The navvies were working on a steeply rising gradient of land called Frenchman’s Hill, when a young fresh-faced ensign came galloping up. ‘Which one’s Maquire?’ he called out.
For a moment Tim did not respond. He had grown so used to being addressed as Black Ace, which was the name he had given to Peto when he signed up at Whitechapel, that now he responded to nothing else.
‘Which one of you is called Timothy Maquire?’ repeated the ensign irritably. In his hand he held a slip of paper that fluttered in the breeze. He was resentful at being ordered by his Colonel to deliver a telegraphic message to a navvy, for the ensign was a prim young man who regarded those brawling, outrageous characters as little better than heathens.
Tim straightened up from his work and called out, ‘I’m Maquire. What do you want?’
The ensign wheeled his horse and said haughtily, ‘It’s not what I want – a telegraphic message has come for you. My Colonel ordered me to bring it over.’
The telegraph line between London and Balaclava was the most recent modern miracle. It has been completed only weeks before, and was used exclusively by the Army or by people with influence like the correspondent for The Times. The men looked at Tim with awe and one of them said, ‘You must have friends in high places.’
He rubbed his head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know who could have sent it, but let’s have it.’ He walked over to the impatient ensign and accepted the paper that was thrust at him. ‘Tim Maquire in the navvy gang at Balaclava’ was written along the top.
‘Yes, it’s for me,’ he told his companions. Then he read the rest of the message silently to himself. ‘Come back at once. Crisis at bridge. All arranged for you to leave. Godolphin.’
Godolphin? Gentleman Sydney was called Godolphin, wasn’t he? That was what he’d put on Tim’s wedding certificate. Why was he sending telegraphic messages? Was it some kind of a joke?
He crumpled up the paper and put it into his pocket. One of his friends asked, ‘Not bad news, I hope?’
Tim shook his head. ‘It’s a joke, I think.’ But he knew it wasn’t. He had some hard thinking to do.
That night when work was over, Tim and his companions walked the six miles back to the neat lines of huts where they had lived for four months while building a railway between the port of Balaclava and the fort at Sebastopol, which was under siege by the Allied forces. The Army needed a constant line of supply, and the navvies were working flat out to build eight miles of railway line to take it to them. They had worked so hard that they had broken all records and laid seven miles of line in seven weeks. Only one mile remained to be completed.
The navvy camp above the port was neater and more orderly than any Tim had lived in before. That was because the men Peto recruited were hand-picked. They were there to work and work hard. Trouble-making ruffians had not been taken on. In spite of that, there were, of course, outbreaks of fighting and disorder from time to time, because navvies were navvies and to keep them sweet their employers not only paid over-the-odds wages of eight shillings a day, but issued a free rum ration four times a day as well. Some of the men were never sober – but they said they worked better that way. Others, like Tim, drank the rum because they believed it made them immune to the terrible fevers that ravaged the Army camps – and they might have been right, for the navvies lost far fewer men to fever and illness than the military.
As Tim walked into the main street running past the hut doors, he saw James Beatty, Chief Engineer of the line, waiting outside the hut where he was billeted. Beatty saw him coming and walked quickly towards him. ‘I’ve had a message about you,’ he said. ‘You’ve to go back to England by the next available ship.’
‘What if I refuse?’
Beatty frowned. ‘Nothing was said about that. I was just told to release you. Some trouble at home, I understand. The order came from Peto – he says you’re to be let out of your contract. There’s only a month of it left to run anyway. I’ll be sorry to lose you, Black Ace, you’re one of my best men, but orders are orders.’
‘I can’t understand this. I haven’t any family at home, only a mother-in-law. She wouldn’t be sending orders to Peto.’
‘The Duke of Allandale contacted the War Office, apparently, and they got on to Peto. Strings have been pulled in high places,’ shrugged Beatty.
‘I got a message too,’ said Tim, handing it over.
Beatty read it and wrinkled his brow. ‘What bridge? And who’s Godolphin?’
‘He’s a navvy like me. I’m just hoping he’s not making some hare-brained joke.’
‘He’d better not be. If he has involved the War Office in his joke, he’ll end up in the Tower. But I’d go if I were you. You might find you’ve inherited a fortune,’ grinned the engineer.
Tim laughed. ‘No risk of that!’
‘There’s a ship going back from here tomorrow night on the tide. You’ve a berth on her, as I understand it – that’s been arranged, too. Some guardian angel has an eye on you, Black Ace. If you come to me tomorrow I’ll pay you what’s due. As I said, I’m sorry you’re going but we must obey the orders of our betters, mustn’t we?’
‘Must we?’ said Tim grimly. ‘I’ll have to think about this. I like being here – I might not want to go back. What’s there to go back for, anyway?’
‘There’s this bridge – whatever’s wrong with it. They want you for that, I believe.’
Tim nodded. ‘Yes, there’s the bridge. I’ll think about it, Mr Beatty. I’ll let you know tomorrow.’
He lay awake most of the night staring out through the open hut door at a black velvet sky that sparkled with stars. It was warm and the air smelt sweet, for they were high above the port and surrounded by trees. He smoked black cheroots while he pondered. ‘Will I go? There’s trouble at Wylie’s bridge, obviously. Why should that bother me?’
Then he remembered Christopher Wylie’s burning vision of the bridge, how he talked about it with shining eyes. He’d infected Tim with his enthusiasm at the time, but poor Wylie had died and Tim’s world had crashed around him. Who cared about a bridge any more when you were dead or broken-hearted?
But Wylie’s words came back: ‘I want to build a bridge with such impact that it’ll take people’s breath away.’
Tim thought of the Wylie girl. As he had anticipated, she must have come a cropper. It probably meant that all Wylie’s money would be lost. Everything gone… Everything Wylie had worked for dissipated and nothing left behind, not even his dream of a bridge. He recalled what Wylie had told him of the contract into which the railway company had manoeuvred him, and it seemed to Tim as if the old man was calling out to him. ‘You were good to me, Mr Wylie,’ he said aloud. ‘I know I owe you this.’
He turned on his side and stubbed out his cheroot. Anyway, the Crimea contract ended in May. In only a few weeks he’d be wandering the world again. He might as well go back and finish the job he’d started. Beneath his thin pillow he felt the crackling of the paper on which Naughten had drawn Hannah. He always kept it there. The reason he’d fled from Camptounfoot was because everything reminded him of her, but he’d discovered that travel didn’t take away memories. Even in Balaclava the vision of her still haunted him.
