by Maggie Hope
‘Certainly, madam,’ the clerk replied and opened his ledger. He scanned the appropriate page, then coughed, looked at her sitting across the desk from him, and then back down at his ledger. His lips moved soundlessly, then he looked up at her again.
‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, slightly embarrassed. ‘This account is well overdrawn, I’m afraid. Are you sure your husband did not want you to deposit the cheque? He is late making this month’s payment and I’m afraid our charges …’
‘Oh, there must be some mistake!’ Lottie stared at the clerk then at the ledger, trying to read it upside down. She couldn’t quite make out the amount but it was written in red ink; at least the last few entries were. There was little doubt that Thomas was in debt and he had not told her anything about it. No wonder her housekeeping money was late! Though her first thought had been that it was a mistake, somehow she knew it was not. And the clerk was holding on to her cheque.
Rising to her feet, she said, ‘My husband is not at home, he is away on business. I will have to speak to him about it.’
The clerk, a nice, well-mannered man who felt sorry for the girl – for she looked no more than that – stood too, still holding the cheque. ‘I’m sure Mr Mitchell-Howe will straighten out this misunderstanding,’ he murmured, though in fact the thought ran through his mind that he would like to be there when the gentleman tried. Poor lass, he thought, but the next minute she had snatched the cheque from him and was turning to go.
‘Mrs Mitchell-Howe, I think that should go towards clearing your husband’s debts …’ he began, but Lottie was already at the door. He hesitated; after all, the cheque had been made out to the client’s wife, and he might be on doubtful ground if he tried to get it back. These days there was such a lot of talk about women having the right to their own money and he had not as yet entered anything in his ledger.
The clerk glanced behind him at the door of the manager’s office. It was firmly closed. No one would even know Mrs Mitchell-Howe had been there.
Lottie hurried down the street and around the corner and then around the next corner before slowing down. The cheque was clutched tightly in her gloved hand. She folded it and slipped it inside her glove until it rested against her palm. Then she walked on, more slowly this time. Slowly her whirling thoughts began to settle. She had to find out what was going on.
‘Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ said Mr Brownlow senior as she was ushered into his chambers. ‘Do sit down.’
He was not smiling but then, Lottie told herself, he was a dour sort of person, wasn’t he? It did not mean much.
‘I will not, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I came to see if you can tell me where my husband is, for I need to get in touch with him. It was careless of him, I know, but he went without telling me where he was going and how long he would be away. I need to contact him urgently.’
‘Sit down please, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ insisted Mr Brownlow. ‘I think we have matters to discuss.’
Lottie’s heart beat uncomfortably fast as she sat down in the chair by Mr Brownlow’s desk. She took off her spectacles and rubbed at them with a handkerchief, before putting them back on her nose and fiddling nervously with the wire earpieces to get them comfortable.
‘Do you have any idea at all where your husband is, Mrs Mitchell-Howe?’ the barrister asked. He had a strange expression on his face; she couldn’t make it out. He seemed embarrassed yet angry, unbelieving yet sorry for her.
‘I do not,’ she replied.
‘How long is it since he was home?’
‘A few days. What’s this all about? Surely you know when and why he went? He was on a case, he said.’
‘I do not, Mrs Mitchell-Howe. In fact I have no idea where he is. His behaviour has been erratic, to say the least, these last few weeks, even months.’
He paused and looked keenly at her as though to judge her reaction to this piece of information.
‘What do you mean?’ Lottie felt as though she were living a nightmare. All the certainties of her world were falling to bits. Where was Thomas? Where was he? The question thundered in her brain.
‘Your husband has missed court appearances, let clients down and caused us a great deal of trouble in the past fortnight, Mrs Mitchell-Howe. At first I thought he must be truly ill; perhaps having a breakdown, I don’t know. But I am afraid there is worse. There are discrepancies in the accounts. He has been claiming money for expenses, which he did not in fact incur. That is serious enough but we now find that there is a substantial sum of money missing from a client’s account.’
