Emma Jane was back at Tibbie’s for ten days before the thaw set in, but on every morning of inaction she walked to the bridge and stood beside the piers, laying her hand on the stone and wondering when the frost would be sweated out of them. At last it was and work recommenced.
During the lay-off, the navvy camp had looked bleak and empty, but when the frost began to lift, life returned to it. It was never again to be as crowded as it was before the cholera epidemic, for not only had death cut down the population but many frightened families had moved away. As the year 1855 got under way, however, word spread around via the navvying grapevine that there was work at Camptounfoot, and men came back. Once again women gossiped at the water burn; children played and fought in the cleared area where Benjy’s had stood; dogs yapped and ran about as skinny and undisciplined as ever. Sydney still slept in the hut that had been Major Bob’s, but now it was looked after by the wife of one of the new occupants – a lanky lad from Derry called Lucky Jim for no reason that he or anyone else could explain. He’d been given the name on the first job he got after leaving Ireland, and had used it ever since. Mrs Jim was a good plain cook, better than Major Bob, and she was sober too, so living conditions in the place improved, but Sydney remembered the old days with a strange nostalgia as if it had been a golden age. He realised that his time as a navvy was coming to an end, and hoped Miss Wylie would finish the bridge before he could stand the life no longer.
Jimmy-The-New-Man was living again in the camp in the hut that used to be kept by Squint Mary, another cholera victim. Its new châtelaine was even more degenerate-looking and drunken than Mary had been, but was just as terrified of Bullhead, the boss of the hut. Jimmy was seldom seen without the big man by his side and so inseparable were they, that tongues began to wag. Bullhead saved his own reputation by having a succession of women living with him, though Jimmy never seemed to be with anyone in particular and anyway he was nearly always staggering drunk. His behaviour still perturbed Sydney, who tried from time to time to speak to him privately, but never with any success, for Bullhead always seemed to pop up and stand between them.
During the lay-off, Jopp had gone among the workforce spreading rumours about Emma Jane. He told them that she was about to run out of money and wouldn’t be able to go on paying wages past the spring. He also said that the railway company had asked him to take over the contract when she gave up, and that it would be in every man’s interest to throw in his luck with him at once and not wait till the end came, when all his vacancies might be full.
As a result, on the day she began recruiting again, Emma Jane was surprised to see how few navvies turned up to apply. By contrast, Jopp, high on his embankment, had a crowd of applicants around him. Standing beside Emma Jane was her helper Robbie, who was proving invaluable because of his ability to pick up stories and rumours. He soon discovered the reason for the defection of the men from Emma Jane, and told her what Jopp had been saying.
‘But that’s nonense!’ she protested. ‘I’m not going to run out of money. I sold my house in Newcastle to satisfy the bank and they’re not going to pressure me for any more money until the bridge is finished. I’ve Munro’s promise on that.’
No matter what she said, however, the seeds of doubt had been sown. When work began again in the spring, she only had thirty navvies to work with her bricklayers and masons, who were all men from Camptounfoot who had thrown in their lot with her. This force was not sufficient to finish the bridge in the time left, so she was forced to go to Jopp to ask him to hire twenty of his men to her. He agreed with suspicious alacrity but made the stipulation, ‘They’re my men, and they’re on my pay roll. You pay me and I’ll pay them.’
She knew what was happening. She paid Jopp five shillings a day for each man and he passed on four of them to the navvies, but part of that was in truck-tickets.
She was not in a position to argue, for she needed to concentrate on the work in hand. To do them justice, the men all worked hard at first and the piers were quickly erected to the height where it was necessary to start building the brick arches. Emma Jane stood beneath them and stared at their dizzying height. Up there, the masons were laying the last stones. On the day the final pier reached its maximum height, she said to Robbie, ‘Now we’ll have to put up the linking scaffolds. We’ll build them along the top of the piers like a walkway as you suggested, and the bricklayers can work from them.’
Twenty loads of long timber planks had been delivered to the site the previous day and more were expected. They had to be put up as soon as possible, so the most intrepid men were detailed to go up the pillars with ropes tied round their waists and set them in place. This job was going to take at least two weeks, but Emma Jane gave instructions for the scaffolders to start at the southern, lowest end of the bridge and as they moved along, the bricklayers could come in behind them. The planning, the working out, the mathematical minutiae of the task pleased her, and she discovered she had a talent for it. She really began to feel that success was within her reach on the day that the first arch rose between the southernmost pair of piers in a pale salmon-coloured semi-circle. She could not look at it enough, for it filled her with optimism.
It was a mistake to tempt fate, however, as she soon found out.
When she was in her hut that afternoon she heard shouting, and went out to see a crowd of men standing around a body on the ground. She hurried over and to her horror saw Robbie lying in a crumpled position, his face contorted with pain. ‘I’ve broken my leg, miss,’ he groaned from between clenched teeth. He’d been helping to pass bricks up to the men on the scaffold, had jumped on a waggon to load more bricks on to the flat trays that were used to hoist them overhead, had missed his footing and fallen over backwards.
Sydney knelt beside him and ran his hands down the twisted leg. ‘It’s a bad break, I think,’ he said, looking up at Emma Jane. ‘I’ll ride over to Maddiston for Doctor Robertson. He’s the one who helped at the time of the cholera.’
The other men agreed. ‘Yes, get Robertson. He’s a good man…’ they chorused.
Distraught for her young friend, Emma Jane knelt on the grass and held Robbie’s hand. ‘Yes, do go and get the doctor,’ she urged. ‘Tell him to come at once. In the meantime we’ll carry Robbie into my hut.’
They didn’t realise that it was dangerous to move him, and his agony and groans were terrible as they lifted him up and carried him into Emma Jane’s hut, where he was laid on the floor and covered with her shawl. When one of the men gave him a generous swig of brandy – the first he had ever tasted, for the Rutherfords were abstainers – his groans grew less so they kept administering alcohol till Robertson and Sydney arrived back.
As soon as the doctor stepped into the hut, Emma Jane was struck by the sympathy and humanity that emanated from him. This was a very different physician from any she’d previously encountered. She stepped back from Robbie and watched as Robertson examined the leg and then set it straight, using spars of wood brought down from the bridge. ‘I think it’s broken in two places,’ he said when he stood up. ‘There’s a break in the ankle and also in the femur, but fortunately both in the same leg. He must have taken a bad tumble.’
