A Station In Life (16 page)
Authors: James Smiley
A spell later I came
across a gaggle of women on Platform One, at the centre of which was the very
character whose love life I was finding so extraordinary. The delicate ladies
were fussing over Snimple’s thumb. It was bleeding and had been enswathed
temporarily in a handkerchief. Retribution, I thought as I dispersed the
gathering.
“I forgot I had a
pruning blade in my pocket, Mr Jay,” he whimpered. “I’m very snorry.”
“You know where we keep
iodine and bandages,” I railed him. “You’ll make the journey without dying,
methinks.”
Just then a mellifluous
voice floated across my shoulder. Miss Peckham had observed the incident from
the forecourt and returned to assist Snimple in his hour of need. It surprised
me that so rugged a girl should emit such dulcet tones, and I wondered how well
she could sing.
“I have medication in my
bag,” she hushed with a broad Somerset accent and, to murmurs of approval from
the other angels of mercy, pulled out a cotton swab and miniature bottle of
bright yellow salve. Snimple cooed like a pigeon and smiled sublimely.
“Poor Snimple,” Miss
Peckham responded with what I perceived to be thespian sincerity.
I guessed what was to
succeed. The porter offered up his wounded limb pathetically and Miss Peckham
applied the unction to it. A determined grin set upon her face as, with her
free hand, she pulled a length of bandage from her bag. Her grin, now
broadening fast, was tempered with anticipation.
As expected, the
medication took effect and stung, and Snimple yodelled with shock. His
innocent eyes bulging, he tried to retrieve his enraged thumb but Miss Peckham
held it fast. With the swiftness of a loom she wound the bandage around the
enraged digit and secured it with a knot, thus preventing the porter from quelling
the fire. I could not quite see the label on the bottle but I fancy it read:
‘Serves You Right’.
“Dutch drops would have
sufficed,” Humphrey rumbled ignorantly from behind me.
Snimple had a better
understanding of the medication and looked offended by it. William Troke, on
the other hand, was visibly confounded by Snimple’s popularity with the fairer
sex and spat on the ground with disgust. It did little to appease him that Mrs
Mitchell kissed the porter daintily on the cheek.
“Poor, harmless
Snimple,” she breathed.
By now one could see Mr
Troke visibly contemplating the rewards of being harmless.
Having disbanded the
angels of mercy I returned to patrolling the platforms, determined to enjoy my
surroundings. High in windswept Upshott wood the rooks were cawing noisily
while in the headshunt Exmoor sizzled away its idle time in quiet privacy.
Departure of the Giddiford train had revealed the presence upon Platform Two of
a cluster of milk churns and cheese barrels waiting to be loaded aboard the
milk train after its return from the dairy siding. Also visible was a young
scullion who had come from the Coach House. The boy was staggering across the
footbridge with a dozen hands of freshwater fish in his arms, unaware that they
were dripping. After he had gone I made Snimple scrub the timber decking to
remove the smell. There was always an unpleasant chore on hand to reward the
deserving.
Shortly after 6pm, Julian
Maynard caused a minor interruption to the station’s tranquillity when he rode
jauntily across the forecourt with the baton from Giddiford. I was applauding
his efficiency when he drew my attention to a pair of crows nesting in one of
the station chimneys.
“You’ll have a sooty
bird flapping around your office, Mr Jay,” he warned as he dismounted
Hildebrand. “Mr Mildenhew always used to send Diggory up the stack to clean
out the pots.”
“And I imagine the lad
did not need asking twice!” I replied.
In the absence of my
Junior porter I instructed Jack Wheeler to do the job. There was always an
unpleasant chore on hand to reward the deserving. Feeling unaccountably
lenient, I held the ladder for the clerk while he ascended, and even offered
words of reassurance as he traversed the gutter with the blood drained from his
face.
“If there are any leaves
in the gulley, Jack, you can remove them while you are there,” I called up.
Glancing at my fobwatch,
assuming it to be correct, I noticed that the Directors’ Special was due back
from Blodcaster and so I released my hold upon the ladder to see Ivor Hales.
