The Dictionary of Lost Words(28)

It was the printing room, and it was, indeed, noisy. But there were rhythms on top of rhythms, and trying to separate them settled my panic. I checked the slips: one, two, three … I counted to thirty. None were missing. I secured their string and put them back in the satchel. When the man returned, I had my face in my hands, all the emotion of the past hour risen to the surface and hard to contain.

‘Here, have this,’ he said, crouching and offering the glass of water.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure what came over me.’

He gave me his hand and helped me up from the chair. His gaze lingered on my funny fingers, and I withdrew them.

‘Do you work in here?’ I asked, looking beyond him into the printing room.

‘Only if a machine needs some tinkering,’ he said. ‘Mostly I set the type. I’m a compositor.’

‘You make the words real,’ I said, finally looking at him. His eyes were almost violet. It was the young compositor who’d been standing with Mr Hart and Mr Bradley on my first visit.

He tilted his head, and I thought he might not understand what I meant. But then he smiled. ‘I prefer to say that I give them substance – a real word is one that is said out loud and means something to someone. Not all of them will find their way to a page. There are words I’ve heard all my life that I’ve never set in type.’

What words? I wanted to ask. What do they mean? Who says them? But my tongue had become tied.

‘I should go,’ I finally managed. ‘I have to deliver these slips to Mr Hart.’

‘Well, it was nice to bump into you, Esme,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is Esme, isn’t it? We were never actually introduced.’

I remembered his eyes but not his name. I stood stupid and mute.

‘Gareth,’ he said, holding out his hand, again. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’

I hesitated, then returned my hand to his. He had long tapered fingers and a strangely bulbous thumb. My gaze lingered.

‘Pleased to meet you too,’ I said.

He opened the door and saw me into the hallway.

‘You know the way?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right then. Go carefully.’

I turned and headed to the Controller’s office. It was a relief to hand over the bundles of slips.



A new century started, and although there was a feeling that anything might happen, I never thought I’d see Dr Murray come to the kitchen door. When Mrs Ballard saw him striding across the lawn, she brushed down her apron and fixed the hair that had come loose from her cap. She unlatched the top door, and Dr Murray leaned in, his long beard wafting on the warm breath coming from the hearth.

‘And where is Lizzie?’ he asked, glancing at where I stood by the bench, stirring the batter of a cake.

‘I sent her to fetch a few things, Dr Murray, sir,’ said Mrs Ballard. ‘She’ll be back in no time, and then Esme will help her with hanging laundry in the drying cupboard. She’s a great help to us, is Esme.’

‘Well, that may be so, but I’d like Esme to come with me to the Scriptorium.’

Instinctively, I checked my pockets. Mrs Ballard looked at me. I shook my head as if to say, I’ve done nothing, I promise.

‘Off you go now, Esme. Follow Dr Murray to the Scrippy.’ I took off my apron and walked, as if through treacle, to the kitchen door.

When I came into the Scriptorium, Da was there, smiling. He had many kinds of smiles, but his ‘caged smile’ was my favourite. It struggled to be released from behind pursed lips and twitching eyebrows. My fingers unfurled from the fists they’d been making.

Da took my hand, and the three of us walked to the back of the Scriptorium.

‘This, Essy, is for you,’ Da said, freeing his smile.

Behind a shelf of old dictionaries was a wooden desk. It was the kind I’d sat at in a cold room at Cauldshiels. My fingers twitched remembering the pain of the lid being brought down. A whispered taunt that my fingers were already good for nothing echoed in my head. I began to shake, but Da’s hand on my shoulder brought me back to the Scriptorium. When Dr Murray lifted the lid, it revealed new pencils and blank slips, and two books that I immediately recognised.

‘They belong to Elsie,’ I heard myself say to Dr Murray, wanting to clarify that I hadn’t taken them.

‘Elsie has read them, Esme. She’d like you to have them. Consider them a late Christmas gift – or, better still, a gift for the new century.’

Then I noticed that the underside of the lid had been pasted with an offcut of wallpaper – a pale green with tiny yellow roses. It was the same paper that covered the walls of the sitting room in the Murray house. The desk was different to those at Cauldshiels in other ways too: it was bigger, with polished wood and hinges that caught the light, and the seat was separate.

Dr Murray closed the lid and stood a little awkwardly. ‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘This is where you’ll sit, and your father will employ you to do whatever is useful.’

With that, he gave Da a curt nod and returned to his own desk.

I threw my arms around Da and realised, for the first time, that I had to bend for my cheek to rest against his.

The next morning, I dressed more carefully than usual. I noticed the creases in the skirt that I’d left on the floor and so chose a clean one from the wardrobe. I spent half an hour trying to tame my hair into a tight braid, as Lizzie had once done, but ended with a messy bun, as usual. I spat on my shoes and gave them a rub with the corner of my bedspread. Then I went into Da’s room to look in Lily’s mirror.