The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (9 page)

In the sitting room a large, ragged-eared brown-and-white-haired springer spaniel lay, smelly and snoring.

‘Frederick, do get off the furniture,’ Miss Slater told him. The dog opened one eye, closed it and began to snore again.

In the back room, what other people would have termed the kitchen and Miss Slater called the ‘morning room’, there was a table with a large black typewriter upon it. There was also a range though no sign of a sink, and a little pantry beyond that no doubt hid other things.

‘How much do you charge?’ was Lucy’s first question.

‘Oh, my dear,’ said Miss Bethany, going pale at the indelicacy, ‘do sit down and take some tea.’

The biscuits were moist and stale. Lucy ate one with gusto. The tea tasted musty as though it had been in a cupboard for a long time, brought out only on special occasions. The fire was small in there, though rain had fallen for a week without stopping. Lucy’s shoes had let in every drop she stood on. They couldn’t afford much coal, she realized, even in a place like this where it was cheap.

The sisters asked tentatively about Lucy’s background and were clearly pleased to discover that she was a solicitor’s daughter from Newcastle and that she had taken a law degree.

‘So few girls take responsibility for themselves and so many have to,’ said Miss Slater with a sigh.

She told Lucy that before they had moved here their father had been a vicar in a pit village not far outside Durham. When he had died they had come here with their mother because they must allow the next incumbent to have the vicarage. Their mother had died two years later. Miss Slater taught children to play the piano and Miss Bethany typewriting.

‘I am also looking for somewhere to stay, somewhere which doesn’t cost much,’ Lucy said.

The two sisters looked at one another and nodded. Miss Slater said, ‘You must stay here with us. I can move into Bethany’s room and you may have mine, cheaply. My dear, do come to stay; it would help us a great deal and you are such a charming girl.’

She showed Lucy the little back room which looked onto an unmade street. It was tiny, with a single bed and a shelf above it, cluttered almost to the ceiling with clothes and linen and books. She could not have said no. She liked the
two ladies, and felt safe for the first time since her father had thrown her out.

‘Are you planning to become a secretary? Such a good job for a girl,’ Miss Slater said.

‘I want to become a solicitor, but I can’t afford to go to any law firm that might take me on – and I don’t suppose there are many of them anyway.’

‘No, indeed,’ Miss Slater said.

For a few moments Lucy was irritated that the woman agreed with her until she continued shrewdly, ‘You might join a law firm as a secretary, if you could find anything. It wouldn’t be what you really want of course, but it would be one way in. You might learn a great deal, and if you save as much as you can then one day you
will
be a lawyer.’ The woman beamed at her.

Lucy admitted to herself that this was a realistic way to look at it and she could not stop the little frisson of hope that dawned within her. She was even better pleased when Miss Bethany told her that she might have the typewriting lessons free if she would help them with other things.

‘What other things?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Do you cook?’ They both looked eagerly at her.

‘No.’

‘Oh dear,’ Miss Bethany said, ‘that would have been a joy. Neither of us ever learned. Mother didn’t think ladies ought to be in the kitchen. She had married beneath her and was obliged to make the best of things, but really we eat so badly. We always have.’

And so it was that Lucy said that she would try. They found her a cookery book which had for some reason been in their
father’s library. It was written by Eliza Acton and Lucy sat reading it that first evening as they sat around the fire. She discovered that cooking appeared to be mostly about putting the right ingredients together – something that this clever person had found an affinity for.

Miss Acton had a decidedly confident approach, observing the results of different recipes, and depending on things like time of year, kind of fruit and the day it was picked. Her accuracy and enthusiasm made Lucy want to go into the kitchen and take it for hers. How odd when she had never felt so before. Perhaps a woman needed a kitchen of her own, and since the two Misses Slaters were at a loss in there she felt that she could do that. She discovered pots and pans which they had not used. It looked as if they had lived on sandwiches for a very long time – not only not good for them but very dull.

When she dared mention this they acknowledged it with nods of their heads.

