The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020)

by Williams, Pip

  It was at least five hundred years old. I checked the slip was complete, then searched for the relevant pigeon-hole. There was a small pile, no top-slip. I added Chaucer’s quotation. It wouldn’t be long before M words needed to be defined. K was almost completed. I returned to my desk, then took up the next envelope to relieve it of its contents. When all the letters were checked and sorted, I made my way around the desks, delivering them to the men in exchange for errands. When I approached Dr Murray’s desk, he handed me a pile of letters that had arrived during the previous week.

  ‘Minor enquiries,’ he said. ‘You know more than enough to respond.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Murray.’

  He nodded and returned to the copy he was editing.

  For an hour or so, the rustle of work was only disturbed by the men removing their jackets and loosening their ties. The Scriptorium moaned when the sun found its iron roof. Mr Sweatman opened the door to let in a breeze, but there was no breeze to be had.

  I read a letter asking why Jew had been split across two fascicles. Splitting a word across two publications had been the focus of more than one argument between Dr Murray and the Press Delegates. It was a question of revenue, the Delegates had insisted when Dr Murray informed them there would be a delay in the next fascicle – variants of Jew required more detailed research, he said. Publish what you’ve got, he was told.

  It took six months before Jew was reconciled, and every week he received at least three letters from the public asking him to explain. I drafted a reply that suggested the requirements of printing insisted on certain page numbers for each fascicle and that the English language could not be edited to fit such limitations. There were times when a word would need to be split, but the meanings of Jew would be reunited when the next volume, H to K, was published.

  I read what I had written, and was pleased. I looked up to where Dr Murray sat and wondered if I should ask him to review it before I sealed the envelope and attached a stamp.

  Dr Murray would be having lunch at Christ Church and was already in academic dress, sitting at his high desk facing the sorting table. His mortarboard was firmly in place; his gown was like the great black wings of a mythical bird. From my corner at the back, he looked like a judge presiding over a jury.

  Just as I was gathering the courage to approach the bench and ask for my work to be reviewed, Dr Murray pushed back his chair. It scraped across the floorboards in a way that would attract reproach if anyone else had done it. The men all looked up and saw the Editor begin to fume.

  Dr Murray had a letter in his hand. His head moved from side to side, a slow denial of whatever he had read. The Scriptorium fell silent. Dr Murray turned and pulled A and B from the shelf.

  I felt the thump of it landing on the sorting table like a blow to my chest.

  He opened to the middle, turned page after page, then took a deep breath when he found the right place. His eyes scanned the columns, and the assistants began to shift. Even Da was nervous, his hand reaching into his pocket to worry the coins he kept there. Dr Murray scanned the page, returned to the top, then looked more closely. His finger traced the length of a column. He was searching for a word. We waited. A minute seemed an hour. Whatever word he was looking for was not there.

  He looked up, his face volcanic. Then he paused, as if he was about to deliver a sentence. Dr Murray looked at us, each in turn, his eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring above his long silver beard. His gaze was stern and steady, as if searching for the truth in our hearts. Only when it came to me did it flicker. His head tilted and his eyebrows raised. He was remembering my years beneath the sorting table. As was I.

  Who hath yow misboden? I imagined him thinking.

  Da was the first to follow Dr Murray’s gaze to where I sat. Then Mr Sweatman. All of the assistants craned their necks to look at me, though the newest assistants were confused. I had never felt so visible as I did in that moment, and I surprised myself by sitting up straighter. I did not fidget or look down.

  If Dr Murray had thought to accuse me, he made a decision not to. Instead, he picked up the letter again and re-read it, then he glanced at the open volume; there was no use searching it a third time. He put the letter between its pages and left the Scriptorium without a word. Elsie followed close behind.

  The assistants breathed out. Da wiped his brow with a handkerchief. When they were sure Dr Murray had gone into the house, a few men ventured into the garden to seek a breeze.

  Mr Sweatman got up and went to the volume of words on Dr Murray’s desk. A and B. He picked up the letter and read it through. When he looked at me there was sympathy in his eyes, but also the hint of a grin. Da joined him and scanned the letter, then read aloud.

