Abbeyford Remembered

by Margaret Dickinson

  Carrie felt her pulses quicken as the young man’s eyes strayed towards her. A slow smile touched his lips, softening their hardness, and his sombre expression lightened. “How do you do, Miss-er …?”

  “Smithson. Carrie Smithson,” she replied and smiled in return.

  “I’m happy to meet you. My name is Jamie Trent.”

  Carrie’s eyes widened and her lips parted in a gasp. She glanced swiftly at her father and saw that his eyes had narrowed calculatingly.

  “I don’t think I have seen you hereabouts before,” Jamie Trent was saying, his eyes still upon Carrie’s face. “Are you visiting?”

  “My father is the …” Carrie had been about to say that her father was the ganger on the new railway, but Evan interrupted her. “ We are visiting relatives, Mr Trent. Come, Carrie, it’s time we were on our way.”

  His manner was curt, almost rude, and Carrie saw Jamie Trent’s eyebrows rise fractionally and he glanced briefly towards her father, but it was Carrie to whom he spoke again. “I’ll bid you good-day then, Miss Smithson. I hope we’ll meet again.”

  Before she could utter a word, Jamie Trent had urged his horse forward and was soon cantering down the hill away from them. Carrie’s violet eyes followed him.

  “Come along, girl,” Evan said roughly. Reluctantly Carrie turned and followed her father, but all the way up the hill she kept glancing back towards the now tiny figure of the young man on horseback.

  Some three miles to the north of Abbeyford, at the top of a rise, they stopped to look down at the workings of the railway below. Like an open wound, the railway gouged its way through farmland, woodland, rock, over water, even through hillsides. The gang of navvies over whom Evan Smithson was the ganger, scurried about like a colony of working ants. As they neared the site, Carrie could see the men, some stripped to the waist under the hot summer sun, shovelling the earth and rocks into the carts which, when loaded, were pulled away by horses, five hundred or so men and over one hundred and fifty horses, working over a three-mile stretch. Like their ganger, they found shelter wherever they could – in empty village cottages, in barns, sleeping two or three to a makeshift bed, some even with their wives and families sharing the harsh life. They worked hard and yet throughout the country the navvies had a bad reputation for causing havoc wherever they appeared. Not only did the railway itself meet with opposition from the country dwellers as it tore its way through their lands and their livelihood, but the arrival of five hundred hard-drinking, swearing navvies in a peaceful village was something to be feared.

  Only the contractor’s men who held a position of some importance – the engineer, the engine drivers, the foreman and skilled men – could find comfortable accommodation in the village. For the rest, the labouring navvies, it meant finding a bed wherever they could.

  Yet there was a strange camaraderie amongst these ruffians, built like an army of Goliaths. They ate meat in huge amounts and consumed vast quantities of ale. They fought and gambled and yet they worked hard – exceedingly hard – with great courage, seeming to have a contemptuous disregard for even the most dangerous work. Whilst they appeared to have little respect for the various communities upon which they descended, there was loyalty amongst themselves and when any of their number suffered fatal injury, his brother-navvies would suddenly become a group of silent mourners at the nearest church.

  “I’ll be off home, now,” Carrie said. She did not want to go too near the workmen. Not that she was afraid of them, for Caroline Smithson feared no one, not even her swift-tempered father, but the men’s whistles and calls caused her an embarrassment she would sooner avoid. More than once she had had to skip smartly aside to avoid their reaching hands and once, when a hulking brute had managed to lay hold of her she had had to fight, claw and scratch her way free of his loathsome embrace. She admired the tenacity and pluck of the navvies as workmen, but she had no desire to lead this life for ever. There must be a better life than this, Carrie told herself, somewhere, somehow, and so she kept a safe distance from the lusty navvies.

  “Make yourself presentable, girl,” her father said. “Lloyd Foster will be calling. Brush your hair – you look like a gypsy!”

  “Ain’t surprising,” Carrie retorted boldly, “since we live like gypsies.” She began to run down the hill out of reach of her father’s hand as he raised it to cuff her. His eyes glittered with momentary anger and then he laughed aloud, the breeze carrying the sound to the ears of the running girl so that she turned, grinned cheekily at him, waved briefly and then ran on. Of all his family, only Carrie dared to oppose her father or speak her mind and only she could do so and escape his vicious temper.

