‘My word, Hannah, you’re looking bonny. I heard you were married – it obviously suits you. Come in, lass, and tell me your news,’ she cried, holding the door wide and revealing five boys and four little girls sitting round a deal table by the fire with books in their hands.
Hannah looked at them closely, trying to work out which, if any, were Mariotta’s children but without success. Some she recognised but at least four were strangers to her. She whispered to their teacher, ‘I’ve come to ask if you’ve seen my friend Mariotta. She left her bairns with you, I believe.’
Mrs Rush nodded. ‘Aye, she did. Lovely, good bairns, little angels both of them.’ Unlike some dame-school mistresses, Nanny genuinely loved children and always thought the best of them.
Hannah’s face looked solemn. ‘Has Mariotta been here to take them away?’
Nanny shook her head. ‘No, they’re still with me. She was last here three days ago – yes, that’s right, she came on Monday – and she didn’t say anything about going away. She hasn’t been down since, and I was a bit surprised because she comes every day, even through all that snow. She loves those bairns.’
‘Which are hers?’ asked Hannah, surveying the cherubs around the table.
Nanny Rush pointed to a boy and a girl sitting together. ‘That’s them, Tommy and wee Marie. Come and say hello to them.’
Hannah bent down by the blond-haired little things and told the boy, ‘Hello, Tommy, I’m a friend of your mother. She sent me down to see if you’re all right.’
He nodded. ‘We’re well, thank you. Is our mother well?’ He was so solemn and adult-sounding that it was difficult to believe he’d been born and raised in a navvy camp. Hannah had seen other children running wild in the camp, filthy, bare-legged, swearing and shrieking like devils, and she knew Mariotta must have had a hard job keeping her children away from them. ‘When my baby’s big enough I’ll make Tim find a proper house,’ she resolved.
‘She’s well,’ she assured the children, both of whom were staring at her with eyes behind which unspoken anxieties showed. Filled with pity for them, she stood up and said to Mrs Rush, ‘How was Mariotta when she came the last time?’
Nanny pulled at Hannah’s sleeve and led her into a little parlour behind the schoolroom. ‘I’ve been worried about her. When she came to me first and brought the bairns, she was so decent and good-living – that was just after her poor man died. Then she brought the money for them and insisted on paying me a whole year’s board at once. She said she was afraid to keep the money in case it was taken off her by somebody up at the camp. But after that she was different. She’s sometimes the worse for drink when she comes but always loving and kind to the bairns, always sweet with them. Once or twice she’s looked as if she’s been in a fight, though. I’ve never seen such a change in a woman in such a short time.’ There was no condemnation in Nanny’s voice, only pity. Mariotta’s pathetic state had touched her heart as well as Hannah’s.
‘She’s living with a brute of a man,’ Hannah told her and Mrs Rush nodded in reply.
‘I know, she told me. I asked her why she stayed, and she said it was because of her bairns. They’re happy here and she didn’t want to move them, especially since she’d nowhere else to go.’
‘But the woman who lives in the same hut as Mariotta told me she has gone away,’ whispered Hannah.
‘I don’t believe it. She’d never leave without coming to tell me and the bairns where she was going.’ Mrs Rush was adamant about that.
Hannah frowned. ‘I don’t believe it, either, but she might have had to get away fast. Maybe she means to write to you… if you get a letter please send a message to my Mam and she’ll pass it on to me.’
The kindly woman nodded. ‘I’ll do that, and don’t worry about her bairns. I’ll take care of them. I’m growing real fond of them anyway. I never had any bairns of my own, you know…’ Her voice had a yearning note in it and Hannah could tell that Mariotta’s children had taken the place of the grandchildren Nanny Rush would never have.
When she went home and reported to Tim what she had found out, he was also concerned. ‘Poor Mariotta, I wonder what’s happened to her. She’d have to be desperate to run away without her children. They were the only reason she put up with Bullhead in the first place.’
Hannah’s eyes were full of tears as she cried, ‘If only I’d opened the door. I can’t help thinking this is all my fault.’
