The Railway Girl

‘I don’t mind ’em if I can see ’em. But it’d be just my luck to get the ugly un. And there must be nothing worse than realising you’ve had the ugly un when all of a sudden it gets light again and you’ve imagined you bin with the handsome un.’

However, they soon emerged into daylight at the new Dudley Station, which was still only half built. The train stopped to disgorge passengers and take on others before it resumed its journey through a stark and bewildering landscape of factories, pits and quarries interspersed with small impoverished-looking farms. Brown smoke swirled into the air from chimney stacks which were sprouting like bristles on a scrubbing brush. At Wolverhampton Low Level Station the locomotive hissed to a halt, and the coaches behind it nudged each other obsessively in their commitment to line up behind it.

The two girls stepped down from their third class accommodation onto the paved platform. There was a distinctly autumnal nip in the air, a sudden and drastic change from the Indian summer they’d enjoyed hitherto. As Lucy pulled her shawl more tightly round her shoulders as protection against the blustery wind, she instinctively glanced behind her towards the guards’ van. It was just possible that he might be on duty. But evidently he was not and, disappointed, she returned her attention to Miriam who had been telling her in hushed tones about the scandal of her cousin being put in the family way by a young lad of thirteen.

‘Serves her right,’ Miriam said as they walked out of the station. ‘She must’ve bin leading him on, showing him the ropes if I know her, the dirty madam. I mean, you don’t expect a lad of thirteen to know all about that sort o’ thing, do yer? A wench, yes, but not a lad. Lads of that age am a bit dense when it comes to that sort o’ thing.’

‘So how old is this cousin of yours?’ Lucy asked.

‘Twenty-six. It’s disgusting if you ask me. Mind you, she’s nothing to look at. You couldn’t punch clay uglier. She’s got a figure like a barrel o’ lard an’ all, and legs like tree trunks. Couldn’t get a decent chap her own age, I reckon.’

‘So is she going to marry this young lad, Miriam?’

‘It’s what everybody expects, to mek an honest chap o’ the poor little sod. Mind you, if I was his mother I’d have summat to say. I’d tell him to run for his life and not come a-nigh till he was old enough to grow a beard that’d hide his fizzog and save him being recognised.’

‘So you think it’s her fault?’

‘I do, and no two ways. But who in their right mind would want to get married anyroad, let alone to her? Do you ever want to get married, Luce?’

‘Yes, some day … to the right chap.’

‘But the Lord created us all single, Luce. If He’d wanted us to be married, we’d have been born married. If you look at it that way why fidget to get married? Why rush to bear a chap’s children and his tantrums?’

‘I ain’t fidgeting to get married,’ Lucy protested. ‘But someday I’d like to be married. If I loved the chap enough. If I was sure of him.’

‘You can never be that sure of men. Look at my Sammy. You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but show him a wench in just a chemise and he’d be after her like a pig after a tater.’

‘I reckon I could be sure of Arthur.’

‘Then he’s the only man alive you could be sure of. But tell me, Luce, ’cause I’m dying to know … do you love this Arthur?’

Lucy smiled diffidently and shook her head. ‘No, I can’t say as I do, Miriam. But I do like him. I wasn’t bothered at first, but I like him now despite all his quirks. There’s something pathetic about him that makes me want to mother him. And me own mother’s as bad, or as mad – she’s took to him as if he was her own. Our Jane as well. Ever since we took ’em them two rabbits he’d shot she thinks there’s nobody like him. There must be something about him.’

‘What about your father? What does he think of him?’

‘Oh, he thinks he’s a bit of a joke. He thinks Arthur’s quaint and a bit too gentrified, and he’s puzzled as to why he should bother with the likes of me. Well, he’s quaint all right, but he ain’t gentrified at all. He’s just a stonemason working in his father’s business. His father ain’t gentrified either from what I can make out – and his mother certainly ain’t.’

‘So … he’s got a trade, and you can be sure of him,’ Miriam mused. ‘Well … It seems to me that he’s as good a catch as you’m ever likely to get …’

‘If only I fancied him …’

‘Oh, fancying’s nothing,’ Miriam declared. ‘When you’m lying with him in the dark just imagine it’s that guard off the railway you keep on about.’

‘I don’t lie with him in the dark, Miriam,’ Lucy protested. ‘I don’t lie with him at all.’

