A Bridge in Time

by A Bridge in Time (retail) (epub)

  Bullhead was a coward as well as a bully and he backed down without making any effort to fight back. Instead he sank back on to the floor and would not look up at Tim as he stormed away. When his assailant had gone, however, he glared at the men around him and sneered, ‘He thinks he’s big, but he can’t push me around. I’ll do what I please with my woman – and next time I give her the back of my hand, she’s going to learn that she’d better not go running with any more tales to Black Ace…’

  Chapter Eleven

  The euphoria that Emma Jane felt at Amelia’s wedding did not last. When Arbelle went back to her mother, Wyvern Villa became a house of grief and illness, with maids tip-toeing through the corridors and the only excitement being when Mrs Wylie’s doctor called to see his patient. Emma Jane passed her days in the library, surrounded by leather-backed tomes. She found that she could understand her father’s textbooks more easily now that she’d seen the bridge site and listened to his explanation of the plans. The evenings were spent reading to her mother or writing letters to her father at Camptounfoot. As she wrote she visualised the village and felt something of the regret that the villagers experienced when they heard that modernity was to fall upon them and trains were to run past their doors. That was all the more reason, she thought, for her father’s bridge to be a really beautiful one. If Camptounfoot was to have its serenity disrupted, it should be given something of distinction to make up for it.

  Christmas was very sad. Her father had written to say that he could not take time off to come home, and only a few friends of her parents called to give the Wylies the compliments of the season. They spoke in soft, concerned voices as they stood in the drawing room taking their farewells. ‘Your poor Mama’s far from well. Her nerves are in a shocking state. Let’s hope the winter doesn’t prove too much for her. You’ll have to take very good care of her, Emma Jane,’ said Mrs Morrison, Arabella’s oldest friend.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Emma Jane with sincerity, but when she was alone she sat with her head in her hands and wondered if the whole of her life would be given to nursing her ageing parents. Amelia’s words, ‘Travel, find a husband, take a lover…’ ran in her mind and she wondered if she would ever do any of those things. Then she chided herself for selfishness and went upstairs to sit by her mother’s bed. It was a wet, drizzling afternoon and as she sat on the window seat looking out into the garden, the melancholy of the view almost overwhelmed her. Everything looked sad and rain poured like oil over the glossy, dark-green leaves of the evergreen shrubs below the window.

  ‘You should go out more, my dear,’ said her mother’s faint voice from the bed. ‘When I was your age I was the belle of Newcastle.’

  ‘I know, Mama,’ said Emma Jane, for she had heard this many times before.

  ‘Mrs Morrison’s son is home from the Navy. I understand he’s become very dashing. They’re giving a soiree tomorrow evening and she asked if you would like to go,’ Mrs Wylie said, and Emma Jane backed against the window glass in panic.

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to, Mama,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Besides, I can’t leave you.’

  Her mother’s voice quavered as she said, ‘I feel as if I’m such a burden to you, darling. You must start looking for a husband and Alfred Morrison is going to do well in his career. He’d be very suitable.’

  Her daughter’s expression, however, was not optimistic – for Emma Jane knew that her capacity for being ‘fetching’ was very limited. When her mother fell asleep she went and surveyed the contents of her wardrobe. There was little in it that seemed likely to fetch her a beau, for everything looked so dull, with grey, fawn or black the predominant colours. Only the purple dress made by Madame Rachelle glowed and she stroked its skirt, delighting in the softness of the material. Now she could not imagine how she had had the enterprise to pick such a colour. She’d probably never wear it again. Twelve pounds, six shillings and eightpence wasted. Black was more indicative of her present mood and circumstances. When she looked at her reflection in the long glass, it seemed to her that she resembled a nun.

  The doctor who came to the house each day arrived just then and Mrs Wylie was wakened so that he could look at her tongue, stare down her throat, pull down her eyelids and sound her chest. Then with a solemn face he walked downstairs to confer with Emma Jane in the drawing room. ‘I can’t find any signs of organic disease, but she seems very anaemic and low in her spirits,’ he announced, ‘Perhaps a change of air would help – a change of air and a rich diet. Give her a glass of sherry at eleven o’clock every morning and make sure she eats plenty of cream and butter, glasses of milk, that sort of thing. She’s painfully thin. She’s still grieving and she’s lonely. She’ll be better when your father comes back.’

