The Railway Girls

by Leah Fleming

  After tonight’s little show, no one in Scarsbeck would offer him more comfortable lodgings in the village and he’d be lodged with the Robsons all summer. He walked through the dismal camp, watching youngsters racing around the buildings like a pack of wild dogs. The company would have to sort them out before there was a serious accident on site. They must erect a reading room for night classes, with one of the missioners teaching Sunday school even. The camp was too sparse; too few services to attract decent families.

  Lanterns twinkled in the dusk through hut windows as the men settled down to a serious night’s drinking. Henry Paisley strolled over to the temporary stables to collect his mount: a fine bay gelding saddled and waiting to transport him down the hill. He slung his shoulder bag across his chest, leapt onto the saddle and trotted forth with a sinking heart.

  As far from Paradise as was possible, snugly set in a wooded ghyll, was the country seat of Sir Edward Dacre and his widowed sister, Augusta Hartley, who both saw it expedient not to be present in Scarsdale that month. Their land agent, Reginald Ingomells, commissioned to accompany the subcontractor, Mr Joseph Hirst, to the village assembly, was giving him a privileged tour of the terraces of Scarsbeck Hall, after a splendid tea of gammon and eggs in the estate office which occupied a corner of the cobbled yard, tucked out of sight to the rear of the grey stone building.

  The subcontractor was disappointed that Sir Edward would not be gracing the meeting himself, thus leaving the agent and the railway company to convey the change of plans. This squire was obviously far above involving himself with such minor details.

  Joseph Hirst stared at the mansion, lifting his stovepipe hat in awe. Scarsbeck Hall was faced with smooth rectangular blocks of stone, graced with an imposing façade overlooking the terraced lawn in which a fountain jetted from a circular pool. Four Doric pillars supported a semicircular pediment before the front door. Inside the door he could see a circular staircase of fine Dent marble, a green-grey limestone, polished to bring out the pattern of ingrained fossils in the stonework at Scarsbeck. No wonder the old squire did not want his peace or his view disturbed by noisy engines or coal dust on his flowerbeds.

  As the subcontractor climbed into the sprung carriage and peered out onto the gravelled exit and an avenue of copper beech trees, burnished by fresh young growth, he groaned at the losses he must sustain, the margins of profit whittled away now in granting the wily old devil his viaduct, redirected high over the ravine to avoid disturbing the squire’s land. The curving track cut from the rock face would have to be blasted and faced and the alterations mapped out onto job sheets for the engineers to follow and the navvies to build.

  As they rattled down the darkening narrow lanes etched with spring growth, the land agent stared stony-faced at open fields and the small dairy farms encircling the village. He tapped to the coachman to hurry up for they were running late and he wanted to have a word with the vicar about the batting order before battle commenced.

  The main street was sliced into two halves by the beck; on the right were the residences of the respectable, to the left were the rest, depending on which way the village was entered. Perched on a hilltop sat St Oswy’s parish church like a little fortress overlooking the village rooftops. At the opposite end, but on the same side, standing foursquare, was the newly extended Wesleyan chapel and schoolroom, with a parquet floor and classrooms partitioned off. Its generous kitchen was ideal for social events. The national school and neat Georgian houses with walled gardens and coaching stables lined up on this side too and then, standing sentinel like a toothless dog further down the narrowing stringy lane, was the lonely Ebenezer of the Primitive Methodists: a one-room building which was only used on Sundays.

  On the other side of the beck, however, stood the forces of Mammon, a line of shop windows – butcher, baker, cobbler, apothecary and high-class grocer, a pie shop and confectioner: all that was necessary to service a remote village. Then came that scourge of the temperance movement, the Fleece, a low-slung sprawling ale house with lodging rooms upstairs and a courtyard full of barrels, horses and stabling. Cheek by jowl leant the meaner cottages, packed around the pub and down the side streets, snickets and folds with steps up to attic rooms. Hidden in the back streets were the artisan workshops, the tanner, the blacksmith, wheelwright, joiner and undertaker, living above their premises, like support troops holding up the rear.

