, sir?”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I have practiced nothing. His Grace is set on a fair fight.”
“Good, then we can choose another article.” She gestured toward the publisher of The Times. “Mr. Bell, please choose an article at random.”
He flicked through the two newspapers, selected a page from each, and handed them over.
The duke gave one copy to Eleanor and the other to Mr. Gray, who placed it on a stand at eye level to the side of the machine.
Eleanor skimmed over the rather boring account of a speech Lord Debington had made in parliament the week before. “Mr. Gray,” she called. “Does this have your approval?”
“It does,” he responded, and Eleanor handed the sheet to Lillian before taking her place in front of the bench, breathing deeply.
“On your mark. Get set. Go.” The duke turned over a large hourglass and set it on the edge of the stage.
Lillian read aloud. She and Eleanor had been partners for years. She knew exactly the fastest speed at which Eleanor’s fingers moved and spoke accordingly.
Eleanor’s hands flew across her typecase, selecting letter after letter and sliding it into the composing stick. As she heard each sentence, she knew instinctively what spacing to put between the letters so that each line was correctly justified. It was a skill she’d developed early on.
She was used to the noises of a print room: the men talking, the grind and thunk of rolling metal, and the hiss of releasing steam as regular as a heartbeat.
She was not used to the constant clatter of the Linotype’s motor, like a thousand giant mosquitoes buzzing around her head. Then there was that insufferable clack. Each key Mr. Gray pressed twanged in her brain.
Damn it. She realized she’d picked up the wrong letter as she placed it. It took only a second to correct, but she hated mistakes. She hated making them in front of the duke even more.
Lillian had seen it happen and had paused while Eleanor fixed it before recommencing with her dictation, but there was an edge to her voice now, and when Eleanor handed a composing stick to Mabel, she caught the way Mabel worried her lower lip with her teeth.
She couldn’t concern herself with her friends’ feelings right now. She had to block everything from her mind except for the task at hand.
An article like the one Lillian was reading would generally take her three hours to set.
The duke had decided that the competition would be over at the thirty-minute mark.
Whoever had set the most amount of type with the fewest errors would be the winner, which meant that this was about speed, not endurance.
She didn’t have to manage her energy or her focus the way she would if she were working for a full day.
She could give everything she had now. As long as it didn’t drain her concentration in less than a half hour, it would be fine.
She wagged her finger toward Lillian, who nodded and increased the tempo.
Eleanor’s eyes had closed again, but her focus was sharp.
She set the words and handed the blocks to Mabel without taking the time to look over them.
It was Mabel’s job to check the text and hand it back if there were any errors.
There weren’t. Every fifteen seconds or so, Eleanor would hear the satisfying clunk of a composing stick finding its place within a bigger block of text.
She focused on Lillian’s voice; she focused on that satisfying clunk; she focused on the smooth lead beneath her hands. Eventually the annoying whir and clack, clack, clack of the Linotype disappeared beneath the sounds that made her feel at home.
The only sign that this was not a normal day was the tension in her chest. The muscles around her ribs strained, and she would give anything for a moment to stretch and release them, but she couldn’t. Too much was on the line.
The thirty minutes felt interminable. She could feel her energy drain. Her fingers slowed of their own accord, and Lillian adjusted her pace to match, clearly recognizing her friend’s fatigue.
When Mabel cleared her throat and handed back a block with her thumb resting on top of a misplaced S, Eleanor knew that the jig was almost up.
If she continued to push this hard, more errors would occur, and then she would lose no matter how fast she’d been.
She took the block from Mabel, switched out the misplaced letter, and handed it back.
“Time,” the duke bellowed.
Lillian and Mabel sighed. Eleanor wanted to lean forward, sink her head onto the desk, and collapse for a moment, but that would show weakness, which she would not display in front of these men.
She had no idea how fast Mr. Gray had worked.
All she knew was that she had typeset more words in those thirty minutes than she ever had before.
If that wasn’t enough to keep her job, nothing would be.
So instead of stretching, instead of wiping her brow or sighing deeply, she put her hands on her hips, turned to her opponent, and forced a cocky smile. “Well, Mr. Gray? How was it?”
He stood and stretched out his fingers, first waggling them, then interlacing them and pressing them forward.
Unlike her, he did not shy from showing his exhaustion.
His exhalation drew his entire body forward.
“That was most certainly a challenge, Miss Wright. I don’t think I’ve ever concentrated so hard in my life.
I do not know how you do this for twelve hours a day. ”
She smiled at him. “Others work twelve hours, Mr. Gray. I get my work done in eight.”
He smiled ruefully and crossed the stage to hand his block of text to the young man who was waiting for it.
Eleanor’s gaze zeroed in on it. The tin alloy was lighter in color than the block of lead hers was made of. It looked cleaner, even though her sorts were spotless. The solid lines of type lacked the gaps that separated each letter, making the entire block look like a bland, continuous blob.
“Miss Wright, Miss Cole, Miss Thompson.”
She jerked at the duke’s voice. Her friends were giving her quizzical looks. She’d been staring at Mr. Gray’s block for too long.
The duke raised an eyebrow. “May I offer you some refreshments while Oliver does the count?”
The footman was waiting on her, she realized. Swallowing, she gave her block over.
Lillian tucked her hand around Eleanor’s elbow, a firm and steady support, before facing the duke. “Refreshments would be delightful, Your Grace. Thank you.” She practically dragged Eleanor off the platform to where the publishers were waiting.
A young boy in the duke’s livery came forward with empty glasses, a pitcher of lemonade, and a bottle of brandy.
Lillian and Mabel blushed and took the lemonade.
Eleanor was tempted to ask for the brandy, just to be shocking, but she was parched.
Brandy might burn a fire in her empty-feeling chest, but it wouldn’t relieve her thirst.
“Thank you,” she said to the boy, accepting a glass. “That is much appreciated.”
The duke sidled up next to her. “Are you confident?”
God. However her body might react, her reason despised him. She plastered on a smile that couldn’t possibly disguise her disdain. “Of course.” He didn’t need to know about the error she missed or that her heart had been pounding the entire time.
They stood in awkward silence for a moment, before he broke it by clearing his throat. “How are you enjoying the season?” he asked, as if he had not asked that very question just two nights before under totally different circumstances.
Her memory of the balls and the dinners no longer held the same wonder. They were tainted. “It is an interesting study in gluttony and sloth, Your Grace.”
A muscle ticked along his jaw. “And which of the deadly sins do you claim, Miss Wright?”
“At present, wrath seems fitting.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny. I would have thought it was pride.”
Eleanor bristled. Pride was admirable. Pride without cause was a flaw, but pride when one had put in the time and work to deserve it was something different entirely. She had earned the right to be satisfied with herself. How dare he suggest otherwise? What had he earned?
“Maybe one day you’ll have accomplished something worthy of pride, Your Grace. Being handed what you have is not it.”
The smile he gave was tight and went no further than his lips. “You forget your own privilege. Not all of your success can be attributed to your work ethic.”
“My privilege?” She recoiled. Her hand flew to her chest like she was a character in a novel.
“You learned to read as a child. You’ve had access to the written word, and all the education that accompanies it, your entire life. That has contributed to your success, has it not?”
What was she supposed to say to that? “Of course it has. I was very fortunate.”
“One might say privileged.”
His words sounded as sour as lemons tasted. “One might say that,” she ground out.