The Journal of Dora Damage

by Belinda Starling

  It was as I had left it. The bench leg did not betray the kicking it had received, nothing was lying on the floor or out of place as if hurled to vent its master’s spleen. Cautiously I pulled back the curtain around the gold-tooling booth, and saw my Bible lying there much as it did yesterday, only the centre of the leather on the front cover of the binding was gone. Someone had, extremely skilfully, cut around my mess in a perfect rectangle, and lifted it clean away from the cover. In its place was another perfect rectangle of soft cream vellum, inset into the red morocco. Someone had tooled some perfectly straight lines all the way around it, as if it were meant, as if it had always been part of the majestic, celebratory design of God’s bounty in the tropics. And on the vellum was my original watercolour of the Garden of Eden, all palm-trees and coconuts and fountains and cicadas and monkeys and lusciousness. Below it lay an expanse of red morocco, still waiting for its pineapple diaper. I smiled, and found that I could not wait to get to work.

  But first I swept the floor, dusted the furniture, cleaned the hearths, set the fire, made the porridge, drew and heated the water, and aired the washing. I left Peter in bed: the night’s escapades had nearly been the end of him. He did not get out of bed until eleven, and only then because the phial of salicin by his bed was empty. So I bound his hands up tight in bandages, in the hope that they would force the fluids to be reabsorbed by his body, then I raided the tea-caddy for our last remaining pennies, and headed out to the market and the pharmacist with Lucinda by my side.

  Finally, at half-past four that afternoon, I started work.

  Peter did not ask to see it, but once it was finished I brought the book to his bedside, held it out for his inspection, and turned it on all sides. HOLY BIBLE, the spine read, clearly and evenly. He was lying on his left side again, head tucked in and knees drawn up like a baby, his swollen hands pressed between his thighs. He raised his head slightly, nodded, then closed his eyes once more. I wrapped the Bible in soft muslin, and took Lucinda back to Agatha Marrow’s with a kiss and a promise, and set out for Diprose’s for the third time in as many weeks.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Eeles,’ I said as I reached the top of Ivy-street.

  ‘Hello, dearie.’ She wasn’t wearing a veil today, but an enormous black bonnet, which looked as if someone had tipped a coal scuttle over her head and left it there. A sallow, bucktoothed boy of about ten years hovered by her side. ‘His mam’s just died, I’m taking him in for a bit,’ she said mawkishly. ‘ “Stand we in jeopardy every hour; in the midst of life we are in death.” Say hello, Billy.’

  ‘Hello,’ Billy said, not looking at me.

  ‘Hello, Billy,’ I said. ‘You must play with my Lucinda while you’re here. You’ll meet her in the street soon enough.’ Billy nodded, preoccupied with the expanse of black bombazine around his temporary guardian. I looked longingly at Mrs Eeles’s black gloves; they weren’t fine and white, like a lady’s, but I could have done with them today. My fingers were stained with leather dye, and cracked all over, as if they too were becoming leather in the process. Oh, the irony of it, that ladies got to wear smooth white gloves over their smooth white fingers, yet the ones that needed them most, the hard workers of the country, couldn’t afford them, and even if we could have, we wouldn’t have been allowed to wear them, or we would have been called fast, or gay, even. Mrs Eeles got away with it only because hers were black, and she was eccentric besides.

  Mr Diprose himself greeted me at the entrance to his shop, took the Bible from me, and unwrapped it. He would, I feared, be displeased with the design or execution of the binding, or worse still, would find me out, from the stains on my fingers, or the shoddiness of the handiwork. He was silent in consideration for several minutes. His lips were a tight, thin line, and his face flushed the colour of port, like Peter’s did when he was angry.

  ‘Vous me troublez, Madame,’ was all he eventually said, and expressed his perplexity by rising and ascending the bare wooden staircase to the floor above.

