The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  They sat together, attentive to what was going on and the testimonies of various witnesses. Already, there were indications as to where blame for the accident was likely to be apportioned, particularly when a William Skeldon, a boilermaker from Coseley, was called.

  William Skeldon claimed that he had ridden in the guards’ van all the way from Wolverhampton to Worcester, along with other passengers, and that some of those passengers, including his seventeen-year-old brother who later died in the accident, were allowed to operate the brake.

  ‘So what was the guard doing all this time?’ the Coroner asked.

  ‘He was smoking his pipe most of the time, sir.’

  ‘Had he been drinking?’

  ‘Not so far as I could tell.’

  Skeldon claimed to have made the return journey from Worcester in the first coach of the second train. He went on to say of the crash, ‘When we were between Brettell Lane and Round Oak I felt a very severe shock and was thrown against the side of the carriage. It quite took my senses away for a long time. My tongue was badly cut and my nose crushed and I got two black eyes. I’ve had a pain in my head ever since. As soon as I could recover my senses I went to see what was the matter. The first thing I saw on getting out of the train were the funnel and buffers from the engine lying on the rails. I saw the engine driver wandering about and asked him what was the matter. He said “What the devil do you want here out of your carriage? Go and get in again. There’s nothing serious the matter. We shall be off again in a minute or two.” I didn’t get back in the train, though. I saw the guard I’d travelled to Worcester with in the morning – I knew he’d come back on the first train. Although the last two or three carriages were all smashed to pieces, the guard wasn’t hurt at all. My father and mother were in the last compartment of the first train, next to the guards’ van.’

  ‘I suppose you went to look for them?’ the Coroner suggested.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t find them. I looked for two or three hours before I found my father, but my mother and brother I didn’t see at all till later. When I saw my bother he was badly injured but still alive and quite sensible. He died the next morning after his legs were amputated. His feet were cut off by the train, you see, and he was badly bruised about the hands and face.’

  ‘Was he aware of his situation?’ the Coroner asked. ‘Did he express any belief that he should live?’

  ‘He only enquired about our mother,’ Skeldon replied sadly. ‘He was afeared he would never see her again, because he said as how she’d been crushed under the carriage. He only lived twenty minutes after the operation, they told me. I wasn’t with him when he died.’

  ‘Was your brother familiar with the workings of a guards’ van, Mr Skeldon?’

  ‘No, sir. Although the guard directed him to work the brake he’d never been a railway servant, nor was he acquainted with such matters, never having travelled so far on a railway in all his life before. There were several other passengers besides my brother and me in the van when we arrived at Worcester.’

  ‘What about the return journey?’

  ‘The guard asked me to ride back in the van when he saw me, and anybody might have heard him ask it, even officials of the company. I said I wouldn’t, but he told me if I wanted to ride in a coach I would have to pay him a guinea for the privilege. I said as I didn’t mind, for the sake of a comfortable seat. I think they had some sort of party organised for the journey back. I saw about a dozen people get into the guards’ van of the first train before it started.’

  ‘Thank you for your deposition, Mr Skeldon.’

  Arthur cast a glance at Lucy to see her reaction to this allegation, since it patently did not concur with what Dickie had told her. She remained passive, however.

  Arthur was next to be called, and he was duly sworn in.

  ‘You saw the accident happen, I understand, Mr Goodrich,’ the Coroner said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied Arthur, feeling very important. ‘My lady friend and me were taking the air Monday night just after eight and we’d stopped to talk on Moor Lane Bridge. I didn’t take much notice of the train what went up the line, except that it seemed to be very long, but when I saw a dozen or more coaches coming down the same line again without an engine, it made me stop and look, especially when I could hear the panic of the people inside them.’

  ‘Did you think the coaches had become unhitched from the rest of the train?’

  ‘That’s how it looked to me, sir.’

  ‘How fast were these unhitched coaches travelling?’

  ‘At least as fast as when they went up the line. I wouldn’t like to say exactly how fast. I’m not really any judge of speed like that.’

