Poppy's Dilemma Read online

  ‘Why not, dammit?’ He looked at his friend, puzzled.

  ‘Well, Frying Pan’s right. Jenny Sparrow has had plenty experience. Too much of it. She’s gi’d me a dose o’ the rap-tap-tap, and Lord knows what else. I’m even afeared to have a piddle any more, ’cause it’s like pissing broken glass. I ’spect I got a dose o’ the Durham ox as well, just to round it off nice, like. How the hell can I go back to Sheba when I’m afflicted wi’ that? What sort of bloke would knowingly pass on the pox to his woman?’

  ‘Christ! Well, they reckon there’s plenty of it about.’

  ‘Aye, but you never think it’s gunna get you, do yer, eh, Buttercup?’

  ‘I thought you seemed miserable lately,’ Buttercup sympathised.

  ‘Miserable? I tell you, Buttercup, I’m at me wits’ end. I never felt so bloody wretched in me whole life. I’ve messed things up good and bloody proper. I’ve ruined a perfectly good life wi’ Sheba and me kids. I should be hanged for being so bloody stupid.’

  ‘So what yer gunna do, me old china plate?’

  Lightning shrugged. ‘What the hell can I do?’

  ‘Come on.’ Buttercup stood up wearily and stretched. ‘Tea’ll be drummed up in a minute or two. I got a little tipple o’ whisky in me bottle. Me and thee can share it. Things won’t seem half so bad after a tipple o’ whisky.’

  Lightning Jack and Buttercup shared the whisky, finished their dinners and their tots of tea, and then went back to work. It was time to pack explosive into the hole they had drilled and blow the face of the tunnel to bring down more rock for clearing, more clay for making the bricks. From a sturdy wooden box, Jack picked up a linen bag that had already been filled with gunpowder and packed it deep in the hole, with a length of fuse attached, carefully bunging up the hole with clay.

  ‘Ready to blow,’ he said to the ganger who was at Lightning’s side inspecting the work.

  ‘Ready to blow, it is,’ the ganger replied. He cupped his hands like a megaphone around his mouth. ‘Clear the area!’ he called, then blew his whistle. ‘Clear the area!’ He looked around for flickering candles in the darkness, which would tell him where the nearest men were working. ‘I’ll just get that lot to move back,’ he said, turning to Lightning who was waiting to light the fuse. ‘Give me a minute afore you light it. I’ll make sure the way’s clear for you to get away.’

  Lightning watched as the ganger’s shadow became more indistinct. He gave him his minute and duly lit the fuse.

  ‘About to blow!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Blowin’ up!’

  Beneath the shaft, where the men had collected, Buttercup asked for silence.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked the ganger.

  ‘Listen … I can’t hear Lightning walking back.’

  ‘You ain’t about to with all the racket going on down here. Dripping bloody water, the clatter o’ bricks, the squeal o’ them there wheels on the damn trucks, blokes chuntering.’

  ‘Look. The fuse is lit. Thou canst see it flaring. But where the hell’s Lightning?’

  ‘Give him a chance. The fuse’ll be at least a minute fizzling afore it sets off the gunpowder. Get your hands over your ears ready.’

  ‘Nah. I’m going to fetch him. He ain’t come away. Look, I can see his candle. He’s still there, the damned fool, by the fuse.’

  At that, Buttercup hurtled off, running towards the fuse that was still fizzing bright and crackling as it burned its way towards the compacted gunpowder. ‘Lightning!’ he yelled. ‘Move theeself! Get back here!’

  ‘Stay where you are, you bloody fool,’ came the reply echoing towards him through the gloom. ‘Get back and save yourself. You’ve got a bloody errand to run for me, remember?’

  ‘You arsehole!’ Buttercup bawled angrily as the final, awful realisation of what Lightning was up to struck him. ‘Thee bisn’t doing that. I’m coming to fetch thee. Stamp on the fuse or pull the bugger out. Quick!’

  ‘Get back, Buttercup,’ Lightning shouted urgently. ‘You’re too late. Save yourself.’

