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

them all. She was pleased also to learn that she was carrying a child, especially that there was no question but that it was her own father’s child. It was a sort of insurance that when Lightning Jack returned – which, pray God, would be soon – Tweedle would simply fade into the background of navvies from whence he came, and things would revert to normal. No doubt Lightning Jack would thank Tweedle Beak for looking after his woman while he had been away. It was the way of the navvies.

      Inevitably, Poppy’s thoughts turned to Robert Crawford and she relived that delectable half-hour in his arms, feeling his lips upon hers. She compared his gentleness and consideration to Jericho’s ill-bred roughness, recalling the time when Jericho had been fighting naked and, naked, took her in his arms afterwards, rubbed himself lustfully against her and expected her to go willingly behind the hut with him. Did she really want Jericho’s violent, slobbering kisses, his clumsy fondling, now she had tasted Robert’s succulent lips?

      Poppy recalled how wet she had felt between her legs while she and Robert were in each other’s arms. She was wet now thinking about him. She pulled up her nightgown carefully so as not to disturb her sisters asleep in the same bed, and stroked herself to actually feel it on her fingers. It was wickedly pleasant to rub yourself there. Gently she continued, lying with her eyes shut, her mouth open receiving Robert’s luscious kisses. With the other hand she fondled her breasts, arousing her small pink nipples, and imagined him to be doing it. She hugged herself, making believe it was Robert’s warm, affectionate embrace that was making her hot, before rotating her thoughts to imagine she was actually feeling his smooth, firm flesh. ‘Oh, I love you, Robert,’ she mouthed silently. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ As the pleasurable sensations intensified in her groin, she turned her face into the pillow, sure that her insides were melting, disintegrating, but with such toe-curling intensity. The urge to cry out was strong, but she merely took a gasp of air and sighed with disbelief at the extraordinary wild sensation that had come to overwhelm her.

      The door opened. Tweedle Beak and her mother appeared, silhouetted against the light of an oil lamp, with Little Lightning hovering in the background holding it. Little Lightning spoke and his mother told him to hush and dowt the flame, lest he wake the others. In the darkness, they all undressed and clambered into bed as silently as they could. It was not long before Poppy heard the faint rustle of sheets yielding to movement and the gentle creak of the iron bedstead, as Tweedle settled with unaccustomed restraint into what had become his regular nightly exercise.

      Poppy smiled to herself.

       Chapter 9

      During the weeks that she got to know Robert Crawford, Poppy had become acquainted with the regularity of his comings and goings on the construction site. But work was moving along the trackbed away from the encampment towards Brierley Hill, and she could not always be certain lately that he would be where she thought he might be. In an endeavour to ‘accidentally’ bump into him as he left his office one dinner time, she tarried between the foreman’s hut and Shaw Road, then between the tommy shop and the road. It was the first Thursday in July and the weather had turned, so that you could have been forgiven for thinking it was April, with all the showers alternating with the sunshine that shimmered blindingly off the wet mud.

      While she drifted from one point to another, scanning the area for sight of Robert, she saw another man walking towards her. He was unmistakably a navvy, with a bright yellow waistcoat, a moleskin jacket, a quirky cap, and well-worn moleskin trousers with knee-straps to stop the rats running up his legs. He wore odd boots as well, one the colour of dried blood, the other a light tan. Poppy did not know him, so assumed he had been on tramp and was seeking work. As he entered the encampment he touched his cap and smiled amiably. He reminded her strangely of her father, except that he looked older.

      She heard the sound of wheels chattering over the road surface and Robert appeared from the top of the hill, riding his machine. Her heart went into her mouth, for she had not the slightest idea what she might say to him. She just wanted to see him, to talk with him, to try and glean whether this unfulfilled love was as painful for him as it was for her. Robert had been on her mind so much these last few days and nights that she was becoming preoccupied. If only he hadn’t told her how he felt. If only he had kept his feelings and his hands – and his kisses – to himself, they could have gone on as they had hitherto, teacher and pupil, friends who merely harboured admiration and respect for each other at arm’s length, who kept their ardour unspoken and under control. But his confession that he was taken with her, and then his frustrating but tantalising self-restraint, had only fuelled her interest and desire the more. She was hooked, yet she understood that hooking her was not what he had intended. What she did not know was that Robert Crawford had also of late adopted the habit of either perambulating or riding – ostensibly in connection with his work – Poppy’s likely routes.

      As he approached, she thought she detected a blush from him as he drew to a halt, though it could have been the exertion of riding, even if it was downhill.

      ‘Oh, hello, Robert,’ she said, endeavouring to show a decorous amount of astonishment at finding him in the very place she had come to look for him.

      ‘Hello, Poppy,’ he greeted with equal surprise, uncertain how he stood now with this perplexing girl.

      ‘Fancy seeing you here. I was just on me way to the tommy shop.’ She ignored the pertinent reality that it took twice as long to get to the tommy shop by way of Shaw Road than her usual route of walking through the cutting.

      ‘And I was just on my way to find my colleague Slingsby Shafto,’ he felt compelled to explain, ignoring the equally pertinent reality that he was travelling in precisely the wrong direction. ‘Are you well?’ he asked awkwardly.

      ‘Oh, yes. I’m very well, thank you. Are you?’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, yes. I’m not altogether enamoured of this change in the weather, though. Rain makes everywhere so muddy and slows down the work.’

      ‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘All the men moan like whores when the rain comes.’

      ‘Poppy!’ Robert exclaimed, unwittingly slipping into the role of tutor. ‘You really must temper your similes.’

      ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

      ‘What you just said … the men moaning like … like whores. You would never say that in polite conversation.’

      ‘Sorry, I didn’t know,’ she replied defensively, disappointed at her little blunder, which highlighted once again the class difference between them. ‘It’s what the men say, Robert. I didn’t know it was a … what?’

      ‘A simile.’

      ‘A simile?’

      ‘Yes. Of course, it’s perfectly normal to use similes, but yours is too inappropriate for polite conversation.’

      Oh, yes, we’re having polite conversation, more’s the pity, she thought, as she regarded his mouth and yearned for him to kiss her. Why couldn’t she make it less formal and tell him bluntly that she loved him, that her emotions were all upside down because of him? ‘So, what’s a simile?’ she said instead.

      ‘A simile is when you compare something to something else to enhance its meaning,’ he answered, unaware of the turmoil inside her. ‘Such as saying the full moon hangs like a silver disc, or … or … your eyes are like limpid pools … for example. Any such phrase using the word like or as is often a simile.’

      ‘I’ll try and remember, Robert. I’ll try and use good, respectable similes in polite conversations in future,’ Poppy said obligingly.

      He smiled. ‘I hope you will.’

      ‘But what about Albert in the tommy shop?’ she said, with an impish twinkle in her eyes.

      ‘What about Albert?’ he replied, with the feeling he was being led into some tender