Poppy's Dilemma

by Nancy Carson

  ‘That’s a bit too close to home, don’t you think, Min?’

  ‘I only said I fancied him.’

  Poppy chuckled. ‘You’re a right one, you are. Listen, will you be about tonight if I call for you? Or will you be with Dog Meat?’

  ‘Call for me.’ Minnie gave Poppy a wink and said she’d see her later.

  Back outside, the blue sky had given way to dark clouds that threatened rain for the first time in ages. Poppy, carrying her loaded basket, stepped onto Shaw Road to return to the hut. Over to her right stood the head gear and the horse gins of several pits, the tall chimneys of ironworks volleying ever more coal-black smoke into a leaden sky that was already full of it. She was contemplating Minnie’s voracious appetite for men when she heard the rattle of wheels trundling over the uneven surface. Poppy turned to look, expecting to see a carriage. Instead, she saw a man wearing a top hat and frock coat, astride what looked like a hobby horse. As he drew closer, she recognised him as Mr Crawford, the considerate young man from Treadwell’s who had entered the hut with that arrogant policeman on the morning of her father’s unscheduled departure. She watched him and, as he overtook her, she caught his eye and smiled, and he smiled in return. A few yards further on, he drew to a halt and turned around, still astride his two-wheeled machine, waiting for her to catch up.

  ‘You’re Lightning Jack’s daughter, aren’t you?’ His voice was rich and his accent was definitely not working class. Yet he seemed pleasant and his smile was friendly.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, a little surprised that he’d taken the trouble to stop and speak. ‘I’m Poppy Silk. I remember you. You came to our hut with that nasty policeman.’

  ‘He was nasty, wasn’t he? I thought he was most rude. Have you heard from your father? I wondered if he was all right.’

  ‘We ain’t heard nothing. We’ve got no idea where he might have gone.’

  ‘Well, he evidently hasn’t been caught. If he had, you’d have heard.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Poppy said, her eyes brightening at the realisation.

  ‘It’s a certainty. Anyway, it’s so obvious he’d done nothing wrong. I, for one, don’t blame him in the least for scooting off out of the way until the hubbub’s died down.’ There was a sincerity, an earnestness in his soft brown eyes that Poppy found attractive.

  She smiled again at the agreeable things Mr Crawford was saying and shifted her basket to her other arm. His smile was a pleasure to behold, the way his smooth lips formed a soft crescent around beautifully even teeth – not a bit like Luke’s.

  ‘He did handle a necklace, you know,’ Poppy said confidentially, as if she’d known and trusted this young man for ages. ‘He was going to buy it for me, but then somebody snatched it off him and he don’t know who it was.’

  ‘That’s how I understand it, Miss Silk.’

  He’d called her ‘Miss Silk’ … Her … Nobody had ever called her ‘Miss Silk’ before. It made her feel ladylike and important. To hide her face – that seemed to be suddenly burning – she looked down at her clogs peering from beneath her skirt. No man had ever made her blush before.

  ‘Thank you for calling me “Miss Silk”,’ she said quietly, uncertain how she should react. ‘Nobody ever called me that before. But you can call me Poppy if you like. Everybody calls me Poppy.’

  He laughed good-naturedly. ‘A pretty name for a pretty girl. Very well, Poppy. So I shall. And thank you for allowing it. Anyway, your father – I imagine he’ll be back soon. Now that Treadwell’s have agreed to pay for the damage the men caused to the police station, I doubt if any further action will be taken. Especially for such a small item as a necklace.’

  ‘Oh, that’s grand news,’ Poppy said happily. ‘Does that mean he can come home safely, do you think?’

  ‘With impunity.’ He smiled that tasty smile again. ‘I would certainly think so.’

  A lull followed in their conversation while Poppy tried to work out who ‘Impunity’ was. She considered asking him, but had no wish to belittle herself by showing her ignorance.

  ‘Is this hobby horse new?’ she asked conversationally.

  The frame was made of wood, as were the wheels, but each wheel was furnished with an iron rim. The handlebars and front forks were forged from wrought iron, as were the treadles for his feet at the side of the front wheel.