Next morning he stood in Beatty’s office and received his wages in gold. It was more money than he’d ever possessed at any one time in his whole life, because Beatty did not work the truck system and was an honest man who acted as a bank for navvies who did not want to dissipate all their earnings. Tim, who had worked every available day for five months and spent little, had over fifty pounds to his credit. Feeling rich, he went to the wharf to put his bag on board the ship that was to carry him home.
The port was bustling with labourers unloading ships, and carts drawn by mules or oxen were lined up along the quays. Among them wandered men in native dress and scarlet-coated soldiers on furlough, who gazed longingly at the troopships being loaded up with their comrades who were lucky enough to be wounded or ill.
Tim had been allocated a place on a clipper called Wildfire – the same vessel that had carried Peto’s band from Birkenhead. The captain recognised him and called down from the bridge, ‘Going back with us, are you? You’re lucky the weather’s good. We should be in Birkenhead in two weeks if this wind keeps up.’
On his last afternoon in Balaclava, Tim went to the huge market that had grown up near the navvy camp. The men called it Donnybrook Fair, and in its thickly-packed alleys you could buy almost anything from anywhere in the world… cigars and cheroots, exotic alcohol, silks, gold and silver, spices, strange sweetmeats, beautifully-wrought brass and copper vessels, carpets and rugs, jewellery, pet animals ranging from monkeys to snakes, parrots which talked and toys for children… With a pain in his heart he remembered Kate and wished he had a child to buy presents for as he walked from stall to stall, picking up things and looking at them. The money in his pocket clinked and he was back in memory to that wonderful day with Hannah, buying food for Benjy’s after their first night together. How Hannah would have relished this place, he thought, and reeled again from the painful realisation that she was dead. ‘How long will it take before it stops hurting?’ he asked himself miserably.
In the end he bought a pair of piratical-looking gold earrings for himself, and submitted to the ordeal of having his ears pierced by the vendor, who performed the operation with an enormous needle and a piece of cork which he held behind Tim’s earlobe with dirty fingers. ‘I’d better rinse my ears with my rum ration tonight,’ was his chief thought when the needle stabbed through the soft flesh.
He wanted a gift for Tibbie, too, and spent a long time pondering over what she would like, finally choosing a long scarf of finest silk interwoven with gold and silver. It was graded in shimmering shades of violet, purple and mauve and he was sure that no one in Camptounfoot would have ever seen anything like it. He was sorely tempted to also buy her a parrot in a brass cage that cocked an eye at him and said, ‘Bonjour’, but decided against it. He’d travel lighter if he had no baggage that couldn’t be dropped by the wayside. He was still not entirely sure that he was really going back to Camptounfoot.
When he bade farewell to his friends, they clapped him on the back and told him that they’d be sure to meet again on some navvying job in the future. One of them offered to give him a shave, for his beard had grown while he was in Balaclava and was now a thick, curling beaver that glistened blackly round his chin. He was quite proud of it in fact and put a hand protectively on it. ‘No, I’ll keep it.’
‘Yes, you keep it,’ said one of the other men. ‘With those earrings and that beard you look like Morgan the Pirate.’
On his way to the ship that night, flushed with rum and friendship, he suddenly stopped, turned back and ran to Donnybrook Fair where he bought the talking parrot.
To Tim’s surprise, Gentleman Sydney was waiting on the platform at Maddiston station when he alighted from the train. He strolled towards Tim, as negligent-looking as ever, and said as casually as if it was only yesterday since they had last met, ‘Where have you been? I’ve met every train from the south for two days. The Wildfire arrived at Liverpool four days ago.’
Tim did not tell him that two days, and more importantly two nights, had passed very pleasantly in the company of the daughter of the proprietor of the inn where he’d put up on arrival at Birkenhead. She’d taken a tremendous shine to him and it had been difficult to drag himself away. It was the first time he’d made love since Hannah died, for he didn’t relish prostitutes, and the happy experience had lifted some of his gloom. Sydney didn’t need telling, however. ‘A woman, eh? Well done, that’s what you need. But what’s that on your face and what’s all this?’ He indicated first the beard and then the parrot.
Tim laughed, white teeth flashing beneath the beard. ‘Don’t you like my beard? And that’s a parrot for Tibbie. I call it Napoleon because it speaks French.’
Sydney sighed and lifted up the cage by the ring in the. ‘Well, well, travel does broaden the mind, doesn’t it?’ he said sarcastically.
He had a dogcart waiting with a driver at the reins of a workmanlike-looking cob. Tim raised his eyebrows when he saw that the man was wearing livery, but Sydney only said, ‘Get in, there’s a lot to tell you.’
‘The first thing I want to know is what’s this all about? Then I’d like to hear how you managed it. Sending telegraph messages to Balaclava can’t be easy.’
Sydney laughed. ‘It is if you’ve the right friends – that’s another advantage of an expensive education. But seriously, I sent for you because you’re the only person I could think of who has a chance in hell of finishing that bridge in time for poor Miss Wylie. I can’t, and Jopp won’t. She doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her. She’s tried so hard.’
Tim stared at his friend’s face. ‘“Poor Miss Wylie”? It sounds as if you’re smitten with her.’
But Sydney shook his head. ‘No, I’m not, though our friend the doctor is, poor devil. If I were a better person I might have been, but nice girls don’t appeal to me in that way, I’m afraid, and Emma Jane Wylie is a very nice girl indeed. Things are desperate, Black Ace. She needs your help.’
Tim said flatly, ‘Why should I help her? I didn’t like her much.’
‘But you liked her father, and what she’s doing is because of him. I don’t think for a moment she’d be plodding through mud every day if it wasn’t for that. She’s trying to salvage something from the ashes of his hopes.’
‘Very poetic,’ commented Tim. ‘What’s gone wrong exactly? And give it to me in plain language, please.’
‘What’s gone wrong is that Jopp’s out to make her fall down on her part of the contract – the bridge itself. He’s succeeded in stirring up discontent among the workforce. They strike, they go slow, they fight among themselves… you know, the usual things when men are fed up. They need someone to pull them together and they need to see that the job’s going to end soon. It’s gone on too long. And then there was the trouble with Jimmy and Bullhead.’
Tim didn’t know about that and had to be told. He was sorry about Jimmy, but the death of Bullhead seemed to him to be well-deserved, especially when Sydney explained about Mariotta and Wee Lily. ‘I’d have thought that bastard being blown away would make things better, not worse. What happened to the man who shot him?’ he asked.
‘Oh, they shut him up. He’s raving mad. They didn’t hang him because Bullhead had raped his daughter and he was taking primitive vengeance. Local opinion is very much on his side,’ said Sydney.
