A Bridge in Time

by A Bridge in Time (retail) (epub)

  Mr Jessup shook his head. ‘Oh dear me, no. Where would he go? Anyway, moving the poor man in this state might be very dangerous, but we can’t nurse him really. Neither of us are young… Quite frankly it takes me all my time to look after my sister.’

  Miss Jessup was looking frightened and suddenly Tim realised that her childish ways were not affectation. She only managed to function because she had her brother telling her what to do all the time.

  ‘I’ll find a nurse for him, and we should write to his wife in Newcastle asking what she thinks ought to be done. Perhaps she’ll come up and nurse him herself,’ said Tim.

  Mr Jessup nodded. ‘I’ll write the letter – I know his address there. I’ll send it off today.’

  When the missive addressed in a spidery, old-fashioned hand was brought to the breakfast table at Wyvern Villa next morning, Emma Jane eyed it with apprehension. Without opening it, she knew it contained bad news but it was addressed to her mother and had to be carried upstairs on Mrs Wylie’s breakfast tray before she could find out what was in it.

  After her husband went away to Scotland, Arabella Wylie had slowly relapsed into the melancholy and hypochondria that had held her in its grasp after James’ death. She could not be shaken out of it because the only person with the power to do that was Christopher, and he was far away. She missed him dreadfully and wept every evening at the time when he would normally be returning home. Helplessly Emma Jane watched and tried to cheer her mother, but to no effect. Arabella stopped going out, stopped receiving visitors and took again to her bed while her daughter passed her time teaching little Arbelle and reading her father’s engineering books in his library. This solitary life did not worry her. In fact she rather liked it, since it meant she was not faced with the frightening prospect of going into society. The only exciting thing that had happened recently was when Amelia brought a man called Dan Peel to meet her mother-in-law and Emma Jane.

  It had not been an easy meeting because Dan was awkward and over-awed by the elegance of the Wylie home and by the reserve of Mrs Wylie, who did not like the idea of another man taking her son’s place. It was obvious that, though Amelia did not say so, this was the man that she was preparing to marry.

  Poor Dan sat stiffly in a velvet-covered chair and twirled his hat in his hands while Amelia and Emma Jane attempted to make conversation around him. He said little but if he did speak, his accent was thickly rural and Mrs Wylie’s eyebrows went up in disapproval. When he went away she said to Emma Jane, ‘He’s very ungentlemanly, isn’t he? What will your father say if Amelia marries him!’

  ‘He seems a pleasant enough man and he’s got a good carter’s business according to Amelia, so he’s not poor,’ ventured Emma Jane.

  Her mother shook a sad head. ‘It’s not Amelia I’m worried about, but Arbelle. How is she going to turn out, living in that sort of society? I wonder if your father could persuade Amelia to give her to us to bring up as a lady?’ Emma Jane did not think it at all likely that Amelia would agree to such a suggestion, but she said nothing. Whatever her mother felt about Amelia’s lack of breeding, there was no denying her love and care for Arbelle.

  These concerns were thrust aside, however, as Emma Jane stood on the upstairs landing waiting till her mother read the mysterious letter that had been taken in by Mrs Haggerty who was the head indoor servant at Wyvern Villa. Within moments there was a pitiful wail from the bedroom. ‘Emma Jane! Oh, Emma Jane…’

  When the girl went in her mother was lying back against her pillows with a wan face. She held the letter out and sobbed, ‘Read that, Emma Jane. Oh, what will I do? I can’t go to him – I can’t even walk!’

  Emma Jane’s eye ran down the single sheet of elegant writing.

  Dear Madam,

  Your husband has been taken ill with a severe chest complaint. I must hasten to assure you that his illness is not life-threatening but he must remain in bed with careful nursing for some time. His assistant Mr Maquire has found a woman to care for him so you must not worry, but we thought it best if you were informed of the situation. I will send you a daily bulletin about his health and assure you that he has the affection and attention of myself and my sister…

  John Jessup.

  ‘Your father’s ill. What are we to do?’ Mrs Wylie sobbed.

  ‘I’ll go to him. I’ll go today!’ said Emma Jane with sudden resolution. She knew she was the one who had to go. Cockburn was too frail to travel now and her mother could not either.

