Cowards Die Many Times

by Peter Hey

  ‘Really? What exactly did he do?’

  ‘He never made it to Ohio. He contracted typhus fever on the boat, or it’s possible he picked it up before he left. Typhus, as opposed to typhoid, is spread by body lice, though they didn’t know it at the time. All they knew was it was something to do with poor sanitation and overcrowding.’

  Betty simply nodded her head. It was unseen by Jane, who was having to concentrate on the road as it twisted and undulated with the contours, but she took the other woman’s silence as a cue to continue.

  ‘That’s by the by, I guess. But Thomas was sent to a New York state hospital on his arrival and survived. His friend didn’t exhibit symptoms until later and reached Ohio. Unfortunately he died there soon after. Thomas, meanwhile, has met a beautiful Irish girl, lies about his name and age, and marries her. Judging by the dates, she was pregnant on their wedding day. So he started off with adultery and then thought he’d try bigamy too.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  ‘Mmm,’ agreed Jane. ‘You and your cousin Guy took DNA tests, and a match over in America led me to a woman who is descended from that pregnancy. She told me the story. Thomas and his new wife had the one child, a little girl, but she grew to despise her father and was raised by her stepmother. Who was from Transylvania, would you believe?’

  ‘That’s exotic.’ Betty’s mind was distracted by partially misplaced images of aristocratic vampires, gothic castles and torch-wielding mobs before a more relevant thought occurred to her. ‘If the girl had a stepmother, does that mean Thomas married a third time?’

  ‘Uhuh. This one wasn’t, well, any great shakes in the looks department, but she was quite the entrepreneur. Thomas somehow got his greedy hands on a nascent photography business, and this last wife made a big success of it.’

  Betty’s face took on a puzzled expression. ‘So did Thomas simply make another bigamous marriage? I mean, did he just walk out on the Irish girl?’

  ‘If only. According to my American contact, should I say, your American cousin, he is supposed to have killed her. I can show you her photograph. She was so, so beautiful and yet you can sense she’s so, so fragile. She was found drowned in the East River in New York. To say it was a crime is...’

  Jane left the sentence hanging as her mobile phone indicated they had arrived at their destination. She turned the Mazda through some iron gates into a small car park and killed the engine. The two women climbed out and walked up a short path until they were standing at the door of plain, square building that looked like a large house with an odd arrangement of windows.

  ‘They outgrew it, of course,’ said Betty looking up at the freshly cleaned stone walls. ‘They built a new chapel down the road and this one fell into disrepair. You know they were all Baptists, obviously?’

  ‘Particular Baptists,’ said Jane. ‘Not that I really know the difference.’

  ‘It’s to do with particular atonement… salvation limited to the elect few,’ replied Betty with the abrupt authority of someone who knows the words but would prefer not to be challenged on their precise meaning. ‘And I think they were less antagonistic towards the Church of England than the General Baptists. I’m afraid I’m not really one for organised religion. I like to pick the best bits from different faiths. Eastern spirituality is my main guide in life.’

  Jane didn’t feel minded towards a theological discussion and tried the door. As she expected, it was locked.

  ‘In the photographs it looks like the renovation will be impressive when it’s finished,’ said Jane as she turned back to face Betty. ‘All those wooden box pews and a gallery running round the floor above. But it was the graveyard I came here to see.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said Betty decisively.

  Behind the chapel was a screen of stunted, windblown trees and then a cobbled path climbed up to a rounded hummock covered in gravestones and bordered by a high drystone wall. The path was noticeably cambered and had drainage channels running down both sides, suggesting that heavy skies were very much the norm. Brooding, bleak hills rose all around adding to the feeling that inclement weather was never far away.

  There was one imposing memorial set apart from the others, close to the chapel. It commemorated a Victorian minister who had ‘guided’ the people of Blackwell Holme for many years and had died saving the life of a young child. Jane realised Reverend Richards would have been there at the time of Thomas Ramsbottom and, presumably, have known him well. She was contemplating what assessment he would have made of Thomas’s character when she was distracted by a shout from Betty.