‘No? Well, I daresay you will sometime …’

Wolverhampton’s Low Level station was blessed with platforms that were long and wide to prevent overcrowding. The single span roof was an impressive construction of iron and glass. There was a grand entrance hall with booking offices, the company offices, waiting and refreshment rooms. The whole blue brick pile was not too far distant from the shops, and soon the two girls were in a warren of narrow streets teeming with folk and horses hauling carts or carriages. An omnibus drew up alongside them as they were about to cross the street and disgorged its passengers. Soon, they were surrounded by haberdashery shops, furniture shops, tailors, cobblers, bakers, an ironmonger’s, silversmiths and goldsmiths, an apothecary and a host of butchers; and that was only in one street. As well as the many licensed premises Lucy saw a printing works, hollow ware workshops, a saddlery, a chandlery, a corn merchant and a blacksmith. They wanted for nothing in this town. On a corner of one street a man was roasting chestnuts, and the eddying smoke from his cast-iron oven made Miriam’s eyes run until they had moved upwind.

‘I want to find me a decent Sunday frock from a second hand shop,’ Miriam said. ‘Sammy says as how he’d like to see me in summat different of a Sunday afternoon.’

‘I’ll have a look as well, Miriam. Now I’m stepping out with Arthur I ought to make an effort. Specially of a Sunday. Just so long as it’s cheap.’

Lucy and Miriam scoured the second hand shops and, in a back street called Farmer’s Fold where they were content that each had happened on one that was suitable and offered good value. As they emerged into the street they espied on the corner an ancient black and white timber-framed building, which evidently served as a coffee house. They decided they needed refreshment, and rest for their tired feet before the walk back to the station, now some distance away. Duly refreshed and giving themselves plenty of time, for they were not sure how long it would take them, they left the coffee house carrying their new second hand clothes with them.

As they entered the station, a man wearing a guard’s uniform was walking in front of them and Lucy’s heart went to her mouth. She nudged Miriam.

‘There’s that guard,’ she whispered excitedly.

‘How can you tell? He’s got his back towards us.’

‘Miriam, I can tell. Of a certainty. Oh, I wish he’d turn around so I could see his face.’

The guard hailed a porter coming towards him and they stopped to talk. Lucy tugged at Miriam’s sleeve and they loitered very close to where he stood.

‘You should be ashamed, Luce,’ Miriam quietly chided. ‘You’ve got a perfectly decent chap and you’m hankering after him.’

‘But he’s so lovely, Miriam. Oh, me legs am all of a wamble now that I’ve seen him. I’ll have to see if he smiles at me again. I wonder if he’ll be on our train?’

‘There’s one way to find out …’ Miriam stepped brazenly up to the guard. ‘Excuse me, where do me and me friend catch the train to Brettell Lane?’

The guard looked at Miriam, then to the friend she referred to. He smiled in recognition. ‘Hey, I’ve seen you before, eh, miss?’ Lucy nodded and felt herself go hot as her colour rose. ‘I could never forget a face as pretty as yours.’

‘We normally go to Dudley of a Saturday afternoon,’ Miriam said, ignoring his compliment to her friend, ‘but today we thought we’d treat ourselves and come to Wolverhampton. The trouble is we don’t know the place, and we forgot what time the train goes as well.’

The guard took his watch from his fob and smiled. ‘It leaves in a quarter of an hour, ladies. That’s the one, standing at the platform over there, being hauled by locomotive number two …’ He pointed to it. ‘I’ll be working on that train, so I’ll keep me eye on you. Where d’you say you want to get off?’

Lucy found her voice. ‘Brettell Lane.’

‘Brettell Lane. Live near the station, do ye?’

‘Not far. Bull Street. Just across the road.’

‘I’ll surprise you one day and pop in for a quick mug o’ tea, eh?’ he teased.

‘You’d be welcome.’

‘Her chap wouldn’t be very pleased though,’ Miriam wilfully interjected, and received an icy glare from Lucy for her trouble.

‘Oh, aye,’ he grinned. ‘Here, let me carry your bags and I’ll take you to a nice comfortable coach …’ He bid goodbye to the porter and turned back to Lucy. ‘Here, give us your bag, my flower …’

‘It’s all right,’ Lucy said. ‘I can manage, it’s no weight.’

‘No, I insist …’ He stood with his hands waiting to receive the two bags and Lucy handed them to him, blushing vividly again. ‘So what’s your name?’

‘Lucy Piddock. What’s yours?’

‘Everybody calls me Dickie. What tickets have you got, Lucy?’

