A Bridge in Time

by A Bridge in Time (retail) (epub)

  ‘What’s it all about?’ Sydney asked the man beside him.

  The answer was a shrug. ‘Dunno, they’re been fighting off and on for a week. Some private business apparently. Jimmy’s asking for money off Bullhead. He wants to go away and he reckons Bullhead owes him. He’s not getting anywhere though. You know what Bullhead’s like about money. He’d rather give blood.’

  Sydney watched with interest as Jopp arrived and started sorting the fighters out. ‘You should be working, not fighting,’ he bawled at Bullhead. ‘You’re on the pulley-gang at the top of the pier, aren’t you? Get back up there and start pulling up loads or you’re off this site for good. I’m sick of you.’

  Then he turned to Jimmy and ranted, ‘And you’re on your last warning. Get up there, too, and start working or hit the road.’ He pointed to the top of the tallest pier where men were looking down from the dizzying scaffold.

  ‘Don’t send him up there, he’s drunk,’ protested Sydney, for Jimmy was incoherent and reeling but Jopp yelled angrily, ‘Mind your own business! I’m the boss here. You –’ to Jimmy – ‘get up there and start working.’

  Jimmy staggered across the grass to the rickety-looking ladder that led to the bricklayers’ work-platform. Bullhead was up there already, for Sydney saw his bullet-head looking down. Things were quiet for the rest of the morning, but shortly after work began again following the midday break, the air was rent by a terrible scream as a body came hurtling down from the platform to the ground. While men stopped work and stared up in horror, the awful screaming trailed on until the body hit the ground with a terrible thud. There it squirmed as if it was trying to get up, but then it lay still with the limbs spread out like a stranded jellyfish. Everyone rushed across to the sprawled man. Jimmy-The-New-Man lay with his eyes staring up at the sky in speechless agony and his mop of fair hair matted with blood.

  ‘Christ, he’s still alive,’ said one man, staring down at the white face on the ground. The eyes flickered in response. Up above their heads, shocked faces were peering over the platform and someone was scrambling down the ladder to see what had happened. ‘Get a doctor,’ he said, kneeling beside Jimmy who was groaning and obviously so badly hurt that no one wanted to touch him. To Sydney another man said, ‘You got the doctor when the laddie broke his leg. Fetch him again.’

  A carter’s horse was commandeered and once more Sydney set off across country to Maddiston, riding flat out. He did not really think that Jimmy would still be alive when he got back and he was furiously angry because he was sure that Bullhead had killed the poor lad.

  When he and Robertson arrive back on site, however, Jimmy had not died – though it might have been better if he had. He was alive, in agony, bloodstained, misshapen and groaning on the floor of Miss Wylie’s hut with her standing beside him, white-faced and frightened. Robertson ran in and stopped short. ‘Dear God!’ he exclaimed at the sight of the injured man.

  ‘He fell from there…’ Emma Jane, whose teeth were chattering, pointed to the top of the bridge pier. It was at least a hundred feet high.

  Robertson looked from the bridge to the broken man, shook his head and knelt down beside Jimmy, laying a hand on the bloodstained brow while Sydney seized Emma Jane’s arm and led her out of the hut. ‘Go home,’ he advised. ‘The men won’t work any more today after an accident like this. I’ll send you a message to tell you what happens.’ He could see that Jimmy had not long to live and did not want the girl to be there when he died. To his relief, she knew why he was anxious for her to leave and she walked away, pulling her shawl tightly over her shoulders as she went.

  Back in the hut, Robertson looked up and said to Sydney, ‘He wants a priest. Can you send for one?’

  A man standing in the doorway offered, ‘I’ll fetch him from Rosewell – I know him.’

  Sydney squatted beside Robertson and asked, ‘Can you do anything?’

  The answer was a shake of the head. ‘No. He’s broken his back, and other bones as well. The internal organs are damaged, too. He’ll not be with us long.’

  Jimmy did not seem to be conscious but as this was said his eyes opened and he looked up into Sydney’s face. ‘Where’s Black Ace?’ he whispered.

  ‘In the Crimea, I think,’ Sydney told him, but the words meant nothing to the dying man who licked his lips and whispered, ‘I want to tell him something.’

  ‘Tell me and I’ll pass it on,’ said Sydney. He put his head down beside the bloody mouth the hear the words.

