Off the Rails

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘I will call again tomorrow,’ he said, when he’d escorted her back to Monkgate. ‘Perhaps Mr Hudson will be returned by then.’

  That made her smile, knowing Mr Hudson. ‘What if he’s not here?’ she asked.

  ‘Then we will take another cup of coffee together and I will call again the next day.’

  And the next, and the next for five happy sun-filled days, until their daily walk around the town had almost become a habit and her staff were beginning to wonder why she was always out at the market.

  9

  IT WAS A MAGICAL summer. The long easy days floated past like thistledown, the city drowsed, the River Ouse sunned itself silky, church bells sang like birds, sunsets were evening enchantments. It was the best possible season for falling in love.

  Jane and Mr Cartwright took a walk in one direction or another every afternoon as soon as she was free to take a pause from the work of the day. Lizzie didn’t seem to mind and there was no George Hudson to chivvy her about. Sometimes they strolled through the city along the banks of the Ouse, when it wasn’t too evil-smelling, but more often they followed the little River Fosse through the fields beyond the city walls, where the sky was china blue above their heads, ripe corn breathed out a wholesome scent of baked bread and skylarks rose from the fields around them to trill and bubble in their spiralling upward flight. And they talked about themselves, for what is sweeter in a young summer time than the mutual revelation of hopes and dreams.

  On their fifth afternoon, she told him about her life in Scrayingham with her mother and father and how happy they’d been, ‘although to tell ’ee true, most of the time we were that poor we didn’t have two happence to rub together.’ And he told her he’d been born and bred in Leeds, ‘which was a rough sort of place, or at least some of it was, though I never saw it that way when I was living there’ and that he had been an only child, with a widowed mother.

  ‘My father was a jeweller,’ he said with obvious affection. ‘A very patient man and very skilled. I can remember him sitting at his bench, turning a diamond round and round until he could understand how to cut it. We used to live in the flat over the shop in those days and I would tiptoe into the workshop sometimes and watch him. I had to be very quiet and not interrupt him, because if he made one false move the stone would be ruined, but that was no hardship. It was wonderful to see him working. He made some beautiful rings.’ And he sighed, his face full of sadness.

  ‘You miss him,’ Jane said, understanding completely. For wouldn’t she miss her own parents if they were to die.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘He was a good man. If it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have gone to school and if I hadn’t gone to school I wouldn’t have been an engineer and worked on the railway. I’ve a lot to thank him for.’

  Fancy going to school, Jane thought, and she had a sudden sharp memory of her little Felix as he turned to say goodbye to her and wondered how he was. ‘Did you go away to school?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m very glad to say. I would have found it hard if I’d had to leave home. No, I went to the old grammar school. They’ve built a new one now but I went to the old one.’

  So she told him about Felix and how sad he’d been when he’d had to leave home and go to Eton. ‘Poor little thing. He was no age and he did cry.’

  ‘’Tis a mortal hard thing for a child to leave home,’ he said.

  The sympathy in his answer raised another sudden memory and this one was even sharper than the first. She was fifteen again and anguished, begging to be allowed to stay just one more night, with her unborn baby kicking at her ribs and the carter waiting at the door. Tears welled into her eyes before she could prevent them and she had to duck her head and try to hide under the brim of her bonnet before he could see them.

  But he was a much keener observer than she knew and was touched by the sight of her remembered distress. Until that moment she’d seemed so sure of herself, neat and assured and capable in her grey gown, like most of the housekeepers he’d met – only prettier with those thick dark curls escaping from under her cap and those dark eyes watching him as he spoke. Now her vulnerability pulled at his heart and that was something that had never happened to him before.

  ‘Time for our coffee, I think,’ he said. ‘This heat is a rare thing for provoking a thirst.’

