by Mary Mackie
The scream of the train’s whistle startled me and I saw a group of bullocks lumber away from the line, ungainly shapes blurred by a rising mist. Condensation on the window haloed a glow of light ahead. Steam billowed by like a phantasm in the dusk and a judder ran through the carriages as the train slowed, its whistle announcing our imminent arrival at Wolferton.
The last time I had seen the place it had been a quiet hamlet invaded by gangs of men driving the railway along the edge of the Wash. Now, amid a cloud of steam and wind-blown ashes, we slid into a cave of light. The brilliant blaze from a score of lanterns showed up fresh cream paint and polished brasswork. Someone had contrived to have chrysanthemums in pots hanging from iron brackets; flags hung limply in the damp evening, and the railway staff were spruced up like soldiers on parade.
In my absence, sleepy Wolferton had become an important place; it was now the gateway to royal Sandringham, home of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Struggling with bag, umbrella and cumbersome black skirts, I gained the platform. Men unloaded goods from the guard’s van with a deal of shouting and clatter, and from an open third-class carriage a man in working clothes emerged to hurry off towards the village.
‘Carry yore bag, miss?’ A porter touched his cap beside me, bending to relieve me of the weight of my valise. ‘Is this all yore luggage?’
‘No. No, there’s a trunk…’ I glanced at the rear of the train, where a portmanteau was being manhandled on to the platform. ‘Yes, that one, with the black strapping.’
‘Someone meeting you, is there?’
‘I’m not sure.’ My thoughts were sluggish with exhaustion. ‘If no one comes, I’ll leave the trunk to be collected later.’
As I followed him towards the exit, doors slammed and a whistle blew. The train exhaled, panting slowly at first as it gathered strength to take the weight of its carriages and draw them off into the night.
In the station yard, a man was hefting boxes into a wagon already laden with rough-cut timber. The wind came keen, and the first spots of rain dashed silver across the light. I raised my umbrella, angling it against the wind to peer into the darkness by the gate. There was no sign of anyone waiting.
‘Did they know what train you was a-takin’?’ the porter asked.
‘I didn’t tell them the exact time, but they knew—’ Looking at him fully for the first time, I saw his shattered face. His whole left cheek was sunken beneath scar tissue, as if the bone had been blasted away, taking most of his ear with it. ‘They knew I’d be coming today,’ I went on, aware that the pause must have betrayed my horror. ‘I’ll wait a while. If no one comes, I’ll walk.’
‘Walk, miss? But that’ll soon be dark.’
‘It’s not far. I can manage.’
As he bent to put my bag on the ground, I dug in my reticule for some change, torn by pity and guilt.
He accepted the coin, touching the peak of his cap in salute. ‘Thank you, Miss Rose.’
Surprised, I looked again into his ravaged face and saw beyond the scars to a steady stare that stirred echoes in my memory and set ants of horror crawling in my scalp.
‘Davy Timms, miss,’ he answered my unspoken question.
I stared at him, my mind working, picturing him as I had known him, how long ago? – ten years, perhaps, when I was a child and he a carter’s boy going off to find glory with the army, in India. His sister Pam, our housemaid, had been thrilled with her handsome brother in his uniform, then worried to tears when the mutiny erupted, filling the newspapers with accounts of atrocities. Davy Timms had been declared missing, presumed dead.
‘Timms!’ I managed. ‘Forgive me. I hadn’t expected… I’m glad to see you came home safely, after all.’
‘Yes, miss,’ was all he said, his disfigured face unreadable.
I wished I could express my sympathy, but the only words I could find at that moment were: ‘And how is your sister?’
‘Pretty well, miss. Two young ’uns round her skirts now and another on the way. And you, miss?’ A glance swept me, from eyes that seemed to glitter with speculation.
The chill that washed over me had little to do with the weather. What gossip had spread, whispered and tittered around the villages by courtesy of the boy, Finch? Would it start again, now that I was home? I had forgotten there would be that to face, too.
‘I’m well,’ I said. ‘Are you, er, always this spick and span, or are you expecting important travellers?’
