In the morning I let Jack in, settled Lucinda with some sewing in the kitchen, and returned to the workshop. Hands on hips,
I stood looking at Jack, waiting for him to look up at me, but he did not; he continued to prepare the cords and boards. Then
he snorted, as if trying to suppress a laugh, and I giggled at the sound, and soon he was chuckling too. Finally he turned
his back on me to fiddle with the laying-press and said with a guffaw, ‘I thought I’d seen everything, me, living by the river!’
I grabbed the duster from the rail and wiped down the bench with what felt like alacrity, and Jack turned his head round and
winked at me. I cocked my head and my hip towards him in one motion, and grinned.
‘But what do you reckon, we don’t show the old man?’
‘Mr D? Do him the world of good!’
‘Hark at you! Vile little river-scamp! Be the end of him, more like.’
‘Nah, keep him busy in there.’
‘Impudent lad! Give your red rag a holiday, Jack-a-dandy.’
‘Beg pardon, Mrs D. Didn’t mean no harm.’
Now it was my turn to wink at him, and he beamed across his wicked freckly face like a sweet urchin.
‘Hush thy mouth, Jack,’ I added quietly, ‘because thy lord and master will be amongst us this morning.’ Jack struck his brow
with his fingers in a mock salute, and the tattooed skull on his forearm grimaced at me as if it wanted to warn me that this
was no laughing matter, when the only funds that had come in had gone straight out again, and every knock at the door put
a terror into us. Truth be told, I was rather troubled about how Peter would fare, not only with the garnets, but with the
mischievous book itself.
I need not have worried. The garnets took so much of his concentration that he never once so much as asked the title. As far
as he was concerned, it was another fancy lady’s book, of no interest to him, all shimmering gold flowers and flagons, scrolls
and swags. I adorned the back with the crest of
Les
Sauvages Nobles
, and tooled the word ‘
Nocturnus
’, as instructed by Diprose, beneath it. And the four stones studded the corners like small pools of blood.
When the book was finally finished, the three of us gathered around the wine-coloured volume, silent with satisfaction. ‘The
Decameron
. Bockackio,’ Peter read from the spine. The lettering was perfectly even – Moive Bibble had packed her bags – although Peter
said nothing about my handiwork.
I gave it to Jack to deliver to Holywell-street, with the map on the scrap of paper to guide him in the back way. He left
at midday, and I spent the next few hours scrubbing the workshop. I cleaned the windows and oil lamps thoroughly, and garnered
together every last trace of gold-dust to take back to Edwin Nightingale. Then Lucinda and I made griddlecakes for our tea.
Still Jack was not back, and the clock was chiming four.
Finally, just before five, he rollicked in with a nose as red as his hair, a wet patch down the front of his coat, and a large
brown-paper package in his arms.
‘Look at you! You’re bung-eyed, Jack!’ I scolded, and whipped his behind with a kitchen towel.
‘And you’re lovely, Mrs D.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘At the sluicery.’
‘I can see that. What have you had to drink?’
‘Why? You offering me some more?’
‘No, I am not. But go on, then, tell me what happened, but hush you now, before you wake the squire.’ I took the parcel from
him and placed it on the table; it felt like more manuscripts.
‘He was chuffed to pieces, Mrs D, to pieces. You won’t believe what he gave me. This.’ He opened his fist to show a handful
of silver and brown coins. ‘Nah, that’s not it. Well it is, or it was. It was a friggin’ coach-wheel, Mrs D!’
‘A crown? He gave you a crown?’
‘Aye he did, and I said to him, I said, am I to give this back to Mr Damage, and he says no, Jack, my boy, it’s for you. It’s
your tip, young lad, he called me.’
It was as much as I could do to restrain myself from snatching them out of the sot’s hand; the injustice of it stung my cheeks.
Here my child was starving while Jack went out drinking on my employer’s gratuities.
‘And this is for you, he said it was.’ He waved a brown envelope in my face. I grabbed it, and felt inside to find a sovereign.
It was more than I had handed over to Skinner.
Jack whistled. ‘A thick ’un an’ all. Crikey. And go on, open the parcel, Mrs D, when you’ve stopped dribblin’ over the balsam.’
I prised open the seal, and found inside several thin manuscripts and a letter from Mr Diprose.
Dear Mrs Damage,
I enclose twelve books which I would not trouble
you to persue at any length. Their literary merit is
scant; they belong to that subset of
facetiae
known as
galanterie
, and they are nothing but the simplest
examples of that genre. Despite their gaudiness, I ask
you to dress them with understated elegance, as one
would make a lady of an opera-dancer. On the back
of each must be the crest of
Les Sauvages Nobles
;
underneath, one each of the following
noms de plume
, in the order in which the manuscripts are
stacked herewith:
– Nocturnus
– Labor Bene
– P.cinis It.
