The Dictionary of Lost Words

by Pip Williams

  ‘It isn’t because he disapproves,’ whispered Mr Sweatman once. ‘It’s because he’s so single-minded. When he’s puzzling over an entry, his beard could be alight and he’d fail to notice.’

  One afternoon I approached Da at the sorting table. ‘Could I be your assistant?’ I asked.

  He put a line through something on the proof he was working on and wrote a note beside it. Then he looked up.

  ‘But you’re Mrs Ballard’s assistant.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a cook; I want to be an editor.’

  The words were a surprise, to Da and to me.

  ‘Well, not an editor, but an assistant maybe, like Hilda …’

  ‘Mrs Ballard isn’t training you to be a cook, just how to cook. It will come in useful when you’re married,’ said Da.

  ‘But I’m not going to get married.’

  ‘Well, not right away.’

  ‘If I get married, I can’t be an assistant,’ I said.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because I’ll have to look after babies and cook all day.’

  Da was silenced. He looked to Mr Sweatman for some support.

  ‘If you’re not going to get married, then why not aim to become an editor?’ Mr Sweatman asked.

  ‘I’m a girl,’ I said, annoyed at his teasing.

  ‘Should that matter?’

  I blushed and didn’t answer. Mr Sweatman cocked his head and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Well?’

  ‘Quite right, Fred,’ said Da, then he looked at me to judge the seriousness of my statement. ‘An assistant is exactly what I need, Essy,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure Mr Sweatman could do with a hand every now and then.’

  Mr Sweatman nodded his head in agreement.

  They were true to their word, and I began to look forward to my afternoons in the Scriptorium. Usually I was asked to make polite replies to letters congratulating Dr Murray on the latest fascicle. When my back began to ache or my hand needed a rest, I would return books and manuscripts. There were shelves of old dictionaries and books in the Scriptorium, but the assistants needed to borrow all kinds of texts from scholars or from college libraries to investigate the origins of words. When the weather was fine, it hardly counted as a chore. Most of the good college libraries were near the centre of town. I would ride down Parks Road until I got to Broad Street, then I’d dismount and walk among the bustling crowds between Blackwell’s Bookshop and the Old Ashmolean. It was my favourite part of Oxford, where town and gown struck an unusual alliance. Both were superior, in their own minds, to the visitors trying to get a glimpse of the gardens in the grounds of Trinity College, or gain entry to the Sheldonian. Am I town or gown? I sometimes wondered. I didn’t fit snugly with either.

  ‘A nice morning for a bicycle ride,’ Dr Murray said one day. He was coming in through the gates of Sunnyside when I was going out. ‘Where do you take yourself?’

  ‘The colleges, sir. I return the books.’

  ‘The books?’

  ‘When the assistants have finished with them, I take them back to where they belong,’ I said.

  ‘Is that right?’ he said, then made a noise I couldn’t interpret. When he’d gone on his way, I became nervous.

  The following morning, Dr Murray called me over.

  ‘I’d like you to come with me to the Bodleian, Esme.’

  I looked over to Da. He smiled and nodded. Dr Murray put on his black gown and ushered me out of the Scriptorium.

  We rode side by side down the Banbury Road and, following my usual route, Dr Murray turned onto Parks Road.

  ‘A far more pleasant ride,’ he said. ‘More trees.’

  His gown billowed, and his long white beard was swept back over one shoulder. I had no idea why we were going to the Bodleian Library, and I was too stunned to ask. When we turned onto Broad Street, Dr Murray dismounted. Town, gown and visitor all seemed to fall back as he made his way towards the Sheldonian Theatre. As he passed into the courtyard, I imagined the guard of stone emperors along the perimeter nodding to acknowledge the Editor’s presence. I followed like a disciple until we came to a halt at the entrance of the Bodleian.

  ‘Ordinarily, it would not be possible for you to become a reader, Esme. You are neither a scholar nor a student. But it is my intention to convince Mr Nicholson that the Dictionary will be realised far sooner if you are permitted to come here and check quotations on our behalf.’

