A Bridge in Time

by A Bridge in Time (retail) (epub)

  ‘He didn’t come to the bridge,’ Emma Jane told her.

  Tibbie shuddered. ‘Poor soul, I hope he’s safe. He loved Hannah, that’s for sure. I’ll have to try to find him tomorrow.’ When she drew the window curtains she gazed out at the hillside, silvered in moonlight, and wondered where he was.

  At that moment Tim Maquire was sitting on the side of the hill far above her head. He sat huddled in the shadow of a clump of whinbushes with his arms clasped around his knees, staring down into the valley. A fine mist was drifting along its floor and he felt chilled to the bone. By midnight the temperature had dropped to below zero, for once more the volatile local climate had played tricks. Yesterday it had been humid fever weather but now, only a few hours later, the frosts of autumn had come. They would drive away the fever, but too late to save Hannah and Kate, he thought bitterly. His tears were all shed but the pain in his heart was unremitting as he sat on the hillside and stared out bleakly at the twinkling lights of Camptounfoot and Rosewell. He could see flares where men were still working on the bridge but felt no curiosity about what was going on. The only thing he wanted was to go away, as far and as fast as possible.

  He stayed there, awake and pondering, till dawn, which burst with a glory that only happens in autumn after a night of sharp frost. Away to his right the first streaks of morning flashed across the sky like the brush-strokes of an inspired painter. They glowed in brilliant shades of orange, red and gold against a background of violet and then the huge sky above his head suddenly became awash with glory. He stood up and stared around.

  The rising sun, sharp in the cold air, cast black shadows from the bushes and trees on to the ground. Somewhere in the distance he heard a cock crow and it was echoed by another and then another. Birds began to sing and their outlines spotted the clear sky. The beauty of the new morning could be taken as a mockery of his grief, but it might also be a reassurance. It seemed to him that he was being given some indication that Hannah and Kate had not been consigned to the ground, but that their spirits were soaring above him in heaven.

  His clothes were damp with dew and his boots squeaked wetly when he stood up in them. Moving with determination, he turned his back to the dawn and headed across the flank of the hill in the direction of the camp.

  Benjy’s looked like a body from which the life had flown when he opened the flower-surrounded door. The stove had gone out and there was a scatter of grey ash around it. Some flowers in a jar on the table drooped dead and sere. Hannah’s shawl hung limp from the hook on the back of the door and the baby’s empty basket lay on the floor by the bed. He stood on the threshold and put his hands in front of his eyes as if to shut out the sight, but then he pulled himself together and went in, hauled a box from beneath the bed and quickly took things out of it. When he had changed into his best suit, he neatly folded his wet clothes and laid them on the bed. Then he took Naughten’s drawing of Hannah down from the mantelshelf and slipped it into his breast-pocket. After that he walked to the door and stood staring into the little house for a long time before he finally went outside, turned the key in the lock and strode away.

  * * *

  The first place he went was the Abbey, where more bodies had been put in the pit overnight. The gravediggers were extending it and they leaned on their spades when he walked towards them. ‘How many are in there now?’ he asked.

  The first man, who was working with a handkerchief tied across his mouth, shrugged and mumbled, ‘About a hundred. They’ve been bringing them down all night.’

  ‘Who’s in charge of this graveyard? Are you – or you?’ Tim asked first one and then the other, but they both shook their heads.

  ‘No, it’s the beadle who lives in that cottage across the road. He’s keeping well away from this, though. He leaves it to the likes of us.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Thomson, Henry Thomson.’

  Henry Thomson was smoking his post-breakfast pipe when the caller rapped on his door and said without preamble, ‘I’m Tim Maquire. My wife and daughter were buried here yesterday. I want to put up a stone to mark their graves.’

  Thomson assumed a sanctimonious expression but took a step back so that he was well away from the navvy as he said, ‘That’s sad, but I’m afraid the Church Session has decided that there shouldn’t be any headstones on the pit. It’s bad for the town to mark it, you see.’ In fact Rosewell’s dignitaries had decided that the least said about the cholera epidemic, the sooner it would be forgotten. The town newspaper which had appeared that morning carried no news item about the scourge that had hit the navvies and their families.

