And then I saw the brush of paste, and my fingers sticky with cold paste, and the leather that was now fully pasted, and had been all this time, and Din, looking at me strangely, and I knew I could keep him at my table no longer.
A voice that did not sound like mine croaked, ‘Thank you, Din,’ and he returned, unknowing, to the sewing-frame.
Mr Diprose arrived at the bindery that afternoon. I ushered him quickly into the workshop and closed the door.
‘Din, would you kindly go buy me some thread. Here is some money.’
I frantically thought about what I was going to say: I had indeed found out some horrendous secret that bound Din and I together, but I was damned if I was going to share it with Charles Diprose. I waved him off the premises, and prepared to defend myself, and Din, once more.
But he did not pursue this tack; he seemed excited, and clearly anxious to get to his brief immediately, although he had brought with him only two things: a piece of leather, and a muslin bag filled with a freshly folded and sewn manuscript.
‘Regardez,’ he said dramatically, as he revealed them to me like a mountebank. ‘This is possibly the most important commission of your life. It may seem modest, but you will be paid handsomely.’
I fingered the leather: it was quite rough, and translucent in places, like coarse vellum. Despite myself, I was intrigued. The leather was not particularly beautiful, but tigers and dowries and Sir Jocelyn and the Earl with their rifles danced in my head.
‘It must bear the insignia of Les Sauvages Nobles, and Nocturnus, but no title,’ Diprose explained. So it was indeed a commission for Sir Jocelyn.
‘Blind- or gold-tooling?’ I asked. The skin seemed fitting for a Noble Savage; I wondered if it were the hide of an elephant, or other wild animal, shot on safari.
‘Gold.’
‘What is this leather?’
‘I cannot tell you the exact beast, or from which country it originates,’ he answered. ‘They are all the same to me. But if you wish to give it a name, by way of reference, shall we call it “Imperial Leather”?’ He gave an oily chuckle.
‘Do you want it dyed, or natural?’
‘Au naturel, most definitely. And there is one other thing, Dora. You will not be working on the book itself.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I have the book here, in this bag, but I am not permitted to leave it with you. You must take the measurements from it now, in my presence, then fashion the binding in its absence.’
‘But how will we complete the forwarding process?’
‘That is up to you to fathom. A week today, I will return with this manuscript, which you will fasten to the binding, again in my presence.’
I did not answer, for I was thinking hard and fast. This was a new approach to binding, and I knew of no precedent. Strictly speaking, it would be a casing, not a binding, and we would need to leave the cords loose, and forward after the finishing process, all of which was tricky, but not impossible. It would require skill and ingenuity; I wished Jack could have been here to help. I wondered if Diprose knew of his arrest.
As if he could read my mind, Diprose then said, ‘And Dora, I need your assurance that only you will work on this. This is not a job for an apprentice. This is a highly secret assignment, and for you alone. You must not even work on it in the presence of anyone else. En cachette.’
It was not as if I had any choice but to agree. Under Diprose’s gaze, I placed the leather in the strong-box, and locked it. Then I followed him out into the street.
‘There’s three guineas in this for you,’ Diprose said quietly as he climbed into his carriage.
Three guineas? I was not sure whether he was playing with me. I raised an eyebrow at him. Three guineas? He spoke the words in little more than a hissed whisper, but I felt the wind carry his words through every open window on the street. I was dumbfounded. This was what men like Knightley paid for a volume like this; what could Diprose be charging him now?
Three guineas.
Yes, I’m Sir Jocelyn’s whore, didn’t you know?
Really? And I’m Patience Bishop.
And this is my pimp, Mr Charles Diprose.
Would you care for some goat’s milk, Mr Diprose? Fresh from the tit, and sweeter than a baby.
A curse on you, Charlie Diprose, and your loathsome money. And the rest of you, with your vile eyes and ears. Virtus post nummos, indeed. I am no longer proud of virtue, and I can no longer be shamed by vice; neither impress me. Is not such insistence on virtue only another vice? May you be deafened and blinded by your own filth, if you are not already.
Later that week, I was cleaning the oil-lamps in the bindery in order to start the new commission, when the door opened: I hadn’t locked it, as it was after hours. Sylvia glided in silently.