Читать книгу: «The Railway Girl»

Chapter 1

1856

The train escaped the tunnel’s blackness, half obscured by a billowing veil of white steam, into the balmy sunshine of a late July afternoon. As soon as she heard the mechanical din of the locomotive, Lucy Piddock turned her head to watch, stepping back from the platform’s edge. She urged her friend Miriam Watson to do likewise with a token pull on her arm. The engine and its unholy racket, offensive to the ears, passed them slowly, delivering its string of coaches to precisely where the rest of the passengers were waiting. As it groaned and hissed to a halt, Lucy smiled at Miriam, opened the door of an empty third class compartment and allowed Miriam to step up inside before her. They were going home after browsing the shops in Dudley.

‘How did we manage to get about before we had the railway?’ Lucy remarked as she and Miriam sat facing each other next to the window. The railway line had been open four years and Lucy did not yet take for granted the novelty of it, nor the convenience. ‘We’d never have gone to Dudley before of a Saturday afternoon, would we?’

‘Better than walking to Stourbridge,’ Miriam agreed. ‘It’s a tidy walk to Stourbridge from Silver End … especially if you got a nail sticking up in your boot.’

‘I sometimes wonder if it’s quicker to walk down to the main station past the castle or this one.’

‘Depends where you am when you’m done, I reckon,’ Miriam surmised. ‘Which end o’ the town you’m at. Neither station’s close to the shops, but you don’t have to put up with going through that dark tunnel when you go from this one.’

‘That’s true,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And it costs a bit less.’

She gazed out of the carriage window onto the platform, while Miriam took off her boot and rubbed her bunion where the offending nail was puncturing it. A young guard, smart in the livery of the Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and wearing a cheese-cutter cap, checked the door to the compartment of the four-wheeled coach. He caught Lucy’s eye through the window and smiled, giving her a waggish wink that made her insides churn, then pressed on to check the forward coaches.

‘Miriam, did you see that chap?’ Lucy asked with a broad grin. ‘The guard. I fancy him.’

‘Trust you to fancy somebody you’ll never see again.’

‘Course I shall see him again,’ Lucy said with a certainty that defied argument. ‘He’ll be coming back this way in a minute to get back in his guards’ van.’

‘Well, you ain’t gunna get the chance to talk to him. The train’ll be pulling out in a minute.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘I only said I fancied him. I didn’t say as I wanted to have a chat about the weather, or whether the Queen and Prince Albert will have more children.’

‘Ain’t there no decent chaps where you work?’ Miriam enquired. ‘We’ll have to get you fixed up with somebody soon, else you’ll end up an old maid.’

‘Chaps don’t seem to fancy me, Miriam. I reckon I ain’t pretty enough. Let’s face it, I wasn’t at the front of the queue when they was giving out pretty faces.’ Lucy saw the guard returning and perked up at once. ‘Aye up! Here he comes again. Have a peep at him.’

As he passed the window he turned and smiled once more, so both girls grinned and waved saucily.

‘Well, he seems to think you’m pretty,’ Miriam said. ‘He seems to fancy you. He was smiling at you, not me.’

‘I bet he’d be a bit of a gig as well.’ Lucy felt herself reddening. ‘I hope he gets off the train again at Brettell Lane.’

‘Well, I ain’t hanging about just to see if he does. Get yourself a local chap, Luce. That guard might come from Worcester or even Oxford for all you know. It’d be no good courting somebody from Worcester or Oxford. You want a chap to be where you am. Somebody who can sit with yer nights on the settle, and tickle your feet for a bit o’ pleasure and comfort.’

They heard a whistle, and the locomotive huffed, hauling them forward, slowly at first but quickly picking up speed.

‘Oh, I give up on chaps,’ Lucy pouted. ‘I never seem to get anybody. What’s wrong with me, Miriam?’

‘Nothing, you daft sod. There’s nothing wrong with you. And besides, you am pretty, even if you don’t think so. You got a good figure. You got lovely dark hair and big blue eyes.’

‘Pale blue eyes!’ Lucy repeated with exasperation. ‘I wish I’d got brown eyes like you, or dark blue ones like a baby’s. Pale blue eyes look that washed out. Even green eyes would be better than pale blue.’

‘Be thankful for what you have got, Luce. A good many would be glad of your eyes and your looks.’

‘Then if I have got decent looks, why can’t I get a chap? Have I got a dewdrop dithering off the end of my nose that I don’t know about? Have I got a squint? Do I smell, or something?’

