The Railway Girls

by Leah Fleming

  Chapter Eighteen

  Zillah struggled up the hill to Paradise in the dusty heat, her cottons sticking to her skin, trickles of sweat dampening her forehead, making the straw boater itch at the band and the veil of netting smother her nostrils. She sniffed her handkerchief for a whiff of lavender water to cool her senses. The track was unusually quiet for a weekday afternoon, no packmen bending to their burden, no carthorses plodding with their load. A strange unfamiliar stillness hung in the air, broken only by the sound of a dizzy skylark warbling high above the heat haze.

  The gangs were down by the ravine laying wooden planks across the prepared soil, no doubt welcoming the shade of the tall ash trees. Now that the cuttings and embankments were carved out of the landscape, temporary tracks would bring the hoot of small locomotives carrying supplies of iron tracks to lay the line. The men whistled rudely as she passed a gang and her blushes were hidden under veiling. They knew who she was, shouting, ‘Give us a hymn, miss. Can we come to yer class? Let me turn yer pages, miss?’ The shouting had worsened since she abandoned her black clothes in favour of summer cottons.

  The teacher checked her basket. There were eggs for Mary Ann and a rattle bought at the Feast for Janey, a bag of wool rovings for Mally Widdup to card and spin up into yarn and some blush cherries from the tall tree in the kitchen patch.

  At last she came in sight of the contractor’s caravan on wheels where she was stopped by a clerk. ‘No one in the camp, miss, not with the sickness. Go back to Scarsbeck and keep yer veil down. Beg pardon but it is terrible sickness,’ said the man with a stern anxious look on his leathery face.

  ‘I have visits to make: I’m from the Pastoral Aid. Let me pass, please, I’m on the Lord’s work, young man.’

  ‘Not even the Angel Gabriel himself would want to wander round this camp without a mask and a pomander, miss. They’ve isolated the fever huts all at the far end. The doctor calls in from Batty Green, it’s carrying them off like flies down there, so it’s better to be safe than sorry, miss. Go back. There’s ten huts down with it here and four dead already.’ The man tried to wave her back with his hands but Zillah stood firm.

  ‘Thank you for your concern but as I said, I am on the Lord’s work and I take the risk. Stand back and let me through.’ Zillah carried on walking into the camp.

  The clerk shook his head wearily. ‘Be it on yer own head. I have my orders too, you know.’

  The teacher sensed fear stalking Paradise as she walked purposefully along the rows of huts. Women were indoors and there were no children romping noisily around the buildings chasing dogs and poultry. Goats were tethered in the shade nibbling the dried-out plants of withered vegetables. Each hut was now painted white to reflect away the sun’s rays and through the open doors she smelt a mixture of limewash and carbolic; bedding was strung out on ropes to air in the light. Women sat in doorways smoking their dreadful clay pipes, inspecting the missionary with suspicion as she marched past on her way to Mary Ann’s hut to inspect Janey’s progress.

  They were used to her weekly visits and she wondered sometimes what they made of her trailing skirts. Mary Ann would put on the water to boil in a pan and bring out her one china cup which was cracked and stained brown in the bottom. It was hard to swallow the strong tea but Zillah never flinched.

  Her admiration was growing for the way these young women struggled to feed, clothe and care for their families in such cramped conditions, sharing their huts with rough lodgers, preparing gallons of stew and pies to feed muscles with beef.

  She was ashamed that her own curiosity had never crossed the baize door into the servants’ quarter at home. It was an unknown, unseen world. No one had ever thought to prepare her for this harsh existence. It would have been unthinkable to mix two such different worlds, like mixing ale with wine.

  Now she was bringing some good news, the promise at last of a baptism service for Janey alongside a group of other navvy children from the school whose parents she had badgered for weeks to get their offspring christened together. This was an important victory in her campaign against the ‘late’ Reverend Hardy. It would give him something to think about.

  The white gravel chippings on the path to Lower Paradise scuffed up a chalky dust into a cloud; as she approached Mary Ann’s hut, she smelt smoke. A group of women were standing round a bonfire of clothing and furniture shaking their heads. They looked up at her arrival and scattered suddenly, leaving the teacher to knock on the hut door. There was no answer.

