Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Here, let me help you with those, Lottie,’ said Eliza’s son Tot. He walked quickly over to the range to where Lottie was lifting heavy iron kettles. ‘They’re too heavy for you.’

  Lottie stood up straight from bending over the bar and gave him a startled glance, as did his mother and Dora. Males did not, as a rule, help with domestic chores; they rarely even noticed them.

  ‘I can manage,’ said Lottie. ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘Nonsense, Lottie, I’ll do it,’ said Tot, and made a show of placing the kettles on the glowing coals. ‘There you are.’

  Oh, he spoke lovely, thought Lottie. He was like a proper gentleman and he was so good-looking, with his dark wavy hair and the dimple on his chin.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ said Dora.

  ‘Nay, it’s just the heat of the fire,’ Lottie protested, but her cheeks flamed even more. Tot smiled at her and she began to feel strange, a bit light-headed. She hurried away to the front room where a large mahogany table was set with the best linen tablecloth and Sunderland chinaware. She began to rearrange the plates of ham, pease pudding and tomatoes and the dishes of plum pie and egg custard.

  In the kitchen, Eliza and Dora smiled at each other in understanding. Eliza walked over to her son, her gait slightly awkward due to her late pregnancy.

  ‘Leave the lass alone,’ she said softly. ‘Unless you mean something by it.’

  Harry scowled; he had watched the little byplay and felt a sudden onrush of jealousy. As soon as he had Master Thomas Mitchell-Howe on his own he would put him straight, he told himself savagely. Lottie was his lass and always had been.

  ‘What did I do?’ Tot was the picture of innocence.

  ‘You know well enough,’ said his mother. ‘Behave yourself or you’ll be on your way back to school with a flea in your ear.’

  ‘I haven’t to be back until Monday!’ said Tot, looking less of a young gallant and more of a schoolboy. He was sixteen, but suddenly he seemed much younger. Yet he had seemed so much a man of the world to Lottie a few moments earlier.

  ‘Well, mind what I say,’ warned Eliza, then the matter was forgotten as the men came into the house talking of the grand new hall. Some settled on the chairs in the front room, but a few of the miners were happier on their hunkers in the yard with their backs against the wall and their pipes in their hands. It would be soon enough to be indoors when the tea was ready.

  ‘Mind, who would have thought it?’ asked Tommy of no one in particular as he drew long and hard on the stem of his clay pipe.

  ‘What? Who would have thought what?’ asked Albert, a trifle impatiently.

  ‘I mean, the union with a grand hall in North Road and the Owners’ Association having to meet with our lads.’

  ‘Aw, Da, they had to do that in ’72 when we got rid of the yearly bond. And the Miners’ Hall was paid for fair and square by the lads themselves. We have some power now, man.’

  There was much nodding of heads and a chorus of ‘Ayes’.

  Too much power, thought Tot. At least that was what the general opinion was at school among both masters and boys. Then, as the talk among the pitmen turned to the state of the coalface and how wet some seams were ‘inbye’ and all the other parts of their work that pitmen found so fascinating to talk about, he wandered away from them, gravitating naturally towards where the women were finishing laying the table, moving between kitchen and front room. Dora had brought little Bertie out to his father, for the baby would not be laid down to sleep on an unfamiliar bed.

  ‘Albert, hold the bairn,’ she said and the men stopped talking shop and grinned at the young father.

  ‘Who’s the gaffer in your house then, Albert?’ a couple of them asked jokingly.

  ‘The bairn,’ said Albert ruefully, but he took Bertie willingly enough.

  ‘It’s always the same,’ Tommy observed. ‘If there’s a babby in the place, it gets all the attention.’ And so it did.

  ‘By you’re a big lad to still be at school, Tot,’ said Albert as they sat around the remains of the feast. Tommy was feeling in his waistcoat pocket for his tobacco pouch but he looked across at his eldest son.

  ‘Education is a marvellous thing,’ he said. ‘I only wish we’d had the chance of schooling when we were bairns.’ He smiled at his daughter’s son, Tot, who was a bit red in the face.

