Poppy's Dilemma Page 17

  Lately, her ability to reason and think had changed. She saw things – all sorts of things – more clearly than ever she had before. It was because she was allowing her thoughts to meander in the direction of the likely consequences of her actions or words. Perhaps Robert was responsible for that. Not only had he taught her to read, but what she had been reading had given her a tantalising insight into other modes of thought, how different expectations altered your perception of things. This other way of thinking was far removed from the navvy attitude to life. She was beginning to understand that not all life was tawdry and disgusting and impoverished, either materially or spiritually.

  The little dog shuffled to its feet and nuzzled its wet nose against her hand again. She playfully pushed it away and it came back again for more. Maybe that was the way to handle a man. It was the way that Robert was handling her. Whether he realised it or not, his pushing her away, his aloofness, was having the opposite effect to that which he evidently sought. Well, maybe that was the way to handle Robert.

  The trouble was, she did not have the nerve. If she pushed him away she might lose him forever. The effect would be to merely thrust him more forcibly into the arms of the girl he was engaged to, her rival. In any case, Poppy trusted her own way of influencing Robert; she sensed correctly that he was responsive to tenderness and high emotions. Maybe she could sway him with a sincere admission of her love. The time had come to lay her cards on the table anyway, to lever him out of his hesitancy. He either loved her or didn’t. For too long he had shilly-shallied, tormenting her as she was now tormenting the dog. Did Robert want her or not? It was time he climbed down from the fence he’d straddled for too long. Yes, she would confess her devotion, tell him how she truly felt, admit the effect he was having on her and how much it was hurting. She would tell him how she wanted to grow into his life, how she ached to be his lover. He would not have the resolve to resist. She was aware that whenever he looked at her there was love and desire in his eyes. She was canny enough to recognise it. His eyes always lingered on her. Even when she wasn’t looking at him she could feel his eyes on her, and she was glad of it; she did not mind at all. Why shouldn’t she exploit the assets she was blessed with? A means to an end. Even then, she had an inkling that where Robert was concerned, her best assets were her simple sincerity and her love for him.

  A day or two later, the second Thursday in August, Poppy had arranged to meet Robert at his office after the works had closed down and, when she arrived, was surprised to see him waiting for her outside. He was wearing old working clothes that he used for grubbing about in and looked for all the world like a navvy.

  ‘As it’s such a beautiful evening, Poppy, I thought we’d take a stroll.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she readily agreed. ‘Which way shall we go?’

  He inclined his head in the direction of the town and they began their walk.

  ‘Why are you wearing such scruffy clothes?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re what I wear when I have to go grubbing about.’

  ‘Are you going grubbing about with me then, as you’re wearing them now?’

  ‘Do they offend you?’ he said.

  She laughed, gratified at his concern. ‘No, course not. You still look smarter than any navvy I know … Just.’

  He smiled enigmatically. The truth was, he did not want to appear the young gentleman with a girl who was obviously of a lower class. He had dressed to match her so they would not look incongruous together. But he could not tell her this. In a way, he was glad of the opportunity to get closer to her level, to feel uninhibited about being seen with her and not have to worry about appearances or making a spectacle of himself. Nobody would look at them twice while they were both apparently working class. Nobody would believe any more that he was a toff who had paid for the services of a street girl.

  ‘You can pretend I’m a navvy if you want,’ he said.

  ‘As long as you don’t act like one,’ she replied astutely. ‘So where are you taking me?’

  ‘I thought we might go for a walk in the grounds of the castle. Have you ever been there?’

  ‘Once. When me dad first came to work on the Old Worse and Worse.’

  Robert chuckled as they set off. ‘Is that what they’re calling the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton these days? Because of all the delays and political problems I imagine … So, tell me, Poppy. How are you getting on with your book?’

  ‘Oh, I’m working me way through it all right.’ She smiled up at him for approval. ‘That Mrs Bennet is a proper dizzy-brain.’

