The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  ‘They matter to me,’ she answered quietly

  ‘Then, ’tis to be hoped as you grow out of it, our Lucy,’ Jane said in admonishment.

  Lucy was at once conscious that Jane had agreed to marry Moses when he was not only very ordinary looking, but also physically mutilated, without one leg, without hope of work or anything approaching prosperity.

  ‘Every chap can’t be handsome, the same as every wench can’t be beautiful,’ Jane continued. ‘Looks am only skin deep anyroad. What more can you want from a man other than he be decent and honourable and caring? You want somebody who’ll look after you, and who you can look after in turn. Contentment is in being comfortable with somebody, our Lucy, not worrying about whether he’s got looks enough to turn other women’s heads. And you can be sure that some women would move hell and all to get their claws into that sort when your back’s turned, just because he’s blessed with an ’andsome fizzog.’

  ‘I never looked at it like that,’ Lucy admitted quietly.

  ‘Then p’raps it’s time you did.’

  ‘He sneedged into me beer, that King Arthur,’ Haden proclaimed. ‘I dain’t take very kindly to that. Said he’d got a chill coming.’

  Lucy giggled. ‘He’s always got something coming. The very first time I ever saw him he had to run off because he’d got the diarrhee.’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Maybe he’s got weak bowels,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s none of us perfect, like our Jane says.’

  ‘I wonder what his ailment will be when I see him Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘You’m seeing him Sunday afternoon?’ her mother queried. ‘Then you’d best bring him for tea. I’d like to meet this Arthur.’

  ‘But that’ll only encourage him, Mother.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if he’s worth encouraging, our Lucy. I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever find a chap.’

  ‘There’s nobody handsome enough nor perfect enough for our Lucy, Hannah,’ Haden said sardonically. He turned to Lucy. ‘What if he was the handsomest chap in the world and he still had the squits the fust time you met him? Would that put you off him?’

  ‘Oh, Father!’ Lucy protested, and everybody laughed. ‘Can we find something else to talk about?’

  Next day, Friday, Jeremiah Goodrich was tempering re-sharpened chisels in the forge. Hard stone, like granite and marble, rapidly blunted the tips of the steel tools and they had to be heated in the forge till they glowed red, then quenched in cold water at a fairly precise moment in their cooling in order to harden them properly. As he withdrew several from the flames he heard a tap at the door and looked up to see who it was. The abominable animal that vaguely resembled a sheepdog stirred beneath the workbench and pointed its snout in the direction of a well-dressed man in expensive clothes who was standing in the doorway glowering.

  ‘Mr Goodrich?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘My name is Onions. James Onions.’

  The man was well-spoken and his name was recently familiar to Jeremiah. ‘How can I help thee, Mr Onions?’

  ‘I have a complaint. A rather serious complaint.’

  ‘Nothing too painful, I hope?’ Jeremiah said flippantly. ‘Mebbe you should be seeing a doctor, not me.’

  ‘I suppose I should have expected a frivolous reply,’ Mr Onions responded, ‘in view of the nature of my complaint.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘My wife called in here a matter of a couple of weeks ago to request that you add an epitaph, following the death of my mother, to the grave where she and my father, who passed away three years ago, are buried.’

  ‘I think you’ll find as the work’s bin done, Mr Onions, if you’d like to go and check.’ Jeremiah walked over to a high desk strewn with paper and started rummaging through them for confirmation.

  ‘I have checked, Mr Goodrich, which is why I’m here.’

  ‘St Mark’s churchyard in Pensnett, if I remember right,’ Jeremiah murmured, browsing. ‘So what’s the nature of your complaint? The work’s been completed like I said. Course, if you’ve come to pay for it, I ain’t made out the bill yet, but I can soon remedy that.’

  ‘Let me save you the trouble. I’m paying no bill until a brand new headstone is installed on the grave.’

  ‘A brand new headstone?’ Jeremiah scratched his head, mystified as to what could be so wrong that a brand new headstone would be justified.

  ‘Precisely. A brand new headstone. I have a note here of the inscription my family wanted putting on that headstone, Mr Goodrich …’ He felt in his pockets and drew out a piece of paper. ‘No doubt you already have a note of it still, somewhere …’

  ‘If you can just bear with me a minute, while I find it …’ Jeremiah rootled about again. ‘Ah! What’s this?’ He adjusted his spectacles and scrutinised the piece of paper. ‘To the memory of Jacob Onions who passed away 15th October 1853.’ He looked at his irate visitor. ‘That the one?’

