by Maggie Hope
‘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 the 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.’
‘You’re talking soft an’ all,’ said Harry, which was just about the worst thing he could have said if he wanted to influence Lottie. She bridled, and set off over Elvet Bridge, at a faster pace than the scullers below. Harry followed, as frustrated as ever.
Later, when all the work was done, Eliza and her baby settled for the night and Peter working on union papers in the sitting room – something about a sliding scale arrangement, whatever that was – Lottie sat by the open window of her attic bedroom, looking out over the city.
Here she was, a
lmost seventeen and she still had not made any progress towards her goal in life. Oh, she had written a few short stories and had even sent them off to publishers but they had been returned with notes such as, ‘Too fanciful, unbelievable,’ or, ‘Not true to life.’
But she had a copy of the Durham Post before her on the rickety little table she had placed by the window and she had read it through and through. Josiah Bateman had sent it to her and on an inside page he had marked a notice advertising a competition they were having for a short story. The prize was ten pounds and a free place on a writing course to be held in the Town Hall, and the tutor was an English graduate of the university.
‘You can do it, Miss Lonsdale,’ the note that had come with the paper read. ‘You have the ability. Just write about something you know and keep it simple and true to life.’
Oh, she would do it, she would. She had bought decent foolscap paper from Andrews’ shop in Saddler Street and when she had the story written in her exercise book she would copy it out carefully using the foolscap and send it in to the Durham Post. Only it had to be in by Tuesday and she had not even begun it, and it was already Sunday night.
The moon shone through the attic window and illuminated the empty page of her exercise book. She didn’t even know what she was going to write about. Surely her life, the people she knew about, were far too ordinary for a paper that was read by educated folk, university folk, the ‘others’ who lived in the city but separately, apart from the miners and other workers?
‘Keep it simple,’ Josiah Bateman had written. ‘And about what you know.’ Well, she would, but what could she write about? The workhouse? That would be altogether too much like a copy of Charles Dickens and a presumption. She could write about her life with Alf Green, she thought. But no, she couldn’t, she could not.
The moon was sliding behind a cloud; now she had to light the precious bit of candle she had saved. She would do it. She came to a decision suddenly. She dipped her pen in the inkwell and began to write. She wrote until the candle flickered and died and she could barely see the page she was writing on, let alone what she was writing. But she had finished her story.
The following night, Lottie copied her story on the good foolscap paper and printed at the top, ‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’, by L. Lonsdale. She wrapped it in brown paper salvaged from the parcel of groceries delivered by the Co-operative store van, and wrote the address of the Durham Post on the outside.
‘Is it all right if I go for the messages first thing this morning?’ she asked Eliza. Eliza was at last allowed out of bed and was sitting by the fire in the front room, rocking the cradle gently with one foot. She was feeling much better herself, but of course was not allowed out among other people, for she had not as yet been ‘churched’, something that was ritually necessary after a birth before a new mother could mix. The plan was to have the baby baptized the following Sunday in Elvet Chapel and the mother ‘churched’ at the same time.
‘Go on then,’ Eliza replied. ‘Will you fetch me a bottle of gripe water for Anne Elizabeth? I fear I should not have eaten cabbage yesterday, the bairn’s suffering for it. It must have affected my milk.’
‘I will.’
Lottie took her basket and list of messages and sped up the stairs to put her story in the bottom of the basket, for she had not told anyone what she was doing. She let herself out and sped along to North Road and the offices of the Durham Post and slipped her story through the letterbox. There, she thought, feeling slightly light-headed. She had been in time.
Chapter Twelve
‘There’s a letter for you, Lottie,’ said Peter one morning a few weeks later. He smiled at her as he brought in the post from the front doormat. ‘It looks very official, a brown envelope. I thought it must be union business, I nearly opened it.’
Lottie suddenly felt a great fluttering in the region of her stomach. She took the envelope and stared at it. It was addressed to an L. Lonsdale, Esquire.
‘Whoever it’s from thinks you are a man, Lottie.’ Peter studied her small, trim figure and the heart-shaped face framed by soft, brown hair. The spectacles perched on the end of her nose seemed to suit her somehow, he thought. In any case, they made her dark eyes appear even larger than they actually were. It was the first time he had really noticed what she looked like since he had met her, and there was no doubt in his mind that she was growing into a very nice-looking woman.
‘Aren’t you going to open it, Lottie?’ asked Eliza.
Lottie looked up from her scrutiny of the letter, her face rosy. ‘No, I’ll read it later,’ she said. ‘After breakfast.’ She pushed the letter into her apron pocket, which only served to make the Colliers glance at each other with raised eyebrows. Lottie was not usually the secretive type, thought Eliza.
