The Orphan Collection

by Maggie Hope

  Thomas was not in court that morning. The client he was representing had withdrawn his action. So he was sitting at his desk supposedly working on another case but in reality dreaming of making a fortune from investing in a new railway in Uruguay.

  There was just one catch to this scheme. He did not have enough capital. He cast about in his mind for ways to raise the two thousand pounds needed for the initial investment. This was the lowest amount the company was prepared to accept from someone wanting to buy in.

  ‘An excellent opportunity’ was the phrase used in the prospectus. Oh, indeed he had to find a way.

  ‘I have had a complaint concerning you and the fact that you were late in court for the Prentiss brief. What have you to say for yourself? Mr Prentiss says it was because of your incompetence that the case was lost. What do you have to say about that?’

  Thomas gave a start. He had not even heard Mr Brownlow senior come into the room. He rose to his feet. ‘Mr Brownlow! I did my very best; I always do my best for my clients. But when the client’s case is weak …’ He let the sentence hang in the air for a moment. ‘Mr Prentiss is, perhaps, looking for something or someone to blame it on. I will not be made a scapegoat.’

  ‘And I will not have the reputation of the firm jeopardized in this manner,’ Mr Brownlow replied sternly. ‘I suggest you pay more attention to your work and less to your outside interests.’ He turned on his heel and walked majestically out of the office. At the door, he turned.

  ‘This is a warning, Thomas. Do you understand me? A friendly warning, but nevertheless a warning. There is unlikely to be a partnership on offer if this sort of thing is brought to my notice again.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Brownlow.’

  Stuff your partnership, Thomas said to himself savagely. A career in the law was not the great thing he had thought it to be, not at all. He sat back in his opulent leather chair and moved the swivel from side to side aimlessly. A career in the law was as dry as dust and not nearly as lucrative as he had been led to believe. Not in the early years, it was not.

  When he had made his pile in South American railways he would chuck it all in and spend his time in London, Paris or even Monte Carlo. All he needed was the money for the initial investment and he would be away.

  There was Lottie, of course. He loved her, he did, but she didn’t excite him as she had done at the beginning and it was not the same since she lost the baby. In a way she had been responsible for their inability to break into Newcastle society. It wasn’t just her writing; in fact some women seemed to think more highly of her because of it. He had been wrong about that. No, it was her origins. His own had been overlain with his good schooling, which had given him a better accent, and the fact that he had some money, not much, but some, from his father’s family in Alnwick. Lottie was a workhouse girl with the accent of the local working classes. He had not noticed it so much before, but it grated on him now.

  Thomas sighed and looked at the case notes on his desk. Boring it was: two brothers fighting over the mineral rights on a hitherto worthless strip of land, but where a rich seam of coal had been discovered. Why could they not just share whatever came their way and be thankful for it?

  Suddenly, Thomas closed the folder containing the notes and shoved it in his desk drawer. There was plenty of time for working but this was the last day of Sedgefield Races and he had a few good tips and a feeling that he might, he just might have the luck running with him. He straightened his tie before the looking glass, smoothed back his hair, winked at his reflection (by, he was a handsome devil), and took his hat and overcoat from the stand in the corner behind the door of his office and put them on.

  ‘I have to go out, Mr Thompson,’ he said to the clerk who had looked up from his ledgers as Thomas’s door opened. ‘Take any messages for me, will you? I may not be back today.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Mitchell-Howe,’ the clerk replied.

  Liberated, Thomas hailed a cab and went merrily on his way to the railway station for the train to Durham and then to Sedgefield. All his woes were forgotten in the excitement of going to the races. This was his lucky day, the day he made enough money to buy into a South American railway company. Oh yes, he would be a millionaire yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘The Clouds Stood Still was a little slow to take off in the first few months, but I am pleased to inform you that sales from your book are now increasing steadily,’ wrote Mr Bloom. There was a royalty cheque enclosed with the letter. Lottie stared at it. Nine pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence. She said the amount out loud, though there was no one there to hear it. Thomas was rarely at home in these last few months. Often he spent the night at what he termed ‘his club’. Lottie did not question it, for in some ways she was happy to be able to get on with her writing.

