Once in a while, the Scriptorium would be stilled and silent and all mine. It was usually just before the publication of a fascicle: the editors and their senior assistants would meet at the Old Ashmolean to settle last-minute arguments, and Elsie and Rosfrith would take the opportunity to be somewhere else.
Normally, with the Scriptorium to myself, I would wend my way among the tables and shelves, looking for small slips of treasure. But on this particular day, I was in a hurry. I’d spent my morning tea-break in Lizzie’s room, sorting through more slips from the trunk, and now I had a small bundle of women’s words I wanted to catalogue.
I lifted the lid of my desk and took out the shoebox I was using as a pigeon-hole for my words. It was half-full of small bundles of slips, each representing a word, with meanings and quotations from various women pinned together. I spread the new slips across my desk. Some belonged with words I’d already defined; others were new and needed a top-slip. This was what I enjoyed most: considering all the variants of a word and deciding which would be the headword, then fashioning a definition to suit it. I was never alone in this process; without fail, I would be guided by the voice of the woman who used it. When it was Mabel, I would linger a little longer, making sure I got the meaning just right, and imagining her gummy grin when I did.
Lizzie’s pincushion lived in my desk now, and I took a pin to secure quotations for git. Tilda was the first to give me a quotation, but Mabel liked to use it whenever she spoke about a man she did not like. Even Lizzie used it from time to time. So it was an insult, but not vulgar; and Mabel had never used it to refer to Mrs Stiles, so it could only refer to men. I stuck the pin through one corner of the slips and began composing a top-slip in my head.
‘What’s this?’
The pin pricked my thumb and made me gasp. I looked up. Mr Dankworth was beside me, peering at the mess of slips spread across my desk. They were exposed and vulnerable. Clearly not the words I was supposed to be working on.
‘Nothing of any consequence,’ I said, trying to bundle the slips back into a pile and smiling up at him, conscious of how stupid I must look: a grown woman squashed behind a school desk.
He leaned over a little to get a closer look at the words. I tried to push back my chair, but found that I couldn’t. For the moment, I remained stuck while he continued his inspection.
‘If it’s of no consequence, why are you doing it?’ he asked, reaching over me so that I had to bend to avoid him. He picked up the pile of slips.
A sudden memory asserted itself, one I’d thought buried under time and kindness. I was smaller, the desk was similar, but the feeling that I had no control over what would happen next was so strong. I felt winded. I’d allowed myself to imagine my life unfolding differently to that of so many of the women I observed. But at that moment, I felt as constrained and powerless as any of them.
And then I felt furious.
‘It will be of no consequence to you,’ I said. ‘Though it is important.’ I pushed with more force against the chair until Mr Dankworth was obliged to move out of the way.
I stood close to him, as close as we might have been just before a kiss. His forehead was creased as if in permanent concentration, and wiry white hairs sprang from the slick black either side of his perfect part. They were unruly, and I was surprised he hadn’t pulled them out. He stumbled back. I put my hand out for the slips, but he held onto them.
He turned towards the sorting table, taking my slips with him. He spread them out like they were a pack of cards. Then he fingered them, moved them about. Manhandling, I thought. I would write a slip for it when he was done.
Mr Dankworth stopped to read one or two words as if considering their value. I could tell when the philologist in him was intrigued: his forehead softened and the purse of his lips relaxed. I was reminded of those rare times I thought we might have something in common. The longer he considered my words, the more I wondered whether I had overreacted.
My shoulders dropped, and my jaw relaxed. How I longed to talk with someone about women’s words, their place in the Dictionary, the flaws in method that might have meant they were being left out. In that moment, I imagined Mr Dankworth and I as allies.
Suddenly he swept the slips together, unconcerned with their order. ‘You were right and you were wrong, Miss Nicoll,’ he said. ‘Your project is of no consequence to me, but it is also of no importance.’
