Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  After the experiences she had endured during her early life, she needed an upright man, a rock, a man she could rely on. A man such as Jeremiah, she thought wistfully.

  ‘Lottie Lonsdale, I don’t believe it!’

  Dora, Albert Teesdale’s wife, sat back on her heels, with the black lead brush in her hand. The steel fire irons were to one side, already polished, and there were black smuts on Dora’s hands and cheek and on the sacking apron she wore around her waist to protect her dress, instead of her usual white pinafore.

  ‘Hello, Dora,’ said Lottie, as she stood in the open doorway to the kitchen/living room in West Stanley. She had been feeling unsure of her welcome and Dora’s tone of voice stopped her walking straight in, as she would have done in normal circumstances. The kitchen looked much the same as when Mary Anne had reigned over it, except for the fact that the walls were no longer lime-washed but covered in a black wallpaper decorated with large cabbage roses. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Nay, I’m all right,’ said Dora. ‘Albert’s not too grand. His chest.’

  She pushed herself up with the help of the wooden cracket on which she had her cleaning gear. Dora was heavily pregnant. She looked pale and tired and her face was puffy.

  ‘Mind, it’s a bit since we saw you,’ she said with emphasis on the ‘you’. She looked hard at Lottie. ‘Well, come in and sit down if you’re coming,’ she went on. ‘Speak quietly, though. Albert’s in bed, he’s on night shift.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Lottie moved into the kitchen and pulled out a chair from the square scrubbed table in the middle. It was one of two; she recognized them as the plain, unpolished chairs sold by the Co-operative stores that had been varnished by Mary Anne. There was a long form at the other end of the table for the children to sit on. It too was varnished to a dark, almost black colour.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on but you’ll have to wait until the fire gets built up. I let it go down while I did the fireplace.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Lottie. Now she was here, she felt some constraint about broaching her reason for coming.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a cup myself.’

  Dora mended the fire with the aid of a few sticks and small lumps of coal. When it blazed up to her satisfaction she pushed the iron kettle back from the bar on to it.

  As they waited for the water to boil, Albert came down the stairs in his stocking feet. His braces hung down over his trousers and his shirt was collarless. He stared at Lottie, unsmiling.

  ‘Mind, we are honoured,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen you for a year or two. We might have been dead and gone for all you cared. What’s all the bloody racket any road? When a man’s been down the pit all night he should get a bit of peace in his bed after.’

  ‘Albert,’ said Dora.

  ‘Albert what? I’ve said nowt but the truth, have I?’

  ‘Hello, Albert,’ Lottie intervened. ‘How are you? I’m sorry if we woke you, I thought we were being quiet.’

  ‘What do you care how I am, or any of us for that matter? My mam gave you a home when you were out on your arse and what did she get back? Eh? Eh?’

  ‘Albert!’ Dora said again.

  ‘Aw, don’t Albert me, she wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t after something, would she?’ He glared at his wife. The kettle lid began to lift and fall as the water boiled. ‘Well, are you making tea or not? If not, I’ll away down the club for a pint of ale. I’ll get no more sleep the day with a strange voice nattering on all the time.’

  ‘I’ll be going soon,’ said Lottie. ‘I just came to see how you were getting on.’

  She couldn’t talk about her article now, not with Albert there.

  ‘What about the tea?’ asked Dora.

  ‘Let her go, she’s not interested in us, Dora, man!’

  Lottie hurriedly said goodbye and backed to the door. She could hear Albert’s voice shouting at Dora as she went off down the street, glad when it eventually faded away.

  There was a corner shop on the end of the street which sold just about everything that the families might run out of before the Co-op store cart came around on Fridays. Inside there were a few housewives, shopping baskets in hand, waiting their turn to be served. Lottie recognized one or two of them as her neighbours when she had lived with the Teesdales. They turned around to inspect the newcomer as she opened the door and the bell jangled above her.

  ‘Eeh, it’s little Lottie!’ cried one. ‘What are you doing back here, Lottie? The last I heard you were living in Durham or Newcastle and were a famous writer!’