  I must have sat there for well nigh on fifteen minutes. Not a soul entered or left, but there was muted activity upstairs, footsteps, hammering, machinery. I peered through the curtain into the road, and through the windows I could see clerks, businessmen, errand-boys and -girls, street sweepers, racing pell-mell down the cluttered streets in their droves. From the remarkable silence of the shop interior it was as if I had turned deaf, for the plate-glass was thick and its sealings magnificent in their design. It kept out the smells as well as the sounds, and as I relaxed into the aroma of well-bound books, leather dressings and neatsfoot oil, I inhaled my own odour and realised, as Mr Diprose descended once more, that I was foul.

  ‘You have struck me, Mrs Damage.’

  I did not know how to answer such a strange remark. ‘Beg pardon, sir?’

  ‘You have quite struck me, madam, today.’ My thoughts danced with smiting Mr Diprose’s corpulence with a boot, or a book, or even just my poor hands. I wanted to giggle, but I dared not. I think I smirked at him. ‘I asked for a simple representation of God’s bounty.’

  ‘In tropical climes,’ I added, to be polite.

  ‘And your husband has not taken me at my word.’

  ‘Oh, hasn’t he, sir?

  ‘No, indeed he hasn’t. He has surpassed the brief. A more complex, and, dare I say it, feminine expression of God’s bounty I have not seen. I was told your husband was a man of lines and angles, of form and function, whose bindings spoke of the probity and order to be found within. He is a Parliament binder, is he not?’ I nodded. ‘I do not wish to embarrass you, but I had heard your husband had fallen on hard times. I consider myself to be something of a philanthropist in the book industry. I took pity on the unfortunate man, knowing that he must have a dear wife and a host of children to feed. It was compassion, Mrs Damage, which led me to give you that Bible for your husband to bind. It was not an important commission. But he has made it so. Vous m’avez frappé, I will say it again, Mrs Damage, by presenting me with something so beautiful.’

  I think I flushed, and for an instance was unaware enough of myself to clap my unseemly hands together.

  ‘That is not to say I am altogether pleased,’ he cautioned. ‘The inset piece makes it vulnerable; it will not wear well. But then, one has to wonder how many Bibles this Bishop already has. Let us presume he will not be taking this one in his luggage on his next trip to Oojabooja-ville. And, Mrs Damage?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The work may be lavish, but I can furnish your husband with no more than the standard fee.’

  I had expected no more, but I skipped home with the few coins jingling merrily in my purse, although through my excitement I tried to hold in my head the sums that needed paying – to Skinner and Blades; to the grocer’s and the coalman; to Felix Stephens and the other suppliers, and for food – and the fractions of each I could get away with paying this week to keep everybody happy for a while, and how much would be left over to buy some scraps of leather and silk to work up some more notebooks from the remaining Dutch paper. I knew I would always be able to sell them to Diprose, but I was also planning to make up a particularly fine book and tout it around some of the other booksellers who hadn’t been overly prejudiced or directly affected by Damage’s recent troubles. There were a few of Peter’s old clients, too, to whom I hoped to return with the news that Damage’s was open for business, with the same management, but new staff.

  But when there was a rap at the door of the workshop the following day – a particularly sharp, unfriendly knocking – my heart jumped into my mouth like a frightened child and I was sure we had run out of time. I did not think of the sight that would greet the person at the door, of a woman on her own in a bookbinder’s workshop, hard at work, but simply flew to the door and opened it, hammer in hand, before whoever it was knocked it down and knocked us up for obstructing seizure of property.

  At first I did not recognise him; his gloves were faded tan with dark brown stitching, and he was holding a large,
flat briefcase that partially covered his face, but the oily sheen on his black silk hat gave him away. He lowered the briefcase to reveal his black beard, below which was a purple neck-scarf stained with grease.

  ‘Mr Diprose!’

  ‘Bonjour, Madame.’ He lifted his hat to me. ‘Forgive the intrusion. I have brought your husband two new manuscripts. I trust he will be pleased.’

  ‘You – he – oh!’

  ‘May I not come in?’

  ‘But certainly. How rude of me. Do, please.’

  It would have been permissible if the paper had been newly folded and strung up in the sewing-frame. It would just about have been acceptable if the sewn sections had been lying on the bench being curved. We would have got away with it had Jack been here, had I not sent him out to deliver our trade card to a stationer’s in Holborn. But to someone who knew, like Mr Diprose, it would have been apparent, from the hammer in my hand and the jar of freshly made paste on the bench, that I was doing men’s work. Of course, I was not breaking the law for doing this, but I knew better than to publicise the fact.

