ACT 2, SCENE 10

IN THE SCRIPTORIUM

LOCATIONS SIGNAGE: AUGUST 5th, 1914

MURRAY is standing at his own high desk. Enter ESME, carrying the post.

MURRAY: Miss Nicoll.

ESME: Dr Murray?

MURRAY: Was it you who suggested the quote by John Donne as a further expression of the word ‘grave’?

ESME: ‘To know and feel all this – and not have the words to express it – makes a human a grave – of his own thoughts’?

MURRAY: From his letters to Sir Henry Wotten, is it not?

ESME: Yes. They’re perfect, aren’t they?

MURRAY: Indeed.

Enter MALING and SWEATMAN.

ESME: Your slips, Mr Maling.

MALING: Dankon, Esme.

ESME: Good morning, Mr Sweatman.

SWEATMAN: What intelligence do you have from Mrs Ballard’s kitchen, Esme?

ESME: She has promised us vanilla cake for afternoon tea.

SWEATMAN: Vanilla cake. No butter. In practice for rationing, I suppose. Ah well. You may proceed.

ESME: The post, Sir James.

MURRAY: Is it worth reading, Miss Nicoll?

ESME: I couldn’t say, sir.

MURRAY: Then I shall endeavour to cross that Rubicon myself.

But first. To you all. There is a certain hum in the Scriptorium, it seems to me. Yesterday’s declaration of war seems to have … heightened our senses. The younger are planning to leave. The older are remembering loss. And there are those of you who, like me, remain single-minded in focus on the Dictionary. For that, my thanks.

This war will slow down our work. The press has already lost men, and we will lose more here, as will Mr Bradley and Mr Craigie at the Old Ashmolean.

I am now aged seventy-seven. My famous constitution is, I fear, a little worn down. I hope and trust that the great Lord in his mercy allows me to see out my task. We are at the gargantuan letter T. The letters W and U may similarly exercise us a little, but the lesser effort needed for V, X, Y and Z (English pronunciation = ‘zed’) leaves me cause for optimism.

My thanks to you all. And now. Let us to work.