Robbie, only semi-conscious because of the brandy, slurred, ‘How long till I walk again, Doctor?’
A strained look, which did not go unnoticed by Emma Jane, passed over Robertson’s face. ‘I should think about two months,’ was all he said, and then he added quickly, ‘But first we’ll have to get you home to your mother, my lad. It’s going to be a bit of a shock for her. I’ll need to borrow a cart and some strong men… can that be arranged?’
Emma Jane nodded, put a hand on his arm and gestured to him to step outside the hut with her. ‘I’m the contractor on this bridge,’ she told him, ‘and Robbie, the lad with the broken leg, is my friend and one of my most valuable assistants. Why did you look so odd when you told him how long it would take to walk again?’
Robertson’s eyes searched her face as if he was making up his mind whether he could talk freely to her or not, and the verdict must have been in her favour for he said, ‘The ankle break’s a very bad one – the bone’s smashed. It might mean that he will never walk again.’
Emma Jane stared back at him in consternation before she said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell that to Robbie. He’s got to think he’s going to be all right. He’s only a boy, and if he was told he was going to be crippled, he might give up.’
Robertson’s eyes showed interest in her. He’d heard a girl had taken over the bridge and had been intrigued by the idea. This little scrap of a thing didn’t look anything like he’d imagined a female contractor to be, however. All he said was, ‘I won’t tell him, and anyway I may be wrong. I often am.’
The accident to Robbie was the first in a catalogue of troubles that beset Emma Jane during the dark days of early spring. Worries and irritations, both major and minor, besieged her so that she was too distracted to notice the world around her. All she was concerned with was keeping warm, keeping dry, making sure the work went on and defusing disputes among the men – the greatest of her most recent troubles. Since work had begun again, the force was riven with an undercurrent of resentment, and she had no Robbie to bring her information about what was causing it.
One blowy morning as she was walking to work with her head down against the wind, she suddenly sniffed something in the air that made her look up and stare around. She’d caught the smell of spring – a fresh, clear scent that made her blood rise. Then she saw the signs that she had been missing – red buds beginning to swell on the black branches of the trees; grass looking green again and losing its dead, sere look and, most wonderful of all, snowdrops spreading like rippling sheets of white silk over the banks beneath the trees. As she gazed at them she felt optimism rising. They gave her hope.
At the bridge, however, that hope was driven away very quickly because work had stopped and a huddle of navvies stood under the middle pier. This was not the first time that work had been held up by arguments and protracted discussions so, with anger rising in her, she walked up to the men and said shortly, ‘Why aren’t you working? There’s a lot to do and I can’t afford to pay slackers.’
They were all men she’d hired from Jopp, and one turned to her to say, ‘And we ain’t going to work today unless we get the same money as the other men.’
‘I pay all my labour at the same rate,’ she told him.
‘We’re doing the same job but your men have five bob a day and we’re lucky if we end up with three.’
She faced up to him. ‘I pay Jopp five shillings a day for each one of you. If you leave him and come to me, you can get that money direct.’
The malcontents looked at each other. One or two muttered behind their hands and then their spokesman stepped forward to ask, ‘Have you the money to finish this job, Miss?’
She looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I swear to you I have.’
Then another man stepped up and said, ‘All right, Miss, we’ll join your gang. We should have known Jopp was a liar.’
She knew it would not be long before word got back to Jopp that she’d poached his men, and she was right. Half an hour later he came storming into her hut and demanded, ‘What do you think you’re doing, taking away my workers?’
She gave him her most quelling glare and said,‘They were working for me and giving a lot of trouble because you’re cheating them out of their wages. My concern is to get this bridge finished on time, and so I’m going to pay them direct in order that they work with a will. If you’ve any complaints about that, take it up with the railway company. What you’ve been doing to those men is a kind of robbery.’
Jopp’s face went pale but he kept his temper. ‘It’s not robbery, Miss Wylie, it’s what’s called sub-contracting. You needed men, I provided them and I took my payment for doing it.’
Standing up behind her table, she put her fists on the wood and leaned forward at him. ‘Jopp, you’re a rogue!’ she shouted. ‘And you’re a villain, too. I don’t trust you an inch. I’m watching you, I’m watching every move you make. Now get out – and make those men of yours work or I’ll tell them so much about you that they’ll want to lynch you.’ Her tone was ferocious.
He stepped back with a shocked look and exclaimed, ‘Miss Wylie, when you first came here you were a nice, polite young lady. What’s happened to you? You sound like a fishwife.’
‘Good, good,’ yelled Emma Jane, pointing at the door. ‘Now get out and do what I say or I’ll make sure the railway directors hear what’s going on. I’ll tell them you’ve been deliberately trying to hold up the work, and I’ll force them to move you away from here.’
Secretly she knew she had no such power, but she sounded as if she had and Jopp backed away. She had hit him on a raw spot because he was deeply in awe of Miller and the other directors, and although they knew he peculated a little, they did not know by how much. Her biggest strength, however, for the moment at least, was the fact that she was the only one who knew exactly what was still to be done – and even more importantly, how it was to be done – to finish the bridge. The railway company needed her until the project was past a certain stage. After that, thought Jopp viciously as he hurried away, after that she’d have her come-uppance. He’d enjoy witnessing that…
Before Emma Jane went back to Tibbie’s that night she rolled up all her plans and hurried to the Rutherfords’ house. Robbie lay in the downstairs room beside his father’s constantly clattering loom, and his bed was surrounded by mounds of books because Emma Jane had written to the Haggertys with instructions that her father’s engineering library be packed up and sent to the boy to help pass the time of his convalescence. He read the books avidly and every day she looked in on him, he had something new to tell her that was relevant to the bridge. His recovery was slow and, as Robertson had predicted, the leg was not healing well but he did not complain and was always glad to see Emma Jane because she brought news of the work. He wanted to hear about every brick and stone that was laid. When she told him about her row with Jopp, he said, ‘He’s a cunning little rat.’