  Tonight the street was littered with vehicles and the coach had to deposit the two men where there was space, opposite the school; a no-nonsense brick building with tall Gothic windows etched with flourishes high up the walls, out of view of dreaming pupils, red brickwork clashing with the soft grey stonework of other buildings in the street. Next door, with barely an arm’s width between the walls, was the matching schoolhouse, set back from the street almost with its back turned on the village. Its windows were narrower, set at an angle to exclude the light, giving it a gloomier prospect. The curtains were already drawn in the front parlour.

  In the schoolhouse kitchen Cora Bulstrode was giving her live-in ‘maid of all things’, Susan Hindle, instructions as to coal fires, mending, and a list of jobs to keep her out of mischief until their return. Cora believed in the age-old cap and pinny principle that the eye of the mistress was worth two of her hands. It was attention to standards which set the Bulstrodes apart from the rest of the village. How else could she flaunt her status as sister to the village headmaster but by maintaining strict procedures with her staff of one and presenting her person on every occasion as an example of up-to-date modest gentility?

  Tonight she was wearing a grey two-piece woollen suit edged with maroon fringing which was flattened at the front and gathered up into the latest bustle effect at the rear by a hooped panelled underskirt. Her brown hair was draped across her ears like curtains, looping up into a matching bonnet and veil in a soft burgundy. Around her neck, which was no longer one of her better features, she placed a fox tail fur wrap to keep out the draughts. Cora carried an umbrella to balance the elegant effect.

  How else could she survive in this dreadful dale without her dressmaking catalogues; the gown styles she slavishly copied on her sewing machine? Being carefully turned out on every public occasion, knowing she was scrutinised by the village ladies, gave her some purpose. She felt so deprived of decent company and poor Ezra was so overburdened with duties as scarcely to be able to give her the time of day. For twenty years her fulfilment had lain in easing his path as he devoted his talents to pupils, classroom and the spiritual life of the parish.

  Even now he was huddled in his study with one of his hopefuls for this year’s Fawcett, a scholarship granted from the trust of one Eliza Fawcett in 1649 for the further education of a village child at the ancient grammar school, the other side of Dent.

  She would have to knock on the door discreetly. He would never allow intrusions on concentration, even for a minute, but she had warned him that they must not be late. It would not be seemly for the headmaster not to be in the front row as befitted his rank. He got so carried away with his endeavours to raise up bright boys above their lowly station that the pale-faced students would stagger out with relief and dart off into the street without a backward glance or a word of thanks. Parents had great confidence in his abilities, leaving pheasants in season or the odd tray of eggs or bottles of primrose wine as humble tokens of their esteem. Ezra would sigh modestly, ‘They shouldn’t . . . my dear, they needn’t.’

  It was hard to keep up appearances on forty pounds a year and Cora would gather up all offerings to eke out their modest housekeeping. Every year they built up their hopes for the examination but the scholarship boys often dropped out and gave up their studies when harvest came and they were needed on the farm. It was bitterly disappointing for him and she watched her brother’s shoulders stoop. For twenty years he had laboured in this remote vineyard, unrewarded, unrecognised, and she as his helpmeet soothed away his darkest broodings, kept delicious meals on the table and their schedule
running like a clockwork automaton.

  The school must be seen to support Sir Edward and the appalling Ralph Hardy who had the effrontery to call himself a priest! There would be questions about the mixing of navvy children, all born out of wedlock, if one was to believe rumour. The school must assure the village that these unfortunates would be the sole responsibility of the new teacher, Miss Herbert, in a separate classroom to keep any contamination away.

  Cora Bulstrode had made few preparations for the arrival of the said teacher that night; a cold collation of Sunday’s leftover joint and some tired fruit cake. The teacher was late and there was no time now to pamper her arrival. Miss Bulstrode did not want another female in the household challenging her authority, disrupting Ezra’s routine with requests. With Susan in the attic bedroom, the third bedroom was used as Cora’s sitting-cum-sewing room with tapestry frame and sewing machine ready for her use. This gave Ezra the front parlour as his library and study and no one went in there without his permission. Susan was allowed to clean only under supervision.

