The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (10 page)

She looked straight at the woman and she thought how skinny her whole body was. Her face had dropped from lack of good food, and there was in the house the most awful atmosphere. She thought it was despair.

‘Mrs Formby, I don’t know that I should be here. You will be quite right to tell me that I should mind my own business and I would go immediately and not bother you again—’

Mrs Formby interrupted her here, even smiling to show several of her teeth were missing. ‘The Misses Slaters have been that kind to my bairns, why would I mind you coming here?’

‘I’m going to say something very particular to you and I don’t think you’re going to be pleased, but the moment you want me to leave I will, I promise.’ Lucy hesitated. ‘I cannot be ignorant, living next door, of the fact that Mr Formby is unkind to you. I know you are trying to keep it from your neighbours and I understand your pride, but if you went to the law you would be granted a separation order and money from him. I know this because my father is a solicitor in Newcastle and he instructed me. If he was here he would help you, and I want to help you too.’

Mrs Formby’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I just wish it was that easy,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t work, he isn’t well, that was the problem in the first place, you see. He drinks the little he has because he cannot stand the man he’s become. He hasn’t got any money to give us.’

‘Then how are you managing?’

Mrs Formby looked proud for the first time and nodded at the ceiling.

‘My Tilda has got a job with the store. She’s working in the shoe department. Can you imagine that, Miss Charlton? She’s a grand lass.’

‘Do you want to live with Mr Formby?’

Mrs Formby looked at her as though she were mad. ‘He’s my husband,’ she said.

This was not easy, Lucy thought. ‘All I’m saying to you is that if you wanted you could live apart from him.’

Mrs Formby frowned. ‘I married him for better or worse, Miss Charlton.’

‘But if the worse becomes too much there are other ways. The law would be on your side.’

Mrs Formby looked at her with gratitude, yet as though there were a hundred years between them. She touched Lucy’s cheek with her knuckles as no doubt she did with her children and looked on her with pride as though Lucy were her daughter.

‘What a lovely lass you are,’ she said. ‘I bet your mam is proud of you.’

*

It was only another day or two when Mr Formby came home drunk again, mid-evening. Lucy could hear him shouting, but it was not just at Mrs Formby, for she heard the girl scream. Lucy ran out of the house and burst into the kitchen next door. Mr Formby was a very big man and he had hold of his daughter, her wrist caught in one of his big square hands. She had turned away as though he were about to hit her. His wife was crying and the children were huddled against her.

‘Let her go!’ Lucy yelled. She hadn’t raised her voice for a long time, but it responded well. He didn’t take any notice – perhaps he didn’t hear her, perhaps he had drunk so much that he was unaware she had entered his house – but when she shouted again, ‘I will get the police if you don’t let her go!’ he did.

And then he turned around. It didn’t occur to Lucy to be afraid of him, no matter how big he was. In some awful way she had learned from Guy what men could do to women.
She knew that this man could kill her with a single blow if he chose and if she didn’t get out of the way, but she didn’t care. The anger had been boiling up in her for a very long time. She stood there, glad of her height and of the way that men had taught her such awful lessons. She held her ground and kept him still with her eyes. She glared at him. He considered her and then to her surprise and horror he started to laugh. Lucy felt all her emotion drain away.

‘Why,’ he sneered, ‘it’s the skinny plain lass from next door with the ginger-coloured hair,’ and he spat on the floor and began to lumber from the room.

In the silence Lucy heard him making his drunken way up the stairs, banging into either side and swearing until at last he staggered against the bedroom door and cursed again. After that there was silence. Lucy felt deflated and then she saw that this was what some men did to women, they tried to make them feel stupid and insignificant.

Tilda stood in the middle of the room with her hand to her mouth. She was shaking with sobs, yet no sound came out. Mrs Formby took the girl into her arms and the children, who had run off when Lucy shouted at their father, came out of the shadows, unsure. Lucy badly wanted to cry herself, but she felt that she couldn’t. She turned to go and Mrs Formby came to her.

‘What a brave bairn you are,’ she said, reaching up to kiss Lucy on the cheek, something Lucy’s mother had never done.

