Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  He walked over to the speaking tube on the wall and turned the handle. In the distance there was the sound of a jangling bell.

  ‘Jeremiah?’ he said after a moment. ‘There is someone here to see you, a Dr Welles from the university.’ He listened with his ear to end of the tube for a moment, then put it back on its hook and returned to the counter.

  ‘If you would be so kind, Dr Welles,’ he said formally. ‘Miss Lonsdale will show you up to the editor’s office.’

  The learned doctor coughed loudly, glared at Mr Scott and followed Lottie up the stairs, past the open door of the room where the now silent printing presses were housed and on up to the top of the building to Mr Jeremiah’s office. She knocked and opened the door in response to his ‘Enter!’ and ushered Dr Welles in, before going back out and closing the door behind her.

  Outside in the passage, Jackson popped out of the room next door, where he had been hovering, and winked at her.

  ‘Ould sod,’ he said amiably.

  ‘I thought doctors were supposed to be kind folk,’ said Lottie. ‘I wouldn’t like him looking after me if I was badly.’

  Jackson laughed. ‘He’s not that kind of doctor, Lottie,’ he explained. ‘Nay, he’s a Doctor of Divinity when he’s at the university.’ He had only found out the difference himself a few weeks before, when Mr Jeremiah had explained it to him, but he enjoyed showing off his superior knowledge to Lottie.

  Lottie could hear the murmur of voices from inside the office. Now and again she could make out a word as the voices got louder, so she walked along to the head of the stairs, for she did not want Mr Jeremiah to think she was listening at the door. She was there for only a minute or two when the door opened and Mr Jeremiah and the visitor came out, Mr Jeremiah calling for Jackson.

  ‘Show the reverend doctor, out, Jackson,’ he said to the boy, then, ‘Lottie, come in here a moment please.’ He held the door open for Lottie as he bid the doctor good day.

  ‘You will hear more of this,’ warned Dr Welles and marched off after Jackson, his moustaches quivering.

  ‘I will look forward to it, sir,’ the newspaperman replied. He followed Lottie into his office and closed the door, then walked around his desk and sat down.

  Lottie trembled as she stood before him, rather as she had trembled as she stood before Matron’s desk in the workhouse after some minor misdemeanour. Dr Welles was a reader of the Post and he hadn’t liked her story and maybe other readers wouldn’t like her work and she would be forced to leave the paper. All her dreams would come to nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, not looking up.

  ‘Why? What for, exactly?’ asked Mr Jeremiah. He sat back and gazed at Lottie. ‘Dr Welles? It’s true he thinks we should not have printed a story about a little pit lad. He thinks the pit folk should not be featured in the Durham Post, that the good people of the town should not have to read such things over their toast and marmalade. But that is his opinion and I suppose he is entitled to it.’

  What will I do if I have to leave? The dark thought ran through Lottie’s head and there was an edging of panic to it. She dared not look at Mr Jeremiah. It was a minute before she realized what he was saying now.

  ‘However, I did not call you in to discuss Dr Welles. I wanted to say that I think you have done well this last week. How do you find the work?’

  ‘I-I like it, sir,’ she stammered. Mostly it had entailed helping Jackson fetch and carry for the two older reporters, George Petty and Edward Dixon, though Edward was more of an illustrator than a reporter. Lottie was fascinated by the way Edward could sketch a few lines on to a blank page and there, to the life, would be the person he was sketching. Once or twice she had gone out with the two of them on a story and though she was only there to watch and learn she had been filled with the excitement of it. Her thoughts returned to the present as Mr Jeremiah spoke again.

  ‘Good. And how do you like living at Mrs Price’s house?’

  ‘I like it there, sir.’

  It was different living in the house around the corner to anything Lottie had experienced before. Mrs Price and her daughter, who helped her with the meals and housework, called her Miss Lonsdale, for one thing. It sounded very strange to her ears. The food was plentiful and wholesome and she enjoyed it. Only she would have to get used to one thing. After dinner she was expected to retire to her own small room on the first floor, and consequently she spent more time in her own company than she had ever done in her life and sometimes she felt lonely. But she filled the time by starting another short story.

