The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020)

by Williams, Pip

  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.’

  ‘What is the word?’ I asked.

  She paused, bit her lip. ‘It’s not for polite company, I’m afraid. Your father would not thank me for introducing you to it.’

  ‘Are you asking Dr Murray to leave it out?’

  ‘On the contrary, my darling, I’m urging him to put it in.’

  I placed the envelope on top of the pile of letters on Dr Murray’s desk and continued with my tour.

  ‘These are the pigeon-holes that hold all the slips,’ I said, waving my arm up and down the nearest wall of pigeon-holes, then doing the same for other walls around the Scriptorium. ‘Da said there would be thousands and thousands of slips and so there needed to be hundreds and hundreds of pigeon-holes. They were built especially, and Dr Murray designed the slips to be the perfect fit.’

  Ditte removed a bundle, and I felt my heart beat. ‘I’m not supposed to touch the slips without Da,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I think if we’re very careful, no one will know.’ Ditte gave me a secret smile, and my heart beat faster. She flicked through the slips until she came to an odd one, larger than the rest. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘it’s written on the back of a letter – see, the paper is the same colour as your bluebells.’

  ‘What does the letter say?’

  Ditte read what she could. ‘It’s just a fragment, but I think it might have been a love letter.’

  ‘Why would someone cut up a love letter?’

  ‘I can only assume the sentiment was not returned.’

  She put the slips back in their pigeon-hole and there was nothing to show that they had ever been removed.

  ‘These are my birthday words,’ I said, moving along to the oldest pigeon-holes where all the words for A to Ant were stored. Ditte raised an eyebrow. ‘They’re the words Da was working on before I was born. Usually, I’ll pick one out on my birthday and Da will help me understand it,’ I said, and Ditte nodded. ‘And this is the sorting table,’ I continued. ‘Da sits right here, and Mr Balk sits here, and Mr Maling sits next to him. Bonan matenon.’ I looked to see Ditte’s reaction.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Bonan matenon. That’s how Mr Maling says hello. It’s Speranto.’

  ‘Esperanto.’

  ‘That’s right. And Mr Worrell sits there, and Mr Mitchell usually sits there, but he likes to move around. Do you know he always wears odd socks?’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  I giggled again. ‘Because my place is under here.’ I got on my hands and knees and crawled under the sorting table. I peeked out.

  ‘Is it, indeed?’

  I almost invited her to sit with me, then thought better of it. ‘You’d need a trim to fit under here,’ I said.

  She laughed and held out her hand to help me out. ‘Let’s sit in your father’s chair, shall we?’

  Every year, Ditte would give me two gifts on my birthday: a book and a story. The book was always a grown-up one with interesting words that children never used. Once I’d learned to read, she would insist I read aloud until I came to a word I didn’t know. Only then would she begin the story.

  I unwrapped the book.

  ‘On – the – Origin – of – Species,’ Ditte said the last word very slowly and underlined it with her finger.

  ‘What is it about?’ I turned the pages looking for pictures.

  ‘Animals.’

  ‘I like animals,’ I said. Then I turned to the introduction and began to read. ‘When on board H.M.S Beagle …’ I looked at Ditte. ‘Is it about a dog?’

  She laughed. ‘No. H.M.S. Beagle was a ship.’

  I continued ‘… as a …’ I stopped and pointed to the next word.

  ‘Naturalist,’ Ditte said, then sounded it out slowly. ‘Someone who studies the natural world. Animals and plants.’

  ‘Naturalist,’ I said, trying it out. I closed the book. ‘Will you tell me the story now?’

  ‘What story would that be?’ Ditte said, looking bewildered, but smiling.

  ‘You know.’

  Ditte shifted her weight in the chair, and I manoeuvred myself into the soft sling between her lap and shoulder.

  ‘You’re longer than last year,’ she said.

  ‘But I still fit.’ I leaned back, and she wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘The first time I saw Lily, she was making cucumber-and-watercress soup.’

  I closed my eyes and imagined my mother stirring a pot of soup. I t
ried to dress her in ordinary clothes, but she refused to take off the bridal veil she wore in the photograph by Da’s bed. I loved that picture more than all the others because Da was looking at her and she was looking straight at me. The veil will end up in the soup, I thought, and smiled.