  Dear sir,

  I write to thank you for your excellent Dictionary. I subscribe to receive the fascicles as they are published and have all four volumes so far bound. They occupy a book case made especially for them, and I hope, one day, to see it filled, though it may be a satisfaction I leave to my son. I am in my sixth decade and not in full health.

  It is my habit, since you have furnished the means, to reflect on certain words and understand their history. I had cause to refer to your dictionary while reading The Lord of the Isles. The word I sought in this instance was ‘bondmaid’. It is not an obscure word, but Scott uses a hyphen where I thought it was not needed. Its male equivalent was adequately referenced, but bondmaid was not there.

  I must admit I was perplexed. Your dictionary has taken on the status of unquestionable authority in my mind. I realise it is unfair to burden any work of Man with the expectation of perfection, and I can only conclude that you, like me, are fallible, and it was an accidental omission.

  I enlighten you, sir, with good intentions and all due respect.

  Yours, etc.

  I walked as slowly as I could across the lawn and past the assistants stretched on the grass, each with a tall glass of lemonade in his hand. As I started up the stairs to Lizzie’s room, Mrs Ballard emerged from the pantry, two eggs in each hand.

  ‘Not like you to pass through my kitchen without a by-your-leave,’ she said.

  ‘Is Lizzie around, Mrs B?’

  ‘Well, good morning to you too, young lady.’ She peered at me above her glasses.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs B. There’s been an upset in the Scriptorium and we’re all taking a minute. I was hoping Lizzie would be around, maybe I could just …’

  ‘An upset, you say?’ She continued to the kitchen bench, and began cracking the eggs on the rim of a bowl. She looked at me to respond.

  ‘They’ve lost a word,’ I said. ‘Dr Murray is furious.’

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘Do they think we’ll stop speaking it if it’s not in their dictionary? Can’t be the first word they’ve lost.’

  ‘I think Dr Murray believes that it is.’

  Mrs Ballard shrugged and transferred the bowl to her hip. She beat the eggs till her hand was a blur and the kitchen filled with a comforting thrum.

  ‘I’ll wait for Lizzie in her room,’ I said.

  Lizzie came in just as I was reaching for the trunk. ‘Esme, what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘It’s filthy under here, Lizzie,’ I said, my head under her small bed, my hands searching the void. ‘It’s not at all what I would expect from the most accomplished housemaid in Oxford.’

  ‘Come out from under there, Essymay. You’ll soil your dress.’

  I crawled backwards, dragging the trunk with me.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about that trunk.’

  I thought about the news clipping Ditte had sent. It would be on top of all the other words in the trunk. I hadn’t been able to face it for a long time.

  The trunk was covered in a film of dust. ‘Did you keep it safe on purpose, Lizzie, when I went to school? Or just by accident?’

  Lizzie sat on the bed and watched me. ‘There seemed no reason to mention it to anyone.’

  ‘Was I really such a bad ch
ild?’ I asked.

  ‘No, just a motherless one, like so many of us.’

  ‘But that’s not why they sent me away.’

  ‘They only sent you to school. And it probably was ’cos you’d no mother to care for you. They thought it best.’

  ‘But it wasn’t best.’

  ‘I know that. And they came to know that. They brought you home.’ Lizzie tucked a lock of my unruly hair back into its pin. ‘What’s made you remember it now?’

  ‘Ditte sent me a slip.’ I showed it to her. As I read the quotation, I saw her relief.

  Then I looked at her sheepishly. ‘There is another reason,’ I said.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Dr Murray thinks a word is missing from the Dictionary.’

  Lizzie looked at the trunk, and her hand sought her crucifix. I thought she might start fretting, but she didn’t.

  ‘Open it slowly,’ she said. ‘In case something has made a home of it and is startled by the light.’

  I sat all afternoon with my Dictionary of Lost Words. Lizzie came and went more than once, bringing sandwiches and milk, and reluctantly relaying a message to Da that I was feeling poorly. When she came into her room for the third time, she turned on the lamp.

