The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  ‘You said you would.’

  ‘I didn’t go to see Isabel though.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘Well … I decided to take the coward’s way out and write to her.’

  He could hardly tell her about Myrtle and what she had revealed. He could hardly say that Dickie Dempster was not married after all, and so insinuate that, had he lived, he would have been free to marry Lucy – provided the blighter mustered the courage to defy Isabel. No, all that was best left untold.

  ‘But I thought you said she owed you money.’

  ‘I told her to forget it. I told her I’d settled the account.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Yes. I could hardly let our Talbot be saddled with half of it.’

  ‘That’s typical of you,’ she whispered and put her arm around his waist. ‘You’re just too soft, even with money.’

  ‘No, I’m not soft.’ He turned round to face her, their bodies touching. ‘It’s amazing how quickly you’ve got your figure back. I was only thinking the other day, you look just the same as you did before.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before I went to Bristol and lost you.’ He bent his head and kissed her on the mouth.

  ‘You never really lost me, Arthur … You know,’ she said reflectively, ‘some of the things that happen to us seem so terrible at the time … and yet often, I think they happen for the best … Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Who are we to question the wisdom of Fate?’ he replied, moved to use Myrtle Collins’s words, spoken to him earlier that same day.

  Lucy looked up at him, all her love in her eyes. ‘That’s very deep, coming from you.’

  ‘I can be deep, Luce. Believe it or not.’

  ‘Yes, I’m beginning to believe it … Anyway, as I was saying … I think things happened for the best for us. Don’t you?’

  ‘Unquestionably …’

  ‘I do love you, you know, Arthur. Much more than I ever thought possible.’

  ‘And I love you.’ He gave her a squeeze as he looked out at the red, fiery sky, alight again with the reflection of flaring molten iron. ‘Did you mean what you said last night, Luce?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘When you said you had desires the same as me.’

  ‘Yes. Course I meant it,’ she said softly.

  ‘Well …’ A lump came to his throat. ‘I want you …’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said simply.

  ‘Shall we then?’

  ‘I reckon now is as good a time as any.’

  They got undressed and clambered into Arthur’s bed together. It was cool and she snuggled up to his naked body for warmth. He found her lips and they kissed ardently, rolling first one way then another. Both had wondered what it might be like to share a bed with each other, he more times than enough, plaguing, torturing himself with yearning. She had idly wondered it too, before ever he had mentioned what Moses had so coarsely advised him. She had laughed at that at the time, but in those days she could not take Arthur seriously. In those days she could twist him round her little finger. But things were different now.

  His hands roamed her body inquisitively and lingered at her breasts, round and ponderous, full of the nourishment that Julia thrived on. He kissed her neck, as Isabel had taught him, scratching the tight skin slightly with his teeth. Lucy shuddered with pleasure. He continued south with his kisses, smothering her breasts. He found her nipple and lapped it hungrily, licking, sucking, tasting the very milk that Julia fed upon; the absolute, life-giving essence of her body. It was slightly sweet and sticky. The notion of sampling it, savouring it, stimulated him, arousing his passion to fever pitch as if it were some highly potent elixir of love. He manouevred himself between her legs and kissed her stomach, so smooth and firm, yet so soon after the birth of her baby. Lucy rested her thighs against his shoulder while he lapped between her legs, drinking her in, tasting her, aware of the faint, sweet aroma of her wetness. She fingered the hair of his head, pressing him to her to feel his mouth, his tongue teasing her the more, the better to enhance the pleasure.

  So this was Lucy. This was the precious, mystical, secret Lucy he’d wondered about, fantasised about. Here at last was the ultimate access to her love which had been hitherto denied him. Well, it was denied him no longer. She was his, he was hers. Yet neither were the pair of fumbling fools they might have been earlier. They had both acquired some worthwhile experience, they both knew what to do and what to expect. There might be something to be said for such amorous adventures after all, however much they were disapproved of by conventional society.