  ‘Call me Mr Jeremiah,’ the editor was saying. ‘Everyone else does.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Jeremiah.’

  ‘Are you writing another short story?’

  Lottie nodded. ‘Aye, I am,’ she said, becoming animated at the thought of her new story and lapsing into the vernacular. ‘It’s about the workhouse. Is that all right, Mr Jeremiah?’

  Jeremiah smiled and his eyes twinkled and crinkled up at the corners. His mouth was open to show his teeth and they were white and even with none missing, which was unusual for a man of his age, thought Lottie. He must be almost thirty years old. Most men she knew had few teeth and the ones they had were rotten or discoloured. She had a funny feeling in her insides when she looked at him. She glanced away in case he noticed.

  ‘When you have finished it I would like you to bring it for me to read. But I wanted to see you about something else. I want you to learn how to use a writing machine.’

  ‘A writing machine?’

  ‘That’s right. I have one on order and when it arrives you will be spending some time learning how to use it. Now, I think you should have the rest of the day off. Saturdays are quiet days, as we have put the paper to bed on Friday. Be back here at eight o’clock sharp on Monday. Now run along, Lottie.’

  Lottie felt elated and at the same time apprehensive as she put on her cape and bonnet. She had heard of writing machines, of course she had, but she had not actually seen one. Was it difficult to learn to use one? She walked around the corner to her lodging and let herself in, before going straight upstairs to her room.

  Half an hour later Lottie set off walking towards Gilesgate to visit Eliza. It was a sunny day but with a chill breeze, but still she was glad to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. As she walked along, her mind was on the plot of her story. It was a tale of the Miners’ Gala, when miners from all over the county converged on the city and then frightened the city folk by their very presence among them. Hundreds and thousands of them, marching through the streets and following their brass bands down to the field by the river, where they had a meeting. Men such as Dr Welles; she pictured him in her mind’s eye, looking outraged (by, Edward Dixon would be able to make a grand cartoon of him, he would).

  Lottie was taken up with the idea. She pictured the young putters taking hold of the man and throwing him up in the air over and over again and finally tossing him in the Wear. It was a grand thought and just what a lot of the nobs were afraid of.

  She sighed as she turned into the street in Gilesgate where Eliza and Peter lived. It wouldn’t happen, it couldn’t. It would be like that time in Manchester she had read about, only at Peterloo, as the meeting came to be named, the militia had been called out and there had been people hurt, even killed, and bairns an’ all. Lottie shivered. Dear God, she thought, do not let it happen here.

  ‘Good morning!’ she called as she let herself in the unlocked door of her friend’s house. Eliza came through from the kitchen with the baby Anne on her hip and a beaming smile on her face.

  ‘Lottie!’ she cried. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you until tomorrow.’ The smile was replaced by an anxious expression for a moment. ‘You haven’t lost your place, have you?’

  ‘No, I have not!’ Lottie replied. ‘In fact Mr Jeremiah says he’s very pleased with me. No, I have the afternoon off, that’s all. We put the paper to bed on a Friday and so there’s not much to do on Saturdays. Oh, Eliza, M
r Jeremiah’s grand to work for.’

  Eliza laughed. ‘Howay through to the kitchen and we can have a talk over a cup of tea.’

  Lottie followed her along the passage and as they entered the kitchen the back door opened and Tot came in.

  ‘Mother …’ he began, then stopped when he saw Lottie. His whole demeanour changed. Where before he had been slouching forward and looking uninterested, suddenly he was almost swaggering and his dark blue eyes, so like his mother’s, were twinkling in a broad smile.

  ‘How nice to see you, Lottie,’ he said and she went pink. She put up a hand and pushed her metal-rimmed spectacles up her nose. Oh, how she wished she did not have to wear them, she did indeed. Lads were not attracted to lasses who wore spectacles, she knew that. Not that she had cared before, being too intent on getting an education and succeeding as a writer, and she still was. But Tot must be just playing with her, looking at her like he did. He wasn’t serious.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly. She had a copy of the Durham Post in her hand and she held it out to Eliza. ‘My story is in it,’ she said simply.

