by Holly Webb
Lottie reached out her arms, stretching, hoping for an embrace, but nothing was there. Her fingers closed on empty air, and she opened her eyes, gazing around the room in confusion. What had she been dreaming about? Something good – something happy. But then it had gone…
Lottie pulled her dressing gown from the end of her bed and slipped it on. The letter was in the pocket, where she had left it last night, and her fingers shook as she began to unfold the paper.
I have just received a letter from Miss Minchin, as you are no doubt aware. I am enclosing this note for you inside my reply. I have made it clear to Miss Minchin how very concerned I am that you have come into such terrible company, while I had thought you safe and cared for at her seminary. This will not be allowed to happen again.
However, it is clear that lack of supervision by itself could not have brought you to associate with these desperate creatures. There must be something in you that has led you to this. I am ashamed to call you my daughter, and I must warn you that I cannot allow you to ruin our family name any further. If I hear of this kind of behaviour again, I will at once remove you from school.
With forced calm, Lottie refolded the letter and tucked it back into her pocket. She had read the note from her father so many times now, and every reading made her feel sick. She had been so desperate for his attention. She had said that she didn’t care if he was angry. She wanted to be taken away from Miss Minchin’s, even if she couldn’t think of her father’s house as home. She had been desperate for him to worry about her. To be on his mind.
Now she could have all of that. Miss Amelia had searched her room and taken away Lottie’s copy of Sylvia Pankhurst’s book, and all the pamphlets she had been hiding behind Sara’s books about history, but it would be easy enough to get Sally to buy her some more. She would only have to show them to the other girls in the schoolroom. She would probably be home in disgrace by the next day.
But the icy disgust in her father’s letter chilled her. She kept imagining him saying the words, telling her that there was something inside her that had led her to behave this way, that he was ashamed to call her his daughter. How could he write such things? How could he know anything about her, when he hadn’t seen her in so long?
Lottie peered across at the photograph on top of her chest of drawers. It was not very recent, and most of it was a large moustache. She was finding it hard to remember what her father actually looked like. Would she even recognize him, if he walked past her in the street? She had an awful feeling that the answer was no. How could she love him, if he was a stranger? Lottie pressed her hands to her cheeks, her fingers cold with fear. She loved her mother more, and her mother was dead.
Wouldn’t it be better to behave? To stay here at Miss Minchin’s instead, safe and quiet?
And terribly, dismally enclosed.
“I have discussed your father’s letter with Miss Amelia.” Miss Minchin’s face was still pale, with patches of ugly red across the tops of her cheeks. The letter was open on her mahogany desk and she kept smoothing it out as she spoke to Lottie, as though she couldn’t leave it alone. Her father must have written awful things to Miss Minchin too, Lottie realized. He had blamed Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia for letting her fall into bad company. “We are willing to keep you here at the school – for the moment. But only on the understanding – and I shall explain this to your father – that you are not allowed out.”
“Not allowed out…” Lottie echoed slowly.
“No. Not at all. Oh, you will be able to go on walks with the rest of the girls, but you will walk with Miss Amelia or myself at all times. And that is all. No visits. No little trips to have tea with Miss Crewe next door. Since she has obviously been conspiring in your dreadful lies.” Miss Minchin’s eyes glittered, and Lottie saw that this was the only part of the situation that made the old woman happy. “I shall, of course, write to her guardian,” she said piously. “He must be informed that Miss Crewe has been involved in this behaviour.”
Lottie swallowed hard, hoping that Sara’s Uncle Tom wouldn’t be too angry with her. Sara had said that he didn’t approve of Suffragettes. He would probably be furious, Lottie thought miserably. She had got Sara into trouble too.
“Do you realize that you were associating with hardened criminals at that funeral procession?” Miss Minchin demanded. “Women who have been repeatedly imprisoned, for acts of violence and trespass? Is that where you want to end up, Lottie? In Holloway Prison?”
Lottie shook her head, trying not to shudder. The descriptions of the prison in The Suffragette were so frightening, she was not sure she would ever be brave enough to risk being arrested.
