The happiness that filled her when she heard the music grew as her father’s strength returned and eventually he was able to drive out in the hired carriage to see his precious bridge. Tim had looked after things so well during his boss’s illness, that there was plenty to look at and exclaim over. All the foundations for the piers had been dug and the northern bridgehead was rising like a castle bastion on the far side of the river. Wylie sat in his carriage and beamed. ‘Well done, well done,’ he congratulated his ganger. Then he pointed out to his daughter, ‘Look at that, Emma Jane – isn’t that a great bridgehead? It could carry four bridges.’
‘It certainly looks very strong,’ she agreed and her father said, ‘It has to be: it’s carrying a huge weight – and I can’t take risks with it.’ Then his face sobered a little. ‘The stone’s costing more than I bargained for, though. The quarry was forced on me by the directors. I could have got stone that was just as good and just as durable from a quarry at Rosewell or on the side of one of those hills behind Camptounfoot for half the price.’
She said the right things, nodded in the right places and watched while her father and Maquire talked to each other. Only then did she realise how the two men related to each other; how devoted the younger man was to her father and how her father admired him. She began to have an inkling of the mistake she’d made in her treatment of Tim Maquire. This was no ordinary navvy; this was someone who was very special to her father. To make amends she smiled at him and made some innocuous remarks but he fended them off impassively. It was obvious that he had not forgiven her for cutting him off from her father and probably never would.
One afternoon when they were making their inspection visit, their carriage was overtaken by a couple cantering along on horseback. The first rider, a red-faced old man with a halo of white hair, turned in his saddle and called out, ‘Good to see you out and about again, Wylie!’ He was followed by a beautiful young woman in a cream linen riding outfit which fitted her like a second skin, who smiled but did not speak.
When they had passed, Christopher looked at his daughter and said, ‘That’s Colonel Anstruther, one of the railway directors, with his daughter-in-law. He’s Edinburgh’s spy, I think.’
Emma Jane raised her eyebrows. ‘Edinburgh’s spy? Why should they spy on you, Papa?’
‘Because the railway chairman Miller is crafty. He’s hoping I will fall down on the contract, but not too soon. He wants me to run out of money or enthusiasm when all the hard bits have been done but the job’s not completed – then he won’t have to pay me, you see. My contract’s for a finished bridge. I won’t get paid if it’s only half-done. He’ll bring in a squad of cheap labour and finish it off himself.’
She leaned forward and patted his head. ‘You’ll finish it, Papa. Don’t worry – you’ll finish it.’
His eyes gleamed with reborn enthusiasm as he told her, ‘Yes, I will, and it’ll be my best bridge ever, my legacy, my swan song. It’s coming along magnificently thanks to Maquire, and I’m coming along well thanks to you, Emma Jane.’
That night, after another of Miss Jessup’s delicious little suppers, he was strong enough to stay up late and talk to Emma Jane, the longest conversation they had ever had together. In the room below, the music of Chopin ebbed and flowed as they got on to the subject of Amelia and Arbelle.
Very tentatively she told him about Dan, for she was afraid it would upset him to hear that his son’s wife was planning to re-marry, but he did not seem surprised. ‘Amelia’s right to marry again. She’s not the sort to stay a widow long. When’s it to be?’ he asked.
‘Soon – next month, I think. Mother’s very upset about it but she’s trying to stay calm. She’s worried about Arbelle, really. She thinks Amelia won’t bring her up like a lady when she goes to live in Hexham. She thought you would ask Amelia if you and Mama could adopt Arbelle.’
Her father looked hard at Emma Jane and said, ‘I wouldn’t even suggest it. Your mother must remember that Arbelle is Amelia’s daughter as well as James’. If this situation is handled with care, there will be no breach between us, but if it’s handled badly we might never see Arbelle again and that would break my heart as well as your mother’s. I wish I could go to Amelia’s wedding but there’s too much for me to do here. I want you to go for me and represent the family – show Amelia we understand and that we don’t mind her marrying again. She’s a good girl and she’s already promised me that we’ll always see a lot of Arbelle. If we play fair by her, she’ll play fair by us.’