  ‘Then what did you see?’

  ‘I saw the coaches go under the bridge and on down the line, and then I heard the crash. It must have happened four or five hundred yards beyond the bridge.’

  ‘Did you hear any whistle from the on-coming engine?’

  ‘No, sir, only the crash. It was so loud I was afeared it would affect my hearing. I have very sensitive ears, you see.’

  ‘Did you see any sparks coming from the wheels of the guards’ van, which might suggest the brake was being applied?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Arthur replied honestly. ‘I didn’t see any sparks.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I bid my lady friend return to sit with my mother who has just been widowed, telling her that I ought to go and see if anybody was hurt. When I got to the place, I could see that another train coming up the line had hit the runaway carriages, and some of them were smashed to pieces. At first I saw a man with a lamp and heard a lot of screaming. Lots of people were lying under the debris with broken arms and legs and cuts, many of them dead, I imagined. I immediately began to get out the survivors. I believe I helped in getting out every one of them.’

  ‘Have you any idea what might have caused the accident, Mr Goodrich?’

  ‘No sir. I wouldn’t like to speculate, for speculation it would be, coming from me.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Goodrich. You may stand down for now, but I would like you to hold yourself in readiness to give further evidence if required, to answer such questions that might crop up over the next weeks, as the inquest proceeds.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  Shortly after six o’ clock, after evidence from other witnesses, the inquiry was adjourned until the following Wednesday.

  The hearse arrived sharp at quarter to twelve the following day to convey Jeremiah Goodrich to his final resting place. Friends and relatives followed it along the Delph and up Church Street’s sharp incline, with heads suitably bowed. Dorinda, statuesque in a black satin dress and bonnet to match, ambled deferentially alongside Arthur. She wished to see the inside of St Michael’s church, which had been denied her so far, before she returned to Bristol. Magnolia remained with Dinah, preparing pork sandwiches and fishing pickled onions from a jar for those mourners who wished to return afterwards to celebrate Jeremiah’s life.

  ‘That’s the Whimsey, where that Dickie Dempster’s recovering,’ Arthur informed her as the sombre pageant of bearers and mourners trooped by. ‘I’ll try and get in there later to see how he is. I heard at the inquest that one chap who had both his legs amputated died twenty minutes after the operation.’

  ‘Then that was a bit of waste of everybody’s time, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘But, Dorinda, surgeons have to try and save lives, however hopeless it looks.’

  ‘Hmm … Perhaps …’ She looked pensive for a moment. ‘You know, Arthur, for obvious reasons I don’t think I could ever be enamoured of any old flame of yours … And yet I do feel very sorry for Lucy over what’s happened to her beau, and how she was so cruelly deceived.’

  ‘It’s tragic, and no two ways,’ Arthur agreed with a nod. ‘Especially as she daren’t show her own face in there to see how he is. It’s a double blow to the poor girl, him being wed already.’

  ‘Fancy not knowing he was mar
ried,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t conceive of anybody being so naïve. Of course, they must have been lovers … in the most lurid sense of the word, I mean.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Don’t you? I mean, married men don’t have mistresses just for walks in the park.’

  ‘I really don’t think poor Lucy is that sort of girl, Dorinda.’

  ‘Pooh! Then I believe you have an overblown opinion of her, as if she’s some inviolable, impenetrable nun living in a very strict convent. Even if she refused to consent to such things with you – which she must have done, else you wouldn’t labour under the opinion you hold,’ Dorinda gloated, ‘it doesn’t mean she wouldn’t consent with another. Some women can’t help themselves with some men. It’s a question of chemistry, I believe.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Dorinda, not being a chemist.’

  ‘Oh, Arthur, don’t be silly. You don’t have to be a chemist. You just have to be a student of human nature … as I am. Still, it is very tragic for her.’

