by Maggie Hope
‘Lottie!’ she cried. ‘By, isn’t that grand? You’ve got a story in the Post! How much do you think they’ll pay you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lottie. In truth she hadn’t even thought of the money she might earn.
‘And a job! You know, Lottie, you’re a really clever lass, you deserve something better than scrubbing and polishing for a living.’
‘What about you?’
‘Nay, we’ll be fine. I’m not going back to work, not while Anne is little. I can stay at home. I wouldn’t dream of holding you back, anyway. Don’t worry about us. I can always get another girl if I do go back to nursing.’
Also it would mean that Lottie would not be in the house all the time when Tot came home, thought Eliza, but fleetingly. Peter had made her feel slightly guilty for worrying about Tot and Lottie.
‘But it’ll likely come to nothing,’ said Lottie as she picked up the porridge pan and began to scrub at the bits of porridge stuck on the sides like glue. ‘The editor thinks I’m a man. He likely wouldn’t want me.’
‘Well, you’ll never know until you try, will you?’ said Eliza as she fastened herself up and put the baby against her shoulder to raise any wind.
The offices of the Durham Post were situated about a fifteen-minute walk from Peter and Eliza’s house, but Lottie set off a good half-hour before ten o’clock, which was when she was supposed to be there. She had hardly slept all night, for her thoughts were a mixture of excitement and dread. One minute she was full of confidence, and the next she was sure the editor would turn her down when he realized she was a woman, and a servant at that.
It was a quarter to ten when she arrived outside the door. She stared at the wooden plaque bearing the name of the newspaper and, in smaller letters beneath,
Jeremiah Scott (prop. and editor).
Mr Scott owned the paper then. He was probably like one of those old gentlemen she saw sometimes, walking in the city wearing a top hat and with a gold watch chain across their waistcoats.
Lottie turned and walked up the street, glancing at the front of the DMA building. There was a notice about Mr Macdonald MP, something about a public meeting. She paused to read it and as she was doing so, the door opened and Peter Collier came out.
‘Now then, Lottie,’ he said. ‘I saw you through the window. Away to see Mr Scott, are you?’
‘I am, yes,’ said Lottie.
‘Go on then, it’s no good being nervous. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Scott is a nice fellow, you’ll see.’
‘He doesn’t know I’m a lass, though,’ said Lottie.
‘Ah. Well, he soon will. That is if you ever go in to see him. Go on, he won’t bite. Any road, he likes your story, doesn’t he? Would you like me to walk along with you? I can.’
‘No, I’ll be all right.’ Lottie smiled at him and turned to walk back along the street.
‘Good luck!’ he called. With him watching her, she walked back to the door of the newspaper office and went in.
There was a man standing behind a counter looking over his spectacles at her. He was aged about fifty and had bushy side whiskers, contrasting with thin hair on top of his head, and he was holding a sheet of foolscap in his hand.
‘Yes, young lady?’
His observing eyes swept over her, taking in her best cotton shirtwaister and black serge skirt. The skirt had previously belonged to Eliza before she had put on weight and had been much too long for Lottie, so she had altered it. She wore a little bonnet of black straw with a silk carnation on one side, tied under her chin with satin ribbons. She and Eliza had spent most of Thursday evening renovating the bonnet and Lottie had felt quite pleased with the result, but now she was not so sure as she saw the gentleman’s expression as he gazed at it. Still, she lifted her chin and gazed back at him.
‘I have come to see Mr Scott, Mr Jeremiah Scott,’ she said and her voice faded into a small squeak on the second ‘Scott’.
‘Who?’
The question was something of an impatient bark. Lottie repeated it, a little too loudly this time.
‘Mr Scott is busy. He has an appointment at ten.’
So it was not him, she thought. ‘I have an appointment with him at ten,’ she said.
The gentleman stared at her. ‘Your name?’ he asked.
‘Miss Lonsdale. Miss Lot … Miss Charlotte Lonsdale,’ she replied and came closer to the counter. She saw that the paper in his hand was her story, ‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’.
The gentleman still stared at her. Then he went to a door set in the wall to one side of the counter and opened it.