Miriam chuckled. ‘Course not. Anyroad, if you stunk I wouldn’t come a-nigh you.’

‘So what’s up with me? I swear I’ll step out with the first chap as ever asks me, even if he’s the ugliest, vilest freak ever to have worn a pair of trousers … I will … I swear.’

Miriam laughed again. ‘You ain’t that desperate.’

‘Yes, I am. It’s all right for you. You got Sammy Osborne. And before him you had Jimmy Sheldon … and Lord knows who else before him. Crikey, you must’ve collected enough men’s scalps to make a rug.’

‘Oh, Lucy …’ Miriam chuckled and sighed. ‘Somebody’ll come along and sweep you right off your feet.’

‘And that’s just what I want. Somebody to come along and sweep me off my feet, before I’m stuck up a tree and too old. Before I have to start reading the deaths regular to see who’s just become a widower … Oh, no,’ Lucy added after a moment’s pondering. ‘On second thoughts I could never lower myself to go with a chap who’s second-hand.’

‘What’s the rush? I sometimes think as men ain’t worth the bother anyroad. They can’t wait to bed yer, buying yer presents and giving yer all that fancy sweet talk just to get you there. And then, when they’ve had yer, they treat yer like flipping dirt.’

‘I’m sure they ain’t all like that,’ Lucy said distrustfully, and fell quiet.

The train rumbled over the towering wooden construction that was Parkhead Viaduct and she gazed through the window at the busy network of canals that converged beneath it, and at the area’s countless smoking chimney stacks, without really seeing any of it. She was deep in thought, grieving over the imagined monumental flaw in her looks or demeanour that rendered her positively repulsive to men. Even though no such flaw existed, Lucy was lacking in self-confidence because she firmly believed otherwise. This erroneous conviction compounded the problem, rendering her a little bit reserved, which men interpreted as being ‘stuck-up’. And what ordinary factory wench had the right or reason to be stuck-up?

Lucy was not yet twenty years old and most of her friends the same age were courting. Some were even wed. This fact nagged at her, not incessantly, nor obsessively, but sometimes; and this moment was one such time. But when she was among her own friends and family, and not blighted by misgivings over her fancied inadequacies, she was good company, bright and amiable, and even witty on occasions.

‘I think I ought to try and get out a bit more,’ she said to Miriam, releasing herself from her depressing daydream. ‘I think I should try and mix more with folk.’

‘You mean mix more with men,’ Miriam corrected with a knowing look. ‘I don’t know what you’m worried about. Are you sure there’s no men where you work?’

‘None as I’d want. There’s Jake Parsons who’s too old, Bobby Pugh who’s too ugly, Georgie Betts whose feet are too stinky … Then there’s Alfie Mason who’s got a wall eye and a hair lip … Oh, and Ben Craddock who never stops farting.’

‘You’m too fussy.’

‘I could afford to be fussier, if only chaps was falling over themselves and each other to ask me out.’

‘What d’you do nights?’

‘What is there to do nights? I generally sit with my mother, picking my feet and pulling faces at the dog, while my father goes boozing up at the Whimsey.’

Miriam chuckled at the mental image. ‘So why don’t you go with your father up the Whimsey for a change?’

Lucy laughed with derision at the notion. ‘Decent girls don’t go to public houses.’

‘They do if they work there. You could get a job nights serving beer. You’d meet plenty men.’

‘Yes, all fuddled old farts … like my father.’

‘Young chaps as well, Lucy. Hey, it’d be worth a try.’

‘I doubt whether my mother would let me,’ Lucy replied resignedly. ‘You know what she’s like.’ She lapsed into deep thought again, considering the possibilities.

The train was drawing to a halt at Round Oak Station. When it stopped Lucy pressed her cheek against the window, looking again for sight of the chirpy guard. Those who had alighted made their way across the platform while others embarked, bound for Stourbridge, Kidderminster and beyond.

‘Can you see him?’ Miriam enquired, realising why her friend was scanning the platform.

‘No, but I just heard his whistle.’

The train eased out of the little station. As it picked up speed down the incline towards Brettell Lane station, Lucy picked up her basket in readiness for when they would alight in just a minute or two.

When they drew to a halt at Brettell Lane, Lucy opened the door and stepped expectantly onto the platform. She looked longingly towards the rear of the train, hoping to see the guard jump down from his van. She was not disappointed and she lingered, adjusting her bonnet via her reflection in the carriage window for a few moments, hoping he might beckon her to go to him, or reach her before her tarrying seemed indecorous. But Miriam cannily took her arm and urged her to move. Lucy complied with reluctance as she glanced wistfully behind her at the guard. He smiled again and waved and she waved back, with all the coyness of inexperience manifest in her blue eyes.

