A Bridge in Time Read online

  Tibbie swayed. All of a sudden the cold seemed to bite into her bones. ‘You’re not putting it there. Not through the field!’ she exclaimed. The strip of rough land was the common property of the cottagers whose houses overlooked it and who used it to graze a cow or a horse. Tibbie herself ran a few hens on it and augmented her income by selling eggs.

  The friendly man walked slightly closer to her and called reassuringly, ‘No, not through the field – down by the hedge. We’ll build an embankment and the line’s going to run along the top.’

  She stepped back in alarm, clutching her shawl to her throat. ‘Oh no, don’t do that. We don’t want trains coming through this village,’ she cried in horror.

  Back inside the kitchen, she leaned against the closed door and tried to stop the shaking in her legs. She felt as if a nightmare had become reality; the railway which she envisaged as a fire-breathing monster would run within touching distance of her beloved home. She could see it in her mind’s eye, snaking along the thorn hedge throwing out showers of red-hot cinders, terrifying the animals and the people. People had said it would never happen, but now they were actually planning the line. She had to talk to someone – she had to have reassurance from her neighbours that it wouldn’t be allowed.

  Ignoring the surveying party who were still pacing the hedge, she dashed back into the garden again and out through her wooden gate into a narrow path that ran behind the cottages. It was a struggle to keep her feet on the slippery paving stones which were rutted down each side by the passage of old wheels – first chariot-wheels and then farm carts – but she moved with determination because she knew where she was going. Her destination was the village shop, the centre of Camptounfoot life. Everything that went on was known about there.

  Its brass bell tinkled when she stepped inside and Bob, the shop-owner, shoved his head round the edge of the door that divided the counter area from the back parlour where he and his wife Mamie lived. He held a steaming cup of tea in his hand and was obviously none too pleased at being interrupted in his breakfast. Tibbie knew she had to buy something to explain her presence, so she looked hurriedly around at the stock, searching her mind for a purchase that would not cost very much. ‘I’m needing a ball of string,’ she gasped finally.

  Bob’s wife Mamie appeared at his shoulder and raised disapproving black eyebrows to her hairline as she said, ‘You must be needing string awful bad to be out this early. It’s not eight o’clock yet.’

  ‘I’m an early riser,’ said Tibbie, but it was impossible to keep the real object of her visit a secret any longer so she burst out, ‘I’ve just seen some men walking the field behind my house. They say they’re surveying for a railway line!’

  Bob nodded his head sagely. ‘So they are, so they are. Dinna you worry though, they’ll no’ harm you, Mrs Mather.’

  ‘I’m no’ feared of the men,’ snapped Tibbie, ‘but I don’t like them speiring the place out. We don’t want a railway coming through Camptounfoot.’

  Bob was rummaging in a drawer below the wooden counter for balls of string. His shop was a cluttered wonder but he always knew where everything could be found. Heavy working boots for adults and children swung by their knotted leather laces from nails hammered into the roof-beams. A black umbrella hung beside them. It had been up there for ten years at least and was delicately draped with spiders’ webs, for it had not been moved since the day he put it up. No one had ever shown any interest in buying it because, when it rained, sensible folk covered their heads with shawls or pulled their working caps on more firmly. As her husband searched for Tibbie’s string, Mamie stood with her hands resting on the counter beside bars of bright green soap, a big yellow cheese and a tempting-looking ham which was half-sliced and showing succulent pink flesh frilled with white fat. At the far end of the counter she kept a box of sticky sweetmeats for children, though few of the mothers of the village could afford such luxuries often. Behind her were black japanned tins full of tea and sugar and shelves of scouring powders and metal polish, for which there was a big demand, and dark blue bottles of patent medicines, the labels of which proclaimed their miraculous powers in curing a variety of ailments, from nervous collapse to impotence and childbirth pains. The air was full of mouthwatering smells, somewhat spoiled by a strong whiff of paraffin that drifted in from the back premises every time the door was opened.

