Poppy's Dilemma Read online

  ‘But if you told her about me … Maybe she would release you.’

  He shook his head. The thought of confessing to his bride-to-be and her family that he was in love with the daughter of a navvy filled him with dread. Neither they – nor his own family either, for that matter – would regard him as stable. He would be a laughing stock. They might even try to have him certified to protect the integrity of his fiancée. The difficulties were not too hard to foresee.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he said.

  ‘I’d better stop having me lessons then,’ Poppy said flatly. ‘I’d only want us to start kissing again. And if I can’t have you in the end, I don’t want to start anything in the beginning.’

  ‘Poppy,’ he sighed. ‘You must continue with your lessons. You said so yourself. It’s vitally important for you that you do. I’ll be on my honour. I promise not to take advantage.’

  ‘No,’ she said assertively. ‘It’s best we don’t see each other. There’s no point. I don’t want to get worked up into a lather when I’m with you, knowing that you’ll never be mine. No, I might as well start seeing Jericho serious.’

  ‘Oh, Poppy,’ he groaned. ‘Must you?’

  Poppy returned to Rose Cottage in a state of bewilderment. She was so exhilarated at kissing Robert Crawford for so long and his confession that she was always on his mind. Yet she was also deeply frustrated that nothing could come of it. It was as she had always suspected; he liked her, but he was not about to lower himself and become involved with her, especially since he was already engaged to some girl whose family might be wealthy and important. It was hardly worth competing for him because, in her position, she could never have him. Why was life so unfair? Why was it tilted so much in favour of the swells who already had everything?

  She entered the hut carrying her writing pad and blacklead and flopped them on the table among the dirty crockery that still littered it. Her mother was sewing patches and buttons onto shirts.

  ‘It’s quiet in here for once,’ Poppy commented.

  ‘Well, the babby’s asleep in his crib,’ Sheba replied, pulling a needle on a length of thread. ‘Lottie and Rose am playing in the cutting and Jenkin’s out somewhere with his mates, up to no good, I daresay.’

  ‘So where’s Tweedle?’ There was a hint of scorn in Poppy’s tone, but Sheba could not be sure of it.

  ‘Out drinking, with the rest o’ the lodgers … Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Having a lesson. I’ve been learning words like look, and tooth, and mouth and house.’ She had sounded her h.

  ‘Hark at you. Sounding all swank. ’Tis to be hoped it gets you somewhere.’

  ‘I was learning quick. Robert said so.’

  ‘Was?’ Sheba queried.

  ‘Yes … was. I’m having no more lessons. I don’t see the point. I can read now.’ She was grossly overstating her ability, but had no wish to enlighten Sheba as to the real reason.

  ‘That chap Jericho called round after you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘How the hell should I know? But I can guess. He’s a handsome buck, and no mistake.’

  ‘If only looks was everything.’

  Sheba smiled to herself. ‘Oh, and what would you know about that?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say as Tweedle Beak was handsome,’ Poppy replied, with a shrug. ‘Would you?’

  ‘It might help if he was …’

  Poppy laughed. There was a pause in their conversation while she put her writing pad in her drawer to save getting it mucked up. ‘What yer gunna do about Tweedle when me father comes home?’

  ‘Tweedle will just be one o’ the lodgers again.’

  ‘Providing me dad can get his old job back, you mean.’

  ‘Even if he can’t, it wouldn’t make any difference. We’d just go on tramp till he found another.’

  ‘So it is me father you love, and not Tweedle?’ She regarded her mother earnestly. ‘Oh, tell me it is, Mother.’

  ‘Aye, it’s your father I love.’

  ‘But what about if he comes back and finds you already pregnant wi’ Tweedle’s brat?’

  Sheba bit the thread she was sewing with, severing it, and rested the crumpled shirt in her lap. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, looking intently into Poppy’s eyes, ‘I’m already pregnant. But it’s with your dad’s child. I knew I was carrying afore he went away.’

  Poppy smiled happily. It was the best news she’d had in ages. ‘Does Tweedle know?’

  Sheba shook her head. ‘Neither does your father.’

