I closed the trunk.
August 15th, 1928
Dear Miss Megan Brooks,
My name is Edith Thompson. Your parents may have spoken of me. Sarah, your late mother, was one of my dearest friends and one of the few people willing to accompany me on what she amusingly referred to as my ‘history rambles’ (it was never clear whether the ‘rambling’ referred to the walking or my commentary – it amused her to keep me guessing). When you all sailed for Australia, I found her hard to replace, but I delighted in her letters, which reliably shared news of you, her garden and your local politics, all three of which she was justly proud. How I miss her wit and practical advice.
I am sending this letter and its accompanying trunk care of your father, for reasons that will soon make themselves plain. I wanted to be sure you could somehow be made ready to receive the contents of both. How one can be made ready, I am not entirely sure, but a father might know, and of all fathers yours is surely one of the wisest.
The trunk belonged to another dear friend of mine. Her name was Esme Owen née Nicoll. I am aware that you have always known you were adopted, but perhaps you have not known all of the details. I think the story I have to tell will bring on some strong emotions. I am sorry. But I would feel a greater sorrow never to share it.
My dear Megan. Twenty-one years ago, Esme gave you life, but she was in no position to sustain it. These are always delicate circumstances, but your mother and father spent a lot of time with Esme in the months before you were born. It was obvious to me that they grew to love and admire her, as I have loved and admired her. When the time came, your mother was there for Esme in a way that I could not be. It was the most natural thing for her to be in the birthing room, and for a month she sat by Esme’s bed, and you, beautiful child, became the bond between them.
It pains me to write these next words. The truth of them will be a sadness I do not think I will recover from. Esme passed away on the morning of July 2nd of this year, 1928. She was just 46 years old.
The details seem ordinary – she was struck by a lorry on Westminster Bridge. But nothing about Esme was ordinary. She had gone up to London for the passing of the Equal Franchise Act, not to join the chanters and banner holders but to record what it meant to the people on the edge of the crowd. This is what she did, you see: she noticed who was missing from the official records and gave them an opportunity to speak. She wrote a weekly column in her local newspaper – ‘Lost Words’, it was called – and each week, she would talk to the ordinary, the illiterate, the forgotten, in order to understand what big events meant to them. On July 2nd, Esme was talking to a woman selling flowers on Westminster Bridge when the crowd forced her onto the road.
I feel I should tell you something more of her, besides her death. Our last meeting, I think, is as good an anecdote as any.
I had been invited to sit in the balcony of Goldsmith’s Hall, where a dinner was to be held to mark the final publication of the Oxford English Dictionary. I was accompanied by Rosfrith Murray and Eleanor Bradley, editors’ daughters who’d dedicated their lives to their fathers’ work. There was some to-do about our presence, owing to our sex, but it was thought only right that, even though we could not dine with the men, we should at least be allowed to witness the speeches. The Prime Minster, Stanley Baldwin, spoke wonderfully, thanking the editors and the staff, but he did not look up to the balcony. The Dictionary was an enterprise I had been involved with from the publication of the first words in 1884 to the publication of the last. I am told that few in that room could claim such a long allegiance. Rosfrith and Eleanor too had given the Dictionary decades of their lives. As had Esme.
She told me, not long ago, that she had always been a bondmaid to the Dictionary. It owned her, she said. Even after she left, it defined her. Still, despite these shackles, she was not afforded even a balcony view.
The men ate saumon souilli with sauce hollandaise, and for dessert they had mousse glassée favorite. They drank 1907 Chateau Margaux. We were given the proceedings, and the menu was included – an unintended cruelty, I’m sure.
We were famished when it was all over, but Esme had travelled up from Southampton to meet us, and when we left Goldsmith’s Hall there she was with a hamper of food. It was warm, so we caught a cab down to the Thames and sat under a lamp with our picnic, enjoying a celebration of our own. ‘To the women of the Dictionary,’ Esme said, and we raised our glasses.
I was not aware of the trunk until after the funeral, when her friend, Lizzie Lester, suggested it should be sent to you. She pulled the battered old thing from under her bed and explained what I would find if I opened it. That poor girl was bereft. But when I assured her that I would send the trunk to you as soon as possible, she was calmed.
The trunk sat at the end of my bed for a week, unopened. When my tears for Esme had dried, I had no need to explore its contents. For me, Esme is like a favourite word that I understand in a particular way and have no desire
