by Maggie Hope
Lottie attacked her work with renewed enthusiasm. She couldn’t wait until all of her dreams came true.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Thomas, where have you been? I have been asking everywhere for you,’ Eliza said as he entered the house.
‘I went for a walk. I told you I was going for a walk,’ Thomas replied. He flushed slightly. Did she somehow know? No, of course, she could not. Unless some busybody had seen him go into Lottie’s house and told her. He felt like a guilty schoolboy. ‘Where did you think I was?’ he asked, his voice sounding belligerent even to his own ears, while Eliza looked sharply at him.
‘I don’t know. Only …’
‘As it happens, I met Lottie. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it? I mean we were just talking of her earlier on.’
‘Yes. Well, there was a message for you, from Brownlow, Brownlow and Snape. They want you up there as soon as may be.’
Thoughts of Lottie were driven from Thomas’s head. ‘They do?’
‘I said so, didn’t I? They have found you rooms and you are to take the train – tonight if possible, tomorrow at the latest. I have packed you a bag.’
‘How do you know? Did you open my post?’ Thomas frowned. His mother seemed to think she had a perfect right to interfere in his life, he thought angrily. Everything in this house was everyone’s business. Well, he was no longer a child. He had been on his own for the last few years and had grown used to being a private sort of person. Soon he would be totally independent financially: a lawyer and a celebrated one too. He had high ambitions.
‘I did not,’ said Eliza. ‘Only there was a telegram for you. Of course I opened a telegram, it could have been bad news.’ In her experience, telegrams were usually bad news and told of a death in the family or at least an accident.
‘A telegram? They must want me in a hurry.’
Thomas felt a thrill of satisfaction. He was needed for the first time that he could remember and the feeling was very pleasant. ‘I’ll go up tomorrow. Do you know the time of the first train? Or do you think I should take the night train?’
‘I found out for you. There is a train at ten thirty tonight. But I think you should wait for the morning. There is one …’
Thomas interrupted her. ‘No, I’ll take the night train. Then I can be at chambers early in the morning.’ He studied the yellow wire form as though trying to wring more information from it. ‘It doesn’t say why they want me early, does it? I wonder about that.’
‘Well, there’s not much room on those forms, is there? And every word counts. It is a penny a word, you know.’
‘Yes, of course I know. I am accustomed to wires. They are used often in Oxford and London for everyday communications and not just emergencies.’
‘Mm,’ Eliza replied, knowing she should feel suitably humbled but in fact smiling secretly to herself. All her plans for Thomas, for her little Tot, were coming to fruition. She cut sandwiches for him for the train and put in a bottle of cold tea, well sweetened. He liked that.
‘You’ll let me know how you are getting on?’ she asked, as he came downstairs, washed and changed and looking very dashing indeed in his caped overcoat. Even though it was summer, he would need it for a night journey going north to Newcastle.
‘I’ll write,’ he promised and pecked her on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Mother.’ He picked up his bag and opened the door, then turned back. ‘Give my best to my stepfather, won’t you?’ He paused, then went on, ‘And Lottie too, if you see her.’
‘Lottie?’ Eliza was a little surprised, but after all, Thomas and Lottie had been friends in years gone by.
‘If you see her,’ Thomas repeated. ‘I told you, I met her while I was out walking.’ He went off down to the end of the street where he could probably pick up a cab to take him to the station. Eliza watched him from the doorstep. By, she thought, he was a grand lad, she was proud as punch of him. Not a lad, though, she reminded herself as she went in and closed the door behind her. He was a man, a gentleman. He would not disgrace his name as his father had. Still, she should not think ill of the dead. Except for the gambling, which had infected him like a fever, Jack Mitchell-Howe had not been a bad man, just his own worst enemy.
Thomas had not forgotten about Lottie altogether in his eagerness to get started properly on his new career. As he mounted the train in Durham and took his seat, he told himself he would write to her at the first opportunity. She would understand. He did consider sending her a wire so that she did not wait for him the next morning. But after all, Lottie had a simple, provincial soul and a wire would probably alarm her unnecessarily.
Lottie waited happily for Thomas to come back on the following day. She slept well and rose early. The dawn chorus from the woods was in full swing. Though more muted than earlier in the year, it was still tuneful and raised Lottie’s spirits even further. She decided to begin work on her novel immediately, for she had time to make up from the day before and she did not want to fall behind. The pile of typescript by her side had grown at a respectable, steady rate when she at last sat back and stretched her arms above her head. She had a small crick in her neck and she rubbed at it with one hand and yawned hugely.
Thomas would be here soon. She would make up a picnic and afterwards they would walk in Wharton Park. She would buy crumpets from the baker down the road and they could toast them when they came home afterwards, for by that time it would be evening. Lottie shivered with anticipation. She ran downstairs and into the small kitchen. There was only a heel of bread in the pottery storage jar so she went out to the baker’s, hurrying so as to be home before he came.
‘Where’s the fire?’ a neighbour called, laughing as she ran back down the street, her basket with the fresh-baked loaf and bag of crumpets swinging. She laughed with him and waved.