  Jimmy’s breath was rasping in his throat as he croaked, ‘Tell him he was right about Mariotta. Bullhead killed her – and I helped him carry the body away. Now he’s done for me…’

  Sydney looked from the dying man on the floor to the doctor standing at the table rummaging in his bag. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked sharply.

  Robertson looked around, surprised. ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Did you hear what he said?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I hope that priest doesn’t take hours to come. He’s not got much longer.’

  Sydney gestured to him to come and kneel by the dying man again and he urged Jimmy on: ‘Tell the doctor what you told me, Jimmy.’

  But his injuries were too severe. Jimmy was far gone; now he could only groan and before the priest arrived, he was mercifully dead.

  When the body was carted away by Jo, Sydney said to Robertson, ‘He was murdered, you know. Bullhead did it. What can we do?’

  ‘We’ll have to go and tell the policeman in Rosewell,’ Robertson replied grimly.

  Sydney was still furious. ‘Jopp shouldn’t have sent him up to the platform. He was drunk – but that wasn’t why he fell. He was pushed. He said so, but we’ll probably never be able to prove it.’

  They fetched the policeman and sent for Emma Jane to come back again. The navvies crowded around her hut. Some of them had already started to drink, which was the navvy’s usual response to trouble. Bullhead was among the drinkers. While the policeman was painstakingly writing the fact of Jimmy’s death in a notebook, Sydney walked up to Bullhead and pulled him forward by the neck of his shirt. ‘Where were you when Jimmy fell off the bridge?’ he demanded.

  ‘Having a piss,’ said Bullhead coarsely.

  ‘Did anyone see him?’ Sydney asked the others, but they all hung their heads. At times like this they knew it was advisable to have seen nothing, good or bad. When the policeman questioned them he found that every man had gone conveniently blind when Jimmy fell. No one on the platform or the ground had anything to contribute and no one could say where Jimmy was standing before he plunged to his death. The first any of them knew of the accident, they said, was when he started to scream as he plummeted to the ground.

  But Sydney was not satisfied. He shoved Bullhead towards the policeman. ‘He pushed him,’ he shouted in fury. ‘Jimmy said he pushed him.’

  ‘You’re mad. Prove it! Go on – prove it,’ was Bullhead’s reply. The veins were bulging in his forehead and his eyes were raging mad. Sydney knew that if Bullhead could have attacked him then, he would have killed him but he did not back down. ‘You did it,’ persisted Sydney.

  Bullhead looked at him out of evil eyes. ‘And why was that then?’ he sneered.

  ‘Because of Mariotta. Because he knew you killed her and he was going to tell the truth about it.’

  Bullhead pushed Sydney hard in the chest, sending him flying. ‘I’ve heard enough about that useless bitch,’ he snarled. ‘That’s finished. It was your friend Black Ace who killed her. His coat was on her – that’s why he took off. If you can prove anything else, just try. Just you try… you toffee-nosed bastard. And watch yourself or you’ll be sorry…’

  Like Mariotta’s death, the killing of Jimmy-The-New- Man was officially listed as an accident. Again the authorities were prepared to let the navvy community look after itself – it was easier that way. The boy from Inverness was buried in one of Jo’s coffins in an unmarked grave by his workmates, and since there was nothing among his meagre
possessions to give any clue of where he had come from, or if he had left any family behind to mourn him, his clothes were divided among the men in his hut and in a few days he was almost forgotten. Some of the older navvies were not altogether displeased by his death, for they believed that every big project, especially a bridge, always demanded human blood before it could be finished. Jimmy was a kind of ritual sacrifice which allowed them to breathe more freely, for it meant that the odds against them being killed were lessened.

  When spring really began, the days lengthened and there was more heat in the sun. Parties of tourists and hopeful antiquaries drove out to look at the bridge, which was becoming a talking point for miles around. They even came from as far afield as Edinburgh, and among them were Sir Geoffrey and the new Lady Miller, who arrived to stay at Bella Vista.

  To Bethya’s delight Sir Geoffrey’s second wife turned out to be old, gaunt and extremely tall – almost six feet in height – and as thin as a lathe. Towering over her husband in every way, she was very short-tempered and dismissive, addressing him as if he were an unruly dog. She was also very voluble, with opinions on every matter under the sun, and if her husband tried to interrupt her flow of words, he was quickly put in his place with a sharp, ‘Do be quiet, Miller.’

