He still left early on Fridays, but nowadays he would ask my leave as a matter of courtesy, and I would of course grant it. And he still turned up some mornings with fresh tar-like wounds to his face, or an eye so bruised it could not see my blushing concern, or injuries to his shins that only betrayed their presence slowly by the steady seepage of vital fluids across the already stained canvas of his trousers.
Din. Din. I love you, Din. Oh, no, I would never say it. But the words crept up from my heart and lurked in the corners of my mouth, as if daring me to swallow them whole, or spit them out, anything but say them. Din.
‘I know what you did last night, Din,’ I said instead one such morning, only very quietly. I was cleaning a brush, in order to paste the reverse of some leather, and did not look at him as I spoke. But when I received no reaction, I added, ‘I thought that was what I would find when I followed you to Whitechapel.’
‘You are even more foolish than I thought,’ Din said eventually, when the struggle to rig up the sewing-frame became too much for him. ‘You willin’ly took yourself to where you would see a bunch of men splittin’ each other’s skulls and rippin’ their skins off.’
‘Why do you do it?’ I dipped the brush into the paste, and looked at him.
He made a valiant attempt at a shrug. ‘Why not?’
‘Is it not inhuman, Din?’
He closed his eyes and sighed. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Does it not reduce you to the level of dogs, or bears, or cocks?’
‘Why so interested, ma’am? Do you not know enough about the inhumanity of men?’ And here he sat upright, with more determination than his injuries would allow, and directed his one good eye pointedly at me. I swallowed and positioned the leather on the bench. We had never discussed the particular speciality of Damage’s Bookbinders; I had not wanted to know that he knew.
He tried to continue with the sewing-frame, but I could see it was hard for him.
‘Come, Din. Help me here. It might be easier for you. Hold the leather for me, won’t you? Would that Jack were here.’
‘You miss him, ma’am,’ he said as he stood up and came over to the bench.
‘I do, Din. He was very dear to me.’
Din held two opposite corners of the olive-green leather for me, as he had done once before. I was close to his neck; I could see the depth of last night’s injury. I should have offered to dress it, but I feared the intimacy. I searched for something else I could say to express my sadness about Jack, but the words did not come out now we were in range of each other’s breathing.
As I pasted, Din finally proferred something like an answer to my questions. ‘Sometimes, ma’am, I need to feel less than human. But also, it can make me feel more human. It reminds me of what I’ve got to lose.’
‘Do you need reminding, Din?’ I said quietly, not looking up.
‘Maybe we all do.’
‘Indeed.’ And his statements got me thinking of the pictures in the crates, and I escaped into a new train of thought as if to prove to him that I was not distracted by his presence. ‘Do they – they – by which I mean, the Noble Savages,’ for there was no escaping it now, ‘possibly they need reminding – possibly they – they – need these,’ I waved the brush at the crates, ‘these pictures, these words, this violence – in order to feel more human.’
‘Or less.’
‘Or less, indeed. I think I am starting to understand you now, Din.’
‘We have young aristocrats at the fights too,’ he added.
‘They come to watch? To wager?’
‘To fight. A young Smith-Pemberton, fresh from Eton. A young Gallinforth, trainin’ to be an officer,’ he said knowingly. ‘These names mean somethin’ to you, ma’am?’
‘I don’t believe you!’ I said. And yet I did. I could not look up from the leather.
‘We’ve all got our demons. Money don’t mean nothin’ when you’re beatin’ the brains out of someone in the East End. They can’t do it up West, can they? You’d be surprised who you find there. I don’t know many men who don’t feel the need to beat somebody else up once in a while.’
‘But the tanners: surely they face enough blood in their daily toil?’
He shrugged, then grimaced.
‘And they don’t do it for money?’
‘No.’
‘Do you do it because – because the others are white?’
‘They’re not, not all o’ them. Colour doesn’t come in to it when you’re head to foot in blood. Although bein’ black, it don’t show too bad much when I’m bleedin’.’
‘I would call that a disadvantage.’