“Look.” Miss Minchin rustled through a pile of papers on her desk and pulled out a newspaper, folded open to show a page of photographs. “These are convicts. Notorious criminals, pictured here so that the law-abiding public can be wary of them. Women like these burn down houses, Lottie. They attack ministers, smash windows, plant bombs.”
Lottie took the paper, gazing at the faces. They had been taken as the women were released from prison, and they looked exhausted, even though some of them were smiling. She traced her fingers across the page, trying to imagine what they were like. Some of the women she had marched with had been to prison. Miss Davison had been in Holloway for six months. She had even tried to jump off a prison balcony to call attention to the way the women were being treated.
The last woman in the line was smiling. Her light hair was curling and tangled around her face, and her coat hung shapeless, as though it no longer fitted properly. But it was the smile that caught Lottie. The way her eyes creased at the corners. Lottie’s heart began to bang against her ribs and, for a moment, she was sure she could smell lilies.
“I … I didn’t think,” she whispered. Her voice was shaking, as though she was frightened, and Miss Minchin nodded approvingly.
“This is where these Suffragettes end up. I’m glad to see that you are taking it to heart.”
“May I take this away to read?” Lottie asked. If Miss Minchin said no, she was not sure that she would be able to let go of the paper.
“Very well. You will continue to stay in your bedroom until I have had further discussion with your father. Read that newspaper, and think about the way you have disappointed your father and your schoolmates.”
“Yes, Miss Minchin,” Lottie murmured, stumbling out of the room.
“Lottie?” Miss Amelia peered nervously around the bedroom door, as if she feared that Lottie had become some sort of wild, frightening creature who might leap at her if she wasn’t on her guard.
Lottie pushed herself up on her elbows and looked over at her. She had been lying on her bed for hours, gazing at the newspaper and wondering if she was imagining the likeness to her dream. Not that it really mattered – her mother was dead, so of course this couldn’t be a photograph of her. But it was so like her. She could keep it to look at it, anyway. She couldn’t stop looking at it. Her eyes seemed to be pulled back to it every time, as though she was hungering for the sight of it.
“I’ve brought you some supper.” Miss Amelia put the tray on Lottie’s desk, and came over to the bed, frowning a little. “Get up and eat, Lottie.”
“I’m not hungry,” Lottie murmured. She wasn’t hungry for food.
“What have you got there?” Miss Amelia reached out for the newspaper, but Lottie snatched it away, scrambling back up the bed, and clutching it tightly against her chest. “No!”
“Lottie, whatever’s the matter? It’s only a newspaper.” Miss Amelia sighed wearily, and sat down at the end of the bed. “I should never have let you go to that shop,” she murmured. “It all started there, didn’t it? I should have known – it was bound to happen.”
Lottie lowered the newspaper a little and eyed her curiously, her breath still coming fast. “What was bound to happen?”
Miss Amelia’s eyes widened, and she jumped up hurriedly. “I really don’t know what I meant. Nothing. Eat your supp
er, Lottie.”
“No.” Lottie ran her fingers through her hair, leaving it standing up in a wild cloud. “What did you mean? That wasn’t nothing.” She slipped off the bed and followed Miss Amelia, who was standing with her hand on the door handle. “You can’t go. You have to tell me.”
“Nonsense! I don’t have to do anything of the sort,” Miss Amelia twittered nervously. “You are a dreadful child, Lottie. You always were, but I suppose it’s hardly your fault … oh dear…”
“Why? Why isn’t it my fault?” Lottie demanded, pulling at Miss Amelia’s sleeve. Then she frowned. “Miss Amelia, why is my father so ashamed of me? Why doesn’t he ever come to see me?”
Miss Amelia’s mouth opened and shut, though no words came out. She tried to pull her sleeve away, but Lottie clung on tight.