  ‘I’m knackered,’ she said, sitting heavily on the bed and disturbing the slips spread across it. She moved her hand through them like she was moving it through leaves. ‘Did you find it?’ she asked.

  ‘Find what?’

  ‘The lost word.’

  The look on Dr Murray’s face came back to me.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘I did find it, eventually.’

  I reached over to Lizzie’s bedside table and picked up the slip. There was no question of me giving it to Dr Murray. Even if he wasn’t in a temper, I couldn’t think of a single scenario that would make the word’s presence in my hand acceptable.

  ‘Do you remember it, Lizzie?’ I said, holding it out to her.

  ‘Why would I remember it?’

  ‘It was the very first. I wasn’t sure, but when I took everything out of the trunk, there it was, right at the bottom. Do you remember? It had looked so lonely.’

  She thought for a bit, then her face brightened. ‘Oh, I do remember. You found my mother’s hat pin.’

  I looked at the engraving on the inside of the trunk, The Dictionary of Lost Words. I blushed.

  ‘Stop that now,’ she said, then nodded towards the word I was still holding in my hand. ‘How could Dr Murray know that word was missing? Does he count them? There’d be so many.’

  ‘He got a letter. From a man who expected to find it in the volume with all the A and B words, but didn’t.’

  ‘People can’t expect every word to be in there,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘Oh, but they do. And sometimes Dr Murray has to write to tell them why a word has not been included. There are all sorts of good reasons, Da tells me, but this time was different.’ I was excited, recalling the drama of the morning. Against all common sense, I couldn’t help a feeling of accomplishment. I had been the cause of something that seemed to really matter.

  I saw concern on Lizzie’s face.

  ‘What is it, then?’ she asked. ‘What is the word?’

  ‘Bondmaid,’ I said, deliberate and slow, feeling it in my throat and on my lips. ‘The word is bondmaid.’

  Lizzie tried it: ‘Bondmaid. What does it mean?’

  I looked at the scrap of paper. It was a top-slip, and I recognised Da’s hand. I could see where the pin once joined it to all the quotation slips, or maybe a proof. If I’d known it had come from Da, would I have kept it?

  ‘Well, what does it mean?’

  There were three definitions.

  ‘A slave girl,’ I said. ‘Or a bonded servant, or someone who is bound to serve till death.’

  Lizzie thought on it for a while. ‘That’s what I am,’ she said. ‘I reckon I’m bound to serve the Murrays till the day I die.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it describes you, Lizzie.’

  ‘Well enough,’ she said. ‘Don’t look so stricken, Essymay. I’m glad I’m in the Dictionary; or would have been, if not for you.’ She smiled. ‘I wonder what else is in there about me?’

  I thought about the words in the trunk. Some I hadn’t heard or read until I saw them on a slip. Most were commonplace, but something about the slip or handwriting had endeared them to me. There were clumsy words with poorly transcribed quotations that would never end up in the Dictionary, and there were words that existed for one sentence and no other: fledglings, nonce words that never made it. I loved them all.

  Bondmaid was no fledgling word, and its meaning disturbed me. Lizzie was right; it referred to her as it referred to a Roman slave girl.

  Dr Murray’s rage came back to me then and I felt mine rising to meet it. It should not be, this word, I thought. It shouldn’t exist. Its meaning should be obscure and unthinkable. It should be a relic, and yet it was as easily understood now as at any time in history. The joy of telling the story faded.

  ‘I’m glad it isn’t in the Dictionary, Lizzie. It’s a horrible word.’

  ‘That it may be, but it’s a true word. Dictionary or no, bondmaids will always exist.’

  Lizzie went to her wardrobe to select a clean pinny. ‘Mrs B has left me to get dinner on, Essymay. I have to go. You can stay, if you like.’

  ‘I will if you don’t mind, Lizzie. I need to write to Ditte. I’d like the letter to make the morning post.’

  ‘It’s about time.’