  ‘But you let Tweedle Beak into your bed just the same?’

  ‘To save us going on tramp and missing your father. As well as all the other reasons. It was the only thing I could do.’

  ‘But that makes you no better than a whore, Mother,’ Poppy said, more with concern than with any disrespect.

  ‘All women are whores, our Poppy. We sell that soft place we’ve got between our legs for whatever we want back in return, be it money, protection or just pleasure. It’s a ticket for whatever we want, whatever we need.’

  ‘What about love?’

  Sheba smiled knowingly. ‘Aye, it’s a ticket for love as well. But there’s a difference. You don’t sell it for love, our Poppy. You give it away free. But always be aware of the likely consequences.’

  Poppy went to bed that night before her mother and Tweedle, with a great deal on her mind. She was relieved to hear her mother’s confession that it was Lightning Jack she loved, and not Tweedle Beak. Poppy could forgive Sheba her horizontal exploits now that she knew that it was merely an expedient device to protect them all. She was pleased also to learn that she was carrying a child, especially that there was no question but that it was her own father’s child. It was a sort of insurance that when Lightning Jack returned – which, pray God, would be soon – Tweedle would simply fade into the background of navvies from whence he came, and things would revert to normal. No doubt Lightning Jack would thank Tweedle Beak for looking after his woman while he had been away. It was the way of the navvies.

  Inevitably, Poppy’s thoughts turned to Robert Crawford and she relived that delectable half-hour in his arms, feeling his lips upon hers. She compared his gentleness and consideration to Jericho’s ill-bred roughness, recalling the time when Jericho had been fighting naked and, naked, took her in his arms afterwards, rubbed himself lustfully against her and expected her to go willingly behind the hut with him. Did she really want Jericho’s violent, slobbering kisses, his clumsy fondling, now she had tasted Robert’s succulent lips?

  Poppy recalled how wet she had felt between her legs while she and Robert were in each other’s arms. She was wet now thinking about him. She pulled up her nightgown carefully so as not to disturb her sisters asleep in the same bed, and stroked herself to actually feel it on her fingers. It was wickedly pleasant to rub yourself there. Gently she continued, lying with her eyes shut, her mouth open receiving Robert’s luscious kisses. With the other hand she fondled her breasts, arousing her small pink nipples, and imagined him to be doing it. She hugged herself, making believe it was Robert’s warm, affectionate embrace that was making her hot, before rotating her thoughts to imagine she was actually feeling his smooth, firm flesh. ‘Oh, I love you, Robert,’ she mouthed silently. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ As the pleasurable sensations intensified in her groin, she turned her face into the pillow, sure that her insides were melting, disintegrating, but with such toe-curling intensity. The urge to cry out was strong, but she merely took a gasp of air and sighed with disbelief at the extraordinary wild sensation that had come to overwhelm her.

  The door opened. Tweedle Beak and her mother appeared, silhouetted against the light of an oil lamp, with Little Lightning hovering in the background holding it. Little Lightning spoke and his mother told him to hush and dowt the flame, lest he wake the others. In the darkness, they all undressed and clambered into bed as silently as they could. It was not long before Poppy heard the faint rustle of
sheets yielding to movement and the gentle creak of the iron bedstead, as Tweedle settled with unaccustomed restraint into what had become his regular nightly exercise.

  Poppy smiled to herself.

  Chapter 9

  During the weeks that she got to know Robert Crawford, Poppy had become acquainted with the regularity of his comings and goings on the construction site. But work was moving along the trackbed away from the encampment towards Brierley Hill, and she could not always be certain lately that he would be where she thought he might be. In an endeavour to ‘accidentally’ bump into him as he left his office one dinner time, she tarried between the foreman’s hut and Shaw Road, then between the tommy shop and the road. It was the first Thursday in July and the weather had turned, so that you could have been forgiven for thinking it was April, with all the showers alternating with the sunshine that shimmered blindingly off the wet mud.

