Esme Faces Grief and the Limits of Language
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens in the quiet of summer at the Scriptorium, when most assistants are away. Esme, still young enough to fit beneath the sorting table, delights in watching each pair of shoes return as the staff come back. But at the end of the summer of her eleventh year, Mr. Mitchell's feet never appear. Dr. Murray enters saying little, and Da eventually tells Esme that Mr. Mitchell fell while climbing a mountain and won't be returning. Esme remembers his odd socks and the coloured pencils he gave her years before, and the world beneath the sorting table feels less comfortable.
As time passes, Esme finds the sorting table has shrunk—she hits her head crawling out from under it. Lizzie scolds her for not being ladylike. Exploring the Scriptorium's perimeter, Esme discovers two lost word slips hidden between shelves: C words, recently lost. She tucks them away. Mr. Crane, seated at the sorting table, has another slip by his chair that he seems not to care about.
Mr. Crane accuses Esme of being light-fingered to Dr. Murray. Dr. Murray speaks to Da, who takes Esme outside under the ash tree and makes her turn out her pockets. She returns one slip—count, with a Tennyson quotation—and Da sends her to Lizzie's room to sit and think about her behaviour.
Alone in Lizzie's room, Esme pulls the other slip (counted, with a Byron quotation and beautiful handwriting) from her sleeve. She examines Lizzie's sparse belongings: a winter coat with a mismatched button, three aprons, two dresses, a faded Sunday best, and a small wooden box she hopes never to see again. On the bedside table sits a photograph of Lizzie's mother and the hat pin Esme had found in the trunk.
In a moment of anger and defiance, Esme scratches The Dictionary of Lost Words inside the lid of her trunk using Lizzie's hat pin, bending it irreparably. She tries to straighten it but fails, leaving it on the floor hoping Lizzie will think it bent in a fall.
For months, Esme avoids the Scriptorium. She pretends to be ill when the second Dictionary volume—containing all the C words, including count and counted—is published.
On her twelfth birthday, Da brings Esme to the Scriptorium. Dr. Murray grants her access to the two Dictionary volumes and the fascicles as they're published, telling her she must avail herself of them. Esme asks what avail means, and Dr. Murray smiles and looks it up with her.
Ditte's birthday card arrives with a slip for the word Brown, which she calls superfluous to need. Da explains superfluous means unnecessary. Esme puts the slip in her pocket, finding the word bland and boring.
Later, Lizzie discovers the scratched words inside the trunk lid and the bent hat pin. She reveals the pin belonged to her late mother—all she had of her mother was a photograph and this pin. Esme apologizes, and Lizzie forgives her, calling her me little cabbage. Esme tries to straighten the pin and promises to fix it.
That same afternoon, Mr. Crane leaves early and drops a bundle of ten pinned slips from his satchel without noticing. Esme doesn't call out. She reads them—the top slip is Distrustful, defined by Mr. Crane himself—and feels discomfort at the quotations. She keeps one slip (a quotation with no author) in her shoe and returns the rest to Mr. Crane's workspace at the sorting table.
Mr. Crane returns and confronts her, but Da intervenes, telling Mr. Crane to leave it to him. After Mr. Crane leaves, Da explains he used diplomacy—compromise, mollify—to calm the situation. Together they look up mollify in the pigeon-holes, finding a quotation from David Hume. Esme understands: Da was trying to make Mr. Crane less angry.