‘Jackson!’ he called and a moment later a young boy came hurrying through.
‘Yes, Mr Scott?’ he asked.
‘Take the young lady up to see Mr Jeremiah.’
The boy opened a door in the counter and let Lottie through, with a murmured, ‘This way, miss.’
Lottie was thoroughly confused by this time. According to the boy, this was Mr Scott. Her brain didn’t seem to be working properly; it was a minute or two before she realized there must be two Mr Scotts. This one stood looking after her over the top of his spectacles as she went through. She glimpsed a very amused expression on his face as he went to the opposite wall and pulled a strange tube from a hole and spoke into it, then laughed. And she felt a spark of annoyance. He had better not be laughing at her.
She followed the boy up two flights of stairs to the top of the building. On the way they passed the open door of a large room with big printing presses clanking away in it and a couple of men with eye shades tending them. As they ascended the last flight, the sound of the presses faded away and the noise became not much more than a background murmur. When Jackson knocked and opened a door for her to enter, it was almost gone.
The room was large and airy and the windows looked out over the city to the hills and fells beyond. In the middle of the room was a large oak desk and behind it sat a man dressed in a tweed suit and floppy bow tie. He rose as she entered but did not smile.
‘Miss Lonsdale,’ he said. ‘Come in and sit down.’ He stood as she crossed the room, her boots sinking into a brown, figured carpet, and sat down at a chair pulled up on the opposite side of the desk.
‘You are a girl, Miss Lonsdale,’ he stated accusingly. ‘I thought you were a lad.’
‘I did not say I was a man, Mr Scott,’ said Lottie. By now she had lost some of her shyness. Any road, she told herself, he was just going to tell her to go back to her kitchen. A heavy disappointment began to settle somewhere over her stomach.
‘That is true,’ he admitted as he sat down. He picked up a printed paper and glanced down at it. Lottie watched the top of his head. His hair was a bright tawny colour and he wore it short and combed back, but without any dressing so that the front lock fell forward and he brushed it back with his hand impatiently. His hand had ink stains along the first two fingers but the nails were square and cut short and straight across. She wondered how old he was. Not so old as Peter Collier but older than Tot or Harry. Late twenties, maybe. He looked up suddenly and she blushed to be caught studying him.
‘Miss Lonsdale, as I said in my letter, I do think that you have a special talent. I confess I was surprised when my father said you were a girl.’ He stopped and smiled at her, and his smile was friendly enough for the feeling over her stomach to begin to evaporate like mist in the sun.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he commanded.
‘Well, I was brought up in the workhouse …’ she began, determined to tell him all. She watched his expression but it did not change. His dark blue eyes showed only interest.
‘Go on,’ he said.
By, he was a nice man, a lovely man, she thought, and gave him the story of her short life, holding back only the bit about Alf Green.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Well?’
Eliza was dusting the fretwork decoration on the sideboard in the front room when Lottie came home. She was using a cockerel’s tail feather to get righ
t into the holes between the carved mahogany. In the corner, baby Anne was asleep in her wooden cradle. Eliza gazed at Lottie, framed in the room doorway. Lottie’s face was pink and her eyes behind the glass of her spectacles shone.
‘I am an apprentice at the Durham Post,’ she said.
‘An apprentice journalist? Oh, LOTTIE!’ Eliza went to her and hugged her. ‘By, I’m over the moon, I am. I knew you could do it.’
‘Well,’ Lottie admitted. ‘Not really an apprentice journalist. Just a dogsbody at first. Mr Jeremiah said I had to learn how the business worked. I’m on a month’s trial and then, if I’m good enough, I will sign the indenture papers.’
Eliza checked on the baby. ‘Let’s go and make a cup of tea. You can tell me all about it then. We don’t want to wake Anne.’
Lottie fairly danced after her along the passage to the kitchen. She took off her bonnet and laid it carefully on the press, then pushed the kettle on to the fire from the bar. It began to sing at once. She went about making the tea in a dream as Eliza brought out fresh milk and put the sugar basin on the table. Normally they would just have used condensed milk, which was already sweetened, for an extra cup of tea such as this, but today was a celebration.