‘Come on, Luce, don’t let him think as you’m waiting for him. Pretend you ain’t bothered one road or th’other.’

‘Is that the way to play it?’ Lucy asked doubting her friend’s advice. ‘Shouldn’t I let him see as I’m interested?’

‘You already did. It’s supposed to be the man what does the chasing.’

‘But what if he don’t?’ Lucy asked ruefully. ‘He needs to know as it won’t be a waste of time chasing me.’

‘Listen, if we go to Dudley next Saturday afternoon and catch the same train back, he’s ever likely to be on it, ain’t he? You can flash your eyes at him then.’

‘I can’t wait a week, Miriam.’

‘Oh, don’t be so daft. In a week you’ll very likely have forgot all about him.’

The girls went to Dudley again the following Saturday and caught the same train back, but there was no sign of the guard. There was a guard, of course, but it was not the same man, to Lucy’s crushing disappointment. They repeated the exercise over the following three weeks, each time with the same result, and poor Lucy realised she was never going to meet this man who had bewitched her, who had introduced a swarm of butterflies to her stomach.

‘It’s Fate,’ Miriam told her flatly. ‘You ain’t meant to have him. If you was meant to have him you’d have seen him by now, and very likely have stepped out with him a couple o’ times. You ain’t meant to have him, Lucy. Anyroad, if we come to Dudley next week I want to catch an earlier train back.’

During high summer in Brierley Hill a breeze was regarded as a blessing. It not only cooled, but helped clear the air of the grimy mist and the sulphurous stinks perpetrated by the high concentration of ironworks, pits, firebrick works and bottle factories, whose chimney stacks belched out smuts and smoke like the upended cannons of an army in disarray. It was one such breezy summer evening in August 1856, the week following Lucy’s final disappointment, that Haden Piddock, her father, was returning home from his labours at Lord Ward’s New Level Iron Works, more commonly known as ‘The Earl’s’, to his rented cottage in Bull Street. On the way he met Ben Elwell, carrying his pick and shovel over his shoulder like a soldier would carry a pair of muskets. Ben was not only a reluctant miner but also the eager landlord of the nearby Whimsey Inn in Church Street.

‘I’ll be glad to get me sodding boots off,’ Haden commented. The clay pipe in his mouth, held between his top and bottom teeth, was amazingly not detrimental to his speech for, over the years, he had perfected the knack of conversing with clenched teeth. The pipe, however, had gone out and Haden had not been able to re-ignite it. ‘Me feet am nigh on a-killing me. As soon as I get in th’ouse, I’ll get our Lucy to fetch me a bowl o’ wairter from the pump so’s I can give ’em a good soak.’

‘Yo’ need warm water to soak yer feet, Haden, lad. Otherwise you’ll catch a chill.’

Haden turned to look at his mate, surprised he should feel the need to remind him of what was blindingly obvious. ‘Yaah!’ he exclaimed sarcastically. ‘D’you think I’m saft enough to stick ’em in cold wairter, you daft bugger?’ He took his pipe from his mouth and cursorily inspected the inside of the bowl. ‘I’d get our Lucy to warm it up on the ’ob fust.’

‘That daughter o’ yours looks after yer well, Haden.’

‘Better than the missus, when there’s fetching and carrying to be done.’ He tapped his pipe against the palm of his hand to loosen the carbonised tobacco, and allowed the debris to fall to the ground.

‘Yo’ll miss her when her gets wed.’

‘If her ever gets wed,’ Haden replied.

‘I tek it then as yo’ ai’ coming for a drink now?’ Ben said.

‘No, I’ll send our Lucy up with a jug to have wi’ me dinner. I’ll see thee later, when I’n finished me scoff and had a bit of a wash down.’

‘Aye, well I don’t expect I’ll be shifting far from that tap room of ourn.’

‘I don’t envy thee, Ben,’ Haden remarked sincerely as he slid his pipe into the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Yo’ ain’t content with swinging a blasted pick and digging coal out all day. Yo’ have to serve beer all night an’ all, to them buggers as yo’ve bin working alongside of.’

A smile spread over Ben’s blackened face. The whites of his eyes sparkled and his teeth, which seemed dingy when his face was clean, seemed bright now by comparison. ‘It has its compensations, Haden. I drink for free. As much as I’ve a mind to, eh? And the missus brews a worthy crock, whether or no I’m behind her.’

