The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  ‘It’s the only answer I can give.’

  Arthur looked at Hannah again beseechingly. ‘What can I do to make her say yes, Mrs Piddock?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Hannah replied flatly. ‘You’ll just have to wait for her to come to her senses. If you want my advice, Arthur, you’ll leave her be. She’ll soon come to her cake and milk when you’ve gone. She’ll soon change her mind.’

  Sunday dinner was a subdued affair as far as Arthur, Lucy and Hannah were concerned. Arthur picked at his food fussily. He was always a pernickety eater, worried that too much fatty gravy brought on indigestion or cabbage gave him the wind, all of which irritated Lucy. Haden, however, was merry after an adequate intake of beer and he spouted forth volubly on various issues that concerned himself, oblivious to the emotions, doubts and certainties which, prior to his return home, had beset his wife and daughter over Arthur. And the other three were glad of his rumbustious chatter, for it adequately camouflaged the intensity that had befallen them in his absence; the intensity of a worthy young woman in her prime, reluctant to be a bride because she was clinging to her own secret hopes and dreams; the intensity of her would-be groom, whose previous two days had been so miserably eventful, but whose life was now rendered meaningless because of her rebuff. Afterward, Haden made himself comfortable in the rocking chair, and drifted off into his usual inebriated Sunday afternoon snooze.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk, Lucy?’ Arthur suggested, when the object of his devotion had finished helping her mother clear up. ‘It’s a lovely afternoon.’

  ‘If you like,’ she agreed, content awhile to be away from her mother’s further inevitable advice to Arthur.

  They ambled along the canal while the hot July sun beat down on them, heading towards the industrial melancholy of the Old and the New Level Ironworks, that still spouted forth columns of unsavoury brown smoke and broke the Sunday silence with irreverent clatters. For the first few minutes they spoke little, each lost in their own thoughts. Arthur grieved inwardly over his failure to elicit a positive response to his unromantic but eminently practical proposal of marriage. Lucy, meanwhile, suffered genuine pangs of guilt that she could not requite Arthur’s love. She could only look forward romantically to next Saturday when she would be in the company of Dickie Dempster, with whom she had been secretly, guiltily and fatuously in love for nearly a year.

  It went against her nature to deceive and it bothered her deeply. She was well aware that Arthur was a worthy contender, for she had debated his vices and his virtues with herself and others on occasions too numerous to recount. Much as she hated turning him away and hurting him, she hated even more the hypocrisy of pretence. She was determined to pursue happiness in the other direction, that of Wolverhampton and Dickie Dempster. She owed it to herself. She could not sacrifice herself on the altar of marriage for a man she did not love. It was not that she was being deceitful in the obnoxious sense, she was rather following her instinct that true love was beckoning from this other direction, love that would be fulfilling, fine and virtuous. She was not interested in living life any other way. This was the only direction in which she could allow herself to be drawn. The purity of the concept of the relationship she envisaged with Dickie Dempster was driving her, and she knew it was good because Nature was prompting her, thus Nature decreed it.

  ‘Have you got any idea where you’ll go?’ Lucy asked him, conscious as ever of the silence between them.

  He shrugged sullenly. ‘I dunno. Far, far from here … to try and forget you, Lucy … Maybe I’ll go to the coast. I fancy living by the sea for a while. Something different. It would do me good to breathe fresh sea air for a change … It would do you good as well,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘I can’t leave my mother and father,’ she replied, seizing another excuse. ‘I couldn’t go anyway.’

  ‘Your brother did.’

  ‘And it broke their hearts. I couldn’t do that to them.’

  ‘Yet you can break mine …’

  They were ascending the towpath at the Nine Locks, a spectacular stretch of the Stourbridge canal that seemed to rise to eternity. A flotilla of narrowboats with smoking chimney pipes sat low in the murky water of the lower basin, loaded to the gunnels with coal, fireclay or ironstone, waiting their turn to go through the locks. Towing horses, weary and unkempt, grazed speculatively on the sparse vegetation while the bargees and their wives slumped with easy abandon in the sunshine, taking advantage of the rest.

