We found our own way to the stairs, and started to descend.
‘Well, that went sufficiently well, under the circumstances.’
‘Should I not have said all that about Peter and his rheumatism and the like?’ I said anxiously. ‘He knew it all, it seemed. I couldn’t have lied, could I? Not like I did to you at the beginning. Should I have? I knew I should’ve.’
‘Come, come, my dear. You have fooled no one. Sir Jocelyn has bestowed you with the blessing of his approval, and, malgré moi, you and I have no choice but to consent.’
I wish I had known then why the man had such an aversion to me. I did not know if I shamed him, or tempted him, or repulsed him, or all three at once, but for something about these feelings he chose to dislike me.
We hailed another cab and returned to the shop. He bolted the front and back doors, and gathered some manuscripts about him.
‘First, Boccaccio’s Decameron.’ He held it close to me, without proffering it, and I could smell the sourness of his breath. ‘It has some fine illustrations; c’est à dire, they are of the more exuberant variety.’ He was agitated, and his eyes refused to meet mine. ‘You must render their spirit on the binding, if not their detail.’ He sighed, and added, ‘You will be very busy. I will have the first books to you as soon as I manage to procure them from Amsterdam.’ It did not occur to my troubled mind to question the whereabouts of the books, whether they were enjoying the sights and sports Amsterdam had to offer or whether their purpose there was strictly business, innocent such that I was. What sudden reversals were to befall me.
‘And here. You will need this.’ He handed me a weighty implement, like a large bookbinder’s tool or stamp. I examined it carefully: it seemed to be a peculiar coat of arms. In the centre was a shield, divided into four by two straight overlaying chains: in the top left quadrant was a dagger; in the top right, a clarion; bottom left, a large buckle as from a belt; bottom right, a crowing rooster. The shield was supported by a rampant elephant on the left, at the foot of which was a cannon, with a pile of three balls waiting to be loaded, and on the right, a satyr, also rampant, leaning against a column around which curled a serpent. Above the shield a beacon burned from a castellated grate, with bunches of grapes descending from its lower basket. And across the middle snaked a ribbon with words on, in undulate, which I could not make out in reverse.
‘The Knightley coat of arms?’ I asked.
‘Les Sauvages Nobles,’ Diprose replied, but I did not understand. ‘The majority of books will need this on the rear cover, or occasionally on the front when the design so warrants. You shall receive instructions.’
‘And what about payment?’
‘Mrs Damage. Virtus post nummos, indeed!’
But the blackguard’s insult only emboldened me. ‘Mr Diprose. You know I have not yet the means to purchase materials appropriate to the task.’
‘I will send you a few things to help you out,’ he said with irritation. Then he creaked his torso forward at me and placed his hands upon his thighs, so that he could stare directly into my eyes. ‘Tell me, child, the definition of “discretion”.’
I swallowed. ‘Prudence,’ I blurted out. Then I thought harder. Discernere, to perceive. ‘The ability to discern.’ My mother, the governess, delighted in setting me word games like this. ‘Circumspection.’ Circumspecere, to look around on all sides. She would have pushed me harder still. I could hear her voice now, but I was grasping for my own words. ‘The adoption –’ I was getting into my stride, ‘– of behaviour appropriate to the situation.’ I paused. ‘Which errs on the side of caution,’ I added.
‘It will be required,’ he replied. ‘Payment will be handsome once discretion has been proven. You certainly have need to assure that je ferme ma bouche. How tidy, that we are now keeping each other’s secrets. We have un arrangement?’
I nodded. Satisfied, he reached for my hand, helped me to my feet, and placed the Boccaccio in my hands. I made to move towards the front of the shop.
‘No, Mrs Damage,’ said Mr Diprose. ‘You must leave now by the back entrance.’
I looked at him blankly.
‘Are you scared of ghosts, Mrs Damage?’
‘Ghosts?’ Was he testing my mettle, as a member of the fair sex?