‘Her does, an’ no question … And that reminds me, Ben … I’ve bin meaning to ask … Our Lucy wondered if you needed a wench to help out nights like. Her wants to get out more. It’d tek some of the load off thee an’ all, give yer a bit more time to yourself.’

‘Funny as yo’ should mention it, Haden. Me and the missus was on’y saying yesterday as how we could do with somebody to help out. Somebody presentable and decent like your Lucy. Honest and not afeared o’ work. How old is she now?’

‘Coming twenty. Twenty next September.’

‘And still single? Still no sign of e’er a chap?’

Haden grinned smugly. ‘Her’s met ne’er a chap yet as matches up to her fairther, that’s why. I doh think for a minute as her’s short of admirers, though, but I reckon they’m all tongue-tied. Not like we used to be, eh, Ben?’

Ben cackled as he was reminded of his youth. ‘No, we was never back’ard in coming forwards.’

‘Anyroad, I want no Tom, Dick or Harry sniffing round our Lucy, so keep your eye on her for me, Ben, anytime I ain’t there.’

‘Bring her wi’ yer tonight, eh? I’ll get the missus to show her the ropes.’

‘That’ll please the wench no end. Yo’m a pal, Ben. A real pal.’

‘How’s your other daughter, Haden?’

‘Our Jane? As happy as Ode Nick now as her’s wed. I’m happy for her that her chap come back from the Crimea, even though he does have to get about on a crutch these days.’

‘Better to walk on crutches than be jed and buried in some graveyard in Balaclava, I’d say. I tek it as he can still get his good leg over the wench, though.’

Haden guffawed. ‘’Tis to be hoped. He’ll be getting boils on the back of his neck, else. But there’s no sign of e’er a babby yet. Mind you, there’s no boils on his neck either.’

They had arrived at the corner where Haden turned off. He thanked Ben Elwell again for agreeing to take on Lucy as a barmaid, waved and went home.

Waiting by the entry was Bobby the shaggy sheepdog, named after Sir Robert Peel. Bobby lay with his nose between his paws and nonchalantly opened one eye when he heard Haden’s footsteps approaching. When he saw his master he stretched, got to his feet and wagged his tired tail, anticipating being fussed.

‘Christ, I bet you’ve had a bloody hard day looking after your mother, eh, Bobby?’ Haden said, bending forward to ruffle the dog’s thick mane. ‘All that shut-eye and lolling about. Christ knows how you keep it up.’ The dog licked Haden’s hand affectionately. ‘Is your mother inside then? Has her fed yer?’ He patted the dog and straightened up. ‘It’s all right for some, all rest and no work. I expect yo’ll want some dinner off me now, eh?’

As he opened the door the smell of cooking welcomed him. He saw a pot of rabbit stew standing on the hob of the cast iron fire grate and knew that he would not go hungry. Lucy was standing half-dressed, tying up her long dark hair.

‘Where’s your mother?’

‘I’m upstairs,’ a voice called.

‘What yer doing up there? It’s time for me vittles.’

‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

Haden looked at his younger daughter as he tossed his snap bag on the settle. ‘I had a word with Ben Elwell. He says if you go to the Whimsey tonight his missus will show you the ropes.’

Lucy’s eyes lit up and she grinned. ‘So he’ll let me start working there nights?’

‘And he’ll keep his eye on yer. I want no drunken louts a-pestering yer. All right?’

‘Course, dad.’

‘Then it’s settled. Lord knows what he’ll pay yer, though. We never mentioned money.’

‘I don’t care. I’d do it for nothing, Dad.’

‘No need to do it for nothing, my wench. Ben’s fair. He’ll pay fair. Now, get yourself dressed and fetch me some water so’s I can wash me feet. When yo’ve done that, tek the brown jug wi’ yer to the Whimsey and have it filled wi’ beer … Here’s sixpence …’

So Lucy, grateful that her father had had a word with Ben Elwell, went to the pump down the street and fetched water. Then she took the brown jug from the cupboard next to the fire grate and stepped out into the early evening sunshine to fetch his beer.

The Piddocks sat down to eat, civilly and with all the decorum of a well-bred household, a habit which Hannah, Haden’s wife, had imported and insisted upon. Her years employed as a housemaid in one of the big important houses in Kingswinford, the adjoining parish, had instilled much domestic refinement into her, which time and their own modest way of life had not diminished.