  There was a blinding flash of light and Buttercup was thrown to the floor of the tunnel as the wave of the blast reached him. He had the distinct impression that his head had imploded. The deafening sound was palpable as it reverberated along the walls and roof of the tunnel section. The ground beneath him and above him shook and shuddered and he fancied he must be dead already and in the midst of a thundercloud with heaven’s artillery booming. He lay with his hands over his head, fearing a fall of bricks and debris from the roof, but none fell. He looked up but all was black. He could feel the stench of burnt gunpowder in his nostrils, the dense smoke billowing around him making his eyes run.

  ‘Lightning!’ he called out, knowing it to be hopeless. ‘Lightning! Where bist thee? Answer me!’

  But there was no answer. The smoke deadened even the echo of his calls.

  His candle had been blown out in the blast. All was darkness. Never in his whole life had he experienced such complete and utter blackness. The pressure of the darkness on his optic nerves was unbearable. He began choking on the smoke. He could taste it. He was swallowing it. He raised himself to his feet, felt in his pocket for his box of matches and tried to light one. As it flared pathetically, all he could see was the dense miasma of black smoke wheeling all around him. If it would stay alight long enough to light a candle, he could look for Lightning Jack.

  It was some time before the smoke had billowed and eddied slowly towards the shaft and had been drawn up it. Had the tunnel been open at either end, or even connected to another vertical shaft further along, the natural draught would have drawn it out comparatively quickly, but it took an age with only one shaft open. The rest of the gang had made their way towards him, and the ganger, fearing he had lost two men, was relieved to see that at least Buttercup was still alive.

  ‘Come on,’ Buttercup said. ‘We’d best see if we can find what’s left o’ the daft old bugger.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘I’d like us to concentrate on double vowel sounds tonight, Poppy,’ Robert Crawford said.

  They were sitting in his office, on the first floor of an old house in Abberley Street, off Vicar Street, which the contractors had acquired because it was near the workings. It suited Robert’s purpose admirably. Poppy could learn undisturbed, and Robert would not be compromised by being seen in public with a low-class navvy girl. There was seldom anybody who used the offices after about six o’clock of an evening. And he was privy to a key.

  The evening rays of an early July sun streamed through the deep sash window, which was open an inch or two at the top, and fell obliquely onto his huge desk, that was covered in drawings and maps. Poppy sat next to Robert at the desk. They were so close that he was aware of Poppy’s soft warmth as his thigh gently nudged hers as if by accident in the desk’s kneehole.

  Robert was hopelessly torn. For two weeks he had contrived to meet Poppy there to give her lessons in reading and writing and, in that respect, both were experiencing singular success. Poppy could already recognise scores of simple words, and write them down in an awkward scrawl. But he had not yet mustered the audacity to suggest anything more than being merely her teacher. He was certain that he had fallen in love with her. If it was not love, it was some other destructive yet utterly overwhelming attraction that he seemed powerless to resist. Whatever it was, he was painfully aware that it could do neither him, nor anybody else, one iota of good. Still, he could not help wanting to touch her, to feel her girlish softness and gentleness. He ached to run his fingers through that tangle of fair curls and feel her delicious-looking lips on his. He was forever trying to glean information as to her likely relationship with that savage they called Jericho, and whether any relationship was flourishing. Always, however, she dismissed it as something trivial. Well, he hoped with all his heart and soul that it was trivial and would remain so.

  ‘If we have two “o”s together,’ he began to explain, ‘they make the sound you get in the word look.�
� He wrote the string of letters down.

  ‘Look,’ she repeated, forming the word deliberately, and with a delectable pursing of her lips, which gave Robert the renewed and urgent desire to kiss her.

  ‘And this word – book.’ He wrote that down quickly as well.

  ‘Book.’

  ‘Tooth …’

  ‘Tooth,’ she repeated seriously, oblivious to the effect she was having on him.

  Next, he wrote down the word hook. ‘So what do you think this word says?’

  She studied the word for no more than a second. ‘’Ook.’

  He smiled, acknowledging her ability to work it out quickly. ‘Hook,’ he corrected. ‘You must sound the “h” …’

  ‘Hook,’ she said exaggeratedly.

  ‘That’s better. So do you understand the sound a double o makes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with a certainty that was unassailable. ‘It’s easy.’