‘The Prince of Wales is due in this evening. If you wait long enough, you’ll see ’im. ’Course, I shan’t be around then. They alluss send me off afore any important people come through. I was good enough to fight their fights for ’em, but they don’t want to have to look at what it done to me.’
As I struggled for a reply, a voice from the station building bawled, ‘Timms! Get back in ’ere, bor, there’s work to do afore you slope off!’
Davy Timms touched the peak of his cap again, though his eyes remained hard and bold as he backed away.
Making my way to the gate, I stared out through fading light, my head throbbing. Distress pressed at the base of my throat like a lead ingot. There was no sign of a cart. Oh, I hadn’t really expected anyone to meet me, but still I had hoped… Foolish hope. Convention had summoned me back, not forgiveness. I had had to come home. I had to be with my family. Because…
Victor.
My brother’s name lay like an uneven flagstone across the path of my thoughts. Every time I came to it, I baulked and tripped, every encounter bringing fresh pain. But I must be strong. The others would need my strength: Mama, Grace, young Johnny, and… and, yes, perhaps even my father. He would be devastated by his loss; that much I knew. Perhaps this dreadful tragedy would bring us closer at last.
Taking a deep breath, umbrella and crinoline buffeted by the breeze, I strode out of the lamplit yard into deceptive half-light that crowded beyond the gate. If someone from Orchards was on the way to meet me, I would be bound to encounter him on the road. If not, there were only four miles or so to walk.
An intermittent drizzle seeped from moving clouds behind which the sky was streaked with cold light. The road was a grey ribbon winding away up across the scrubby heath. After weeks of damp autumn weather it was churned into sticky ruts, mute evidence of the traffic that plied to and from the station, though most of the worst hollows had recently been filled with stones; evidently the Prince of Wales’s agent saw that his roads were well kept. I trudged on, keeping to the verges where there was grass and the going was less treacherous beneath the soles of my buttoned boots. My skirts brushed the grass, getting wetter and heavier with every step.
Off to one side, a gleam like a will-o’-the-wisp caught my eye, making me peer at the dark rise of the heath, where copses of stunted trees showed as irregular bulges. On a side track in the lee of a stand of thorn, twin lights glowed faintly.
I peered towards the spot with aching eyes. Was that the shape of a gig I could make out? Yes, a light, two-wheeled, one-horse vehicle was poised there. Faint light slanted across its wet hood and its lamps flickered. Though I could see nothing of the driver, instinct said I was being observed. The hairs on my nape prickled. Who could be out on the heath at this hour, sitting in a motionless conveyance and watching a lonely road?
Unsought, an answer occurred to me, an answer so shocking that a hot flush swept from the base of my spine to flood my face and make my scalp tingle. How pitiful – how shameful – to entertain such thoughts even for an instant. Where was my pride? I had promised myself never to think of him again.
Nevertheless, all the long way from Brighton, behind my grief, I had been aware that every turn of the wheels brought me closer to Geoffrey Devlin.
My heart lurched as the vehicle moved. Its lamps danced, the sheen on the hood advancing towards me, the horse stepping lightly. Fright seared through me – fright mingled with anger, and a curious sick despair. No. No, he mustn’t come. I wanted never to see him again. I hated him. B
ut oh… oh, if it were really he…
Torn by a bewilderment of emotions, I stood helpless, staring into rain-washed shadows.
Then a whip cracked behind me. A wagon was lumbering up from the station, pulled by two horses and flanked by four swinging lanterns, two at the ends of the shafts, two more suspended from the high corners of the vehicle. Their yellow light flitted back and forth across the road like tamed lightning, shining in rivulets of water. Glinting brass ornaments jingled as a counterpoint to the bump and crunch of wheels on sandy, stony ground.
On the heath, the gig, or whatever vehicle it was, had stopped again, becoming all but invisible as the clouds closed down and the rain fell ever more wetly.
Drawing alongside me, the wagon driver eased his horses to a stop with a soft, ‘Whooah!’ and sat looking down from his high perch. He said, ‘D’you need a ride to Orchards, Miss Hamilton, ma’am?’
With the light of a heavy-duty lantern slanting into my eyes, the man was no more than a bulky shape in a floppy broad-brimmed hat and voluminous leather cape from which water dripped. But I knew his voice – that quiet, caressing bass with its Norfolk inflection.