‘Ghosts,’ he repeated. ‘For there is reputed to be a ghost of Holywell-street. Will you permit me to shiver your senses with the story?’
‘Please do.’ I stood by the back door and waited.
‘Once upon a time, a young man – let us call him Joseph – came up from the country – let us say, the wilds of Lincolnshire – to earn his living in the big city – let us say, he was a printer. Joseph was abandoned one night – perhaps he had been drinking with some other printers – in the darkness of Holywell-street, but knew it was a journey of only a few short yards back to the main thoroughfare of the Strand. He went one way, then another, then took a turn, then another turn, and found himself staggering down more and more winding alleys, and soon became lost.’
‘What became of him?’
‘Many have guessed, but none will confirm. You and I can only imagine what cruelty lies in these irregular alley-ways. His body was never found, but his spirit was unable to find the same freedom. It is said that his ghost still haunts Holy-well-street, still wanders round and about the narrow lanes, never quite reaching the Strand, and constantly going back to the beginning of his journey, where he has to start his quest over again. But you, Mrs Damage, seem skilled at finding your way out.’
Then he drew a small map of the back alleys on a scrap of lining paper. ‘Go here, then turn – here – and – here. Look sharp, head down, and quick pace.’ The route he was suggesting would take me out into the daylight of the Strand rather than back into Holywell-street. ‘You must return this way too. En cachette. Three sharp knocks only on the back door. It is preferable for you that way.’
I ran through the twisting lanes as instructed, and blessedly did not meet another soul, living or otherwise. I told Peter little of the day’s events on my return, only that Mr Diprose had decided to furnish us with more books. I did not wish to burden him with the details, for they troubled me, and I was stalked in my dreams that night, not by the rangy Sir Jocelyn and his stiff Mr Diprose, but by an animated, malevolent anatomy model. It chased me around the benches and presses of the workshop, its pink open throat cackling at me and issuing threats, until, at the door to the kitchen, I turned and stood my ground. The model became still and calm too, and let me stroke its painted skin, and I placed my hands inside onto the organs, which were not cold and hard, but soft, warm and wet. It giggled as I fingered them, weighed them in my hands, held them up to the light.
To know the inner workings, to understand the inside, to see within: I would put up with the cigar smoke, and the men who looked, and the animal heads, and the back alley-ways, for that. Or so I believed, in those days.
Chapter Seven
Speak when you’re spoken to,
Come for one call,
Shut the door after you,
Turn to the wall.
Dear Mrs Damage
These choice materials are not meant as a replacement for your creative eye, whose cleverness and ingenuity at selecting unusual yet appropriate couvertures has already been noted and appreciated. I bestow upon you the final freedom to choose, whether it be silk, skin, fur, feather, or que voulez-vous. I entreat you, notwithstanding, to select with care. Just as some colours flatter particular complexions, and some bonnet styles suit certain shapes of head, so too must you consider the colours and styles of your binding according to the nature of the book. Sometimes I will require the most excellent bindings, in hue, texture and execution, to arouse and induce a primitive – c’est à dire, carnal, rather than cerebral – reaction. Sometimes, on the contrary, I will command the most plain, unobtrusive binding to act as shackle and protector for the more mischievous literature, to prevent it leaping off the shelf at the less knowledgeable reader
. I trust we have an understanding; that it is the responsibility of you, the binder, so to clothe the texts for me, the bibliophile, in suitably pleasing habillé, and that you will prove quick to instruct.
As an aside, it is with some ennui that I must inform you that our visitation to Berkeley-square did not go unnoticed by Lady Knightley, who labours under the illusion that her husband’s activities do not escape her. She has sent me word that she wishes to meet with the little lady bookbinder with an eye for sentiment and fingers for finery; my speculations are that this is an innocent invitation without any basis in that green-eyed mistrust a lesser woman might display for a less-adoring husband, but that you are female is evident to her, and I propose to you that it would be contra bonos mores not to attend to her request as soon as possible. She receives on Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon.
Most sincerely yours, &c.
Charles Diprose
Encs.
