by Nancy Carson
Aunt Phoebe sat on the bed beside Poppy. She wanted to hold her, to comfort her. She understood Poppy’s dilemma, why her poor heart was aching, yet she did not want Poppy to think she was patronising her. So she sat with her hands clasped together in her lap.
‘Then if Virginia is no wiser than you, she is in exactly the same situation as you. Therefore, you each have the same two alternatives. You both either respect Robert’s ultimate choice, which might be you, or you withdraw now.’
‘I withdraw now,’ Poppy said unhesitating.
‘And if Robert chooses you?’
She shrugged. ‘He’s too late. He’d have to make do with Virginia.’
‘It’s my guess he’d make do with nobody in that event. Why should he content himself with the girl he’s come to consider second best?’
‘He should have held on to me when he’d got me. I’ve been a fool, hanging on for him, waiting, pining like some lovesick Cinderella. Who does he think he is? There are plenty more fish in the sea, you know, Aunt. I should have made him realise that when he decided to leave me.’
Thunder, like the splitting, cleaving trunk of a giant tree, crackled directly overhead and rumbled through the distant hills.
Aunt Phoebe said, ‘If the boot were on the other foot, Poppy, do you think Virginia would withdraw in favour of you?’
‘I wouldn’t expect her to.’
‘But neither would she expect her rival to, I imagine.’
‘Virginia asked for my advice, you know …’ Poppy laughed with derision. ‘Me … Ironic, isn’t it, Aunt? I told her it’s up to Robert who he chooses and that she should accept his decision, even if it goes against her.’
‘Do unto others as you would be done unto, Poppy. If Virginia is as devout a Christian as you say she is, she will live by that creed. If she is prepared to accept you as Robert’s choice, all well and good. To my mind, you should confess that you are her rival and make a clean breast of it.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that. Anyway, I think he’s treated her terrible, Aunt.’
‘You mean terribly, Poppy …’
‘I mean, getting mixed up with me in the first place. If I’d known he was engaged when we started to get friendly, I would’ve had no truck with him. But by the time I knew, I was hooked like some stupid fish.’
‘But you were not to know that a love affair would result from your friendship. It must have seemed unlikely, even to you, considering the differences in your social backgrounds … At the time, I mean, of course … Besides, if you’d had no truck with him, you and I would never have known each other.’
‘Yes … That would have been sad, Aunt.’ Poppy leaned her head on Aunt Phoebe’s shoulder, inviting a consoling embrace.
Feeling Aunt Phoebe’s caring arms around her elicited more tears. They did not come in a great flood, just a gentle trickle. She did not wail this time, merely wept silently as she pondered the past year. She was here, a cherished friend, resident and welcome in Aunt Phoebe’s house because of Robert Crawford. He had been responsible, directly or indirectly, for a monumental change in her life. She must respect him if only because of that. He had been good to her, giving her his time and risking his own reputation. He wished her only well. That they had fallen in love along the way was as unintentional as any accident. Of course she loved him. Even after a year her hunger for him had not waned. It would never wane.
The rumble of thunder was becoming more distant. Like Poppy’s crisis of emotion, it was passing over. She raised her head and looked at Aunt Phoebe through tear-filled eyes that glistened by the light of the oil lamp.
‘You know, Aunt Phoebe,’ Poppy said, the light of realisation beginning to dawn on her. ‘I reckon that advice I gave to Virginia was good. We must both abide by Robert’s decision, whatever it turns out to be. We’ve both waited this long. She’ll wait another three or four weeks, and so will I. There’d be no point either in trying to sway him, if it’s not the decision we want to hear. In any case, he might return from Brazil married to some Brazilian girl, for all we know.’
‘Lord, that would really set the cat among the pigeons,’ Aunt Phoebe said.
During his crisis of indecision more than a year ago, Robert Crawford had responded to an advertisement in The Times for a qualified and reliable engineer to survey routes for a proposed railway in Brazil. The timing could not have been better as far as he was concerned, for it would enable him to make the break he needed from the emotional confusion that had both delighted and tormented him. In Brazil, he would be far enough away to shun any inclination to rush home and dive headlong into a commitment he might later regret.
