by Maggie Hope
‘Just being nosy, were you?’
Eliza’s face turned scarlet and she turned on her heel and went back to her gig.
In fact, there was a funeral club with the union and it covered the bulk of the expenses, as both Lottie and Sister Mitchell well knew.
‘I meant as a friend. I was not asking for payment,’ she repeated, looking back at him from her seat behind the horse, but he had already closed the door on her. He would not have her in the house for reasons she could not fathom.
But at last the funeral was over and the relatives and other guests departed.
‘I would help you with the lads, Alf,’ said his sister, before going back to Hartlepool. ‘But you know I have my own family to see to.’
‘Aye,’ said Alfred in a hard voice and opened the front door for her. She hesitated.
‘I just thought,’ she said, ‘you know that Whitby jet brooch that Laura wore on her blouses? Well, I bought it for her for when you got wed, if you remember. I do like it and it would be a nice keepsake. And …’
‘I’m not giving it you back,’ said Alfred, opening the door wider. ‘You’d best go or you’ll miss your train.’
‘I just wanted it for a keepsake,’ his sister sniffed. She had flushed a bright red and her eyes flashed, but she compressed her lips and marched out into the street.
Life in the house returned to something like normal. Lottie didn’t have Mrs Green to see to of course, but she still seemed to be working from early morning until late at night. She fell into bed exhausted at the end of every day. Even when she had an afternoon free, she had to prepare the meal before she left and see to the boys when she got back in the evening. Mostly she went for a walk along by the Wear or if it was a nice day she sat on the riverbank enjoying the sun, but only for half an hour. She simply had not enough time to walk all the way back to the workhouse to see Betty.
Besides, she was so tired, the workhouse seemed miles away. So she sent her a postcard and hoped someone would read it to the little girl.
Once or twice she met Sister Mitchell on her rounds while she was out shopping at the Co-op store, and once, a red-letter day this, Sister asked her back for tea. There she met Sister Mitchell’s son, Tot, who was around her own age though still a schoolboy. And she met Sister Mitchell’s friend, Bertha, and learned that she had been a workhouse lass like herself, only in Alnwick, which was somewhere in Northumberland.
Three weeks after Mrs Green’s funeral, Lottie at last managed to go to the Big House to see Betty. She stood on the step before the imposing front door and pulled on the bell rope and from inside came the familiar jangling of the bell. It was part of her childhood, that bell, ringing out as it did so often just as the daylight faded. It was usually answered by an inmate and the person who had pulled the rope had to wait outside on the step while the inmate went to Matron’s office and told her there was a pauper outside wanting admittance, or a vagrant, or a woman with a little child. Sometimes it was a little baby, wrapped in rags or sacking or even in a lacy wool shawl and fine lawn. By the time the door was opened, the person who had brought the infant was away, hurrying up Crossgate or diving around a corner.
‘We’re full!’ announced the old woman who answered the door to Lottie, startling her out of her reverie.
‘You’ll have to come back …’ The woman stopped and peered at the visitor. ‘Eeh! It’s Lottie, isn’t it? Mind, you’ve not been gone long before you’ve come back, have you?’
‘I’ve just come to see Betty Bates,’ Lottie replied, lifting her chin.
‘You’d best come in then,’ the woman inmate said. ‘She’s in the kitchen. You know where that is, you don’t need me to show you.’
Turning on her heel, she walked away and Lottie made her way to the back of the building to the kitchen, which was dismally dark due to the tree branch right outside the window.
‘Lottie!’ cried Betty and dropped the cup she was washing into the sink. ‘Oh, Lottie, I’m so pleased to see you.’
‘And me you, pet,’ the older girl replied. ‘I’ll give you a hand with the washing-up, then we can go into the garden for a while.’ She had come just an hour after dinner time, for she knew Matron and the Master would be having their forty winks upstairs in their private rooms and so they would probably not be disturbed.
They sat on a bench under the kitchen window with their arms around each other and chatted. Or rather, Lottie told Betty about the house where she was now and the poor woman, Mrs Green.
