The Journal of Dora Damage

by Belinda Starling

  And then it was that there was a knock at the door, and there, when I opened it, stood a small, nervous gentleman. The fog was so dense I could not see if there was a carriage behind him; but out of a darker-seeming patch of fog looming below the lintel, a tall shadow stepped forward, revealing itself to be another man. The man in front cleared his throat, but made no introduction of himself. Instead, he announced his companion, with a certain flourish and a swelling of pride.

  ‘I present to you,’ he said in a high voice, like the scratching of an insect’s wings, ‘Mister Ding.’ Mister Ding did not step forward, but waited as the smaller man continued. ‘Who is also, of course you need no prompting to remember, both a man and a brother to us all.’

  ‘Er. My name is Din. Din Nelson.’ His voice was deep and coarse; his accent cut through the fog like the tolling of an unfamiliar bell.

  ‘Ding,’ said the little man in front.

  ‘Din. As in noise. Din. With a “nuh”.’

  ‘Din-nuh.’

  It was as if the fog around Mister Din cleared as the words passed over me, and my skin prickled with shock. It was not because I had forgotten all about his impending arrival – which I had, things being as busy as they were – but because I had not quite appreciated, strange though this must sound, that the ex-slave, to be stationed at Damage’s bindery by Lady Knightley’s Ladies’ Society for the Assistance of Fugitives from Slavery, would be black.

  Oh, of course my rational mind knew that he was a slave, and that slaves were Africans, and Africans were Negroes and Negroes were black, but when I had agreed to take him on and settle him in the workshop, my brain had not taken the necessary step of envisaging a black face behind the sewing-frame. Fortunately the shock did not paralyse my movements or my manners, and I managed to smile politely and extend my hand to him. The little man nodded approvingly, and the black man took my hand and bowed deeply, as if I were a lady.

  As he stepped into the workshop his nose twitched, just like everyone else’s.

  ‘It’s leather and glue. It always smells like that, especially when we’re busy. Books only smell nice when they’re done up.’ I started to gabble as he was not looking at me, so I could not tell if he understood. But then I saw Jack’s nose wrinkle, and I smelt it too, and I was abashed, for it had to be our visitor himself who smelt so horrible.

  ‘ ’Ave yer left summink on the stove, Mrs D?’ Jack said, as Lucinda ran in through the curtain.

  ‘Mama, Mama, the milk!’

  ‘Oh, Lord! The milk!’ And I twisted my way between the stranger and the bench, pushed aside the billowing curtain, and snatched the pan away. Where the milk had scorched on the hot surface, it looked as if it were caustic, as if the metal had bubbled and rusted underneath.

  ‘That’s another pan for the rag-and-bone man,’ I sighed.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll clean it up,’ Lucinda said.

  ‘No, don’t you worry, little one,’ I said as I kissed her on the nose. ‘I’m afraid it’s ruined.’ But in truth, I felt like crying, for I was tired, and I wasn’t able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, and I didn’t know how to get rid of that strange man in my workshop. I was tight like a string, stretched between the worlds of domesticity and commerce, and blurred in the centre, too, from the constant twanging. But I fingered my mother’s hair-bracelet, and kept it all in; I hadn’t cried since she died, and I wasn’t going to start now.

  Back in the workshop, the little man was buzzing and fussing with envelopes of money and contractual papers, which I counted and signed, but soon he disappeared and all was quiet again. I closed the door behind Mister Din Nelson, and did not know what to do with him. It was hard to look him directly in the eye for a while, until I realised that so I must, in order to establish my place in the workshop to him, but once I did, he was not able to reciprocate. One eye seemed to be interested in the air around my left ear, and the other drooped.

  I did not even know where to put him. I could only think of the milk on the stove, and the glue that needed making up, and the dirt on the oil lamps that prevented us from working efficiently.

  ‘Come over here, mate. Let’s have a look at you,’ Jack said, and he reached for Din’s arm, and led him over to his bench. The man walked with a limp. ‘Tell me, what’re your skills? What can you do with those ’ands then?’

  Din shrugged, and his eyes seemed to straighten up a little. ‘I been woodworkin’.’

