by Holly Webb
My dearest little girl,
I realize now that you will probably never read this letter.
Your father has told me that there is no point in writing to you at home any longer, as he has sent you to school. He refused to tell me the name of the place, but he told your grandmother – who is equally furious with me, but let out that you are at Miss Minchin’s without recognizing what she had done. Of course, you cannot read this yet yourself – I cannot bear to think that I will never see you learning to read, or help you write your first alphabet.
I doubt that anyone will be kind enough to read my letters to you – perhaps they have instructions from your papa not to let you have them at all. Still, even knowing that you may never hear my words, I have to write.
Oh, Lottie, I am sorry that this letter is so confused, my thoughts are in a complete tangle and they have been for weeks, ever since we were torn apart.
I am praying that your father will give in and let me see you, but he insists that I am a bad influence. He was even cruel enough to say that he will tell you I have died, but I cannot believe that he would do this.
If I had known what would happen – what would I have done? Could I have carried on pretending that all I wanted out of life was to be your father’s wife and your mother? I love you so dearly, Lottie, but I cannot sit by quietly and act a role. Perhaps when you are older, you will feel the same way. I hope that you do. Then you will understand why your cruel mamma has abandoned you.
Maybe it is better for you to believe that I am dead, after all. Maybe you will grow up thinking that I did not love you enough to stay. Please believe me, darling Lottie, when I say that I cannot imagine ever loving anyone more. I am not myself, crushed and stifled in your father’s house. I cannot love you, or myself, with the weight of all his expectations pressing down on me.
Oh, please understand.
I will write again, my little one.
With all my love,
Mamma
Lottie handed the letter to Sally, her hands shaking. “Read it.”
“Lottie, there are … maybe a hundred letters here?” Sally murmured, as she read rapidly down the page. “She must have written to you again and again. And Miss Minchin has never given them to you.”
“She’s not dead.”
Sally shook her head. “No.” She flicked through the letters to the back of the pile. “Look – this is the last one. Written a few weeks ago. It’s only short.” She handed it to Lottie.
My Lottie,
This letter is different to all the others. You will see from the horrid thin paper and watery ink that I am not at home or at the office in Lincoln’s Inn. Please do not be frightened, darling, when I tell you that I am in prison. I shall not be here for very much longer. I expect that you will not understand and will perhaps be ashamed to have a gaolbird for a mother, but I am very proud to be here.
“She was in prison – it was her, in the newspaper! Sally, I was right. I knew her!”
“What did she do?” Sally asked, her mouth hanging a little open.
Lottie held the letter out to her. “She was trying to present a petition to the prime minister. She was arrested in Downing Street.” She brushed her hand across her face, wiping away tears. “Do you think she was on hunger strike? What if they force fed her?”
Sally put the candle down on the desk, her hands shaking, and flung her arms around Lottie. “I don’t know. We can’t know.”
“I’m going to find her,” Lottie whispered into her shoulder. “I have to tell her that I could never be ashamed. Never.”
“Lottie! Lottie! Oh, thank goodness, there you are.” Miss Amelia seized Lottie by the shoulders and twirled her round, inspecting her dress and patting her curls into place. “Your father is here. Yes, you’ll do. It isn’t the nicest of your dresses, but never mind.”
“What?” Lottie blinked, almost sure that she’d misheard.
“You’re to go down to Miss Minchin’s sitting room.”
“My father’s here?”
“Yes, Lottie. Do hurry. He’s waiting for you with my sister, in the sitting room.”
“But … I didn’t know that he was coming.” Lottie stood, lost, in the middle of her room. She wasn’t actually sure she could walk downstairs. She felt as though the floorboards were shaking underneath her.
“Neither did my sister,” Miss Amelia said, raising her eyebrows. “She was quite surprised. Do hurry, Lottie, please. They’re waiting for you.”
She gave Lottie a gentle push and Lottie stumbled out of her room and crept down the stairs, gripping on to the banister tightly.