  Nearing the shack which was the Smithsons’ present dwelling-place, Carrie slowed her pace.

  Lloyd Foster! She wrinkled her nose and her generous mouth pouted. She could see his horse tethered outside the shack and knew he was waiting for her.

  Lloyd Foster was an important man – he was the Boss. He was the man who held the contract for the building of the railway and yet he was still a young man. He was a flamboyant character, loud, brash, even vulgar and yet likeable. At least, most people liked him, responding readily to his never-failing good humour, his happy-go-lucky manner. All except Carrie. Even though she knew Lloyd Foster wanted her, she refused to let herself like him.

  Carrie peeped through the small, grimy window. She could see her mother sitting at the bare, scrubbed table, her elbows on the table, her hands cupped to hold her weary head. Her knuckles were misshapen, swollen and painful with the rheumatism which afflicted the whole of her body. She was looking towards the man who stood in front of the makeshift fireplace – Lloyd Foster. He was tall with dark, tanned skin, fair, curling hair, bright blue eyes and a wide and ever-laughing mouth. He was standing, tall and straight, his chest thrown out, rocking backwards and forwards slightly on his heels, his thumbs stuck into the armholes of his gaudy waistcoat. A thick cigar was clamped between his white, even teeth. His clothes were always of the finest material. His shirt was sparkling white and his riding-coat and breeches well cut. His black leather boots shone and always there was a gold watch chain looped across his broad chest.

  Carrie sighed and pushed open the door. Lloyd Foster turned at once and made an exaggerated bow towards her, then spoilt the courtly gesture by smacking her on the backside as she passed close to him.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself, Mr Foster.”

  Lloyd Foster’s loud laugh threatened to bring the dilapidated shack tumbling down about them. But Carrie merely glanced at him and moved out of reach again as he made to put his arm about her waist.

  “Ah, Miss Carrie, an’ don’t I be lovin’ you the more when you’re angry.” His rich Irish brogue mocked her good-humouredly. It was impossible to offend the man, Carrie thought, and in spite of herself she found the corners of her mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile. It was very difficult to maintain a mood of anger with him when all he did was laugh and tease and pay extravagant compliments.

  Lloyd Foster was something of an enigma. No one knew anything about his background, only that he was a railway builder – one of the best in the country and he was a clever man with people, Carrie thought. The gangs of navvies who worked on the western railways were often made up largely of Irish and to hear their own delightful brogue from the lips of the Boss himself ensured hard work and loyalty from them. The railway site rang with his boisterous laughter and the workmen’s faces, glistening with sweat, would break into a grin at the sight of the tall man on his horse. Also, he was reputedly generous to a fault towards his employees, so much so that other contractors on rival lines grumbled that he attracted all their best navvies into his gangs!

  “I’m supposed to be here on a matter of business wid your father, me darlin’, but ’tis all a devious plot, for me eyes were hungry for sight of your lovely face.”

  Carrie raised her eyebrows cynically and glanced at her mother.

  Lucy Smith
son sat at the table, leaning wearily against it, her eyes dark pools of suffering and bitterness. The years of itinerant living had treated her harshly. Her once black hair was now grey and dull. Her body was thin and shapeless, her hands wrinkled and work-worn. Lucy had borne seven children of whom only four now survived. The others were buried in different parishes, their unmarked graves in churchyards alongside the railway line. One had died of typhoid and two of consumption. And now Luke, Lucy’s first-born, suffered from that same terrible cough. The two younger children, Tom and Matthew, only fourteen and thirteen, yet already working on the railway bed, were sickly too. Of all Lucy’s children only Carrie, now aged eighteen, was healthy, strong and resilient. And of all of them only Carrie was not afraid of Evan.

  “Will ye be takin’ a walk wid me, Miss Carrie?” Lloyd Foster was saying, bending towards her. Carrie opened her mouth to refuse but at that moment the door opened and Evan Smithson came in.

  “Ah, an’ now here’s the man himself,” Lloyd Foster said. “An’ how is me darlin’ railway comin’ along under your guiding hand, Mr Smithson?”

