Poppy's Dilemma

by Nancy Carson

  They entered the kitchen, warm with a fire burning in the cast-iron range. A dead rabbit lay limp and fluffy on a wooden workbench, its upturned eye open, looking vacantly at the whitewashed ceiling.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Dolly remarked. ‘Poor thing. It makes me cringe to have to chop its flipping head off.’

  ‘But it don’t matter, Dolly,’ Poppy reasoned. ‘It’s dead. You can’t hurt it now.’

  ‘I know, but the smell when you gut it. It’s vile.’

  ‘Oh, the smell’s nothing. No worse than a privy. Just hold your breath …’

  ‘Here, miss … put this pinafore over your clean frock.’

  ‘Thank you, Dolly … Have you got a cleaver?’

  Poppy fastened the strings of the pinafore and pulled up her sleeves, while Dolly reached for the cleaver and handed it to Poppy. Poppy held it poised over the rabbit and, with a single deft action, decapitated the furry corpse.

  ‘There y’are, Dolly.’ She took a sharp knife and slit the pelt, then peeled it away. ‘At least with the skin on you know you got a rabbit, eh? When it’s skinned it could be anything. A cat, even.’

  ‘I know. It wouldn’t be the first cat neither that folk have ate, thinking it to be a rabbit, eh, miss?’

  ‘How’s your young man, Dolly?’ Poppy asked, changing tack. ‘Esther tells me you go a-courting on your afternoon and evening off.’

  Dolly smiled bashfully. ‘He’s all right, miss, thank you.’

  ‘What does he do for work?’

  ‘He’s a puddler at the Dixons Green Iron Works down Bumble Hole,’ Dolly replied.

  ‘Have you been courting long?’

  ‘Not that long. Mind you, I’ve had plenty chaps in me time.’

  ‘But he’s the one you liked best, eh?’

  ‘Not really,’ Dolly said resignedly. ‘He’s the ugliest, though. You couldn’t punch clay uglier.’

  ‘So why did you take to him over the others?’ Poppy asked, her fingers covered in entrails.

  ‘’Cause he earns the most … And his mother told me he can draw fowl. I hate drawin’ fowl and things.’ Dolly watched what Poppy was doing with distaste, her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘It don’t bother you though, does it, miss?’

  Poppy smiled, content that she had helped Dolly, happy that this opportunity to befriend the girl had arisen. It was in her nature to be friendly in any case, to want to please. She was anxious to let these servants see that she was no different to them, that she was not likely to look down on them just because she was unexpectedly thrust into the elevated position where she was to be waited on and looked after. She didn’t particularly relish the idea of them doing her bidding. She didn’t warrant it. No, she would rather help them than find them tasks. Because she was no better than them, how could she reasonably be expected to give them orders? If they sensed that she was no better, how indeed could she expect them to respond if they did not like or respect her? Ah … Respect … Respectability … She washed her hands in the bowl of water that was in the sink.

  ‘I’m that grateful, miss. Honest,’ Dolly said again, offering Poppy a towel to dry her hands.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind, Dolly. Anytime I can help, just let me know …’

  Poppy was taken to Aunt Phoebe’s seamstress, Mrs Gadd, and measured. Together they chose material and flipped through patterns for everyday dresses, evening dresses, walking out dresses, skirts, blouses, petticoats, chemises, and frilly drawers. Poppy’s choice was frequently tempered and guided by Aunt Phoebe. Poppy was to return a week later for her first fitting. The next day, Tuesday, Aunt Phoebe had Clay drive them to town after Poppy’s lessons to buy mittens, day gloves, evening gloves, decent stockings, a purse, several bonnets, scarves, another cloak, a crinoline, another pair of dainty boots, and two new nightgowns, and to be measured for a corset.

  As Poppy’s first week progressed, she had more lessons in reading, writing, elocution and deportment. On her second Sunday, she was taken to church in the carriage, along with Esther and Dolly, who sat in a pew at the rear of St Thomas’s church. Although the relatively new St John’s was nearer, Aunt Phoebe had always attended St Thomas’s. Poppy’s second week subsequently included an introduction to the scriptures, learning the Lord’s Prayer by heart, and Aunt Phoebe presented her with a map of the British Isles to pore over. First Poppy looked for Dudley, then Edinburgh, and thought about Robert Crawford and his two-wheeler. She found Mickleton, where her father had met with his death, but the map was not sufficiently up to date to show the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway line, although the Great Western from London to Bristol was shown, as was the London and Birmingham.

