‘Smell that?’ Peter shuffled into the workshop as I was reading Diprose’s accompanying letter. ‘ ‘Tis an ill bird that fouls its own nest. You haven’t cleaned the range properly for days, and the house forever smells of burnt fat.’ I knew I would have to scrape it well and rinse with more than vinegar, but it was the least of my worries. If the business coming through Damage’s doors were only half of what I had wanted, I thought to myself, my initial desires must have been truly excessive. And Diprose was reminding me in his letter that Lady Knightley persisted in her wish to meet with me.
But Peter was right. I was keeping the windows in the workshop scrupulously clean to help our work-weary eyes, but I had not cleaned the windows in the house since January, so it looked gloomier than ever. A thick layer of grime had settled over everything, and I knew I performed every task – the laundry, the cooking, the scouring of pots, the cleaning out of the grates, the filling of the coal-scuttles – in a manner that became more slapdash by the day. I rarely had the time in the evenings to sit and mend clothes, so holes grew in Lucinda’s frocks and my smocks. Peter, fortunately, rarely changed out of his nightclothes these days, except when some of Dr Chisholm’s precious mixture spilt down his chest. Washing days – when I used to have to get up at four to start heating the water – had started to drift over now on to other days, so each morning I would treat only the dirtiest of the linen for stains, put them in to soak, pummel them in a snatched morning break, then try to rinse them some time in the afternoon, and hang them out to dry in front of the fire overnight. By morning they would always be speckled with soot and dirt from the coal fire, oil lamp and candles. But they were still cleaner than they would have been if I had hung them outside on the line.
Peter was also right about housework being circular and endless, but he was wrong that it was best suited to a woman’s disposition. That is to say, it was not suited to mine. I always found myself eager to start work in the workshop despite the pressure of household chores, for in binding books I faced a result, an object that I could hold, and of which I could be proud. I could see little purpose in taking pleasure in the whitening of a doorstep or the making of a plum pudding: both would vanish within minutes, along with all proof of my toil.
Peter’s scolding that morning only made me feel cooped in a cage. To avoid facing the mouting workload and more of his wrath, I decided that today I would visit Lady Knightley in Berkeley-square.
I put some sand to heat in a pan over the range, beat and sponged my floral dress once more, and set about making myself somewhat more presentable. A hard task, or so I thought, until I ran a brush through my hair and looked in the glass. Are my weary eyes deceiving me, I wondered, or have my grey hairs disappeared? Where could they have gone to? I looked younger, more like myself as I was a few years ago. Could it be that I was actually thriving on this new regime? But alas, it was not my eyes, but my hairbrush (and the dirty glass) that played tricks on me. I had not washed either for weeks: filthy from the constant grime snared by my hair, the hairbrush blackened my hair back again every time I brushed. I smiled at my own vanity; I was meeting a lady today.
I went back to the kitchen, transferred the hot sand into a calico bag, brought it up to Peter, and tucked it in at the bottom of the bed where his feet lay.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To see a lady about some books.’
‘I need nursing.’
‘I will be back soon. What do you need?’
‘Some beef-tea.’
‘I will get some gravy-beef from Sam Battye on my way back,’ I said. I knew already that I would lie and say that he had none, not that we had not the pennies for it. I would make him some arrowroot, or toast-water, instead.
I walked quickly from the dingier part of the metropolis to the more delightful one; I could not be away from Lucinda, or my bindings, for long.
It was not Goodchild who opened the door between the plant balls today, but a short, squat woman who looked as if she had been accidentally crushed in one of our presses, which had crumpled her face and body latitudinally before some kind mechanic had noticed and unscrewed her. She was a series of wide horizontal folds: her forehead bulged low over her brow, her nose over her chin, her chin over her neck, and her breasts over her gut, somewhat like the old Tudor tenements in Holywell-street or by the river.
‘I’m here to see Lady Knightley, please.’
‘Card?’
‘I have no card.’
‘Name?’
‘Mrs Damage.’
She closed the door in my face, and the latch clicked shut. I stood looking at the fine brass door-furniture on the black-painted door for a moment, before turning to face Berkeley-square, with its enormous trees, and close-cropped grass, in which not a weed dared grow. Then I turned back again, and the door was still closed, so I started down the steps. A wasted journey, but at least I could say to Diprose that I had tried. I crossed the road and stood on the verge of the grass. I crouched down, and reached out to touch it. It felt illegal.