  ‘That’s the one, Mr Goodrich. If you would be so kind as to read on …’

  ‘Farewell dear husband must we now part, who lay so near each other’s heart. The time will come I hope when we will both enjoy Felicity.’ Jeremiah looked up questioningly. ‘A fine sentiment, Mr Onions.’

  ‘The inscription we intended adding was also a fine sentiment, Mr Goodrich. But do you realise what we have ended up with?’

  ‘I can see what you was supposed to end up with …’

  ‘Excellent. Then you will realise that what we ended up with, and I quote, “Here also lies the body of Octavia Tether, obliging wife of Henry. May she be as willing in death as she was in life”, is not entirely supportive of my father’s spotless reputation. You have put him in bed with another woman, Mr Goodrich, and my family is not amused. Worse still, you have obviously despatched my honourable, devoted and alas dear departed mother to the bed of Henry Tether.’

  ‘Our Arthur!’ Jeremiah exclaimed with vitriol. ‘He did it. I’ll kill him, the bloody fool. I swear, I’ll kill him.’

  ‘I’m going for a drink in the Bell while you get the dinner ready, Mother,’ Arthur said as they stepped out of the pristine dimness of St Michael’s redbrick structure into the sunshine of a late September noon. ‘It’ll give me an appetite. I seem to have lost me appetite this last couple of days as well as this cold I’ve got.’

  ‘I’ll boil some nettles up in the cabbage, our Arthur,’ Dinah said sympathetically. ‘Nettles always help to keep colds and chills at bay. Your father could do with it as well. I’m sick of seeing him off the hooks all the while.’

  Only Dinah accompanied Arthur to church that Sunday morning, since his father, Jeremiah, was at home in bed feeling out of sorts and very sorry for himself. Not that he was an ardent churchgoer; he would always seek some excuse to avoid Sunday worship.

  ‘By the way, I’m going out this afternoon, Mother.’

  ‘Oh? Do you think you’m well enough?’

  He forced a grin. ‘I’d have to be dead not to go. Anyway, I’m hoping as your nettles will perk me up.’

  Arthur left his mother and exited the churchyard by the Bell Street gate while she took a different way, walking with another woman down the broad path that spilled onto Church Street. He entered the Bell Hotel and ordered himself a tankard of best India pale ale which he took to an unoccupied table close to the fireplace. A man whom he knew did likewise, nodded a greeting and sat on a stool at another table. Arthur blew his nose on a piece of rag he took from his pocket, and sniffed. This damned head cold. He’d picked it up from that blustery graveyard at St Andrew’s in Netherton. By association, his thoughts meandered to that pair of headstones in Pensnett churchyard where he’d mixed up the inscriptions. Of course, it was because he’d been taken short while he was doing them. He’d not been concentrating. And how could he when his bowels had been about to explode? Well, it would cost him dear, for his father was adamant that he pay for new headstones himself as punishment. Nor would he be paid for cutting the letters,
and he’d better get them right this time.

  He stuffed the rag back in his jacket pocket and pondered Lucy Piddock instead. This day had been a long time coming and he’d been counting the hours till he could see her again. It seemed ages since he’d last seen her, and he was by no means sure she cared anything for him at all. But he was hopeful that at least he might have her father on his side.

  Four men approached. Two were familiar.

  ‘D’you mind shifting along the settle, mate?’ one of them said. ‘We’n got a crib match.’

  ‘Glad to oblige,’ Arthur replied amenably. He removed his tankard from the table as he shifted along the bench that lined the wall on one side of the room and placed it on the next. ‘Are you playing for money?’

  ‘There’s no point in it unless yo’ am,’ was the pithy reply.

  Arthur watched as they began their play, amazed that grown men could become so absorbed in something which he considered so trivial. He finished his beer, stood up and made his way to the bar for another. When he’d got it he turned around to go back to his seat only to see that somebody else was occupying it. The room was filling up so he decided instead to stand by the bar and quietly finish his drink there. Most of the patrons he knew, some only by sight, but those he was better acquainted with merely nodded. He watched, envious of the banter they shared, and it struck him that nobody was bothering to engage him in conversation. Not that he minded right then; he sometimes found it difficult to converse with folk, especially when he was nursing a cold or toothache, and so preferred to be left alone anyway. He leisurely finished what remained of his beer and slipped out to go home, unnoticed by anybody.