‘There’s been a lot of drama in Camptounfoot since I went away,’ Tim commented wryly. ‘They can’t have had so much excitement there since time began. But Bullhead getting shot hasn’t stopped the bridge being built, has it?’
‘No,’ Sydney agreed, ‘but you haven’t heard it all yet. The rain swept the north embankment away and took the pier with it. The railway company’s hopping mad because that’s their responsibility, not Miss Wylie’s. She can’t finish the bridge though, until it’s built back up. That’s where we were working when the farmer shot Bullhead.’
Tim gaped. ‘The north pier swept away? That was the first one that Mr Wylie and I built, and we thought it would stand till Doomsday.’
‘It would have done if it hadn’t been affected by the collapsing embankment.’
‘But Jopp was building the embankment, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s what I’m telling you. He was in a terrible state in case his bosses in Edinburgh blamed him for the collapse. They’ve had to give Miss Wylie another few weeks’ grace because of it, and that makes them mad. The point is, it fell down and took the bridgehead with it. Even though she’s got extra time, it’s only three or four weeks, and the project will be months overdue unless there’s a miracle. I thought you might be that miracle.’
Tim sighed, ‘August the first’s the original finishing date, and three weeks or so takes you to the end of the month. Today is May the twentieth. If there’s a whole pier to build up again, I don’t see how it can be done. How far has the rest of the bridge got? Is it almost completed?’
Sydney nodded. ‘Yes, amazingly it is. All but the spans over the river are finished and it’s a good job they weren’t up or they’d have come down too. Once they’re in place, only the superstructure has to be erected and the track laid—’
‘In two months? Impossible,’ said Tim categorically.
‘Try it,’ urged Sydney. ‘Go on – try it. What this project needs now is new energy and enthusiasm. Everybody’s tired and dispirited. Even the girl is tired and I’m so sick of the whole thing that I’ve only been waiting for you to come before I leave. I’m off tonight.’
Tim stared at him. ‘Tonight? That’s quick. What’s your hurry?’
‘I told you, I’ve been hanging on waiting for you. But I’ve also had a death in my family. I’ve got to go back. My runaway days are over, I’m afraid.’
‘I’ve always wondered about you, but you don’t give much away, do you? Have you a wife somewhere that you’re trying to dodge? Is that what this is all about?’ Tim asked curiously.
‘Oh no, no wife. But I’ve a father – or at least I had a father. He’s the one who has died and that is why I’ve to go back. I have a younger sister and brother, you see. Well, a half-sister and brother by two different mothers. My father was a serial marrier. My mother was the first. She stood him for twelve years before she died. That’s the longest any of his wives survived.’
Sydney’s voice was hard and Tim could tell that this was not a subject that ought to be pursued. ‘I hope we don’t lose touch when you’ve gone,’ he said, and Sydney grinned.
‘Oh, I’ll always keep in touch with you, Black Ace. Didn’t I tell you once how I pride myself on recognising men with potential? You’re going places in spite of the beard and the parrot. We’ll meet again – don’t worry about that.’
When they drove into Rosewell, Tim turned to his friend and said, ‘Drop me at the Abbey first. I want to see Hannah’s grave. I want to tell her that I’m back.’
‘Of course. I’ll take your traps and that awful bird to Mrs Mather’s and then I’m off. Goodbye, Black Ace. Do your best for the bridge. I’ll come and see it when it’s finished.’ Sydney stuck out his hand and Tim grasped it. Then they parted.
The ruins of the Abbey looked grim and skeletal beneath a grey sky. Rain was drifting on the wind and the trees and bushes in the burial-ground were bent to the west by its force. Moss-covered gravestones leaned at strange angles, some sideways, some forwards, some deep in the ground as if the inhabitants of the grave were hauling the stone down in beside them. There were no paths and he had to weave his way among the haphazardly-placed stones till he reached the boundary wall where the cholera mound was plainly visible, but mercifully covered now with a carpet of green turf spangled with daisies and wild flowers. The white marble memorial stood at the end where he’d put it, rain-washed and shining. Flavia and her daughter stared at each other with the same look of love. Tim felt tears prick his eyes as he stood looking at them. To his relief, the grief that he felt didn’t have the terrible impact on him that he had feared. It was still acute, but also more settled and philosophical. His wound was healing. He’d been right to come back, to stand on the mound and accept that his wife and child were really dead. He would never have been free of grief if he hadn’t.
Alex Robertson was in love, and it was making him neglect his work. Almost every evening he could be seen under the first span of the bridge waiting, as if by accident, for Emma Jane when she walked back to Camptounfoot. When she appeared, he would dismount from his horse and walk with her, listening sympathetically as she talked about the day’s work. She liked his company so she talked freely to him, more freely than she did to any other man around her, though not quite as freely as she did to Tibbie or Robbie. His gentle nature and slow smile were soothing, and she began to look forward to their evening rendezvous. She had no idea that he was in love with her, but felt that he was nervous in her company and hoped he might relax when he got to know her better.
She always had something fresh to tell him when they met, and on one sweetly-smelling spring evening, she burst out with, ‘I had a visit from Sir Geoffrey Miller today.’
‘Did you know he was coming?’ he asked, but she shook her head.
‘No, he just appeared with Jopp. They’re very rattled about the embankment collapse. He offered to take the contract off my hands – at least, that’s how he put it.’
‘If he paid enough you should accept his offer,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not good for you to be working like this. You’ll wear yourself out.’ His look was adoring but she wondered if he was dropping a hint about something amiss in her state of health that had so far escaped her.
‘I feel quite well,’ she said defensively. ‘Anyway, Sir Geoffrey’s not prepared to pay enough money for the contract. His offer this time is more than it was before, but it’s still paltry. I suspect he thinks Jopp can do the rest of the bridge without my plans. He probably could. His big worry now’s the north pier, and this will hold up the schedule which will give me more time.’
Robertson asked gravely, ‘Are you only doing this for the money? Is that all that matters to you?’
She was surprised. ‘Of course not! Anyway, the money’s not for me. I’ve got my mother to consider. From my point of view, the real object is to get my father’s bridge built the way he imagined it, and by a member of his family. It’s Wylie’s Bridge – my bridge too, in a way. It’s like my child. Isn’t that silly? A child as big as that…’ She threw her hands up to the piers soaring above her head for they were walking under the first arch at that very moment and though Robertson’s heart expanded with love and admiration as he watched her, he felt that she was being too idealistic.
‘How much did Sir Geoffrey offer you to give it up?’ he asked.