After some discussion with the signalman we agreed that the only way the milk
train could make Giddiford exchange sidings in time to connect with the Metropolitan
Goods was by amalgamating it with the Directors’ Special. Visualising the
illustrious special with milk trucks attached, Ivor wished me luck with the
proposal and made his excuses. Truth to tell, my main concern was that
arranging this might involve a telegraphic communication.
I need not have fretted.
Not only was no telegraph signal necessary, Mr Crump agreed readily to my
suggestion, pointing out that having to amalgamate his Special with a milk
train illustrated the need for a second track to be laid, if only as far as
Upshott. However, another anxiety came to the fore. During his luncheon in
Blodcaster, Mr Crump had heard more grievances voiced against me. Apparently
someone was now lodging a formal complaint. The manager was sympathetic but
explained that should any of my alleged discourtesies reach him in writing he
would have no alternative but to investigate.
At 6.29pm, perplexed and
agitated, I watched Exmoor and LSWR engine number 231 work out of Upshott
jointly hauling a most curious composition of rollingstock.
Many hours later, after
the passing of the ‘up’ Mail and the evening Giddiford train, the final
movement of the day pounded into Upshott with a crisp moon making ghosts of its
steam. I watched Humphrey tramp the primrose squares of light cast by its
pot-lamps, booming his late tidings to all and sundry, and observed that all
and sundry was no one at all.
‘Last train,
Blodcaster. Next one Shanks’s pony.’
Feeling gloomy that my
best efforts had achieved so little, I retreated to a gas lit nook and indulged
myself a pinch of snuff while watching Mr Milsom’s shadow stalk him to and fro
like a dumb assassin preparing to pounce. Its technique was to prance hither
and thither among will-o’-the-wisps of steam, stretch elastically across
flagstones, and spring up walls unpredictably. So low was my ebb that I beckoned
the rotund black phantom to close upon me instead.
Driver Hiscox slipped
away from the volcanic glow of Briggs’s fire to speak with me and I wondered
what further bad news awaited. With Humphrey bellowing so loudly we had to remove
ourselves to the quiet of the Booking hall where the driver took my arm with a
disapproving frown.
“The pot-lamp mystery
remains unsolved, Mr Jay, for I have seen another,” he confided.
“Another?” I queried
him.
By now I had learned the
art of participating in conversations that made no sense, and smiled
confidently.
“Yes, another,” driver
Hiscox confirmed unhelpfully. “I have just seen farmer Smethwick on the bank
between the cutting and the viaduct. He was buzzing around in circles like a
blowfly with one wing, and for some reason his hand-lamp was sparkling. What’s
more, he appeared to be badly splattered.”
“Most curious,” I
concurred.
“Often as not I do see
Smethwick of a Tuesday,” Hiscox continued. “He lingers on Ondle common until
dark, taking a lantern with him for the long walk home.”
Too tired to engage even
in conversation of such intrigue I held my tongue, causing the driver to return
to his hissing serpent with slumped shoulders. Suddenly Jack Wheeler was at my
side, a nearby gas-lamp glimmering in his eye as he conjured a sinister grin.
“Sounds like we’ve
identified our burglar then,” he breathed. “The drum containing the spiked
lamp oil disappeared last night, Mr Jay.”
I stepped back. There
were times when Jack caused me to feel queer.
“We must not be hasty in
our conclusions,” I cautioned him. “Mr Smethwick has a feudal mentality so we
must not stir up unnecessary nastiness.”
“Oh yes, ’e can turn
nasty,” Jack agreed. “But surely we ’ave to confront the weasel to find out ’ow
’e came by the doctored oil?”
Ex officio, it was I who
would do the confronting.
The last train of the
day barked into the darkness, sending a cloud of noctule bats aloft above the
water tower. The creatures disappeared among the stars then reappeared as a
swirl of dots around the moon. Anxious to close the station and retire to my
quarters, the damp night air having lifted with a sickly odour of oil and straw,
I turned up my collar and prepared to dim the gasses.
