Hannah was astonished at her mother’s change of tune but wisely forebore from making comment on it. In fact Tibbie, like most of the people in Camptounfoot, had liked Christopher Wylie and had been shocked by his death. It seemed churlish to refuse to take his daughter in if she was only coming back to tidy up his affairs. Although she didn’t admit it either, Tibbie had also become accustomed to the idea of a railway coming past the village. It didn’t seem so bad now that it was almost upon them. Craigie was still raving on, of course, out in the street shouting curses in the middle of the night sometimes. He seemed to think that Wylie’s death was some sort of justification for him, and that had lost him a great deal of sympathy, especially from Tibbie. She consoled herself by thinking that no one listened to Craigie any more. The villagers tolerated him as one of the local lunatics, just a bit more dangerous than Miss Jessup.
Tibbie could tell that Hannah wanted her to take the girl, for she was saying, ‘Tim thinks she’ll not be here long. He’s got the idea that she’s coming to tell him she’s giving up the contract. After all, Mr Wylie’s son’s dead too and there can’t be anybody left to run it. Tim’s really upset because he doesn’t like the man that’ll take it over for the railway company. I don’t think he’ll work for Mr Jopp.’
Tibbie shot her an anxious look. ‘You’ll not be moving away, Hannah, will you?’
Her daughter shook her head in assumed cheerfulness, though the thought of leaving her native district worried her too. ‘Och no, not for ages. If Tim leaves the bridge, he’ll get hired by one of the other gangs working on the line. He’s a good workman and they all know him.’
Tibbie nodded slowly, thinking about Miss Wylie. ‘Tell him I’ll take his boss’ daughter for a wee while then.’
Hannah was pleased. ‘Oh, that’s grand! I know she’ll be comfortable here. You’ll be able to put her in the attic where I used to sleep. It’s lovely up there. Let’s go and sort things out now because she’s coming tomorrow.’
They put the sleeping baby in Tibbie’s box bed in the kitchen and climbed a steep ladder to the attic. Up there it smelt sweetly of stored apples and the dried lavender that Tibbie used for making a lotion she rubbed on sore backs and sprains. Over their heads the birds in the thatch were rustling and Hannah listened to them with delight, because that was one of the favourite sounds of her young life. The birds that shared her room had been her friends. A deep bed filled one corner, its mattress bare and the folded covers and feather pillows piled up at one end. ‘I’ll give you a hand to make it up, Mam,’ she said and happily they shook out the home-made cotton quilts and spread them carefully over one of Tibbie’s best sheets. Then they laid a rag rug on the floor and dusted a wooden box with a big metal hasp that did duty as a clothes-chest. When all that was done, Hannah said, ‘I’ll go and cut some flowers for a vase. They’ll look bonny and welcoming for her.’
When she came back up the ladder with a bunch of yellow daisies in her hand she was white-faced, and sighed as she arranged them in the vase. ‘I’ve got a bad headache that’s just come on. I think I’ll go home,’ she told her mother.
‘Oh bairn, I’ll make you a drink of feverfew leaves. I’ll go and pick some now. It’s this weather that does it – I’ve had a headache myself for three days,’ her mother told her. Together they went back down into the kitchen where the baby was beginning to stir in her pillow nest. For once, the feverfew tea did not cure Hannah’s headache, and at five o’clock she set off for home, not telling her mother how her head was thudding and her vision swimming with thousands of flashing lights and black spots like tiny flies. All she wanted to do was to reach Benjy’s and her own bed.
When Tim came home, he found her sweating like a sickly child. He soothed her, washed the baby for her and then laid it to sleep by her side in the big bed. When they were both asleep he went to sit in the open doorway to smoke his pipe, for Hannah didn’t like the smell of tobacco in the house. He was sitting there when Sydney came striding down the path. ‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’ asked Tim.
‘Into Rosewell for a doctor. Major Bob’s in a bad way – I think she’s got the fever.’
Something awful clutched at Tim’s heart and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Then he asked, ‘Has anyone else got it?’
