The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  She laughed happily. ‘So did you.’

  ‘I din’t do anything. I felt no pain, ’cept for the agony of watching you going through it.’

  ‘You was here with me.’

  ‘Course I was. There was nowhere else for me to go.’ He gave her a loving squeeze and looked into her eyes, peaceful now, content. ‘Thank you for giving me a perfect little daughter.’

  ‘You gave it to me first. I just looked after it while it grew inside me.’

  ‘What do we do with that cord?’

  ‘We cut it, and tie it off. The rest of it’s due to come away from me any minute.’

  ‘I’d better get a knife then.’ He moved to get up from the bed.

  ‘A sharp one, Moses. And make sure it’s been washed in hot water and soda …’

  ‘Lord, the water … I bet as it’s all boiled away by now. I bet the kettle’s buggered an’ all.’

  At about half past seven, when it was getting darker Moses, lying alongside Jane, listened for the sound of the child’s breathing. There was a hush everywhere. After the frantic ravings of the gale it was as if a blanket had fallen over everything, muffling all sounds. He could hear Jane’s breathing as she slept, drained of strength after her excruciating pushes and exertions. A late shaft of sunlight shot from behind a cloud, painting the tiny room a rich shade of orangey-red. Moses leaned over to the chest of drawers that stood under the window, and looked with wonder at his beautiful daughter lying in the half-open top drawer that was her crib. The baby licked her lips with a tiny pink tongue and rubbed one closed eye awkwardly with a tiny fist, and tears filled his eyes again at the wondrous enormity of what had come to pass that day.

  He roused himself and scuffled downstairs and picked up his crutch. The fire needed making up, but he lit a spill from it and ignited two oil lamps, one of which he would take with him upstairs. He placed coal from the coal bucket on the hearth onto the fire and poured water from the pitcher into the kettle, whistling as he worked. He heard the door latch rattle and turned to see who it was. Haden entered, with Lucy behind him. They were on their way to the Whimsey.

  ‘Any sign yet, Moses?’

  ‘Sign? Sign o’ what?’

  ‘Of e’er a babby, yer fool.’

  ‘Oh, a babby … Funny you should mention it … One just happened to pop out this afternoon.’ He grinned, unable to keep up his sarcasm any longer. ‘A little wench.’

  ‘You mean, our Jane’s had the bab today?’ Haden’s old eyes sparkled with the reflection of the oil lamp as he looked at Lucy for her reaction.

  ‘This afternoon, like I said.’

  Lucy shrieked with excitement and headed for the stairs. ‘Are they both all right? Can I go up and see?’

  ‘Why didn’t you send for Hannah?’ Haden asked.

  ‘I did. I went down to fetch her, but there was nobody in.’

  Haden nodded. ‘She’ll go potty when she knows. She went to Stourbridge, and our Lucy went t’Ampton to see Dickie bloody Dempster … Can I go up and see the bab an’ all?’

  ‘If you’ve a mind, Haden.’

  ‘Then I’ll trot back ’um and tell Hannah.’

  ‘Oh, our Jane, she’s beautiful,’ Lucy cooed, peering into the top draw of the chest at her new niece. ‘Can I hold her?’

  ‘Course.’

  Gently, Lucy lifted the child and pressed her to her bosom. ‘She’s so tiny, our Jane. Look at her little fingernails. Oh, our Jane, isn’t she beautiful? Has she fed yet?’

  Jane nodded. ‘She finished about a half hour ago.’

  ‘So who was here when you had her?’

  ‘Just Moses.’

  ‘Just Moses?’

  Jane nodded again. ‘He was a brick. He coped as well as any midwife. ’Cept when he nearly fainted. I had to threaten him then.’ She grinned with pride.

  Lucy looked at the baby with instant love. ‘I wish she’d open her eyes so I can see them. Oh, anytime you want me to look after her, our Jane, just say the word … Have you decided what to call her yet?’

  ‘We ain’t thought about it properly.’

  ‘Dickie likes the name Julia.’

  ‘Yes, that’s nice. It’s funny how the old-fashioned names come round again.’