  ‘I’ve never been anything other than honest with you, Arthur,’ Lucy said defensively. ‘You’ve known from the start how I have and haven’t felt. I never made you any promises. You know I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But you don’t have to be head-over-heels in love to marry somebody.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, I shan’t give up with you. It’s a certain fact as I can’t stay here and let my father rule my—’

  ‘And I admire you for that, Arthur,’ she interrupted. ‘You should get away. It’ll be the making of you. You’ve been held back all the time by your father … It shows you’ve got pluck.’

  ‘I shan’t give up on you, Lucy,’ he said again. ‘I shall write. D’you promise to answer my letters?’

  ‘Course I do,’ she replied tenderly. ‘Course I shall answer them. Just remember I’m not the best writer in the world.’

  He laughed at that, looking into her soft eyes. He wished he could drown in those blue pools, so liquid, so clear. It would be such an exquisite death.

  ‘Moses said I should give you a good poking.’

  ‘Moses said what?’ Her mocking laughter manifested an edge of indignation.

  Arthur grinned with embarrassment, at once realising he’d been foolish in stating something so utterly stupid. But … in for a penny … ‘He said if I gave you a good poking, you’d be eating out of my hand.’

  After a few uncertain moments she laughed, seeing the absurdity of such a notion when applied to Arthur. ‘Well, you never did, did you?… So I’m not.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean anything, Arthur.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You mean you would have let me?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she teased. ‘If you’d tried hard enough. You didn’t try.’

  ‘So let’s try now.’

  He grabbed her by the waist and pressed his lips on hers, but she wriggled free of him, laughing.

  ‘It’s too late now. Besides, there’s folk about …’

  ‘But, Lucy …’

  ‘It’s too late, Arthur. If I change my mind about you when you’ve gone away …’

  ‘Then how shall I know, if I’m a hundred miles or more away?’

  ‘I’ll let you know …’

  ‘How?’

  ‘When I write.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Can you spell “poke”?’

  She thumped him playfully on the chest and laughed. ‘You’re the limit, Arthur Goodrich,’ she said.

  Next morning Arthur was as good as his word. He packed a bag with his things, took all his money and said goodbye to his mother. She tearfully bid him farewell, begging him not to go, but aware that he had no alternative if he wanted peace from his father, who she knew had never tried to understand his son.

  ‘Don’t forget to write,’ Dinah said emotionally.

  ‘As soon as I’ve found some lodgings,’ he replied, and kissed her goodbye.

  Sadly he made his way to Brettell Lane station, undecided as to where he should go. If he went one way he would go to Wolverhampton. Not far enough away. The temptation to return to see Lucy would be too great. He had to make himself inaccessible. He was beginning to pin his hopes on the old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But being away from Lucy would no doubt have a greater effect on him than it would on her. So he must go the other way, anywhere, far from Brierley Hill and his father. He consulted the Bradshaw railway guide, to check the time of the next train to
Oxford, then bought a ticket. When he reached Oxford he would review the situation.

  Chapter 11

  Each day of that week seemed like a decade for Lucy as she waited with enduring patience for the time when she would at last be alone with Dickie Dempster. Yet, conversely, it seemed no time since she had last seen Arthur. The weather turned that week and the rain came in warm summer showers that were soft and fine, drenching everything. Gazing absently through the window of their cottage she watched the broken gutterings of nearby buildings douse the bright dandelions beneath, which thrived stubbornly in the hard ground against the redbrick walls. She wondered how Arthur was, where he was; he was not in Brierley Hill anymore, because he would have been to see her. She was conscience-stricken that she had turned him away, remorseful that he was no longer around. She couldn’t help but worry over him, couldn’t help but feel a guilty sadness that she had been unable to be what he desperately wanted her to be, driven instead to explore the alternative on offer, although it was an eternity coming. With two days to go Lucy considered it time she spoke to Jane, and called to see her on her way to the Whimsey. Moses was out, which meant the sisters could speak confidentially and frankly.