The following morning Lucy left early and went to the police station in Elvet. It was not a welcoming place, gloomy, with a big desk running the full length of the room as though people were desperate to get in – or out, she corrected
herself. A big fat man in uniform was writing. He didn’t look up.

‘Good morning,’ Lucy said. He glanced at her in surprise and she thought he hadn’t heard.

And then he smiled and said, ‘Why, Miss Lucy Charlton. What are you doing here?’

‘Constable Keane?’

This was not so very different to when Lucy’s father had taken her to the various police stations in Newcastle. The change was that she had done this alone and she felt relief that the policeman knew her. And this man had been one of the best; he would be her friend, she was sure.

‘I live here now,’ she said. ‘What about you?’

He hesitated.

‘My lady wife died,’ he said, straightening up as he obviously felt he should, ‘so I came back to Durham. It’s my home. Where would I go but here? I’ve got no family left. We have no bairns you know and I wanted a change.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Lucy said, ‘but it’s lovely to see you.’

‘So what can we do for you, Miss Lucy?’

‘I just wish there could be a man on the beat in Rachel Lane where I live, someone to look in occasionally at number four, because Mr Formby is behaving very badly to his family. I think it might make a difference if you were to become involved. I lodge next door with the Misses Slaters at number three. Mrs Formby could apply for a separation order, but Mr Formby doesn’t work and she has nowhere to go.’

Constable Keane shook his head and pressed his lips carefully together. ‘I’ll do what I can, Miss Lucy, but you know we are awfully overstretched and there are a lot of such like
incidents. I wish I didn’t have to deal with them. It’s very bad. We don’t have enough men or sufficient money – unless you can give me a crime there isn’t a great deal I can do about it.’

‘All I want is a policeman in Rachel Lane during the evening. Surely every street is on some policeman’s beat,’ Lucy said.

He looked again, sighed again.

‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I will make sure that one of my lads is seen there at some time late each evening and that from time to time he knocks on their door. Will that do?’

She smiled at him, nodded, thanked him and left.

*

When Lucy became good at typing Miss Bethany encouraged her to find a job.

‘Try the solicitors’ offices first.’ Lucy didn’t want to say that she was afraid she would not get anywhere because it was what she wanted more than anything.

‘It doesn’t matter if they don’t look as though they need help,’ Miss Bethany said. ‘I’m not sure they would be able to put notices in their windows – I think it’s more a case of knowing people, and since you don’t know anybody you must go and ask. Give it your best, go to everyone.’

Encouraged, she did, but it was a very hard thing to do. She was dismissed just inside the door by one man, and another let her get as far as the front desk but there told her they did not employ women, which was ridiculous, she thought, as many women worked in different kinds of offices.

Finally, when she was about to slink back to Rachel Lane and admit defeat, she made her way into Bainbridge and
Featherstone, the only solicitors’ office she had not been to, as far as she could tell.

It was empty, the front desk unattended. She thought this most unusual, but there was nobody waiting to see Mr Bainbridge or Mr Featherstone, so perhaps they had things to do in the back and were unaware that anyone was inside. There was no bell to press or anything else to summon the clerk or whatever person dealt with such things. Lucy coughed politely and waited for a few moments. She heard the sound of raised voices from the passage beyond.

She nearly left, as it seemed rude to stand there listening, but then gave herself a mental push. She had no job – she had nothing to go back to but to tell the Misses Slaters that she had not got anywhere, and she didn’t feel as if she could do that. She called out, not very loudly, just a ‘hello’, and waited. But it was clear they couldn’t hear because they were shouting at one another and the door, which she presumed they supposed was shut in the darkness of the passage, stood open sufficiently for Lucy to detect exactly what they said. It was a man and a woman and they were arguing, as only members of a family would argue, without care.

‘You have no right to expect me to come here day after day when I already have so much to do.’

‘You have nothing to do. Norah runs the house. She does the cooking, the cleaning, the ordering of the groceries, she sorts out the woman who comes to do the washing – if it wasn’t for Hindmarch bringing in the coal and looking after the garden and giving her a hand generally, she could be called a housekeeper. She keeps the whole damned place right. What on earth you do all day I have no idea.’