  ‘What did you make?’

  ‘Wagons. Furn’ture. Fences. Gates. Houses.’

  ‘You good?’

  Again he shrugged.

  ‘What else?

  ‘Tree fellin’. Fruit pickin’.’

  I tried to catch Jack’s eye and roll my own at him, as if to say, what have we taken on? But Jack wouldn’t engage with me. He listened and nodded his head, and started to show Din around the workshop. He gave him a hammer, showed him the boards, opened a press for him. The man wasn’t clumsy. He looked at home behind the bench. He was a good listener. But I didn’t want him there. I wanted him to leave Damage’s and never come back.

  But I wasn’t being honest with myself, for this was nothing to do with Din. I wanted to find fault with him, but only because I found too many in myself. The presence of the stranger was forcing me to accept the transgressive nature of my business. I could not simply announce to the poor man that he was now working for someone who bound rude books for rich men; neither could I let him discover the fact on his own. That he had come from Knightley’s wife was irrelevant, especially as I wasn’t even allowed to mention that to Knightley in my defence. Oh Lord, the secrets I was keeping from both husband and wife; I was bound to them both.

  And, lingering behind these thoughts was everything I had heard about the African; he would, I feared, be idle, servile, lacking in loyalty and discipline, and, in short, nothing but trouble in the workshop. My only consolation was the envelope of money I still clutched from Lady Knightley’s Society, which I tucked into my waist before joining Jack in his instructions of the strange new fellow.

  We started with sewing, but Din’s thick fingers and one slightly maimed hand did not respond naturally to my demonstrations. I was a little irritated, and anxious at the hours I would waste teaching him. We needed another sewing-frame, so I could continue to work while he watched and practised. I chewed my lip in thought, then ran through into the parlour and collected a dining chair.

  ‘Where are you taking that?’ Peter growled.

  My haste was an excuse not to answer him, for how was I to explain the new arrival to the man who was still the proprietor? It was not for me to make changes to our staff without his say-so; and who was to say how skin colour and background would prejudice his reaction further? Lowering the tone of Ivy-street, indeed. I would be in great disfavour; from him, and from Mrs Eeles, too, no doubt.

  ‘Some more brew, my love?’ I asked, uncorking the bottle for him, before fleeing with the chair.

  Back in the workshop, Din watched as I tied four lengths of binding string tightly from the cross-bar above the seat to the cross-bar beneath it, the same distance apart as the cuts Jack had made in the back of the book. I took a flat board from the laying press and placed it on the seat of the chair against the cords, laid the first section of the book on it, and fitted the four cords into the cut lines. I showed Din – on his frame, with what would be his needle – how to open the pages and put the needle through from back to centre, between the pages, and bring the needle out again to the back at the next cut, pass it behind the string, and reinsert it, and so on. He then laid a new section on top, and reinserted the needle directly above where it emerged from the first section, and repeated the process. When he had finished this, I showed him how to tie the two loose ends above each other together, and to start the third section with a completely new thread, and how to make a kettle-stitch between the second and third sections, before placing the fourth section on top. And I made sure, always, that he sewed textual
manuscripts only; those with mischievous prints I reserved for myself.

  His hands moved well with the needle, and he learnt quickly how to pass it through the paper without scuffing, and the exact tension required on the strings for optimum page-turning. I relaxed in direct proportion to his gaining prowess, and peculiarly, found my churning anxieties about the reactions of Sir Jocelyn, Mr Diprose, Peter and Mrs Eeles being replaced with one overwhelming curiosity. What, I kept wondering, as I watched every move of his fingers, the backs of his hands, his wrists, doing the job that I had done for so many years, what did it feel like, to have skin like that? To see that colour on one’s outstretched hands? And how different would it feel from my own?

  My mind raged on this thought, but he hardly said a word, which was most courteous of him. Soon I was able to continue with my own sewing, and the two of us worked side by side well into the day, by the end of which we had sewn twenty-three manuscripts.