  The cheque was for only a few pounds but it showed that the original advance had already been earned. It would take a hewer at the coalface a month or more at least to earn that sort of money. Lottie rose to her feet, moved to the window and gazed out at the February scene. Of course, she mused, the book had taken longer than a month to write.

  Outside it was starting to snow: large flakes that quickly coated the ground and blew against the window in small swirls. On the street beyond the tiny garden, a couple were walking against the wind, the man holding a large black umbrella in front of the woman protectively. The woman’s skirt was blowing against her legs and billowing out a little behind her. She had her hand tucked under the arm of the man and they hurried along together as one. It made her think of Thomas. The couple outside had something special, a closeness she did not have with Thomas.

  It seemed to her that the only times he touched her nowadays were those when they were in bed together on the nights when he did come home. His need of her at these times seemed as strong as ever, yet he still stayed away for days at a time.

  She had taken to inserting a ball of cotton wool soaked in vinegar into her vagina in the evening when he was at home. It was the only way to stop conceiving that she had heard of and she couldn’t bear the thought of going through the trauma of another miscarriage. Nor could she ask Eliza for advice. Eliza would be scandalized and she was, after all, Thomas’s mother.

  Sighing, she turned away from the window, sat down and stared at the neatly written sheet she had been working on. She inserted a sheet of foolscap into the typewriting machine and typed in the number of the page, 201, and the first line from the handwritten sheet, but she was unsettled, she couldn’t carry on.

  ‘I will go to the bank,’ she said aloud, and rising to her feet, she put on her coat and hat, picked up her reticule with the cheque in it and went out into the wind.

  The snow had turned into sleet and she had to bend her head into the wind as she walked up the street. She folded her umbrella and tucked it under her arm, for it was straining to turn inside out when she had it up. Yet the icy sleet, which was stinging her cheeks, was refreshing at first: it took her breath but lifted her mood.

  In the bank, she paused for a moment to catch her breath, then took the cheque out of her reticule and handed it over to the clerk.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said pleasantly.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ he replied, as he picked it up. ‘Do you wish to put this in your account? Or perhaps you would like it in cash?’

  Lottie had had every intention of banking the cheque, but suddenly, without conscious thought, she changed her mind. The account was in Thomas’s name, of course, and once she countersigned it and it left her hand, only Thomas would have access to it.

  ‘I’ll take the cash, please,’ she said. It was a long time since she had had any money in her purse apart from the housekeeping, and this week Thomas was late giving her that.

  ‘Certainly, madam,’ the clerk replied and opened his ledger. He scanned the appropriate page, then coughed, looked at her sitting across the desk from him, and then back down at his ledger. His lips moved soundlessly, then he looked up at her again.
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  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, slightly embarrassed. ‘This account is well overdrawn, I’m afraid. Are you sure your husband did not want you to deposit the cheque? He is late making this month’s payment and I’m afraid our charges …’

  ‘Oh, there must be some mistake!’ Lottie stared at the clerk then at the ledger, trying to read it upside down. She couldn’t quite make out the amount but it was written in red ink; at least the last few entries were. There was little doubt that Thomas was in debt and he had not told her anything about it. No wonder her housekeeping money was late! Though her first thought had been that it was a mistake, somehow she knew it was not. And the clerk was holding on to her cheque.

  Rising to her feet, she said, ‘My husband is not at home, he is away on business. I will have to speak to him about it.’

  The clerk, a nice, well-mannered man who felt sorry for the girl – for she looked no more than that – stood too, still holding the cheque. ‘I’m sure Mr Mitchell-Howe will straighten out this misunderstanding,’ he murmured, though in fact the thought ran through his mind that he would like to be there when the gentleman tried. Poor lass, he thought, but the next minute she had snatched the cheque from him and was turning to go.