  ‘She was under the instruction of her aunt, Miss Fernley,’ Ditte continued, ‘a very tall and very capable woman who was not only secretary of our tennis club, where this story takes place, but headmistress of a small private ladies’ college. Lily was a student at her aunt’s school, and the cucumber-and-watercress soup was apparently on the syllabus.’

  ‘What is syllabus?’ I asked.

  ‘It is the list of subjects you learn about at school.’

  ‘Do I have a syllabus at St Barnabas?’

  ‘You’ve only just started, so reading and writing are all that’s on your syllabus. They’ll add subjects as you get older.’

  ‘What will they add?’

  ‘Hopefully something less domestic than cucumber-and-watercress soup. Now, may I continue?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Miss Fernley had insisted that Lily make the soup for our club lunch. It was awful; everyone thought so, and some even said it out loud. I’m afraid Lily may have overheard, because she retreated to the club-house and busied herself with wiping tables that didn’t need wiping.

  ‘Poor Lily,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you might not think so when you hear the rest of the story. If it wasn’t for that awful soup, you might never have been born.’

  I knew what was coming and held my breath to hear it.

  ‘Somehow, your father managed to empty his bowl. I was dumbfounded, but then I watched him take that bowl into the kitchen and ask Lily for a second helping.’

  ‘Did he eat that too?’

  ‘He did. And between mouthfuls, he asked Lily question after question, and her face went from that of a shy and awkward girl to a confident young woman in the space of fifteen minutes.’

  ‘What did he ask her?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you, but by the time he’d finished eating, it was as if they had known each other all their lives.’

  ‘Did you know they would get married?’

  ‘Well, I remember thinking how fortunate it was that Harry knew how to boil an egg, because Lily was never going to like spending too much time in the kitchen. So, yes, I think I did know they would get married.’

  ‘And then I was born and then she died.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But when we talk about her, she comes to life.’

  ‘Never forget that, Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.’

  A new word. I looked up.

  ‘It’s when you bring something back,’ Ditte said.

  ‘But Lily will never really come back.’

  ‘No. She won’t.’

  I paused, trying to remember the rest of the story. ‘And so, you told Da you will be my favourite aunt.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And that you will always take my side, even when I’m troublesome.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ I turned to look at her face. She smiled. ‘It’s exactly what Lily would have wanted me to say, and I meant every word.’

  ‘The end,’ I said.

  At breakfast one morning, Da said, ‘The C words would certainly cause consternation considering countless certifiable cases kept coming.’ It took me less than a minute to work it out.

  ‘Kept,’ I said. ‘Kept starts with a K not a C.’

  His mouth was still full of porridge; I was that quick.

  ‘I thought throwing in certifiable might have tricked you,’ he said.

  ‘But that must start with a C; it’s from the word certain.’

  ‘It certainly is. Now, tell me which quotation you like best.’ Da pushed a page of dictionary proofs across the breakfast table.

  It had been three years since the picnic to celebrate A and B, but they were still working on the proofs for C. The page had been typeset but some of the lines had been ruled out, and the margins were messy with Da’s corrections. Where he’d run out of room, he’d pinned a scrap of paper to the edge and written on that.

  ‘I like the new one,’ I said, pointing to the scrap of paper.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘To certefye this thinge, sende for the damoysell; and then shal ye know, by her owne mouthe.’

  ‘Why do you like it?’

  ‘It sounds funny, like the man who wrote it couldn’t spell and was making up some of the words.’

  ‘It’s just old,’ Da said, taking back the proof and reading what he’d written. ‘Words change over time, you see. The way they look, the way they sound; sometimes even their meaning changes. They have their own history.’ Da ran his finger under the sentence. ‘If you took away some of the Es, this would almost look modern.’

  ‘What’s a damoysell?’

  ‘It’s a young woman.’

  ‘Am I a damoysell?’

  He looked at me, and the tiniest frown twitched his eyebrows.

  ‘I’ll be ten next birthday,’ I said, hopeful.

  ‘Ten, you say? Well, that settles it. You will be a damoysell in no time.’

  ‘And will the words keep changing?’

  The spoon stopped midway to his mouth. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, that once the meaning is written down it will become fixed.’