  Evan grinned and slapped Lloyd Foster on the back, for, although in theory, Lloyd Foster was his employer, in practice Evan enjoyed an unusual position of equality with him. Such was the amiability of Lloyd Foster that no one, not even the youngest navvy with the most menial task, was ever made to feel his inferior. He made each and every one of them feel that all of them together were building the railway.

  Evan turned towards his wife and daughter, his face once more hard. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the door.

  “Out – we’ve business to discuss.”

  Tiredly, Lucy levered herself and moved, without argument, towards the door, but Carrie, hands on hips, faced her father squarely. “Why? What’s so secret?”

  “None of your business, me girl. Get!”

  “Ah, sure an’ me lovely lass can stay if she’ll sit an’ hold me hand.”

  “Not this time,” Evan said firmly. “ We’ve men’s affairs to talk on.” He glanced meaningly at Foster, who shrugged, laughed, and slapping Carrie once more on the backside said, “ Now don’t you be goin’ too far away, me girl.”

  Carrie moved towards the door of the shack. To her left hung an old brown curtain, dividing the small area where her parents slept from the rest of the shack. Carrie opened the door and then glanced back towards the two men. She was curious to know what lay behind her father’s secretiveness. Their backs were towards her so she shut the door with a slam, as if she had left the shack, but instead she slipped stealthily behind the curtain. Her heart was beating rapidly as she sat quietly on the shakedown on the floor and pulled the worn blanket over her. Silent, she sat listening to the voices of the men, her father’s sometimes low so that she had to strain to hear his words, but Lloyd Foster she could hear plainly.

  “And what did ye find out then, me friend?” Foster was saying. She heard the rustle of paper and could only guess that her father was unfolding a map. She had seen them use one before to plan the route of the railway line.

  “It’s even better than I had hoped,” Evan replied, and there was a kind of suppressed excitement in his tone. “The best route is right across the land which now belongs to the Trents. And Squire Guy Trent’s tight for money. Drinks and gambles all his grandson’s inheritance away. He’s ripe, I tell you!” There was a dull thud as if Evan had thumped the table with his fist in his enthusiasm.

  “Gambles, is it, you say? Ah, a man after me own heart! And where is it you think our railway should run?”

  Again Carrie heard the rustle of paper and imagined their heads bent together over the map as she had seen them so many times. She heard her father’s voice. “We continue south from where we are now, making a cutting through this small incline, then into Abbeyford valley, between the hills to the east and west. We’ll need an embankment, but the best line would be between the Manor House and the stream and continue south out of the valley. We can get through the dip between these two lines of hills quite easily.”

  “Mmm,” Lloyd Foster’s tone was, for once, serious – the only time he was ever serious was when discussing his beloved railway. “I’ll be needin’ to survey the whole district. ’ Tis me engineer’s job by rights, but you know when ’tis me own livelihood I’m gamblin’ I like to be seein’ the cards for meself.”

  Carrie knew that, although a fine engineer by the name of Thomas Quincy, who also happened to be a surveyor, was employed on this line, Foster himself always surveyed the land and knew the workings of the line as well as any engineer. And she also knew that the money which built the railway was not his own but that of the Railway Board – men who invested capital into such schemes with the hope of becoming even richer than they already were.

  There was a pause, then Foster added, “What about skirting these hills – avoidin’ Abbeyford all together?”

  “No!” Evan’s tone was sharp. “To the east there’s more hills and if you veer to the west you’ll go through Lynwood’s lands – not the Trents!”

  “And will that be mattering?”

  “Well – he’ll demand a higher way-leave for his land. I reckon we’d be better to buy off a good deal of Trent’s land – we ought to have a station or a halt hereabouts, anyway.”

  “Aye, maybe you’re right as ever, me boy.” Foster’s ready laugh rang out. “ You’ll be takin’ me job if I don’t watch out. Tell me now, what is it about these Trents? Your face seems to change when you speak of them and you’re determined the railroad shall run through their land, are ye not?”

  “It’s none of your concern,” Evan growled.