  ‘No point in going in there. It’s empty, been fumigated. If yer wanting Mary, you’ll have to go down to the fever hut . . . Poor do for her man when he comes home. No babby, no dinner, no hut. She’s badly, is Mary.’ The woman in the doorway kept her distance as she shook her head. ‘Down yonder is the fever hut on its own. They’ve brought a nurse up from Batty Green but there’s nowt much to be done, is there?’

  Zillah felt her stomach churn as she hurried down the makeshift path noticing other rings of stone with smouldering bundles dotted round the perimeter of the camp. The sickness was everywhere. The fever hut stood on its own; a bleak outpost of sanitation and safety, she hoped, for Mary Ann and Janey. As she approached she noticed a tall familiar figure shutting the door behind him. What was he doing in the camp?

  Ralph Hardy looked up in surprise at Zillah’s arrival and shooed her back with his hands. ‘Don’t go inside, Miss Herbert. I’m sorry. She’s gone now.’

  ‘Gone where?’ she asked innocently.

  He raised his eyes heavenward. ‘To the saints in glory, let us hope.’

  ‘Oh no! Who? Only last week at the fair Janey cut her first tooth. She was so hot and crotchety then. Oh dear, I must see them and pay my respects at once. Poor Mary Ann and her husband too?’

  ‘Her man is not here. She was minding the hut until he returned from Batty Green on a temporary job. He must have brought the fever with him. Please don’t go inside, remember them as they were. I don’t advise it.’ The vicar blocked her path.

  ‘Let me pass, Mr Hardy. I brought that child into the world and you wouldn’t baptise her. Surely I have the right to bid her farewell? It’s too cruel. How can God allow such a thing?’

  ‘It’s our carelessness which makes this sickness spread, Miss Herbert. Not the Almighty. The conditions here are hardly hygienic and this is the price they pay. I’ve registered ten bodies in this camp this morning. A sad day for Paradise.’ The man sighed.

  ‘Some Paradise, Mr Hardy, Janey never got her baptism. I just hope you can live with that!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, woman, do you think that God would bar a baby from His presence? They have their needful place.’

  ‘I just wish he wouldn’t take so many of them,’ said Zillah, thinking of her own little sister who never survived infancy. ‘So this ill wind brings you to Paradise at last. I must admit I’m surprised to see you wandering in such a cesspit. I thought you said it was not your concern.’

  ‘I am so sorry to disillusion you but as one of the few people in the dale to have the cowpox scratch I have my uses. We’ll have to organise a special burial for these victims in a communal grave, I’m afraid, to protect the rest.’

  ‘The church couldn’t be bothered to come when they were alive but now they are dead they get your undivided attention.’ Zillah marched past the man, not looking into his face for a response. The man, ruffled by her rudeness, stuck his hat on his head, raised it briefly and strode away to another hut.

  Zillah opened the door into the bare hut. No one could hide the sickly smell of death in the room however many coats of limewash were plastered on the walls. There was a line of beds down each side of the wall. All the furnishings had been stripped, from the stove to the tommy cupboards where usually the men kept personal belongings hung on the wall. A woman in a starched pinafore was sitting on a scrubbed chair and she rose quickly to shoo her out. Zillah took a deep breath, sick at the thought of the mother and child isolated in this hut to face death. It was so
unfair. ‘I’ve come to see Mary Ann.’ The nurse gestured to a bed and sat down again.

  ‘Oh Mary!’ The girl was hunched on her bed, stuffing a cloth in her mouth to control her sobs. Janey lay in her arms as if asleep, wrapped in a shawl. Zillah looked at both of them, unable to speak. She drew back the shawl and recoiled in horror at the disfigurement of the baby’s pitted swollen face pockmarked beyond recognition; a mass of raw pustules like flesh peeled back from its skin. Surely this was not little Janey, plump and rosy-cheeked? How she must have suffered. Janey had known so little life and comfort since her crude entrance into the world. Now she no longer looked human.

  Zillah dropped back the blanket in disgust, tears of rage and sadness all mixed up. She wanted to vomit. Why? Why? Yet she felt ashamed at this primitive reaction to the horror of the scene, ashamed of her weakness in doubting God’s goodness. Where was the good in this suffering?

  She gathered the girl into her arms instinctively and they rocked together, trying to erase the horror of it all. There were no words for those minutes, only the sound of hinges squeaking as they rocked back and forth.