I was too stunned to respond. When he handed me the pile of slips, my hand shook so much that I dropped them.
Mr Dankworth looked at the slips strewn across the dusty floor and made no move to help pick them up. Instead, he turned back to the sorting table and searched his own papers, found whatever he had come for, and left.
The shake in my hand travelled into every part of my body. I kneeled to gather the slips but could not place them in any kind of order. I couldn’t focus, and they seemed meaningless. When I heard the Scriptorium door open again, I closed my eyes against the dread it might be Mr Dankworth – the humiliation of him seeing me on my knees.
Someone bent down beside me and began picking up slips. He had long, beautiful fingers, but the thumb on his left hand was misshapen. Gareth, the compositor. I had a vague memory of this happening before. He picked up one slip after another, dusting each off before handing it to me.
‘You’ll be able to sort them later,’ he said. ‘For now, it’s best to just get them, and you, off this cold floor.’
‘It was my fault,’ I heard myself say.
Gareth didn’t respond, he just continued to hand me the slips. It had been years since I stole his type, and despite his friendliness I had managed to discourage anything more than a polite acquaintance.
‘It’s just a hobby. They don’t really belong here,’ I said.
Gareth paused for a moment, but still said nothing. Then he gathered up the last slip, traced his finger over it and read the word out loud: ‘Pillock.’ He looked up, smiling; lines fanning out from around his eyes.
‘There’s an example of how it is used,’ I said, leaning closer to point out the quotation on the slip.
‘Seems about right,’ he said, reading it. ‘And who’s Tilda Taylor?’
‘She’s the woman who used the word.’
‘These aren’t in the Dictionary, then?’
I stiffened. ‘No. None of them are.’
‘But some are quite common,’ he said, sifting through them.
‘Among the people who use them, they are. But common isn’t a prerequisite for the Dictionary.’
‘Who uses them?’
I was ready now to have the fight I’d shied from just minutes earlier. ‘The poor. People who work at the Covered Market. Women. Which is why they’re not written down and why they’ve been excluded. Though sometimes they have been written down, but they’re still left out because they are not used in polite society.’ I felt exhausted, but defiant. My hands were still shaking, but I was ready to go on. I looked him in the eye. ‘They’re important.’
‘You better keep them safe, then,’ said Gareth, standing as he handed me the last slip. Then he offered his hand and helped me off the floor.
I took the slips back to my desk and put them beneath the lid. Then I turned back to Gareth. ‘Why are you actually here?’ I asked.
He opened his satchel and pulled out proofs for the latest fascicle. ‘ “Sleep to Sniggle”, ’ he said, holding them in the air. ‘If there aren’t too many edits, we could go to print before Christmas.’ He smiled, nodded, then delivered the proofs to Dr Murray’s desk before leaving the Scriptorium. I thought he might turn and smile again, but he didn’t. If he had, I would have told him there were likely to be plenty of edits.
Everyone returned to the Scriptorium after lunch, and I waited for Mr Dankworth to betray me. I was too old to be sent away, but there was enough time and silence for me to imagine a dozen other punishments. All of them began with the humiliation of my pockets being turned out, and ended with me never returning t
o the Scriptorium.
But Mr Dankworth never mentioned my words to Dr Murray. For days, I watched him, holding my breath every time he had cause to consult the Editor, but they never looked in my direction. I realised that not only were my words of no consequence to Mr Dankworth, but the fact I was spending time on them when I should have been doing Dictionary work was also of no concern.
I was responding to a spelling enquiry, one that had become all too common since the publication of ‘Ribaldric to Romanite’. Why, asked the writer, does the new Dictionary prefer rime when rhyme is so ubiquitous? Habit and good sense insist on the latter. Am I to be judged an illiterate? It was a thankless task as there was no reasonable response. The familiar sound of Gareth’s bicycle was reason enough to leave it unfinished. I put down my pen and looked towards the door.
This was his third visit to the Scriptorium since he had helped pick my words off the floor a few weeks earlier.
