by Tania Crosse
‘Sure, she wasn’t a patch on you, so she wasn’t. But now I’ve made you mine and we’ll be together for ever and ever.’ He paused again, his eyes like soft velvet. ‘And I promise I’ll not do that again until we’re properly married.’
Tresca blinked up at him, her eyebrows mildly raised. For, in truth, she rather wished he would . . .
It dawned upon her slowly.
It was November, and the Shillamill Tunnel had long been completed. But in order to stay near Tresca, Connor was working on the Watts Road cutting. The hardness of the rock was proving a major obstacle and many tons of gunpowder were being used on it. The obstinacy of the cutting was even threatening to delay the opening of the entire line. The Bannawell Street Viaduct was nearing completion, as was the even larger one at Shillamill. Even the station buildings had now been constructed and were being fitted out ready for the opening, so the cutting was proving a real problem.
For Tresca, though, it was a Godsend, for what would happen when the line was entirely finished? Would Connor go to work elsewhere on another railway line? Should she go with him? Or would he consider that he had saved enough for them to return to Ireland and take Emmanuel with them?
In the meantime, they spent every minute they possibly could together. Connor kept to his promise. Tresca loved to cuddle up to his strong chest and breathe in the gentle, masculine scent of him, but never did he make any further attempt to take her. It wouldn’t have been against her will, but she understood that it was his way of showing his respect for her, even though they both had to endure the frustration of it.
But Tresca was slowly beginning to realize that something was different within her. Her monthlies weren’t always regular, but she hadn’t had a show since before their heady love-making in the wood. Her breasts were becoming swollen and sore, and she was beginning to feel queasy in the mornings. She hardly needed telling that she was expecting Connor’s child.
She had tried forcing it to the back of her mind, praying she was simply late. But she knew she wasn’t, and her heart kicked out when she finally made herself admit it. She had to tell Connor, and she could hear her pulse crashing wildly as she waited for a moment when they were alone together.
They had eaten a meal in the kitchen at the dairy, and Tresca had arranged her face into a smile at Jane’s usual merry chatter. But all the while she was inwardly trembling, glancing at Connor to judge what mood he was in. It was very rare that he was anything but kind and buoyant, but occasionally after an extra hard day, he could be weary and less willing to talk.
This evening, though, he seemed his normal self, and Tresca took courage. The instant Jane left the room to go and fetch Mr Preedy’s tray, she turned round to face Connor, shivering with nerves. But she must be quick. They would only have a few moments in private.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she murmured, and then blurted out before her courage failed, ‘I’m pregnant.’
Silence descended like a lead weight. Tresca waited, willing Connor to speak. His facial muscles seemed paralysed as he stared at her, and it seemed an eternity before his lips finally moved.
‘Are you sure?’ His voice was low, like gravel, and Tresca felt herself sway as she nodded. But then his mouth curved at the edges and a slow, wondrous smile crept over his face, lighting his eyes like beacons.
‘Oh, my clever girl!’ And she at once found herself wrapped in his strong embrace.
Tresca swooned against him, almost faint with relief. ‘I thought you’d be cross,’ she mumbled into his chest.
‘Sure, why should I be cross? A child’s the greatest blessing anyone can have. It just means we’ll have to be married sooner rather than later. Me, a daddy already! Me mammy’s the one who’ll be counting the months, but no one else back home’ll know any different, so she’ll be happy enough. Now, will you be going to see the vicar tomorrow to make the arrangements?’
Tresca blinked up at his beaming face. ‘But . . . what about the dispensation from the Pope?’
‘Aren’t you more important than a piece of paper. No, we’ll be married as soon as we can in the church here in Tavvy. I’ll pretend to be an Irish Protestant and do me penance later. Oh, you’ve made me so happy, so you have,’ he crowed, holding her at arm’s length and grinning.
Tresca burst into tears of joyous relief.
