The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020)

by Williams, Pip

  ‘I thought it was important.’

  Bill listened.

  Time in the Scriptorium had always stretched and contracted to fit my moods, but it had rarely dragged. Since meeting Tilda and Bill, I had found myself looking at the clock more often.

  For weeks, every performance of Much Ado about Nothing was played to a full theatre. I’d been to three Saturday matinees and taken Da to an evening performance. As I sat at my desk, the hands of the clock seemed stuck on half-three.

  Dr Murray returned from a meeting with the Press Delegates and spent a full half-hour translating his dressing-down into a dressing-down of the assistants. ‘Three years into the letter M and we’ve only published up to mesnalty,’ he boomed. I tried to recall what mesnalty meant: a legal term, the kind Da and I rarely played with. But its root was mesne, which reminded me of mense, meaning generous, kind, tactful. Da had spent longer than usual collating quotations and fashioning definitions. In the end, Dr Murray had drawn a line through several of them. I looked to where Da was sitting and knew he didn’t regret a minute spent with that lovely word.

  When the lecture was over, the silence was profound. The clock showed four. Dr Murray sat at his high desk reading proofs with more agitation than usual. The assistants barely straightened from their work; none spoke. No one dared leave before five o’clock.

  When the hour struck, there was a collective tilt of heads towards Dr Murray, but he remained as he was and the work continued. At half-five, another turning of heads. From where I sat, it looked choreographed. I let out a small sound, and Da turned. As quiet as a mouse, his look cautioned. Still Dr Murray sat, his pencil poised to correct and excise.

  At six o’clock, Dr Murray put the proofs he’d been working on in an envelope and rose from his desk. He walked towards the door of the Scriptorium and placed the envelope in the tray, ready to be taken to the Press in the morning. He looked back at the sorting table where the heads of all seven assistants were still bent, their pencils paused in hopeful anticipation of release.

  ‘Do you not have homes to go to?’ Dr Murray asked.

  We relaxed. The storm was over.

  ‘Do you have a word for me, Essy?’ Da asked as he closed the door to the Scriptorium.

  ‘Not tonight. I’m taking Lizzie to the theatre, remember?’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Lizzie’s never been.’

  He looked at me. ‘Much Ado about Nothing, I suppose?’

  ‘I think she’ll find it funny.’

  ‘Has she been to a play before?’

  ‘Not that she’s told me.’

  ‘You don’t think the language will …’

  ‘Da, what a thing to say.’ I kissed him on the forehead and walked towards the kitchen, a flutter of uncertainty rising.

  Lizzie had been adjusting her one good dress for years. It had never been fashionable, but I’d always thought its shamrock green made her look lighter. As we walked along Magdalen Street, I thought it made her look pale. Lizzie crossed herself as we passed the church.

  ‘Oh, Lizzie, there’s a stain.’ I touched a greasy patch above her waist.

  ‘Mrs B needed help with the basting,’ she said. ‘She’s not so steady as she used to be, and it splashed as she took it from the oven.’

  ‘Could you not wipe it clean?’

  ‘Best to soak it, and there was no time. I figured it was only you and me and no one would pay it any mind.’

  It was too late to change plans – Tilda and Bill would be waiting at Old Tom. I looked at Lizzie through their eyes. She was thirty-two, barely older than Tilda, but her face was lined and her hair hung lank, grey already mixing with the brown. Rather than reminding me of a Pears soap advertisement, her shape was tending towards that of Mrs Ballard. I’d barely noticed before.

  ‘Shouldn’t we turn down George Street?’ Lizzie said, as I continued straight into Cornmarket.

  ‘Actually, Lizzie, I thought you might like to meet my new friends. We’ve arranged a drink at Old Tom before the play.’

  ‘Who’s Old Tom?’

  ‘It’s a pub, on St Aldate’s.’ Her arm was in mine, and I felt her stiffen.

  Bill’s smile was wide, and Tilda gave a wave as we entered Old Tom. Lizzie hesitated in the doorway as I’d seen her hesitate on the threshold of the Scriptorium.

  ‘You don’t need an invitation, Lizzie,’ I said.

