It was a relief to realise I could still observe without being observed, but my presence was not accidental. I had a desk, and the assistants would not be instructed to ignore me. I would serve the words as they served the words. And Dr. Murray said he would pay me £1. 5s. per month. It was barely a quarter of what Da earned, and it was even less than Lizzie’s wage, but it would be enough to buy flowers every week and have curtains made for the sitting room. And I wouldn’t have to ask Da for money when I wanted a new dress.

I looked forward to the daily ritual of sorting the post, and the predictable responses of the assistants when I delivered it. They each had a manner and script that defined them, just as their shoes and socks had once defined them.

Mr. Maling was the first on my rounds. “Dankon,” he would say, with a little bow of his upper body. Mr. Balk rarely looked up and always called me Miss Murray. Hilda had left the year before to take up a lectureship at Royal Holloway College, in Surrey, and Elsie had taken her place beside their father’s desk. Mr. Balk seemed unable to tell us all apart, despite my height and hair. Da simply said thank you, looking up or not, depending on the complexity of his work.

Only with Mr. Sweatman would I linger. He would put down his pencil and twist in his chair. “What intelligence do you have from Mrs. B’s kitchen, Esme?” he always asked.

“She has promised a sponge for afternoon tea,” I might say.

“Excellent. You may proceed.”

Most of the letters were for Dr. Murray.

“The post, Dr. Murray.”

“Is it worth reading?” he would say, looking at me over his spectacles.

“I couldn’t say.”

Then he would take the letters and reorder them according to the agreeability of the senders. Certain gentlemen from the Philological Society would be shifted back, but letters from the Press Delegates always ended up on the bottom.

My post round over, I would return to my desk to attend to any small task I might have been given, but the bulk of my day was spent sorting through piles of slips for particular words beginning with M and putting them in order, from oldest quotation to most recent.

The days when the post brought slips were my favourite. I would examine each in the hope of being the one to share a new word with Da or Dr. Murray. Every word, no matter where in the alphabet it fell, would have to be checked against the words that had already been collected. The quotation might show a slightly different meaning, or it could pre-date the quotations already collected. When there were slips in the post, I could spend hours among the pigeon-holes and barely notice the time turning.

August 1901