by Helen Watts
Alice was happy for the initials on the stone to read W. T. D. William was her son’s full name, after all. They had only begun calling him Billy when he was a baby to make life easier. She and her father had told everyone that they had sent Billy away straight after the accident, to stay with family in Cornwall. The sea air would be good for him, they had said, and it was wise to put some distance between the poor lad and the horror of what had happened. Alice had claimed she was in no state to look after him, and who would question a grieving widow?
Six months is a long time when you are shrouded in grief. By now Alice was desperate to put some distance between herself and Wilmcote. Certainly there was nothing left for her in the village besides her father, and Alice was finding it increasingly difficult to live with his look of self-righteousness every time he spoke of his late son-in-law. She had been unsettled by the relish with which he had received the news of William’s death. How could he feel that way about something so intrinsically linked to the loss of Billy? Alice found her father’s thinly-veiled joy distasteful and un-Christian in equal measure.
But rather than leaving right away, Alice held on for the inquest. She needed to know that her secret was safe, even while part of her wished that the truth could come out and that the world could know of the brave and loyal thing that her son had done. She prayed that the railway company would be forced to admit fault and explain to the world why her darling Billy, and those three poor men, were working in the path of an oncoming train. Everyone knew that procedures had not been followed, and that the railway company had agreed to transport Greenslade’s stone before the line was completely safe.
But the shareholders had closed ranks and used gold to tempt the families into silence. And so it was that the four bodies lay in a grave with only initials to mark their memory, and an epitaph that set in stone the families’ pledge never to complain and made no mention of what had caused such a great loss.
Alice hadn’t told her father of her plans. She knew he would try to stop her leaving. But she needed a fresh start. So she had bought herself a passage on the Castle Eden sailing to Adelaide from London in two days’ time, and in eighty-eight days she would be on the other side of the world. Her money from the settlement with the Stratford-upon-Avon Railway Company should be enough to rent a home, start a little business maybe. Ironic that the first part of her long journey to a new life would be on the railway line that saw her old life change for ever.
She ran her hand around the cold, smooth curve of the top of the footstone. ‘Goodbye, my brave sweet boy,’ she whispered. ‘Rest in peace. I may be on the other side of the world, but you will always be with me.’
Chapter 36 – September 2012
You can’t come this time, Tyson. I’m sorry.’ Kelly stepped down from the caravan ready to head off to Ben’s for supper.
Tyson wagged his tail even harder, as if hoping he could change her mind.
Kelly gave him a hug. ‘No, you daft dog. You stay here and be a good boy.’
‘Call us when you want picking up, love,’ called her dad from inside.
‘Okay, I will. Thanks Dad. I can walk down to the main road if you like, save you coming all the way up the track to Ben’s cottage. Unless you want to meet Ben’s parents?’
‘Yes. Maybe I will. Anyway, it’ll be too dark to go wandering down any track. I’ll come up to the cottage. It’s the same turning off the main road as the one to Stone Pit Farm, did you say?’
‘That’s the one. I’ll see you later then.’ Kelly smiled as she set off through the campsite gate. She was thinking how far they had all come in the past year, since she started at The Shakespeare Academy. Her parents seemed so different now from the two people who used to fuss over her every move and refused to mix with the other parents in the primary school playground.
As she walked along the path towards Stone Pit Farm, Kelly went over everything she needed to share with Ben. She would soon be ready to start writing up her notes. She was just wondering whether Mr Walker would mind if she and Ben wrote the project together, when she came to the end of the footpath at the bottom of the lane that linked the farm house to the main road. If she had followed Ben’s directions properly, the turning down to Stone Pit Cottage was further along, past the farm house.
She had never been this way before, so she slowed her pace as she passed the surprisingly grand set of metal gates that formed the front entrance to Stone Pit Farm. Kelly wanted to have a good look. This had been the home of the quarry owner, all those years ago, and he would have been an important figure in the community. Wealthy too. Kelly could see that the farm house was still very impressive—an imposing, red-brick building with large sash windows and a wide porch, set behind a sweeping, gravelled courtyard with a circular fountain in the centre.