– Monachus
– Vesica Quartus
– Beneficium Flumen
– Praemium Vir
– Clementia
– R. Equitavit
– Osmundanus
– Clericus
– Scalp-domus
Yours most sincerely, &c
Charles Diprose
* * *
I chose to ignore Diprose’s suggestion that I should not read the books, for I felt it important to distil the essence of
the book on to the binding. But he was correct about their merit: they were sentimental novelettes with little thought of
style, characterisation and plot, and I only managed to wade my way through the first three of the twelve.
The first was rather fancy in its descriptions of marital passion, and the protagonists preferred to do the act
en plein
air
, as Diprose no doubt would have said.
The second made me blush even more, for the activity, although occurring inside the house this time, was not inside the marriage,
and described with a bit less restraint.
By the time I reached the third, I wished I had taken Diprose’s advice more seriously. I knew not how to clothe these naked
bodies in the binding of a book.
Eventually I restored to the language of flowers. In the centre of each front cover, I wove a wreath of ivy leaves, as a symbol
of wedded love and fidelity, and these poor souls needed all the help they could get. How appropriate, I thought at the time,
that I lived in Ivy-street. And within each wreath of ivy, I placed a different bouquet of flowers according to the requirements
of the story.
For the first, fern, for shelter from the elements.
For the second, marigold, for the health and vigour the protagonists clearly required.
For the third, euphorbia, to represent persistence, the key value praised therein.
And may the Lord bless my naïveté, for I made sure that the discerning booklover could delight himself with the discovery
that, in each circlet of ivy leaves, every third leaf was in fact a heart.
When I was young and in my prime,
I’d done my work by dinner time;
But now I’m old and cannot trot
I’m obliged to work till eight o’clock.
'Y
ou are skimping on the household,’ Peter shouted at me from upstairs as yet another parcel arrived at the workshop.
This one seemed innocuous enough at first glance: an Apocrypha, a Litany, a
Paradise Lost
and a
Regain’d
, an
Areopagitica
; two reprints of Michael Drayton’s
The
Nymphidia
and
The Muses Elizium
; M. Felix Lajard’s
Cult,
Symbols and Attributes of Venus
, published in Paris in 1837 and in need of a re-bind, a minute-book for a Turkish Bath company; several collections of correspondence;
two Visitors’ Books, four blank account ledgers; twelve black journals; and various short anthropological, medical and anatomical
tracts. Most were to receive the coat-of-arms of
Les Sauvages Nobles
, especially the blank ones, which would display it on the front cover, not the rear.
‘Smell that?’ Peter shuffled into the workshop as I was reading Diprose’s accompanying letter. ‘ ‘Tis an ill bird that fouls
its own nest. You haven’t cleaned the range properly for days, and the house forever smells of burnt fat.’ I knew I would
have to scrape it well and rinse with more than vinegar, but it was the least of my worries. If the business coming through
Damage’s doors were only half of what I had wanted, I thought to myself, my initial desires must have been truly excessive.
And Diprose was reminding me in his letter that Lady Knightley persisted in her wish to meet with me.
But Peter was right. I was keeping the windows in the workshop scrupulously clean to help our work-weary eyes, but I had not
cleaned the windows in the house since January, so it looked gloomier than ever. A thick layer of grime had settled over everything,
and I knew I performed every task – the laundry, the cooking, the scouring of pots, the cleaning out of the grates, the filling
of the coal-scuttles – in a manner that became more slapdash by the day. I rarely had the time in the evenings to sit and
mend clothes, so holes grew in Lucinda’s frocks and my smocks. Peter, fortunately, rarely changed out of his nightclothes
these days, except when some of Dr Chisholm’s precious mixture spilt down his chest. Washing days – when I used to have to
get up at four to start heating the water – had started to drift over now on to other days, so each morning I would treat
only the dirtiest of the linen for stains, put them in to soak, pummel them in a snatched morning break, then try to rinse
them some time in the afternoon, and hang them out to dry in front of the fire overnight. By morning they would always be
speckled with soot and dirt from the coal fire, oil lamp and candles. But they were still cleaner than they would have been
if I had hung them outside on the line.
Peter was also right about housework being circular and endless, but he was wrong that it was best suited to a woman’s disposition.
That is to say, it was not suited to mine. I always found myself eager to start work in the workshop despite the pressure
of household chores, for in binding books I faced a result, an object that I could hold, and of which I could be proud. I
could see little purpose in taking pleasure in the whitening of a doorstep or the making of a plum pudding: both would vanish
within minutes, along with all proof of my toil.