  Through Moses’s working at the Goodrich’s workshop, Jane knew of Arthur’s going away, and she wondered how much of his decision was to do with Lucy’s illogical inability to commit herself.

  ‘You’ve let a good man go,’ Jane remarked as they sat drinking tea in the Cartwright’s cottage. There was no condemnation in her tone, just regret.

  ‘I know,’ Lucy admitted softly. ‘The truth is, our Jane, when I first cast eyes on Arthur, I’d already seen this other chap I liked. It was one Saturday, when Miriam Watson and me were coming back from Dudley on the train. As soon as I saw him I knew he was the one for me, and I could tell he fancied me as well. Ever since then I’ve wanted nobody else. He was my destiny and I just knew it. But I didn’t see him again, and Arthur came along, and I was flattered at his attention, so I agreed to go out with him ’cause he was there, and I was tired of being by myself. I suppose me and Arthur fell into a sort of half-hearted courtship, never serious … Then one day, when me and Miriam went to Wolverhampton, this other chap pops up again and I’m all of a fluster. We spoke, and he told me his name was Dickie Dempster. I couldn’t get him off my mind after that, and I knew then that it was wrong to lead Arthur on, or let him think I was at all interested when I was really only interested in Dickie. But you know Arthur, our Jane. He hangs on like a limpet to a rock, and I hadn’t got the heart to tell him I didn’t want him, although I meant to. Then, last Saturday, I met Dickie again and he asked to see me this Saturday …’

  ‘So it’s handy that Arthur’s gone,’ Jane commented wryly.

  ‘But it’s a coincidence, Jane. I would’ve gone to meet this Dickie whether or no. Arthur had another row with his father and decided to leave home. He was desperate to get away – had been for ages … He asked me to marry him, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I thought he was about to from what Moses told me.’

  ‘Well, he said if I married him we could go away together. I turned him down – because of Dickie Dempster …’ Lucy sighed profoundly. ‘Do you think I’m wicked?’

  Jane sighed also and looked at her younger sister, her eyes brimming with sisterly sympathy. ‘Just foolish, I reckon, our bab. Young and foolish. ’Cause nothing might come of you seeing this Dickie Dempster, and you’ll have lost Arthur. You know the old saying – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush …’

  ‘I’m really mixed up,’ Lucy confessed. ‘Now that he’s gone, I … I wish he hadn’t … I worry about him, Jane. I hope he’ll be all right. I feel it’s all my fault.’

  ‘Arthur will survive, our Lucy,’ Jane counselled. ‘And better than most. I know we’m all afeared that he’s a bit soft, but I reckon he’s a sight tougher than any of us give him credit for, and a lot brighter up top. And if you don’t want him, our Lucy, let’s hope he meets some other decent young woman, wherever he’s gone, who’ll care for him as much as he’d care for her.’

  ‘But don’t condemn me for seeing Dickie Dempster,’ Lucy beseeched. ‘I did see him before I saw Arthur, and I think I fell in love with him the minute I set eyes on him. I’ve got to see if there’s a future with him. I just have to … Don’t you see?’

  ‘Yes, I do see,’ Jane responded gently, touching her sister’s arm reassuringly. ‘You have to follow your heart, our Lucy. If you don’t you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. And there’s no point in living your life in regrets. But if it’s all for nought and there’s nothing to show for it at the end …’

  ‘Then I’ll be as I was before … By myself, growing into an old maid. But I have to see what happens,’ she repeated earnestly. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained …’

  Saturday finally arrived. The morning dragged on interminably and Lucy was frequently looking at the clock in the packing room as she wrapped and packed finished glassware. Eliza Gallimore, her workmate, commented how distant she seemed, but Lucy just smiled enigmatically and looked at the clock again, and listened to the rain drumming on the roof and thunder crackling all around. When it was at last time to go home she hurried along the railway line to the Bull Street bridge through the deluge of rain, and entered the cottage with water dripping off her.

  ‘There’s a letter here what came while you was at work,’ Hannah said with a knowing smile. ‘I bet it’s from Arthur.’ She handed it to Lucy.

