Poppy's Dilemma Page 20

  ‘Morning, Dog Meat. Smart new boots th’ast got there.’

  ‘Buttercup! Don’t you start! I’m pig-sick o’ folk taunting.’

  ‘Pig-sick, eh?’ Buttercup smiled at Dog Meat’s unwitting self-mockery. ‘Well, I bain’t about to needle thee, lad. I had it in mind to ask what thou thought about Tweedle Beak holding a lottery for young Poppy Silk.’

  ‘You wanted to ask me?’ Dog Meat queried, looking at Buttercup with an unbelieving eye.

  ‘Aye, thee. Th’ast got an opinion on it, I tek it.’

  ‘Huh. I just wish I could afford to buy a ticket. She’d be a good woman, would Poppy.’

  ‘Better than yon Minnie Catchpole?’

  ‘Yes. Even though there’s talk of Poppy and that young engineer—’

  ‘The engineer? Aye, but sod all will ever come o’ that, Dog Meat. The lad’s buggered off. Abroad, I heard. Any road, he was on’y learnin’ her to read and write.’

  ‘And I wonder what else,’ Dog Meat suggested cynically. ‘Why else would he bugger off?’

  ‘He wouldn’t need to bugger off if he’d got young Poppy into trouble. She’s on’y a navvy’s daughter. Who from his class cares about such as her? Now … if it was some daughter o’ the gentry …’

  ‘It’s a useful skill to have in a woman, reading and writing,’ Dog Meat said after a thoughtful pause. ‘’Specially when you can’t read and write yourself. If I won Poppy in the lottery I could be done with Minnie.’

  ‘Or has Minnie already done with thee, Dog Meat?’ Buttercup asked pointedly. ‘I mean to say, she’s had Jericho ferreting up her frock regular, by all accounts.’

  Dog Meat shook his head resolutely. ‘Just the once.’

  ‘Oh, just the once, eh? Yo’ sound as if yo’ know all about it after all.’

  Dog Meat frowned with puzzlement at Buttercup. ‘Aye, just the once,’ he affirmed. ‘He only paid me for the once any road.’

  ‘Paid thee?’ Buttercup grinned. ‘Yo’ mean you sold him the wench?’

  ‘He gi’d me the price of a gallon o’ beer. It was only for one jump, though.’

  The older man guffawed. ‘Methinks you sold her too cheap, Dog Meat.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘He’s bin cheating thee, that Jericho. He’s been seen going in and coming out of the tunnel a few times with that Minnie o’ thine.’

  ‘The bastard!’ Dog Meat exclaimed at the realisation. ‘How many times?’

  ‘The Lord only knows, Dog Meat. How many times a night could thou manage it?’

  ‘Christ! He must owe me a fortune,’ Dog Meat cried, at once sorting his priorities. ‘I’ll part him from his money one road or another.’

  Later that day, as Buttercup strutted towards Rose Cottage after his day’s work, he espied Poppy Silk scolding Rose, the younger of her two sisters. He slowed down, waiting for the argument to die, then called Poppy’s name. She halted and straightened her apron when she saw him, then smiled with embarrassment at having been thus seen.

  ‘Hello, Buttercup,’ she greeted, looking up at him expectantly.

  ‘Poppy. I’m glad as I’ve caught thee. There’s summat as I wanted to talk to thee about. Can you meet me after? It ain’t summat as I want to discuss where other folks can hear.’

  She looked at him mystified. ‘If you want. What time? Where?’

  ‘When the others am in the alehouse getting fuddled. Meet me by the bridge where the road ends and the footpath starts – towards Netherton.’

  ‘I know it,’ she answered. ‘About eight?’

  ‘Eight’ll do. It’ll be getting dark by then. Don’t let on to anybody as you’m meeting me.’

  She nodded, wondering what on earth he wanted to see her about. Back inside the hut she continued with her work, cooking the meals that the lodgers had left with her, that were wrapped in linen and steeping in the boiling copper. One by one she drained them and plated them before she handed them out to their respective owners.

  Most men took beer with their meals, a taster before the serious drinking that would ensue later. After they had eaten, the men would linger, talking, putting the world to rights, before they dispersed to change into their more flamboyant clothes.

  ‘You’ll make somebody a grand wife,’ was a common compliment in anticipation of the fate that was to befall her.