Twenty-Two
‘I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, then, me little love. And make sure you see the vicar in the morning. Oh, you’ve made me the happiest man alive,’ Connor enthused, crushing Tresca to him. ‘Now you be sure to look after our little one there.’
He bent his head, his lips brushing tenderly against hers, and she melted against him. In one way or another, everything was going to be all right. She watched him cross the deserted street. He obviously couldn’t contain himself and gave a little skip of elation, making Tresca chuckle as she closed the front door.
The air was sharp with the tang of a heavy frost, and Connor drew in a lungful of its clarity. A daddy! Sure he couldn’t believe it after just that one time, and his chest filled with pride. He’d have preferred to have waited for a family until they were properly wed and had saved more money, but wouldn’t they manage somehow.
He felt so excited he was sure he wouldn’t sleep, and sitting in bed reading wouldn’t be the thing. He needed to expend his pent-up energy. Almost without thought, he found himself crossing beneath the towering viaduct and then turning right up the steep alleyway of Madge Lane. He thrived on the challenge of his work, and his instincts were leading him to the Watts Road cutting.
Because of the delays, it had been decided that very day to hire over a hundred extra hands at fourpence halfpenny an hour, an additional penny on the normal rate. With the end of the project in sight, many navvies had already left to search for longer term prospects elsewhere, and it was hoped this offer might attract them to return, or encourage more men to take their place. The company was going to bring in gas lamps so that shifts could go on twenty-four hours a day.
Connor found himself at the top of the cutting. Down below he could see in the moonlight the smoke wafting up from the chimney of the nightwatchman’s hut. It was a raw night and the watchman would be inside, huddled beside the little stove. Connor saw no reason to disturb him. For tonight, all was well with the world and Connor was floating on a cloud.
First thing in the morning he was going to check on the progress of the boreholes under his supervision. He wasn’t classed as an explosives expert, although he knew almost as much as those who were, but certain members of the gang of men under him were skilled in drilling the holes deep into the rock. It crossed his mind that if he checked on those boreholes now, work could begin immediately in the morning.
He shared a shed at the top of the cutting with a couple of other gangers. The key was on a fob in his pocket together with that of his boarding house and room, so he let himself in and lit a storm lamp, which gave him enough light to scramble down the side and into the cutting. He went carefully, not wanting to spoil his best boots, or even to fall. An injury that meant no work also meant no pay, just a paltry sum from the sick fund, and he had responsibilities now. A family man. An irrepressible grin split his face again.
He climbed up the ladders on the scaffolding with the agility of a cat, despite holding the lamp in one hand. The hollow silence in a place that normally seethed with activity and echoed with men’s shouting – often using quite unsavoury language – seemed unutterably strange. But Connor was soon making noise of his own, picking up a measuring probe and pushing it into the half-drilled holes. He replaced it on the planks across the scaffolding and then picked up the lamp again to inspect the surface of the rock more closely. It was proving so dense they would need more explosive and more boreholes than normal. It was only in the quiet as he searched out more natural fissures to use that he heard footsteps along the bottom of the man-made gorge.
‘Sure, it’s only me, Mr Hargreaves,’ he called, leaning out and sw
inging the lamp so that the nightwatchman could identify him more easily.
But when he peered down, Mr Hargreaves wasn’t alone. And on closer inspection it wasn’t Mr Hargreaves at all. Two men were skulking in the shadows, pressed up against the rock face now they knew they’d been seen. Alarm bells began to toll in Connor’s head. They must be up to no good – intent on breaking into the storage sheds, no doubt, and stealing equipment, maybe even dynamite.
‘What d’you think you’re doing down there!’ he shouted fearlessly.
For several seconds, the men froze, but then amazingly one of them swaggered out into the pool of light that shone down from Connor’s lamp.
‘Look who uth’ve got yere, then!’ he sneered in a lisping voice. ‘If it ithn’t the bathtard that knocked my bloody teeth out!’
The other fellow stepped forward now, encouraged by his companion’s bravado. ‘An’ stopped us ’avin’ that pretty young maid. Just ripe for the takin’ she were!’
