The Railway Girl

by Nancy Carson

  A one-legged man using a crutch lumbered out of the privy. He saw her, looked at her questioningly and then smiled at the children.

  ‘Hello there, missus,’ he greeted as he approached. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I … I was … I came to see Mr Goodrich,’ she stuttered, unsure what to say.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oh … Mr Arthur Goodrich.’

  ‘He’s just gone to the funeral,’ Moses said, as if she must be well aware whose. ‘You just missed him. I doubt whether he’ll be back at work today.’

  ‘Is it his mother’s funeral?’

  ‘Aye. Passed on last week, she did, poor soul. Pneumonia. Set in after her fall. I said it would. I said to Arthur – and young Talbot – I said, “You want to keep an eye on her”, I said. “Queer things happen to old folk when they’n had a fall”, I said. “Specially when they’n broke bones”, I said.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear of her death,’ Isabel replied. ‘Of course, I had no idea, nor that the funeral was today, else I wouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Can I give Mr Arthur a message for you, missus?’ Moses offered. ‘I might see him later.’

  ‘No, no. I particularly wanted to see him personally … I have his score to settle.’

  ‘I can relieve you of your money, missus. I do some o’ the clerking. If you’ll step into the office, I’ll be glad to help.’

  To her surprise, Isabel found herself following him as he hobbled in front of her, ushering the children along with her.

  ‘How old am they, the kids?’ Moses asked affably over his shoulder.

  ‘Five and three.’

  ‘Lovely, ain’t they, kids? I got a little daughter meself, you know … and another on the way.’ He arrived at the little office, untidy with papers strewn everywhere. ‘Due next August, so my missus reckons.’

  Isabel smiled back at him. ‘You must be very proud.’

  ‘Oh, I am, that.’

  A dingy old dog was lying languidly and indifferently beneath a workbench, and the children, having spotted it, were immediately taken with it. At once they began prodding it and stroking it with the natural curiosity children have for animals, especially docile dogs.

  ‘Leave the poor dog alone,’ Isabel chided.

  ‘Oh, they’ll come to no harm with him, missus,’ Moses affirmed as he sat down and leaned his crutch against the wall. ‘He’ll let ’em poke him and fuss him till kingdom come. It’ll keep ’em amused a while. So, do you know how much you owe?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What name is it? I can look it up.’

  ‘There’s very likely no record of it. It was all done as a favour.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Moses winked at her conspiratorially. ‘I reckon he dain’t want it to go through the books then.’

  ‘I suspect that’s the case.’

  ‘So what sort o’ grave was it? They can be anything from three pounds to a hundred.’

  ‘It was just an ordinary stone grave. Not polished granite, nor marble, just stone.’

  ‘Basalt,’ Moses suggested. ‘Rowley Rag, I daresay. Cheapest there is. A grave in that would be about four pounds maybe, pushing it.’

  ‘Then I’ll give you the five. Certainly it was not the more expensive kind. Perhaps Mr Goodrich can let me have any change I’m due.’ She opened her bag and counted out the money.

  ‘Who shall I say called?’

  ‘Oh, tell Mr Goodrich it was Isabel.’

  ‘Just Isabel?’ he queried.

  She smiled enigmatically. ‘Just Isabel.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘I … I think I saw him at the head of the cortège, Mr …’

  ‘Cartwright. Moses Cartwright … missus …’

  ‘He was walking with a young woman. Isn’t her name Lucy?’

  ‘Yes, our Lucy. She’s me sister-law as a matter of fact … They’m reckoning on getting wed soon.’

  ‘Oh? How soon?’

  ‘July, I believe.’

  ‘Well … July’s a good month to get married, I imagine. Hot and sunny.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘Let’s hope they’ll be happy.’

  ‘Oh, I reckon they’ll be happy enough … especially after what they’ve both bin through.’

  ‘Oh?’ she asked, a look of curiosity on her face.

  ‘Between you and me, missus, there’s quite a story to be told.’

  ‘I’d love to hear it.’