‘Blood shows them how strong they are. If they can’t see it, they feel weak. As long as you can stand the pain, you never let them see how much you’re bleedin’.’
I was feeling weak by now; I thought at first that I was feeling queasy at all this talk of blood, but he was leaning slightly further in to me now, and in my head our cheeks brush, and I pull away, and lean in to him once more, only this time slowly, so the hairs on our bodies have to reach for sensation before our skin presses more tightly, and then we move our heads a little, to enhance the tingling feeling, and then my lips find his nose and I kiss it, and my eyelashes flutter like a butterfly’s wings across his brow, and I catch close his round brown eyes, and the old scars like fossils in the solid rock of his face, but warm, so warm, and alive, and the fresh wound open and gaping like his mouth into which I am now falling, falling, but I hold on to his teeth, his jagged teeth which are eating my lips, and I hang on, but still I am sinking and drowning and dying for breath, and my chest heaves in the quest for air, heaves and thrusts into him, swelling and shrinking, reaching and fading, and his hands hold me up and he is the pillar which supports me, my column of strength, but then he falls too, down, down, and I look down and see him climbing up my legs, my skirts bunching upwards towards me, he rises and his hands encircle my calves, my knees, my thighs, and still he is rising, and I can’t see his face for he is tasting his way blind, up and up, and then I want to come crashing down over on around him, but I don’t because it is so sweet here, with his tongue pulsing a nether heartbeat inside me, then his fingers renew the thrust while his mouth sucks, and I well and swell and clutch at the bench to keep me here, on the brink, as long as I can, and my hand seizes something, and I don’t know what it is.
And then I saw the brush of paste, and my fingers sticky with cold paste, and the leather that was now fully pasted, and had been all this time, and Din, looking at me strangely, and I knew I could keep him at my table no longer.
A voice that did not sound like mine croaked, ‘Thank you, Din,’ and he returned, unknowing, to the sewing-frame.
Mr Diprose arrived at the bindery that afternoon. I ushered him quickly into the workshop and closed the door.
‘Din, would you kindly go buy me some thread. Here is some money.’
I frantically thought about what I was going to say: I had indeed found out some horrendous secret that bound Din and I together, but I was damned if I was going to share it with Charles Diprose. I waved him off the premises, and prepared to defend myself, and Din, once more.
But he did not pursue this tack; he seemed excited, and clearly anxious to get to his brief immediately, although he had brought with him only two things: a piece of leather, and a muslin bag filled with a freshly folded and sewn manuscript.
‘Regardez,’ he said dramatically, as he revealed them to me like a mountebank. ‘This is possibly the most important commission of your life. It may seem modest, but you will be paid handsomely.’
I fingered the leather: it was quite rough, and translucent in places, like coarse vellum. Despite myself, I was intrigued. The leather was not particularly beautiful, but tigers and dowries and Sir Jocelyn and the Earl with their rifles danced in my head.
‘It must bear the insignia of Les Sauvages Nobles, and Nocturnus, but no title,’ Diprose explained. So it was indeed a commission for Sir Jocelyn.
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‘Blind- or gold-tooling?’ I asked. The skin seemed fitting for a Noble Savage; I wondered if it were the hide of an elephant, or other wild animal, shot on safari.
‘Gold.’
‘What is this leather?’
‘I cannot tell you the exact beast, or from which country it originates,’ he answered. ‘They are all the same to me. But if you wish to give it a name, by way of reference, shall we call it “Imperial Leather”?’ He gave an oily chuckle.
‘Do you want it dyed, or natural?’
‘Au naturel, most definitely. And there is one other thing, Dora. You will not be working on the book itself.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I have the book here, in this bag, but I am not permitted to leave it with you. You must take the measurements from it now, in my presence, then fashion the binding in its absence.’
‘But how will we complete the forwarding process?’
‘That is up to you to fathom. A week today, I will return with this manuscript, which you will fasten to the binding, again in my presence.’