  ‘Mrs Mitchell-Howe, I think that should go towards clearing your husband’s debts …’ he began, but Lottie was already at the door. He hesitated; after all, the cheque had been made out to the client’s wife, and he might be on doubtful ground if he tried to get it back. These days there was such a lot of talk about women having the right to their own money and he had not as yet entered anything in his ledger.

  The clerk glanced behind him at the door of the manager’s office. It was firmly closed. No one would even know Mrs Mitchell-Howe had been there.

  Lottie hurried down the street and around the corner and then around the next corner before slowing down. The cheque was clutched tightly in her gloved hand. She folded it and slipped it inside her glove until it rested against her palm. Then she walked on, more slowly this time. Slowly her whirling thoughts began to settle. She had to find out what was going on.

  ‘Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ said Mr Brownlow senior as she was ushered into his chambers. ‘Do sit down.’

  He was not smiling but then, Lottie told herself, he was a dour sort of person, wasn’t he? It did not mean much.

  ‘I will not, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I came to see if you can tell me where my husband is, for I need to get in touch with him. It was careless of him, I know, but he went without telling me where he was going and how long he would be away. I need to contact him urgently.’

  ‘Sit down please, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ insisted Mr Brownlow. ‘I think we have matters to discuss.’

  Lottie’s heart beat uncomfortably fast as she sat down in the chair by Mr Brownlow’s desk. She took off her spectacles and rubbed at them with a handkerchief, before putting them back on her nose and fiddling nervously with the wire earpieces to get them comfortable.

  ‘Do you have any idea at all where your husband is, Mrs Mitchell-Howe?’ the barrister asked. He had a strange expression on his face; she couldn’t make it out. He seemed embarrassed yet angry, unbelieving yet sorry for her.

  ‘I do not,’ she replied.

  ‘How long is it since he was home?’

  ‘A few days. What’s this all about? Surely you know when and why he went? He was on a case, he said.’

  ‘I do not, Mrs Mitchell-Howe. In fact I have no idea where he is. His behaviour has been erratic, to say the least, these last few weeks, even months.’

  He paused and looked keenly at her as though to judge her reaction to this piece of information.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lottie felt as though she were living a nightmare. All the certainties of her world were falling to bits. Where was Thomas? Where was he? The question thundered in her brain.

  ‘Your husband has missed court appearances, let clients down and caused us a great deal of trouble in the past fortnight, Mrs Mitchell-Howe. At first I thought he must be truly ill; perhaps having a breakdown, I don’t know. But I am afraid there is worse. There are discrepancies in the accounts. He has been claiming money for expenses, which he did not in fact incur. That is serious enough but we now find that there is a substantial sum of money missing from a client’s account.’

  Lottie sat frozen to immobility with the shock of his words. It could not be true; indeed, it was all a horrible mistake. It had to be. Yet was it? Thomas’s increasingly erratic behaviour, his evasiveness when she asked him questions about what he was doing or where he was going, and then the incident at the bank today. These things showed that there was something wrong. If she had not been so wrapped up in her own work she would have seen it sooner.

  Mr Brownlow was gazing at her with some concern. ‘I’m sorry if all this has come as a shock to you, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ he murmured. ‘Would you like a few minutes to compose yourself? Perhaps a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, no thank you,’ Lottie replied. She rose to her feet. ‘I am sure there must be some mistake. When my husband returns he will clear it up.’

  She turned to the door, hardly able to see for the heat that had rushed to her face. Her spectacles had steamed up a little and she took them off and held them in her hand. Even so, she seemed to be seeing through a mist.

  ‘I hope you are right, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ said Mr Brownlow in a tone that implied he did not think she was. He held out a hand to shake hers, but she didn’t see it. All she could think about was making it to the door and fresh air.