Shielding my eyes with the umbrella, I peered up at him.
‘Ben?’ I queried softly. ‘Ben Chilvers?’
‘Aye, Miss Rose, that’s me. I seen you in the station yard, a-talkin’ to Davy Timms. You didn’t notice me.’
Had it been he, loading up his wagon? ‘I don’t think I wanted to see anyone,’ I confessed. ‘Not tonight. I’ve come home because…’
‘Because of Mr Victor,’ he supplied when the silence lengthened. ‘Aye, I know. That’s a terrible thing, Miss Rose. He was a good man. Some of us in the village was proud to call him friend. We’ll all miss him sore.’
It was true, then. If Ben Chilvers said it, I must believe it: my brother was gone. It seemed like a bad dream, to be standing in the wet, windy night, calmly discussing Victor’s death with the village carpenter. The presence of an invisible witness, in the shape of the driver of the gig – who might be Geoffrey Devlin – made it all the more unreal.
‘Let me tek that there bag,’ the carpenter said, and, with an agility that was surprising in a man of his bulk, he leapt down from the wagon and relieved me of my case, setting it on the wagon before helping me after it with his usual courtesy.
Safe on the high seat, I rearranged my damp skirts over the awkward crinoline frame, slanting my umbrella against the downpour. My rescuer climbed back to his reins, unhitched them and let off the brake. With a few gentle slaps of wet leather, he clucked his horses into motion.
Beyond the haze of light from our lanterns, not even a twinkle of lamps was visible now in the darkness across the heath. I would never know who was in that gig.
Perhaps it was as well.
‘I didn’t expect to see Davy Timms,’ I said, making conversation to fill the silence. ‘Your wife must have been delighted to find her brother alive after all. But he didn’t point you out. Didn’t he know you were there in the yard?’
‘Oh, he knew, all right.’ He slanted me a look. ‘Truth is, Miss Rose, Davy Timms and me… well, he don’t think as I’m good enough for his sister.’
‘Not good enough? You’re the village carpenter!’
‘It’s ’cos I’m lame. One of the little ’uns… she’s got the club foot, too. When Davy saw that, he went wild. We’ve not spoken since.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Sincerely as I meant it, it sounded inadequate.
‘Aye, me too,’ he said, and clucked at the horses. ‘Gooa-on, you lazy dickies.’
The wagon jolted over the uneven road, its lamps revealing the few yards ahead of the plodding horses. Everything else was wet darkness. The man beside me maintained his silence, only murmuring now and then to encourage the horses. In his big hands the reins looked slender as silk ribbons.
Of all people in the world, if I had had to meet someone on this ghastly night, Ben Chilvers was more welcome than most. His calm, solid presence was like an anchor, holding me fast against the storm. Whatever else might have changed, I could surely still rely on my old friend Ben.
He had worked at Orchards Farm when he was a boy. They had called him ‘Limpy’ and he had been the butt of much unkind teasing. It had given us a bond; I too had felt outcast among my own kind, a changeling child unwanted and unloved, even by my own father.
Ben’s father, Amos, had been our head horseman, but he was always at odds with my father; some old grievance rankled between them. One morning, I had gone to the stable very early and had found the horses loose and agitated; I had nearly been trampled. Ben had rescued me, but despite my protests that he wasn’t to blame both he and his father had been dismissed. I still didn’t understand why.
It occurred to me that Ben, too, must have heard the gossip when I left, whatever the gossip had been. What had he made of it? Did he believe it? One thing was certain: if I didn’t allude to my long absence neither would he, not ever. Uncultured and unlettered as he was, Ben Chilvers was nonetheless a gentleman.
‘What were you collecting from the train?’ I asked.
‘Oh, a few bits and pieces as I ordered. I’ve been over to Snet’s’am – that’s where the wood come from.’ He jerked a thumb at his load. ‘That wind two week ago brung down some old trees on Mr Pooley’s place. He said as I could have the wood cheap if I collected it. There’s ellum, and ash, and some oak. Good English oak. That’s all split, but I’ll find enough to make handles and small things.’ He flipped the reins, saying, ‘Gooa-on, Goliath!’ before adding in an undertone: ‘Mr Hamilton wanted oak for Mr Victor. That was beautiful wood. The best I could find. That polished like velvet. I worked all night to get that finished, so he’d lie easy.’