  ‘Somebody? I wonder who?’ she would reply, irrespective. To another she added, ‘Just as long as it ain’t you. So please don’t buy a lottery ticket.’

  When the work was done, Poppy glanced at the clock. It was almost eight and she was aware that Buttercup had left the hut. She took off her apron, teased her hair and slipped out without saying a word. She hurried to Shaw Road and walked hurriedly downhill, looking behind her to see if anybody was watching. It was still slippery with mud underfoot, but the rain had ceased and the sky was clear. Buttercup was already waiting by the bridge, smoking his clay pipe.

  ‘Sorry if I kept you waiting, Buttercup.’

  ‘It meks no odds, young Poppy,’ he said kindly.

  ‘What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘I wanted to know how thou feels, wench,’ he replied. ‘Having known thy father as well as any man, being privy to his hopes and dreams and taking to him the way I did, I feel a mite responsible for thee, young Poppy. I sort of feel entrusted to be thy guardian.’

  She smiled up at him gratefully. ‘What do you want to know? How I feel about men drawing lots for me?’

  ‘Aye. That sort o’ thing.’

  ‘What do you think about it, Buttercup?’

  ‘I think it’s a scandal.’

  ‘Do you think my father would’ve sold lottery tickets to get shut of me, or to profit from me?’

  Buttercup shook his head. ‘Never in a million years. It was one of the big regrets in me life that I dain’t have the privilege of knowing thy father longer, Poppy. But I know well enough that he would never have sacrificed thee to the gamble of a lottery. Lord knows who’s likely to have the winning ticket. It’s just as like to be somebody you detest as one of them handsome bucks.’

  ‘I don’t want to be drawn by anybody, Buttercup, handsome or not,’ she said. ‘I always swore I’d never end up with a navvy …’

  ‘Don’t none of ’em appeal?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What about Dog Meat?’

  She pulled a face. ‘’Specially not Dog Meat. He ain’t got the brains of a gnat.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘Why? Are you going to fix it somehow?’

  ‘Me fix it? Nay, wench. Tweedle Beak’ll let me nowhere near him nor his lottery to meddle with it.’

  ‘Are you going to buy a ticket for me, Buttercup?’

  He laughed at the thought. ‘Nay, wench.’

  ‘Please, Buttercup,’ she pleaded softly. ‘I wouldn’t mind if you won me. At least I know you’m kind. I know you’d be gentle.’

  ‘Nay, wench,’ he said again, flattered that she had the nerve to say it. ‘Thou wouldn’t want an old bugger like me. Now, thy mother … Now that’d be a different kettle o’ fish. I’m nearer thy mother’s age …’

  ‘Do you like my mother, Buttercup?’

  ‘Oh, I think she’s a fine, plucky woman, Poppy. I can’t say as I’m enamoured o’ the shit heap she sleeps with, though.’

  She giggled. ‘Nor me … But why did you mention Dog Meat?’

  ‘Oh … It’s nothing to do with me really …’

  ‘Tell me …’

  ‘Well, it’s just that he admitted to me this morning how he’d let Jericho have young Minnie Catchpole for the price of a gallon o’ beer.’

  ‘Have her?’

  ‘Aye. Have her. To do as he wanted with her for one night. Dog Meat was desperate for money and Jericho was desperate for a woman. Dog Meat’s always desperate for money, from what I can see of it.’

  ‘And did he? Jericho? Have her, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, aye. The trouble was, the bastard was having her most
every other night after it, but not letting on to Dog Meat. They used to go in the tunnel regular for their shenanigans.’

  Poppy was unable to say anything for some seconds, so startled was she by this news. There were so many questions to ask, and she didn’t know which to ask first.

  ‘But it was Jericho wanting to buy thee off Tweedle who started this whole business of the men drawing lots for thee,’ Buttercup explained.

  ‘If Dog Meat took money for Minnie’s favours, Buttercup, that means he sold her for a common whore.’

  ‘Aye, that’s the way I see it, Poppy.’

  ‘Poor Minnie …’

  ‘And yo’ ain’t sore with Minnie for having Jericho?’ he asked. ‘One or two say as how you was sweet on Jericho.’

  ‘I never was, Buttercup. I was only ever sweet on Robert Crawford, the engineer who was teaching me to read and write.’