  Bethya sat wide-eyed and smiling, encouraging Lady Miller to more and more conversational excesses while secretly exulting in the duplicitous Sir Geoffrey’s downfall. From time to time she dimpled at him and was rewarded by the anguish in his eye. When he attempted to put a hand on her arm going into dinner, she neatly lifted it off as if he had committed an act of gross over-familiarity.

  It was arranged that the Millers and the Anstruthers should make a trip to the bridge to inspect work in progress. Though Sir Geoffrey received regular reports from Jopp and other informants, including Falconwood, he had not been to Camptounfoot in person since the cholera epidemic, so was eager to see for himself what Miss Wylie had achieved. By all accounts and against all expectations, she was doing very well – but he was not prepared to allow that to deflect his purpose. To him, Emma Jane Wylie was only an instrument towards an end. She was to be allowed to go as far as possible, for as long as she was useful, and then to be thrown aside at the end.

  Only Colonel Anstruther and Bethya accompanied the Millers on their tour of inspection, for Gus never rose before noon and Mrs Anstruther avoided expeditions that bored her, and the bridge bored her very much. Sometimes she felt as if it was being built in her drawing room, and she would be very glad when the whole thing was finished and forgotten.

  For the outing, Bethya was dressed in a very becoming pale-green gown with a back-tilted bonnet lined in the same colour and decorated with lilies of the valley. She’d taken a lot of trouble with her toilette that morning, and was pleased to see that Lady Miller was garbed in a garish gown of dark-green tartan and a bonnet that could have done duty for a coal scuttle. Colonel Anstruther, bouncing with excitement and enthusiasm, was clapping his hands together and exclaiming, ‘Let’s go, let’s go. They’ll have been working for hours already. They’re joining up the piers, you know. Magnificent sight, magnificent sight!’

  It was a good day for an outing. The sky was pale-blue and the air as heady as champagne. Transparent green leaves festooned the trailing branches of the beech trees which lined the curving drive of Bella Vista, and the party rode along with the carriage top down so that they could admire the beauty of the Three Sisters, on which shoots of sweet green bracken were beginning to uncurl above banks of primroses.

  ‘What a fine day to be alive,’ exulted the Colonel, and beamed at his daughter-in-law who smiled unfeignedly back. She loved to see him happy.

  Everyone drew in breaths of surprise and admiration when they caught their first sight of the bridge boldly rising across the broadest part of the valley. The piers in the river, even the one floated on wood, had withstood the onslaught of the winter floods and were in the process of being built up to match the others in the field. In all, nineteen tall, tapering and elegant needles of red sandstone seemed to sway and shimmer with deceptive fragility in the spring sunshine. The first six piers were joined together by high arches faced with pale-pink bricks so it was now possible to appreciate the impact the finished bridge would have. ‘Well, well, well. Who would have thought it? Quite Roman, really,’ said Sir Geoffrey, his eyes shining.

  His wife interrupted him, ‘More Venetian, Miller. The colour’s Venetian, I think.’

  He glowered at her. ‘Quite so, my dear.’

  Colonel Anstruther was pointing to a group standing in the field beneath the shadow of the pillars. ‘There’s that girl – an amazing young woman I’d say, wouldn’t you, Miller? I never thought she’d get this far. She’s been on site every day, all through the bad weather. I must say I admire her.’

  He had not been taken into Sir Geoffrey’s confidence or told about the plot being laid for Emma Jane. ‘Anstruther’s too soft-hearted in spite of all his bluster to make a really effective businessman,’ was Miller’s private assessment. In his opinion, it was one thing fighting wars against rebellious Indians, and quite another taking on ambitious entrepreneurs.

  They dismounted from the carriage and made their way down the slope. Emma Jane had seen Sir Geoffrey from a distance and walked towards him warily, but he greeted her with apparent enthusiasm though his eyes were coldly summing her up. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a change in anyone in such a short time,’ he was thinking. The middle-class, decent-looking young woman he’d met before had become a ragamuffin with a freckled face and hair all a’straggle. She wasn’t even wearing a bonnet! However, she had a presence now that had been missing before, so his tone towards her was more deferential than in the past as he enquired, ‘My dear Miss Wylie, how are you coping with this enormous undertaking?’

