The Dictionary of Lost Words(27)

On this day, we sat at the small table at the back of the room. It held the tea things, and there was barely enough room for the two of us, but Eleanor didn’t like to eat or drink at her desk in case something spilled. She took a bite of her biscuit, and crumbs fell across her skirt. She didn’t seem to notice. Then she leaned towards me.

‘There’s a rumour the Press Delegates will appoint a third editor soon.’ Her eyes grew larger behind their wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘It seems we are not progressing as fast as they would like. More fascicles means more money back in the coffers of the Press.’

‘Where will he go?’ I looked around the cramped office. ‘I can’t imagine Dr Murray sharing the Scriptorium.’

‘No one can imagine that,’ said Eleanor. ‘Thankfully, there is another rumour that we will be moving to the Old Ashmolean. Father was out there last week taking measurements.’

‘On Broad Street? I’ve always loved that building, but isn’t it a museum?’

‘They’re moving most of the collections to the Museum of Natural History on Parks Road, and giving us the big space on the first floor. They’ll still have lectures upstairs and the laboratory downstairs.’ She looked around. ‘It will be quite a change, but I think we’ll get used to it.’

‘Would Mr Bradley mind sharing his Dictionary Room with another editor, do you think?’

‘If it speeds things up, I don’t think he’ll mind at all. And we’ll be next door to the Bodleian. Half the books in England might be printed here at the Press, but copies of all the books in England are stored in the Bodleian. What a perfect neighbour.’

I sipped my milky tea. ‘What words are you working on, Eleanor?’

‘We have embarked on the verb go,’ Eleanor said. ‘And I suspect it will consume me for months.’ She drained her teacup. ‘Come with me.’

I’d never seen her desk up close. It was covered in papers and books and narrow boxes filled with hundreds of slips.

‘Behold, go,’ she said with a grand gesture of her hand.

I felt an urge to touch them, followed by a rush of shame.

When I left, I walked the bicycle across the busy quad of the Press and under the archway out into Walton Street. Eleanor’s slips were the first I’d been close to since returning to the Scriptorium. Had there been a discussion about it? Had Dr Murray agreed to my return as long as I was kept away from the words?



‘Maybe I could help sort slips,’ I said to Da as we walked home that night. He said nothing, but his hand found the coins in his pocket and I heard them jangle against each other as he moved them between his fingers.

We walked in silence for several minutes, every question in my head finding an uncomfortable answer. Halfway down St Margaret’s Road, he said, ‘I’ll ask James when he returns from London.’

‘You never used to ask Dr Murray,’ I said.

I heard the coins shift in his pocket. He looked at the pavement and said nothing.

A few days later, when Dr Murray asked me to visit Mr Hart, it was to deliver the slips for grade and graded. He held the bundles towards me. There were several tied with string, and each slip and top-slip was numbered in case the order was disturbed. I grasped them in my funny fingers, but Dr Murray did not let go. He looked over his spectacles.

‘Until they are set in type, Esme, these are the only copies,’ he said. ‘Every one of them is precious.’ He let go and turned back to his desk before I could fashion a reply.

I opened my satchel and took care to place the bundles snugly into the bottom. Precious, every one, and yet there were so many ways they could be lost. I remembered the piles of words on the compositor’s bench and imagined a breeze or a clumsy visitor; slips falling to the floor, one riding a wave of air and landing where no one but a child would discover it.

I’d been forbidden to touch them, and now I was given the role of protector. I wanted to tell someone. If anyone had been in the garden just then, I would have found a way to show them the slips, to say that Dr Murray had entrusted them to me. I collected the bicycle from behind the Scriptorium and rode through the gates of Sunnyside and along the Banbury Road. As I turned into St Margaret’s Road, tears began to course down my cheeks. They were warm and welcome.

The building on Walton Street greeted me differently, its wide entrance no longer an intimidation but instead a welcoming gesture – I was on important Dictionary business.

When I was in the building, I took one bundle of slips from my satchel and released the bow that held them. Each sense of the word grade was defined on a top-slip and followed by the quotations that illustrated it. I scanned the various meanings and found one wanting. I thought to tell Da, or perhaps Dr Murray, and my arrogance made me laugh. Then someone bumped me, or I bumped them, and my funny fingers lost their hold. Slips fell to the ground like litter. When I looked to see where they had landed all I saw were hurrying feet. I felt the blood rush from my face.

‘No harm done,’ a man said, bending to pick up what had fallen. ‘They’re numbered for a reason.’

He handed me the slips. My hand shook as I reached for them.

‘Goodness, are you alright?’ He took my elbow. ‘You need to sit down before you faint.’ He opened the nearest door and sat me on a chair just inside it. ‘I hope the noise doesn’t bother you, miss. Take a minute and I’ll be right back with a glass of water.’