He looked at the dolly and he shook his head.
He said, ‘Miss Polly, put her straight to bed.’
He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill.
‘I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill.’
Despite the curious turn of events and the promise of a new worker, the rigours of the daily round ground the memory of my visit to Lady Knightley out of my mind almost as soon as I returned. I worked hard in the workshop until late in the afternoon when Peter awoke and began crying for me. Every cavity of his face was swollen: the folds of skin under his eyes looked like bags of blood, dark like kidneys on the butcher’s block, and his mouth was blistered and puckered.
‘I had a b – b – bad d – d – dream.’
‘Did you, my love? What was it that so scared you?’
‘I, I, I, I’m not scared. Sit me by the fire.’
I settled him with a blanket and a cup of tea, before returning to the workshop to finish the botanical gold-tooling on the twelfth book. I was glad I had developed the motif of the ivy-wreath, for there had never again been a wedding ring on all those roaming hands. Jack was forwarding Cults, Symbols and Attributes of Venus, and Lucinda was rearranging the leather off-cuts into pretty shapes on the floor.
The only interruption I expected was Peter, with some complaint or other. So when we heard the sound of hooves and wheels stop outside the very door of the workshop, we were caught unawares. Jack opened the door to reveal a shiny black brougham, with bright red wheels, gold lamps, and a coat of arms on the side, pulled by a single chocolate-bay horse, and I was so startled when I saw who descended from it that I had to look away. And when I did, I saw Mrs Eeles, and Patience Bishop, both with arms folded and eyes watching, and behind them Nora Negley peered amongst twitching curtains. Some of the children had even stopped their playing to watch.
He was an even more wonderful sight than his carriage, I will admit. Quite the pink of fashion, as he stood there in his fine black frock coat, with his red cravat, gold eye-glasses, and heavy gold watch-chain across his vest. He held a silver cane, topped with a large round ball of red glass, like the largest ruby I’d ever seen. I almost forgot I was in my smock, with not a moment to change into my good cap and collars. At least I had my old ones on; I was not caught bare-headed by Sir Jocelyn Knightley.
He reached for my hand, and I proffered it, and he kissed it, even though it was stained with dye and gnarled with dried glue, and I bid him come in.
‘Why, what a neat, well-kept workshop you run, Mrs Damage. And ah, that succulent, gamey smell you get in only the finest bookbinders’ establishments.’ It was the politest way yet anyone had ever described it.
‘Good afternoon, Jack,’ he said, before I had a chance to introduce him.
Jack stopped what he was doing and came to the side of the bench, made a little bow and said, ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ before going back to his work.
‘And you must be little Lucinda,’ he said to my daughter, and ruffled her hair. She scowled at him. Then, from beneath his frock coat, he produced something that looked remarkably like a tiny baby. He held it by the head, and its body hung limply from it, its limbs dangling independently, so I surmised it could not be a doll. I gasped in shock, and Lucinda screamed, ‘Mama!’ and ran to my skirts where she buried her face.
‘What’s the matter, Lucinda? Don’t you like your new friend? If I am not mistaken, she is in need of some care.’ He held it closer to her, and I could see the sweetest porcelain face looking at her, with rosebud lips and feathery eyelashes, and yellow curls painted over the smooth scalp. But if this really were a doll, I could not fathom why its body was not stiff, not all one with the head. Then he held it upright, both hands encircling its chest, and squeezed. A noise like the in-breath of a victim of pulmonary disease ensued, followed by the sound of a goat bleating: a high-pitched, ‘Maaa-maaa’.
‘Fancy that! She even calls you Mama. Here. What are you going to call her?’
I took the doll from Sir Jocelyn and crouched down to Lucinda. It astounded me: I had never seen a doll that was pretending to be a baby. All the dolls I had ever seen were dressed as miniature ladies, only even stiffer. I turned this one over in awe and lifted her cambric gown with as much care as if she had been a real baby: she had jointed limbs and a flexible chest that seemed to be made from india-rubber, and real little boots on her feet, tied with a green ribbon.
‘Maaa-maaa,’ she moaned back at me.
I couldn’t help but giggle. ‘Oh, my! Isn’t she quite the little one!’ I tried to press her into Lucinda’s hands, but she refused, preferring to peek over my upper arm. ‘I fear Lucinda wishes to be her elder sister, and not her mother.’