  August 16th, 1901

  My dear Esme,

  I have waited so long for your letter. I thought of it as my penance, and justly deserved. Nevertheless, it has been a hard sentence, and I am glad for it to be over.

  I have not been in solitary confinement and am well aware of all that can be reported of a factual nature. You have grown like a ‘sapling willow’ according to a rare flourish from James when describing the garden party for ‘H to K’. Your father complains that you now tower over him but is wistful about your growing resemblance to Lily.

  I know enough to be satisfied that you are reading well and learning one or two domestic skills considered desirable in a young lady. All these details I have gratefully received, but what I have longed for these past years is something of you, Esme. Your thoughts and desires. Your developing opinions and curiosities.

  In this respect, your letter has been a balm. I have read and reread it, noticing on each pass some further evidence of your keen mind. The recent fuss about a missing word has certainly piqued your interest and, while it was not intentionally excluded, ‘bondmaid’ joins a number of fine words that should have been included in Volume I but were not (do not, for instance, mention ‘Africa’ to Dr Murray: it is a sore point).

  What is clear to me is that during your time under the sorting table you absorbed more than most who have sat before a blackboard for six years. It was a mistake for any of us to assume the Scriptorium was not a suitable place to grow and learn. Our thinking was limited by convention (the most subtle but oppressive dictator). Please forgive our lack of imagination.

  And so, to your main enquiry.

  Unfortunately, there is no capacity for the Dictionary to contain words that have no textual source. Every word must have been written down, and you are right to assume they largely come from books written by men, but this is not always the case. Many quotations have been penned by women, though they are, of course, in the minority. You might be surprised to learn that some words take their provenance from nothing more substantial than a technical manual or a pamphlet. I know of at least one word that was found on the label of a medicine bottle.

  You are correct in your observation that words in common use that are not written down would necessarily be excluded. Your concern that some types of words, or words used by some types of people, will be lost to the future is really quite perceptive. I can think of no solution, however. Consider the alternative: the inclusion of all these words, words tha
t come and go in a year or two, words that do not stick to our tongue through generations. They would clog the Dictionary. All words are not equal (and as I write this, I think I see your concern more clearly: if the words of one group are considered worthier of preservation than those of another … well, you have given me pause for thought).

  Early ambitions that the Dictionary be a complete record of the meaning and history of all English words has proved quite impossible, but let me reassure you that there are many fine words recorded in literary texts that also do not pass the tests laid down by Dr Murray and the Philological Society. I am enclosing one such word.

  ‘Forgiven-ness.’

  It is from a novel by Adeline Whitney called ‘Sights and Insights’. Beth read it soon after it was published. She wasn’t at all complimentary (Mrs Whitney is overt in her opinion that a woman should restrict her activities to the home and her words to the domestic), but she found this word interesting and wrote the slip out herself. Years later, I was asked to write the entry, though it never got past the first draft.

  For reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain, I have had cause to think of it lately. I was never very diligent in returning rejected words to the Scriptorium, and so here it is – an offering and a request. If you accept it, my soul would feel blessedly its own redemption and forgiven-ness (to quote Mrs Whitney).

  Yours, with love,

  Ditte

  Two years after I received my first pay packet, Dr Murray asked me to show Rosfrith the process of sorting slips and checking senses and anything else that would help her settle in as the newest assistant. After half an hour, it was clear there was no need for my instruction. Like all her siblings, Rosfrith had been sorting slips since she was a child. She may not have hidden beneath the sorting table, but she knew her way around the Scriptorium.

  ‘I am superfluous to need,’ I said, and Rosfrith grinned. She was so like Elsie, though a little slimmer, a little taller, a little fairer. She had the same fine-featured face, the same downward slant to her eyes. They would have made her look sad if she didn’t smile so much. I left her at the desk she would share with her sister, just to the left of Dr Murray’s, and returned to my own. Slips for words beginning with L sat in neat piles along the edge. When I sat down, I wondered what it would feel like to divide the task of sorting them with someone who looked a little like me.