  Poppy went alone to Mrs Gadd, the seamstress, for her first fitting.

  ‘Hold your arms up, young Poppy,’ Mrs Gadd said, somehow magically since she was holding a row of pins between her lips. ‘I just want to see if the bodice rides up.’

  The bodice did not ride up appreciably because it was tight, as was the fashion, but Mrs Gadd found some material to pinch together and inserted a pin.

  ‘My word, you’ve got a lovely little figure, Poppy.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Gadd.’

  ‘You remind me o’ me eldest daughter. She’s got a figure like you, you know. She’s had three kids an’ all, but she ain’t lost her figure. Gets it from her father’s side, I reckon. His mother was like a whippet. Whippets run in that family. She certainly don’t get it from me.’ Mrs Gadd laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘Look at the size o’ me. I’m like a Netherton bonk ’oss. But not our Ruth.’

  Poppy smiled indulgently, twisting one way then the other while the seamstress made her adjustments.

  ‘How old am yer, Poppy?’

  ‘Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen next April.’

  ‘Seventeen? Phew! What I wouldn’t give to be seventeen again and know what I know now … Stand up straight a bit while I just look at the hem …’ Mrs Gadd got down on her knees and fiddled with the hem, sticking pins in here and there. ‘That other dress …’ She nodded in its direction as she stood up again. ‘The pale blue satin one … You’ll fetch the ducks off the water wearing that. By God you will. Take a tip from me … You’m a young madam yet, and you’ll have a fair few handsome young bucks offering theirselves. Keep ’em dangling, that’s my advice. It makes ’em all the more interested.’

  Poppy smiled, uncertain how to respond.

  ‘But never stop single,’ Mrs Gadd went on. ‘I don’t hold wi’ women stopping single. They get funny ideas with ne’er a husband around ’em to drain all the softness out o’ their heads. I got an aunt what never wed, and she took it into her head as she was gunna be an invalid. Well, she’d got some new complaint every week, and was drinking laudanum by the bucketful. Sent her yampy, it did. There’s ne’er a husband as would’ve stood for such softness.’ Mrs Gadd stood back to admire her work and wiped a bead of sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. ‘That one should be all right. Now let’s have a look at that blue satin frock … eh? Change into it, my flower.’

  Poppy released herself from the day dress and slipped on the evening dress. Mrs Gadd rearranged the fall of the skirt and the set of the bodice.

  ‘Course, there’ll be no chemise under this when you wear it, eh?’ The seamstress winked at Poppy. ‘Bare shoulders and arms, eh? And a tempting glimpse o’ cleavage. That’s what gets the pulses racing.’

  Poppy smiled demurely.

  ‘Turn around, my dear.’ Mrs Gadd fastened the tiny buttons at the back of the bodice. ‘Seen anythin’ o’ them Crawford lads?’

  ‘No,’ Poppy replied.

  ‘The middle one – Robert. I heard as he’s gone off to Brazil.’

  ‘Brazil?’ Poppy turned round sharply and risked being stuck by a pin. ‘Where’s Brazil?’

  ‘Where’s Brazil? You mean you don’t know? My dear, Brazil’s on the other side o’ the world. A savage, ungodly place, I shouldn’t wonder, with neither church nor chapel.’

  ‘Whe
re’s Brazil, Aunt Phoebe?’ Poppy asked when she returned to Cawneybank House. ‘Mrs Gadd’s heard that Robert’s gone to Brazil to work.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to Brazil. Goodness, it’s in South America. A long way off.’

  ‘Can you show me where it is?’

  They trooped to the library. Aunt Phoebe went straight to the globe on top of the chest of drawers and turned it on its axis.

  ‘There. That’s Brazil. That lilac bit. It doesn’t look much there, but it’s a huge country.’

  ‘And wild?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Poppy. Very wild.’

  ‘How big is it?’

  ‘Well, just compare it to Great Britain … There’s Great Britain …’

  ‘Yes, it’s much bigger. I hope he’ll be safe there, if it’s so wild.’

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ Aunt Phoebe agreed.