His interview in London meant taking a trip there by train, and he relished it. He recalled that Robert Stephenson, one of his heroes, had walked the ground between London and Birmingham twenty times before deciding on the best route for the railway. He, Robert Crawford, could be just as judicious in Brazil if he were granted the opportunity. On his train journey, he looked with professional admiration at the fine bridges of the London and Birmingham Railway, which had begun a full service nearly eleven years earlier. The Kilsby Tunnel, itself a monumental feat of civil engineering, had consumed some thirty-six million bricks in the lining, all laid by hand. The magnificent portals, through which you entered and exited, served to enhance the immediate landscape, not scar it, and gave no hint of the massive problems the engineers had encountered within.
In London, Robert had taken a four-wheeled growler to the offices of a consortium of investors in Oxford Street. There he was told that the Brazilian government was anxious to expand its exports of coffee and sugar cane. Railroads, of which there were none, were therefore necessary to transport the commodities to the main ports. Britain enjoyed a world monopoly in railway construction, and the consortium had been formed following a fact-finding visit to London by representatives of the Brazilian government. Depending on the results of the initial surveys, and following the official ratification by the Brazilian government, a company would be set up in London to manage and finance the project, and shares would be issued. Robert Crawford was offered the position of assistant engineer at three guineas a day plus all expenses, an enormous enticement. He estimated that he could return a year later about a thousand guineas better off, a handsome sum.
Robert sailed first to Lisbon, a city that impressed him. In Lisbon he embarked on a Portuguese ship for the Atlantic crossing to Rio de Janeiro. The spectacular landscape of Rio astonished him, and he was surprised also to find a cosmopolitan city of a quarter of a million disparate souls who wanted for nothing.
The actual surveying was neither as glamorous nor as sophisticated, however. On one occasion after heavy rains, the bullock cart drawn by eight oxen that conveyed him, the driver and two others with their food, water and equipment, foundered in mud. It took two days to recover it all. Travelling thus was mucky and slow, and a distance of twenty miles could take as long as seven days, hampered by swamps and swollen rivers. It was also obvious that the contractors, when the first line was sanctioned, would have to contend with blasting many tunnels, and building many viaducts and bridges. It would be a massive undertaking.
After three months in Brazil, one of Robert’s colleagues, Charles Rabbitt, died of yellow fever. Robert was devastated, as was his remaining co-surveyor, Phillip Rose, a single man the same age as himself. Robert assumed leadership of the project and they pressed on steadily towards São Paulo, over rough terrain. He realised that the potential here for railway building was enormous. He could envisage lines running from Belém in the north, via Fortaleza, to Recife on the northwest coast. Another line would eventually run from Recife, crossing the São Francisco River to Salvador, then on to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Hundreds of miles. Years of work.
Many of the tribulations of the terrain he encountered, Robert took in his stride. They were trivial compared to his personal predicament, which for months seemed unsolvable, and was still greatly concerning him
. He had to make a choice between the two delightful but entirely different women in his life. Both were seldom far from his thoughts. Many a sub-tropical night in the stifling heat of a humid Brazilian summer, he’d lain in his tent pitched beneath a Paraná pine, tormented as he tried uselessly to get to sleep. He’d recalled Poppy’s sweet face and her unruly mop of champagne curls. He relived her delicious kisses and remembered their faint but pleasant peppermint taste. He imagined over and over the warmth of her body as she sat in his lap, her easy weight a delight in that huge chair in his office. He vividly recollected how they mesmerised each other with desire, which was to remain unfulfilled. How he’d longed for her. How he’d wished she was with him, lying beside him in that tent. He remembered with affection her awful dresses, those unspeakable clogs, the stale odour of cooking that sometimes lingered in her hair, and smiled. These things did not matter. They were not really so awful. They were part of her. They made her what she was: a decent girl, quirky by dint of being deprived of privilege and the niceties of life but through no fault of her own. Yet, neither the deprivation nor her unsavoury roots had spoiled her. She was honest and forthright, with a childlike innocence one minute and a startling worldly wisdom the next.