  To her he sounded as affable as a vicar opening a fete. ‘Well, I think,’ she said cautiously. Since the day when she’d fallen into the trap of being optimistic and Robbie had had his accident, she’d avoided open expressions of hope or enthusiasm, so much so that sometimes she felt afraid that she was affected by an attitude of continual pessimism.

  Miller was walking around staring at the bridge with barely concealed surprise. ‘You’ve done more than well, more than well. Take us round and show us everything,’ he cried.

  During their tour of inspection, they passed groups of navvies who paused in their work and gazed insolently at the visitors. Sydney, as usual, doffed his hat to Bethya in appreciation of her gown but registered the thought that he wouldn’t want to have to foot her dressmakers’ bills. She flushed at his salute and saw Lady Miller shooting her a sharp glance. Nothing missed that woman. Bullhead was in Sydney’s working party, and when he saw Bethya he gave a low groan. As soon as the party moved on, he leaned on his spade and told his companions in gloatingly pornographic detail what he’d like to do to her. Sydney who, from a sense of self-preservation, had given the bully a wide berth for weeks, stood up straight and snapped angrily, ‘Watch your tongue!’ The words came out without premeditation, brought on by his feeling that to have Bullhead lust after Bethya, even from a distance, was to defile her.

  His companions roared with laughter while Bullhead mimicked him. ‘Watch your tongue! It’s not my tongue I’d be watching if I could get my hands on her. Got your eye on her yourself, have you? Is that what’s wrong? I thought you didn’t go in for women…’ The jeers went on and on in the hope of rousing Sydney to violence, but he tried to ignore them. When they did not stop, he threw down his spade and walked away for he knew that Bullhead was trying to incite him to a fight in which he would certainly come off worst. He was not foolhardy.

  ‘Why do I stay in this damned place? Why don’t I walk away? I’m not forced to stay here,’ he asked himself continually, angry thoughts running through his head in confusion as he climbed the hill behind the site and sat on its upper slope staring out over the countryside. In time its beauty and tranquillity soothed him.
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br />   It was dark when he went back to the camp, threw himself into bed and slept like a log, only to be wakened at dawn by the sound of a terrible rainstorm. Overnight the weather had changed and rain was teeming from a pewter-coloured sky. Most of the men were huddled in their huts gloomily watching the downpour through the open doors, but Sydney braved the onslaught and walked to the site where he found the ground awash. Rivulets were running over the field and the river was rising at a terrifying rate. Emma Jane was there, draped in a waterproof cape and staring fascinated at the remorseless flow of water. When Sydney stood beside her she glanced up with anguished eyes and said, ‘I hope it stops soon. I hope it doesn’t cause too much damage. Everything was going so well… I should have known!’

  ‘It’ll stop,’ he assured her. ‘It always does. Go home and wait for the storm to pass. You can’t do anything standing here, and nobody can work in this.’

  It rained without cessation for two days. During that time the men in the camp turned as usual to drinking, gambling and fighting among themselves. The worst brawler was Bullhead. After the men in his hut combined forces to throw him out when he caused a fight after losing money in a card-game, he stamped off. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do, but he wanted to cause trouble, to hurt somebody. First of all he sought out Sydney, who fortunately could not be found for he had gone back to the bridge to watch the brown tumbling waters breaking round its truncated piers.

  Thwarted, Bullhead wandered into Rosewell. ‘I’ll find a woman,’ he told himself, but none of the local prostitutes would take him on because he had abused them all in the past. By now he was raging with lust. The memory of Bethya Anstruther was vivid in his mind and because Sydney had defended her, he was even more eager to take revenge on womankind. In Rosewell women fled at the sight of him and, getting more and more angry, he went on walking till he reached Camptounfoot. The village street was deserted. Water flowed like a burn over its cobbles. The alehouse’s door was closed, so he hammered loudly on the wooden shutter which covered a hatch recently cut in the side wall for the serving of navvies. Some of them caused too much trouble if they were let inside. The hatch was thrown open and the alehouse proprietor’s face glared out. ‘What do you want?’ he asked truculently, because he recognised Bullhead as one of the worst offenders.