  The speaker was Dot Turner, who lived a few doors along from the Teesdales. She was a blowsy woman with untidy fair hair, blue eyes and red cheeks, and she stood with her arms folded across her ample bosom and grinned at Lottie. Lottie smiled back at her. Dot was a woman who said whatever came into her head without thinking about it first, but there was no real harm in her.

  ‘I don’t know about the famous bit,’ she replied. ‘I have written a book and it has been published but I don’t know how well it will do.’

  ‘Get away, lass,’ Dot declared. ‘That’s more than anyone here as done. Most of us cannot write our own names, man!’

  ‘You’ve written some bits for the Durham Post, though, haven’t you?’

  This came from the shopkeeper, who seemed to have abandoned her serving in her interest in the newcomer.

  Lottie admitted this was true.

  ‘Are you going to write about us, now?’ asked Dot.

  This was so near the truth that Lottie was surprised for a minute. ‘I’m hoping to write an article about miners’ wives,’ she admitted.

  ‘Aye, well, I reckoned it had to be something brought you back,’ a thin woman with a grubby shawl said, nodding her head in emphasis. ‘You wouldn’t be slumming here otherwise.’

  ‘Aw, get along wi’ ye, the lass has family here,’ Dot asserted. ‘Didn’t she marry Eliza Teesdale’s lad? Anyway, pet, what do you want to know?’

  ‘The editor wants me to ask the opinions of the miners’ wives about the present dispute between the owners and the men,’ said Lottie. The women began to laugh.

  ‘By, you’re as good as a turn, Lottie Lonsdale,’ said Dot. ‘Don’t you think so, Meggie?’ Meggie, the shopkeeper nodded her agreement.

  ‘The dispute between the owners and the men? Don’t you mean the owners trying to get the pitmen to work all hours for nowt and the men determined to stop them and get paid a decent wage?’

  ‘I reckon you could say that,’ Lottie admitted. Even this small interchange had given her some idea of the women’s opinions, she thought. ‘All right, yes, that’s what I mean. I’m just trying to be even-handed for the readers of the Post. It’s a city paper and there are a lot of readers who are against the men causing trouble in the workplace.’

  There, she’d done it again, she realized as soon as she uttered it. She had been away from the miners and their families too long. They would never use language like that. They would think she was against them. The women had stopped smiling and were looking at her with suspicion.

  ‘By, Lottie Lonsdale,’ said Meggie. ‘You have changed. You’re on the side of the bosses now, aren’t you? Well, you’ll get nowt out of us, I’m telling you.’ Meggie’s man was a shotfirer down the pit.

  There was a murmur of agreement among the women. ‘You’ll away back to Durham if you know what’s good for you,’ one of them said, her voice rising to a shout. ‘An’ you married to the union man’s lad. Shame on you.’

  ‘No!’ Lottie protested. ‘I’m not on the side of the bosses! I was just saying what some people think, that’s all. I’m for the ten-hour day, I am. Especially for the lads. I just wanted your opinion that’s all. The Post reports things fairly, they do. It’s just …’

  ‘Aw, hadaway, will you, lass. You’re not making things any better,’ said Dot. ‘If you don’t know what we think by now, after all the time you spent among the pit folk, you’ve been going ar
ound with your eyes and ears shut.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll go.’

  Lottie turned to the door, then turned back. ‘But I think I can say that feelings are running high in West Stanley any road. I promise I’ll put the case as best I can.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Meggie drily. ‘Well, a man working down the pit is worth a fair wage, that’s all we’re saying.’

  Twenty-Four

  ‘You’ve been to West Stanley?’ said Eliza. ‘By, I wish I’d have known, I would have come with you. I’m worried about Da. Did you see him?’

  Lottie had to admit she hadn’t even thought of Tommy or Harry when she was in the mining village. ‘I think they must have been on shift,’ she said. ‘I saw Albert and Dora, though, they were all right.’

  ‘It’s time Da was out of the pit,’ said Eliza. ‘I thought he should come to live with us here. I could keep an eye on him. His chest is worse since he went on datal work.’ She did not mention that with Lottie in the house there was not really space for Tommy, but Lottie was well aware of it.