  Arabella sat up. ‘Yes, go at once. Oh, I wish I could go with you but I can hardly move, I’m so unwell. Oh Emma Jane, why has this happened to us?’ And she burst into a storm of weeping that took some time to assuage.

  When Emma Jane ran down to the cottage to tell Amelia what had happened, she found her sister-in-law at breakfast wearing a long flowing wrapper with dozens of ribbons down the front that made her look like one of the dancing figures from Botticelli’s painting Primavera. On hearing the news, Amelia asked, ‘Will you be able to go all that way on your own, Emma Jane? Do you want me to come with you? Mrs Haggerty could look after Arbelle while I’m away.’

  ‘No, thank you all the same but I’ll manage perfectly well, I’m sure. I came to say that I’m going, that’s all. When Papa is well enough I’ll tell him about you and Dan, Amelia. I’m sure he’ll be very pleased.’

  Tears sprang into Amelia’s blue eyes. ‘Oh, that’ll be good of you, Emma Jane. I’ve been worried about how you’d all feel about Dan. I did love James, you know – I love him still. It’s been a real surprise to me that you can love two people like that… I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten him.’ Her voice broke then, and Emma Jane noticed that when she was distressed or excited, Amelia’s vowels seemed to break up into two parts – ‘don’t’ became ‘do-an’t’ as if she was sighing in the middle, and the sound was very endearing.

  Amelia reached out a hand and grasped her sister-in-law’s. ‘I know you haven’t forgotten him, and Papa will too. So does Mama really but she’s so sad about James herself that she can’t think clearly,’ she whispered.

  Amelia collected herself quickly. ‘When are you going? What can I do to help? Wait till I dress and I’ll come back with you and help you pack a bag. And don’t worry about your mother when you’re away. I’ll look after her so you can stay as long as your father needs you.’

  When the two girls got back to Wyvern Villa, however, Mrs Wylie was in the middle of another fit of hysterical weeping. This time, the cause was Emma Jane. ‘I’m so worried about you, my dear,’ she sobbed. ‘How will you manage to travel so far when you’ve never even gone to Newcastle alone before? Perhaps I should send for one of your cousins from Harrogate to come and travel with you.’

  Mrs Wylie’s sister Louisa had married a doctor in Harrogate and had two supercilious girls and a haughty son whom Emma Jane loathed. She stepped back in alarm. ‘Oh no, Mama, that won’t be necessary. Anyway, Amelia has offered to come with me and I’ve said I don’t need anyone. There’s no time to wait for someone coming from Harrogate. I have to go now.’

  Her mother sighed but was slightly calmer. ‘Oh my dear, I’ll have to write out a list of things you must do and things you must ask your father when he’s well enough.’ When, an hour later, Emma Jane was about to leave, her mother summoned her to the bedside and inspected her with a critical eye. ‘You need a thicker wrapper – that one’s too thin. And perhaps you should wear my bonnet. The one you’ve put on looks a little tired and the blue ribbons are too bright. Take my one with the black trimming. You’re still in mourning, after all. Now here’s my list for your father. Make sure he gets it and there’s no need for you to look at it. It’s private between your father and I. Have you taken some jars of calf’s-foot jelly from the larder and his favourite jam? Have you got that bottle of good port and one of brandy? Make sure he gets egg-whip with brandy every morning – that’s good for chest trouble. Oh, goodbye my dear, and God bless you. Give me a kiss before you go.’ She h
eld up her pale cheek and Emma Jane kissed it. ‘This is what it must be like for soldiers being sent into battle,’ she thought.

  An equally fussy Haggerty drove her to the Central Station and installed her in a corner seat in a Ladies Only compartment. When at last he assured himself that she was secure, he bustled off down the platform and she breathed a huge sigh. For the first time in her life, at the age of twenty-two, Emma Jane Wylie was going somewhere alone. The train gave a rattle and a lurch. There was a piercing whistle and a whoosh of released steam from its tall funnel. The carriage began to rock gently and very gradually pulled out of Newcastle heading for the north. As the speed built up, she sat forward in her seat and started to rummage in her reticule. Out of it she pulled a closely written sheet of instructions which her mother had given her before she left. They told her not to speak to anyone, even innocent-looking women; not to eat anything offered to her by fellow travellers, and to sniff her sal volatile the moment she felt faint or panic-stricken. She read all the notes very carefully, then folded the page in half, and started tearing it into pieces, first into halves, then quarters, then eighths and sixteenths…

