‘Passing good, sir,’ I finally said. ‘Yes, sir.’ The assistant was standing by the window, peering out into the street, as if keeping watch.
‘And his apprentice, Jack. How fares he?’
‘Passing well, sir, yes, sir. Jack is a fine apprentice.’
‘And of course, Sven Ulrich.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘I hear he is no longer with you. Hard to keep, the Germans. They are so very precise, such fine craftsmen. One cannot keep them without paying the price.’
I looked at him but found no answer; my jaw was slack with horror. What else did he know? What had he heard from others in the trade? Of course they all talked to each other; they all knew each other’s business. He must have known how rude and surly Peter Damage had become; how no one wanted to work with him any more; how his standards of work had deteriorated and that he was no longer fit to call himself a Master Binder; that he was facing bankruptcy, and poverty.
‘So, your business here?’
‘Peter – Mr Damage – sent me.’ Regardless of what this man knew of our circumstances, I had to try, at least. ‘He would have come himself but, well, he’s been laid up with a hurt leg and cannot walk. He has given me his full consent for coming here; nay, it was his very suggestion. His hands are fine, though, you see. He can still get the books up.’
Diprose was smiling at me. I had to keep going. I thought that he vaguely resembled William IV, although not so much that one might accord him any more than a modicum of respect.
‘I couldn’t help noticing, sir, that a few weeks ago you sent your card to my husband, but I fear you received no reply.’ His smile didn’t flicker. ‘At least, I assume you received no reply. It’s our errand boy, see, proved difficult and, frankly, unreliable, and . . . Well, whatever your purpose was with the card, he would like to help. If it’s work you’re wanting us – him – to do, he still can.’
Diprose pulled a chair up, and sat down. I noticed he had some difficulty bending at the waist, so he eased his trunk down to the point at which his knees would bend no more, then toppled backwards into the chair, with a grunt. He folded his arms, and said nothing, but gestured to me to continue.
‘Is it work? Or, or maybe it’s nothing any more.’ I was uneasy now, and could not stop my mouth from overworking. ‘Pardon my troubling you, sir, it’s just that, he doesn’t like to ignore his customers, and seeks to provide a tip-top service to booksellers and libraries and purveyors, who furnish him with, with . . .’
Diprose held his hand up, and turned his head stiffly away, while holding my gaze with his eyes. I bit my lip as I watched him gesture to the assistant, who leant over to receive a whisper in his ear before disappearing behind the counter into the back room. Mr Diprose was still looking at me, arms folded. Unnerved, my eyes flitted across the wood panels and display-shelves, as if they would help me know what to do next. I smoothed my skirts, and had just about decided to stand up and slip away into the anonymity of the London streets, when the assistant returned with a fat manila envelope.
He handed it to Diprose, who gave it directly to me. It was surprisingly heavy. I looked down at it on my lap, then back up at him, and then down again.
‘A Bible,’ he said.
‘A Bible? I thought you did medical books.’
‘We do all sorts of books in here, Mrs Damage,’ he said, mocking me. He had his head on one side, as if he were trying to measure me. ‘Do you know Sir Jocelyn Knightley?’ I shook my head. ‘I mean, do you know of him? Have you not read, in the papers, of his triumphant sojourn amongst the tribes of Southern Africa? Ma chère, he is an eminent physician: un peu scholar; un peu scientist; un peu adventurer. His dramatic exploits on the dark continent have caught the attention not only of the scientific community, but also of the Church. The Bishop of Reading, no less, has proposed the establishment of a mission amongst these savages. Which is why Sir Jocelyn has commissioned from us a new manuscript, printed first in Latin, then scribed à la main in the local tongue, to present to the Bishop, in honour of his support. Tell Mr Damage to give me something simple, classic. Shall we say, a representation of God’s bounty in tropical climes. He has three weeks.’
‘Thank you. Yes, sir.’
Diprose clutched the arms of his chair and leaned forward as if he were about to rise, but his body stayed firmly on the seat of the chair. I thought he was again having difficulties with the manoeuvre, in reverse. But he opened his eyes wide at me, as if to engage me in his actions; I realised he was expecting me to stand up first, so he could too.
