The Railway Girl
Only tragedy can save her…Lucy Piddock meets Arthur Goodrich, solid, kind and dependable; a stonemason by trade working in his father’s Black Country business. Arthur seems to be the ideal match, but he lights no flame in Lucy’s heart. Anyone else would be satisfied. But Lucy wants more. She dares to dream of love and hankers for Dickie Dempster, the debonair young guard she meets who works on the newly constructed railway.Prompted by Lucy’s rejection, Arthur leaves home to seek a new life and a new love in Bristol, leaving Lucy free to pursue her dream of happiness with Dickie.Free to make her own choices, Lucy finds the water muddied by tragedy, and must re-examine where her heart really lies . . .
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NANCY CARSON
The Railway Girl
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016
Copyright © Nancy Carson 2016
Cover illustration © Debbie Clement 2016
Nancy Carson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780008134860
Source ISBN: 9780008157005
Version: 2017-11-13
Table of Contents
1856
The train escaped the tunnel’s blackness, half obscured by a billowing veil of white steam, into the balmy sunshine of a late July afternoon. As soon as she heard the mechanical din of the locomotive, Lucy Piddock turned her head to watch, stepping back from the platform’s edge. She urged her friend Miriam Watson to do likewise with a token pull on her arm. The engine and its unholy racket, offensive to the ears, passed them slowly, delivering its string of coaches to precisely where the rest of the passengers were waiting. As it groaned and hissed to a halt, Lucy smiled at Miriam, opened the door of an empty third class compartment and allowed Miriam to step up inside before her. They were going home after browsing the shops in Dudley.
‘How did we manage to get about before we had the railway?’ Lucy remarked as she and Miriam sat facing each other next to the window. The railway line had been open four years and Lucy did not yet take for granted the novelty of it, nor the convenience. ‘We’d never have gone to Dudley before of a Saturday afternoon, would we?’
‘Better than walking to Stourbridge,’ Miriam agreed. ‘It’s a tidy walk to Stourbridge from Silver End … especially if you got a nail sticking up in your boot.’
‘I sometimes wonder if it’s quicker to walk down to the main station past the castle or this one.’
‘Depends where you am when you’m done, I reckon,’ Miriam surmised. ‘Which end o’ the town you’m at. Neither station’s close to the shops, but you don’t have to put up with going through that dark tunnel when you go from this one.’
‘That’s true,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And it costs a bit less.’
She gazed out of the carriage window onto the platform, while Miriam took off her boot and rubbed her bunion where the offending nail was puncturing it. A young guard, smart in the livery of the Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and wearing a cheese-cutter cap, checked the door to the compartment of the four-wheeled coach. He caught Lucy’s eye through the window and smiled, giving her a waggish wink that made her insides churn, then pressed on to check the forward coaches.
‘Miriam, did you see that chap?’ Lucy asked with a broad grin. ‘The guard. I fancy him.’
‘Trust you to fancy somebody you’ll never see again.’
‘Course I shall see him again,’ Lucy said with a certainty that defied argument. ‘He’ll be coming back this way in a minute to get back in his guards’ van.’
‘Well, you ain’t gunna get the chance to talk to him. The train’ll be pulling out in a minute.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I only said I fancied him. I didn’t say as I wanted to have a chat about the weather, or whether the Queen and Prince Albert will have more children.’
‘Ain’t there no decent chaps where you work?’ Miriam enquired. ‘We’ll have to get you fixed up with somebody soon, else you’ll end up an old maid.’
‘Chaps don’t seem to fancy me, Miriam. I reckon I ain’t pretty enough. Let’s face it, I wasn’t at the front of the queue when they was giving out pretty faces.’ Lucy saw the guard returning and perked up at once. ‘Aye up! Here he comes again. Have a peep at him.’
As he passed the window he turned and smiled once more, so both girls grinned and waved saucily.
‘Well, he seems to think you’m pretty,’ Miriam said. ‘He seems to fancy you. He was smiling at you, not me.’
