The Railway Girl. Nancy Carson

got a cold.’

      ‘I know. A stinker.’ He snivelled again to emphasise the fact.

      ‘So where are you taking me? And is the horse going to play gooseberry?’

      ‘If it’s all the same to you, Lucy, we’ll take the horse back together and put her in the stable. After cricket practice last evening I went rabbit shooting over Bromley, and there’s a brace of the little buggers I want to give you for your mother. They’ll make a fine dinner.’

      She smiled appreciatively. ‘That’ll please her. Thank you, Arthur. I’ll give one to our Jane.’

      As they made their way towards the Goodrich’s house and yard Lucy explained about the poverty in which Jane and her new husband lived, on account of his handicap.

      ‘She’s a brave girl, marrying somebody lame like that,’ Arthur commented, leading the horse by its halter.

      ‘She loves him,’ Lucy conceded. ‘But I’d think twice about marrying a cripple.’ She shuddered at the thought. ‘I don’t think I could do it.’

      ‘But he’s a hero, Lucy. He was fighting for queen and country. He has to be admired. And your Jane is his just reward for his self-sacrifice. Besides, love overcomes all.’

      They arrived at the yard and Arthur tacked down while Lucy looked about her at the separate stacks of both cut and unhewn stone, the slabs of marble and slate, the various urns and vases that would end up adorning graves.

      She patted Roxanne’s long, dappled face. ‘He’s a scruffy devil in’t he, this horse?’

      ‘He’s a mare, Lucy.’ Arthur grinned with amusement at her failure to recognise the fact.

      ‘He’s still a scruffy devil, mare or no. Don’t nobody ever groom him?’

      ‘You can come and do it, if you’re so concerned.’

      ‘Would I get paid?’

      ‘By my old man?’ Arthur lifted the saddle off the mare and turned to take it into the stable. ‘You’d be lucky to get a kind look,’ he said over his shoulder and pointed resentfully to an upstairs window. ‘You’d have to catch him on one of his better days, and they’re few and far between.’

      He backed the mare into the stable, made sure she was settled and emerged into the sunshine to shut the door behind him with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

      ‘That Quenelda was a bit fidgety when I went in there just,’ he said smugly. ‘She knows I ain’t standing no more messing off her. Come on, Lucy, let’s go in the house. You can meet my mother.’

      ‘D’you think I should?’

      ‘Yes, course. I want her to meet you.’

      It was a large house compared to the tiny cottage that Lucy and her family lived in, but it was by no means grand. Her own mother would have a fit if she walked into this hallway and saw all the clutter, the unswept flags, and the dust that lay like a dulling film over the wooden furniture. Lucy felt like taking a duster and a tin of wax polish to everything to freshen it up, to try and eliminate the dusky smell that pervaded the place.

      They found Dinah in the parlour peeling an apple into her lap, a tumbler of whisky with easy reach. Her mouth dropped open when she saw a pretty girl at her son’s side.

      ‘Mother, this is Lucy. Lucy’s my girl, and I brought her home so you could meet her.’

      ‘I wish to God I’d a-knowed yo’ was bringing a wench back here,’ Dinah admonished. She rose from her seat, grabbing the apple peel to save it falling on the floor. ‘I’d have put me a decent frock on and done me hair. He never tells me nothing, you know … Did he say your name was Lucy?’

      Lucy nodded and smiled uncertainly, afraid that Arthur had not chosen a good moment to present her to the unprepared and disorderly Mrs Goodrich.

      ‘Never mind about your frock, Mother,’ Arthur said. ‘We ain’t come to see you in a mannequin parade. We’ve come to get a couple o’ them rabbits what me and our Talbot shot yesterday. I said I’d give a couple to Lucy for her mother.’

      ‘Do I know your mother, Lucy?’ Dinah asked trying to show an interest in this vaguely familiar face. She put down the apple, together with its cut peel and the knife she was using, on top of a news sheet that lay on the table beside her.

      ‘No, but you used to know her father,’ Arthur replied for her, with a look of devilment.

      ‘Oh? Who’s your father, then?’

      ‘Haden Piddock.’

      ‘He used to be sweet on you, didn’t he, Mother?’ Arthur was grinning inanely.

      ‘Haden Piddock … By God, that was a long time ago.’

      Lucy noticed the instant softening in Mrs Goodrich’s eyes as she recalled the lost years. Maybe, all those years ago, there had been a spark of something between her father and this woman. She could hardly conceive of him giving her a second glance now, but she might have been a pretty young thing once. It was such a shame, Lucy thought, that age and the years eventually robbed everybody of any gloss and sparkle, which was generally at its brightest around the age of twenty … in women anyway. Some men never sparkled at all though. You only had to look at Arthur …

      ‘Well, fancy you being Haden’s daughter. I tek it as you’m the youngest.’

      ‘That’s right, Mrs Goodrich.’

      ‘Well, why don’t you stop and have a drop o’ summat to drink? I got a nice bit o’ pork pie on the cold slab an’ all, as I’m sure you’d enjoy. It was made from one o’ Mrs Costins’s pigs up the Delph … and you look as if you could do with feeding up a bit.’

      ‘No, we ain’t stopping, Mother,’ Arthur reasserted. ‘We’ve only come to get the rabbits. But Lucy can come another Sunday, eh, Lucy?’

      Lucy nodded politely. ‘Yes, I’d like to.’

      Arthur went to the brewhouse and returned with four rabbits wrapped in old newsprint. ‘There’s two for your mother and two for your Jane,’ he said proudly.

      ‘How many did you shoot?’ Dinah asked, as if he might be giving too many away.

      ‘Eighteen. Me and Talbot had nine apiece.’

      ‘It’s very kind of you, Arthur,’ Lucy said sincerely. ‘Thank you. My mother and sister will be ever so pleased.’

      Arthur smiled, delighted that he’d earned some esteem from his girl. ‘Come on, we’ll go and deliver ’em now, eh?’

      ‘I can see now why he was in such a rush to get out afore,’ Dinah said, looking judiciously at Lucy. ‘’Cause he’d arranged to see you, young Lucy. He was getting into a tidy pickle with that cantankerous old mare we’n got when he knew he’d got to run an errand for his father.’

      ‘How is Mr Goodrich?’ Lucy enquired. ‘Arthur tells me he’s bad a-bed. What’s the matter with him?’

      ‘Mrs Costins’s pig,’ Dinah replied matter-of-factly. ‘He had some pork yesterday. So sure as he touches a bit o’ pork it’s all over with him. When I went to fetch his plate after his dinner I swear as he was praying to the Lord, asking Him to ease his suffering.’

      ‘He should be ashamed troubling the Lord of a Sunday afternoon for the sake of a bit o’ wind,’ Arthur remarked acidly, ‘when a dose of bicarbonate of soda would set him straight.’

      ‘I’ll tek him some up after,’ Dinah said.

      ‘No, let him suffer.’

      ‘Our Arthur’s got no respect for his father, you know, Lucy. Am you sure you won’t stop and have a bit o’ pork pie? It’s beautiful. I doubt whether I ever med better. I’m sure as