She nodded in agreement and laid the plans on his bed. ‘I think he’s not to be trusted, so I’ve brought you the plans. I want you to keep them, and no matter who asks to see them, pretend you don’t have them. You and I will go over them alone when I need to check on anything.’
The precious plans were stacked under Robbie’s bed and then Emma Jane asked, ‘Did the doctor come to see you today?’
Robbie’s face darkened. ‘Yes, he did. I think he’s worried about my leg. I should have been able to stand on it by now but I can’t. It’s still all swollen and sore. I hope I’m not going to have to lie here for the rest of my life.’
Emma Jane sat down beside him and took his hand. ‘You won’t. You’ll get better – I know you will. You’ve got to make up your mind. I didn’t really think that I had much of a mind to make up before I started this bridge, but I’m working on it every day and I want you to do the same. We’ll both make up our minds, Robbie.’
He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll take your prescription because I don’t think Doctor Robertson’s is doing much good,’ he said.
When she left the Rutherfords’ noisy cottage where the loom never stopped until darkness fell – for Robbie’s father worked even while he ate – Emma Jane crossed the road to peace and tranquillity, where a good meal and a warm bed awaited her. Tibbie was still subdued and sad because every turn of the year, every change of the weather, every dish in her kitchen or ornament on her shelves made her think of Hannah, but she was glad to have the distraction of Emma Jane. When the girl came home, tired and mud-stained, she bustled about, eager to take care of her. It stopped her thinking about her grief. Before they went to bed she and Emma Jane liked to talk and sometimes sat up till late discussing things that Tibbie had never heard of before. It struck her as strange that she had become so involved with the building of the railway which had caused her such anxiety and fear when it started. Now she knew how many tons of stone Emma Jane needed to finish her bridge; how many sleepers and how many yards of metal line would have to be laid before a train could pass across. Emma Jane’s enthusiasm infected even Tibbie, and she began to look forward to the completion of the project as she and the eager girl gazed into the heart of the fire and saw in imagination the arches of the bridge glowing there like a wonderful vision. Tibbie’s secret dread was that her companion would go away and she’d be lonely again, but she resolved not to think about that till it happened. The summer was a long time away.
When Emma Jane returned to the site next day she was not surprised to find that her hut had been broken into and the contents strewn about the floor. Nothing was missing, and she smiled wryly as she sorted out the chaos because she knew what the intruder had been looking for and was glad that she’d had the sense to spirit the plans away. She was in excellent spirits and even smiled at Jopp as she walked out to begin her round of inspection.
Gentleman Sydney, working with the gang that was loading bricks on to hoists, watched her as she walked around and reflected on the change that had come over her. Miss Wylie had been a plain little thing when she first arrived, but as the months passed she was gaining in confidence and even, it seemed, in stature for she stood straighter, walked more freely and held her head up as she moved from group to group. Even in her working clothes she had a striking air of dignity and competence. She was not a girl whom you would take lightly or overlook any more.
As he turned to go back to loading again, his eye went up to the roadway, to the spot where the old Colonel and his daugher-in-law usually sat on their horses in the mornings watching what was going on. Today they had not come and he wondered where they were. The sight of Bethya in one of her many smart riding outfits brightened his day, and as he knew it annoyed her greatly if he acknowledged her presence, he always made a point of doffing his hat and bowing in a most exaggerated manner whenever he encountered her. She glared furiously back, eyes flashing and mouth tightening. Then he would laugh and she’d turn her horse to ride away, often making it rear or kick out in her haste. He always made sure there was a good distance between them before he started his teasing because he wouldn’t put it past her to try to ride him down. He knew why she was so furious. The Duke had written a stiff letter to Colonel Anstruther pointing out that while he had no objection to the young Mrs Anstruther exercising her horse on the hill, he did not want her participating in his private hunts in future. For her own safety of course, he added.
Now every time this impudent navvy removed his hat and bowed to her, Bethya felt murderous, for she was sure he knew about the Duke’s letter and was jeering at her. What was he doing in a navvy gang anyway – a man like that? She remembered how confidently he rode, and how he looked like a gentleman but acted like a villain. ‘How he annoys me,’ she said to herself. Yet, every time she went to the bridge with Bap, she found her eye searching the working parties for him. If he wasn’t there, she wondered why, and was not really at ease until she saw him again.
Sydney was distracted from searching the road for a sight of Bethya by a sudden yell behind him. He whipped round quickly and saw two men swaying to and fro, grappling with each other ferociously, and swearing while the other navvies, who always enjoyed a fight, laid down their spades and cheered them on. The combatants were Jimmy-The-New-Man and Bullhead. Both of their faces were contorted with rage and they were staggering and slithering around on the slope where neither was able to find a sure foothold. After a few moments Bullhead got free of Jimmy and put both hands round the younger man’s neck with the obvious intention of strangling him. This was more than just an ordinary fight, this was about to become murder, so the men standing nearest jumped in to separate the fighters. Even the most bloodthirsty of them couldn’t stand aside and watch the pathetic Jimmy being slaughtered. They pulled Bullhead off him and pinioned the big man’s arms behind his back while Jimmy got up off the ground with his hands round his own throat and a look of terror on his face. Bullhead’s eyes were burning red like coals and he was shouting, ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, you bastard…’
‘What’s it all about?’ Sydney asked the man beside him.
The answer was a shrug. ‘Dunno, they’re been fighting off and on for a week. Some private business apparently. Jimmy’s asking for money off Bullhead. He wants to go away and he reckons Bullhead owes him. He’s not getting anywhere though. You know what Bullhead’s like about money. He’d rather give blood.’
Sydney watched with interest as Jopp arrived and started sorting the fighters out. ‘You should be working, not fighting,’ he bawled at Bullhead. ‘You’re on the pulley-gang at the top of the pier, aren’t you? Get back up there and start pulling up loads or you’re off this site for good. I’m sick of you.’
Then he turned to Jimmy and ranted, ‘And you’re on your last warning. Get up there, too, and start working or hit the road.’ He pointed to the top of the tallest pier where men were looking down from the dizzying scaffold.
‘Don’t send him up there, he’s drunk,’ protested Sydney, for Jimmy was incoherent and reeling but Jopp yelled angrily, ‘Mind your own business! I’m the boss here. You –’ to Jimmy – ‘get up there and start working.’