The girl’s voice rose and trembled. ‘I don’t know how you can say this to me when Mother hasn’t been dead ten minutes.’

‘She’s been dead two years, Em. And he’s been gone almost four. I can’t do everything by myself, I really cannot. You’re about as much use as a snowball in hell.’

There was a sob and a scuffled noise and then a tall, elegant-looking young woman came out of the gloom, pushed through the office and slammed the door hard so that the windows shook. The young man who came out after her wore a good suit. He stopped when he saw Lucy and she thought he had kind eyes. They were blue like summer hills in the distance, but tired, dulled.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘I did call out.’

‘Do you have an appointment? Mr Clarence usually deals with these things but he has the flu.’

‘No—’

‘Well, even if you did it probably hasn’t been written down,’ he said. ‘Come through to the back and I’ll see what I can do,’ and he went off again.

Lucy followed him. The hall floor had mosaic tiles in a pretty patterned black and white that made her wonder whether the building had been a house at one time. It certainly seemed it, with this as the side way in, she thought. He ushered her into a large room which looked out across gardens. The view of the river was lovely.

‘Do sit down, Miss …’

‘Charlton. Lucy.’

‘I’m Edgar Bainbridge. How can I help?’

‘I’m looking for work.’

His gaze lightened on her. ‘You do office work?’ he said hopefully.

‘I can type and …’ she hesitated, not knowing whether to tell him and then plunged, ‘I have a law degree.’

He stared. ‘You’re going to be a solicitor?’

‘I can’t afford to become an articled clerk so I thought I would look for work in this kind of office as a secretary if there was any.’

Mr Bainbridge sat back in his chair. ‘Did you say your name was Charlton? Is your father a solicitor in Newcastle?’

Lucy admitted reluctantly that he was, and then knew that she must make up a story so she told him half the tale.

‘My father isn’t well and the business isn’t doing anything – he cannot afford to take me on. I need to try for other things for myself and since I was at university here I thought I might stay.’

‘My father did business with yours for years,’ Mr Bain-bridge said, enthusiastically, ‘sending people to one another when they needed help in certain circumstances. I’m sorry your father is having such a difficult time, Miss Charlton. Your sense of timing is admirable. Mr Clarence who runs the front office has been ill and I have no one to do anything. I will give you a week to prove that you are a better secretary than my sister. Can you start on Monday?’

Joe’s journey north was long. The views from the window were of fields, mile after mile. Other people came into the carriage and eventually got off, but by the time the train had reached Darlington he was the only one left. Joe did not think this was a good sign. Darlington did not appear to be prosperous, but since the daylight had long since receded all he could see were smudged tops of long terraced houses and narrow streets and what he thought might be industrial buildings beyond them, with chimneys and strange towers of some kind.

His stop was next. When he got off it was like falling from the ends of the earth somehow. The tiny station was on the top of a steep hill and he could see nothing beyond in the darkness with thick fog that swirled like fingers. He found a cab to take him into town, asking the man for a decent inexpensive hotel. He was soon let down among glowing lights and the cabbie got out to help him with his luggage.

‘You’ll be all right here, sir,’ he said. ‘If you need another cab just let us know. Paddy’s Cabs these are, the best in town.’

*

The next morning Joe went to get the keys for the house. He had no difficulty in finding Mr Bainbridge’s office. A passerby assured him that most things to do with the law were in Old Elvet where the courts were, and beyond there was the prison. The man even told him where hangings had been when they were public spectacles. Joe wasn’t sure he needed this information, but he went out of the marketplace and down the cobbled street which led to the bridge. He crossed it and just up there on the right he found a neat plaque which read ‘Bainbridge and Featherstone’.

Inside he found himself in a front office where a big fire burned bravely.

There were several seats which looked comfortable enough and three people sat. At the nearest desk was a small, bald-headed man, a few wisps of hair clinging to the tops of his ears. Joe approached the desk. The man looked up and was affable enough, even though his thick accent made Joe lean nearer. He had to decipher as he went along as though he were in another country. And in some ways, Joe thought, he was. It was no closer than that he had met at first in Italy and a good deal more alien than France.