  ‘It is full of intrigue as well, I believe?’

  ‘Ain’t you read it?’

  ‘I seldom have time to read novels.’

  They walked through the town, chatting about this and that. Poppy felt somehow closer to him than she had been for a while. He seemed more accessible, not as aloof as he had been lately. Maybe it had something to do with the clothes he was wearing. Maybe he had made a decision about her …

  ‘You can hold my hand if you want,’ she said experimentally. ‘I don’t bite.’

  He laughed at that and took her hand as they walked. ‘I didn’t want to be so presumptuous.’

  ‘I don’t even know what that means, Robert.’

  ‘It means—’

  ‘No … Please don’t bother to tell me. I can guess what it means. You know very well that you wouldn’t be being presumptious—’

  ‘Presumptuous, Poppy,’ he corrected. ‘Pre–sump–tu–ous.’

  ‘As I was saying,’ she said feigning haughtiness. ‘You wouldn’t be being presumptuous. I want you to hold my hand. At least it tells me you think something of me and you’re not afeared to show it.’

  ‘Of course I think something of you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know it from the way you’ve been acting lately. You make me feel as if I’ve got the plague or something.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s time we laid our cards on the table, Mister Robert Crawford. Don’t you?’

  They were entering the castle grounds now, at the start of the path that would meander steadily uphill in the shade of high elms and eventually lead them into the ruined castle courtyard. Squirrels played in the rustling trees above while wood pigeons cooed and looked on in unperturbed docility.

  ‘Yes, I think it might be a good night for laying our cards on the table,’ he agreed, to her surprise.

  ‘Good. I want to tell you things, Robert. Things that have been in my heart to say for so long now. And this seems a perfect opportunity – you and me together on a lovely evening, in this lovely old place.’

  He looked at her apprehensively as they ambled along. But when he saw the earnest look on her face he wanted to take her in his arms. He had a notion of what she wanted to say and he so much needed to hear it.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Well … We are good friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘We are the very best of friends, Poppy,’ he answered sincerely. ‘I hope we shall remain so, whatever befalls us.’

  ‘But I want us to be more than just friends, Robert. Oh, I know you’re engaged and that, but … and that’s why we ain’t been more than just friends, I know. Except for the odd times when we’ve kissed and cuddled … But I kept hoping that you’d get weary of her and pick me … Oh, Robert, can’t you see I love you so much? You must know how much I love you.’

  He nodded, thoughtful. ‘Yes, Poppy,’ he breathed. ‘Dearest, dearest Poppy … I’m fully aware of your feelings towards me. I am ever mindful of them—’

  ‘Well, I think you love me as well, Robert. I’m so certain of it, but I think you’re afeared of letting yourself go … of letting yourself come to me properly. You ain’t got no idea how much that upsets me. My poor heart is breaking for you, Robert, yet you keep so … so … You keep your distance … I don’t know how else to say it … I ain’t got the cholera or the plague, you know.’

  He stopped and she turned
towards him. He looked into her eyes that were so appealing and held his arms out to her. At once she fell into them and savoured his embrace as he tenderly stroked her hair. Others were walking past them, but Poppy and Robert were so preoccupied with the moment that they were oblivious to anybody and anything else.

  ‘Poppy …’

  She raised her head and looked up at him. His eyes had a troubled look that frightened her.

  ‘What?’ she said anxiously.

  ‘Poppy … dearest little Poppy … You are absolutely right in your estimation of how I feel about you. I do love you. With all my heart and soul I love you—’

  ‘And I’m so glad to hear it, Robert.’ She sighed, smiling, hugging him joyously. ‘Oh, it makes me so happy to hear it. So you are going to make me your girl and shout it to the world?’

  ‘It’s not that simple. As I have told you before … Listen … I have come to a decision that affects you, me, and the girl to whom I’m engaged—’

  ‘A decision?’ Alarm bells were ringing in her head. ‘What decision? You just told me you love me.’

