The Journal of Dora Damage (19 page)

My mind raged on this thought, but he hardly said a word, which was most courteous of him. Soon I was able to continue with
my own sewing, and the two of us worked side by side well into the day, by the end of which we had sewn twenty-three manuscripts.

But my, if only we had needed twenty-three manuscripts sewn that day! Six blank bindings had been waiting for me in the gold-tooling
booth when Din arrived, and by the time we waved goodbye to him at seven o’clock they had been joined by a further four. I
was getting behind; and I would get even further behind if I did not learn to continue with the usual line of
facetiae
in the presence of this dark stranger. But it did not feel proper so to expose this uncertain person to the true nature of
my business.

Oh, he would never notice, I tried to convince myself. He would not be literate, of course; and besides, the number of illustrations,
prints and photographs in the manuscripts were so few, and my cover designs were never so explicit or obscene, merely suggestive.
But my inhibitions persisted. I knew I would often have to dismiss Din early, so that Jack and I could work unencumbered into
the night.

The following morning, when I unlocked the workshop door to let Jack in, I heard a group of children further up the street
laughing and cheering. The sun was managing to shine through the misty sky, and it felt to us all like a late reminder of
summer. I looked up the street to see what was happening.

At first I noticed the children on the edge of the circle, for there were several who were holding themselves back from whatever
the attraction was. In the midst of the main crowd was Din’s tall figure. He seemed to be telling them a joke, or singing
them a funny song. He pulled something from the ear of one of the older boys, and there was a general exclamation of delight.
But there were mothers watching uncertainly; Agatha Marrow marched out and pulled her twin girls back inside, another boy
got a clip round the ear.

None of us was unfamiliar with the sight of black people; but we seldom had one up our street. It was, no doubt, Mrs Eeles’s
influence: Peter had approved of her insistence on the Englishness of her territory, said it was a sign of gentility. I watched
as Din approached, and knew that a whole street was watching me. I could not help but smile at him as he raised his hat to
me, and sidled past me into the workshop.

‘Good morning, Mr Nelson,’ I said loudly, before I followed him inside and shut the door. Was I mistaken, or did his one good
eye look at me?

I was about to settle him to cleaning the oil-lamps, when I heard a carriage draw up in the street. Through the glass I could
see it was Charles Diprose himself, in a battered old hansom.

‘Quick! Hide!’ I hissed at Din, and without a pause he hurdled over the bench to the corner of the room. He moved fast, despite
his limp. Lord, I thought, did he think that his old slave owner was after him with a band of mercenaries? He was heading
to the gold-tooling booth, which was a sensible enough place, considering the curtains, but he did not make it in time. Diprose
had already pushed open the door and was smiling at me, but his smile fell as it saw Din behind me, and his sweaty face went
pale.

For all of our sakes, I made a hasty decision to land the one person in it who was least likely to be punished. It was also
the truth, a quality that seemed to be somewhat lacking in my business these days.

‘Mr Diprose. Allow me to introduce Mr Din Nelson, our new apprentice, who has been placed at Damage’s through Lady Knightley’s
what-not, you know, the um, the Ladies’ Society, for Runaway Slaves from, from America, I think it’s called.’

Diprose’s eyebrows arched viciously and his eyes bulged beneath, like two greasy spoons. He addressed not a word to Din, but
grabbed my arm, and walked me stiffly towards the door so that Din could not hear his words.

‘Does Sir Jocelyn know about this?’

‘I believe not, sir.’

‘He will be told. I warned Sir Jocelyn of the risks of hiring an
ingénue
; it appears you are labouring under a gross
méscon-naissance
of the severity of the situation.’

‘What am I to do? I am under orders from Lady Knightley.’

‘Does she pay your wages? Does she put food on your table?’

‘But, Mr Diprose, with all due respect, the man was a
slave
. It was the least I could do, the least any of us can do, to let him have this job. And I need the help; with all the work
you’re bringing me, it’s too much for the two of us, and, really, how much harm can he do?’

‘That is not the point.’

‘Shall I talk to Lady Knightley?’

‘With difficulty.’

‘Why?’

