The Dictionary of Lost Words(55)

‘I’m not …’

‘I can see that you’re neither a whore nor an actress,’ she said.

Then we stood there, silent. She was thinking, weighing something up. Finally, she let out a long breath.

‘It’s quickening,’ she said.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘Quickening is the fluttering in your belly which means the baby has decided to stay.’

I stared at her.

‘It means you’ve come to me too late.’

Thank God, I thought.





GAME


Prostitution.

‘The game is whoring. There are players, like any game, though the dice are always loaded.’

Mrs Smyth, 1907





QUICKENING


Stirrings of life.

‘Quickening is the fluttering in your belly which means the baby has decided to stay.’

Mrs Smyth, 1907



Sunnyside was quiet when I walked my bicycle through the gates. The afternoon was getting on; it was dusky and the Scriptorium was dark. Everyone had gone home. I could see Lizzie through the kitchen window, and I watched her for a while. She moved back and forth between the range and the table, no doubt preparing dinner for the Murrays. Once, when I was little, she told me she didn’t much like cooking.

‘What do you like?’ I’d asked.

‘I like sewing and I like looking after you, Essymay.’

I was shivering. I leaned the bicycle against the ash and walked towards the kitchen.

Inside, I stood on the threshold, the door closed behind me, the heat of the range warming my face. But the shivering didn’t stop.

Lizzie looked at me. Her hand hovered at her chest. She had questions she didn’t ask.

The shivering got worse, and she was there. Her thick arms around me, guiding me to a chair. She put a cup in my hands; it was almost too hot, but not quite. She told me to drink. I drank.

‘I couldn’t have done it,’ I said, looking up into her face. She held me against her belly and stroked my hair.

When she spoke, she was slow and careful, as if I were a stray cat she was afraid would run off before it could be helped. ‘He seemed like a nice enough man, that Bill. You could tell him,’ she said.

She held me a little tighter as she said it, and I didn’t move away. I’d thought about it. I’d imagined it. In my heart I was certain that Bill would do the right thing if he knew. That Tilda would make sure of it. I spoke as slowly and carefully as Lizzie just had.

‘I don’t love him, though. And I don’t want to be married.’

She stiffened slightly, and I felt her take a breath. Then she pulled a chair close to mine and sat opposite me, our hands clasped.

‘Every woman wants to be married, Essymay.’

‘If that’s true, then why isn’t Ditte married, or her sister? Why not Elsie or Rosfrith or Eleanor Bradley? Why not you?’

‘Not all women get the chance. And some … well, some are just brought up with too many books and too many ideas, and they can’t settle to it.’

‘I don’t think I could settle to it, Lizzie.’

‘You’d get used to it.’

‘But I don’t want to get used to it.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want things to stay as they are. I want to keep sorting words and understanding what they mean. I want to get better at it and be given more responsibility, and I want to keep earning my own money. I feel as though I’ve only begun to understand who I am. Being a wife or a mother just doesn’t fit.’ It all came out in a rush and ended in sobbing.

By the time the sobbing stopped I knew what I had to do. I asked Lizzie to find some notepaper and a pen. I would write to Ditte.

February 11th, 1907

My dear, dear Esme,

Of course you must come, and I will help arrange what must be arranged. But there is the question of your father, and of the way things might look. I will come to Oxford this Friday. I will arrive at 11.30am and would like you to meet me at the station. We will go straight to the Queens Lane Coffee House – it’s a long way from Jericho, and we’re unlikely to bump into anyone we know. Leave Lizzie to her duties at Sunnyside, but assure her that we three shall speak before I leave.

Your situation is not as rare as you might think. Many a young lady of means or education has found herself similarly inconvenienced. It is the oldest dilemma in history – the Virgin Mary, indeed! (Please don’t read this aloud to Lizzie, I know she would not approve.) But you see my point. You are in good company, though that is unlikely to soothe you. I’m just grateful you had the good sense to confide in me before you had a chance to consider alternative solutions. From down that alley many a young lady has not returned.

I have a proposition for you, Esme. If you are going to come and live with Beth and me, I would like you to be my research assistant. My History of England is in need of updating, and I have been contemplating a biography of my grandfather for some years. He was a parliamentarian, you know. A very interesting man, with ideas before his time – I daresay your friend Tilda would have liked him very much. I will, of course, require your services at the earliest convenience. We can discuss the details when we have tea on Friday.

Do you understand me, Esme? You will be doing me a great service, and when the work is done, you will return to Oxford and continue with your role in the Scriptorium. Your path, whatever you want it to be, need not be diverted.