Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  Lottie sighed heavily as she turned into North Road. A cold wind was blowing and she pulled her shawl closer around herself. It would soon be autumn. Oh indeed, she could think of plenty of reasons why she and Tot should keep away from each other. She had to forget about Tot and concentrate on her work and she would. The future beckoned and Tot could not be a part of it.

  The house in Amy’s Yard was quiet except for the murmur of voices from behind the door of Mrs Price’s parlour, which was not quite shut. The lodgers were eating their supper. Lottie went into the room, apologizing for being late, and ate some cold beef and pickles followed by rice pudding and stewed prunes.

  Afterwards she ran up the stairs to her room and took off her outdoor things, before settling down at the table by the window and opening her exercise book. She stared out over the rolling fields and woods, not even seeing the colours darken and the mists rise as the sun went down. She was plotting her story. She picked up a pencil and began to write, stopping only to light her stub of a candle with a lucifer. By the time the stub was finished, so was the story and Mrs Price was banging the gong in the hall, calling her lodgers down to a cup of tea before bed.

  ‘I’ve brought in my new short story, Mr Jeremiah,’ said Lottie, as she stood before the editor’s desk.

  ‘You worked over the weekend then.’ Jeremiah Scott sat back in his chair and gazed at his newest recruit. ‘I’m not sure if you should have been working on a Sunday,’ he went on, but his look was far from disapproving and his blue eyes twinkled.

  ‘Oh no, I finished it on Saturday evening,’ Lottie hurried to explain.

  Jeremiah laughed. ‘I’m not a strict believer in Sabbath observance, don’t worry. But I don’t want you turning up to start a new week already tired.’

  ‘No, sir, I’m not. Tired, I mean.’

  ‘Good. Leave the manuscript with me then. I’ll look at it when I have time.’

  Feeling a bit deflated, Lottie left the office. Of course, she told herself, it was the start of a new week and Mr Jeremiah had work to do and downstairs George Petty, the reporter, was waiting.

  ‘Come on, young Lottie, you and I are off to the magistrates’ court to see who is up before the beak. The boss says I have to take you with me, so you just watch me and keep quiet, m’dear, mebbe you’ll learn something.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind, George,’ Mr Jeremiah said, appearing on the stairs behind Lottie. ‘I think I’ll take Lottie to the magistrates’ court and show her how to go on. You don’t mind hanging around the office doing a few odd jobs, do you?’

  George looked slightly startled but agreed to the change in plan and Lottie found herself following Mr Jeremiah out of the office.

  Jeremiah stuffed his pencil behind his ear and his notebook in the pocket of his all-enveloping raincoat, which he wore all the time when outside in the open air unless the temperature soared to the eighties, which didn’t happen very often in Durham. He marched off towards Elvet, where the prison and magistrates’ court were situated. Lottie trotted behind him, tying the ribbons of her bonnet as she went.

  First in the dock were two men who had assaulted a policeman while they were being removed from the Bottle Makers’ Arms at Seaham Harbour. They were seamen from one of the collier boats, which plied its trade between Seaham and London. Lottie watched them as they stood in the dock. It was easy to see they were seamen, with their weather-beaten complexions and rough jerseys. They got short shrift from the magistrates, who fined them twenty shillings and costs or the option of seven days hard labour.

  Lottie had her notebook and was trying to take down all the facts as Mr Jeremiah was doing, scribbling away in Pitman’s shorthand and covering the pages with a speed Lottie could only envy. She would master it, she would, she told herself. Only it was very hard.

  The next up was an old woman caught begging on the platform of Elvet railway station.

  ‘We cannot have decent people accosted and pestered for money as they go about their business,’ said the magistrate presiding. He was the owner of a local dye works, a Mr Ferens, master of the East Durham hunt. He eyed the woman in the dock with disfavour. She was perhaps sixty years old, though she looked older, with straggly grey hair and a lined face. She was toothless and kept sucking her gums from anxiety.

  ‘No, sir, Your Honour,’ she mumbled. ‘I will not do it again, only I hadn’t eaten for days, I was desperate hungry, Your Honour. I was badly – I couldn’t work.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you must not beg on the streets,’ said the magistrate. He consulted the two others on the bench for a moment. ‘You must apply to the Poor Law Guardians for a place in their institution. Do not appear before the bench again.’