Jimmy staggered across the grass to the rickety-looking ladder that led to the bricklayers’ work-platform. Bullhead was up there already, for Sydney saw his bullet-head looking down. Things were quiet for the rest of the morning, but shortly after work began again following the midday break, the air was rent by a terrible scream as a body came hurtling down from the platform to the ground. While men stopped work and stared up in horror, the awful screaming trailed on until the body hit the ground with a terrible thud. There it squirmed as if it was trying to get up, but then it lay still with the limbs spread out like a stranded jellyfish. Everyone rushed across to the sprawled man. Jimmy-The-New-Man lay with his eyes staring up at the sky in speechless agony and his mop of fair hair matted with blood.
‘Christ, he’s still alive,’ said one man, staring down at the white face on the ground. The eyes flickered in response. Up above their heads, shocked faces were peering over the platform and someone was scrambling down the ladder to see what had happened. ‘Get a doctor,’ he said, kneeling beside Jimmy who was groaning and obviously so badly hurt that no one wanted to touch him. To Sydney another man said, ‘You got the doctor when the laddie broke his leg. Fetch him again.’
A carter’s horse was commandeered and once more Sydney set off across country to Maddiston, riding flat out. He did not really think that Jimmy would still be alive when he got back and he was furiously angry because he was sure that Bullhead had killed the poor lad.
When he and Robertson arrive back on site, however, Jimmy had not died – though it might have been better if he had. He was alive, in agony, bloodstained, misshapen and groaning on the floor of Miss Wylie’s hut with her standing beside him, white-faced and frightened. Robertson ran in and stopped short. ‘Dear God!’ he exclaimed at the sight of the injured man.
‘He fell from there…’ Emma Jane, whose teeth were chattering, pointed to the top of the bridge pier. It was at least a hundred feet high.
Robertson looked from the bridge to the broken man, shook his head and knelt down beside Jimmy, laying a hand on the bloodstained brow while Sydney seized Emma Jane’s arm and led her out of the hut. ‘Go home,’ he advised. ‘The men won’t work any more today after an accident like this. I’ll send you a message to tell you what happens.’ He could see that Jimmy had not long to live and did not want the girl to be there when he died. To his relief, she knew why he was anxious for her to leave and she walked away, pulling her shawl tightly over her shoulders as she went.
Back in the hut, Robertson looked up and said to Sydney, ‘He wants a priest. Can you send for one?’
A man standing in the doorway offered, ‘I’ll fetch him from Rosewell – I know him.’
Sydney squatted beside Robertson and asked, ‘Can you do anything?’
The answer was a shake of the head. ‘No. He’s broken his back, and other bones as well. The internal organs are damaged, too. He’ll not be with us long.’
Jimmy did not seem to be conscious but as this was said his eyes opened and he looked up into Sydney’s face. ‘Where’s Black Ace?’ he whispered.
‘In the Crimea, I think,’ Sydney told him, but the words meant nothing to the dying man who licked his lips and whispered, ‘I want to tell him something.’
‘Tell me and I’ll pass it on,’ said Sydney. He put his head down beside the bloody mouth the hear the words.
Jimmy’s breath was rasping in his throat as he croaked, ‘Tell him he was right about Mariotta. Bullhead killed her – and I helped him carry the body away. Now he’s done for me…’
Sydney looked from the dying man on the floor to the doctor standing at the table rummaging in his bag. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked sharply.
Robertson looked around, surprised. ‘Hear what?’
‘Did you hear what he said?’
‘No, I didn’t. I hope that priest doesn’t take hours to come. He’s not got much longer.’
Sydney gestured to him to come and kneel by the dying man again and he urged Jimmy on: ‘Tell the doctor what you told me, Jimmy.’
But his injuries were too severe. Jimmy was far gone; now he could only groan and before the priest arrived, he was mercifully dead.
When the body was carted away by Jo, Sydney said to Robertson, ‘He was murdered, you know. Bullhead did it. What can we do?’
‘We’ll have to go and tell the policeman in Rosewell,’ Robertson replied grimly.
Sydney was still furious. ‘Jopp shouldn’t have sent him up to the platform. He was drunk – but that wasn’t why he fell. He was pushed. He said so, but we’ll probably never be able to prove it.’
They fetched the policeman and sent for Emma Jane to come back again. The navvies crowded around her hut. Some of them had already started to drink, which was the navvy’s usual response to trouble. Bullhead was among the drinkers. While the policeman was painstakingly writing the fact of Jimmy’s death in a notebook, Sydney walked up to Bullhead and pulled him forward by the neck of his shirt. ‘Where were you when Jimmy fell off the bridge?’ he demanded.
‘Having a piss,’ said Bullhead coarsely.
‘Did anyone see him?’ Sydney asked the others, but they all hung their heads. At times like this they knew it was advisable to have seen nothing, good or bad. When the policeman questioned them he found that every man had gone conveniently blind when Jimmy fell. No one on the platform or the ground had anything to contribute and no one could say where Jimmy was standing before he plunged to his death. The first any of them knew of the accident, they said, was when he started to scream as he plummeted to the ground.
But Sydney was not satisfied. He shoved Bullhead towards the policeman. ‘He pushed him,’ he shouted in fury. ‘Jimmy said he pushed him.’
‘You’re mad. Prove it! Go on – prove it,’ was Bullhead’s reply. The veins were bulging in his forehead and his eyes were raging mad. Sydney knew that if Bullhead could have attacked him then, he would have killed him but he did not back down. ‘You did it,’ persisted Sydney.
Bullhead looked at him out of evil eyes. ‘And why was that then?’ he sneered.
‘Because of Mariotta. Because he knew you killed her and he was going to tell the truth about it.’