  How could the likes of Mary Ann, the Widdups or the others she was beginning to know and respect fight against such a killer? How could she bear to live disfigured, pockmarked as Mary now was? It was then that fear flooded over her; fear of the same mutilation. What if this visit would pass the disease on to her? Would she be brave enough to bear the disfigurement, the looks of pity as people averted their eyes from her pockmarked face? How could she put the Birketts at risk, she reasoned to herself as she turned and fled out of the camp, hardly stopping to draw breath until she was safely over the beck and up the slopes of Middle Butts Farm.

  Zillah tore off her outer clothing, tore them into pieces and pushed them bit by bit onto the range fire. Only then did she weep with shame as she finished her latest epistle to Nottingham.

  Dear Aunt Jane,

  Sadness sits upon my soul today. I have seen suffering I will never forget and we have lost our little namesake to a terrible plague in these beautiful hills. They are so green and yet so treacherous, harbouring disease in the camps, carrying pestilence over green fields in the wind from shantytown to shanty camp.

  It has erased any pleasure I might have had in telling you of some success. You see I have to confess to contriving to ensure my brightest pupil, the boy Widdup, has at last been noted, tested and transferred through to Mr Bulstrode’s excellent tutelage. Through a shameful indulgence of overacting, I convinced him of my indisposition, requiring him to take over my class for the afternoon. All other devices having failed, desperation made a cheat of me. It has been a hollow victory, however, for since this ruse the children have not been allowed to attend school owing to an outbreak of smallpox in the sadly named Paradise.

  Fields are all given peculiar names in these parts and the railway huts find themselves in Paradise field. Anywhere less like Paradise I would be hard placed to envisage.

  Miss Bulstrode has forbidden her brother to allow any contact with children from the camp until further notice. She is the sour-faced host who made life at Scarsbeck so uncomfortable; like a watchdog guarding her den, baring teeth at all but her brother. So I have no pupils and take the infant children for walks in the sunshine while the headmaster instructs his older pupils. I fear most of my class will have disappeared by the autumn.

  The fear of this terrible fever and the chance of casual work tempt families out into the field gangs. Some choose to disappear during the night away from the camp sickness, no doubt to spread it further up the line. Sadly it is the babies and the old who are the most vulnerable. Her mother will recover but is so disfigured. I cannot shake off a feeling of heaviness in my limbs at such a waste of life. I see her face before me wherever I go.

  Have no fear for my safety; there have been no outbreaks in the village and farms, I think due to the airy coolness of stone walls and slate floors which are well scrubbed. These Dalesfolk are keen on cleanliness if not godliness, washing, scrubbing and suchlike with rough hands to prove it, but their health is good and appetites sturdy.

  I have this foolish thought that this plague is a punishment for my duplicity. Could I be to blame? I cannot summon up any enthusiasm for my usual tasks here. The Birketts must despair of my lazy ways.

  I know I have forced the issue of Billy’s education with his kinfolk. His sister and grandfather are simple folk, eager to please. They promise to make Billy attend his extra coaching lessons. I know this will cost them dear. You can be sure I will do what I can discreetly to alleviate the shortfall in their purse with small gifts of food and clothing.

  Papa will no doubt say I’m interfering again, getting overinvolved in a cause, as usual. Surely I should champion rare ability when I am privileged to discover it? There are few enough lights smothered under bushels in my classroom.

  As there is much sadness to attend to, I cannot desert my post as you all would wish for the annual trek to Scotland and the glorious twelfth of August. I know this will disappoint your plans but when there is so much fear and suffering in the camp, this is no time for me to indulge myself with a holiday.

  Yours sadly,

  Zillah Jane

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘When will it rain again, Beth? Come on, you’re my weather glass. How long do we have to wait? The fields are tinder-dry. It’s not natural for us to fry in August. Sir Edward says his grouse will be poor this year.’ Ralph Hardy mopped his brow as he sat by the shepherd woman’s fireside blowing pipe smoke out of the open door.

  ‘Nothing’s gone right since yon railway cut through us like a knife, slicing up the fellside, disturbing the spirits, the boggarts and pixie folk are breeding mischief. It’ll rain soon enough when I’m in the ground. I wish I could help them folks with the fever but there’s little yer can do if it takes hold, just cooling and soothing and a strong body to fight. I’ve heard you’ve been visiting and doing what yer can.’

