The walls were papered a tender duck-egg blue. The gold beading between the panels glimmered as if they were nothing less than solid strips of real gold. The buds on the chintz looked as if they could burst into flower at any moment, and the blooms as if they could have been picked off the sofa and displayed in a vase. And from the ceiling hung three enormous, glass gasoliers, cleaner than my common gas-lamps ever were. There were wide window-seats in the vast windows, which offered views that were paintings in themselves: trees, and a sky that was so blue it could not have been the one I had left outside in Berkeley-square, and certainly not the one that hung over our heads in Lambeth. Here there was an abiding sense of purity about the room, a luxuriance, a peace.
I glimpsed my journal lying on her desk next to a charming blotter and inkstand, pen-tray and paper knife. It was the one bound in blue silk embroidered with pink, gold and silver flowers, and it did, indeed, match the décor of the salon. Then the lady patted the chair next to her again, and I saw her hands, and curled mine under in shame.
The cuff from which her hand appeared was finely embroidered in red and blue threads, as were her hems, and round her waist was an elaborate sash dripping with red and blue beads. Her face was not exactly beautiful: her features were meaner than the expansiveness of the room would have suggested, and she had small, almond-shaped eyes that did not seem to see me. Her mouth was thin, and when she smiled at me it was close-lipped and practised, but at least, as my mother would have said, she smiled. Descriptions such as ‘enigmatic’ and ‘wan’ would no doubt have pleased her. Her complexion was such as one of our modern painters would have delighted in; like the room, she had a subtle gold-tinged glow about her.
‘So you are my fine bindress!’ Her voice was quiet, but had a hard edge, as if used to speaking only sparkling wit and clever sarcasm. ‘Let me look at you. I can’t tell you what a stir it put us in when Charlie told us you were a woman. Tell me, Mrs Damage, you must be frightfully clever to carry it off. Is it dreadfully hard work?’
I cannot for the life of me remember how I replied. I believe I answered her with simplicity and timidity, and that she did not seem to notice or care. I do remember taking especial care with my pronunciation.
The conversation flowed reasonably well, coming as it did in the main from her. She spoke in short sentences, as if otherwise she would, rather bothersomely, run out of air. But she was not sparse in her compliments for my bindings and indeed revealed her veritable passion for the subject. She directed me here and there around the shelves of her room, asking me to take down this volume of poetry, that volume of diaries, and bring them to her. But her shelves were filled too tightly, so it was hard to ease the books out using the sides of the spine cover; many a headband had been viciously ripped in the pursuit of a book. I was also anxious that my hands would sully the bindings, and wondered if I should ask her for a cloth to protect them. I did not stop to notice the absurdity of the bookbinder who feared that her hands, which bound books daily, could not then hold a finished book for a few seconds.
She certainly did not have the same reservations, for she rubbed her hands over the leathers and silks in the same way that I would season the skin of a chicken before sending it to the bake-house, and she opened the books with such a vile crack she could have been instructing me on how to spatchcock the fowl. The number of spines she broke during my short visit to her that morning would have kept me in business for days, not to mention the headbands. I could solicit her for work, I thought, should the trade from Diprose ever dry up. Furthermore, although there were a handful of fine or rare bindings in her collection, I saw nothing to which I could not aspire; indeed, I noticed a few books that would never have been allowed to leave Damage’s in their state, and started to realise that already I could consider myself a reasonably competent binder, with capabilities beyond my own doubts.
‘Have you been to America?’ she asked suddenly. I told her that I had not. I tried to think of something appropriate to add, but felt that she would not wish to know that the only long-distance travelling my family had undertaken was when Peter’s great-uncle was transported to the colonies for political radicalism, and took his cousins with him. Peter, out of a sense of moral rectitude, had chosen not to share the details with me, and I in turn kept them from my patroness.