  Suddenly she grimaced and lifted the hem of her skirt as she side-stepped a trail of steaming dung that one of the hearse horses had just dropped. ‘Ugh! How disgusting …’

  They were silent after that, as they walked up the steep, broad path to the church, saving their breath. The vicar met them at the main door and headed the procession as it entered the church.

  ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,’ he intoned with due solemnity. ‘He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die … ’

  Never die? The notion of his father never dying, just for believing in God, even though he had seemed plainly dead before, troubled Arthur. He reassured himself that Jeremiah was not that fussed about God, or anybody else for that matter, so God had more than likely got the measure of him and would keep him dead.

  Arthur noticed that Lucy had come to pay her respects, and was already standing in a pew as the entourage swept slowly up the aisle. He acknowledged her with a smile of compassion.

  ‘We brought nothing into this world,’ the vicar droned on, ‘and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord …’

  The service progressed very satisfactorily. As they made their way to the graveside to see Jeremiah happily in his grave, Arthur looked up at the sky and reflected on what a splendid day it was for a funeral. His mind ran on to the sort of inscription he would choose for the old man’s headstone. Not listening to the monotone incantations of the vicar, he quickly came up with one. He took out his notebook and blacklead from his jacket pocket and wrote it down before he forgot it.

  Affliction sore long time he bore,

  Physicians were in vain,

  Till God did please death should him seize,

  And ease Arthur of his pain.

  Quite clever, and spontaneous, Arthur thought and smiled smugly to himself.

  The service finished and everybody stood peering, in a reverential manner, into the precise rectangular hole which contained the coffin, before they started drifting away, making or resuming conversations. Arthur felt a gentle tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Lucy standing there.

  She looked first at him, then warily at Dorinda. ‘Could I have a word with you, Arthur?’ She had been crying and her eyes were puffy.

  ‘Course you can … Oh, by the way, this is Dorinda Chadwick … Dorinda, this is Lucy Piddock.’ The two girls nodded to each other uncertainly and with tentative smiles. ‘Excuse me a second, Dorinda.’ They moved a few steps away.

  ‘I only wondered whether you’d been to see how Dickie is.’

  ‘Not today, Lucy. Not yet at any rate. I was saying to Dorinda before we got here that I must go today and enquire. You could always go yourself. Mrs Dempster thinks you’re my intended, remember.’

  ‘I couldn’t, Arthur. I’d be all weepy and she’d know there was something going on. Besides, what if he’s come round? It would put us both in a fix.’

  ‘Then you could tell him what a swine he’s been.’

  Lucy was taken aback by this surprising change in Arthur’s attitude. ‘Do you think he was a swine, then?’

  ‘He was to you, leading you on the way he did.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. I swear he loves me, even if he is married. I swear he’d rather have me than her.’

  ‘You’ll probably never know the truth of it, Lucy. I don’t suppose you’ll ever go spooning with him again to find out.’

  Dorinda had been left alone in the graveyard too long for her liking, and decided it was time she joined the whispered conversation her man was holding with his erstwhile paramour. ‘How long are you going to be, Arthur? Everybody will be waiting for us. There are guests to look after.’

  ‘Maybe Lucy would like to come as well, eh?’ he suggested, turning to her. ‘Help take your mind off things.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for a wake,’ Lucy replied. ‘Besides, I’d be no company.’

  ‘She wants cheering up, Arthur. How can you hope to cheer somebody up at a funeral? Really, Miss Piddock, he does not think at all clearly sometimes,’ Dorinda said apologetically.

  ‘Well, I’m cheered by it,’ Arthur proclaimed. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years. Now it’s come, I intend to make the most of it.’

  ‘I do believe, in some things Arthur has a heart of stone, Miss Piddock, wanting to see his poor father dead. I suppose the material he works with rubs off on him and gets into his blood stream, and sets his heart rock hard, like Portland cement. My brother’s just the same and he’s a stonemason too. It certainly seems to have an adverse effect on them both.’