‘She’s dead now, poor soul,’ she said. ‘But she was a nice woman. And there are three lads an’ all. And Mr Green.’
‘Is he nice?’ asked Betty.
‘He’s all right,’ said Lottie. Betty couldn’t remember anything about the world outside the workhouse and she used to make up stories about it as though it were a sort of fairyland. Lottie hadn’t the heart to disillusion her.
‘When are you coming back?’ she asked when Lottie said she had to go.
‘I’ll try to next month.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ Lottie assured her. ‘Don’t cry, pet. I will, I will.’
‘I reckon you’re not due to three shillings a week and your board, lass. Not now you haven’t got the missus to see to. Two bob is ample. After all, you’ve not much to do with only the three lads, an’ them at school most days. I’m not paying you to sit on your arse all day,’ said Alfred one Saturday afternoon after dinner. He pushed two bob over the table to her.
Lottie put the pile of plates she was holding back on the table. She stared at him, thoroughly shaken. Today she had planned to take her money and go into Durham to the second-hand market and get herself a pair of serviceable boots to replace the ones she was wearing and which were worn through and past taking to the cobblers to be resoled. It was her afternoon off and Mr Green’s too, so she was free of the lads for a couple of hours.
‘I need the money, Mr Green,’ she said desperately.
‘Get away, what do you want money for? You get all your meals and no doubt more behind my back.’
‘I need boots, Mr Green.’
‘There’s a pair of the wife’s in the bedroom, use them,’ he replied.
‘I cannot, they’re not my size,’ said Lottie. She couldn’t bear to think of wearing the dead woman’s shoes. At least with any from the second-hand market she didn’t know who had worn them first.
‘You’re getting particular, aren’t you? Well, I’m telling you, I’m not giving you three bob and that’s the end of it.’ Mr Green rose to his feet and stomped out of the room. ‘Noah!’ she heard him calling. ‘Noah, get yourself here, I want you to put a bet on for me.’
‘I’ll take it, Mr Green,’ said Lottie. ‘I could do with a breath of fresh air.’
Alf looked at her. ‘Aye, go on then,’ he said, as though he were being magnanimous. He had expected more of an argument from her with regard to her wages so he didn’t mind letting her out for a few minutes. He handed her a note and sixpence. ‘You know where the bookie’s runner stands?’
‘Aye, I do.’
Lottie put on her shawl and went out of the house, clutching the note and the sixpence in her hand. She walked up the street and around the corner and across the road, fighting a battle with her conscience. But she knew what she was going to do. She went past the man standing on the next corner and turned down a back street. The night-soil cart was standing there and the man was shovelling muck from the midden on to the cart before taking it out into the country to sell to the farmers. Lottie tore the note into strips and dropped them into the cart, then ran down the alley with the sixpence clutched in her hand. Before going into the house, she slipped the coin into her shoe.
‘You took long enough,’ said Alf when she went into the kitchen. ‘Now put my bait up and fill my flask with cold tea. Put some sugar in an’ all.’
‘It’s my afternoon off,’ she reminded him.
‘Aye well, you can go after the lads get off to sch
ool. And mind, be back in time for their teas,’ he warned. ‘I reckon if it wasn’t for me giving you a roof over your head you would be tramping the roads. That or doing hard labour in the workhouse.’
Later, Lottie walked up to the marketplace. Still struggling with her conscience, she almost went back and put the bet on, for the race wasn’t run until half past three. But she was lost when she saw a pair of boots, which looked almost new. They were shiny black boots with thick, sturdy soles and would last her the whole winter, keeping her feet snug and warm.
‘How much is that pair of boots?’ she asked the stallholder, a man of middle age.
‘Two and sixpence,’ he replied. ‘Look at them, they’re like new, could have come out of the shop yesterday, like.’
‘Two and sixpence! It’s too much,’ Lottie exclaimed.
He looked at her consideringly. ‘Go on, you can try them on if you want,’ he coaxed. Customers were slow in coming that day and a sale was a sale after all.
Lottie tried them on. She laced them up and took a few steps. Oh, they were lovely, so warm and comfortable. ‘I’ll give you one shilling and eightpence,’ she said. After all, it was a long time until next payday.