My silence was filled by her sigh, for something was clearly troubling her. She closed her eyes again, and asked me if I was familiar with the activities of the Ladies’ Society for the Assistance of Fugitives from Slavery. I had to disappoint her again.
She was, she explained, a founder member of the Society, which reported to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. She told me, with increasing rapidity and shortness of breath, of her initiation into the abolitionist movement as she entered womanhood, when she felt the burden of frivolous society being lifted from her slender shoulders and replaced by a meaningful crusade, which would weigh heavily but not crush her.
I finally accepted that I did not have to be poised with something interesting to say. As I listened I let my gaze roam around the room again, and this time I saw a framed handbill, depicting a figure not unlike the boy in the hall, only kneeling and chained. I could just make out the inscription, ‘Am I not a man and brother?’
‘I will tell you,’ she went on, ‘of the horrors our dusky brethren still have to suffer in America.’ And she did, and she was right in describing them as horrors. Yet I could not help thinking of our own workhouses, which sounded similar enough: wives taken from husbands, and children from mothers, and sickness and hunger and those girls whose bodies were found and everyone knew it was the master who had done it, but no one could say anything, because they were nothing more than his plaything, as they all were, even the little ones. So as she sounded forth about whips and bodies on trees, I couldn’t see much difference, although I am sure she could have found me one. I was relieved when she cut to the purpose of her summoning me to her, which I feared she had started to lose sight of, as I was unable to fathom it all this time. I was even starting to think that perhaps this was what ladies of her station did for pleasure: call for some hapless poor woman, and torment her with ghastly stories of what people of our colour did to people of other colours in far-off lands.
‘One of the Society’s main activities, aside from our endless campaigns for abolition, is sponsorship. Each year we raise enough money to assist a handful of fugitives from slavery in their flight, and their establishment in a new way of life. It is hard to live as a free man even in a state where slavery has been outlawed. It is safer in Boston than in Virginia; it is safer in Canada than Boston, yet it is safer still in Europe. The lucky ones find safe passage here, and here we can help them.
‘There is one slave in whom we have been particularly interested. Lady Grenville was visiting friends in Virginia last year, and was so struck by a certain young man that she raised a large enough sum, from teas and bazaars, to purchase him from his owner. Lady Grenville has since, sadly, died, and it has fallen to me to deal with the matter. We placed him as a porter for Messrs Farmer and Rogers in Regent-street, but they have unfortunately removed him, due to tardy habits. He deserves a second chance. I have been hoping to procure him a more stable position, in a more intimate, family business, to earn himself a living, and ultimately relieve his dependence on the Society.
‘The inevitable fact is, that he is a man. We were all rather startled, my dear, when we discovered that our little bookbinder’s is run by a woman, but . . .’
‘. . . you can only have half of what you desire.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, madam. It just slipped out. It’s something my mother said. “You can only have half of what you desire”. Not meaning you, that is, but . . .’
‘I see. Yes.’ She seemed to weigh this for a while. ‘A peculiar sentiment. But yes, in this situation, one can only have half of what one desires.’ She nodded slowly. ‘I see you are not of the ordinary sort, so I i
magine you will be capable of managing this peculiar servant.’
What could I possibly have said to her? Did I not have more than enough on my plate than have to mother a vagrant fugitive slave as well? What of the millions of poor souls on my doorstep in Lambeth who also deserved a spot of employment? And what if the work were to dry up? Jack and I could manage at present, but what of the day when my efficiency had increased so much that I could bind a book of twice the beauty in half the time? It would not have occurred to Lady Knightley to ask if this suited my own ambitions for the business, or whether trade was healthy enough to sustain another employee.
And then she swept away all my fears and appealed directly to my lowest nature, which, due to desperation, was very receptive. ‘The Society will provide you with a substantial subsidy. We do not expect you to cover the costs of training and settling from your own pocket. You will receive an initial sum of five pounds, followed by twenty-five shillings a month.’