‘She is
enceinte
.’ The word seemed to leave an unpleasant taste in his mouth. ‘She ceased receiving visitors back in August. She certainly
will not be permitted to undertake any work for her “what-not” while she is expecting.’

‘So we are stuck with him. We shall make it work somehow.’

‘Your optimism
ne vous sied pas
, Mrs Damage. We know nothing about the man.’

‘That can’t be hard. You seem to be admirably capable of gathering information.’

‘Do not pass on to me your dirty work. You agreed for him to be here; you must find out about him.’ It was a remarkable feat,
the way he spoke in such a murmur with barely a movement of his lips, but managed to load every word with menace. ‘You must
report back to me on everything you find; and you must use whatever means necessary to procure his discretion.’ It was not
just laziness: I was presenting him with the opportunity he had been waiting for, and he would use this, I knew, to topple
me from my place of preference with Sir Jocelyn. ‘And, if you do not,’ he concluded, ‘I shall see to it personally that you
end up lower than the gutter in which I found you.’

‘Surely it is simple, Mr Diprose,’ I ventured. ‘Here, look.’ I rummaged in the files to find Jack’s indenture, pulled out
the crumpled piece of paper with the lawyer’s red seal, and showed it to him. ‘Look, please. “. . . the said Apprentice his
Master faithfully shall serve his secrets, keep his lawful commands everywhere, shall gladly do Shall do no damage to his
said Master . . .” ’

‘Oh,
ben trovato
, Mrs Damage,
ben trovato
,’ he said, with sarcasm. ‘What a clever girl you are. Considering that the legal limit is one apprentice per every four journeymen,
and oh, a-ha, I see, with one apprentice, one woman, and two large empty holes where the skilled workers used to be,
ergo
, you are already in breach of those limits . . .’

‘I am not suggesting, Mr Diprose, that we draw up an apprentice’s indenture. We simply require a legal document that says
as much as this, that says, as here, let me find it, here it is, “either of the said parties bindeth himself unto the other”.
Surely, this is exactly what we need – “bindeth himself” – do you hear that, Mr Diprose – “bindeth himself unto the other
by these Present . . .” ’

‘It would have no legal substance, but if you have the money to cover the fees of a decent lawyer, Mrs Damage, please go ahead.
But I suggest that either you keep your doors closed to every charity-case that comes knocking, or you find the wherewithal
to ensure
sa loyauté
. You do indeed need to find a way for both your said parties to
bindeth
yourselves unto each other, but not like this, with
un morceau de papier
. I suggest you start thinking.’ Then he raised his hand to his beard, and rubbed it vigorously so that his chins shook. ‘Besides,
a legal document does not overcome one insurmountable issue with regard to the man’s origins.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He dropped his hand in disgust at me. ‘Have you not noticed before? The indelicate nature of some of our literature?’ He was
so exasperated now he was almost spitting. ‘The anthropological thrust, the
ethnographic
bent of it?’

‘I had not thought . . .’

‘I shall ensure some comes your way soon enough, and then we shall see where your allegiance lies, and how a flimsy piece
of lawyer’s puff helps you then. Good luck, Mrs Damage. I, for one, shall not be heart-broken to see the back of you.’ Then
he marched outside with his characteristic creaking, upright haughtiness.

‘Help me, would you, boy?’ he shouted at the driver, who looked as unwilling as if Diprose had asked him to run up the Himalayas.
The boy yawned, slid down from his seat, and climbed inside the carriage like a cat looking for somewhere to curl up. He did,
fortunately, emerge again, with a large wicker box in his arms, and bore it into the workshop.

‘Books?’ I asked, with some misgivings, thinking of our workload.

‘No.
Personnel
. Not from me,
je vous assure
. Open it later; you’ve got far too much to be getting on with to be distracted by this.’ He climbed up into the cab, and
passed me two large hides through the doorway. They were an exquisite, dull, Venetian-red colour. They looked aged, but I
could tell by the feel of the leather that they were very fresh and moist.

‘What is this?’ I asked. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Goatskin,’ he said, ‘from the Niger territories, or the Congo, or somewhere
maudit
like that, dyed by whichever set of natives they’d be, with a tree-bark, or the like. A secret process, to which, no doubt,
our Empire will get the recipe before long. Put them inside, then come back for the books.’