Assorted leathers: 4 x alum-tawed pigskin, 1 x black sealskin, 2 x maroon crocodile skin, 2 x grey and white snakeskin, 4 x Japanese embossed leather (2 x floral, 2 x seaweeds and sea creatures)
Assorted silks, silk brocades and silk satins
Gold eyelets: sizes, various
2 oz gold
The paper may have been perfumed with vetivert, but the writing was spiky and stiff like the man himself, and unlike the soft wonders awaiting me inside the treasure chest. I unpacked the contents, and laid them out on the bench.
‘Ooh, Mama, show me, show me!’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Playing in the street with Billy.’
‘Billy?’
‘Mrs Eeles’s boy.’
‘So your hands won’t be clean.’
She held them out to me, and flapped them over and around. ‘Spotless.’
‘Black as a pickaninny. Come and let me wipe them.’ I took her through the curtain back into the kitchen, dipped a sponge into the pail, and cleaned right into the lines of her palms and under her finger-nails. Then she dried them on a towel, and followed me back into the workshop.
‘Oh, Mama! It’s like the elves and their shoemaker! Can we be the shoemaker, can we? Can we cut little patterns out and leave them for the elves to make by morning? Look, this would make a fine jerkin for a goblin king. And he could have breeches of this, and boots of that. And he would marry a royal elfin queen, and she would be draped in this!’
‘That’s enough now, Lucinda. I am as excited as you, but we must be careful with Mama’s work materials.’
‘But can I help you?’
‘Yes. You can help me choose the right ones, and tell me how I can cut them, and combine them, and inlay them, to make the most beautiful clothes, but for our books, not for any elves or goblins.’
‘But Mama, what if they’re goblins disguised as books? And when we go to bed they leap up off the workbench and go to the goblin ball?’
‘Wouldn’t that be exciting? Only I hope they would promise to be home by midnight and not soil their breeches in the mud before I get a chance to give them back to Mr Bookseller.’
‘But what if they don’t?’
‘Then we must rap their bottoms with an emery strop and tie them to the bench with trindles.’
‘I’m tired, Mama.’
‘Perhaps you should lie down and have a little rest. Are you feeling peculiar?’
‘A little. But not too much.’
‘Would you like to sleep in your bed?’
‘I’d like you to put me in front of the fire in the parlour.’
So I carried her through, and made a space for her on the rug in front of the fire, at the feet of her father sleeping in the armchair. She rested her head on the cushion which I took off the Windsor chair, and I brought a blanket down from her bed and wrapped it around her. Her eyes started to sink into her, and it looked as if she was starting to doze off. I was impatient to get back to the leathers and silks, and to get Jack started on the backing boards. I kissed her on the forehead; in retrospect I should have waited longer, but she seemed drowsy enough.
In the workshop I re-read the letter, and pulled the manuscripts out from the bottom of the box. And then Peter shouted from the sitting room, and his shouting was pained and anxious, and I knew what had happened even before I heard her small body writhing on the floor and hitting the table legs.
‘Where are you, woman? For the love of – !’
I rushed in and moved the two dining chairs away in one gesture, and kicked the table towards the wall with my foot, before rolling Lucinda on to her side and placing my hand on the small of her back in the slow wait for her to find calm. Past experience should have taught me that she always would, but each time it felt as if she had cast off into the unknown, and might never drift back to my shore. Her skin was grey, and her breathing fast. But eventually she fell into a deep slumber, and her breathing grew more regular, and I picked her up in my arms and buried my head into her neck, and wished I never had to let her go from this hold again.
Peter uttered a couple of ‘humphs’ before picking up an old newspaper. He considered it improper to fuss over anybody else’s health, except, perhaps his own. All that he wanted, always, was for Lucinda to keep herself quiet and out of his way, and he had neither the energy nor the inclination to engage with her childish whims; if the needs of others were not subordinated to his own, he sulked. But this was ever the wife’s challenge: to look after her children, while making it seem as if she put her husband first.