‘Three thousand pounds,’ said Emma Jane.
‘That’s a lot of money.’
‘No,’ she disagreed. ‘My father’s debts amount to much more than that, and as I’ve said, there’s my mother to consider. She needs an income for the rest of her life.’
‘But she must understand that things will have to change for her now that your father’s dead.’
Emma Jane looked at him and spoke frankly. ‘She’s very spoiled and unworldly. Mama closes her mind to anything unpleasant. It’s a great gift – I wish I could do it.’ The letters that had arrived for her from Aunt Louisa recently said her mother was much recovered in health, but Louisa was still scathing about life in the cottage.
‘When you’ve finished, this nonsense with the bridge, you’ll have to sell this terrible cottage and buy a decent house for your mother. I’ve been looking at suitable properties already because I’ve decided to live with dear Arabella permanently,’ she wrote. The thought of spending the rest of her life with her mother and her aunt together made Emma Jane’s toes curl. She’d rather go on building bridges in the rain and mud forever.
By now she and Alex were walking past Craigie Scott’s house, which looked grim and blank-eyed now that the owner was in the asylum. His sisters still lived there and the two Lilies went on working the land because they all believed that Craigie would get better and come back one day. The sisters were completely ungrateful to their industrious bondagers, however, never acknowledging that without them the farm would revert to a wilderness, but Big Lily worked on stoically, for she knew what was needed at every season of the year and was prepared to go on doing it without thanks.
At Tibbie’s door Emma Jane said to the doctor, ‘Tie up your horse round the back and come in for a cup of tea. Tibbie won’t mind, she likes company.’ He didn’t need asking twice. ‘I’ll let you in at the back door,’ said the girl, slipping into the little hall. When she opened the door to the kitchen, however, she was surprised to see that Tibbie had company already. A tall, black-bearded man was sitting at the table drinking tea. Beside him on the floor stood a huge brass cage with a green and yellow parrot in it. The bird looked up at Emma Jane with a beady eye and croaked: ‘Bonjour, ma belle.’
The man laughed and looked at her too. When their eyes met she felt as if she’d been punched in the solar plexus; the breath was driven out of her body and she had to fight to collect herself. Tim Maquire was staring at her and he was looking as dashing as a dandy, dressed in a short jacket with black braiding round it, a white shirt and a floppy bow tie made of scarlet silk. Beneath the jacket was a waitcoat of red and gold brocade with glittering buttons. What made him even more eye-catching was the fact that his skin was very brown, his beard very thick and there were two bright golden rings glittering in his ears. Her legs seemed to have lost the power to hold her up any longer and Dr Robertson, coming in the kitchen door at that moment, saw something was wrong so he rushed over to help her into a chair.
‘Sit down – you’re exhausted. I’ve told you this can’t go on,’ he said warningly.
Tibbie was worried by Emma Jane’s reaction, too. ‘Oh, did Tim give you a fright? It’s that beard. You’ll have to shave it off, my lad, it makes you look like a dervish. Doctor Robertson, of course you remember Tim Maquire – my Hannah’s man? He’s back from the Crimea and he’s brought me a parrot and the loveliest scarf you’ve even seen.’
Proudly she draped a length of shimmering silk between her outspread hands and Emma Jane touched it admiringly, astonished at how fast her heart was beating. She wondered if she was going to faint. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said politely to Tibbie, but with an effort. She felt Maquire’s eyes on her and wondered what he was thinking.
‘Are you back on a visit, Mr Maquire?’ she asked him in a formal tone. His eyes were still fixed on her face and she felt her own gaze hardening in self-defence.
‘Not really. I’m looking for work – I thought you might be able to use me,’ he said.
‘Oh, indeed I could,’ she gasped, and then felt silly at having been so effusive, but for the first time in weeks a glimpse of light appeared in the gloom of her prospects.
He didn’t stay long after that. ‘I’ll have to go and find lodgings in Rosewell. I’m not going back to the camp. I’ll spend tonight at the Abbey Hotel and look for something better tomorrow,’ he told them as he stood up to leave. Then he put on his big hat, shook hands with Alex and strode away down the street.
Tibbie came back from seeing him off with a starry look on her face. ‘That’s a grand man – and to think that I didn’t like him when he and Hannah got married! If only he could find some other nice lassie and settle down. I wouldn’t mind a bit.’
Dr Robertson, also preparing to leave, was standing by the door with his hat in his hand. ‘From the look of him I don’t think it’ll take him long to find somebody. He’s a fine-looking fellow,’ he said generously.
Emma Jane sat silent, wondering how she was going to cope with the disturbing presence of the dashing Tim Maquire on her workforce. ‘Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have taken him on after all,’ said a little voice inside her head.
‘I think I’ll go over to see Robbie,’ she announced suddenly, getting up and ignoring their protests against going out again. Visiting Robbie was a pleasure, for her faith in her young friend had proven correct. He was getting better every day and now was able to swing around on crutches. To Emma Jane he was invaluable, for he spent his days doing calculations and re-drawing plans and was currently engaged in drawing up specifications for the new bridgehead.
When she arrived at his cottage, out of breath, he had the precious papers spread on a table, waiting for her, and she gradually calmed down as they studied them together.
‘I think we should blast back deeper into the rockface and build up another artificial face for ourselves. We’ll make it wedge-shaped – a solid wall of stone. The embankment can be laid on the top of it,’ explained Robbie, pointing at the north pier with a pencil.
Emma Jane gazed at his drawing with awe. ‘It’s huge! It’ll take tons of stone.’
He nodded. ‘I know, but it’s the only way. Otherwise every time it rains heavily there’ll be the danger of another landslip. Put it to Miller and say that he has to share the cost of the stone with you. He’d have to build it up anyway so it’s only fair.’
‘But what about time?’ she fretted. ‘How long will it take to build it?’
His face darkened. ‘I was thinking about that as well. I don’t know how long it’ll take. It won’t be easy to do…’
Then she smiled. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened, Robbie. Black Ace, my father’s right-hand man, has come back – and he’s going to work for us again!’
Robbie was delighted. ‘I remember him, of course – he’s the best! If anybody can get this done, it’ll be him. Leave it to Black Ace, Miss Emma. He’ll sort out the work, and you and I’ll draw up the plans. What luck he’s come back now!’
‘Yes, isn’t it,’ she said, but she was not entirely sure that she meant it.
