Darkest Before Dawn (47 page)

Evie had longed to remind her that Toby would be in the same country as Seraphina pretty soon, but had kept quiet. Time enough when Seraphina was divorced to bring her and Toby together again. The tram drew up at a stop and suddenly she was on her feet and pushing her way towards the top of the stairs, tumbling down them, leaping off the platform with such force that she almost knocked over a stout, bespectacled man carrying a briefcase and wearing a thick, navy blue coat. He protested sharply, grabbed at her arm, told her she should be a bit more careful, if he had gone down on this icy pavement . . . but Evie was not listening. She tore off up the road and grabbed at the stiff, new-looking overcoat of a young man walking along on the outside edge of the pavement. ‘Toby! Toby! Toby!' she shrieked. ‘Oh, Toby, you're back, you're back!'

Chapter Fourteen

It was a wonderful moment. Toby – for it was he – stared down at her incredulously and then, with an exultant laugh, picked her up in his arms and hugged her tightly, and she could feel the tremble running through him. ‘Evie,' he said huskily. ‘Oh, Evie . . . where have you sprung from, and how did you know it was me?'

Evie felt the warmth of his breath on her hair, the pressure of his arms about her, and for a moment was so happy that she scarcely heeded his question. Then, reluctantly, she pulled back from him. ‘I was on top of the tram and saw you walking along. As for recognising you, how could I do anything else? You're a bit thin, but otherwise you're just the same. But how did you recognise
me
? There's a huge difference between twelve and eighteen. Indeed, if you're going to tell me I haven't changed, I shall be very insulted!'

Toby put his arm about her shoulders and kissed the side of her face. ‘Well, you're taller,' he admitted. ‘But it isn't just that. I thought about you an awful lot while I was in Burma and somehow, knowing you were getting older each year, I suppose the picture of you in my mind got older too.' He turned her to face him, smiling down at her with real affection. ‘How pretty you've grown! You're a bit like Seraphina. Oh, I know you've not got her colouring, and once I'd have said there was no resemblance, but now I really do think you're a little bit like her.'

‘Gosh!' Evie said, wide-eyed. ‘That's a compliment and a half, that is.' She slipped her arm through his and smiled up at him, seeing the changes which the war had wrought but thinking them unimportant. ‘Were you on your way to our flat, Toby? I do hope so, though I'm afraid there's one disappointment in store for you. Seraphina has gone back to her airfield, but of course if you want to see her you can go over to Norfolk . . . oh, no you can't, because she's being demobbed and then she'll go straight down to Devon to stay with Angie and her husband. I suppose you could go down there . . .'

‘No I couldn't,' Toby said, as they began to walk along the pavement in the direction of the shop. ‘I wrote to my old boss from Singapore and in a couple of days' time I'm going to start to learn to be a signalman. I was looking for a job in a signal box when war broke out and I'd started to try to learn the book, only by now I've probably forgotten most of it.'

‘Oh, I see,' Evie said, rather doubtfully. ‘But – but do you really want to work for the railways? I mean, won't it remind you of – of the Burma railway and all the dreadful things that happened there?'

Toby chuckled. ‘I wouldn't let that put me off,' he said. ‘I've always been keen on the railways – the English ones, I mean – and besides, being a signalman is the sort of life I've always wanted. It's an enormous responsibility, you know, but it's work I thoroughly enjoy, and that's what matters to me now.'

‘Oh, Toby, will you put in for one of the really big signal stations, like Lime Street?' Evie asked eagerly. ‘It would be lovely to have you near, especially when—' She broke off short, biting back the words
when you and Seraphina are married
, remembering that Seraphina had not yet said anything to Toby about her forthcoming divorce.

She waited for Toby to ask her what she had been about to say, but he did not do so. Instead, he put his right hand over hers, and tucked it into the crook of his left arm. ‘No, I'm afraid I haven't changed that much. I'm still not ambitious and I don't suppose I ever will be. I'm hoping to get a signal box on my own stretch of line – the Settle to Carlisle road. I know it's a long way from Liverpool and Micklethwaite, but when I have time off I'll hop aboard a train and go to see my family or you Todds.'