Thomas was not waiting on her doorstep as she had imagined he might be. She went in and through to the kitchen and cut sandwiches and wrapped them in a clean cloth and added a bottle of dandelion and burdock and two cups, placing everything in the basket and adding a cloth to cover it all.
By twelve o’clock she was ready and waiting. She stood in the window looking out on to the street and waved to passers-by, who waved at her, but there was no sign of Thomas. At one o’clock she ate a sandwich to settle her stomach. When a neighbour went by for the second time and looked curiously at her, she retreated from the window. The sun shone down on the street outside and by three o’clock a beam was finding its way into the room as it began its descent in the sky. Lottie watched the dust motes dancing in the light as the beam fell on a patch of carpet. She really ought to close the curtain a little or the carpet would fade. Then she decided to lose herself in her story.
As the bells rang out for five o’clock, Lottie picked up the few sheets she had typed, read them through, tore them in two and went over to the fire, where she put them on the fading coals and watched as they slowly charred, then burst into flames. They were rubbish. An editor would score them out with a pencil. In fact, the whole book was rubbish. No publisher would consider it.
What she needed was some fresh air to clear her mind; that was it. Lottie went downstairs and pulled an old shawl around her shoulders. She didn’t bother with a hat. Bonnets were going out of fashion anyway. And those new hats, which perched over one eye, were neither use nor ornament. She was only going to the park after all – a hat was not necessary.
Half an hour later or thereabouts, Lottie found herself at the top of Eliza’s street. She had not meant to call on Eliza, she told herself, it had just happened. But as she was so near … If someone mentioned they had seen her to her friend, Eliza would wonder why she, Lottie, had not called when she was only a few steps away. And most likely Thomas was out somewhere. If he was in, she would simply face him coolly and pretend yesterday had not happened. She was still dithering when she heard Peter’s voice close behind her.
‘Lottie? How nice to see you! Are you coming for your tea at our house?’
‘Oh,
Peter, you made me jump. I-I was just out walking and I found myself here. I was thinking of something else. No, I’m not expected …’
‘Well, for goodness sake, there’ll be enough for an extra one, I’m sure.’ He held out his arm. ‘Howay, then, I’m inviting you.’
‘Well, what option do I have?’ Lottie laughed and put her hand on his arm and they marched down the street.
‘I’ve brought a visitor for tea and she’s fair clemmed, I’m warning you, Eliza,’ Peter called out as he banged the door to behind them.
Eliza came through from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
‘Lottie!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was just thinking about you. Come on through and we can talk while I finish off the meal.’
‘I don’t want to put on you,’ Lottie murmured. ‘If you haven’t enough I don’t mind.’
‘Nonsense, we can always squeeze in one more. Any road, Thomas isn’t here so we have enough and to spare.’
‘Thomas isn’t here?’
Eliza was leading the way into the kitchen and so didn’t see the look of disappointment on Lottie’s face.
‘No. He had to go to Newcastle last night. There was a wire for him from Brownlow. That’s the barrister who has taken him on. It came yesterday morning but Thomas was out for a walk. He didn’t get in until late and so had to go practically straight out again for the night train. They needed him to start straight away.’
Eliza laid an extra place at the kitchen table. This house had a dining room but it was rarely in use except at Christmas. The kitchen was the hub of the house, as it had been in her mother’s house.
Peter came in from the backyard and washed his hands under the cold water tap. ‘I’m hoping to get a slabstone sink installed,’ he told Lottie. ‘With a proper drain to the outside. They are the latest thing. The committee are considering it.’ The house was owned by the union and rented out at a concessionary rate to Peter as an official. Lottie listened but the words did not register. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. She sat down at the table quickly and murmured something in reply. As Eliza and Peter talked on, she sat quietly, though her thoughts were in turmoil. She jumped when she realized that Eliza was addressing her.
‘Lottie? Are you all right?’
‘Aye, yes, I am,’ she said and picked up her knife and fork and attacked the plate of Irish stew before her. Thomas hadn’t even said goodbye. Had he thought she was a loose woman for letting him have his way with her? Maybe he had. If he hadn’t time to come himself he could have sent a lad with a message or even a telegram. He would have done if she meant anything to him, she thought miserably. She chewed stolidly on a piece of meat, then swallowed and took a drink of water.
‘Lovely stew,’ she said. She could feel the lump stuck halfway down to her stomach. ‘I didn’t know Thomas was going so soon,’ she went on, unable to keep off the subject of her lover.
‘Oh no, he wasn’t,’ Eliza replied. ‘No, they needed him, I told you. I don’t know why. No doubt he will tell us when he writes.’ She looked keenly at Lottie’s flushed face and remembered her old fears that there might be an attachment between her son and the girl. But no, how could there be? They had been practically children the last time they spent any time together.
‘Thomas said he met you yesterday,’ she remarked casually.
‘Yes. In Wharton Park it was. I had been working all morning and I was out for some fresh air.’ Lottie bent her head and ate a forkful of carrot. That went down easier.
Little more was said. When the meal was over Lottie helped Eliza with the dishes. Peter had to get back to the office for a meeting and Eliza was busy seeing to little Anne’s bedtime.
