Читать книгу The Railway Girl - Nancy Carson - Страница 10

Lucy Piddock waited and waited for Arthur Goodrich to show up. She reckoned she’d been waiting a good quarter of an hour before she realised it was futile to wait any longer. Evidently she’d put him off with her indifference when he walked her home on Wednesday. Well, who would have thought it? Yet who could blame him? If she returned home now and had to tell her folks that King Arthur – as her father had started calling him – had not turned up she would be a laughing stock. Jane would say that it served her right for being dissatisfied with him just because he didn’t have the looks of a god. So would her mother. Her father would think it the funniest thing out and would guffaw for the rest of the afternoon and possibly into the night as well.

It was a dirty trick, not turning up when you’d arranged to meet somebody. All morning she’d worked hard, getting her domestic chores done while her mother was at the Baptist chapel, so that she could spend the afternoon with him. Well, he obviously didn’t deserve it, the charlatan. All the time this Arthur must have been stringing her along …

But she remembered his words on Wednesday night, that he believed he’d found his perfect mate in her. It was a gloriously tender moment and, if she was honest with herself, it had registered in her heart. She’d thought about those words a lot, his sincerity, his reserve. Of course, after what she’d said to everybody, it would be hard to say now that she’d changed her mind about Arthur, but he had definitely gone up in her estimation. It was a pity he was not going to show up now to reap the benefit.

So she waited a little longer, hurt and disappointed. Yet the longer she waited, the more the hurt and disappointment diminished and were replaced by agitation. If he had the gall to turn up now after keeping her waiting so long, all he would get would be her scorn. She adjusted her shawl ready to cross the road back to Bull Street, determined to wait no longer.

As she looked up the hill towards the church she spied a mangy horse going at a tidy canter, the rider waving his hat like a lunatic. She could hear him calling something, warning everybody that the animal had taken fright and he had lost control, she supposed. But, as he got closer, she could see that the madman was none other than Arthur Goodrich. Torn between her pique at having been kept waiting for so long and a natural curiosity that must be satisfied as to what the hell he was up to, she stood waiting for him to reach her, unsure quite how she should behave towards him now.

‘Whoa!’ he yelled and there was a clatter of hoofs on the cobbles as the forlorn mare scraped to a halt. Arthur was out of breath. ‘Sorry I’m late, Lucy.’

‘It’s too late to be sorry,’ she replied, deciding to manifest her scornful side. ‘I’m going back home.’

‘Oh, wait, Lucy.’ He sounded irritated and impatient at what he deemed unreasonableness. ‘If you knew the trouble I’ve had you’d be very understanding. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I’ve gone through hell and high water to get here on time.’

‘You didn’t get here on time.’

‘I know that. But I still went through hell and high water.’ He dismounted and stood before her. ‘I had to run an errand for my old man. He’s bad abed.’

‘What’s up with him?’ she asked indifferently.

‘God knows. With any luck it’ll be terminal.’

‘I thought you didn’t like riding horses,’ she said, softening.

‘I don’t. I loathe and detest the bloody things. Damned stupid animals. But if I’d walked I’d never have got here.’

‘What’ve you done to your eyebrow? It’s cut and bleeding.’

‘I know.’ He put his fingers to it gingerly.

‘Let me have a look at it.’

Obediently he bent his head forward and she inspected the wound, putting her gentle fingers to his temples. He felt a surge of blood through his body at her warm touch.

‘I think it’ll be all right,’ she said softly. ‘It needs a smear of ointment on it. How did you do it?’

‘I banged my head on a lintel.’

‘Banged your head on a lintel?’ she repeated, incredulous. ‘You aren’t that tall.’ He explained in detail how it had happened and her pique melted away with her peals of laughter. ‘I’ve never known anybody like you for getting in the wars,’ she said. ‘It’s one calamity after another with you.’

‘So do you forgive me, Lucy … for being late?’

‘Oh, I suppose so.’

‘I won’t do it again.’ He sniffed audibly.

‘You’ve got a cold.’

‘I know. A stinker.’ He snivelled again to emphasise the fact.

‘So where are you taking me? And is the horse going to play gooseberry?’

‘If it’s all the same to you, Lucy, we’ll take the horse back together and put her in the stable. After cricket practice last evening I went rabbit shooting over Bromley, and there’s a brace of the little buggers I want to give you for your mother. They’ll make a fine dinner.’

She smiled appreciatively. ‘That’ll please her. Thank you, Arthur. I’ll give one to our Jane.’

As they made their way towards the Goodrich’s house and yard Lucy explained about the poverty in which Jane and her new husband lived, on account of his handicap.

‘She’s a brave girl, marrying somebody lame like that,’ Arthur commented, leading the horse by its halter.

‘She loves him,’ Lucy conceded. ‘But I’d think twice about marrying a cripple.’ She shuddered at the thought. ‘I don’t think I could do it.’

‘But he’s a hero, Lucy. He was fighting for queen and country. He has to be admired. And your Jane is his just reward for his self-sacrifice. Besides, love overcomes all.’