Evie laughed. ‘I've only just realised it myself, but the only Todd left is me,' she reminded him. ‘Seraphina's a Truelove, Angie's a Reid and Mam's a Wilmslow.'

Toby laughed with her. ‘And you've grown so pretty that it won't be long before you change your name too,' he remarked. ‘What's it to be? I guess you've had a score of fellers since I was last here, but I seem to remember you had a pal called Percy Baldwin who was rather keen on you. Evie Baldwin has a nice ring to it.'

Evie shook her head. ‘Marriage is for other people,' she said decidedly. ‘I'm going to have a career and I shall be an aunt to my sisters' kids, which will suit me just fine. Do you like children, Toby?'

Toby shrugged. ‘I hadn't really thought about it,' he said honestly. ‘In Burma, all any of us could think of was simply survival.' He grinned suddenly, and Evie thought that he looked young again. ‘I don't know whether you know it, but when I left home us older ones had two younger brothers and a little sister. Now, I've got five younger brothers and two little sisters, and our poor little cottage is stretched to bursting point. That's why I only spent a couple of days at home and then came on here, because it really isn't fair on my mum having to cope with a grown man as well as all those kids. And anyway, I want to get some uniform before I start work.'

‘I did know about the new babies as they came along,' Evie told him. ‘It's a long way from here to your village but whenever I went aboard the
Mary Jane
for a bit of a holiday on the canal – not that it was a holiday because I only did it when they needed me – I popped in and saw your mam and got up to date with her news. So you aren't planning to live at home again, then?'

Toby shook his head. ‘No. I left home when I got my first job with the railway and I've never lived at home since. They may want me to go on relief first of all – that means turning up at any signal box where a man is ill, or on holiday, all along the line – and that would mean lodging wherever I was sent. But once I get a box of my own, of course, I'll mebbe rent a place.' He looked dreamily ahead of him. ‘I'd keep a few hens and a pig or two, and make a proper garden, with flowers and fruit as well as vegetables. I'd like that.'

Evie secretly doubted whether Seraphina would share his enthusiasm, but was saved from having to comment because they had reached the shop and she was pushing open the door. Martha was behind the counter whilst Mr Wilmslow, halfway up a stepladder, was stacking cereal boxes on an upper shelf. ‘Hello, Mam,' Evie said cheerfully. ‘You'll never guess . . .'

Her mother smiled at her but turned towards Toby. ‘Can I help you, sir?' she asked.

Toby stared at her and Evie saw a slow flush creep across his face so that the scar flamed more lividly than ever. ‘Oh, Mam, don't pretend you haven't recognised Toby,' she said quickly. ‘He hasn't changed at all, not really.'

Martha gave a squeak, lifted the flap in the counter, and emerged to take both Toby's hands in a warm clasp and stand on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘Dear Toby, it's wonderful to see you again, and Evie's right, you've hardly changed at all. But I wasn't expecting to see you, of course, and you were against the light . . .' She turned to where her husband was ponderously descending the steps. ‘Arthur, come and say hello to Toby.'

The two men shook hands and Mr Wilmslow said that they might as well shut the shop because he was sure Toby would have a lot to tell them. He reached up and took some tins off one of the shelves. ‘Mrs Wilmslow is making minced beef and carrots for our supper,' he said genially. ‘If we pop in a tin of baked beans it'll stretch to four instead of three, and we can finish off with tinned rhubarb and custard, one of me favourites.' He looked thoughtfully round the shop. ‘When Evie told me you'd be coming to see us I put a bottle of South African sherry away so's we could all have a drink; now where the blazes has that gone?'

Martha, who had returned to the other side of the counter, dived beneath it and produced a dusty bottle. ‘Here it is!' she said, triumphantly. ‘Evie, put up the “Closed” sign; we've got a great deal of talking to do.'

By the end of April Toby was deemed fit, both in his own estimation and in that of his teachers, to apply for a job as relief signalman on the Settle to Carlisle line. He had been assured that there would be a permanent job there before winter set in, but in the meantime he would be gaining the very best sort of practical experience.

