The Railway Girls

by Leah Fleming

  Surely theirs would be the triumph? This must be Ezra’s finest hour. This child was their best pupil despite his shabby and lowly station. Why was her brother now sitting in his study locked in despair? We will not be defeated by the powers of darkness and ignorance. We have not worked for twenty years to be defeated by greed and threats. Cora felt the flush of fear flood over her like a wave. Let the dark powers come. They would stand firm. She summoned Susan to make Ezra a warm drink and ordered her to retire out of sight. Cora would stand guard a little while longer to thwart any unwelcome visitors to their school.

  Sunter Lund stared into his frothing pint, his third mug. Since his shaming at the football match he could feel the jibes and nudges behind his back as he sat hunched in a corner in the Fleece taproom. He was sick of this hole, the same stupid faces slavering onto their frothy chins, the smell of sawdust and smoke, stinking cats mewing around his ankles. Same owd faces chinwagging about nothing. If he lived here another twelvemonth he would grow owd and dull before his time like most of his schoolmates. Now he was full of plans and expectations not to leave this dale empty-handed. Mother said, ‘Have summat and you’ll be summat.’ He was only following her advice and it were paying off. There would be those in Scarsbeck surprised at his enterprising ways. Tomorrow he would be seeking his fortune out of this bloody place in pastures new.

  For the first time in his life he could feel a surge of excitement in his belly. He was in control of his life. He would leave this rotten pigsty without a backward glance. Life was going to be grand for Sunter Lawson Lund from this hour forth. He swallowed the dregs of his pint and strode out of the room, remembering to duck under the lintel.

  He paused in the doorway and headed towards the green. It was a grand sky full of stars stretched over his head. From east to west was a broad belt of flame, the strangest sight he’d ever noticed in a night sky, and he stood transfixed at the sight of such a grand omen for his future.

  The Paradise gang was on the rampage but there was little left to tackle. The village had been seen to by their rivals, forks and spades, bins and buckets hanging on the trees like decorations, shaving soap over the school windows, gates removed, milk churns on barn roofs, nothing out of the ordinary. Now the streets were deserted and strangely silent. Tomorrow the village would gather at the annual bonfire on the green to light up a few fireworks and burn their flourbag-faced, straw-stuffed Guy Fawkes. There was a pile of offcuts from the sawmill, some tree prunings and some bits of rubbish piled into a pyre ready for the show.

  All the lads stood silently looking at the bonfire, each having the same mischievous thought. ‘Shall we?’ said one.

  ‘Why not?’ said another.

  ‘Nah!’

  ‘Go on . . . ’Tis against our faith to burn Guy Fawkes, we don’t hold with Proddy dogs. Best mischief of all to burn their bonfire afore the day,’ laughed one of the many Catholic boys in their gang.

  ‘How do we light it then?’ asked Tizzy, not so keen on firelighting since the escapade in the summer at Mercy’s farm. The ground was damp, the wood wet and soggy.

  ‘We’ll soon get a spark up. Give us yer rags.’ Each of them pulled out an oily rag from their pockets or up their sleeves, the rags they used around the track for wiping and polishing. They smelled of oil and were body-warm. They huddled together out of the wind to strike a flint into some life. Some rags smouldered and others ignited brightly. These were stuffed under the wood into the drier holes. They crackled and smoked and fuelled by dry cloths flared up into life, setting the whole bonfire ablaze.

  ‘Find the Guy and put him on so they can’t burn him!’ shouted Tizzy, watching the sparks flicker and spit, smoke stinging her eyes. What a grand do! Tomorrow the village would wake up to their trick and a pile of ashes. The schoolchildren would be blamed.

  ‘There’s a Guy over there!’ Tizzy yelled as she noticed the outline of the effigy slumped against a small wall. ‘Come on, drag it on the fire and see how long it lasts.’