  I put the hammer down quickly, and was about to gabble a concocted story about where Peter and Jack had disappeared to, when Peter entered in disarray from the house. His hair was ruffed up like a duck’s tail, and his face was crumpled like the sheets he had clearly just left. The bandages binding his hands were grimy and frayed, and Diprose saw them straight away. Our visitor’s mouth and eyes had widened into three silent ‘o’s; his cheeks percolated glistening beads of sweat, like dew.

  ‘Mr Diprose. May I introduce to you my husband and proprietor of Damage’s Bookbinders, Peter Damage.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Mr Diprose said, and put out his hand, before retracting it nervously, staring at Peter’s dressings.

  ‘Mr Diprose, what an honour. Pleased to meet you indeed,’ Peter said earnestly, as if to compensate for his lack of handshake.

  ‘Tell me,’ Diprose muttered, unable to take his eyes off Peter’s hands, ‘am I interrupting something?’

  ‘No, no,’ Peter said blithely. ‘We were just – nothing that can’t wait.’ He said something about the work coming through the workshop, the state of the book market at the moment, the lamentable quality of modern paper. ‘To which I add my deep gratitude at your gift of the fine Dutch paper. A delight, a positive delight, to bind. I trust the journals are selling well?’

  ‘You trust correctly,’ Diprose said slowly, preoccupied now with the globules of newly dried paste covering my hands like hideous warts. I excused myself, seized a duster, and went into the kitchen to make some tea. I could hear them continue in hushed, but urgent tones.

  ‘And you a union man too, Mr Damage. How long have you been in breach of them?’

  ‘There are no regulations yet, only proposals,’ Peter said meekly.

  ‘It is hypocrisy.’

  ‘It is expediency, Mr Diprose. My hands will be mended soon.’

  I could not hear the next exchange, but then Mr Diprose must have walked further towards the kitchen, for his words, laced with menace, were unmistakeable.

  ‘I could cause a lot of trouble for you, you know that.’

  ‘And will you?’ Peter replied. He threw those three words to Mr Diprose like a challenge; I was proud to see there was still a man within him.

  I wished I could have seen Diprose’s face in the pause that followed. He held all the power; possibly he was measuring whether Peter was victim or worthy opponent. He took his time, as if the decision were momentous to him.

  ‘Je suis un philanthrope, Mr Damage. I heard a union man had fallen on hard times, and I ventured to help. I believed you to be rewarding me well, but you have deceived me.’

  ‘Surely deceive is too harsh a . . .’

  ‘My most important client, Sir Jocelyn Knightley, has likewise been deceived. You have put me in an embarrassing situation. I promoted you to him using the Bible, and he is now much taken with your work. He has since bought a commonplace book and an album for his wife, with which she was delighted. She gave much praise to the embroidery, and the elegant but unassuming way it harmonised with her salon. It was as if she had commissioned it. He already has plans to send you further work. And now I must let him down. You have most embarrassed me.’

  ‘If he is that taken with my work, what matters a woman’s input? Dora is only my hands while mine do not function. She has no head for the work.’

  ‘Sir Jocelyn is a scientist, Mr Damage.’ Mr Diprose sounded exasperated. ‘He needs a binder for his life’s works. His area of speciality is ethnography. Primitive peoples, Mr Diprose. His mastery in the fields of phrenology, physiognomy, and, ah, the baser urges of mankind, have led him to a far greater understanding of the savage nations than anyone has heretofore achieved. He is feted in the Scientific Society. But, really, must I impress upon you the dire consequences of exposing literature of that ilk to women? La donna è mobile. It will addle their brains and disturb their constitutions.’

  ‘I am in complete accord . . . I had not appreciated . . . My dear wife . . . But, Mr Diprose, there is no reason why we could not continue with more Bibles, and journals, and the like?’ Peter had started to plead. It did not make pleasant listening. ‘Bland stuff? Women’s stuff? And when my hands are healed, I can satisfy the wishes of this eminent Lord Knightley. Please. Mr Diprose? I should be most . . . most grateful.’