  ‘You won’t let me mark my wife’s grave?’ asked Tim in a voice of incredulity.

  ‘I’ve been told there’s to be no crosses, no stones with names or dates carved on, nothing to show that the fever’s been here. If you try to put one up, we’ll just take it away.’

  Tim turned on his heel and strode off, leaving Thomson staring after him. Now he went to the camp in search of Sydney but could only find Dr Robertson, who sat smoking in a small open space between two huts. He nodded at Tim and said, ‘One hundred and ten people have died already. It’s like a massacre. I can’t keep up with it.’

  ‘Have you slept?’ asked Tim, struck by Robertson’s strange, remote air. He seemed like a man who was sleepwalking.

  ‘Oh yes,’ was the reply, ‘for a little while. Your friend gave me his bed. He’s resting there now.’

  ‘I’m looking for him. Is he in Major Bob’s?’

  Robertson nodded. ‘Yes, in the hut where it started. God, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that it’s not possible to stop it. All those people dying and me not able to do anything to help them!’ He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to Tim, who only shrugged and walked away.

  Sydney was sprawled fully dressed in bed in Major Bob’s hut. There was nobody else there and as he walked in Tim realised with a terrible pang that the hut was empty because his other friends were all dead. Only Sydney had survived, and he lay asleep with his head thrown back on the pillow and his face colourless as if he too was deathly ill, but in spite of that Tim shook him by the shoulder. Sydney groaned, ‘Go away.’

  ‘Wake up. I want you to help me,’ said Tim, still shaking him.

  Sydney opened his eyes. ‘For God’s sake, Black Ace, I haven’t slept for two nights till now.’

  Tim’s face was unsmiling and unapologetic. ‘I need your help and I need it now. Have you still got that horse you borrowed to ride to Maddiston? You’ve not taken it back yet, have you?’

  Sydney sat up. ‘God, I forgot all about it. I turned it out in the field next door – I hope it’s still there. Has Dicky sent a man for it? Is that what this is about?’

  ‘Who’s Dicky? Oh, it doesn’t matter. I want that horse. Get up and come with me: I need you too.’

  The determined tone of his voice told Sydney there was no point in protesting any longer. He sat up and groped for his boots under the bed, grumbling all the time to himself, ‘Can’t even sleep for an hour! Bloody awful!’

  Tim ignored his protests, and stood with his arms crossed like a jailer waiting for Sydney to stand up. ‘Now come on. Let’s catch that horse,’ he said.

  For fear of thieves Sydney had hidden its harness beneath his bed and now he lugged it out, shoving most of it into Tim’s arms. ‘You carry that and I’ll catch the horse. I wish you’d tell me what this is all about, Black Ace.’ But no satisfaction was forthcoming and they walked in silence to the field next door to the camp where the horse was grazing in a far corner. When Sydney whistled, it lifted its head, turned and came trotting towards him. A docile beast, it stood still while he slipped the reins over its neck and soon had it bridled. Then he looked at Tim with raised eyebrows. ‘Where to now?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not far – near the bridge. Do you think that horse is capable of carrying a heavy weight?’

  ‘What sort of a weight?’

  ‘A stone, a
bout this high…’ Tim held his hand about three feet off the ground ‘… and this wide.’ He measured out some twelve inches.

  ‘It might not carry it but it’ll drag it,’ said Sydney, mystified.

  Tim seemed satisfied. ‘That’s all I need. When we get it on to the road, I’ll fetch a cart. Come on.’

  The railway line was advancing inexorably towards the secret dell that Hannah had shown him. He and Sydney led the grey horse past the track the digging gangs had made. Only a few men were working in a desultory fashion and some of them shouted, ‘Hey, Black Ace,’ when Tim passed, but he never paused or called back to any of them. When he reached the last working party, however, he let go of the horse and walked across to them. Without a by-your-leave, he lifted two spades and a length of rope off the ground. No one tried to stop him. With a completely impassive expression on his face and his eyes staring straight ahead, he walked back to Sydney, who was suddenly struck by the fear that Black Ace might have gone mad.

