“Why does she think that?”

“Why wouldn’t she? You never told her otherwise.”

Our pace was slow, and despite the cold day, a trickle of sweat ran down the side of Lizzie’s face. I thought about all the words I’d collected from Mabel and from Lizzie and from other women: women who gutted fish or cut cloth or cleaned the ladies’ public convenience on Magdalen Street. They spoke their minds in words that suited them, and were reverent as I wrote their words on slips. These slips were precious to me, and I hid them in the trunk to keep them safe. But from what? Did I fear they would be scrutinised and found deficient? Or were those fears I had for myself?

I never dreamed the givers had any hopes for their words beyond my slips, but it was suddenly clear that no one but me would ever read them. The women’s names, so carefully written, would never be set in type. Their words and their names would be lost as soon as I began to forget them.

My Dictionary of Lost Words was no better than the grille in the Ladies’ Gallery of the House of Commons: it hid what should be seen and silenced what should be heard. When Mabel was gone and I was gone, the trunk would be no more than a coffin.

Later, in Lizzie’s room, I opened the trunk and nestled Mabel’s words among Mr. Dankworth’s clandestine corrections. I was surprised by how many I had collected.

Since discovering Mr. Dankworth’s unauthorised corrections, I’d made a habit of checking proofs before delivering them to Mr. Hart, though I only unpinned the corrections if I thought they added nothing to the original edit.

I began watching him. I watched him searching the shelves for slips or books, conferring with Dr. Murray or sitting down at the sorting table to ask one of the other assistants a question. I saw him tilting his gaze towards their work, but I never saw him mark it with his pencil. Then, one morning, Mr. Dankworth arrived early at the Scriptorium as I was finishing my cup of tea with Lizzie. Da had joined Dr. Murray for an early meeting with the other editors at the Old Ashmolean.

I saw Mr. Dankworth go into the Scriptorium and begin riffling through the edited proofs waiting in the basket by the door. “Lizzie, look,” I said, and she came to the kitchen window. We watched as Mr. Dankworth removed a proof from the pile and took a pencil from his breast pocket.

“So, you’re not the only one with Scrippy secrets,” said Lizzie.

I’d decided to keep Mr. Dankworth’s secret—despite myself, I liked him a little more because of it.