  As they drew closer, admiring village handiwork, the group circled around the Guy. ‘Give us that jacket, it’s too good for burning.’ The smoke swirled over them as they tugged at the jacket. The Guy was stuffed hard and refused to budge. ‘Turn it over and drag it in flat . . .’ Tizzy bent closer and started back with a scream. The face was white like a flour bag but the staring eyes looked up as if asking a question. The back of the head was sticky with dark blood like thick jam on thick black hair. ‘It’s a man . . . a dead man . . . and I know him. The dog killer. Run! Scatter before we’re blamed. He’s dead. I cursed him. Run!’ Tizzy could hardly drag her feet from the body. Her limbs were as heavy as stone, her heart pounding. She could hear an owl screeching and a clock chiming so loudly it crashed in her ear. Lund was dead, dead as Tat, and she should be glad but it was all her fault and she would be hanged as the murderer if she was caught.

  Tizzy ran and the gang fled in all directions at the grim discovery. This was mischief beyond their knowing, mischief beyond navvy kids. Instinctively she took the quickest route back to camp by the Birketts’ farm, the pathway which Mercy showed her as a secret route. It was all going wrong again. She kept seeing Lund’s staring eyes looking up at her. Who had bashed his head in? They had seen no one in the street, a few shadows perhaps . . . Tizzy scrambled down the bank across the Birkett pastures fenced off from the railway line. Then she saw a shadow moving down opposite her. Fear gripped her belly and her legs. The murderer was abroad, stalking through the copse, stalking through Scarsbeck like a devouring dragon in the night. She would be the next victim. Hide! Hide! Find somewhere to crawl in. Her legs would not move and she heard the scream choke in her mouth like a nightmare when the sound will not come out. Tizzy sank to the ground hoping it would swallow her up but it stayed firm. There was only one thing to do . . . two, four, six, eight . . .

  Ellie waited by the stone cross which stood like a huge finger pointing up to the firmament of stars. As she waited a shooting star flashed overhead and vanished: a star to wish them well.

  Down in the valley she could hear the clock of St Oswy’s chime nine strokes, then the quarter past and the half past and finally a quarter to ten. Ellie stamped her frozen feet, listening for the welcome scuffle of chippings on the track which would herald Fancy’s arrival. Only the screech of owls calling across the treetops in Scarsbeck Foss disturbed the air. Paradise was sleeping, the village was abed and she the only creature alive. Wrapping the cloak around her body layered with extra clothing she became alert and nervous at this uncanny silence. No sheep were bleating or dogs barking. Then she heard the ten o’clock chime like a tolling bell putting paid to her dreams.

  The thought that Fancy MacLachlan was not coming slowly crept upon her like a dull toothache. This was no place to be standing, alone by the very grave of Beth Wildman who lay under the peat in her coffin with a bunch of lambswool in her hand to show her trade at the last trump. No doubt she was lying there laughing at this silly girl, saying, ‘Yer not the first and yer won’t be the last to be told a load of lies by a fella as he lifts yer petticoats and pulls down his breeks.’

  ‘But Fancy’s not like the others, not one of Mother’s navvies who wants only work and wickedness . . . not my Fancy,’ she argued to herself to keep up her flagging spirits. She was glad there was no one to witness her fears or her shaming. Picking up the valise she turned towards the farm track, stopping once more just in case, willing her lover to loom out of the shadows to blot out her doublings and her anger with smothering kisses.

  Her eyes were drawn to the flames on the green and to torches and lanterns making strange patterns; there were voices shouting carried upwards like smoke in the still air.

  Why so much noise of a night? Something was happening down there which would be carried like fire over the dale quicker than the newfangled telegraph wires which now were strung along the track like washing lines. There was only one place to go now, she whimpered to herself as she trundled sadly and reluctantly
back to the safety of home. You’ve been made a fool of and so much the worse for being a first time by any man. No one would ever do that to her again. It was not too late to hide her shaming if she quickened her pace.

  As she reached the gate of the farm she could see lights beaming out in the front parlour like beacons. Her flight had been discovered. Ellie had no energy left to deny the charge. She would be the fool of Scarsbeck for weeks like Reg Ingomells’ daughter who had fled the dale and returned with a sickly bairn, confined indoors as a warning to foolish girls everywhere. There was time to hide her valise and finery in the barn and brazen out her absence if she was calm.

  Everyone was assembled solemnly in the kitchen with Aunt Blaize and Uncle Warwick sat by the fireside like a party expecting company. Not a word was spoken as she entered until Mother looked up and snapped, ‘And where have you been till this hour? I came to waken you but your bed was empty . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep for worrying about that new tup and the flock by the track. I went to check that no one had stolen them. I told you navvies have been butchering sheep by the roadside, selling to strangers out of the dale. Nowt up with any of them.’

