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

       Chapter 12

      Robert Crawford set off home with his awkward two-wheeled contraption. The hill ahead of him was daunting in the heat, and too steep to treadle his way up. So he gripped the handlebars, took a deep breath, and began pushing the heavy machine. Workmen turning out of the pits and ironworks made their way home or to the nearest beer shop, sweating in their shirtsleeves, their jackets and waistcoats bent over their arms or tossed over their shoulders. Women struggled with bags and baskets of provisions, irritated by whining children who tugged at their skirts or walked under their feet.

      Robert’s thoughts were focused on Poppy Silk. Should he take advantage of her love for him and trifle with her, or should he take her devotion seriously? Common sense told him he should do neither. He should steer well clear of her, with or without his two-wheeler. His heart, however, was urging him to do both … Well, such was his confusion. Ever since he first became acquainted with Poppy, she had enchanted him. Consequently, he had lost interest in the fine decent girl to whom he was already engaged. To that respectable girl, any interest he showed was pretence.

      It was flattering to have two very pretty girls vying for his affection. He was, however, uncompromising in his determination to be fair to both.

      Yet he was becoming increasingly aware that the mutual fondness he and Poppy shared was special. He also realised that the effect of its denial was torture on him. How long could he tolerate it? How long was he prepared to? Furthermore, what effect was his warm attention, but ultimate denial, having on Poppy?

      To her detriment, Poppy was the daughter of a mere railway navvy, and a product of that ungodly, itinerant sect that were all but outlawed by decent society. She was uncultured, untutored in anything until he himself had shown her the rudiments of reading and writing. She had been raised in that shady circumstance where morality was non-existent, where violence was the norm and thieving was accepted. In her world, life itself was dominated by the subversive lure of beer and whisky, and just how much of it the men could drink before falling over or maiming each other in fights. She wore clothes that were odd, old, unfashionable and sometimes shabby. He had been so dismayed by her poverty-stricken clogs that he had been only too happy to buy her a decent pair of boots. Without some radical change in her, he could not possibly take her home to meet his parents and say, ‘This is Poppy Silk, whom I adore and want to marry. This is the woman I prefer over the more refined, more respectable girl you expect me to wed. This is the woman I want to bear my children and bring them up in a clean, respectable home, who will teach them to become model citizens. This is the woman I expect you to admire and take to your hearts, despite her shabbiness and her total ignorance of the niceties of life, despite the rigid social conventions that rule our lives, of which she has no grasp, albeit through no fault of her own.’

      They would laugh at him.

      They would scorn him and think he had gone utterly mad.

      If he tutored her from now till doomsday … Yet despite her faults, was Poppy Silk not the dearest, the most delightful soul? Her hair was a dishevelled mess much of the time, but was it not lovely for all that, and the most divine shade of wheat that had been sun-ripened to perfection? Was its texture not that of the softest spun silk? Was she not also the girl with more youthful grace and zest than any other he had met? Would her enchanting face not be the envy of the most strikingly beautiful goddess? Did she not possess the clearest, biggest, bluest eyes imaginable? Was her nose not the most exquisitely formed, her neck the most elegant, her lips not the most delicious that ever man kissed? And those were only the parts of her he’d had access to. There lay concealed other, perhaps even more beguiling, attractions. And besides these outward manifestations of beauty, did she not also possess the sweetest nature, the most admirable, intelligent demeanour?

      Even so, what could he do? He must be fair to both these young women who had taken over his life, else he would not be able to live with himself. Indecision was his enemy, but he could not decide what to do to be fair, not only to them, but to himself as well. Procrastination could cause him to lose this one enigmatic girl who he was certain would be the love of his life. Hesitancy could induce him, through a reluctance to be cruel to the other, into a marriage that was destined to fail. Indecision, procrastination, hesitancy … These were his failings, but at least he was aware of them. Somehow, he must work out a solution.

      He had reached the top of the hill and was perspiring in the July heat. In front of him King Street was a downhill run before it levelled out. He could ride from here. The flow of the breeze against him as he rode would cool him. So he cocked his leg over the frame of the two-wheeled machine and shoved off.

      A solution of sorts began to take form in his mind, which could be fair to both girls and to himself. It seemed the only way he could extricate himself from this dilemma and emerge with a clearer understanding of what would ultimately be the best thing to do. He needed time. Only then could he become more rational. Time would enable him to sort himself out, free him from the perplexity of all-consuming emotions, which were intensified in turn by his own refusal to submit to them. Poppy, meanwhile, might fall prey to the foul attentions of one of the roughnecks among whom she existed. He must be aware, therefore, that while in one sense a friend, time might also turn out to be a traitor and rob him of her.

      Robert had reached the brow of the hill where Waddams Pool became Dixons Green Road. A little further on, the splendid home of his family stood in its own extensive grounds. He rode his machine into the drive and put it away in one of the stables at the rear, realising he had no recollection of the ride home, save for his thoughts. However, he had made an important decision. Now, he must implement it.

      A month passed. A month in which midsummer progressed in a succession of hot and sultry days, when only occasional dark clouds drifted like bruises across a sky that quickly healed. In the distance towards the rolling Clent Hills, in the patchwork of fields beyond the chimney stacks, wheat and barley revelled in the warm breeze and ripened, waiting to be harvested. In some fields, hay had already been cut and stood in stooks, like little huts ready to be occupied by hobgoblins.

      Work on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton was, yard by yard, day by day, shifting further away from the encampment at Blowers Green. Thus it was taking the men longer to get to the workings and longer to return to their lodgings after their toils. The stables were moved so that the mules and horses could be closer to where they were needed. Still there was no sign of the permanent way being laid.

      Sheba’s morning sickness persisted and her belly, though hardly yet any bigger, was getting firmer. Tweedle Beak had twigged that she was pregnant but, not unnaturally, assumed the child was his. So far, Sheba had not denied it, biding her time for the right moment. Minnie Catchpole and Jericho continued their sensuous liaison clandestinely. Minnie remained ignorant that Dog Meat had prostituted her for the price of a gallon of beer, and so eager was she to make herself available to Jericho that he saw no sense in paying Dog Meat for the subsequent use he made of her. As far as Minnie was concerned, it was a love match. Jericho, however, was tiring of the intrigue. There was still that other finer-looking girl who had not yet succumbed to his charms.

      Poppy had noticed that neither Minnie nor Jericho seemed to be available to go out nights. If she had alienated Minnie in some way she was sorry, but could not think how she could have done it. Jericho? Well, he had most likely just grown tired of getting nowhere with her.

      Poppy, though, remained preoccupied with Robert Crawford. He continued to give her lessons two or three times a week and