Now shivering, I
hearkened to the pleasing rattle of the last train distancing itself from
Upshott, and found myself wondering what manner of distraction had caused
Diggory to step in front of an advancing locomotive. Further, I was curious to
learn what had made the young porter leave so late for work in the first
place. It seemed likely that Mrs Smith and her son were in some kind of
plight.
Climbing the stairs I
made a decision. The next day I would ride out to Widdlecombe to see if I
could be of assistance. Time was short, however, for if I was to render useful
application to the Smiths I needed to act before losing my job.
Chapter
Sixteen — Third day brings a sad tale
On my third day in harness
at Upshott, another saga began. It scarcely seemed possible that here in the
blissful bosom of nature, so far removed from the sprawling conurbations with
their dense throngs of migrants, packed factories and ambitious bosses, there
could exist the complicated nonsense to which I was now reluctantly becoming
accustomed. Yet, defiantly, complicated nonsense existed aplenty here in
Upshott, and whereas yesterday’s carousel had dizzied me with the horrors of a
railway accident, malodorous fertiliser, bigwigs warning of complaints about
me, a fractious squire and the abstract menace of the telegraph, today’s was to
visit upon me an additional burden. This one, being wholly less palpable, was
destined to prove by far the most difficult to deal with. I refer, of all
things, to a ghost!
Of this misery I shall
reveal more later. First allow me to relate to you the greatly unjust
circumstances of Mrs Smith, she being the delightfully fragrant Mrs Smith whom
I had earlier dubbed the belle in white lace, and of whose ill hap I learned
while visiting Widdlecombe. For the purposes of this recollection I shall set
the station clock to 07.15am on the Seventeenth of June, 1874, at which time I
was to be found deedily touring the platforms of my station nurturing an ill
fated keenness to avoid yet more trouble.
I had come to believe
that I would perish, spiritually speaking, if I did not endeavour to become a
little more pervious to the peacefulness of my surroundings and make a point of
dismissing from my mind occasionally the railway and its perplexing setbacks.
To this end I tarried upon the footbridge and gazed aloft at the birds
littering the pale blue sky. Here the great and graceful could be seen
wheeling effortlessly among the small and spritely, rather like a stationmaster
among his porters. I was unsettled by the allegory when it extended to a wren
regaling me frenetically from atop a finial. It seemed that even the birds
sang faster in this hectic railway backwater. Unsettled by it I descended the
steps to the platform where Snimple’s flowers greeted me with a swarm of
frenetically buzzing insects. Upshott’s rigours were inescapable.
I tripped over a broom.
Humphrey was sweeping up some loose straw.
“I were right about that
coal, sir,” he informed me, abandoning his offensive weapon. “They left the
whole lot in the ditch. If e asks I, we ought to send Snimple down there with
a couple of scuttles before it all disappears, for we has a shortfall to make
up.”
“I think not, Humphrey,”
I replied stoutly despite my culpability. “I cannot have a lone member of my
staff scaling that dangerous slope with such a burden.”
Humphrey shrugged his
shoulders and resumed sweeping the flagstones while I attempted to synchronise
myself more effectively with my surroundings, tarrying to admire the fruits of
Snimple’s labours. My Second porter’s flowers were simply ablaze with colour,
all humming harmoniously with bees of every size, while in the scented breeze
above these legions swirled butterflies like fragments of broken rainbow, with
names such as Common Blue, Peacock and Wall Brown. Indeed, I half expected to
see the porter chasing about with a net, himself pursued by a gaggle of
admiring maidens. One day I would ask the porter to show me his collection,
for pinning butterflies to cork and labelling them with their peculiar Latin
names was a fancy of his. Peace and fulfilment was to be found by some, at
least.
Humphrey drove his broom
into my feet, and when I did not move he chortled and swept around me.
“His Lordship be lookin’
for another draper to manage the shop in the High street,” he warbled,
seemingly unconcerned that I should hear him. “Arr, but he won’t find anyone
local. Took months to fill the post last time, it did, and even then he had to
make the rooms above the shop habitable for to get someone in from Barnstaple.”