  But my, if only we had needed twenty-three manuscripts sewn that day! Six blank bindings had been waiting for me in the gold-tooling booth when Din arrived, and by the time we waved goodbye to him at seven o’clock they had been joined by a further four. I was getting behind; and I would get even further behind if I did not learn to continue with the usual line of facetiae in the presence of this dark stranger. But it did not feel proper so to expose this uncertain person to the true nature of my business.

  Oh, he would never notice, I tried to convince myself. He would not be literate, of course; and besides, the number of illustrations, prints and photographs in the manuscripts were so few, and my cover designs were never so explicit or obscene, merely suggestive. But my inhibitions persisted. I knew I would often have to dismiss Din early, so that Jack and I could work unencumbered into the night.

  The following morning, when I unlocked the workshop door to let Jack in, I heard a group of children further up the street laughing and cheering. The sun was managing to shine through the misty sky, and it felt to us all like a late reminder of summer. I looked up the street to see what was happening.

  At first I noticed the children on the edge of the circle, for there were several who were holding themselves back from whatever the attraction was. In the midst of the main crowd was Din’s tall figure. He seemed to be telling them a joke, or singing them a funny song. He pulled something from the ear of one of the older boys, and there was a general exclamation of delight. But there were mothers watching uncertainly; Agatha Marrow marched out and pulled her twin girls back inside, another boy got a clip round the ear.

  None of us was unfamiliar with the sight of black people; but we seldom had one up our street. It was, no doubt, Mrs Eeles’s influence: Peter had approved of her insistence on the Englishness of her territory, said it was a sign of gentility. I watched as Din approached, and knew that a whole street was watching me. I could not help but smile at him as he raised his hat to me, and sidled past me into the workshop.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Nelson,’ I said loudly, before I followed him inside and shut the door. Was I mistaken, or did his one good eye look at me?

  I was about to settle him to cleaning the oil-lamps, when I heard a carriage draw up in the street. Through the glass I could see it was Charles Diprose himself, in a battered old hansom.

  ‘Quick! Hide!’ I hissed at Din, and without a pause he hurdled over the bench to the corner of the room. He moved fast, despite his limp. Lord, I thought, did he think that his old slave owner was after him with a band of mercenaries? He was heading to the gold-tooling booth, which was a sensible enough place, considering the curtains, but he did not make it in time. Diprose had already pushed open the door and was smiling at me, but his smile fell as it saw Din behind me, and his sweaty face went pale.

  For all of our sakes, I made a hasty decision to land the one person in it who was least likely to be punished. It was also the truth, a quality that seemed to be somewhat lacking in my business these days.

  ‘Mr Diprose. Allow me to introduce Mr Din Nelson, our new apprentice, who has been placed at Damage’s through Lady Knightley’s what-not, you know, the um, the Ladies’ Society, for Runaway Slaves from, from America, I think it’s called.’

  Diprose’s eyebrows arched viciously and his eyes bulged beneath, like two greasy spoons. He addressed not a word to Din, but grabbed my arm, and walked me stiffly towards the door so that Din could not hear his words.

  ‘Does Sir Jocelyn know about this?’

  ‘I believe not, sir.’

  ‘He will be told. I warned Sir Jocelyn of the risks of hiring an ingénue; it appears you are labouring under a gross méscon-naissance of the severity of the situation.’

  ‘What am I to do? I am under orders from Lady Knightley.’

  ‘Does she pay your wages? Does she put food on your table?’

  ‘But, Mr Diprose, with all due respect, the man was a slave. It was the least I could do, the least any of us can do, to let him have this job. And I need the help; with all the work you’re bringing me, it’s too much for the two of us, and, really, how much harm can he do?’

  ‘That is not the point.’

  ‘Shall I talk to Lady Knightley?’

  ‘With difficulty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She is enceinte.’ The word seemed to leave an unpleasant taste in his mouth. ‘She ceased receiving visitors back in August. She certainly will not be permitted to undertake any work for her “what-not” while she is expecting.’

  ‘So we are stuck with him. We shall make it work somehow.’

  ‘Your optimism ne vous sied pas, Mrs Damage. We know nothing about the man.’

  ‘That can’t be hard. You seem to be admirably capable of gathering information.’