  Buttercup smiled and his eyes creased in that way which always seemed to enhance his likeableness. ‘I knowed it! And now he’s buggered off, eh? Never mind. Maybe he’ll come back for thee, young Poppy.’

  ‘I’m sure he will. He told me he loved me … For all the good it’ll do me once I’m carrying somebody else’s child.’

  ‘So did he ever tek advantage of thee, young Poppy, this engineer?’

  ‘No, he never took advantage of me, Buttercup, more’s the pity. Robert is too much of a gentleman for that. He said he esteemed me too much.’

  ‘Christ, then he must be a gentleman. He must have meant what he said. I’d stick out for him, if I was thee.’

  ‘Except that with no prospect of escaping that lottery, my future is already sealed.’

  ‘Aye, it’d seem that way,’ Buttercup agreed.

  When she returned to the encampment, Poppy called at Hawthorn Villa hoping to see Minnie. For once, Minnie was in, and Poppy said she wanted to talk to her. The full moon tinselled the dew that settled on the shepherd’s purse, on the thistles, and on the spiders’ webs so intricately engineered in between. Poppy related to Minnie what Buttercup had told her of Dog Meat’s arrangement with Jericho.

  ‘And I thought it was ’cause Jericho loved me,’ Minnie declared ruefully. ‘Lord, what a fool I’ve been.’

  ‘He don’t love anybody but himself, Minnie,’ Poppy consoled. ‘And I wouldn’t have no truck with him any more after that, if I was you.’

  ‘I won’t, I won’t. But it means Dog Meat sold me, Poppy.’ Minnie was visibly annoyed. ‘He sold me for money, as if I was a whore.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Well, why should he have the money, Poppy, if it’s me what’s doing the work? Oh, I’ll show him. As sure as day’s day, I’ll show him …’

  Chapter 15

  As soon as Tweedle Beak finished work on the day of his lottery draw, 28 September, he changed into his better outfit, reserved for drinking and womanising, and hurried to The Wheatsheaf. Final and important arrangements had to be made. The only patrons there at the time were four miners, blackened with coal dust, who were evidently on their way home from their pit. They paid little attention to Tweedle Beak as he strode up to the bar.

  ‘You’m early,’ Selina, the landlord’s daughter, commented.

  ‘I’ve come to see you, Selina,’ Tweedle replied and raised his eyebrows as if to suggest he was interested in her. ‘Before the others get here.’

  Selina blushed at the implied flattery and became flustered. She was not used to the attention of navvies, except for one lad once when they first became a blight on the area; he’d had a bet with his mates as to who could suffer to seduce the ugliest wench in Dudley one Saturday night.

  ‘Can I pour you a drink?’ she asked.

  ‘A quart o’ your best, Selina,’ he said. ‘And have one yourself.’

  ‘That’s very kind, sir,’ she replied, unable to use his name because she was not sure of it. She picked up a pewter tankard and, while he watched, drew beer into it and placed it before him on the counter.

  Tweedle handed her a sixpence. ‘No, you can keep the change,’ he said, amiably, when she offered him some coppers. ‘I wanted to ask you to do summat for me, young Selina, if you would.’

  ‘If I can, I’ll be happy to oblige.’

  He felt in his trouser pocket and pulled out a half sovereign. ‘This is yourn, Selina, if you’ll do a little task for me, secret like. It’s just between you and me … Understand?’

  ‘I ain’t no blab-mouth,’ Selina said defensively, looking covetously at the half sovereign held between his fingers and noticing his grubby, broken nails. ‘I can keep a secret.’

  ‘That’s partitly what I wanted to hear …’ He grinned at her affably and his long nose drooped in consequence. ‘Later on, when the men have been paid, we’m having a lottery draw—’

  ‘Oh, I heard summat about it. One o’ the navvy wenches is being raffled off, in’t her?’

  He nodded and grinned again, placed the coin on the counter tauntingly, then supped his beer. ‘Word gets around … Any road, this is where you can help, Selina. I want to call on you to come and draw the tickets out o’ the hat.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ she willingly agreed. ‘I don’t mind.’

  Looking around furtively, he felt in another pocket, showed her a piece of folded paper and leaned towards her. ‘This is the winning ticket. I want you to keep it safe till I ask you to come and do the draw. Then, you must have it hid in your hand, ready. When I ask you to dip your hand in the hat, I want you to pretend as you’ve just pulled out this very piece o’ paper. Understand?’

