The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020)

by Williams, Pip

  The route included Sunnyside. I continued to hesitate.

  ‘You live in Jericho, don’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s not that far out of your way,’ she said. ‘Bill, go with her.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked.

  ‘No one will be surprised to see me taking the night air without a chaperone, but you need a man on your arm. More’s the pity.’

  There were few people to greet as we walked up St Giles’: one other couple and a band of drunken gowns, ostentatiously polite as they split to move around us. As St Giles’ turned into Banbury, the way ahead was deserted. My anxiety fell back, and regret about my reluctance rose to take its place.

  ‘Shall I do it?’ Bill asked as we approached the first letterbox beyond Bevington Road.

  Bill knew what I knew – that I was different to those women. That I might agree with them but did not have the guts to stand in the midst of them. I shook my head as he reached for the package. He transferred his hand to the small of my back, and I was grateful for the strength of it. I pulled on the bow Tilda had tied and let the paper wrapping fall back from the leaflets. An image of an imprisoned woman accused me of apathy.

  By the time we reached Sunnyside, my pile was much diminished. I’d set a fast pace, and Bill had granted me an ungrudging silence after I sniped that his banter might wake people and have them look out their windows. At the sight of the red pillar box, I slowed. When I was small, I’d thought Dr Murray must have been very important to have his own pillar box. I’d loved to think of it full of letters that talked of nothing but words. When I’d learned the alphabet, Da had let me write my own letters, with made-up words and made-up meanings and silly sentences that meant nothing to anyone except him and me. He would give me an envelope and a stamp, and I would address my letter to him at the Scriptorium, Banbury Road, Oxford. I would walk by myself through the garden and out of the gates, and post my letter in Dr Murray’s pillar box. For the next few days, I would watch Da’s face as he opened the post that was delivered to Sunnyside, sorting the slips into their piles and reviewing the letters. When he finally came to my letter, he’d regard it with the same seriousness with which he regarded all the others. He’d read it through, nod his head as if agreeing with an important argument then call me over to seek my opinion. Even when I giggled, he’d keep a straight face. I still felt a particular thrill posting Scriptorium letters in the pillar box.

  ‘Seventy-eight,’ Bill said into the silence.

  ‘The Scriptorium.’

  ‘You can skip it, if you like.’

  I took a quick step towards the letterbox on the gate and dropped the pamphlet in. It fell to the bottom with a gentle swish.

  The next morning, Da held the umbrella while I emptied the letterbox at Sunnyside. The leaflet was at the bottom of the pile, exposed and vulnerable without an envelope. I could see the edge of it and was suddenly concerned that I might be expected to discard it; whose pile, after all, would I put it in? Its significance had grown after I had put it in the letterbox, and my anxiety with it. But in the morning light, and among all those letters from learned men and clever women, the leaflet had lost its strength.

  I was disappointed. I had feared what it might do, and now I feared it would do nothing.

  ‘Da, I promised Dr Murray I would include some new quotations in a pile of slips he is sending to Ditte for sub-editing,’ I said. ‘Can the post wait this morning?’

  ‘Give it to me. It will be an easy start to the day.’

  I was grateful for his predictable response.

  Da’s profile was clear from where I sat at my desk. Instead of sorting slips, I watched for a change in expression as he went through the post. When he got to the bottom of the pile, he picked up the leaflet. I held my breath.

  He looked it over, read the caption and considered it for a minute with a serious face. Then he relaxed into a smile, his head nodding in comprehension of the cartoon – the cleverness, perhaps? Or the argument? Instead of screwing it up, he put it in one of his piles. He rose from the sorting table and delivered each pile to its place.

  ‘This should interest you, Essy,’ Da said, as he placed a small pile of slips on my desk. ‘It came with the post.’

  He watched me as I took the leaflet from him and looked it over as if I’d never seen it before.

  ‘Something worth discussing with your young friends,’ Da said, before walking away.

  Tilda was right; I was a coward. I put the leaflet in my desk and took my newest slip from my pocket.

  Sisters. I searched the pigeon-holes. Sisters had plenty of slips, and already they had been sorted and top-slips written for different senses, but comrades was not one of them.