  ‘If you’ve got a minute, I can tell it yer.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Well, they was a-courting afore, like. Nigh on three years ago. But Arthur could get nowhere with Lucy then. Anyroad, he left home, ’cause he couldn’t abide his father, and went to Bristol to live. He asked Lucy to marry him and go with him, but she wouldn’t. She’d took up with this other chap, see. A guard off the railway. Somebody called Dickie Dempster …’

  Isabel felt her heart quicken. ‘A guard off the railway?’ she repeated, affecting to sound indifferent.

  ‘Turned out to be a proper swine, he did. Made her pregnant, then died after he got hurt in that railway accident we had here last year. As if that worn’t enough, it turns out he was married anyroad.’

  ‘So this girl Lucy … has had this … this Dickie Dempster’s baby by now, has she?’

  ‘February. A lovely little thing she is, an’ all.’ Moses grinned affably. ‘The image of her mother. She calls the bab Julia, ’cause she reckoned as it was this Dickie’s favourite name for a little wench.’

  ‘Julia? Fancy … So then what happened? Because I thought Mr Goodrich was engaged to be married to her.’

  ‘No, missus … Pardon me, but I’ve bin overrunning me tale … He met a wench in Bristol, a proper prissy little madam. Like a china doll, she was, and about as cold. She wouldn’t have done for me. I’d have smacked her backside for her a time or two and no two ways, if she’d been mine. I think they talked about getting wed, but he gi’d her up when he come back to live up here when his father died.’

  ‘So now Arthur’s marrying Lucy? Do I understand you correctly?’

  ‘Yes, you got it right, missus. Well, they both realise what a proper pair o’ mawkins they was getting mixed up with others in the fust place. I can honestly say as I’ve never seen two folks more in love than seeing them pair now. And that Arthur loves that bab, that dirty Dickie’s bab. By Christ, he does. He’s content to bring little Julia up as his own, and I must say as I admire him for that more than anything in the world. When a chap’s prepared to tek on another bloke’s bab, it tells me as he’s got some mettle. Mind you …’ He winked waggishly. ‘I daresay that afore long they’ll have one or two babs o’ their own to add to the collection.’

  ‘Yes, I daresay,’ Isabel conceded pensively. ‘That’s quite a tale, Mr Cartwright. I feel somewhat … different … for having heard it. Yes, he’s quite a character, isn’t he, that Arthur Goodrich.’

  ‘Salt o’ the earth.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Cartwright, how did you lose your leg? You weren’t a victim of that terrible railway accident, were you?’

  ‘No, missus. Gunshot wound. In the Crimea. Horrible job.’

  ‘I can only begin to imagine … Well, I must go, else the funeral party will be back. I’d hate Mr Goodrich to see me here.’

  ‘I’m sure he’d be glad to see you, missus.’

  ‘I’m not so sure … If you could just tell him, Mr Cartwright, that I dropped by to pay what I owed him. That will be quite sufficient … Oh, look at my children … I dress them in something decent, and look how they’ve managed to get themselves all dirty again.’

  ‘Oh, we can easy give ’em a brush down, missus.’

  ‘Come on, you two,’ she called to them. ‘Leave the poor dog alone. We have to go now, else we’ll miss the train back home.’

  Arthur heard nothing more from Isabel Dempster. He pocketed the five pounds she’d brought, but decided it best, out of deference to Lucy, neither to acknowledge it nor to contact her aga
in.

  The dwelling house, the workshop and the yard together comprised virtually the whole of the estate left by Dinah Goodrich to her two sons, Arthur and Talbot. They agreed that for the time being, Arthur should live in the house, and continue to do so after he and Lucy were married, but that when they were more prosperous they would demolish it, and possibly the workshop too, and build two fine houses on the plot of land, one for each of them. It was a proposal that they all thought fair.

  Meanwhile, before they married, Lucy was of a mind to spring clean the house and decorate it. After all, if she was about to live in it as the new wife of Arthur Goodrich, she wanted it spick and span, as her mother had always drummed into her. Anyway, there were some fine wallpaper hangings to be bought. They would invest in some new furniture; new furniture would be needed wherever they lived – if only they could afford to buy any.

  In May, after a day’s hard work, Arthur returned to the house. Lucy had been there much of the day with Magnolia, cleaning and clearing out the ancient and unwanted paraphernalia that Jeremiah and Dinah had accumulated over the years. He made up the fire and said goodbye to each of them as they left him to return home. Lucy, of course, would come back, minus Julia, when she had eaten with her mother and father, and had fed the child.