‘Naughten’s not very well either, but not as bad as Major Bob. It’s best to get a doctor for them, though. You never know.’
Dr Stewart lived in a stone house surrounded by a high wall in a narrow alley off the road leading down to the Abbey. He was playing chess with a friend when the maidservant told him that a ‘gentleman’ had asked to see him.
‘Is it someone we know?’ he asked.
The girl shook her head. ‘No, sir.’
‘Then ask him to wait in the patients’ room and I’ll be with him in a few minutes,’ was the doctor’s reply, for there was a cunning move he wanted to make before he left the board. He was smiling in triumph when he walked through the house to his consulting rooms at the back where the unknown patient awaited him.
Sydney had not troubled to change out of his working clothes of white shirt, black waistcoat and trousers tied with string just below the knees. He was sitting back in a wooden chair in a negligent attitude with his large-brimmed white hat hanging from his hand when the doctor arrived. Stewart’s face changed when he saw that he had been summoned from his game to attend to a mere navvy and his tone was acerbic as he asked, ‘What can I do for you, then? If it’s gonorrhoea that’s the trouble, I don’t take these cases. You’ll have to go to the charity dispensary in Maddiston.’ Gonorrhoea was rife among the navvies.
Sydney stood up and said in his most polished voice, the one that had caused the maid to refer to him as a gentleman, ‘Sorry, old man. I’m not your patient and I’ve not got the clap. I want you to come to the camp and look at a couple of people who have high fevers.’
The doctor was surprised and angered to be addressed as if he was some sort of superior servant. Sydney had turned the tables between them. ‘Fever? In the navvy camp? I won’t go near it. I wouldn’t take the risk of bringing it down to the town. If there’s fever in the camp, keep it there,’ he snapped.
Sydney snapped back, ‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you? You take some sort of oath about tending the sick, don’t you? These people are sick and in need of help. I’m prepared to pay you any fee you require for your services.’
They glared at each other. The doctor’s face was as red as fire, his jowls wobbling like the wattles of a turkey cock. ‘I still have the choice of my patients. Who are you to talk to me in that tone of voice? Get out before I call the policeman.’
Sydney turned for the door and strode out through it without a word. In the street outside he stopped and looked around before heading for the police office. The policeman was sitting inside the little room smoking his pipe when a head came round his door. ‘Is that man Stewart the only medical practitioner in this town?’ he was asked.
The policeman removed his pipe and said, ‘Aye, but there’s another three in Maddiston.’
‘Thanks,’ said the stranger and withdrew. On his way to a livery stable to hire a horse for the ride to Maddiston, Sydney had to cross the Square. Standing in the middle of it was a fine barouche with the arms of the Duke of Allandale on the doors. Not only were there two fine grey horses harnessed in the shafts and a top-hatted coachman on the box, but an outrider in livery sat on a similar horse, waiting for the return of the barouche’s occupant.
Sydney walked up to the outrider and asked, ‘Where’s your master?’ The man pointed with his whip to the Corn Exchange. ‘At a farmers’ meeting in there.’
‘Get off your horse and lend it to me. He won’t mind,’ said Sydney.
The man laughed, ‘Go away. You’re drunk.’
‘Bloody fool,’ snapped Sydney and strode into the door of the Corn Exchange. The Duke was sitting on the platform beside three other well-dressed men. The audience of farmers stared as a navvy strode up
the aisle between the chairs and climbed the steps to the platform. There, without ceremony, he leant over and whispered urgently in the Duke’s ear. The Duke looked astonished but then he nodded. The navvy turned and walked out. Seconds later the audience heard the sounds of a scuffle going on in the Square outside. The door opened again and one of the Duke’s servants came running in. His master stood up and shouted, ‘It’s all right, Scott. I said he could have the horse.’ Then he sat down and rapped a little hammer on the table in front of him to bring the meeting back to order. The sounds of a horse being galloped out of the Square came through the open door. No explanations were offered.