His first digs were with a plate layer and his wife, who had a tiny cottage amongst the fells. He lodged with two other men, Billy and Sam, and the three of them would work eight-hour shifts over a seven-day period, and would then have three days off. The job was to last a fortnight, whilst the man Toby was covering for was visiting his married daughter in Scotland. ‘You'd best do a couple of day shifts to start off with,' Sam told him, ‘and I'll take you to the box meself and show you the ropes. You're in luck; both meself and Billy own bicycles and you're welcome to borrow one or t'other to get you to and from the box. It's a six-mile ride, so you'll need to leave yourself plenty of time to do the journey. You'd best get Mrs Smith to put you up sandwiches and a flask. Can you cook?'

Toby replied, rather cautiously, that he was a dab hand at cups of tea and bacon and eggs, but wouldn't claim to be much good with pastry or cakes. Sam chuckled. ‘There's a Russell stove with a bit of an oven on the top,' he explained. ‘If you get stuck in the box for a double shift, which can happen, then you'll be right glad of that old stove. Many a rabbit stew I cooked on it during the war, and one of me pals used to make blackberry and apple jam and sell it to passengers at the nearest station.' He grinned at Toby. ‘But since you're relief, and we'll be moving on at the end of two weeks, you won't be wantin' to start no cottage industries, I dare say.'

Toby agreed, but very soon realised why so many signalmen started small sidelines of their own. Some roads were very busy, and at certain times the Settle to Carlisle was one of them, but there were other times when the signalman had nothing much to do for hours together. Toby was conscientious, and took care to plan his shift so that he was on the alert when a train was due. He enjoyed the challenge of being in complete control but found that sometimes the empty hours, when there was no train in his vicinity, dragged. He had always been a keen reader but had not thought to provide himself with books and determined to do so in future.

After a fortnight, he said a regretful goodbye to Mr and Mrs Smith; she was a grand cook and considering the small sum he had paid her weekly – a half-crown – had provided him with excellent meals. The spring was a chilly one, especially high in these fells, and once he had begun to grow accustomed to the life, he had preferred to take food which could be cooked on his stove to the sandwiches Mrs Smith had at first made for him. Accordingly, before he set off for each shift, he had gone to the village shop and bought a couple of eggs and a loaf of bread, some milk and anything else the shop could provide which did not need coupons or points, for naturally he had handed his ration book over to Mrs Smith as soon as he had arrived.

Forewarned being forearmed, when he was given his next assignment he bought a quantity of second-hand books, a large pad of writing paper, a bottle of ink and several envelopes before he set off for his new digs, hoping that they would be as good as his previous lodgings. He had only written one letter from his first signal box, and that had been addressed to Evie with a request that she might pass it around the rest of the family, but at the second box he was more organised and enlarged his correspondence to include his mother, Seraphina and Miles, who was now a fully fledged doctor, working in a large hospital in Leeds. It was grand to receive replies, though these took some while to reach him since they had to be sent to Settle, where the stationmaster would forward them on to whichever signal box Toby was occupying at the time. Toby, enjoying every moment of his new life, had few opportunities of visiting either Liverpool or his home village, but he had learned his lesson and wrote regularly to Evie, asking her, as before, to pass his letters on. This was, he admitted to himself, a bit of a cheat since he frequently received three or four replies to one letter. Angie was full of the antics of her tiny new son, and Seraphina, working as a teacher of lively seven-year-olds in a small village school, was equally full of news. She had stayed with her sister until the little boy was three months old, but then she had moved into lodgings which meant she could walk to her school each day and seemed content with her lot.

Then, in September, Toby got a permanent job. He was to work in one of the highest signal boxes in England, in wild and rugged country miles from anywhere, with the Pennine hills rising all about him and the line cutting through deep embankments and tunnelling its way through the highest of the fells. The only snag to his new appointment was that there was no nearby village in which he could lodge and he would have a long walk to get to work each day. However, his new job did not start until a week after the present one finished, which would, he was told, give him plenty of time to sort out digs for himself and to negotiate the buying of a second-hand bicycle.