‘These …’

‘Third class, eh? Well, I reckon we can do better than that for you. Here …’ He opened the door to a second class compartment and winked at Lucy roguishly, which caused her insides to churn. ‘We’ll install you in second class, eh? More comfortable, and more space to stretch your pretty legs. Nobody’ll be any the wiser, but if anybody should say anything refer ’em to Dickie Dempster. Here y’are, Lucy, my flower …’ He offered his hand and helped her up into the coach, then handed up her bags. ‘Have a comfortable journey and I’ll come and open your door for you to make sure you’m all right when we get to Brettell Lane.’

‘Thank you, Dickie,’ she said politely. ‘But are you sure we’ll be all right in second class?’

‘Trust me.’ He winked again, then turned to Miriam. ‘Now you, miss …’ He handed her up, closed the door and waved as he went on his way.

Lucy sat on the upholstered seat and put her head in her hands, unable to believe what had just happened. Her face had turned red when she looked up, wearing an expression of elation and astonishment, at Miriam. ‘Oh, I’ve gone all queer, Miriam. You know, I get the strangest feeling that he fancies me.’

‘Fancies you?’ Miriam scoffed. ‘I’ll say he fancies you. He never so much as looked at me. He didn’t offer to carry my bags, did he?’

‘Oh, I hope he asks to see me again when he opens our door at Brettell Lane.’

‘And if he does, what about Arthur?’

‘I ain’t married to Arthur – nor ever likely to be,’ Lucy protested. ‘I ain’t promised to Arthur.’

On the journey back Lucy was full of Dickie Dempster. She giggled and speculated wildly on what might happen when they arrived at Brettell Lane station.

‘If he don’t ask me out, should I ask him, do you think?’

‘I do not,’ Miriam answered emphatically. ‘Act like a lady, for Lord’s sake. Don’t get throwing yourself at nobody. It’s the road to ruin. What’s the matter with you? I’ve never seen you like this before. You’m like a bitch on heat. Your mother would be ashamed of you.’

‘But it’s fate that we met again, Miriam. Don’t you see?’

‘Twaddle! It’s nothing o’ the sort, Lucy. It’s a coincidence. Nothing more. The trouble wi’ you is that you’ve bin starved of a chap for too long. Get that Arthur up the churchyard and lie him down on one o’ them graves and make a man of him.’

‘Ooh no, not Arthur. Besides, the churchyard is the last place he’d want to go, seeing as how he spends half his life in churchyards already. Anyway, I’m not getting my bum all cold on the freezing slab of somebody’s grave. Not for Arthur … For Dickie I might though.’

‘Then take poor Arthur somewhere else. Over the fields by Hawbush Farm. Give him a good seeing to. And once he’s given you a good seeing to, you won’t look at e’er another chap again.’

‘And I was starting to take to Arthur as well,’ Lucy said dreamily. ‘Now I’m all unsettled again.’

‘Lucy, just forget this Dickie Dempster,’ Miriam chided. ‘Be satisfied with what you’ve got.’

As the train slowed to a stop at Brettell Lane Lucy waited with baited breath for Dickie to come along and open the door for them.

‘I ain’t waiting,’ Miriam exclaimed, deliberately teasing. ‘I’m opening the door meself.’

‘No, wait. Wait just a minute, Miriam.’

Miriam rolled her eyes.

‘Just a minute … Please …’

Dickie’s beaming, handsome face was soon framed in the window of the door. He opened it and stood aside, then offered his hand to help Lucy down.

Again she blushed to her roots, smiling self-consciously. ‘Thank you, Dickie.’

‘My pleasure, Lucy.’ He turned to Miriam to help her down next. ‘Happy to be of service. Thank you for using the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway,’ he added in an amusing parody of formality.

Reluctant to move, Lucy seemed stuck fast to the platform. ‘How often are you working on this train?’ she asked.

‘Well, nearly every day. The time depends on me shift.’

‘I’ll look out for you. I’ll wave if I see you.’

‘I’ll look out for you, Lucy.’

‘If I knew when you was coming through our station I could bring you a bottle of tea and something to eat, ready for when you stop.’

‘Oh, aye,’ he said doubtfully. ‘That’d be good, but it’d upset the station master. Do you work, Lucy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’m most likely at work the same hours as me.’ He drew his watch from his fob and looked at it. ‘Look at the time,’ he said with a smile. ‘This train has got to be going else we’ll never get to Worcester. Like I say, I’ll keep me eye open for you.’ He winked again.

Lucy winked back saucily. ‘I’ll keep me eye open for you as well.’

He scanned the train for open doors then skipped back along the platform to his guard’s van. Lucy heard his whistle and, as the train began moving forwards she stopped to wave, disappointed that evidently nothing was going to come of this encounter after all.

