Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘I came to see you,’ she said and he smiled.

  ‘Come into my room. I will order tea.’

  The room he led her into was not large, but the window was tall and swathed in red velvet. Outside, the light was beginning to fade, for it was six o’clock in the evening and the end of September. The train from Durham was faster than it had used to be but still took almost two hours. She had found the chambers by the simple expedient of taking a cab.

  All the way up from Durham, Lottie had been rehearsing in her mind what she was going to say to him. She would wait until there was no one else there, she had thought, picturing it in her mind. She would not embarrass him before his workmates, no she would not. Colleagues, not workmates, she reminded herself. She would put the situation to him calmly and reasonably. She pictured him sitting at a high wooden desk such as that used by Bob Cratchett in A Christmas Carol. A desk in a room with grimy windows letting in little light. Well, the windows let in little light but that was because there was little to let in, it being evening. But there was a good oil lamp on the desk and an opulent leather sofa by the wall.

  ‘You’re lucky to catch me here, everyone else has gone home,’ said Thomas. ‘I’m so pleased to see you, Lottie, come and sit down and I’ll order tea. Do you know, I was thinking of writing to you tonight to explain why I had to leave so suddenly.’

  ‘I’m expecting a babby,’ said Lottie. She hadn’t meant it to come out like that, it just did. Thomas halted with his hand half-lifted to pull the bell. Lottie, fearing her legs might give way at any moment, sank into the soft velvet cushions of the sofa.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘A babby, a bairn. I’ve fallen wrong.’

  ‘Who was it, Lottie? I’ll find him and make him marry you, I swear I will!’

  Lottie shrank inside. How could he ask her who was the father? The look on her face gave him pause.

  ‘Is it mine? It cannot be, we were only together the once!’ Thomas stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘It only takes the once,’ said Lottie, as though explaining to a child.

  ‘Yes. Only – does my mother know? Did she say you had to tell me?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. Well, she knows I’m expecting but she doesn’t know about you.’

  Thomas suddenly no longer felt like an up-and-coming lawyer in the big city showing off to a pretty girl. His mam would kill him, and his stepfather wouldn’t be very happy either. They were a chapel family and they would expect him to do what was right by a lass in Lottie’s situation. The veneer he had acquired in his posh school and university was melting away. He was a lad from Durham; the mining communities of Durham at that.

  ‘I’m not a whore,’ said Lottie. She was beginning to get angry; he had been silent too long. She rose to her feet and walked to the door. ‘I’ll find a place to stay the night and catch the train home come the morn. I just thought you should know, it was only right. But don’t you worry about me, I’m not destitute. I can look after myself and a bairn.’

  She swept out of the room, her head held high, though her spectacles were becoming misty so that she could hardly see. Thomas stared after her, before jumping into action and hurrying after her.

  ‘Lottie! Lottie! Come on back here, I didn’t mean …’

  Lottie walked on around the corner into Northumberland Street. She had no idea where to find lodgings, but she could always go back to the station and there would be a train home eventually. Thomas caught up with her and grabbed her upper arm.

  ‘Lottie, I didn’t mean anything; it was just a shock, that’s all. Come on, I’ll stand by you, I will, I promise.’

  Lottie stopped walking and turned to him. She took off her glasses and peered up into his face under the light of a street lamp. His eyes looked practically navy blue, she thought distractedly.

  ‘Well?’

  Thomas swallowed hard, his mind racing. ‘Come back to my lodging,’ he said, then seeing her expression, ‘No, I don’t mean my rooms. The landlady will look after you, give you a room for the night. She is a friend of mine. Come on, Lottie. You cannot be wandering about Newcastle at this time of night. We can talk about this, what we are going to do.’

  What we are going to do, thought Lottie. Was he going to marry her? Did she want him to marry her? If she was honest, she did.

  Nineteen

  Thomas hired a chase and they travelled to Gretna Green to be married.

