LITMIR.BIZ

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morning to report on my interview and to hear from her what the financial arrangements to which I had agreed really meant.

      “Oh, dear, Miss Bosanquet, you have let him take advantage of you, if I do say so myself. Even if he is my old friend, I am surprised at him. What did you ask?”

      “I didn’t ask anything. In fact, I think I hardly spoke a word; he seemed to do enough talking for the both of us.”

      “Well, perhaps I should have prepared you. When Mr. James came to me, asking for a special sort of young woman to be his amanuensis, he even admitted that it was because a woman would be less expensive than a man. This enormous project of his—it’s weeks, months, perhaps years of work! Poor Mr. James was concerned how much it would finally cost, and a woman does require far less, after all, than a man who might have a family to provide for. But my dear, I am glad for you! You must have made a good impression to have him make up his mind so quickly. Well done! Congratulations!”

      “But Miss P., there is one difficulty—I’ve only the barest idea of how to use the machine. Can you suggest someone to give me lessons or perhaps a book I could use? Can I learn to typewrite quickly enough? He wants me to come to him in a few weeks.”

      “I know what you need,” Miss Petherbridge said in her usual brisk way, and soon enough I was seated in a private office at the end of the hall before the large, shiny, black-and-gold apparatus, and a book, “The Curtis Method to Speed Typewriting,” open to “Lesson One: Familiarise Yourself with the Machine.”

      I prided myself on being good with machines. At my home near Lyme Regis, it was my responsibility to keep the bicycles in good working order. I kept my own tools, wrenches, grease can, and oil can in the tool shed, and many times I would go out there when I wanted some quiet, away from my father and his little voice practising his sermons or reading out articles of interest from the weekly paper. In the tool shed, I could take my bicycle apart, spread the pieces all over the floor, and work for hours, happily forgetting all about his demands. Because I was famous for my knowledge of bicycles and other machines, even my most proper friend, Ethel Allen, and her sister often asked me to come down to St. Andrew’s to look at their bicycles. Usually it was some mechanical problem, nothing very complicated, often a loose chain or brake pads to be tightened. I always dropped my own tasks and sped down the hill from Uplyme for any chance to be with Ethel.

      I suppose in those days, still in the reign of Queen Victoria, it was unusual for a girl to be interested in machines, but I always had been. They made sense to me, somehow—logically constructed, beautifully put together. Unlike with people, if something went wrong with a machine, using attention and patience, I could figure out the problem and make everything right.

      This machine I was facing was formidable but not daunting. I soon learnt that I would have more time to practise, for Mr. James could not arrange for my room and board with Mrs. Holland until October.

      “The Curtis Method” seemed very clear and logical. Soon enough, as instructed, without looking at the keys, I was practising away, typewriting, but only the silly nonsense words for those first lessons. I opened the book:

      bab cab dab fab gab

      bob cob dob fob gob

      I thought how strange English letters and words could be. Whatever makes us speak as we do? My mind would wander off, my hands would slip to the wrong keys, and I would have to start again:

      cat cot cut dot dat dut

      This project was becoming less and less appealing. I did want to work for Mr. James, even for his low rate of pay, but why did the typewriting have to be so boring?

      However, I did improve as the days of practise went on. Soon, I was ready to try sentences, paragraphs, even whole pages, but I found that going for speed had its disadvantages. Not looking at the keys but, instead, using the home keys was actually quite difficult. One slip and my typewriting turned into

      qw294lit rqw5, e3lig34q53ly,

      2ihou5 e3lidqdy, 5 h3 435u4n.

      What I had typed did not make any sense! My fingers had been on the wrong keys. I moved them and tried again. All was well, until I lifted my hand to throw the carriage return and once again came back to the wrong keys. Perhaps I needed to abandon Mr. Curtis. I did not have time for this. I tried looking down at my fingers for several words—my words!—and it was better. I could still use the home-key method, but if I could look to find the less familiar keys—the O, the P—it was much better. I hoped if Mr. James were simply dictating, I would have a chance to look down, and I might be able to typewrite for him without so many mistakes.

      One afternoon, in frustration, I pulled a newspaper from a pile and began using the typewriting machine to copy the first article I saw:

       The New Woman

       Special to the “Gazette” by M. Perry Mills, on assignment in America, August 1, 1907

      It is only at the end of the last century that women have entered the professions or gone into business. Among our grandmothers it was an unheard-of thing for a woman of good family to earn her own living. If her husband died, or if she were a spinster with no money of her own, she was taken care of by the next of kin in the masculine line, or scraped together a scanty living doing embroidery or some other “ladylike” task. It never even occurred to her that she could fit herself out for work, enter public life or the professions. . . . Such a suggestion would have been met with exclamations of horror as something truly impossible and unfeminine.

      My thoughts went to my aunt Emily and the box of books our “maiden aunt” always brought along with her when she was required to come and stay with us. How I suspected she might have longed for an education.

      Reading on, I skipped down to

      How different conditions are today! Girls go to college with their brothers, take their degrees and sally forth into the world to struggle for themselves, if not on quite equal footing with men, yet every day more and more attaining that end. It is the age of “working women.”

      And yet such a state of affairs did not come about suddenly, nor is it wholly the result of women’s discontent with domestic life. It is rather more the outgrowth of the times—the natural evolution of womankind in the history of the race. The increased cost of living, the higher standard required of young men entering the professional and business life, and the consequent necessity of prolonging the period devoted to preparation for that life, are heavy factors in the movement.

      That nine women out of ten would prefer marriage and the making of a home for themselves to achieving success in any profession is just as much of a truth today as it was a hundred years ago.

      I stopped typing and made a rude noise, then looked around to see if anyone were still in the office, but it was so late that the office was empty. I laughed and said out loud to myself, “This is one to show to Nora and Clara back at the flat!” Then I bent my head back to my exercise book. Meaningless letters were easier to deal with than some idiot’s rantings about the New Woman.

      After another hour of practise, when the evening light was nearly gone, it was time to stop and go back to the flat or do something fun. I rubbed my hands, stretched my fingers wide apart, curled my fists, and, with a groan, stretched my tired arms over my head. I heard an answer to my groan.

      “That bad, is it?”

      I turned to find that Clara, my closest friend in London, had come in behind me. She came over to give my shoulders a quick, comforting squeeze. I must have seemed tired. She looked as fresh and bright as when she had set out that morning from our flat for her job as secretarial assistant to Lord Milne. Her perfect frock was without a wrinkle, her heavy gold hair was still perfectly smoothed up into its high combs, her clear white skin was as flawless as ever. I put my hand up to my chin, where I knew there was another inky blotch. Clara laughed her light laugh and held out my jacket from the rack by the door.

      “About ready to go? We can stop for a quick bite at the pub and still reach the theatre in time.”

      I

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