Lottie sat frozen to immobility with the shock of his words. It could not be true; indeed, it was all a horrible mistake. It had to be. Yet was it? Thomas’s increasingly erratic behaviour, his evasiveness when she asked him questions about what he was doing or where he was going, and then the incident at the bank today. These things showed that there was something wrong. If she had not been so wrapped up in her own work she would have seen it sooner.
Mr Brownlow was gazing at her with some concern. ‘I’m sorry if all this has come as a shock to you, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ he murmured. ‘Would you like a few minutes to compose yourself? Perhaps a cup of tea?’
‘No, no thank you,’ Lottie replied. She rose to her feet. ‘I am sure there must be some mistake. When my husband returns he will clear it up.’
She turned to the door, hardly able to see for the heat that had rushed to her face. Her spectacles had steamed up a little and she took them off and held them in her hand. Even so, she seemed to be seeing through a mist.
‘I hope you are right, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ said Mr Brownlow in a tone that implied he did not think she was. He held out a hand to shake hers, but she didn’t see it. All she could think about was making it to the door and fresh air.
Once outside, she leaned against the solid stone of the building for support. She wiped her spectacles with her handkerchief and replaced them on her nose, settling them squarely. After a few moments her vision cleared. The wind blew strong and cold against her skin and she shivered suddenly. She had to go home. When Thomas came home (for he would, she knew it, he would not desert her), she needed to be there. She stood up straight, fastened her hat more securely and set off into the wind.
Thomas had not returned to the house. In her absence the second post had arrived, and there was a letter on the doormat, the address written in his sloping hand.
Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. The few words written on it jumped out at her.
I’m sorry, they read. You will be better off without me. In any case, you have your writing. Thomas.
Lottie stared at them. He had run away, he must have done. And he had been lying to her for God knows how long. He had emptied the bank account and left her with nothing. The advance money from The Clouds Stood Still and any other funds in the account had gone. All she had was the house contents. She sat down on the hall chair abruptly and put her hands to her face as the letter fluttered to the floor.
Through her gloved hand she felt the paper of the cheque and drew it out. Oh aye, she had nine pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence. She laughed mirthlessly. Not completely destitute then. When she was younger, nine pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence would have been like riches to her.
Lottie sat for a few minutes collecting her chaotic thoughts. Then she got to her feet, went upstairs and began to pack a Gladstone bag with clothes. She looked at her typewriting machine, but no, she could not take it, for it was too heavy and cumbersome. Still, she took the pile of typewritten sheets she had already done.
Downstairs again she looked in the mirror, straightened her hat, gave the hall one last look around and left the house. As she closed the door, the sudden swish of air took hold of the letter on the floor and it fluttered under the hall table and against the wall. Further up the street, Lottie hailed a passing cab and climbed in.
‘The station, please,’ she directed the cabbie. It was not until she was sitting in a third-class carriag
e on the train going south, first stop Durham, that she allowed herself to think of Thomas again. Brought up as she had been in the workhouse, with the exigency of survival always having to come first, she was following her instincts.
Thomas, Thomas, she had thought he loved her.
‘I thought his father loved me,’ said Eliza sadly after Lottie told her the tale. Eliza was shocked and bitterly hurt, even more so than Lottie. Thomas, her golden boy, her little lad. ‘I never thought he would turn out like his father, a gambler.’
‘A gambler?’
Somehow, this explanation, that Thomas was a gambler, had not occurred to Lottie. In fact she had not thought about what he had done with the money, only that it was gone. She began to fill with anger and resentment. He had taken the money she had earned (her money!) to gamble with, to throw away like that evil Alf Green had on pitch and toss and the bookie’s runner.
‘His father threw himself off a cliff over gambling debts,’ said Eliza. ‘Oh, dear God, you don’t think Thomas might do that?’ Her face was white and despair shone from her eyes. ‘He was such a good boy and he didn’t show any interest in gambling. In fact, I used to impress on him what a mug’s game it was.’