  ‘This is a dream,’ she whispered to herself. ‘It isn’t happening. I’ll wake up in a minute.’ Only it was happening and it was no dream. But how had it happened? She sat up in bed on the morning after her marriage (a hurried affair conducted by a Presbyterian minister who had just finished marrying a couple from Kent and had two other couples waiting after Lottie and Thomas). She gazed at the thin gold band on the third finger of her left hand, bought at the shop next door to the church, for they had decided against a wedding over the anvil at the blacksmith’s shop.

  ‘We are Christians after all,’ Thomas had said.

  She looked down at his head on the pillow next to hers. He was still fast asleep after his exertions of the night before. His hair was dark against the white of the pillowslip and dark lashes fanned his cheek. Oh, he was a bonnie lad, even with his deep, blue eyes closed, he was an’ all. He was her husband, though, and she had planned that she would not get wed until she had made a name for herself as an author. She would not be dependent on a man, she had always told herself, and here she was caught in the same silly trap that caught all silly young lasses.

  Carefully, Lottie turned back the bedclothes and got out of bed. It was a fairly small room and the bed was but a step away from the window. She stood looking out on a yard not dissimilar to the backyards in a colliery village or even her own in Durham. It had been hard getting a room at all; Gretna Green was full of people, mostly young couples. The sky was overcast and rain splattered the windowpanes.

  Lottie shivered. Maybe she had done the wrong thing, after all. She could have gone away from Durham, had the baby on her own. Writing was a craft that could be followed anywhere. She could have pretended to be a widow. That might have worked decades ago, but now that all births had to be registered by law her baby would be branded a bastard.

  Lottie put a hand over her belly; she had to protect her baby. She knew that in her mind, though not yet in her emotions. Apart from the physical symptoms, she would not be aware that there was anything different. Should she feel different? The questions ran endlessly through her thoughts. Behind her, Thomas turned over in bed.

  Why had he married her, any road? He was way above her station now, a professional man. He did not need a lass from the workhouse dragging him down.

  He had risen without her noticing and her doubts melted away as she felt his arms go around her waist as he pulled her body against his, and it was warm and exciting against hers.

  ‘Come on back to bed,’ he said in her ear and nibbled at the ear lobe.

  She forgot everything but him.

  ‘Please don’t be angry with us,’ wrote Lottie in the note she had sent to Eliza just before leaving Newcastle. ‘We love each other; I think we always have done.’

  They stayed in Scotland for one night only, a Saturday, and travelled home to Durham on the train. After all, Thomas had to attend court on Monday morning. And Brownlow, Brownlow and Snape knew nothing of his sudden entry into matrimony. The journey took hours and they had to change at Carlisle and Newcastle but Lottie didn’t care. She was only sorry when at last they alighted on to the platform at Durham. The time had come to face Eliza. Would she still be her friend as well as her mother-in-law?

  ‘A fine way to go on,’ said an unsmiling Eliza in greeting. ‘It’s a scandal all right. I’m disappointed in you both.’

  Nevertheless, she came forward to meet them as they entered the house and kissed Lottie on the cheek, before turning to Thomas.

  ‘You should have told us, you really should have,’ she said, looking
hurt.

  ‘Did you think I would stop you?’ She paused and gazed at them both. ‘You are truly wed, aren’t you?’

  ‘We are. I’m sorry, Mam,’ he replied, his cheeks reddening like those of a schoolboy caught in some minor misdemeanour. ‘I mean for doing it this way.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s not the first time you’ve run off, is it?’ Eliza said tartly, but her expression was softening.

  Lottie realized she was referring to the time when he was ten years old and had run off to his father’s family in Alnwick. She relaxed a little; it was going to be all right. Though Eliza had not yet spoken to her directly.

  It was not until Thomas had returned to Newcastle on the eight o’clock train that the two women talked. Thomas had wanted to see Lottie safely home in North End first, but there was simply not enough time.

  ‘Lottie will sleep here, she can go home tomorrow,’ Eliza decreed.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ Thomas asked, as he kissed Lottie goodbye.

  It was as if getting wed was already eating away at her independence, she thought, but still, she nodded. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she replied.