  When she was satisfied that the page had been reduced to the tiniest fragments possible, she dropped the window-glass and scattered them into the breeze so that they sailed off like snowflakes. She laughed and leaned out, staring at the flying paper and the passing world. What joy it was to be travelling so fast and so freely! She felt like an intrepid explorer as the wind whipped her hair out of its neatly-arranged bun and blew it around her face. She was still laughing when she drew back into the carriage again and caught sight of a pink-faced young woman in the mirror above the opposite seat. ‘That’s me!’ she thought. For a moment she hadn’t recognised herself.

  The train was late in arriving at Maddiston, which made Emma Jane frantic to reach Camptounfoot as quickly as possible. The nerves which had beset her when she thought about how to get from the station to the village where her father was lying sick, miraculously disappeared as she walked along the platform and summoned a hired carriage from the forecourt. She was not aware that she was speaking with brisk authority when she told the driver, ‘Take me to Camptounfoot – and fast, please.’

  He helped her climb aboard, stowed her bag in with her, then mounted his box, cracked his whip and they were off. Once or twice he looked back over his shoulder at the girl sitting stiffly in the middle of the seat behind him and, because he was incorrigibly curious, started to question her in a roundabout way. ‘It’s bonny country round here when it’s fine but you’re not seeing it at its best,’ he told her. She looked out at the drizzling rain and made a noncommittal sound.

  ‘You know the district?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said shortly. He wondered where she was going in Camptounfoot, for she looked as if she might be some sort of upper-range servant, a lady’s maid or a governess perhaps, though she was very young.

  ‘You’re sure it’s Camptounfoot you want?’ he persisted.

  ‘Yes.’ The tone was decisive.

  There weren’t any houses in the village grand enough for a lady’s maid, however, so he raised his eyebrows and was finally forced to ask, ‘Where in Camptounfoot exactly?’

  She glared at him with eyes that reminded him of a startled cat. ‘I’m going to the residence of Mr Jessup.’

  It was obvious that she did not want to expand on the reason for her visit and the driver felt quite intimidated by her so for the rest of their journey they rode in silence.

  Mr Jessup’s face was blank when he opened the door of his house to an unknown young woman. ‘Is this where Mr Wylie lives?’ she asked. He told her it was. For a moment he thought it was another nurse sent by Tim Maquire, who had already recruited a good-living navvy wife to nurse the sick man, but she had children and a husband of her own at the camp so she had to keep running to and fro.

  The girl smiled and her grim expression was transformed. ‘Oh, I’m so glad I’ve found the right house. I’m Mr Wylie’s daughter. May I see him, please?’

  Christopher was asleep but he was gently wakened by a hand on his shoulder and a voice saying, ‘Papa, Papa, wake up. I’ve come to look after you.’

  His eyes blinked open and his first smile for days lightened his features, ‘Emma Jane. Bless you, my dear child,’ he whispered and Mr Jessup noticed that his words made the girl glow as if she had been given the gift of a fortune.

  When the nurse came back after seeing to her own children, she was met by Emma Jane in a white apron who thanked her for her work, gave her a generous tip and said it would not be necessary for her to come back any more. The woman was relieved because she had not liked walking through Camptounfoot where hostile faces and hard eyes stared at her from cottage windows and people turned their heads away rather than speak to her. She was not to know that their dislike was not for her personally, but for the fact that she was a navvy’s wife and therefore associated with the hated railway. Even the people whose men had taken jobs digging the bridge foundations avoided her because they were afraid of antagonising their more anti-railway neighbours. The village was fighting among itself now, gossiping virulently about who had taken railway money, who had given in.

  On her way back to the camp the woman met Tim Maquire hurrying into the village to check up on Mr Wylie. He looked at her with concern. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘A woman’s arrived from Newcastle. She paid me off and said she’s going to nurse him,’ was the reply.