  ‘Good … Ah! You see there’s another … the word good … You’re doing well, Poppy. Extremely well. Now, let’s look at the vowels o and u together … as in house …’

  ‘’Ouse.’

  ‘Pronounce the h, Poppy.’

  ‘Sorry, Robert. House.’

  ‘Now … mouse.’

  ‘Mouse,’ she said, looking very serious.

  ‘Mouth …’ He looked at her lips again. He was fascinated by the way they moved so deliciously as she pronounced the words.

  ‘Your mouth, Poppy …’

  She looked up at him and saw the flame of ardour in his eyes. ‘What about my mouth?’

  ‘You have such a lovely mouth. I’m sorry, but I want to kiss you. Would you be terribly offended?’

  ‘No, why should I be?’ she answered with neither hesitation nor inhibition, and felt her heart instantly beating faster at the unexpected enticement.

  She leaned towards him and pursed her lips and he could have kicked himself for not having asked before. Her lips were cool and slightly moist, like petals unfurling from the bud. He was all at once aware of her chastity and her sexuality, existing together symbiotically.

  ‘That was nice,’ she said with wide-eyed sincerity. ‘Hey, you don’t half kiss nice.’

  ‘Then I’ll kiss you again … But why not close your eyes this time?’

  ‘I will, if you’ll close yours as well. You didn’t then, so it’s no good telling me to, if you don’t.’

  ‘I was merely looking to see if you had closed your eyes.’

  ‘I’ll close ’em then.’

  Their lips met again. Poppy peeped to see whether he had closed his eyes and found him peeping at her once more.

  ‘See?’ she complained, breaking off with a girlish giggle. ‘You’re watching me.’

  He laughed self-consciously. ‘I was just checking.’

  ‘No checking, Robert. If you want me to kiss you and keep my eyes closed, you have to trust me. Don’t keep peeping.’

  ‘I won’t peep again. On my honour.’

  ‘Right …’

  They kissed once more, and neither dared to open their eyes any more to see if the other’s were shut. The kiss lingered, each savouring the sensation, and she felt his arm come around her and give her an attentive, affectionate hug, which she enjoyed a great deal.

  ‘I like it when you do that,’ she said.

  ‘Then why don’t you sit on my lap?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll be able to kiss you more easily and hold you properly, rather than us stretching over.’

  Compliantly, she got off her chair and slid into his lap with an appealing saucy smile. She curled up in his arms like a kitten and submitted willingly to his kisses, which she found mesmerising. She stayed like that for half an hour, though it seemed significantly less, enjoying his warm affection, wringing as much innocent pleasure out of it as she was able. Poppy felt herself tingling in the most surprising places. She was peeved at being robbed of the intensifying pleasure when he stopped and said that maybe they should get on with more work.

  ‘Oh, sod the work,’ she carped.

  ‘No, Poppy.’ It was the most difficult thing in the world to say no right then, to deny himself, let alone Poppy, this intimacy he’d secretly yearned for. ‘Lord knows what might happen if we lose control of ourselves.’

  ‘What can happen that neither of us don’t want to happen?’ she asked, baffled at this shattering and unaccountable self-denial of his. ‘Don’t you want me?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said and there was no mistaking the truth of it. ‘I want you.’

  ‘So, am I your girl now?’

  He laughed ruefully. ‘Just a few short weeks ago you told me you weren’t prepared to devote yourself to anybody.’

  ‘But you never asked me to be your girl, Robert. I would have been, gladly … If you’d asked.’

  He emitted a profound sigh. ‘I’m afraid it’s not as cut and dried as that.’

  ‘But you like me, don’t you? You must do. You asked to kiss me.’

  ‘Poppy …’ He looked down into the folds of her skirt as she sat in his lap, her warm weight a pleasure. ‘I do like you. I like you much more than I care to admit. But there are other considerations. I don’t just want to take advantage of you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Yes, I would, and it wouldn’t be fair … Oh, Poppy … I could so easily—’

  ‘So easily what?’ she interrupted emotionally, tears filling her eyes. ‘Take advantage of me, you mean?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, not take advantage. Didn’t I just say that’s the last thing I want to do? No – I mean, I could so easily fall in love with you.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’ she answered with her young girl’s logic. ‘I’d fall in love with you, then you could take advantage of me all you liked. I’d want you to.’