‘Mother’s worried about the cottage too. She thinks it a waste of money for you to have bought it just when Amelia was planning to re-marry,’ said Emma Jane.
‘She needn’t concern herself with that,’ said her father firmly. ‘Tell her Amelia and I have an arrangement about that cottage. Amelia is an admirable young woman: James knew what he was doing when he married her.’
Emma Jane sat up straight and for the first time spoke the thoughts that had been in her mind for some time. ‘I think it might not be a bad thing for Arbelle to be away from us for a bit, Father. Mama spoils her. Perhaps what she needs is a more natural life, growing up in a village with other children, living an outdoor life. In Wyvern Villa she’s like a hothouse plant, forced before her true season.’
He looked at her with respect. ‘I didn’t realise you thought that too, my dear. Every day you surprise me more. You’ve proved to be a pillar of strength during this illness and I’m very grateful, but now that I’m better I want you to go back to Newcastle, buy yourself a pretty dress and dance at Amelia’s wedding.’
She smiled. ‘I will, but not yet, Papa. I want to be sure you’re completely recovered before I leave you.’
When she woke the next day the rain was pouring down from a leaden sky and at breakfast her father said, ‘There won’t be much chance of work today. I hope the river doesn’t rise too high. Maquire said yesterday that he’s planning to start on the stonework of the foundations next.’
She looked up at him and said, ‘If you’re not going out, Papa, why not get out your plans and show me the bridge? Now that I’ve seen the site, I’ll be able to appreciate it more.’
He looked pleased. ‘All right, I’ll do that. Come down to the parlour and we’ll work there.’
All day long the rain poured down; all day long their two heads were bent over the plans. When Emma Jane showed understanding of a complex point, her father would give his big laugh, throw down his pencil and say, ‘You’re a wonder, my girl. I never thought you’d be able to understand that.’ He showed her how to calculate stresses; he sketched for her how he hoped to lay the bricks around the high arches on top of the piers. He explained his calculations of how many bricks would be required… ‘Three hundred and ninety-five thousand at least,’ he said, ‘and that’s only for one side. To finish the bridge, I’ll have to double that figure.’
‘Where will you get so many bricks?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got all that arranged. They’re coming from a brickworks at Wallsend – it’s one I’ve used before. I’ve gone there because they make salmon-coloured bricks that’ll blend in beautifully with the red sandstone of the piers. I’m looking on this as a work of art, you see,’ he said jocularly.
She sat back in her chair and sighed in admiration. ‘I see what you mean. It is a work of art. I think it’s going to be beautiful.’
For the next three days, while the rain went on falling, father and daughter pored over maps and plans for the bridge. Emma Jane’s interest was so keen and intelligent that Christopher forgot she was only a girl and he talked to her as he would have done to James. She realised this and her soul expanded with a pride in herself that she had never experienced before. Then, on the fourth day, a letter arrived from Mrs Wylie announcing the date of Amelia’s wedding. It was only three weeks away and the letter said that Arabella’s nerves had collapsed under the strain. If Christopher was well enough to be left, Emma Jane must come home.
‘I won’
t have you travelling to the station in this rain,’ she said firmly to her father. ‘It’s still very wet and you could catch another cold. I’ll be quite happy going to Maddiston alone.’
He would not hear of that, however. ‘If I can’t take you to the station, I’ll ask Maquire to do it,’ he said.
Though she protested, he was adamant and young Robbie Rutherford, who had become a friend of Emma Jane’s during her time in Camptounfoot, was sent to fetch Tim, who quickly arrived. When he heard the task he had been assigned, his face showed dismay but Christopher Wylie’s wish was his command. ‘Of course I’ll put Miss Wylie on the Newcastle train,’ he said, but without any marked enthusiasm. Then he looked at her with expression and asked, ‘Are you ready to go now, miss?’
She nodded; he made her tongue-tied. She kissed her father and climbed into the waiting carriage, taking care to sit as far away from Maquire as possible in case he thought she was bold. The feeling of intense maleness that came from him disturbed her. For his part he was aware of her withdrawal and felt that she disapproved of him so he sat grimly in the opposite corner and stared out at the passing countryside while they drove along. Neither of them spoke.