Bullhead pushed Sydney hard in the chest, sending him flying. ‘I’ve heard enough about that useless bitch,’ he snarled. ‘That’s finished. It was your friend Black Ace who killed her. His coat was on her – that’s why he took off. If you can prove anything else, just try. Just you try… you toffee-nosed bastard. And watch yourself or you’ll be sorry…’
Like Mariotta’s death, the killing of Jimmy-The-New- Man was officially listed as an accident. Again the authorities were prepared to let the navvy community look after itself – it was easier that way. The boy from Inverness was buried in one of Jo’s coffins in an unmarked grave by his workmates, and since there was nothing among his meagre possessions to give any clue of where he had come from, or if he had left any family behind to mourn him, his clothes were divided among the men in his hut and in a few days he was almost forgotten. Some of the older navvies were not altogether displeased by his death, for they believed that every big project, especially a bridge, always demanded human blood before it could be finished. Jimmy was a kind of ritual sacrifice which allowed them to breathe more freely, for it meant that the odds against them being killed were lessened.
When spring really began, the days lengthened and there was more heat in the sun. Parties of tourists and hopeful antiquaries drove out to look at the bridge, which was becoming a talking point for miles around. They even came from as far afield as Edinburgh, and among them were Sir Geoffrey and the new Lady Miller, who arrived to stay at Bella Vista.
To Bethya’s delight Sir Geoffrey’s second wife turned out to be old, gaunt and extremely tall – almost six feet in height – and as thin as a lathe. Towering over her husband in every way, she was very short-tempered and dismissive, addressing him as if he were an unruly dog. She was also very voluble, with opinions on every matter under the sun, and if her husband tried to interrupt her flow of words, he was quickly put in his place with a sharp, ‘Do be quiet, Miller.’
Bethya sat wide-eyed and smiling, encouraging Lady Miller to more and more conversational excesses while secretly exulting in the duplicitous Sir Geoffrey’s downfall. From time to time she dimpled at him and was rewarded by the anguish in his eye. When he attempted to put a hand on her arm going into dinner, she neatly lifted it off as if he had committed an act of gross over-familiarity.
It was arranged that the Millers and the Anstruthers should make a trip to the bridge to inspect work in progress. Though Sir Geoffrey received regular reports from Jopp and other informants, including Falconwood, he had not been to Camptounfoot in person since the cholera epidemic, so was eager to see for himself what Miss Wylie had achieved. By all accounts and against all expectations, she was doing very well – but he was not prepared to allow that to deflect his purpose. To him, Emma Jane Wylie was only an instrument towards an end. She was to be allowed to go as far as possible, for as long as she was useful, and then to be thrown aside at the end.
Only Colonel Anstruther and Bethya accompanied the Millers on their tour of inspection, for Gus never rose before noon and Mrs Anstruther avoided expeditions that bored her, and the bridge bored her very much. Sometimes she felt as if it was being built in her drawing room, and she would be very glad when the whole thing was finished and forgotten.
For the outing, Bethya was dressed in a very becoming pale-green gown with a back-tilted bonnet lined in the same colour and decorated with lilies of the valley. She’d taken a lot of trouble with her toilette that morning, and was pleased to see that Lady Miller was garbed in a garish gown of dark-green tartan and a bonnet that could have done duty for a coal scuttle. Colonel Anstruther, bouncing with excitement and enthusiasm, was clapping his hands together and exclaiming, ‘Let’s go, let’s go. They’ll have been working for hours already. They’re joining up the piers, you know. Magnificent sight, magnificent sight!’
It was a good day for an outing. The sky was pale-blue and the air as heady as champagne. Transparent green leaves festooned the trailing branches of the beech trees which lined the curving drive of Bella Vista, and the party rode along with the carriage top down so that they could admire the beauty of the Three Sisters, on which shoots of sweet green bracken were beginning to uncurl above banks of primroses.
‘What a fine day to be alive,’ exulted the Colonel, and beamed at his daughter-in-law who smiled unfeignedly back. She loved to see him happy.
Everyone drew in breaths of surprise and admiration when they caught their first sight of the bridge boldly rising across the broadest part of the valley. The piers in the river, even the one floated on wood, had withstood the onslaught of the winter floods and were in the process of being built up to match the others in the field. In all, nineteen tall, tapering and elegant needles of red sandstone seemed to sway and shimmer with deceptive fragility in the spring sunshine. The first six piers were joined together by high arches faced with pale-pink bricks so it was now possible to appreciate the impact the finished bridge would have. ‘Well, well, well. Who would have thought it? Quite Roman, really,’ said Sir Geoffrey, his eyes shining.
His wife interrupted him, ‘More Venetian, Miller. The colour’s Venetian, I think.’
He glowered at her. ‘Quite so, my dear.’
Colonel Anstruther was pointing to a group standing in the field beneath the shadow of the pillars. ‘There’s that girl – an amazing young woman I’d say, wouldn’t you, Miller? I never thought she’d get this far. She’s been on site every day, all through the bad weather. I must say I admire her.’
He had not been taken into Sir Geoffrey’s confidence or told about the plot being laid for Emma Jane. ‘Anstruther’s too soft-hearted in spite of all his bluster to make a really effective businessman,’ was Miller’s private assessment. In his opinion, it was one thing fighting wars against rebellious Indians, and quite another taking on ambitious entrepreneurs.
They dismounted from the carriage and made their way down the slope. Emma Jane had seen Sir Geoffrey from a distance and walked towards him warily, but he greeted her with apparent enthusiasm though his eyes were coldly summing her up. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a change in anyone in such a short time,’ he was thinking. The middle-class, decent-looking young woman he’d met before had become a ragamuffin with a freckled face and hair all a’straggle. She wasn’t even wearing a bonnet! However, she had a presence now that had been missing before, so his tone towards her was more deferential than in the past as he enquired, ‘My dear Miss Wylie, how are you coping with this enormous undertaking?’
To her he sounded as affable as a vicar opening a fete. ‘Well, I think,’ she said cautiously. Since the day when she’d fallen into the trap of being optimistic and Robbie had had his accident, she’d avoided open expressions of hope or enthusiasm, so much so that sometimes she felt afraid that she was affected by an attitude of continual pessimism.
Miller was walking around staring at the bridge with barely concealed surprise. ‘You’ve done more than well, more than well. Take us round and show us everything,’ he cried.