  This advice, which Emma Jane had known anyway, was costing five shillings, but she said politely, ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  ‘You must look after her, Miss Wylie,’ he said as his farewell shot, and she nodded, thinking how everyone was always telling her what to do, but no one seemed to wonder what – if anything – she herself wanted from life. To them she was the unmarried daughter with her future mapped out for her – as carer for her ageing mother.

  The doctor’s recommendations didn’t help. Arabella’s tears kept flowing and when her groaning food tray was carried upstairs, she turned away from it with an expression of nausea. ‘I hate cream, Emma Jane, you know I do! Please may I have some plain boiled fish with nothing on it,’ she implored but her daughter wrung her hands and said, ‘The doctor prescribed cream. You must eat it, Mama. Do try.’

  Because Emma Jane’s exercise was limited to walks around the garden, she was never truly tired and couldn’t sleep when she went to bed at night. She lay staring at the ceiling trying to blank out her thoughts, and when she did drift into sleep, she was plagued by terrible dreams – of running headlong through deep forests with unseen pursuers crashing behind her and catching up on her all the time. Just as they were about to reach out for her, she woke, sweating and shaking.

  On the day she felt at the end of her patience, the sound of carriage wheels was heard on the gravel and her father jumped down from a hired cab. Emma Jane burst into tears at the sight of him and rushed out to be clasped in his embrace.

  ‘I couldn’t stay away after all, my dear. Don’t cry. Everything’s going to be all right,’ he told her.

  ‘Oh Papa, isn’t this awful? Mama’s so sick, the weather’s so terrible and I’m so unhappy.’

  He gently patted her hand. ‘Stop crying. I’m back now and I’ll do my best to make this a happier time for you. Now let me see your mother.’

  The doctor had predicted that Arabella’s health would improve when her husband came home, and he was right. Within hours she was sitting up in her flowered bed-jacket and positively coquetting with Christopher, who sat by her bed holding her hand and complimenting her. Standing in the doorway, Emma Jane saw them like this and felt unwanted. They were so engrossed in each other, so obviously in love. She backed away with the glass of medicine she was taking to her mother still in her hand. The presence of her husband would do the patient much more good.

  Next day Arbelle arrived with Amelia, who was rosy-cheeked and blooming in advanced pregnancy. The pair hovered over the sickbed with the awkwardness that the healthy always feel in the presence of the ill, then quickly made their escape into the drawing room where Emma Jane waited for them. Amelia shot her a look. ‘You’re well and truly tied, ain’t you? Don’t let it become a habit. When your father’s finished his bridge, you’ve got to go away, and I’m going to tell him so.’

  She was as good as her word. Before she went away, leaving Arbelle behind for a week to cheer up her grandmother, she said sternly to Christopher, ‘How long are you going to stay at home?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not too sure. I can’t leave the bridge for long.’

  Amelia pursed her lips. ‘They need you here, too, you know.’

  ‘I do know – and it worries me a lot. Already A
rabella is better now that I’m home.’

  The girl fixed him with her bright eyes and said, ‘You must take more heed of Emma Jane. She deserves a life besides playing nursemaid to her mother.’

  Wylie was immediately contrite. ‘Oh, I know that, Amelia. I’m very grateful for everything Emma Jane does, both for her mother and for me. I’ll make it up to her when all this is over, I really will. What do you think she’d like?’

  Amelia laughed. ‘The best thing you can do for her is to open the front door and push her out. She won’t leave unless you do so.’

  * * *

  While Wylie was away visiting his family, the snow began to fall again at Camptounfoot and this time it froze and blanketed the ground for days on end. Local wiseacres who could forecast the weather said it would not melt for a month, so Tim wrote to Wyvern Villa advising Wylie to stay where he was until the thaw came. Work on the bridge was impossible in such hard frost.

  While the navvies could not work they lounged around the camp with time hanging heavy on their hands. There were fights – numerous disputes about money lost or won at gambling, and rows over whores. Two jealous women had a screaming, hair-pulling fight in the middle of the road, watched by a gaggle of men who laid bets on the eventual winner. Even the dogs fell to scrapping, snarling and biting over morsels thrown out on to the dirty snow around the hut doors.