The road from Camptounfoot took them over the bridge into Rosewell, and halfway across it, they drew level with a tall slim girl standing in one of the pedestrian bays. All of a sudden Tim Maquire seemed to come alive. His face was animated and almost boyish as he leaned down from the carriage to ask, ‘Where are you going? Can I take you there? It’s bad weather to be walking.’
He had not seen Hannah since Christopher Wylie was taken ill and now she stared up at him out of wide brown eyes, the lashes of which were wet with raindrops. His heart was beating fast as he looked down at her but she did not return his smile. She stared calmly at him, looked at Emma Jane and then back at Tim again before she replied, ‘It’s perfectly all right. I’m only walking into Rosewell on an errand for Mr Allardyce. The town carter will take me back to Bella Vista.’
Emma Jane saw that the girl who had such a marked effect on Maquire was a real beauty. Her hair, which was partly covered by a shawl, was a wonderful shade of red-gold, and her skin was as white and soft-looking as satin. She made Emma Jane feel like a little mouse as she sat huddled in her mother’s black shawl and unbecoming bonnet. She was embarrassed too because she could feel the sexual tension that flowed between those handsome people. It reminded her of how awkward she used to feel sometimes when she was with her brother James and Amelia. She could see that the girl thought Maquire was escorting her – which he was, but not in the way the girl thought, of course. Hannah was jealous but tried not to show it. Pulling her shawl over her head, partly obscuring her face, she stepped out of the bay and strode across the bridge, forcing the carriage to go slowly behind her till she reached the far bank of the river.
It was agony for Emma Jane to be hustled on to the platform at Maddiston by Tim, who took his commission from her father seriously. The train steamed in, late again. He would not leave her till he saw her safely into her seat though she pleaded with him to go for she could tell that he longed to rush back to Rosewell and find the red-haired girl. In a way his confusion made him more humane and likeable in her eyes, and she began to feel more sympathy towards him. As the train drew away from Maddiston she gave him a little wave with her gloved hand, and to her surprise he waved back, but then she saw him starting to run along the platform to where the carriages waited. It made her feel very lonely and unloved.
A deep depression settled on Emma Jane during that journey back to Newcastle. In spite of having to sleep in a cupboard, she had enjoyed every moment of her time in Camptounfoot and wished she could have stayed longer. During their days together she and her father had struck up a rapport that had not existed between them before and she found the work on the bridge fascinating. It interested her far more than the needlework and watercolour painting that her mother considered to be suitable pastimes for a young lady. But now Wyvern Villa awaited her: home, with its atmosphere of mourning and illness, its silences, its ineffable boredom. ‘How am I to endure it?’ she asked herself in a panic as she stared bleakly out of the train window at a grey world.
Haggerty was waiting when she alighted from the train. As he opened the carriage door he said, ‘My word, miss, you’re looking well. That Borderland must agree with you. You’re quite changed.’
Surprised, she asked, ‘Am I? It must be all the wonderful food I’ve been eating.’
Haggerty’s awkward compliment cheered her, and as they rolled along the thronged street that led from the station, she remembered what her father had said about buying a pretty dress for Amelia’s wedding. She knew in a flash that if she left the picking of a gown to her mother, she’d end up in the same subfusc clothes as she had been wearing ever since James died. She leaned forward and said in the coachman’s ear, ‘Haggerty, you know that dressmaker where Mrs James used to go for her gowns? Madame Rachelle was her name, I think.’
He turned his head. ‘Yes, I used to take her there, Miss Emma.’
‘Take me,’ she said.
He looked amazed. ‘You? Now?’
‘Yes. I want to order a gown before I go home. Take me there now, please.’
It was an order, not a request.
Madame Rachelle occupied an opulent suite of rooms on the first floor of a new building in Neville Street. When Haggerty stopped the carriage at its wide front door, he turned and stared at Emma Jane in disapproval. ‘You’re quite sure you want to go in there, Miss Emma?’ he said. ‘That woman’s a robber. Can’t I take you to your mother’s dressmaker?’