When Emma Jane returned from the Rutherfords’ cottage it was almost midnight. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear. A fine mist drifted over the valley and a pale moon was glittering above the shoulder of the nearest Sister. She stopped in the middle of the street and stared westwards up the valley to where the lights of Rosewell glittered like diamonds against the blackness of the hills. Everything seemed bathed in peace and tranquillity until she turned to look southwards and saw a tongue of flame leap like a dancing imp up into the sky from a dark patch of trees on the lowest slope of the hill. The first flare-up was followed by another and another, red and orange devils dancing together against the encircling night. Something was burning and it wasn’t a bonfire. It was too big for that…
Tibbie was in her box bed by the fire but still awake when Emma Jane ran into the kitchen. ‘There’s a big blaze on the hill. What’s up there?’ she gasped, pointing in the direction of the flames.
Tibbie sat up with her grey hair flowing loose over her shoulders and her eyes wide. ‘There’s only Bella Vista, where Hannah used to work. It’s Colonel Anstruther’s place.’
‘It’s burning, it’s blazing,’ Emma Jane told her agitatedly. ‘I wonder if anybody knows about it?’
‘We’d better tell somebody. Let’s find William – he’ll know what to do,’ said Tibbie, scrambling out of bed.
‘You stay there. I’ll go and tell him,’ offered Emma Jane, and she ran out of the house again, across the road and up to the smiddy.
William stuck his head out of the window when she hammered on the door and called down, ‘Whatever’s up, lass?’
When she told him about the fire, his head was quickly withdrawn and soon he was out beside her. ‘I’ll ride over there,’ he announced, ‘It’s a big house, Bella Vista, and if it’s on fire they’ll need all the help they can get. You go back to your bed. I’ll tell you what’s happened in the morning.’
Bella Vista was well ablaze when he reached it, and the Rosewell Volunteer Fire Brigade were already in attendance with their horse-drawn van, brass helmets glittering with the reflection of the leaping flames which were tearing up from the central part of the house, through the roof and into the sky. There was nothing anyone could do to save it, and the men were standing around watching the destruction with tense, awestruck faces.
‘Is everybody out?’ gasped William when he reached the first group.
The leader of the Brigade turned and said bleakly, ‘They think there’s still some poor souls inside but it’s impossible to reach them. It was burning like kindling by the time we got here.’
William groaned, ‘Oh my God, how many are missing?’ As he spoke a huge timber from the roof went crashing into the heart of the flames, sending up a dazzling display of sparks.
‘I’m not sure yet. The old man and his wife are safely out – the butler rescued them – and so are most of the maids and the cook because they lived in a wide wing. But the son and his wife and her maid and a couple of wee bootboys who lived in the attic haven’t been accounted for yet. Mind you, they might have got out on their own and wandered off. People do funny things when they’re running away from a fire.’
Behind William, the two maids Madge and Jessie were clinging together and sobbing hysterically. ‘Oh, what about Mrs Bethya? Where’s she? And Francine? Where’s Francine?’
Allardyce the butler was passing them in search of a coat to wrap round the old Colonel and there were tears running down his cheeks when he shouted, ‘Don’t waste your pity on Francine. She’s the one who did this. It’s that Francine who set the house alight.’
‘How do you know?’ asked the chief fireman.
‘Because I saw her, that’s how I know. I saw her pouring lamp-oil over the furniture and setting fire to it. She was mad – I always thought so.’
The Rosewell policeman had arrived now and stood listening with a bemused look on his face. ‘You saw her setting fire to the hoose? Why didnae you stop her?’ he asked.
‘I tried to but she was raving. She’d already set fire to the first floor by the time I woke up. All I could do was get the Colonel and Mrs Anstruther out and raise the alarm, then the whole of that floor fell in. Oh Christ, what a terrible thing to happen. Bonny Mrs Bethya’s still in there. This’ll kill the Colonel.’ He didn’t mention Gus. The loss of the family’s dissolute son would only be devastating for his mother.
The Colonel was sitting on the grass with his back against the trunk of a tree. His normally highly-coloured face was ghastly white, and his eyes were staring. Beside him knelt the manservant who had been at his side through many adventures in India. The man was chafing his master’s hands and imploring, ‘Bear up, sir, bear up. I’ll fetch you a drop of brandy in a minute.’ Then he looked over his shoulder and called, ‘Has anybody a drink on them? Give it to me for the Colonel. He needs it badly.’
William passed over a battered tin flask saying, ‘It’s whisky.’
The manservant hurriedly unscrewed it and held it to the Colonel’s blue lips, whispering, ‘Take a sip, sir, take a sip. It’ll do you good.’
The Colonel swallowed, shuddered and then asked in a shaking voice, ‘Is everybody out? Is the Begum out?’
The manservant lied to him, ‘Yes, sir, she’s out,’ he said.
‘Colonel Anstruther, sir, Colonel Anstruther!’ Raeburn of Falconwood came running over the lawn with his hands held out in sympathy. He had been wakened with news of the tragedy and had come at once to see if he could render any assistance.
The Colonel stared at him with bleak eyes but did not speak and Falconwood said to the old man’s attendants, ‘Help the Colonel and his lady into my carriage. I’ll take them home with me – they can’t stay here.’
After they were driven away, the servants and the firefighters stood together staring with horror at the burning house, which they now knew was a funeral pyre for five people. Buckets of water were carried from the stable-block by a line of willing workers, but nothing could be done except to dowse the snaking tongues of fire that were trying to creep across the stableyard and attack the outbuildings. When dawn broke it was judged safe enough for the exhausted helpers to go and lie down in beds of hay and straw in the hayloft. There they fell into a merciful sleep.
When they woke there was nothing left of Bella Vista but a mound of smoking ruins. The Fire Brigade climbed back on to their cart and went home, and one by one the dispirited spectators drifted away. A feeling of doom and disaster hung over the scene.
‘This’ll take a few days to burn itself out and cool down, and then we’ll come back to look for the bodies – if there’s anything left of them, though I doubt it. That was an awful blaze, the worst I’ve ever seen,’ said the Rosewell policeman to Allardyce the butler, who was in a state of shock and couldn’t stop talking about what he’d witnessed when he first realised the house was burning.
‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it,’ he kept repeating. ‘That Frenchwoman did it – God knows why. I heard noises and got up to find out what was going on. There she was in the drawing room, setting fire to everything – the curtains, the furniture, everything. I tried to stop her but she started screaming about not being able to trust anybody, about nobody ever loving her, that sort of stuff. She was mad. She didn’t care that the fire was going to kill her… the last I saw of her was with her dress all in flames. Oh my God, what a sight!’
He sank his face in his hands as the policeman asked, ‘Why was she trying to kill herself?’