  Lizzie was spending more and more time in the kitchen since Mrs Ballard began having her turns. The doctor had cautioned against standing for long periods, so Mrs Ballard had taken to sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of tea, issuing instructions. When I came in, she was turning the pages of the Oxford Chronicle and reminding Lizzie to salt the bird that had just been delivered.

  ‘Don’t be mean with it, now,’ she said. ‘It needs a goodly amount to make it tender. The longer it sits, the better.’

  Lizzie rolled her eyes but kept her smile. ‘You’ve had me salting the birds since I was twelve, Mrs B. I reckon I know what to do.’

  ‘Been some trouble in town, they say,’ said Mrs Ballard, ignoring Lizzie. ‘Some suffragettes caught painting slogans on the Town Hall. It says here they was chased down St Aldate’s and they might have got away except one of them fell and the other two stopped to help her up.’

  ‘Suffragettes?’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

  ‘That’s what it says.’ Mrs Ballard read through the article. ‘It’s what they’re calling Mrs Pankhurst’s women.’

  ‘Just slogans?’ I said. I’d expected arson.

  ‘It says here that they used red paint to write Women: No more rights than a convict.’

  ‘Didn’t your leaflet say that, Esme?’ asked Lizzie, her hands in the bird, her eyes on me.

  ‘The one who fell is married to the magistrate,’ Mrs Ballard continued. ‘And the other two are from Somerville College. All educated ladies. How shaming.’

  ‘It wasn’t my leaflet, Lizzie. It came in the post.’

  ‘Any idea who delivered it?’ she asked, without looking away.

  I felt a crimson flush rise up my neck and engulf my face. She had my answer and returned to the bird, her movements a little rougher.

  I moved to read the article over Mrs Ballard’s shoulder. Three arrests. No convictions, so no trial. I wondered if Tilda and Mrs Pankhurst would be disappointed.

  In the Scriptorium, I searched the pigeon-holes. Suffrage was there, and so was suffragist. Suffragette wasn’t. I dug out recent copies of the Times of London, the Oxford Times and the Oxford Chronicle and took them to my desk. Each had articles mentioning suffragettes, one referred to suffragents, and another used the word suffragetting as a verb. I cut them out, underlined the quotations and stuck each to its own slip. Then I put all of them in the pigeon-hole they belonged to.

  The performance was over for another night, and Bill and I were helping Tilda change into her street clothes.

  ‘You’re too comfortable, Esme,’ Tilda said as she stepped out of Beatrice’s bloomers.

  ‘But I live here, Tilda.’

  ‘So do the magistrate’s wife and the women from Somerville College.’

  An hour later, we were at the Eagle and Child again. I felt dull against the energy of the women who had gathered to help. The new leaflet urged them to join Emmeline Pankhurst at a march in London, and already they were making travel plans. I wanted their resolve to infect me, but by the time we had spilled onto the street I had convinced myself I wouldn’t be joining them.

  ‘You’re scared, that’s all,’ Tilda said, her hand on my cheek like I was a child. She gave a bundle of leaflets to Bill and beg
an to walk backwards. ‘Problem is, Esme, you’re scared of the wrong thing. Without the vote nothing we say matters, and that should terrify you.’

  Lizzie was at the kitchen table, her sewing basket and a small pile of clothes in front of her. I looked towards the pantry for Mrs Ballard.

  ‘In the house, with Mrs Murray,’ Lizzie said. Then she handed me three crumpled leaflets. ‘I found them in your coat pocket. I wasn’t snooping, just checking the seams ’cos I was fixing the hem.’

  I stood dumb. I had a familiar feeling that I deserved to be in trouble, but didn’t quite understand why.

  ‘I’ve seen them here and there, fallen out of letterboxes and stuck up at the Covered Market. I’ve been told what they say. Even been asked if I was going.’ She scoffed. ‘As if I could go to London for the day. She’ll lead you astray, Essymay, if you let her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know very well.’

  ‘I know my own mind, Lizzie.’

  ‘That may be, but you’ve never been any good at knowing what’s good for you.’

  ‘It’s not just about me; it’s about all women.’

  ‘So, you did deliver them?’

