By the end of 1902 I’d become confident collecting my own words, but at the Scriptorium, I was still running errands and adding new quotations to piles of slips that had already been sorted years earlier by volunteers. I found myself becoming frustrated by the definitions that some words were given. I was tempted to draw a line through so many, but it was not my place. Temptation, though, can only be resisted for so long.

“Esme, is this your handiwork?”

Da pushed a proof across the breakfast table and pointed to a scrap of paper pinned to its edge. The handwriting was mine. There was nothing in his tone that indicated my edit was good or bad. I stayed silent.

“When did you do it?” he asked

“This morning,” I said, not looking up from my bowl of porridge. “You left it out when you went to bed last night.”

Da sat reading what I’d penned.

MADCAP

Often applied playfully to young women of lively or impulsive temperament.

“On the boards, she was the merriest, gayest, madcap in the world.”

Mabel Collins, The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw, 1885

I looked up. Da was waiting for an explanation. “It captures a sense that wasn’t there,” I said. “I’ve taken the quotation from another sense that it wasn’t at all suited to. I often think the volunteers have got it quite wrong.”

“As do we,” Da said. “Which is why we spend so long rewriting them.”

I blushed, realising Da had left the proof out because he was still working on it. “You’ll come up with something better, but I thought I might save you a little time if I drafted it,” I said.

“No. I’d finished with it. I thought my definitions were adequate.”

“Oh.”

“I was wrong.” He took the proof and folded it. For a moment, we were silent.

“Perhaps I could make more suggestions?”

Da raised his eyebrows.

“About the meanings given to words,” I said. “When I’m sorting them and adding new slips, perhaps I could write suggestions on any top-slips that I think are…” I paused, unable to criticise.

“Inadequate?” Da said. “Subjective? Judgemental? Pompous? Incorrect?”

We laughed.

“Perhaps you could,” he said.

My request hung in the air while Dr. Murray considered me over his spectacles.

“Of course you can,” he said, finally. “I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

I’d had a speech ready in case he denied me, and so I was caught short by his easy agreement. I stood, stunned, in front of his desk.