‘Well now, you’m trapped up there, bain’t you? An’ at our merthy, it’d theem. Thee what thort of ’ero you be now, thall uth?’
Something like ice streamed through Connor’s veins, followed immediately by a raging explosion of white hot anger. The two blackguards who had very nearly violated his darling little love. His acushla. Where had the devils been all this time? Well, he’d damned well catch them now, so he would, and bring them to justice.
With a roar like a demented lion, he slithered down the top ladder. In the darkness, the two villains exchanged fearful glances, but then the toothless one dug his buddy in the ribs. Nipping up the bottom two ladders of the scaffolding, he began pulling at the ropes that held the one above. His crony was instantly helping him and within seconds the ladder was dangerously loose.
‘That’ll do,’ one of them hissed. ‘’Er won’t have bin able fer see what us was doin’.’
The other ruffian’s mouth spread in a gummy, vicious grin and they slid back down to the ground. With one venomous mind, they put their weight against the scaffolding and started to rock it perilously back and forth.
‘Get ’en back fer my teeth,’ the savage brute chortled, and the pair of them laughed maliciously.
Halfway down, Connor felt the gantry lurch beneath him and he pulled himself up short. So that was their game, was it? Well, there was always some movement in scaffolding and you couldn’t do his sort of work if you were afraid of it. So if they thought they could scare him like that, they would have to think again. He would just have to be careful, but he was determined to catch the buggers, so he was! As the black fog of fury engulfed him again, he swung himself on to the next ladder.
All too late, he realized it wasn’t properly secured. As the whole structure swayed to one side, the ladder slipped along the crossbar it was resting on. The darkness of the night flashed across Connor’s brain as he tried to grab on to anything he could to save himself. His fingers touched something hard and solid, but he couldn’t get a hold, and as the ladder toppled over, it took him with it.
The two monsters below looked up at his cry. They watched, stunned, as the figure tumbled downwards, bounced off the edge of the stage below and was thrown outwards into mid-air.
Inside his warm hut, Mr Hargreaves dozed by the stove.
‘Connor not coming again tonight?’
Tresca lowered her eyes as she took the washed saucepan from Jane’s wet hands. She had been asking herself the very same question. It wasn’t that Connor called in every evening, but it was strange that he had decided not to come for two consecutive days after she had told him she was carrying his child. A quiet dread was trundling in her breast, and she tried to block it from her mind. Surely that wasn’t the reason he hadn’t appeared at the door with his cheery smile, his arms ready to enfold her in a warm, loving embrace? He had seemed genuinely delighted at the idea of becoming a father, and Tresca really couldn’t believe he would abandon her because of it. She had even done as he had urged and gone to see the vicar to make the necessary arrangements for their marriage.
She hurled the thought aside. She really shouldn’t be so silly. They said that pregnant women were apt to be emotional. Nevertheless, she tossed and turned in bed, and when she finally drifted off, it was into a restless and fitful sleep.
It was still pitch dark when she awoke and snapped at once into full wakefulness. She fumbled for the small box and struck a match to light the lamp, which, when all was said and done, Connor had given her and over which they had argued so long ago. Now the sight of it made her stomach churn.
She turned up the wick. The clock told her it was five o’clock. With winter coming on, the hours of daylight were shorter and work on the railway couldn’t begin until there was at least a glimmer in the sky. That was why, as Connor had explained, the company were bringing in gas lamps so that work could go on round the clock.
Oh, she simply had to see Connor before he left for work! She threw on her clothes and let herself out into the dark street, feeling cold and uneasy. She crossed over to rap sharply on the door of Connor’s boarding house and waited impatiently, cursing the slowness of the elderly landlord she could hear pottering along the hallway. When the door finally opened, the fellow was bleary-eyed and his thin, grey hair was all awry, as if he had just got out of bed.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but is Connor up yet?’ she asked politely as she tamped down her frustration.
‘I’m afraid Mr O’Mahoney isn’t here, maid. Hasn’t been back for two nights. We were wondering if you might know where he be.’