  Lucy regarded it intently. Her name was clearly written on the envelope in ornate swirls.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it and see?’

  ‘I haven’t got time now, Mother. I’ll read it on the train.’

  It was a rush to get ready. Lucy had to dry her hair, redo it, and change her undergarments before she could even think of putting on her best frock and bonnet. Even her stockings were soaked through from the downpour. Hurriedly, she ate her dinner, put the unopened letter in her reticule and went out again, anxious not to miss her train.

  Mercifully, the rain had eased off, and she stepped over the puddles of Brettell Lane as she headed for the railway station on the other side of the road. She bought her ticket and pondered Arthur again. He would almost certainly have come to the station to begin his journey to wherever it was he was bound for. No doubt his letter would reveal all.

  Lucy heard the train chugging up the line from Stourbridge, and looked to see steam emerging in powerful vertical blasts from the engine’s tall funnel as it came into view through the grey murk. She shuffled back from the edge of the platform and waited for the carriages to draw to a halt, all the time peering anxiously towards the guards’ van. If Dickie wasn’t in it she would die.

  Then she saw him. He jumped out of his van, a smile as ever on his handsome face, and her knees suddenly felt weak. It seemed like an age before he actually spotted her, but when he did he waved and ambled nonchalantly towards her.

  ‘You ain’t forgot me then,’ he said with a wink, which knotted up her insides.

  She shook her head and smiled bashfully, feeling herself blush. ‘No, I haven’t forgot you, Dickie.’

  ‘Good. Hey, you look a treat, Lucy. Nice enough to eat, you know that?’

  ‘It’s nice of you to say so.’

  ‘Here, let me see you into a second class compartment, eh?’ He winked again and handed her up into a coach, then beckoned her close to him. ‘When the train stops at Wolverhampton Low Level, just find a seat on the platform and wait for me to come to you,’ he whispered secretively. ‘I have to sign off and everything, afore I can leave.’

  She nodded her acknowledgement and smiled again, then sat near the window so that she could catch glimpses of him when they stopped at all the other stations along the way. Second class compartments were more spacious and more comfortable than third class and Lucy glanced at the two other passengers she was sharing with, a man wearing a tall hat and a woman in her thirties, very decently dressed. Neithe
r acknowledged her and Lucy felt uncomfortable, even unworthy to be travelling with them, but she gathered up her self-esteem and endeavoured not to appear overawed.

  Dickie’s whistle blew and she felt the train’s gentle movement forwards, picking up speed only slowly as it gasped and hawked up the long incline to Round Oak. She was excited, itching to be alone with Dickie, wondering where he would take her, what they would talk about, what she would discover about him. She was desperate for him to like her enough to ask to see her again. Then she thought of Arthur, and remembered his letter in her reticule. She fished it out, opened the envelope and began to slowly decipher the elaborate twists and twirls of his fancy handwriting. It read:

  My dearest Lucy,

  And so I have begun a great adventure, embarked on not out of choice, but out of necessity. For you who have such a loving and amiable relationship with your own father, it must be hard to understand how I can feel the way I do about mine. But already I feel free of his wearisome oppression and am much more content. My one abiding regret is that you are not with me, but the hope dearest to my heart is that you will change your mind and we can soon be joined in Holy Matrimony. In this, I beg you to consider the possibility more.

  As you can see from the address, I find myself in Bristol. When I caught the train on Monday morning I did not know where I would end up, so I bought a ticket for Oxford. Oxford is such a splendid place, full of beautiful architecture and I thought I might stay there. The view of the city from the railway as you enter the station is magnificent and it must be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The Spires and Domes of the Churches and Colleges make you catch your breath and there must be plenty of work for a Stonemason like myself there. But it would have been too convenient in Oxford to just get on a train and go back home. So, while I sat and ate my snap I decided I must travel further afield. Hence, I went on to Didcot, and from there on Mr Brunel’s original broad gauge Great Western Railway to Bristol. I found nice lodgings with a Mrs Hawkins, a very respectable widow.