  Jopp’s truck-shop was ransacked by a group of angry women who were tired of being sold rotten meat and weevilly flour, but the quality of the provisions did not improve and the atmosphere in the camp thickened and grew more threatening with every day that passed. It took all of Tim Maquire’s strength of personality to maintain some sort of order, for it was the custom among the navvies for gangers to police the camp themselves. They preferred to keep the local constabulary out. Even if there was a murder in a navvy camp, the men sorted it out themselves and policemen in the towns near camps preferred to look the other way unless the peace and security of local people was threatened.

  The snow pleased Hannah very well because it kept Tim at home. The pair shut their hut door and cuddled in bed or huddled over their stove like children, while outside the big flakes floated down past their window. When he went out to check on his men, she took the opportunity to do her chores or run to the burn that flowed down by the boundary wall with her bucket and fill it with fresh water. On the second day of the snowstorm, she met Mariotta and told her, ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t know about you owning Benjy’s. You must have thought my mother and me very unfeeling, forcing you to come in like we did.’

  Mariotta, who was sober, shook her head. ‘I could tell you didn’t know,’ she said. ‘You were very kind to me – and your husband helped too. Bullhead hasn’t touched me since Black Ace warned him off. I’ll bring his coat back soon but I’m still wearing it. The cold’s so awful just now.’

  After that they met every day and chatted for a few minutes, but Mariotta still didn’t bring back Tim’s coat as the weather hadn’t lifted. Then one morning, when the sky was lighter and it seemed that the cold was abating, Mariotta said to her new friend, ‘I’ll bring your man’s coat tomorrow.’

  ‘Come in the afternoon and have some tea with my mother. She’s coming and she’d like to see you again,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I will. I’ll come tomorrow when I see Black Ace going out to do his round of the huts,’ said Mariotta, nodding her head.

  That night, however, the frustration of a week without work burst out in a terrible fight involving over fifty men. Roaring drunk, they rampaged up and down the roads of the navvy camp, howling and shrieking like dervishes. It was the first time Hannah had seen a real outbreak of disorder and she was terrified, but Tim had to go out and leave her. Armed with a thick cudgel, he stormed into the darkness, calling back to her as he went. ‘Lock the door behind me and don’t open it to anyone till I come back. Not to anyone, Hannah – not even your own mother. Someone could try to rush in. Don’t open it until you’re sure it’s me.’

  She huddled beside her stove, listening to the yells and screams for over an hour before she heard a strange sort of scrabbling at her door. It sounded as if a dog was trying to get in. She rose and walked across the floor on her tiptoes, put her ear to the keyhole and whispered, ‘Who’s there?’ The scrabbling went on. Now it sounded as if someone was scraping fingernails down the paintwork. Frightened, Hannah called out, ‘Go away, go away!’ The scrabbling dwindled away and finally stopped, much to her relief.

  When Tim came home, wiping his brow on his shirtsleeve, he said, ‘That took some sorting out. Thank God, Sydney and Panhandle and some of the others were sober. We got order at last but it wasn’t easy, I can tell you.’

  Hannah’s eyes were wide with fright as she told him, ‘Someone came to the door when you were out. They tried to get me to open up. It was so strange, the way they scraped at the paint… as if they were lying on the step. Oh, I was scared.’

  He stared hard at her. ‘You didn’t open it, of course?’

  She shook her head. ‘No I didn’t, but it was so strange. I felt I ought to open the door because it sounded as if the person out there was hurt and needed help. I felt bad about turning them away.’

  He hugged her tight. ‘Don’t think about it, my love. It was probably a drunk.’

  The next morning, however, when Hannah opened the door, she saw a scrap of green material lying in the slush by the step. She bent down and picked it up. It was the same cotton as Mariotta’s thin dress, and one she always wore. The door swinging open behind her had marks on the paint, down near the ground. It looked as if a hand had scraped its fingernails down the wood. With a cry of anguish she ran back in to Tim, holding out the cloth. ‘Look what I’ve found! That’s Mariotta’s isn’t it? That’s the colour of the dress she always wears.’