But Tim told her firmly, ‘Of course it isn’t. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Bullhead’s. I’ll go up to his hut right away and ask him about Mariotta.’
Squint Mary’s hut seemed strangely subdued when Tim stepped through the door, and he heard the men whispering to each other, ‘It’s Black Ace… It’s Black Ace.’ He gestured to Bullhead who was lying on a tumbled cot by the door and stepped outside to wait for him to appear.
‘What have you done with Mariotta?’ was Tim’s first question.
Of course Bullhead blustered, ‘What d’ye think? What does anybody do with a woman like that?’
Tim glared. ‘Where is she?’
‘How do I know? She ran away. I didn’t ask her where she was going and she didn’t tell me.’
‘When did she run away? Was it the night of the big fight?’
Bullhead became suspiciously co-operative. ‘Yes, that’s when it was. I was drunk that night and she ran away.’
‘Had you been abusing her, knocking her about?’
‘No.’
‘Did anybody else see her go? Did she take anything with her?’
‘How do I know? She’s pushed off, that’s all I can say. She was a mean, moaning bitch – she’ll not be missed. What’s it to you, anyway?’
‘I don’t like to see plain bloody cruelty, that’s what it is to me,’ snapped Tim, turning away. Back at Benjy’s he told Hannah that Mariotta had left the camp after a row with Bullhead, but he himself was not convinced and resolved to ask around to try to find out what had really happened to her.
As the weeks passed, however, he had no success. People he asked about Mariotta wrinkled their brows as if they doubted her existence. It was as if she had been spirited off the face of the earth. The more he was stonewalled, the more suspicious Tim became. He did not tell Hannah of his misgivings because he was afraid of upsetting her in her pregnant condition. He did everything he could to please her, and in time she stopped agonising about Mariotta. As the baby grew within her, she took on the wonderful bloom of a healthy young woman preparing to give birth.
When the snow disappeared and the frost lifted, Christopher Wylie returned to his lodgings much improved in health. Little by little the days lengthened and the sun seemed to give out extra warmth. Spring was coming: there had been a miraculous rebirth.
‘Come and see something,’ Tibbie invited Hannah when, as had become her habit, she appeared at the cottage on a bright morning in early April. They walked into the little garden where only shrivelled strands of dead brown leaves showed that clumps of flowers and vegetables had flourished there during the summer. Reverently Tibbie bent down and lifted a low-growing branch on her lilac bush to reveal a hidden cluster of snowdrops. One or two of them had already opened and their fragile heads swung as she pushed back the branch that had shielded them from the cold.
Hannah clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh, they’re out again! It’s like a miracle every year, isn’t it? Spring’s here. It won’t be long now till summer.’
Tibbie laid a gentle hand on her daughter’s swelling belly and said, ‘And it won’t be long till the baby comes. You’re still all right, aren’t you? You’re still feeling fine? Is the baby moving much?’
Hannah beamed. ‘I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life, Mam. I can walk for miles and I’ve enough energy for ten women. The baby is kicking all the time. I love the feeling. I can hardly wait for it to be born. You’ll come and help me when it starts, won’t you?’
Tibbie frowned. ‘I was hoping you’d come here for th
e birth. That camp’s a rough place.’ But she was wasting her time.
‘Oh no,’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘I want my baby to be born in Benjy’s.’ She wanted to have the child in the little house where it was conceived, but she did not say that to her mother.
‘Why do you still call it that? Benjy was the name of that poor soul’s husband, wasn’t it?’ asked Tibbie and Hannah nodded.
‘Yes, it was Mariotta’s husband’s name. We thought about changing it but we didn’t. Benjy’s suits it, somehow.’
Tibbie’s face became more solemn as she asked, ‘Have you heard anything more about that poor lassie?’
Hannah shivered. ‘Mariotta? No, nothing. She’s just disappeared. Tim’s asked lots of people about her but none of them know anything. Sometimes I think I must have imagined her. Nanny Rush’s got the bairns but I don’t know what’ll happen if Mariotta doesn’t get in touch with her before the money for their keep runs out.’