  ‘I’ll come back for you at the weekend.’

  She watched the cab disappear into the distance before coming back into the house and facing Eliza.

  ‘Now, lady, you kept very quiet about this,’ said Eliza as Lottie returned to the kitchen. ‘How far are you gone?’

  ‘I don’t know, mebbe eight weeks?’

  ‘It’s eight weeks since Thomas went to Newcastle.’

  ‘I know. We only did it the once, Eliza.’

  Eliza looked sceptical. ‘Dr Gray always said it didn’t happen the first time.’

  ‘Eliza, I’m telling the truth. Thomas is the only man I’ve been with and that nobbut the once!’ The image of Alf Green rose to plague her. She lowered her gaze.

  Eliza gazed hard at Lottie then sighed. The younger woman’s face was white and strained as she insisted on her truthfulness.

  ‘Aye well, what’s done cannot be undone. Sit down and we’ll have a cup of cocoa before we go to bed. By, but I didn’t want my Tot to be saddled with a wife and bairn so early in his career.’

  ‘I can keep myself and the baby,’ Lottie declared, showing some spirit.

  ‘Don’t be soft! An’ make my lad something less than a man?’ Eliza retorted.

  They sank into silence. Lottie drank her cocoa as quickly as she could, though it was piping hot, before going up to the little room that had been Thomas’s and preparing for bed. She drew the curtains back before climbing into bed and lying on her back, staring out at the scudding clouds above the city.

  ‘Are you asleep?’

  Lottie looked back at the doorway where Eliza stood, a candlestick in her hand, the candle flickering and casting eerie shadows on the ceiling. She walked in and stood beside the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was harsh, Lottie,’ she said in a low tone. ‘I was disappointed, that was it. We’ll say no more about it, eh?’ She leaned down and kissed Lottie on the cheek. ‘I know what it is to love a man.’ After all, she mused as she went to her own room, better a daughter-in-law she knew and liked than some la-di-da society madam from Newcastle.

  ‘You’re married? Well! I am surprised,’ said Jeremiah when she went into the offices of the Durham Post the next morning. He came around the desk and kissed Lottie on the cheek, dislodging her spectacles as he did so. ‘I hope you will be very happy, my dear. Though I suppose this means I will have to find someone else to write “Home Notes”.’

  Lottie settled the spectacles back in their usual position on her nose. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I will still be able to write them and send them to you, won’t I?’

  ‘How can you write on the fashions in Durham shops when you are in Newcastle? And your husband, a lawyer did you say? He will not like you working, my dear.’

  ‘Thomas will not stop me writing.’ Lottie looked down at her feet so that she did not betray the feeling of panic she felt at the idea. Jeremiah, however, was well aware of how she felt.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he said gently.

  ‘I can write about fashion as it is in Newcastle,’ said Lottie. ‘Some of the shops in Northumberland Street are very smart, almost as smart as London.’ Though she had never been to London of course; she had read about it in the Lady’s Journal.

  ‘Well, we’ll see how you get on.’ Jeremiah smiled at the small figure before him. He remembered the first time she had come to his office, excited at having her short story printed in his paper. Oh, she had a talent, this girl, she had indeed. She would become a household name if only she did not get bogged down with her marriage and children.

  ‘Send me articles by all means,’ he said. ‘And remember, I am negotiating with your publisher to print excerpts from The Clouds Stood Still.’

  Lottie said her goodbyes to George, the reporter, and Edward, the photographer and illustrator, and left the office with some regret. It had been a happy place for her, where she had been successful in beginning to realize her dream. She walked back to her little house in North End, where she intended to make a list of things she had to do before Thomas came at the weekend to take her back to Newcastle.

  ‘Post!’ The newsboy called raucously from the corner of the street. ‘Durham Post!’

  Lottie looked up from her desk, where she was working at her novel. She had packed most of the things she was taking to Newcastle, but for the typewriter and a few sheets of foolscap, and now at last she was free to write for a few short hours before Thomas came for her. Jumping up, she hurried out to catch the boy before he went on to the next street. She liked to check her ‘Home Notes’ as soon as they came out, though by then of course it was too late to do anything about an error. Not that there were any errors, she thought as she held out her penny to the boy and took a copy from him.