  ‘We can’t just borrow the books, Dr Murray?’

  He turned and looked at me above his spectacles. ‘Not even the Queen is permitted to borrow from the Bodleian. Now, come.’

  Mr Nicholson was not immediately convinced. I sat on a bench watching students pass and heard Dr Murray’s voice begin to rise.

  ‘No, she is not a student, surely that is obvious.’ he said.

  Mr Nicholson peered at me, then quietly presented another argument to Dr Murray.

  The Editor’s response was louder again. ‘Neither her sex nor her age disqualifies her, Mr Nicholson. As long as she is employed in scholarship – and I assure you, she is – she has grounds for becoming a reader.’

  Dr Murray called me over. Mr Nicholson passed me a card.

  ‘Recite this,’ said Mr Nicholson, with obvious reluctance.

  I looked at the card. Then I looked around at all the young men in their short gowns and the older men in their long gowns. The words would scarcely come.

  ‘Louder, please.’

  A woman walked past: a student in a short gown. She slowed and smiled and nodded. I straightened up, looked Mr Nicholson in the eye and recited.

  ‘I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all the rules of the Library.’

  A few days later there was a note on top of the pile of books waiting to be returned to scholars and college libraries.

  You would be doing me a service if you could visit the Bodleian and check the date for this quotation for flounder. It is in a poem by Thomas Hood, published in the Literary Souvenir:

  ‘Or are you where the flounders keep,

  Some dozen briny fathoms deep.’

  Thomas Hood, Stanzas to Tom Woodgate, 18__

  J.M.

  My mood did improve by degrees. As the number of tasks and errands increased, I began to visit the Scriptorium earlier and earlier in the afternoon. By the end of the summer of 1899 I was a regular visitor to many of the college libraries as well as to a number of scholars who were happy to make their collections available to the Dictionary project. Then Dr Murray started asking me to deliver notes to the Oxford University Press in Walton Street.

  ‘If you leave now, you’ll catch Mr Hart with Mr Bradley,’ Dr Murray said, hurriedly writing out the note. ‘I left them arguing about the word forgo. Hart is right, of course; there is no rationale for an e. But Bradley needs to be convinced. This should help, though Bradley won’t thank me for it.’ He handed me the note and, seeing my bewilderment added, ‘The prefix is for-, as in forget, not foregone. Do you understand?’

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I understood at all.

  ‘Of course you do. It’s straightforward.’ Then he looked at me over his spectacles, one corner of his mouth turning up in a rare smile. ‘That’s forward, without an e, by the way. Is it any wonder Bradley’s sections are so slow to materialise?’

  Mr Bradley had been appointed by the Delegates as a second editor nearly a decade earlier, but Dr Murray was in the habit of putting him in his place. Da once said it was his way of reminding people who the engine-driver was and that it was best to let such comments go unanswered. I smiled, and Dr Murray turned towards his desk. When I was outside the Scriptorium, I read the note.

  Common use should not override etymological logic. Forego is absurd. I regret its inclusion in the
Dictionary as an alternative spelling and would be happy for Hart’s Rules to discourage it.

  J.M.

  I knew about Hart’s Rules; Da always had a copy to hand. ‘Consensus is not always possible, Esme,’ he once told me, ‘but consistency is, and Hart’s little book of rules has been the final arbiter of many an argument about how a word should be spelled or whether a hyphen is required.’

  When I was a child, Da would sometimes take me with him to the Press if he had reason to speak with Mr Hart. Mr Hart was known as the Controller. He was in charge of every part of the printing process of the Dictionary. The first time I walked through the stone gateway into the quadrangle, I was awed by its size. There was a great pond in the centre with trees and flower gardens all around. The stone buildings rose two and three storeys high on all sides, and I’d asked Da why the Press needed to be so much bigger than the Scriptorium. ‘They don’t just print the Dictionary, Esme. They print the Bible, and books of every kind.’ I took that to mean that every book in the world came from that place. The grandeur suddenly made perfect sense, and I’d imagined the Controller to be a bit like God.