  Over the weeks of their resumed courtship they had fallen into the pleasurable habit of going to bed most evenings to make love, which suited them both well, before she returned home to be mother to Julia and daughter to Hannah and Haden. However, when she returned that particular night, they did not follow the usual routine. They had involved themselves in some fairly serious and complex kissing downstairs on the hearth in front of the fire, and the hem of Lucy’s skirt was up around her waist as darkness fell.

  She felt herself trembling with excitement as he forsook her mouth to kiss those other soft lips between her thighs. His firm body felt pleasant and warm against her as he brushed down her. Her breathing quickened. His tongue probed her tormentingly. Comparison with Dickie Dempster was inevitable and she had to confess to herself that never had Dickie loved her as imaginatively and as exotically as Arthur did.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a distant humming and thought her head would spin with pleasure. Within the darkness of her closed eyelids she felt his mouth working wonders on her. It was excruciatingly pleasant, radiating through her entire body. She gasped, and shivers ran up and down her spine. The dreamy humming sound she could hear quickly turned to a pleasant roar. It increased with the sweetness of his caresses, rising, rising, to a magnificent crescendo. If ever she were asked, she could never describe these wonderful sensations. Somewhere in the blackness of her closed eyes, where only the tactile senses mattered, she uttered a little moan of ecstasy as Arthur’s grip on her backside tightened, drawing her harder into him. No wonder the girls at work, and Miriam were always talking about sex.

  She was certain she could smell smoke, and swore she was smouldering with desire. He snaked up her prone body and found her mouth eagerly and, as the roaring continued, he entered her with such scintillating sweetness.

  Suddenly, they were startled by the sound of the back door being unlatched.

  ‘Hello!’ a voice called from the depths of the house.

  In panic, Arthur at once leapt up and clutched at his trousers that were half around his ankles, half trapped beneath his feet. He stumbled as he raced against time to pull them up and so render himself decent before the intruder appeared. Most likely it was Talbot.

  Lucy could see a bright flickering out in the Delph where a small crowd of people had gathered. The yard was bathed in a dancing orange light too, umber where the shadows fell, and the roar, which seemed to emanate from the chimney, was louder than ever.

  ‘Hello!’ called the voice again, followed by the clunk-clunk of a crutch as it struck the ground.

  ‘Hello!’ Arthur called back. ‘Is that you, Moses?’

  ‘Ar. Where bin yer? It’s dark in here. I cor see where I’m at.’

  ‘We’re here. In the parlour.’

  The door opened. By the dancing firelight Moses saw Arthur finalising adjustments to his attire having managed to pull his trousers up, Lucy was on her feet smoothing out the creases in her skirt and tucking away straying strands of hair.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said with a knowing grin, ‘but did you know your chimdey’s a-fire?’

  ‘Lord, no.’

  ‘I heard this roaring,’ Lucy said, ‘but I never dreamt it was the chimney.’

  ‘I could see it from our house. I guessed as you hadn’t realised. Ten foot flames am shooting out the top o’ the chimdey pot, and there’s enough smoke to blacken out Dudley and Tipton. You should see the folk what have turned out to have a look, an’ all. Anybody’d think as they’ve never seen a chimdey a-fire afore.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Put the fire out for a start, and cover the hearth wi’ summat. You don’t want great chunks of red-hot soot falling on the hearth and setting the rug afire an’ all. Wet sheets or blankets might help.’

  ‘Luce, there’s a cupboard upstairs in Mother’s room,’ Arthur said in a panic. ‘There’s lots of old sheets and things. Take the lamp and fetch ’em while I go and fetch some water?’

  ‘All right.’

  He lit the lamp for her from a spill.

  When Lucy had gone upstairs, Moses said, ‘I’ll piddle in the fire to damp it down, eh?’

  ‘No!’ Arthur yelled. ‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ll fetch some water.’

  Arthur rushed to the water pump in Silver End with two pails, parrying the comments of the onlookers as he went. He saw the flames shooting out of the chimney pot and thick plumes of inky smoke curling and writhing relentlessly into the dark sky. He returned, slopping much of the water over the sides of the pails in his haste. But enough remained to wet the sheets and blankets and lay them over the hearth. Sure enough, great lumps of burning soot fell down the chimney and rolled onto the hearth, to be shovelled up immediately and put onto the tiled base of the grate out of harm’s way till they cooled down.