I expressed the required
degree of astonishment and strolled to the end of the platform, my period of
meditation not yet complete. From here I beheld the cultivated lower slopes of
Ondle valley where colours were more subtle, the uniform brown of winter
becoming hued with sprouting crops. I could guess the composition of these
fields, so countless and so small. There would be clover and grass for making
winter silage, oats, Kale and tic bean for fodder, and wheat for milling into
flour or feeding poultry. I had heard that a little brewer’s barley had been
sewn this year, but with the railway importing quality ingredients from the
fertile home counties it seemed unlikely that the local yield would stretch
beyond the animal trough.
As a professional
railwayman casting his eye about a district served by a railway, the
continuation of such diversity struck me as tardy. With access to the
metropolitan markets no farmer needed to be self-sufficient and produce a
little of everything. He was now better off turning his hand to bulk
husbandry, producing only that which flourished in his corner of England.
Clearly, in Ondle valley, the coming of the railway fourteen years earlier had
not inspired many smallholders to break with tradition or even contemplate the
ultimate cost of ignoring progress.
Feeling ready to face my
duties again I allowed my mind to crowd with questions once more. Foremost,
who had complained about me and why? Had I been uncivil to someone from
Blodcaster surely I would recall the occasion, or at least recall one upon
which my conduct might have been misconstrued. Yet apart from the foreigner
with the handless fobwatch, whom I had since dismissed as a dream, I could
think of no accountable incident.
Perhaps the foreigner
had been real and all else was the dream? In search of cold reality I looked
across the station forecourt and feasted my eyes upon Upshott’s luxuriant
trees, their ancient boughs outstretched jealously in stewardship of the serene
community beneath them, and wondered if I would have been less tormented as a
shopkeeper or commercial traveller. Upon hearing the station goat tearing up
grass and chewing it industriously I even wondered if I should have sought the
simple life of a goat herder.
I turned my attention to
Mr Maynard’s four horses peering out of their stalls. Tormented even more than
I, the poor creatures were nodding their heads like a display of clockwork toys
to escape the flies that swarmed to their eyes. Thus it was that with sunshine
warming me gently I perceived in summer’s magnificent bloom an invitation to
abandon my woes and take flight, and in a fit of instant elation borrowed one
of Mr Maynard’s nodding horses and rode away on it quite madcap.
Having put the station
behind me I turned left and followed Natter Lane down to the arch beneath the
tramway. Here, stooping to avoid the low headroom of a cast-iron way-beam, I
slowed up, for I was without a destination and it was too early in the morning
to go visiting. Or was it? Folk tended to make allowances for the busy
stationmaster so I decided to go visiting anyway. I gave my mount a flick of
the crop and we gathered speed through the reverberant second arch under the
railway proper, a somewhat more dank and gloomy one than the first, then
galloped back out into the daylight. Upshott wood was now on my left and
Fallowfield common on my right, and from here in the company of a talkative
brook I descended the valley towards Widdlecombe to see Mrs Smith.
My mare’s ears twitched
with each whisper of the countryside as I trotted her down Natter lane towards
the river Ondle, for she seemed as glad as I to be at large. Her name, by the
way, was Campion, and I discovered that Campion like to be advised about this
and that along the way.
Upon reaching the river
I decided to take a shortcut and searched the shallows around Willow island for
the old ford. Campion enjoyed the splash, and having been revitalised by it
she bounced jauntily across the springy turf of Ondle common to deliver me to
Widdlecombe in no time.
Looking out for the name
‘Woodacott’ I located Mrs Smith’s cottage not far from the railway station. It
was a small dwelling with pink, cob walls and a roof yellowed with lichen
encrusted tiles. I tethered Campion to a fence post within reach of some
succulent grass, regarded her with a pat on the neck, and entered the garden
where I spotted Diggory sitting on a stool taking the morning air. I was glad
to see the lad’s colour had returned. Indeed, were it not for his
sticking-plasters and one minor bruise, one would not have known that he had
been involved in a railway accident only the day before. After exchanging
pleasantries with the bony specimen of youthhood, I asked:
“Are you so transformed
by your thoughts, lad, that you do not hear a train approaching?”