Tresca frowned at him, disbelieving. ‘N–no,’ she stuttered, panic taking root inside her. ‘I haven’t seen him, either.’
‘Well, he must be coming back. His things are still in his room and he’s not the sort to go off without leaving word. Go up and have a look if you like. Your young legs’ll be quicker than mine.’
Tresca didn’t need asking twice. She shot up the stairs to the room she had seen only a few times, and then only for a matter of minutes as it was considered improper to be alone with Connor even if they were betrothed. But she had to wait for the landlord to come up with the spare key to let her in anyway, and every second seemed an hour as he laboured up the creaking steps.
The room was in perfect order, Connor’s working boots standing neatly on newspaper by the door.
So where was he?
Tresca’s heart began to race even faster and she pushed past the elderly man and ran down the stairs again.
‘Let us know if you find him,’ she heard him call after her.
She didn’t reply. Her brain couldn’t find any words. Only Connor’s name screamed in her head. Something was wrong. Unimaginably wrong. It wasn’t that Connor didn’t want to come to her. For some reason, he couldn’t.
Tresca stood, staring up at the massive viaduct that loomed over her, a dark silhouette against the faintly lightening sky. She spun round, head back, giddy as she whirled in a circle. Oh, God. A black fear crashed down on her as surely as if a block of granite had fallen from the arch above.
Almost without thought, she catapulted into Madge Lane and raced up the hill. Only halfway up, a stitch seared into her side and she angrily slowed to a walk. When she came eventually to the cutting, in the darkness it was like looking down into the mouth of hell. Nobody was there yet, and it wasn’t sufficiently light for her to climb down in safety. She would have to wait, frustration clawing at her as she paced back and forth.
At last, men started arriving, some making ribald comments at the sight of the young girl waiting alone in the gloom. But Tresca ignored their lewd remarks.
‘Have any of you seen Connor O’Mahoney?’ she demanded instead.
So many shaking heads. After all, Connor was one ganger among many. And then, finally, a voice as concerned as hers.
‘O’Mahoney? ’Er’m our ganger but ’er’s not bin seen fer two days.’
‘That’s right, so it is,’ another voice, this time Irish, agre
ed. ‘Didn’t we wonder if he were ill, for sure it’s not like him.’
Taken ill? No, that was impossible. But . . . what if he hadn’t gone straight home that night? Perhaps he’d had an accident. Somehow. Somewhere. And he’d been taken either to the workhouse or the cottage hospital in West Street. The latter was more likely. Sick or injured navvies had been taken there before. By the time she had raced up to it, Tresca could hardly catch her breath. The sympathetic nurse there made her sit down with a glass of water until she could splutter her request. But there had been no one admitted answering Connor’s description, and she had heard of nobody being treated for a serious accident by any of the town’s physicians – for if Connor had had an accident, Tresca reasoned wildly, it must be serious for him not to have been able to have a message sent to her.
The workhouse, then. She banged on the gate until her fists were sore, her lungs collapsing from running up the long, steep hill. Mr Blake, the dour workhouse porter, opened the little door, his voluminous black coat making him appear like some demon from hell.
‘No one like that’s bin admitted,’ he barked. ‘An’ don’t you come yere agin wi’out permission.’
Tresca froze, rooted to the spot. Connor couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air – he must be somewhere! Even if he hadn’t wanted to face up to his responsibilities as the father of their child – which Tresca was convinced wasn’t the case – he wouldn’t have just gone off, leaving everything behind.
Everything. Not just his clothes and personal possessions, but his money.
A few minutes later, Tresca was back at his house, demanding to be let into his room again. And there it was, hidden in a tiny gap at the side of the wardrobe just as he had described to her. His bank book. What more proof did she need?
She stared out of the window down on to Bannawell Street. Dear God, what should she do now? Her eyes locked on to a familiar figure: Mr Szlumper, frowning up at the viaduct from beneath his black top hat.