Darkest Before Dawn (4 page)

On the canal, things had been different. Sometimes, of course, he managed to moor near the church at which he was to preach, but quite often this was not possible and the family had a long trek between parishes. Harry was no killjoy and in summer, particularly, the walks had been delightful, with the girls playing tag, or skipping, or picking flowers to decorate the boat. Even in winter the walks could be pleasant, for the girls would collect holly and long strands of gleaming ivy which they would wind round the chimney pots of the
Mary Jane
and her butty boats.

It had not been easy for Harry to make the decision to leave the canal and the
Mary Jane
, but he had done so for two overwhelmingly important reasons. The first was simple enough: he meant to retire one day, as many bargees did, to the small village of Burscough where his father, and grandfather before him, had owned a cottage alongside the canal. Normally, such a cottage passed from father to son, but Harry was the third in a family of boys and his elder brother, Edmund, had sold the cottage and taken a job as a merchant seaman sailing from the port of Liverpool, which meant that Harry had no home to which he could retire. He had made a living on the canal, sufficient to keep him and his family fed and clothed, but after twenty-five years his savings were pathetic. So when a friend had told him that Payton and Bister were looking for a truly reliable and trustworthy man to take charge of a huge canalside warehouse, he had been very tempted. The wage was far in excess of the sort of money he was earning on the canal, which would mean his savings could increase with some rapidity, and of course the family would have to move into a permanent home in Liverpool. This would be a good thing because it would help with his second reason for accepting the warehouseman job: both he and Martha wanted something better for their daughters than a life on the canal. Seraphina, with her great sheath of dark gold hair, was not only unusually beautiful, but also extremely clever. Harry knew she took after her mother. He and Martha had met – and indeed married – very young, when Martha had been a pupil teacher at a school in Leeds. She had never completed her training and Harry had often felt guilty because Martha had loved her work and would, he thought, have made an excellent teacher. So when he saw Seraphina taking after her he was determined that, unlike Martha, she would be given a chance to have a proper career in education. Whilst they lived on the canal, however, this would not be possible, so the job offer seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to give his eldest daughter a chance to better herself.

Then there was Angela. She, too, was a very pretty girl, though nowhere near as clever as Seraphina, and her parents were sure she would marry and be happier bringing up a family than having any sort of career. However, she was not physically strong and Harry wanted her to meet young men other than those employed on the canal. He wanted to see Angela in a pleasant home of her own, with a garden to care for and children at her knee who could go to a school round the corner and get a proper education. The schooling of all three of his daughters had suffered from the nomadic nature of the bargees' lifestyle.

He did not worry overmuch about Evie, who was a tough little creature, not beautiful like her sisters but inventive, self-assured and full of energy. Besides, at only ten years old, her character was still unformed and he had no idea whether she would take after himself or his wife; he rather thought neither. Both his elder daughters missed the canal and their lives aboard the
Mary Jane
, though they were beginning to settle down now; Seraphina would start at teacher training college in a few days and Angela was working at Bunney's. Suddenly Harry realised with some surprise that he had no idea how Evie felt about their changed circumstances. Oh, she missed the freedom of life on the canal, grumbled about the boredom of having to be in school every day during term time, but she seemed to have a dozen unruly little friends with whom she had spent most of the summer holidays.

The toasted cheese was done and Harry dished up, then put the plates on the table and reached for the frying pan in which the sliced tomatoes sizzled. Neatly, he covered the toasted cheese with the slices, then stood the pan on the draining board and lifted the hissing kettle off the gas. He spooned tea from the caddy into the brown teapot just as Martha re-entered the room. ‘The girls are coming,' she remarked, taking her place at the table. ‘Thank you, Harry. This smells delicious.'