  While she drifted from one point to another, scanning the area for sight of Robert, she saw another man walking towards her. He was unmistakably a navvy, with a bright yellow waistcoat, a moleskin jacket, a quirky cap, and well-worn moleskin trousers with knee-straps to stop the rats running up his legs. He wore odd boots as well, one the colour of dried blood, the other a light tan. Poppy did not know him, so assumed he had been on tramp and was seeking work. As he entered the encampment he touched his cap and smiled amiably. He reminded her strangely of her father, except that he looked older.

  She heard the sound of wheels chattering over the road surface and Robert appeared from the top of the hill, riding his machine. Her heart went into her mouth, for she had not the slightest idea what she might say to him. She just wanted to see him, to talk with him, to try and glean whether this unfulfilled love was as painful for him as it was for her. Robert had been on her mind so much these last few days and nights that she was becoming preoccupied. If only he hadn’t told her how he felt. If only he had kept his feelings and his hands – and his kisses – to himself, they could have gone on as they had hitherto, teacher and pupil, friends who merely harboured admiration and respect for each other at arm’s length, who kept their ardour unspoken and under control. But his confession that he was taken with her, and then his frustrating but tantalising self-restraint, had only fuelled her interest and desire the more. She was hooked, yet she understood that hooking her was not what he had intended. What she did not know was that Robert Crawford had also of late adopted the habit of either perambulating or riding – ostensibly in connection with his work – Poppy’s likely routes.

  As he approached, she thought she detected a blush from him as he drew to a halt, though it could have been the exertion of riding, even if it was downhill.

  ‘Oh, hello, Robert,’ she said, endeavouring to show a decorous amount of astonishment at finding him in the very place she had come to look for him.

  ‘Hello, Poppy,’ he greeted with equal surprise, uncertain how he stood now with this perplexing girl.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here. I was just on me way to the tommy shop.’ She ignored the pertinent reality that it took twice as long to get to the tommy shop by way of Shaw Road than her usual route of walking through the cutting.

  ‘And I was just on my way to find my colleague Slingsby Shafto,’ he felt compelled to explain, ignoring the equally pertinent reality that he was travelling in precisely the wrong direction. ‘Are you well?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m very well, thank you. Are you?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, yes. I’m not altogether enamoured of this change in the weather, though. Rain makes everywhere so muddy and slows down the work.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘All the men moan like whores when the rain comes.’

  ‘Poppy!’ Robert exclaimed, unwittingly slipping into the role of tutor. ‘You really must temper your similes.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

  ‘What you just said … the men moaning like … like whores. You would never say that in polite conversation.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know,’ she replied defensively, disappointed at her little blunder, which highlighted once again the class difference between them. ‘It’s what the men say, Robert. I didn’t know it was a … what?’

  ‘A simile.’

  ‘A simile?’

  ‘Yes. Of course, it’s perfectly normal to use similes, but yours is too inappropriate for polite conversation.’

  Oh, yes, we’re having polite conversation, more’s the pity, she thought, as she regarded his mouth and yearned for him to kiss her. Why couldn’t she make it less formal and tell him bluntly that she loved him, that her emotions were all upside down because of him? ‘So, what’s a simile?’ she said instead.

  ‘A simile is when you compare something to something else to enhance its meaning,’ he answered, unaware of the turmoil inside her. ‘Such as saying the full moon hangs like a silver disc, or … or … your eyes are like limpid pools … for example. Any such phrase using the word like or as is often a simile.’

  ‘I’ll try and remember, Robert. I’ll try and use good, respectable similes in polite conversations in future,’ Poppy said obligingly.

  He smiled. ‘I hope you will.’

  ‘But what about Albert in the tommy shop?’ she said, with an impish twinkle in her eyes.

  ‘What about Albert?’ he replied, with the feeling he was being led into some tender trap or other.

  ‘Well, will he be offended if I tell him the place stinks like a midden?’

  Robert laughed. ‘I doubt it. With Albert it’ll be like … like water off a duck’s back.’

  ‘Oh, you’re sharp today.’ She looked at him mischievously. ‘You’re sharper than a pig’s jimmy.’

  ‘Now, I’m not certain whether that’s a simile or a metaphor,’ he said, and went on his way amused.