During their tour of inspection, they passed groups of navvies who paused in their work and gazed insolently at the visitors. Sydney, as usual, doffed his hat to Bethya in appreciation of her gown but registered the thought that he wouldn’t want to have to foot her dressmakers’ bills. She flushed at his salute and saw Lady Miller shooting her a sharp glance. Nothing missed that woman. Bullhead was in Sydney’s working party, and when he saw Bethya he gave a low groan. As soon as the party moved on, he leaned on his spade and told his companions in gloatingly pornographic detail what he’d like to do to her. Sydney who, from a sense of self-preservation, had given the bully a wide berth for weeks, stood up straight and snapped angrily, ‘Watch your tongue!’ The words came out without premeditation, brought on by his feeling that to have Bullhead lust after Bethya, even from a distance, was to defile her.
His companions roared with laughter while Bullhead mimicked him. ‘Watch your tongue! It’s not my tongue I’d be watching if I could get my hands on her. Got your eye on her yourself, have you? Is that what’s wrong? I thought you didn’t go in for women…’ The jeers went on and on in the hope of rousing Sydney to violence, but he tried to ignore them. When they did not stop, he threw down his spade and walked away for he knew that Bullhead was trying to incite him to a fight in which he would certainly come off worst. He was not foolhardy.
‘Why do I stay in this damned place? Why don’t I walk away? I’m not forced to stay here,’ he asked himself continually, angry thoughts running through his head in confusion as he climbed the hill behind the site and sat on its upper slope staring out over the countryside. In time its beauty and tranquillity soothed him.
It was dark when he went back to the camp, threw himself into bed and slept like a log, only to be wakened at dawn by the sound of a terrible rainstorm. Overnight the weather had changed and rain was teeming from a pewter-coloured sky. Most of the men were huddled in their huts gloomily watching the downpour through the open doors, but Sydney braved the onslaught and walked to the site where he found the ground awash. Rivulets were running over the field and the river was rising at a terrifying rate. Emma Jane was there, draped in a waterproof cape and staring fascinated at the remorseless flow of water. When Sydney stood beside her she glanced up with anguished eyes and said, ‘I hope it stops soon. I hope it doesn’t cause too much damage. Everything was going so well… I should have known!’
‘It’ll stop,’ he assured her. ‘It always does. Go home and wait for the storm to pass. You can’t do anything standing here, and nobody can work in this.’
It rained without cessation for two days. During that time the men in the camp turned as usual to drinking, gambling and fighting among themselves. The worst brawler was Bullhead. After the men in his hut combined forces to throw him out when he caused a fight after losing money in a card-game, he stamped off. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do, but he wanted to cause trouble, to hurt somebody. First of all he sought out Sydney, who fortunately could not be found for he had gone back to the bridge to watch the brown tumbling waters breaking round its truncated piers.
Thwarted, Bullhead wandered into Rosewell. ‘I’ll find a woman,’ he told himself, but none of the local prostitutes would take him on because he had abused them all in the past. By now he was raging with lust. The memory of Bethya Anstruther was vivid in his mind and because Sydney had defended her, he was even more eager to take revenge on womankind. In Rosewell women fled at the sight of him and, getting more and more angry, he went on walking till he reached Camptounfoot. The village street was deserted. Water flowed like a burn over its cobbles. The alehouse’s door was closed, so he hammered loudly on the wooden shutter which covered a hatch recently cut in the side wall for the serving of navvies. Some of them caused too much trouble if they were let inside. The hatch was thrown open and the alehouse proprietor’s face glared out. ‘What do you want?’ he asked truculently, because he recognised Bullhead as one of the worst offenders.
The big man snarled, ‘Ale. That’s what you sell, isn’t it?’
‘I know you. You’re barred – you’re a trouble-maker. Go away. I’ll sell no ale to the likes of you.’ And the shutter was slammed shut. No amount of angry hammering with both fists could get it opened again.
As Bullhead turned away in frustration he saw a figure come running out of a side alley and go hurrying up the street. It was a girl – he couldn’t believe his luck. Slinking like a predatory cat along the high wall, he followed her. She was scurrying in the direction of the farmsteading. Bullhead crept at her back. She turned into a shed and he could hear her rattling something within. Anger and lust rose in him as he stepped up to the open door and looked in. A young woman in bondager’s costume was pouring corn into a big metal bowl. He jumped into the shed, pulled the door closed behind him and moved towards her. She turned with guileless eyes wide and asked, ‘What do—?’ but before she could finish the question, he clapped a hand across her mouth and threw her on her back on the ground.
Wee Lily was a strong girl and she fought back furiously, but she was no match for Bullhead who grunted as he held her down, ‘Shut up, or I’ll kill you.’ His bloodshot eyes glared crazily into hers, and she knew he meant what he said. His hand was pressed against her mouth and though she bit into it, the palm was like leather from years of wielding shovels and she could not make him let go. He tore her skirt off and like a raging animal penetrated her, brutally and repeatedly. When he finally rose, spent, she lay with her head turned on the ground and tears running down her face. Buckling his belt, the big navvy laughed mockingly, kicked her in the side with his booted foot and strutted away.
Emma Jane, wrapped in her waterproof cape, was on her way back from a visit to the bridge when she met a distraught Big Lily in the street. ‘Have you seen my lassie? Have you seen Wee Lily?’ she asked, rushing up and laying a hand on Emma Jane’s arm.
‘No, I’ve not seen anybody. The whole place is deserted, thanks to this rain.’
‘I sent her out two hours ago to feed the hens and she’s not come back. I’ve been to the steading and the hen corn’s all scattered over the shed floor and her shawl’s there, but she isn’t. I’m feared something’s happened to her.’
‘Oh, nothing’ll have happened to her. I’ll come with you and help you look. Where would she go? She might have called in to see somebody. Did you ask Tibbie?’
‘I’ve been at all the neighbours but she’s not there. It’s no’ like her…’
‘Have you been at the farm?’
‘Craigie’s sisters won’t let her in. They’ve aye been jealous about me and Wee Lily, because of Craigie… and they’ve nae bairns of their ain, ye see.’
‘Let’s go to the farm, then. It’s the only place left,’ said Emma Jane sensibly, taking hold of Big Lily’s hand. ‘Come on – I’ll go with you.’
