The Dictionary of Lost Words(64)

I sat where she placed me and watched her perpetual motion around me. If I roused, it was because she propelled me. I never resisted, but I was incapable of initiating anything.

A few days after we arrived, Mr Lloyd came to the kitchen door with a cake from Mrs Lloyd and a basket of eggs. Lizzie was forced, once again, to talk with him. She managed three sentences instead of her previous two.

The day after that, Mr Lloyd sent his son, Tommy, to tend the fires. Lizzie insisted he join us for tea and proceeded to interrogate him about the opportunities for walking in the area.

‘There’s a path that goes right up the hill to the copse of beech trees,’ he said, his mouth full of his mother’s cake. ‘It’s steep, but the view is good. From there you choose to go where you like, just mind you shut the gates.’



Lizzie bent to tie the laces of my boots. It was a familiar gesture from years before. Her head was uncovered, and grey hair grew like wire from her crown. She’s growing old, I thought. But she was only eight years my senior. It had always seemed more. I wondered if she wished for a different life, if she imagined Cobblers Dingle as her own little house. I wondered if she pined for a baby she would probably never have.

Mr Lloyd had doffed his hat and looked her in the eyes when he spoke. Anything you need, Miss Lester. And she’d blushed, as if it was the first time a man had gone out of his way for her. But she was too old now, I thought. Too old to do anything other than what she had been doing since she was eleven. Bending to tie my laces. Bending to one task after another at someone else’s behest. One or two of my tears fell into the nest of her hair, but she didn’t notice.

By the time we reached the path, our skirt hems were damp from crossing the small field beside the cottage, and I was already out of breath. Lizzie was diligent about securing the gate, so I had time to assess the route. It was as steep and uneven as Tommy had warned, and the top of the hill – who knew how far up – was hidden by a meandering line of trees. Twisted, moss-covered branches encroached onto the path here and there, and I realised the route must have rarely been used by anything taller than a sheep. More than anything, I wanted to turn back.

‘This will help,’ said Lizzie, coming up beside me. She held out a sturdy stick.

I tried to fashion a sentence that would convince her to let me return to the cottage, but she shook her head. She pushed the stick into my hand, and I noticed her cheeks were red from exertion and her eyes were bright. She held onto the stick until she was sure I wouldn’t drop it, as if passing the baton in a relay. I tightened my grip, and she released hers. Then she turned and led the way up the narrow path.

It was a relief when the path veered away from the trees. It cut a wobbly and fathomless trail across the hill, as if the sheep who made it were trying to reduce the incline. Lizzie trusted it to lead her in the right direction, and I found my tread falling rhythmically behind hers. We walked in silence until Lizzie saw a stile.

‘This way,’ she said.

Lizzie tried to pull up her skirts to climb the wooden structure, but as she released one hand to steady herself, the fabric dropped and caught on the weathered timber. I hadn’t thought to bring a split skirt, and neither had she. I should have known better – I’d spent a year in Scotland, where walking was the only relief from that dreadful school, and shorter split skirts were part of the uniform. But Lizzie had never left Oxford, and she had packed for both of us.

Lizzie began to laugh. ‘We’ll wear trousers tomorrow,’ she said.

‘We can’t wear trousers.’

‘We have no choice. All the clothes in that wardrobe at the cottage belong to a man,’ she said. ‘I’m sure no one will mind if we borrow them.’

The next day, Lizzie laid two pairs of trousers on the bed for us to change into after breakfast.

‘Have you ever worn trousers, Lizzie?’ I asked when I joined her in the kitchen.

‘Never in my life,’ she said, smiling as if she knew the pleasure that awaited.

Lizzie had cooked oats overnight in the low heat of the range. She drizzled them with fresh cream from the Lloyds and topped them with apples she had stewed before I woke.

‘Everything aches,’ I said, holding the edges of the chair to lower myself into it.

‘I know,’ Lizzie said. ‘But it’s a wholesome ache, not a knackered ache.’

‘An ache is an ache.’

‘I can’t recall a day when I haven’t had an ache in some part of my body. This is the first time I’ve thought it might be a sign of good, not ill.’

I took up my spoon and stirred the apple and cream into the porridge. There was an ache in the centre of me that I couldn’t shift, but that morning I did feel it a little less urgently.

After breakfast, Lizzie pulled on a large pair of trousers and an oversized shirt.

‘They’re too big, Lizzie.’

‘Nothing a belt won’t fix,’ she said, searching the wardrobe for one. ‘And who’s around to judge?’

‘Mr Lloyd could pop in at any time.’

She coloured a little, but shrugged. ‘He don’t seem the type to judge.’

My trousers were made for a smaller man, or perhaps the same man when he was young. They were short in the leg but a better fit around the waist. Lizzie insisted I too wear an oversized shirt so she wouldn’t have to wash my blouses each day.