by Maggie Hope
‘Are you asleep?’
Lottie looked back at the doorway where Eliza stood, a candlestick in her hand, the candle flickering and casting eerie shadows on the ceiling. She walked in and stood beside the bed.
‘I’m sorry if I was harsh, Lottie,’ she said in a low tone. ‘I was disappointed, that was it. We’ll say no more about it, eh?’ She leaned down and kissed Lottie on the cheek. ‘I know what it is to love a man.’ After all, she mused as she went to her own room, better a daughter-in-law she knew and liked than some la-di-da society madam from Newcastle.
‘You’re married? Well! I am surprised,’ said Jeremiah when she went into the offices of the Durham Post the next morning. He came around the desk and kissed Lottie on the cheek, dislodging her spectacles as he did so. ‘I hope you will be very happy, my dear. Though I suppose this means I will have to find someone else to write “Home Notes”.’
Lottie settled the spectacles back in their usual position on her nose. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I will still be able to write them and send them to you, won’t I?’
‘How can you write on the fashions in Durham shops when you are in Newcastle? And your husband, a lawyer did you say? He will not like you working, my dear.’
‘Thomas will not stop me writing.’ Lottie looked down at her feet so that she did not betray the feeling of panic she felt at the idea. Jeremiah, however, was well aware of how she felt.
‘Perhaps not,’ he said gently.
‘I can write about fashion as it is in Newcastle,’ said Lottie. ‘Some of the shops in Northumberland Street are very smart, almost as smart as London.’ Though she had never been to London of course; she had read about it in the Lady’s Journal.
‘Well, we’ll see how you get on.’ Jeremiah smiled at the small figure before him. He remembered the first time she had come to his office, excited at having her short story printed in his paper. Oh, she had a talent, this girl, she had indeed. She would become a household name if only she did not get bogged down with her marriage and children.
‘Send me articles by all means,’ he said. ‘And remember, I am negotiating with your publisher to print excerpts from The Clouds Stood Still.’
Lottie said her goodbyes to George, the reporter, and Edward, the photographer and illustrator, and left the office with some regret. It had been a happy place for her, where she had been successful in beginning to realize her dream. She walked back to her little house in North End, where she intended to make a list of things she had to do before Thomas came at the weekend to take her back to Newcastle.
‘Post!’ The newsboy called raucously from the corner of the street. ‘Durham Post!’
Lottie looked up from her desk, where she was working at her novel. She had packed most of the things she was taking to Newcastle, but for the typewriter and a few sheets of foolscap, and now at last she was free to write for a few short hours before Thomas came for her. Jumping up, she hurried out to catch the boy before he went on to the next street. She liked to check her ‘Home Notes’ as soon as they came out, though by then of course it was too late to do anything about an error. Not that there were any errors, she thought as she held out her penny to the boy and took a copy from him.
Back in the house, she made tea and sat down at the kitchen table to read as she sipped. This afternoon, a man was coming to clear the house of furniture. First of all, she read her article, then turned to the page of local news.
MURDER IN Durham City
A woman’s body had been washed up on the banks of the river just below Prebends Bridge. Poor soul, thought Lottie, and read on.
The young woman, who was well advanced in pregnancy though she wore no wedding ring, was at first thought to have thrown herself off the bridge, but upon examination was found to have a stab wound to the heart. She has been identified as Elizabeth Bates, a servant at the house of Alfred Green in Sherburn Hill.
Mr Green is missing and the police would like to know his whereabouts. His son, Matthew, a hewer at Sherburn Hill Colliery, says he has not seen his father since he went on shift the night before last.
Lottie read it through three times, feeling as though she must have missed something. Hadn’t Mattie gone to Australia? He must have come back. But that wasn’t what filled her mind and shook her to the core. Guilt did that.
She had neglected Betty in the last few years. She should have gone to see the girl and made sure she was all right, indeed she should have done. Only, she hated to go back to that house where she had been so miserable. The house where Alf Green lived had such bad memories for her. Betty had been so adamant, though, that Alf was going to look after her; they were going to get wed. Only they had not and Lottie had always suspected they would not.
‘I should have kept in touch,’ she said aloud. Poor Betty, poor, poor Betty. She had had no life, no life at all. Sadly, Lottie folded the paper and laid it on the kitchen table. She was restless now, she could not settle to anything. She would like to go and see Mattie, to see how he was and find out what had happened to Betty’s first baby. Maybe she would do that. There were hours to go before Thomas would come for her.
Impulsively, she got to her feet and pinned her hat to her head and put on her jacket. She would take the omnibus to Sherburn Hill, she thought. It would be take an hour or two to go there and back. She had seen the old hacks that pulled the omnibuses along the roads to the mining villages around the city, but she had the time.
It was mid-afternoon by the time she stood and knocked at the front door of the house where she had gone as a maid of all work when she was barely thirteen years old. She looked to the side where the window was close-curtained. Perhaps Mattie wasn’t in, she thought.
‘Now then, young woman, what do you want?’
The voice close to her ear made her jump and turn to stare. It was a policeman, a sergeant. She might have known they would be guarding the house.