With a determined air Emma Jane stepped down and told him, ‘No, this is the place I want. Just wait for me, Haggerty, I won’t be long.’ He gazed after her departing back with concern as if he feared she’d taken leave of her senses.
A tall thin saleslady with a supercilious smile summed up her new customer in one glance, and obviously was not impressed with what she saw. Some governess looking for a dress to change her life, she thought. She was about to say that Emma Jane might have come to the wrong establishment when the small person in the black-trimmed bonnet lifted two unnerving golden eyes and looked straight at her with a commanding stare. ‘I would like to speak to Madame Rachelle herself,’ she said.
The saleslady backed away. ‘Who will I say has called?’ she asked.
‘Tell her I am Miss Emma Jane Wylie and I have come at the recommendation of my sister-in-law Mrs Amelia Wylie.’
Amelia was well-known in the salon for her lavish spending when James was alive and because of her open, unsnobbish manner. She had been one of the salon’s favourite customers, so Madame Rachelle appeared at once when she was told who wished to speak with her. She was a large lady with a bosom like the prow of a ship, and on her commanding nose was perched a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses that flashed and glittered in the diffused sunlight coming through the lace-curtained windows. The eyes behind the glasses were black and shrewd and missed nothing. ‘How is Mrs Wylie? Well, I hope?’ she intoned in a booming voice with a strange accent that she had long cultivated in the belief that sounding French gave her business an added cachet. Her real name was actually Rachel Wormington, but Rachelle de la Tour sounded so much more impressive.
‘Amelia is very well. I’ve come to you on her recommendation,’ said Emma Jane. It was not strictly true, but she had always heard her sister-in-law enthuse over Madame Rachelle’s gowns and certainly Amelia looked well in them – but she would probably have looked well in anything. Now Emma Jane wanted to change her life and a new wardrobe seemed a good way of starting.
‘You are marrying?’ asked Madame Rachelle curiously.
Emma Jane shook her head. ‘No, but I’m going to a wedding and I want to look my best.’ There was something about the drably-dressed little person that appealed to Madame Rachelle. She could transform this ugly duckling into a swan.
‘What is it exactly you require?’ she asked in a kindly tone
.
Emma Jane twisted her gloved hands and said, ‘Well, the first thing I have to find out is, how much it will cost for you to make me a gown. I haven’t a large allowance.’ In her skirt pocket she had what was left of her quarterly stipend, twenty-one pounds and sixpence. She’d spent the rest of it in looking after her father and travelling to and from Maddiston. He was so accustomed to having money in his pocket that he hadn’t thought to enquire how she was financing herself, and neither did her mother, who was used to Christopher paying for everything.
Madame Rachelle was no fool. She knew this girl was Christopher Wylie’s daughter and that he was one of the biggest building contractors in Newcastle. ‘Miss Wylie, your Mama would pay for your dress,’ she said but Emma Jane shook her head.
‘I don’t want her to,’ she announced firmly. ‘My mother is… my mother likes to have her own way. I want a dress that I’ve chosen, and paid for myself.’
Madame Rachelle actually laughed, a deep throaty gurgle that made her sales staff all turn round in surprise. ‘People do not often start by negotiating a price with me,’ she said, ‘but depending on what you want, I can probably fit you out for a wedding for under ten pounds.’
Emma Jane smiled. ‘In that case, I’d like a dress that will be useful for things other than just going to a wedding. I’d like something that I could wear for travelling.’
‘You have plans to travel?’ asked Madame Rachelle. This little sparrow amused her.
Emma Jane nodded her head. ‘Father’s talking about going to Menton soon. I think I might acquire a taste for travel,’ she said solemnly.
Madame snapped her fingers and a girl rushed forward with a pattern-book through which the proprietrix ruffled before she stopped at one page and handed it open to Emma Jane. ‘That,’ she said, ‘would suit you. In that you could travel to France and all the women would look at you and think, how chic. In fact, I think you’d be far more appreciated in France than here in England, as you’ve a very French style about you. It’s the eyes, I think. Yes, it’s the eyes.’
A Bridge in Time Page 21