Tibbie shook her head vigorously. ‘You needn’t fash yourself about that. Nanny Rush has a good heart. She’ll keep those bairns for nothing – she told me that herself. They’re safe enough with her.’
The mention of Mariotta had depressed Hannah. ‘I don’t like thinking about her,’ she said in a stricken voice, and her mother put out an arm and hugged her.
‘Don’t you go getting fancies, not at this time. What are you going to do today?’
‘I thought I’d go down to the bridge and meet Tim at dinner-time. He said he’d take a break and go with me to see Flavia’s stone. I want him to know where it is so it’s not dug up or broken like you said when the line goes by there.’
Tibbie approved of that plan. ‘If you take him there, make sure nobody else sees. If one of those antiquarian folk get a sight of it, they’ll have it howked up and sent away to some museum or other.’ The bridge site had been plagued recently by visits from antiquarians and collectors, who offered the navvies money for anything interesting that turned up.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep it a secret,’ said Hannah, with a smile. Her good spirits returned as she anticipated the walk through the dell to the bonny wee burn where there should be other snowdrops spangling the banks. Flavia’s husband had chosen a fine place to bury them.
It was not far from her mother’s cottage to the bridge and she paused on the top of the hill to stare with wonder at the sight that spread before her. What had been a green and empty valley, with sheep and cows grazing by the river and only the occasional fisherman casting a line into the water, was now a scene of great activity. The whole place was transformed. In the broad riverbed, stumps of rising pillars had been built and on up the meadow, so that the bridge looked like the skeleton of a beached leviathan or a line of headless soldiers marching up the brow of the hill. Hannah stood on the ridge along which the railway line linking the bridge with Camptounfoot and Rosewell would soon run, and huge piles of raw earth marked its course. Squads of labouring men were building up a tall embankment on which the line would be laid.
Some of the men working on the bridge were Camptounfoot folk, who waved or called to Hannah as she passed with her bonny hair flying. Tim and Wylie were standing in the shadow of one of the tallest piers. The white-headed man shook Hannah’s hand cordially and asked, ‘Have you come to take my chief helper away?’
She brandished a little basket she was carrying in her hand. ‘Oh no, I’ve only brought him something to eat. There’s plenty for two. You must have some of it as well.’ Wylie shook his head. ‘Thank you, but it’s almost noon. I go back to Miss Jessup’s for my meal. She’s always mortified if I don’t eat it all up – she thinks something’s wrong with it. No, you two sit down here on the bank and eat your dinner.’ To Tim he said, ‘I’ll be back at two. We’ll talk about what to do with that pier base then.’
As Hannah watched him go she said to Tim, ‘What a sad face that man’s got. Is he worried about his bridge? It looks as if it’s going up fast to me.’
Her husband nodded. ‘It is. It’s going very well. He’s worried and sad about other things, though. His only son died not long ago and his wife’s sick all the time.’
Hannah had a tender heart and she clasped her hands in shocked surprise. ‘Oh, poor soul! No wonder he’s sad. What’s the matter with his wife? Can’t she be cured?’
Tim shrugged. ‘I don’t know. His daughter, the one that was here, looks after her. He says when the bridge is finished he’s going to take them both to the South of France. He thinks the sun’ll be good for them.’
Hannah gave a little giggle. ‘Oh, I remember the girl – a wee thing in a black bonnet. I was that jealous when I saw her in the carriage with you. Do you remember?’
He took her hand. ‘I remember. There wasn’t anything for you to be jealous about. I don’t even remember what she looks like. She was a quiet sort of girl… mousy. Nobody could call you mousy, my beauty. Come on, let’s go so that you can show me this Roman stone you’ve been going on about. How will I keep the diggers away from it if I don’t know where it is?’
There were still a few pockets of snow lying in darkened hollows behind the field walls where they walked. The burn was tinkling like crystal over multi-coloured stones, and to Hannah’s delight there were hundreds of snowdrops growing on the banks. She gathered some and carried a posy as she walked along with one arm linked in Tim’s. ‘It’s not far,’ she told him. ‘We’ve just got to climb that bank and go under that elder tree and it’s there.’