‘I … I used to work here, I read about the tragedy …’ she stammered. ‘I wanted to see Matthew. He is a friend.’
‘A friend is he? I don’t know if he wants to see anyone. Who are you, miss? I’ll ask if he wants to see you. Wait here.’
‘Lottie Lonsdale. I used to work here before Betty came.’
‘You did? My sergeant may want a word with you.’
People passing by and those simply there from curiosity were gathering and he took Lottie’s arm. ‘Come with me around the back,’ he said. ‘Away from prying folk.’
Mattie was in the kitchen smoking a clay pipe by the fire. At first she thought it was his older brother, Noah, he seemed so grown up. But of course he would be, she told herself. How many years since she had seen him that day in Claypath? He, however, knew her immediately. He rose to his feet and took a step towards her.
‘Lottie! You’ve come then. You heard about Betty?’
‘I did, Mattie. I had to come.’
‘I’m on my own now,’ he said after the policeman went out in search of his sergeant and they sat down together. ‘Poor Betty. She had a bad time of it, you know. Just a slip of a lass an’ all.’
Mattie had been sitting there brooding for most of the night before and the morning. He was very agitated: lighting his pipe and putting it out again almost immediately, standing up and walking to the window then coming back and sitting down again. His eyes were red-rimmed and there were still flecks of coal dust in the lashes as though he had not washed properly after coming off shift. The fingers of one hand tapped out a silent tune on his knee, endlessly.
‘Where are your brothers?’
‘Long gone. Noah went to Australia, Freddie emigrated to Canada. I went to Australia but I came back. I couldn’t help but think of Betty here with me da. Poor lass,’ he said again. ‘He was a sod, you know, Lottie. He didn’t marry her neither, not when the first bairn died.’
‘It died?’
‘Stillborn. Then when she fell wrong again … Why did you not come to see us, Lottie?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘She talked abou
t you a lot, you know. I came looking for you again. It was when you had a story in the Post. I spoke to someone in the office but he said you didn’t work there any more and anyway it wasn’t policy to give out the addresses of their employees. An older man it was, talked like he had a mouthful of marbles.’
‘By, Mattie, I’m sorry. I am, that sorry.’
‘Aye,’ said Mattie and lit his pipe for the fourth time. His hand holding the taper, which he lit from the flames in the grate, shook.
‘I was always going to.’
It sounded lame even to her own ears. Why hadn’t she? Because she was so caught up in the excitement of her new life? Because the time went by so fast until it felt as though it was too late? Shame washed over her once more.
‘Lottie Lonsdale?’
The question came from a police sergeant, who stepped over the threshold of the open back door, removing his helmet at the same time.
‘Charlotte Mitchell-Howe, actually,’ Lottie replied. ‘I’m sorry, I was just married a week ago. Sorry.’ She had to force herself not to go on apologizing.
The sergeant, whose head almost reached the low ceiling of the kitchen, wrote something in his notebook. ‘I would like to ask you some questions about your time here,’ he said, before looking at Mattie. ‘We will go into the front room if that’s all right by you.’
Mattie nodded. ‘Go on, Lottie,’ he said.
Lottie rose meekly to her feet and followed the policeman into the front room; the room where, as a little maid straight from the workhouse, she had looked after Laura Green through her last illness. Her heart beat wildly as she walked down the short, narrow passage and went in.
Chapter Twenty
‘Where were you?’ Thomas demanded.
She had seen him waiting for her as she turned the corner into the street. It was almost dark; the lamplighter had already been around to light the streetlights.
‘I had to go to Sherburn after what happened,’ Lottie replied. She was out of breath, for she had run almost all the way from the bus stop. She looked up at him as he stood in the doorway of her house in North End, hands on hips, legs astride, frowning and angry-looking.
‘After what happened? What could happen that could be so important, more important than being here to meet me?’
‘Let’s go inside, Thomas, there’s no need to talk out here on the street. It’s cutting in cool now, there’s a mist rising off the river.’ Lottie shivered, as much from his anger as from the cold.
Thomas turned and stalked into the house and she followed. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘I’m waiting.’
‘Yes,’ Lottie replied. She looked at the cold grate, for of course the fire had been dead for hours. She could have done with a warm drink of tea, she thought, before turning back to Thomas.
‘It was Betty, Betty Bates,’ she said. ‘I had to go to see Mattie.’ She handed him the paper with the news item in it. ‘Betty was my friend,’ she went on and told him the full story. She was tired and sat down on a chair, propping her elbow on the table and resting her head on her hand. She found it a great effort to go over the story for him but she was sure he would understand. He did not.
‘So, you went traipsing about even though you are with child,’ said Thomas, and it was the only comment he made on the sad story.
‘But Betty was my friend!’ she protested. ‘And Mattie too …’
‘How were you helping Betty? Or Mattie either? The only man you should be thinking of is your husband! Or had you forgotten I was coming this afternoon?’
Lottie was stung into a hot reply. ‘Of course not, I just couldn’t get home any earlier! The police wanted to talk to me.’
‘The police? What could you possibly know about what happened?’ Thomas was standing over her, still very angry.