  I dismounted under the imposing stone arch. The quadrangle was crowded with people who clearly belonged there. Boys in white aprons pulled trolleys loaded with reams of paper, some printed and cut down to size, others blank and as large as tablecloths. Men in ink-stained aprons walked in small groups, smoking. Other men, without aprons, scanned books or proofs instead of the path ahead, and one mumbled an apology when he bumped my arm, though he never looked up. In pairs they talked and gestured towards loose sheets of paper, the contents apparently flawed. How many problems of language were solved as they traversed this square? I wondered. Then I noticed two women, a little older than me. They walked across the quad as though they did it every day, and I realised they must work at the Press. But as we drew close, I could see their talk was not like that of the men: they were leaning in, and one had her hand up near her mouth. The other listened then laughed a little. They had nothing in their hands to distract them, no problems to solve. Their day was over and they were glad to be going home. They nodded as I passed.

  A hundred bicycles lined one side of the quad. I left mine a little apart so I would find it easily on my way out.

  Mr Hart didn’t answer when I knocked at his office door, so I wandered down the hall. Da said the Controller never left the building before dinnertime, and never without taking leave of the compositors and making an inspection of the presses.

  The composing room was close to Mr Hart’s office. I pushed on the door and looked around. Mr Hart was on the other side of the room, talking to Mr Bradley and one of the compositors. The Controller’s large moustache was what I remembered most from my visits with Da. Over the years, it had grown whiter, but it had lost none of its volume. It was like a landmark now, guiding me along the rows of compositors’ benches, their slanted surfaces crowded with trays of type. I felt I might be trespassing.

  Mr Hart glanced at me as I approached, but didn’t pause in his conversation with Mr Bradley. The conversation turned out to be a debate, and I had the feeling it would continue until Mr Hart prevailed. He did not have the stature of the second editor, and his suit was not of the same quality, but his face was stern where Mr Bradley’s was kindly. It was only a matter of time. The compositor caught my eye and smiled, as if apologising for the older men. He was a good deal taller than both of them, lean and clean-shaven. His hair was almost black, his eyes almost violet. I recognised him then. A boy from St Barnabas. I’d spent a lot of time watching the boys play in their yard when none of the girls would play with me in ours. I could tell he didn’t recognise me.

  ‘May I ask how you spell forgo?’ he asked, leaning towards me.

  ‘Really, they’re still talking about that?’ I whispered. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  His brow creased, but before he could ask anything else, Mr Hart addressed me.

  ‘Esme, how is your father?’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No, Dr Murray sent me.’ I handed over the note, a little crushed by my nervous hand.

  Mr Hart read it and nodded slowly in agreement. I noticed the twirled ends of his moustache turn up a little. He passed the note to Mr Bradley.

  ‘This should settle things, Henry,’ he said.

  Mr Bradley read the note and the ends of his moustache remained still. He conceded the argument about forgo with a gentlemanly nod of the head.

  ‘Now, Gareth. If you could show Mr Bradley the mats for get,’ said Mr Hart, while he shook the editor’s hand.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the compositor said. Then to me, ‘Nice to meet you, miss.’

  But we haven’t really met, I thought.

  He turned towards his bench, and Mr Bradley followed.

  I went to say goodbye to Mr Hart, but he had already moved on to another bench and was checking an older man’s work. I would have liked to follow him, to understand what each man was working on. Most were setting type from manuscripts: in each case, the piles of uniform pages were in a single hand. Just one author. I looked towards the bench where Mr Bradley now stood with the young compositor. There were three piles of slips tied with string. Another pile was unbound, half the words already in type and the other half waiting.

  ‘Miss Nicoll.’

  I turned and saw Mr Hart holding open the door. I wove back through the rows of benches.

  Over the next few months, Dr Murray gave me several notes to deliver to the Controller. I took them gladly, hoping for another opportunity to visit the composing room. But every time I knocked on Mr Hart’s office door, he would answer.