  He eased his way over her belly again, skin skimming skin, leaving a trail of wet kisses in a line over her navel, between her breasts and at her throat. She reached down for him and took him in her hand. He felt so hard and so yieldingly smooth, and the knowledge that he was as eager for her as she was for him, excited her further. With a sigh, she guided him into her, and felt his delightful weight upon her as he slid easily, lusciously inside her.

  So this was Arthur.

  Welcome home …

  Funny the way things turn out …

  Isabel responded to Arthur’s letter by return of post:

  My own dear Arthur,

  It pains me terribly that you are unable to visit me any more. I can only presume that your mother has taken a turn for the worse, thus making it impossible for you to get away. I only wish there was some way I could help. Don’t hesitate to let me know if there is something I can do.

  As for you settling the account for Dickie’s grave, I’m afraid my pride will not allow you to get away with that. I have the money now, I can afford it, and I am adamant that you should not be out of pocket. I would therefore deem it a special favour if you would call and collect it. In any case, there is another pressing matter that concerns me that I wish to discuss.

  I do hope that in the meantime your mother’s health improves, allowing you more time to pursue the things which interest you, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

  With fondest regards,

  Isabel

  The other pressing matter alluded to in Isabel’s letter that concerned her, was that she was carrying Arthur’s child.

  Chapter 29

  At the end of the first week in April Dinah took a turn for the worse. On the Friday, Arthur had noticed a deterioration in his mother so, after he had seen Lucy home – at a few minutes after nine – he decided he would sit with her and keep his eye on her. Dinah’s breathing was rapid but shallow and she was feverish, but at midnight she seemed more settled, so he retired to his own bedroom leaving a lamp burning, should she call him in the night.

  He seemed to have been asleep only minutes when he heard Dinah’s feeble calls and he dragged himself to her room.

  ‘Are you feeling worse, Mother?’

  ‘Fetch me a drop o’ whisky, our Arthur,’ she bleated. ‘It’ll perk me up a bit, and might send me off to sleep again.’

  So Arthur fetched her a cup of whisky and held it to her lips while she sipped.

  ‘I’ll sit with you a bit,’ he said consolingly. ‘I want to keep my eye on you. Let me give your pillow a shake and make it more comfortable.’ He eased her up and shook her pillow, then gently let her down again.

  ‘Ta, my son.’

  He dragged the wicker chair closer to the bed and watched, desperate for sleep, but forcing himself to stay awake. By the light of the lamp he watched the hands of the clock creep towards four, and seemed to know instinctively that this was a watershed in the life of his poor mother.

  The clock, his father’s clock, reached the hour and he heard its usual whirrings begin inside it. But the chimes had ceased to work years ago and his father, typically, would never pay to have them mended, so it remained depressingly silent, like a woman trying to gossip who had lost her voice.

  Dinah snorted in her fitful slumber and roused momentarily. She was shivering, so Arthur tipped some more coal on the fire. He rinsed h
is hands in the bowl on the washstand and felt her brow. She seemed hot, despite the shivering.

  This was never right. This was never normal, even for a woman who had broken three limbs. So he watched her attentively, often glancing at the clock. Another hour passed. Dinah awoke. She was confused, mythered.

  ‘I’ll bring you some water, Mother.’

  He went downstairs and filled a mug from a pitcher which they kept in the pantry.

  ‘Here. You’d better drink this.’ He eased her up and she sipped the water, pulled a face and he let her rest again.

  Was there any sign of the approaching dawn? Arthur went over to the window and lifted one of the drapes. There was a glimmer of light in the eastern sky.

  ‘I’m going to fetch Doctor Walker when it’s light,’ he said. ‘You should be getting better, not worse.’

  Dr Walker lived in Bell Street in a rambling rented property owned by the Earl of Dudley. It was handy for St Michael’s church of a Sunday and for the Bell Inn at other appropriate times. Arthur made his way there hurriedly as dawn was breaking. Breathing hard from rushing up the steep hill past the church, he turned into Bell Street and found the house, the front door of which opened directly onto the street. He hammered on the door.