I dodged the cab driver at the door, then went into the gloom of the workshop and laid them on the bench. Din was staring
out of the rear window into the yard; I did not address him, but returned to the street as instructed. I spotted Nora Negley
peering round the shabby side of the carriage, Agatha Marrow was beating a mattress further up the street, but certainly not
fast enough or loud enough to interfere with her ability to hear what was being said.

‘
Les voicis
,’ Diprose said, holding a pile of large, heavy books, which he handed to me one at a time. ‘Three volumes, all in need of
a good re-bind. The first is what you might call anthropology; a foray into rites, practices, folklore of certain curious
cults.’ There was no title on the old binding, so I opened it to read the frontispiece. ‘Oh, please,’ he hissed, in exasperation,
‘do you have to open it in front of me, and in the street of all places? It really isn’t suitable, you know. Don’t make it
any harder for me. If I had my way you wouldn’t be working for us at all.’

It was called
Des Divinities generatrices ou le culte du
phallus
, and the design of the frontispiece was an enormous disembodied phallus reaching to the sky, penetrating some clouds. I closed
it quickly.

‘And in case it is not evident to you,’ he muttered, ‘our conversation today must not reach the ears of Sir Jocelyn. I do
not wish for him to know about your currish slave, at least not until you have proof of his loyalty; his wife’s goings-on
are not exactly his
cheval de bataille
. And neither must you reveal to him my threats to you,’ he added, rather more casually, as he suddenly became rather interested
in the curling endpapers protruding through a corner-tear of the cover. ‘I am, unfortunately, bound to him as you are to me.’
Before I could ask how, he had continued, ‘We must, I suppose, find a way to muddle through –’ the tip of the endpaper crumbled
between his fingers, and he rubbed them together to get the paper off ‘– much as I would relish putting a plug in your rather
mediocre sink-hole.’ If he were expecting a reaction from me, he did not receive one. So he gestured at the book I was holding.
‘Paris, 1805. I want the three as a kind of trilogy, and this will be the first one. Here is the second. A classic from 1786
by Richard Payne Knight, the grandfather of priapus.’

It was
A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus and its
Connection with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients
. I knew it well, if only by its extensive referencing throughout other works I had bound.

‘And the third?’

‘
The Satyricon and Other Priapic Writings
. Imagine, if you will, a series of bindings dedicated to the great God Priapus. May I suggest to you that the cover design
to unite the three should be, what one might describe as
emblematic
, if you understand my meaning. I need these quickly; they must take priority over the rest of the consignment.
Au revoir
, Mrs Damage. Ill met by gas-light, as ever. I will not bid you good day.’

Oh, but he was poisonous, but poisons could be avoided, or purged, or antidoted. I returned to the workshop, closed the door
firmly behind me, and chose to worry not about Diprose’s contemptible chaff, but about how to occupy Din today, and whether
Lucinda was getting enough to eat, and how on earth I was to gold-tool three ‘emblematic’ designs without Din noticing.

I gave the books to Jack to disband and clean, but I could not help but steal a peek at the wicker box before I settled to
my own work. I gasped, and had to open it fully when I saw its contents.

‘Blow me dahn!’ Jack said. ‘Bellytimber!’ It was a hamper of exotic foods: Danish tins filled with sticky pastries, jars of
French jams and preserves, a large, spiced ham studded with cloves and pineapple rings, two bottles – one of port, one of
champagne – and two cheeses wrapped in wax paper. Tucked down one side was a brown-paper parcel; I opened it to find inside
a cream silk ladies’ scarf, cool and smooth as soap, and a child’s navy-blue wool coat, warm and soft and snug, like my Lucinda
herself.

Also for me was a pair of bronze kid boots, with a pointed toe, a dainty heel, and laces all the way up to the top of the
boot, which curved around my calf. I could not help but try them on straightways. They were a perfect fit, as if they had
been made for me. How had they known the angle of my toes, the arch of my soles? But the heel was so high that I stumbled,
and I cursed the gentleman and rubbed my sore ankle; how badly I needed a new pair of boots, but how useless was a pair I
could not walk in!