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The last blank column
At half past eight, Ada found a question mark where her newspaper ought to have ended. Two page proofs lay on the blue drying board; one contained a blank rectangle reserved for a late notice. The separate slip carrying that notice had disappeared. Beyond the windows, Morrow Quay was folding its stalls away. Here, where news still travelled in bundles, the last Quay Ledger had to reach the packet carrier by half past nine.
Ada pinned back a fallen strand of dark hair. Her crimson waistcoat was buttoned over a white blouse already grey at the cuffs. Across the idle iron press stood Yusuf, silver-haired and moustached, wearing the teal apron he had fetched out of retirement for this last shift. Kit, their seventeen-year-old apprentice, worried a loose thread on his soft-green shirt. His dark curls were damp from carrying paper upstairs. Nobody met anybody else's eyes.
The notice declared that Bell Wharf's night porters acknowledged full payment of their arrears. It was signed only "A Friend of the Wharf." Ada had written "Authority?" on its proof, not permission to print. Tomorrow the press belonged to the merchant Merrin; tonight its sale balance would clear her staff's wages. "Nobody starts the run," she said. Yusuf glanced at the standing type. Kit glanced at the posting book. She could follow either look.