  Tot was a weekly boarder at a school in Barnard Castle. He had an inheritance from his father’s family, who were business people in Northumberland, and this paid for his education.

  ‘I’m going to be a soldier,’ he said now. ‘I need a good education to get in.’

  ‘You do?’ said Albert, looking surprised. ‘There now, I thought all you had to do was hold out your hand and take the Queen’s shilling.’

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ said Tommy. ‘You’re nowt but jealous.’

  ‘Nay, I’m not …’ Albert began but Peter Collier, Eliza’s man, cut in. ‘We’ll talk about something else, eh? On an important day like today we have a lot to celebrate, haven’t we? The union is going to go from strength to strength, I’m telling you. The owners have to listen to us now. Why, Mr Crawford says …’

  Tot wandered out into the kitchen, uninterested in what the General Secretary of the DMA had to say. He was interested in Lottie, his mother’s maid of all work.

  ‘Are you wanting something, Tot?’

  His mother was sitting at the head of the kitchen table with the women around it, Lottie included, for there was not space for them to be comfortable at the table with the men in the front room.

  Lottie was telling them how she had met Mattie Green on the street outside Andrews the day before but she stopped as Tot came in.

  ‘Not really. I’m just fed up with mining talk. If it’s not how wet a seam is or the relative merits of a Stephenson and a Davy lamp it’s about getting one over on the owners. Don’t they know the owners give them their bread and butter?’

  There was a sudden shocked silence. Dora found her voice first. ‘Is that what they learn you at that fancy school in Barney then?’ she asked. She had Bertie back from his father and he was sleeping in her arms supported by her shawl, while she ate and drank with her free hand.

  ‘You don’t think they earn their bread with their own sweat then, do you not?’ asked his mother. ‘If you don’t, then mebbe it’s time you left that school and went down the pit yourself.’ Though she spoke quietly enough she was seething with anger and there were red flags blazing on her cheeks.

  Tot looked at her as though she had suddenly lost her senses. ‘I’ll not do that,’ he said positively. ‘No indeed, I will not.’

  ‘Well then?’

  Tot considered his position; he was far from being slow.

  ‘Well, I know the men work hard. They have to but it’s the owners and management who do all the planning, risk their money.’

  ‘While the men risk serious injury or their very lives,’ said Eliza. She was remembering some of the men she had nursed over the years.

  ‘Sometimes …’ Tot had been going to say that often it was the men’s own carelessness but he bit back the words. Though that was often said in the newspapers when an accident happened.

  ‘There’s no such thing as an accident, there is always a cause,’ Mr Dunne, his form master would declare.

  ‘Well?’ prompted Eliza.

  ‘It takes both sides,’ mumbled Tot. ‘I’m just going for a walk.’ He passed Lottie, not even looking at her, and went out of the back door and up the yard. His feelings were very mixed up indeed.

  Eleven

  ‘I do hope Tot is not going to make a fool of himself over Lottie,’ Eliza said to her husband as they sat down in the front room on opposite sides of the fireplace. It was ten o’clock in the evening and the room was darkening and becoming cooler, so Peter raked a few coals down on to the fire from the shelf at the back and it flickered into flame. He did not reply to Eliza immediately but sat back in his chair and gazed at her thoughtfully.


  Eliza was looking tired; soon they would go upstairs to bed, but they were both enjoying these few minutes on their own after the bustle of the day.

  ‘He’s nothing but a lad, Eliza, but he’s got his head screwed on aright,’ he said at last. ‘It’ll be years yet before he gets serious about a lass. Don’t make trouble till it comes. Any road, he’d do a lot worse than Lottie.’

  ‘She’s not the girl for him,’ Eliza insisted.

  ‘You mean she’s not good enough?’

  ‘No … She’s a lovely lass, I know she is, but …’

  ‘A workhouse lass?’

  ‘We don’t know who her parents are,’ said Eliza lamely and blushed as Peter stared at her. ‘Well, he’d be happier with someone else. He might meet someone who can talk to him …’

  ‘Oh, Eliza, I don’t know what you’re thinking of. They are both far too young to know what they want yet. Tot has his way to make in life and with the advantages he has, he should go far. And Lottie, well, I didn’t think you of all people would hold her poor beginning against her.’