  She followed me, and I had the feeling that I was the elder and she was the child.

  ‘This must be the famous Lizzie,’ said Bill, bowing and taking the hand that hung limply at her side. ‘How do you do?’

  Lizzie stuttered something and pulled her hand away a little too soon, rubbing it as if it had been slapped. Bill pretended he didn’t notice and shifted attention to Tilda.

  ‘Tilda, the bar is three-deep. Use your charms to get us a round.’ He looked to Lizzie. ‘Watch them part to let her through. She’s like Moses.’

  Lizzie leaned in to me. ‘I won’t be needing a drink, Esme.’

  ‘Just lemonade for Lizzie, Bill,’ I said.

  Tilda was nodding and smiling her way through the tight crowd of men waiting to order drinks. Bill had to shout, ‘Lemonade plus our usuals, sis.’

  Tilda raised an arm in acknowledgement. When I turned to Lizzie, I caught her looking at me as though we’d just met and she was taking stock of who I might be.

  ‘I told them I needed to be in wardrobe at seven,’ said Tilda a few minutes later, four drinks expertly held between her hands. ‘One offered to dress me and three promised to see the play. I should be on commission, the number of tickets I sell.’

  Lizzie took the glass Tilda offered, her eyes dropping to the low cut of Tilda’s dress, the swell of her bosom. I looked from one to the other, seeing each in the other’s eyes. An old maid and a harlot.

  ‘Here’s to you, Lizzie,’ Tilda said, raising her whiskey. ‘Between Esme and Old Mabel I feel I already know you.’ Then she tilted her head back and emptied the glass. ‘I must go and dress. Will I see you after the play?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, but Lizzie shifted beside me. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I’ll let you convince them, Bill. It’s what you do best.’

  Tilda worked her way through the crowd, drawing one kind of look from the men, another from the women.

  The following Monday, Lizzie poured tea from the large pot on the range and passed the cup to Da.

  ‘Did you enjoy the play, Lizzie?’ he asked.

  She continued to pour another cup and didn’t look up. ‘I only understood half, but I liked the look of it, Mr Nicoll. It was very good of Esme to take me.’

  ‘And did you meet Esme’s new friends? I was impressed by Miss Taylor’s performance when I saw her, but I’m afraid I have to rely on you to vouch for them.’

  The next cup was for me, and Lizzie took her time to add the sugar she knew I liked.

  ‘I can’t say I’ve met people like them before, Mr Nicoll. They have a confidence I’m not used to, but they was polite to me, and kind to Esme.’

  ‘So, you approve?’

  ‘It’s not my place to approve, sir.’

  ‘But you’ll go again, to the theatre?’

  ‘I know I should like it more, Mr Nicoll, but I’m not sure it’s for me. I was dreadful tired the next day and the fires still needed to be set, and breakfast made.’

  ‘Would I approve?’ Da asked later as we walked across the garden to the Scriptorium.

  Did I want him to? I wondered.

  ‘You would like them. And I daresay you’d take Tilda’s side in an argument.’ I hesitated, picturing Tilda in Old Tom after the show, a cigar in one hand, a whiskey in the other, mimicking Arthur Balfour. She deepened her voice and rounded her vowels and mocked his resignation the year before as Prime Minister. All to the general merriment of everyone gathered, liberal and conservative alike. ‘Though I’m not sure you would approve,’ I finished.

  He opened the door of the Scriptorium. Instead o
f going in, he turned and looked up at me. I knew this look and waited for him to invoke Lily’s greater wisdom. She would know what to do, he would say, without offering his own encouragement or warning – at least until a letter from Ditte arrived with words he could repeat. But this time he did not prevaricate.

  ‘I find that the more I define, the less I know. I spend my days trying to understand how words were used by men long dead, in order to draft a meaning that will suffice not just for our times but for the future.’ He took my hands in his and stroked the scars, as if Lily was still imprinted in them. ‘The Dictionary is a history book, Esme. If it has taught me anything, it is that the way we conceive of things now will most certainly change. How will they change? Well, I can only hope and speculate, but I do know that your future will be different to the one your mother might have looked forward to at your age. If your new friends have something to teach you about it, I suggest you listen. But trust your judgement, Essy, about what ideas and experiences should be included, and what should not. I will always give you my opinion, if you ask for it, but you are a grown woman. While some would disagree, I believe it is your right to make your own choices, and I can’t insist on approving.’ He brought my funny fingers to his lips and kissed them, then he held them to his cheek. It had the emotion of a farewell.