  The house was set among tall elms, and the pigeons and magpies were already awake, flapping around and squawking, oblivious to the slumbering of their human neighbours. Arthur looked at the polished brass plate on the wall and sniffed while he waited for an answer.

  At the umpteenth knock a window above him screeched open and a nightcap appeared over the sill like a cuckoo thrust from a clock.

  ‘What the hell is going on down there?’ an angry male voice enquired. ‘Who is there?’

  Thankfully, he had flushed the right bird first time.

  ‘It’s Arthur Goodrich, Dr Walker,’ he replied apologetically. ‘From the stonemason’s down the Delph.’

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he acknowledged irritably. ‘What’s the meaning of waking me at this time of the night?’

  ‘It’s morning, Dr Walker. Its nigh on half past five. My mother’s taken a turn for the worse.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘You know. You set her broken bones after a fall … Old Jeremiah’s widow. You tended my father afore he died.’

  ‘Yes, I recall.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d come and take a look at her.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘She’s proper ill, Dr Walker, else I wouldn’t have bothered you. She’s been going downhill ever since she fell. I fear for her.’

  ‘I’ll be down in five minutes. Go back to your mother and I’ll follow you there … Oh, and have the kettle on. The least I expect for my trouble is a tot of tea with a drop of whisky in it.’

  Arthur grinned, relieved. ‘I’ll see to it, Dr Walker. Thank you.’

  ‘How long has she been like this, Arthur?’ the doctor asked when he’d examined Dinah.

  ‘A few days, steadily getting worse.’

  ‘Why didn’t you send for me sooner?’

  ‘We all thought that maybe it was just a chill she’d caught, weakened by the fall and that.’

  ‘She’s developed pneumonia,’ Dr Walker announced bluntly.

  ‘Pneumonia?’ The very word delivered a ring of dread. ‘So what are her chances?’

  ‘If I said they were better than poor, Arthur, I’d be telling a lie. She’s already shocked and weakened by her recent fall. I’ll be surprised if she recovers at all.’

  ‘So how long has she got?’

  ‘Days, perhaps. It’s hard to be precise. Normally, the tenth day is critical, but since we can’t be sure when the first day was … In any case, she might well expire before that. I’ll call in later and see how she’s faring. Get her to drink plenty of water. She needs it.’

  ‘I try, but she swears she’ll catch cholera from it.’

  ‘She should have no fear of cholera with what she’s got. Cholera is the least of her worries. Now … that tea … Is it brewed?’

  ‘It is, Doctor.’ Arthur smiled. ‘We’ll have it downstairs, eh?’

  Isabel waited more than two weeks for a reply from Arthur, but none came. The trouble was, she had no prior claim on him. She was aware he was engaged to another, so she must take second place in his affections. Their relationship had been one of sexual convenience only. He had once been on the point of declaring enduring love for her until she had stopped him, she was now frustratedly aware, suggesting that surely he could not be that susceptible and so easily diverted. After that he could never admit his love anyway, and so they had continued lying with each other when time permitted, usually on Saturday afternoons and sometimes on Wednesday evenings, when Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings did not clash with her monthly bleeding or with cricket practice, rabbit shoots or his Bible class. Now she regretted ever having inhibited him from spoken expressions of love. She knew as well as anybody that we all tend to believe our own propaganda, and if Arthur had spoken the words ‘I love you’, he would have lived them to the letter. But he had not, and so the opportunity had passed.

  She had assumed at first that the changed circumstances of which he had written in his letter referred to his mother’s fall and the consequences of that. Never did it occur to her that he and his sweetheart might have finally made an arrangement to marry. But it was all beginning to fall into place. That’s what he must have meant. And, knowing Arthur as she did, he could never share two beds. He was the honourable kind who would forsake all others and keep him only unto her; ‘her’ being that young woman she’d seen him with at the time Dickie lay injured. The one called Lucy. Pity all men were not like him.