  She would move out to make room for Eliza’s father, Lottie thought to herself, though Eliza would not ask it of her. It was time to look for a place on her own again and she thought of the little house where she had lived before going to Newcastle with Thomas. She regretted leaving it now, oh yes she did indeed.

  ‘Tommy will be fine,’ she said, trying to reassure Eliza. ‘Harry will let you know if he isn’t, even if Albert does not. You know your father is independent. He’ll want to work as long as he can.’

  ‘Still, he’s into his seventies now. He’s worked in the pit since he was nine years old.’ Eliza bit her lip. ‘Then there’s Thomas. I wonder where Thomas is. What is he doing? Surely he’ll get in touch soon,’ she said. ‘He’s a good lad really, Lottie, you know he is. He’ll have a good reason for staying away, you’ll see.’

  Lottie looked at her mother-in-law. What could she say? Poor Eliza was worn down with worry, what with her son and her father, though she didn’t know the true extent of the trouble Thomas was in and Lottie hadn’t the heart to tell her.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she replied, then excused herself to go and write up her notes.

  The following day she visited some of the local pit wives before going to see Mr Jeremiah in the early afternoon to show him her notes, which still needed some knocking into shape before she wrote the final article. She was a little unsure of herself; after all, it was a long time since she had worked on the paper. His smile as he rose from his desk as she went into his office was heart-warming.

  ‘Lottie! How are you? I must say you look blooming. I think living in Durham suits you better than living in Newcastle did.’

  Lottie smiled back and relaxed. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought you my notes on the article …’

  ‘Yes, about the views of the women folk. I’m looking forward to seeing them.’

  He barely glanced over them before handing them back to her.

  ‘Come on, Lottie, you’re an experienced journalist, you don’t need me to supervise you,’ he said. ‘Write the article.’

  He sat back in his chair and smiled at her and she was struck anew by what a nice man he was. His eyes were such a deep, friendly blue (were they really so much deeper and more expressive than Thomas’s?), his voice so gentle and kind. She found herself comparing him with her husband. Oh, how had she let herself think she loved Thomas? He wasn’t the man she had thought he was. He had let both her and his mother down so badly.

  ‘Well, Lottie, what do you say?’

  Lottie started, realizing that Jeremiah had asked her a question twice.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Jeremiah?’

  ‘I was talking about the article, though I’m sure you were thinking of something completely different.’ He smiled again, his eyes wrinkling up at the corners. ‘Call me Jeremiah – Jerry if you want to. In private, of course.’

  Lottie blushed. ‘Oh, I couldn’t!’

  ‘As you wish, Mrs Mitchell-Howe,’ said Jeremiah formally, the smile leaving his face. He rose to his feet to escort her to the door. She glanced at him anxiously, fearing she had offended him, but he was smiling again.

  ‘I’ll bring the article in good time,’ she reassured him.

  ‘I’m sure you will, my dear,’ he replied. Oh, he was a lovely man, she thought to herself. If only Thomas had been like him. She began to imagine what it might be like to be married to someone like Jeremiah – Jerry, as he had asked her to call him. It would be so different … She caught herself up. She was a married woman already and this was foolish, scandalous even. She stole a glance at him as he was closing the door after her. If he knew what she was thinking she would be mortified. She went on down the staircase, and out. The cold, fresh air cooled her cheeks, which were suddenly burning. What a fool she was, she thought as she went on down Northgate.

  Thomas had only been gone a few weeks and here she was thinking romantically of someone else. An abandoned woman she was and if Jeremiah knew what she was thinking he would be horrified, him being a Quaker an’ all.

  ‘I think you would find the women are united behind their men,’ Peter remarked when he heard what it was she was writing. He sat beside the kitchen fire in the rocking chair with the newly bathed Anne on his knee, gently rocking. Opposite him, Eliza was darning socks, stretching the heel with the hole in it over a wooden ‘mushroom’ as she threaded the wool across and back. It was a common domestic scene, thought Lottie wistfully. Eliza had been fortunate in her second marriage, there was no doubt about that. She brought her thoughts back to what Peter was saying.

