The Sweeping Saga Collection: Poppy’s Dilemma, The Dressmaker’s Daughter, The Factory Girl. Nancy Carson

a bit too close to home, don’t you think, Min?’

      ‘I only said I fancied him.’

      Poppy chuckled. ‘You’re a right one, you are. Listen, will you be about tonight if I call for you? Or will you be with Dog Meat?’

      ‘Call for me.’ Minnie gave Poppy a wink and said she’d see her later.

      Back outside, the blue sky had given way to dark clouds that threatened rain for the first time in ages. Poppy, carrying her loaded basket, stepped onto Shaw Road to return to the hut. Over to her right stood the head gear and the horse gins of several pits, the tall chimneys of ironworks volleying ever more coal-black smoke into a leaden sky that was already full of it. She was contemplating Minnie’s voracious appetite for men when she heard the rattle of wheels trundling over the uneven surface. Poppy turned to look, expecting to see a carriage. Instead, she saw a man wearing a top hat and frock coat, astride what looked like a hobby horse. As he drew closer, she recognised him as Mr Crawford, the considerate young man from Treadwell’s who had entered the hut with that arrogant policeman on the morning of her father’s unscheduled departure. She watched him and, as he overtook her, she caught his eye and smiled, and he smiled in return. A few yards further on, he drew to a halt and turned around, still astride his two-wheeled machine, waiting for her to catch up.

      ‘You’re Lightning Jack’s daughter, aren’t you?’ His voice was rich and his accent was definitely not working class. Yet he seemed pleasant and his smile was friendly.

      ‘Yes,’ she replied, a little surprised that he’d taken the trouble to stop and speak. ‘I’m Poppy Silk. I remember you. You came to our hut with that nasty policeman.’

      ‘He was nasty, wasn’t he? I thought he was most rude. Have you heard from your father? I wondered if he was all right.’

      ‘We ain’t heard nothing. We’ve got no idea where he might have gone.’

      ‘Well, he evidently hasn’t been caught. If he had, you’d have heard.’

      ‘Do you think so?’ Poppy said, her eyes brightening at the realisation.

      ‘It’s a certainty. Anyway, it’s so obvious he’d done nothing wrong. I, for one, don’t blame him in the least for scooting off out of the way until the hubbub’s died down.’ There was a sincerity, an earnestness in his soft brown eyes that Poppy found attractive.

      She smiled again at the agreeable things Mr Crawford was saying and shifted her basket to her other arm. His smile was a pleasure to behold, the way his smooth lips formed a soft crescent around beautifully even teeth – not a bit like Luke’s.

      ‘He did handle a necklace, you know,’ Poppy said confidentially, as if she’d known and trusted this young man for ages. ‘He was going to buy it for me, but then somebody snatched it off him and he don’t know who it was.’

      ‘That’s how I understand it, Miss Silk.’

      He’d called her ‘Miss Silk’ … Her … Nobody had ever called her ‘Miss Silk’ before. It made her feel ladylike and important. To hide her face – that seemed to be suddenly burning – she looked down at her clogs peering from beneath her skirt. No man had ever made her blush before.

      ‘Thank you for calling me “Miss Silk”,’ she said quietly, uncertain how she should react. ‘Nobody ever called me that before. But you can call me Poppy if you like. Everybody calls me Poppy.’

      He laughed good-naturedly. ‘A pretty name for a pretty girl. Very well, Poppy. So I shall. And thank you for allowing it. Anyway, your father – I imagine he’ll be back soon. Now that Treadwell’s have agreed to pay for the damage the men caused to the police station, I doubt if any further action will be taken. Especially for such a small item as a necklace.’

      ‘Oh, that’s grand news,’ Poppy said happily. ‘Does that mean he can come home safely, do you think?’

      ‘With impunity.’ He smiled that tasty smile again. ‘I would certainly think so.’

      A lull followed in their conversation while Poppy tried to work out who ‘Impunity’ was. She considered asking him, but had no wish to belittle herself by showing her ignorance.

      ‘Is this hobby horse new?’ she asked conversationally.

      The frame was made of wood, as were the wheels, but each wheel was furnished with an iron rim. The handlebars and front forks were forged from wrought iron, as were the treadles for his feet at the side of the front wheel.

      ‘Not quite,’ Mr Crawford answered, and let go of the handlebars to sit back against the pad that shielded him from the larger rear wheel. ‘Actually, it’s not strictly a hobby horse – I don’t know what I should call it. You scoot a hobby horse along with your feet, which is dashed hard on the shoes. This has treadles at the front wheel, as you can see, with connecting rods to these crank arms that drive the back wheel.’ He diligently pointed them out to her. ‘So you don’t have to drag your feel along the ground like you would if you were astride an old hobby horse. Once you’ve got going, you can keep up the motion, just by working the treadles with your feet.’

      ‘I bet it cost a mint of money,’ Poppy commented.

      ‘I lost track, to tell you the truth. I built it myself, you see. All except the wheels, which were made for me by a wheelwright. I didn’t really keep a tally of how much it all cost.’

      ‘Where did you get the idea from?’

      ‘Well, I was living in Scotland a year or so ago and I saw some chap riding one. I thought, what a brilliant idea. So I made a few sketches and determined to build one just like it. This is the result.’

      ‘It looks as if it might be fun, Mr Crawford. Is it?’

      ‘Great fun! It’s cheaper than a horse and it doesn’t get tired or thirsty. You don’t have to find a stable either, nor buy feed … Look, since you’re allowing me to call you Poppy, please call me Robert,’ he said as an afterthought. ‘There’s really no need to call me Mister Crawford.’

      Poppy smiled again. ‘Thank you … Robert.’ Savouring the feel of his name in her mouth and on her lips, she said his name again, quietly to herself.

      He pulled his watch out from his fob and checked the time. ‘I really must go, Poppy. I’m glad I’ve seen you and had the chance to talk to you. I hope your father will soon return.’ He shoved off with his feet, travelled a few yards and stopped again near the entrance to the workings. ‘Look, if you’d like to try riding this machine of mine, you can meet me sometime, if you like.’

      ‘To ride it, you mean?’ Poppy queried.

      ‘Yes. You said it looked like fun, and it is.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she remarked hesitantly. ‘I mean, I don’t think it would be seemly … the sight of me on a hobby horse.’ She was thinking about her skirt having to be hitched up. ‘Not very ladylike.’

      He laughed, somewhat melted by this prepossessing young girl as he realised her predicament. Even to the uncultured young daughter of a navvy, modesty was still evidently a consideration. ‘You could sit side-saddle on the crossbar with me, while I rode.’

      ‘All right, I will,’ she agreed, with a shy smile and a nod. ‘When?’

      ‘Tomorrow?… No, not tomorrow, unfortunately. I have to take some measurements on the Brierley Hill section … Wednesday. I have my dinner at about one o’clock. I could meet you here, if you like. We could whizz down the rest of Shaw Road as fast as a steam locomotive. And beyond if we wanted to.’

      She chuckled with delight. ‘All right. Wednesday.’

      He waved, turning his machine into the compound, and she watched him dreamily as he leaned it against the wall of the hut the foremen used as an office.