Five pounds! I could not refuse. I knew I had little choice anyway, but the money swept away my doubts. A rudimentary plan was already forming in my head: the new clients to approach, the efficiency of a renewed triumvirate in the workshop. Besides, he might have been a man, but he was as desperate as I was, and would no doubt be grateful even to do women’s work: I could hand over to him all the folding and sewing.
‘You will keep a tally of any damage to property or goods, and we will cover this too.’ Oh my, I thought, and the doubts flooded in again. Had I agreed to take on a wild animal? ‘I said you were not of the ordinary sort. By doing this for me you are proving to be altogether rather remarkable.’ I did not feel it. I only felt foolish. But five pounds, Dora, and a guaranteed turnover of twenty-five shillings a month!
At some point she must have finished talking, for she rang a little bell which sat on a silver platter by her chaise, and looked at me with a fancy smile, and we waited in a small silence, before Buncie appeared at the door. I rose and made to leave.
‘And Mrs Damage.’
‘Yes, madam?’
‘Don’t mention this to Jossie. He will surely try to intervene. I cannot tolerate another lecture about slavery.’ She closed her mouth and looked away.
‘Oh.’ I paused, and heard Buncie huff behind me, so as only I, and not her mistress, could hear. I thought of the file he held on me. ‘But he . . . he . . . knows all about what happens in the workshop.’
‘Well, he doesn’t have to know this, does he?’ she snapped.
And so Buncie led me out into Berkeley-square again, and I ran home, intrigued by yet one more pact with another strange, luxurious person, suspended in her magical chamber, in a city full of secrets.
Chapter Nine
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick, So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat, And he knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.
He looked at the dolly and he shook his head.
He said, ‘Miss Polly, put her straight to bed.’
He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill.
‘I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill.’
Despite the curious turn of events and the promise of a new worker, the rigours of the daily round ground the memory of my visit to Lady Knightley out of my mind almost as soon as I returned. I worked hard in the workshop until late in the afternoon when Peter awoke and began crying for me. Every cavity of his face was swollen: the folds of skin under his eyes looked like bags of blood, dark like kidneys on the butcher’s block, and his mouth was blistered and puckered.
‘I had a b – b – bad d – d – dream.’
‘Did you, my love? What was it that so scared you?’
‘I, I, I, I’m not scared. Sit me by the fire.’
I settled him with a blanket and a cup of tea, before returning to the workshop to finish the botanical gold-tooling on the twelfth book. I was glad I had developed the motif of the ivy-wreath, for there had never again been a wedding ring on all those roaming hands. Jack was forwarding Cults, Symbols and Attributes of Venus, and Lucinda was rearranging the leather off-cuts into pretty shapes on the floor.
The only interruption I expected was Peter, with some complaint or other. So when we heard the sound of hooves and wheels stop outside the very door of the workshop, we were caught unawares. Jack opened the door to reveal a shiny black brougham, with bright red wheels, gold lamps, and a coat of arms on the side, pulled by a single chocolate-bay horse, and I was so startled when I saw who descended from it that I had to look away. And when I did, I saw Mrs Eeles, and Patience Bishop, both with arms folded and eyes watching, and behind them Nora Negley peered amongst twitching curtains. Some of the children had even stopped their playing to watch.
He was an even more wonderful sight than his carriage, I will admit. Quite the pink of fashion, as he stood there in his fine black frock coat, with his red cravat, gold eye-glasses, and heavy gold watch-chain across his vest. He held a silver cane, topped with a large round ball of red glass, like the largest ruby I’d ever seen. I almost forgot I was in my smock, with not a moment to change into my good cap and collars. At least I had my old ones on; I was not caught bare-headed by Sir Jocelyn Knightley.
He reached for my hand, and I proffered it, and he kissed it, even though it was stained with dye and gnarled with dried glue, and I bid him come in.
‘Why, what a neat, well-kept workshop you run, Mrs Damage. And ah, that succulent, gamey smell you get in only the finest bookbinders’ establishments.’ It was the politest way yet anyone had ever described it.