  Chapter 19

  The months passed. Winter, along with its attendant snow and icicles, came and went. Poppy had never known anything like Christmas in the way that it was celebrated at Cawneybank House. Many of Aunt Phoebe’s friends visited them, bringing gifts that delighted Poppy. Aunt Phoebe was increasingly proud of her young companion and the way she was responding to her coaching. March blew in like the lion it was always expected to emulate but, by the end of that month, the winds had died, the chill had receded and April crept quietly in. The warmer rains encouraged new buds in the garden, fresh green leaves on the trees, and the occasional break in the clouds promised summer just around the corner.

  In her improved situation, Poppy had not forgotten Minnie. Indeed, she made an effort to visit her most weeks if she got the chance. The stark contrast between life at Cawneybank House and the back-to-back in Gatehouse Fold became ever clearer the more she visited her friend. The first Friday in April Poppy tapped on Minnie’s door. It had been a month since last they had met. She waited in the drizzle, feeling conspicuously well dressed in a new dress, new cloak and bonnet. She tapped again, harder, as a middle-aged man peered at her from The Hare and Hounds on the corner and scowled at her, as if in envy of her obvious well-being. Poppy heard the screech of an upstairs sash and looked up to see Minnie thrust her tousled head out, peering down apprehensively.

  ‘Poppy!’ Minnie’s face lit up when she saw her friend. ‘I’m glad it’s you. I thought you was that wench what started to come round trying to get me on the straight and narrow. I’ll be right down to let yer in.’

  Presently, the door opened and Minnie stood aside. ‘Come in out the wet … God’s truth, look at ya, Poppy. Dressed up like a princess, and no mistake.’

  Poppy grinned, delighted as always to see her friend. ‘Oh, Aunt Phoebe’s looking after me good and proper.’

  ‘I’m still in me nightgown, Poppy,’ Minnie said apologetically.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind … I swear you’re losing weight, Minnie.’

  ‘A bit. I’m glad to see you looking so well, Poppy.’ Minnie seemed tentative, on edge, and she shivered in the cold of the room that was cheerless without a fire. ‘I love your cloak … and your dress.’ She felt the material between her fingers. ‘Good stuff, in’t it?’

  ‘I’ve come to ask you if you’ll come to my birthday party, Min.’

  ‘A party?’ Minnie glanced at the stairs’ door as if expecting it to open. ‘You’m having a party?’

  ‘In the assembly rooms at The Dudley Arms. You know. That big hotel by the town hall. A week on Saturday night. I’d love you to come, Minnie. Have you got a nice dress you can wear?’

  ‘Are there likely to be many chaps there?’ Minnie whispered.

  ‘Some real toffs, I would’ve thought. Aunt Phoebe’s arranged the guest list, though. Why are you whispering, Min?’

  Minnie pointed to the ceiling. ‘Somebody up there,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, I see … I’d better go then. So will you come? A week on Saturday, about eight o’clock?’

  ‘I’ll try … Listen, do I still owe you any money, Poppy?’

  ‘No, you paid me back.’

  ‘Did I? Good. I’m glad. Hey, I’m making a mint o’ money. I told you I would. I can easy afford to buy a dazzling new dress for your party.’

  Poppy smiled. ‘If you can afford a new dress, buy yourself some fire coal as well, Minnie. You’ll catch your death else. Get back to your warm bed and that chap you’ve got up there, before you freeze.’

  Minnie grinned. ‘Still the same old Poppy under all that finery, ain’t ya?’

  The days and evenings at Cawneybank House remained pleasant. Poppy was keen to learn, an eager pupil, and Aunt Phoebe continued to lavish time and trouble on her companion, teaching her, correcting her patiently and with endless devotion. Considering that just a few months earlier they were not only strangers but more than a generation apart, they lived in perfect harmony. In the evenings they sat and talked and exchanged confidences. Poppy made Aunt Phoebe laugh with her down-to-earth comments and her uninhibited sense of humour, which was often a little bawdy for the older lady’s taste. But she took it in good part. She was astonished by some of the tales Poppy recounted about navvy life, especially the story of how her mother and Tweedle Beak became entangled in a loveless relationship. When Poppy told her about how Tweedle Beak had tried to raffle her off and fix it so he won her himself, she was outraged that any man could stoop to such absolute dishonour.

  ‘Thank goodness I helped you keep away from all that immorality,’ she said, looking up over her spectacles from her embroidery.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Poppy replied, with all the conviction of a socialite. She was knitting as they talked, a skill she was learning, and the white scarf she was attempting had grown to about a foot in length.

  ‘But I hope your poor mother will have settled happily with that man you referred to as Buttercup.’

