The Sweeping Saga Collection: Poppy’s Dilemma, The Dressmaker’s Daughter, The Factory Girl. Nancy Carson
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yet hungrily, and she felt him enter her, so sweetly, so gently, that she hoped the moment would last forever. But in her dream she was also aware of this other naked man, huge, rough and threatening. He came into view and lifted Robert bodily from her and took his place, hurting her, thrashing inside her like some frantic fish caught in a net. She awoke momentarily, tried to exorcise Jericho from her mind and return to Robert … But Robert had gone …
Lightning Jack and Bilston Buttercup had reached the sweeping curve of Chipping Campden’s High Street on the day they anticipated. They enquired as to the proximity of the railway line and the Mickleton tunnel but the locals, who seemed very respectable, did not seem kindly disposed towards them. Eventually, they were directed out of the village on a north-easterly path. They came to the railway track bed under construction and followed it until it came to a dead end. Lightning Jack speculated that the tunnel workings must be over the hill that lay before them. It was not long before they saw the mountains of spoil, the shaft with its steam engine, and a small shanty town of dilapidated huts. A navvy directed them to a ganger who set them on.
Both men had exhausted their money, mainly on beer, but they were amply fed and watered that evening by the resident navvies, with typical navvy hospitality. Their lodgings were in a hut similar to that which Lightning had left behind at the Blowers Green encampment. The same ganger who had employed them, called ‘Swillicking Mick’ because of the vast amounts of beer he was reputed to drink, operated it.
They ate that evening in the common living room of the hut with the others, enjoying cuts from a massive piece of beef and mounds of potatoes from a huge pot that hung over the fire. The only windows, each immediately either side of the solitary door, were stuck in the middle of the room’s longest wall. The kitchen was located opposite a stack of beer barrels. It was home from home.
Swillicking Mick kept them amply supplied with beer. ‘Pay me when you get paid, lads,’ he said. ‘I’ll not rob thee for it. I brew it meself so it works out cheaper than the stuff from the tommy shop.’
‘It’s decent stuff an’ all,’ Lightning commented. ‘Pour us another if it’s cheap.’
Swillicking Mick’s woman, wearing a leather belt from which hung the keys to the locked beer barrels, duly poured Lightning another and made a note of it in a little book that she withdrew from the pocket of her apron.
‘There’s no decent beer shop hereabouts, so a few on us have begun brewing our own,’ Mick informed them. ‘Course, you can always tramp into Campden. A good many do of a Saturday night. The beer houses want our trade, but the locals ain’t too fond o’ the rumpus we cause. Already they’ve put bars up at the windows o’ some o’ the properties, save ’em getting bost.’
‘The contractors don’t like you brewing your own beer, I’ll warrant,’ Buttercup ventured, nodding in the direction of the barrels. ‘’Specially if they ain’t taking a cut.’
‘Nor would the exciseman if he knew,’ Mick said with a wink. ‘The only problem is, I’m more inclined to sell me beer than work on the construction. So would all the others. It earns us a mint o’ money.’
Mick’s woman, Hannah, began clearing the things away and the men continued talking. There were nine or ten men in the room; it was getting noisier and the humour increasingly boisterous. Then there was a knock at the door; more customers for Swillicking Mick. A group of five or six ruffians entered, one of whom carried a fiddle and a bow. They bought beer, and the chap with the fiddle began playing a lively tune. Several of the men began dancing with each other, their boots hammering on the floorboards. Others were sitting on the floor playing cards, their poaching dogs alongside them, and they complained that the dancing would be understandable if there were women about. At that, the door opened again and half a dozen women and girls squeezed inside.
‘The women from the mill,’ Swillicking Mick remarked with a wink.
It was beginning to get crowded. The card-players cheered and got up from the dusty floor, to engage in a more interesting sport.
One of the women – she looked about thirty years old but was possibly younger – attached herself to Lightning.
‘I’ve not seen you before, have I, chuck?’ she said in her rural drawl.
‘Not unless you can see as far as Dudley,’ Lightning answered.
‘You do talk funny. Is that how they talk in Dudley?’
Lightning grinned inanely; the beer was having its effect. ‘They talk even funnier than me in Dudley. I come from Cheshire. But even Dudley folk don’t sound so weird as you with your quaint country twang. What’s your name, by the way?’
‘Jenny Sparrow. What’s yours?’
‘They call me Lightning Jack.’
‘Well, Jack, you look a big, strong chap to me, with your big, drooping moustaches. Spoke for, are ye?’
Lightning took a swig of beer and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘What’s it to you? Fancy your chances, do you?’
‘I’m not so ugly as to be discounted, am I, Jack?’
‘Ugly?’ he queried. ‘No, you’re a fine-looking wench, Jenny … And that’s a handsome bosom you’re flaunting.’
Jenny beamed. ‘Maybe you’d like to help yourself to a handful later?’
‘It depends what it’s gunna cost me.’
‘Oh, I don’t do it for money, Jack. I do it for love …’
Waiting for Wednesday was, for Poppy, like waiting for her plum pudding at Christmas. As one o’clock approached, she tried hard to remain calm, anxious not to give her mother any hint at all that she was leaving her to do the cooking and the feeding of lodgers, just to meet a young man – and one above her station at that. Sheba would get to hear of it, no doubt. Somebody was bound to see them and report back. Nor would Sheba be pleased. But Poppy would handle that crisis when it arose …
She had taken the trouble to wash her hair the night before. She had cleaned her clogs and her fingernails. In the family’s overcrowded bedroom she’d stood at the washstand and enjoyed a thorough wash down, feeling fresh and confident after it. She had laundered her stockings, and inspected the clothes she intended wearing, which, to allay any suspicion, would have to be a working frock.
So, at five minutes to one, she took off her pinafore, tidied her hair and looked at herself briefly in the ancient, mildewed mirror that hung by a piece of string from a nail near the door. If only she had a more alluring frock to wear, but to change it and put on her best red one would have been to broadcast her intentions. So she resigned herself to the fact that she must make do. At least the frock she was wearing was clean. Poppy failed to realise that she looked good in whatever she wore. She was blessed with a beautiful face and a complexion as fair as her flaxen hair. She possessed a natural daintiness and elegance of movement which, had she been dressed in silks or velvets, would have been perceived as grace.
She put on her bonnet and slipped out without a word to her mother. The rain of Monday had ceased and the weather had changed for the better again, with sunshine and a gentle breeze. Thankfully, the mud of the encampment was drying out. Poppy walked towards Shaw Road at the intersection with the footpath where she was supposed to meet Robert, her heart thumping in anticipation. While she waited, first looking up Shaw Road for sight of him, then self-consciously at her clogs, she felt conspicuous, certain that the wary eyes of the encampment were on her and suspicious of what she was up to.
Before too long she heard the familiar clack-clack of the iron-rimmed wheels traversing the craggy surface of the road. She turned to see Robert hurtling towards her, a grin on his handsome face, and her heart lurched.
He’d remembered.
‘Have