They rapped on the farmhouse door and after a long wait it was opened by a wizened little woman who looked like an aged fieldmouse. She stared at Big Lily with hostile eyes and said, ‘He’s in his bed. Just get on with the work. You know what’s to be done — go and do it.’
Emma Jane spoke up. ‘We’ve come to ask if you’ve seen Wee Lily.’
The tiny eyes switched to her but the gaze did not soften. ‘No, why should I?’ Then the door was slammed shut.
The two disappointed women were about to walk away when Big Lily suddenly stopped. ‘I hear her, I hear her. She’s in the wash-house,’ she cried.
At the side of the farmhouse was a low-built, stonewalled structure where the women washed clothes. The door stood ajar and from within came a little voice crying, ‘Oh Mam, oh Mam… help me, Mam.’ They ran over and Big Lily burst in to find her daugher huddled in a corner, half-naked with the ragged remnants of her skirt held in front of her and her torn blouse revealing bruised plump breasts.
‘Dear God, Lily, what’s happened to you?’ cried the anguished mother, dropping to her knees beside the weeping girl.
‘Oh Mam, he came into the shed and grabbed me. He did terrible things to me and then he kicked me.’ Wee Lily put a hand on her side where her ribs ached, for Bullhead had broken one of them.
Big Lily stood up with her face thunderous. ‘Oh bairn, it wasnae Craigie, was it?’ Emma Jane, listening with horror, wondered about the circumstances in which Big Lily had conceived her child.
Wee Lily groaned, ‘No Mam, not Craigie, yin o’ thae navvies. I’ve seen him at the bridge – a big one with a red face. He smelled something horrible.’ Then she started crying again.
They lifted her to her feet and covered her nakedness with Emma Jane’s cape. ‘Come on home, bairn, come on home. Dinna hide in here, you’ve no’ done anything wrong,’ Big Lily told her grimly.
‘I just want to dee,’ sobbed Wee Lily, but she stood up and leaned on her mother. Between them they guided her back to the bondagers’ bothy and as she staggered along, she sobbed, ‘He said he’d kill me. “I’ll kill you, you bitch, I’ll kill you” – that’s what he kept on saying all the time. Oh Mam, I was that feared and it hurt so much. Why does it hurt so much?’
‘Watch here a minute, I’m going to ask the smith to fetch the doctor to her. He might have hurt her bad,’ said Big Lily to Emma Jane, when they got the girl inside the house. She ran off in the direction of the smithy and Emma Jane sat holding Wee Lily’s hand, listening to her terrible description of the rape. The girl couldn’t stop talking about it.
‘He jumped on top of me, he had me round the throat. “I’ll kill you, you bitch!” Oh God, it’s sair!’
When Big Lily came back she nodded to indicate that William was on his way to Dr Stewart’s and then she said urgently to Emma Jane, ‘Go and bring Tibbie – she’ll ken what to do.’
When Tibbie heard the awful tale, she ran straight out of her cottage without even taking off her long apron, and burst into the bondagers’ bothy. Wee Lily looked up, saw her standing in the doorway and began her story all over again. ‘He threw me doon among the corn… he was grunting like a pig… After he got up he kicked me. It’s so sair…’
Tibbie nodded as she listened and then she said, ‘I’ll make up a brew for her just in case – you know – but let’s hope nothing’s happened. Has she had her bleeding recently?’
Big Lily shrugged hopelessly. ‘About two weeks ago. She only started last year. She was late, like me.’
‘Then this is the worst time. But I’ll make her a potion and we’ll see what we can do.’
‘The doctor’s coming,’ said Big Lily. ‘Maybe he’ll do something.’
‘I doubt it,’ replied Tibbie drily.
Dr Stewart did not want to go out in the rain, but he could not refuse William Strang for he sent his carriage horses to Camptounfoot for shoeing and Tibbie’s brother was the best smith in the district.
‘Are you sure it’s an emergency?’ he asked, and the black-bearded smith nodded firmly.
‘A lassie’s been attacked. She needs your help, Doctor.’
William stood his ground, solemn and strong, so Stewart had to go with him. When he was shown into the bothy, the physician’s nose wrinkled and he stared around in disapproval, for this was not the sort of house he liked to visit. Lily was by this time in bed and slightly calmer, but she cowered back like a scared animal as the doctor leaned over to look at the bruises on her body. The pain in her ribs made her cry out when he tried to turn her over.
‘She’s been beaten,’ he said.
‘She was raped,’ Big Lily told him indignantly.
‘Raped?’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘She’s a big girl. Most females who say they’ve been raped co-operate, you know. I’ve never heard of a genuine case of a woman being taken without her consent. A strong girl can fight a man off if she wants.’
‘He said he’d kill me,’ sobbed Wee Lily as her mother bristled in her defence.
‘She’s only fifteen and she was a virgin, as innocent as a lamb,’ she shouted.
Stewart frowned in disapproval of such impolite behaviour. ‘Did she know the man?’ he asked.
‘Of course not.’ Big Lily was so angry she looked as if she wanted to hit him.
‘How do you know? Were you there?’ asked the doctor.
‘Of course I wasn’t! You don’t think I’d let a man rape her if I was, do you?’ He said nothing and Big Lily, angered beyond endurance, burst out with, ‘Like I said, my lassie was a virgin till this happened and I’m feared that he’s given her a bairn.’
Stewart straightened up from the bed. ‘I can do something for her broken rib and for her bruises, but if she’s pregnant, she’ll just have to bear it. There’s nothing I can do about that.’
Before he left, Craigie Scott came bursting in, for William had gone to fetch him. Tibbie had not seen Craigie for many months, and was astonished by the sight of him. His hair had grown so long that it was nearly at his shoulders, and a beard covered most of his face. His eyes were the same though, mad and raging.
‘Is it true? Has some navvy hurt Wee Lily?’ he asked, looking around at the women in the house.
‘Aye, she was raped,’ Tibbie said heavily. ‘The doctor says she’s got a broken rib as well. He’s bandaged it up for her.’
Craigie glared at Stewart. ‘How much is your fee?’ he demanded.
‘Five shillings,’ was the reply.
‘Here – take it,’ grunted Craigie, reaching into his pocket and bringing out some coins. When Stewart had gone, he looked at Big Lily and said, ‘Which navvy did it?’