Lottie had been secretive about the competition, though. If the editor of the Durham Post had written to say she was no good and would she not bother him again, something she thought a real possibility, she could not bear anyone else knowing of her humiliation. Maybe she should stick to skivvying, she thought. She stared at her plate of porridge. It was good porridge, with real milk from the dairy and even a sprinkling of sugar, and normally she enjoyed it. The food in this house was the best she had ever eaten. But all she could think of was the letter in her pocket.
Peter finished his own breakfast and rose to go to the Miners’ Hall in North Road. His mind was already running on the work waiting for him there. He kissed Eliza and the baby and nodded to Lottie. The letter was none of his business anyway.
Eliza had not forgotten it, though. ‘Go on, go up and read your letter in private,’ she said. ‘I’ll side the table. I’ll manage fine on my own for a while.’ Indeed, Eliza was looking well and full of energy. Little Anne was a good baby and little trouble. Already she slept through the night, and without her nursing to occupy her mind and body and with Tot away at school, Eliza had begun to work alongside Lottie.
Back in the attic bedroom, Lottie sat down at her little table by the window and opened her letter. There was but one sheet of paper, headed with a stamped the Durham Post, and her heart began to beat wildly as she drew it out.
Dear Mr Lonsdale, (it read)
First of all, I am sorry to have to tell you that your story did not win the competition.
Lottie’s heart plummeted; for a moment she could not see to read the rest of the letter. Her hand fell to her lap. She was not good enough; she would never be able to make her living writing as she had hoped and dreamed.
Gradually her sight cleared. She was used to disappointments, for hadn’t she had them all her life? Her hand trembled only slightly as she lifted the letter and began to read the rest.
However, there is no doubt that you have a singular talent, and with nurturing and hard work you should do well. In fact, we intend to print a selection of the entrants to our competition and, with your permission, will include ‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’.
I gather that you must be a very young man and we are looking for someone of your calibre to train in our business.
If you are interested at all in this position, perhaps you would call in at the office this Friday coming at ten o’clock in the morning.
Your obedient servant,
Jeremiah Scott (Editor)
Lottie stared at the letter, reading it over and over. A position on the newspaper? Where she could write for a living? Oh yes, she was interested, she was indeed. Only wait, the editor thought she was a man. He would not want a woman, especially not a seventeen-year-old, uneducated woman. It was no good her hoping he would.
She stared out of the window at the rooftops of Durham spread below her on the falling ground. It was a fine day: the sky was blue and wisps of smoke curled up from some of the chimneys, making a light haze. In the distance she could see the castle and cathedral even higher and seeming almost like fairy-tale buildings through the haze.
By, she thought wistfully, her life would be like a fairy tale if she were actually taken on by th
e editor of the Durham Post, oh yes it would. But she was not going to bank on it; she couldn’t bear the disappointment if she did.
‘Lottie? Are you coming down?’
It was Eliza calling her. Lottie collected her thoughts. She could not sit up here all day, for there was work to do, the messages to fetch. She pushed the letter deep in her apron pocket and went down to the kitchen to wash the breakfast dishes.
Eliza was breast-feeding the baby, with her shawl drawn modestly over her opened bodice. It was just possible to see the top of little Anne’s head and nothing else, but she was sucking noisily and occasionally giving a tiny grunt.
‘I reckon I must have got my dates wrong,’ said Eliza, laughing. ‘She’s far too strong to be much premature.’
‘Aye,’ Lottie replied vaguely; she was still dreaming even as she plunged her hands up to the elbows into the soapy water and began to scrub at the porridge bowls.
‘Mind,’ said Eliza mildly, ‘you look away with the fairies. That must have been an interesting letter you had.’ She looked across at Lottie enquiringly, but Lottie said nothing. Eliza lifted Anne from her breast and held her over one arm while she rubbed her back. Anne burped and a small trickle of milk ran down from the side of her mouth, which Eliza wiped away with a cloth, before transferring her to the other breast. ‘Well?’
Lottie looked over her shoulder, her hands still in the ironstone sink. ‘The letter?’ she asked. ‘Aye it was.’
‘Aw, howay, Lottie, surely you can tell me, I’m your friend.’
Lottie took her hands from the sink and dried them on the bottom of her apron. Then she took the letter from the apron pocket.
‘You can read it if you like, Eliza.’ She handed it over.
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to pry.’ But Eliza was obviously dying to read it. Even as she spoke, she was opening out the sheet of paper.