‘Now then, tell me,’ Eliza commanded, when they were settled in chairs on opposite sides of the fireplace. ‘Exactly what happened, mind, what was said and everything.’ So Lottie started from the beginning and the dusting and sweeping and nappies soaking in a bucket waiting to be washed were forgotten as she recounted the events of the morning.
‘I thought the editor’s name was Scott,’ said Eliza. ‘Why did you call him Mr Jeremiah?’
‘It is father and son,’ Lottie replied. ‘Mr Jeremiah is the editor; I think the older Mr Scott must be retired or something … oh, I don’t know. They were both surprised when they saw me, but do you know, Mr Jeremiah doesn’t care that I’m a woman, he’s very modern. Oh he’s a lovely man, Eliza, a right bonnie lad.’
Eliza was amused. ‘He is, is he? Well mind you don’t go losing your heart to him.’
Lottie was shocked. ‘Nay, man!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s not like that. I mean he’s not a gentleman to look down on a workhouse lass. He wasn’t bothered at all when I told him about that. He did ask about my schooling and I had to tell him Mr Bateman taught me at the adult classes at the chapel in West Stanley. And he knew Mr Bateman, wasn’t that funny?’
‘Mmm,’ said Eliza.
‘I have to start next week, Monday morning sharp at eight o’clock.’ Lottie glanced across at Eliza, biting her lip. ‘I mean, I won’t go if you want me here, Eliza. I won’t just let you down. I told Mr Scott that.’
‘No, I think you should go,’ said Eliza. ‘I’ll manage fine.’
‘Well, I mean, I have to live up by North Road,’ Lottie went on. ‘Newspaper workers have to be available, that’s what Mr Scott said. But I’ll get a half-day on a Saturday and I’ll come to see how you are managing. They put the paper to bed on a Friday.’
Oh, she had learned the jargon already, thought Eliza. Fortunately Lottie didn’t see the amused expression return to Eliza’s face.
‘I saw Peter on North Road,’ Lottie was saying. ‘Do you know, he was looking out for me? He wished me luck. I gave his name as a referee, do you think he’ll mind? Mr Bateman’s an’ all, I’d best write to him and tell him.’
‘Peter won’t mind and neither will Mr Bateman. They’ll be delighted that you’re getting on.’
There were sounds from the front room; the baby was waking. Lottie got to her feet and, ‘I’ll fetch her for you,’ she said. ‘And I’ll clean the house from top to bottom so you won’t have much to do next week.’
‘Get along with you,’ said Eliza. ‘The place is like a new pin already. Bring Anne and then go on up to the attic and write your letter.’
‘You haven’t mentioned money,’ Eliza said as Lottie put the baby into her arms. ‘Will you be able to manage?’
‘I will, I think. Mr Jeremiah said the paper will pay the lodging and give me a shilling a week at the beginning. Then we’ll see, I suppose.’
‘One shilling! Lottie, you won’t be able to manage.’
‘I will. Because I’ll get paid for my stories an’ all. And Mr Jeremiah says I’ll get seven and six for “The Bonnie Pit Laddie”. It will come out next week. Seven shillings and sixpence! It will last for weeks, won’t it? Then I’ll write another story.’
Eliza was dubious but she did not want to say anything to take away from the girl’s happiness and good fortune. She sat in her nursing chair, suckling the baby and gazing into the embers of the fire as Lottie ran upstairs, humming to herself. Goodness knows, she thought, the girl was due some good fortune.
On Sunday afternoon, when Lottie was all ready to move lodgings to a small close off North Road named Amy Yard and Eliza and Peter were out walking with the baby in a sort of basket on wheels, which they called a perambulator, Lottie decided to visit Mattie in Sherburn Colliery. It was a fair walk to the pit village but she cut along a path through the fields and managed the walk in well under an hour.
She went with mixed feelings. Apprehension in case she met with Alf Green, though he was usually out on a Sunday afternoon, preaching at some country chapel in the circuit. But she had to see Mattie and make sure he was all right.
The meeting with Mattie in Durham City kept coming back to her memory, and despite her excitement at her newly opened-out future, she had to see him again.