  ‘I don’t, no, I don’t. Of course not.’

  Yet in spite of her protestations, Eliza felt confused. She liked Lottie; she was fond of her even. Hadn’t she been good to the girl? Only she had such ambitions for her son. And the little one in her belly too. She put a hand over her waist as she felt the baby move vigorously.

  Peter stood up and came over to help her out of her chair. ‘Bed for you,’ he said as he helped her to stand. ‘It’s has been a busy day. A tremendous day.’

  It was a busy night as well – there was to be very little sleep for anyone, as Eliza’s baby came into the world. Lottie was roused at midnight by Peter knocking at her bedroom door.

  ‘Get up, Lottie, please. I want you to see to Eliza while I go for the midwife,’ he called.

  Lottie jumped up and pulled on her clothes and ran down from her attic bedroom to the first floor. She could hear Eliza moaning softly, though she was not crying out. The baby was early, Lottie knew that; it was not due for another month. But babies came when they thought they would, she knew that too from her years helping out in the workhouse, where premature babies were common. They often died, which was something else she had experience of and she felt a pang of anxiety. Maybe today’s celebrations had been too much for Eliza.

  ‘Get the rags from the bottom drawer of the tall chest, Lottie, there’s a good girl,’ Eliza whispered breathlessly before stiffening and moaning again, a long drawn-out moan. Afterwards she whispered again, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this, a young lass like you,’ but she grasped Lottie’s hand tightly as she came back to the bed with the pad of rags Eliza had prepared to lie on during the birth.

  Lottie watched her face anxiously as she laid down the pad and helped Eliza on to it. By, she looked badly, she did, her face drawn and white and great dark circles under her eyes. Where was the midwife? Eliza needed the midwife now, she did. The pains were on her, and they were closer by the minute and at last she had lost her self-control and was screaming with each pain.

  ‘Mam? Mam? Are you all right? Mam, is it the baby?’ It was Tot, knocking at the bedroom door.

  ‘Send him away,’ said Eliza. ‘He shouldn’t be here. Oh, it’s not right, it’s not decent.’

  ‘Do not worry about that,’ Lottie said soothingly as she left her side and went to the door, opening it only a crack. ‘It’s the baby, Tot. Go down to the door and see if your stepfather’s coming with the midwife.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Now, do it now!’ said Lottie urgently as there came another cry from the bed. She closed the door and ran back to Eliza.

  ‘He’s coming, I can tell. Lottie, you’ll have to help me.’

  ‘I will, I will,’ said Lottie. ‘It will be fine, you’ll see.’ But she was filled with dread. There must be something wrong, it was all happening too fast. As she pulled back the sheet to look, she saw the baby’s head, a fuzz of dark, wet hair and then a little face, red as beetroot and with the eyes screwed tight with rage. She was just in time to catch and support the head as the rest of the body slithered out.

  ‘It’s a girl, Eliza, a little lass,’ she said and Eliza lay back on her pillows, panting. Just at that minute she felt she didn’t care if it was a brass jug, she was so glad the baby was out. She felt faint and she had a small ache in her chest from the great efforts she had made to birth her.

  When Peter returned it was with a woman from the next street. She was an untrained midwife as so many of them were, unlike Eliza who was a Nightingale nurse. They had been expecting the midwife from the county hospital.

  ‘She was out on a difficult case, Dr Gray too,’ explained Peter. ‘I did my best.’ He had his head poked around the bedroom door, for it didn’t do at all for him to actually be in the room.

  ‘Wait downstairs,’ ordered Mrs Young, the woman he had brought, pushing him out and closing the door. She came to the bed, rolling up her sleeves and putting on her apron, which she had carried rolled up under her arm.

  ‘We want nowt with men in here,’ she went on. ‘Now let’s have a look at you.’ She was the picture of efficiency and determined to show she was as good a nurse as Eliza, for all the other woman’s book knowledge and hospital training.

  Eliza was feeling less breathless and even euphoric that the ordeal was over in the main. ‘Mrs Young,’ she said. ‘There’s hot water and soap over on the washstand there. You’ll want to wash your hands. But as you see, the baby is born and she is fine. You’ll be wanting to check her over?’

