There was a space at the sorting table that no one filled. Perhaps it was out of respect for me, but from where I sat I saw the way Mr. Sweatman tucked in Da’s chair, and how often Mr. Maling looked in that direction with a query on his tongue. Dr. Murray got older in the weeks and months after Da died. He stared along the length of the sorting table and made no effort to look for a new assistant. I hated the space that Da had left and avoided looking at it whenever I came into the Scriptorium.

Grief was all I could feel. It crowded my thoughts and filled my heart and left no room for anything else. I walked out with Gareth every now and then. If it rained we would have lunch in Jericho, but if the weather was fine we walked along the Cherwell. Hawthorn marked the months since Da’s death: berries ripened, then leaves fell. We wondered if the winter might bring snow. I took Gareth’s friendship for granted. I needed it to fill the void and couldn’t contemplate anything more or less than what it was. When he sought to take my arm in his, I didn’t notice until the gesture had been withdrawn.

Christmas loomed, and my aunt insisted I visit her and my cousins in Scotland. Without Da, they seemed almost like strangers. I made excuses and travelled to Bath instead, where Ditte and Beth administered liberal amounts of good humour, pragmatism and Madeira cake. I returned to Oxford feeling lighter than when I’d left.

I walked into the Scriptorium on the third day of 1914 and there was a new lexicographer sitting where Da had once sat. Mr. Rawlings wasn’t young and he wasn’t old. He was unremarkable and oblivious to who had sat in that spot at the sorting table before him.

It was an enormous relief to us all.

PART 5 | 1914–1915

August 1914

There was a new hum in the Scriptorium. I felt it as an animal might when there is a decrease in air pressure before a storm. The prospect of war had heightened our senses. All over Oxford, young men were getting about with more spring. Their strides were longer and they talked louder—or so it seemed. The students had always raised their voices above the necessary volume in order to impress a pretty girl or intimidate a townie, but in the past the topics had varied. Not anymore. Student and townie alike talked of nothing but war, and it seemed that most of them couldn’t wait for it to come.