  Diprose gave pause; the pleading no doubt swelled his philanthropic nature. I heard the click of his briefcase, and a rustle of papers.

  ‘It troubles me to see the vine of talent and dedication withering in the stony soil of tribulation. I like to reach out to those in desperate circumstances.’ I wondered to myself if Mr Diprose might be a bachelor, or a widower, for he would have made a fine match with Mrs Eeles, neither of them being able to resist the whiff of desperation. ‘I have here a small prayer-book. It is in the same type as the Bible, and again, first in Latin, then hand-scribed, but it is to be folded smaller: it is, as you will see, vigesimo-quarto, instead of sextodecimo. It must form part of the same set.’ There was another rustle of papers, and the sound of an envelope being ripped open, followed by a chinking of coins. ‘An advance for the commission,’ he said. ‘It was to be two manuscripts, unfortunately, but the second is of the sensitive nature I have previously described, and I deem it inappropriate to leave with you.’ He counted out some coins, then poured the rest into his coat pocket.

  ‘And you – you won’t breathe a word of this to the union, will you?’ Peter begged, as Mr Diprose got up to leave.

  ‘So, you are asking me to keep your secret. Good day, Mr Damage. And bon chance.’

  Peter tumbled into the kitchen, sucked of strength, and lay on the cold floorboards. I went into the workshop, counted the coins, and ran to the pharmacy.

  Chapter Six

  Old Boniface he loved good cheer,

  And took his glass of Burton,

  And when the nights grew sultry hot

  He slept without a shirt on.

  'You are most fortunate to be married to a modern man like myself,’ Peter announced between bouts of vomiting. The ipecacuanha was taking effect, and his guts were retaliating. ‘Most members of the weaker sex are never permitted to be seen beyond the confines of their houses. If they have to go to market, they go straight there, then return home directly. If they do not have to go to market, the tradesmen come to their doors.’ But he was wrong. A woman’s life could never truly lack visibility, no matter how low or high her rank: women who went to market were exhibits; women who never went to market were exhibited at balls and parties instead. Still, I nodded politely, and held his hair back from his head as he suffered a particularly violent retch that would have come from his very bowels, had they not recently been purged with calomel. ‘You are blessed indeed to have a husband with my nature,’ he said again, spitting strings of bitter gastric juices from his mouth. I agreed with him.

  The emetic exhausted him quickly, and he took to his bed, w
ith strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed. But I was anxious without his guiding eyes. The prayer-book might have been smaller than the Bible, but the expanses of red morocco that required regulation diaper tooling taunted me, despite my relative success with the Bible. I feared I would make a mistake on the first row of pineapples, or the last, which could not feasibly take a vellum insert. Jack was still teasing me about Moive Bibble, which did nothing for my confidence, and I knew Lucinda was suffering from my absence. She was more than capable of amusing herself, of course, but a child needs her mother in ways far greater than a workshop needs its binder, a house its cleaner, or even a husband his wife. Not to mention that the river ran in both directions: I was suffering from Lucinda’s absence no less.

  I fretted over the binding all day as I went about my chores; I did not trust myself to start work without Peter. But the following day he refused to assist me again, so I determined to settle on a design that played to my strengths and the materials available to me. It was to be a half-binding of red morocco, using the remaining soft yellow silk for the front and back, embroidered in the same colours as the watercolour on the front of the Bible. Then I planned to paint a biblical scene on a piece of Dutch paper, which I would use as a doublure. I was bending the brief so far that it was likely to snap, but I had to trust that by remaining true to its spirit, the books would still qualify as ‘matching’.

  However, I needed not have worried all those long days. When I finally returned to Holywell-street and presented it to Mr Diprose, he looked over it with disinterest, his forefinger curled in the furrow between nose and upper lip, and his thumb stroking his beard.

  ‘Fine, fine. Hmm.’ He spun his chair round away from his desk, and thought some more. ‘Bon. I think we should go now.’

  ‘Go, Mr Diprose? Where?’