‘A nice young man,’ Da had said the first time he noticed Gareth saying hello.
‘As nice as Mr Pope and Mr Cushing?’ I’d asked.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Da had said. ‘He’s a foreman. One of the few people Mr Hart trusts to convey concerns about style.’ He’d looked at me then and raised his eyebrows. ‘But usually those conversations occur at the Press.’
When the door opened, a pale daylight shone in. The assistants looked up, and Da nodded a greeting before glancing in my direction. Dr Murray stepped down from his stool.
I was too far away to hear what they said, but Gareth was pointing to a section of proof and explaining something to Dr Murray. I could see that Dr Murray agreed: he asked a question, listened, nodded, then he invited Gareth to come over to his desk, and together they examined some of the other pages. Mr Dankworth, I noticed, diligently ignored the entire interaction.
Gareth waited as Dr Murray wrote a quick note to Mr Hart. When it was written, and Gareth had put it in his satchel, the young man and the old walked together into the garden.
I saw them just beyond the door. Dr Murray stretched as he sometimes did when he’d been bent over proofs all morning. Their demeanour changed, became more intimate. Mr Hart was ill with exhaustion, Da had told me, and I guessed a mutual concern.
Dr Murray came back into the Scriptorium alone. I was surprised by the heaviness of the breath that escaped my lungs. He left the door open, and the fresh December air began circulating among the tables. Two of the assistants put on their jackets; Rosfrith pulled a shawl around her shoulders. I did not normally hold with Dr Murray’s idea that fresh air kept the mind sharp, but I had become too warm to think straight, and for once I was glad of it. I returned to the task of justifying rime.
‘This is for you.’ It was Gareth.
For a moment, it was impossible to look up. All the heat that had been in my body was now in my face.
‘It’s a word for your collection. One of my ma’s. She used to use it this way all the time, but I couldn’t find it in the proofs we keep at the Press.’ He spoke quietly, but I heard every word. Still I didn’t look up; I had no confidence that I would be able to speak. Instead, I focused on the slip of paper Gareth had placed in front of me. He must have taken it from the pile of blanks kept on the shelf nearest the door. It was the commonest of words, but the meaning was different. I recognised it from when I was a little girl.
CABBAGE
‘Come here, my little cabbage, and give me a hug.’
Deryth Owen
Deryth, what a beautiful name. The sentence was more or less as Lizzie would have said it.
‘Mothers have a vocabulary all their own, don’t you think?’ he said.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t know.’ I looked over at Da. ‘I never knew my mother.’
Gareth looked stricken. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Please, don’t be. As you can imagine, my father has his own way with words.’
He laughed. ‘Well, yes, he would.’
‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘Does he work at the Press?’
‘It was Ma who worked at the Press. She was a bindery girl. Organised my apprenticeship when I was fourteen.’
‘But your father?’
‘It was just my ma and me,’ he said.
I looked at the slip in my hand and tried to imagine the woman who called this man her little cabbage. ‘Thank you for the slip,’ I said.
‘I hope you don’t mind me seeking you out.’
I looked at the sorting table. There were one or two furtive glances towards my desk and a strange smile on Da’s face, though his eyes were steadfastly on his work.
‘I’m very glad you did,’ I said, looking into his face then quickly back at the slip.
‘Well, I’ll be sure to do it again.’
When he was gone, I opened the lid of my desk and sorted through my shoebox of slips until I found where Gareth’s belonged.
There was a crowd gathering around the Martyrs’ Memorial when I rode towards the Bodleian. I could have avoided it by going down Parks Road as I usually did, but instead I rode the length of the Banbury Road until the crowd diverted me.
Notices had been posted all over Oxford. Leaflets littered the streets, and all the newspapers had run stories in support and against. The suffrage societies of Oxford were coming together for a peaceful procession from St Clement’s to the Martyrs’ Memorial. It would be hours before they started, but things were being set up and there was already an expectation, an excitement. It might have been a fair, but with the crackle of a looming thunderstorm in the air.
