A Station In Life (35 page)

I
took Élise’s hand and imagined her soft fingertips playing the harp as I said
my piece.

“I,
Horace Ignatius Jay, take thee Élise Nathalie Liliane Smith to my wedded wife,
to have and to

hold
from this day forward…”

The
recital complete, my thoughts turned to my cherished Bloomer, alas mine no
more, sold to buy a harp.  Having been delivered to the station earlier in the
day, the harp now stood in the parlour and I could scarcely wait to see the surprise
upon Élise’s face.  Her voice in the church seemed unusually soft and delicate.

“…
to love, cherish, and obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy
ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth,” she hushed.

Humphrey
handed me the ring and I placed it where it would ever remain.

‘With
this Ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow…” I heard
myself say.

The
Minister sniffed, recovered, then led us into the Lord’s prayer, my arm now aching
from Humphrey’s incessant nudging and my head throbbing as the effect of his
muddy water wore off.

It was not until much
later that I beheld fully the splendour of Élise’s wedding gown, for even after
I had kissed her for the first time as my wife and signed the register I had
not perceived the lengths to which she had gone.  My first appreciation came
when we swept outside, dazzled by sunshine and well-wishers, and deafened by
Saint Martha’s three bells under a shower of pattering rice.

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” I
heard a woman sob.

Few individual voices
were discernible above the clamour.  Clanging bells, a thousand cawing crows,
cheering celebrants, snorting horses, Spook barking frantically at the vicar,
and an itinerant musician fiddling with improbable passion all faded away as I settled
my eyes upon Élise in her wedding gown.  I found myself speechless in
admiration of her dressmaking skills.  Cream and white folds embraced a court
train and full length veil of lace whilst an exquisitely embroidered bodice
inflected with the merest hint of colour imparted the dress a subtle radiance which,
to my mind, could have come from Worth of Paris.  It was overwhelming that such
a wonderful woman should be my wife.

The photographer established
his apparatus while Humphrey marshalled together the first group to be
photographed.  This included Élise’s sister, Dorine, husband Claude, and their
two young daughters dressed as bridesmaids, the formation completed by Diggory
and a selection of close friends.  Humphrey would not join us, and when the
flash and genie-like puff of smoke from burning magnesium had all but blinded
us we learned why.  The porter hurried away to organise a surprise.  It turned
out that he had arranged for our next photograph to comprise Élise and myself
walking arm-in-arm through an archway of coal shovels held aloft by SER
footplatemen.  This was a stirring moment to which no photograph could do
justice.

As Élise and I emerged
from the arch, Humphrey dashed off again to summon a landau parked in the
lane.  Having escorted us aboard this he hurried away once more, and I noticed
that to each of his dashes was added a bigger grin and louder wheezing.  With a
crack of the whip we were on our way to the High street, and for the first time
I beheld the community of Upshott through the eyes of a married man.  But while
superstition held Élise’s eyes steadfastly ahead as we joggled towards the
Coach House, I accepted felicitations from all, including Serena Blake who for
once was not dressed in black, and even received hat waving from the likes of Doctor
Bentley and Postmaster Peckham.

As the brisk click of
hooves upon cobbles slowed to a more sedate pace I looked over my shoulder at
the carriage following us to the reception and exchanged waves with Dorine. 
This charming lady’s smile was identical to Élise’s, and in her two daughters I
perceived a family penchant for mischief and enjoying colourful occasions,
though Claude remained aloof throughout and dispensed only the odd greeting in
his native tongue.  He, I had been told, was normally very amiable but poor
sea-legs were causing him anxiety about the return crossing to France.

Our wedding breakfast
had been arranged to take place upon the rear lawn of the Coach House at Noon,
and first sight of the spread from our carriage caused Élise to squeeze my hand
tightly.  Not even a second shot of Humphrey’s muddy elixir could have elevated
me to such euphoria because I knew that from this day forth I would face life’s
every vicissitude with a doughty angel at my side.

