by Maggie Hope
‘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.
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 right 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 St
anley, 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.’
Lottie had no real excuse. She had been away in West Stanley, but she could have walked to Durham, it wasn’t so far. She could have tried to find Betty when she left the workhouse, but she had not. She felt hopelessly guilty and there were no excuses for her, she realized.
‘I’m sorry, Betty,’ she whispered.
‘Do not be sorry for me,’ Betty replied. ‘I’m all right. Me and Alf are going to get wed. He promised me.’
‘Oh Betty, you’re not old enough to get wed!’
‘Aye, I am,’ Betty asserted. ‘Alf says I am.’
‘Betty, can I have a scone?’ Mattie, who had been lingering in the doorway of the kitchen, asked. There was a tray of scones, just out of the oven, on the fender.
‘Go on then,’ said Betty. ‘Then go on out and play, lad.’
‘Will I see you before you go back?’ Mattie asked Lottie as he took a scone and covered it liberally with blackberry jam from the jar standing open on the table.
Lottie promised him he would.
When he had gone, the two girls sat down on the settle.
‘I’m having a bairn,’ said Betty, blurting it out suddenly.
Lottie nodded. ‘I can see that,’ she replied. ‘It’s Alf Green’s, is it?’
Betty nodded. ‘Why aye, it is. So we’re going to be wed. I told you.’
‘Do you love him, Betty?’
‘I do that.’ But Betty looked uncertain, as though she wasn’t quite sure what love meant.
‘I suppose he’s away at Thornley Chapel,’ Lottie said bitterly. ‘He’s a bloody hypocrite.’
‘Nay, he’s not at chapel,’ declared Betty. ‘He’s stopped going to chapel. No, he’s away to the card school at Thornley. Last week he won three pounds! He reckons he’ll spend it on the bairn when it’s born.’
‘If he doesn’t lose it this week,’ said Lottie.
‘He won’t, he said he’d leave it here,’ said Betty, but she looked even more uncertain.
‘Did they throw him out of the chapel because of the bairn?’ asked Lottie.
‘No, we’re going to be wed, I told you. No, it’s because someone saw him at the pitch and toss, a snitcher, that’s what. You know how they don’t like the gambling. But Alf makes money at the gambling, he does, I told you. Why should he give it up? It hurts nobody, does it?’
‘Well …’ Lottie began, thinking of all the lives she had heard of being ruined by even such a small game as pitch and toss penny. But she could see it was no good saying that to Betty. The lass was simply trying to make the best of her situation. She changed her tack.
‘How old were you when Alf got into your bed?’ she asked.
‘Old enough,’ Betty mumbled, her cheeks turning to beetroot. ‘Any road, it’s none of your business. He loves me, he says he does.’
‘You’re barely fifteen now,’ said Lottie. ‘You’re still a bairn.’
‘I’m not! I’m a woman now, doesn’t this show I am?’
Betty put a hand on the bump under her pinny. Her voice trembled and she looked close to tears. Lottie decided she was doing no good, no good at all. It would only hurt the lass if she told her about Alf and what he’d done to her, Lottie.
This sort of thing happened so often to girls from the workhouse. They were sent out as skivvies to whoever wanted them and no real checks were made on them and how they were being treated. She herself had been so lucky to get away, and lucky that Bertha had found her and taken her to the Collier family. She could have ended up on the streets, or at worst, in the River Wear.
‘Mebbe Alf Green will marry you,’ she said. ‘Mebbe you will be fine.’
‘Aye he will,’ Betty replied. ‘He will, I’m telling you. You needn’t worry about me. You never did before, did you?’
Guilt descended once again on Lottie’s shoulders. She should have looked the girl up and made sure she was all right. But so should the Parish Officers, she thought after she said goodbye and promised to come back again.
‘Send Mattie to let me know if you need me,’ she said to Betty as she went out. ‘Promise me you will. He’ll be able to leave a note at the Durham Post.’
Surely Mr Jeremiah wouldn’t mind that? she thought, as she walked along the row. No, he would not, he was such a lovely man.
She turned the corner and back to the playing field but the lads had gone on, probably to the quoits alley, for she could hear excited voices from there. As she walked back over the fields, she wondered if Mr Jeremiah would be interested in the story of Betty and the other workhouse girls like her. He might well be, she decided.
Fourteen
‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’ was on the third page of the Durham Post on the following Saturday and beneath it there was a short biography of the writer, the paper’s newest apprentice.
‘You done good,’ said Jackson. ‘Mind, I’m glad I don’t have to go down the pit when I read that. How do you know about what it’s like?’
‘I have friends in the pit,’ sad Lottie. She smiled at the boy. He was the same height as she was, about five feet, but still only fourteen. Jackson was his baptismal name; his full name was Jackson Hadaway. Quite a lot of boys were christened with their mother’s maiden name.
Lottie had been working at the paper for five and a half days and it felt as if she had been there for weeks. She spent most of her time in the office or running errands, doing much the same work as Jackson. It had been a great thrill for her the day before when she had seen her story actually i
n print for the first time and her name above it. And now the paper was on the streets being sold in the marketplace, on Elvet Bridge, Silver Street, everywhere. She was in heaven, she felt. Oh, please don’t let me wake up and find it was all a dream.
Maybe the readers would hate her story of the lad who went down the pit at six and sat on a cracket by a doorway, opening the leather curtain to allow the corves to pass through and closing it afterwards so that if there was a pocket of firedamp and it took hold there would not be a clear passage for the resultant fire. A lad who begged candle stumps from the miners going off shift for when his own ran out and he was frightened of the black dark. Of course, in the modern times of the 1870s, they had Stephenson safety lamps, not candles, but it hadn’t been so long ago when there were no safety lamps.
‘Lottie!’
The shout came from the front office, the one open to the public. She left Jackson to finish mashing the tea and hurried through. Mr Scott, Mr Jeremiah’s father, was there behind the counter, while in front of it was an august-looking gentleman with a copy of the newly published Post in his hand.
‘Yes, Mr Scott?’
‘This gentleman is Dr Welles. He is from the university. Dr Welles, this is the author of the story you have come here to discuss.’
If Lottie had not been in considerable awe of the learned doctor she would have laughed at his astonished expression. As it was, she blushed, held out her hand and withdrew it quickly when it became obvious that he was ignoring it. He appeared speechless, but he soon recovered. Dismissing Lottie with a cool glance, he turned back to Mr Scott.
‘What do you mean by this, sir?’ he demanded. ‘Are you telling me a wild tale?’ He shook the paper he was holding in Mr Scott’s face. ‘It says in your paper, sir, that this disgraceful story was written by Mr L. Lonsdale. Now you say it was by this chit of a woman. I will not be played with! I …’
‘This is Miss Lottie Lonsdale,’ interposed Mr Scott. ‘Now, as I gather you have a complaint, I will call my son, the editor. It is he you should speak to. Meanwhile I suggest you treat our staff with proper respect.’