The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel (2020) Read online

  Normally, I would take my time over the words I sorted. If the word was familiar, I would check my understanding of it against the example provided by the volunteer. If it was unfamiliar, I would commit its meaning to memory. These new words became the focus of my walk home with Da. If he did not know the word then I would explain it to him, and we would shuttle it back and forth in ever more elaborate sentences.

  But listless started me yawning. It had thirteen slips of unvaried meaning, and it was easy to let my mind wander beyond the confines of the Scriptorium. I thought of what Ditte had said about the need for words to have a textual history. Well, listless certainly had that. The earliest quotation was from a book written in 1440, so its inclusion was assured, but it wasn’t nearly as interesting as Lizzie’s word, knackered. Lizzie had never once said she felt listless, but she was knackered all the time.

  I pinned all the listless slips together, from oldest quotation to most recent. One was only partially completed: listless was in the top-left corner, and there was a quotation, but it had no date, book title or author. It would have been discarded, but my heart still raced as I put it in my pocket.

  Mrs Ballard was already sitting at the table when I came into the kitchen, and Lizzie was making ham sandwiches for their lunch. There were three teacups already out.

  ‘What does knackered mean, Lizzie?’

  Mrs Ballard scoffed. ‘You could ask anyone in service that question, Esme. We’d all have an answer.’

  Lizzie poured the tea and sat down. ‘It means you’re tired.’

  ‘Why don’t you just say tired, then?’

  She thought about it. ‘It’s not just tired from lack of sleep; it’s tired from work – physical work. I get up before dawn to make sure everyone in the big house will be warm and fed when they wake, and I don’t go to sleep till they is snoring. I feel knackered half the time, like a worn-out horse. No good for nothing.’

  I took the slip from my pocket and looked at the word. Listless wasn’t quite like knackered. It was lazier. I looked at Lizzie and understood why she would never have cause to use it.

  ‘Do you have a pencil, Mrs B?’

  Mrs Ballard hesitated. ‘I don’t much like the look of that slip of paper in your hand, Esme.’

  I showed it to her. ‘It’s incomplete, see? It’s scrap. I’m going to reuse it.’

  She nodded. ‘Lizzie, love, there’s a pencil just inside the pantry, near my shopping list. Would you get it for Esme?’

  I put a line through listless and turned the slip over. It was blank, but I wavered. I’d never written a slip before. I’d been taking words for years – reading them, remembering them, rescuing them. I turned to them for explanation. But when the Dictionary words let me down, I’d never imagined I could add to them.

  As Lizzie and Mrs Ballard watched on, I wrote:

  KNACKERED

  ‘I get up before dawn to make sure everyone in the big house will be warm and fed when they wake, and I don’t go to sleep till they is snoring. I feel knackered half the time, like a worn-out horse. No good for nothing.’

  Lizzie Lester, 1902

  ‘Don’t reckon Dr Murray will think that a proper quotation,’ said Mrs Ballard. ‘But it’s good to see it written down. Lizzie’s not wrong. It wears you out, being on your feet all day.’

  ‘What did you write?’ Lizzie asked.

  I read it to her and she reached for her crucifix. I wondered if I’d upset her.

  ‘Nothing I ever said has been written down,’ she finally said. Then she got up and cleared the table.

  I looked at my slip. It would have been at home in one of the pigeon-holes, I thought, and I wondered what Lizzie would think of her name and her words nestled against the likes of Wordsworth and Swift. I decided to create a top-slip and pin it to Lizzie’s word; then I remembered that all the K words were already published.

  I left Lizzie and Mrs Ballard to their lunch and took the stairs two at a time. The trunk under Lizzie’s bed was more than half-full. I placed knackered on top of the pile.

  This would be the first, I thought. It was unique because it hadn’t come from a book. But against all the rest, there was nothing to distinguish it. I pulled the ribbon from my hair and tied it around the slip. It looked forlorn on its own, but I could imagine others.

