I was responding to a spelling enquiry, one that had become all too common since the publication of ‘Ribaldric to Romanite’. Why, asked the writer, does the new Dictionary prefer rime when rhyme is so ubiquitous? Habit and good sense insist on the latter. Am I to be judged an illiterate? It was a thankless task as there was no reasonable response. The familiar sound of Gareth’s bicycle was reason enough to leave it unfinished. I put down my pen and looked towards the door.
This was his third visit to the Scriptorium since he had helped pick my words off the floor a few weeks earlier.
‘A nice young man,’ Da had said the first time he noticed Gareth saying hello.
‘As nice as Mr Pope and Mr Cushing?’ I’d asked.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Da had said. ‘He’s a foreman. One of the few people Mr Hart trusts to convey concerns about style.’ He’d looked at me then and raised his eyebrows. ‘But usually those conversations occur at the Press.’
When the door opened, a pale daylight shone in. The assistants looked up, and Da nodded a greeting before glancing in my direction. Dr Murray stepped down from his stool.
I was too far away to hear what they said, but Gareth was pointing to a section of proof and explaining something to Dr Murray. I could see that Dr Murray agreed: he asked a question, listened, nodded, then he invited Gareth to come over to his desk, and together they examined some of the other pages. Mr Dankworth, I noticed, diligently ignored the entire interaction.
Gareth waited as Dr Murray wrote a quick note to Mr Hart. When it was written, and Gareth had put it in his satchel, the young man and the old walked together into the garden.
I saw them just beyond the door. Dr Murray stretched as he sometimes did when he’d been bent over proofs all morning. Their demeanour changed, became more intimate. Mr Hart was ill with exhaustion, Da had told me, and I guessed a mutual concern.
Dr Murray came back into the Scriptorium alone. I was surprised by the heaviness of the breath that escaped my lungs. He left the door open, and the fresh December air began circulating among the tables. Two of the assistants put on their jackets; Rosfrith pulled a shawl around her shoulders. I did not normally hold with Dr Murray’s idea that fresh air kept the mind sharp, but I had become too warm to think straight, and for once I was glad of it. I returned to the task of justifying rime.
‘This is for you.’ It was Gareth.
For a moment, it was impossible to look up. All the heat that had been in my body was now in my face.
‘It’s a word for your collection. One of my ma’s. She used to use it this way all the time, but I couldn’t find it in the proofs we keep at the Press.’ He spoke quietly, but I heard every word. Still I didn’t look up; I had no confidence that I would be able to speak. Instead, I focused on the slip of paper Gareth had placed in front of me. He must have taken it from the pile of blanks kept on the shelf nearest the door. It was the commonest of words, but the meaning was different. I recognised it from when I was a little girl.
CABBAGE
‘Come here, my little cabbage, and give me a hug.’
Deryth Owen
Deryth, what a beautiful name. The sentence was more or less as Lizzie would have said it.
‘Mothers have a vocabulary all their own, don’t you think?’ he said.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t know.’ I looked over at Da. ‘I never knew my mother.’
Gareth looked stricken. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Please, don’t be. As you can imagine, my father has his own way with words.’
He laughed. ‘Well, yes, he would.’
‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘Does he work at the Press?’
‘It was Ma who worked at the Press. She was a bindery girl. Organised my apprenticeship when I was fourteen.’
‘But your father?’
‘It was just my ma and me,’ he said.
I looked at the slip in my hand and tried to imagine the woman who called this man her little cabbage. ‘Thank you for the slip,’ I said.
‘I hope you don’t mind me seeking you out.’
I looked at the sorting table. There were one or two furtive glances towards my desk and a strange smile on Da’s face, though his eyes were steadfastly on his work.
‘I’m very glad you did,’ I said, looking into his face then quickly back at the slip.
‘Well, I’ll be sure to do it again.’
When he was gone, I opened the lid of my desk and sorted through my shoebox of slips until I found where Gareth’s belonged.
There was a crowd gathering around the Martyrs’ Memorial when I rode towards the Bodleian. I could have avoided it by going down Parks Road as I usually did, but instead I rode the length of the Banbury Road until the crowd diverted me.
Notices had been posted all over Oxford. Leaflets littered the streets, and all the newspapers had run stories in support and against. The suffrage societies of Oxford were coming together for a peaceful procession from St Clement’s to the Martyrs’ Memorial. It would be hours before they started, but things were being set up and there was already an expectation, an excitement. It might have been a fair, but with the crackle of a looming thunderstorm in the air.
There were fewer people in the Bodleian than usual. I took my time searching the shelves of Arts End. The books Dr Murray wanted me to check were old, the quotations almost foreign on the page