  Once outside, she leaned against the solid stone of the building for support. She wiped her spectacles with her handkerchief and replaced them on her nose, settling them squarely. After a few moments her vision cleared. The wind blew strong and cold against her skin and she shivered suddenly. She had to go home. When Thomas came home (for he would, she knew it, he would not desert her), she needed to be there. She stood up straight, fastened her hat more securely and set off into the wind.

  Thomas had not returned to the house. In her absence the second post had arrived, and there was a letter on the doormat, the address written in his sloping hand.

  Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. The few words written on it jumped out at her.

  I’m sorry, they read. You will be better off without me. In any case, you have your writing. Thomas.

  Lottie stared at them. He had run away, he must have done. And he had been lying to her for God knows how long. He had emptied the bank account and left her with nothing. The advance money from The Clouds Stood Still and any other funds in the account had gone. All she had was the house contents. She sat down on the hall chair abruptly and put her hands to her face as the letter fluttered to the floor.

  Through her gloved hand she felt the paper of the cheque and drew it out. Oh aye, she had nine pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence. She laughed mirthlessly. Not completely destitute then. When she was younger, nine pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence would have been like riches to her.

  Lottie sat for a few minutes collecting her chaotic thoughts. Then she got to her feet, went upstairs and began to pack a Gladstone bag with clothes. She looked at her typewriting machine, but no, she could not take it, for it was too heavy and cumbersome. Still, she took the pile of typewritten sheets she had already done.

  Downstairs again she looked in the mirror, straightened her hat, gave the hall one last look around and left the house. As she closed the door, the sudden swish of air took hold of the letter on the floor and it fluttered under the hall table and against the wall. Further up the street, Lottie hailed a passing cab and climbed in.

  ‘The station, please,’ she directed the cabbie. It was not until she was sitting in a third-class carriage on the train going south, first stop Durham, that she allowed herself to think of Thomas again. Brought up as she had been in the workhouse, with the exigency of survival always having to come first, she was following her instincts.

  Thomas, Thomas, she had
thought he loved her.

  ‘I thought his father loved me,’ said Eliza sadly after Lottie told her the tale. Eliza was shocked and bitterly hurt, even more so than Lottie. Thomas, her golden boy, her little lad. ‘I never thought he would turn out like his father, a gambler.’

  ‘A gambler?’

  Somehow, this explanation, that Thomas was a gambler, had not occurred to Lottie. In fact she had not thought about what he had done with the money, only that it was gone. She began to fill with anger and resentment. He had taken the money she had earned (her money!) to gamble with, to throw away like that evil Alf Green had on pitch and toss and the bookie’s runner.

  ‘His father threw himself off a cliff over gambling debts,’ said Eliza. ‘Oh, dear God, you don’t think Thomas might do that?’ Her face was white and despair shone from her eyes. ‘He was such a good boy and he didn’t show any interest in gambling. In fact, I used to impress on him what a mug’s game it was.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ Lottie felt sorry for the older woman but she desperately wanted to find Thomas, even if all she got from him was some sort of explanation or apology or both.

  Eliza looked at her hopelessly. ‘How would I know? I never could find his father. Though he did go back to his family in Northumberland once. Alnwick, that is.’ She was sitting on the hall chair, pleating and unpleating the skirt of her wraparound apron. ‘When Tot was a child he ran away and tried to reach them. Did I tell you about that?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Lottie felt deathly tired suddenly. ‘Oh, never mind, Eliza, I’ll be all right. At least there are no children to think about.’

  What was she saying? The memory of the baby she’d lost rose to torment her. Tears pricked at her eyes. ‘Can I stay here for a while, Eliza?’ she asked.

  ‘Well …’ said Eliza, then noticed Lottie’s expression. ‘Yes, of course you can,’ she went on quickly, although she did not really want Lottie to be there, constantly reminding her of her son. Tot, her lovely son who was so clever and had done so well; Thomas, the name he had reverted to when he trained as a lawyer. Anxiety rose in her. He wouldn’t kill himself, would he? As his father had done?