Lottie sighed. She didn’t want to talk about it any more, especially when he was so unsympathetic. She had had a long day and she was still very emotional when she thought of poor Betty. The last time she had seen her, Betty had been so hopeful for the future even though Lottie had tried to persuade her that Alf Green was no good, that he would let her down. She should have tried harder, she knew that. The guilt rose again in her as she remembered how she had let Betty down, had not even visited her because of her contempt for and dislike of Alf.
She had relived her own time in the house in Sherburn to the police, telling all of it. Now she was older she could do that when she never could have before.
‘Why did you not report the man at the time?’ the sergeant had asked. ‘It was against the law. You were underage and no doubt Betty Bates was too.’
The question was not really serious, though, how could it have been? Everyone, even the police, would think the girl had led the man on.
‘I did not think I would be believed. I’m sure Betty would think the same at first. Then when she was expecting her first baby, he promised to marry her. She believed him.’
‘The baby she was carrying was not the first?’
‘No. The first baby died.’
The policeman pursed his lips and wrote something down in his notebook. He had a look of distaste on his face, which he didn’t bother to hide.
What did he know of the wretched lives of workhouse foundlings, she thought, girls like Betty?
‘It’s Alf Green you should be questioning. Have you found him? He’s a murderer,’ she said bitterly. ‘What can a young girl do if she is sent to work in the house of a monster like him?’
The policeman gave her a level stare. ‘You got out,’ he said. He closed his notebook and put it in his breast pocket, then stood up. ‘That’s all, missus,’ he went on and walked to the door, before turning back to her. ‘We’ll find him, Alf Green, and he’ll be tried for murder at the assizes.’
‘Lottie? Are you listening to me?’
She started, for of course she had not been listening at all; her mind had been going over the events of the afternoon.
‘I’m sorry, I’m just tired.’
She was too, she realized; she was bone weary. ‘What were you saying? Oh yes, the police. Well, I did work there for a while. They were asking me about Alf Green, how he treated me then.’
Thomas was horrified. ‘Good God!’ he cried. ‘I certainly hope your involvement is not reported in the press. After all, in my position …’
‘Your position! How can you think of that when there is a poor lass murdered?’
Thomas stared at her. ‘My position is what is important to me,’ he said coldly. ‘I think the sooner we are away from here the better. We will return to Newcastle tonight. I am your husband and you will do as I say. Do you hear me, Lottie?’
Lottie paused for a moment before replying. This was not the boy she had used to know, she thought. Oh, his education had changed him all right. No doubt she was lucky he had condescended to marry her and she should be grateful for it.
Only she was beginning to realize what it meant to lose her independence.
‘I hear you, I’m not deaf,’ she replied. ‘I’m ready to go.’
Thomas picked up her bags and followed her out of the door and waited as she gave the key to her neighbour. The house clearance man who was also the landlord was coming tomorrow and then the little house where she had been happy would be no longer hers. She did not look back; she couldn’t bear to.
The first few weeks of her new life were busy and she had little time for her writing. Sometimes she found herself going over a plotline and working it out in her head, but she did little actual writing apart from her short articles for the Durham Post.
Thomas did not approve anyway.
‘There is something here for you,’ he said one morning as they sat over breakfast.
‘Oh?’
‘It’s from that editor chap, the one you used to work for.’
‘Jeremiah,’ said Lottie. She felt a bit queasy as she watched Thomas load his fork with bacon and dip it into his egg yolk. The yolk was slightly underdone, as he liked it that way, an
d drops of brilliant yellow fell from the fork to the plate. She couldn’t look away from it until he at last put it into his mouth. The room seemed to be dipping and swelling, dipping and swelling. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them her vision was restored to normal but her nausea was rising.
‘Shall I open it?’
‘Em …’ Lottie got to her feet and rushed out of the room to be sick in the newfangled water closet down the hall. She flushed it and wiped her mouth with the flannel.
Back at the dining table, Thomas had taken her permission for granted and opened the letter and taken out a cheque for one guinea. He was frowning.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ he said, then belatedly asked if she was all right.
‘I’m fine. I don’t need to do what?’
‘Be a newspaper hack any more. You are my wife. In any case, I think that man is altogether too familiar when he writes to you.’
‘Familiar?’ Lottie echoed.
‘You know what I mean,’ snapped Thomas, becoming angry. ‘And I don’t think it reflects well on me that people know you are doing this work. I can afford to keep my wife.’
‘I like to do it.’
‘Well, you will write and tell him you won’t be doing it any more,’ said Thomas with an air of finality. He blotted his lips with his napkin and got to his feet. ‘I expect you to do that today,’ he said. ‘Now I have to go. I’m in court this morning.’
Rebellion seethed in Lottie’s breast but she knew she had no choice. She called Janey, the girl Thomas had insisted on employing in the house, through to clear the breakfast things, then went upstairs and sat down at her dressing table. She opened a drawer and took out her writing case and began to write a letter to Jeremiah, telling him that owing to circumstances she would not be sending him any more articles. She read it through, and biting her lip, added ‘for the time being’ and signed her name.