The Dictionary of Lost Words(46)

The Scriptorium began to fill. The men bent to their words; the challenge of articulating meaning creased their brows and sparked quiet debates. I put quotations from the fifteenth century before those of the sixteenth century and no one asked my opinion.

Just before lunch, Da let me know that a suggestion I had made for one sense of mess would be in the next fascicle, with minor adjustments. I lifted the lid of my desk and added a notch to the scarred wood. It brought none of the satisfaction it once had. It felt like a conciliation. I looked towards Dr Murray. He was sitting straight-backed, his head tilted towards his papers; proofs or letters, I couldn’t tell. His face was relaxed, and the movement of his pen was smooth. It was as good a time as any to approach. I rose from my desk and walked with more confidence than I felt to the front of the Scriptorium.

‘Dr Murray, sir?’ I placed the letters I’d drafted on his desk. He didn’t look up from his work.

‘I’m sure they are fine, Esme. Please add them to the post.’

‘I was wondering …’

‘Yes?’ Still, he worked on, the task absorbing.

‘I was wondering if I could do more?’

‘The afternoon post is bound to bring more enquiries about the timing of the next fascicle,’ he said. ‘I wish they would stop, but I’m glad you enjoy replying. Elsie refuses to endure the tedium.’

‘I meant that I would like to do more with the words. Some research, perhaps. Of course, I would still attend to correspondence, but I’d like to contribute more meaningfully.’

Dr Murray’s pencil paused, and I heard a rare chuckle. He looked at me over his spectacles, assessing me as if I were a niece he hadn’t seen in a while. Then he pushed some papers around on his desk, found what he was looking for and read it silently. He held the note up. ‘This is from Miss Thompson, your godmother. I asked her to research a variant of pencil. Perhaps I should have asked you.’ He handed me the note. ‘Follow it up. Find indicative quotations and draft a definition of the sense.

July 4th, 1906

Dear Dr Murray,

I feel I have imperilled my character by going about getting these things. The hairdresser’s is the place for them. When I asked for an eye-pencil, they offered brown, chestnut, black and also a reddish-brown. They did not recognise the term ‘lip-pencil’.

Yours,

Edith Thompson



The stalls were filling and Tilda had not arrived. Bill was being shouted at by the young man playing Benedick.

‘She’s your sister; why don’t you know where she is?’

‘I’m not her keeper,’ said Bill.

The actor looked at Bill, incredulous. ‘Of course you are.’ Then he stormed off, his wig askew and runnels of sweat lining his painted face.

Bill turned to me. ‘I’m really not her keeper, you know. She’s mine.’ He glanced towards the stage door.

‘If she’s not here soon you may have to play Beatrice,’ I said. ‘You must know every line.’

‘She went to London,’ he said.

‘London?’

‘ “The business”, she calls it.’

‘What is that?’

‘Women’s suffrage. She’s thrown her lot in with the Pankhursts.’

The stage door opened and Tilda rushed in. There was a huge smile on her face and a large package in her arms.

‘Look after this, Bill. I have to dress.’

‘Watch out for Benedick,’ I said.

‘I shall tell him a lie he will want to believe.’

Beatrice outwitted Benedick that night. When Tilda took her bow, the applause went for so long that Benedick walked off stage before it was over.

Afterwards, instead of heading towards Old Tom, Tilda led us in the opposite direction, to the Eagle and Child on St Giles’ Street.

One of the two front rooms was already full, and Tilda manoeuvred her way into it. I hung back in the narrow doorway with Bill, trying to make sense of the gathering. I counted twelve women in various dress. Some were well-to-do, but most were what Da would call middle-class: women not so different to me.

Tilda paused in her greetings and called back to where we stood, ‘The parcel, Bill. Can you pass it over?’

Bill gave the parcel to a short, round woman who thanked him by saying, ‘Good man, we need more like you.’

‘I’m not such a rare bird,’ he said, seeming to know what she meant. I felt as though I had arrived in the middle of a conversation.

‘Your usual?’ Bill asked.

‘Will it help me understand what’s going on?’

‘You’ll understand soon enough.’ He walked down the narrow hall to the bar.

‘Sisters,’ Tilda began, ‘thank you for joining the fight. Mrs Pankhurst promised you would be here and here you are.’ The women, all twelve, looked pleased with themselves, like students who had received the teacher’s favour.

‘I’ve brought the leaflets, and there is a map showing where each of us is to deliver them.’ Tilda opened the parcel and let the leaflets be passed around. They showed a woman in academic dress sharing a cell with a convict and a lunatic.

‘A degree from Oxford University would be a fine thing,’ I heard one woman say.

‘Add it to the list,’ said another.