  Ellie could see Aunt Blaize look up, her face drained of colour as if someone had painted it with flour. She suddenly looked old. Miss Herbert was holding a teapot, usually Mother’s job, shaking her head, wearing a thick shawl over her nightdress, rag curlers poking out of her nightcap. Ellie stared at each in turn. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Sit down, Ellen, sit down and prepare yourself for a shock.’ Annie Birkett stood stirring a bowl of batter in slow rhythmic circles.

  ‘Oh, no! Not Fancy,’ she nearly blurted out but only her lips moved. ‘Has there been an accident?’

  ‘Nay, no accident, child, but the Devil abroad tonight seeking whom he could devour. Our poor lad, our bonny lad, cut down in his prime . . .’ Aunt Blaize burst into wails and Uncle Warwick patted her shoulder, the best he could manage to comfort her.

  ‘Please, I don’t understand, which bonny lad?’

  ‘Yer cousin, Sunter, of course, he’s been found outside the Fleece with his head stove in. Even now your poor uncle must go down and identify his corpse.’ Annie sat down, still stirring the batter.

  ‘It can’t be. Not Sunter. How can anyone . . . who would want to harm him?’

  ‘Calm yerself, there’s worse shame to follow. The whole village knows who threatened him not a week ago. I’ll see you in hell afore I go! Remember, Ellie, before the whole assembly at the football? They’ve gone to Paradise to get that fancy man of yours. The murder will be laid squarely at his door. I hope you are satisfied. I told you there would be trouble from that quarter. Now shame is brought on this house—’

  ‘No, no, I don’t believe you. Not one word of it. Fancy is not like that. He would not kill anyone, and not tonight.’ Ellie fled the room, racing upstairs, stumbling in the darkness, flinging herself on her iron bedstead, rocking back and forth, back and forth as the rusty hinges groaned with her weight. Her cheeks felt the smooth edge of an envelope. She crumpled it in her hands and flung it across the room. ‘No, no, no, this can’t be true. This will not be true!’

  The Scattering

  Winter 1871

  The Lord is my Shepherd:

  I shall not want . . .

  Yea, though I walk through the valley

  of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil . . .

  Psalm 23

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  He woke with a start. His arms were stiff and his head ached as he lifted a stubbly chin and peered into the gloom. For a moment Fancy thought he was lying in his bunk bed but there was only a turf roof above his head, the smell of peat up his nostrils. Where the hell was he . . . inside a beer cask? Why was he kipping in a sod hut with bare stone walls alongside empty jugs and tankards and not a soul to keep him company? His brains were as shrivelled as prunes and the tongue in his mouth was as rough as a scrubbing brush. Fancy tried to raise himself to scrabble inside his head for scraps of memory. What in the name of blazes was he doing in a soddy? Moments rattled and flashed past him like an express train. He tried to reach and grab them but caught nothing. He was well and truly betwaddled but half recalled a steep tramp uphill under bright stars. The rest was a fug of half-dreamt pictures.

  He was sure he saw Billy, the nipper, cowering on the ground greetin’, sobbing like a bairn, ‘Don’t hit me! Don’t kill me. I saw nowt, honest . . .’ He remembered that he shook the kid to make him see sense, telling him that it was only Fancy, his gangmaster, not some villain. The pictures blurred again. He was heading in the wrong direction downhill and Billy pushed him back crying, ‘Go back! Run, mister, run, they’ll be after you! He’s dead!’

  Who was dead? That bit he couldn’t be sure of. Someone was killed down there and now he was getting out of Paradise. But he was going anyway, jacking in the job for a few days with his knapsack. Why? Why was he leaving? Wake up, can’t you? Fancy hit his head with a fist to knock some feeling into it. Yes, yes, the nipper had stopped him crossing the beck to the track at Middle Butts, stopped him on his way to Ellie. Now he remembered. The two of them should be halfway to Kendal and Gretna Green. There was no soddy hut at the crossroads and no Ellie. Scarsdale was temperance-mad; a dry dale except for the Fleece so why did Billy warn him that someone was dead and he would be blamed for it, if he didn’t scarper? Fancy could see the white-faced child shaking with fright but pushing at his own jacket. ‘Go back!’