‘Good afternoon, Jack,’ he said, before I had a chance to introduce him.
Jack stopped what he was doing and came to the side of the bench, made a little bow and said, ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ before going back to his work.
‘And you must be little Lucinda,’ he said to my daughter, and ruffled her hair. She scowled at him. Then, from beneath his frock coat, he produced something that looked remarkably like a tiny baby. He held it by the head, and its body hung limply from it, its limbs dangling independently, so I surmised it could not be a doll. I gasped in shock, and Lucinda screamed, ‘Mama!’ and ran to my skirts where she buried her face.
‘What’s the matter, Lucinda? Don’t you like your new friend? If I am not mistaken, she is in need of some care.’ He held it closer to her, and I could see the sweetest porcelain face looking at her, with rosebud lips and feathery eyelashes, and yellow curls painted over the smooth scalp. But if this really were a doll, I could not fathom why its body was not stiff, not all one with the head. Then he held it upright, both hands encircling its chest, and squeezed. A noise like the in-breath of a victim of pulmonary disease ensued, followed by the sound of a goat bleating: a high-pitched, ‘Maaa-maaa’.
‘Fancy that! She even calls you Mama. Here. What are you going to call her?’
I took the doll from Sir Jocelyn and crouched down to Lucinda. It astounded me: I had never seen a doll that was pretending to be a baby. All the dolls I had ever seen were dressed as miniature ladies, only even stiffer. I turned this one over in awe and lifted her cambric gown with as much care as if she had been a real baby: she had jointed limbs and a flexible chest that seemed to be made from india-rubber, and real little boots on her feet, tied with a green ribbon.
‘Maaa-maaa,’ she moaned back at me.
I couldn’t help but giggle. ‘Oh, my! Isn’t she quite the little one!’ I tried to press her into Lucinda’s hands, but she refused, preferring to peek over my upper arm. ‘I fear Lucinda wishes to be her elder sister, and not her mother.’
‘Which seems to suit you perfectly, madam,’ Sir Jocelyn remarked, and I blushed in an unseemly fashion for I knew he was teasing me.
‘Will you show me around, Mrs Damage?’ Sir Jocelyn said. He had started to stroll around the workshop, so I stood up quickly, and laid the doll gently on the bench, as if rough handling might hurt her.
‘I�
�ll leave here for you, if ever you feel like it,’ I whispered, and indeed, as I turned to follow his roaming frame, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that Lucinda had stealthily taken the thing off the bench and was investigating it at closer quarters.
I barely reached his shoulders, for he was a big man, yet he moved around the benches with perfect balance and agility, and I knew from the flashing and glittering of his eyes that he was taking in every detail, down to the absence of my Peter.
‘I congratulate you on the cleanliness of the place, Mrs Damage. I imagine that is not as easy task in Lambeth. Sometimes I loathe city life and yearn for the open veld. Or if it must be a city, make it Paris. I was born there; my father was French, did you not know?’
‘No, I did not. Is Knightley a French name?’
‘His name was Chevalier. I was orphaned young, and brought up in Worcestershire by my aunt, who decided to anglicise it. So, Knightley. But Sir Jocelyn Chevalier has a ring to it, does it not? You have been to Paris, Mrs Damage?’
I shook my head.
‘The air affords wondrous clarity; the city rings pure. It is to the hideous opacity of London as heaven is to hell. I resent the return to London. I notice its stench most when I do.’
It was as if I mattered to him, and I knew I was succumbing to his derring-do and dash.
He picked up one of the books on the table, and ran his finger over the ivy-leaf wreath. ‘Hedera helix. Not the gentlest of plants. A hostile assailant, with quick, hardy runners; it deprives its host of sunlight, with a resultant loss of vigour, and eventual demise. I should recommend it to the Foreign Office as an emblem for the construction of Her Majesty’s Empire.’
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 14