  ‘Allow me to speak and you will hear it.’

  ‘I’m allowing you. Tell me. But don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Well, you may not want to hear it, but I have to tell you anyway … I have decided that the only way that you and my fiancée can emerge from this with any integrity is if I go away for a year or so. Given some time we shall all know how we truly feel. It’s possible we shall look at things from a totally different perspective.’

  ‘You might see things from a different prospective, Robert, but I won’t. I trust my feelings now. I know how I shall feel in a twelvemonth – exactly the same as I do now. Why do you tell me one moment you love me, then the next that you’re going away? It’s all you ever do …’

  ‘Because it’s the only answer.’ He held her tenderly by her arms as she faced him. He loathed himself for having to put her through this agony, but his resolution to be fair would allow him no other way. He could not trifle with her. ‘You are as important to me as anybody else in the whole world. If it were not so, I wouldn’t put myself through this pain. I would trifle with you scandalously, take advantage of you and then let you go. I wouldn’t feel the need to go away to sort myself out. But I have never taken advantage of you. I esteem you too much for that.’

  ‘Then esteem me less, Robert … I want you to. We could have such lovely times together if you stay. If you stay, we shall become lovers …’

  ‘No, Poppy. I will not, I cannot. You mean so much more to me. Don’t you see? It’s because I feel so deeply for you that I have to go away. I’m engaged to be married, as I told you at the outset. Engagement is no trifling thing. I took the decision to marry with a clear mind. At the time, I considered myself in love with my sweetheart and the match was welcomed – even desired – by both our families. I have to be fair to both of you … to our respective families as well.’

  ‘Have you told her about me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I have told her that my feelings have been diverted by another—’

  ‘What have you told her about me?’

  ‘Nothing. Except that my feelings for you are of sufficient strength to warrant my taking some time away to sort my life out. I have asked her to release me from my promise to marry, but she has refused. I want you to understand, Poppy, that it’s exactly the same for her as it is for you. She is prepared to wait for me to … to come to my senses, as she puts it.’

  ‘Do you love her, Robert?’

  ‘How can I love two girls at once? It’s you I love, Poppy. But I am responsible. I am engaged to another. It is a question of trying to salvage some honour.’

  ‘Honour?’ she scoffed. ‘Whose honour? But you’ll write to her, won’t you? You’ll keep in touch with her?’

  ‘That is not my intention. I intend making a complete break of it for a year, with no contact whatsoever. Only without her influence or yours can I become rational again.’

  ‘But in a year the encampment will have moved. We might be anywhere in the country, on any railway. I’ll never know if you chose me or not, ’cause you won’t know where the hell I am.’

  ‘It’s a risk I have to take, Poppy. In any case, in a year you might well feel differently.’

  ‘Never! Never in a thousand years.’

  ‘Oh, in just one year you might well have fallen in love with somebody like Jericho and forgotten all about me.’

  She screwed her face up in disgust. ‘The likes of Jericho? Never. I don’t want the likes of Jericho, Robert, I want you.’

  ‘Come on, Poppy. Let’s continue our walk.’ He took her hand again and she allowed it, walking sullenly beside him.

  ‘Where will you go?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going abroad.’

  ‘Abroad? When?’

  ‘I leave on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday?’ Her heart sank. ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yes, Poppy, so soon.’

  ‘But that’s the day after tomorrow. I wish you’d told me sooner.’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you sooner … oh, for purely selfish reasons. I wanted – I needed – to revel in your devotion for as long as I could. I’m going to miss you, Poppy. I know I’m going to miss you terribly. It will be unbearable, but I’m determined to endure it. Only then can I be sure. Only then will I have been truly fair to both of you.’

  ‘I think you are being truly unfair by leaving me. ’Specially just after you told me you love me. It makes no sense, Robert. It don’t make no sense at all.’ Her bottom lip began to quiver and she bit it appealingly.