The two began to eat as the girls clattered up the stairs and burst through the door. Harry saw that Evie was not with them but did not worry overmuch; Evie was a law unto herself and would magically appear once her food was on the table. He smiled at his second daughter. ‘You cut the loaf, love, and slice the cheese; Seraphina can do the cooking for once, since it's so simple.' He turned to his wife. ‘Are there any tomatoes left?'

Martha shook her head. ‘No, I'm afraid I used the last,' she said apologetically.

Seraphina sighed. ‘If we were still on the canal, we'd be able to pick some of our own tomatoes,' she said, rather reproachfully. ‘Or if we were near Micklethwaite we could cadge a bagful from Toby Duffy's ma.'

Harry said nothing but he shot a quick glance at his eldest daughter under his lashes. So he had been right. Toby Duffy was a pleasant enough young man, a village lad who had been a friend of Seraphina's when they were young. Harry had thought – hoped – that the two might grow apart, but they did not seem to have done so. He thought Toby a nice enough lad but, if the truth were told, simply not good enough for Seraphina, and he did not want to see her tied to a baker's apprentice without ambition or much thought for the future. Toby was one of a large family and when Seraphina had first brought him aboard the
Mary Jane
had been barefoot, dirty and clad in trousers and shirt which were little more than rags. Now Harry admitted that the strapping young man that Toby had become had clearly attracted Seraphina – but she knew so few young men. Yes, I did the right thing in taking the girls away from the canal – and away from Toby Duffy, Harry decided. After all, Seraphina's only eighteen; she's got years ahead of her before she need consider whom she wants to marry.

‘I wonder what Toby's doing now?' Angela said idly. ‘Oh, no! Seraphina, the toast is on fire!'

Chapter Two

When the Todd family had decided to desert the canal and live and work ashore, Toby Duffy had thought it would make very little difference to his relationship with Seraphina. After all, he had always had to put himself out to spend time with her and had walked miles so that he could have a few hours in her company whenever the
Mary Jane
was in the vicinity. Mr Todd was both kind and good-natured, and as soon as he realised how much it meant to both Seraphina and Toby he generally tried to moor the boat within reasonable distance of Micklethwaite, the village in which Toby lived. This had not always been possible, so sometimes several weeks had elapsed during which Toby and Seraphina had not met.

When Mr Todd had first mooted the idea of living ashore, however, Toby had taken it for granted that they would move to Leeds. At the time, he had been working there as a baker's apprentice, and it would have meant that he and Seraphina could have seen a lot more of each other. But Liverpool was different. It was a great deal further off and completely foreign territory to Toby. He knew that the Todds were living on a street called Scotland Road, but had no idea where that was. Seraphina had said she would write and she had done so, but Toby was no hand at correspondence and though he had dutifully replied to her long and lively letters, his answers had been dull and short. The trouble was, he had known within days that he would never willingly remain a baker's apprentice. He hated the terrible heat from the huge ovens, the constant bickering of men forced to work in such uncongenial conditions, and the fetid smells of yeast and sweat. He started work in the early hours of the morning and was too tired and dispirited to do anything other than fall into his bed at the day's end, so he could think of nothing interesting to write. Had he and Seraphina been able to meet, though, it would have been a different matter.

But now, at last, he had something really interesting to tell her, for whilst he was with the bakery he had been in digs in Martin Terrace, quite near Wellington station, and had become friendly with a junior porter who was sharing his lodgings. Frank, a real railway enthusiast, had taken him to the station, and Toby had gradually realised that life on the railways was infinitely preferable to life as a baker. He told Frank that he was interested in any work which meant he could be outside, and then, a couple of months back, Frank had said that a junior porter was wanted, by the LMS Railway, at a small and very remote country station. Toby had applied and got the job, had moved there a month previously, and was now beginning to realise that he had fallen on his feet. The work was far harder than he had anticipated and by the time he had paid his landlady he had almost nothing left over, but he thoroughly enjoyed it, and when he had time off the beauties of the countryside, which he had missed horribly whilst he was in Leeds, were there for the taking.

