The Dictionary of Lost Words(70)
But the source of most of my discomfort was Mr Dankworth. Before he arrived, my desk had the perfect amount of privacy and perspective. I could do my work without interference, and when I paused I needed only to lean a fraction to my right to have a view of the sorting table and of Dr Murray on his perch. If I leaned a fraction further, I could see who came and went through the Scriptorium door. Now, when I looked to my right, my view was the bulk of Mr Dankworth’s hunched shoulders and the perfect part of his hair. I felt imprisoned.
Then he began scrutinising my work.
I was the least qualified assistant in the Scriptorium; even Rosfrith outranked me, having finished her schooling. But no one brought it to my attention quite like Mr Dankworth. He had a particular way of interacting with each and every person in the Scriptorium based on where he thought they sat in the hierarchy. He practically bowed in front of Dr Murray. He deferred to Da and Mr Sweatman, and he ignored Mr Cushing and Mr Pope on the grounds, I suppose, that they were ‘blow-ins’. He had a strange reaction to Elsie and Rosfrith – I’m not sure he knew one from the other, having never met either’s eye, but he skirted around them both as if they represented a ledge from which he might fall. He never corrected them or questioned them, though, and I came to think their father’s name protected them from his scrutiny and disdain. Those, he reserved chiefly for me.
‘This is not right,’ he said one day when I came back from eating my lunch. He was standing by my desk and holding a small square of paper in his large hand. I recognised it as a variant meaning I had pinned to the proof I was editing.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your syntax is not clear. I have rewritten it.’
I manoeuvred past him and sat at my desk. Sure enough, a new square of paper was pinned to the proof with Mr Dankworth’s precise handwriting. It said what it should say, and I tried to figure out how it was different to what I had written.
‘Mr Dankworth, may I have my original?’
He didn’t answer, and when I looked up I could see it was too late. He was by the grate, watching it burn.
Christmas still hung from trees, inside and out. As we walked towards Sunnyside, Da pointed out every decorated version he spied through the windows of sitting rooms along St Margaret’s Road. We’d made a game of this once, searching these private spaces for the grandest or most charming tree, trying to guess what gifts were underneath and the nature of the children who would rush to unwrap them. It wasn’t a game I wanted to play now. I hadn’t counted Christmas among my losses, but it became clear that I’d given it away when I’d given Her away. As Da tried to pull me out of the reflective mood I’d settled into, I wondered what else I had forfeited.
The Scriptorium was empty when we arrived. We would have it to ourselves, Da said, until Mr Sweatman, Mr Pope and Mr Cushing returned on Wednesday. The Murrays were in Scotland until the new year, and the other assistants would trickle in towards the end of the week.
‘And Mr Dankworth?’ I asked.
‘First Monday of the new year,’ Da said. ‘You have a whole week without him looking over your shoulder.’
The relief must have been plain on my face. He smiled. ‘Not every gift is wrapped and under the tree.’
The next few days passed in a nostalgic blur. Each morning we collected the post, which I sorted and reviewed and delivered to the desk of the intended recipient. If there were slips, they became my morning’s work.
When Mr Sweatman returned, he spent a few minutes pacing the room and casting his eye over the sorting table and the smaller desks. ‘It may look as if Cushing and Pope have just stepped out for lunch, but I am reliably informed that by mutual agreement they will not be returning,’ he said at last. ‘Murray calculated their contribution in the negative and suggested they pursue careers in banking. Jolly good advice, Pope said, and they all shook hands.’
Their places at the sorting table were strewn with papers and books.
‘I’ll tidy up then, shall I?’ I opened the covers of one or two books to identify their owners.
‘An excellent idea,’ said Mr Sweatman. ‘And when it’s cleared, it should suit Mr Dankworth perfectly, don’t you think?’
I looked at him. ‘Do you think he’ll prefer it?’
‘It was always Murray’s intention that Dankworth sit with the rest of us, but Cushing and Pope needed supervision and there wasn’t the room. I have no doubt your peace will be restored before we’ve all acquired the habit of writing 1908 instead of 1907.’
My peace was not restored. Mr Dankworth said that he had established ways of working that would be disturbed if he moved to the sorting table. Of course, I thought. It would be far harder to review my corrections if he moved.
Mr Sweatman made the suggestion regularly, but Mr Dankworth was consistent in his reply that he was comfortable with the current arrangement, thank you very much, curt nod.
As the days lengthened towards spring, my mood lightened. I looked forward to errands outside the Scriptorium and I wore a triangular path between Sunnyside, the Press and the Bodleian Library.
I was taking books from the basket by the door and putting them in the crate attached to the back of the bicycle when Dr Murray came up to me.
‘Corrected proofs for Mr Hart, and the slips for romanity.’ He handed me three pages with editing marks all over them and a small bundle of slips, ordered and numbered and tied with string. As I was putting them in my satchel, one of the corrections caught my eye. It would have to wait. I walked my bicycle out onto the Banbury Road and headed towards Little Clarendon Street.