There were faces peering round the door of the schoolroom, faces that ducked away hurriedly when they saw her looking. The whole school was still full of gossip about what had happened, Lottie realized, but she didn’t really care all that much. Miss Amelia opened the door of the sitting room and shooed her in.
Miss Minchin and Lottie’s father were sitting in the stiff-backed mahogany armchairs, looking at her as she came through the door.
He looks like the photograph, Lottie thought at first. Pale and grey and stiff. And then, Am I supposed to kiss him? He felt like a stranger. I don’t love him at all, she realized, and her stomach seemed to drop inside her. Perhaps there is something awful wrong with me.
“Good god.” He looked her up and down, as if he had expected to see the little nine year old she had been on his last visit. “You’re taller.”
“I am twelve,” Lottie murmured, wondering if he expected her to apologize.
“Yes … I suppose you must be,” he agreed reluctantly. “You are growing up.”
“Do I look like my mother?” Lottie heard herself saying. She didn’t even know where the words had come from – they were just there, spilling out of her mouth.
Her father’s lips thinned, and he nodded. “Yes. You do.”
“How?” Lottie whispered, stepping a little closer to him. “She had hair like mine, didn’t she? And blue eyes?”
“Yes. You are very like her.”
“I keep dreaming about her, wearing a white dress, and … and carrying lilies. I can smell the lilies even when I’m awake sometimes.”
He was staring at her, as though she was mad.
“I suppose … it must be difficult for you, growing up without knowing her.” He forced out the words. “You are greatly to be pitied. But being so unfortunate as to lose your mother does not excuse your behaviour.”
He isn’t saying it, Lottie thought. He hasn’t actually said that she died. Perhaps he can’t say it to me. Perhaps he is ashamed to lie.
“There are many girls whose mothers have died, who do not take to this kind of” – he shook his head disgustedly – “to these antics.”
No. There it was – his hard grey eyes met hers with no sign of shame at all. I wonder if he told lies to my mother too, Lottie thought wearily. He must have had practice – it doesn’t seem to be difficult for him at all.
“Well. I have come to take you out to tea.”
Lottie simply gaped at him. It was the last thing she had expected. He had taken her out once before when she was very small, and she had upset a cup of tea into her lap and cried. Her father had hurried her into a cab and back to Miss Minchin’s, horrified and embarrassed. She wondered if he remembered. Perhaps he wished that she were little again, so that he need only worry about spilled tea and tears.
“We will be able to have a proper talk. Why don’t you go and get yourself ready?” He smiled at her, but his lips looked thin, and Lottie couldn’t see any affection in his face. She was sure that there was none in hers.
“Go and fetch your hat, Lottie,” Miss Minchin said frostily, and Lottie nodded, confused. The last thing she had been told was that she was not to be allowed out of the seminary, and now she was to go out for a treat? She backed towards the door, eyeing her father like some strange beast, and then turned to drag herself up the stairs.
She was standing in front of the
little mirror on her wall, trying to straighten her hat – she couldn’t face Miss Minchin telling her off in front of him – when there was a sudden knock on the door and Sally flung it open.
“What is it?” Lottie stammered, wondering if her father had changed his mind, and simply gone. She didn’t want to spend an hour or so staring at the tablecloth in some smart hotel, listening to him lie.
“Come to say goodbye,” Sally muttered, gazing down at the floor.
“What do you mean? He’s only taking me out to tea. I’ll be back this evening.”
Sally looked up, her eyes widening. “Is that what he told you, then?”
“Yes … what’s happening? What do you know that I don’t?”
Sally pushed the door shut behind her, and leaned against it. “Just overheard him telling Miss Minchin not to worry, she’d still get her year’s fees, even though he’s taking you away now.”
“Where?” Lottie whispered, panicked.
“I don’t know! Back to your house, I suppose.”
“He can’t…”
“’Course he can. He’s your father. It’s your home.”
“But why would he say that he’s taking me out to tea?” Lottie shook her head. “You must have heard it wrong.”