They arrived at the yard and Arthur tacked down while Lucy looked about her at the separate stacks of both cut and unhewn stone, the slabs of marble and slate, the various urns and vases that would end up adorning graves.

She patted Roxanne’s long, dappled face. ‘He’s a scruffy devil in’t he, this horse?’

‘He’s a mare, Lucy.’ Arthur grinned with amusement at her failure to recognise the fact.

‘He’s still a scruffy devil, mare or no. Don’t nobody ever groom him?’

‘You can come and do it, if you’re so concerned.’

‘Would I get paid?’

‘By my old man?’ Arthur lifted the saddle off the mare and turned to take it into the stable. ‘You’d be lucky to get a kind look,’ he said over his shoulder and pointed resentfully to an upstairs window. ‘You’d have to catch him on one of his better days, and they’re few and far between.’

He backed the mare into the stable, made sure she was settled and emerged into the sunshine to shut the door behind him with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

‘That Quenelda was a bit fidgety when I went in there just,’ he said smugly. ‘She knows I ain’t standing no more messing off her. Come on, Lucy, let’s go in the house. You can meet my mother.’

‘D’you think I should?’

‘Yes, course. I want her to meet you.’

It was a large house compared to the tiny cottage that Lucy and her family lived in, but it was by no means grand. Her own mother would have a fit if she walked into this hallway and saw all the clutter, the unswept flags, and the dust that lay like a dulling film over the wooden furniture. Lucy felt like taking a duster and a tin of wax polish to everything to freshen it up, to try and eliminate the dusky smell that pervaded the place.

They found Dinah in the parlour peeling an apple into her lap, a tumbler of whisky with easy reach. Her mouth dropped open when she saw a pretty girl at her son’s side.

‘Mother, this is Lucy. Lucy’s my girl, and I brought her home so you could meet her.’

‘I wish to God I’d a-knowed yo’ was bringing a wench back here,’ Dinah admonished. She rose from her seat, grabbing the apple peel to save it falling on the floor. ‘I’d have put me a decent frock on and done me hair. He never tells me nothing, you know … Did he say your name was Lucy?’

Lucy nodded and smiled uncertainly, afraid that Arthur had not chosen a good moment to present her to the unprepared and disorderly Mrs Goodrich.

‘Never mind about your frock, Mother,’ Arthur said. ‘We ain’t come to see you in a mannequin parade. We’ve come to get a couple o’ them rabbits what me and our Talbot shot yesterday. I said I’d give a couple to Lucy for her mother.’

‘Do I know your mother, Lucy?’ Dinah asked trying to show an interest in this vaguely familiar face. She put down the apple, together with its cut peel and the knife she was using, on top of a news sheet that lay on the table beside her.

‘No, but you used to know her father,’ Arthur replied for her, with a look of devilment.

‘Oh? Who’s your father, then?’

‘Haden Piddock.’

‘He used to be sweet on you, didn’t he, Mother?’ Arthur was grinning inanely.

‘Haden Piddock … By God, that was a long time ago.’

Lucy noticed the instant softening in Mrs Goodrich’s eyes as she recalled the lost years. Maybe, all those years ago, there had been a spark of something between her father and this woman. She could hardly conceive of him giving her a second glance now, but she might have been a pretty young thing once. It was such a shame, Lucy thought, that age and the years eventually robbed everybody of any gloss and sparkle, which was generally at its brightest around the age of twenty … in women anyway. Some men never sparkled at all though. You only had to look at Arthur …

‘Well, fancy you being Haden’s daughter. I tek it as you’m the youngest.’

‘That’s right, Mrs Goodrich.’

‘Well, why don’t you stop and have a drop o’ summat to drink? I got a nice bit o’ pork pie on the cold slab an’ all, as I’m sure you’d enjoy. It was made from one o’ Mrs Costins’s pigs up the Delph … and you look as if you could do with feeding up a bit.’

‘No, we ain’t stopping, Mother,’ Arthur reasserted. ‘We’ve only come to get the rabbits. But Lucy can come another Sunday, eh, Lucy?’

Lucy nodded politely. ‘Yes, I’d like to.’

Arthur went to the brewhouse and returned with four rabbits wrapped in old newsprint. ‘There’s two for your mother and two for your Jane,’ he said proudly.

‘How many did you shoot?’ Dinah asked, as if he might be giving too many away.

‘Eighteen. Me and Talbot had nine apiece.’

‘It’s very kind of you, Arthur,’ Lucy said sincerely. ‘Thank you. My mother and sister will be ever so pleased.’

Arthur smiled, delighted that he’d earned some esteem from his girl. ‘Come on, we’ll go and deliver ’em now, eh?’

‘I can see now why he was in such a rush to get out afore,’ Dinah said, looking judiciously at Lucy. ‘’Cause he’d arranged to see you, young Lucy. He was getting into a tidy pickle with that cantankerous old mare we’n got when he knew he’d got to run an errand for his father.’

‘How is Mr Goodrich?’ Lucy enquired. ‘Arthur tells me he’s bad a-bed. What’s the matter with him?’

‘Mrs Costins’s pig,’ Dinah replied matter-of-factly. ‘He had some pork yesterday. So sure as he touches a bit o’ pork it’s all over with him. When I went to fetch his plate after his dinner I swear as he was praying to the Lord, asking Him to ease his suffering.’