  Back in the house, she made tea and sat down at the kitchen table to read as she sipped. This afternoon, a man was coming to clear the house of furniture. First of all, she read her article, then turned to the page of local news.

  MURDER IN Durham City

  A woman’s body had been washed up on the banks of the river just below Prebends Bridge. Poor soul, thought Lottie, and read on.

  The young woman, who was well advanced in pregnancy though she wore no wedding ring, was at first thought to have thrown herself off the bridge, but upon examination was found to have a stab wound to the heart. She has been identified as Elizabeth Bates, a servant at the house of Alfred Green in Sherburn Hill.

  Mr Green is missing and the police would like to know his whereabouts. His son, Matthew, a hewer at Sherburn Hill Colliery, says he has not seen his father since he went on shift the night before last.

  Lottie read it through three times, feeling as though she must have missed something. Hadn’t Mattie gone to Australia? He must have come back. But that wasn’t what filled her mind and shook her to the core. Guilt did that.

  She had neglected Betty in the last few years. She should have gone to see the girl and made sure she was all right, indeed she should have done. Only, she hated to go back to that house where she had been so miserable. The house where Alf Green lived had such bad memories for her. Betty had been so adamant, though, that Alf was going to look after her; they were going to get wed. Only they had not and Lottie had always suspected they would not.

  ‘I should have kept in touch,’ she said aloud. Poor Betty, poor, poor Betty. She had had no life, no life at all. Sadly, Lottie folded the paper and laid it on the kitchen table. She was restless now, she could not settle to anything. She would like to go and see Mattie, to see how he was and find out what had happened to Betty’s first baby. Maybe she would do that. There were hours to go before Thomas would come for her.

  Impulsively, she got to her feet and pinned her hat to her head and put on her jacket. She would take the omnibus to Sherburn Hill, she thought. It would be take an hour or two to go there and back. She had seen the old hacks that
pulled the omnibuses along the roads to the mining villages around the city, but she had the time.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time she stood and knocked at the front door of the house where she had gone as a maid of all work when she was barely thirteen years old. She looked to the side where the window was close-curtained. Perhaps Mattie wasn’t in, she thought.

  ‘Now then, young woman, what do you want?’

  The voice close to her ear made her jump and turn to stare. It was a policeman, a sergeant. She might have known they would be guarding the house.

  ‘I … I used to work here, I read about the tragedy …’ she stammered. ‘I wanted to see Matthew. He is a friend.’

  ‘A friend is he? I don’t know if he wants to see anyone. Who are you, miss? I’ll ask if he wants to see you. Wait here.’

  ‘Lottie Lonsdale. I used to work here before Betty came.’

  ‘You did? My sergeant may want a word with you.’

  People passing by and those simply there from curiosity were gathering and he took Lottie’s arm. ‘Come with me around the back,’ he said. ‘Away from prying folk.’

  Mattie was in the kitchen smoking a clay pipe by the fire. At first she thought it was his older brother, Noah, he seemed so grown up. But of course he would be, she told herself. How many years since she had seen him that day in Claypath? He, however, knew her immediately. He rose to his feet and took a step towards her.

  ‘Lottie! You’ve come then. You heard about Betty?’

  ‘I did, Mattie. I had to come.’

  ‘I’m on my own now,’ he said after the policeman went out in search of his sergeant and they sat down together. ‘Poor Betty. She had a bad time of it, you know. Just a slip of a lass an’ all.’

  Mattie had been sitting there brooding for most of the night before and the morning. He was very agitated: lighting his pipe and putting it out again almost immediately, standing up and walking to the window then coming back and sitting down again. His eyes were red-rimmed and there were still flecks of coal dust in the lashes as though he had not washed properly after coming off shift. The fingers of one hand tapped out a silent tune on his knee, endlessly.