Robert would turn over restlessly onto his other side and shake the thin blanket that covered him to dislodge any intruding termites. The blanket, too, protected him from the possibility of a jararaca snake joining him as a bed partner, an intruding lizard that might be huge, or even an armadillo, as he slept alone on the hard ground.
Poppy Silk was an enigma. She would always occupy Robert’s heart. He was determined not to let his heart rule his head, however, which Virginia Lord occupied. Common sense told him he should marry Virginia Lord. Her family was enormously influential and rich from generations of banking. They owned and ran Tyler’s and Lord’s Bank. And because his father’s long-established firm, Crawford & Sons Limited, civil engineering contractors, enjoyed a close and lucrative relationship with them, jeopardising that connection could have far-reaching consequences.
Virginia was not only serenely beautiful, she was also kind and compassionate. She was intelligent and immensely loyal, but stricken with a religious fervour that he did not take particular pleasure in. She was also a committed humanitarian. ‘How can you possibly allow yourself to work in a country that still operates a system of slavery?’ she had asked him when he told her he was going to Brazil for a year. Typically, the tyranny under which many slaves suffered was her first thought. The absolute disappointment of having to postpone or cancel her wedding and the heartache that would entail was only her second consideration. Whatever happened, Robert knew she would wait for him to make his decision with an unwavering commitment.
However, Virginia did not kiss with the same commitment and consummate fervour as Poppy Silk. She did not feel soft and warm and inviting like Poppy Silk. Nor did Robert desire her like he desired Poppy Silk. Oh, he would have been content enough settling down to a comfortable married life with Virginia, to have a house full of children, servants and nurses to look after them all – had he not encountered Poppy. Poppy had dealt a considerable blow to his straightforward expectations of matrimony. However unwittingly, she had made him realise there was another side to man’s coalition with woman: desire. Good, hard, sexual desire. It was the engine that drove all mankind, he now realised. It was the hinge on which a relationship pivoted.
Sometimes one person’s choice of sexual partner baffled another, but its impact on that person could never be denied. And surely that was God’s way. Instinct somehow dictated the person of the opposite sex who appealed most. You didn’t even have to think about it. Indeed, you had no control over it. Why fight it? You saw the girl and you simply knew. Thus it had been with Poppy Silk. Such a liaison must therefore be right, decreed by nature and condoned by God.
But God, like the prospect of marriage to Poppy, was an illusion. A successful marriage with Poppy, like the promised existence of God, defied logic. Virginia remained the choice of common sense.
Chapter 26
Robert Crawford arrived back home on the first Friday in August after a brief sojourn in Lisbon. He had been gone little more than a year. It struck him that if SS Great Britain had been working the route, the crossing would have been quicker and he would have had the chance to see at close quarters Brunel’s vision made manifest of the steam-driven future of ships and shipping.
When he arrived at Tansley House, delivered on the last leg of his journey by cab, he took time to talk with his mother and father before deciding he must go to bed and rest.
‘I think I shall sleep for a week,’ he declared.
‘Tomorrow evening,’ his mother said, halting him at the door of the drawing room, ‘we are holding a party to celebrate your return.’
‘Oh?’ He smiled, pleasantly surprised. ‘Where is it to be held, this party?’
‘Here, at Tansley House. We have hired extra servants and engaged a band.’
‘So there will be dancing, eh? That’s wonderful. Thank you.’
‘Unfortunately, your sister Elizabeth hasn’t returned from school yet. She’s been staying with a school friend for the first part of the August holiday and is not expected back for another week.’
‘I trust she’s well.’
‘Oh, yes …’ Clarissa hesitated, poised to say something else more pressing. ‘Robert, I have taken it upon myself to send Virginia a note, to say that if they wish, the Lords can visit us tomorrow afternoon prior to the party and their overnight stay.’ Clarissa was entirely ignorant of the emotional upheaval that had prompted Robert to go away in the first place. ‘I hope you approve. You will have the opportunity to get to know each other again. After all, a year is a long time to be away from your sweetheart.’ She regarded him admonishingly.