“He said it because he didn’t want to drag you out of here kicking and screaming, I reckon.” Sally shrugged. “Maybe Miss Minchin told him to. She wouldn’t want a scene, would she?”
“I don’t want to go with him.” Lottie’s voice shook. “I don’t even know him. He told me my mother was dead, all over again. He said it to my face, looking into my eyes, and I knew he was lying.” She took the hat off and laid it on her desk. “I won’t go.”
“You have to,” Sally said doubtfully. “Miss Minchin won’t keep you here without his say-so, will she?”
“I know that. I’m not staying here either. I’m going to find my mother. There must be some way I can – that last letter said she had written from the offices in Lincoln’s Inn – that’s the new WSPU office. Even if I read it wrong, if she’s a Suffragette and she’s been in prison, they’ll know of her at the office, won’t they? I’ll go there. Someone will tell me how to find her.”
Sally shook her head. “What if they don’t? Where will you go?”
Lottie bit her bottom lip. “To Sara. I’ll go there now and explain. I need my purse. And … and perhaps a coat.” She looked around the room wildly, trying to think what to take. A clean dress? Her washing things? She couldn’t sneak out of the hallway carrying a bag, someone would notice her.
“Your father’s in Miss Minchin’s sitting room with the door open,” Sally said. “You can’t just walk out of the door and along the road. Even if you get past him, someone’ll see where you’ve gone. They’ll just march round there and snatch you back again.”
Lottie clenched her fists and tried to think. She could imagine her father downstairs, pacing Miss Minchin’s sitting room. Soon he would send someone after her, she was sure. Perhaps they were already coming up the stairs…
“The window! Your window. I’ll go across the roof!”
“What?” Sally yelped.
“Ram Dass did it, when the monkey escaped, and then afterwards when he came to bring the furniture and the meals for Sara and Becky. He did it every night, Sara told me. It was her mystery, like a fairy tale. Someone was looking after her when she was so hungry and miserable, and she never knew who it was. All the time it was Ram Dass, climbing out of the attic window at Mr Carrisford’s and then in through the window in your bedroom.”
“Cook said something about that.” Sally peered up at the ceiling. “You reckon you can get across that roof?”
“Yes. It’s not far. I’ve seen it, Sara showed me once, years ago. We fed the sparrows hopping about on the tiles.”
“You’d better go then. I’ll pack up your things later for you, if you like. Bring them round next door. I can go in and out of the kitchens where you can’t.”
Lottie nodded, and then suddenly flung her arms around Sally. “I’m not saying goodbye,” she whispered croakily. “If I find her, I’ll write to you – or I’ll write to Ermie and get her to give you the letter. Whatever happens, I’ll write, I promise.”
Sally nodded, and Lottie saw her eyes brighten with tears. “Don’t you forget,” the older girl muttered huskily. “I’ll never forgive you. We better hurry.” She grabbed Lottie’s hand and pulled her out into the passageway, glancing along towards the stairs. “No one’s coming.”
They fled up the attic staircase, barging into Sally’s little room. It had been repainted since Sara had lived there – Miss Amelia had insisted. She hardly ever dared to argue with her sister, but after the way they had treated Sara had come out, she had broken down in hysterics. Lottie still remembered her, white and sobbing, drumming her hands on the arms of one of those mahogany chairs. The attic was neatly whitewashed now and the rickety old bed had been replaced. But there was still a wobbly-legged table that could be pulled underneath the skylight. Sally yanked it across the floorboards with a screech and steadied Lottie as she scrambled up.
“Can you open the window?” she asked. “I never have. It might be stuck.”
“No. It’s coming.” Lottie shoved the window up and out, and grabbed the edge, hauling herself up to sit on the window frame, her feet dangling inside.
“What about the house next door? Is there a window open that you can get in?” Sally clambered up on to the table and knelt on it to look.
“It’s open a bit. I think I’ll be able to pull it.” Lottie leaned down and put her arms around Sally’s neck. “I will see you soon.”