  This was no place for a teacher to bring her camp dirt back into the schoolhouse every day. The less they had to do with her the better. She must find lodgings elsewhere, nearer the camp perhaps.

  Miss Herbert had been imposed on them as part of the new curriculum which enforced school attendance for all under the Education Act of 1870. Even navvy brats had to be taught the basics. It was getting too much for her brother, who did not enjoy the best of health despite his portly body and robust complexion.

  Sitting in a stuffy chapel hall with menials and workmen was not how she would choose to spend her evening but they must put in an appearance, however brief, answer any relevant questions and then slide away back to their fireside for cocoa and toasted muffins. Cora could feel one of her headaches creeping round behind her right eye, aching and throbbing at the side of her temple. There was no time now to make a cup of camomile tea or a sup of something soothing from the apothecary’s bottle. She knocked firmly on the study door and shouted the time through the keyhole. ‘We’re going to be late!’

  Across the beck in the line of higgledy-piggledy stone cottages, leaning heavily in the direction of the Fleece, village men stirred from their plates of bread and scrape, cold meat and pickle, tapped out their clay pipes and rummaged for a muffler to wrap round thick necks, opened the tilting front door onto a cobbled street. Some took one look at the crowd of horses and carts lining the beck and the bobbing heads of tradesmen crossing the blue slate stone slabs which some wag called a bridge and headed straight in the opposite direction for a stool in the taproom. It were nowt to do with them, this railway job. It warn’t putting gravy on their Yorkshire puddings. It was squire and his cronies milking this cow all right so why bother going to hear some blatherhead clatterfarting about nowt as would bother them?

  In the chapel back kitchen the copper boiler, lit hours ago, had water on the boil already and the tea urns were stewing and mashing into a thick brew to be eked out by kettles for the refreshments. The coal-fired stove was red-hot in the corner of the assembly hall and the fug made rivulets of condensation stream down the windows. The Methodist ladies, bedecked with embroidered lace-edged pinnies over their woollen two-pieced dresses, darted and flitted anxiously, bonnets tipping jauntily with each exertion. Teacups were checked for dust, starched linen cloths stretched over trestle tables inspected for any creases. It was an honour for the chapel to host this gathering. Just the ticket to give some of the Mothers’ Union lot at St Oswy’s summat to chew on as they eyed the spread of cakes and fancies, the huge variety of home-made biscuits, featherlight and crisp, waiting for the interval.

  The minister’s wife smiled and nodded benignly, her hands clasped as if in prayerful thanksgiving as row after row filled up until there were just a few seats at the back. The air was stifling, full of noisy chatter and expectancy. The minister, Reverend Pringle, was busy showing the dignitaries to the podium, trying not to knock off the pot plants and aspidistras which members of the Women’s Bright Hour who met mid-weekly for devotions and gossip had filched from windowsills all over Scarsdale to decorate this occasion.

  The village was crawling out of the woodwork and no mistake, but the vicar was late as usual and as he was chairing the proceedings they would have to delay the Midland manager, who was mopping his brow and fiddling with the blackboard, anxious to get his lecture underway.

  At last the ‘late’ Ralph Hardy, as he was often nicknamed, dashed red-faced and flustered down the gangway, apologising that he had had to go back to the vicarage to put on his dog collar; a none-too-clean stock, the minister’s wife could not help noticing. What a difference a wife would make in that rambling old vicarage!

  Then she noted with dismay that the wild-haired Crow Woman was standing at the back in that ridiculous hat. Whatever had she ventured off the moor for? Mrs Pringle hoped there would not be a scene.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being so patient with me. There is a lot to digest in these plans,’ said the subcontractor, mopping his brow with relief.

  ‘And thee’s given us bellyache, right enough!’ shouted the landlord of the Fleece, Wally Stackhouse, standing to his feet. ‘You’ve preached nigh on over an hour just to tell us that we’ve got to stomach a girt bridge over us heads, shaking the very foundations and giving us headaches every time one of them wagons rolls over the job. How shall we get us sleep of a night, with steam engines roaring past our windows, spewing out their gubbins? I come here tonight like most of these good folk to hear how you intended to keep them savages out of our hair! And now you break this piss ’n’ wind over us . . .’