  Mrs Young bridled. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Though my hands are quite clean, as you can see. I would not have come if I’d realized the bairn was already out. You did not book me, did you? I came out of the kindness of my heart.’

  ‘Of course.’ Peter had insisted she book Dr Gray from the hospital.

  ‘It is a long time since Tot was born, Eliza,’ he had said.

  ‘And I’m not as young as I was,’ Eliza had replied. She was only too well aware of the dangers, for she met them every day in her work. Well, now it was too late for Dr Gray to come and the baby was fine anyway and so was she, though exhausted.

  In fact, Eliza was too exhausted to say more to Mrs Young and too happy to get annoyed with anyone. She had her baby, a bonnie little lass with dark hair lying against her forehead, which had paled from the bright red it had been and now was nicely pink. Lottie had wrapped the baby in a winceyette sheet and now Mrs Young unwrapped her and checked her over.

  ‘Aye, a bonnie bairn,’ she said, quite forgetting she was intending to be as cold and lofty as she thought Nightingale nurses were. ‘Mebbe you got the dates wrong, she’s plump as a nine-month babby.’

  ‘You could be right.’ Eliza smiled. Her eyelids drooped, she was almost asleep.

  ‘Aye well,’ said Mrs Young. ‘We’ll see you comfortable now.’

  The nurse was untrained but she was capable, thought Eliza as she drifted off to sleep after being ‘seen to’, as Mrs Young called it. It seemed like a week since yesterday and the family party.

  The midwife soon had the baby asleep too, in the wooden rocker cradle made by Peter. It had high sides and a wooden hood to protect the baby from draughts and was low to the ground so that a foot on a rocker was enough to rock it gently. Lottie tiptoed about putting the room to rights.

  ‘You can fetch her da now, Lottie,’ said Mrs Young. ‘But he must be quiet about it, not to disturb mother or bairn.’

  Peter and Tot were waiting at the foot of the stairs for the summons and when they entered the bedroom Eliza opened her eyes and smiled at Peter.

  ‘You did well, lass,’ he whispered. Tot stood just inside the door. He was white and shaken by the events of the night; he could not forget the cries of his mother as she brought his sister into the world.

  ‘Never mind Tot, he thinks he’s something special because he goes to that fancy school in Barnard Castle,’ said Harry. He and Lottie were sitting on the banks of t
he Wear down by the racecourse in Durham. It was Sunday, a week and a day since the birth of Anne Elizabeth Collier. Harry had come, supposedly to inspect his new niece, but in reality to see Lottie. He had had an uneasy week thinking about Lottie being in the same house as Tot, even though it was only at weekends.

  Lottie watched as a punt glided by on the opposite side of the river, a girl with a parasol sitting at one end while a student in a blazer and boater hat manoeuvred the pole with long, graceful movements. He was showing off his tall, lithe figure to the girl, of course. She heard her trill with laughter as they passed.

  There was a man on a bicycle coming along the towpath, calling through his loudhailer at a crew rowing rhythmically along the middle of the river. ‘In!’ then ‘Out!’ he bellowed as the water rippled by the hull.

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Lottie,’ Harry said in exasperation. He had walked the miles to Durham that morning and Lottie had shown no signs of being extra glad to see him. He felt ill-used and jealous.

  ‘What?’ asked Lottie.

  ‘I thought you were my lass,’ said Harry.

  Lottie jumped to her feet. ‘I’m nobody’s lass but my own,’ she said lightly. ‘Howay now, I must get back to make the tea. And you an’ all, you’re on fore shift, aren’t you?’ She set off along the towpath, then cut up into Old Elvet.

  ‘Lottie, wait. I want you to tell me there’s nowt between you and Tot.’

  ‘There isn’t,’ she replied. ‘He’s going to be somebody, though, maybe even get elected for Parliament. He’s told me.’

  ‘He talks a load of tripe, he does,’ said Harry angrily.

  ‘Well, we’ll see. Any road, I’m not going with anybody, I’ve told you. I’m going to make something of myself. I’m going to be a writer.’