There were fewer people in the Bodleian than usual. I took my time searching the shelves of Arts End. The books Dr Murray wanted me to check were old, the quotations almost foreign on the page and easy to get wrong. I sat at a bench worn smooth by long-dead generations of scholars and wondered how many had been women.
I rode back the way I had come. The procession had arrived, and the crowd had swelled. Women outnumbered men by three to one, but I was surprised by the men who were there: all sorts. Men with ties and men without. Men on the arms of women. Men standing alone. Men huddled in small groups, capped and collarless, their arms folded in front of them, their legs pegged wide.
I leaned my bicycle against the railing of the tiny cemetery beside St Mary Magdalen, then I stood on the edge of the crowd.
When I’d read about the procession, I’d hoped Tilda might return to Oxford for it. I’d written to her and included a leaflet: I’ll wait by the little church near the Martyrs’ Memorial.
She’d sent a postcard back.
We shall see. The WSPU has not been invited (Mrs Pankhurst’s methods are not embraced by many of the educated ladies of Oxford). But I’m glad you have joined the sisterhood and will be adding your voice to the cry – it’s about time.
A woman was speaking on a platform set up by the Martyrs’ Memorial, though from where I stood it was difficult to see whom, and I could barely hear what she said above the jeering. The leaflets had instructed us to PAY NO ATTENTION to those who wanted to disrupt, and for the most part the women and men who supported the speaker were doing just that. But the detractors were many, and they shouted from all corners of the crowd. Music began to blare from a gramophone placed in an open window of St John’s College. A cloud of pipe-smoke rose from a group of men beside the speakers’ platform. Another group began singing so loud that it was impossible to hear anything else. On the edge of the crowd, I felt strangely vulnerable.
The crowd around the Martyrs’ Memorial churned. I stood on my toes to see what was happening and saw the disturbance move out through the sea of people. It came towards me, but I only realised what it meant when two men emerged in front of me, their arms locked around each other, each throwing punches. The man wearing a collar and tie was larger, but his arms flailed and his fists kept missing their target. The other man was more accurate. He wasn’t wearing a jacket despite the cold, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up above his elbows. I moved back,
but Magdalen Street was still congested and I was pushed up against the bicycles leaning against the railings of the church cemetery.
I saw police on horseback wade through the mass. The horses frightened the crowd, which split. People began to run, half the crowd towards Broad Street, half towards St Giles’. I took a step and was knocked from my feet. Women’s shoes and men’s; dress hems splashed with dirt. I was pulled up, knocked down again. Two women I didn’t know yanked me up and told me to go home, but I stood, paralysed.
‘Bitch!’
A rough red face, almost touching mine; the nose broken years before and never straightened. Then a gob of spit. I could barely breathe. I brought both arms up to protect myself, but the blow I expected never came.
‘Hey! Leave off.’
A woman’s voice. Loud. Ferocious … Then gentle. ‘They’re cowards,’ she said. The words and tone were familiar. I let my arms drop, opened my eyes. It was Tilda. She pulled me away and wiped the spit from my cheek. ‘Scared their wives will stop doing their bidding.’ She threw her handkerchief on the ground then took a step back.
‘Esme. More beautiful than ever.’ Tilda laughed at the look on my face.
Another scuffle started up beside us, and for a moment I was glad of the distraction. Then I saw who was involved.
‘Gareth?’
He turned and the other man took his chance. A rough fist caught Gareth’s lip, and a smirk spread over the stranger’s face. I recognised the assailant’s broken nose. Gareth managed to stay on his feet, but the man ran off before there was a chance to retaliate.
‘Your lip is bleeding,’ I said when Gareth was standing closer. He touched it and flinched, then smiled when he saw my concern, and flinched again.
The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020) Page 25