Peter’s scolding that morning only made me feel cooped in a cage. To avoid facing the mouting workload and more of his wrath,
I decided that today I would visit Lady Knightley in Berkeley-square.
I put some sand to heat in a pan over the range, beat and sponged my floral dress once more, and set about making myself somewhat
more presentable. A hard task, or so I thought, until I ran a brush through my hair and looked in the glass. Are my weary
eyes deceiving me, I wondered, or have my grey hairs disappeared? Where could they have gone to? I looked younger, more like
myself as I was a few years ago. Could it be that I was actually thriving on this new regime? But alas, it was not my eyes,
but my hairbrush (and the dirty glass) that played tricks on me. I had not washed either for weeks: filthy from the constant
grime snared by my hair, the hairbrush blackened my hair back again every time I brushed. I smiled at my own vanity; I was
meeting a lady today.
I went back to the kitchen, transferred the hot sand into a calico bag, brought it up to Peter, and tucked it in at the bottom
of the bed where his feet lay.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To see a lady about some books.’
‘I need nursing.’
‘I will be back soon. What do you need?’
‘Some beef-tea.’
‘I will get some gravy-beef from Sam Battye on my way back,’ I said. I knew already that I would lie and say that he had none,
not that we had not the pennies for it. I would make him some arrowroot, or toast-water, instead.
I walked quickly from the dingier part of the metropolis to the more delightful one; I could not be away from Lucinda, or
my bindings, for long.
It was not Goodchild who opened the door between the plant balls today, but a short, squat woman who looked as if she had
been accidentally crushed in one of our presses, which had crumpled her face and body latitudinally before some kind mechanic
had noticed and unscrewed her. She was a series of wide horizontal folds: her forehead bulged low over her brow, her nose
over her chin, her chin over her neck, and her breasts over her gut, somewhat like the old Tudor tenements in Holywell-street
or by the river.
‘I’m here to see Lady Knightley, please.’
‘Card?’
‘I have no card.’
‘Name?’
‘Mrs Damage.’
She closed the door in my face, and the latch clicked shut. I stood looking at the fine brass door-furniture on the black-painted
door for a moment, before turning to face Berkeley-square, with its enormous trees, and close-cropped grass, in which not
a weed dared grow. Then I turned back again, and the door was still closed, so I started down the steps. A wasted journey,
but at least I could say to Diprose that I had tried. I crossed the road and stood on the verge of the grass. I crouched down,
and reached out to touch it. It felt illegal.
‘Mrs Damage!’
I pulled my hand back and stood up as if I had been stung by a bee in the non-existent clover, but I did not turn round.
‘Mrs Damage! What are you doing?’ It was that maid again, calling from the top of the Knightleys’ steps.
Head bowed, I hurried back across the street so I would not have to shout my feeble explanation. Touching the grass. I’m ever
so sorry. We don’t have grass like that in Lambeth, see.
But before I could speak, the woman called again, ‘I’m to take you up to see Lady Knightley,’ so I ran up the steps for fear
that the door would close in my face once more, and into the hall, and was taken aback again by the statuary Negro lad, at
whom I nodded by way of apology, and followed the maid up the stairs. We went along the plush, carpeted corridor, past the
lion’s den of Sir Jocelyn’s office, and stopped outside another door.
The maid opened it, but before she could show me through she rushed inwards, saying something that sounded like, ‘Let me help
you, ma’am.’ The door swung back towards me but did not quite catch: was I to push it open with my fingertips and peer round
to show my presence, or was I to wait until it was re-opened for me? I stared at the strip of light between the jamb and the
door. I heard panting as the maid plumped cushions, a lady sighed, a drink was poured.
‘Where is the girl?’ the sighing voice enquired. Footsteps approached the door again. From the maid’s face as she pulled the
door open, I realised I should have been bold enough to follow her in initially. A less polite girl than me would have thought
of a name for that woman, even if she would only have hissed it under her breath to her on passing.
The lady, lying on a mauve chaise-longue, was as graced in charm and sensitivity as her maid lacked it, but that, then, is
because she was the lady, and not the maid.
‘Thank you, Buncie,’ she said, by way of dismissal to the maid, and turned to me. ‘The little bookbindress!’ she exclaimed.
‘Come, sit here by me. Let me see you!’ But it was her I wanted to see – and not be seen by – and this glorious chamber too.