‘Two shillings, and it’s a deal,’ he replied. ‘Not a penny less.’
That left her with only sixpence, and that ill-begotten, thought Lottie. It was as if she could still give Mr Green the money back. But now she had the shoes on she was loth to take them off. The horse would not win, she told herself. No one would be any the wiser, especially Mr Green. And he owed her the money and more besides.
‘I’ll take them,’ she said and handed over the money. As she walked away, the steel studs in the heels and toes of the boots ringing on the cobbles, she felt excited and happy and guilty all at the same time. When she saw a policeman on the opposite side of the street, she blushed and hurried on. When he began to follow her she almost panicked, but how could he have found out she had taken the sixpence? What was the punishment for stealing money? Would she go to gaol or would she be hanged? They didn’t transport people to Australia any more, she knew that.
The bobby walked past her and disappeared down a side street, his cape swinging. Lottie felt weak with relief. On her way home there was a sweet shop and she went in and bought tuppence worth of gobstoppers to give to the lads. Now she could not give him his money back.
‘I’ve been waiting for you, you bloody little thief,’ said Alf Green as she came in the house. He was sitting in the front room with the door open so he could catch her the minute he heard the door close behind her.
‘What?’
Lottie’s heart fell to her new boots and she began to shake. How did he know? She began to back off down the passage but he was too quick for her. He bounded forward and grabbed her arm and dragged her into the front room. Still holding her arm in a grip like iron, he closed the door after him. Lottie backed away but there was nowhere to go.
‘H-how did you know?’ Stammering, she managed to get the words out.
‘The horse won. You didn’t think it would win, did you? Well, it did, at twenty to one an’ all. What sort of a fool do you think I am? I’ve a good mind to get the polis and turn you in. It would serve you damn well right an’ all.’
‘Please don’t,’ begged Lottie. ‘Please don’t, I beg you!’
He gazed at the small, immature figure before him: the face that was all eyes that were always peering myopically. Small as she was, it would cost him more money to get someone in her place. And she was a worker, he’d give her that.
‘I’ve got fourpence left, look, you can have it back,’ she cried and put four pennies on the table that stood in the middle of the room since his wife’s bed had been taken away to the salerooms.
‘I should have had ten bob,’ he snarled. ‘You owe me ten bob. An’ you’ll pay me it back an’ all, I’m telling you.’ He began to take off his belt, a broad, leather belt such as all the pitmen wore in the belief that it strengthened their backs. ‘All right, out of the goodness of my heart, I won’t turn you in to the polis, but I’ll give you the hiding of your life. I’ll show you you cannot rob Alf Green and get away with it.’ He wrapped one end of the belt around his fist and advanced on her.
‘Bend over that table,’ he ordered.
Chapter Five
Lottie climbed slowly and painfully up the stairs to the bedrooms. She was carrying the slop bucket, into which she would empty the chamber pots of the whole family before making the beds and collecting the boys’ dirty clothes to put them into soak in the tin bath so as to loosen the dirt before washing day, which was tomorrow.
Mr Green and the three boys were at morning service in the Primitive Methodist Chapel up the road. Even if she hadn’t had to clean and make the Sunday dinner, Lottie couldn’t have gone to service. She had a black eye from where Mr Green had slapped her face as an afterthought to the beating. Lottie didn’t understand why. He did not usually mark her face, though her body was covered in bruises.
Last night had been different. Mr Green had lifted her skirts before he belted her on her bare bottom. It was the first time he had done that, but then she had not stolen from him before. Lottie sighed and felt the sore spot on her thigh where the belt buckle had drawn blood. She looked down at her boots; somehow they did not seem quite so desirable as they had the day before. Oh, she had been wrong.
Alf Green sat in the third pew from the front and gazed at the lay preacher in the pulpit. Noah, Freddie and Mattie sat beside him, all scrubbed shiny clean and wearing their best clothes. They sat with their hands clasped behind their backs as their father had ordered them to sit.
