It was a droll undertaking; its laboriousness amused me. I wanted to tell Diprose that I really did not care what his tawdry little inscription said. But the more we continued, the more intrigued I became. Ironic, I thought, that the procedure only drew attention to what it sought to diminish.
I left out each tool after using it, rather than returning it to the rack, in order to clean them later. I made a mental note of how many times I had used each of them, and those that I had only used once. I would work it out, I reckoned, after he had gone. I would not be hoodwinked.
At length we were finished. My back was aching from the effort involved, and so was Mr Diprose’s. I stretched and bent forwards to ease out my back; Mr Diprose grimaced, held on to his waist, and attempted to do the same. He was trying to adjust something at the back of his trousers. I did not look.
‘It’s just this damn brace I have to wear,’ he explained. ‘It rubs sometimes.’
‘A brace?’
‘I would be un invalide without it. I have soft bones, bones that bend. I was fitted with it when I first worked in Paris, in my twenties. I met Sir Jocelyn there. It’s a fine contraption – steel and leather – but it does cause dreadful pain. I do not complain. Vincit qui se vincit.’ He stretched his chest out, and released his hands. ‘There, that is much better.’ Breathing deeply, he returned to the book. ‘I am delighted, despite myself. You have excelled yourself, and I am proud of you. It is a particularly splendid day, today.’ He placed the book with similar ceremony into the muslin bag, then dug into his pockets, and presented me with three shining sovereigns and a crown. ‘Gardez la monnaie. And now, the remnants, please.’
I was reeling from the coins, shining like three suns and a moon in the palm of my hand, and the instruction to keep the change.
‘Mrs Damage? The remnants?’
I placed the coins quickly on the bench, before tipping out the contents of the scrapbag. Mr Diprose and I picked out the remains of his leather from the scraps. I had no spare bag to put them in, but Diprose seemed happy to stuff them into the pockets of his trousers, his frock coat, and his waistcoat.
‘You may wonder why I want these back,’ he said defensively. ‘What I gave you was my only stock of that particular hide; I may wish to re-source it at some point, depending on how well received the binding is. And now, I will bid you farewell, Mrs Damage. Au revoir.’ He lifted his hat, and was about to go, when he seemed to remember something. He leaned stiffly towards me, a stiffness I now knew was due to his back brace, and I moved my ear towards his mouth.
‘This has been one of our more sensitive operations. Tell but a single soul of what you have been doing, and Sir Jocelyn shall not hesitate to undertake another such – sensitive – operation, for your epileptic daughter.’
And then he was gone.
I paced into the house, wishing I had not sent Pansy out with Lucinda so I could keep her at closer quarters. I tried to distract myself by returning to the bindery and writing down the letters of the tools I had used before clearing them away. I was angry, I suppose, that he had excluded me from the text, while exploiting my labour to achieve it. So, I noted that a, i and r were used three times, c and o were used twice, and the single letters were b, d, e, f, h, m, n, p, s and u. I also jotted down a reminder that the grid I had marked out was of twenty-six squares: two letters, followed by a one-letter space, then six letters, a space, eight letters, a space, and seven letters. If I had been really bothered, I could have troubled myself over the anagram right then, but it was a sport I would save for another day.
At length, Pansy came through the front door with Lucinda and Nathaniel.
‘Mama, Mama,’ Lucinda cried as she bounded towards me. ‘We saw a puppet show! We saw a puppet show!’
‘Well, not quite, Lou, love,’ Pansy said. ‘We saw them arrive, didn’t we? We was comin’ back to ask if we could go back for the show, which’ll start any moment, but we need some more pennies for them, an’ we was wondrin’ if that was not too much to ask, mum.’
I looked at my precious daughter and wondered if I dared let her out of my sight again. I knew not of how idle that threat really was. But her eager face could not be disappointed. ‘Of course not, Pansy,’ I said, as I turned to the tea-caddy. I took out another half-crown, and pressed it into Pansy’s hand. ‘Take them to the baked-potato man too; we haven’t done that for a while. And pick up something nice and easy for tea – some sheeps’ trotters, or some oysters or stewed eels.’ I looked at her hard, and said, ‘Are you sure you can manage this, Pansy? I’m happy to stop and help you this afternoon, with Nathaniel.’