  ‘I won’t go into the workhouse, sir,’ the old woman said, lifting her chin defiantly.

  ‘Be very careful what you say or you will find yourself in the gaol,’ said Mr Ferens. ‘Consider yourself lucky not to be fined ten shillings.’

  The old woman was led away and Lottie was left indignant at her treatment, with pity for the woman and something approaching hatred for the magistrate. There he sat, looking self-satisfied, and she would dearly love to hit him in his fat belly with her fist. Or tweak his nose or stand up in the reporters’ box and give him a piece of her mind. She could see it in her mind’s eye, her telling him what she thought of him and everyone in court cheering, even the lawyers and the bobbies, and Mr Ferens would be mortified, oh aye, he would.

  ‘Lottie! Will you listen to me?’ Suddenly Mr Jeremiah’s voice penetrated her consciousness. ‘Don’t sit there dreaming. I want you to write a report about Mrs Betts.’

  ‘Mrs Betts?’ Lottie was mystified.

  ‘That old woman vagrant. Lottie, do pay attention.’

  ‘Was that her name? I did pay attention. I thought the poor thing should have been listened to with a bit of sympathy, not threatened with gaol.’

  ‘Did you now? Well, I’m telling you, you will never make a reporter unless you get the facts and report them even-handedly. Now listen to what’s going on, girl! You didn’t even have her name, for goodness sake!’

  ‘I will, I’m sorry. I got all the rest, sir, I did truly.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He glanced at her notebook: there were a few lines scrawled there. ‘Well make sure you get all the facts this time.’

  Another defendant was being led into the dock, this time a burly young miner in a crumpled pair of trousers and red braces over a white, collarless shirt.

  The clerk to the court read out the charge. ‘Albert Dick. Drunk and disorderly, Your Honour.’

  Mr Ferens was frowning down at a paper on his desk. ‘It says here you were rolling about in the road at five o’clock on Sunday morning singing an obscene song and disturbing the peace.’ He stared at the prisoner. ‘Sunday morning,’ he repeated. ‘The Sabbath day!’

  ‘Eeh, no Your Honour, I was singing “Cushy Butterfield”. It’s not obscene, nay, it is not,’ the prisoner said earnestly. ‘I’ll sing it for you if you like. “She’s a braw lass and a bonnie lass and she …”’

  His voice was loud but quite tuneful and the reporters grinned at each other. The magistrate was not amused.

  ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted and the miner obediently stopped singing. In the end, he was sentenced to seven days in custody. Lottie licked her pencil and scribbled in her notebook, ‘Albert Dick, miner. Seven days. Drunk and disorderly.’

  ‘Are you sure you got the facts?’ Jeremiah asked. He had been watching Lottie’s vivid little face as different expressions chased themselves over it. Behind the glasses her eyes were shining warmly.

  ‘I did,’ Lottie replied and handed over her notebook. Oh, but she had a lot more in her head than on the page, thought Lottie. She could write a story about the people in the magistrates’ court, she could indeed. Or a few short stories.

  ‘You’ll have to learn shorthand,’ said Jeremiah.

  ‘I will. As soon as I can afford Mr Pitman’s book.’

  ‘I’ll lend you min
e,’ Jeremiah offered. ‘It’s a bit dog-eared but still readable.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Jeremiah.’ Lottie was delighted. She smiled at him mistily before putting taking off her spectacles and wiping them, then putting them back on her nose. The problem was that she needed them to see the people in the court but she had to take them off to read and write.

  She was a bonnie little lass, Jeremiah told himself. A neat little figure she had an’ all.

  ‘Howay then, I’m a bit peckish. We’ll get a penny dip at the butchers over the bridge on the way back. I haven’t time for a proper dinner.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I’m buying,’ he said, anticipating her objections. Anyone could see the lass had next to nothing.

  They sat on the steps of the statue of Lord Londonderry on his horse in the marketplace to eat their dips. The place where Lottie had sat years ago when she ran away from Alf Green, she reflected. By, she’d done the right thing there, she had indeed.