It was something she had been meaning to do ever since she had returned to Durham, even before she had seen Mattie in the city. She had to make sure he was all right, and besides, she wanted to know about Betty Bates. She was anxious about the girl she had looked after in the workhouse. She felt guilty that she had not looked for her since. In fact, she felt guilty about both of them.
Why was Mattie working already? His father was a colliery overman, he surely could afford to keep the boys on at school, then apprentice them to a trade. Mattie was bright; he could even be a mining surveyor or if not, at least he could be a colliery joiner or other tradesman.
Lottie’s heart beat faster as she approached Sherburn Colliery. The mining rows lay before her and in front of them the field where the boys played. Originally it had been part of a large meadow but half of it was taken up by the spoil heap from the mine. The rest was still grassed and used only by a few galloways: pit ponies that were old or injured. Today there were none, just a group of boys kicking an old leather football about.
With a sigh of relief she saw that Mattie and his older brother, Freddie, were among them but not their elder brother, Noah. Noah was too much natured like his father and had delighted in tormenting Lottie. Did he torment Betty? she wondered.
Oh, she should have been in touch before now, she should have.
These thoughts ran through Lottie’s head as she went to the edge of the field and called Mattie over. He looked across at her, kicked the ball to his brother and walked over.
‘Wot cheor, Lottie,’ he greeted her, in the local idiom. He was dressed in a clean shirt and trousers that came just below the knee, with a cap on his head and pit boots on his feet that looked enormous on the ends of his thin legs. But there were coaly rings around his eyes where he hadn’t quite got the coal dust off, and also in his ears.
‘What have you come back for?’ Freddie had come up behind Mattie and his face was very unfriendly.
‘I came to see you both,’ said Lottie.
‘Took your time, didn’t you? But then, what do you care for us?’
‘I do care. I’ve been away. Well, West Stanley, any road.’
Freddie grunted then turned away, back to his game, muttering something about West Stanley not being a million miles away. Lottie decided to leave it and turned to Mattie.
‘Are you all right, Mattie? I mean … are you happy? Do you like working in the pit?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Mattie, but he looked down at the ground as he spoke and pushed
a stone about with the toe of his boot.
Freddie was watching them, Lottie suddenly realized, and he was close enough to hear what they were saying. Mattie was not going to say much. She stepped closer to the boy.
‘Are you? Do you wish you had stayed on at school? You could have learned a trade.’
‘Nay.’
She wasn’t getting anywhere, she realized. ‘Will you walk a bit with me? Tell me how Betty is?’
‘You can go and see her yourself. Me da’s away to Thornley.’
‘Still, will you go with me? I’m a bit nervous.’ She was appealing to the man in him – shamelessly, she knew. He nodded.
‘I’m away home,’ he called to his brother. But Freddie had lost interest, he was dribbling the ball up the field with a crowd of lads after him. He kicked it between two imaginary goalposts defined by a couple of coats laid on the ground where the post would be, then turned, flushed with success.
‘Hey, Mattie!’ he called but Mattie and Lottie were gone, over the dirt road speckled with coal dust and behind the first row of houses. He hesitated for a moment, then carried on with the game.
Betty was in the kitchen of the house where Lottie had been a maid of all work when she first left the workhouse. She was quite a few years younger than Lottie, about fifteen, but she was already as tall. Her hair was a mousy blonde and she was red-cheeked with blue eyes, and quite plump. When she saw Lottie she took a step forward, then folded her arms across her pinafore and stopped.
‘Lottie,’ she said, then looked away and her cheeks reddened even further. The reason was obvious: Betty was well advanced in pregnancy.
Lottie tried hard not to look as concerned as she felt. She went to the girl and put her arms around her and hugged her.
‘Oh, Betty,’ she said. ‘I should have come sooner.’
‘Why?’ asked Betty harshly. ‘You’re not me mam or me sister. I’m nowt to you, nowt at all.’
‘Oh, but you are, Betty,’ Lottie protested. ‘I thought about you a lot. I missed you, I did.’
‘No, you did not,’ said Betty. ‘If you had you would have come to see me.’