  The pair of them stared hostilely at their flustered customer as Bob at last emerged red-faced from floor level brandishing a ball of string in his hands. ‘You might not want a railway Mrs Mather, but there’s other folk not of the same opinion. There’s some that think a railway’ll bring business to Camptounfoot.’ He slapped the ball of string on the counter top and said, ‘That’ll be a penny farthing.’

  She paid reluctantly, took the string and asked again, ‘It’s definitely going there, then? It’s not just an idea?’

  ‘They’re surveying for the railway line,’ said Bob.

  It was obvious that the shop-keeper was very much in favour of the idea and Tibbie felt a pang of fear at the realisation that this could split the village into two opposing camps, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘Oh, I hope somebody stops them from bringing a railway to Camptounfoot.’

  ‘It’s what this place needs,’ said Mamie sharply.

  ‘But it’ll change everything. We’re grand as we are – we don’t need a railway,’ cried Tibbie frantically.

  Behind her, the shop-bell tinkled again and Black Jo the undertaker bent his head to pass under the low lintel. ‘Are you on about the railway? You’re right, Mrs Mather. We dinna need sic a thing in Camptounfoot. It’s the invention o’ the devil.’

  The others turned and stared at him in alarm, for they knew that from time to time Jo was liable to be seized by strange attacks of religious fervour allied with other peculiar symptoms.

  A bachelor in his forties, he lived with his mother in a tall stone house that looked like a decrepit tower at the corner of St James’ Wynd, with his workshop eccentrically situated on the first floor. When he finished making a coffin, the rough wooden box had to be manoeuvred out of the workshop window and lowered on ropes to the ground.

  His sinister occupation, combined with his long, gloomy, cadaverous face and the grubbiness of his attire, made him an object of dread to the adults as well as the children of the village; when one of his religious fits took him, Jo loudly preached Biblical texts from his open window in the middle of the night or prowled around his neighbours’ cottages, peering through uncurtained windows at women living on their own. A raucous widow, called Bella Baird was one of his favourite victims, but she knew how to treat him and, if she heard a scuffle at her window while she was washing herself before the kitchen fire at night, she turned to show her ample, uncovered breasts to the spy and cried, ‘Tak’ a good look, Jo! Tak’ a good look and then awa’ hame to yer mither.’ Other village women were not so bold, however, and went in dread of Jo. Now he loomed large and dark in the shop door, shaking his head and declaiming, ‘We’re no needin’ any railways. It’s the devil that’s sent it to plague us.’

  Bob looked at him with scorn. ‘Don’t be daft!’ he snapped. ‘It’ll bring business. There’ll be more folk for you to bury. Progress is what this place needs, it’s stuck in the past. Naething’s happened here for hundreds of years and you a’ need shakin’ oot o’ yersel’s.’ Bob was proud of the fact that he had been born and brought up in Edinburgh and had only come to Camptounfoot to open his shop ten years before.

  ‘We’ll be overrun wi’ evil! Is that what you call progress?’ demanded Jo. ‘There’ll be godless navvies rampaging up and doon the street. Is that progress?’

  Mamie laughed. ‘Navvies’ll be good for business if they come in here. We’ll be selling baccy and clay pipes all day long.’

  ‘You’ll repent! You’ll be sorry you welcomed the devil,’ intoned Jo in a voice that sounded as if it came from the depths of the tomb.

  Bob’s patience snapped.
‘What is it you’re wanting?’ he asked roughly and Jo hurriedly bought a small square of yellow soap then beat a quick retreat. When he went away, Bob was moved by a feeling of pity for the worried-looking Tibbie, and told her in a gentler tone, ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Mather. Maybe a railway won’t be as bad as you think. Maybe you’ll not mind it when it’s built. This is eighteen fifty-three, after all, and the world’s changing. We cannae be left behind. Just think, you’ll be able to get on a train at your ain back door and go anywhere you want.’

  Tibbie looked stricken and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to leave here. I’ve never wanted to leave here. I don’t want anything to change,’ she said with a tremor in her voice. Then she grabbed the ball of string and fled.

  Behind her, Mamie shook her head and said to her, ‘Do you think she’s all right? Maybe she’s losing the place.’

