Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  Eventually they walked on along the riverside and now as she placed her fingers on his arm, she was very conscious of his other hand covering them. Still, as they drew nearer to Elvet Bridge, she knew the afternoon with him was drawing to a close. Oh, but it had been grand, it had indeed. She gazed at the river for a few moments. She had told him something about her career and he had seemed truly interested and congratulated her on her book. Yet she knew he was more interested in her than her work and with anyone else this would have annoyed her, yet with him it did not matter, she was glad. She was captivated completely and utterly and Thomas was all she could think about. Oh, she knew it was too quick but she couldn’t help herself.

  They had been holding hands on the riverbank, but when they came to the bridge they moved apart slightly and she put the gloved tips of her fingers on his arm and yet she was supremely conscious of the warm flesh through the material of his coat and the cotton of her gloves. They wandered up into the marketplace and on to North Road. It was a fair distance to walk and the day was quite advanced as they passed by Wharton Park, but all too soon they arrived at the small house, which Lottie had rented after her success with her articles and which gave her the solitude she needed for her work.

  ‘May I come in?’ Thomas asked her. Lottie had been in a slight panic that he would leave her at the door and she would not see him again for months. After all, she did not know if he felt as she did herself. She knew nothing of his life, really. She hadn’t even seen him for years. She did not see so much of Eliza and Peter nowadays. They were all so busy with their own lives: Peter with the union, which was growing from strength to strength, and Eliza with her work as a district nurse. Was Thomas just being polite, walking his mother’s former servant home? She looked up at him for a moment without speaking. Did he think she was fast, letting him hold her hand?

  ‘I have a fair walk home,’ he coaxed. ‘A cup of tea would be very welcome. If you’re worried about what the neighbours might say, well, I am an old friend, am I not?’ The lace was twitching in the front room window next door; Lottie saw it out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t important, let the neighbours gossip, she didn’t care.

  ‘Of course. Come in,’ she said and led the way.

  ‘Show me where you work,’ said Thomas, as she placed the kettle on the gas ring, which stood to one side of the fireplace on a metal tripod where one day she meant to install one of the new gas cookers. ‘I want to know everything about you.’ The room was upstairs and at the front of the house so that she could see out over the city and hills beyond. Why not? she thought. It wasn’t her bedroom, for she slept in the front room downstairs. Once again she led the way.

  Standing by her desk, she looked down at the old typewriter she had bought second-hand from Mr Scott when it was replaced by a newer model. There was a small pile of foolscap to one side and her shorthand notebook. Nervously, she fiddled with them, setting them square to each other.

  Thomas came up behind her and put his arms around her and she stiffened for a moment, then relaxed against him. Whether he felt as she did or did not, it didn’t seem to matter now, he wanted her and she wanted him.

  Lottie was naive and innocent – despite Alf Green – when Thomas Mitchell-Howe took her, there on the couch that stood in her workroom, and afterwards she felt a sense of fulfilment; that this was what life was all about. But most of all, she was filled with joy and happiness. Surely he must feel the same? She gazed up into his face and was convinced she saw her own feelings reflected in his eyes as he smiled down at her. It was as though the wound that Alf Green had inflicted on her was healed.

  Thomas was happy too. Lottie was such a sweet, attractive little thing and he had wanted her for so long, ever since he was a schoolboy. He thought of other girls he had known: the sisters of his friends for the most part, or the servant girls who lived and worked at the university in Oxford. His friends’ sisters were not averse to a little flirting but they were strictly chaperoned and certainly not for anything more. The servants were fair game so long as he was discreet. After all, they were in the university but not of it.

  Earlier in the morning, Thomas had asked his mother, Eliza, how Lottie was getting along. He still had sweet memories of her from when he and she had dallied by the Wear when they were young. He had been fond of her and now he realized he still was.

  ‘How is your old maid, Lottie getting along? I suppose she is married now with half a dozen children?’ he had asked Eliza.

  ‘Indeed no,’ his mother replied, frowning slightly at his description of Lottie as ‘her old maid’. ‘Lottie is my friend, rather than a servant, Thomas, and she is an independent woman. She has her own house and writes a column for the Durham Post. And she is a fully-fledged novelist, with a book coming out later in the year, I believe.’

  ‘Her own house?’

  ‘Yes, she has. It is over by North End, past Wharton Park.’

  ‘Wharton Park? Isn’t that the one where the Miners’ Gala is held? I remember it.’

  Thomas remembered going there as a boy with his mother and stepfather, and it had been a great time with colliery bands playing and roundabouts and games for the children. Of course, the speeches from the platform had been tedious but the boys had enjoyed themselves anyway.