  ‘Not much, Beth, just registering the poor souls for burial and visiting the families. They’re a tough lot up there and keep to themselves but they’re glad enough of a bit of concern from the village.’ He was not going to tell her that he could not sleep at night, his dreams disturbed by the haunting faces of the dead.

  ‘You make sure you don’t touch owt, if in doubt, burn it. Keep yerself fresh . . .’ said Beth, and seeing him smile, ‘No I don’t mean “market fresh” drunk like the farmers after a trip to Hawes. Wash yer hands, dab on them herb oils I give yer.’ Beth lay back tired and frustrated, her leg bound tight and lifted up on a buffet. ‘And here’s me laid up after nobbut a fall, jiggered by just a knock on a rock. Still, a few days’ll see me right.’ Lad the sheepdog nuzzled into her lap and she stretched to stroke him. ‘You should be outdoors, not getting fat by the hearth, dog. I don’t know what’s come over me.’

  Ralph knew it was more than a fall. She blacked out somewhere on the fellside. Lad had whined and drawn the attention of a passing drover who found her confused, unable to speak and only aware of the gash on her best leg.

  It was as if all her strength had seeped away into the moss, leaving her pale and listless, her speech slurred and laboured where once she was wick to answer back. A tongue-lashing from Beth was Ralph’s tonic. Suddenly his white witch was mortal, frail and in need of care herself.

  ‘Come back with me, let us look after you at the vicarage for a spell. I promise I will wait on you hand and foot.’

  She cackled feebly. ‘Away with you, vicar! What will the village think, settling yer fancy piece up in the holy house? And that schoolmarm will create a stink. She’s a sight to behold and not above giving you the bright eye! Quite a lady by all accounts and kindly enough . . . you could do far worse.’

  ‘Never, never, never will I consider that opinionated, interfering, over-righteous schoolmarm! She may have the merriest eyes in Scarsbeck and a pert little body but if I have to live in hell, I’ll wait till I’m dead.’

 
‘My, my, she has got up yer nose. Watch out, vicar, there’s arrows flying overhead, wear a breastplate or you’ll get struck. I’ll not be here to see the fun but I’ll be watching just the same. Don’t look like that. I’m not budging from my own hearthside till I can stride over Scarsdale tops with Lad and me sheep. If me time’s coming, so what, I’ve had a good enough turn, seen a few seasons. So no moping about owd Beth Wildman, the Crow Woman. Bury me at midnight out by Scarsbeck stone cross, high enough for a good view and deep enough not to have scavengers picking over me bones. These owd bones can feed the cloudberries on the fell, bring out a bit of colour. I want no fuss and no fancy words. If yer put me in the kirkyard, I’ll haunt yer every night till you do as yer bid. Think on.’

  Ralph looked sternly at her. He had never heard her talking in such a way before. ‘Stop being morbid, Bethany Wildman, you’ll be seeing a fair few sheep clippings yet. Where’s your spirit – in your boots?’

  ‘Can’t you get into yer thick skull, young man, there comes a time when a body’s had enough of cold winters and aching skiatics, when thee’s seen enough of what’s a-coming to know you don’t want to be round to see it? Railway tracks and steam engines bringing town folk tramping over dale as have no right to be there, clodhopping, breaking walls down, scaring sheep, knocking the bogs into marshland. I see nowt to stay around for. If me time’s up I’ll snuff it but I don’t want Lad to pine. Find him a good home and I’ll leave yer in peace.’ Beth spat into the fire defiantly.

  ‘What’s got into you today? Here I came to cheer you up and now I’m crying in my tea,’ answered Ralph.

  ‘Yer a good lad, vicar, for all yer wicked ways. I’ve said me piece to you and only you. If it jumps in yer chest, obey it and you’ll be a good shepherd to yer flock after all. I keeps on at yer but you will shy off. What are you afeared of?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who am I to show anyone the way to guide a flock along a track?’

  ‘Tracks is for drovers to drive them from one sale to the next. That’s not shepherding. A shepherd lets his flock roam free in the right places, lets them free from a distance like, a shepherd knows each of his flock not as a bunch but one by one. Only then will they trust you and come when you call.