But still I sat. ‘Sir. I am unfamiliar with the usual procedures involved, but . . . In order to pay for the best materials for the commission . . . Would you perhaps see yourself towards advancing Mr Damage a small sum?’
‘Je vous demande pardon?’
The man was no more French than I was; my audacity grew in direct proportion to his persistence in a tongue he believed I did not understand.
‘You must pay him first.’ Was that my mouth from which those words escaped? I did not like the man, but I desperately needed his custom. I could feel something clamour in me like a workhouse bell, and I struggled not to reveal my desperation. ‘Three weeks is a long time before payment.’ I felt my cheeks flush. ‘I presume the Bishop will require the finest morocco, and substantial gold-work.’
He did not release his grip on the arms of the chair. ‘Most peculiar,’ he said. ‘It is not our practice to advance. It does not tally with our book-keeping.’ He kept looking at me, but said to his assistant, ‘Pizzy, I believe the tree up which we were barking is most definitely the wrong one.’ He reached out for the envelope. ‘Madam, we have made a mistake with your husband. I bid you farewell, before I waste another minute of your time.’
Had I handed the envelope back to him straightways, the future of my family might have been very different. But, as I continued to clutch it to my bosom, needing a moment’s pause to gather my thoughts, he seemed to revise his attitudes, for he waved his hand towards a box of paper I had not noticed, in the corner behind my chair.
‘Finest Dutch, surplus to my requirements. Take it, and tell Mr Damage to use it as he will. I will always buy blank volumes. There is a fine market for ladies’ commonplace books, pocketbooks, journals, albums, que voulez-vous. I’m sure there are countless other ways to describe a sheaf of papers bound daintily and prettily according to the fancy of les femmes.’ He nodded at me knowingly. ‘Mr Damage should be able to knock a few of those up in less than a week. I shall pay him on receipt.’
Pizzy the assistant blew the dust off the top of the box, and picked it up, then he turned to me, and paused.
‘Ah.’ He seemed unsure of whether he could hand me the box. Perhaps it would have been deemed improper, too heavy, too inappropriate. I would have none of it; those were my papers, my ticket out of the insolvency courts. I took the box from him, and bade the gentlemen good day.
‘Au plaisir de vous revoir, Madame,’ Mr Diprose said, bowing.
The box was indeed heavy, as I found before I even reached Waterloo Bridge. The drizzle was flecking my face, causing the blacks settling on my bonnet to dribble on to my ears and streak down my neck. It was not yet ten o’clock, but the world was out in force. It felt as if I were going the wrong way over Waterloo Bridge as I weaved my way through the relentless wall of tradesmen. There were butcher boys in blue-and-white striped aprons, with brown hunks of meat oozing beneath the black-spotted wax paper on trays carried on their shoulders. There were baker boys too, their wares more appealing, wafting sweet smells across the odours of horse-dung and sewer construction. Even the milkmaids, in their white smocks, with covered pails swinging from the yokes like extra pairs of strange arms, were heading north, as if they were all fleeing Lambeth, their course determinedly set by the north star, towards Westminster and the City, where people and pickings were richer, and they only returned when they were empty-handed. With my box of Dutch filling my hands, I couldn’t help b
ut feel I was going the wrong way.
I pushed the door open with my foot, and placed the box down just inside the door. A sense of peace pervaded me; I was home.
‘Where have you been?’ Peter’s voice thundered with more force than I had expected, given his state only yesterday. ‘Where?’
‘I – I –’ I stood up straight and flexed my fingers, to iron out the stiff red and white creases.
‘Where?’
‘I will explain . . . I was going to explain . . .’
‘Explain? Explain what? Explain how a mother can leave her house, her husband, her child? With no prior explanation? How dare you? Do you know what you have done – to me, to her?’ With that, he pointed to the heap on the rug by the empty fire; it was Lucinda, with a blanket cast over her. The blood fled my frozen cheeks.
‘What’s happened to her? Tell me.’ But his words had to follow me as I flew to her side. She was sleeping. But I knew – as only a mother can, before even taking in the set of her face, the colour of her lips, the grip of her fists – that she had had a fit in my absence.