  It was strong beer they brewed in Brierley Hill and it had gone straight to Arthur’s head. It was on account of the head cold, of course. Two drinks didn’t normally affect him. It did the trick for his appetite, though, for now he was ravenously hungry, feeling weak and wobbly at the knees.

  Arthur sliced the joint of pork that Dinah had roasted in the cast iron range in the scullery, while she drained the cabbage and the potatoes.

  ‘I could do with a maid,’ she complained, shrouded in steam. ‘Nobody ever thinks of any help for me.’

  ‘Tell Father.’

  ‘Your father wouldn’t pay out good money for a maid,’ Dinah said. ‘Mind you, he has a lot of other expense … Here, our Arthur … Take his dinner up to him. He wants to see you anyroad.’

  ‘Shall I take him some beer up?’

  ‘No,’ Dinah snapped. ‘Why waste good beer on him? I’ll finish it meself.’

  Arthur did as he was bid. He found Jeremiah lying flat on his back, his eyes closed and his hands pressed together as if in supplication. He opened one eye when he heard Arthur enter the room.

  ‘What’n we got for we dinners?’

  ‘Pork.’

  ‘Blasted pork! Your saft mother knows as pork serves me barbarous. So what does her keep on giving me? Blasted pork! It’s a bloody scandal. It’s a bloody conspiracy. I swear as her’s trying to see me off.’

  ‘Well, when the time comes I’ll do you a nice headstone, Father,’ Arthur replied, inspired by the thought.

  ‘Oh, ar? Then mek sure as yo’ get the inscription right this time.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll dream up a good one for you, Father. Anyway, I apologised for that one,’ Arthur said defensively. ‘I told you, it was the time I was took short.’

  ‘Well, sometimes I think you’ve bin took short of brains, if you want my opinion.’

  ‘I wasn’t concentrating, I told you. My mind was on other things.’

  ‘Be that as it may, you owe me compensation for making me look such a fool.’

  ‘Compensation? What do you mean, compensation? I’ve already agreed to pay for two new headstones out of me own wages.’

  ‘I want you to collect a debt this afternoon,’ Jeremiah said, making a meal of sitting up in bed so that he could take the old wooden tray on which his Sunday dinner was presented.

  ‘What debt?’ Arthur asked suspiciously. ‘And why this afternoon?’

  ‘I want you to fetch some money off a customer called George Parsons. Money he’s owed me too long. He’ll be expecting you, but he reckons he’ll be gone out by three o’ clock.’

  Arthur handed Jeremiah the tray. ‘But I’m supposed to be going out this afternoon, Father. It’s been arranged all week. I’m meeting somebody at three and it’s two already, and I ain’t had me dinner yet.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be helped.’ Jeremiah picked up his knife and fork and began hacking at the pork that served his system so barbarously. ‘It’s money I’ve been trying to get hold of for ages. If I was well enough I’d go meself, but I ain’t, and there’ll be no other chance till next Sunday. He works away, see, does this George Parsons – Stafford way. He only comes home at weekends.’

  ‘But, Father, I’ve arranged to meet somebody and I’m not going to let them down. Anyway, where’s he live, this perishing George Parsons?’

  ‘Pensnett. Near to Corbyn’s Hall. I’ll tell you the address.’

  ‘But I shan’t have time to go there.’

  ‘Damn me!’ Jeremiah exclaimed huffily. ‘After that stupid sodding blunder you made last week …’ He shook his ruefully. ‘After all I do for you, and you can’t run one little bloody errand for me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, our Arthur. Anyroad, it’s firm’s money. It’s for your own benefit as it’s collected. When I’m dead and gone …’

  ‘Tell me the damned address then,’ Arthur said with exasperation. It was typical of his father to spoil whatever he’d planned. ‘I ought to charge you commission for debt-collecting.’

  Jeremiah told him the address and Arthur went downstairs disgruntled. If it took longer than he thought he was certain to miss Lucy. So he bolted his Sunday dinner and left the house without even having any pudding, losing no time in putting a hastily formed plan into effect. He didn’t want to give Lucy the impression that he didn’t care or that he was unreliable. Already the ground was slipping from under his feet where she was concerned. He must not make matters worse by any perceived disregard for her.