“No, sir,” he replied.
“Yes, sir,” he revised his answer. “I mean, yes I didn’t hear the train, but
no it wasn’t because I was transported, sir.”
I dare say my lack of
comprehension was charted upon my face. Thus I did not challenge the logic of
Diggory’s answer, if indeed there was any, preferring instead to wait for him
to qualify it.
“All I could hear was
the wind rattling in my ears, Mr Jay. It’s always blowy on the viaduct.”
“Quite so,” I concurred.
Much as I was tempted to
question the young porter about his poor timekeeping, this was not the right
moment. Instead I enquired of his mother’s whereabouts. The lad was sitting
close to the cottage, and feeling weary he leaned against the cob for support,
at which point I discovered that we were not alone.
“Mornin’ Diggory,” a
toothless someone whistled through the hedgerow.
Diggory straightened up
as if startled.
“Got over yer fright
yet?” another voice enquired.
It appeared that my
Junior porter was a popular young fellow in his home village. I stood aside
politely while pleasantries were exchanged then doffed my hat to the
well-wishers, although all I could see of them were their eyes squinting
through the thicket.
Hearing the rattle of
the morning Giddiford train drawing into the station high upon Widdlecombe bank
I checked my timepiece. The ‘up’ train was on time, it being 7.59am, and I
crossed my fingers that timekeeping today would not be allowed to go awry by
that hopeless new stationmaster at Upshott.
I left Diggory talking
to his yokel friends and crossed the herb garden to the cottage. The door was
ajar so I peered inside and announced my presence. Mrs Smith called back from
the kitchen where she was at the range bringing some medicinal frumenty to the
boil. She invited me in.
“Please excuse my
appearance, Mr Jay,” she apologised, brushing herself down frantically. “I was
not expecting company.”
Notwithstanding Mrs
Smith’s disorientation, by virtue of her sartorial simplicity she looked
perfectly adorable. I espied beneath her apron a cream coloured dress printed
with pale green oak leaves, and a collar pinned down with an amber brooch which
in the morning light matched the colour of her eyes. Her charming hair I could
not see because it was secured beneath a goffered cap of cream linen, but this
deprivation prompted me to expose my own hair to put her at her ease.
“Will you take tea?” she
asked delicately while watching my hat come off, as if the offer might cause
offence.
I accepted, and a dimple
of satisfaction took residence upon her blushed cheeks.
We began talking of
Diggory’s accident and of his behaviour generally, for I was deliberately
steering the conversation towards these matters. I took the opportunity to
express my concern that the lad had no father to guide him through the stormy
passage to manhood, and Mrs Smith explained that Diggory was indeed missing his
father at present.
At this point I became
aware of Mrs Smith’s mastery of English, for as I understood it she was French
by birth. Her speech sounded as English to my ear as that of any local person,
not that Exmoor folk accorded the Queen’s English much fidelity. However, with
a little concentration one could just detect a foreign accent surviving from
childhood, though occasional inflections revealing her native tongue were so
alloyed with the west country dialect as to not register in the casual hearing.
When the moment was
right I taxed Mrs Smith directly concerning Diggory’s presence on the viaduct
at a time of day when he should have been at his post. This enquiry, I hasten
to add, I made with a good measure of caution and sensitivity.
“If I might make so
bold, Mrs Smith,” I ventured, “I believe young Diggory is troubled by
something. And if I am not mistaken, this something accounts for his late
start for work yesterday.”
“Your observations do
you justice, Mr Jay, she responded openly. “My son is beside himself lately,
and no mistake. But the explanation is lengthy.”
Having journeyed across
the valley, Mr Maynard’s work-worn old saddle had taken its toll of my
posterior and I was not ready to return just yet, so I was at pains to hear
this lengthy explanation and offered my forbearance in exchange for a
comfortable seat. In response, Mrs Smith sat me down upon an oak settle and
insisted that I partake of a toasted muffin with my tea.