‘Every time one of us goes in there we have a disaster and we waste food,’ said Miss Slater, ‘whereas sandwiches are anything one can place between two slices of bread.’

Lucy suggested to Miss Bethany that if she hired a room in the city she might hold classes and make more money than at present. Lucy didn’t like to tell the two ladies that it was a rare person who came to such a place as Rachel Lane for lessons of any kind. The people around them were very poor and could never have afforded such things.

‘Would it not cost a great deal of money?’ Miss Bethany asked. Lucy said she would find out.

The next day Lucy moved the few things she owned into the little house by the river and went shopping for the ladies. She discovered that a great many people in Durham had vegetable gardens attached to their houses and some had allotments where things were ripening, some ready for picking, and if they had a glut they would sell or even give the fruit and vegetables to her. She began making preserves, such as she remembered her mother doing, strawberries and raspberries first, then rhubarb, gooseberries and plums. With Miss Acton’s help she was able to look along the jars on the shelf with some satisfaction.

The first time she made fresh pea soup both ladies talked about it for so long afterwards that Lucy was embarrassed. She made cakes. She liked the miracle of it, how she could put the raw mixture into the oven and an hour or more later it emerged, smelling warm and sweet and transformed into substantial rounds.

She made leek and potato soup, and she bought bits of bacon leftovers from when it was cut, or she cooked ham in the same way. With cabbage and potatoes it was a good meal. With onions and potatoes baked in a white sauce in the oven it was even better. When the weather grew colder she baked apples with butter, from the local farmers who brought fruits from their orchards to market along with various cheeses they had made. She went off to the riverbank to see if the fishermen had caught anything. Sometimes it cost nothing and others just a few pennies. They ate a lot of fish.

She found learning to type quite easy; it was nothing more than an act of memory and she was adept at such
things. Miss Bethany was a good teacher, encouraging and delighted with all Lucy did. Lucy went to the Miners’ Institute to enquire about a room for typewriting lessons. She knew there were rooms there, including a reading room for men to read books and newspapers.

But at the door the man told her that women didn’t go in.

‘Why not?’ she asked.

‘Well, I don’t really know, love.’ He scratched his head. ‘We do have beer on the premises and a billiard room – women don’t want such things.’

‘But you must have other rooms which aren’t in use all the time. Miss Slater would be prepared to negotiate terms.’

‘Would she indeed?’ he said, looking at her with fresh eyes. ‘In that case I’ll see what I can do.’

Lucy returned with Miss Bethany with her, and although she was certain her papa would have thought badly of her for going into such a place, Lucy wasn’t having any indecision. They discovered that the cost of a medium-sized room would be very little. They could put up advertisements outside, as well as in the windows of the various shops nearby.

‘If you had just two pupils an hour you could pay for a whole morning here.’

‘Yes, but why would they come?’

Lucy began to despair. ‘Look,’ she said gently, ‘I will make certain that people know. What’s more, when you make enough money we could go to the newspapers to advertise. That’s something we can do cheaply. We might even get them to do an article about it. Do you see?’

Miss Bethany did see and became enthusiastic. That evening all three of them sat at the kitchen table and
devised words to encourage women to come forward and have lessons and increase their chances of being able to do office work. It was something Lucy felt sure a great many mothers would be glad of and proud that their daughters could achieve such things.

Lucy printed it all in big letters on paper she had bought from the stationer’s, which was part of the newspaper premises. Miss Slater soon decided to do the same for music, only she would give concerts.

Lucy was at first astonished at this, but when they went to see one of the local vicars, the one in the marketplace, St Nicholas’s, he liked the idea of holding a concert in the church hall. Miss Slater had privately said to Lucy that she played the organ too, often playing for her father’s church services. The vicar was inclined to think Miss Slater should do this free of charge, for God and his worshippers, but Lucy wasn’t having that.

‘Miss Slater has her living to make,’ she told him. ‘When their father died these women lost almost everything.’

That settled it. The vicar coughed politely and said that he understood of course. Lucy decided she would make cakes – she could charge for tea and cake in the interval.