‘The big one with the red face. The folk in the alehouse say he was in there asking for beer before he found Wee Lily in the shed. It’s the one they had to bar for fighting. He’s on the bridge gang and he aye wears a red scarf round his neck. Bullhead’s his name…’
Craigie nodded. ‘I know the one. Leave it with me.’ Then he went away and the people left behind stared at each other in amazement at how calm and rational he sounded.
It went on raining all night, teeming down with relentless fury, battering against the window glass and filling the burns and wells. Craigie Scott sat in his farmhouse listening to the fury of the storm and drinking whisky. He was not normally a liquor-drinking man, for he resented what he called pouring money down his throat. Usually his refreshment was the watery ale his sisters brewed and which local people said would drown you before it fuddled you. There was, however, a line of big, brown earthenware jars full of whisky in his cellar and occasionally when people called he would unbend sufficiently to offer them a glass from his secret store. It was one of those jars that he hauled up when he came back from seeing Wee Lily, and all night long he sat drinking from it while his frightened sisters, who did not sleep either, peeped round the edge of the door at him, pleading with him to stop drinking and go to bed. He didn’t answer, for by that time he was carefully taking apart and oiling his shotgun. His sisters clung together in despair and whispered to each other.
First one and then the other tried to stop him, but Craigie ignored them and went on with his task.
At dawn Emma Jane was wakened from sleep by a tremendous hammering at Tibbie’s front door. ‘Miss Wylie, Miss Wylie, get up! The embankment’s slipping!’ It was Jopp’s voice and he was in a panic. He had arrived in a dogcart and she climbed in beside him for a pell-mell ride round by Rosewell to the north side of the bridge.
He was right. The terrible rain had washed away at the end of the piled-up northern embankment. Only the stone pier that had faced it stood stark against the side of the hill with a huge, washed-out void behind it. Obviously it would not stand there for long before it came crashing down as well, because a cascade of water was running round it towards the river far below.
Emma Jane looked aghast at the sight. ‘The bridge-end’s gone. The embankment’s not packed hard enough.’
Jopp was in a panic because he was afraid the railway directors would blame him for this collapse. The embankment was his responsibility, and if its fall held up the progress of the bridge, that could not be blamed on Emma Jane, and might in fact earn her extra time to finish her contract. He turned on her in a fury. ‘It’s not my fault – it’s the rain. It wasn’t full finished before the rain got it. Don’t blame me.’
She stared hard at him. ‘I’m not blaming you. What we’ve got to do now is to stop the whole thing from sliding away. We must call out the men and divert that flow of water.’
Jopp was beside himself. ‘I’ve sent for them, I’ve sent for them. They’re coming. Oh my God, when’s this damned rain going to stop!’
For two hours they worked, digging, heaving, ditching… The men sweated so heavily that their soaking shirts steamed on their backs, but they could not stop the inevitable. At half-past nine there was a tremendous crash and the first pier, the one that was meant to bear the weight of the whole bridge, crashed into the river. When the noise died away and the splashing subsided, Emma Jane, standing high on the embankment, stared down on the ruin of her hopes, sunk her face in her hands and began to cry.
The men around turned to give her support, especially Gentleman Sydney who said, ‘Don’t worry, Miss Wylie. We’ll build it up again and we’ll build it better next time.’
He put out a hand to help her off the embankment, but as she was clambering down they were both almost knocked over by a man who came running up from the field below. His hair was flying and he was only wearing a shirt and a pair of working trousers belted round his waist. In his hand he carried a gleaming gun. Emma Jane clutched Sydney’s arm. ‘It’s Craigie Scott, the farmer from Camptounfoot,’ she gasped.
Craigie paid no heed to her or to Sydney. It was a figure standing in a group on the top of the pile of earth that drew all his attention. Bullhead turned when the man walked up behind him and shouted, ‘Which one’s Bullhead? Are you Bullhead?’
The big man looked him up and down insolently. ‘I’m Bullhead,’ he said. ‘Who wants me?’
Craigie Scott didn’t answer. Instead he raised the rifle, took careful aim and shot Bullhead full in the face from a range of five feet. Blood and brains spattered in all directions as his victim screamed and put his hands up to his shattered head. Very slowly he sank to his knees with blood spurting out between his fingers. Then he fell over sideways and lay still.
‘Oh my God, don’t look, don’t look,’ cried Sydney and grabbed the girl, pulling her towards him and burying her face in his wet shirt-front.
Bullhead was killed outright, and Craigie Scott lowered his rifle with a strange abstracted look on his face. The man standing next to him, a quiet and responsible fellow, put out a hand and said very gently, ‘Give me the gun.’ Without argument it was passed over. ‘Come and sit down,’ said the man in the same tone, and he led the dazed Craigie away.
When Sydney saw them go he loosened his grip on Emma Jane, who had been shaking and quivering against his chest. ‘He’s gone,’ he said, releasing her fully.
She looked up at him with agonised eyes, not daring to look around. ‘Is Bullhead dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s in revenge, because he raped Wee Lily, Craigie’s daughter, last night,’ she explained.
Sydney was not surprised. Whatever Bullhead had done to deserve his final retribution, it had been coming to him for a long, long time. Craigie Scott was only the instrument of Nemesis.
‘You’re soaked and you’re shocked. I’ll take you home,’ he told the shuddering girl.
When he handed her over to Tibbie, who listened horrified to the tale he had to tell, he drove to Maddiston to fetch Alex Robertson. There was nothing the young doctor could do for Bullhead except write the death certificate, but Sydney thought he might be able to help Emma Jane, who was on the verge of hysteria though she had not yet realised it.
Half an hour later, a frightened-looking Tibbie opened her cottage door to Robertson and solemnly pointed up the stairs to Emma Jane’s room. ‘She’s up there and she’s bad. She can’t stop crying,’ she said distractedly.
Sydney entered the house behind his friend and stood in the hall while the doctor climbed the stair. Then he turned to Tibbie and asked, ‘Have you heard anything from your son-in-law? Do you know where he is?’
She nodded. ‘He’s in a place called Balaclava. He sent me a letter to say he’s in the Crimea.’
‘That’s what I thought. Thank you,’ he said.