  He only asked me to stay if an immediate reply had been sought from Dr Murray, and on those occasions I was not invited to sit. I thought this an oversight rather than a preference on Mr Hart’s part, because he always seemed harried. He would rather be in the composing room too, I thought.

  In the mornings I belonged to Mrs Ballard, but I showed little aptitude. ‘There’s more to it than licking the bowl clean,’ she said every time another cake sank or was found, on tasting, to be missing some key ingredient. It was a relief to both of us that my time in the kitchen was being curtailed by errands for the Dictionary. Since becoming Dr Murray’s occasional delivery girl, I felt more comfortable in the Scriptorium. My misdemeanours may not have been forgotten, but at least my usefulness was being noticed.

  ‘By the time you return with that book I will have two entries written that would not have been written otherwise,’ Mr Sweatman said once. ‘Keep this up and we’ll be done before the century is out.’

  My chores for Mrs Ballard completed, I took off my apron and hung it on the hook of the pantry door.

  ‘You’re happier,’ Lizzie said, pausing over the vegetables she was preparing.

  ‘Time,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the Scrippy,’ she said, with a cautious look that confused me. ‘The longer you spend over there the more you seem like your old self.’

  ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘For sure, it’s a good thing.’ She pushed a pile of chopped carrots into a bowl then began slicing parsnips in half. ‘I just don’t want you to be tempted,’ she said.

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘By the words.’

  I realised then that there had been no words. There had been errands of all kinds, books and notes and verbal messages, but no words. No proofs. I hadn’t been trusted with a single slip.

  I had an errands basket by the door of the Scriptorium. Every day there were books to return to various places, and a list for borrowing. There were quotations to check at the Bodleian, letters to post, and notes to deliver to Mr Hart and sometimes to scholars at the colleges.

  On one particular day, there were three letters set aside for Mr Bradley. They often turned up at the Scriptorium, and it was my job to deliver them to him in his Dictionary Room at the Press. This room was nothing like the Scriptorium
: it was just an ordinary office, not much bigger than Mr Hart’s, even though Mr Bradley had three assistants working with him. One of them was his daughter, Eleanor. She was about twenty-three, the same age as Hilda Murray, but she already looked matronly. Whenever I visited, she offered me tea and a biscuit.

  On this day, we sat at the small table at the back of the room. It held the tea things, and there was barely enough room for the two of us, but Eleanor didn’t like to eat or drink at her desk in case something spilled. She took a bite of her biscuit, and crumbs fell across her skirt. She didn’t seem to notice. Then she leaned towards me.

  ‘There’s a rumour the Press Delegates will appoint a third editor soon.’ Her eyes grew larger behind their wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘It seems we are not progressing as fast as they would like. More fascicles means more money back in the coffers of the Press.’

  ‘Where will he go?’ I looked around the cramped office. ‘I can’t imagine Dr Murray sharing the Scriptorium.’

  ‘No one can imagine that,’ said Eleanor. ‘Thankfully, there is another rumour that we will be moving to the Old Ashmolean. Father was out there last week taking measurements.’

  ‘On Broad Street? I’ve always loved that building, but isn’t it a museum?’

  ‘They’re moving most of the collections to the Museum of Natural History on Parks Road, and giving us the big space on the first floor. They’ll still have lectures upstairs and the laboratory downstairs.’ She looked around. ‘It will be quite a change, but I think we’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Would Mr Bradley mind sharing his Dictionary Room with another editor, do you think?’

  ‘If it speeds things up, I don’t think he’ll mind at all. And we’ll be next door to the Bodleian. Half the books in England might be printed here at the Press, but copies of all the books in England are stored in the Bodleian. What a perfect neighbour.’

  I sipped my milky tea. ‘What words are you working on, Eleanor?’

  ‘We have embarked on the verb go,’ Eleanor said. ‘And I suspect it will consume me for months.’ She drained her teacup. ‘Come with me.’