Had he stuck to his job as a baker's apprentice, he would have had a foot upon a ladder which would have led, eventually, to well-paid and regular work. He knew his parents thought he had been a fool to take the porter's job, but they were an easy-going couple – his father was in the Navy, so not often home – and when he had told them of the conditions in which he had worked in the bakery, they took his decision philosophically, though they could not help him financially for Toby was one of half a dozen children and had been given his chance.

When he had lived at home, Toby had not realised how hard his mother worked because she never seemed to hurry. She was, in fact, extremely efficient and she had delegated many jobs to the older children – Toby had set traps for rabbits, stripped the hedgerows of nuts and blackberries and worked in nearby fields for a bag of potatoes or a few large swedes or turnips – but even with such help, she had had a good deal to do. She took in washing, occasionally worked as a scrubbing woman at the big house, and always baked her own bread in the old-fashioned oven set beside the fire. To be sure, the children were frequently dressed in rags, but they were seldom actually hungry and with eight mouths to feed Toby realised, now that he was a man, that this had been no mean feat.

Now, he sent money home, knowing that his elder brother and sister did the same, but took little part in the affairs of the Duffy family. It was a cross-country journey of nearly twenty miles from Wateringford to Micklethwaite, and anyway there was no longer any room for him in the tumbledown cottage where he had been born and brought up.

He was very happy in his new lodgings. His landlady, Mrs Marks, was a widow and a motherly soul whose own children had long ago left the nest, and consequently she treated Toby like a son. She cooked his favourite meals, did his washing and ironing and even lent him her late husband's old bicycle so that he could go off into the surrounding countryside when he was not on duty.

Right now, Toby was digging in the long flower bed which ran from the station entrance to the end of the platform. Mr Tolliver, the stationmaster, had decreed that some form of floral decoration should front the long bed but that behind the chrysanthemum plants which Toby was now setting winter greens should flourish. Toby loved gardening and looked with satisfaction at the long vegetable plot. There were sprouts at the back, because they were tall and leggy, and then several rows of drumhead cabbages, small and leafy as yet, but they would have firmed up nicely by the time the first frosts arrived. And the chrysanthemums were already in bud so they would make a brave show as autumn drew on. Mr Tolliver had commandeered the small walled plot of his own front garden to grow on plants for his station, so the chrysanthemums had been basking in the September sunshine, protected and cosseted, until Mr Tolliver decided they were strong enough to withstand life on the more exposed station platform.

Toby set the last plant, firmed it down and stood up, regarding his work with satisfaction. The bed looked grand; he was sure Mr Tolliver would approve when next he came on to the platform, and it was nice for the passengers to see the neat, well-tended beds as they got on and off their trains. Toby thought of the big Leeds station he had visited so often, the cigarette ends scattered on the platform, the cast-down papers which the wind twirled into piles, the soot and dead leaves which gathered in every corner. He would not have been anywhere near as happy working in such a place, even though he would have had other young men – and young women too – for company. Here, he was the only junior porter on duty and the long list of instructions which was pinned up daily in the office had at first completely floored him. There was so much to do! He worked from half-past seven to five, or half past ten to eight, and how he worked! His normal, everyday duties were to clean the waiting room, lay and light the fire, clean the ticket office and the stationmaster's small lair, clean and mop down both the ladies' and the gents' toilets, brush the platform, clean all the windows and keep everywhere tidy. Then there were the additional jobs such as posting bills, carting mail bags, getting milk churns on and off the trains and, of course, helping any passenger who needed assistance, running errands for the engine drivers and opening and closing train doors at the appropriate moments. On top of everything else came the deliveries. Anything sent to the station by rail had to be hand-delivered to its ultimate destination, and this could be as far as eight miles away. Toby blessed his kind landlady and her husband's old bicycle, for though he had to push it up many steep hills he could also coast down the other side, and it undoubtedly saved him a good deal of time.