  Selina nodded uncertainly. ‘So it’s a cheat. The draw is already fixed.’

  ‘Let’s say the winner has already been decided by other means. O’ course, the money’s all going to charity, you know. We just need to make the draw look real to them lads who’ve bought tickets who’m unsuitable and unworthy o’ the wench being raffled. You understand, eh? I mean you wouldn’t want to end up with any Tom, Dick or Harry, if it was yourself, would you?’

  Confused, she said no and nodded. Once more she glanced at the half sovereign. She could buy loads with that; it was a handsome bribe. She hesitated a second. She could try her luck and stall for a whole pound … but then this man might withdraw the offer and ask somebody else. ‘All right,’ she said at last, and held her hand out for the lottery ticket.

  ‘But it’s just between you and me, Selina.’ He pressed the ticket into her hand but did not release it while he held eye contact with her.

  ‘It’s just between you and me,’ Selina agreed.

  Tweedle Beak let go her hand. ‘Just be sure to come to me as soon as I call you.’

  She took the half sovereign and he winked knowingly. ‘Have no fear … sir …’

  He finished his beer and ordered another.

  Legal wrangles continued over the implementation of Brunel’s broad gauge in preference to the more widely used narrow-gauge track. Coupled with inordinately slow progress, due to a string of inefficient contractors that had slowed down the job intolerably, it was decided that all work on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway was to be wound down and suspended by the end of next month. The friendly and helpful alliance with the Great Western Railway had proved to be neither friendly nor helpful after all. The encampment at Blowers Green would consequently disband, and the navvies who had lived and worked there for months, with a common purpose, would up sticks and set off on tramp to seek employment on other civil engineering projects. Men who had become firm friends, or even sworn enemies, would part company and possibly never meet again, for better or for worse.

  The men were advised of this as they lined up to collect their pay. A letter was included in each pay packet, but since all but a couple could not read, it had to be explained to them by a representative of the company. Those who wanted to seek alternative employment could leave at once. Those who wished to stay would be kept on only until the end of October.

  There had been rumours for ages that the company was in
financial straits, but it all made little sense to the men. As far as they were concerned, the section from Worcester to Dudley was all but complete, save for a mile or two of cuttings and embankments, the laying of the track and the building of stations. Between Worcester and Oxford, however, it was a different story. The Mickleton tunnel, for instance, was nowhere near finished and Mr Brunel was said to be livid about the spiralling costs and his plummeting reputation.

  The women that dwelt in the encampment were oblivious to the commercial turmoil that would affect all their lives. In anticipation of Tweedle Beak’s lottery, they had collected switches of gorse, which they had tied together and fastened to a broomstick for the ceremonial jumping over it later that evening. Another had made a chaplet of flowers for Poppy’s hair. They were excited, and took great trouble to tease Poppy whenever she appeared, particularly Ma Catchpole. She not only considered it a golden opportunity for Poppy, but declared it was about time the girl settled down with a man and had some babbies. Poppy, however, was not so enthusiastic.

  Tweedle had collected forty-seven pounds in lottery contributions, a sum he had stored in a leather pouch in his locker in the main room of Rose Cottage. Dandy Punch had duly written the names of contenders on squares of white paper, which had all been neatly folded and which accompanied him to The Wheatsheaf for the draw that evening. Despite the news that all work was to be held in abeyance, Tweedle Beak was still hopeful that payday might induce a few others to speculate on the enticing possibility of winning an exceedingly bonny, industrious and highly desirable young bed partner. His hopes were well founded. Several men had been waiting for payday so that they could afford tickets, and he collected a further fifteen pounds. Dandy Punch wrote those names on tickets.

  The atmosphere in The Wheatsheaf that evening was buzzing with a heady mixture of despair and anticipation. Some men were openly devastated that work was being shelved, others could not have cared less. Nonetheless, it was a major topic of discussion as they slaked their thirsts with excesses of foaming beer. The air of anticipation, however, was stirred by the impending lottery draw. The usual gathering sat in front of their tankards and speculated on the outcome, while Tweedle Beak excitedly pocketed his latest booty and Dandy Punch wrote out the final ticket, inscribing the words ‘Dog Meat’ upon it.