  Da once told me that it was Dr Murray’s idea to make the slips the size they were. At first he sent prepared slips to volunteers, but after a while it was enough to simply instruct people to provide their words and sentences on pieces of paper six by four inches. Blank paper was not always available to some of the volunteers, and when I was small, Da would search for me under the sorting table to show me the slips cut from newspaper, old shopping lists, used butcher’s paper (a brown stain of blood blooming across the words) and even pages torn from books. I found these last shocking and suggested Dr Murray dismiss volunteers who ruined books. Da laughed. The worst offender, he said, was Frederick Furnivall. Dr Murray might think of dismissing him occasionally, but Frederick Furnivall was secretary of the Philological Society. The Dictionary was his idea.

  Dr Murray’s slips were ingenious, Da said. Simple and efficient, their value increasing as the Scriptorium filled with words and storage became more and more limited. Dr Murray designed them to fit the pigeon-holes exactly. Not an inch of space had been wasted.

  Each slip had its own personality, and while it was being sorted there was a chance the word it contained would be understood. At the very least, it would be picked up and read. Some slips were passed from hand to hand, others were the subject of long debate and sometimes a row. For a while, every word was as important as the one before it and the one after it, no matter what its slip had been cut from. If it was complete, it would be stored in a pigeon-hole, pinned or tied with other slips, their conformity highlighted by the oversized and colourful few that were cut to their own design.

  I often wondered what kind of slip I would be written on if I was a word. Something too long, certainly. Probably the wrong colour. A scrap of paper that didn’t quite fit. I worried that perhaps I would never find my place in the pigeon-holes at all.

  My slips would be no different to Dr Murray’s, I decided, and I began collecting all sorts of paper to cut to the right size. My favourite slips were cut from the blue bond paper Lily once used. I’d taken a few sheets from the drawer of Da’s writing desk. I would save these for beautiful words. The rest were a mixture of ordinary and extraordinary: a pile of original blank slips from the Scriptorium, forgotten in a dusty corner and surely missed by no one; slips cut from school essays and algebra exercises; a few postcards bought by Da but never sent (almost the right size, but not quite); and wallpaper offcuts, a little thick but beautifully patterned on one side.

  I began to carry them around, hoping to capture more words like knackered.

  Lizzie was a great source. In a week, I recorded seven words I was sure weren’t in the pigeon-holes. When I checked, five of them were. I threw my doubles away and put the remaining two in the trunk with knackered, tying them together with my ribbon.

  The Scriptorium was not so fruitful. Every now and then Dr Murray said something interesting in his Scottish brogue, usually under his breath. Glaikit was a common utterance in response to incompetency or slow work, and I dared not ask him to repeat it, though I wrote a slip and defined it as idiot or nincompoop. When I searched the volume with F and G, I was surprised to find it was already there. The other assistants spoke nothing other than words they read in well-written books. I doubted any of them had ever spent much time listening to what was said in Mrs Ballard’s kitchen or what flew between the traders of the Covered Market.

  I didn’t have to help in the kitchen anymore, but sometimes I did. I preferred it to going home alone when Da worked late. The new curtains and fresh flowers brightened up our house, but during the long summer evenings I preferred to stay talking with Lizzie. Then when it was cold, it seemed a waste to use the coal for just one person.
r />   ‘Could I ask you to do something for me, Lizzie?’ We were standing side by side at the sink.

  ‘Anything, Essymay. You know that.’

  ‘I’m wondering if you’d help me collect words,’ I said, looking at her sideways to gauge her reaction. Her jaw clenched. ‘Not from the Scriptorium,’ I quickly added.

  ‘Where would I find words?’ she asked, not taking her eyes off the potato she was peeling.

  ‘Everywhere you go.’

  ‘The world ain’t like the Scrippy, Essy. Words don’t lie around waiting for some light-fingered girl to pick them up.’ She turned and gave me a reassuring smile.

  ‘That’s just the point, Lizzie. I’m sure there are plenty of wonderful words flying around that have never been written on a slip of paper. I want to record them.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Because I think they’re just as important as the words Dr Murray and Da collect,’ I said.