  Haden appeared at the top of the stairs in the bedroom.

  ‘Hear that, Father?’ Lucy said. ‘Moses delivered the baby.’

  ‘Moses?’ Haden queried with a look of surprise. ‘He’s got more guts then me.’

  The courtship between Lucy and Dickie Dempster continued to flourish. She slavishly went to Wolverhampton every Saturday afternoon, and their routine never varied. They continued to visit the Old Barrel in Boblake and he would pay for an upstairs room where they spent the afternoon in bed making love ardently and with ever-increasing finesse. Lucy’s hope that he might take her somewhere else afterwards was a forlorn one; once he was sated he had no further use for her. So they went their separate ways homeward, Lucy to catch the six o’ clock to be in time for work at the Whimsey, he to do whatever it was he chose to do on a Saturday night.

  Wednesday nights he continued to travel to Brettell Lane where she met him off the train and they would go for walks, or sit in a public house drinking beer – the Bell Hotel was a favourite. Sometimes they even sat with Hannah in the Piddocks’ cottage. It all depended on the weather. Monday nights had been added to the agenda lately; it was an added opportunity to be together and Lucy welcomed it with all her heart. With their heightened desire rampant, every occasion to express it was a bonus. They made love vertically against the wall, hidden in some recess along the canal when it was dark and they were undetectable. Sometimes they writhed in long grass over the fields if it was dry and the wind not too chilly. Dickie only had to touch her and she wanted him … and he knew it.

  The subject of marriage had been alluded to, mostly by Lucy. She had asked him questions as to his feelings on the subject and she had been encouraged by his responses. Maybe they could think of marriage, he’d said, when they’d been courting a couple of years. If she ever became pregnant, he said he would do the right thing by her. Meanwhile, of course, it made sense to be careful, and he was careful. It would be folly, he told her, to invite trouble by allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed with passion that you forgot yourself and were unable to withdraw in time.

  So far they’d had a couple of scares when Lucy, normally regular, was a week or so late. Thankfully, both turned out to be false alarms, but it focused Dickie’s mind on the realities of life even more, and he began to take his responsibilities even more seriously. The stigma if he made her pregnant would be unbearable, she told him, even if they married as soon as she realised she was carrying. Think of her poor mother, what she would have to put up with, a regular chapel-goer. Her father, too, would have something to say …

  But all these enforced restrictions on their ardour only served to heighten their mutual lust. And Saturday afternoons they looked forward to immensely, if only because they had a soft warm bed in which they could lie together, at ease and in relative comfort. Much preferable to dusty fields with unspeakable insects wriggling beneath you, or rough brick walls to lean against while you stood up to do it, all the time peering about you to make sure no ganners were watching. A comfortable marriage bed would be the perfect answer to all these hindrances, Lucy realised.

  A taste of it was put before them when, towards the end of May, Jane asked if Lucy would be prepared to look after little Emily for them one evening. Emily was the name they had given the baby. Lucy, who loved the child to distraction, would have been delighted except that it fell on a Wednesday night, which interfered with her courting schedule.

  ‘So bring him here,’ Jane suggested logically. ‘Moses and me have got no objection.’

  ‘That would be perfect if Dickie could be with me,’ Lucy replied with a grateful smile. ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘We had a letter to say as Moses’s Aunt Sarah’s been took bad. The old dear’s in her eighti
es and he reckons this is the end for her, so he wanted to go and see her, for she brought him up. But I don’t reckon it’d be a good place to take our Emily if there’s sickness about. Trouble is, the old woman lives at Priestfield, so it means going there on the train.’

  So, before Lucy bid Dickie goodnight on the prior Monday, she asked that he call for her at the Cartwrights’ cottage in South Street. ‘And I’ll have some supper ready for you,’ she promised.

  Wednesday night rolled round and Lucy, after her meal, made her way to her sister’s house.