  ‘Mr Stackhouse, please, remember we are mixed company,’ interrupted Reverend Pringle, blushing.

  ‘Oh aye? Very mixed up we are. Them who’ll have to put up with navvies building tracks over their privy wall and them, three mile up the dale, who’ve made sure that no soot falls on their roses.’ His reply produced a chorus of ayes, nays and, ‘You tell ’em, Wally.’

  ‘What about our washing?’

  ‘Our cows won’t let down their milk and our daughters’ll not be safe in their beds, once you let them navvies out the camp!’ yelled a red-faced farmer’s wife whose farm would now be fifty yards closer to the track. ‘It’s a disgrace! The squire can’t just trample over us as if we were horse muck.’

  The vicar stared down from the platform at all his parishioners, trying to avoid Liddy Braithwaite’s cow corner where the dairy farmers sat en masse. In the middle were the sheep contingent and the worthies mainly took up the front rows; candles were flickering and cups were rattled and clinked, fury raising a bigger head of steam in the hall than would ever run on wheels. He saw Widow Birkett steeling herself to rise up, her black bonnet sombrely edged with purple ribbon, while the fair Ellen, clean-scrubbed and shining, nudged her sleeping sister Mercy off her lap to hold her mother in support.

  ‘Shame on you, Reg Ingomells, to be a party to this robbery in daylight. My Jim’ll be turning in his grave to see you take sides against a poor widow, letting her lose twenty acres of best pasture to feed the vanity of owd Squire Dacre. You know what a struggle we’ve been having this past year . . .’ Annie Birkett burst into wails, comforted by her daughters, but her sobbings stunned the room into an uneasy silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mistress Birkett, but the meeting will be closed now. If any of you have queries . . .’ Ralph raised his head to see Beth Wildman hobbling swiftly down the gangway in her black cloak and feathers like one of the Furies. Ezra Bulstrode, nonplussed by this dramatic entrance, shook his head at his sister who flapped her agenda paper like a fan, wishing she could dispose of the animal round her neck.

  ‘Hang on, vicar, I’ve not said my piece yet,’ shouted Beth up to the platform, wagging a long finger at each one of the speakers in turn. ‘I’m giving you a warning. Carve up these fells at your peril. It ain’t natural, like it ain’t natural for us to go faster than a h
orse. It disturbs things that should be left well alone . . . the spirits in these hills won’t like it and they’ll fight back at us, mark my words. Don’t wake’m, leave’m be or else . . .’

  ‘Stop that superstitious nonsense, Miss Wildman, don’t embarrass us with your ignorant rantings,’ snapped John Pringle, waving her away. ‘This is a grand scientific scheme to bring prosperity to our dale once more. The company has assured us that they will be as quick as they can and will deliver the land back to us unharmed. No one will know they were ever there. Have you not been listening to a word that’s been said?’

  ‘Perhaps if the viaduct was at your end of the street with the walls of the manse rattling your china every night, you would not be so eager to welcome such progress, minister. Let me tell you, they’ll fill our graveyard for us afore they go; fill it so full we’ll have to push back the walls to get ours and theirs sided away, side by side with offcumdens. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.’

  ‘Stop this at once! You overreach our patience with this devilment. Shut up, woman, or you’ll be removed,’ came the reply.

  ‘Tell ’em, vicar, I see what I see. Trouble on the wind. It’s coming with the snow . . .’ Beth marched to the back of the hall and flounced out of the door. Ralph kept his head down but banged the gavel onto the desk.

  ‘I think we’ve heard all there is on this matter for the moment and the gentlemen will see that we are very moved on the subject. I’m sure we can rub along nicely once we get to know each other.’

  There were scornful titters and booings but the Crow Woman’s diatribe was not to be taken lightly. She could put the fear of God in the stoutest heart and wither a man’s tackle with scarcely a blink if she was thwarted. Someone would make sure she got a lift back safely just to make sure they were not one of the doomed, destined to be mown down in the coming storm.