  It’s a local colloquialism for going a bit silly. He did not agree. ‘Och no, she’s just like some of the other folk here, stuck in their ways and feared of change. But they’ll get used to it. They’ll have to.’

  * * *

  ‘What can we do? Who’s going to help us? We’re powerless, we’re only little people who haven’t any influence,’ ran Tibbie’s angry thoughts as she walked up the steep village street. A cold sun had risen and was gilding the tops of the walls and striking sparks off the glass of uncurtained windows overlooking the road. Voices called out greetings as she passed open doors revealing sparsely furnished interiors, but she answered abstractedly. Women paused in the task of sweeping dust off worn red sandstone doorsteps and greeted her with, ‘Grand day, Tib.’ She called back, ‘Aye, grand day, Mary… Grand day, Meg… Grand Day, Rose…’ but the gravity of her expression made them stare after her and a few asked, ‘What’s up, Tibbie?’ When she told them about the railway, some agreed with her that it would be a terrible thing, but she could see from others’ responses that they secretly welcomed its coming. Already the village was being split in two over the issue.

  The main street was long, and twisted in a sinuous S-shape uphill all the way to Tibbie’s cottage. It was so steep that older people were forced to pause halfway to draw their breath and calm their beating hearts. She stopped at the gate of the village school, a long, narrow building like a cowshed with a tiny playground at one end. In it children were running around, fighting, playing peeries, screaming and shouting as they waited for the day’s lessons to begin. Schoolmaster Mr Anderson was standing in the doorway with a big brass bell in his hand and he called, ‘G’morning, lass. You’re out early.’

  She turned her head towards him and said, ‘They’ve started surveying the railway line. It’s going at the back of my house.’

  From their previous discussion she knew he was not against the new project, but he remembered her fear of innovation and dread of change so he came to the playground railings to say softly, ‘It might not be a bad thing, Tibbie. It’ll open up the world for our bairns.’ Too often he’d watched gifted children being forced by long-established custom to follow the menial occupations of their fathers because there was nothing else they could do. Perhaps, with a chance to travel, they’d go out into the world.

  She gazed at him with disappointment in her eyes. ‘Oh, why should they want to go away from here? And think how much our village’ll be changed!’ she cried.

  He still tried to console her. ‘Change isn’t always a bad thing, Tibbie.’

  She obviously did not believe him and when he began clanging his bell, she hurried on to the narrow mouth of St James’ Wynd where the Rutherfords’ cottage sat back behind a high garden wall. As she passed its gate she could hear the clack of flying shuttles. On impulse, she pushed open the gate and walked up the cobbled path to the open window. Leaning on the sill she looked in to where the weaver and his wife were sitting at their looms. ‘I’ve just seen men walking the new railway line,’ she told them.

  Mr Rutherford looked up. ‘I heard it’s starting soon. It’s got nearly as far as Maddiston and it’ll be here by the end of the year, they say.’

  Tibbie gave a sob and the weavers looked at her with sympathy.

  ‘Dinna take on so, Tib,’ comforted Mrs Rutherford. ‘We’ll all get used to it in time. We’ve been praying about it. God’ll look after us. It might not be as bad as we think.’

  Tibbie drew her head back and wiped her eyes. The Rutherfords were very Christian people who prayed about any problem in their lives. She wished she had the same consolation but that was denied to her.

  Her next destination was the house where she had been born at the top of St James’ Wynd, the blacksmith’s cottage now occupied by her brother William and his wife Effie. His forge adjoined the house. As she turned into the Wynd, Tibbie saw smoke rising like a silver plume from the chimney and knew that William would be heaving on the huge bellows beside the forge to bring life back into the previous day’s fire. She went to his workshop first and stood leaning her arms on the open half-door, watching him at work as she used to watch her father. William’s broad back was covered with a clean white shirt, already marked by a triangular patch of sweat between his shoulder blades. A pair of braces crossed his shoulders and his breeches were held up by a broad leather belt that was cinched around his waist. He was so intent on his task that he did not know she was there until she knocked on the door with her fist. Then he turned and a smile lightened his solemn features.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, lass. I’m just blowin’ up the fire. I’ll not be a minute and then we can go ben for a cup of tea with Effie.’ He gestured towards a little door in the end wall that led from the forge to the house.

