Nancy Carson - The Railway Girl

‘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?’