It was a paradise of femininity and sweetness; she was not the only treasure in it. Everywhere was silken, shiny, smooth and
soft: fringed shawls bedecked with roses and peonies were draped over the backs of chairs and occasional tables; the mantel
was pelmetted with pink and green tassels, some so deep I feared they would catch fire. The sound of birdsong was such that
I had never deemed possible to hear in London – it seemed louder even than when I had stood in Berkeley-square itself – and
the dried spiced petals in bowls gave off the smell of roses so strongly it was as if every fabric in the room had been rinsed
only yesterday in pure rosewater. Everything beckoned ‘touch me’, but the moment I entertained that thought the room seemed
to shriek at me, ‘but not with those grubby common little hands!’ and so I swelled and shrank my way round the room by turns.
The walls were papered a tender duck-egg blue. The gold beading between the panels glimmered as if they were nothing less
than solid strips of real gold. The buds on the chintz looked as if they could burst into flower at any moment, and the blooms
as if they could have been picked off the sofa and displayed in a vase. And from the ceiling hung three enormous, glass gasoliers,
cleaner than my common gas-lamps ever were. There were wide window-seats in the vast windows, which offered views that were
paintings in themselves: trees, and a sky that was so blue it could not have been the one I had left outside in Berkeley-square,
and certainly not the one that hung over our heads in Lambeth. Here there was an abiding sense of purity about the room, a
luxuriance, a peace.
I glimpsed my journal lying on her desk next to a charming blotter and inkstand, pen-tray and paper knife. It was the one
bound in blue silk embroidered with pink, gold and silver flowers, and it did, indeed, match the décor of the salon. Then
the lady patted the chair next to her again, and I saw her hands, and curled mine under in shame.
The cuff from which her hand appeared was finely embroidered in red and blue threads, as were her hems, and round her waist
was an elaborate sash dripping with red and blue beads. Her face was not exactly beautiful: her features were meaner than
the expansiveness of the room would have suggested, and she had small, almond-shaped eyes that did not seem to see me. Her
mouth was thin, and when she smiled at me it was close-lipped and practised, but at least, as my mother would have said, she
smiled. Descriptions such as ‘enigmatic’ and ‘wan’ would no doubt have pleased her. Her complexion was such as one of our
modern painters would have delighted in; like the room, she had a subtle gold-tinged glow about her.
‘So you are my fine bindress!’ Her voice was quiet, but had a hard edge, as if used to speaking only sparkling wit and clever
sarcasm. ‘Let me look at you. I can’t tell you what a stir it put us in when Charlie told us you were a
woman
. Tell me, Mrs Damage, you must be frightfully clever to carry it off. Is it dreadfully hard work?’
I cannot for the life of me remember how I replied. I believe I answered her with simplicity and timidity, and that she did
not seem to notice or care. I do remember taking especial care with my pronunciation.
The conversation flowed reasonably well, coming as it did in the main from her. She spoke in short sentences, as if otherwise
she would, rather bothersomely, run out of air. But she was not sparse in her compliments for my bindings and indeed revealed
her veritable passion for the subject. She directed me here and there around the shelves of her room, asking me to take down
this volume of poetry, that volume of diaries, and bring them to her. But her shelves were filled too tightly, so it was hard
to ease the books out using the sides of the spine cover; many a headband had been viciously ripped in the pursuit of a book.
I was also anxious that my hands would sully the bindings, and wondered if I should ask her for a cloth to protect them. I
did not stop to notice the absurdity of the bookbinder who feared that her hands, which bound books daily, could not then
hold a finished book for a few seconds.
She certainly did not have the same reservations, for she rubbed her hands over the leathers and silks in the same way that
I would season the skin of a chicken before sending it to the bake-house, and she opened the books with such a vile crack
she could have been instructing me on how to spatchcock the fowl. The number of spines she broke during my short visit to
her that morning would have kept me in business for days, not to mention the headbands. I could solicit her for work, I thought,
should the trade from Diprose ever dry up. Furthermore, although there were a handful of fine or rare bindings in her collection,
I saw nothing to which I could not aspire; indeed, I noticed a few books that would never have been allowed to leave Damage’s
in their state, and started to realise that already I could consider myself a reasonably competent binder, with capabilities
beyond my own doubts.
‘Have you been to America?’ she asked suddenly. I told her that I had not. I tried to think of something appropriate to add,
but felt that she would not wish to know that the only long-distance travelling my family had undertaken was when Peter’s
great-uncle was transported to the colonies for political radicalism, and took his cousins with him. Peter, out of a sense
of moral rectitude, had chosen not to share the details with me, and I in turn kept them from my patroness.
My silence was filled by her sigh, for something was clearly troubling her. She closed her eyes again, and asked me if I was
familiar with the activities of the Ladies’ Society for the Assistance of Fugitives from Slavery. I had to disappoint her
again.