  ‘Aye, you said it would be,’ Eliza replied. ‘Come on then, sit down and we’ll have a read of it. I’ll just mash the tea first.’

  ‘I’ll read it out loud, if I may,’ said Tot.

  Tot spoke nicely, as the masters had taught him at his school, but still with a trace of local accent. As he read about the miners and their families walking through the boarded-up streets of Durham she was reminded of the time, still talked about in the north-east, when George Stephenson put his plans for a national railway system before the House of Commons and how the members had laughed at his thick accent and derided him for not being a gentleman. Perhaps the masters were right in getting the lads to modify their local accents if they wanted to get on in the outside world. Tot finished the tale of the small boy in the pit who was frightened of the dark and handed the paper back to Lottie with a smile.

  ‘It is interesting, Lottie,’ he said and she felt a small quiver of disappointment.

  ‘You didn’t like it,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he protested. ‘Only, why do you not write about something everyone is interested in? Most people don’t want to know about grubby little pit lads.’

  ‘Thomas!’

  Eliza was angry and shocked that he should say or even think such a thing.

  She frowned at him.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ he said, but he flushed a little with embarrassment as he remembered his mother’s brothers were miners.

  ‘If that’s what that school teaches you I will bring you away,’ Eliza said grimly.

  ‘He is right, though,’ said Lottie and Eliza stared at her. ‘I mean,’ the girl went on, ‘that is what Dr Welles said this morning. He came into the office and complained to Mr Jeremiah. Mind, Mr Jeremiah gave him short shrift.’

  ‘I should think so an’ all,’ Eliza declared, then turned back to Tot. ‘You should remember that you might have been a pit laddie yourself; you have mining blood in your veins.’

  ‘My father was a carpenter. That’s different.’ He paused for a moment before going on. ‘I’m sorry, though, if I sounded proud. I was just saying how I think some people will see it. Just like Dr Welles.’

  He smiled at Lottie and his dark blue eyes appeared to deepen. The fluttery feeling rose in her again. By, she thought, she was a fool. She needed to take a hold of herself.

  Tot, watching her face, saw the pink rising in her cheeks and the way her brown eyes, already enlarged by the spectacles, brightened. He was not a bad boy but the other boys influenced him to some extent at his school. They seemed to think servant girls were fair game. His feelings were mixed, however. After all, Lottie was his mother’s friend, and in any case, no longer a servant girl.

  Lottie, for her part, was young and curiously naive, considering her encounters with Alf Green. She was halfway to falling in love with him, but still determined to put her writing career first.

  ‘Let’s take a walk, Lottie,’ he said suddenly, then looked at Eliza. ‘That would be all right, wouldn’t it, Mother? The fresh air will give us an appetite for tea.’

  ‘Oh, but …’ Lottie said.

  ‘That would be grand,’ Eliza declared, brushing aside Lottie’s protest. ‘Go on, it will do you good after that stuffy office.’

  As Lottie went back into the hall to pick up her shawl and bonnet, Eliza whispered to Tot, ‘You behave yourself, mind.’

  Tot’s expression of outraged innocence was a sight to see.

  They walked along, heading generally towards the Wear, then along the banks as far as the footpath allowed, keeping a small gap between them until the path became narrow and the way uneven. Tot took hold of her arm just above the elbow and guided her along so as to avoid the roots of the trees leaning over above them. She was very conscious of his fingers through the thin stuff of her sleeve. No one had ever treated her like this – as though she were a lady – and she felt confused.

  ‘Let’s sit down and rest for a minute or two,’ he said, leaning even closer towards her so that their faces were very close together. And this was Tot, Eliza’s son whom she had known for years, she thought. No, she couldn’t do this, she could not indeed.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to get on.’

  ‘Just for a minute?’ he coaxed. ‘Tell me about your work at the newspaper.’

  But she had pulled away from him and was hurrying along the path to where steps led up to the bridge over the Wear. Suddenly something had reminded her of Alf Green.

  Fifteen

  ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’ Eliza asked as Lottie walked into the kitchen, still wearing her bonnet and shawl. ‘Where’s Tot?’