  Mr Jeremiah was a lovely man, she thought. He was trying to put her at her ease, she knew that. Why else would a great man like a newspaper editor sit on the steps of a statue and eat a sandwich for anyone to see?

  ‘In the usual way of things, any work you do while being employed by the Post belongs to the newspaper, Lottie,’ said Jeremiah. ‘I thought you understood that.’

  Lottie stared at him, then at her manuscript on the desk before him. Oh, she was simple-minded, she should have known, she should have read the terms of her indenture. How would she manage?

  Jeremiah studied her face as conflicting emotions came and went on it. She was so open; he could see all she was thinking. He looked across at his father, who was standing by the window of his office looking out across the city streets to the wooded hills beyond.

  ‘Father?’ he said and Mr Scott senior turned back to face the room. He knew what his son was asking, though not a word was spoken. They both knew Lottie was talented; they also knew she had only what she could earn. When she finished her apprenticeship, albeit in seven years time, they would want her to write for them, even if only on an occasional basis. He cleared his throat.

  ‘I think we can afford to pay Lottie something for the work she has done out of hours,’ he said and Jeremiah nodded.

  Lottie was overwhelmed with relief. ‘I’d be so grateful, Mr Jeremiah, I would,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best for you, truly.’

  ‘Indeed you will or you’ll find yourself in more trouble than you can imagine,’ Jeremiah replied drily. ‘Now be off with you. George will be writing up the court notes and you will watch and help where necessary.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lottie and turned for the door.

  ‘I will let you know what my father and I decide about payment for your stories. If we decide they are good enough to publish, that is. Oh, and the writing machine – the typewriter it is called – will be delivered today. You will be required to stay back to familiarize yourself with it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lottie repeated and went out. By, he was a lovely man, a grand man, Mr Jeremiah, she thought again. He was a good master, straight-talking, but kind and understanding. And when she looked into his eyes it made her feel funny: warm but strange. Aye, a lovely man indeed. Lottie ran down the stairs to the reporters’ room, where George and Edward Dixon worked when they were indoors. Edward was out on a call with his camera. His photographs were beginning to be used in the paper but his camera was bulky and unwieldy and useless indoors without flares.

  She was looking forward to trying the writing machine. Oh, she was so lucky to be working here on the Post instead of doing someone else’s washing or brushing a stair carpet down. The future beckoned brightly. Lottie hadn’t given a thought to Tot Mitchell-Howe all morning. She could manage fine on her own without a sweetheart.

  As for Mr Jeremiah, it did not occur to her to consider him in such a light. But he did have nice eyes. When he looked at her she felt warm all over.

  ‘Lottie? About time an’ all,’ said George. ‘I would have had these notes all finished if I’d been on my own but the boss says I have to go through them with you, so come on in and we’ll begin. Where have you been, any road?’

  ‘I had to see Mr Jeremiah,’ she replied as she sat down on a stool by his side. As she went over the events of the morning with him, comparing her notes with Mr Jeremiah’s, she had to admit that she had a lot to learn; she had omitted so much. But when she had mastered Mr Pitman’s shorthand she would do better. She would start that very evening, if she could keep his copy of Mr Pitman’s book. Right after she had mastered the writing machine.

  Sixteen

  1885

  Lottie pulled the last page of her article from the typewriter and put it together with half a dozen others on the left of her desk. There, that was her ‘Home Notes’ for this week for the Durham Post. She rubbed her forehead to ease the incipient headache she could feel hovering above her eyes and put on her spectacles, or glasses as they were often called now.

  She stood and stretched her arms above her head, then rubbed the back of her neck before moving to the window and staring out at the driving rain. In the garden, the roses were being dashed about by the wind and snails were crawling along the path. Above the hedge, she could see the trees waving their branches, and a woman was hurrying along the path beneath them, her hand holding her hat on and her skirt swirling out behind her, wet and bedraggled.

  It was June and so far it did not promise to be a good summer. Lottie had hoped to take a walk in the park before having a sandwich and a cup of tea and then settling down for the afternoon to work on her current novel. She might still do that, raining or not.