Allardyce shook his head and jabbered on, ‘God knows! God knows, but she’s killed other folk too. That’s the tragedy of it. And she was laughing… laughing like a crazy thing. Oh God, it was a terrible sight.’
A young footman came over to help the distraught man, and he had something to contribute to the story. ‘That Francine was acting odd before it happened. I heard her yelling at a man who came to the back door and asked for Mrs Bethya, but he wouldn’t go away… I think Mrs Bethya went down to see him in the end, but I’m not sure. Aw, poor lassie…’ He was one of the many who were badly affected by the tragic death of the beautiful Bethya.
The policeman asked, ‘What sort of man was this? Did you recognise him?’
The footman shook his head. ‘I’d never seen him before. It was dark, but I could tell he was tall, and dressed in a long cloak… that’s all I saw.’
For three days the ruins smoked and during that time Colonel Anstruther lay in bed at Falconwood House, but on the fourth day he rose to receive an official party from Rosewell.
‘I’m afraid your house is completely gutted, sir,’ said the Chief Magistrate sadly.
The old warrior fixed him with dead eyes. ‘I’m insured. What about my family? Have you found the bodies?’
‘No, sir, we haven’t but we’ve made a list of the missing persons. Perhaps you’d like to look at it.’
The Colonel ran his eye down the list: Major Augustus Anstruther, age 30; Mrs Bethya Anstruther, age 24; Mademoiselle Francine Perrot, age unknown but thought to be about 25; Thomas Telfer, bootboy, age 12; Robert Macintosh, kitchen boy, age 15.
‘She wasn’t twenty-four, she was only twenty-three,’ he said bleakly, handing the paper back, and everyone knew to whom he was referring. Then he gave a little sob and asked, ‘You’re absolutely sure she’s dead?’
The policeman stepped forward with something in his hand. ‘We found this on a body, sir.’ It was a mangled piece of jewellery, twisted out of shape by the fire.
The Colonel took it and turned it over, then his head dropped. ‘Yes, it’s hers. It’s the brooch I gave her for Christmas two years ago — garnets and diamonds. She thought it was very pretty…’
That night the old man was taken ill. In the morning when his servant went to wake him, he found the Colonel lying in bed, his eyes mutely appealing for help. His speech was affected and he could not move his left arm or leg. ‘Oh God sir, not that too!’ cried the anguished servant, before ringing the bell for assistance. He stayed by the bed, cradling his employer in his arms like a baby, until Dr Stewart arrived.
Next day, a sombre-looking Sir Geoffrey Miller arrived at Falconwood to express his sympathy. Mrs Anstruther was too upset to receive callers, for the terrible succession of tragedies had left her numb and inconsolable. The Raeburn women, who were kindly souls, were at their wits’ end about how to help her.
The sick Colonel was in bed but Raeburn took Miller upstairs where they stood together gazing at the old man while Sir Geoffrey spoke some carefully chosen words. ‘This is a terrible tragedy, my friend. I’ve come to express my deepest sympathy and that of my fellow directors to you and your wife. It is almost unbelievable that your son and his lovely wife both lost their lives in the fire. We’ll do everything we can to help you.’
The Colonel did not speak but his eyes were bleak. ‘I’m going down to the bridge now,’ said Sir Geoffrey, speaking loudly and slowly as if to someone who was half-witted. ‘It’s in trouble too, I’m afraid. As well as the bridgehead being washed away, Jopp now tells me that they’ve found a crack in one of the piers in the field. That makes it almost certain that the girl won’t finish in time. We’ll save some money, anyway.’
The Colonel wearily closed his eyes. It was obvious that he had no desire to be told about any other troubles or any plots and plans.
Miller felt relieved when he left the grief-filled house to ride with Raeburn to the bridge. ‘It’s a pity that pier’s cracked because it’s beginning to look very fine,’ said Raeburn guilelessly as he stared at it.
‘It’s not fine if it’s in danger of falling down. God knows when we can run a service over this line. It’s eating up money now. I should never have allowed that girl to keep the contract. I should have bought her out of it – it would have been cheaper in the end,’ was Miller’s angry reply.
Emma Jane and Tim Maquire were standing in the field beside the third pillar from the south end and a young lad on crutches was with them when Miller and Raeburn rode up. Without dismounting, Miller abruptly asked, ‘Which is the cracked pier?’
‘This one. There’s a long crack on the inner side,’ said Emma Jane, laying her hand on the stone. ‘We’re working out what we should do.’
‘I’ll tell you what you’ll do – you should make it safe as soon as you can before the whole damned thing falls down. I’ll sue you for breach of contract if it’s not finished by August the first,’ bawled Miller.
She flared up at him. ‘Don’t talk to me like that! The bridgehead fell down because your man Jopp didn’t do his job properly. That is what’s holding us up, not the crack.’
He was not prepared to listen, however. ‘The crux of the matter is that it’s cracked. What will go wrong next, that’s what I’d like to know? I doubt if we’ll have a bridge in a year’s time, far less two months. The line’s finished and this damned bridge is holding it back from opening. It’ll cost you dear. You can’t get out of your undertaking now. You’ll be paying for it for the rest of your life.’
His rudeness made Tim Maquire’s Irish temper rise. ‘You listen to me,’ he said, walking up and grabbing Miller’s stirrup. ‘You listen to me. I’ll prove you wrong, see if I don’t. We’ll do it – we’ll damned well do it even if we have to work night and day for two months. Your bridge’ll be ready on the day it was promised.’
Wrenching his foot out of the navvy’s grasp, Miller rode off, followed by Raeburn. Emma Jane watched them go and then turned on Tim to ask, ‘Why did you say that? He’s probably right. There’s no way we can finish this in time. I’m ruined and I might as well accept it now!’
Robbie looked at her with pity but Tim’s eyes flashed fire. ‘Don’t talk like that. Here’s what we do first. We’ll make this pier safe and then we’ll finish the bridgehead. After that it’ll be plain sailing.’
If she had not been so miserable, she would have burst out laughing. To call what they were faced with ‘plain sailing’ seemed to be plain folly, more like.
Maquire, however, seemed to be infected with some sort of madness. He ran around the field, shouting, waving his arms, gathering men about him. ‘We’ll buttress it: we’ll make it safe. Get started! Build a shell round it, ten feet thick on every side.’ Then he ran back to Robbie and demanded, ‘Are there any unemployed masons left in Camptounfoot?’
‘One or two, and there’s a few old men who’ll come out and help.’