  ‘It wasny me as killed abody, Billy, why should I run?’

  ‘Navvies is allus blamed first. You brayed him outside the public house, you knocked him down over Tat. He killed Tat, he deserves to be dead and I cursed him with a spelling.’

  None of this jabbering made sense, the child was off his head. ‘I’m away the now . . . to see Miss Birkett.’

  ‘Don’t go that way, you head back and she can follow you later.’

  ‘I canna leave her in the lurch out on the moor.’

  ‘Leave it to me, mister. I’ll tell her the story.’

  ‘Then give her this book as a token, I’ll write her a message on the front page.’ He had pulled out his pocket book and scribbled words in it quickly, shoving it into the boy’s frozen hand. ‘Be not concerned, I will return for you.’ That was what he wrote. He had given Billy a silver bob for his errand and pushed him in the direction of the cross track. ‘Give it to the woman standing by the cross, don’t let me down. Explain to her . . .’

  Fancy could remember the starry sky and chilled air as he tramped back up the side of the Whernside track out of Scarsdale towards Blea Moor and the tunnel huts. The rest was a blur. It was freezing cold and his throat was dry. He must have called in for some juice like old times on a tramp. What was his next plan? To hide in Batty Green amongst hundreds of other navvymen or to make for Ingleton and the railway south? His head was thumping, too many whiskies again, that first drink gave a lift to his spirit, I’m no to blame for this; the second tot tweaked his fighting fists, I’ll take care of myself. On then to sup the hard stuff; ready to jump over the wall and roar like an engine to defend his name but he must have knocked back the strongest brand liquor and that must have flattened him for hours. Now he felt as dry and salty as a smoked fluchtie.

  Poor Ellie would be left waiting and wondering again but not for long. Billy was a trusty nipper. He would see that she got his message. It was better to retreat to fight again than to be locked up for a crime he had never committed. With his record there would be only one verdict and one rope to string him high.

  It was almost light and the noise of the first shifts on the tunnel shafts blasted in his ears. He could still creep under cover towards the bustle of Batty Green or kip down again and sleep off his hangover. He was sure he had not been alone. There had been a huddle of miners slurping on the benches. He could see one of them, a thick-set man with dust rims under his eyelids, muddy hair and breath like a sulphur works on a bad day
; a maudlin man spitting on the floor.

  ‘A rum do is this life and who be you, stranger? On a tramp, are you? North or south?’ Fancy rehearsed their conversation in his head.

  ‘I’m getting oot of this place and fast.’ The man nodded.

  ‘Me too, going to take the first packet from Liverpool to sign on with the Union Pacific Railway and see the world. Where are you heading, Jock?’

  ‘Dinna ken, dinna care, just oot.’

  ‘Sounds like woman trouble, lads . . . another flea bitten hard.’

  ‘Ach, no, it’s no like that. I’m gettin’ oot afore I’m blamed for something I didna do,’ replied the stranger.

  ‘Up the spout is the lass?’ the miner laughed. Fancy grabbed him by the lapels.

  ‘Say that again aboot my lassie and yer dead meat, sonny.’

  The miner changed his tone. ‘Hold yer sweat, meant no harm but women is allus trouble in my book. Take my own dearie, ups and leaves me with three brats, slopes off. Don’t bother with them. Nowt but trouble and strife.’

  ‘Where’s yer bairns now then?’ asked Fancy.

  ‘How should I know? I’ve not seen them for over a year. Back in Leeds or thereabouts with their granny, I hope.’

  ‘Don’t you send them money or a letter?’

  ‘None of your business, matey, lettering were never a strong point of mine but putting a stick of dynamite in a hole underground then I’m yer man,’ the miner laughed.

  ‘Aye, Ironfist is good at sticking his rod in a hole, hey?’ There was a crowd on the bench guffawing. ‘For one as never sees his bairns he’s allus on about them but we never seen them.’

  ‘I told you, I have three, Martha and Billy and little Matilda. If I were a writing man I would sit down now and send them a line but there’s no paper and no penny post here.’