  ‘The baby’s had a good feed, our Lucy,’ Jane informed her before she and Moses left. ‘So she should sleep sound. Put her in her new crib when you reckon she’s ready.’ Little Emily was familiar with her Aunt Lucy through her frequent attentions, so Jane had no qualms about leaving the baby with her. ‘There’s coal in the coal bucket and water in the kettle. Just mind what you’m up to,’ she added with a wink, realising full well that Lucy would not. ‘See you later.’

  With her cooing baby talk, Lucy managed to eke out a toothless smile from Emily before she put her to bed. Anyway, there was no rush. She wanted Dickie to see the baby, how she had come on, how pleasant she was. But Emily fell asleep before Dickie arrived, and she answered the door to him with the baby in her arms.

  ‘A babby suits you,’ he said with a broad grin as she let him in. ‘You’d make a beautiful mother. I love to see a young woman with a bab in her arms.’

  ‘Do you now?’ she answered perkily. ‘I think it depends on the young woman and whether she’s wed or no.’ She offered her lips.

  He kissed her and she stood aside to let him in. ‘Whether she’s wed or no,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing to stop her doing the thing what causes kids, but so sure as she has one and ain’t wed, there’s all hell to pay.’

  ‘Course there is. Because having a child before you’m wed, proves you’ve been naughty.’

  ‘I like being naughty with you, Luce.’

  She smiled affectionately. ‘I like being naughty with you as well. But to my mind, the sin ain’t in the doing of it, the sin is in being found out.’ She swivelled her eyes down momentarily towards the child. ‘What do you think of her now? D’you think she’s come on since last time you saw her?’

  ‘She’s a little boster and no two ways. How long’s she been asleep?’

  ‘A while now. I suppose I should put her in her crib. You should see her new crib, Dickie … Open the door to the stairs for me, please, and we’ll take her up.’

  He opened it and she ascended the narrow twisting staircase. Dickie followed her on tiptoe so as not to awaken the child with unnecessary clumping of his boots on the bare wooden stairs.

  ‘There,’ Lucy said, nodding into the corner of the bedroom where the crib stood. ‘Isn’t it lovely? Moses went and fetched it Saturday. Lord knows how he managed to carry it from Brierley Hill, but Jane reckons he did. He’d do anything for his daughter.’ She took the baby to the crib and laid her in it carefully, making sure she was not too restricted with swaddling blankets. ‘Oh, isn’t she a picture, Dickie? Come and have a look at her …’

  He stepped over to them and gazed at the baby, then looked into Lucy’s pale blue eyes that were like saucers in the half light. ‘She looks a bit like you, you know.’

  ‘There’s bound to be some family resemblance,’ she answered logically.

  ‘She could be your little daughter for all anybody knew.’

  ‘Then she’d have to be your daughter as well, Dickie.’

  He held out his hand to her and she took it. They were standing at the side of a bed that looked soft and inviting, and they turned to face each other. She rested her head against his chest, then he lifted her face to his and kissed her on the lips affectionately. Dusk was neutralising the colour of everything, but its subdued greyness managed to send enough illumination through the small window for them to see each other’s expressions clearly. Looking deeply into her eyes, he undid the tie of her pinafore behind her and let it fall to the floor. Then he unbuttoned the front of her blouse and, when it opened, he pushed it back over her shoulders and down her arms, and that fell whispering to the floor too. He unfastened the waist-band of her skirt and that, as well, fell around her feet.

  ‘I’ll do the rest,’ she whispered with a smile.

  As she divested herself of the rest of her clothes he took off his boots and got undressed. Naked, she shivered at the cool air of that May evening and jumped into the bed first, snuggling under the layers of blankets and sheets for warmth.

  He got in beside her. ‘I hope Jane and Moses won’t mind us using their bed.’

  ‘It’s in a good cause,’ she said softly.

  ‘Oh, I know it well enough, my flower.’

  ‘No, I mean looking after the baby, Dickie,’ she quipped.

  ‘That’s what I mean. You’re my baby.’

  ‘Hold me,’ she breathed. ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘I’ll soon warm you.’