The farmer who lives there now must be doing well, she concluded, for the house was in pristine condition.
Kelly carried on along the lane, thinking that she was probably walking in the footsteps of all the quarrymen who would have come this way to and from the stone pits each day.
The sun was already low in the sky. In just a week or so everyone would be turning their clocks back and it would be too dark to come over the fields much after school. Kelly sighed. It had been a great summer. One of the best. She was so glad that she had met Ben.
Kelly reached the bend at the end of the lane and suddenly realised how excited she was about seeing Ben’s cottage at last. She wondered what his parents would be like and hoped that they liked her. A flutter of panic ran through her. She had forgotten to ask Ben if he had told his mum and dad that she was a Traveller. She wasn’t going to hide it. She was proud of where she came from. But you could never tell how other people would react.
However, all Kelly’s worries about the kind of the reception she would get vanished when she turned the corner at the end of the narrow track and Stone Pit Cottage finally came into view.
She stopped dead and looked around her, confused. Had she got the directions right? Was this really it, or had she turned down the wrong track?
‘No,’ she said to herself. ‘Ben said there was only one track leading off to the left. This must be it.’
The cottage before her had clearly not been lived in for a very long time. Its grey-blue stone work was almost completely covered in ivy, which had encroached upon the dusty old windows to such an extent that Kelly was certain barely any light could pass through. The front door showed only a hint of its original bottle green colour, the paint was so faded and peeling, and the wood was splintered and rotten.
A dense covering of weeds had run rampant in the tiny front garden so that Kelly could hardly make out where the path to the door began. Looking up, she could see tiles missing from the roof and one of the panes of glass in the largest upstairs window was badly cracked.
‘Oh Ben,’ she said out loud, although her throat felt so tight that the sound which came out was barely a whisper. Her eyes filled with tears.
Determined to quash the crazy theories which had begun to race around her mind, Kelly rushed up to the front door, clamped the doorknob with both hands and tried to wrestle it open. The door wouldn’t budge.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Ben!’
Perhaps there was a back door. Kelly ran around the side of the cottage and through an old wrought iron gate, now hanging off its hinges, which led to the back yard. The scene there reminded Kelly of The Secret Garden. The wall that surrounded it was low, not like the high one that enclosed Mary’s garden in the book, but the plants inside it were certainly as overgrown. No one had tended this garden for a very long time. Yet dotted here and there were hints of a time when the garden was once loved and cared for. A stone bird bath lay on its side, there was an old potting shed in the far corner, and ensnared in a mass of knotted shoots and branches were the skeleton-like frames of a former rose garden.
Built against the back wall of the cottage was a small lean-to with a glass door. The glass in the door was so mo
uldy and dirty that Kelly could not see through it, but she could see that it was open. Stopping briefly to look around her, she gathered herself then stepped over the threshold into a tiny boot room with a row of coat pegs on the wall.
‘Who’s there?’
A voice. A woman’s voice, with an accent of some kind.
Kelly froze. She breathed deeply then said, in a small voice, ‘It’s Kelly. I’m Ben’s friend.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to come on in, but I’m not sure who Ben is.’
As Kelly went through the next door she saw the source of the voice. An elderly but sprightly woman, dressed in jeans and a sky-blue turtle-neck jumper. She was standing in the centre of a dusty old kitchen with a large rectangular pine table in the centre. Kelly guessed that she was in her mid-sixties, and sensed straight away that she need not be scared. The lady had a kind, open face. Her skin was tanned and healthy looking, and her fair hair was cut into a neat bob, held back by a lavender chiffon scarf tied into a floppy bow which framed the top of her head.