  Soon they left the dug-up area of ground and headed into a tree-filled glen that was cut through by a stream. The horse flinched as tree branches swept back at it, but Tim pulled it on grimly, saying, ‘Give it a jab in the ribs. Don’t let it stop. It’s not far.’

  At last they reached what seemed to be his destination. It was the narrowest part of the glade, where high banks rose on either side of the stream and trees bent down into the water. Tim dropped his hold on the reins and started clambering up a steep incline on the far side of the stream. As Sydney watched in amazement, he disappeared into the middle of a thick-growing tree that clung to the rockface like a limpet.

  ‘Tie the horse up and help me with this,’ his voice came back in a few minutes.

  Sydney did as he was directed and climbed up the bank too. He saw that his friend was pointing to a carved white stone that stuck out of the bank. ‘We’ll need the spades to get it out,’ was all he said.

  They delved and dug for half an hour before they prised it loose. Then it was laid on its side and pushed down into the stream, where it lay with the water bubbling gently over its surface, washing away some of the dirt that stained it. Sydney slithered down and knelt on the bank, gazing at the stone in admiration. ‘That’s marble,’ he said. ‘It’s quite beautiful. It’s a Roman gravestone…’ He read out the carved words and told Tim what they meant. ‘The benefit of a classical education,’ he said with a wry smile after he’d translated everything. Then he sat back and asked, ‘How did you know it was here?’

  ‘Hannah showed me. I want to take it back to the burial-ground and put it up as her gravestone. It’s got a mother and a bairn on it too.’

  Sydney nodded. ‘Yes, Flavia and Corellia. Now it’ll mark Hannah and Kate as well. What an excellent thing to do, Black Ace. Most suitable, most poetic.’

  Tim shot him a glance as if he suspected him of sarcasm, but Sydney was very serious. ‘The beadle in charge of the churchyard said there’s to be no headstones on the pit,’ Tim said as he stood up and started making loops in the rope to go round the stone.

  Sydney looked up. ‘I know. I heard that yesterday when we took one of the burial parties down. They’re trying to pretend none of this is happening, and when it’s over they’ll pretend it never took place.’

  Tim groaned, ‘I wish to God it hadn’t, but I’m determined Hannah’s going to have her stone. I thought if I didn’t carve any new names or dates on this one, they’d leave it be.’

  Sydney shook his head. ‘Rules are rules for people like the burghers of Rosewell, I’m afraid, and the minute you’re out of sight, they’ll do what they like. But I think I can do something about their rules. I’ve a friend who’s their superior; he has them in his pocket. I’ll have a word with him.’

  Now it was his turn to say, ‘Come on.’ They looped up the stone, tied it to the harness and the horse obligingly pulled it out of the glen for them and over the rough ground to the road.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch a cart from the site,’ said Sydney, and ran off downhill towards the half-built bridge. Several carters were standing around gossiping after having unloaded more stone from the quarry and he spoke to one urgently. Money changed hands and the man grabbed his horse by its bridle and turned his cart back up the hill to where Tim and the grey waited with its gleaming burden. The stone was quickly lifted on to the cart-bed, and while Tim directed the driver to take him with it to the Abbey, Sydney jumped on the grey’s back and rode off for the Duke’s mansion on the other side of the hill.

  The stone-carrier’s cart lumbered along slowly, and when they reached the Abbey gate, Tim asked the driver to help him lift off the marble stone and carry it to the gravepit. They were soon interrupted in their labours, however. ‘And where do you think you’re going with that?’ Thomson the beadle stood with folded arms, blocking their way as Tim and the other man were struggling to bear the slab.

  ‘I’m putting it up on my wife’s grave,’ was Tim’s reply.

  ‘I’ve already told you the rules about gravestones on that pit.’