  ‘Not quite,’ Mr Crawford answered, and let go of the handlebars to sit back against the pad that shielded him from the larger rear wheel. ‘Actually, it’s not strictly a hobby horse – I don’t know what I should call it. You scoot a hobby horse along with your feet, which is dashed hard on the shoes. This has treadles at the front wheel, as you can see, with connecting rods to these crank arms that drive the back wheel.’ He diligently pointed them out to her. ‘So you don’t have to drag your feel along the ground like you would if you were astride an old hobby horse. Once you’ve got going, you can keep up the motion, just by working the treadles with your feet.’

  ‘I bet it cost a mint of money,’ Poppy commented.

  ‘I lost track, to tell you the truth. I built it myself, you see. All except the wheels, which were made for me by a wheelwright. I didn’t really keep a tally of how much it all cost.’

  ‘Where did you get the idea from?’

  ‘Well, I was living in Scotland a year or so ago and I saw some chap riding one. I thought, what a brilliant idea. So I made a few sketches and determined to build one just like it. This is the result.’

  ‘It looks as if it might be fun, Mr Crawford. Is it?’

  ‘Great fun! It’s cheaper than a horse and it doesn’t get tired or thirsty. You don’t have to find a stable either, nor buy feed … Look, since you’re allowing me to call you Poppy, please call me Robert,’ he said as an afterthought. ‘There’s really no need to call me Mister Crawford.’

  Poppy smiled again. ‘Thank you … Robert.’ Savouring the feel of his name in her mouth and on her lips, she said his name again, quietly to herself.

  He pulled his watch out from his fob and checked the time. ‘I really must go, Poppy. I’m glad I’ve seen you and had the chance to talk to you. I hope your father will soon return.’ He shoved off with his feet, travelled a few yards and stopped again near the entrance to the workings. ‘Look, if you’d like to try riding this machine of mine, you can meet me sometime, if you like.’

  ‘To ride it, you mean?’ Poppy queried.

  ‘Yes. You said it looked like fun, and it is.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she remarked hesitantly. ‘I mean, I don’t think it would be seemly … the sight of me on a hobby horse.’ She was thinking about her skirt having to be hitched up. ‘Not very ladylike.’

  He laughed, somewhat melted by this prepossessing young girl as he realised her predicament. Even to the uncultured young daughter of a navvy, modesty was still evidently a consideration. ‘You could sit side-saddle on the crossbar with me, while I rode.’

  ‘All right, I will,’ she agreed, with a shy smile and a nod. ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow?… No, not tomorrow, unfortunately. I have to take some measurements on the Brierley Hill section … Wednesday. I have my dinner at about one o’clock. I could meet you here, if you like. We could whizz down the rest of Shaw Road as fast as a steam locomotive. And beyond if we wanted to.’

  She chuckled with delight. ‘All right. Wednesday.’

  He waved, turning his machine into the compound, and she watched him dreamily as he leaned it against the wall of the hut the foremen used as an office.

  Chapter 4

  The womenfolk of the navvies tended to be as sober as their men were drunken. Many were navvy-born, spending their whole lives tramping from town to town, from one huddle of shanties to another. A few had been seduced into following some strapping, carefree, well-paid and handsome navvy who entertained them royally in an effort to impress as he was passing through their town or village. Navvy-born girls, who knew no other life, grew up early and adopted the habits and attitudes
of the older women when as young as twelve or thirteen. They worked hard from early morning and into the night, cleaning huts and boots that were forever dirty by virtue of the work the men did. They bore the navvies’ children, nurtured them and brought them up as best they could, fretting over their health and well-being. Their particular kind of self-respect seldom extended to matrimony, however, save for their own version of it, which was solemnised by the couple jumping over a broomstick, and then consummating their union in front of as many drunken spectators as could be crammed into the room that housed their bed. Because Lightning Jack was a ganger, he was entitled to take lodgers into the hut he rented from the contractor. Sheba was therefore expected to keep the fire going, darn endless pairs of socks, do the washing, the mending, and the cooking for those paying lodgers.

