The Journal of Dora Damage(55)

I choked, and spluttered white and yellow confection into my hands, as Sir Jocelyn leant back to enjoy my reaction.

‘Can you taste the jasmine, Dora?’

I nodded, finally able to free my tongue. Soon, I thought, I might dare to swallow the dangerous sweetmeat; it was not safe in my mouth or my throat.

‘I trust it delights,’ he probed. ‘That is its sole purpose. It was especially commissioned by Sultan Abdul Hamid the First, for the delectation of the women in his harem. He had far too many to keep satisfied, so the sweet was designed for the appeasement of wanton ladies craving solace in the arms of their only man. Which reminds me: a favourite book of mine about a rather infamous Turk is in need of repair. I shall send it to Diprose and he will get it to you. You might enjoy it.’

I believe now, although I dared not admit it at the time, that he actually winked at me. He bent down to collect his bag, then adjusted his hat on his head.

‘Good day, Jack,’ he said.

‘Good day, Sir Jocelyn.’

I opened the front door to him, and his driver dismounted, to open the door of his brougham.

‘Good-bye, Mrs Damage. It was a most satisfactory visit.’

‘Good-bye, Sir Jocelyn,’ I managed to say, after swallowing particularly violently.

He stood for a moment in the damp chill outside the workshop, as if he wished to savour the full flatus of Lambeth one last time before departing from it. Then, when he seemed to have breathed his fill, he looked me directly in the eye, and, with the kindest of smiles, said, as if in passing, ‘You look after my books, and I’ll look after little Lucy.’





‘Who was the visitor?’ Peter enquired from his place by the fire as I was taking Lucinda up to bed. His feet were propped on the Windsor chair opposite him: brown knitted socks were stretched over the lower part of his feet, but scarcely made it to the wide, red, ankles, which looked, each of them, like the neck of a hardened drinker.

‘A client,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to cool your feet?’

‘Which client? He was dressed in too much finery to be a bookseller.’

‘My love, do not strain yourself to talk. Why, look at you.’

‘I need some more draught.’

‘You’re nearly through it.’

‘Get me some draught!’

‘I will be making you some Black Drop. I have some sticks,’ I said, then added hastily, ‘which I bought from the pharmacy.’

‘I must go to bed. Take me to bed.’

I sent Lucinda up on her own, then pulled the blanket off his knees, and he leant on me as he hobbled over to the stairs. He seemed shorter now, and older. His legs were bowed, his feet splayed, and every part of him sagged with the weight of invalid tumescence.

‘Did he bring books?’

‘No. But he brought the promise of them.’

‘Of what ilk?’

‘Foreign stuff, mainly.’

‘With what purpose?’

I thought hard to phrase this correctly as we climbed. ‘I believe he informs on the behaviours of the communities at the outposts of Her Majesty’s Empire.’

‘Ah. Foreign Office.’

‘Possibly. Probably.’

‘Good, good.’ We reached the bedroom. ‘Put me down gently, woman. I do not bounce, despite this villainous cushioning.’

Over I went to the little table and picked up a pot from amongst the lint, the tape, the scissors.

‘No, not the embrocation! A poultice! Blister me!’

‘I must see to Lucinda first. It will not take a moment. I can hear her undressing.’

‘You must not leave me! Give me something, anything, to help the pain!’

‘But the draught is almost finished. I shall make some Black Drop tonight, but it needs to ferment.’

‘Get it!’

And then I remembered the bottle Knightley had given me. I raced down to the workshop where Jack was still hard at work. I took in the pile of books with one look, calculated the cost of candles against the number of bindings we would get done in the time, and came out once more in favour of the books.

‘Four books to get up into leather tonight, Jack,’ I shouted at him as I grabbed the bottle. ‘Can you make it?’

‘Aye, aye, Mrs D,’ he said to my departing back. At least he didn’t have to provide his own candles, which he would have had to in one of those larger, commercial bookbinders, like Remy & Rangorski.

I took it back upstairs. I would not let him gulp it from the bottle; he had to wait while I poured it out into a spoon. He spluttered at the vicious taste.

‘That will help. Now, I will wash Lucinda, and I shall hear her prayers, and I shall return as soon as I can.’

He was not best pleased, but I had to manage my household as well as I could. I wiped Lucinda with a cold flannel, helped her into her nightgown, and hugged her – and Mossie – tightly as she said her prayers to us.