‘Why did you let him know as I’ve got a chap, Miriam?’ Lucy asked, frowning as they walked along the platform to the gate. ‘I bet that’s why he didn’t ask to see me.’

‘You don’t want to see him,’ Miriam replied, looking straight ahead. ‘He’d be no good for you.’

‘I don’t know how you can say that. You don’t know him.’

‘Neither do you, Lucy … But I know you.’

Chapter 7

Arthur made it to the Whimsey just before nine that evening. He immediately searched for Lucy across the room, and saw her serving an elderly customer. She had a soft, dreamy look in her blue eyes, a look which enchanted him just as surely as if a spell had been cast on him by some benign love witch. He approached the bar.

‘How do, Lucy. You do look nice.’

She smiled serenely. ‘Thank you, Arthur, it’s nice of you to say so,’ she said, taking money from the elderly man.

‘She does, don’t she?’ he said to the man who was standing beside him waiting for his change.

The ageing customer crinkled up his rheumy eyes and nodded. ‘Her meks me wish I was young again. But still, I’n had my day. They say as every dog has his day, and I’n had mine – more’s the pity.’

Arthur nodded his acknowledgement of the man’s reply and grinned matily. He turned to Lucy. ‘A pint please, Lucy. And have a drink yourself.’

‘Thank you, I will.’ She filled a tankard and placed it on the bar. ‘How’s your cold today?’

‘Oh, much better …’ He handed her the money. ‘But I’ve hurt me back lifting a slab of marble.’ He put his hand to the small of his back and grimaced as if in pain.

‘How did you do that?’

‘Me and our Talbot was fitting a new counter top at Mr Guest’s shop this morning – you know, the haberdashery. I tried to lift it on me own, but it was too heavy. Now I’m in agony.’

‘Maybe you’d best not stay here then,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe you should go home and rest.’

‘No, I’ll be all right. What time’s your father due?’

‘Any minute.’

Another customer came and stood at the bar seeking service, and Lucy served him before turning to Arthur again.

‘So you’ve done nothing this afternoon?’ she queried. ‘On account of your back.’

‘Yes, I have. I went and had me likeness taken in Dudley.’

‘Had your likeness taken? I bet that cost a fortune. Did you have that same look of agony on your face?’ she asked impishly.

Her irreverence amused him. ‘I’d like you to have yours taken, so’s I can look at it when I’m home and you’re not with me. I forget what you look like sometimes and it drives me mad. If you had your likeness taken it would remind me.’

She laughed self-consciously and wiped the top of the counter with a cloth. ‘How can you forget what I look like?’

‘By trying too hard to remember, I reckon. I think about you a lot, Lucy … Anyway, you can have a copy of my likeness when its done. You never know, you might take to it.’

She smiled, endeavouring to hide her conscience at both her inability to reciprocate his feelings and her eagerness to yield hers to Dickie Dempster, should he ever ask. ‘Look, I’m getting busy, Arthur,’ she entreated. ‘I can’t talk now, or I’ll get into trouble. I’ll see you later.’

Haden Piddock appeared just at that moment, accompanied by another man. ‘Why, it’s King Arthur.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Arthur’s a keen cricketer, you know, Enoch. You know what he calls his bat?’

‘What?’

‘Excalibur …’

The two men guffawed.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, shall I?’ Arthur suggested as he and Lucy stood outside the Piddocks’ cottage after walking her back.

‘Oh, Arthur, I don’t know …’

‘What d’you mean, you don’t know? Don’t you want to?’

‘I need to set one or two things straight …’

They were standing about a yard apart and Arthur was itching to get close to her, to take her in his arms.

‘About what?’ he said quietly, dreading hearing what she was about to say.

Lucy shrugged, sighing profoundly. ‘It’s just that … I don’t want you to think I’m leading you on, Arthur,’ she whispered guiltily. ‘I know that you’re keen on me …’

‘I am keen on you. So?’

‘Well … I think you’re keener on me than I am on you.’

‘Then you should be flattered,’ he said, outwardly undaunted by her reticence, but inwardly agonised.

‘But I don’t want to hurt you, Arthur. It’s the last thing I want. You’re such a decent, gentle chap.’

Arthur emitted a great sigh. ‘Well, you’re hurting me just by saying such things. If I’m such a decent, gentle chap why are you holding back from me? I don’t understand, Lucy. I think the world of you …’

‘I know you do, Arthur. That’s what makes it all so difficult … But I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for a bit.’