Key Events
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Mr. Mitchell dies after falling while climbing a mountain
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Esme finds and keeps two lost C-word slips
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Mr. Crane accuses Esme of stealing; Da makes her return one slip
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Esme scratches The Dictionary of Lost Words inside her trunk lid, bending Lizzie's hat pin
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Esme avoids the Scriptorium and feigns illness when the second Dictionary volume is published
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Dr. Murray grants Esme access to the Dictionary volumes on her twelfth birthday
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Ditte sends a superfluous word slip (Brown)
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Lizzie discovers the scratched words and damaged pin; Esme apologizes and is forgiven
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Esme returns Mr. Crane's dropped slips; Da explains diplomacy and mollify
Character Development
Esme moves from childhood toward adolescence in this chapter. She's too big for the sorting table, makes grown-up decisions about not hiding beneath it, and begins to understand consequences. Her grief at Mr. Mitchell's death, her anger at being accused, and her guilt over the hat pin all mark emotional growth. By the end, she's learning to see others' perspectives—Lizzie's loss, Mr. Crane's distrust, Da's diplomacy.
Lizzie is revealed as more than a servant. Her room is sparse, her belongings few, and the hat pin is a precious memento of her mother. Her forgiveness of Esme shows depth and generosity.
Da demonstrates quiet diplomacy, protecting Esme while holding her accountable. His explanation of mollify teaches Esme about navigating difficult relationships.
Mr. Crane remains suspicious and distrustful of Esme, but his carelessness with the slips—dropping them, not noticing—contrasts with Esme's careful rescue of lost words.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
The trunk as The Dictionary of Lost Words: Esme's trunk, filled with discarded slips, becomes her private counter-Dictionary—a collection of words that official lexicography has rejected or overlooked.
Lost vs. superfluous words: The chapter distinguishes between words that are lost or neglected (worthy of rescue) and those that are merely superfluous (like Brown, which Ditte sends). This distinction raises questions about what makes a word valuable.
Trust and distrust: Mr. Crane's accusation and his dropped Distrustful slips echo the chapter's central tension. Esme sees herself as rescuing words; Mr. Crane sees her as stealing them.
Grief and loss: Mr. Mitchell's death, Lizzie's mother, and Esme's own mother Lily (whose photographs and letters surround her) all touch on how people preserve memory.
Class inequality: Lizzie's sparse room—no books, no games, one photograph—contrasts sharply with Esme's home full of photographs and letters. The hat pin, a small beautiful thing, carries enormous weight for Lizzie.
Mollify and diplomacy: Da's choice of words teaches Esme that sometimes the right word isn't about being right but about calming conflict.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter establishes the central conceit of the novel—Esme's private Dictionary of Lost Words—and deepens her relationship with Lizzie. It also marks a turning point in Esme's moral development: she learns that her rescues have consequences, that other people's belongings carry meaning she can't see, and that diplomacy sometimes matters more than truth-telling. Dr. Murray's birthday gift of access to the Dictionary volumes signals Esme's growing legitimacy in the world of words.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Esme consider her collection of slips a Dictionary of Lost Words rather than a collection of stolen words?
Esme frames her actions as rescue: she finds words in nooks and crannies, in the discard basket, and in the carelessness of others. She believes these words are lost or neglected and that she is saving them, just as Da and the other lexicographers save words for the official Dictionary. Lizzie's rebuke—The dictionary of stolen words, more like—challenges this framing, forcing Esme to confront the difference between her intentions and the harm she causes.
2. What does the hat pin episode reveal about Esme's character and her relationship with Lizzie?
Esme's decision to use Lizzie's hat pin to scratch words into the trunk lid is impulsive and selfish—she doesn't consider that the pin might matter to anyone. When Lizzie reveals it was her late mother's, Esme is devastated. The episode teaches Esme that objects carry emotional weight beyond their apparent value, and that her private project has consequences for others. Lizzie's forgiveness, and her willingness to let Esme try to fix the pin, deepens their bond.
3. How does Da's explanation of mollify change Esme's understanding of her father and of words themselves?
Esme initially wants a word to explain why Da didn't defend her to Mr. Crane. When Da offers diplomacy, compromise, and mollify, Esme learns that words can serve social purposes—not just to name things accurately but to navigate relationships and calm conflict. This complicates her view of the Dictionary's project and of her father, who is not simply a man of words but a man who uses words strategically.
Navigation
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Book Hub: The Dictionary of Lost Words