Clearing a cobweb of distress from my throat, I said, ‘Do you know what happened?’
‘It was that threshin’ engine.’
‘The engine?’ My thoughts flew back to Brighton, to the last time I had seen Victor, only two weeks ago, when he had come to see me and told me about the trial he and his partner William Turnbull were planning to hold. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, now, Miss Rose…’ He hesitated, regarding me with grave eyes. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’
I inhaled deeply, stiffening myself. ‘Tell me, please.’
He continued to watch me for a moment as if wondering how much to say; then he said simply, ‘The boiler exploded.’
Dear God.
‘The engine come by rail,’ he added, ‘to Wolferton, where Mr Victor met it. I don’t know who the driver was. They come through the night, wi’ a red flag bein’ walked in front, you know.’
‘It was a mobile engine?’ I said in disbelief.
‘That’s right. In the village it wholly scared ’em to death, and set all the dogs a-barkin’, goin’ through in the dead o’ night, a-rumblin’ and a-hissin’ like some old dragon. They were nearly home when that blew. Killed ’em both. Instant, so they say. The flagman was hurt, too – got a piece of metal in his shoulder. Mr Turnbull got here the next morning. But the trial was cancelled, of course.’
Through the agency of one of his beloved steam-engines, Victor was dead. I would never walk arm-in-arm with him again, never listen to him enthuse about his plans, never watch the sun catch in the unruly tangle of his auburn hair or hear him laugh aloud…
Had I ever told him how much I loved him?
Wordlessly, the big man beside me pressed a large blue kerchief into my hand. I shook myself and cleared my throat, carefully removing moisture from the corners of my eyes. The wagon rumbled on. Ben Chilvers attended to his driving. For that, I blessed him.
The rain had stopped. The wind shredded the clouds so that ghosts of moonlight drifted over a landscape of slopes and hollows, copses and coverts, mangold fields, cow pastures, bare acres combed into neatness by the plough. In the hamlet of West Newton, lamplight glowed through curtains at the windows of a new row of cottages. The scent of smoke from a dozen chimneys
tinged the night with hints of warmth and companionship around turf fires.
Guiding the wagon past a pile of rusty-coloured carrstone from the local quarry, waiting to make another new wall, Ben Chilvers said, ‘There’s been all sorts o’ buildin’ a-goin’ on here lately.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ I grasped with relief at a topic that avoided emotional hurdles. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the changes His Royal Highness has made at Orchards. I gather he’s coming home this evening.’
‘Be his birthday next week. Alluss big doin’s then – shoots and hunts and parties and all.’
The royal pair had formed the habit of spending most of November and December, and part of January, a period which included both of their birthdays, in their Norfolk home. The prince enjoyed the shooting. My stepmother had written about the graciousness they displayed in their dealings with local folk, and Grace, my half-sister, had expounded on the subject of Princess Alexandra and the clothes she wore.
‘Have you met His Royal Highness?’ I asked.
‘I’ve seen him about. When he’s up at the big house he do often ride about the villages, takin’ an interest. He seem a very pleasant gentleman. As for the princess… ah, well, everybody love our little missus.’
Coming out of the village, we clopped over a crossroads and travelled on under the lee of a low hill to our left. After about a mile, hedged fields gave way to a stretch of woodland that whispered in the rainy darkness. Poacher’s Wood. I was nearly home.
As the wagon slowed, approaching the gap where a lane led through the wood to the farm, a hooded conveyance came bowling out of the darkness from behind us. Ben Chilvers hauled his startled horses to a stop, shouting a protest as the lighter vehicle skittered by with inches to spare. It hit a clump of grass on the verge, teetering on one wheel. Then its driver skilfully shifted his weight and saved himself from disaster. He yelled some epithet that was swallowed in the whirl of wheels and wind, and then he was gone, merging with the night along the lane that led to Ambleford.
‘Gracious!’ I breathed, with a choked laugh. ‘He’s in a hurry.’