‘That’s very considerate, Mother,’ he said without conviction, for he did not appreciate what he considered to be her meddling. ‘However, it may be a little premature. I have reports to write, a lengthy account of my expenses to tally. No end of things to do.’
Clarissa smiled patiently. ‘My dear Robert, don’t you want to see Virginia after all this time? You will have all the time in the world to accomplish those things afterwards. Please don’t shun your fiancée for the sake of such trivialities when you have been away so long.’
‘No, of course, Mother. You are quite right. I wouldn’t dream of shunning her. It will be good to see her again after so long. Of course I’ve been looking forward to it. We have so much to talk about …’
‘You have a wedding to talk about.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Does he not, Ridley?’
‘Indeed, son,’ Ridley agreed. ‘It’s high time you named the day … It’s high time we talked of your joining Crawford and Sons. We are desperate for an engineer of your calibre and experience. Especially since the new Birmingham sewerage project we have on hand is so close to being finalised.’
‘Sewerage? Is it big?’
‘It’s huge.’
‘We’ll talk about it, Father – naturally – once the party is behind us.’
At three o’clock on Saturday afternoon with the weather hot, sunny and humid, the shining black brougham belonging to the Lords rattled into the drive of Tansley House. It deposited the Lords and a very nervous Virginia. She stepped down from the carriage and was at once greeted by Robert. He smiled his broad, open smile and she ran to his arms.
Four hundred yards away at Cawneybank House, Aunt Phoebe and Poppy were going through the latter’s wardrobe to decide what she should wear for the party.
‘I could wear the dress I wore for Minnie’s wedding, Aunt … But on second thoughts, no. It brought me bad luck. I think I’ll wear this blue satin one … The one I wore for my own birthday party. Everybody liked that.’
‘Certainly all the men liked it,’ Aunt Phoebe said with a knowing look. ‘I’m sure they were all tantalised by your small waist and sight of your pert heaving bosom.’
‘Y
ou sound jealous of my pert heaving bosom,’ Poppy said saucily.
‘Indeed I am. Gone are the days …’
‘Well, a pert heaving bosom is quite the fashion, Aunt,’ she said like a seasoned socialite. ‘Besides, I need every advantage if I’m going to tempt Robert.’
‘Hussy!’
Poppy laughed at Aunt Phoebe’s good-natured jibe. ‘I know. It’s the navvy’s daughter coming out in me.’ She took the dress from the wardrobe, held it up in front of her and looked at herself in the long mirror.
‘So, the blue satin dress it is, Poppy. I must confess, you do look very striking in it.’
‘Thank you, Aunt …’ She tilted her head and arranged the folds of the dress to assess the look. ‘I wonder what Virginia will be wearing. Something very plain but very elegant, I expect. Something to enhance her slenderness and her classic good looks. I’m not really looking forward to seeing Virginia again … But I can hardly wait to see Robert. Does he know I live here with you now, I wonder?’
‘Perhaps. If Bellamy’s mentioned your name.’
‘Oh, blimey! Let’s hope Bellamy hasn’t.’
‘Such cursing, Poppy … We must get Esther to do your hair up. She’s very good with hair.’
‘I must take a bath as well, Aunt. And dab some eau de cologne behind my ears. It’s important to smell sweet.’
‘Why don’t we take a walk in the garden?’ Virginia suggested to Robert when the niceties and formalities of the Lord family’s arrival had been taken care of. ‘It’s such a beautiful day. We should take advantage of it.’
‘If you like,’ he replied.
They got up to go outside, leaving their mothers and fathers smiling at each other with anticipation. The Crawfords were content that their middle son was reunited not only with them but also with the girl who, two years ago, he had asked to become his wife. It seemed a tortuous path, strewn with hazards, getting them to this point, but they were together again now.