  Poppy was not really going to the tommy shop even though she ambled towards it. When she could see that Robert had gone inside the foreman’s hut, she turned around, acting as if she’d forgotten something, and headed wistfully back to Rose Cottage. She so missed him already. She ached for the opportunity to be alone with him again, to try and win his love. She imagined she had been so close to being his, yet the possibility was all but lost. The pain of unrequited first love increased inexorably and jostled at her heart.

  As she approached the hut she became aware of the navvy on tramp whom she’d seen a few minutes earlier walking alongside her as she neared the hut.

  ‘Howdo, Miss,’ he greeted. ‘Bist heading for Lightning Jack’s by any chance?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, instantly throwing off her preoccupation at hearing her father’s name. ‘I’m his eldest daughter, Poppy.’

  ‘Well, is that the truth? Nor should I be surprised. Just look at thee … He said th’art a fine-looking wench. He told me thou tek’st after thy mother in looks. Is thy mother about, young Poppy?’

  ‘She’s in the hut, mister. Have you got some news o’ me father?’

  ‘Aye, I come bearing news o’ thy fairther.’

  Poppy looked with apprehension at his grave expression and opened the door of the hut to let him in. The men, who had just finished their dinners, were about to go back to work, leaving their mess to be cleared up by Sheba and Poppy, and her sister Lottie. They trooped outside as Buttercup entered.

  ‘Mother, this man’s on tramp and he says he’s got news o’ me father.’

  Sheba looked up and beheld the man with interest as she wiped her hands on her apron. ‘You’ve got news o’ Lightning Jack?’

  ‘I have that, missus. Lightning Jack and meself met up on our way to the Mickleton tunnel, and we’ve bin muckers ever since—’

  ‘Is that where he’s gone? The Mickleton tunnel?’

  ‘Aye, that’s where he got to. That’s where we both bin a-working – side by side.’

  ‘So what have you come to tell me that he wouldn’t come and tell me himself, mister?

  ‘Buttercup, missus. Folk call me Buttercu
p … And it ain’t that he wouldn’t come himself … He couldn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t?’ Sheba said.

  ‘Nah.’ Buttercup shook his head solemnly. ‘’Cause the daft bugger blowed himself up.’

  Sheba slumped into a chair, the use suddenly draining out of her legs. ‘What exactly d’you mean, Buttercup? What d’you mean, blowed himself up?’

  ‘It was an accident, Sheba. I’ll call thee Sheba if th’ast got no objection. It was a tragic accident.’

  ‘So he’s dead?… Or is he still alive?’

  ‘He’s dead, poor bugger. I’m sorry to say.’

  There was a wail of anguish from Poppy, as piercing as the cry of a vixen that has lost a cub. At once she went to her mother for mutual consolation and threw her arms about her. ‘Me dad’s dead!’ she keened. ‘Oh, no. Please God, don’t let him be dead.’

  Sheba threw her arms around her daughter. Tears filled her own eyes and she began to tremble at the awful revelation. ‘How did it happen? When did it happen?’

  ‘Last Thursday,’ Buttercup said. ‘He’d packed gunpowder into the face of the rock to blow it and lit the fuse. He hivvered and hovered – I could see his candle in the darkness, not shiftin’ – and I called him to come away quick. “I’m a-coming,” he called back. But then he fell, Sheba, and I reckon as he twisted his ankle or summat, ’cause he dain’t shift no more. It’s dark in them tunnels, Sheba – night from dawn till dawn – and it’s my guess as he couldn’t mek out where he was a-walking, ’specially as he must’ve had the bright light o’ the fuse still flickering in his eyes, making all else seem darker by comparison. I rushed out to fetch him, but I was too late. The gunpowder exploded well afore I could get to him, and I reckon it was the blast what killed him. He was showered wi’ great lumps o’ rock any road. If he’d lived he’d most likely have ended up a cripple.’

  ‘My poor, poor Jack,’ Sheba moaned.

  ‘Aye. Poor Jack, and no two ways about it. Ye was all most dear to his heart, Sheba.’