  All the same, she felt she should oblige him by letting him know of her condition, that she was carrying his child. She had always maintained that she would never press him to choose her over that girl Lucy, but knowing he had a responsibility to herself now, she believed he should at least be given the choice. All right, it would complicate matters for him, but she owed it to herself as well as to the unborn child.

  Isabel had always been shrewd when it came to avoiding pregnancy, or she thought she had. On reflection, though, there must have been times when she had forgotten to apply a douche, or simply had fallen asleep after making love. Certainly, there had been times on their evening encounters when she had woken up to find Arthur gone to catch his train home; she had rolled over and gone back to sleep, content to wait till morning to douche herself. This child growing in her belly was the price she was paying for her complacency.

  There was only one thing for it; she must go to Arthur and tell him face to face. She had a perfectly legitimate reason to visit him anyway: to repay the money for Dickie’s grave. She had his address, she would visit him at his workshop.

  She decided not to wait till after Easter, but would go on the Thursday before it, Maundy Thursday, which fell on 21st April. Happily, the spring sun was shining, and it was warm for the time of year. So, during the morning, she collected her two children, washed them and dressed them in their second best clothes and bundled them into an omnibus which would deposit them at Low Level station. Railway travel was not strange to her; Dickie had taken her on an excursion once, and she’d had to go by train to see him when he was injured after the accident. Otherwise, it occurred infrequently. She bought return tickets for Brettell Lane station, unrecognised by any of the railway staff who saw her, and awaited the departure of the train. The children were excited about the journey, for neither had been on a train before, but she urged them to be more restrained in their exuberance and not to annoy other passengers.

  When the train slipped into Brettell Lane station, they alighted and, at the exit, she asked for directions to the Delph. Mercifully, it was not far to walk with two small children in tow.

  As she approached what she thought must be the house and workshop, set back from the road in a yard littered with worked and unworked stone, she espied some activity and decided to stand
and watch until she could discern what was happening. She wanted Arthur to catch sight of her, not to have to go looking for him. A pair of fine black horses emerged from behind the high wooden gate and it was obvious they were in harness. They were hauling a hearse that bore a coffin, a hearse bedecked with wreaths of spring flowers …

  Horses and hearse slowly entered the street, followed by a procession of black-clad mourners. Isabel tried to find a nook or crevice to hide in until the funeral procession had passed, but there was nowhere to hide. So she stood motionless with head down, ostensibly as a mark of respect, but actually so as not to draw attention to herself. She warned the children to do likewise under pain of severely smacked legs if they defied her.

  The cortège approached in solemn pageantry, and she could not help but glance up under her bonnet to catch a glimpse of the chief mourners. As she feared, Arthur was one of them. He was wearing a tall black hat, a black jacket and dark striped trousers. He looked sombre. At his side was the girl she just about remembered from the time of Dickie’s accident, the girl called Lucy, his intended. Lucy was much prettier than she remembered, with big blue eyes that emitted a glow of contentment as she flashed them at Arthur, despite the gravity and stateliness of the occasion. He smiled back at Lucy, whose arm was linked affectionately through his, and Isabel enviously witnessed his look of love and devotion.

  She sighed and turned away lest Arthur recognise her. She had not reckoned on this and she did not know what to do. Fancy having the ill luck to choose the day of a funeral to make her visit and stake her claim. She presumed Arthur’s ailing mother had passed away.

  But what should she do now? It was obviously not the best of times to see Arthur, even if she waited till they returned. So she resigned herself to tarrying a moment or two longer, till the procession had gone by and was out of sight.

  When it had turned the corner, Isabel approached the yard, fired by curiosity. She stood at the open gate for a few seconds taking in what she saw. So this was Arthur’s home and his place of work. It could be none other than a stonemason’s yard with all the paraphernalia of the craft so liberally and so randomly strewn about. Blocks of granite, slabs of marble and slate, urns, vases, planks of wood, a rickety old cart with the shafts, paint peeling off, resting on the ground.