‘We’ll hire them. We’ll hire every mason for miles around. It doesn’t matter what we pay, we’ve got to finish this.’ Hair flying, he dashed off up the hill in the direction of the village where he stopped at the alehouse and issued his appeal for workers before going on to William’s smiddy. He burst into the forge, calling out to the labouring blacksmith, ‘Stop what you’re doing! I want you to forge big metal bars to bolt round the broken pier. We’re going to buttress it and then tie it in with iron. That’ll stop it shifting: it won’t move for a thousand years.’
William, hammer in hand, gazed in astonishment at the madman in his doorway who was saying urgently, ‘I mean it. I want iron bars twelve inches thick and as long as you can make ’em. We’ll bolt them together. It’ll work.’
His urgency and enthusiasm were so infectious that the smith set about forging forty iron bars immediately, while in the field, navvies were digging out the foundations for the new buttress and masons were busy chipping huge lumps of stone into rough blocks. For three days Maquire did not sleep. He went to the quarry and arranged for more stone; he harangued the navvies and kept them working; he supervised the rising buttress and shouted at any man he thought was working too slowly. People feared for his sanity as he dashed from place to place in a state of absolute frenzy.
Emma Jane watched his wild behaviour with disquiet. When he was finally found fast asleep in her hut on the fourth morning, she tiptoed around him and let him lie undisturbed because she had been afraid that he would drop dead with exhaustion if he didn’t halt. For her own part she was working harder than she had ever done before, harder and longer than she ever thought possible. From dawn till dark she was on site, supervising, hiring, paying out money, arranging for supplies of stone, sand and concrete and all the time making sure that the building of the brick arches overhead still went on.
She rarely spoke to Tim for he was too busy doing what he considered necessary and relied on her to do the same. Robbie rode down to the site every day on one of the tradesmen’s carts and spent hours there, smoothing out structural problems or making useful suggestions. His grasp of building practice was astonishing in one so young and Emma Jane congratulated herself on giving him her father’s books.
On the afternoon of the eighth day of their marathon effort, Maquire’s head appeared round the hut door and he said shortly, ‘We’ve buttressed the cracked pier. Come and see it.’
The men had been working behind wooden palisades but now these were down and Emma Jane was able to see what had been done. A thick stone skin had been built round the bottom of the narrow, elegant pier and bolted round with bars of black metal. Her jaw dropped. ‘But it’s spoiled the line. It’s thicker than the others. It’s spoiled the design,’ she gulped.
Tim was walking behind her and he clenched both fists and jumped in the air. ‘Is that all you can say? To hell with the design! It’s up and it’s holding! It’ll never fall down. You’re a stupid woman, that’s what you are – a stupid woman!’
She turned to apologise for she knew she had been wrong. Sacrifice of symmetry was nothing if the pier was going to hold and would not need rebuilding, but Black Ace had charged off across the field towards the river where men were dragging up blocks of stone from the fallen bridgehead. She knew better than to run after him. He was obviously not in the mood for polite conversation.
All through June the sun beamed down. Camptounfoot was full of bustle because almost every able-bodied man was working on the bridge. Emma Jane left home at sunrise and did not come staggering back until late, too tired for one of the fireside conversations with Tibbie, too tired for anything but forcing down a meal and dragging herself up to bed.
Tim still kept a room at the Abbey Hotel though he seldom slept in it, preferring to doss down in Emma Jane’s hut because he could not bear to leave the site. Sometimes he went into Rosewell early to hire a gig for expeditions to order more stone or bricks or recruit extra workers. On those mornings he would stop in the pearly dawn at Tibbie’s door and rap loudly to waken up Emma Jane. Still half-asleep, she would get dressed, run downstairs and climb in beside him. He’d collect Robbie too and the three of them would clatter quickly down to the bridge where they separated and went about their individual tasks. They didn’t talk except about what was to be done that day.
At sunset Dr Robertson still waited in the roadway for Emma Jane, but she often did not come and stayed working in her hut. Then he turned and rode sadly back to Maddiston without seeing her.
Colonel Anstruther did not die, as so many people had expected. Slowly, very slowly, he improved in health. His speech returned and he was able to move a little. His faithful manservant never left his side, nursed him as if he were a child and when the sun shone, pushed him in a wickerwork Bath chair out on to the lawn of Falconwood House where he sat in the sun with his eyes closed thinking and grieving without weeping. His subdued wife sat beside him holding his hand and talking constantly, but fortunately she had enough feeling and tact not to mention Gus or Bethya. Mostly she talked about India and the people and places they had known there, for she felt it was safest to concentrate on the past.
On the last day of June, Tim was working with a gang of men on refilling the embankment behind the new stone pier, when the post-runner from Rosewell came in search of him.
‘I’ve a letter for you, Mr Maquire,’ he said. ‘I took it to the Hotel but they said I’d find you here. It’s got Urgent written on the front of it.’
A large square envelope was handed over. Tim looked at it with curiosity. ‘It’s from France,’ he said. ‘Who’d be writing to me from France?’
‘You’ll no’ ken that unless you open it,’ said the postman laconically.
The letter was written on a square of thick linen paper with an embossed coronet at the top of the page. The sender wrote in a large confident hand and had used black ink.
‘Dear Black Ace, I suppose by this time everyone will know that when I left Camptounfoot I did not go alone. I’d been infatuated with the lady in question for a long time though I’d done nothing about it. I actually travelled quite a distance before I decided to turn back and speak to her about how I felt. To my surprise and astonishment she felt the same way about me and we decided to go off together.
‘Of course she left a husband behind, but she wrote a letter for her father-in-law, of whom she’s very fond, and put it on his desk for him to find in the morning. She gave him a contact address in London but so far there has been no reply and we are becoming rather concerned because we want to marry. Before we can, of course, there will have to be a divorce. She is worried in case she left a great deal of trouble behind, but neither of us cares about who divorces whom. Her husband can divorce her if he likes – we’ve given him plenty of cause and hope to continue to do so. Could you be a good fellow and ask around to find out what’s happening at Bella Vista? I apologise for involving you, but I can’t ask my old friend Allandale because he’s in Italy and won’t be home till autumn. I want to marry Bethya because my vagabond days are over now. We’d like to be respectable for a change and we can’t be that until we marry. At the moment we’re in Paris but will be back in London by the time you receive this letter, so address your reply to me at 114 Pall Mall, which is my townhouse. And I have to sound uppish but you should address it to Lord Godolphin. I succeeded to the title on the death of my father. Your old friend, Gentleman Sydney.’