I did not answer, for I was thinking hard and fast. This was a new approach to binding, and I knew of no precedent. Strictly speaking, it would be a casing, not a binding, and we would need to leave the cords loose, and forward after the finishing process, all of which was tricky, but not impossible. It would require skill and ingenuity; I wished Jack could have been here to help. I wondered if Diprose knew of his arrest.
As if he could read my mind, Diprose then said, ‘And Dora, I need your assurance that only you will work on this. This is not a job for an apprentice. This is a highly secret assignment, and for you alone. You must not even work on it in the presence of anyone else. En cachette.’
It was not as if I had any choice but to agree. Under Diprose’s gaze, I placed the leather in the strong-box, and locked it. Then I followed him out into the street.
‘There’s three guineas in this for you,’ Diprose said quietly as he climbed into his carriage.
Three guineas? I was not sure whether he was playing with me. I raised an eyebrow at him. Three guineas? He spoke the words in little more than a hissed whisper, but I felt the wind carry his words through every open window on the street. I was dumbfounded. This was what men like Knightley paid for a volume like this; what could Diprose be charging him now?
Three guineas.
Yes, I’m Sir Jocelyn’s whore, didn’t you know?
Really? And I’m Patience Bishop.
And this is my pimp, Mr Charles Diprose.
Would you care for some goat’s milk, Mr Diprose? Fresh from the tit, and sweeter than a baby.
A curse on you, Charlie Diprose, and your loathsome money. And the rest of you, with your vile eyes and ears. Virtus post nummos, indeed. I am no longer proud of virtue, and I can no longer be shamed by vice; neither impress me. Is not such insistence on virtue only another vice? May you be deafened and blinded by your own filth, if you are not already.
Later that week, I was cleaning the oil-lamps in the bindery in order to start the new commission, when the door opened: I hadn’t locked it, as it was after hours. Sylvia glided in silently.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked.
She approached me with reserve. Although I was wearing Jack’s grubby apron, she did not look at me with anything like disdain or reproach. She seemed, possibly, somewhat shy.
‘I have brought you a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘I wanted to apologise to you, actually, Dora. You must think me a frightful pig. I have been here well over a month now, and all I have done is dwell in my own misfortune.’
‘You have been rather preoccupied, Sylvia,’ I said consolingly. ‘It does not matter.’
‘But I haven’t once asked after you, or your work. Your husband passed away, your apprentice gone, you must be struggling so.’
‘I keep going,’ I said, ‘for Lucinda’s sake.’
‘Tell me about the slave; tell me about Dun.’
‘His name is Din.’
‘Silly me! I must have got confused with his colour! Oh, Dora, I do feel awful about it. We knew we were stretching decorum when we asked you to take him on, but I had no idea of the proximity it would involve. Are you frightened at times? You seem so brave.’
‘He is a nice man. He is quiet, and well behaved.’
‘Yes, but one never knows what they are thinking. You will be careful. You must make sure you never have to be alone with him. I should not like to encounter him.’
‘Encounter him? You saw him, here, just the other day.’
‘I did? I have been very distracted, Dora. I forget these things.’
‘You have also met him before. Or do you not remember that either?’
‘Excuse me? When have I met him?’
‘He told me you went all the way to Limehouse to find him, at the address he gave to Lady Grenville’s maid.’
‘Not I! What a ridiculous notion!’ We looked at each other as if to await comprehension. And then suddenly, she said, ‘Ah! I sent Buncie! With a chaperone, of course. I would not make such a perilous journey. Buncie did it. She’s a good girl like that. Goodness, did he think Buncie was me?’
‘He did,’ I said, and bit my lip. Should I say I knew about the evenings at Berkeley-square?
‘Is he of solid build, or is he slight?’
Goodness, I thought, maybe they had a rota of slaves, and she was trying to ascertain his identity through his physique.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I will have words with the Society to get him moved from here.’
‘Really, Sylvia, he’s no trouble.’
