The days when the post brought slips were my favourite. I would examine each in the hope of being the one to share a new word with Da or Dr Murray. Every word, no matter where in the alphabet it fell, would have to be checked against the words that had already been collected. The quotation might show a slightly different meaning, or it could pre-date the quotations already collected. When there were slips in the post, I could spend hours among the pigeon-holes and barely notice the time turning.
I worked hard, and another year passed. Each day followed the same pattern, though the words coloured them differently. There was the post, the slips, replies to letters. In the afternoon I still delivered books and checked quotations at the Bodleian. I was never restless or bored. Not even the passing of Queen Victoria could depress me; I wore black, like everybody else, but I was the happiest I’d been since my days beneath the sorting table.
When winter passed into spring, Mr Bradley moved from the Press into his new Dictionary Room at the Old Ashmolean, and the third editor, Mr Craigie, joined him with two assistants. Dr Murray did not approve of the new editor and responded by pushing his own team to produce words more quickly. It was as if he wanted to prove the new editor unnecessary, although we all knew the Dictionary was already a decade overdue.
By the summer of 1901, Mr Balk had finally started calling me Miss Nicoll.
‘It will be hot in the Scrippy today,’ said Lizzie, when I popped my head into the kitchen to say good morning.
‘Will you make up some lemonade for us?’ I asked.
‘I’ve already been to the market.’ She tilted her head towards a bowl of bright-yellow lemons.
I blew her a kiss and walked to the Scriptorium, sifting through the post as I went.
I’d developed a habit of guessing what was in the envelopes before opening them. As I made my way across the garden, I shuffled through the pile for a cursory assessment. A small number were addressed To the Editor, some so flimsy they were sure to contain nothing other than a slip. For me, I thought. There were several letters to Dr James Murray – most from the general public (their handwriting and return addresses unfamiliar), a few from gentlemen of the Philological Society, and one in the familiar envelope of the Press Delegates. This last was likely to be a caution about funds; if it suggested Dr Murray trim the contents of the Dictionary to speed progress, we would all suffer his bad mood. I placed it at the bottom of the pile so he could start his day with the compliments of strangers.
There were one or two letters for each of the assistants, and then, at the bottom of the bundle, there was a letter addressed to me.
Miss Esme Nicoll, Junior Assistant
Sunnyside, Scriptorium
Banbury Road
Oxford
It was the first letter I’d ever received at the Scriptorium, and the first time I’d been acknowledged as an assistant. My whole body tingled with the thrill, but the sensation dulled when I recognised the handwriting as Ditte’s. It had been three years, but I still couldn’t think of her without thinking of Cauldshiels, and I didn’t want to think of that place.
Already the day was warm, and the air around my desk was still and stifling. Ditte’s letter sat separate from the other piles; one page and a single slip. She asked after my health and how I was getting on at the Scriptorium. She’d had good reports from more than one source, she wrote, and I blushed with pride.
The slip was for a common word. I didn’t want to be moved by it, but I was. When I searched the pigeon-holes I found no equivalent quotation. It belonged with a large bundle that had already been sorted and sub-edited into twenty variant senses. Instead of putting it in its place, I took it back to my desk.
I traced the writing as I might have done with Da before I learned to read. Ditte had fashioned the slip from heavy parchment and embellished the edges with scrolls. I brought it up to my face and breathed in the familiar scent of lavender. Did she spray the slip, I wondered, or hold it close before putting it in the envelope?
Silence was all I’d had to punish her with, and then I hadn’t been able to find the right words to breach it. How I missed her.
I took a blank slip from my desk and copied onto it every word from Ditte’s.
LOVE
‘Love doth move the mynde to merci.’
The Babees’ Book, 1557
I returned to the pigeon-holes and pinned the copy to the most relevant top-slip. Ditte’s original slip went into the pocket of my skirt. The first in a long time – it was a relief.
I lost an hour to thoughts of Ditte, to the words I might use to end my silence. When I finally did return to the post, I pulled another slip from its envelope. This one was unadorned, though not uninteresting. There were some words I’d never heard uttered and could hardly imagine using, yet they made their way into the Dictionary because someone great had written them down. Relics, I used to think, when I came across them.
Misbode was one of them. The quotation was from Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale.
‘Who hath yow misboden, or offended?’ it said.
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