  ‘Yes, they are loyal,’ she replied to him.

  ‘Not only that, the men have a fair case,’ said Peter. ‘But at least the women don’t work in the pit, not as they do in other places. In Durham we have avoided that. But the owners say they can’t make a profit as things are. Why don’t they realize that if only conditions were better, if the lads especially could have their hours cut, production would go up?’

  He stood, holding the now sleeping Anne against his shoulder. ‘I’ll take her up now, Eliza,’ he said, then as an aside to Lottie, ‘Think on it.’

  ‘I have done,’ said Lottie. ‘Now I’d best get on with writing the article.’

  Union business was ever on Peter’s mind, she thought as she settled down to work in her bedroom. She worked well into the night, breaking only for supper with Peter and Eliza. It was so long since she had worked on anything for the paper that she felt unsure of herself, redoing the article twice before she was satisfied with it. The bells of the cathedral were ringing out the midnight hour before she finally climbed into bed.

  There was a lot of interest generated by Lottie’s story of the women in the pit villages. Some of it was sympathetic to the cause of the miners, but quite a lot was not. On the whole, the tradespeople of the town were on the side of the owners. There were letters about the miners ‘biting the hands that fed them’, of them ‘not knowing their place’. But there were also letters making the point that such dirty, dangerous work should be properly rewarded. ‘There should be laws against boys as young as nine working in the pit,’ one reverend gentleman asserted. ‘Jesus said, “Suffer the little children.”’ The debate ran on for weeks, even though there were few letters from the mining villages.

  ‘Most of them can’t read properly anyway,’ Mr Scott senior said.

  ‘A lot can,’ said Lottie. ‘Now that the National Schools are open. In any case, a lot of them were taught by the Methodists before that.’ She was feeling ruffled. Usually she found Mr Scott to be more understanding of the miners. ‘And now there are classes in the Workingmen’s Institutes.’

  ‘I think Lottie is right, Father,’ Jeremiah said, glancing at Lottie’s pink face.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mr Scott.

  ‘Well, it can only be a good thing for the paper when there is such interest in an article in the ladies section,’ said his son, then he changed the subject firmly. ‘Lot
tie, I would like you to visit more of the mining villages around and try to gauge the support the men are getting from their womenfolk,’ he said. ‘Just two or three – perhaps Sherburn and Haswell – though you can decide which ones for yourself. You should get enough data for a follow-up article.’

  ‘I’d love to!’ Lottie replied. She had very little money left, though she was still to be paid for her article. Oh, she would manage, she would only be short for a while. She would not let the lack of money stop her doing this.

  ‘I’ll give you some expenses,’ said Jeremiah, almost as though he had heard what she was thinking.

  ‘I’ll start tomorrow,’ she said eagerly and Jeremiah smiled.

  ‘In your own time,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a chit to get expense money at the cash desk downstairs.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m so grateful, Mr Jeremiah, I really am,’ said Lottie as she moved towards the door, her mind already planning the day ahead.

  Lottie was filled with the old fervour for her work as she travelled around the isolated mining villages talking to the women. Mostly she had to follow them about as they hung out washing on lines across the street or down back gardens or working on other household chores. Sometimes they were reluctant to talk to her, viewing her as an outsider and therefore someone under suspicion.

  By the end of the day she had a notebook almost filled with her descriptions of the women, the ways they had of helping each other and combating the harshness of their surroundings.

  ‘You’re late,’ remarked Eliza as Lottie opened the back door and let herself into the house. Eliza was bathing Anne in the tin bath before the fire in the kitchen. She helped the little girl climb out and wrapped her in a towel. Anne looked over her mother’s shoulder solemnly at Lottie. Her eyes were the same blue as Thomas’s, Lottie thought distractedly.

  ‘I’ve been over Auckland way,’ she said. ‘I had to wait for a train back.’ She glanced at the wall clock hanging to one side of the fireplace. It was half past seven already and she had to write up her notes to take in to the office the following morning at the latest if her article was to get into the weekend edition of the Post.