  ‘He’s coming. Only I had to get on. I must go back and do some work.’

  ‘Not without your tea, surely? I’ve made egg and bacon pie – your favourite!’

  ‘Mrs Price gives us supper. She might be annoyed if I said I’d already eaten. I should have told her, you see.’

  ‘A cup of tea and a scone won’t hurt. Howay, take your bonnet off,’ Eliza insisted.

  Lottie divested herself of her outdoor things and hung them up in the hall, thinking she could not offend Eliza. She was still in the hall when the door opened and Bertha Carr came in, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked and in an all-enveloping cloak.

  Lottie’s pulse, which had begun racing inexplicably, settled down. For a moment she had thought it was Tot and she wasn’t quite ready to meet him again, not yet.

  ‘Now then, Lottie,’ said Bertha by way of greeting. She too took off her outdoor things and Lottie saw she was quite advanced in pregnancy.

  Lottie murmured a greeting and smiled at the girl who had rescued her when she had run away from Alf Green and didn’t have anywhere to go. There was another bond between them: they were both workhouse children.

  ‘Eliza has been baking,’ she said, just above a whisper and Bertha smiled in understanding. Eliza’s pastry could be as tough and flat as cardboard or as light and fluffy as Bertha’s. It all depended on how long her mind wandered as she stood by the table with her hands in the mixture. This time Eliza’s pastry was a success. It smelled wonderful and tasted even better.

  ‘This is a nice surprise,’ she said to Bertha, while sliding a generous slice of pie on to her plate. ‘That Mrs Carr let you out, I mean.’

  Bertha’s mother-in-law and Charlie himself thought a woman in an ‘interesting condition’ should hide away from the outside world until the baby was born.

  Bertha nodded. ‘Aye, I know. But they are out visiting themselves. They’ve gone to see her brother, who is ailing. I slipped out while I had the chance. I’ll be back before they are: the brother lives up the dale, between Stanhope and Rookhope. I reckon they won’t be back for hours and hours.’

  Lottie’s thoughts began to slip away as she thought of a plot for a new story, one where a young mother comes into labour when she is on her own, and her neighbours did n
ot even know she was expecting a baby. She could weave an exciting tale around that, she reckoned.

  ‘You have to have some fresh air and exercise,’ said Eliza judiciously. This was the new thinking in midwifery circles.

  ‘I’ll walk back with you, Lottie. When you’re ready,’ Tot’s voice whispered in her ear. Lottie jumped and spilt her tea into her saucer. She had not even heard him come in and it flustered her.

  ‘No,’ she said, quite loudly, so that the two women glanced at her in surprise.

  ‘I would rather go on my own. I have things to do.’

  She stood up. ‘I’d best be away,’ she said abruptly and fled.

  ‘Lottie,’ Tot began, prepared to argue and insist, but it was too late, she had gone. He smiled a secret smile.

  The two women looked at each other in understanding. ‘I reckon Lottie has a soft spot for your lad and he knows it,’ Bertha said quietly, leaning over and speaking in Eliza’s ear.

  ‘Aye well, she’ll get over it,’ Eliza replied. ‘He has his way to make in the world; he wants nowt with lasses for a few years yet.’

  ’Are you talking about me?’ asked Tot. He was busy cutting himself a large slice of pie, before sitting down and sinking his teeth into it.

  ‘Never you mind,’ his mother answered. ‘Eat your tea and go on upstairs and finish your weekend task.’

  Tot grimaced. He was allowed to come home each Saturday at midday until Sunday evening suppertime, but he had to write an essay or complete a maths problem before his return.

  Lottie wandered across the city, down the hill and up the next one, on her way to her lodgings in Amy Yard. As she walked, she thought about Tot. By, he was a bonnie lad, he was indeed. But he knew it too, even if he was cloistered away in that school in Barnard Castle. Soon he would be out of it and off to university, and it was a good thing too. For no good would come of them going together. His mother would definitely not like it and Eliza had been good to her. Tot had his future to think of and couldn’t be tied down. She too couldn’t allow herself to get sweet on a lad, for she had her dreams of being a writer to follow.