  We stepped into the Scriptorium, and I inhaled its Monday-morning smell. I went to my desk.

  There was a pile of slips to sort into pigeon-holes, a few letters needing simple responses and a proof page with a note from Dr Murray: make sure each quote is in its proper chronological order. It was hardly going to be a taxing day.

  The Scriptorium began to fill. The men bent to their words; the challenge of articulating meaning creased their brows and sparked quiet debates. I put quotations from the fifteenth century before those of the sixteenth century and no one asked my opinion.

  Just before lunch, Da let me know that a suggestion I had made for one sense of mess would be in the next fascicle, with minor adjustments. I lifted the lid of my desk and added a notch to the scarred wood. It brought none of the satisfaction it once had. It felt like a conciliation. I looked towards Dr Murray. He was sitting straight-backed, his head tilted towards his papers; proofs or letters, I couldn’t tell. His face was relaxed, and the movement of his pen was smooth. It was as good a time as any to approach. I rose from my desk and walked with more confidence than I felt to the front of the Scriptorium.

  ‘Dr Murray, sir?’ I placed the letters I’d drafted on his desk. He didn’t look up from his work.

  ‘I’m sure they are fine, Esme. Please add them to the post.’

  ‘I was wondering …’

  ‘Yes?’ Still, he worked on, the task absorbing.

  ‘I was wondering if I could do more?’

  ‘The afternoon post is bound to bring more enquiries about the timing of the next fascicle,’ he said. ‘I wish they would stop, but I’m glad you enjoy replying. Elsie refuses to endure the tedium.’

  ‘I meant that I would like to do more with the words. Some research, perhaps. Of course, I would still attend to correspondence, but I’d like to contribute more meaningfully.’

  Dr Murray’s pencil paused, and I heard a rare chuckle. He looked at me over his spectacles, assessing me as if I were a niece he hadn’t seen in a while. Then he pushed some papers around on his desk, found what he was looking for and read it silently. He held the note up. ‘This is from Miss Thompson, your godmother. I asked her to research a variant of pencil. Perhaps I should have asked you.’ He handed me the note. ‘Follow it up. Find indicative quotations and draft a definition of the sense.

  July 4th, 1906

  Dear Dr Murray,

  I feel I have imperilled my character by going about getting these things. The hairdresser’s is the place for them. When I asked for an eye-pencil, they offered brown, chestnut, black and also a reddish-brown. They did not recognise the term ‘lip-pencil’.

  Yours,

  Edith Thompson

  The stalls were filling and Tilda had not arrived. Bill was being shouted at by the young man playing Benedick.

  ‘She’s your sister; why don’t you know where she is?’

  ‘I’m not her keeper,’ said Bill.

  The actor looked at Bill, incredulous. ‘Of course you are.’ Then he stormed off, his wig askew and runnels of sweat lining his painted face.

  Bill turned to me. ‘I’m really not her keeper, you know. She’s mine.’ He glanced towards the stage door.

  ‘If she’s not here soon you may have to play Beatrice,’ I said. ‘You must know every line.’

  ‘She went to London,’ he said.

  ‘London?’

  ‘ “The business”, she calls it.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Women’s suffrage. She’s thrown her lot in with the Pankhursts.’

  The stage door opened and Tilda rushed in. There was a huge smile on her face and a large package in her arms.

  ‘Look after this, Bill. I have to dress.’

  ‘Watch out for Benedick,’ I said.

  ‘I shall tell him a lie he will want to believe.’

  Beatrice outwitted Benedick that night. When Tilda took her bow, the applause went for so long that Benedick walked off stage before it was over.

  Afterwards, instead of heading towards Old Tom, Tilda led us in the opposite direction, to the Eagle and Child on St Giles’ Street.

