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

reckon not. Where’s young Poppy? Has she gone out to play and left her mother to do all the work?’

      ‘I don’t begrudge the wench some enjoyment, Buttercup. It’s my guess as she’s gone to meet that engineer what’s learning her to read. She’s got a soft spot for him, and no two ways. Trouble is, she’s gunna be let down with such a bang. She’s set her sights way too high.’

      Buttercup pulled a chair from under the table and sat down. ‘Fill we a tankard o’ beer, eh, Sheba?’

      ‘Oh? Ain’t you going to The Wheatsheaf with the others?’ She took the key from her pocket and unlocked the barrel.

      ‘I can goo theer anytime. Besides, there’s no sense in getting lagged out o’ thy mind on beer all the time. I’d rather tek the time to talk … if yo’ve a mind to talk to me, Sheba.’

      ‘I’m content enough to stop and talk.’ Sheba filled a tankard and handed it to him.

      ‘Ta, my wench. Bist havin’ one theeself? I’ll treat thee.’

      ‘That’s decent of you, Buttercup. Thanks, I will.’ She took a tumbler from a cupboard and filled it with beer. ‘Here’s to you.’

      ‘Here’s to thee … And here’s to Poppy an’ all, whether or no her’s set her sights beyond her.’

      Sheba sat down at the opposite side of the table. ‘The trouble with our Poppy, Buttercup, is that she’ll have no truck with any o’ the young navvies. She’s made it plain she don’t want to end up a navvy’s woman.’

      ‘The wench has got some sense,’ Buttercup remarked. He took a slurp of beer and wiped his chin.

      ‘But that Jericho keeps on coming round after her. Maybe you’ve noticed. He seems decent enough, but our Poppy’s heart’s set elsewhere, I can see that.’

      ‘Jericho, eh?’ Buttercup rubbed his whiskers thoughtfully, reminded of the incident in the tunnel. ‘I bain’t altogether sure as that Jericho deserves her, any road, Sheba. He’s a bit wayward that one, wun’t thee say so?’

      ‘Always up to fighting, they reckon. But then, so am a good many. They fight over the daftest things. All of ’em.’

      Buttercup nodded. He took another quaff of beer and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Then let’s hope Poppy keeps him at a distance … And theeself, Sheba?’

      ‘Me?’

      ‘Aye … And Tweedle Beak? How dost thou fare together?’

      ‘Me and Tweedle?’ Sheba shrugged. ‘He ain’t no Lightning Jack, but …’

      ‘But what?’

      ‘Well, that’s the top and bottom of it, Buttercup. He ain’t Lightning Jack Silk …’

      ‘But yo’m content to lie with him?’

      ‘Content? What choice have I got?’

      ‘Oh, I bain’t judging thee, Sheba,’ Buttercup said kindly. ‘Let him as is without sin cast the fust stone, as they say …’ The stem of Buttercup’s clay pipe was sticking out of the pocket of his moleskin jacket. With a sigh, he withdrew it and placed it carefully on the table while he cut a knob of tobacco from a stick he pulled out of another pocket. ‘But if thou bistn’t content, thou’st got no choice at all if he babbies thee, Sheba, my wench.’ He failed to meet her eyes while he rubbed the knob of tobacco between the palms of his hand to break it into shreds. ‘No chance at all.’

      ‘Ah … Well that’s another problem, you see, Buttercup …’ Their eyes met and Sheba’s expression was one of candour. She trusted this man. He had been a good mate of Lightning Jack’s, and Jack had always been a good judge of a man’s character. She smiled tentatively, and lowered her eyes like a young girl as he tried to read her mind.

      While he filled his gum-bucket, it struck Buttercup how little more than a girl Sheba was. Lightning, by his own confession, had taken her as a fourteen-year-old, hardly more than a child. By the time she was fifteen she’d had Poppy. She could be no more than thirty or thirty-one now, he estimated. She was still comely enough, even though she’d had several children, even if the ceaseless grind of navvy life and moving from one encampment to another had taken its toll. No wonder Tweedle Beak had intervened to save her from a life on tramp. She was eminently beddable still.

      ‘Art thou already in the family way with him then?’ Buttercup asked, lighting his pipe.

      ‘Not with Tweedle. I’m carrying Jack’s child.’

      Buttercup grinned, his pipe held horizontal between his teeth. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Does Tweedle know?’

      Sheba shook her head. ‘Soon enough he will … when me belly gets bigger.’

      ‘So dost thou intend to let him think it’s his?’

      Sheba uttered a laugh of derision. ‘Do you think he’s that daft? He’ll work out soon enough that it ain’t.’

      ‘And then what?’

      Sheba shrugged. ‘Aye, then what? You tell me.’

      Buttercup sucked on his gum-bucket and blew a cloud of smoke into the room. ‘Well, who knows, Sheba? I reckon ’tis a decision thou must make some time soon.’

      ‘Oh, I reckon the decision’s made already, Buttercup. I’ll not pass off this child as Tweedle Beak’s, although it did occur to me to do it. I’m too proud that it’s Lightning Jack’s.’

      Buttercup beamed and his eyes crinkled into creases that Sheba found mightily attractive. ‘Good for thee, Sheba,’ he said. ‘I can’t abide that Tweedle Beak meself. Let’s have a drink on it, eh? Pour us another, my wench.’

      Poppy tripped back to Rose Cottage feeling light and breezy compared to how she felt earlier. So she was going to meet Robert again on Monday. Once more they would be alone together in his office. Would he ask her to sit on his lap again and smother her in those delicious kisses that made her toes curl? The spectre of the girl to whom he was promised rose up and plagued her thoughts. Best not think about her. Pretend she didn’t exist. If only Robert could escape her clutches. Maybe he would, for Poppy sensed his fondness for herself, despite their class difference. And, like he’d said before, class difference was not an insurmountable barrier if you had the will to overcome it.

      She saw that Buttercup was seated at the table smoking his gum-bucket and grinning, a full tankard of beer in front of him. Her mother was sitting opposite, also drinking beer and smiling contentedly. Poppy noticed how, at her entrance, they immediately fell silent for an awkward second or two, until Buttercup greeted her cordially.

      ‘Well, talk o’ the devil … Here her is, that sprightly young filly o’ thine, Sheba.’

      ‘What’s that you’re carrying?’ Sheba asked.

      Poppy raised the book in her hand. ‘Oh … a book. Robert gave it me to read.’

      ‘Thou canst read then, eh?’

      ‘Somebody I know is learning me.’

      ‘That young engineer chap I mentioned,’ Sheba said.

      ‘Robert Crawford,’ Poppy informed her for the umpteenth time.

      ‘Can’t say as I know him yet,’ Buttercup said. ‘But it’s a fine thing, bein’ able to read an’ write. Keep it up. It’ll stand thee in good stead. But, tell me, wench … in all the excitement of learning to read, hast thou forgot about washing me shirt?’

      ‘No.’ Poppy felt herself blushing, not sure if he was mocking. ‘That’s why I’ve come back early. To wash your shirt, and anything else that needs a good wash.’

      ‘Good lass.’ He stood up, took off the garment and threw it onto another chair close by. ‘Thy fairther, God bless him, always said thou was