  Despite her aching heart Lucy smiled, somewhat amused both by Dorinda’s prattling and her strange accent. ‘Thank you for the offer, Arthur, but I shall go back home and wait for news of Dickie. I hope he’s making some headway.’

  They began walking together unhurriedly, lagging way behind the rest of the mourners. Dorinda took Arthur’s arm proprietorially, putting herself between him and Lucy, which Lucy noticed of course.

  ‘I heard at the inquest that another chap who had both his legs amputated died twenty minutes after the operation.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Arthur, for telling me that.’

  ‘But I only mention it to show that Dickie survived it, Lucy, and still has, as far as we know. So there’s hope.’

  ‘Hope for Mrs Dempster.’

  ‘Look at it this way, Miss Piddock,’ Dorinda chimed. ‘Mrs Dempster is the one who’ll be beset with all the trouble. If he’s unable to walk and do the simplest things, she’ll have to wait on him hand and foot—’

  ‘Literally,’ Arthur added tactlessly.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind that,’ Lucy said quietly. ‘I hope for his sake, that she won’t mind either. Maybe she won’t, if she loves him.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ Dorinda admitted. ‘Not if you crowned me with gold and anointed me with oil, and not necessarily in that order. And, doubtless he’ll be unable to work. She’ll have to rely on parish relief or charity, and that won’t bring in many nice new bonnets and new frocks. I think you should count your lucky stars, Miss Piddock, that he’s not your responsibility after all. I believe you had a lucky escape.’

  ‘You speak your mind, Miss Chadwick,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Oh I do. I do not believe in calling a spade an implement for excavating.’

  ‘I only know I’m going to miss him.’

  ‘Then consider just what you are missing,’ Dorinda added pointedly.

  ‘My brother-in-law has only one leg, Miss Chadwick. He manages very well, has full time work, and even delivered my sister of her first child.’

  ‘That is remarkable.’

  ‘He’s a remarkable man.’

  ‘But I would question his intelligence in wishing to involve himself in delivering his wife of a child. I’m sure it would put me off ever having children if I had to witnes
s it. Not that I’m enthusiastic about the prospect in any case, as Arthur knows well enough.’

  ‘Fancy … So how do you feel about having children, Arthur, if and when you ever get wed?’ Lucy enquired, spotting an opportunity to maybe score a point off Dorinda.

  ‘I don’t believe I ever could have a child,’ he answered, straight-faced. ‘I certainly couldn’t breast-feed, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, you!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘He can be such an unbelievable idiot, can’t he, Miss Piddock?’

  ‘It could be a bone of contention between Dorinda and me,’ he admitted. ‘If we ever get to the stage where marriage is in the offing, I would try to change her mind.’

  ‘But children are such a trial,’ Dorinda stated flatly. ‘And actually giving birth to them must be an even greater trial. I yearn for neither. Especially knowing what it can do to your figure.’

  ‘I hope I’m never quite so vain,’ Lucy said.

  ‘How very nice of you to call, Mr Goodrich,’ Mrs Dempster greeted when she answered his knock. ‘I was just thinking about you, how hard you must have worked on Monday night releasing Dickie and others from the wreckage of the train.’

  ‘So how is he?’ Arthur peered curiously at the pale, unstirring patient.

  ‘He regained consciousness this morning for a few minutes. He was very disorientated and spoke not a word. He is very weak, you know, but his fever seems no worse. The doctor called in as well. He told me that Dickie lost a lot of blood. He said it could be weeks if not months before he recovers. I know I shall have to be very patient, Mr Goodrich, and that’ll be difficult with two small children to look after as well.’

  Arthur watched her as she spoke. She seemed very gentle and sincere, her soft eyes expressive, often putting extra meaning into the words she spoke. Studying her again, he put her age at a couple of years younger than himself and Dickie. She was an attractive young woman, yet not immediately striking in the way that Dorinda was. With a wife like that, Arthur wondered why Dickie could not be content. Why he would wish to seek pleasure elsewhere, chaotically disrupting the lives of others into the bargain.