  ‘It was over here somewhere. Shouldn’t be able to miss it.’ She had gone on ahead and was walking across the lush grass between the ordered lines of monuments. She stopped, retraced her steps and then followed a different row. ‘There it is!’ she called and marched over the crest and down the other side. Jane quickly followed and found Betty bending in front of a particularly large stone with an ornate classical pediment.

  It stood out from those around it in size and decoration and also from being a glossy black, rather than the weathered grey of the local gritstone. Looking about, Jane could see only one other memorial in a similar marble. That was tucked by the wall in the furthest corner of the cemetery and by contrast seemed particularly plain and modest. Jane’s eyes were strangely drawn towards it but were refocused by Betty reading out loud.

  ‘Here lies George Ramsbottom, 1856 to 1872, the finest of sons, tragically taken too young. Also his mother, Sarah Ramsbottom, died 1898 aged 65.’ There was a pause and a sigh. ‘And then there’s one of Sarah’s little baby grandsons, aged just two months, poor lamb.’ Betty turned and looked up. ‘Is it what you expected to see?’

  ‘It’s very grand isn’t it?’ answered Jane indirectly. ‘I wonder who paid for it?’

  ‘My great... erm, I mean, Sarah’s son? The one who became a doctor? He could afford it.’

  Jane frowned in concentration and began reasoning out loud. ‘Trouble is... Sarah’s name looks like it was inscribed after George’s. Remember George here was her eldest boy who died in the mill explosion. So the gravestone was for him originally and then Sarah was added when she died in 1898. And then her grandson after that.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ agreed Betty.

  ‘So,’ continued Jane, ‘the gravestone would predate 1898. Now by my reckoning your great-grandfather – also called George – would still be at medical school. His comfortable income would surely come later?’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I need to think about it some more.’

  Jane took a photograph with her phone and then Betty showed her the graves of other relatives who had stayed in the area. Nearby was the burial plot of the family of Henry Pickup, Thomas’s ill-fated travelling companion on his voyage to America. None of the memorials were as impressive as George and Sarah’s, and after more snapshots the two women left the churchyard by the back gate and made their way into the village.

  The first toll road over the moors had been built late in the reign of George III. It followed the course of a fast-flowing stream, crossing it several times and hugging its banks before abandoning it and climbing up and over the head of the valley. The roadway linked two ancient hamlets and they had eventually merged into a single community a mile long and often only as wide as a single terrace of houses, lateral development restricted by the steep slopes on either side. What now passed for the village centre had a scruffy pub and a single corner shop which advertised itself as ‘Proper Convenient, Proper Cheap’. A Chinese takeaway provided the only other local source of nutrition and distraction. Apart from the Anglican and Baptist churches, there were two other more substantial buildings. A primary school sat behind a high, modern steel fence. Its stone frontage had been scrubbed clean at some point, but the side walls were still blackened by the soot of a century or more. Any doubts as to vintage were dispelled by two doorways, with ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’ respectively carved above them and a central gable with ‘Board School 1878’ in the same
lettering. Almost directly opposite, and with the river culverted beneath it, stood the towering, four-storey bulk of an old mill. Its huge square chimney, banded in iron, was set slightly back but had evidently been docked and it now barely reached roof height. One large sign proclaimed, ‘To let. Storage facility with modern lift.’ A smaller notice read ‘Graver’s Hall Sofa Company’, but it wasn’t clear if that business was still in operation. There was an air of abandoned emptiness, though that could have been due to it being the day of rest rather than bankruptcy.

  Just along from the school a side turning led into a narrow lane that rose up and out of the village, following the clough carved by a small tributary that could be seen joining the main stream close to the junction. A solitary road sign indicated no more than it was a dead end.

  ‘It’s just a hundred yards or so up here,’ said Betty pointing the way.

  Three quarters of a mile later, having passed a small modern housing estate, the lane forked. The tarmac section led down towards what looked like a salvage yard in the distance. An unpaved track continued upwards and Betty gestured towards it, her voice seemingly lost to the exertion of the climb.