‘You will not show me up fidgeting,’ he said and glanced at Mattie. ‘Nor talking neither,’ he went on. He always said this just before coming to chapel.
He was a canting hypocrite, just like those Pharisees in the Bible, Lottie thought to herself as she moved painfully around, clearing up after the boys before starting on the dinner. The meat was roasting in the oven and filling the house with the smell of beef when she got back downstairs. She mixed the Yorkshire pudding batter and scraped and peeled vegetables, and all the time she was battling against the longing to lie down and rest her aching body. But at last she had the vegetables boiling on the hob, the beef out of the oven and an enormous Yorkshire pudding in its place. She sat down on the rocking chair and fell asleep.
It was the front door closing that woke Lottie. She jumped to her feet and groaned as pain shot through her legs and back. She leaned on the chair for support and closed her eyes.
‘What the heck is going on here?’ asked Alf as he came into the kitchen.
‘The pudding’s burning! By, it stinks!’ shouted Noah. Smoke poured out of the crack where the oven door didn’t quite fit against the black-leaded surround.
In the end, the family sat down to a Sunday dinner with no pudding, something the boys complained of loudly.
‘Shut up, the lot of you,’ said Alf quietly. He cut into his beef and stuffed a bit into his mouth. ‘Get your dinner and away out to play. Lottie, sit down and eat your dinner.’
Lottie gazed at him, startled. It was the first time he had even noticed whether she ate or not. She couldn’t understand why he had taken the disaster so calmly. Still, it was a relief. She wasn’t hungry but she forced the food down her. She had to eat if she was to carry on. She was determined not to let him see just how much he had hurt her. She had seen what happened to the orphans in the workhouse when they allowed a thrashing to cow them utterly. Usually they ended up at the very bottom of the heap, getting blamed for everything that went wrong. Not just by the Master and Matron, either, but by some of the inmates besides.
Alf watched her covertly. She was a scrap of a lass and not a real woman yet, but when he had thrashed her last night he had gone too far, he knew that. He wasn’t a bad man, he told himself. He had a right to chastise his servant, hadn’t he? Wasn’t it better than putting her out of the house? He was well aware that she
was frightened of being sent back to the workhouse. She would be classed as an adult now and put to hard labour. Or worse, he could have had the law on her and then she would have ended up in a house of correction, or even Durham Gaol. He began to feel quite virtuous. He had acted as any master should.
‘You can keep the boots,’ he said.
Lottie looked up, startled. She was wearing the boots; she had thrown away her old ones. ‘I can?’ she asked. She tried to thank him but the apology stuck in her throat.
‘I’ll take the money out of your wages,’ he said.
‘It was only sixpence,’ she mumbled.
‘What was that?’ He didn’t wait for her to repeat it, which was just as well for she had begun to tremble and her throat had closed up so that she was incapable of saying anything more. The boys were very quiet; they stared at their father. ‘You owe me ten shillings,’ he snarled. ‘Never mind the sixpence stake.’
‘Ten shillings! I’ll never pay that off. I’ll have no wages at all,’ said Lottie. She sat in misery.
‘You’ll be just like a Negro slave,’ Mattie said. ‘Only you’ll not be in chains.’ He had been learning about the iniquities of slavery in Sunday School and how the Americans had fought a war over it.
‘Shut your mouth!’ said his father. ‘If you’ve finished, get away out and play and leave me in peace.’
The lads filed out, Noah pushing Mattie ahead of him. Alf rose from the table and went and sat in his chair by the fireside. He took the fire tongs and lifted a glowing coal from the fire and lit his pipe with it. He settled back in his chair and crossed his feet on the steel fender, ready for a nice quiet hour while he let his dinner digest.
Lottie moved about the kitchen, clearing the table and fetching the tin dish to wash the plates and pans and the tray, which was used to drain the dishes. A slave, that was exactly what she was, she thought dismally.
Alf watched her. She was showing signs of growing into a woman, he realized. There was a slight roundness about her behind and her waist was becoming defined. By, he had been without the comforts only a woman could give for too long. Laura had been no good to him that way since she first took badly. A man had his needs, oh aye, he did.