‘How do you expect me to cope with – with – that?’ Peter spat. ‘How was I supposed to know what to do? How could you expect me to step into the breach left by her – her mother? How could you do this to me?’
‘How did it happen? How did she fare?’ I wanted to know everything; if it had come on slowly, or if she had woken and fussed to find I was gone, and if he had attempted to soothe her, or if he had taken leave of his senses first, giving her no bedrock of stability; an infection, as it were, of ill-temper.
Peter did not seem to hear me, or perhaps the questions – being, as they were, about someone other than himself – were too hard for him. ‘You – you – you irresponsible harlot,’ he raved. His eyes were crazed and delirious, yet he did not frighten me; I felt distanced from him, as if I were watching a lunatic through a window. I turned back to Lucinda. My heart was pounding, but I knew she was safe now, and the danger had passed. It only served to confirm to me the importance of my presence; however I was to earn a living and support this family through this difficult time, it had to be with Lucinda by my side. It gave me the courage of my convictions for the task of persuasion I had ahead of me.
‘There, now,’ I said to Peter. ‘I’m back where I belong. I won’t be going anywhere again, I promise.’ It was as if I were crooning into Lucinda’s ear, not a grown man’s. But beneath his livid exterior was relief that I had returned.
I went into the kitchen to draw up the range, and to make up a little bed in front of it for Lucinda. We were, I could tell, going to have to start living out of one room for warmth, like the poor unfortunates who had no choice but so to do. When I came back into the parlour, I found Peter fingering a piece of Dutch paper as if it were a leaf of gold.
‘What is this?’ He was too awed to be enraged.
‘Handmade Dutch, heavyweight, ivory, with an interesting watermark, that I haven’t examined properly yet but it appears to be the letters L, G and . . .’
‘I will ignore your insolence. I repeat, what is this? What is it for? How did you come by it?’
The time had come. ‘I have a suggestion, Peter. Just a small one, which has arisen out of the inspiring example you give to me daily as you toil on our behalf. I was wondering, and was hoping you would agree, that –’
He stood up, and held the paper up to the light to examine the watermark.
‘– under your jurisdiction –’ I continued.
‘Linen fibre, too,’ he muttered to himself.
‘– you would let me assist you in the workshop.’
He turned to me. ‘I beg your pardon. Did you say something?’
‘Yes, Peter.’ I was not going to gabble like I did with Diprose. ‘Do you not think that together – by which I mean, you leading me – we are capable of continuing to work the shop?’
Peter snorted. ‘We shall do no such thing.’ I took the paper from him; he was about to launch into his opinion, and we could not afford to lose even one piece of paper. I laid it back in the box. Peter’s mouth seemed to be grabbing at air, as his mind formed his words. ‘I shall not have you adding to the many vulgar examples of your sex who steal from honest workers and their poor families, and who threaten the very structure of family life upon which England became great.’
‘But Peter, I will only be, as it were, your hands, instructed by your brain, and the commands from your mouth.’
‘You! You – will be my hands? When you have quite returned from the leave you have evidently taken of your senses, you will understand the absurdity of assuming that these little hands of yours are capable of lifting a hammer, let alone landing it accurately and with due force. The absurdity of assuming that you have the capability to learn what it takes seven years to teach an apprentice, and a lifetime to perfect! Or the discernment to know which approach should be best taken for the range of bookbinding problems that are brought to me daily, or to determine a noble from a shoddy binding, or to ensure that margins are straight, spines curved, lettering precise, backs strong. Do you understand? Hm? Do you?’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘No.’
‘What brain fever afflicts you, child? What troubles you so, that you dare to degrade my house so? Today you have visited a man, with no other escort than your own conscience. My reputation, I presume, you cast to the pigs.’
‘Must you ask? Peter, you are sick. Peter, we have no money. Peter, we are cold and hungry, and the bailiffs will be knocking in six days. Six days. We have a box of fine paper and an African Bible. Shall we burn them for heat, or shall we make something out of them?’