‘He should be ashamed troubling the Lord of a Sunday afternoon for the sake of a bit o’ wind,’ Arthur remarked acidly, ‘when a dose of bicarbonate of soda would set him straight.’

‘I’ll tek him some up after,’ Dinah said.

‘No, let him suffer.’

‘Our Arthur’s got no respect for his father, you know, Lucy. Am you sure you won’t stop and have a bit o’ pork pie? It’s beautiful. I doubt whether I ever med better. I’m sure as the good Lord must’ve bin in the oven with ’em a-Friday when they was a-baking.’

‘I told you, Mother, we’re going now.’

Dinah gazed at her visitor critically. ‘But look at the wench, our Arthur, her could do with feeding up a bit. A bit o’ me pork pie would do her the world o’ good. Am yer sure yo’m all right, young Lucy? You look pale to me, an’ all.’

‘I feel perfectly well, Mrs Goodrich—’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. Mind you, I’ve heard it said as pale folk am often the healthiest, though they mightn’t be the handsomest … But it’s better to be healthy than handsome, I always say. Mind you, him upstairs is neither … Shall I cut a piece o’ me pie to take to your father? He could have it for his snap tomorrow at work.’

‘That would be ever so kind, Mrs Goodrich …’

‘So this is Arthur,’ Hannah Piddock said, standing up to welcome the young man who had seen fit to start stepping out with her youngest daughter. She looked him up and down circumspectly. ‘Well, he ain’t as bad looking as you made him out to be, our Lucy. I expected somebody with a face like a bag o’ spanners.’

‘I never said any such thing,’ Lucy at once countered, embarrassed that her mother should have been so tactless as to repeat in front of Arthur what she had said.

Arthur looked first at Lucy, then at her mother, and grinned sheepishly. ‘I know I’m no oil painting, Mrs Piddock. I couldn’t blame Lucy for saying so.’

‘Arthur’s given us some rabbits, Mother. Haven’t you, Arthur? Two for us and two for our Jane.’

‘And there’s plenty more where they came from,’ he said stoutly. ‘My brother and me often go shooting ’em over Bromley.’

‘That’s ever so kind, Arthur. Why, our Jane will be ever so grateful an’ all.’

‘It’s no trouble, Mrs Piddock. I understand her husband can’t work. I’m glad to help out.’

He looked about him. The room was tiny with a small cast iron range in which a coal fire burned brightly, a polished coal scuttle stood to one side. The mantel shelf above was edged with pristine white lace. On it stood two small crock urns, one at each end, and in the middle a sparkling mirror hung. In front of the hearth was a wooden settle with chenille covered squabs neatly placed. A rocking chair was set beside it turned in towards the fire, and in it dozed Haden Piddock after his drinking spree at the Whimsey. Under the window that looked out onto the street stood a small square table covered in a lace-edged cloth, and three chairs set around it. All modest and unassuming, but its unsullied cleanliness and cosiness struck Arthur. Nothing was out of place, and it all looked invitingly spruce and bright, unlike his own home.

‘Arthur’s mother’s sent some of her fresh pork pie for me father’s snap,’ Lucy said.

‘That’s very thoughtful of her, Arthur. Be sure to thank her for me.’

‘I will, Mrs Piddock.’

‘That’s a stinking cold you’ve got there, young Arthur. Let me give you a drop of hot rum with some sugar in it.’

Arthur grinned with appreciation. ‘That sounds too good to miss, Mrs Piddock.’

‘Well, one good turn … And I warrant as it’ll make you feel better.’

Haden woke himself up with a sudden rasping snort, and looked about him, disorientated for a few seconds. ‘Well, I’m buggered,’ he said and rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s King Arthur …’

‘He’s a king and no two ways, Haden,’ Hannah declared. ‘He’s bought us some rabbits for a stew, and his mother’s sent yer a lovely piece o’ pork pie for your snap.’

‘His mother, eh?… What’s that he’s a-drinking?’

‘Hot rum and sugar.’

‘I thought I could smell rum. I’ll have some o’ that, an’ all, our Hannah.’

On the afternoon of the last Saturday in September Lucy Piddock and Miriam Watson decided to treat themselves. They took the train to Wolverhampton to visit the shops, a rare and exciting excursion. The journey took them through the Dudley Tunnel, when all was suddenly converted to blackness. The insistent rumble and click-clack of the iron wheels, traversing the joints of the iron track, took on a gravitas that was not only unheeded in daylight but augmented by the close confines of the tunnel. The two girls clutched each other for reassurance, lest they were each suddenly ravished by one of the occupying male passengers, even though they looked such ordinary and harmless men by the light of day.

‘Lord, I hope this thing don’t come to a stop while we’m in here,’ Miriam whispered. ‘What if the roof fell in and half of Dudley was to come crashing down on us?’

‘You’re full of pleasant thoughts,’ Lucy murmured. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say such things. You scare me.’

‘What if one o’ these Johnnies here jumped on we?’

‘I thought you liked men.’

‘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.’