  Poppy and Minnie lived in similar circumstances in different huts that were essentially alike. They were obliged to help their mothers and did so, reliably and willingly. But like their mothers, they were no more than unpaid skivvies. Their rough way of life gave them insights into the goings-on between men and women from which girls in different circumstances would be thoroughly protected. These goings-on affected some more than others, although nothing ever shocked them for they were immune. Minnie, for one, was exhilarated by the sights and sounds of others engaged in sexual intercourse – sights and sounds that she often encountered – and these antics influenced her own lax attitude to sex. Sex was no remarkable phenomenon; it was a commonplace, everyday occurrence to which she attached no greater reverence than she did her other natural bodily functions, except that sex was mightily more pleasurable. Consequently, you might go out of your way to enjoy it.

  Poppy, on the other hand, was somewhat differently affected. She preferred to postpone the fateful day or night when she would, for the first time, be expected to similarly indulge. And she had been remarkably adept in pursuing that goal. The thought of doing it on her ‘wedding night’ in front of a drunken, unruly mob did not suffuse her with either joyful or eager anticipation.

  When they had finished their work that evening, Poppy brushed her fair hair, put on her coat and went out into the rain to call for Minnie. Already the ground of the encampment, which had been dry and dusty for weeks, was suddenly a quagmire and her clogs squelched in the mud as she picked her way through it. She reached Ma Catchpole’s hut, tapped on the door, opened it and put her head round. Minnie’s father, known as ‘Tipton Ted’, was supping a tankard of beer through his unkempt beard and sucking on his gum-bucket alternately as he sat soaking his feet in a bowl of hot water, his moleskin trousers rolled up to just below his knees. He greeted Poppy amiably and asked if she had any news of her father. She replied that she hadn’t.

  Minnie then appeared from the little bedroom. She had made a special effort with herself and looked neat and tidy. Her face glowed shiny from the effects of soap and water and her dark hair hung down in tight ringlets under her bonnet.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said to Poppy, and bid goodnight to her folks.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ Poppy asked when they were back outside in the rain.

  ‘Anywhere we can find shelter,’ Minnie replied, stepping into a mudbath at their front door. ‘Look at me boots already. This front door’s a muck wallow. Dog Meat and me dad will be moaning like hell tomorrow. It’ll be that hard to get the muck out of the wagons when it’s wringing wet and stuck together in a stodge.’

  Instinctively, they walked towards the footpath and Shaw Road, stepping over black puddles in the half light.

  ‘Have you seen much of that Jericho since?’ Poppy enquired.

  ‘Yes, I took him some dinner on a tray. He’s got matey with Dog Meat already. They’m going to the Grin and Bear It together. I fancy going there and seeing ’em.’

  ‘You mean you fancy seeing this Jericho.’

  Minnie nodded and smiled as she glanced at Poppy.

  ‘I met somebody today,’ Poppy coyly remarked.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘An engineer who works for Treadwell’s. I reckon he’s about twenty-three.’

  ‘An engineer?’ Minnie sounded incredulous. ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘When I was walking back from the tommy shop. He came past me riding a two-wheeled machine like a hobby horse. He recognised me. He’s the one I told you about who came to our hut with that vile policeman, when me father jacked off. Any road, he stopped to talk. He asked me if I’d heard from me father. He was ever so friendly, and he seemed kind – as if he really cared.’

  ‘What’s he look like?’ Minnie asked.

  ‘Ooh, handsome,’ Poppy said with a dreamy smile. ‘And he’s got such lovely, kind eyes. I really liked him, Minnie.’

  ‘You liked him? The likes of you have got no hope of getting off with somebody like an engineer, Poppy. Engineers am educated. Unless he just wants to get you down in the grass and give you one.’

  ‘He didn’t strike me as being like that,’ Poppy replied defensively. ‘He called me “Miss Silk”. Can you imagine? Me? Miss Silk?’

  ‘He definitely wants to give you one.’

  Poppy shrugged. ‘He can if he wants. I’m game. I’m meeting him Wednesday. He’s going to give me a ride on his machine.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Minnie laughed, cynically. ‘Then when you both fall off, he’ll look into your eyes while you’m both lying there – you with your frock up round your neck – and ask, “Are you all right, Miss Silk?” then climb right on top of you. His little pego will be up you like a shot, like an eel wriggling up a stream.’

  Poppy giggled girlishly. ‘You’ve got a vivid imagination, Min. But I don’t mind if he does. I told you, I really, really like him. I just hope he kisses me to death. Oh, I’d love to kiss them lips of his.’