  ‘Do not pass on to me your dirty work. You agreed for him to be here; you must find out about him.’ It was a remarkable feat, the way he spoke in such a murmur with barely a movement of his lips, but managed to load every word with menace. ‘You must report back to me on everything you find; and you must use whatever means necessary to procure his discretion.’ It was not just laziness: I was presenting him with the opportunity he had been waiting for, and he would use this, I knew, to topple me from my place of preference with Sir Jocelyn. ‘And, if you do not,’ he concluded, ‘I shall see to it personally that you end up lower than the gutter in which I found you.’

  ‘Surely it is simple, Mr Diprose,’ I ventured. ‘Here, look.’ I rummaged in the files to find Jack’s indenture, pulled out the crumpled piece of paper with the lawyer’s red seal, and showed it to him. ‘Look, please. “. . . the said Apprentice his Master faithfully shall serve his secrets, keep his lawful commands everywhere, shall gladly do Shall do no damage to his said Master . . .” ’

  ‘Oh, ben trovato, Mrs Damage, ben trovato,’ he said, with sarcasm. ‘What a clever girl you are. Considering that the legal limit is one apprentice per every four journeymen, and oh, a-ha, I see, with one apprentice, one woman, and two large empty holes where the skilled workers used to be, ergo, you are already in breach of those limits . . .’

  ‘I am not suggesting, Mr Diprose, that we draw up an apprentice’s indenture. We simply require a legal document that says as much as this, that says, as here, let me find it, here it is, “either of the said parties bindeth himself unto the other”. Surely, this is exactly what we need – “bindeth himself” – do you hear that, Mr Diprose – “bindeth himself unto the other by these Present . . .” ’

  ‘It would have no legal substance, but if you have the money to cover the fees of a decent lawyer, Mrs Damage, please go ahead. But I suggest that either you keep your doors closed to every charity-case that comes knocking, or you find the wherewithal to ensure sa loyauté. You do indeed need to find a way for both your said parties to bindeth yourselves unto each other, but not like this, with un morceau de papier. I suggest you start thinking.’ Then he raised his hand to his beard, and rubbed it vigorously so that his chins shook. ‘Besides, a legal document does not overcome one insur
mountable issue with regard to the man’s origins.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  He dropped his hand in disgust at me. ‘Have you not noticed before? The indelicate nature of some of our literature?’ He was so exasperated now he was almost spitting. ‘The anthropological thrust, the ethnographic bent of it?’

  ‘I had not thought . . .’

  ‘I shall ensure some comes your way soon enough, and then we shall see where your allegiance lies, and how a flimsy piece of lawyer’s puff helps you then. Good luck, Mrs Damage. I, for one, shall not be heart-broken to see the back of you.’ Then he marched outside with his characteristic creaking, upright haughtiness.

  ‘Help me, would you, boy?’ he shouted at the driver, who looked as unwilling as if Diprose had asked him to run up the Himalayas. The boy yawned, slid down from his seat, and climbed inside the carriage like a cat looking for somewhere to curl up. He did, fortunately, emerge again, with a large wicker box in his arms, and bore it into the workshop.

  ‘Books?’ I asked, with some misgivings, thinking of our workload.

  ‘No. Personnel. Not from me, je vous assure. Open it later; you’ve got far too much to be getting on with to be distracted by this.’ He climbed up into the cab, and passed me two large hides through the doorway. They were an exquisite, dull, Venetian-red colour. They looked aged, but I could tell by the feel of the leather that they were very fresh and moist.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Goatskin,’ he said, ‘from the Niger territories, or the Congo, or somewhere maudit like that, dyed by whichever set of natives they’d be, with a tree-bark, or the like. A secret process, to which, no doubt, our Empire will get the recipe before long. Put them inside, then come back for the books.’

  I dodged the cab driver at the door, then went into the gloom of the workshop and laid them on the bench. Din was staring out of the rear window into the yard; I did not address him, but returned to the street as instructed. I spotted Nora Negley peering round the shabby side of the carriage, Agatha Marrow was beating a mattress further up the street, but certainly not fast enough or loud enough to interfere with her ability to hear what was being said.