  He folded his paper and got to his feet. ‘I think I’ll take a walk, Mother,’ he said.

  ‘In this rain?’

  ‘I feel like some exercise. A walk will do me good.’

  ‘Well, don’t stay out too long and catch a cold. I have enough to do with Anne.’

  Eliza watched him as he opened the front door and stepped out. Oh, he was a lovely lad, she thought proudly, as she so often did. She worried that he was bored back home here in Durham. There was no denying the place was quieter than Oxford or London, where some of his friends lived. Just at the moment he had little to do but wait to take up the position with Brownlow, Brownlow and Snape, Barristers at Law, whose chambers were in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But that would only be a couple of months, thank goodness; he would join them in September.

  Still, Thomas was a grand lad, he was indeed. There had been a time when she had thought he would rebel and insist on following his father’s trade and become a carpenter. He certainly had his father’s hands, square, strong and capable-looking.

  That time he had run away from home and tried to join his father’s family in Northumberland was still the stuff of nightmares to her. Now, though, he seemed to have forgotten his dreams of being a carpenter. He was a gentleman; a proper gentleman as his forefathers had been before gambling took hold of them.

  As Eliza ran upstairs in response to a call from Anne, who was in bed with a feverish cold, she still felt that old fear at the back of her mind. Please God, she prayed, don’t let Thomas get the gambling fever as his father had done. Such misery it had caused the family! But he would not, she told herself. He had as much of her in him as he had of his father. He would be careful and not be taken in by the promise of a big win, he would not.

  She attended to the little girl, making her a warm drink of blackcurrant tea sweetened with honey and hushed her off to sleep afterwards, but all the time she couldn’t get her anxious thoughts away from Thomas. She lay on the bed with Anne still cuddled in her arms and uncharacteristically fell asleep herself, only to be plagued by nightmares in which Thomas was inextricably intertwined with Jack, his father. They were standing on the top of a cliff and then they were both falling towards the sea below. Thomas was crying for her and she struggled to reach him before waking to find herself clutching at little Anne. It was Anne who was calling,

  ‘Too tight, Mammy, too tight!’

  Eliza soothed her and tiptoed out of the room, feeling groggy and with a headache. She was worrying about nothing, she told herself. Thomas was not a gambler, indeed he was not. He was a lawyer and as such had a brilliant future ahead of him with Brownlow, Brownlow and Snape. He would have enough to occupy his mind without gambling.

&nbs
p; Thomas, sitting on the couch with his arm around Lottie in the little house in North End, was quiet, happy to sit there all evening, it seemed. Lottie, looking up at him, tried to guess his feelings. Did he despise her now for giving in so easily to him? He looked down at her with a depth of feeling in his eyes and smiled, and she was reassured. But she was coming down to earth, aware of the world as it was. They could not stay as they were, hidden from disapproving eyes for ever, and besides she had work to do. And there was Eliza. It would hurt Eliza, who had been so good to her. Even though they were such good friends, Lottie knew Eliza wanted someone better than a workhouse skivvy for her son. And that, she reminded herself, was exactly what she was.

  She sat up, away from the feel of his arm around her shoulders, his body against hers, then got to her feet and straightened her dress.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Thomas. ‘Come back here.’ He held out his arms and smiled, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners and bewitching her. She made herself resist.

  ‘I must work and you must go. Your mother will wonder where you are,’ she said softly.

  Thomas dropped his arm and sighed. It was true. They could not go against all the rules and social mores of small town society. Reluctantly, he too stood up and started to take her in his arms again but she backed away.

  ‘Thomas, please. You can return tomorrow. You must get back – look, it is almost dark outside. It might be dangerous crossing the park. I’ve heard there are footpads there after dark.’

  He laughed. ‘You are worried about me? You are so sweet, Lottie. But don’t worry, I will be fine, I can look after myself.’ He leaned forward and kissed her with his hands behind his back, being careful not to touch her otherwise. ‘I’m going. See, I’ll always do as you say. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t come downstairs, I’ll let myself out.’

  He ran down the stairs and she could hear the sound of his footsteps fading as he went down the street towards the city.

  Lottie stood where she was for a few moments, her arms crossed over her breasts, which were aching and slightly sore from his attentions. She was a wanton and abandoned woman, she thought dreamily, and she should be thoroughly ashamed of herself. But strangely, she was not. Eliza would not stand in their way, surely? Not when they truly loved each other. In any case, she was not a skivvy from the workhouse now. She was a writer, a fully-fledged author and she was going to be famous one day soon.

  Lottie attacked her work with renewed enthusiasm. She couldn’t wait until all of her dreams came true.

  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.