‘Ben lives here…I think,’ said Kelly, her uncertainty causing her voice to sound a little shaky.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ replied the lady. ‘This cottage has been empty for years. There was a family who rented it and lived here during the war, but no one’s lived here since then.’
Kelly’s mind was racing. If no one had lived here for years, then where on earth was Ben? Perhaps it was the old lady who was confused. ‘Are you Australian?’ she asked.
‘I am. That’s right.’ The lady held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Kelly. I’m Alice. I’ve lived in Australia all my life, but this place used to belong to my great-grandmother before she emigrated. I’m named after her. I inherited the cottage when my mother died.’
‘Woah,’ gasped Kelly. Of course. Alice was the name on the census record, William Denton’s wife.
Unsure how to read Kelly’s reaction, the lady went on with her story. ‘I always dreamed of coming to England one day to check out my roots. I had a feeling that now was the right time.’
Kelly inclined her head to the pots of paint on the sideboard. ‘Are you going to do the cottage up and come and live here?’
The lady shrugged. ‘Oh, I doubt it, I’m happy in Australia. I couldn’t stand the cold winters you get here. But whatever I do decide to do with this place, I think I owe it to my great-grandmother to tidy it up, don’t you? Mind you, I’m told that she didn’t have many happy memories of her time here.’
‘I know,’ said Kelly. ‘I’ve been learning all about it, you see, with…’ She paused. ‘With my friend Ben. For a school local history project about the quarry which used to be open here. And I’ve been trying to find out what happened when they first built the railway through Wilmcote, and how it changed things.’
‘So you live in Wilmcote, then?’
‘Just on the edge of the village. On the other side of the railway.’
‘And you’re going to write about the history of this place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I can’t tell you where your friend Ben lives, but I might be able to help you with some details on the history of this cottage. If you’re going to write about it, it’s important you get the story right. It’s about time the truth was told.’
Kelly smiled and nodded. This was music to her ears. ‘It sure is. Ever since I started this project, it’s felt like a big mystery puzzle. And a flippin’ difficult one!’
Alice laughed. ‘Perhaps I can provide the final pieces. Would you like some juice?’
‘Yes please.’
Alice opened a cool bag on the old kitchen table, and took out two cartons of apple juice. ‘I came prepared,’ she said with a grin. ‘I guessed that there wouldn’t be much chance of a cup of tea when I arrived. Here, have a seat.’
She wiped the dust off one of the kitchen chairs and gestured to Kelly to sit down. Because the light was fading fast, she also lit some candles, which cast a warm glow about the room. Then she sat on the other side of the table from Kelly. ‘Cheers!’ she said, lifting her juice carton in salute and taking a long pull on the straw. Kelly followed suit.
‘If you’ve been researching the history of the railway, I take it you know about the railway accident?’ Alice began.
Kelly, who was still sucking on her straw, nearly choked on her juice. She hadn’t expected the old lady to come right out with that. ‘Yes,’ she spluttered, dabbing her mouth with her sleeve. ‘I have. That was so sad, and so awful how the railway company tried to cover it all up.’ She looked again at the lady across the table. ‘Hey wait a minute, if your great-grandmother lived here, does that make you a Denton? Was William Denton your great-grandfather?’
‘No, it’s a little more complicated than that. Alice Denton was my great-grandmother, but she didn’t marry my great-grandfather until a few years after she arrived in Adelaide. It was her second marriage, and she’d already made a new life for herself in Australia by the time she met him. She was a seamstress, you know, and my great grandfather was one of her customers.’
Alice took a sip of her juice. Kelly remained silent, trying to take it all in. She still didn’t understand why Alice wasn’t familiar with Ben if he was a Denton, but the old lady seemed in full flow, so Kelly didn’t interrupt.
‘They had my grandfather in 1875. They called him Billy in memory of Alice’s first son. The one who was killed in the rail accident.’
Alice stopped speaking, noticing the surprise on Kelly’s face.