Tim threw back his head and laughed and laughed. Then, when his first fit of amusement was over, he sobered, for he remembered the fire at Bella Vista and the grief of the old Colonel. ‘Poor old devil, he doesn’t know the girl’s still alive. Someone ought to tell him,’ he thought. Sticking the letter in his pocket, he scrambled down the embankment and crossed the low-running river by the ford. Emma Jane was in her hut making minute calculations on scraps of paper, trying to work out if the money she still had available for wages would last until the end of the job. She was surprised when he stepped in out of the sunlight and abruptly asked, ‘Do you remember Gentleman Sydney?’
She looked up with a furrow between her brows. ‘Yes, of course I do. He was very kind to me, especially when Bullhead was shot. I was sorry when he went away. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, you’re in for a shock. He’s a lord and he didn’t go away alone. He took Colonel Anstruther’s daughter-in-law with him, so she didn’t burn to death in the fire after all.’
Emma Jane clasped her hands. ‘Oh, I’m so glad! I used to see her on the road with the Colonel and she was so beautiful. I thought it tragic that she’d died. The Colonel will be delighted – people say he’s broken-hearted about her death. He didn’t like his son much, but he was very fond of her.’ Then she looked puzzled. ‘But how do you know all this?’
Tim brandished the letter. ‘Sydney’s written to me. He obviously doesn’t know about the fire and I’ll have to write to him about that, but right now I’m going up to Falconwood to tell the Colonel.’
‘Let me know what happens. I think it’s wonderful,’ she said with a brilliant smile, the first she’d bestowed on him for weeks.
It was difficult for Tim to speak to the Colonel but he insisted and stood his ground. ‘I’ve information about the fire,’ he said stoutly. ‘I’ve further details about his daughter-in-law, and I won’t tell anyone but the Colonel.’ In the end he was admitted to the terrace in front of Falconwood House and led across to where the Colonel lay under a thick rug in spite of the warmth of the day.
‘Don’t expect him to talk much,’ warned the manservant. ‘Just say what you’ve got to say. He’ll hear you.’
Tim said his piece. He told about Sydney’s letter and the startling news it contained. He brought it out of his pocket and held it in front of the Colonel’s face so the old man could see what he said was true.
‘She’s eloped with Gentleman Sydney, who’s really Lord Godolphin. They were in Paris last week but now they’re back in London. She doesn’t know about the fire, or her husband dying, or her maid either,’ Tim finished up.
The Colonel’s eyes stared at him blankly for a few moments and then it seemed as if a light had been lit behind them. A low chuckle rumbled in the old man’s chest and he croaked the first words he’d uttered for a long time. ‘Damned good, damned good!’
His servant rushed towards him, terrified in case the astonishing news would be more than his constitution could endure, but he need not have bothered. The Colonel was rejuvenated. By gestures he told the servant to offer Tim money, but this was refused so then he offered him a drink instead, which was accepted. Holding the glass high, Tim toasted the old man before he swallowed the neat whisky it contained. ‘I’m glad you’re pleased, sir. I’ll leave the letter with you and you can decide what you want to do. Good day. I’ll have to go now because I’m very busy.’
On his way home the whisky swirled in his brain and made him feel happy and optimistic. ‘When I finish the bridge, I’ll do something wonderful. I don’t know what, but I’ll change my life somehow, the way Sydney changed his,’ he resolved.
He was still beaming when he stopped at the hut and shoved his head in to inform Emma Jane: ‘I told the Colonel. He’s pleased as Punch.’
She glanced up with a yearning expression on her face and said dreamily, ‘It’s so romantic. It’s like a miracle, isn’t it?’
Tim nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking that, too. I’ve decided that when the bridge is finished, I’m going to do something wild – take off for somewhere I’ve never thought of before.’ Then he sobered, surprised at having unburdened himself so much to this girl. ‘But the bridge has to be finished first, doesn’t it? Back to work, back to work,’ he said before he disappeared.
There were still many problems, of course. When it looked as if they had cured the cracked pier, they completed the line of elegant arches that joined the whole thing together. Then Jopp pulled his last trick. One dull morning in mid-July, Tim turned up at the site to find only a handful of workers there. He gazed round in astonishment. ‘Where is everybody? We’re going to start laying the hardcore on the top today. Where are they all?’
‘Jopp’s men are all out and they’ve talked most of the rest into staying out with them. It’s the money. Jopp’s cut their daily rate again and the food’s worse than ever. If he doesn’t bring in better stuff to the truck-shop, there’ll be fever in the camp again. The food he’s selling is stinking – you wouldn’t give it to a dog,’ said an old navvy who was too long in the tooth to go on strike.
‘Jopp! Bloody Jopp! I wondered how long it would take before he started his dirty work,’ yelled Tim, and he ran off up the road to Rosewell and the navvy camp. It was the first time he’d been in it since he burned down Benjy’s, but now he had no time to spare for nostalgic rememberings. He went from hut to hut throwing open the doors and yelling at the men inside, ‘Get up off your backsides and come to the bridge at once. Get up! You’re not going to leave it now, are you? This is what Jopp wants you to do. If you play into his hands you’ll all be earning half a crown a day and no truck. The minute he sees off Miss Wylie he can do what the hell he likes with you.’
Most of them listened to him and went back to work, but others stayed sullenly in their huts, grumbling and complaining. A few even packed up their traps and left the camp because there was more work available locally for navvies now. Branch lines were being built off the main line that was to cross the bridge, and they no longer had to stay.
Tim headed back for the bridge with any strike-breakers he could persuade to go with him, and his rage was so incandescent that when Emma Jane walked out into the field to ask him what was going on, he spun round at her and snapped, ‘Don’t ask what’s happened – don’t talk about it. I’ll finish it, that’s all.’
‘Please tell me what’s going on,’ she said quietly. ‘This is my contract after all.’
He glared at her. ‘All right, it’s your contract. You talk to them. You tell them to work and ignore Jopp. I’ll leave it to you.’ He stepped back and indicated the watching men with a sweep of the hand.
She walked past him and stood in front of them, a tiny figure in her work-clothes, her golden eyes looking from one face to another as she spoke. ‘Is Jopp making trouble again?’ she asked.
‘Yes, he is,’ said one of them.
She held out her hands in an imploring gesture. ‘But the bridge is almost finished. I’ve almost done what I set out to do. Please don’t leave me now. Please keep on working as you have done these last weeks. I’ve been watching you. I know how hard it’s been and I promise that if you finish the bridge for me, I’ll pay every man a loyalty bonus at the end, you have my word on it.’ Then she walked away.
Behind her, one man cheered and another, then another joined in. She’d swung them behind her. They’d work and they’d go back and persuade the others to work as well.