  ‘’Course they’s—’ she stopped, corrected herself, ‘— what I mean to say is, of course they are not. They’re just words we use ’cos we don’t know anything better.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think sometimes the proper words mustn’t be quite right, and so people make new words up, or use old words differently.’

  Lizzie gave a little laugh. ‘The people I talk to at the Covered Market have no idea what the proper words are. Most of them can’t hardly read, and they stand all bewildered whenever a gentleman stops to chat.’

  We finished peeling the potatoes, and Lizzie started cutting them in half and adding them to a large pot. I dried my hands on the warm towel hanging by the range.

  ‘Besides,’ Lizzie continued. ‘It ain’t right for a woman in service to be dawdling around them that like to use colourful language. It would reflect badly on the Murrays if I was seen to be engaging in the wrong sort of talk once I’ve finished my errands.’

  I’d imagined a pile of words so big I’d need a new trunk to store them all in, but if Lizzie wouldn’t help I’d barely collect enough to strain my ribbon.

  ‘Oh, please, Lizzie. I can’t wander around Oxford alone with no purpose. If you don’t do this for me, I might as well give it up.’

  She finished cutting the last few potatoes, then turned to look at me. ‘Even if I did hang around eavesdropping, I’d only be welcome with the women. Men, even the sort that work the barges, would tame their talk for the likes of me.’

  Another idea began to form. ‘Do you think there are some words that only women use, or that apply to women specifically?’

  ‘I ’spose so,’ she said.

  ‘Would you tell me what they are?’ I asked.

  ‘Pass me the salt,’ she said, lifting the lid off the potatoes.

  ‘Well, will you?’

  ‘I don’t think I could,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s some I won’t say and others I can’t explain.’

  ‘Maybe I could come with you on your errands. I could be the one eavesdropping. I won’t get in your way or make you dawdle. I’ll just listen, and if I hear an interesting word I’ll write it down.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  I began to rise early on Saturdays to accompany Lizzie to the Covered Market. I filled my pockets with slips and two pencils, and followed Lizzie like Mary’s lamb. We would start with the fruit and vegetables – the freshest were had first thing. Then the butcher’s stall or the fishmonger’s, the bakery and the grocer. We would go down one ally and up the other, looking in the windows of the little shops selling chocolates or hats or wooden toys. Then we’d go into the tiny haberdashery. Lizzie sometimes came home with a new thread or needles. More often than not, I came home disappointed. The stallholders were friendly and polite, and every word they said was familiar.

  ‘They want you to spend your money,’ Lizzie said. ‘They ain’t about to risk offending your delicate ears.’

  Sometimes I caught a word as we passed the fishmonger’s or a group of men unloading carts piled with vegetables. But Lizzie wouldn’t ask them what it meant and she wouldn’t let me anywhere near them.

  ‘I’ll never collect any words at this rate, Lizzie.’

  She shrugged and continued on her well-worn path around the market.

  ‘Maybe I’ll just have to go back to saving words from the Scriptorium.’ That stopped her, as I knew it would.

  ‘You wouldn’t …?’ she said.

  ‘I might not be able to help myself.’

  She contemplated me for a moment. ‘Let’s see what old Mabel’s peddling today.’

  Mabel O’Shaughnessy repelled and attracted like two ends of a magnet. Hers was the smallest stall in the Covered Market: two wooden crates pushed side by side, their contents of found objects displayed on top. Lizzie usually steered us in a different direction, and for a long time Mabel had been nothing more to me than a passing image of sharp bones ready to tear through papery skin, and a tattered hat that barely covered patches of bare scalp.

  When we approached, it was clear that Lizzie and Mabel were well-acquainted.

  ‘You eaten today, Mabel?’ Lizzie said.

  ‘Ain’t sold enough to buy a stale bun.’

  Lizzie reached into our groceries and handed her a roll.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ Mabel said, her mouth full of bread.

  ‘Esme, this is Mabel. Mabel, this is Esme. Her father works for Dr Murray.’ She looked at me apologetically. ‘Esme works for the Dictionary too.’