  ‘You’ve told me and I’m not listening. Get out of the way or I’ll knock you down.’ Tim was large and threatening, the beadle small. There was no doubt about which of them would give way. When the stone was eventually dumped on the earthen mound that covered the already-buried bodies, Tim said to one of the watching gravediggers who were obviously enjoying the beadle’s defeat, ‘Give me a spade.’

  It didn’t take long before the slab was set upright in the earth, which he stamped down firmly all round. Then he stood back and surveyed the stone, which glittered icily in the autumn sunshine. Because it had to be firmly sunk in newly-dug earth, only the upper halves of Flavia and her child were visible, but the look of love exchanged between them was still heartbreakingly obvious.

  The beadle was not touched by its melancholy, however; he was prancing about with rage on the grassy sward that surrounded the other graves. ‘That can’t stay there. It’ll be away by tonight,’ he shouted, but at that moment another man came in through the gate and rapped out, ‘Don’t make such a fuss, Thomson. The Duke’s given his permission for the slab to stay. It’s an ancient stone of historical interest, apparently.’

  Anthony Frobisher, the Duke’s man of business, came hurrying over the grass. He nodded to Tim and grasped the beadle by the arm to lead him away, talking earnestly in a low voice. Thomson nodded as he listened and then, without looking back at Tim who was still standing on top of the mound, walked quickly out of the graveyard. Frobisher came back and said to the shirt-sleeved figure guarding the stone, ‘Come off there, please. The Duke of Allandale has sent orders that the gravestone is to remain where you’ve set it up in your wife’s memory, but he’d appreciate it if you’d stop making trouble. There is also no question of more carving being put on the stone. Apart from its value as a Roman artefact, he has to respect the feelings and fears of the townspeople.’

  ‘That’s fair enough,’ said Tim, climbing down. ‘So long as Hannah’s stone stays where it is.’

  Frobisher clapped his shoulder. ‘I understand – your friend explained the situation to us, and it will stay. Around here the Duke’s word is law. Now push off out of here, man. We don’t want to stir up trouble.’

  ‘I’ll go, but there’s one thing I’ve got to do first,’ said Tim, and he climbed back to the stone, kneeling by it and laying his face against its cold surface. ‘Goodbye Hannah, goodbye Kate,’ he whispered. The watching men, even the gravediggers, turned away so that he could take his final farewells in privacy. No one moved or spoke as he walked with dignity past them to the gate and disappeared up the narrow road.

  He was sitting in Benjy’s with his elbows on the table staring bleakly into space when Sydney found him. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

  Tim looked at him from bloodshot eyes. ‘Thanks about the stone. I don’t know how you did it, but it worked. I’m thinking out what I’ll do now.’

  Sydney walked in and sat down. ‘Don’t let it be
anything rash. I know it sounds impossible but life goes on, and in time the pain softens. My mother died when I was quite young and I thought I’d never get over losing her because she was the only person I loved and the only one who loved me, but I did – almost. I still think of her but it doesn’t hurt so badly now.’

  Tim looked at the bland face with a flicker of interest. The mysterious Sydney was not given to revealing things about himself, and to be told so much was a great concession. ‘I was thinking about how to kill myself,’ he said, returning confidence for confidence.

  ‘I thought that was it: don’t do it. Hannah wouldn’t want you to die as well. Tomorrow morning the sun will rise, and again the day after. The world goes on. I’m not going to tell you that killing yourself is a sin because I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but what I am going to tell you is that it would be a terrible waste. You’re a good man, you’ve got a great future before you. Don’t waste it.’

  ‘But I can’t stay here. Everything reminds me of her. Even the hills remind me of Hannah. She was the spirit of this place. If I stay my heart will burst in two.’ Passionately he put a clenched fist in the middle of his chest. It was not like him either to reveal himself so rawly to another man. The only person to whom he’d ever talked of his innermost feelings was his dead wife.

  Sydney nodded in sympathy and said, ‘I’ve been putting my mind to your problem and I think I’ve come up with a solution. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’re recruiting navvies to go to the Crimea. I read about it in the newspaper. They’ll take you because you’re good and everyone in the business knows you… There’s a man called Peto doing the recruiting in Whitechapel. Go to London and sign on.’