‘Do you know where he is?’ Lottie felt sorry for the older woman but she desperately wanted to find Thomas, even if all she got from him was some sort of explanation or apology or both.
Eliza looked at her hopelessly. ‘How would I know? I never could find his father. Though he did go back to his family in Northumberland once. Alnwick, that is.’ She was sitting on the hall chair, pleating and unpleating the skirt of her wraparound apron. ‘When Tot was a child he ran away and tried to reach them. Did I tell you about that?’
‘Yes, I know.’ Lottie felt deathly tired suddenly. ‘Oh, never mind, Eliza, I’ll be all right. At least there are no children to think about.’
What was she saying? The memory of the baby she’d lost rose to torment her. Tears pricked at her eyes. ‘Can I stay here for a while, Eliza?’ she asked.
‘Well …’ said Eliza, then noticed Lottie’s expression. ‘Yes, of course you can,’ she went on quickly, although she did not really want Lottie to be there, constantly reminding her of her son. Tot, her lovely son who was so clever and had done so well; Thomas, the name he had reverted to when he trained as a lawyer. Anxiety rose in her. He wouldn’t kill himself, would he? As his father had done?
‘I will get my own place as soon as I’m able,’ Lottie was saying. ‘I’ll go to see Mr Scott at the Post. He will give me work, I know. And I do have some money, to see me over until then.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Lottie,’ said Eliza dully. She felt her heart was breaking. How could Lottie not feel that too? The lass was altogether too self-possessed. Why wasn’t she weeping for her man? She should be, especially a man such as Thomas.
She should not have gone to her mother-in-law, Lottie realized as she unpacked her things in the small back bedroom of the house in Gilesgate. It was the bedroom she had been given when she first came back from Stanley all those years ago. She stared out of the window at the houses opposite, not really seeing them. Well, here she was, back to where she had been then. She had succeeded then and she would succeed again, she told herself. And the sooner she started the better.
Twenty-Three
‘Lottie! How good to see you,’ said Mr Jeremiah. He had come out of his office to greet her as she climbed to the top of the stairs and she felt a rush of warmth because he had done so. ‘Come in, do, and I’ll order tea. You would like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you?’
He smiled down at her and she was struck afresh by the deep blue of his eyes. His tawny hair had thinned a little and here and there was speckled with grey, but the effect was to make him look even more distinguished than she remembered him. As she offered him her hand and walked before him into his office it was almost like coming home, or at least back to a well-remembered and loved place. Her heart warmed a little for the first time since Thomas’s desertion.
‘Thank you for seeing me. I know this is a busy day for you,’ Lottie murmured.
‘Nonsense! I will always have time to see you,’ he replied, before going to the door and calling, ‘Jackson, are you there? Fetch some tea, will you? Oh, and get some of those little cakes from the baker’s please.’
A voice answered from below and Mr Jeremiah turned back into the room. Up until then he had been having a humdrum sort of a day, but the sight of Lottie had brightened his mood considerably.
He sat down opposite Lottie. ‘Well then, Lottie. I can still call you Lottie, can’t I? Now you are a married lady?’ he said, not waiting for a reply. ‘How are you? Do you like living in Newcastle?’ He paused, then went on, ‘And Thomas, how is Thomas?’
‘That I wouldn’t know,’ said Lottie steadily. She stared down at the black cotton gloves encasing her clasped hands before continuing. She felt embarrassed at telling Jeremiah that her man had left her. ‘Thomas and I don’t live together any more.’
‘I’m sorry, Lottie,’ he said quietly. No more than that, but she felt he understood that she didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Are you living back here then? In the same place?’
‘With my mother-in-law for the minute. Then I want to find a place, a room at least, somewhere overlooking the Wear. By Prebends Bridge, for preference.’