‘I don’t know as I hold with our Lucy serving ale to all them loudmouth hobbledehoys with their rough manners what get in the Whimsey,’ Hannah remarked with maternal anxiety. ‘No decent young woman should be seen in such a place. And will she be safe walking home at night?’

‘I’ll be walking home with her nights, I daresay,’ Haden said, and shoved a forkful of rabbit meat into his mouth.

Lucy looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll be all right, Mother,’ she affirmed. ‘I’ll come to no harm. They’re not all rough folk that go to the Whimsey.’

‘’Tis to be hoped. But if ever you’m on your own and hear somebody behind yer, run for your life.’

‘I will, Mother. I’m not daft.’

‘I don’t know what you’m a-fretting about, Hannah,’ Haden said. ‘Things am quieter now than they used to be. I mean, there’s nothing to get excited about any more – well, not at the Whimsey, anyroad. There’s no bull-baiting or cock-fighting these days to get folk worked up. All right, there might be the occasional badger-drawing when the Patrollers ain’t about … I remember Coronation Day—’

‘Oh, spare us the details, Haden.’

‘No, Mother, I’d like to hear,’ Lucy insisted. ‘My dad always comes out with some good tales.’

‘Except I’ve heard ’em all afore, our Lucy. Too many times.’

‘Well, I haven’t. So tell us, Dad.’

Haden took a long quaff from his beer. ‘It was June in thirty-eight,’ he began again with a smile for his daughter. ‘It started the day afore the Coronation of our young queen Victoria, God bless her. We’d heard that there was due to be a bear-baiting at the Old Bell up in Bell Street. The bear had been brought over from Wednesbury, and to keep him comfortable for the night they found him an empty pigsty. Next day, everybody as had got a bulldog – and that was a good many in them days – brought ’em along to bait poor old Bruin. So the bear-herd fetched the bear out o’ the pigsty and led him over to the old clay pit. They drove an iron stake into the middle and put the ring at the end of the bear’s chain over the stake, so as the animal could move about easy but not too far. Course, loads o’ spectators lined the clay pit, a chap in a clean white smock among ’em.’

Bobby had installed himself at the side of the table near Haden and waited patiently with imploring eyes for a morsel to descend to the stone flags of the floor. But Haden was in full flow.

‘As it happened, the ground had been softened by rain a day or two before, and as the kerfuffle started nobody noticed that the stake had come loose in the mud. I tell yer, there was plenty fun as them dogs baited the bear, but then it dawned on everybody that the bear had got free. We all ran for our lives, and the poor bugger in the white smock fell over. He was rolled over umpteen times in the mud as folk trampled all over him.’ Haden laughed aloud as he recalled it. ‘He was a sight – the poor bugger did look woebegone.’

‘Then what happened?’ Lucy asked, wide-eyed.

‘The daft thing was, the poor bear was as frit as everybody else, and run off back to the pigsty.’

‘The poor, poor bear,’ she said full of sympathy for the animal. ‘I’m glad they put a stop to all that savagery.’

‘Savagery?’ Haden repeated. ‘I’ve seen savagery. I’ve watched bull-baiting at the Whimsey – in the days when everybody called it “Turley’s”. Once, a bull gored a bulldog, pushing his horns right into its guts. He ripped it open and tossed it higher than the house.’

‘Ugh! That’s enough to put you off your dinner,’ Lucy complained, turning her mouth down in distaste.

‘Another time at a wake,’ Haden went on, ‘I watched a bull, that was maddened by the dogs, break free of his stake and cause havoc among the crowd. When they caught him they slaughtered him without a second thought and cut him up, and the meat was sold to anybody as wanted it at a few coppers a pound. Then they all trooped off to watch the next baiting.’

‘I’m only glad it doesn’t go on now,’ Lucy said. ‘Do you remember it, Mother?’

‘I remember it going on. I’d never go and watch such things meself, though. But then I had you kids to look after.’

‘Yes, they was rough days,’ Haden admitted. ‘We only had one parish constable in them days and he couldn’t be everywhere. Like as not he was paid to turn a blind eye, especially by the street wenches or their blasted pimps. But folk was poor and nobody had any education. They knew no better, knew no other life. These days, there’s work about and while they’m still poor, they ain’t as hard done by as they used to be.’

Bobby impatiently tapped Haden’s leg with his paw to remind his master that he was still awaiting a morsel.

‘Lord, I forgot all about thee, mutt,’ he said, picking a thigh bone from his plate and tossing it to the dog. ‘Here, that’ll keep thee going for a bit.’