He looked at her anxiously. ‘You’re sure this is all right. You’re not going to do yourself an injury?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she laughed. ‘I’m as strong as a horse. Come on, it’s up here.’ She dropped his arm and clambered up a steep bank to a little overgrown ledge where she began scrabbling with her hands among dead leaves and pads of green moss. ‘Here it is. Look, Tim.’ She was holding back a lot of sharp and leafless elder branches to show him a pale-coloured stone with carving on it. ‘It’s a gravestone to a woman called Flavia and her wee girl. The husband put it up,’ she said solemnly.
‘When?’ he asked.
‘Oh, a long time ago,’ came the reply, ‘but my Mam and I love it. We think it’s awful bonny and awful sad, and we’re worried in case it gets dug up when the railway goes through.’
He stood up straight and gazed around, taking his bearings. ‘The line might well be coming along here. If it does, I’ll dig up the stone myself and give it to your mother.’
Hannah looked stricken. ‘Oh, that’s awful! We don’t want it to be moved. Flavia was buried here and this is where her stone should stay. Look at her and her bairn, Tim. Aren’t they lovely?’
He bent down again and stared at the carved figures. They were worn and chipped but he could see what it was about them that touched Hannah’s heart. Softly he told her, ‘It’s not up to me to say where the line goes, but if I can miss this place, I will. Don’t worry about it, Hannah. It’ll not be broken or thrown away. It’ll be treated with respect.’
She slid like a child back down the slope and put her arms round his neck. ‘I knew I could trust you, my Tim. I can always trust you,’ she whispered.
They parted on the road that ran along the face of the hill, the road that would one day run under the last arch of Wylie’s bridge. She turned and waved two or three times before she finally disappeared over the face of the hill on her way to her mother’s cottage. When she had gone, Tim slithered down the muddy slope to the river where Wylie was standing staring at the river that ran fast and strong around the stubby piers. ‘I’m not happy about that last one. There’s always movement in it. We’ll have to wait till the river falls and start it again,’ he said disconsolately.
Tim frowned. ‘Do you remember what that cabbie said about the old bridge being floated on wool?’ he mused.
Wylie glanced sharply at him. ‘Funny you should say that, Maquire – I was thinking the same thing. Will we give it a try?’
Tim pondered. ‘We might, just with that
one pier, but I think we should do a belt-and-braces job – woolsacks and concrete as well. It’s got a lot to carry, more than the old bridge.’
Wylie was enthusiastic. ‘You’re right – it’s worth a try. I’ll drive up to Maddiston and buy a couple of cartloads of woolsacks from one of the cloth-mills. I’m keen to see what happens when we put it in water.’
‘I’ll carry on here,’ Tim told him, glancing up at the sky. ‘The weather’s changing again and it looks as if the snow might come back. We’ll do what we can and then we’ll stop for the day. If you leave the cashbox I’ll pay the men for you.’
He was right; the Border climate, which could be sunny in the morning and storming by night, was playing tricks on them again. By four o’clock, the sky was as dull as lead and the first flakes of another snowstorm were drifting in the rising wind. Men shuddered and leaned on their spades until Tim yelled, ‘That’s it! I’ll pay you out now. Stop working.’
When his men were lined up in front of him, he called their names in turn and handed them their day’s money. At last he came to Jimmy-The-New-Man’s name, but no one stepped up to claim the money. ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ he asked and Panhandle said, ‘He didn’t come out today.’
‘Is he sick?’ asked Tim, looking at Gentleman Sydney, whom he knew shared his concern about their youngest worker.
Sydney shook his head. ‘Drunk again,’ was all he said.
On their way back to the camp, he and Tim walked together and Sydney explained, ‘That young fool Jimmy’s gone to pieces. First it was the French maid up at Anstruther’s house. He thought he was in love with her because she led him on at the dance, but now he’s got some sort of religious mania. He drinks himself silly and then starts praying and carrying on. When we came away this morning he was raving at Major Bob about mortal sin.’
A Bridge in Time Page 29
