The Dictionary of Lost Words(77)

I climbed the stairs to large double doors that opened into the Dictionary Room. It was airy and light, with stone walls and a high ceiling held up by Grecian stone pillars. The Dictionary deserved this space, and when I first saw it I’d wondered why Mr Bradley and Mr Craigie had been given the honour of occupying it instead of Dr Murray. ‘He is a martyr to the Dictionary,’ Da said, when I asked. ‘The Scrippy suits him perfectly.’

I looked around the vast room, trying to work out which assistants were behind the mess of papers that covered every table. Eleanor Bradley looked above her parapet of books and waved.

She cleared some papers off a chair, and I sat down. ‘I have a letter for your father,’ I said.

‘Oh, good. He’s hoping for Dr Murray’s agreement on a question that he and Mr Craigie have been discussing.’

‘Discussing?’ I raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, they are polite, but each is hoping for a nod in their direction from the chief.’ She looked at the envelope in my hand. ‘Pa will be glad to have it resolved one way or another.’

‘Is it about a particular word?’

‘A whole language.’ Eleanor leaned in, her wire-framed eyes huge with the gossip. She spoke quietly: ‘Mr Craigie is wanting to take another trip to Scandinavia. Apparently, he’s thrown his support behind a campaign to recognise Frisian.’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘It’s Germanic.’

‘Of course,’ I said, remembering a one-way conversation I’d had with Mr Craigie at the picnic for O and P. The subject of the Icelandic language had animated him for over an hour.

‘Pa thinks it’s outside the scope of an editor of our English dictionary. He fears R will never be completed if Mr Craigie keeps pursuing other goals.’

‘If that’s his argument, I’m sure he’ll have Dr Murray’s support,’ I said.

I stood up to go, then hesitated. ‘Eleanor, have you read about the suffragettes in gaol in Birmingham? They’re being force-fed.’

She coloured and clenched her jaw. ‘I have,’ she said. ‘It’s shameful. Like the Dictionary, the vote seems inevitable. Why we have to suffer so much and for so long I cannot fathom.’

‘Do you think we will live to enjoy it?’ I asked.

She smiled. ‘On that question, I am more optimistic than Pa and Sir James. I am sure we will.’

I wasn’t so sure, but before I could say any more, Mr Bradley approached.



I peddled as fast as I could between the Old Ashmolean and Walton Street. It wasn’t so much the darkening sky that spurred me on as my fears for Tilda and women like her – and fears for all of us if their efforts should fail. The exertion didn’t quiet my worries.

When I arrived at the Press, I shoved my bicycle between two others, angry that there was never enough room to park it easily. I strode across the quad, scowling at the men and searching the women’s faces; if they knew about the force-feeding, it didn’t show. I wondered how many of them felt as useless as I did.

Instead of going to Mr Hart’s office, I walked to the composing room. The slip with the compositor’s name was in my pocket. I took it out and looked it over, though there was no need for a reminder. By the time I reached the room my steps had slowed.

Gareth was setting type. He didn’t look up as I came in, but I didn’t feel like waiting for an invitation. I took a deep breath and began to walk between the benches of type.

The men nodded and I nodded back, my anger dissipating with each friendly gesture.

‘Hello, miss. You looking for Mr Hart?’ said someone familiar whose name I didn’t know.

‘Actually, I wanted to say hello to Gareth,’ I said. I barely recognised the confident voice as my own.

It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that I was wandering around the composing room, and it occurred to me that the intimidation I always felt might have been of my own creation. By the time I was at Gareth’s bench, the emotion that had propelled me was exhausted, my confidence spent.

He looked up, his face still set in concentration. Then a smile broke through. ‘Well, this is a nice surprise. Esme, isn’t it?’

I nodded, suddenly aware I’d prepared nothing to say.

‘Do you mind if I just finish setting this section? My stick is nearly full.’

Gareth held the ‘stick’ in his left hand. It was a kind of tray that held lines of metal type. He kept it all in place by pressing his thumb tight against it. His right hand flew around the bench in front of him, gathering more type from small compartments that reminded me of Dr Murray’s pigeon-holes on a tiny scale; each was dedicated to a single letter instead of bundles of words. Before I knew it, his stick was full.

His eyes flicked up, and he noticed my interest. ‘The next step is to turn it out into the forme,’ he said, indicating a wooden frame beside his bench. ‘Does it look familiar?’

I looked at the forme. Except for a gap where the new type would go, it was the size and shape of a page of words – but what page of words, I could not tell. ‘It looks like a different language.’

‘It’s back-to-front, but it will be a page in the next Dictionary fascicle, as soon as I’ve made this correction.’

He put the stick down very carefully and rubbed his thumb.