The Railway Girl

Chapter 5

Jane and Moses Cartwright lived in a tiny rented house situated on a steep hill called South Street. It was no great distance from Haden and Hannah Piddock’s equally humble abode, but to visit his young wife’s mother and father was a trouble for Jane’s husband, since he had to do it on crutches. Moses had received a gunshot wound in his leg during the siege of Sebastopol, which had shattered the shin bone. His leg had consequently been amputated below the knee, and Moses was still not certain which had been the more traumatic of the two terrifying experiences, the shell wound or the amputation. But at least he had survived both, and he lived to tell the tale. Indeed, he loved to tell the tale. He told it well to Jane Piddock on his return to England. He had courted Jane before he went to war and she was heartbroken when he went. His returning minus half a limb did not deter Jane and she agreed to marry him, despite the fact that everybody said he would be unable to work. She still had her own job moulding firebricks at the fireclay works. She could keep them both on the little money she earned, with a bit of help from her father.

That Thursday evening, they ventured slowly to Bull Street, as they had begun to do on a regular basis since Moses had returned from the Crimea. The light was fading and, at each step, Moses was chary as to where he planted his crutch lest he found a loose stone on which it might slip and upset his balance. They arrived at the Piddocks’ cottage without mishap, however, and Moses was accorded due reverence and made to rest on the settle in front of the fire.

‘Our Lucy, pop up to the Whimsey and fetch we a couple o’ jugs o’ beer,’ Haden said when his older daughter and son-in-law arrived.

‘Give me the money then,’ Lucy answered.

So Haden handed her a sixpence, whereupon she duly found the two jugs and ran to the public house. When she returned, he thanked her and shared the beer between them all, pouring it into mugs.

‘How’s that gammy leg o’ yourn, Moses?’ Haden enquired and slurped his beer.

‘It’s bin giving me some gyp today, Haden, and no question. D’you know, I can still feel me toes sometimes, as if they was still on the end o’ me leg. You wouldn’t credit that, would yer?’

‘Well, at least you ain’t got no toenails to cut there now, eh?’

Moses laughed generously. ‘Aye, that’s some consolation.’

‘There’s plenty of talk about the Crimea and that Florence Nightingale,’ Hannah said as she darned a hole in one of Haden’s socks. ‘I bet you happened on her when you was lying in that hospital, eh?’

‘I was nowhere near Florence Nightingale, Mother.’ Moses referred to Hannah as Mother, but to Haden by his first name. ‘Nor any hospital for that matter. Her hospital was at Scutari, miles from where we was.’

‘So who looked after yer?’

‘There was a kind old black woman they called Mother Seacole.’

‘A black woman?’ Hannah questioned, looking up from her mending.

‘Ar. All the way from Jamaica. A free black woman at that. She crossed the ocean just to help out when she heard about the sufferings at the Battle of the Alma. Her father was a Scotsman by all accounts, a soldier. I reckon she knew a thing or two about soldiering as well as nursing. Anyroad, she set up a sort of barracks close to Balaclava, and she nursed me there and a good many like me. She used to serve us sponge cake and lemonade, and all the men thought the bloody world of her. I did meself.’ Moses smiled as he recalled the woman’s kindnesses. ‘But that Florence Nightingale and her crew would have nothing to do with her, everybody reckoned. Stuck up, ’er was. I could never understand that … It was ’cause Mother Seacole was a black woman, they all said … Anyroad, that Florence Nightingale was generally treating them poor buggers in her hospital what had got the cholera or the pox. And there was thousands of ’em, I can tell yer. We lost more soldiers to cholera than we did in the Battle of the Alma, they reckon.’

‘Did you ever see anything o’ the Battle of Balaclava?’ Haden asked.

‘Not me, Haden. But I heard tales from them as did. Bloody lunatics them cavalry of ourn, by all accounts.’

‘I’d hate war,’ Lucy said. ‘I can’t see any point to it.’

Haden looked at his younger daughter with admiration. ‘Our Lucy’s a-courting now, you know.’

‘Courting?’ Jane queried with an astonished grin. ‘It’s about time. Who’m you courting, our wench?’

‘I ain’t courting,’ Lucy protested coyly.

‘Well, she’s got a chap who reckons he’s a-courting her.’

‘Arthur Goodrich bought you a tankard o’ beer to get on the right side of you, Father. I’ve seen him once or twice, but it don’t mean I’m courting serious.’

‘So what’s up with this Arthur Goodrich?’ Jane enquired.

‘Oh, he’s decent enough, our Jane, and respectable. I’m sure he’d be very kind and caring, but I just don’t fancy him.’

‘You mean he ain’t handsome enough?’ Jane prompted.

‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ Hannah opined, and withdrew the wooden mushroom from the inside of Haden’s mended sock. ‘I married your father for his ways, not his looks. I’d never have married him for his looks. I’d never have found ’em for a start.’

Lucy chuckled at her mother’s disdain and her father’s hurt expression. ‘Poor Father.’

‘I married you for your money, Hannah, but I ain’t found that yet neither. I wonder who got the best o’ the bargain.’

‘You did, Haden. You got me. All I got was you.’

‘He does strike me as being a bit of a fool, that Arthur, now you mention it, our Lucy,’ Haden pronounced. ‘Although he seems harmless enough. But fancy him thinking he can have you when you got your sights set on somebody who’s handsome enough to become a national monument. As if looks mattered, like your mother says.’

‘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.’