The Dictionary of Lost Words(7)

‘If I have been more successful than Dr Johnson, it has been owing to the goodwill and helpful co-operation of many scholars and specialists, most of them men whose time is much occupied but whose interest in this undertaking has led them willingly to place some of it at the Editor’s service, and freely to contribute of their knowledge to the perfection of the work.’ Dr Murray began to thank all the people who had helped compile the words for A and B. The list was so long my legs started to ache from standing. I sat down on the grass and started pulling up blades, peeling back the layers to reveal the tenderest green shoots and nibbling on them. It was only when I heard Ditte’s name that I looked up, and soon after that I heard Da’s and those of the other men who worked in the Scriptorium.

When the speech was over and Dr Murray was being congratulated, Da walked over to the volume of words and lifted it from where it rested.

He called me over and made me sit with my back against the rough trunk of the ash. Then he put the heavy volume in my lap.

‘Are my birthday words in it?’

‘They certainly are.’ He opened the cover and turned the pages until he reached the first word.

A.

Then he turned a few more pages.

Aard-vark.

Then a few more.

My words, I thought, all bound in leather, the pages trimmed in gold. I thought the weight of them would hold me to that place forever.

Da put A and B back on the table, and the crowd swallowed it up. I feared for the words. ‘Be careful,’ I said. But no one heard.

‘Here comes Ditte,’ said Da.

I ran towards her as she came through the gates.

‘You missed the cake,’ I said.

‘I would call that perfect timing,’ she said, bending down and kissing me on the head. ‘The only cake I eat is Madeira. It’s a rule and it helps keep me trim.’

Aunty Ditte was as wide as Mrs Ballard and a little bit shorter. ‘What is trim?’ I asked.

‘An impossible ideal and something you are not likely to have to worry about,’ she said. Then she added, ‘It’s when you make something a little smaller.’

Ditte wasn’t really my aunt, but my real aunt lived in Scotland and had so many children she didn’t have time to spoil me. That’s what Da said. Ditte had no children and lived in Bath with her sister, Beth. She was very busy finding quotations for Dr Murray and writing her history of England, but she still had time to send me letters and bring me gifts.

‘Dr Murray said you and Beth were proflitic contributors,’ I said, with some authority.

‘Prolific,’ Ditte corrected.

‘Is that a nice thing to be?’

‘It means we have collected a lot of words and quotations for Dr Murray’s dictionary, and I’m sure he meant it as a compliment.’

‘But you haven’t collected as many as Mr Thomas Austin. He is far more proflitic than you.’

‘Prolific. Yes, he is. I don’t know where he finds the time. Now, let’s get some punch.’ Ditte took my good hand and we walked towards the party table.

I followed Ditte into the crowd and became lost in a forest of brown and plaid broadcloth trousers and patterned skirts. Everyone wanted to talk to her, and I made a game of guessing who the trousers belonged to each time we stopped.

‘Should it really be included?’ I heard one man say. ‘It’s such an unpleasant word that I feel we should discourage its use.’ Ditte’s hand tightened around mine. I didn’t recognise the trousers, so I looked up to see if I would recognise the face, but all I could see was his beard.

‘We are not the arbiters of the English language, sir. Our job, surely, is to chronicle, not judge.’

When we finally came to the table under the ash, Ditte poured two glasses of punch and filled a small plate with sandwiches.

‘Believe it or not, Esme, I haven’t travelled all this way to talk about words. Let’s find somewhere quiet to sit, then you can tell me how you and your father are getting on.’

I led Ditte to the Scriptorium. When she closed the door behind her, the party went quiet. It was the first time I’d been in the Scriptorium without Da or Dr Murray or any of the other men. As we stood on the threshold, I felt all the responsibility of introducing Ditte to the pigeon-holes full of words and quotations, to all the old dictionaries and reference books, and to the fascicles, where the words were first published before there were enough for a whole volume. It had taken me a long time to learn how to pronounce fascicle, and I wanted Ditte to hear me say it.

I pointed to one of the two trays on the small table near the door. ‘That’s where all the letters go that are written by Dr Murray and Da and all the others. Sometimes I get to put them in the pillar box at the end of the day,’ I said. ‘The letters you send to Dr Murray go in this tray. If they have slips in them we take them out first, and Da lets me put them into pigeon-holes.’

Ditte rummaged around in her handbag and produced one of the small envelopes I knew so well. Even with her there beside me, the neat and familiar slant of her writing brought a tiny thrill.

‘Thought I’d save the cost of a stamp,’ she said, handing me the envelope.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it without Da giving directions.

‘Are there slips inside?’ I asked.

‘No slips, just my opinion on the inclusion of an old word that has the gentlemen of the Philological Society a little flustered.’