  He looked at her and saw how emotional she was. ‘You’re not going to cry, are you?’

  ‘What d’you expect me to do? So what if I do?’ She sniffed defiantly and stemmed her tears, wiping her eyes with her long sleeve. ‘But why should I give you the satisfaction?’

  ‘I have cried, Poppy.’

  ‘You? Honest?’

  ‘Why should I not? I feel this just as acutely as you, believe me. I am just as capable of hurting inside as you are. I am just as capable of shedding tears.’

  ‘But you’re a man.’

  He laughed self-mockingly. ‘And men don’t shed tears in your world.’

  ‘I never seen nobody.’

  ‘Well … perhaps they’re all too intent on presenting a very masculine front. I know how tough and nonchalant they all purport to be.’

  ‘Is it because you’re ashamed of where I come from that you’re leaving, Robert?’ she asked pointedly. ‘Aren’t you just trying to escape from me?’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘Escape? From you? The only escape I am trying to effect is from my own ridiculous indecision. As for where you come from, Poppy, that is of no consequence whatsoever. I love you. To me, your background doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But you’d have trouble introducing me to your family …’

  He laughed ruefully. ‘One or two of them might well have to be convinced. But that would be their problem, not mine.’

  ‘So when will you come back?’

  ‘In about a year. I told you.’

  He felt in his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. ‘Here … Take this. It’s the address of my widowed Aunt Phoebe. She used to be a teacher and I’ve already spoken to her about you. She’ll be happy to continue your lessons if you still feel inclined. She can teach you so much more than I could, since she has the right books and many years’ experience teaching different subjects. I urge you to present yourself to her at some time.’

  She took the slip of paper, opened it and looked at it before she put it in the pocket of her skirt. She would read it later when she returned to Rose Cottage.

  ‘In any case,’ he went on, ‘it will be to the benefit of both of us if you make contact with her. It is to my Aunt Phoebe’s that I will send you a message in a year’s time, whether you are still interested in receiving it then or not. Odds are that you
won’t be, and serve me right. Odds are that you will have forgotten all about me. Nor would I blame you. You’re still only sixteen, remember, Poppy, with emotions like quicksilver—’

  ‘My emotions are not like quicksilver,’ she protested at once. ‘They’re constant. And another thing – yes, I’m sixteen, like you say. Not a child. A grown woman.’

  ‘I was about to say, Poppy, that it might take me more than a year to be entirely sure of my feelings—’

  ‘Maybe less,’ she suggested.

  ‘Maybe. Who knows? Either way, I shall only move when I’m certain.’

  ‘Then you might never move,’ Poppy suggested ruefully. ‘What if you fall in love with some pretty girl wherever you are and never come back. Then I shall never see you again. Ever.’

  ‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, I suppose,’ Robert replied. ‘In which case I shall let you know. But I have my doubts. I know myself too well, Poppy.’

  They walked on, hand in hand. Poppy was desperately trying to come to terms with what had happened. She was gratified beyond belief to hear Robert’s confession of love, elicited by her own, but her sadness that he was immediately depriving her of it overshadowed that. Now she had to wait another year at least before she would know her fate. A year was a long, long time to a sixteen-year-old, even though she was a grown woman.

  Chapter 13

  The end of August brought with it a change in the weather. Gone was the humid heat, replaced by cool rain that fell steadily for two days, turning the dust of the Blowers Green encampment into a quagmire. Dog Meat and Jericho squelched through the sludge of the workings near a little community known as Woodside and headed back to the encampment along the gravelled trackbed they had already laid. Other navvies tramped before them and behind them, heads hung low, a weary army.

  ‘Bloody good job it’s payday tomorrow,’ Jericho remarked. Rain was dripping from his sodden hat and trickling down the back of his thick neck, but what was a mere trickle of water when his clothes were already saturated, not only from the rain but from the hot sweat of his body?