  The warmth from his body was irresistible. It was almost as familiar to her as her own by now, yet she never tired of the feel of him against her own skin. His body was smooth and firm. She closed her eyes as she sensually brushed her soft lips over his shoulders and his neck, caressing his skin that was so smooth to her touch. He pushed himself against her and she held him there, her hand cupped around one firm buttock, holding him tight. Already he was hard and ready, and she could feel him pressed against her belly, such an exhilarating sensation. As she rolled onto her back submissively his hands gently skimmed first across her breast, over her stomach and settled within her mound of soft hair. They kissed again and she was feeling warmer already.

  ‘I wonder who a child of ours would look like?’ he remarked, his fingers gently probing the soft, warm place between her legs and making her writhe with pleasure.

  ‘Like me,’ she sighed.

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘I would never say it looked like you … Unless we was wed. We’d have to get wed, Dickie …’

  ‘Shut up and kiss me again.’

  They kissed earnestly. His skilful touch and his smooth skin pressing against her lit her up like a gas lamp, as it always did. Sensuously, he rolled onto her and she let out a little sigh of anticipation, then a gasp of pleasure as she felt him slide silkily, familiarly inside her. There was no mistaking their mutual hunger as they rocked together in harmony, eking out as much pleasure as they could from the sensations they elicited in each other.

  But there was something different about that evening. Something mystical.

  The reddish-grey light of dusk outside was affording the room a suitably romantic amount of illumination, enough to see each other clearly, enough for him to appreciate the refined contours of her body as he raised himself up so that he could look down on her and admire her. Her beautiful eyes seemed even bigger in this gloaming, even softer as she looked up at him, her smiling love brimming over. Her nipples, standing proud, shimmered where he had smothered them in hot wet kisses. There was something magical about a beautiful baby lying there in the same room, as if it were their child and they were in their own marital bed. He remembered the way she looked holding the baby when she opened the door to him. He gazed at her glistening nipples again and imagined their wetness caused by the baby’s gently sucking lips, and the thought aroused him way beyond his usual intensity. He began moving inside her more strenuously, fired by the sensuality of his thoughts, desperate to feel that sweet, sweet glow in his loins that would bring with it complete fulfilment and peace. That unmistakable sensation was building inexorably in the epicentre of his very being and this time he lacked the will to control himself. He screwed his eyes up, clenched his teeth and uttered a low groan of satisfaction and release as he emptied himself inside her. Then, he slumped back into her arms, spent and breathing hard from his exertion.

  ‘Dickie, you let go inside me,’ she breathed without admonishment, stroking him lovingly.

  He
nodded, his face wet with sweat against her hair. ‘I couldn’t help it, Luce,’ he sighed. ‘I just had to … I always knew it would end up like this with you.’

  Chapter 17

  Towards the end of May, Arthur Goodrich received a letter from his brother Talbot, which read:

  Dearest Brother,

  I feel that I should write and let you know that Father’s health is in rapid decline. Over the past few months he has been unwell and getting progressively worse. He needs constant attention, which has occupied Mother to the detriment of all else. Magnolia too has been spending much time helping to nurse him while Albert has been at school. Dr Walker says the old man has a malignant growth in his bowel and that his time on this earth is going to be short, although he cannot say how short.

  Because of Father’s illness, the business has suffered. I have much more work than I can cope with and whilst Moses Cartwright is a godsend helping with all the necessary tasks that have to be done around the yard and the workshop, he is by no means either a skilled letter cutter or a mason, although he tries hard and in the fullness of time I’m sure he will become very able within the limits of his incapacity. Certainly he is very willing, especially nowadays.

  Mother is in a perpetual tizz, not only with Father, but worrying about you as well. I know you write to her from time to time but she is your mother after all and she can’t help worrying about you. I think it’s about time you returned home, Arthur. I am desperate for your help and skill in the business. Besides, I earnestly believe you should make your peace with Father before he passes on. It would be the honourable thing to do, especially as he keeps asking where you are. It goes without saying that Mother would welcome you back whole heartedly into the bosom of the family.

  Arthur, please respond to this letter by return, so that I may present Mother with some news a little more heartening. Magnolia sends her love (as does Albert) and says she looks forward to seeing you again very soon.

  Yours truly, your brother,