‘Why?’ he protested. ‘I only see you a couple of nights in the week and Sunday afternoons as it is. It’s not as if I get the chance to get fed up of you … or you of me, come to that.’

‘But it might be best for you,’ she said, his best interests at heart. ‘If I find myself missing you, I’ll know I’ve only been fooling myself. I’ll know better how I feel.’

‘Are you sure there ain’t somebody else you’m seeing on the quiet, Lucy?’ he said perceptively.

‘I swear, Arthur. I ain’t seeing anybody but you.’ It was actually no lie, but how could she confess she was preoccupied with another man who actually knew nothing about her devotion, and possibly cared even less. She would seem so stupid.

He plucked up his courage and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to him. To his relief and encouragement she snuggled to him like a kitten, laying her cheek on his shoulder.

‘You poor, mixed up madam,’ he said softly, accidentally tilting her bonnet as he nestled her to him.

‘Careful, Arthur,’ she complained. ‘You’re knocking me bonnet askew. Oh, that’s typical of you.’ She straightened it, tutting to herself at his unwitting clumsiness, which marred even his feeblest attempts at romance.

‘Sorry.’ He could have kicked himself for his ineptitude. ‘I didn’t mean to knock your bonnet over your eyes. Are you all right now?’

‘Yes,’ she said stepping back from his awkward embrace.

‘Good … Well, if you ain’t seeing anybody else, what do you do on Saturday afternoons?’ he asked, returning to the problem in hand. ‘I mean, even Saturday afternoons you don’t want to see me.’

‘I generally see my friend Miriam …’

‘I don’t know this Miriam, do I?’

‘Not that I know of, but you might.’

‘What do you do when you see her?’

‘We go somewhere. Generally Dudley. We went to Wolverhampton today on the train.’

‘Wolverhampton? What’s the point of going there?’

‘To have a look round. I bought a new Sunday frock in Wolverhampton.’

‘Oh, a new Sunday frock.’ He grinned hopefully. ‘Then you’ll have to meet me when you’re wearing it, so’s I can have a gander at you.’

He caught her flattered smile in the spilled light from a window, and was again heartened.

She shrugged resignedly. Arthur was not going to be easy to shake off. ‘But what about your poorly back?’ she asked.

‘It don’t stop me walking, does it? Nor will it stop me working next week either … more’s the pity.’

‘All right,’ she agreed softly, relenting.

‘And you’ll wear your new frock for me?’

‘Yes, all right. Where shall we go?’

‘Depends on the weather, I expect. If it’s fine we could walk to Kingswinford over the fields.’

‘But not if it’s cold and raining.’ There was a plea in her voice.

‘Then I’ll take you to a few graveyards so you can see what it’s like working there in the cold and wet.’

‘No, you won’t,’ she declared emphatically. ‘So where will you take me?’

‘I’ll think of somewhere.’

Arthur spotted an opportunity to inveigle himself into Lucy’s heart as he sat in the Bell Hotel after church the following Sunday morning. A man, whom he knew vaguely, was showing a very young mongrel pup to another customer, and they were bartering for it.

‘I’ll give thee a shilling,’ Arthur heard the second man say.

‘Two and a tanner and the mutt’s yourn,’ replied the first man.

‘Two and a tanner for a mutt? No, a bob’s me limit.’

‘But it’s mother’s got a lovely nature.’

‘So’s mine. But what d’you know about it’s fairther?’

Arthur stood up with his tankard of beer and made his way towards the men. ‘Excuse me, but if this gentleman don’t want the pup, I’ll give you a florin for it,’ he said hesitantly.

The second man looked at him curiously. ‘If yo’m saft enough to pay that much for a mutt, then yo’m welcome.’

‘Two and a tanner is what I’m asking,’ the seller reaffirmed, instantly able to recognise somebody bent on making a purchase. ‘I’ll not budge on that.’

Arthur sighed. Two shillings and sixpence was just too much, especially in view of the extra expense he was committed to because of the two wrongly inscribed headstones he’d had to pay for. Besides, he would look a fool if he bid higher when the other man was only prepared to spend a shilling. ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’m prepared to pay.’ Disappointed, he moved away from the two men to resume his seat.

‘Fair enough,’ the seller called after him. ‘I’ll tek the little bugger home with me then and drown it, like I drowned the other four out the litter. I kept this’n ’cause it was the strongest, but if nobody wants it …’

Arthur turned around, a look of astonishment on his face. ‘You wouldn’t drown it, would you?’