  Behind the curtain Carrie stifled a gasp. Despite Lloyd Foster’s friendliness, he was still Evan’s employer and she had never heard her father be deliberately rude to him before. But, even now, Foster took no offence. Reluctantly, Evan added, “I’ve an old score to settle. By rights, the Manor House should be mine!”

  “Yours? How?” Foster’s tone registered surprise, but that was nothing to the astonishment Carrie, in her hiding-place, felt.

  “It’s a long story,” Evan muttered, his voice now so low that Carrie could scarcely hear. “Just take my word for it. I aim to ruin the Trents and live there mesel’ – one day!”

  “Well, now, me boy,” Foster’s hearty laugh rang out. “I just might be able to help you there. I have plans of me own, don’t you know, and there’s something I want – very much – that maybe you could be helpin’ me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ah, now never mind for de moment. Maybe in time we’ll both be gettin’ what we want.”

  “Hmm, mebbe.” Evan sounded doubtful. There was the rustle of paper again as he refolded the map. “Shall we go and have a look at the land?” It sounded as if Evan were trying to change the subject now. Carrie heard him move towards the door and the curtain shook. She froze, holding her breath, fearful her father would come behind the curtain and discover she had been eavesdropping.

  Carrie heard the door slam and their footsteps move away from the shack and she breathed again. She waited some moments before moving from her cramped position till she was sure they had really gone. She thought about her father’s bitter words. ‘The Manor House should be mine … I’ll ruin the Trents and live there mesel’.’

  The picture of Jamie Trent, the tall, handsome young man on horseback she had met but once, came before her mind’s eye and inexplicably her heart began to beat a little faster at the thought of him.

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, in the early afternoon, Carrie slipped away from the shack and, avoiding the railway workings, made her way across the fields and up the hill towards Abbeyford. She was determined to get to know her grandmother better, yet she had had the intuitive sense to keep her intentions secret.

  Carrie tapped at the cottage door with some trepidation, remembering the unwelcoming figure of the hunched cripple in the corner – her grandfather, and yet he seemed to bear such
hatred for his son, Evan.

  The door opened and Sarah Smithson’s wrinkled face lit up with pleasure at the unexpected visit from her granddaughter. “ Come in, my dear, come in.”

  Carrie followed her slow-moving steps into the small back scullery where they could talk freely without the malevolent presence of Henry Smithson’s scowling face.

  “Tell me about yourself, child.” Her old eyes roved over the girl’s lovely face, as if she would draw strength from Carrie’s youthful vitality.

  Carrie shrugged and smiled. “There’s not much to tell. There were seven of us children, but three died in childhood. There’s Luke – he’s twenty, the oldest.” A shadow flickered across her violet eyes, “but he’s not strong. Then there’s mesel’ – I’m eighteen. Then there’s Tom and Matthew – they’re fourteen and thirteen. They all work on the railway – with Pa. I help Ma as best I can.” She broke off and asked, “Do you know me Ma?”

  “I might. Is her name Lucy?”

  Carrie nodded.

  Sarah Smithson sighed. “ Yes, I thought so. Lucy Walters. She disappeared when Evan first left Abbeyford.”

  Carrie leant forward eagerly. “Grandma – will you tell me about me Pa? What caused him to leave home …?”

  “No, no,” the old woman cried sharply. “I cannot speak of it! He – he is not welcome here. People remember. He should not have come back.” Her words were halting and painful to her, Carrie could see. She bit back the words of pleading which sprang to her lips. She could not cause her grandmother more pain by making her relive unpleasant memories, but she longed to learn the truth.

  Some time later Carrie took her leave. The summer sun was warm upon her head, and in the quiet of the valley she felt a peace settle upon her. She wandered along the lane, reluctant to return to the shack she must call home. Her gaze roamed the hills on either side. The mansion to the east called Abbeyford Grange and then opposite the Manor House and above it, silhouetted sharply against the blue sky, gaunt and lonely, stood the abbey ruins. Intrigued to see them, Carrie took the lane leading towards Abbeyford Manor. As she drew level with the house she looked at it with interest. This was where Jamie Trent lived – and it was the house her father coveted. He had vowed to bring ruin to the Trent family because of some deep ill-will he bore them, some revenge he sought. His reasons, buried deep in the past, were a mystery to his daughter.