“If it isn’t my fault, whose fault is it?” Lottie stared at Miss Amelia’s pink face. “My mother’s?” She caught her breath. “Did she fall in love with someone else?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Miss Amelia assured her. “If there had been a scandal, my sister would never have taken you as a pupil. She did consider telling your father we couldn’t keep you, when he divorced your mother, but there was very little talk, so…”
“What?” Lottie squeaked.
“Oh dear…” Miss Amelia murmured faintly – but was there a tiny glint of excitement in those faded blue eyes, too? “Lottie, don’t be upset. Divorce isn’t really such a shameful thing. It happens more and more often these days.”
“I don’t care about that!” Lottie shook her head, like a horse trying to get rid of flies. “If Papa divorced my mother after I came here, she must still have been alive!”
“Well, yes…”
“But she died! That’s why I was sent to school, because my mother was dead and my father didn’t know how to bring up a girl on his own. And now you’re telling me she wasn’t dead at all.” Lottie’s eyes widened. “Miss Amelia, when did she die? Did she ever die? Are you telling me that she’s been alive, all this time?”
“I’m not telling you anything of the sort,” Miss Amelia said swiftly. “Nothing. You’re making up a great deal of nonsense, Lottie. I shouldn’t be surprised if you were coming down with a fever.” She wrenched herself away from Lottie at last, and backed out of the door.
“There’s all sorts of gossip running round this place,” Sally muttered, as she slipped in to see Lottie later that night. “I gave up waiting for you to come upstairs.”
Lottie looked up at her vaguely. “I’m sorry. I meant to … I just didn’t know what to do. I was thinking. What time is it?”
“Late. Nearly midnight. What’s the matter? You look half-wild. The state of your hair, it’s like you’ve been poking sticks in it.” She settled cross-legged on Lottie’s bed. “If anyone comes to check on you, I’ll just have to jump down the other side. I had to come and see if what they’re saying downstairs is true. Are you being sent away?” She pleated her nightdress between her fingers, staring down at it fiercely.
Lottie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what’s going on.” She rubbed her reddened eyes with her fists. “Look at this.” She thrust the newspaper under Sally’s nose and watched her eagerly.
“What am I looking at?” Sally frowned at the photograph. “Suffragettes leaving prison. I don’t understand.”
“No.” Lottie sighed, and took the paper back. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m being stupid. I’m making it all up. That’s what Miss Amelia said, and it’s probably true.”
“For pity’s sake, Lottie. Start at the beginning. You’re making no sense.”
“My mother wasn’t dead when I was sent to school.” Lottie swallowed hard. Saying the words aloud seemed to set them in stone. Everything she knew had been based on a lie.
“Wait, wait a minute. Why’d you get sent away, then? I thought you were supposed to be such a little horror your pa couldn’t deal with you on his own?”
“I never said that!” Lottie glared at her.
“Everybody else did.”
Lottie sniffed crossly. “That’s still what happened. She wasn’t dead – she just wasn’t there. He divorced her, so I suppose she must have left him.”
“You mean she—”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Sally looked away uncomfortably, and Lottie nodded.
“Yes, I suppose so. She left me behind.”
“Unless he threw her out. He could have done, you know. Any children belong to their father, if he wants them.”
“But he didn’t want me,” Lottie whimpered. “He sent me here! If that’s true, it’s just that he didn’t want her to have me.”
“What’s all this got to do with this newspaper, anyway?” Sally leaned over to look at it again. Then her eyes widened. “You reckon she’s still alive?”
Lottie pointed to the woman on the end. “What if it was all a lie? There’s nothing to say she ever really died, is there? I’ve not seen her in eight years, except in dreams. But this photo – it’s so like I remember her. She looks like this when I dream about her, this same smile. I know it sounds unlikely, but I’ve never seen this picture before, I can’t have done. This is yesterday’s paper. So how can she be so familiar? What if that’s why my father’s so furious about me being involved with Suffragettes? What if he thinks I’m taking after my mother?”