  Tibbie nodded acceptance. ‘I smelt baking when I was coming up the Wynd. Effie’s making bread, I think.’ William laughed as he wiped his hands on a piece of dirty cloth. ‘Is that what brought you out?’

  His sister shook her head. ‘No, I came to tell you that the railway men are walking along behind my cottage. They’re going to build the new line there.’

  William nodded soberly. ‘I’ve heard talk of that. Come and have some tea and we’ll talk about it with Effie. Now don’t take on, Tibbie. It might not happen.’

  Tibbie’s sister-in-law Effie was a wonderful housekeeper, the sort who could make a shilling do the work of a guinea. Everything in the cottage sparkled and shone, and what was most comforting to the distraught Tibbie was that nothing seemed to have changed since she was a child: the same pair of brass-bound bellows glittered on the hearth, the same plaster ornaments decorated the mantelshelf, and the same flowered china cups were hanging on hooks in the open-shelved cupboard by the fire. It even seemed that the same tabby cat slumbered in the big chair. A new addition since Tibbie’s last visit, however, was a large coloured lithograph of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert hanging in a prominent position over the kitchen table.

  Struggling to contain her emotions, she concentrated on the picture. ‘Is that new, Effie?’ she asked, peering at the glass. She didn’t really care for it. The Royal couple stood stiffly to attention, a bulging-eyed Queen clinging tightly to her husband’s arm while he gazed straight ahead like a man in a trance.

  ‘I bought it from a pedlar last week. Isn’t she bonny?’ asked Effie, who was a passionate lover of Victoria.

  Tibbie tried to be kind about the tubby little figure in the picture. ‘Er, yes,’ she said doubtfully.

  William interrupted, ‘Tibbie didnae come to talk about the Queen. She’s seen the men from the railway company walking the field at the back of her house.’

  Effie shot him a glance. They had obviously known about this and kept it from Tibbie. ‘It’ll not make much trouble for you, Tibbie. It’ll just be noisy for a wee while,’ she said softly.

  Tibbie shook her head. ‘It’s not only me that I’m worried about, Effie. It’s what a railway’ll do to the whole village. It’ll no’ be the same once it’s built. Camptounfoot’s always been a sort of separate place, secret in a way. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Isn
’t there any way we can stop it?’

  ‘Apparently not. There was a meeting of some of the men of the village last night, and the Duke sent his factor to speak to us. He’s against the railway, but he’s not been able to stop it either. There’s a lot of folk for it, you see, even in this village. They think that if we’re against it, we’re old-fashioned,’ said William glumly.

  Tibbie snapped, ‘But don’t they know what’ll happen? Camptounfoot’ll change.’

  Effie was pouring the tea and she said, ‘But maybe they want it to change. They say we need progress.’

  Tibbie rapped the table sharply. ‘If I hear another person talking about progress, I’ll scream. What’s progress if it brings noise and racket into our village, trains rattling along day and night! Nobody’s asked people like me what we want. Half of this village would say the same thing as I do, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘I don’t want it either but I can’t stop it,’ said William. Then seeing how upset his sister was, he put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. ‘Oh, don’t take on, lass. It might not be as bad as you think.’

  There were tears sparkling in Tibbie’s eyes again as she choked out, ‘I’m so worried. I’ve a terrible feeling – I’m sure something bad’s going to happen to us over the head of this. I just feel it.’

  William tried to be matter of fact. ‘Now stop getting those fancies of yours. You’ve been like that ever since you were a bairn, always having dreams and seeing things.’

  She bridled. ‘It’s not dreams – I do see things. And I see the marching men though I ken fine you don’t like me talking about them. I’m not the only person in this village to see them either.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ William consoled her. ‘I believe you. You’ve not seen them recently, have you? That’s not what’s bothering you?’

  Tibbie shook her head. ‘No, but I’m feared that if the navvies go digging up the place they might go away. They won’t like disturbance.’