  Tim speeded up his footsteps: he was convinced that the stranger would be Mr Wylie’s wife, and he wanted to reassure her that he would do everything he could to help while she nursed her husband back to health.

  Mr Jessup was looking worried when he let Tim in. ‘I don’t know where she can sleep,’ he whispered.

  ‘Perhaps we can put up a truckle bed for her if she can’t share his,’ was the reply.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that will do,’ said Mr Jessup, wringing his hands.

  ‘She won’t mind. She’ll realise it’s an emergency,’ Tim told him comfortingly and hurried up to the sick man’s room. The woman who turned and looked at him when he stepped inside, however, took him by surprise because she was only a girl. This couldn’t be Wylie’s wife, he surmised, because he remembered young James who had been in his twenties when he died and this girl wasn’t even as old as that, from the look of her.

  He paused in confusion and she asked, ‘Who are you? What do you want? My father’s asleep.’

  My father! Of course, this was Wylie’s daughter. But from what her father had told Tim about her, he had assumed that she was still only a child, barely out of the schoolroom. This was a solemn-faced young woman with scraped-back dark hair and fierce yellow eyes which stopped him in his tracks. He took off his hat and said awkwardly, ‘I’m Tim Maquire, your father’s ganger. I’ve been seeing to things for him.’

  She smiled and her face changed completely. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard about you. My father thinks highly of you, Mr Maquire. I’m very pleased to meet you. Father’s asleep and I don’t want him disturbed, so perhaps we could go on to the landing and talk?’

  Outside the bedroom door he told her that he would bring anything she needed from Rosewell. All she had to do was tell Mr Jessup, who would send a village urchin to the bridge site to fetch him. Mr Jessup’s head was poking up from the stairwell and he nodded vigorously at this, but Tim knew he wanted the subject of where Emma Jane was going to stay broached.

  ‘Er, where will you sleep?’ he asked her.

  She looked down at Jessup and realised how much of an imposition she must be for him and his sister. ‘Oh dear,’ she gasped, ‘of course. Perhaps I could hire rooms in the village?’

  Tim shrugged. ‘No one’ll have you. I had the devil’s own job getting this berth for Mr Wylie.’

  Emma Jane looked at Mr Jessup and pleaded, ‘I’ll sleep on the floor. I won’t need anything, I really won’t. I’ll look after myself ent
irely. But I must be able to take care of Father…’

  Jessup’s kind heart prevailed over his reservations again. The girl was so obviously genuine. ‘There’s a little cubbyhole just off his bedroom. It’s only a big cupboard really but we might make up a bed in there,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, I’d be happy to sleep in the cupboard,’ cried Emma Jane, ‘and I’ll pay you for my lodgings, of course.’ She was very glad indeed that she’d had the sense to bring all of her allowance money with her, and even more grateful that she had not spent any of it on fripperies. Then she looked at Tim and said, ‘I understand the doctor’s coming every day to look at Papa. We’ll be quite all right now. Thank you so much for your help. You mustn’t worry about my father any longer. I’ll send you a message if I need anything.’

  More than slightly discomfited, he withdrew, for she’d dismissed him without knowing how much she’d hurt his feelings. It was an innocent mistake, for to her he was only one of her father’s workmen and she thought it unfair to burden him with her troubles. She did not realise how close he was to her father, nor how much he had worried and worked when Wylie fell ill. She had no idea that it was Tim who had arranged for the doctor to come and the navvy’s wife to nurse Christopher Wylie, but it seemed to him that she was taking everything out of his hands and he resented her attitude very much.

  Over the days that followed, the kind Jessups took Emma Jane to their hearts and found pleasure in feeding her the same delicious food as they provided for the invalid – boiled chicken and apple puddings floating in cream; river trout and flummeries; soup made from vegetables grown in their garden; boiled mutton with caper sauce. She grew sleek on their regime and they secretly congratulated themselves in the change they saw in her. As Christopher improved in health too, they once more started playing their music again in the evenings and Emma Jane drifted off to sleep in a sea of rippling notes from the piano and violin of her host and hostess. She did not know what she was listening to, but felt as if she were being carried down a silver river like the one that flowed in the valley between Camptounfoot and Rosewell. While she slept, she dreamed that she was a mermaid, slipping between the fronds of waterweed like a fish.