  He groaned inwardly. Here, unexpectedly before him, was the promise of heavenly bliss with this girl, and he must surrender it, ignore it as if it wasn’t there. ‘I don’t think you understand, Poppy.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do,’ said she, as the light of realisation hit her. She got up from his lap and slumped down in the chair she had occupied before. ‘You’re a clever engineer, a real swell, and invited out to slap-up dinners, you say, whereas I’m just a common navvy’s daughter who could never be anything but that.’

  ‘No, Poppy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Robert,’ she sighed. ‘I admit I’ve harboured feelings for you ever since I met you, but I’m daft, aren’t I, to have thought I could ever be anything other than a navvy’s wench?’

  ‘You can be whatever you want to be, Poppy,’ he said sincerely.

  ‘But not your girl …’

  He did not answer.

  She took a rag out of the pocket of her skirt and wiped her tears. ‘Unless I suddenly become a lady, eh? I stand no chance unless I suddenly become a lady with airs and graces, and can look down my nose at everybody beneath me. Well, I’ll never be like that, Robert. I could never be. It ain’t in me. You have to take me as I am or not at all.’

  ‘I would rather take you as you are, Poppy, believe me …’ He hated to see tears in her eyes. She was hurt and he was responsible. He was sorry and all he wanted right then was to hold her, to comfort her.

  She stood up, agitated. ‘No, there’s too much of a gap between you and me. Everywhere you went you’d be ashamed of me. Oh, I understand your difficulty, Robert, but I could never be content neither, thinking I was never good enough for you.’

  ‘You must never belittle yourself, Poppy.’ He stood up and moved towards her, compelled to put his hands to her slender waist. ‘I think you’re the kindest, most sensitive, prettiest soul I’ve ever met.’ His tone was a taut thread of emotion. ‘I can’t get you out of my mind. That’s the trouble. And it’s driving me mad, Poppy. What am I to do?’

  She rested her head against his shoulder as if all the troubles of the world had come to roost on hers. Her eyes were still watery at this unexpected admission of love that had exploded between them a
ll of a sudden, like gelignite going off.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘But why should there be such a big to-do about it? I don’t get it. If two people like each other enough …’

  ‘Dear God …’ he said quietly, his heart heavy. ‘The problem is, you see, Poppy, it’s not that there is a social divide between us. I’m sure that would be bridgeable, for the will to either bridge it or ignore it would indeed be there. It’s just that …’ He hesitated, unsure as to whether to confess his predicament … but, hang it all, he had to, otherwise he was being dishonest … ‘It’s just that I’m already engaged to be married. Yet how I wish I weren’t …’

  ‘You’re engaged already?’ The possibility had never crossed her mind before. ‘Who to? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know who she is.’

  ‘She’s a very respectable girl. I imagine you’d like her.’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t.’

  ‘No, maybe you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I know I wouldn’t. I’d like to punch her nose.’

  ‘Oh, Poppy, please don’t talk like a navvy.’

  ‘Well, if you’re engaged, you shouldn’t see me again,’ she said resignedly. ‘Maybe it’d be best to stop my lessons.’

  ‘Do you want to stop your lessons?’ He was sorry that he had put her unorthodox education in jeopardy by his amorous behaviour.

  ‘No, why should I?’ she answered defiantly. ‘You’re teaching me to read and write and I’m learning well. I know I am. Why should I stop now just because you’re engaged, just because there’s another girl you’re fond of? I’ll just have to stop liking you like that. Did you know all along how much I liked you?’

  He could have hugged her for her kittenish simplicity, her lack of guile, her direct use of simple words. ‘From the outset I hoped you did. I hoped with all my heart that you did.’

  ‘So why don’t you just give up this girl you’re engaged to, if you’d rather have me? It’s seems the best thing to do.’

  ‘But I’m promised, Poppy. I knew her long before I met you. Her family and mine are close friends. We are due to be married next year. A man can’t renege on a promise to marry. It’s a question of honour. The girl has to release him from his promise. Otherwise the consequences for him could be very serious.’