  By the time they reached the coffee house she had recovered her poise but he decided to change the subject of their conversation so as to be quite sure he didn’t provoke her tears again and spent a little while telling her about some of the towns and villages he’d passed through when he was working on the railway. And she listened and admired, thinking how wonderful it must have been to have travelled so far and seen so much. That’s why he’s got such a strong face, she thought, and such a smile.

  Her admiration was so open he could hardly avoid noticing it and after a while he knew he was basking in it. Being admired wasn’t something he was used to but every moment he spent with this delectable woman was opening him up to unfamiliar emotions. He’d never been one to brag or to think particularly well of himself. He did his work, to the best of his ability, enjoyed the company of the work-gangs, ate well, drank deep, took his pay and thought no more about it. Now he was bragging and he knew it. He wanted her admiration, that was the truth of it.

  It was a sad moment to both of them when their afternoon together had to come to an end. As usual he escorted her back to Monkgate and, as usual, stood on the river bank with his hand resting on the garden gate, admiring her pretty face in the sunshine.

  ‘’Tis Sunday tomorrow,’ he observed.

  ‘Aye. So ’tis.’

  ‘Happen I shall see you at church,’ he said, trying to make the suggestion sound casual and failing. ‘’Tis Holy Trinity, is it not?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said and wondered if he would be able to find her in that little crowded place.

  He not only found her, he squeezed into the pew beside her, so that they sat thigh touching thigh, which was a delicious private pleasure, and shared the same hymn sheet and said the same prayers and then when they were saying ‘Peace be with you’ he took both her hands in his and held them for a wonderfully long time. And while the sermon droned on, he turned his head and winked at her as if they were conspirators, which was another pleasure, for it was a secret moment between them and it gave her the now familiar sensation of being lifted off her feet. It really was amazing how he could do that simply by looking at her.

  After the service he walked her back to Monkgate and asked, as usual, if she would walk with him again the next day, always providing Mr Hudson wasn’t returned. But they both knew the answer now. It had become a routine.

  That afternoon she asked him what it was like to build the railway.

  ‘’Twas laborious,’ he said, which wasn’t bragging for it was nothing more than the truth. ‘We were out in the open country in all weathers, you see, which was easy enough when ’twas warm and dry as it is today but not so pleasant when ’twas wet or cold, for we slept in tents and there’s not much comfort in a tent when it’s cold. But if you’re cutting your way through a hillside, there’s no stopping for the weather. We work come rain or shine.’

  ‘Did you really cut through a hillside?’ she asked. It sounded too amazing to be true.

  ‘We cut through several hillsides,’ he told her. ‘We had to. The one thing a steam train can’t do is climb a steep hill – they can manage a gradual incline but not a hill – so we either have to cut out an embankment to make way for them or tunnel through it. ’Tis a rare old job.’

  She was impressed. ‘It sounds it,’ she said.

  ‘Mr Stephenson says we’re driving an iron road into the future,’ he told her, ‘and that’s my opinion of it too. Nothing will ever be quite the same once the railways are built. There’ll be no toiling away in some old stagecoach or riding horseback in the rain. We shall ride in carriages and we shall ride at speed. Give us a year or two, and I tell you the world a
nd his wife will be riding rails from one end of the kingdom to the other.’ His face was flushed by the thought of it. ‘They’ll get up in the morning and leave their homes and ride off for a day beside the sea or out in the nearest market town. Think of that. Working men and women who’ve never travelled more than a few miles in the whole of their lives, riding down to London to see the sights.’

  ‘All that way!’ she said, wondering at it.

  ‘All that way.’

  ‘I’ve never been further than York,’ she told him rather wistfully. ‘And I’d not have come here had it not been for work.’

  He beamed at her, too full of the importance of what he’d been saying to be properly cautious. ‘When the tracks are down, I will take you to London,’ he promised. And when she raised her eyebrows in disbelief, he thought he’d better add, ‘If you will permit me and you would like to go there.’