It was a good horse, far superior to any livery hack, so it covered the distance to Maddiston in record time. Slowing down as he entered the town, Sydney shouted to a woman sitting at a cottage door, ‘Where’s the doctor?’
‘Which one? Is it young Doctor Robertson you’re after?’
‘He’ll do.’
‘He’s just down there then. Third house on the left. The one with the rowan tree at the gate.’
The tree was heavy with scarlet fruit and Sydney tied his borrowed horse to its trunk when he alighted. Alex Robertson was new to Maddiston. He had arrived only a month before, fresh from hospital work in Glasgow, but because of the slowness of patients to come to him, he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake and should have stayed in the city. So far, the biggest number of patients he’d had were charity cases, and most of those were venereally-infected navvies attending the dispensary. None of the other doctors wanted to have anything to do with them.
When his door-knocker was rattled he answered it himself. The man on the step said abruptly, ‘Have you any objection to treating navvies?’
Robertson shook his head. ‘No, none at all.’
‘Are you afraid to come to the camp with me to look at some cases of fever?’
‘Of course I’ll come. Wait till I get my case.’
‘Have you a horse?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come on then, hurry up. This is an emergency, I think.’
* * *
Major Bob was raving, tossing and turning on her tumbled cot, clawing at the air with talon-like hands. One of the younger women from the camp was trying to give her a drink of water from a greasy-looking cup.
‘She’s awful dirty, Doctor,’ said the woman apologetically when Robertson knelt by the bed to examine the patient, for Major Bob was lying in sheets stained with liquid excrement, but strangely enough there was little smell. He noticed this with disquiet. Cholera did not smell.
‘How long has she been like this?’ he asked.
‘She was poorly yesterday,’ said her attendant, ‘but this…’ she indicated the foul sheets… ‘This only began tonight. She started vomiting and then…’
Robertson nodded, stripped off his jacket and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. He knew that he was in for a long battle, and one that he would almost certainly lose – for the woman was not young and the illness had her in its terrible grip. The strange man who had summoned him was standing by the curtain that divided the woman’s cubicle from the rest of the hut. The doctor went up to him and whispered, ‘She’s in a bad way. The only hope is to give plenty of liquid and hope she manages to retain some of it. I’ll give her an opiate in the hope of stopping the purging, but if it doesn’t do that I’m afraid she’ll die.’
‘There’s another one sick,’ said Sydney, and pointed up the hut to where Naughten lay groaning. A bucket by his bed was half-full of foul-looking yellow vomit and his nut-brown, simian face was pouring with sweat. When the doctor and Sydney bent over him, he opened his eyes and groaned, ‘Ah Sydney, I’m a goner. Send my things to my wife and little ones in Kildare… the address is in my box.’
They pushed the beds of the sick people together at the end of the hut and tended them all night, but it was obvious that life was seeping away from them. As dawn was breaking, Panhandle rose from his bed and started to vomit as well. Sydney could not leave Major Bob, who was suffering terrible agony with stomach cramps, groaning and gritting her teeth when each one hit her. Her skin had turned a strange bluish colour and she croaked in a voice like a raven, ‘Water, give me water…’ It was obvious that she was nearing her end, but she was not giving up without a fight for when Sydney asked her, ‘Do you want a priest, Bob?’ she shook her head and groaned, ‘I’d rather have a brandy…’
Sydney gave a wry grin. ‘I knew your temperance oath wouldn’t last, old girl,’ he said, but he reached into his pocket for the flask he always carried and held it to her lips.
When her fingers touched the metal, she gasped, ‘Silver, you can always tell quality.’ Then she took a big gulp, coughed, closed her eyes and died.
Sydney pulled the edge of the filthy sheet over her face and walked down the hut to where the doctor was sponging Naughten’s unconscious face. ‘Major Bob’s dead,’ he said shortly.
Robertson looked up, surprised. ‘Major Bob? Which is?’
Sydney shook his head. ‘That’s what we called the woman. What’ll I say she died of when I go to register the death?’