  ‘Oh, I think she will’ve, Aunt Phoebe. He’ll look after her. He’s a good man. He reminded me so much of me dad.’

  ‘My dad, Poppy,’ Aunt Phoebe gently corrected. ‘Not me dad. My dad. How many times—?’

  ‘Sorry … my dad …’

  ‘Let us hope they will marry and make a legal match of it. If only to stem their incontinence.’

  ‘I hope so as well, Aunt Phoebe,’ Poppy replied, clueless as to the meaning of the word incontinence.

  ‘But I can’t help thinking Buttercup is such a strange name for a man.’ Aunt Phoebe pulled a green thread through the taut drum of her work.

  ‘It’s a nickname. All the men go by nicknames. Sometimes, you never get to know their real names.’ She swapped her needles over and played out a little more wool from the ball in her lap. ‘Take Jericho, for instance. Nobody knew his name. I don’t think he knew it himself. If he did, he never told nobody.’

  ‘Never told anybody, Poppy. You are using a double negative again …’

  ‘Oh, damn,’ she said with genuine disappointment. ‘I must try and think about what I’m saying before I say it, eh, Aunt Phoebe? You’re very patient with me …’

  ‘I try. And please, never say damn either. At least, never in company.’

  The composition of her birthday party had been discussed and they agreed that as many people of Poppy’s age as possible should attend, chaperoned, of course, by their parents. Such a sprinkling of the young and unmarried would, it was hoped, lend the party some zest.

  ‘It’s a splendid opportunity to meet more of my family and friends,’ Aunt Phoebe said to Poppy. ‘Many have sons and daughters your age. The Crawfords must of course be invited. I haven’t seen them for months. They have a daughter a little younger than you, but she is at boarding school, I believe. I seldom see her. However, I shall be interested to learn what you make of Robert’s two brothers … I would stress, Poppy, that you would be wise to keep to yourself the fact that you were a friend of Robert – that you and I met through him. Such an admission would only invite questions and, if you answered them too candidly – as well you might – your origins will be revealed and all the excellent p
rogress you’ve made over the months could be negated.’

  ‘What do you mean, Aunt Phoebe?’

  ‘I mean that unless they delved, nobody would know that you are the daughter of a railway navvy, reared on an ungodly encampment. So let us not make it known. Let’s maintain the subterfuge that you are employed solely as my companion. You’ve already surpassed my expectations, my dear. I’m proud of you.’ Aunt Phoebe paused, and Poppy waited for the tempering statement that always followed praise. ‘That’s not to say there are no more rough edges to be rounded off. Indeed, there are, but the fullness of time and greater experience will see to that. In any case, your guests will not notice any flaws. To my mind, they have plenty themselves and will be used to seeing and hearing such faults every day in everybody else. We’ve still plenty to do yet in the matter of your education.’

  ‘I have to thank you, Aunt Phoebe,’ Poppy said sincerely. ‘For everything. For giving me a home, a comfortable bed. For being so kind …’

  Aunt Phoebe looked over her spectacles at Poppy with genuine affection. ‘Just as long as you are happy.’

  ‘Happy?’ Poppy smiled brightly. ‘Oh, I’m happy. I love being here with you, Aunt Phoebe. I feel as if I’ve lived here all my life. I think about my family a lot and I wonder where they’ve got to now. I do worry about them, you know … But I look upon you as my mother nowadays …’

  Aunt Phoebe reached out and took Poppy’s hand, touched by her openness. ‘And you have turned out to be the daughter I never had. I’m so glad you’re happy. You’ve made me very happy too, Poppy. It’s so fortunate that we were brought together.’

  ‘Esther and Dolly as well,’ Poppy said, wide-eyed. ‘They’re like sisters to me … and Clay’s like an old uncle …’ She laughed happily. ‘Oh, Aunt Phoebe, I dread to think what would have happened to me if I hadn’t dared to come and see you that Sunday …’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  Poppy looked at her knitting, deliberately avoiding Aunt Phoebe’s eyes lest she read too much into them. ‘My friend Minnie … The one who lives at Gatehouse Fold. She’s the daughter of a navvy as well. Did I tell you? She’s not been as lucky as me. She’s getting into bad ways … I suspect I might have done as well after Robert went away …’ It was not the first time Poppy had admitted, to herself at least, that she might have become drawn into prostitution, especially when the money that Buttercup gave her had run out. ‘Anyway, I invited her to my party. I hope you don’t mind.’