  As she walked along the path edging North Road, wrapped in an oilskin over her jacket and with her umbrella rolled, for the wind was far too gusty to risk putting it up, she went over her morning’s work in her mind. There were several small paragraphs and items concerning subjects that were of interest to women, the latest fashions in the shops being the most important. The narrower skirts appearing in the window of H and J Ferens, and the cotton jackets in Johnston and Coxon in Silver Street had taken up a few lines in this latest article. But really, she found this sort of thing of little interest.

  What she did find interesting, she reflected as she climbed the hill into Wharton Park, were the human interest stories she found all around her in the busy little city, and these she used as the basis for her short stories. Jeremiah Scott published them in the Durham Post and she made a fair living from them and her articles. Oh, Jeremiah had been good to her. And when he had married a girl from the Surtees family, a gentlewoman, she had felt pangs of jealousy even though she knew she herself came from too humble a background altogether to even think he might consider her in that way. She was a colleague; maybe not even that, but an underling. Still, she had dreamed.

  Her feelings had been all mixed up, she told herself. She had been silly. She wanted nothing to do with marrying anyone; she had her career to think of. Hadn’t she already got one novel accepted by Bloom Bros, a publishing company in York?

  The Clouds Stood Still was the story of a girl, a middle-class girl, fighting to be allowed to study to become a lawyer at university. An idealistic girl who dreamed of fighting in the courts for the rights of the oppressed. She won through in the end against all odds, but of course it was a fairy story. It just couldn’t happen. She would not have got into university, she would not even have been taken on as an apprentice by any law firm and she most certainly would have been laughed out of court if she did. Yet Mr Bloom, when Lottie had gone to see him in York, had liked her novel, and she had been filled with elation. It was scheduled to be published in November and she could hardly wait. If only it had decent reviews! If only it were reviewed at all, she told herself as she began the descent down the other side of the hill.

  ‘Lottie? Lottie Lonsdale! Goodness, I haven’t seen you for such a long time, how are you?’

  Lottie had been oblivious of the people walking
past her, she was so deep in her own thoughts. She looked up as a man stopped in front of her, blocking her path. It was indeed a long time since she had seen him, for he had been away in Oxford, pursuing a degree; afterwards staying on with a rich friend, according to Eliza. He had grown into a man, a man as handsome as he had been as a boy. It was Eliza’s son, Thomas, or Tot, as he had called himself. Lottie stared up at him, speechless for a moment. For he was good-looking indeed, with a shock of dark hair and violet eyes with long lashes any girl would die for. He stood there, looking down on her and smiling, and her heartbeat quickened. She blushed like a sixteen-year-old might.

  ‘Grand. I am well,’ she managed to stutter and his smile widened.

  ‘Mother said you were a lady reporter. You’ve done so well, Lottie!’

  ‘Thank you, Tot,’ she said demurely. The rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. She unfastened her oilskin jacket and let it hang open, for suddenly she felt too warm.

  ‘I call myself Thomas now. Tot was a babyish name,’ he said. ‘Are you going somewhere? If you have the time, I thought we could sit on a bench and talk a while.’

  ‘I was just in need of fresh air and exercise,’ said Lottie. ‘I worked all morning on my article for the paper. I intended going back to work on my new novel but I can spare some time. After all, it is ages since I saw you, though I do hear about you from your mother. She is so proud of you, Tot – I mean Thomas.’

  ‘Well then, that’s fine. We’ll walk, shall we?’ Thomas offered her his arm and they continued along the path, but the first bench they came to was far too wet to sit on and so were the others. In the end they continued on into the city and Thomas bought bottles of dandelion and burdock from a street vendor and penny dips from a butcher in Silver Street, as they had years ago when she was the housemaid and he still a schoolboy.

  They laughed together as they at last found a bench that had dried out in the sun, down by the river with the castle towering above them. And Lottie lost some of her shyness and was charmed by him just as she had been when a young girl. After they had eaten, they dipped their handkerchiefs in the river by the weir to wipe their fingers and had to hold on to each other as they did so, for the Wear was swollen with peaty water coming down from the dale after the heavy rainfall of the last few days. Today droplets from the water coming over the weir were sparkling in sun, in tune with Lottie’s happy feelings.