  Corbyn’s Hall was a couple of miles away, too far to walk there and back in the time allowed. The only answer was to go on horseback. He harboured a distinct dislike of riding and horses. Or was it merely a dislike of their own wretched horses? He seemed to hold no sway with them, even when he drove the cart. But the weather was fine for a ride and, at a steady trot, he should be there and back in the three-quarters of an hour that was left before he was due to meet Lucy.

  The equestrian stock of Jeremiah Goodrich and Sons, stonemasons and sepulchral architects, comprised two sturdy but ageing mares whose terms of reference suggested that they generally hauled the cart, for they were seldom ridden. They were the equine embodiment of lethargy, artfulness developed over years, and not a little spite. Arthur took down a set of reins from the stable wall and forced the bit into the mouth of one of the mares, called Quenelda. She was the older and scruffier of the two, but usually the most co-operative, a quality Arthur had taken into account. Quenelda’s mane sprouted only in places, like sparse tufts of grass poking through a neglected pavement. He coaxed the horse outside and mounted without a saddle, since he didn’t have time to find it and tack up. But the horse’s sharp-edged back and broad girth elicited concern for his manhood and the potential for damage to it.

  Seated on the horse, he looked around him pensively, first gazing towards Withymoor, then across the valley to Audnam and Stourbridge in the opposite direction to that which he must go. His fingers clutched the reins tensely as a barge and attendant bargee glided as one along the Stourbridge Canal, drawn by a hack almost as unattractive as his own. The bargee was singing some unsavoury ditty as he headed for the Nine Locks where doubtless he would get his belly, and his wife’s, filled with ale.

  Arthur pulled on the rein. ‘Gee up, Quenelda!’ As the horse turned around he looked up the yard and onto the Delph in anticipation.<
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  But Quenelda had ideas of her own. Sunday was her day of rest, and long years of experience had led her to recognise it. If man did not work on the Sabbath, then she did not work on the Sabbath either. The mare thus made her way back to the stable with no regard for Arthur who was tugging manfully at the reins. Passing through the stable door, Arthur was not quick enough to duck, by dint of the alcohol he had consumed, and ended up banging his head and acquiring a nasty cut across his eyebrow. Angry and frustrated, he got down from the horse and dabbed the cut with the rag from his pocket.

  ‘Listen, you,’ he snorted impatiently, punching the animal hard on the nose, ‘we’d better sort out who’s gaffer here.’ He grabbed a stick for good measure and led the horse out again. When he mounted Quenelda she made for the stable once more. ‘The other way, you varmint.’

  Arthur hit the mare on the rump with the stick, pulling hard on the reins. He succeeded in turning her around, but she veered again crab-fashion towards the stable. Cursing bitterly, he lashed at the horse’s rump once more. As far as Quenelda was concerned this was the limit. She reared up on her hind legs in an attempt to unseat him. Arthur saved himself by grabbing one of the tufts of mane and gripping his legs tightly around her belly. It was a war of wills. For what seemed like an eternity Arthur clung on while Quenelda was bent on throwing him off. While he could hold on to her sparse mane Arthur felt secure enough … but his hands were becoming sweaty with the exertion, and the tuft was becoming slippery. He lost his grip.

  It became desperate. Quenelda reared up high and whinnied, beating the air with her front hoofs. Arthur snatched at the mane, held on and righted himself just in time, as much to save messing up his best Sunday clothes as to avoid hurting himself more.

  ‘You won’t get the better of me,’ he rasped determinedly. ‘Enough of your vile behaviour.’

  The mare spun round and round on her hind legs and Arthur caught sight of their conjoined shadow spinning beneath him. But he had no time to study the aesthetics of shadow dancing, for his legs had become tired and weak, aching inexorably from perpetually pressing into Quenelda’s sides for grip. He lost hold and, as he became unseated, he felt his body twist around violently while the mare bucked and pranced with all the vigour of a whirlwind. In frantic desperation he reached out and grabbed what he thought was the patchy mane to save himself from falling to the ground and hurting himself. In that same instant, the mare was under the impression that she had at last thrown her rider and returned all four feet to the ground. Arthur quickly realised that his position on the horse was quite unorthodox as he clutched its tail. Then he beheld his mother emerging from the scullery wiping her hands on a towel.