I took Lucinda to bed, and sat darning clothes by her bedside for an hour, until I could be sure she was safe. Her fitting, coming so soon after the excitement of the parcel in the workshop, felt like a bad omen. I wondered if I should simply repackage the box and instruct Jack to take it back to Holywell-street, with the announcement that Damage’s would have nothing more to do with Diprose’s, but we were in no position to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
I kissed her hot cheek, and descended. Peter was agitating his crimson fingers and muttering ungodly curses beneath his breath; it had not escaped me that the seams of his moral suit of clothes were becoming somewhat unstitched as his health deteriorated, abandoned as he must have felt by the good Lord.
Back in the workshop, as I wondered what to do with the dangerous contents of the crate, I discovered something I had overlooked beneath them all. It was a large apothecary’s bottle, with a hand-written label, which read, ‘Patient: Mr Peter Damage, 2, Ivy-street, Waterloo. Under Specification of Dr Theodore Chisholm, Harley Street. Triple Strength Formula. Not for General Sale.’ I uncorked it and examined the contents: it was a brown, syrupy liquid, which I took to be a laudanum nostrum, not unlike Battley’s, Dalby’s or Godfrey’s. I took it back in to Peter and read him the label.
‘I’ll get a spoon,’ I said, and left it on the table next to him, but by the time I returned, he had already swigged from the bottle. I re-corked it and put it on the dresser, but only a few minutes later I noticed a strange smile creep across his lips, and his eyelids were heavy. Unlike me, he slept soundly that night.
* * *
The illustrations to the Decameron were indeed unusual. At first I could not work out what they were about, but when I did, I said ‘oh!’ and quickly closed the book. I paced around the workshop for several minutes. I arranged the papers in a more perfect pile. The tools, always left in neat rows, were made neater by my agitated hands. I chipped the wax drippings off the candles and laid them in the melting tray. Only when there was nothing left for me to straighten and order did I return to the unusual volume with great trepidation and care. But as I still was unable to view the pictures for long, I turned to the relative safety of the text, and did what I normally did when I felt flustered: I read.
I read of creatures – I could not yet consider them people – who performed acts without shame such as that they would be sent straight to hell, and with good reason. I trembled at the wantonness within and searched for shelter for my soul against the ce
rtain apocalypse that would befall them for doing it and me for bearing witness. My shame would protect me, I believed. At least, it always had done; we women wear it like a veil.
I read into the night, a hundred marvellous tales of fortune and the plague and truth and lying – and the other kind of lying. And oh! The women dressed as men! And my! The heart consumed! And then when I could feel my place in the text encroaching upon the stiff paper of an engraving, I was at least prepared, and could accept that the illustrations made sense in the context of the whole, and were another way into, or a different angle on, the startling feelings elicited by Boccaccio’s masterful tales.
And I could feel the familiar sensation of a design for the binding forming in my head. As the public face of this very private volume, it had to be something ambivalent, sensual and evocative, which only hinted at the surprises inside. My yearnings that night were not for the strange joys Boccaccio wrote of, but for the skill to execute a binding that would do them justice.
In the morning, Peter, dull of temper, instructed me somehow to raise eighteen shillings, as Skinner was due to call later that day. So Lucinda and I took his Sunday suit to the pawn-shop, and got a solid pound in return, which felt satisfactory. As we rounded the corner of New Cut, two half-sovereigns in my purse, we passed the theatre, where a group of the better-to-do ladies and gentlemen of Lambeth idly watched a performance by some minstrels blackened with burnt cork.
‘Look, Mama! Let’s go see.’ I was going to lift Lucinda up to get a better view over the crowd, but her wily smallness wheedled its way through the skirts and trouser legs almost to the front, and I found myself in the midst of the crowd some way behind her. A lady stood in front of me whose golden curls shook about her ears as she laughed at the musical jokes. A gentleman had his arm around her tiny waist, and when the songs became maudlin she leant her head on his shoulder, crushing her perfect curls on that side.
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 12