  ‘I would love to,’ she said, and then blushed, realizing how forward that sounded. It was one thing to walk out with him of an afternoon but quite another to suggest that she would like to travel all the way to London with him. She must find some way to put this right. ‘Howsomever,’ she said, attempting a jest, ‘I can’t imagine it ever coming about.’

  He wasn’t deterred in the slightest. ‘Oh, ’twill come about,’ he told her. ‘As sure as sunlight. I’ll lay money on it.’

  Neither of them slept very well that night. The heat was oppressive and the smell of the night soil being gathered was so nauseating that they had to keep the windows shut until the work was done. But it wasn’t the heat or the stink that kept them wakeful, bad though they were. In Jane’s case it was delighted disbelief, in Nathaniel Cartwright’s it was the resurgence of a dream.

  While he’d been working on the railway he’d sustained himself through the long cold nights and the back-breaking days by indulging in a daydream. One day, when the railway was built, he would take his pay and find a house of his own and settle down there with a good woman. The details were usually vague because he really didn’t have very much idea what sort of house he would like and as to the woman he would marry, she was nothing but a shadow for he was too shy to go courting and found that most of the marriageable women he’d met, in church or at the playhouse or in various coffee houses, were either sharp and witty and decidedly offputting or as shy and tongue-tied as he was. But the dream had gone on notwithstanding its lack of detail and it had been a steadying comfort to him. Now, when he wasn’t expecting it at all, he knew he had met the woman he wanted to marry. And just at the right time, for he had sufficient pay to buy a house and he’d met his delectable Mrs Smith. She was the very flesh of his dreams: pretty, gentle, quick-witted without being offputting in the least, a good housekeeper, practical – look at the way she’d found him an inn – and yet with that touching vulnerability about her that made him want to protect her and look after her. He’d never felt that way for anybody except his mother, which was different, and yet here he was dreaming of throwing his cloak at her feet. He could barely believe his good fortune.

  I mustn’t rush this, he told himself. I came close to it this afternoon when I told her I’d take her to London. He remembered how she’d blushed. Was that pleasure or confusion? Thinking back on it, he couldn’t tell. But now that he knew what he wanted, his senses were roaring for speed. If only he knew a bit more about how a courtship should progress. He knew so little. For instance, how long do you have to walk out together before you can speak? It had been six days since they met. Was that long enough? How will I know when it’s the right time? And what should I say? It was all very strange and puzzling but undeniably exciting.

  He could hear the sound of brooms being used very vigorously, somewhere near at hand, and realized that the street cleaners had arrived which meant that the night soil men must have finished their work and gone, so he walked across to the window and flung it wide. The moon was full and the roofs of the town were silvered with its light. This is a beautiful world, he thought, I have money in my pocket and work a-plenty and I’ve found the woman I’m going to marry. Everything is possible.

  Jane Jerdon was standing at her window too, leaning on the sill and enjoying the moonlight. Her attic bedroom was a lonely place now that Milly slept in the nursery but, for once, she was glad of her solitude. Her emotions were in such turmoil she needed time and peace to make sense of them. A week ago, she was diligently getting on with her work, glad of Milly’s company about the house, sorry for poor Lizzie because the baby was making her so uncomfortable, accepting that this was all her life had to offer but more or less happy with her lot, sustained by good food, good ale and her private dream of revenge, now she dreamed of walking through the warm fields with Mr Cartwright and woke in the morning in a rush of happiness because she was going to see him again. They might even go to London together and that was something she would never have imagined a few short days ago – nor agreed to so easily. It was as if she’d become a different person, as if her life had been turned inside out, as if she was walking in her sleep. It couldn’t be love, could it? And yet, if she was honest, she knew she would like it to be. No, it was stronger than that. She wanted it to be. He was the kindest man she’d ever met and the most interesting and as unlike George Hudson as it was possible for him to be. I don’t know where you are, Mr horrible Hudson, she thought, but I hope you stay there for a very long time.