  ‘I’m glad I wore my sensible shoes,’ laughed Jane.

  ‘I only have sensible shoes,’ replied Betty, with breathy seriousness.

  They rounded a corner and Betty stopped, placed her hands on her hips and stretched her back. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t this far last time I came, but there it is – Father Richard Barn. I haven’t a clue who Father Richard was, but it certainly doesn’t look like a barn now.’

  She was right. What had appeared to be a collection of farm buildings on the old maps had been transformed into a single luxury home, set back behind rather forbidding tall steel gates. Old outhouses were now a stable block, and a paddock was laid out with coloured rails for jumping. The large central section of the house had been extended outwards with a vast glass-roofed conservatory, but its origin was still discernible. There were three cars parked outside. As usual Jane struggled to identify them, but it was obvious they were big, expensive and, judging by the monstrous tyres, four-wheel drive, no doubt a prerequisite for accessing this place in the depths of winter. They also shared very similar metallic grey paintwork. Their owner or owners clearly had money, but in Jane’s eyes, no sense of colour or fun.

  ‘I can’t help you with Father Richard,’ said Jane, ‘but the earliest record I can find of this place is a marriage register entry from 1794. The bride lived here. Even then it must have been converted into accommodation. By the time of the 1841 census it was split between four families, including Sarah Ramsbottom and her parents. She lived here more or less all her life. Her father was farmer...’ Jane was looking at her phone and scrolling through pages of notes. ‘Yes, that’s right. A mason and farmer of 20 acres, though I don’t think that’s a lot. You’d call it a smallholding these days, and he wouldn’t own the land. He died soon after Thomas ran off. Fortunately Sarah still had her mother, who appears to have taken over the running of the farm, assisted by a labourer who also moved into this place. A labourer with the quintessentially northern name of Ashworth Tattersall. Interestingly, when Sarah’s mother passed away, Ashworth seems to have got the rights to the land. On the 1891 census, he’s listed as a farmer of 20 acres and Sarah is now reduced to his housekeeper.’

  Betty looked suspicious. ‘Remind me how old this Ashworth Tattersall was? Relative to Sarah, I mean.’

  Jane checked her phone again. ‘About a year younger. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I think I assumed housekeeper was a euphemism for common-law wife, that’s all.’

  Jane lowered her phone and stared at the house as if it might be persuaded to tell tales on its previous occupiers. ‘And who could blame her?’ she said eventually. ‘Interesting she never actually remarried, though. She said she was a widow on the censuses, but maybe she didn’t really know whether Thomas was dead or alive.’

  Jane’s eyes remained fixed on the stonework of the old parts of the building. She thought about using the intercom on the gates, but decided against it. She doubted they’d get a warm welcome and didn’t suppose she’d learn anything from the converted splendour, even if the builder had retained the odd original feature as a talking point. Instead she turned around and took in the setting. Two lines of ugly electricity pylons marched across in the mid-distance and that salvage yard was only partly hidden. The outlook wasn’t perfect from an estate agent’s perspective, but it was certainly a view and you could see almost the entire valley across to the hills beyond. Jane called up the Victorian Ordnance Survey map on her phone. Marked directly below where they now stood was the early cotton mill whose boiler explosion had claimed the life of young George Ramsbottom. It had barely left a trace on the modern landscape. There was an odd kink in the lane where it had been redirected around the corner of the building and the overall footprint was now a flat, scrubby patch of waste ground, fenced off but used as a dumping ground for rusty farm machinery. Steam power requires a ready supply of water, and there had once been a small reservoir but that too had gone, although the vegetation in its place looked suspiciously boggy. The map clearly showed a separate structure marked Nabb Engine. One of its huge boilers had been blasted 60 yards and embedded in the ground. Jane scanned the adjacent fields for tell-tale craters but was disappointed. She then remembered she had a copy of the grainy photograph from the contemporary newspaper report. Looking at it on her screen, she was reminded how substantial the mill had been. There was a wide, three-storey weaving shed with a chimney behind that must have climbed to 150 feet tall. Today, not a brick remained visible. Only the terrace of back-to-backs built to house some of the workers, now incongruously remote and isolated 50 yards down the lane suggested this was at one time an industrial scene.