‘Her…her son?’ Kelly stammered. ‘You mean, it was Billy who was killed? He was working on the line? Wasn’t he only about twelve or thirteen in 1860?’
‘Just thirteen. And yes he was working, although he wasn’t supposed to be there. I’m not surprised you didn’t find that out. My great-grandmother had her reasons for keeping that a secret.’
‘But I saw the gravestones. They are still there, in the churchyard,’ said Kelly, breathlessly. ‘The initials on the footstone are W. T. D.’
‘Everyone called the boy Billy, but he was christened William Thomas, like his father. So the footstone was accurate. Everyone just believed it was for William senior.’
Kelly shook her head. She was having trouble understanding it all.
Alice leaned forwards, folding her arms and resting them on the table. ‘My great-grandmother started a diary on her crossing to Australia. She had lots of time to kill on that ship. And she began it by explaining the background to her decision to move to Australia. She never spoke about it to anyone. She wanted to start a new life and put it all behind her. But she obviously wanted the truth to be recorded somewhere. My mother used to read the diary to me when I was younger, and it’s mine now, of course, along with the cottage.’
‘So did your great-grandmother say what happened to Billy?’ asked Kelly, fascinated.
‘Well yes, but a lot of the details about the accident itself were a result of her putting two and two together. She believed that Billy went to work in his father’s place that day because he found him drunk and hungover from the night before. The Dentons didn’t have much you see. Times were hard, and there were plenty of men ready to take your place if you lost your job. If you didn’t toe the line and do a good job, your boss would sack you as quick as look at you. So turning up late because you had a hangover wasn’t going to cut the mustard.’
‘So, what, Billy went to work so that his father would keep his job?’ asked Kelly, leaning forwards into the candlelight.
‘So my great-grandmother believed, yes. Plus, the railway line they were building was nearly complete, and they were due a bonus. The only man, besides the other victims, who saw Billy on the morning of the accident was the foreman, and he obviously mistook him for his father. Then of course, after poor Billy was dead, no one could tell who he was…’
Kelly finished her sentence. ‘Because the bodies were so badly mangled.’
‘That’s right. Horrible, hey?’
Kel
ly nodded, suddenly feeling incredibly sad. ‘Your poor great-grandmother. And poor William! He must have felt terrible. In bed with a hangover while his son is getting killed to protect his job. It should have been William who was killed.’
Alice tutted. ‘Exactly. My great-grandmother reckoned that William must have woken up later that morning and gone down to the railway to look for his son. When he got there, he must have realised his son had been killed.’
Kelly kept shaking her head. She couldn’t imagine how guilty William must have felt. ‘So what did he do then, Billy’s dad?’
‘My great-grandmother found him in a goods shed. It’s not surprising that he blamed himself for what had happened. It wouldn’t have mattered to him whether or not the railway company had been negligent. All he would have been able to think about was the fact that it should have been him, not his son, who was killed. The shame and the pain of that must have been too hard to take.’
Kelly was starting to feel a bit sick. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, petrified that she already knew the answer.
‘He took his own life. Hung himself. In a shed, somewhere near the railway line.’
Kelly could hear it again. That dreadful creaking sound of rope rubbing on wood in the shed that Ben wouldn’t enter. The mysterious photograph. She shuddered as the memory of the chilly air inside the shed brought goosebumps to her skin. Kelly looked down at her hands. They were trembling.
‘Sorry, love,’ said Alice. ‘It’s a bit cold in here, isn’t it?’
When she next spoke, Kelly had to fight to control the quiver in her voice. ‘So there must be another grave somewhere. William’s grave.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Alice. ‘You see, back then, suicide was considered a very shameful thing, Kelly. It was seen as a crime against the state and against God. For my great-grandmother, with a vicar as a father and a strongly religious upbringing, the thought of everyone knowing what William had done was too much to bear. And she was angry with him too, for what had happened to Billy.’