  Eventually, the blaze in the chimney burned itself out and the roaring ceased. The bright orange glow outside diminished and the dense column of dark brown smoke thinned and dispersed.

  ‘This could only happen to you, Arthur Goodrich,’ Lucy exclaimed, seeing the funny side of it. ‘I’m going back upstairs. I’ll see you in a minute or two.’ She left them and rushed out of the room.

  ‘I can still smell smoke,’ Arthur said.

  ‘You will for days,’ Moses answered. ‘Still you’ve no need to send for the sweep now.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you came and warned us what was happening.’

  ‘Aye, else you’d have had red-hot soot burning your arse.’ He grinned knowingly again. ‘It’s that what started the chimney ablaze, I reckon. All that red-hot poking you’m a doing lately.’

  Arthur grinned proudly. ‘You could be right, Moses. I never thought of that. But I was only taking your advice.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s a pity you didn’t take it sooner.’

  ‘That’s as may be, Moses. Anyway, for Christ’s sake don’t let on to her father. He’d skin me alive.’

  Moses laughed. ‘Have no fear. There but for the grace of God go I … Ah, well. I’ll go ’um now. I’ll see yer in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, and thanks again, Moses. See you in the morning.’

  ‘Say ta-ra to Lucy for me.’

  ‘I will.’

  Two minutes after Moses had gone, Lucy, preceded by the oil lamp’s glow, came back into the room, excited.

  ‘Come with me, Arthur,’ she urged mysteriously. ‘Come and see what I’ve found.’ She took his hand and led him upstairs, into his mother’s room. ‘Here … Look.’ She held the lamp so he could see into the depths of the cupboard; something tucked behind some old folded curtains.

  ‘Lord above!’ he exclaimed. ‘I never would never have believed it.
How much is here, do you reckon?’

  ‘Hundreds, I reckon. All in five pound bills, by the looks of it.’

  ‘And the old bugger swore he’d never got anything. Wait till I show it Talbot in the morning.’

  ‘We’ll be able to buy some new furniture after all, Arthur.’

  ‘We’ll be able to buy a whole new house, just with our share. Come on, Luce, let’s count it.’

  Lucy Piddock duly became Mrs Arthur Goodrich on 17th July 1859 at St Michael’s Brierley Hill, the very same day that Isabel Dempster gave birth to his son, of whom he had no inkling whatsoever. The child would be christened Arthur, after his father.

  Author’s Note

  The railway accident which occurred on the evening of Monday 23rd August 1858 on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, at the approach to the old Round Oak station, is a historical fact and happened in exactly the way I have illustrated it in the story. The jury at the inquest found the head guard, Frederick Cooke (sometimes spelled without the e in the records), guilty of manslaughter, and he was committed for his crime, although my research, at the time of writing this, has not revealed what sentence he served. One or two names quoted in connection with the inquest were actual personages, as was Ben Elwell, licensee of the Whimsey Inn, but all others are fictitious.

  I was alerted to this incident by my old friend John V. Richards, whose extensive knowledge of the ancient and worthy public houses of the old Black Country, past and present, I have tapped on many an occasion. I was querying, during my research for my previous novel Poppy’s Dilemma, the history of the Crown Inn on Brettell Lane in Silver End, Brierley Hill, when the Whimsey entered into the conversation. ‘That’s where they took the dead and injured from the railway accident in August 1858,’ John said. ‘The Whimsey, the Old Crown and the Bell.’

  Well, I researched it and from then on I was hooked. It is a forgotten but important part of the Black Country’s heritage. The suffering that ensued is now unremembered. I just had to write a novel surrounding the event. Then I managed to obtain a copy of the transcript of the inquest, which was adjourned again and again. It ran for many weeks and with some interesting diversions, many of which bore no relevance to my novel, so which have not been touched upon. What did emerge, however, was the absolute integrity and unremitting thoroughness of the Victorians, their values, their engineering expertise, their indomitable ‘can do’ spirit, and their determination to get things right.