  And then Jane’s thoughts turned to Sarah Hargreaves, pregnant and so close by on that June morning in 1872. Father Richard Barn would have rocked and shook. What windows it had would have blown out and she herself might have been thrown to the ground. It would have been like nothing she had ever experienced, yet she would have surely known what had happened. And feared the worst. And would they have carried her teenage first-born son back to her, his beautiful face hideously scolded and burnt? And would he have died in her arms somewhere in the original core of the luxury residence that Jane now stood outside?

  She was again tempted to try the intercom, but resisted. She would simply be imagining scenes that might never have happened. Instead she passed her phone over to Betty.

  ‘All this was just down there,’ said Jane, waving her hand to indicate a rough outline.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing how nature reclaims its own,’ replied Betty, her eyes flicking left and right.

  Jane nodded. ‘It was disused but still standing in the 1930s, but by the time you get to the 1960s’ maps it’s all gone.’ She turned and pointed to the hill above them. ‘And way up there used to be a mine. I suspect that’s where Thomas Ramsbottom once worked. That long, straight ridge running diagonally across those fields of sheep is the path of a tramway. They used it to transport the coal down to a loading staithe on the road. At the far end there’s a low, modern building. I think that’s over the old pit entrance. Next to that wind turbine.’

  ‘Isn’t that symbolic of our progress? I mean, away from fossil fuels towards green renewables? Very appropriate, very exciting,’ said Betty, grinning appreciatively.

  Jane’s mind was elsewhere and she declined to echo the enthusiasm. Betty saw the lack of response and asked a more pertinent question. ‘Thomas left the mine, didn’t he? And went to work in the mill. I can’t remember what he did there. Surely he was too old to begin again as a weaver or a spinner?’

  Jane pressed the screen of her phone and quickly brought up Thomas’s profile and then the 1871 census. ‘I’ve never really thought of that before. Oh, here it is. It says he was a, quotes, Eng Ast. I think I googled it but was none the wiser.’’

  ‘English… n
o, Engineer. Engineer’s assistant?’ suggested Betty.

  ‘Yes, that’s obvious now you say it.’ Jane stared into the distance as the cogs turned in her head. ‘At the inquest, the boiler engineer got the blame for the explosion. He’d been killed too and couldn’t defend himself. You don’t think Thomas could have been culpable in some way? Maybe it’s no wonder he ran away to America. And then when he gets there he ends up killing his second wife. God, what a man!’

  The cross

  On their journey home, Jane took them an alternate route, driving further up the valley and across the face of a strangely misshapen pike that dominated the skyline. It was pockmarked by ugly, alien-looking recesses, presumably ancient quarries now taken back by the grasses and the moss. But it was a different testament to human destruction she had come to see. She parked by the road and they climbed a short flight of steps to a stone cross standing alone on the hillside and visible for miles around. It was dedicated to the local men who had perished in the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Jane knew that two of Thomas Ramsbottom’s grandsons were numbered amongst them, but the cross’s commanding position had exposed it to the worst of the Pennine weather. Nearly a century of blasting by wind, rain, sleet and snow had eaten into its panels and only a ghostly suggestion of lettering remained. The brave young soldiers, surely better men by far than their grandfather, were remembered no more.

  The Harlem River

  Before he left her shores Thomas Ramsden had never visited his homeland’s capital, but he had heard that the hub of Victoria’s empire was even more crowded than downtown Manhattan. The engineers of London were bypassing the gridlocked thoroughfares by digging down and running railways beneath the streets. But that great metropolis was built on soft clay. Its challenger on the far side of the Atlantic was rooted in solid rock. Outcrops still towered above some of the undeveloped streets that had been driven through the terrain to fulfil the decades-old master plan of a vast, ordered grid. The cost of tunnelling warranted an alternative solution, and New York had gone up rather than down. The new elevated railroads rattled along tracks raised high on steel columns, like a seemingly endless bridge over a sea of horses and carriages and handcarts.