‘I must get back, I don’t want to be caught in the dark,’ said Lottie. ‘Thank you for the meal, it was grand.’
Eliza watched her walk rapidly up the street, a small figure with her shawl over her head, for an evening breeze was blowing from the north-east. Then she went in and closed the door.
It was just as well Thomas was working away in Newcastle, she told herself, for she was beginning to realize that Lottie did have feelings for him. It was not, she told herself, that she thought her friend was not good enough for her son. But he had his way to make in his profession, hadn’t he? Perhaps in a few years’ time when both Lottie and Thomas were established and she could say, ‘my daughter-in-law, the authoress’, or ‘my son, the barrister’. But many things could change in a year or two. He might meet someone else, for instance.
Lottie went back to her little house, where it was not until she was safely behind the closed door that she felt able to relax. She sat down in the tiny kitchen without bothering to light the lamp, for there was a little light coming in through the window from the moon. It was cold, for the fire had died away to grey ash, but she didn’t feel it. She had shed a few tears behind her shawl on her long walk back but now she merely felt numb. After a while, she went into the front room, which she had made her bedroom, preferring to use the upstairs room as a workroom, and poured water from the jug into the basin on her washstand and splashed it on her face and arms. Then she went to bed.
She had to forget Thomas, she told herself. What would he want with a brat from the workhouse? He would marry a posh girl from Newcastle with a family and dowry and good-looking an’ all. From now on she would throw herself into her work. Lottie expected that she would have a sleepless night, but she was worn out with the emotions of the last two days and she fell deeply asleep.
Thomas was thinking fondly of Lottie as the night train clanked its way slowly up the line to Newcastle. It stopped at all the little stations in between and seemed to him to take an interminable time to get to the point where it crossed Stephenson’s railway bridge over the Tyne and puffed to a halt in Newcastle Central Station.
He was fond of her, oh yes he was. But did he love her? He wasn’t sure. She was a sweet little thing and clever too, the way she had educated herself against all odds, and she had talent: hadn’t she had a book accepted for publishing? That was an achievement, was it not?
He would write to her soon, he thought as he climbed down from the train and walked along the platform and out of the imposing stone entrance designed by John Dobson, as most of this area of Newcastle was. First, though, he had to find his lodgings, and tidy himself up ready to present himself at the chambers of Brownlow, Brownlow and Snape as soon as he could manage it.
As it happened, Thomas was caught up in the excitement and novelty of his work in the big city. He had been a pupil in chambers in London and so was familiar with the work, but somehow everything was slightly different in this northern place. He also found himself invited to the homes of his colleagues – the elder ones that is – and to social events with the younger ones. Yet he intended to write to her, he thought one evening, as he struggled with his bow tie before the mirror in his rooms. Except that tomorrow he had been invited to the races by Robert Pyle, a pupil in chambers. So the letter would have to wait.
Chapter Eighteen
Lottie walked along to the pillar box at the end of her road and stood before it for a moment, looking down at the card she had written to Eliza and Peter. In it, she apologized for not going to see them for a few weeks.
‘I’ve been so busy,’ she had written. ‘What with my column for the Post and my novel, which I hope to have finished by November, when The Clouds Stood Still is published. Still, I hope to come to see you next weekend, if that is all right by you.’
She had considered asking after Thomas but somehow couldn’t think of the right words. Anyway, Thomas would have got in touch with her if he were at all interested. That day had been a lie; he had simply wanted her. She was just another lass who had been taken down by a lad – didn’t it happen all the time? Lottie slipped the postcard into the pillar box and turned to walk home. As she walked, the tune of an old song ran through her head, over and over; she couldn’t get rid of it.
Oh, don’t deceive me, oh, never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so?
Well, she would not go begging to Thomas, she would not indeed. Lottie lifted her head, marched up to her door and let herself in, and soon she was hard at work at her desk. She did not need a man. Hadn’t she managed without one up until now? Let ignorant people look on her as a poor spinster unable to get a man. She thought of the loathsome Alf Green, who had taken her down when she was nobbut a little lass. No one else was going to get the chance.
As the days went by, Lottie did succeed in putting Thomas Mitchell-Howe out of her mind. She was immersed in her work. She rose early in the morning and wrote for two hours before breakfast; then, after a rushed cup of tea and a slice of toast, went on until mid-afternoon. The pile of typescript grew into a respectable heap on her desk. She tended to work straight on to the typewriter, doing only a few notes by hand first, for her training at the Durham Post had stood her in good stead.
She was working steadily away at about ten o’clock one morning when she was interrupted by a knocking at the street door. Pausing for a moment, she cocked her head. No one knocked on her door, since she had made it plain to her neighbours that she hated to be disturbed. Lottie had started typing again before the knock was repeated. Annoyed, she made her way downstairs and unlocked the door, and there on the doorstep stood Eliza.
‘Good morning, Lottie,’ Eliza said pleasantly. ‘Can I come in?’
Without waiting for a reply, she stepped over the threshold, past Lottie and directly into the kitchen-cum-living room.