‘Well then,’ he said. ‘As it happens I am in dire need of a lady to do the job you were doing before you left. There have been one or two but they don’t stay long. Most of them are just waiting until they get married.’ He paused and looked at her closely. ‘Are you interested in coming back?’ he asked.
Lottie sighed with relief. She had steeled herself to ask him for work; it was almost as if he knew that. But then, Jeremiah had always seemed to know what she was thinking. She smiled.
‘Oh, Mr Jeremiah,’ she said, ‘that is exactly why I am here.’
‘It is? And there I thought you had come to see us for old times’ sake.’
Lottie blushed. ‘Oh well …’ she began and then noticed his dark blue eyes were twinkling at her. ‘It is lovely to be back but I do need some work.’
‘You have not made your fortune writing books then?’
She laughed. ‘Not yet. But I’m trying.’
‘You have a lot of talent, Lottie.’ He was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at her. ‘Can you start today?’ he asked eventually.
Lottie didn’t hesitate. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘There has been some unrest in the mining villages, even among the miners who live closer in to the city. The usual thing: the owners want to reduce wages and the pitmen want to reduce their hours of working. I want you to go out to West Stanley and find out the wives’ point of view. Not just Stanley but one, maybe two of the other places. Do you think you can do that?’
Lottie stared at him. ‘Do you think I can do it?’ she asked eventually. It was such a big job, and she had done no reporting for such a long time. When would she get time to write her own book, the book Mr Bloom was expecting on his desk before the autumn?
‘I wouldn’t ask if I did not,’ said Jeremiah with a half smile. ‘It’s an article, Lottie. Maybe two thousand words at the most. What do you think?’
An article, not so big a job. ‘I can,’ she said.
Jeremiah smiled. ‘Good. You can take Edward with you, he will take photographs.’
There was a knock on the door and Jackson came in with the tea tray. He smiled and nodded at Lottie as he put it down before her. ‘Good to see you, miss,’ he said before going back out.
‘Oh,’ said Jeremiah. ‘There are biscuits. You will do the honours, won’t you, Lottie?’
As Lottie sipped tea and nibbled a biscuit she felt there was some constraint between them as she surreptitiously watched Jeremiah. He was as courteous, even friendly, as ever, but not as free and easy as he had been. He looked older too: there were lines on his face that she couldn’t remember being t
here before.
‘Your father, is he well? And your wife …’
‘My father is fine. He will be in later, you may see him,’ Jeremiah said rather quickly. ‘My wife is not well, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She put her cup and saucer back on the tray and rose to her feet. ‘Well, I think I may as well start right now,’ she said. ‘It’s early, I can catch the horse-bus to Stanley.’
‘What are you going to do? I mean, do you have a plan?’ Jeremiah rose to his feet too and came around the desk to show her to the door. He opened it and stood to one side to let her through. ‘Do you know anyone in Stanley?’
‘I do as it happens, I have friends there, a mining family. It will be nice to see them again.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then. Well, it’s nice to see you again, Lottie,’ he said, and looking up at his face she could tell he really meant it. ‘I’ve missed you, we all have.’
‘Thank you. I’ve missed you too. The office, I mean,’ she added quickly and Jeremiah held out his hand to shake. His handshake was warm and firm and reassuring.
‘I will wait for you to get in touch then,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Lottie.’
Lottie hesitated before answering. ‘You know Thomas’s stepfather is a union official, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘Some might think my views are influenced by him. His mother is a friend of mine and we keep in touch.’
‘I’m sure you will be fair-minded, as you always were in your articles, Lottie,’ Jeremiah answered.
As she walked along the street towards North Road where she could pick up the horse-bus to Stanley, she realized how true it was that she had missed Jeremiah. The image of Thomas had faded from her thoughts for the first time since he left. Not that it had dominated them but it had been there, never really out of her mind. The difference between the two men was so marked. Thomas was such a charming man when he wanted to be, but he was unreliable, dishonest and, in the end, a gambler and a thief.