  One of the two front rooms was already full, and Tilda manoeuvred her way into it. I hung back in the narrow doorway with Bill, trying to make sense of the gathering. I counted twelve women in various dress. Some were well-to-do, but most were what Da would call middle-class: women not so different to me.

  Tilda paused in her greetings and called back to where we stood, ‘The parcel, Bill. Can you pass it over?’

  Bill gave the parcel to a short, round woman who thanked him by saying, ‘Good man, we need more like you.’

  ‘I’m not such a rare bird,’ he said, seeming to know what she meant. I felt as though I had arrived in the middle of a conversation.

  ‘Your usual?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Will it help me understand what’s going on?’

  ‘You’ll understand soon enough.’ He walked down the narrow hall to the bar.

  ‘Sisters,’ Tilda began, ‘thank you for joining the fight. Mrs Pankhurst promised you would be here and here you are.’ The women, all twelve, looked pleased with themselves, like students who had received the teacher’s favour.

  ‘I’ve brought the leaflets, and there is a map showing where each of us is to deliver them.’ Tilda opened the parcel and let the leaflets be passed around. They showed a woman in academic dress sharing a cell with a convict and a lunatic.

  ‘A degree from Oxford University would be a fine thing,’ I heard one woman say.

  ‘Add it to the list,’ said another.

  ‘Esme,’ Tilda called above the din. ‘Could you spread the map on the other table?’ She held a folded map above the heads of the women in front of her. I hesitated, not knowing what else I might be agreeing to. She seemed to understand and held the map, and my gaze, patiently. I nodded, and moved into the room with the other women.

  I sat with my back to the window that faced the street, my hand on one corner of the map to stop it from sliding off the table under the women’s excited scrutiny. The chatter was exhilarating; women discussed tactics and swapped routes to suit their own addresses – some wanted to deliver leaflets where no one would know them, others wanted the convenience of their own street so they could make a hasty return if challenged.

  Most of the women agreed that the leaflets should be delivered in the night. Others, fearful of the dark or of disapproving husbands, devised a plan to wrap each pamphlet in a temperance meeting notice. The idea was congratulated, but the work of putting the decoy together was for those women who chose it.

  When the details were settled, Tilda gave each woman a small packet of leaflets, and they
began to leave the Eagle and Child in excited pairs.

  Three women hung back, and when the others were gone, Tilda ushered them over to the map. I moved to the other end of the tiny room while they made further plans. I took out a slip.

  SISTERS

  Women bonded by a shared political goal; comrades.

  ‘Sisters, thank you for joining the fight.’

  Tilda Taylor, 1906

  The women left with their leaflets and another, larger package. Bill came back as Tilda was folding the map.

  ‘Are you ready for that drink now?’ he said, proffering a whiskey and the shandy I had developed a taste for.

  ‘Perfect timing, Bill,’ said Tilda, taking her glass and looking at me. ‘It’s exciting, isn’t it?’

  I didn’t know if it was or not. I felt flushed and curious, and my pulse raced, but it might have been anxiety. I wasn’t at all sure if this was an experience I should embrace or reject.

  ‘Drink up,’ Tilda said. ‘We still have work to do.’

  We left the Eagle and Child and turned towards the Banbury Road. Tilda handed me my own packet of leaflets, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It could have been a pile of proofs, newly arrived from the Press.

  ‘I’m not sure I should,’ I said, holding them uncomfortably.

  ‘Of course you should,’ she said. Bill walked just in front, deliberately keeping out of our conversation.

  ‘I’m not like you, Tilda. I’m not like any of those women back there.’

  ‘You have a womb, don’t you? A cunt? A brain capable of making a decision between bloody Balfour and Campbell-Bannerman? You’re exactly like those women back there.’

  I held the package away from my body, as if it contained something corrosive.

  ‘Don’t be a coward,’ she said. ‘All we’re doing is putting pieces of paper in letterboxes. At worst they will be thrown in the fire; at best they will be read and a mind might change. Anyone would think I was asking you to plant a bomb.’

  ‘If Dr Murray found out …’

  ‘If you really think he’d care then make sure he doesn’t. Now, this is your route. There are enough for both sides of Banbury, between Bevington and St Margaret’s Road.’