Robertson stood up. They were both about the same height. ‘Say enteric fever, but I’m afraid it’s cholera,’ he whispered, so that the other patients could not overhear. Then he added, ‘I’ll only be sure if it spreads. Then there’ll be an almighty panic and there’s time enough for that.’
‘How afraid are you?’ Sydney whispered back.
‘Almost certain. There’s no smell from the faeces, you see – that’s always a sign of cholera. And I’ve seen it before, in Glasgow, when I was a student. It’s cholera all right. I wish to God it wasn’t.’
* * *
Tim woke early before the sun rose and anxiously turned to look at Hannah who lay in the crook of his arm between him and the wall. She was sound asleep with the baby in her arms. In the dim light he stared at them with a heart so full of love that he felt a swelling in his throat. Kate was a tiny copy of her mother and he could not believe that these two beautiful people belonged to him.
When he rose, he pulled the cover carefully over them and whispered in Hannah’s ear, ‘I’m going to the bridge and then I’ve got to meet the Wylie girl off the train at Maddiston. Stay inside. There’s fever in the camp.’ She murmured a sleepy reply but did not open her eyes and within minutes he was dressed and out. He was well clear of Rosewall before the news of the deaths of Major Bob and Naughten-The-Image-Taker got about.
He did not go straight to the bridge site but called first at a cottage sitting high on the hill overlooking the river from the northern side. It was occupied by the family of a navvy called Bragging Billy, who did not like living in camps and always rented a house for the duration of any project. Billy was awake and eating breakfast when Tim appeared at his door.
‘What’s up, Black Ace?’ he asked, thinking there was some emergency on site.
Tim leaned on the jamb of the open doorway and said, ‘Nothing’s up. I’ve come to ask if you can take my wife and baby in for a while. There’s fever in the camp and I want them out of it.’
‘They’ve not got fever, have they?’ asked Billy sharply.
‘No, that’s why I want them away. The baby’s only a few days old and fever could be dangerous for her.’
‘There’s a room at the end we don’t use. You can have it, providing they’re not sick. I’ve bairns myself.’
‘I wouldn’t be moving them out if they were sick,’ said Tim. ‘I’ll bring them over later.’
He then went to the site and got work started for the day. Soon it was time to leave for Maddiston and meet Emma Jane’s train. Anxiety about his family and past resentments against the girl made him short and gruff when she finally arrived, for the train was late and he was desperate to get back to the camp and start moving Hannah and Kate. Miss Wylie walked up the platform with her black skirt rustling along the ground and said, ‘Thank you for coming to meet me, Mr Maquire. I was afraid that you might no
t have received my letter.’
‘I got it,’ he said curtly. ‘And I’ve found you a place to live. It’s with my mother-in-law, Mrs Mather, in Camptounfoot. Mr Jessup’s not up to having a lodger with his sister like she is.’
She nodded. ‘I understood that from his letter. He was too polite to say so outright, though.’
He wondered if he should warn her that Tibbie did not expect her lodger to stay for very long, either, but decided to leave things to take their course. The porter coming behind her was only carrying one portmanteau so it looked as if she didn’t plan on a protracted stay anyway. She volunteered no information on the matter, however.
He’d hired the same carriage as always carried her father, and when she climbed into it he asked her hopefully, ‘Do you want to go to Mrs Mather’s first?’
To his dismay she shook her bonneted head. ‘No. First I’d like to look at the bridge, if you don’t mind. Has much been done on it since Father died?’
‘Quite a lot,’ he replied. ‘The middle piers are almost built up to the beginning of the arches. The ones in the river will have to stand for the winter to make sure they won’t be swept away by the water when it’s running high. Your father floated one on woolsacks as an experiment, you see.’
She stared at him. ‘On woolsacks?’
He sighed and started to explain the story to her. She watched him closely, apparently taking in what he was saying for she nodded her head from time to time. ‘I hope it stands. That’s why you’re waiting, is it? To see if it’s a success?’ she asked.
A Bridge in Time Page 38