‘Oh, Dora, you may think that you are safe, with your inelegant features, your drab clothes, but to such a one as he, it will not matter if you are suffering from the pox and have lost your nose to the syphilis!’ She burst into tears, and covered her eyes with her hands. ‘My dear, dear husband. What can he have been thinking of? As if I would betray him – and betray nature – like that. As if I would do that a . . . a . . . man of colour.’
‘Excuse me? I do not follow you, Sylvia.’
‘He said I had had an affair! That I must have had! With a – with a – with a man of – colour! That, goodness knows, I had opportunity enough under the auspices of what he called my Dreadful Society. His son, his baby Nathaniel, is a – a –’ here Lady Knightley’s voice was reaching a strained high pitch. ‘A half-caste!’
‘He is?’
‘He is! Or at least, Jossie says he is. He said he is . . . he is . . . an unusual hue. To which I protested that he merely bears the sun-flushed cheeks of his father! His colleagues said it was jaundice. But no, Jocelyn was not happy with that. He said the baby’s skull sutured closed much more quickly than a white skull should have done, and that this is a feature of the Negroid race, which has a retarded forebrain, and is therefore less intelligent. And he said other things too, which I can’t remember. Only he couldn’t prove them, and he was driven sick with lack of proof, and locked himself up in his study to find the answer amongst his books and notes, until he threw me out!’ Her chest heaved, and she burst into sobs. ‘I protested my innocence. I have only been faithful and true to my darling husband. My soul, I said to him, is lily-white,’ here her voice rose to a shout, ‘and so is the child’s!’
‘Calm yourself, Sylvia. Don’t take on so, dear. It is not the first of Sir Jocelyn’s monstrous theories I have heard. You have more sense than that; you know your own heart, your own actions.’ I tried to remember if I had ever noticed anything unusual about Nathaniel’s colouring. He was a lovely colour, I thought, like a freshly baked pie-crust. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A suspicion tried to cross my mind, but I dismissed it before it had taken so much as a step. Din would have told me, wouldn’t he? The thought attempted to re-enter my head despite my dismissal, but I wilfully restrained it at the edges of my reason.
She dropped her hands to the bench and started fiddling with the tools, as if they might distract
her.
‘Are these how you make the patterns?’ she said, sniffing loudly.
I nodded, vigilant and wary. She weighed one in her hand, and traced her fingertips over the brass acorn at the tip. Then she picked up a rose, then a teardrop, the one I used for angels’ wings. Finally, her hands moved over to a large, heavy tool.
‘I thought you’d returned the Society’s coat of arms.’
I waited for her to peruse it further, and when realisation set in, she cried, ‘Oh!’ then sighed heavily.
‘What do you know about that crest?’ I asked her.
In a whisper, she said, ‘Les Sauvages Nobles.’
‘Who are they, Sylvia?’ I enquired. The woman, might, at least, be of some use to me, no matter what she had done with my Din.
‘It’s a club. A private club. It started with the inner circle of the Scientific Society; now it includes some of their immediate, their most like-minded, colleagues. They meet for dinner every Monday evening, in chambers, or at St James’s, or at White’s, or sometimes at Berkeley-square.’
‘Lord Glidewell is one of them, isn’t he?’
‘Indeed. You know him? His family has several plantations in the West Indies, three stars to their name in the East India stockholders list, and a mansion in Hampshire.’
‘What do they discuss?’
‘Oh, this and that. Mostly tedium. The higher speciali-sations of their scientific and creative endeavours. Theories that may or may not gain acceptance in wider circles. I must confess that I was never entrusted with further confidences about their activities, but neither did I express an interest.’
‘What did they do?’
‘Well, they didn’t play parlour croquet, if that’s what you are asking,’ she snapped.
And I didn’t ask you to come to live with me, I was about to scream, you and your nigger child! But instead, I waited for her to continue.
‘I fear they found me somewhat disapproving,’ she said, more subdued now, ‘along with all the other wives. Why, even the poor servants disapprove of their Monday evenings. There has been many a valet working for Valentine – that is, Lord Glidewell – who has handed in his notice on Tuesday morning and left without reference by the afternoon. He can never keep them.’
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 34