He chose not to hear me. He seemed to be addressing the print of The Annunciation on the wall beyond me. ‘You delicate creature,’ he said, with a feeble smile. ‘You – you are too good for manual labour, too precious for the arts. Let us pity those poor women who are forced to make their own way in the world and earn their own keep, when they should be husbanding the wages of their menfolk.’ His eyes were starting to glaze. ‘Let us praise your dependent existence, and work to your strengths, that of embellishing the house and cheering the heart of your husband. Think of our loss of character.’ Here the light came back into his eyes, and he turned to sear them onto me. ‘Think of how they’ll talk of us! “There’s the man who wasn’t enough of a man to keep his woman.” “There’s the woman who wears the trousers beneath those skirts.” Think of it, Dora. It would be worse than hanging, or, or transportation, even! Think of it, Dora! Have you anything to say to that?’
And so he gave me the perfect opportunity to hang him with his own argument.
‘Indeed, Peter. What if I, truly, went out to make my own way in the world at large? Here you are right, for they would point, and say, there goes the shame of Peter Damage, as I walk to the factory or the market or my mistress’s mansion. Him who’s in prison for debt. Him who lost his house and let his wife and child go to the poor. But this way, Peter, won’t it be best? You are sick. I am offering you a solution that saves your face. We can bring Jack back into the fold. He’s indentured to us; he’s breaking the law now by not being here. And you will tell us – you will tell us always – what we are and are not to do. I will not be your brain, but I will be your hands, your arms, your muscles too, for the Lord knows I have them. I have sat in bookbinder’s workshops all my life listening to every instruction first my father and now you breathe upon your mechanics, and I have heard them all. And if you don’t help me, why, Jack and I shall muddle through this ourselves! How hard can it be?’
I could not tell how he was receiving me. He seemed to be holding his breath. His face was red, but through anger or shame I did not know, and I feared what might issue forth from his pursed lips and his clenched fists. But I had to continue.
‘So, are you happy for books to leave this establishment with your name on them, but in which you have had no part, and let them flutter amongst the Strand and Westminster showing everyone your prowess?
With you or without you, I am binding books. From tomorrow morning, Damage’s Book- binders is open for business. So, Peter, let us keep this within these four walls. Let us keep the name of Damage strong. Let us allay our public shame. And use me to do that. Try me. Try me, for we have no other choice. Try me, and if we fail, we fail.’ My, I realised, here I was becoming a veritable Lady Macbeth. ‘But screw your courage –’ Did I dare continue? Peter would never recognise the quotation, and I had no other words of my own to use ‘– to the sticking-place and we’ll not fail.’
But like Lady Macbeth, was I leading my lord into an evil trap? Was I unsexing myself, or worse, him? I looked over at him and was surprised to feel only scorn. He had already unsexed himself. He was impotent. And we had nothing to lose.
‘Well, I never did see such a manner,’ he said, on a vicious exhalation, ‘from the likes of a wife.’ He pulled on his coat and scarf, and placed his hat on his head. He tried to squeeze his hands into his gloves, but the pain was too great and he gave up, casting them onto the floor with a disdainful look, and stuffed his hands instead into his pockets. I watched him go over to the front door.
I had failed. I wondered to which devil he was going, to which money-lender, den of crooks, whorehouse, or even drinking-house, in his rage. At least he had not struck me. The thought crossed my mind that the door would slam behind him and that I would never see him again.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked croakily, and raised my hand as if in farewell.
He turned to me surlily, one eye-brow cocked. ‘To the river, my silly wife,’ he said, ‘to find out which gutter Jack’s lying in.’
Chapter Four
Hush thee, my babby,
Lie still with thy daddy,
Thy mammy has gone to the mill,
To grind thee some wheat
To make thee some meat,
Oh, my dear babby, lie still.
We had enough paper to make two albums – one quarto and one octavo – and two duodecimo, two sextodecimo, two vigesimo-quarto and two trigesimo-segundo notebooks, and several smaller frippery books for young ladies to write their secrets in. And still we would have sheets left over. But rich in paper as we were, we were paupers in leather: we had little more than half a sheet of morocco, which would never cover ten albums of varying sizes. The Bible, of course, would have to be full-leather, but we knew without conferring that we would have to wait until we had been paid for the volumes before we even considered its binding.
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 7