“Just be careful,” Sally muttered, peering at the slope of the roof. “It makes me feel sick.”
“Me too. But I won’t go with him. I can’t. This is the only way.” Lottie looked at the tiles and caught her breath. “I’m taking my boots off,” she murmured, picking at the laces.
“Here, I’ll do the other one. Tie them together and put them round your neck. And put your stockings inside them. Bare feet’ll grip better.”
“It isn’t that far,” Lottie said, as much to herself as Sally. “Only a few feet. And it isn’t really so very steep.” She drew her feet up, and gripped the side of the window, climbing out backwards and crouching on the tiles. Then she moved her hand slowly across. In a moment she would have to let go of the window frame. Her boots swung, and knocked against each other, and Lottie heard herself make a little noise, like a whimper.
“Come back in!” Sally hissed. “This is stupid, I’ll sneak you through the kitchens somehow.”
“No.” Lottie let go and lay flat against the tiles. She was filthy with dust and moss already, it didn’t matter. She began to wriggle across the roof towards the next-door skylight, while Sally watched. Lottie could hear her breathing, the air catching in her throat. Every time Sally gasped, Lottie felt her heart jump. She fixed her eyes on the tiles in front of her nose, so she couldn’t look down at the roof sloping away behind her.
“You’re nearly there,” Sally called quietly. “You could touch the window, if you reach out.”
Keeping her eyes on the rough purple-grey pattern of the tile in front of her, Lottie stretched out her hand, patting it about to find the window frame. Her fingers slipped on smooth painted wood, and she grabbed at it thankfully, and dared to look sideways. Gripping tightly on to the side of the window, she looked down into the room. A servant’s bedroom, just as it was on her side, but this one was neatly furnished, with a comfortable bed, and rugs on the painted boards. There was no table under the window; she would have to drop through.
“Are you safe?” Sally called. “Can you get in?”
“Yes!” Lottie yanked at the window, pushing it further open so she could wriggle in. “Thank you! Goodbye!” She squeezed inside, and there was a thump, and Sally was left staring out across the empty roof, alone.
Chapter Eight
Lottie sat down on the edge of the bed to
put her stockings and boots back on. She felt guilty, trespassing in someone else’s room, even though she told herself she hadn’t a choice. She tiptoed across to the door and twisted the handle slowly so she could peer out. There was a little landing outside, just as there was at Miss Minchin’s, and a narrow staircase, with a worn carpet. Lottie crept down, wondering every moment if one of the servants would appear and discover her.
She pressed herself against the wall, hearing scampering footsteps along the passage below, hoping that whoever it was wouldn’t come upstairs. But the little steps came closer and closer, and she tried desperately to think of a way to explain. And then a little ugly furry face popped around the newel post. Lottie laughed.
“You frightened me!” she whispered to the monkey. “I thought you were one of the servants, come to get me into trouble. Where’s Sara, Monkey?”
The monkey chattered at her indignantly, obviously surprised to find her there, and Lottie padded quietly down the stairs, whispering gently to him as she had seen Sara do. Eventually he seemed to accept that she was a friend and allowed her to stroke his long brown paw.
“Where’s Sara?” Lottie asked him again. “Oh, please, Monkey, I know you’re clever. You can show me where she is.”
The monkey gazed back at her with sad dark eyes, and then turned, loping along the passageway. Lottie stared after him, wondering if he had understood, and he stopped and looked back and gave a little scream, sounding definitely cross.
“Oh! Yes, I’m coming.” Lottie hurried after him. They were making for the little sitting room that led off Sara’s bedroom, she realized at last, but coming to it from upstairs she hadn’t worked out where she was. The monkey swung on the door handle, chattering loudly, and Lottie heard a laugh from inside.
She hurried forward as Sara opened the door.
“Lottie! Whatever are you doing here? What’s the matter – what happened to your dress?” She caught Lottie’s hand and drew her inside to sit down.