  Minnie whooped with joy. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when you was took with somebody, Poppy Silk.’

  ‘Nor me neither,’ Poppy answered. ‘But I can’t wait for Wednesday.’

  The two girls arrived at The Wheatsheaf. On tiptoe, they peered through the window for sight of Dog Meat. The public house was heaving with those navvies who still had money to spend, as well as black-faced miners from the several pits that were dotted about the area, and iron workers with whom they enjoyed a friendly rivalry. Dog Meat spotted Minnie and Poppy, and went outside to fetch them in.

  ‘I’ll get yer a glass o’ beer apiece,’ Dog Meat said. ‘Go and talk to Jericho.’

  Minnie glanced at Poppy and Poppy saw that Minnie’s face was flushed at the prospect of being with Jericho. Oh, that Minnie fancied Jericho all right.

  Jericho was sitting at a cast-iron table, twisting a tankard of beer around with his fingers. He grinned when he saw Minnie, then beamed at Poppy.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ he said, in his strange accent. His eagerness to know Poppy was evident in his expression.

  ‘This is my mate Poppy,’ Minnie said.

  ‘I never seen so many pretty wenches on a job,’ Jericho said with a broad grin. ‘Rare beauties all of ye, and that’s the truth, so ’tis.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ Poppy asked, also fascinated by his piercing blue eyes.

  ‘From Chippenham. A good few days’ tramp. Ever been to Chippenham, Poppy?’

  ‘Not unless the railway runs through it.’

  ‘The Great Western runs right through it. I’ll take you to Chippenham some fine day. I’ll hire a carriage to take us from the station. A pretty girl like you should be treated like a lady. Nothing less than a carriage and pair would be good enough.’

  Poppy smiled reticently, remembering Robert Crawford; inevitably comparing the two men.

  ‘Have you got a chap, Poppy?’ Jericho asked. ‘If not, I’m just the chap for you. We’d make a fine couple, you and me, eh?’

  ‘You’re wasting your time trying to butter Poppy up,’ Minnie said jealously, trying to dissuade this new resident away from her friend. ‘She’s already took with one of Treadwell’s engineers. What’s his name, Poppy, did
you say?’

  ‘I didn’t say I was took with him,’ Poppy argued, aware of what Minnie was up to. ‘You said it. Not me.’

  ‘Only ’cause you am took with him, Poppy.’ Minnie turned to Jericho. ‘Less than ten minutes ago she told me she wouldn’t mind this engineer giving her one – and how she’s meeting him Wednesday and can hardly wait. What did you say his name was?’

  Poppy sighed and looked archly at her slender fingers. ‘Robert Crawford.’

  ‘And he rides one o’ them two-wheeled machines what looks like an ’obby ’orse.’

  ‘What he built himself,’ Poppy added with pride. ‘’Cept for the wheels.’

  ‘Well, I can see I got some competition … Still …’ Jericho grinned with supreme confidence. ‘Competition never bothered me afore.’

  Later that night, when they had returned to their huts and Poppy was in bed, she heard a commotion outside in the compound. Men’s cheering and jeering voices told her it must be a fight. The sounds of fists slapping against flesh and cracking against bone, the earnest grunts of men in a tussle, confirmed it. She sat up in bed, then threw back the blanket and dragged herself out. She found her slippers in the darkness, put her mantle on over her nightgown, and stepped outside to see who it was. The rain had ceased but mud was everywhere. Silhouetted by the feeble light that fell through the open door of Minnie’s hut, a group of men had gathered, encouraging the two men who were grappling each other. Poppy crept forward to see who was involved but, in the darkness, she could not be certain. She saw Minnie, who had also come out to watch, her head darting from side to side as she tried to see round the shoulders of big men in front of her.

  Poppy tugged Minnie’s coat from behind. ‘Who’s fighting?’

  ‘Jericho and Chimdey Charlie.’

  ‘What are they fighting over?’

  ‘A pillow,’ Minnie replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. ‘And look … they’m as naked as the day they was born.’ She put her hand over her mouth in mock shock and giggled joyously. ‘He’s a strapping chap, ain’t he, that Jericho?’