The Dictionary of Lost Words(90)

‘Oh, Lizzie, thank goodness.’ I closed the door behind them and ushered them towards the kitchen.

Lizzie barely acknowledged Tilda, but she took her arm gently and lifted her hand from the bowl of water. She laid it on the tea towel and blew the burned skin dry.

‘It might look worse than it is,’ she finally said. ‘Blisters usually mean there’s good skin beneath. Try not to pop them too soon.’ She took a small bottle of ointment from her leather pouch and removed the stopper. Gareth held the bottle while Lizzie spread the ointment over Tilda’s peeling skin, careful to avoid the blisters. Only once did Tilda draw a sharp breath. Lizzie looked to her then, their eyes meeting for the first time. Lizzie’s face was full of a concern I recognised.

She wrapped Tilda’s hand in gauze. ‘I can’t promise it won’t scar.’

‘If it does, I’ll be in good company,’ Tilda said, looking to me.

‘And you should see a doctor.’

Tilda nodded.

‘Well, then,’ Lizzie said, ‘if that’s all I’m needed for, I’ll be off back to my bed.’

Tilda put her good hand on Lizzie’s arm. ‘I know you don’t approve of me, Lizzie, and I understand why you wouldn’t. But I am so very grateful.’

‘You’re a friend of Esme’s.’

‘You could have said no,’ Tilda said.

‘No, I couldn’t.’ With that, Lizzie stood and let Gareth guide her back to the front door. When I tried to catch her eye, she looked away.

It was three in the morning when Gareth returned from walking Lizzie home.

‘Will she forgive me?’ I asked.

‘Funny, she asked me the same thing about you.’ Then he turned to Tilda. ‘There’s a train to London at six am. Do you think you should be on it?’

‘Yes. I think I should.’

Gareth turned to me. ‘Would your father mind if Tilda stayed here until then?

‘Da won’t know. He’s not likely to wake before seven.’

‘Do you have much that needs to be collected from the narrowboat?’ he asked Tilda.

‘Nothing that can’t be sent on, if Esme doesn’t mind lending me some clean clothes.’

Gareth put on his jacket. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours to walk you to the station.’

‘I don’t need a chaperone.’

‘Yes, you do.’

Gareth left. I tip-toed upstairs and found a dress that I thought Tilda could tolerate. It would be a bit long and barely fashionable for a woman like her, but needs must. When I returned to the lounge, Tilda had fallen asleep.

I put a rug over her and wondered when we would see each other again. I loved her, and I feared for her. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a sister. Not a comrade – I knew I wasn’t that – but a flesh-and-blood sister. Like Rosfrith and Elsie. Like Ditte and Beth. I watched the breath go in and out of her, watched her eyes twitch. I tried to imagine what she was dreaming.

When the day shone pale through the front windows, I heard the gate sing.



The Oxford Times ran the story of Rough’s Boathouse. The fire brigade could do nothing to stop it burning to the ground and estimated the damage bill to be more than three thousand pounds. No one was hurt, it said, but four women had been seen fleeing: three in a punt, and one on foot. None had been caught, but it was generally suspected they were suffragettes, following the distribution of pamphlets targeting rowing clubs for their objection to women joining the sport. The act of arson signalled an escalation in their campaign. In a show of concern and opposition to militancy, Oxford’s established suffrage organisations had already condemned the act and were collecting money for the workmen who had been laid off because of it.

When Mrs Murray came into the Scriptorium the next day with a collection jar, I gave all the change I had.

‘Very generous of you, Esme,’ she said, shaking the jar. ‘An example to the gentlemen of the sorting table.’

Da looked in my direction and smiled, proud and oblivious.





I never said goodbye to Da. When they took him from the house, one side of his face had collapsed, and he couldn’t speak. I kissed him and said I would follow with pyjamas and the book that was beside his bed. His eyes were desperate as I babbled on.

I changed his sheets and put the vase of yellow roses I’d arranged for my room on his bedside table. I picked up his book, The Getting of Wisdom. ‘An Australian novel,’ Da had said. ‘About a bright young woman; it’s hard to believe a man wrote it. I think you would like it very much.’ We might have talked more, but I couldn’t. Australian. I’d made an excuse and left the table.

When I arrived at the Radcliffe Infirmary, they told me he was gone.

Gone. I thought. It was wholly inadequate.



Gareth hauled a mattress up the narrow stairs to Lizzie’s room, and I slept there until the funeral. Lizzie collected what I needed from the house so I wouldn’t have to face its emptiness, but I couldn’t help thinking of her going from room to room, checking all was well. In my mind, I followed her from the front door, saw her collect the post and pause as she wondered what to do with it. I suspected she would protect me from whatever the letters might contain be leaving them on the hall table.