  Lizzie was thirty-two years old and looked forty-five. I suddenly understood why. ‘You do everyone’s bidding, Lizzie, but you have no say,’ I said. ‘That’s what these pamphlets are all about. It’s time we were given the right to speak for ourselves.’

  ‘It’s just a lot of rich ladies wanting even more than they already have,’ she said.

  ‘They want more for all of us.’ My voice was rising. ‘If you’re not going to stand up for yourself then you should be glad someone else will.’

  ‘I will be glad if you stay out of the papers,’ she said, as calm as ever.

  ‘It’s apathy that keeps the vote from women.’

  ‘Apathy.’ Lizzie scoffed. ‘I reckon it’s more than that.’

  I stormed out then, forgetting my coat.

  When I returned to the kitchen just before lunch, Mrs Ballard was sat at the table, a cup of tea steaming in front of her.

  ‘Only three for sandwiches today, Mrs B,’ I said, looking around for Lizzie.

  ‘Too late for that.’ She nodded towards the plate on the bench, piled with sandwiches, just as Lizzie appeared at the bottom of the stairs that led to her room.

  I looked over and smiled, but Lizzie only nodded.

  ‘Dr Murray has a meeting with the Press Delegates, and Da and Mr Balk have gone off to see Mr Hart,’ I continued, wanting to pretend we were not in a quarrel. ‘Spelling errors, apparently. Da said they’d be gone for hours.’

  ‘It will be sandwiches for our tea then, Lizzie,’ said Mrs Ballard.

  ‘No good wasting them,’ Lizzie replied as she crossed to the bench and began removing some of the sandwiches to a smaller plate.

  ‘I can do that,’ I said.

  ‘Will you be going to the theatre tonight, Esme?’ Lizzie was not so keen to pretend.

  ‘I suppose I will.’

  ‘You must know the lines by heart.’

  It was a rebuke I had no answer for. It was true, and Bill liked to tease when he caught me mouthing Tilda’s words. ‘You could be her understudy,’ he’d said.

  ‘Would you like to come?’ I asked Lizzie.

  ‘No. I was obliged the first time, Esme, but once is enough.’

  She might have stopped there if my relief hadn’t been so transparent. She sighed and lowered her voice. ‘You’re not so worldly as them, Essymay.’

  ‘I’m hardly a child.’

  Mrs Ballard scraped back her chair and took the herb basket out to the garden.

  ‘Maybe it’s about time I became “more worldly”, as you put it. Things are changing. Women don’t have to live lives determined by others. They have choices, and I choose not to live the rest of my days doing as I’m told and worrying about what people will think. That’s no life at all.’

  Lizzie took a clean cloth from the drawer and spread it over the plate of sandwiches she and Mrs Ballard would eat later that day. She straightened and took a deep breath, her hand finding the crucifix around her neck.

  ‘Oh, Lizzie. I didn’t mean —’

  ‘Choice would be a fine thing, but from where I stand things look much the same as they always have. If you’ve got choices, Esme, choose well.’

  The final performance was sold out. They had three encores and a standing ovation, and the performers were drunk on it before they’d even raised a glass. Tilda led them from New Theatre to Old Tom, each arm entwined with that of an actor, both of whom leaned in with an intimacy that turned the heads of the evening crowd.

  I walked behind with Bill. It was our usual position in this weekly procession, and as usual he found my hand and encouraged me to rest it on his forearm, bringing us close. But the mood was different. His own hand rested on mine, his fingers tracing an intricate pattern on my bare skin. He spoke very little and was less intent on keeping up.

  ‘They’re jubilant,’ I said.

  ‘It’s always like this on the last night.’

  ‘What will happen?’ I leaned in closer, as if conspiring.

  ‘There will be at least one arrest, one dunking in the Cherwell, and …’ He looked at me.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Tilda will find her way into the bed of one of those two – whichever is able to sneak her into their rooms.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘It’s her habit,’ he said, clearly trying to gauge my reaction. ‘She denies them all season – fucking is bad for the play, she says – then she lets them have her.’