  It was a decided disappointment to her when the horrible Mr Hudson returned a mere two days later. He arrived full of bustling importance and hadn’t been in the house more than five seconds before he was ordering everybody about, giving orders to Jane and Mrs Cadwallader about a grand supper party he intended to host, and as soon as he heard that Mr Cartwright had arrived in town, sending the boot boy to ‘tell the gentleman to call this afternoon’. That turned out to be another disappointment, because although Mr Cartwright arrived very promptly, she didn’t get a chance to see him because the horrible Mr Hudson took him over at once and completely.

  ‘Must apologize for not being here to greet you, Mr Cartwright,’ he said, holding out his hand to his guest as he was ushered into the parlour. ‘A deal too much needing my attention, that’s the trouble. But all in the line of business, d’ye see, so all to t’good. Property and so forth. Where are you staying?’ And when he was told it was the Star and Garter, he approved at once. ‘Capital place. Get ’em to send the bill here to me. Have you dined?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then you must dine wi’ me. No, no, I’ll not tek no for an answer and anyroad you’ll be doing me a kindness for otherwise I shall dine on my own, what I can’t abide. Mrs Hudson needs a deal of rest nowadays, d’ye see, being in the family way. We can talk railways over the roast.’

  Which they did, at considerable length and to the accompaniment of large quantities of red wine, followed by a bottle of excellent brandy. Mr Cartwright felt as if his head was slipping sideways off his shoulders by the time the meal was over and he staggered as he rose from the table.

  George was delighted. It always pleased him when he found someone who couldn’t hold his liquor as well as he could himself. It made him feel superior. He slapped his guest between the shoulder blades and roared with laughter at him. ‘We’ll take a turn in t’garden,’ he said. ‘Clear our heads. You can meet the wife. She’s allus in t’garden.’

  She was lying in the hammock embedded in a mound of cushions, red in the face, hugely fat and taking lemonade with her dear Jane who had carried it out into the garden not two minutes since. As George walked towards her along the path, she was squealing and flapping her hands at a swarm of wasps that were climbing up the side of her glass and buzzing round her head.

  ‘’Tis the plums!’ she cried as the two men drew near. ‘’Tis allus the same this time of year. They won’t leave me alone, dratted things.’ And she flapped her hands again as the wasps darted towards her. ‘Oh, go away do, for pity’s sake.’

  George ignored her plight. ‘My love,’ he sa
id, giving her his stern look and flicking a wasp away from his shirt front, ‘allow me to present Mr Cartwright, who has come to be my railway engineer and work on my railway.’ And when she’d recovered herself sufficiently to say that she was pleased to meet him, he then introduced Jane to Mr Cartwright, adding as an afterthought, ‘And this is my housekeeper, Mrs Smith.’

  Mr Cartwright turned his head and gave Jane a decidedly conspiratorial smile as she looked up from the lemonade jug. And again that extraordinary sensation of being lifted off her feet. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We’ve met.’

  Lizzie caught the intonation and saw the smile and understood that something significant was going on between this new acquaintance and her Jane. She looked up at her husband to see whether he’d seen it too but he was much too full of himself to notice anything if it didn’t immediately concern him and had already turned away from her.

  ‘We’ll tek a turn through town, when you’ve cleared your head,’ he said, leading his guest towards the river at the end of the garden, ‘and I’ll show you the parcel of land I’ve bought for my railway. I’ll be glad of your opinion on’t.’

  So they walked across the city, keeping up a brisk pace despite being jostled by the crowds, past the looming towers of the Minster and the higgledy-piggledy shops in Goodramgate, through Thursday market where the stalls stood empty, across the river and finally out through Micklegate Bar into the fields beyond the wall.

  ‘There ’tis,’ George Hudson said. ‘What do ’ee think?’

  It was a large patch of scrubland that stretched west from the grass banks below the city wall and north to the towpath alongside the river and they had it almost entirely to themselves apart from a pair of black and white goats who were grazing the rough grasses and lifted their heads briefly to glare at them.