*

Rachel’s Lane was not the ideal place for two elderly ladies to live, Lucy had decided as soon as she moved in. It showed how bad things were that they could afford no better, but they regarded it as part of their Christian duty. The people next door, the Formbys, were a family of man, wife and four children. Mr Formby was fond of drink; Lucy often heard him come home singing, whenever the windows were left
open, shouting at his wife and children as he entered and leading to crying next door.

This happened one night in Lucy’s first week. Soon there came a banging on the back door. Lucy put a cardigan over her nightdress and went onto the landing, only to find Miss Slater there with a lamp, already descending the narrow stairs, followed closely by her sister. Lucy wanted to tell her not to open it, but it was so obviously not the first time because the moment the door was opened three children ran inside.

‘Where’s Tilda?’ Miss Slater enquired.

‘She ran off, missus,’ the elder boy said, breathing hard.

‘And your mother?’

His breathing was ragged and he did not reply. Miss Slater took them into the kitchen and began to bring the banked-down fire back to life. Lucy listened hard. There was no sound from next door.

‘What about Mrs Formby?’ Lucy asked.

‘As long as there’s no shouting I think she’s safe,’ Miss Bethany said. ‘She can run upstairs and leave him because he will fall asleep, but when it’s cold sometimes they sleep downstairs and he must have come and disturbed them. Go back to bed, my dear, there’s no need to distress yourself.’

But Lucy stayed with them. The children wore thin clothes and were skinny. Miss Bethany went into the pantry and gave them the biscuits Lucy had made earlier that day. The children devoured them quickly. They all sat round the fire until the kettle boiled and Lucy made tea. They drank the tea and then the children piled onto the sofa, set back by
the kitchen wall. They swiftly fell asleep, falling against one another like a pack of cards.

‘Does Mr Formby come here?’ she asked.

Miss Slater shook her head.

Lucy soon realized that part of the reason the Misses Slaters had little money was because they fed these children, though the older child, Tilda, who didn’t talk to them, was too proud, she thought. Their mother was ashamed and would come to the door, begging their pardon, but she would not come in, telling them only how grateful she was for their kindness to her and her bairns.

The Misses Slaters were not afraid. Lucy thought it must be their upbringing, their father having been the vicar in various pit villages in the area. She assumed that they went to the cathedral on Sundays, but they were quite shocked at the idea. Instead they went loyally to St Nicholas’s church in the marketplace where Miss Slater’s concerts were beginning to become well known.

Miss Bethany knitted balaclavas for the boys who lived in the street and socks and woolly hats and gloves for the girls, as well as jumpers and cardigans for all the children in the area. They were not always a success – sometimes the sleeves or the bodies were too long – but nobody complained. At least they were warm.

The Formby children began to spend more and more time next door. Lucy came home early one afternoon and when she knew the children were with Miss Slater. Miss Bethany was out most of the day teaching typewriting. Lucy went up the Formbys’ backyard and banged on the back door. After a short while the girl came to the door. She was tall,
dark-haired and grave-faced, and she didn’t look at Lucy even when Lucy explained who she was. A few moments later her mother came to the door. She could not have been any thinner – her bones stuck out in every direction, the skin was pulled over her face and she was pale, as though she had never had enough to eat.

‘You’re Miss Charlton from next door, I know you,’ she said.

‘Would you mind very much, Mrs Formby, if I came inside and had a word?’

Mrs Formby opened wide the door. The girl disappeared into the depths of the house. Lucy went in. She had never been into a house that was so poor, though every inch of it was clean. There was hardly any furniture. There was a broken chair in the front room which Mrs Formby insisted she should sit in, since it was all she had to offer. Lucy refused Mrs Formby’s offer of tea; she didn’t want to cost her hostess a penny and was already thinking to herself that she would make cake and biscuits for the family. Lucy wished they could have sat in the kitchen as there was no fire in here nor ever had been judging by the blackness of the grate, though since Mrs Formby was intent on having everything so clean Lucy couldn’t be sure.