“She does look a bit like you.” Sally squinted between the photo and Lottie. “Same hair. Big eyes. But lots of people look a bit alike…”
“I know.” Lottie flopped down on the bed again, staring miserably at the ceiling. “I could be making up the whole story out of nothing.” Then she propped herself on her elbows. “Except I’m not, you know. They did still lie about her being dead. All those people who said I was such a poor little thing, to have a dead mother, how sorry they were for me. They were all lying.”
“I s’pose he could have told everyone she was dead, if he was that shamed they were living apart,” Sally said thoughtfully. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Lottie sighed. “I want to ask my father – but I can’t. Miss Minchin’s sure to read my letters, and who’s to say he’ll tell me the truth anyway, when all he’s done so far is lie?”
“He must have explained it to Miss Minchin to start with.”
“Yes, but she isn’t going to tell me.”
“I know that,” Sally said patiently. “But she has that great desk full of letters, doesn’t she? I’ve been in that room enough, sweeping and dusting and making up her fire. I’ve seen her. She puts all the letters in the drawers of the desk, and they aren’t locked.”
“Oh!” Lottie scrambled up eagerly. “You mean we could go and look? There might be letters there from my father, explaining what happened?”
“I don’t think she throws them away.” Sally shrugged. “Maybe she burns them, but I’ve never taken letters out in the waste paper. I don’t know how she sorts them, though. Might take us a while to find where they are.”
“Let’s go now.” Lottie snatched up her dressing gown, and Sally huddled her shawl around her shoulders.
“Ssshhh,” she murmured, grabbing Lottie’s wrist. “You can’t go running down the stairs all excited. Calm down, or someone’ll hear us. Them stairs creak.”
Lottie nodded, leaning against her door frame and taking a few deep, slow breaths. Sally was right. What she wanted to do was fly down the stairs, wrench open Miss Minchin’s sitting room door and fling the contents of her desk everywhere. Unless she could compose herself, they would be in more trouble than ever. But – her mother! That she might find out something about her mother, after so long! It was almost impossible to be calm and serious and sensible.
Sally led the way downstairs, carrying her candle and stepping carefully close to the wall, where the steps were less likely to creak. The entrance hall looked huge in the darkness, furniture looming up oddly as Sally passed by with her candle. They slipped inside Miss Minchin’s sittin
g room, tiptoeing past the stiff-backed chairs and making for the desk. It was huge, a wide expanse of dark wood, with lines of drawers all down the sides. Sally held the candle next to it, the light flickering on the brass handles, and despite her excitement even Lottie was somewhat daunted. “How are we ever going to find anything in there?” she murmured, pulling open one of the drawers. “There must be hundreds and hundreds of letters, look.”
“They’re parcelled up, though,” Sally pointed out, holding the candle closer. “Tied with coloured tape. A bundle for each of you? And labelled, see? We just need to find your label. Mary Abbott, Frances Allan.” She picked up a fat package. “Sara Crewe – so she keeps the letters for old pupils too.”
Lottie picked through the piles. “No, none of these. Try a few drawers down, if it’s alphabetical. Yes, here!” She pounced on a bundle of letters tied with a pink cotton tape.
“Careful.” Sally put a hand over hers. “If you don’t want her to know we’ve been here, we need to tie them back up the same way. Look at it first.”
Lottie nodded, and then scrabbled at the knotted tape with her nails. It was old and ragged, and she realized that it must have been tied and untied many times before. “They’re from my father,” she murmured, unfolding the topmost letter and swallowing hard as she held it to the light. It was the one he had sent the day before, angrily reprimanding Miss Minchin for allowing Lottie to fall into bad company. His writing was scratchy and there were several blots, where he had stabbed the pen too hard into the paper.
“Wait a minute.” Sally leaned over the drawer again. “There are more in here with your name on.”
“Older ones, maybe?” Lottie suggested.
“Mmm. Perhaps. But it looks like different handwriting.” Sally handed the parcel to Lottie and held the candle for her to see.
“Yes.” It definitely was not the same hand – the writing was curved rather than sharply spiky. Lottie slid off the tape and opened up the first of the letters. The paper was different too, not her father’s headed letter paper, but something thinner and more flimsy.