  ‘So you and Dr Murray could make the words mean whatever you want them to mean, and we’ll all have to use them that way forever?’

  ‘Of course not. Our job is to find consensus. We search through books to see how a word is used, then we come up with meanings that make sense of them all. It’s quite scientific, actually.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Consensus? Well, it means everyone agrees.’

  ‘Do you ask everyone?’

  ‘No, clever-boots. But I doubt a book’s been written that we haven’t consulted.’

  ‘And who writes the books?’ I asked.

  ‘All sorts of people. Now stop asking questions and eat your breakfast; you’re going to be late for school.’

  The bell rang for lunch, and I saw Lizzie in her usual place outside the school gates, looking awkward. I wanted to run to her, but I didn’t.

  ‘You mustn’t let them see you cry,’ she said as she took my hand.

  ‘I haven’t been crying.’

  ‘You have, and I know why. I saw them teasing you.’

  I shrugged and felt more tears spring to my eyes. I looked down at my feet stepping one in front of the other.

  ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.

  I held up my funny fingers. She grabbed them, kissed them and blew a raspberry in my palm. I couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Half their fathers have funny fingers, you know.’

  I looked up at her.

  ‘True. Them that work in the type foundry wear their burns like a badge telling the whole of Jericho their trade. Their littluns are scamps for teasing you.’

  ‘But I’m different.’

  ‘We’s all different,’ she said. But she didn’t understand.

  ‘I’m like the word alphabetary,’ I said.

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s one of my birthday words, but Da says it’s obsolete. No use to anyone.’

  Lizzie laughed. ‘Do you talk like that in class?’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘They have different kinds of families, Essymay. They’s not used to talking about words and books and history the way you and your da do. Some people feel better about themselves if they can pull others down a bit. When you’re older things will change, I promise.’

  We walked on in silence. The closer we got to the Scriptorium, the better I felt.

  After eating sandwiches in the kitchen with Lizzie and Mrs Ballard, I crossed the garden to the Scriptorium. One by one, the assistants looked up from their lunch or their words to see who had come in. I went quietly and sat beside Da. He
cleared some space, and I took an exercise book from my satchel to practise the longhand I’d been learning in school. When I was done, I slid off my chair and under the sorting table.

  There were no slips, so I did a survey of the assistants’ shoes. Each pair suited its owner perfectly, and each had its habits. Mr Worrall’s were finely tanned and sat very still and pigeon-toed, while Mr Mitchell’s were the opposite: his shoes were comfortably worn with the toes turned out and heals bouncing up and down without pause. He had a different-coloured sock peeping out of each shoe. Mr Maling’s shoes were adventurous and never where I expected them to be, Mr Balk’s were pulled back under his chair, and Mr Sweatman’s were always tapping out a pattern that I imagined as a tune in his head. When I peeked from under the table, he was usually smiling. Da’s shoes were my favourite, and I always inspected them last. On this day, they rested one on the other, the soles of both exposed. I paused to touch the tiny hole that had just started to let in water. The shoe waved, as if to shoo a fly. I touched it again and it stopped, rigid. It was waiting. I wriggled my finger, just the tiniest bit. Then the shoe fell sideways, lifeless and suddenly old. The foot it had shod began stroking my arm. It was so clumsy that I had barely enough room in my cheeks to hold all the giggles that wanted to escape. I gave the big toe a squeeze and crawled to where there was just enough light to read by.

  We were startled by three sharp raps on the Scriptorium door. Da’s foot found his shoe.

  From under the table, I watched as Da opened the door to a small man with a large blond moustache and hardly any hair on his head. ‘Crane,’ I heard the man say as Da ushered him in. ‘I’m expected.’ His clothes were too big for him, and I wondered if he was hoping to grow into them. It was the new assistant.

  Some assistants only came for a few months, but sometimes they stayed forever, like Mr Sweatman. He’d come the year before and, of all the men who sat around the sorting table, he was the only one without a beard. It meant I could see his smile, and he happened to smile a lot. When Da introduced Mr Crane to the men around the sorting table, Mr Crane didn’t smile once.

  ‘And this little scapegrace is Esme,’ said Da, helping me up.

  I held out my hand, but Mr Crane didn’t take it.