  Mabel held out her hand: long, grime-covered fingers protruded from the scraps of fingerless gloves. I didn’t shake hands, ordinarily, and instinctively wiped my funny fingers against the fabric of my skirt, as if to rid them of something distasteful. When I offered my hand, the old woman laughed.

  ‘No amount of wipin’ will fix that,’ she said. Then she took my hand in both of hers and examined it like only the doctor ever had. Her filthy fingers held each of mine in turn, testing the joints and gently straightening them. Hers were as straight and nimble as mine were bent and stiff.

  ‘Do they work?’ she asked.

  I nodded. She seemed satisfied and let go. Then she motioned to the contents of her stall, ‘Nothin’ stoppin’ you then.’

  I started picking through her offerings. No wonder she hadn’t eaten: everything she sold was flotsam, broken things dragged out of the river. The only colour came from a cup and saucer, both chipped but otherwise functional. She’d put one on top of the other as if they belonged together, though they never had. No one with the coin to spare would ever drink their tea from that cup, I thought, but to be polite I picked it up and examined the delicate pattern of roses.

  ‘China that is. The saucer too,’ said Mabel. ‘’Old ’em up to the light.’

  She was right. Fine china, both. I put the roses back on the bluebell saucer, and there was something joyous about the combination among the silty browns of everything else. We shared a smile.

  But it wasn’t enough. Mabel nodded again towards her wares, so I touched and turned and picked up one or two. There was a stick, no longer than a pencil but twisted along its length. I expected it to be rough, but it was as smooth as marble. When I brought it close to peer at its knotty end, an ancient face peered back. The cares of a lifetime had been carved into the old man’s expression, and his beard was wrapped around the twist of the stick. I felt a butterfly in my chest as I imagined it on Da’s desk.

  I looked at Mabel. She’d been waiting, and now she offered me a gummy grin and an outstretched hand.

  I took a coin from my purse. ‘It’s remarkable.’

  ‘Naught else to do with me ’ands now no one wants ’em round their shaft.’ I wasn’t sure I understood, and when I failed to react the way she’d expected, she looked to Lizzie. ‘She dumb?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Mabel, she just don’t have an ear for your particular form of English.’

  When we were back at Sunnyside, I took out a slip and a pencil. Lizzie refused to tell me
the meaning of shaft, but she nodded or shook her head in response to my guesses. The colour in her face told me when I got it right.

  We became regular visitors to Mabel’s stall. My vocabulary swelled, and Da delighted in the occasional whittling. They leaned against his pens and pencils in the old dice cup that had always sat on his desk.

  Mabel was coughing and clearing her throat of great gobs of phlegm every few words or so. I’d been visiting her with Lizzie for the best part of a year and never known her to be silent, but I thought the cough might impede her. It didn’t; it only made her harder to decipher. When she coughed again, I offered my handkerchief, hoping it would stop her spitting on the flagstones beside her stool. She looked at it, but made no move to take it.

  ‘Nah, I’s right, lass,’ she said. Then she leaned sideways and hawked what had accumulated in her mouth onto the ground. I flinched. She was pleased.

  While I inspected her whittling, Mabel prattled on about the criminal, financial and sexual frailties of her neighbouring stallholders, her commentary barely interrupted to tell me the price of something.

  Among her rheumy words was one I thought I’d heard before – one Lizzie had denied any knowledge of, though it had been clear from her reddening face that she was lying.

  ‘Cunt,’ Mabel said, when I asked her to repeat it.

  ‘Come on, Esme,’ Lizzie said, taking my arm with uncharacteristic urgency.

  ‘Cunt,’ Mabel said, a little louder.

  ‘Esme, we should go. We have a lot to do.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked Mabel.

  ‘It means she’s a cunt: a fuckin’ nasty bitch.’ Mabel glanced towards the flower stall.

  ‘Mabel, lower your voice,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘They’ll have you out of here for that language, you know that.’ She was still trying to pull me away.