  He didn’t recognise it but he knew that Hannah was quick about things like that so he said, ‘It might be.’

  ‘Oh Tim, it must have been her at the door last night. I think she was trying to get in. I hope that brute hasn’t been hitting her again, and I turned her away!’

  Tears were running down her cheeks and he took her in his arms, cradling her head against his chest. ‘Hush, Hannah, hush, you’ll upset the bairn. Mariotta’s coming to see you and your mother today, isn’t she? Help her then. And tell her to get out of this camp. She doesn’t listen to me.’

  Tibbie’s brow was furrowed when she arrived at Hannah’s later in the day. ‘When I walked down the hill I was wondering where the railway line’s going to go when it reaches Camptounfoot. Will it run up the little burn where Flavia’s stone is?’ she asked her daughter.

  Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask Tim.’

  ‘Make him promise not to break that stone. It would be terrible if anything happened to it,’ said Tibbie.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mam. I’ll take Tim for a walk up there and show it to him. He’ll make sure it’s safe if I ask him.’ Hannah was bustling about, happy to be playing at houses. Then she told her mother, ‘I asked Mariotta to come and take tea with us. I’m a bit worried about her. I think her man’s been beating her again.’

  The two of them spent a happy afternoon together but their visitor never came. When Tibbie was preparing to leave Hannah said, ‘Isn’t it strange about Mariotta not coming? She seemed so pleased to be asked. I hope she’s all right.’ She did not tell her mother about the scrap of green cloth and the strange noises at her door in the night because she did not want Tibbie to worry about her daughter living in a camp where fights like that could happen.

  Tibbie dismissed her worries. ‘Och, don’t worry. You’ll see her again soon. She probably forgot to come if she was drinking. There was a strong smell of gin on her that day I met her.’

  ‘No, she was sober when I spoke to her,’ Hannah said. ‘She looked as if she was trying to stay sober too.’

  ‘It doesn’t take long for some folk to change their minds,’ was Tibbie’s sharp reply.

&nb
sp; When Hannah went out to fill her water-bucket she met two other women and asked about Marietta. Neither of them had seen her but one said, ‘She’s Bullhead’s woman, isn’t she? You could ask Squint Mary about her.’

  ‘Who’s Squint Mary?’

  ‘She’s the hut-woman for Bullhead and his boys. That’s her hut up there – the one with the turf roof.’

  On impulse, Hannah headed for the hut where she had been told Mariotta lived. Close to, it looked ramshackle and filthy and she could hear raised voices coming from inside. She was about to turn and leave when an evil-looking woman came out of the door and glared at her. ‘You’re Black Ace’s woman, aren’t you? What would you be wanting up here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m looking for Marietta,’ said Hannah.

  The woman stepped back and her face seemed to close up. ‘She’s not here. She went away.’

  ‘When did she go?’ Hannah was not displeased to hear this because she remembered what Tim had said about advising Mariotta to leave.

  ‘Two days ago, I think,’ said Mary.

  ‘That can’t be right. I spoke to her yesterday.’

  Squint Mary snapped, ‘She went yesterday, then. What matters is that she’s not here now.’

  Hannah hurried back down the hill worrying about Mariotta, and when Tim came in, she unloaded her worries on him. ‘If she was going away, why did she say she’d come here to see Mam? And what about that bit of cloth I found at our door? Oh, I wish I’d opened it! I wish I’d not been so scared.’

  Tim tried to calm her. ‘I’ll tell you one thing: she wouldn’t go far without her bairns. She was devoted to them. They’re staying with a woman called Rush in Rosewell. She told me that once.’

  ‘Nanny Rush! I know her. She keeps a dame school. I’ll go to see her tomorrow,’ cried Hannah.

  Mrs Rush was a sweet-faced woman with curly grey hair pinned back in a bun from a round face that looked like an ageing kitten’s. She had chubby red cheeks and sparkling brown eyes, and always smelled of vanilla. For many years, since having been left widowed and childless at a young age, she’d run a school for the children of local tradespeople in a room opening into the street on the narrowest part of Rosewell’s East Port. Hannah had never been one of her pupils but Nanny and Tibbie were old friends, and when she opened her door she recognised the tall girl on her doorstep immediately.