The carriage halted gently
and I saw Diggory with various young ushers directing guests to their seats,
the lads having sped along footpaths to arrive ahead of us.  Snimple had
produced a charming array of posies for the head table and on display was Serena
Blake’s contribution, a tall wedding cake, its towering presence in dark green
icing sugar giving it the appearance of a small hill.  On the subject of small
hills, there was no sign of Humphrey, for having paid the vicar he was now back
at the station preparing our trunks.  Into his shoes had stepped Edwin
Phillips, reputed to be Upshott’s most thunderous orator, to propose a toast in
our honour, and I spotted him behind an urn rehearsing his speech.  Jack
Wheeler made a brief excursion from the station to offer his congratulations
and I instructed him to thank his wife for taking care of Diggory while Élise
and I were away.

Receiving so much good
will, so many gifts, and in some cases approval from the most unexpected
quarters both humbled and emboldened me, for despite all my disasters I had found
my station in life.  My future was at last defined.  It would be one of
devotion to my beloved wife and my community.

And so it is with regret
that I must now abandon my pen.  My faithful old railway watch is showing 4pm
which, for an elderly gentleman, is an hour of fatigue.  Whilst the
Eighteen-Seventies remain vivid in my mind, my undertaking was to recall them
from my first day as a Stationmaster until my first day as a married man, and with
my bachelor days now fully told I am acquitted of further exertion.

The Twentieth Century may
have spawned many intriguing advances, but of late I am diverted only by life’s
simplest pleasures.  My memories are rekindled daily by a photograph of two newly
weds beneath an arch of shovels, and by the view from my cottage window.  For
among the distant hills, serenity collides with dreams to fill my mind with
familiar voices, lost friends, and the clatter of early trains.  My garden is
filled with birdsong to which my frail ears are now indifferent, so I hark back
to those hectic days when my senses were alive and I could never have imagined
that one day I would become ‘that lonely widower of Tor cottage.  Do you know,
he used to be a stationmaster.’

Indeed, my end reflects
my beginning.  My wonderful Élise, who gave me twenty-five years of steadfast
companionship, has returned to Diggory’s side, her naive and gangling first-born
having grown to become a true gentleman and the Stationmaster of Blodcaster, remaining
so until Eighteen-Ninety-Nine when he died saving a woman from a burning
carriage.  He is greatly missed.

Fortunately I am blessed
with two further boys, the youngest of whom is a civil engineer for a railway company
in the Transvaal, and the eldest, of all things, a private detective.  The
latter is retained by the Great Western for special enquiries, which is a
source of great pride to me as he has solved many of the most mysterious crimes
committed upon our railways.

But what of Spook, I
hear you ask.  This little fellow lived until Eighteen-Eighty-Five.  Throughout
his working life he caught countless rats and guarded the station both day and
night against felons, in his enthusiasm occasionally apprehending an official
visitor.  His declining years were spent collecting money for the LSWR Orphans’
fund with a brass box strapped to his back.  I can still see him roaming the
platforms of Upshott, his legs arthritic, his tail wagging at everyone except
the vicar.

Sometimes I wonder if it
was all just a dream.  I wonder if each of us is a prisoner of a recurring
sentience, trapped within a great storybook read only by its own characters. 
If this is so, and I must relive my days again and again, each time unaware
that I am not new, then I shall have no complaints.

To the
reader…

Though I am bygone
and you are of the present, and we must part abruptly when my pen halts, are we
not all travellers upon the same train?  I may be long alighted from the
carriage that you now occupy, the great railway of time being so long that only
its commuters whose journeys overlap can ever meet, but I pray this note which I
have left upon a seat allows you at least a glimpse of my curious ride, so that
you may compare it with your own.

Horace
Ignatius Jay

Copyright 2013 by James Smiley - All Rights Reserved

Language: UK English Spellings and Word Usage

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