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

to escape from me?’

      He shook his head emphatically. ‘Escape? From you? The only escape I am trying to effect is from my own ridiculous indecision. As for where you come from, Poppy, that is of no consequence whatsoever. I love you. To me, your background doesn’t matter.’

      ‘But you’d have trouble introducing me to your family …’

      He laughed ruefully. ‘One or two of them might well have to be convinced. But that would be their problem, not mine.’

      ‘So when will you come back?’

      ‘In about a year. I told you.’

      He felt in his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. ‘Here … Take this. It’s the address of my widowed Aunt Phoebe. She used to be a teacher and I’ve already spoken to her about you. She’ll be happy to continue your lessons if you still feel inclined. She can teach you so much more than I could, since she has the right books and many years’ experience teaching different subjects. I urge you to present yourself to her at some time.’

      She took the slip of paper, opened it and looked at it before she put it in the pocket of her skirt. She would read it later when she returned to Rose Cottage.

      ‘In any case,’ he went on, ‘it will be to the benefit of both of us if you make contact with her. It is to my Aunt Phoebe’s that I will send you a message in a year’s time, whether you are still interested in receiving it then or not. Odds are that you won’t be, and serve me right. Odds are that you will have forgotten all about me. Nor would I blame you. You’re still only sixteen, remember, Poppy, with emotions like quicksilver—’

      ‘My emotions are not like quicksilver,’ she protested at once. ‘They’re constant. And another thing – yes, I’m sixteen, like you say. Not a child. A grown woman.’

      ‘I was about to say, Poppy, that it might take me more than a year to be entirely sure of my feelings—’

      ‘Maybe less,’ she suggested.

      ‘Maybe. Who knows? Either way, I shall only move when I’m certain.’

      ‘Then you might never move,’ Poppy suggested ruefully. ‘What if you fall in love with some pretty girl wherever you are and never come back. Then I shall never see you again. Ever.’

      ‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, I suppose,’ Robert replied. ‘In which case I shall let you know. But I have my doubts. I know myself too well, Poppy.’

      They walked on, hand in hand. Poppy was desperately trying to come to terms with what had happened. She was gratified beyond belief to hear Robert’s confession of love, elicited by her own, but her sadness that he was immediately depriving her of it overshadowed that. Now she had to wait another year at least before she would know her fate. A year was a long, long time to a sixteen-year-old, even though she was a grown woman.

       Chapter 13

      The end of August brought with it a change in the weather. Gone was the humid heat, replaced by cool rain that fell steadily for two days, turning the dust of the Blowers Green encampment into a quagmire. Dog Meat and Jericho squelched through the sludge of the workings near a little community known as Woodside and headed back to the encampment along the gravelled trackbed they had already laid. Other navvies tramped before them and behind them, heads hung low, a weary army.

      ‘Bloody good job it’s payday tomorrow,’ Jericho remarked. Rain was dripping from his sodden hat and trickling down the back of his thick neck, but what was a mere trickle of water when his clothes were already saturated, not only from the rain but from the hot sweat of his body?

      ‘Payday might be all right for you, old mate,’ Dog Meat said, ‘but it ain’t gunna mek a scrap o’ difference to me.’

      ‘What d’ye mean by that, Dog Meat?’

      Dog Meat hoicked his pick and shovel onto his shoulder as if they were a pair of rifles. ‘I mean I already owe too much in truck to Treadwell’s and on me scoresheet at The Wheatsheaf. By the time everybody’s had what I owe there’ll be sod all left.’

      ‘Don’t drink so much,’ Jericho advised plainly. ‘Don’t spend all your money on drink.’

      ‘A man has to have a drink, Jericho. Christ, the work we do, we need a drink after it to numb the aches and pains.’

      ‘I have no bother with aches and pains,’ Jericho said.

      ‘Aye, well, maybe you’m a fitter man than me.’

      ‘I like a glass or two of ale, but I don’t drink so much as you, Dog Meat … Tell me, do you get any succour from the Catchpoles? Apart from sleeping with their daughter, I mean …’

      ‘For all the use she is lately.’ Dog Meat emitted a scornful laugh. ‘For a wench o’ sixteen you might expect her to be a bit more lively in bed. Lately she’s like a log …’

      Jericho gave him a sideways glance that conveyed no hint of guilt. ‘Aye, well, maybe it’s you, Dog Meat. Mebbe you’re too fuddled at night to do anything. Mebbe you’re going at it too much like a pig at a tater. Mebbe you need to hone your skills a bit.’ He was aware of the truth of it from Minnie.

      ‘D’you want to borrow Minnie again, Jericho?’ Dog Meat enquired sincerely. ‘Maybe you could rekindle some flame in her for me.’

      ‘I reckon not, Dog Meat. Oh, I don’t mean she ain’t worthy. She’s a fine-looking wench and plenty to grab hold of, I grant ye. But I had me fill—’

      ‘I could do with the money, Jericho …’

      ‘And couldn’t we all?’ Jericho pulled up his collar. The drips down his neck were cold now to his skin, which was already cooling.

      ‘Any fear of a loan then?’

      ‘I never loan money, Dog Meat. Don’t believe in it. Ask Tipton Ted Catchpole for a sub if you’re that desperate.’

      ‘Tipton Ted? He wouldn’t give me the drippings off his nose. I even have to provide me own vittles. Which reminds me … I got sod all to eat for me dinner tonight.’

      ‘Well, steal something.’

      ‘If you’ll help me, Jericho …’

      Jericho nodded.

      They were ambling through a shallow cutting. Just behind them stood the newly erected bridge that carried the road to Pedmore and Lye Waste. Woodside was a smattering of cottages and workshops, huddled in a warren of short, narrow streets. The two young men turned back to the bridge and scaled the embankment.

      ‘Now what?’ said Dog Meat.

      ‘Mebbe there’s a corner shop … Hark … Can you hear what I can hear?’

      Dog Meat cocked an ear. The raucous cackle of a hen elicited a grin as he imagined tender plump chicken for his dinner that night with a mound of boiled potatoes. The sound originated some distance from the top of the cutting, so they followed it. It led them along a bending narrow lane at the end of which lay a fenced field that housed a pig sty, a hen house and, at its furthest point, a cottage. The pigs evidently enjoyed having the run of the field, judging by the black mud they had churned up where they had been rooting. A score of hens pecked at the ground, overseen by a proud, strutting cock.

      Jericho looked about him for signs of human life. All seemed quiet, save for the snorts of the pigs and the clucking of the hens.

      ‘I’ll nip across and pick up one o’ them chickens,’ Dog Meat said.

      ‘And how many dinners will yer get off that?’

      ‘Tonight’s.’

      ‘Well, think on, Dog Meat.’ Jericho tapped