  I knew it already; Tilda had said as much. At the time I’d blushed, and Tilda had said, ‘If the gander can do it, why not the goose?’ She’d refused my arguments, and I’d begun to hear them as borrowed and not truly my own.

  ‘You know, Esme,’ she’d said, ‘women are designed to like it.’

  Then she’d told me how.

  ‘What is it called?’ I’d asked the next day, the memory of my fumbling and the exquisite pleasure of it still fresh.

  Tilda laughed. ‘You managed to find it, then?’

  ‘Find what?’

  ‘Your nub. Your clitoris. I’ll spell it for you, if you want to write it down.’ I took a slip and a stub of pencil from my pocket. Tilda spelled it out. ‘A medical student told me what it was called, though he had little understanding of it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he described it as a remnant cock – proof we were of Adam, he said. But, like you, he had no idea what it could do. Or if he did, he thought it irrelevant.’ She smiled. ‘It brings a woman pleasure, Esme. That’s its only function. Knowing that changes everything, don’t you think?’

  I shook my head, not understanding.

  ‘We’re designed to enjoy it,’ Tilda had said. ‘Not avoid it or endure it. Enjoy it, just like them.’

  As we followed Tilda and her entourage, Bill seemed shy for the first time since I’d met him.

  ‘She won’t come home tonight,’ he said.

  An appropriate response rested on my tongue, but I said nothing.

  ‘She made sure I knew that.’

  His words travelled through me, to the place I now had a word for. I knew what would happen if I went with him. I longed for it.

  ‘I can’t be late,’ I said.

  ‘You won’t be.’

  A few days later, Bill, Tilda and I met for tea at the station. Bill kissed my cheek. Anyone watching would have guessed old friends, cousins, perhaps. They wouldn’t have noticed his gentle breath in my ear, or the shiver that met it. Over three evenings, he had explored me. Found seams of pleasure I didn’t know existed. Should he stay in Oxford? He’d asked. If you have to ask, I’d said, then probably not.

  Tilda handed me a paper bag.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re not leaflets.’ She smiled.

  I opened the bag.

  ‘A lip-pencil, eye-pencil and eyebro
w-pencil,’ said Tilda. ‘Easily obtained, though perhaps not from the hairdresser your godmother goes to. I also bought you some lipstick. Red, to go with that hair of yours. You’ll need a new dress to make it work.’

  I took out a slip. ‘Put lip-pencil in a sentence.’

  ‘The lip-pencil followed the contours of her ruby lips like an artist’s brush.’

  ‘She’s been practising that,’ said Bill.

  ‘I can’t write that on a slip.’

  ‘If this is for the real Dictionary, doesn’t it need to come from a book?’ Bill asked.

  ‘It’s supposed to, but even Dr Murray has been known to make up a quotation when those that exist don’t do justice to the sense.’

  ‘That’s my sentence, take it or leave it,’ said Tilda.

  I took it. Bill poured more tea.

  ‘Do you have a play already lined up in Manchester?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not theatre work that’s taking us to Manchester, Essy,’ said Bill. ‘Tilda’s joined the WSPU.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The Women’s Social and Political Union,’ said Tilda.

  ‘Mrs Pankhurst thinks her stage skills will be useful,’ said Bill.

  ‘I can project my voice.’

  ‘And make it sound posh.’ Bill looked at his sister with such pride. I couldn’t imagine him ever leaving her.

  Elsie Murray made her way around the Scriptorium, her hand full of envelopes. I watched as each of the assistants received one, variations in thickness indicating seniority, education, gender. Da’s envelope was thick. Mine, like Rosfrith’s and Elsie’s, looked almost empty. She stopped by her sister’s chair, and as they spoke Elsie re-pinned a lock of fair hair that had escaped Rosfrith’s bun. Satisfied it would stay, Elsie continued towards my desk.

  ‘Thank you, Elsie,’ I said as she handed me my wage.

  She smiled and put an even larger envelope on my desk. ‘You’ve been looking a bit bored these past few day days, Esme.’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘You’re being polite. I’ve done my fair share of sorting and letter-writing. I know how tedious it can be.’ She opened the envelope, pulled out a page of proofs and slid it towards me. ‘Father thought you might like to try your hand at copyediting.’