A Country Girl

A Country Girl Nancy Carson A must-read sweeping saga, full of intrigue, romance and page-turning drama . . .Marigold Bingham, though promised to Algie Stokes, the lock-keeper’s son, reconsiders her dreams of marriage when she wrongly believes he has been two-timing her.With the sudden death of his father, as well as the loss of Marigold, Algie is consoled by Aurelia Sampson, the charming and beguiling wife of his employer, Benjamin. Yet Aurelia merely muddies the waters, adding to Algie’s worries which weigh heavily on his shoulders as head of his increasingly troubled family.Marigold Bingham is unaware of Algie’s spiralling burdens, yet she is in for a whole series of life-changing surprises.So too is Algie, the man she once called her own . . . NANCY CARSON A Country Girl Copyright (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) Published by AVON A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by AVON 2017 Copyright © Nancy Carson 2017 Cover design © Debbie Clements 2017 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. 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Source ISBN: 9780008173548 Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008134877 Version: 2018-01-09 Table of Contents Cover (#uf80ac747-683a-59b6-8053-359d0bdc516b) Title Page (#u65afc8eb-2818-53d7-a7a2-0fbaa82ad796) Copyright (#u66d97954-17da-56c3-bd72-358e5261b8c8) Chapter 1 (#u06ecb085-c9fc-5b61-a5d8-e54d56d29cf3) Chapter 2 (#u56c49961-4664-5aef-99db-e0d19561117d) Chapter 3 (#u065e5e72-3402-58df-843e-49b1d7ba6fc6) Chapter 4 (#u4c6e1220-f004-5ff7-b633-e3782f5932d3) Chapter 5 (#u471b64a5-0a18-5171-888c-f2ac963de938) Chapter 6 (#uf3617fca-8dc4-5f8f-8386-b829f098ac30) Chapter 7 (#uf35fff35-87de-5957-b188-6a80838c45f2) Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo) Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) By the Same Author: (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 1 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) ‘Aye up, the Binghams are coming through the lock,’ Kate Stokes cried provocatively, knowing it would rouse Algernon, her brother, from his sun-induced reverie. As soon as she’d heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hoofs and attendant voices, Kate had rushed to peer over the garden fence to see who was on the towpath of the canal which ran alongside. There was some personal motive in this, too – it could have been Reggie Hodgetts. Till that moment, she had been stooping down to tend their father’s vegetable patch, creating the illusion that she was a homely girl, which she patently was not. She was, however, extraordinarily pretty but with a tongue like a whip, and her relationship with Algernon was, at best, thorny. Algernon had seemed unflappable as he leant against the back door of the lock-keeper’s cottage where the siblings lived with their mother and father. His face was sedately and serenely turned upward to receive the warmth of the spring sun. But, on hearing the news that the Binghams were coming through the lock, his heart missed a beat and he was at once stirred into a renewed vigour. The Binghams, you see, had a particularly lovely daughter, and he duly rushed to the fence to join Kate to gain sight of her. Sure enough, he spotted Seth Bingham leading his strong little horse as it pulled their pair of narrowboats towards the lock gates. Kate flashed a knowing look at her brother. ‘I thought that might get you going.’ ‘Why should the Binghams get me going?’ he protested, feigning indifference. ‘You were pretty quick off the mark yourself … to see if it was the Hodgettses, I reckon.’ ‘The Hodgettses ain’t due past here till Tuesday.’ ‘No, but you sprang up quick enough, just in case it was that scruff Reggie,’ Algernon countered. ‘So you’ll just have to wait till Tuesday, won’t you, before you can go gallivanting off with him?’ He glanced at his sister disdainfully. ‘Reggie Hodgetts ain’t much of a catch, is he?’ ‘Mind your own business,’ Kate replied, at once rallying. ‘You’re interested enough in Marigold Bingham, the daughter of a scruffy boatman. I’ve seen you. Every time she comes a-nigh you’re up, ogling after her. You can’t keep your eyes off her.’ Algernon – who answered more readily to Algie – replied calmly, ‘She’s different. She looks nice. She’s got something about her. I’d like to see her without her working clothes on.’ ‘Pooh, I bet you would, you dirty sod—’ ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean I’d like to see her in her Sunday best—’ ‘Huh!’ Kate exclaimed suspiciously. ‘I know what you mean. And you’m already a-courting Harriet Meese … You ought to be ashamed.’ ‘Ashamed?’ he protested defensively. ‘Why should I be ashamed? I ain’t promised to Harriet Meese.’ ‘You could do worse.’ ‘And you could do better,’ Algie replied, as he scanned the towpath opposite for sight of Marigold. ‘Oh, well,’ remarked Kate loftily, ‘We all know Harriet’s face ain’t up to much.’ ‘Neither is yours,’ Algie responded with brotherly disparagement. He would never let Kate believe he considered her nice-looking. Kate reacted by bobbing her tongue at Algie, but he ignored her and watched the progress of the Binghams. Hannah Bingham, Seth’s wife, was at the tiller, steering the horse boat, the leading one of the pair which they used for their work. Hannah, he perceived, was not like the usual boatwomen. For a start, he had an inkling that she was not narrowboat born and bred. She did not wear the traditional bonnet of the boatwomen, which fell in folds over their shoulders and back, like a ruched coal sack, and which was about as appealing. She had large, soulful dark eyes, and was blessed with high cheekbones; a handsome woman still, who must have been a rare beauty in her youth. The Binghams seemed a cut above many of the boat families. Their boats were spruce and shining, and always looked freshly painted with the colourful decorations that were traditional among their kind. They obviously took care. They stood out. A child was crawling at Hannah’s feet, tethered with a piece of string to prevent him falling into the canal. Various other sons and daughters, all youngsters, watched the proceedings, scattered randomly aboard the second narrowboat which they towed, known as the butty. A lark hopped about in a bamboo cage, set between tubs of plants which stood like sentries on top of the cabin. ‘I can’t see Marigold,’ Algie complained. ‘Is she there?’ ‘There …’ Kate pointed impatiently. ‘Opening the sluice. Hidden by the hoss …’ He shifted along the fence and caught sight of Marigold Bingham bending over the mechanism, a windlass in her hand as she deftly opened the sluice that let water into the lock. Her dark, shining hair was pinned up, giving an elegant set to her neck. Algie was glad she never seemed to wear those hideous bonnets either. He waited, his eyes never leaving her until he was blessed with a rewarding glimpse of her lovely face. She walked jauntily back towards the boat swinging her windlass, the breeze pressing her thin dress against her body, outlining her youthful figure and slender legs. She patted the horse as she went, and Algie basked in the sunshine of the smile that was intended for her father. ‘How do, Mr Bingham!’ Algie called amiably, rather to draw Marigold’s attention than Seth’s. ‘And you, Mrs Bingham.’ He touched the peak of an imaginary cap as a mark of respect. Seth Bingham turned around and addressed himself to Algie, whose face was bearing a matey grin as he peered over the lock-keeper’s garden fence. ‘How do, young Algie. It’s a fine day for it and no mistake.’ ‘Mooring up here for the night, Mr Bingham?’ ‘Soon as we’m through the lock, if there’s e’er a mooring free,’ the boatman replied. ‘It is Sunday, lad, after all’s said and done.’ ‘God’s day of rest, they say.’ Seth scoffed at the notion. ‘For some, mebbe.’ To Algie’s delight, Marigold flashed him a shy smile of acknowledgement. He saw a hint of her mother in her lovely face. ‘How do, Marigold.’ ‘Hello, Algie.’ She answered coyly, avoiding his eyes further as she stepped onto the butty. Their strong little horse took the strain, stamping on the hard surface of the towpath to gain some purchase as it hauled the first narrowboat, the horse boat, slowly into the lock. Steadily, surely, the narrowboat, lying low in the water under the burden of its cargo, began to inch forward away from the side of the canal. Marigold had nimbly jumped aboard and was at the tiller of the butty now, waiting for her turn to enter the lock. Algie watched, unable to take his eyes off her. She was as statuesque as the figurehead of some naval flagship, but infinitely more lovely. Her back was elegantly erect, her head, which he beheld in profile now, was held high, showing her exquisite nose to wonderful advantage. He reckoned Marigold was about eighteen, though he did not know it for certain. For years he’d kept an assessing, admiring eye on her, catching occasional glimpses as she passed the lock-keeper’s cottage. In the last three years he’d noticed how her looks and demeanour had really blossomed. It was as if he’d been patiently watching the petals of a slow-blooming rose unfurl into flawless beauty. She stood out from the other boatmen’s daughters; always had. In fact, she stood out from all the other daughters of men, boatmen’s or not. She was endowed with a natural grace where others seemed ungainly. If girls like Marigold, who lived and worked on the canals, hadn’t escaped to work in the factories by the time they were eighteen, it was generally because they were wed to a boatman, some by the time they were sixteen. Yet there was never anything or anybody to suggest that Marigold was spoken for. Maybe Seth was too protective of her, realising her worth, saving her for somebody with finer prospects. It would not surprise him. ‘You look a picture today, Marigold,’ Algie called, giving her a wink. ‘In your Sunday best, are you?’ She smiled shyly and shook her head as the butty slid forward. ‘Just me ornery working clothes, Algie,’ she answered in a small but very appealing voice. ‘Then I’d like to see you in your Sunday best. I was just saying to our Kate—’ ‘Algie! Kate!’ Clara Stokes, their mother, was calling from the back door. ‘Your dinners are on the table. Come on, afore they get cold.’ Algie rolled his eyes in frustration that his attempt to get acquainted with the girl, his intention to flatter her a little, was being thwarted at such a critical moment. ‘I gotta go, Marigold. Me dinner’s ready. See you soon, eh?’ ‘I expect so.’ He hesitated, aware that Kate was already making her way across the garden to the cottage. ‘Are you due down this cut next Sunday, Marigold?’ he asked when Kate was out of earshot, endeavouring to sound casual. ‘Most likely Tuesday, on the way back from Kidderminster.’ ‘That’s a pity. I’ll be at work Tuesday. I shan’t see you.’ Marigold smiled dismissively. It was hardly of grave concern to her. Yet she wondered if his questioning her thus meant he was interested in her. The thought at once ignited her interest in him and she looked at him with increasing curiosity through large blue eyes, hooded by long dark lashes. ‘So when shall you pass this way again on the way to Kiddy?’ he persisted. ‘Dunno,’ she replied, and he noticed that she blushed. ‘We might not be going to Kiddy for a while. We might be going up again’ Nantwich or Coventry. It depends what work me dad picks up.’ ‘Course …’ He sighed resignedly. Yet her blush somehow uplifted him, and he wallowed in the wondrous thought that he might appeal to her too. But he had to go. His dinner was on the table. ‘Ta-ra, then, Marigold. See you sometime, eh?’ She smiled modestly and nodded, and Algie strolled indoors for his Sunday dinner, disappointed. ‘Our Algernon’s keen on that Marigold Bingham, our Mom,’ Kate said over the dinner table. ‘You mean Hannah Bingham’s eldest?’ Kate nodded, unable to speak further yet because of a mouthful of cabbage. She chewed vigorously and swallowed. ‘Fancies her, he does.’ ‘He’d be best advised to keep away from boat girls,’ Clara commented with a warning glance at her only son. ‘Anyroad, what’s up with Harriet Meese?’ ‘Nothing’s up with Harriet Meese as I know of,’ Algie protested. ‘I just think as Marigold Bingham’s got more about her than the usual boat girls.’ ‘Fancies her rotten, he does,’ Kate repeated, with her typical sisterly mischief. ‘So what?’ he said, irritated by her meaningless judgement of him and of his taste in girls. ‘There’s nothing up with fancying a girl, is there, Dad? It ain’t as if I’m about to do anything wrong.’ ‘Just so long as you don’t.’ ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Algie muttered inaudibly under his breath. Will Stokes was, for the moment, more concerned with cutting a tough piece of gristle off his meat than heeding the goading remarks of his daughter. ‘Oh, she’s comely enough, I grant yer,’ Will remarked, looking up from his plate, the gristle duly severed. ‘But looks ain’t everything. Tek my advice and stick with young Harriet. Harriet’s a fine, respectable lass. She’ll do for thee. Her father’s in the money an’ all, just remember that.’ ‘Money that’ll never amount to much if she’s got to share it with six sisters, come the day,’ Clara commented, as a downside. ‘Well, our Kate can talk, going on about me and Marigold Bingham,’ Algie said, aiming to turn attention from himself. ‘She often wanders off with that Reggie Hodgetts off the narrowboats …’ Kate gasped with indignation and blushed vividly at what her brother was tactlessly revealing. She gave Algie a kick in the shins under the table. Noticing her blushes, Will eyed his daughter with suspicion. ‘’Tis to be hoped you behave yourself, young lady, else there’ll be hell to pay – for the pair o’ yer.’ ‘Course I behave meself,’ she protested, glancing indignantly at Algie. ‘You don’t think as I’d do anything amiss, do you, Dad?’ ‘I should hope as you got more sense.’ He wagged his knife at her across the table in admonishment. ‘Else I’ll be having a word with young Reggie Hodgetts. You’ve been brought up decent and respectable, our Kate. Tek a leaf out o’ your mother’s book, that’s my advice. There was never a more untarnished woman anywhere than your mother. That’s true, ain’t it, Clara?’ ‘I had to be,’ Clara replied, conscientiously trimming the rim of fat off the only slice of roast pork she’d allowed herself. ‘Else me father would’ve killed me.’ Algie pondered his mother, trying to imagine her as a young woman being courted by his father. She had been a fine-looking young girl then, he knew it for a fact. For a woman of forty-two, she still held on to her looks and figure remarkably well. It was obvious from whom Kate had inherited her looks and figure, which the local lads found so beguiling. He finished his dinner quietly, deeming it politic to add nothing more to that mealtime conversation. His thoughts were still focused on young Marigold Bingham. He’d noticed her blushes as she’d spoken to him and he wondered … Algie was in no way conceited, and he rejoiced in the thought that maybe he had aroused her interest. If so, it was the greatest event of his life so far. Damn his dinner being ready at exactly the moment when he was about to get to know her a little better. Right now she and the rest of the Binghams would be moored in the basin outside. So frustratingly close … So conveniently close … There was a knock on the door. One of Seth Bingham’s younger children had come to pay the toll for passing through the locks. Algie waited. His mother moved to clear away the gravy-smeared plates, cutlery, pots and pans, which she stacked in an enamelled bowl. When she and Kate were in the scullery washing them, and his father was sitting contentedly in front of the parlour fire with his feet up and his eyes shut, attempting his Sunday afternoon nap, Algie silently and surreptitiously made his exit … Although Algernon Stokes was twenty-two and a man, yet still he was a boy. Or, more correctly, a lad. His view of the world had not yet been tainted by its artificiality and pretence, so he lived life, and looked forward to what it offered, with a na?ve enthusiasm that emanates only from youth. He was largely content. His upbringing had been conscientiously accomplished by a strict yet fair father’s influence, endorsed and abetted by his mother, although she still followed him around the house dutifully tidying up behind him. His sister Kate was tiresome, though, a bit of an enigma to Algie, and a nuisance to boot. Algie was utterly fascinated with girls in general, yet absolutely not with Kate in particular. He had drifted into a sort of half-hearted courtship with a girl called Harriet Meese, only because she had shown an interest in him in the first place, an interest which flattered him enormously. She was not his ideal, however, hence his half-heartedness. His ideal girl was beautiful of face and figure, utterly desirable and unresisting, even prepared to risk ruin by submitting to his sexual endeavours; qualities he believed he might find in Marigold Bingham. Many young men his own age were married, some had even fathered children already, and Algie envied their access to the sensual pleasures they must all enjoy in their marital beds, for such pleasures had always been denied Algie. The thought of spending the rest of his life in celibacy horrified him, but from his point of view, it looked as if he was destined to, unless he could nurture some girl who appealed to him physically, and who would be unreservedly willing. Thus, he had become preoccupied with finding a solution. It boiled down to this: he was twenty-two already, but he hadn’t lived. Therefore, he might as well still be seven. Marriage would have offered a solution, but not marriage to Harriet. Oh, most certainly not to Harriet. He would not rule marriage out completely, though, if the right girl came along. On the other hand, why not simply bypass the institution of marriage altogether? The world offered too many pretty girls to have to settle for just one, especially one whose face was particularly uninspiring, as Harriet’s was. He knew from hearsay that there were plenty of girls willing enough to partake of those delectable stolen pleasures for which he yearned, if only such girls were not so damned elusive. He was thus inclined to believe they all inhabited another planet. They never seemed to pass his way at any rate. Even if they did, he would hardly be able to recognise such qualities in them as he was seeking, and why would they look at him twice anyway? He was nothing special, or so he thought. He did not like his own face, he did not like his dark, curly hair, nor his tallness, nor the shape of his nose either. How could he possibly appeal to women? Especially the sort of women that would interest him, who just had to be pretty, with appealing, youthful figures. Otherwise there was no point to it. That same spring Sunday afternoon in 1890 was one of those delightful, lengthening days which herald the approach of summer. Soft sunlight caressed distant hills, and already the air, bearing the sweet smell of greenness, had a mollifying summer mildness about it. A warm breeze gently flurried the fresh crop of young leaves that bedecked the trees after their long winter nakedness. A flock of pigeons flapped in unison overhead, wheeling gleefully across the blue sky in celebration of their Sunday release into glorious sunshine. The lock-keeper’s cottage was situated alongside the Stourbridge Canal at an area called Buckpool, set between the township of Brierley Hill and the village of Wordsley, yet no great distance from either. The warmth of the spring day cosseted Algie as he stepped out into it. He stopped to appreciate it, closing his eyes, wallowing in the sensual touch of sunlight, a touch too long denied him. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself the luxury of a sensual thought; that of spooning in the long grass of some secluded meadow with Marigold Bingham. He’d had his eye on her for so much longer than he would care to admit. Hannah, Marigold’s mother, saw him and waved amiably. ‘Still having your dinners?’ Algie called, disappointed that he’d mistimed his appearance and they hadn’t finished. ‘You gotta eat sometime,’ Hannah called back. ‘Even on this job.’ ‘I’m just on me way to the public.’ He felt it necessary to explain his presence, even though the explanation was an instantly conjured lie, in case Marigold, who could be listening, might rightly presume that he was seeking her and decide to avoid him. ‘I just fancy a pint after me dinner.’ ‘You’ll very likely see Seth in there.’ ‘That’s what I was wondering,’ he fibbed. ‘He always likes a pint or two afore he has his Sunday dinner.’ She said the word afore as if she considered it strange that Algie should want to drink beer after his dinner. ‘I don’t mind keeping it warm in the stove till he gets back. He likes the beer at the Bottle and Glass, you know. It’s why we moor up here when we’m this way.’ ‘I might see him inside then.’ Algie smiled openly, hiding the disappointment at his inability to speak to Marigold without making his intentions obvious to her mother, and continued on the route to which he’d unthinkingly committed himself. He walked the few yards to the next lock, which lay beneath the road bridge. There, he left the canal, crossed the road to the public house and entered the public bar. Inside, he leaned against the varnished wooden counter and greeted the publican, Thomas Simpson, familiarly. He ordered a tankard of India pale, peering for a sight of Seth Bingham through the haze of tobacco smoke. Seth was sitting on a wooden settle that echoed the shape of the bowed window, in conversation with two other men whom Algie recognised as boatmen also. They acknowledged him, but he thought better of getting drawn into their company, for it was likely to cost him the price of three extra tankards. He decided to give himself fifteen minutes to finish his beer, by which time he imagined Marigold would have finished her dinner. Then he would try again to catch her while her father was still supping and, perhaps, her mother’s back might be turned. The huge clock that adorned one wall had a tick that sounded more like a clunk, even above the buzz of conversation, and Algie watched its hands slowly traverse its discoloured face. He drank his beer, trying to appear casual and unhurried, as if he was really enjoying it. He dropped the occasional greeting to various men who approached the bar for their refills, and took a casual, benign interest in a game of bagatelle other men were playing. Eventually, he stepped outside once more into the unseasonably warm sunshine of the late April afternoon. At the bridge he hesitated and, for a brief second, watched the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it lapped softly against the walls of the canal, plucking up the courage to approach Marigold again. He looked for the Sultan – the name given to Seth Bingham’s horse boat – and saw Marigold conscientiously wiping down the vivid paintwork of its cabin with a cloth. It was now or never, he thought as he rushed onto the towpath and approached. ‘Busy?’ he asked, beaming when he reached her. She looked up, momentarily startled, evidently not expecting to see him, and smiled when she realised it was Algie Stokes again. ‘It has to be done regular, this cleaning,’ she replied pleasantly. Up close – and this was as close as he’d ever been to Marigold – she was even more lovely. Her skin was as smooth and translucent as finest bone china. Her eyes seemed bluer, clearer, and wider; her dark eyelashes so unbelievably long. Her lips were upturned at the corners into a deliciously friendly smile, and he longed to kiss her. The very thought set his heart pounding. ‘Your two boats always look sparkling,’ he remarked with complete sincerity. ‘I’ve noticed that many a time.’ Marigold smiled proudly. ‘It’s ’cause me mom’s so fussy. She don’t want us to be mistook for one o’ them rodneys what keep their boats all scruffy. And I agree with her.’ ‘Oh, I agree with her, as well. Where’s the sense in keeping your boat all scruffy when you have to live in it?’ ‘And while we’m moored up, what better time to clean the outside?’ she said with all the practicality of a seasoned boatwoman. ‘We’m carrying coal this trip and the dust gets everywhere.’ She rolled her eyes, so appealingly. ‘You can taste it in your mouth and feel it in your tubes. It gets in your pores and in your clothes. It’s the devil’s own game trying to keep anything clean when you’m a-carrying coal.’ ‘I can only begin to imagine,’ he replied earnestly, truly sympathetic to the problem. ‘I know what it’s like in our coal cellar. It must be ten times worse on a narrowboat. So you’re bound for Kidderminster, you reckon?’ ‘Tomorrow. We’ll be on our way at first light.’ ‘What time d’you expect to get there?’ Marigold shrugged. ‘It’s about dinner time as a rule. Then it depends if we can get offloaded quick. Some o’ them carpet factories am a bit half-soaked when it comes to offloading the boats, ’specially if you catch ’em at dinner time. Me dad likes to wind round and get back. He gets paid by the load, see? Me, I don’t mind if we get stuck there till night time. We do as a rule.’ ‘Got much more cleaning to do?’ ‘Only a bit. We’ve all got our jobs, but I’ve nearly finished mine for today.’ ‘Fancy a walk then?’ Algie enquired boldly, seizing the moment. ‘A walk?’ He nodded. ‘I could take you a walk over the fields or up the lanes, if you like. You must be sick o’ looking at the cut all the time.’ She instantly flushed. ‘I’ll have to ask me mom.’ ‘Ask her then.’ Algie’s heart skipped a beat. Marigold had agreed in principle. This was significant progress. All that stood in the way now was perhaps her mother. Marigold smiled with blushing pleasure, and nipped inside the cabin. Algie could no more help flirting with a pretty girl than some people can help stammering, but he had not the least intention of breaking anybody’s heart. For a start, he did not take himself seriously enough, he was not good-looking enough to succeed. The desire to elicit a smile from a pretty face was strong within him, however. Hannah Bingham nipped out, holding a limp dishcloth. ‘You want to take our Marigold a walk?’ she asked, not unpleasantly. ‘If you’ve got no objection, Mrs Bingham,’ he answered with an apologetic but appealing smile. ‘She says she’s finished her jobs.’ ‘I got no objection, young Algie, as long as she’s back well afore sundown.’ ‘Oh, she’ll be back well before then, Mrs Bingham, I promise.’ ‘Then you’ll have to give her a minute to spruce herself up if she’s going a walk.’ She turned and spoke to her daughter in the cabin. ‘Our Marigold, change into another frock if you’m going a walk with young Algie.’ She turned back to Algie and smiled. ‘Why don’t you come back in ten minutes when she’s ready, eh?’ Algie grinned with delight. ‘All right, I will, Mrs Bingham.’ He could hardly believe his luck. Marigold had agreed to accompany him on a walk, and her mother had sanctioned it. The prospect of getting the girl alone had, till that moment, seemed an improbable dream, but a dream he’d diligently clung to. He sauntered back to the lock-keeper’s cottage, thrilled. Maybe he had a way with women after all. Maybe he did possess some fascination or irresistible power over girls, despite his doubts. For so long he’d thought it unlikely. There was a suspicion meandering through his head – he knew not from where it came – that, in any case, a handsome face was not the be-all and end-all for women, but he just didn’t have the experience to know if it was true. For the time being, it was enough that some young women blushed when he spoke or smiled at them; and he made a point of smiling at all those girls who were pretty, whatever their station in life, rich or poor. If they thought he was ugly or uninteresting they could always turn their heads and ignore him. Yet they seldom did. Only the very stuck-up ones, and stuck-up girls he could not be doing with anyway. He returned home to wait. Over the fireplace in the parlour was a mirror. He stood in front of it and looked at himself, but was not impressed. He straightened his necktie and tried unsuccessfully to smooth his unruly curls with the flat of his hand. ‘Oh, there you are,’ his mother said, suddenly appearing from the brewhouse outside. ‘Fetch some coal up from the cellar for me, our Algernon. There’s scarcely any left in the scuttle.’ ‘Can’t our Kate do it?’ he complained. ‘I’ll get all mucked up and I’m going out in less than ten minutes.’ ‘Our Kate’s busy changing beds ready for washing day tomorrow,’ Kate herself chimed in, opening the stairs door as she descended with a bundle of sheets and pillowcases in her arms. ‘You wouldn’t be very pleased if your bed was black as the devil from the coal in the cellar, would you? Anyroad, where are you off to of a Sunday afternoon?’ ‘Mind your own business.’ ‘I’ll mind me business if you’ll fetch the coal up.’ ‘Oh, all right,’ Algie muttered reluctantly, knowing it to be futile attempting refusal to these two women, ranged against him with a singular will. He opened the door to the coal cellar and disappeared with the scuttle. His task completed, he went to the brewhouse and washed his hands. Behind him, his mother complained that he had left damp coal dust on the scullery floor, which he’d brought up from the cellar on the soles of his boots. ‘Our Kate should have gone down,’ he called back. ‘She’s got smaller feet than me. She wouldn’t have made so much mess.’ Then, before he could be asked to perform any more disagreeable chores, he dashed outside and returned to the Bingham’s butty, waiting for Marigold to appear. From where the Stokes’s cottage stood, the canal descended by a series of locks and basins towards Wordsley. You could see, beyond the massive cone of the Red House Glassworks, green valleys swooping between wooded hills and leafy glades. Towered and spired churches clad in the ivy of centuries dotted the landscape, as well as cosy homesteads, farmhouses and stately old manor houses. Nibbled pastures, where sheep and cattle grazed, receded into the hazy green distance. It was a sight that cheered Algie’s heart. Over the hill in the opposite direction lay, incongruously, a black industrial wilderness of slag heaps, mines, glassworks, and forges. Foundries and ironworks belched forth acrid brown smoke from great chimney stacks, and red flames from open hearth furnaces, even on this warm spring Sunday. Humble little red-brick houses shared this desolate eastward outlook, sparsely dotted with clumps of coarse grass, railways, viaducts and bridges as well as the interlinking canals with their locks, basins and wharfs. This was the astonishing landscape of the Black Country, that broad tract of man-made bleakness that lay roughly between the opposing boundaries of Wolverhampton to the west and Birmingham to the east. Yet it held as much diversity as you could reasonably assimilate in a month of Sundays if you cared to look. Prosperity lived symbiotically with hardship, as did culture with ignorance, good taste with bad, virtue with wantonness, respectability with indelicacy, and hard work with idleness. Significantly, the Black Country, for all its limited size, generated a disproportionate amount of the enormous wealth that enabled Britain to wield such undeniable power in the world. Marigold popped her head round the cabin door. ‘Oh, you’re back then.’ ‘Yes, I’m back. Are you ready yet?’ She nodded and stepped out onto the gunwale, then onto the towpath. ‘I just wanted to change me frock, wash me face and tidy me hair up a bit. Me mom don’t like me venturing away from the cut in me working frock. She says it’s common to do that.’ He smiled his response, looking her up and down. The frock was plainly cut in muslin and well-washed, the floral pattern almost faded from enthusiastic and frequent laundering, but she looked divine, and there was no shame in cleanliness. It fitted her perfectly, enhancing her slender figure. Her dark hair had been hurriedly brushed and re-pinned, and it was tidier now. ‘You look ever so nice,’ he said sincerely. ‘Thank you. So do you in your Sunday best suit. Where you taking me?’ ‘There’s a path over the fields to Kingswinford. I bet you’ve never been there?’ She shook her head. ‘Not if there ain’t a cut what goes there. Is it far?’ ‘A mile, a mile and a half, maybe – nothing really. But it’s a fine afternoon for a stroll.’ ‘What is there at Kingswinford? Anything special?’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing special. It’s just a nice walk over fields.’ He led her back to the bridge he’d just come from and onto the lane that led first to Wordsley. ‘I’m thinking of getting meself a bike,’ he announced, in a manner calculated to impress. ‘A bike? Blimey.’ Marigold sounded duly impressed. ‘I wish I could have a bike. I could ride to the locks ahead of our narrowboats and open ’em ready. It wouldn’t half save us some time.’ ‘Suggest it to your dad. Mebbe he’ll buy one.’ ‘I doubt whether he could afford one. How much do they cost?’ ‘About twelve pounds with pneumatic tyres. Pneumatic tyres are best. You don’t want solid tyres.’ ‘Twelve pounds?’ Marigold queried with disbelief. ‘That’s a fortune. Me dad would never spend that much, even if he’d got it to spend.’ ‘I’ve been saving up for ages.’ ‘Where would you moor it?’ ‘In our shed.’ ‘What d’you do for a living, Algie, if you can afford to buy a bike?’ ‘I make brass bedsteads at Sampson’s up at Queen’s Cross in Dudley. A bike will be handy for getting to work and back.’ ‘Don’t you fancy being a lock-keeper, like your dad?’ ‘Me? Nah. It don’t pay enough wages. You get your coal for free, granted, and a house to live in as part of the job, but I wouldn’t be a lock-keeper. Me dad gets called out all hours. I wouldn’t want that. I like peace and quiet. How about you, anyway? D’you intend to spend the rest of your life on the narrowboats?’ ‘Depends,’ she said with a shrug. ‘On what?’ ‘On whether I marry a boatman – a number one, f’rinstance.’ ‘A number one? You mean a chap who owns his own boats?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Got your eye on anybody?’ he asked, dreading her answer, but grinning all the same. She shrugged again. ‘Dunno. Nobody on the boats at any rate.’ She gave him a sideways glance to assess his reaction. ‘Who then?’ ‘I ain’t telling you.’ So there was some chap in her life. Damn and blast. It was na?ve of him to think otherwise, a girl like Marigold. ‘Go on, you can tell me.’ ‘There is a chap I like,’ she admitted. ‘He ain’t a boatman. He works at one of the carpet factories in Kiddy. He’s one that generally helps offload us.’ ‘Oh, I see … So the crafty monkey sees to it as you don’t get offloaded on the same day as you arrive. That way, you have to stop over till next day, eh? Then you can meet him at night. Is that it?’ Marigold blushed, smiling in acknowledgement of the truth of Algie’s astute assessment. ‘So you’ll be doing a spot of courting tomorrow night, then?’ ‘I suppose. It depends.’ ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Jack.’ ‘Shall you tell him about me?’ ‘What is there to tell?’ She glanced at him again. ‘Well … you could tell him that you went a walk with another chap.’ He regarded her intently, and caught a look of unease in her clear blue eyes at the idea. ‘So, what about you?’ she asked, intent on diverting the focus from herself. ‘Do you have a regular sweetheart?’ ‘Me? Not really.’ ‘Not really? You either do or you don’t.’ ‘There’s this girl I’m sort of friendly with … But it ain’t as if we’re proper sweethearts … I mean we ain’t about to get wed or anything like that.’ ‘And shall you tell her you been a walk wi’ me this afternoon?’ ‘Like you say, there’s nothing to tell, is there?’ ‘Not really …’ She smiled at his turning the tables back on her. ‘What’s her name?’ ‘Harriet.’ ‘That’s a nice name.’ ‘Maybe we should get Harriet and your Jack together, eh?’ She laughed at that. ‘Is she pretty, this Harriet?’ ‘Nowhere near as pretty as you. Jack would fancy you more than Harriet, for certain. I do at any rate … I’ve been noticing you for a long time … seeing you come past our house from time to time. I’ve often thought how much I’d like to get you on your own and get to know you.’ ‘Have you, Algie? Honest?’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘Yes, honest.’ ‘That’s nice … I’m surprised, though.’ ‘Don’t be surprised. Next time you come through the lock and pay your penny let me know you’re there, eh? ’Specially if it’s of a Sunday, or if you’re mooring up for the night close by. We could go for walks again then. I mean to say, the summer’s only just around the corner.’ ‘And you wouldn’t mind me asking for you?’ ‘Course not. I’d like you to. I’m inviting you to.’ She looked him squarely in the eye, with an open, candid smile. ‘I just might then … And your mother wouldn’t mind?’ ‘Why should she mind?’ She shrugged girlishly. ‘Dunno … What if she don’t like me?’ ‘Oh, she doesn’t dislike you, Marigold. She knows your family. Lord, you’ve been coming through our stretch of the cut long enough.’ ‘How old is your mom, Algie?’ ‘Two-and-forty.’ ‘She don’t look it, does she? She looks about thirty. I mean she ain’t got stout or anything.’ ‘No, she doesn’t look her age, I grant you. She looks well. We got a photo of her when she was about your age – what is your age, Marigold, by the way?’ ‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in July.’ ‘Anyway – this photo of me mom – she was really pretty when she was about eighteen. There must’ve been one or two chaps after her, according to the things I’ve heard said …’ ‘But your dad got her.’ ‘Yes, me dad got her. Just think, if he hadn’t got her, I’d have been somebody else.’ ‘No, Algie,’ she chuckled deliciously. ‘If he hadn’t got her, you wouldn’t have been born. It’s obvious.’ ‘Course I would. But I’d have been somebody else, like I say.’ She smiled, mystified and amused by his quaint logic. ‘Your mom’s nice-looking for her age as well, ain’t she?’ Algie said easily. ‘It’s easy to see who you get your pretty face from.’ ‘So how old are you, Algie?’ Marigold asked, not wishing to pursue that line. ‘Two-and-twenty. I’ll be three-and-twenty in September.’ ‘So how old was your mom when she had you?’ ‘Can’t you work it out?’ ‘I can’t do sums like that, Algie. I ain’t had no schooling like you.’ ‘Oh, I see.’ He smiled sympathetically. It was difficult to imagine what it must be like for somebody who couldn’t read, something he took for granted. ‘Well, she must’ve been about one-and-twenty,’ he said, answering her question. ‘Something like that. What about your mom?’ ‘My mom was nineteen when she had me.’ ‘Nearly your own age,’ he remarked. ‘I reckon so,’ Marigold admitted. ‘She must have bin carrying me at my age.’ ‘So how old is your dad? He looks older.’ ‘He’s nearly fifty.’ ‘Quite a bit older, then?’ ‘I suppose,’ she mused. ‘It’s summat as I never thought about. Anyway, I don’t see as how it matters that much.’ ‘Nor do I,’ he agreed. They left the lane and ambled on towards Kingswinford over fields of sheep-cropped turf, tunnelled by rabbits and sprinkled with glowing spring flowers. Young pheasants, silvery brown, fed near a stile, hardly bothered at all by the couple’s approach. ‘It’s lovely here,’ she commented. ‘Maybe we should stop here a bit.’ So they sat down and talked for ages, never quite reaching Kingswinford, never stumped once for conversation. When it was time to go they returned by the high road, passing the Union workhouse which provided yet another topic of conversation. Marigold decided she liked Algie. He was easy to talk to and she felt at ease with his unassuming manner. She enjoyed being with him. He was handsome, too, and his obvious admiration of her made her feel good about herself. ‘It’s a pity I can’t see you tonight,’ he said, about to leave her at the pair of moored narrowboats, ‘but I go to church of a Sunday night.’ ‘With your family?’ ‘No, with Harriet.’ ‘Oh … with Harriet …’ ‘Well, she’s always been brought up to go to church.’ ‘I bet she’s been learnt to read and write proper as well, eh?’ ‘What difference does that make?’ he said kindly, so that she should not feel inferior to Harriet. ‘Anyway, don’t forget to ask for me when you’re next passing, eh, Marigold?’ She shrugged. ‘I might …’ Chapter 2 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) The sinking sun cast a long, animated shadow of Algie Stokes as he ambled that evening along the rutted road known as Moor Lane on his way to see Harriet Meese. To his right lay a rambling Georgian mansion, an island of prosperity set in a sea of stubble fields. The grand, symmetrical house seemed entirely at odds with the tile works, the slag heaps and the worked-out mines which it overlooked. No doubt it had existed long before its sooty neighbours had been dreamed of; a rural haven, set in bowers of peace and tranquillity. But no more. Yet it never occurred to Algie what the well-to-do occupants might think of the black, encroaching gloom of industry. He never noticed any of it, taking for granted these immovable, and probably eternal, man-made elements of the unromantic landscape. The crimson glow from the sun at his back was augmenting the ruddiness of the red-brick terraced houses he was passing. He bid a polite good evening to a passer-by, and his thoughts returned to the golden sunshine of Marigold Bingham’s natural loveliness. Yet, strangely, he was finding that he could not ponder Marigold without Harriet Meese also trespassing unwanted into his thoughts. Mental comparison was therefore becoming inevitable. Maybe it was a guilty conscience playing tricks. Harriet was twenty years old, the second of seven daughters belonging to Mary and Eli Meese. Eli was a respectable trader who described his business as ‘a drapery, mourning and mantles shop’, situated in Brierley Hill’s High Street, where the family also lived above the shop. Four of the seven daughters were sixteen or over – of marriageable age – but Harriet was blessed with the most beguiling figure of them all, wondrously endowed with feminine curves. She was slender and long-legged, her curves and bulges were in the appropriate places, and as delightful in proportion as Algie had ever had the pleasure to behold in or around Brierley Hill. However, to his eternal frustration he had never been privileged to know Harriet’s sublime body intimately. Nor was such a privilege likely as long as they remained unmarried. Chastity had been instilled into Harriet from an early age, both at home and at church. So, despite Algie’s most earnest endeavours, he had never so much as managed to unfasten one button of her blouse, nor lifted her skirt more than eight inches above her ankle without a vehement protest and an indignant thump. It was, of course, her figure which was the sole attraction, since her face was her least alluring feature. After a twenty minute walk, Algie strolled up the entry that lay between Eli Meese’s drapery shop and his neighbour, and tapped on the door. Priscilla, Harriet’s older sister, a school teacher who was manifestly destined for eternal spinsterdom, answered it. Facially, she was unfortunate enough to resemble Harriet but, even more regrettably, not in figure. Her crooked lips stretched into a thin smile, yet her eyes, the most attractive feature in her face, creased into a welcoming warmth as she led him into the parlour. ‘Looking forward to church tonight, Priss?’ Algie enquired familiarly. ‘I always do,’ she responded. ‘But sometimes, you know, after I’ve sat and listened to the sermon, I wish I hadn’t bothered. Sometimes, if it’s a good sermon, I get a thrill up and down my spine, and for three or four days after I’m inspired. Once, I remember, after the vicar had preached about generosity, I took it all to heart and took a bag of bon-bons to share amongst the children in my class for a few days … until after that they expected it every day. But on another Sunday he preached against vanity and the love of nice dresses … Well, I was livid. I love nice dresses, as you know, Algie.’ ‘Is Harriet ready, or am I in for a long wait?’ ‘I should sit down if I were you. She’s been around the house again checking whether there’s enough coal in the scuttles and on the fires, rather than leaving it to the maid. I wouldn’t mind, but she always waits till it’s time to get ready to go out. Besides, it’s pandemonium upstairs right now, with everybody vying for space to get ready. I got ready early, you know, Algie. You’ve no idea what it’s like, all seven of us sisters trying to get in front of the mirror at the same time, not to mention Mother, and when Mother gets there there’s no room for anybody else anyway. Father got tired of waiting. He’s already gone … How is your mother, Algie, by the way?’ ‘In good fettle last time I noticed, thanks.’ ‘Does she manage to get out these days?’ ‘Only in daylight. She won’t go out at night after what happened …’ Priss nodded her sympathetic understanding. ‘I know. Such a pity … But how’s your father?’ ‘Oh, he’s well.’ ‘What about Kate?’ ‘Oh, she’s fit enough, the sharp-tongued little harridan.’ ‘Sharp-tongued?’ Priss uttered a little gurgle of amusement. ‘Are you joking? I’ve never thought of your Kate as sharp-tongued. She always seems so cheerful and pleasant, whenever I meet her.’ ‘Oh, she’s always cheerful and pleasant to folk she doesn’t know very well. You should try living in the same house.’ ‘But she’s such a pretty girl, your Kate. I’d give anything for her looks.’ ‘But you wouldn’t want her character or demeanour, Priss.’ ‘Oh, I don’t know … People seem to like you more if you’re pretty than if you’re plain. Mind you, I always think that if you go to church regularly and do your duty by your neighbour, you’ll find plenty of people ready to like you … so long as you carry yourself well and don’t stoop,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Anyway, I’m sure Kate’s nowhere near as black as you paint her … Which reminds me, Algie – will you do me a favour?’ ‘What?’ ‘Would you mind asking her if she wants tickets to see the plays? It only wants a fortnight.’ ‘I daresay Harriet will remind me …’ Harriet appeared at that precise moment, wearing a white skirt printed in a delicate, blue floral design, and blouse to match. The ensemble did full justice to her figure. Because of the family’s business, the Meese girls were able to indulge themselves in the latest materials and designs, and several dressmakers too were always keen to run things up for them, for the recommendations they customarily received from the family. Harriet greeted Algie with a smile as she put on a short jacket, also white. ‘I’m ready,’ she announced. ‘Are you ready, Priss?’ ‘I’ve been ready ages.’ ‘But you haven’t got your hat on,’ Harriet reminded her. ‘Oh, but I’m not going to wear a hat, our Harriet.’ ‘Not wear a hat?’ ‘According to the journals I’ve been reading, London girls are no longer wearing hats. They regard them as old-fashioned, and I’m inclined to agree. Anyway, does my hair look such a mess that I should cover it with a hat?’ ‘Your hair looks very becoming, our Priss. I teased it for you myself. But you really ought to wear a hat. Don’t you think so, Algie?’ Algie duly pondered a moment, stumped for an opinion, not really bothered one way or the other. ‘Not if she doesn’t want to, Harriet. Let her go to church without a hat if she wants. Who’s it going to hurt?’ ‘But it is Sunday. All the ladies will be tutting.’ ‘Let ’em tut,’ Priss said defiantly. ‘I don’t care.’ Harriet shrugged resignedly. ‘Once she’s made her mind up there’s no persuading her, is there? Shall we go, Algie?’ He nodded. ‘Yes, come on, then. See you there, eh, Priss? Unless you want to walk with us …’ ‘No, I don’t want to play gooseberry. I’ll be along with the others.’ Algie led Harriet down the cobbled entry. As they walked along High Street facing the low setting sun, he thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and Harriet linked her arm through his familiarly. ‘Priss asked me to ask our Kate if she wanted a ticket to see the plays,’ he said conversationally. ‘Oh, yes, the plays. It’s only a fortnight away and we’ve sold plenty of tickets already. I need to know so’s I can get her one. I know how she likes to see our plays.’ ‘I’ll ask her.’ ‘What about your mother and father? D’you think they’d like to come? They’re ever so comical.’ ‘My mother can be comical,’ Algie quipped. ‘I’m not so sure about my father, though.’ She landed him a playful thump. ‘I mean the plays, you goose. One’s a farce, the other’s a comedy.’ ‘Sounds like our house two nights running. But you know my mother never goes out of a night.’ ‘Oh, I forgot. What a shame that fear of a bolting horse can stop you going out of a night. It’d be a change for her, though, to go out with your father.’ ‘I know it would, and you know it, but she won’t budge. Not at night.’ ‘As a matter of fact, there’s something else I’m supposed to ask your Kate, Algie.’ ‘What?’ ‘Well, she’s quite a pretty girl, isn’t she?’ Harriet admitted grudgingly, ‘and Mr Osborne wants to recruit some “pretty girls” into the Little Theatre, to use his words. I must say, though, I was a trifle narked when I heard him say it, so was our Priss. I mean, how demeaning to us. Not everybody can be pretty, can they? It would be a boring old world if they were. Priss told him so as well. Well, you know our Priss … But you know what men are like. Anyway, he mentioned your sister by name and I said I would enquire after her. Mr Osborne would like her to come along one rehearsal night so he can assess her ability to act.’ ‘I’ll ask her then, shall I? I reckon she’ll jump at the chance to show herself off. You know how vain she is.’ ‘But, in the long run, it all depends whether she can act,’ Harriet affirmed. ‘Not how pretty she is.’ ‘It might divert her from that ne’er-do-well Reggie Hodgetts she seems so fond of.’ ‘Reggie Hodgetts?’ ‘The son of a boatman,’ Algie explained disdainfully. ‘A proper rodney. Plies the cut regular in that filthy wreck of a narrowboat his family own.’ Harriet gasped in horror. ‘Oh, goodness, a boatman? I hope she’s not thinking of throwing her life away on a mere boatman. A rodney at that.’ ‘It’s coming into contact with ’em like she does,’ Algie responded defensively. ‘Being a lock-keeper’s daughter and all that, I reckon. Mind you, some of the boat families are all right. I see a family called the Binghams occasionally. They’re decent folk. Most of them are.’ ‘You must make Kate see sense, Algie.’ ‘She won’t take any notice of me. You know what it’s like between brothers and sisters.’ ‘Then I’ll have a word with her when I see her – discreetly, of course.’ He considered Marigold and how Kate might reveal his secret desire for the girl, a mere boatman’s daughter, if she thought Harriet was poking her nose into her liaison with Reggie Hodgetts. ‘No, don’t,’ he blurted earnestly. ‘It wouldn’t do any good. Our Kate’s too headstrong to take any notice of anybody. She’d only resent you for it. She’d think you were meddling.’ ‘All right, if that’s what you think, Algie.’ They arrived at the door of the old red-brick hulk of St Michael’s Church which stood loftily at Brierley Hill’s highest point, sensing at once the cool reverential ambience as they entered. Harriet bid a pleasant good evening to the sidesman who handed her a hymn book, and made her way to the family’s regular pew on tiptoe, so that her heels did not echo off the cold hard floor. Algie followed in her wake. When the service finished the congregation gathered outside by the light of a solitary gas lamp installed above the main door; a collection of nodding bonnets, top hats and fawning smiles, all content in their self-righteousness. Some merely drifted away into the night in a random procession while others tarried, determined to elicit recognition from or conversation with the vicar, or even the curate. By now there was a chill in the air as the Meese women and Algie lingered outside waiting for the head of the family. When Eli Meese rejoined them he announced that he was going to the Bell Hotel for his customary two pints of ale, which would give him an appetite for his supper. He would be about an hour. ‘I take it as you’ll see me girls and me wife home safe and sound, young Algie?’ Eli said patronisingly as he parted. ‘Course I will, Mr Meese.’ Actually, it had occurred to Algie to leave the company of Harriet and the rest of the Meeses as soon as the service was over, with the idea of seeking Marigold again; her father was likely to be in the Bottle and Glass for the evening getting pie-eyed, so why not take advantage? But to make an unusually early departure, on whatever flimsy excuse he could quickly invent, would only draw comment and speculation after he had gone, especially when he had given Eli his undertaking to see the family home safely. So, as they ambled down the path through the churchyard to the road, he decided to exercise discretion, to remain patient and wait till Marigold’s next passage through the lock at Buckpool. While the others walked on ahead, Priss attached herself to Algie and Harriet. ‘I thought the sermon tonight was a bit of an unwarranted rebuke to us all,’ she commented airily. ‘The vicar’s wrong about God being just, you know. I hardly think He’s just at all, not all the time anyway. I’ve come to the conclusion that He is often unjust. Look how so many good and kind people suffer, while too many evil rogues prosper. What did you think of the sermon, Algie?’ ‘Me? I didn’t listen to it.’ ‘Algie was daydreaming as usual, Priss,’ Harriet said with measured scorn. ‘I was contemplating more earthly things,’ he replied. ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t of a Sunday,’ she reproached. ‘Anyway, what earthly things?’ Actually, he’d been contemplating Marigold Bingham; her smooth skin, her fine complexion, her beautiful face and her delicious figure. She’d been the cause of a troublesome disturbance in his trousers during the sermon as he’d allowed himself to imagine her lying warm and playful with him in some soft feather bed. He could hardly admit as much to Priss or Harriet, though. ‘I was thinking about the bike I’m going to buy,’ he fibbed judiciously. ‘Can you afford a bike?’ Priss queried, sincerely doubting it. ‘Surely they cost a fortune?’ ‘I’ve been saving up for months. Now I’ve got enough money to buy one.’ ‘But a bike? Couldn’t your money be more wisely spent?’ ‘On what?’ ‘Well, you’re two-and-twenty now. The same as me. And our Harriet is only two years younger. Have you not considered the future?’ ‘Priss!’ Harriet hissed indignantly, digging her sister in the ribs with her elbow as they walked. ‘Don’t prod me, Harriet … I only mean to say that if you are contemplating marriage, then it would be far more sensible to save your money, rather than buy a bike.’ ‘Who says we’re contemplating marriage?’ Algie remarked clumsily. ‘We’ve never discussed marriage, have we Harriet?’ ‘You’ve never discussed it with me.’ There was a catch in her voice, which suggested antagonism at the lack of any such conversation. ‘I just assumed …’ ‘Assume nothing, Priss,’ Harriet said with resignation. ‘Algie obviously has other priorities … and so have I, come to that.’ Eli Meese, Harriet’s father, having risen from humble beginnings as the son of a house servant, had embarked on his road to fortune buying bolts of cloth and selling them in lengths to whoever would buy. He viewed this as a means of escaping the pits and the ironworks. His first enterprise involved the purchase of two thousand yards of flannelettes at tuppence ha’penny a yard, which he sold at fourpence ha’penny a yard from market stalls in several of the local towns. Business prospered and he rented a shop in Brierley Hill as a permanent base. Soon afterwards, he met and married Mary, from whom his daughters inherited their uninspiring faces and would, in time, also manifest her stoutness. When their first child, Priscilla, was born he bought the building which was still home and workplace to him and his family. Eli was proud of being a self-made man. He had raised himself from obscurity to his present position, one of considerable standing in the community. He had made money a-plenty and, as money always commands influence, so Eli grew to be a man of some consequence in Brierley Hill, being not only churchwarden at St Michael’s but Guardian and Justice of the Peace as well. In his social elevation he sought to do his best for his daughters, and ensured that each received as decent an education as he could reasonably afford at the Dudley Proprietary School for Girls, to and from which they took the tramcar every day. Eli was not entirely comfortable with the thought that his second daughter, easily the most appealing of those of marriageable age, could feasibly end up with the inconsequential son of a lock-keeper. He had hoped she would have set her sights higher, but was wily enough to realise that to forbid the liaison would only serve to launch it into more perilous waters, the consequences of which could be devastating and too painful to contemplate. In time, Harriet’s superior education would reveal itself to both of them, and Algernon Stokes would come to recognise his social and mental inferiority – and so would she. Meanwhile, he tolerated Algernon without actually encouraging him at all. Besides, Algernon’s father, Will, used to be Eli’s regular playmate in those far off days of mutual impoverishment. The lad’s mother, Clara, too … Indeed, when Clara was a young filly and Eli was a young buck with a weather eye for a potential mate, she had been a feast to the eye and a definite target. The trouble was, she was too preoccupied with his rivals and would have nothing to do with him. So he had to content himself eventually with Mary, who he’d put in the family way. Mary would never fetch any ducks off water. Her plainness, though, had proved an advantage in one respect, Eli pondered; she was never attractive enough to appeal to anybody else, which ensured her fidelity. On reflection, perhaps he had been too hasty in agreeing to marry her. The acquisition of wealth had made him much more appealing to other women – better-looking women – he’d noticed over the years. Such were the ruminations, contemporary and nostalgic, of Eli Meese as he supped alone in the saloon of the Bell Hotel sucking at his clay pipe, his head enveloped in an aromatic cloud of blue smoke. Because he was an important citizen and a Justice of the Peace, few of the lesser locals these days considered themselves socially fit to sup in the same room with him. One man, however, walked into the hotel some little time after Eli, greeted him as an equal, and asked if he would allow him to buy him a drink. Eli grinned in acknowledgement. ‘A pint of India pale, please, Murdoch.’ Murdoch Jeroboam Osborne paid for the drinks and took them over to the table where Eli was sitting. ‘You was deep in thought when I walked in, ha, Eli? Summat up?’ Eli swigged the last inch of beer that remained of his first helping, then sighed as if deeply troubled. ‘What d’yer mek o’ Will Stokes’s lad, Murdoch?’ Murdoch pulled a stick of tobacco from his pocket and began cutting it into workable pieces with his penknife as he pondered the question. ‘Can’t say as I know him that well, but he seems a likeable enough lad. Ain’t he a-courtin’ your Harriet? I’ve seen him a time or two come to meet her from the Drill Hall after our rehearsals, ha?’ ‘Between me and thee, Murdoch, that’s what’s troubling me. I ain’t so sure he’s quite up to the mark, if you get me drift.’ Murdoch laughed. ‘I seem to recall as his mother was well up to the mark at one time, ha? Still is, if you want my opinion.’ Eli grinned conspiratorially. ‘Aye, you’m right there and no mistake. Proper little poppet, was Clara Bunn. Many’s the time I’ve wished …’ ‘And the daughter takes after her,’ Murdoch remarked with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Ain’t set eyes on e’er a daughter so far’s I know,’ Eli replied. ‘But is that right? Another poppet? Like her mother was, eh, Murdoch?’ ‘The image.’ ‘I ain’t surprised. D’you see anything of Clara these days?’ ‘Calls in me shop regular.’ Murdoch began rubbing the pieces of tobacco between the palms of his hands to render it into shreds. ‘If there’s e’er a boiling fowl or a rabbit spare I generally let her have it cheap. She’s grateful for that. I’ve always had a soft spot for Clara.’ ‘She could’ve done a sight better for herself,’ said Eli, secretly meaning that she could have had him if she’d played her cards right. He gazed blandly into the clear golden depths of his beer. ‘She could’ve had the pick of the chaps in Brierley Hill – and beyond, but she settled for Will Stokes. Who’d have thought it at the time, eh? Will was never gunna be anything but a lackey to the Stourbridge Canal Company.’ ‘Oh, Will’s a decent enough chap, but we can’t all be businessmen, Eli, ha?’ Murdoch scratched his chin, then took his pipe from his pocket and filled it with the shredded tobacco. ‘You got your drapery and I got me butchery. But it ain’t in everybody … So do I conceit as you ain’t too keen on young Algernon’s attentions to your Harriet, ha?’ ‘I got no intention of encouraging it, Murdoch, let’s put it that way. She can do better for herself.’ ‘Is she took with the lad?’ Murdoch struck a match and lit his pipe, his head quickly shrouded in waves of pungent smoke as he sucked and blew to get it to draw. ‘I wouldn’t like to say as she’s took with him. It’s hard to say for definite. But these attachments have a way of creeping up on folk. ’Specially these young uns what don’t know their own minds. I’m afeared that afore I know it, he’ll be telling me as he’s got to marry her and asking for me blessing. I don’t want to be asked for me blessing.’ ‘Aye, well when she’s one-and-twenty – and that can’t be too far yonder – he won’t even need to ask, will he, Eli, ha? If he wants the wench he’ll just do it. Anyroad, I reckon as she could do worse. A lot worse, ha? The lad’s young, he’s working as far as I know. He might mek summat of hisself yet.’ ‘Well,’ pondered Eli, lifting his fresh glass of beer, ‘’tis to be hoped … Got any more o’ that baccy, Murdoch? Me pipe’s gone out.’ As he walked along the towpath alongside his horse, Seth Bingham whittled a toy top from a piece of wood for his children. All that remained was to find a strong switch from which to make a whip to set it spinning. He could imagine their delighted faces when he presented it to them and showed them later that day how it worked. Marigold jumped down onto the towpath from the butty, where she had left Rose, her younger sister, in charge of the tiller. They were approaching the flight of locks at Dadford’s Shed, on the way back from Kidderminster, and would soon be outside the lock-keeper’s cottage where Algie Stokes lived. She began walking alongside Seth, ready to run on and open the locks ready for the ascent. ‘What you makin’, Dad?’ ‘A whip ’n’ top.’ ‘A whip ’n’ top? For the little uns?’ ‘It’ll keep ’em occupied while we’m moored up.’ ‘Will it spin?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Course it’ll spin, when I’ve made a whip for it.’ ‘But it’ll want painting, won’t it?’ ‘It’d look better painted, I grant yer,’ Seth agreed. ‘But let’s see if it spins all right first. If it does, we can soon paint it.’ ‘I’ll paint it,’ Marigold offered. ‘With the kids. But it might be an idea to make more than one, you know, Dad. They’ll want a whip ’n’ top a-piece once they see it.’ Seth laughed. ‘I daresay they will, but they might have to wait.’ Seth continued whittling a second or two more, when neither spoke. ‘Have you got some pennies for the lock-keeper, Dad?’ Marigold asked, breaking the pause. ‘I’ll run on and make sure we can get through ’em all, and pay Mrs Stokes.’ Seth felt in the pocket of his trousers and fished out a handful of change. ‘Here,’ he said inspecting it. ‘And fetch me an ounce of baccy from the Dock shop while you’m at it.’ Marigold rushed to the lock. No other narrowboat was heading towards them from the opposite direction to occupy the lock and impede their progress. Rather, the last narrowboat through the locks had come from the opposite direction so all the levels would be set for them to enter without waiting for them to empty. She opened the first lock, while Seth led the horse towards it, then made her way to the Dock shop, where she bought her father’s ounce of baccy and put it in the pocket of her skirt. She glanced back, saw their horse boat, the Sultan, entering the lock, and waved cheerily to Seth. She opened the next lock, then hurried to the next, amiably passing the time of day with a couple of the workmen from the dry dock that lay in an adjacent arm of the canal. A dog, from one of the rows of terraced cottages, joined her as she headed for the next lock, and she stooped down to fuss it. ‘Hello, Rex,’ she cooed, having become familiar with the animal over the years. She stroked it under the chin and it looked up at her with round, trusting eyes. ‘I ain’t got nothing for you this time. But next time, I’ll bring you some bones to chew on … I promise I will.’ The dog seemed to understand, and returned with its tail swinging, seemingly happy with the pledge, to the cottage he’d come from. She reached the lock situated outside the lock-keeper’s cottage and she was aware of her heart pounding. What if Algie was there? What if he hadn’t gone to work and he was at home? She would see him again. It would be lovely to see him again so soon. Before she opened the lock, she crossed it to get to the cottage on the other side and climbed the steps to the garden and the back door. She tapped on the door and waited, scanning the well-tended garden and its crop of spring flowers that were blooming like an array of bright lamps. The door opened, and Clara Stokes greeted her, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Hello, young Marigold.’ ‘Hello, Mrs Stokes,’ she replied deferentially. ‘We’m just coming up through the locks. Can I pay you?’ ‘Course you can, my flower.’ Clara held out her hand and Marigold dropped the pennies into it. ‘Ta.’ ‘I was just looking at your flowers, Mrs Stokes,’ Marigold said, turning round to admire them again. ‘Them choolips am really pretty. I would’ve thought they’re a bit early, though, wouldn’t you?’ Clara was making out a chit for the payment, but looked up to appreciate the tulips with her. ‘Yes, they’re grand, aren’t they? They are a bit early, like you say. Mind you, we’ve had some nice weather to bring ’em on.’ ‘Me mom likes choolips. They’m her favourite flower. And those are a lovely colour.’ ‘How is your mom?’ Clara enquired. ‘She’s well, thank you, Mrs Stokes. It’s her birthday tomorrow. I’d love to be able to give her some choolips. Would you sell me some, Mrs Stokes?’ Clara smiled. ‘I’ll do better than that – I’ll give you some to take to her. Let me get a pair of scissors to cut them with.’ ‘Are you sure?’ Marigold queried, calling after her as Clara left the scullery for the sitting room. ‘I’d just as soon pay you for ’em.’ ‘They cost nothing to grow, Marigold,’ Clara called back. ‘I’ll charge nothing for them. I just hope they give your mom a bit of pleasure.’ Marigold smiled gratefully. ‘That’s ever so kind. Thank you ever so much, Mrs Stokes.’ Clara stepped back inside the room with her scissors, and Marigold followed her up the garden path. ‘How’s Algie?’ she asked, with becoming shyness. ‘Is he at work today?’ ‘Oh, he’s at work all right,’ Clara replied, diligently picking out the best tulips and laying them on the ground as she snipped them. ‘Earning his corn. At least it keeps him from under my feet.’ ‘I was talking to him Sunday,’ she volunteered. ‘We went a walk afore he went to church.’ ‘Yes, he said so.’ ‘Did he?’ Marigold sounded pleased with this revelation. ‘He’s nice, your Algie.’ ‘I daresay he’d be pleased that you think so,’ Clara replied non-committally. ‘Does he go to church every Sunday?’ ‘Most. Only the evening service, though.’ Marigold felt herself blush, and was glad that Mrs Stokes was bending down with her back towards her, unable to witness it. She wanted to mention that girl called Harriet whom Algie had told her about, but had no wish to sound as if she was prying. ‘I suppose Mr Stokes is out and about on the canal somewhere?’ she suggested, to deflect any further focus from herself. ‘He’s checking the locks. You’ll very likely see him as you go by … There … that’s about a dozen blooms.’ Clara gathered the cut tulips from the ground and stood up. ‘I’ll wrap them in a bit of newssheet, eh?’ ‘That’s ever so kind, Mrs Stokes, really,’ Marigold said, following Clara back towards the cottage. ‘Come inside while I do it.’ Marigold followed her inside, into the little scullery. She noticed the blackleaded range, pristine and shiny, with the fire burning brightly and a copper kettle standing on the hob. In front of the hearth lay a podged rug, made from old material, the colours and textures of the cloth organised into an appealing pattern. A scrubbed wooden table had four chairs around it, and beneath the window was a stone sink. There was little enough room to move, but to Marigold, used only to the tight confines of the narrowboats’ cabins, it was enormous. She watched while Clara wrapped the tulips in a sheet of newspaper and asked again if she could pay for them, but Clara only refused with a reassuring smile. ‘Take them, young Marigold,’ she said kindly. ‘Your mother will like them.’ ‘That she will, Mrs Stokes. Thank you ever so much.’ ‘You’re welcome. Give your mother my best wishes, won’t you?’ ‘Oh, I will …’ She did not move, hesitating at the door, and Clara looked at her enquiringly. ‘Is there something else, Marigold? ‘Yes … Will you tell Algie I called, please, Mrs Stokes? He said to ask you to. Will you give him my best wishes?’ Clara smiled knowingly. She did not dislike this slip of a girl. ‘Course I will.’ On the afternoon of the following Saturday after he’d finished work, Algie purchased his bicycle, a Swift, made in Coventry. His intention was to ride it all the way back from the shop in Dudley, stopping at the Meese home on the way to show Harriet; he reckoned she’d still be working in their shop. At Holly Hall, however, a mile away, the chain came off, which gave him a nasty jolt since he was pedalling hard, trying to see how fast he could make it go. As a result, he banged his crotch awkwardly against the crossbar, making him wince with the sheer agony of it. With little alternative but to try and ignore the pain, he dismounted, glad of the opportunity to bend down and nurse his crotch as he replaced the oily chain carefully around the cogs. The job done and the pain slowly receding, he continued on his way, more gingerly this time. He would have to adjust the chain properly when he got home. ‘Oh, I say,’ Harriet exclaimed with approval when she saw the bicycle. ‘Can I have a go on it?’ ‘Yes, but mind how far you’re going.’ He was afeared that the chain might come off again, and had visions of walking miles trying to retrieve both the machine and Harriet if that happened. ‘And don’t get the wheels stuck in the tramlines, else you’ll be off.’ Harriet cocked her leg over the saddle, in what was for her, a most unladylike but forgivable manner. She set off from the kerb shakily, emitting a girlish scream of apprehension. ‘I won’t go far,’ she yelled over her shoulder. Algie watched with a grin as she rode no more than a hundred yards in the direction of Dudley, then turned around with a series of inelegant wobbles. She didn’t have the confidence to use the pedals and merely scooted with her long legs astride the crossbar, the hem of her skirt unavoidably hoisted to an immodest height so untypical of her. ‘I’ll get arrested with my skirt up like this,’ she said, laughing, as she returned to his side. ‘No wonder girls don’t ride these contraptions.’ ‘All you need is to wear a pair of trousers instead of a skirt,’ he suggested with a measure of practicality. ‘Don’t be a goose,’ she scoffed. ‘Who ever heard of such a thing!’ ‘Well, I think it’s a good idea. These machines can be just as useful for women as for men …’ The comment was prompted by what Marigold had said about cycling ahead of the narrowboats to open the lock gates. ‘But you women won’t benefit unless you change your attitude.’ ‘What attitude?’ ‘Your attitude to what you’re prepared to wear. Trousers, for instance. Women used to wear trousers when they worked in the mines.’ ‘Some women that worked in the mines wore nothing at all, I’ve been told,’ Harriet responded with scorn. ‘But you won’t find me going about with no clothes on. Anyway, can you imagine what I’d look like?’ ‘Lord, I daren’t even begin to think about it, Harriet …’ ‘Seen the Binghams lately, Dad?’ Algie asked one day on his return from work. ‘I ain’t seen ’em for a fortnight.’ Will Stokes looked at his son with a wry smile. ‘They ain’t been a-nigh, Son, not since that day your mother laid bare me tulip patch. Still got your eye on young Marigold, have yer?’ Algie smiled. He was able to admit such things to his father. He was able to talk to him about anything. ‘Could be,’ he answered with a wink. ‘Would you blame me?’ ‘Nay, she’s a bonny wench, our Algie. I can understand you being interested. But if you seriously want her, don’t lead young Harriet on, that’s my advice. It ain’t fair. She’s a decent young madam is Harriet, and I’m sure she wouldn’t do that to you. So be straight with her.’ ‘Oh, I intend to be, Dad. Once I’m sure of me standing with Marigold. I got no intention of two-timing her.’ Will shook his head. ‘If you got no serious intentions for young Harriet, you should tell her straight, Marigold or no Marigold.’ ‘I know, Dad, but I don’t want to burn all my bridges … Not yet …’ On the Wednesday night, that last day in April, Algie accompanied his sister Kate to the town hall, which had been hired by the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society for two performances that week of two plays; My First Client, a farce, and a comedy called You Know What. Both had the audiences guffawing with laughter. After the show, Harriet returned from backstage and formally introduced Kate Stokes to Murdoch Osborne, the society’s leading light and principle organiser. ‘Me and Miss Stokes are already partly acquainted, ha?’ Murdoch said pleasantly. ‘Her mother’s a regular customer of mine, and I see Miss Stokes most days on her way to work at Mills’s cake shop, ha, Miss Stokes? I can see a definite resemblance to your mother, you know … and that’s a compliment, ha?’ Kate blushed becomingly. ‘Thank you, Mr Osborne.’ ‘Now then. Harriet here tells me as you might be interested in joining our little theatre group.’ ‘I never thought about it before, but I think I’d like to try it,’ Kate replied coyly, imagining receiving the audience’s applause and appreciation, as rendered so enthusiastically for tonight’s star, Miss Katie Richards. ‘Have you been involved in drama before?’ ‘Never, but I’m a quick learner. I learn poetry ever so quick. I would soon learn me words, I’m sure. I’d really like to try me hand at it.’ Murdoch Osborne was watching her, fascinated by her large, earnest brown eyes. ‘You’re a very pretty girl and no mistake, Miss Stokes … and we’re fortunate to be blessed with so many lovely girls in our Little Theatre.’ He glanced at Harriet for a look of approval at his flattery. ‘We start casting and rehearsing next Wednesday for our next production, a play entitled The Forest Princess, set in North America. I’m keen that we cast the part of Pocahontas right.’ ‘Pocahontas?’ Kate queried, wide-eyed. ‘Pocahontas was a beautiful Red Indian princess who lived in the seventeenth century, Kate … Can I call you Kate?’ ‘Oh, yes. Course.’ ‘Good. Thank you … I was about to say … I would be very grateful if you could attend.’ ‘Thank you, Mr Osborne, I will. What time should I get here?’ ‘Oh, we don’t meet here. We meet in the Drill Hall—’ ‘Why don’t you call for me on the way, Kate?’ Harriet suggested helpfully. ‘You could walk up with me and our Priss.’ ‘Oh, right,’ Kate beamed. ‘Could I?’ ‘Course. It’s always best, I think, if you can go somewhere strange with somebody you know. Especially the first time.’ ‘Then that’s settled,’ said Murdoch Osborne with a triumphant grin. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you then.’ Chapter 3 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) Clara Stokes, although adamant about not leaving her fireside in the evenings, was often faced with no alternative during the day. Her family, not unreasonably, expected to be fed, and not every morsel of food was delivered to the lock-keeper’s cottage. So she had to make trips to Brierley Hill High Street for meat and provisions, for fruit and the fresh vegetables her husband could not grow himself. Sometimes, they would be given a rabbit, a wood pigeon, or even a pheasant, any of which would make a cheap yet perfectly acceptable dinner. A bunch of beetroots or a bag of freshly dug potatoes often arrived with the compliments of a neighbour, but you could never depend on it. In fact, if you waited for somebody to donate something like that, just when you needed it, you’d go hungry. It was a perverse principle which dictated that such offerings were only ever presented when the larder was full, never empty. Naturally, Will Stokes would return the favour whenever possible; his rhubarb was coveted for its flavour and gentle but very definite powers to relieve the Buckpool and Wordsley constipated, and his kidney beans were noted for their tenderness and delicate taste when in season. Most neighbours, as well as many of the boat families, would trade food in this way at some time. It was the second Thursday in May and a fine sunny morning when Clara Stokes set out on her walk to Brierley Hill, shopping basket in one hand and gallon can in the other to hold the lamp oil they needed. The clatter and smoke of industry was all around her. Carts, conveying all manner of finished goods and raw materials, drawn by work-weary horses, passed in either direction, the drivers nodding to her as they progressed. Small children with runny noses, too young yet for school, were as mucky as the dirt in which they scrabbled; poorly clad and often even more poorly shod. Clara went first to the cobbler to pick up a pair of Will’s shoes that had been in for resoling. ‘I heeled ’em an’ all,’ the bespectacled shoe mender informed her. ‘It’s on’y an extra tanner, but it’ll save yer bringin’ ’em again to be done in another six weeks.’ Clara smiled at his enterprise and paid him one shilling and ninepence, the cost of the repair. Next she visited the ironmongery of Isaiah Willetts, who filled her gallon can with lamp oil after she’d bought candles, washing soda and a bar of coal tar soap. She passed the drapery, mourning and mantles shop of Eli Meese, avoiding glancing into the window lest old Eli himself spotted her and she had to stop and talk. So that she could buy elastic, since Will’s long johns were hanging loose around his waist and needed new to make them grip him comfortably again, she visited the haberdashery store a little further along the street. At the greengrocer’s she bought a cabbage, onions, carrots, parsnips, spuds and a cauliflower, by which time she was laden down, and she hadn’t been nigh the butcher’s yet. Of course, there was a queue at the butcher’s. But at least she could rest her basket on the sawdust-covered floor, along with her gallon can and the sundry brown carrier bags she’d acquired. Murdoch Jeroboam Osborne, in his white, blood-flecked cow gown and navy striped apron, greeted her warmly as soon as she entered, and she watched him chop off the heads of various fowl, a hare and several rabbits, until it was her turn to be served. ‘A quart of chitterlings, please, Murdoch,’ Clara requested familiarly. ‘A quart of chitterlings coming up, my princess,’ Murdoch repeated with an amiable grin. ‘How’re you today, Clara my treasure, ha?’ ‘Aching from carrying all this stuff,’ she replied, nodding in the direction of the purchases at her feet. ‘Who’d be a woman fetching and carrying this lot?’ Murdoch smiled sympathetically and turned around to scoop up a quantity of chitterlings, which were pigs’ intestines that had been washed and cooked and were a tasty delicacy. ‘Have you got e’er a basin to put ’em in?’ he enquired. ‘Not today, Murdoch. Can you lend me summat?’ ‘I’ve got a basin in the back, my flower. Just let me have it back next time you come, ha?’ ‘Course I will.’ ‘I’ll go and rinse it out.’ He returned after a minute with the basin and filled it with the chitterlings. ‘Anything else, my flower?’ ‘Will fancies a bit of lamb for his Sunday dinner.’ ‘Leg or shoulder, ha?’ ‘Shoulder’s tastiest, I always think, don’t you?’ Clara asked. ‘Just as long as it ain’t cold shoulder, ha?’ He winked, and Clara chuckled as he set about carving a section of shoulder. ‘By the way, Clara, I was glad to see as your daughter’s decided to join the Amateur Dramatics Society,’ he added, while he worked. ‘She’ll make a fine little actress. Nice-looking girl, ain’t she, ha?’ ‘For Lord’s sake, don’t tell her so. She’s already full of herself.’ ‘Gets it off her mother – the good looks I mean,’ he commented warmly, heedless of the other women queuing behind her. ‘I don’t mean the being full of herself bit, ’cause you ain’t full of yourself, are you, Clara, ha?’ Clara tried to pass off his compliment with a dismissive giggle. She always felt a warm glow talking to Murdoch Osborne, for they’d known each other years, and he made her feel like a young girl again. ‘Oh, you do say some things, Murdoch.’ ‘I mean it an’ all.’ ‘I bet you say it to all your customers.’ Murdoch Osborne grinned waggishly. ‘For all the good it ever does me … Here’s your shoulder of lamb …’ He held it up for her to inspect. ‘Does that look all right?’ Clara scrutinised it briefly then nodded her approval. ‘Anythin’ else, my flower?’ ‘I’d better take four nice pieces of liver for our tea. And I’ll have two pounds of bacon, as well.’ She watched him slice the bacon and the liver expertly, and wrap it. When he’d bundled all her purchases together in newspaper, he took his blacklead pencil from behind his ear and tallied it up, writing the amounts on the corner of the wrapping. Clara watched, trying to discern the upside-down amounts, then paid him. He handed the package to her, but Clara had no room in her bags for anything else. ‘I’ll struggle with this lot.’ ‘Tell you what,’ Murdoch said, not oblivious to her difficulty and keen to curry favour, ‘why don’t you let me deliver that lot to you later?’ ‘That’s ever so kind of you,’ Clara answered with a grateful smile, ‘but I shall need the liver for our tea.’ ‘Then just take the liver and whatever else you need, and let me deliver the rest.’ ‘I don’t want to put you out, Murdoch,’ she said, as he pulled out the parcel of liver and handed it to her. ‘It’s no trouble. Now give us the rest o’ your tranklements.’ She handed him the stuff she didn’t need and kept the bag containing the vegetables and the liver she’d just bought. ‘There you go. I hate to see a lady struggle. Soon as I’ve shut the shop, I’ll have a ride over to your house and deliver this little lot.’ ‘I’m that grateful, Murdoch.’ ‘Think nothing of it. Enjoy the rest o’ your day, and I’ll see yer later.’ It was just turned half past six when Murdoch delivered Clara’s shopping. The magical aroma of liver and onions still lingered in the air as Will Stokes answered the door to him. ‘By God, that smells good, Will,’ Murdoch commented. ‘I’ve brought the shopping. Your missus was struggling to carry it all when she left me shop, so I offered to bring it.’ ‘She told me,’ Will replied, and took the basket and a carrier bag from him. ‘And it’s very decent of yer, Murdoch. Fancy a cup o’ tea while you’m here?’ ‘I could be tempted. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.’ ‘Come on in then.’ Murdoch entered and Will led him into the small parlour. Clara and Kate were at the stone sink in the scullery, but ceased their chores as soon as they realised Murdoch Osborne was a guest. ‘Thank you for delivering me things, Murdoch,’ Clara said when she saw him. ‘It’s service you don’t expect these days.’ ‘No trouble at all.’ ‘Our Kate, put the kettle on,’ Clara suggested. ‘Let’s make Murdoch a nice cup o’ tea. Can I get you something to eat, Murdoch?’ ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble, Clara, ha?’ ‘One good turn deserves another,’ Clara responded, while Kate went out to fill the kettle and Murdoch’s eyes followed her. ‘I bet as you’ve had nothing all day.’ ‘It’s true enough.’ ‘Well, I can imagine how it is for a man who ain’t been widowed long. It must be hard for yer, Murdoch, since your poor wife passed on, but you need to look after yourself.’ ‘Oh, I don’t go without, Clara.’ ‘Well, let me get you something to eat. What d’you fancy? It’s a pity all the liver’s gone – it was beautiful, by the way … I could always fry you bacon and eggs …’ ‘Bacon and eggs?’ Murdoch said with a smile of enthusiasm, directing his comment to Will Stokes. ‘What more could a man ask for but bacon and eggs and a bit o’ fried bread, ha?’ Will noticed how Murdoch cunningly added the fried bread to the meal. ‘But only if it’s no trouble, Clara.’ ‘I told you, it’s no trouble.’ ‘You’re a lucky chap, Will, having a wife who’s handy with the frying pan.’ ‘I’m reminded of it every day, Murdoch,’ Will answered dismissively. Kate returned and hung the kettle on a gale hook over the fire. It spat and hissed as a few drips of water fell into the burning coals. ‘So how’s our Kate shaping up in this here amateur dramatics group?’ Will enquired as Clara set about frying Murdoch’s treat. ‘Oh, she’ll do very nicely, Will. I’ve got her to agree to play the part of Pocahontas in our next play.’ ‘Poker who?’ Murdoch guffawed. ‘Pocahontas. A celebrated Red Indian princess from the Americas who became a Christian and married an English chap. She was very beautiful, if recorded history’s to be believed. Kate’s got the right sort of colouring and figure for the part, I reckon, ha? She read it well an’ all, when we tried her out for it.’ ‘I’m glad to hear as she’s some use for summat,’ Will remarked dryly. ‘Even if it is only acting up.’ Kate, who had been preening herself in the mirror, turned round and shot daggers at her father, who she felt had not only never understood her, but had signally failed to realise her latent talents as well. ‘Oh, I reckon she’ll be a valuable asset to us,’ Murdoch affirmed. ‘We’ve been lacking a wench with your Kate’s qualities.’ ‘What qualities am they then?’ ‘Good looks, a certain grace …’ ‘Gets it off her mother and no two ways,’ Will said. ‘I wouldn’t argue with that, Will …’ At that, Algie appeared and stood in the scullery doorway wiping his hands on a towel. ‘How do, Mr Osborne,’ he greeted cordially. ‘You brought our stuff then?’ ‘Aye, I brought it, lad … We was just talking about your sister Kate and the Little Theatre.’ ‘Oh? Think she’ll be any good?’ he asked, as if it would be a surprise if she were. ‘I reckon so. I was just saying as much to your father. And if you reckon you could act as well, young Algie, we’d be pleased to welcome you into the group, a good-looking young chap like you.’ ‘No thanks, Mr Osborne,’ Algie replied unhesitatingly. ‘I don’t think it’s my cup of tea, all that reciting lines. Anyway, I see enough of Harriet Meese without going to the Drill Hall with her as well. It’s a good excuse for a night off when she goes to the Amateur Dramatics rehearsing.’ He winked knowingly at Murdoch, who smiled back conspiratorially. ‘But if our Kate enjoys it, all well and good …’ He turned to his mother in the scullery. ‘What’s that you’re cooking, Mother? It smells good.’ ‘I’m doing bacon and eggs for Mr Osborne. He’s had nothing to eat all day, poor chap. He’s got nobody to look after him, like you and your father have.’ ‘Can you drop some in the pan for me as well? I’m famished.’ ‘But you ain’t long had liver and onions.’ ‘I know, but I’m hungry again.’ Clara tutted. ‘I can’t seem to fill him up, you know, Murdoch,’ she announced over her shoulder. ‘Oh, I was just the same when I was his age,’ Murdoch replied. ‘It’s to be expected, ha?’ The following Sunday, Algie decided to put his new bike, his pride and joy, through its paces along the towpath. The weather remained settled and it was a lovely warm, sunny day. He cycled first towards Wordsley, waving to the boatmen he knew and their wives, whose narrowboats he passed. Since it was the Sabbath many were moored up, generally close to a public house, their horses left to graze the tufts of grass that lined the canal. Algie had had no more trouble with his chain coming off since he had tightened it by moving the rear wheel back sufficiently in its forks. He cycled confidently now, in the certain knowledge that it would not come adrift again. When he reached the Red House Glassworks with its huge brick cone towering over everything, he reckoned he’d gone far enough in that direction. He was keen to try the uphill ride back. The towpath followed the topography of the canal so it was flat for the most part, the ascent appearing in stages at the ten locks on that stretch of the canal, and the humpback bridges that spanned them. His intention was to cycle in the other direction as far as the Nine Locks at the area known as the Delph, about a mile as the crow flies, but nearly two miles along the meandering canal. He hoped he might espy the Binghams. But long before he reached the Nine Locks, he spotted a pair of narrowboats lying low and heavy in the water, plying the bend in the canal at the Victoria Firebrick Works. Thirty yards in front, a piebald horse was hauling them, its long face in a nose-tin. The stocky figure of Seth Bingham was leading it. Marigold! Algie’s heart skipped a beat. He smiled to himself and raced towards them. He bid Seth good day as he whizzed past, looking for Marigold, and saw her bending down at the tiller of the butty, the Odyssey. She was wearing a sunbonnet and failed to see him at first. It took a shout to draw her attention, whereupon she stood up and looked about enquiringly. When she eventually spotted him she smiled and waved. ‘How do, Marigold,’ Algie called, an amiable grin on his handsome face. He turned around and rode alongside her, matching the sedate pace of the narrowboat she was steering. ‘Hello, Algie. You got your bike then.’ ‘What d’you think of it?’ ‘It looks nice. You ride it well.’ Mrs Bingham, at the tiller of the Sultan, the horse boat, turned around when she heard her daughter calling to Algie, and smiled to herself, not averse to the romance she perceived blossoming between them. This Algie Stokes was at least likeable, unlike that ne’er-do-well she’d taken to in Kidderminster. ‘I’m getting used to it now, Marigold.’ ‘How long you had it?’ ‘A couple of weeks. Hey, I ain’t seen you for ages. Ain’t you been down this cut since last time I saw you?’ ‘No,’ she called. ‘We’ve been up again’ Cheshire and back a few times, though, and to Birnigum.’ ‘So you’re on your way to Kiddy again?’ Marigold nodded coyly, aware of all it implied. ‘So you’ll be doing a spot o’ courting tomorrow night then?’ She shrugged and felt herself blush. ‘Are you mooring up by the Bottle and Glass?’ he asked. ‘I reckon so. Me dad likes the beer there.’ ‘Yes, you said. So d’you fancy coming a walk with me again when you’ve had your dinner? It’s a nice day for a walk.’ ‘If you like,’ she answered, and Algie was encouraged by the spontaneity of her acceptance. ‘I’ll give you a ride on the crossbar, eh?’ She shrugged, still smiling with pleasure at seeing him. ‘If you like … So how fast can you make the machine go?’ ‘Here on the flat I can make it go proper quick.’ ‘Show me, then.’ The lad that was in the man grinned boyishly at the welcome challenge; at the opportunity to impress. ‘All right. Watch this.’ He raised himself from the saddle and exerted all the pressure he could muster onto the pedals for a rapid acceleration. Just as he was drawing level with the horse, the chain came off the sprocket and, because of its sudden and unexpected lack of tension, his right leg slipped off the pedal and he banged his crotch again on the crossbar. The instant, unbearable pain caused Algie to wince and he veered straight into the horse, its head still in its nose-tin. Shocked out of its wits, the animal panicked, but it had only one place to go – into the canal, followed at once by Algie and his new bike. Animal and lad thrashed about looking very undignified. Algie surfaced with a look of disgruntled surprise on his face. He gasped for air as the chill of the water, coupled with the excruciating agony of testicular pain, robbed him of breath. His normally curly hair was a black, wet mop clinging to his head and he spluttered foul water in indignant astonishment. The poor horse, meanwhile, its eyes white and wild with fright, was drowning in its own nose-tin as it flailed about, desperately trying to regain its feet on the slimy bed of the canal. Seth realised the animal’s plight and at once threw himself down on his belly at the edge of the towpath, reaching out, frantically trying to free the nose-tin from the horse so that it could breathe air without either choking itself with feed, or drowning. ‘Hey up!’ he cried, in a panic of concern. ‘Steady on, old lad. Let me get thy nostern off, else you’m a goner.’ He managed to loosen the strap, which was attached to a metal ring riveted to the nose-tin on the side nearest to him. The horse coughed and spluttered and, in its continuing terror, lost its footing again in the slime. The trailing narrowboat, by virtue of the impetus of its sheer uncontrolled weight, was in danger of crushing the horse between it and the canal wall. Seth yelled to Marigold to watch her steering. Suddenly, Marigold’s eyes were filled with apprehension as she immediately understood the danger. She grasped the tiller, holding it with all her strength to alter the course of the heavily loaded craft, to bring it to the bank without maiming the horse. Seth, meanwhile, rushed to his feet and tried shoving the Odyssey away from the horse, mustering all his strength. He succeeded, but stretching too far in his urgency, he, too, dropped into the canal with an unceremonious splash. Algie was too concerned with his own predicament to notice the commotion he’d caused. He was submerging himself repeatedly as he tried to locate his new investment, his precious bike, obscured in the murky water. ‘I can’t find me bike,’ he declared in horror. ‘It’ll be ruined. What if the narrowboat’s mangled it as it’s gone over it?’ ‘Never mind the blasted bike, you daft bugger,’ Seth Bingham rasped angrily, freshly saturated and surfacing behind him next to the increasingly perplexed horse. ‘My hoss is more important than that blasted thing o’ yourn. Mek yourself useful and fetch somebody who can help we get the hoss out the cut.’ ‘When I’ve found me bike,’ Algie called defiantly. ‘It cost me twelve quid.’ ‘And a new hoss’ll cost yer a sight more. You barmy bugger, what did you think you was a-doing, eh? Wait till I tell your fairther. Now get out of the cut and help me. You caused all the bloody trouble, showing off like that. You bloody imbecile!’ Algie cringed under the tirade, but was diverted by a piercing scream that came from Marigold. One of her young brothers, a mere child, had suddenly appeared from the cabin to see what all the fuss was about, and was standing alongside the tiller. She had instantly perceived the danger as somebody, thinking they were helping when the danger of crushing the horse was over, was pulling the stern in towards the towpath. She yelled a warning and shoved him out of the way a mere fraction of a second before the rudder hit the bank, which in turn caused the tiller to swing violently across the stern, just missing the child’s head. She sighed, a profound sigh, having just averted what would have been a tragedy. Marigold breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the child, taking him out of harm’s way. Algie found his submerged bike at that very moment. He lifted it over his head, mucky water and weeds cascading over him, and placed it on the towpath with a look of demoralised anguish. Then he clambered out, forlorn, bedraggled by the same cold water. By this time, the pair of narrowboats had come to a stop. ‘Catch this rope, Algie.’ It was Hannah Bingham’s voice. Algie turned and looked just as Hannah tossed it to him. When he stepped forward to catch it his boots squelched, oozing slime and mud. ‘Chuck one end to Seth,’ Hannah yelled. ‘He’ll fasten it to the hoss. You can help pull the poor thing out.’ Algie tried not to look at Marigold, but could not resist casting her a glance. He felt immensely stupid. She was obviously concerned at the sudden plight they all found themselves in, and she looked bewildered and flustered. She must think him such a fool. Surely, she must blame him for all this. He had ruined any chance he’d ever had of success with her. Seth seemed to be making some progress calming down the frightened horse. He spoke to it as softly as the desperate circumstances would allow, and patted its trembling neck reassuringly. He fastened the rope to its collar, then tried to get the horse to limber up the vertical side of the canal. ‘Pull the rope,’ he called to Algie. Algie pulled, but the horse resisted. By this time a small audience had gathered, people using the towpath as a shortcut, and advice was not long in coming. ‘Tie some planks together and put one end in the cut, the other on the towpath, and walk him out,’ one man advised. ‘But planks’ll float,’ reasoned another. Somebody else suggested that they fix a blanket under the horse’s belly, then yank him out with a crane. ‘Where are we gunna find a crane of a Sunday?’ Algie queried impatiently, quietly shivering from the icy cold water that was running down his back, squishing inside his clinging clothes. ‘They must have one at the firebrick works.’ ‘That bloody saft Algie ought to be made swim with the hoss to the nearest steps,’ Seth declared from the middle of the canal. For half an hour they endeavoured to coax the horse to jump up onto the towpath, but in vain, for the sides were too high and too steep. Until Algie, desperate to avoid swimming to the nearest escape steps with the horse, and to redeem himself in the eyes of Marigold, had an idea. ‘Got any carrots, Mrs Bingham?’ ‘Yes, by God,’ Hannah replied, at once catching on. By this time, the pair of narrowboats had been hauled alongside the towpath and moored. She delved inside her cabin and emerged clutching several carrots. Algie squelched towards her and took them. He made his way to the horse, sat on his haunches and offered the animal a carrot, which it sniffed suspiciously, then took in its mouth and chomped. ‘Here’s another,’ Algie said, dangling it in front of the horse’s long face, but about a foot out of its reach. ‘This time, though, you gotta come and fetch it.’ He stood up and moved away, but still held out the carrot for the horse to see. ‘Goo on, lad,’ Seth encouraged, acknowledging the vain possibility that this ploy might work. ‘Goo on, get the carrot.’ The animal fidgeted about fretfully in the water, evidently lacking the confidence or the will to attempt a leap. Algie moved towards the horse again, allowing it another sniff of the carrot, then backed away once more. The horse shifted backwards, and for a moment looked poised to leap, then seemed to change its mind. Seth, Algie and all the others offered more vocal encouragement until, with a monumental effort, the plucky little horse leapt up. Its front hoofs scraped on the compressed ash of the towpath, while its hind legs flailed to and fro, trying to find some purchase on the smooth blue bricks that formed the edge. At the same time, the men pulled on the rope. For a moment it looked as though the horse would fail and hurt itself as it tumbled backwards into the cut again. But miraculously, it made it, and a loud cheer rang through the spring air. ‘Thank God,’ Hannah exclaimed with a sigh of relief. Algie kept his promise to the horse, which was now only concerned with acquiring the carrot, and popped it into its mouth. ‘Good lad,’ he said, patting its neck. ‘I’m just sorry as I caused you so much trouble in the first place. Now enjoy your carrots, ’cause they was sure to be for your master’s dinner.’ ‘Well, at least you got him out,’ Marigold said, sidling up beside him. ‘That was a good idea to tempt him with a carrot.’ He turned to her. ‘I didn’t think for a minute that it’d work,’ he admitted, relieved and surprised that she was still speaking to him. ‘But I reckoned it was worth a try. I felt I had to do something, since it was me that caused all the upset in the first place. And I know that horses like carrots better than anything.’ ‘It’s a good job as yo’ did,’ Seth Bingham interjected, his pique subsiding. ‘Else Lord knows how we would’ve got the poor bugger out.’ ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Bingham,’ Algie remarked with earnest repentance. ‘The chain came off me bike just as I was going past the horse. It caused me to fall into him, and it startled him, I reckon.’ ‘Did you hurt yourself, lad?’ Algie grinned self-consciously. ‘Gave me taters a right bang.’ ‘Aye, well it’s over and done now. Now all we need do is change into some dry clothes. Hannah, find me another pair o’ trousers and a shirt, and chuck me a towel, eh?’ ‘I feel I ought to make it up to you, Mr Bingham,’ Algie said. ‘To say how sorry I am.’ ‘Like I said, lad, it’s over and done with.’ ‘Let me buy you a drink in the Bottle and Glass.’ Seth managed a smile at last. ‘If yo’ insist. But we’n gotta get there fust. I’ll gi’ the hoss five minutes to get over the shock afore I get him to haul we there. The poor bugger was frit to death.’ ‘I’d better get home and change into dry clothes as well, Mr Bingham.’ ‘That you had, lad. Is your two-wheeler any the wuss for having took a look in the cut?’ ‘It’ll dry out,’ Algie replied with resignation. ‘It’ll very likely dry out as I ride it home. I just hope the rust don’t set in.’ ‘Aye, well just be careful where you’m a-going next time.’ ‘I will, Mr Bingham. I promise.’ Algie retrieved his bike from the towpath and inspected it. As he reinstalled the errant chain on its sprockets, Marigold stood beside him, watching and waiting. ‘I don’t suppose you want to come a walk with me now, do you, Marigold, after making a fool of meself like I have?’ ‘Why should it make any difference?’ she said pleasantly. ‘It was an accident. Anybody could see that. At first I thought it was funny, till I saw Victoria was in trouble. Then, when that ninny pulled us into the bank and the tiller swung round …’ She put her hands to her face with the horror of recalling it. ‘Well, our Billy’s lucky he didn’t get his head wopped off. Anyway, Algie, you did well to get Victoria out.’ ‘Victoria? Is that what you call the horse? Victoria?’ ‘Yes. After the queen. What’s wrong with that?’ ‘But it ain’t a mare, is it?’ He grinned amiably, amused at the incongruity of the horse’s name and its gender. ‘Even I can see it’s got a doodle.’ Marigold chuckled at his irreverence. ‘The horse don’t know it’s a girl’s name,’ she reasoned. He chuckled. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, if it’s good enough for a queen, it’s good enough for a horse, I reckon. Male or no.’ Chapter 4 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) While Algie was at the Bottle and Glass trying to get back into Seth Bingham’s good books, Marigold picked up her mother’s basket and made her way to the lock-keeper’s cottage. She tapped on the door and Kate answered it. ‘Oh, hello, Marigold,’ Kate greeted pleasantly. ‘Our Algie ain’t here, he’s at the Bottle and Glass.’ Marigold blushed at the implication. ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Stokes, not Algie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something for her.’ ‘You’d better come in then.’ Marigold followed Kate into the scullery where Clara was at the sink. She greeted Marigold with a warm smile, which was returned. ‘Hello, Mrs Stokes … I just wanted to bring you these …’ She placed the basket on the table and invited Clara, by her demeanour alone, to peer into it. ‘Eggs!’ Clara declared. She looked up at Marigold and smiled. ‘For me?’ ‘For being so kind, Mrs Stokes. For letting me have those choolips for me mom last time we was through here. She loved ’em, you know. As soon as I gave them to her she put them in a vase and they took pride o’ place in the Sultan’s cabin. They lasted ever so long, as well. She was ever so pleased with them. So when I knew as they’d got some new-laid eggs at a farm up by the viaduct when we came past this morning, I thought getting you a dozen would be a good way of saying thank you.’ ‘You didn’t have to do that, Marigold,’ Clara said, touched by her thoughtfulness, ‘but it’s very kind of you. Thank you. It’s a lovely thought. Algie will enjoy having eggs for his breakfast in the morning, especially since it’s you that’s brought ’em. So will Mr Stokes.’ ‘Did you hear about Algie falling in the cut this morning, and taking our horse with him?’ Clara laughed. ‘He told me all about it. I can just picture it.’ ‘The silly devil,’ Kate chimed in with scorn. ‘I suppose he was acting the goat.’ ‘It was an accident, Kate,’ Marigold said gently, immediately coming to Algie’s defence. ‘He couldn’t help it. It could’ve been much worse than it was, but it was an accident. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness. Him and me dad just took a look in the cut with the horse, and got wet.’ ‘And now they’re celebrating the fact in the public, I suppose,’ Kate replied. ‘I hope so,’ Marigold said. ‘It’s just a pity our poor horse can’t be there with ’em as well. I think he deserves a drink after what he’s been through.’ Washed, dried and wearing his Sunday best suit, Algie Stokes left the Bottle and Glass after imbibing more beer than he was used to, in his endeavour to redeem himself in the eyes of Seth Bingham. He stepped unsteadily round the back of the public house, and winced at the bright afternoon sunshine that lent a dazzling sparkle to the canal’s murky water. He headed at once for the pair of narrowboats moored abreast of each other in the basin. The Odyssey was furthest from him. ‘Marigold!’ he called. Marigold emerged from the Sultan. She stooped down to say goodbye to her mother, who was below in the cabin. She saw that Algie was wearing his best Sunday suit, his silver Albert stretched across his waistcoat. ‘How did you get on with me dad?’ she asked, clambering out of the narrowboat onto the towpath. ‘We’re the best of mates,’ Algie affirmed, with a misplaced sense of pride that amused her. With an unspoken consensus they headed towards Wordsley, the direction he had taken at the beginning of his eventful ride that morning. Serenity enveloped them, a sort of reverential Sunday silence, punctuated only by the trickling songs of blackbirds. On other days such wistful and lovely birdsong went unheard, muffled by the intense throb of industry. Ducks and geese basked at the edge of the canal and a pen sat with propriety and elegance on a huge nest overlooked by the Dock shop. ‘How many drinks did you have to buy him?’ Marigold enquired. ‘Two.’ ‘No wonder he’s the best o’ mates with you.’ ‘He bought me one back as well.’ ‘So you’ve had three pints?’ ‘No, four, to tell you the truth. Somebody else bought us one besides. I never drink that many as a rule. ’Specially of a Sunday dinnertime.’ Marigold gasped. ‘Your hold must be awash. I wonder you can still stand.’ ‘Oh, I can still stand all right.’ He teetered exaggeratedly, pretending to be more unsteady than he really was. ‘I don’t think I can walk very straight though.’ The sweet sound of her laughter appealed greatly to him and he focused his admiring eyes on her. ‘Then it’s a good job you ain’t riding your machine, else you’d be taking another look in the cut.’ ‘I was intending to give you a ride on it,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Shall I go and fetch it?’ ‘Not on your nellie. Not if you’ve had four pints o’ jollop and you keeps plaiting your legs. Look at you, you’m all over the place.’ She chuckled again good naturedly at his seeming unsteadiness. ‘When we come back, I mean.’ ‘We’ll see.’ ‘How come it’s been so long since you came this way?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d be through our lock well before today.’ ‘I told you, we had work that took us up to Cheshire. It’s a good earner to Cheshire and back to Birnigum, ’cause we generally loads up wi’ salt for the return.’ ‘So you ain’t seen that chap in Kidderminster either?’ ‘Course not.’ ‘I bet you got your eye on somebody in Cheshire, though, eh?’ ‘Me?’ she queried, with genuine surprise. ‘Course I haven’t.’ He was teasing her, but something in her voice suggested she was taking him seriously, and convinced him she was telling the truth. ‘I’d be surprised if nobody was interested in you, Marigold.’ ‘Why?’ she fished, an expectant smile lighting up her lovely face. ‘Well, I mean … Somebody as pretty as you?’ ‘Oh, I ain’t that special, Algie,’ she protested pleasantly, with no hint of coquetry. ‘I’m just ord’n’ry. Anyroad, what about you? I bet you’ve been seeing that Harriet.’ He shrugged non-committally. ‘I bet you have,’ she persisted. ‘There’s nothing serious between me and Harriet. I told you.’ ‘I bet you’ll be going to church with her tonight again, whether or no.’ It was true, worse luck; Harriet was expecting him, and there was no sense in denying it. ‘Not if you agree to come out with me tonight, I won’t.’ He looked at her again to discern her reaction. ‘All right,’ she agreed, returning his look with a distinct twinkle in her eye. If she refused, then he would certainly spend the evening with this Harriet, and she must prevent that happening. ‘I’ll come out with you tonight, if you like. You’ll have sobered up by then, tis to be hoped …’ They walked along the towpath in a companionable silence for a moment or two, each considering the implications of what they had said. Algie casually kicked a loose stone and it plopped into the canal. He would have to give Harriet an explanation for failing to show up for church. But he was not sorry. It would afford him the opportunity to make the break from her as honourably as he could, as his father had said he should. Such a break from Harriet would be to their mutual benefit, freeing her to accept the advances of other young men, more deserving of her. ‘How far are we going?’ Marigold asked. ‘Not far, eh?’ Algie replied. ‘I’m tired. All that buggering about in the cut.’ ‘Oh, well, you can bet it’s nothing to do with the beer you’ve had.’ Marigold glanced at him sideways with a knowing look, with no hint of recrimination, then burst out laughing at his peeved expression. ‘I can take my beer, you know,’ he replied sheepishly. ‘It’s the mucking about in the cut that’s done me in. I just hope I haven’t caught a chill. Anyway, let’s get off the towpath by Dadford’s Shed … There …’ He pointed to a huge new timber construction named after Thomas Dadford Junior who had supervised the building of the canal more than a century earlier. ‘We can go over the bridge there to the fields at the back of the sand quarry and have a sit down.’ ‘If you like,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t fancy walking far. I got some new second hand boots on as I got from Penkridge Market the other day, and they’m a bit tight. I need to break ’em in afore I walk a long way in them.’ It was a short walk from Dadford’s Bridge and the wharf of the Glassworks, along a back way called Mill Street and then Water Lane, where they passed the sand quarry Algie had mentioned before the lane dwindled to a footpath. Marigold was surprised to find herself at a lovely quiet spot, nestling between steep hillocks and sandstone crevices, out of sight of the quarry, the glassworks and the rest of civilisation. A small and very clear stream rippled idyllically between clusters of young trees. Wafts of almond-scented gorse rose to meet them as they stepped over the soft grass, like velvet beneath their feet. ‘Let’s sit down here,’ Algie suggested. He sat himself on the ground with his arms around his knees and looked up at Marigold who was still standing. He held his hand out to her. ‘Come and sit beside me, Marigold. I thought you said your boots were hurting you.’ She did as he bid compliantly and with an inherent daintiness. Algie tugged at a stalk of grass, one end of which he put between his teeth. In the distance a cuckoo made its wilful call, while a pair of young rabbits bobbed about playfully close by. Marigold drew his attention to them. ‘Ain’t they beautiful?’ ‘They’re all right in a stew,’ he quipped, deliberately taunting her. ‘I reckon there’s too many uncooked rabbits knocking about.’ She responded by giving him a playful tap on the arm. ‘Tell me about Harriet.’ ‘What d’you want to know?’ She shrugged. ‘How long you’ve been seeing her, what she’s like …’ ‘She ain’t that interesting,’ he replied dismissively. ‘She can’t be that bad if you see her regular.’ ‘I told you, it’s nothing serious. We aren’t courting proper.’ ‘So how long have you known her?’ He shrugged. ‘About two years.’ ‘Two years and it ain’t serious? It’s time she got the hint … Unless you’ve just been stringing her along.’ He shrugged again, but made no reply. ‘So you don’t love her?’ ‘Love her?’ he repeated, disparaging the notion with overstated disdain. ‘If I loved her I wouldn’t be here with you. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t like her, though.’ ‘But not enough to wed.’ ‘Any chap would be a fool to marry a girl he doesn’t love, don’t you agree?’ ‘Course.’ ‘It wouldn’t do Harriet much good either, would it?’ She shook her head. ‘I suppose not. Does she work?’ ‘Yes. For her father, in his drapery shop.’ ‘Drapery shop?’ Marigold repeated in awe. ‘Oh, I’d like to work in a drapery shop. I bet she’s got some nice clothes.’ He took the stalk of grass out of his mouth and turned to her. ‘I’d rather not talk about Harriet,’ he said softly. ‘I reckon you’re a lot more interesting.’ The comment elicited a shy smile and she lowered her lids. ‘You know what I’d like to do?’ he said, as if confiding a great secret. ‘What?’ ‘I’d like to kiss you.’ ‘You must be drunk.’ ‘I never felt more sober in my life.’ ‘Get away with you,’ she chuckled. ‘You’ll be asleep in a minute. Me dad always nods off when he’s had a drink.’ ‘I’ve never felt more wide awake. I want to kiss you, Marigold.’ She offered her cheek, teasing him. ‘On the lips, you nit,’ he said with a boyish grin. She looked into his eyes earnestly for a few seconds, wondering whether to accede to his request. For Marigold this was a momentous step. As he leaned towards her in anticipation, she slowly tilted her face to receive his kiss. His lips felt soft and cool on hers, as gentle as the fluttering of a butterfly, a sensation she enjoyed. ‘Wasn’t too bad, was it?’ She focused on her new boots to avert her eyes. ‘No, it was nice,’ she answered softly. ‘It was really nice …’Cept I can smell the beer on your breath.’ ‘Never mind that. Kiss me again.’ She lifted her face to his once more and their lips brushed this time in a series of soft, gentle touches. Marigold’s heart was pounding hard. ‘You kiss nice,’ he said softly. ‘Nicer than Harriet?’ ‘A lot nicer than Harriet. Harriet ain’t got kissing lips like you. Her lips are too thin. When you kiss her they feel as if they’re worked by springs. I ain’t that struck on kissing a set of springs.’ ‘So you reckon I’ve got kissing lips?’ ‘For certain.’ He smiled with tenderness. ‘I bet you’ve kissed loads of girls.’ ‘Not really …’ ‘A lot, I bet,’ she suggested. He allowed her to believe it. It could do no harm. ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Have you kissed lots of chaps?’ ‘Me? No … Only Jack from Kidderminster.’ ‘Who kisses the best?’ he enquired. ‘Me or him?’ ‘Dunno,’ she answered shyly. ‘Does he kiss you like this …’ Algie put his arm around her, and his lips were on hers with an eager but exaggerated passion. She turned her face away. ‘Algie, it’s not so nice when you kiss me that hard. You hurt me mouth. It’s much nicer when you do it gentle. Gentle as a butterfly … Butterfly kisses.’ ‘Sorry … Like this, you mean?’ He resumed kissing her tenderly again. ‘That better?’ ‘Yes, that’s much nicer. I don’t reckon as you’ve kissed that many girls if you think they like it done hard.’ ‘I never tried to kiss anybody that hard afore, to tell you the truth. There’s nobody I ever wanted to kiss that hard.’ She glanced into his eyes briefly with a shy smile. ‘Will you be my girl?’ She picked a daisy from the grass at her side before she answered, and twizzled it pensively between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Will you give up Harriet if I say yes?’ ‘Course I will. Will you give up that Jack in Kidderminster?’ She hesitated and Algie imagined she was torn which way to jump. Perhaps he was rushing things. ‘Well?’ ‘I dunno, Algie …’ she replied with a troubled look. ‘What’s to stop you?’ She sighed deeply. ‘I do like you, Algie …’ ‘But?’ ‘Well … I can’t say as I know you that well yet. How do I know you won’t still see Harriet behind me back? I mean, if we keep going to Cheshire and Birnigum and back it might be weeks afore I see you again. I don’t see the sense in promising to be yourn if you’m still gonna see that Harriet behind me back while I’m away.’ ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he asserted, trying to sound as convincing as he could. ‘Anyway, if you keep going to Cheshire you won’t see Jack either, so you might just as well decide to pack him up as hang on to him. ’Specially if you got me. I could ride to Kidderminster on my bike to see you if you were moored up there the night. You wouldn’t end up having nothing to do. As a matter of fact, I could ride to see you at lots of places if I knew where you intended to moor up nights.’ ‘I dunno, Algie …’ ‘Is it because you love Jack, then?’ ‘No, it’s because I ain’t sure of you.’ ‘Do you still want to see me tonight?’ ‘Course, if you still want to,’ she said quietly. The Meese household, with the exception of their maid and the cook, whose afternoon off it was, had assembled in the parlour. Harriet sat in an upholstered chair expectantly while Priss was perched on its arm, awaiting the imminent arrival of Algie Stokes. ‘He’s very late,’ remarked Priss, twiddling her gloved thumbs impatiently. ‘I don’t think we should wait any longer. He’ll see you in church, Harriet, I’m sure, if he’s coming at all.’ Eli shuffled impatiently, and donned his hat. ‘I’m hanged if I’m going to wait around any longer for that ne’er-do-well. As churchwarden I have a responsibility to be at church in good time.’ ‘Yes, please go on, Father,’ Harriet urged. ‘All of you. Except you, Priss, if you don’t mind. I’d rather you wait to walk with me in case he doesn’t show up. I do hope he hasn’t had an accident on that bicycle of his.’ ‘He’ll get no sympathy from me if he has,’ Eli said self-righteously. ‘Right, come on, you lot. Let’s go. We’ll see Priss and Harriet at the church with Lover Boy, if he ever deigns to show his face.’ In a swish of satin skirts, the younger Meese girls and their mother left the house and walked down the entry behind Eli in an orderly, if chattering, single file. Emily, the third daughter, eighteen, closed the door behind them with a wave, a smile and a flurry of audible footsteps as she ran to catch them up. ‘What if he has had an accident, Priss?’ Harriet speculated fretfully. ‘Well, it would hardly surprise me. But how will you know? You can’t walk all the way to their cottage tonight to find out. Anyway, we can afford to wait ten more minutes yet. He might show up.’ ‘Yes, he might,’ Harriet sighed. ‘But it’s unlike him to be late. You can normally set your clock by him. He’s normally so punctual that Mr Bradshaw could write his timetable by him.’ ‘Except there’d be a printing error for today’s times,’ Priss commented airily. ‘But you know what a palaver Father makes of getting to church early. You’d think he was the vicar instead of the churchwarden, the fuss he makes.’ ‘Maybe Algie has had an accident and his fob watch got broken, and he doesn’t know the time … Maybe we should invite him to tea of a Sunday in future. Then he’ll be here ready, fob watch or no.’ ‘Steady on, Harriet,’ Priss said. ‘That’s taking things a bit too far. But I suppose it depends how serious you are about him. Personally, I wouldn’t shed any tears over him. It’s not as if he’s serious about you. Besides, has it ever crossed your mind that you could do better for yourself? I’ve noticed how the curate looks at you …’ Harriet shrugged. ‘Oh, no, Priss, the curate admires you.’ Priss sighed and smiled sadly. ‘I only wish he did.’ ‘I had a feeling you liked him like that, Priss.’ Priss felt herself blushing. ‘Oh, I’d be very good for him,’ she said candidly. ‘I’d make an excellent clergyman’s wife, you know. But I bet he thinks we’re dreadfully plebeian, being a family of drapers.’ ‘At least we’ve got gas and water laid on, Priss. Anyway, I suspect it would be rather dull being married to the curate,’ Harriet speculated. ‘Living with him would be like taking board and lodgings in the church.’ ‘Oh, I don’t agree. The curate is an ideal sort of person to marry, with his high principles and conscientiousness.’ ‘Yes, you could sit up in bed with him at night and discuss Constantine the Great’s contribution to Christianity,’ Harriet suggested. ‘Or the relevance of the Book of Revelations to the Second Coming. That would be very stimulating, and be sure to beget you lots of offspring.’ ‘Don’t be coarse, Harriet. I think the curate is too superior a person to fall in love with anybody anyway,’ Priss surmised sadly. ‘Like Algie Stokes in a way, except that Algie Stokes is not superior at all.’ ‘I know Algie’s only a brass worker, Priss, but so what? I’ve known him ages and he’s a dear, gentle soul. Just remember, our father came from nothing. If he hadn’t had a bit of luck in the early days, he might have ended up a brass worker or an iron worker.’ ‘Yes, and look where we’d be …’ ‘It is honest employment after all, though, Priss.’ ‘Anyway, from what I hear, it was not luck that brought Father his prosperity, but sheer hard work, determination and a belief in himself.’ ‘And who’s to say Algie won’t develop along the same lines?’ ‘Of course, he might,’ Priss conceded. ‘But he shows no sign of it. He’s far too immature.’ They waited the whole ten minutes, but Algie did not materialise. So the two sisters hurried to church in the warm evening air without him, curious as to what had become of him. ‘Where you taking me tonight?’ Marigold asked when Algie called for her again that evening. ‘We could go for a drink.’ ‘I’d have thought you’d had enough to drink for one day.’ ‘I feel all right now. Sober as a judge in fact. I had a nap after my tea. Tell you what, why don’t we go and have one drink, then go back to that spot down by Dadford’s Bridge again? It was nice and peaceful down there.’ ‘If you like,’ she said, content to go along with it. It would mean that they could lie in the grass and kiss to their hearts’ content. The experience earlier had set her heart pounding and she’d enjoyed the exhilaration. To avoid Seth Bingham, who had installed himself at the Bottle and Glass, they stopped first at the Samson and Lion, which backed onto the canal a little further along. Algie fetched the drinks and took them outside where Marigold waited. ‘Does your mother go on to your dad about him drinking of a Sunday?’ Algie enquired as they stood outside the public house overlooking the towpath, drinking glasses in hand, enjoying the warm summer evening. ‘No, never. Why should she? She reckons he deserves his day of rest in the public bar, if that’s what he enjoys. He works hard every other day, never stops. Up at the crack o’ dawn, he is, to see to Victoria and get him ready for when the locks open so’s we can be on our way. He don’t stop neither till dusk when we moor up for the night and he’s found a stable.’ ‘D’you like living in a narrowboat on the cut? Wouldn’t you rather live in a house like ordinary folk?’ ‘I don’t know nothin’ any different, do I? I see folk like you living in houses, but I’ve never lived in a house … well, not as I can remember. My mother lived in one, though. She comes from somewhere round here.’ ‘Fancy,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know … So, how d’you manage, living in so small a space?’ She smiled into his eyes. ‘Oh, we manage. We’ve got everythin’ we need. It’s just all in a small space. I sleep in the butty on the cross-bed with two of my sisters, and one of my brothers sleeps on the side-bed. Me mom and dad sleep in the Sultan with our Billy, the youngest.’ ‘I often wonder how very young children get on, living on narrowboats. I mean, what do they do?’ ‘All sorts of things,’ Marigold replied. ‘Me dad makes ’em fishing rods, and he’s taught us all to fish. They spend ages fishing. It keeps ’em busy. They know every type of bird, every fish we ever catch …’ ‘What about schooling?’ he asked. ‘Never had much schooling.’ She sighed with regret. ‘Oh, I’d have dearly loved to have had some proper schooling, all of us would, but we’m never in one place long enough. The inspectors came once or twice asking to see our attendance books, but even they know what it’s like travelling ’tween towns all the while, pressed for time and money. It must be nice to have had some schooling, so’s you could see words wrote down and be able to read ’em proper, instead o’ mismuddling ’em, like I do.’ He smiled with admiration for this slip of a girl. ‘Finish your beer and we’ll go, eh?’ Soon, they left the Samson and Lion. ‘Give me your hand,’ he said. She found his hand, and turned to look at him with tenderness in her eyes. They walked on, hardly speaking but companionable enough, till they reached Dadford’s Shed and the bridge. In the distance, the bells of Wordsley Church were pealing melodically, as they would be at St Michael’s in Brierley Hill. ‘You’d be with Harriet now if you wasn’t with me,’ she remarked, prompted by the sound of the church bells, as they crossed the road into Water Lane. ‘I reckon so,’ he replied frankly. ‘But not anymore I won’t, if you say you’ll be my girl.’ ‘Did you send word as you wouldn’t be able to see her tonight?’ ‘How could I? There was no time.’ ‘P’raps you should’ve gone to see her instead then. She’d have been waiting.’ ‘Well, it’s done now. Anyway, she’s got sisters to go to church with. She won’t miss me … You know, I don’t think her dad likes me that much. They never say so, but I can tell by the way he is towards me – a bit offish.’ Marigold offered no reply other than a sympathetic smile. They reached the dell where they had been earlier. It was all in shadow since the sun, now low in the west, had traversed the sky. As before, he sat down on the ground and beckoned her to join him, which she did. He put his arm around her and drew her to him, hugging her. ‘Have you thought anymore about what I said?’ he asked her. ‘What was it you said?’ she replied, not quite sure what he meant. ‘About being my girl …’ ‘I’m thinking about it.’ ‘What is there to think about?’ he said. ‘I told you I’d give up Harriet. By not going to see her tonight, I already have done.’ ‘I know,’ she said seriously. ‘And I believe you …’ ‘So why dilly-dally? Tomorrow night I’ll ride to Kidderminster on my bike and we can be together again …’ ‘I couldn’t meet you till after I’d told him.’ He grinned, impressed by her obvious integrity, but had no wish to appear too triumphant. Not yet at any rate. ‘So you’ll tell him then, that you don’t want him anymore?’ She nodded. She had made up her mind. ‘I might get to talk to him while they’m offloading the boats. I want to be straight with him, Algie.’ Algie beamed. ‘Course you must. It’s the only way. So you’ll be my girl?’ ‘I will,’ she said, as solemnly as if she were taking her wedding vows. ‘You’re sure?’ She nodded again and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ He hugged her and planted a kiss on her lips, hardly able to believe his good fortune. Chapter 5 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) A high-flying, three-quarter moon afforded ample light by which Algie and Marigold retraced their steps to Buckpool. The occasional drunken shouts from some inebriate or other, lurching in the streets nearby, interrupted the evening’s stillness, but could hardly intrude on the euphoria and tenderness they both felt at their newly established accord. It was nearing ten o’ clock when they returned hand-in-hand to the brace of narrowboats tied up in the canal basin. Marigold had promised her mother she would be back by that time, for there was still work to be done, preparing for tomorrow’s early departure. When they reached the narrowboats, the stove pipe of the Sultan was exhausting a near vertical column of smoke that rose up in the moonlight like some spectral genie just released from a tall lamp. ‘So what time shall I see you at Kidderminster tomorrow night?’ Algie asked, taking her hands as they stood facing each other, in readiness for parting. ‘Let’s say half past seven.’ ‘But what if you don’t moor up there?’ ‘Then we’ll be back this way in the afternoon.’ ‘Come and knock on our door and let my mother know then, eh? When I get back from work she’ll tell me where you’ll be. Then I’ll just ride till I find you. If you don’t show up, I’ll know you’re between here and Kidderminster, and I’ll find you.’ Her eyes crinkled into an appealing smile. ‘Just mind you don’t take another look in the cut …’ She turned around to see if her mother was there waiting, having heard them return. ‘I’d better go, Algie,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow … all being well.’ She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his lips, lingering a couple of seconds, then let go of his hands and went. Algie stood watching her as she skipped lightly into the cabin of the Sultan and disappeared. He sighed, smiling contentedly to himself. He had won the affection of Marigold Bingham, and she was a treasure. He exulted in the thought without conceit, merely content that a girl as pretty as she could be the least bit interested in him. It had been a wonderfully eventful day, but he’d had no inkling at all that it would turn out this way when he’d woken up that morning. Marigold … Lovely little Marigold Bingham. She was a cut above the other narrowboat girls he’d seen, the most divine incarnation of delectability, worth giving up Harriet Meese for. He’d admired her from a distance for so long. Now she’d promised to be his girl and he could scarcely believe it. And he had to wait unending hours before he could see her again tomorrow. He turned to go, back to the lock-keeper’s cottage under the road bridge. First, though, he would go to the garden shed by way of the back gate, to check that his bicycle was all right and locked away from thieves. There would be sufficient light from the moon to see if there were any globules of water still clinging or dripping from it after its ducking, which he ought to wipe dry and so save the machine rusting before he went to bed. As he approached, he heard what sounded to him like the muffled sobs of a girl – it might even be a child – evidently in some distress. He halted in his tracks to listen more intently, his heart pounding at the sudden discovery and the anticipation of just what he might have stumbled across. The whimpers were coming from behind the shed. If it was somebody hurting a child, or even a woman, he’d kill the culprit. He looked about him for a stick or suitable implement with which to thrash him, but could see none in the darkness. Stealthily he crept towards the shed, praying that no twig would crack underfoot to give away his presence and rob him of the element of surprise. Then, as he reached the corner he peered around it circumspectly. A man was pressing a young woman against the shed. By the pale reflected moonlight he could see that her skirts were up, her pale, slim thighs a visible contrast to the dark material of her skirt and her black stockings. The man’s hands were grasping her backside, and he was thrusting into her energetically. Her arms were around his neck, but she could have been endeavouring to push him away; a subtle difference in attitude that Algie could not discern in the dimness. To his horror, he could just make out that his sister Kate was on the receiving end of all this physical endeavour. Algie was not sure how he should react as he watched incredulously. Was Kate a willing party to this, or had she been forced? Her anguished cries suggested she was not enjoying the experience, that the rogue was hurting her. Then, he realised the rogue was none other than Reggie Hodgetts, that vile son of a rodney boatman whom he knew she had been seeing. Well, Algie did not like Reggie Hodgetts anyway. He and his family were the scum of the canal network. Best to assume Kate was a victim here. He rushed at the man, knocking him over. ‘You vile bastard!’ he rasped. ‘What d’you think you’re doing to my sister? I’ll kill you, you bloody turd.’ At such a savage and unexpected interruption, Reggie was too shocked to know what had hit him. One second he was ecstatically coupled to his worthy companion, whom he saw whenever his work brought him her way, the next he was on the ground beneath an unexpected, mad assailant. ‘Algie!’ Kate hissed indignantly, trying to pull her brother off poor Reggie, and desperate that they should not wake her mother and father who were sure to be wrapped up in bed by this time, though not necessarily asleep yet. ‘Leave him be, leave him be. What’s got into you, you stupid fool?’ ‘I’ll kill the sod.’ Algie took a swipe at Reggie and caught him high on the cheekbone with a resounding crack. ‘Leave him be, Algie, for God’s sake!’ ‘Why should I? He deserves all he’s getting, treating you like that. I won’t have you treated like an animal, Kate. You’re my sister.’ By this time, Reggie had oriented himself to this unanticipated situation and wriggled his arms free while his adversary was discussing him with the girl. He traded an equivalent punch to Algie’s mouth, which sent him reeling. ‘Who does he think he is, your mad brother?’ Reggie fizzed as he got up from the ground, his manhood suddenly deflated, dangling limp in the cool night air, his anger all at once frothing over like a bottle of ginger beer violently shaken. ‘I’ll teach him not to part a man from his pleasure.’ He lurched after Algie and grabbed him by the lapels. ‘Stop it, you two!’ Kate urged in a hoarse whisper, but desperate to be heeded. Reggie was just about to throw another punch at Algie, when Kate grabbed his arm. ‘Stop it, the pair of you!’ ‘He attacked me, the bastard,’ Reggie protested vehemently. ‘I’ll kill him,’ Algie rasped, his indignation overwhelming his apprehension. ‘Just—’ ‘Stop it!’ Kate placed herself between them, stumbling over a line of potato shoots. Both men seemed to calm down. Reggie surreptitiously checked his flies to ascertain if any material damage had been occasioned to his courting tackle during the scuffle. ‘You’ll waken the dead, you pair,’ Kate added, perceiving that the worst of the incident was passed. ‘Algie, do us all a favour and clear off, and in future don’t be such a damn fool. Next time mind your own business.’ ‘But he—’ ‘Yes, I know …’ ‘But you—’ ‘But me what?’ ‘He was hurting you.’ ‘Clear off, Algie,’ she repeated impatiently. ‘And go and wipe your mouth. Your lip’s bleeding, by the looks of it.’ ‘My lip?’ He put his fingers gingerly to his mouth, then inspected the ends in the moonlight for signs of blood. ‘You’ve split my lip, you swine,’ he complained to Reggie, his indignation surfacing again. ‘Serves you right. Come near me again and I’ll knock seven bells out o’ yer.’ It was all about to flare up again. Kate placed herself between her brother and her clandestine lover once more. ‘Go, Algie … clear off. I’ll see you inside.’ Algie turned to go, his shoulders hunched in humiliation at having perceived the situation between Kate and Reggie so wrongly. ‘If I catch you here again, Reggie bloody Hodgetts, I’ll do the same,’ he said as a parting shot, trying to salvage some credibility. ‘Balls!’ rasped Reggie, determined to have the last, meaningful word. Once inside, Algie stood on the hearth looking into the mirror by the light of an oil lamp at his bleeding lip. He didn’t like the look of the cut and tried to stem the bleeding by dabbing it with a rag moistened with cold water. If it hadn’t healed sufficiently by tomorrow night his ability to engage Marigold in some earnest spooning would be seriously impaired. Kate eventually returned, shutting the door behind her grumpily. ‘You article!’ she scoffed in an angry, grating whisper, trying to keep her voice down so as not to arouse her mother and father. ‘In future, if you ever see me with a man, whoever it is, just don’t poke your nose.’ ‘I thought he was hurting you,’ Algie muttered defensively. ‘I thought you didn’t want his … his … attentions. I thought he was raping you.’ ‘Raping me!’ she gibed. ‘You idiot.’ ‘I was trying to protect you.’ ‘I don’t need your damned protection. A fat lot you know about women …’ Algie turned round to face her. ‘I always had the feeling you might be a bit loose, our Kate, but I never reckoned you were that much of a slut. Couldn’t you find somebody with a bit more about him than Reggie Hodgetts? He’s the scum of the earth. He stinks. I swear I could smell him.’ ‘Oh, shut up,’ Kate replied sulkily. ‘Can’t you see it? What if he’s put you in the family way and you have to marry him? Would you like to spend the rest of your days living on his filthy narrowboat with no room to swing a cat?’ ‘Don’t be stupid, Algie,’ she protested, but calming down. ‘I’d never marry him. I ain’t in love with him, am I?’ ‘Then what’s the big attraction?’ She turned away, reluctant to answer that it was sexual pleasure, for fear of debasing herself further in her brother’s estimation. Instead, she lifted the kettle off the hob, checked to see if there was water in it, and then lifted it onto a gale hook over the dying fire so it could boil. ‘Tell me, our Kate, what’s the big attraction?’ ‘Does it matter?’ ‘Yes. It does matter. He’s a nothing. He’s lower than slime in a duck pond.’ ‘It doesn’t matter, Algie, ’cause I shan’t be seeing him no more.’ He welcomed this unexpected nugget of information. ‘That’s a bit sudden, eh? Are you sure?’ ‘I ought to know.’ ‘So it’s done some good, my parting you? Was it your decision or his?’ Kate made no reply. ‘At first I thought I’d have to fetch a crowbar and prise you apart,’ Algie continued derisively. ‘Aren’t there no decent chaps at the Amateur Dramatics Society you could take up with, if you’re that desperate? Don’t nobody decent ever come into the bakery shop?’ Kate didn’t answer and they remained silent for some minutes. She went to the brewhouse to swill out the teapot. ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ she asked, a little more civilly, when she came back inside. ‘I might as well. Is my mouth still bleeding?’ He dabbed his lip again and inspected the rag for blood. ‘No, but it’s swelling up … And it serves you right.’ ‘I can’t believe you’re such a trollop, Kate,’ he commented, still preoccupied with what had occurred. ‘My own little sister.’ He shook his head to emphasise his disdain. ‘I’d never have thought it of you.’ ‘Leave it be, Algie.’ ‘Why should I?’ ‘Because you’re being stupid. What about if the boot was on the other foot?’ ‘Well it ain’t, is it?’ ‘How should I know? Haven’t you ever tried your luck with Harriet Meese?’ ‘Oh, I’ve tried,’ he admitted. Then he saw an opportunity to belittle his sister further. ‘But she wouldn’t let me. And you know why? ’Cause she’s a lady, not a trollop. She’s got something about her. She deserves respect for it.’ ‘She’s a stuck-up cat. Anyroad, I can’t see young Marigold Bingham being as stuck-up, I’ll say that for her. So when you get your way with her, just consider whether she’s a trollop, eh?’ ‘Leave Marigold out of this.’ ‘How can I, when you’ve been with her most of the day? Have you had your way with her already?’ ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ ‘Exactly my point, our Algie.’ ‘For your information, Marigold ain’t a trollop,’ he added in the girl’s defence. ‘And like I say, it’s nothing to do with you what me and Marigold do.’ ‘Likewise, what me and Reggie were doing had got nothing to do with you,’ Kate riposted. ‘But it didn’t stop you interfering.’ ‘I’m going to bed,’ Algie announced grumpily. ‘I don’t see the sense in stopping up and arguing with you … trollop!’ Algie had eaten and gone to work by the time Kate went down for breakfast. She was employed as an assistant in the shop at Mills’s Bakery in Brierley Hill High Street, and didn’t have to be there until eight. She had not slept well, preoccupied all night at being discovered with Reggie Hodgetts, and her sudden plunge in Algie’s already low esteem. Maybe she was a trollop. She’d never looked at it like that before; she’d never had to because she’d never been found out before. But if it was all done in private then what did it matter to anybody else? It was simply that she enjoyed the physical contact of men; the exhilaration, and all those sweet sensations. When Algie had pondered it all a little longer, when he was more familiar with the ways of women and the world, he might work it out for himself. It pained her to admit it to herself, but yes, she must be a trollop in his estimation and, if he thought it, so might the rest of the world. The encounter tonight must not become common knowledge for fear of her losing her reputation. A significant thought struck her: polite society, on the brink of which she was now poised – by virtue of being invited to join the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society – would recognise her as such if they rumbled her, or if word got out. Let’s hope that Algie would not be so indiscreet as to mention it to Harriet Meese. As she walked to work that morning, she pondered this sudden fragility of her reputation and how she could protect it. Perhaps she should call and see Harriet at the drapery shop during her dinnertime, and preclude any possibility of the girl believing anything that Algie might reveal about her. But how could she do that without making Harriet suspicious? Well, she thought she knew a way … Dinnertime rolled round. Kate put on her bonnet and made her way in the warm sunshine to Meeses’ shop. As she opened the door a bell tinkled, triggered by the door parting company with its frame. Bolts of cloth by the score, in hundreds of colours and patterns, lined the walls of the shop edgeways, restricting space, while others were stacked on the counter. The place was a pomander exuding the dry, musty smell of cotton. In seconds, Harriet, relieving her father who had gone to the Bell that dinnertime for his customary ale, was at the counter in the mistaken belief that she had a customer to attend to. ‘Kate! How nice of you to call,’ she said, wearing a smile of apprehension. Kate could only be bearing bad news of Algie. ‘Hello, Harriet—’ ‘Is anything the matter?’ she blurted anxiously. ‘Is Algie all right? Oh, I do hope you haven’t called to tell me he’s met with an accident …’ Kate smiled sweetly to reassure her. ‘Oh, no, nothing like that.’ ‘Then is he all right? I hardly slept last night, I’ve been so worried since he didn’t show up for church.’ ‘You needn’t have bothered, you poor dear,’ Kate responded, a look of disdain for her brother upon her face. ‘It’s him I’ve come to talk to you about.’ ‘So what happened to him?’ ‘Nothing … If I were you, Harriet,’ she said in a whisper of conspiracy as she leaned towards her, ‘I wouldn’t bother my head over our Algie ever again.’ ‘Why? What’s he done?’ Her face bore a look of intense apprehension. ‘Well, for ages, it’s been my opinion that he cares not tuppence for you, or for anybody else for that matter, other than himself. And yesterday proved it. He spent all day and all evening with another girl.’ Harriet’s expression was one of surprise and incredulity. She put her hands to the counter to steady herself. ‘Are you sure, Kate?’ ‘Oh, quite sure, Harriet. I can even tell you the girl’s name – Marigold Bingham.’ ‘Do I know her?’ ‘You? I’d think it unlikely. She’s the daughter of a boatman on the cut. A common little piece if you want my opinion. But then, that’s what some men want, I reckon – girls who they think are easy. I thought you ought to know, Harriet.’ ‘Well,’ said Harriet, not sure how to respond, her eyes misty with tears, ‘it’s not exactly the sort of news I welcome, or had expected … But I would have thought that if Algie was tired of me he would have had the common courtesy to tell me himself.’ ‘Yes, you’d take such simple consideration for granted, wouldn’t you?’ ‘I take it then, that he has sent you to do his dirty work, Kate.’ Here was a further opportunity to condemn Algie in Harriet’s eyes, and Kate embraced it wholeheartedly. ‘Well, yes he has, as a matter of fact.’ She lowered her eyes, feigning shame. ‘And I certainly don’t admire him for it. I told him, “Do your own dirty work,” I said. But he begged and pleaded. He said he couldn’t face you, but that he recognised as you ought to know.’ ‘I see,’ Harriet answered sadly. ‘But when I thought about it, Harriet, I decided to come and see you anyway. I would’ve, whether he asked me to or not. You see, I’m really doing it for your benefit, not his. He doesn’t deserve a decent, respectable girl like you, and to my mind you’re well rid of him. Just forget him, Harriet.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘You can do so much better for yourself.’ Harriet sighed profoundly and brushed an errant tear from her cheek. ‘To be frank, Kate, you’re not the first person to have said so,’ she said dolefully. ‘And you, his own sister, now saying it. Maybe I should take heed.’ ‘I know him better than anybody, Harriet. He’s not worth wasting your time on, believe me. I don’t think he could ever remain faithful to one woman. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women.’ Harriet slumped down on the stool that stood behind the counter and sighed. ‘I’m deeply disappointed in him, you know, Kate. I would never have thought—’ ‘I would’ve thought one of the chaps in the society would have suited you much better than our Algie, you know,’ Kate suggested, provocatively turning the focus of their conversation. ‘Ain’t there nobody there who interests you?’ Harriet shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought about it. I’m not the type of girl to go flirting with all the men anyway. I’m really quite shy.’ ‘Best way and no mistake,’ Kate agreed with a nod. ‘Saves trouble in the long run.’ ‘And you, Kate?’ ‘Me? I ain’t particularly interested in men, although I try and be pleasant to ’em all. As long as nobody reckons it’s flirting, ’cause I ain’t a flirt neither, you know. Us girls have our reputations to consider.’ So the subject of Algie Stokes was soon dropped, in favour of a discussion about the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society, its personnel, and the new play, rehearsals for which were due to start that week, now that the cast had been decided upon. They discussed each of the characters in turn. ‘I’m so glad you were picked for the part of Pocahontas, Kate,’ Harriet remarked generously, trying hard to push from her mind all thoughts of her erstwhile swain. ‘I think you’ll do it justice.’ ‘Oh, I intend to. Although I ain’t had much experience at this acting lark, I reckon I shall make a decent fist of it. And how about you, Harriet?’ ‘Oh, I am content with the role of Mistress Alice. I don’t have too many lines to learn.’ Late that afternoon, the Binghams passed through the locks at Buckpool. Marigold tried to persuade her father to moor up for the night in the winding basin close to the lock-keeper’s cottage. Seth smiled indulgently, aware that his daughter had become attached to Will Stokes’s lad, and that she would relish the opportunity to walk with him that fine spring evening before they had to move on. He recalled those days years ago when he was courting her mother, who was a landlubber then; how they had both looked forward to the days when he would moor up in Brierley Hill and they could spend tender moments together before he moved on again for more weeks of travelling. But for all his sentimentality and regard for Marigold’s love life, he had to get as far along the canal as he could. And while there was still daylight left … ‘We’ll moor up at Parkhead Locks by the tunnel,’ he said, knowing full well they could go no further that day. Parkhead was close to the entrance of the Dudley Tunnel and he had no intention of loading up with bars from the ironworks close by and travelling through that night. It would have to wait till tomorrow. ‘Young Algie’ll be able to bike it if he wants to see you, it ain’t far – unless he falls in the cut again.’ ‘Thanks, Dad,’ Marigold said with an appreciative smile, at once excited by the prospect of seeing Algie again. ‘I’ll go an’ pay the toll and ask his mother to let him know. Have you got some loose change?’ He felt in his trouser pocket and coins jingled. ‘Here …’ She crossed the lock to the cottage, and Clara answered the door. ‘You making pastry, Mrs Stokes?’ Marigold greeted amiably, seeing Clara’s arms floured up to her elbows. ‘I’m making a cheese, onion and tater pie for their tea,’ Clara confirmed. ‘Come in if you want to.’ Marigold smiled gratefully and entered. ‘I brought the toll money.’ She handed it to Clara. ‘Ta, my love … Remind me to give you your chit when my hands are clean … Are you mooring up close by?’ ‘Parkhead Locks tonight, me dad says. He wants us to get to the ironworks so we can load up first thing in the morning.’ ‘You’ll be going through the tunnel tomorrow then?’ Marigold nodded. When they’d done asking each other how everybody was, Clara commented, ‘I can never get over how a family the size of yourn can manage to be so comfortable living on a narrowboat. You must be under one another’s feet all the time.’ Marigold laughed. ‘Oh, it ain’t so bad, Mrs Stokes. We got all we need and we do spread out between the two boats.’ ‘I know, but there’s all the stuff you have to carry as well.’ Clara said, rolling out a ball of pastry. ‘All your clothes, tools, a mangle, a dolly tub and what have you.’ ‘Oh, that reminds me, Mrs Stokes … me mom wants to do a bit o’ washing while we’re moored up. Can we use your tap in the brewhouse for some clean water? She asked me to ask you. There ain’t a pump at Parkhead Locks. We can fill some buckets and the tin bath if you don’t mind.’ ‘Course I don’t mind. Course you can, my flower. Shall you be helping her with the washing?’ Marigold nodded emphatically, as if there could be no other way. ‘We each help her all we can. We’ve all got our jobs to do. But she says I can still see your Algie after, if we get it done in time and hung out to dry. Will you tell him, please, Mrs Stokes, as we’ll be moored up at Parkhead Locks when he comes back from work?’ ‘Course I’ll tell him,’ Clara said. ‘Have you got time for a cup o’ tea?’ ‘That’s ever so kind, but I’d better not,’ Marigold replied, regretting the lost opportunity to get to know Algie’s mother better. ‘The sooner we get on, the sooner we’ll be finished. You wouldn’t believe how black your clothes get carrying coal, like we’ve been doing last trip. I daresay we’ll have to get in the tin bath as well, while we’ve got it out, heating buckets o’ water up.’ Clara smiled. ‘As long as you’ve got a tarpaulin to put round you, eh? You don’t want no peeping Toms.’ ‘Oh, we got a tarpaulin, all right.’ Clara dried her hands and wrote out the promised chit, which she handed to Marigold. ‘I’ve made some jam tarts already this afternoon. Would you like to take some for the family?’ ‘Oh, if you can spare them,’ Marigold said, and Clara found a paper bag to put them in. ‘There’s seven there. One a-piece.’ Marigold took them gratefully and rewarded Clara with a smile. ‘That’s ever so kind, Mrs Stokes. Thank you ever so much. They’ll love these.’ ‘Well, go and fill your buckets, my flower, and I’ll see you next time you’re this way.’ ‘I hope it’ll be soon, Mrs Stokes.’ On his ride home from work, Algie decided that he must call on Harriet Meese to explain his absence last night and to tell her he wished to end their courtship, unaware that Kate had already done so. He turned over in his mind the things he would say, mentally rehearsing them, imagining her replies and reactions. He was not looking forward to it, but it had to be done. It was for Harriet’s own good, too, for it would release her, make her available to somebody more deserving of her refined qualities. It was not that Algie didn’t like Harriet. He liked her well enough, he respected her. She was exactly the sort of girl he should court seriously, exactly the sort of girl he should marry. He could hardly conceive of her ever going against his wishes, of her ever doing anything without his consent. She would be eternally faithful and loyal, raise his children faultlessly, and seldom, if ever, be shrewish. If only he could have fallen in love with her … But he had not fallen in love with her, nor ever would. It might have helped if she’d been blessed with a pretty face. But she had not, and that would never change either, and so her face, the foremost obstacle to her potential to fascinate, remained irresolvable. He regarded her as cold and aloof, as shying away from physical contact, but in this Algie was mistaking her instilled chastity for frigidity. Anyway, he did not enjoy kissing her at all; she had a faint, furry moustache that really put him off. On those occasions when he had kissed her he’d imagined he could feel it tickling him; hardly a pleasant sensation, and he could not foresee having to endure that for the rest of his virile manhood. He could not imagine fulfilling his marital bedtime duty without wishing he were fulfilling it with somebody else. In any case, as she grew older she was bound to become stout – you only had to look at her mother to see how the daughter would turn out … It was best that he ended it, he reassured himself. He had the perfect reason now. He had found a girl he wanted, a girl he liked, with whom he would be less half-hearted. Algie rode on, assiduously avoiding getting his wheels trapped in the tramlines as he was jolted over the cobbled surface. Between Queen’s Cross and Brierley Hill town it was mostly downhill, save for a slight uphill gradient at Holly Hall, which was hardly likely to trouble him. He coasted to a halt at Meeses’ drapery shop and leaned his bicycle against the stone window sill. The bell chinked with reliable monotony as he thrust the door open and there, facing him over the bolts of cloth that adorned the counter, was the stern, fat, uncompromising countenance of Eli Meese. Eli rose from his stool at sight of Algie, bridling like a frenzied bull that had been goaded by the proverbial red rag. ‘What do you want?’ ‘I’d like to see Harriet, please, Mr Meese.’ ‘Oh, yes?’ He nonchalantly scratched his fat backside, partly for effect, partly because it itched. ‘The trouble is, our Harriet don’t want to see you.’ ‘Oh? Why not?’ ‘’Cause you’m a bad un, that’s why.’ Eli looked Algie squarely in the eye. ‘I know all about you and your shenanigans. I know you was off with some slattern from the cut last night when our Harriet was here waiting for yer like the true soul she is, mythered to death over yer ’cause yo’ hadn’t showed up and she knows no better. I waited with her an age meself, like a mawkin, till I could see as you was never gunna show your ugly fizzog. I’m churchwarden, you know …’ He prodded his chest importantly with his forefinger. ‘And I tek me responsibilities serious. Not to be hindered by the likes of you.’ With consummate contempt, he wagged the same forefinger at Algie. ‘So from now on, I forbid you to see our Harriet. Besides, you’m neither use nor ornament. Her can do better for herself, can our Harriet, than a ne’er-do-well like you as’ll never mek anythin’ of himself. So bugger off, lad, and if I ever see or hear of you sniffing round our Harriet again, I’ll draw blood, so help me.’ The bull swelled up threateningly and seemed to snort. ‘Now sod off!’ Algie considered that to retreat while he was still standing was his best option. ‘Will you just tell her I called, Mr Meese?’ he said feebly, opening the door to make his ignominious exit, which made the bell chink annoyingly again. ‘I’ll tell her all right, have no fear. I’ll tell her what I’ve just told you an’ all.’ Outside in the warm early evening air, Algie blew out his lips, perplexed, which hurt the fragile split that he’d acquired last night. As he cocked his leg over his bicycle to ride away, feeling ever so humble, he gently touched the wound and looked at his fingers circumspectly to see whether there was blood on them. There was, and he rode away, nursing it. How in God’s name had the Meeses found out that he had been with Marigold last night? News travels fast in communities like Brierley Hill, but surely never that fast. It would never have occurred to Algie that his own sister was the culprit. Anyway, he had better things to contemplate. He had Marigold to see. He wondered if the Binghams had passed through Buckpool yet, or whether they were still stuck in Kidderminster. Either way, he would ride along the canal’s towpaths till he found her. And he would wallow in her warm, newly won affection … Chapter 6 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) ‘I’m hungry,’ Algie complained to his mother when he returned home. ‘Is tea ready?’ ‘Your tea won’t be ready for another half hour,’ Clara replied, peering into the oven. Its cast-iron door closed with a reassuring clang, but the aroma of roasting cheese and onion had seeped out long before and filled the cottage with a tantalising aroma, making Algie feel even hungrier. Clara regarded him quizzically. ‘What’ve you done to your lip?’ ‘My lip? Oh … I did it at work.’ ‘It looks as though you’ve been fighting.’ ‘Me, fighting? No, I walked into a brass rod somebody was carrying.’ ‘You want to be more careful. You could’ve poked your eye out.’ ‘How long’s my tea gunna be, Mother?’ he asked again, anxious to divert her from the topic lest he dig himself into a hole and let slip some clue that might reveal the sordid truth of how he’d really acquired his injury. Clara began slicing a cabbage at the table. ‘It won’t get served till your father comes back from mending a lock gate by the dry dock.’ ‘What’s up with it, then?’ ‘Winding gear’s broken, he said. Why don’t you go and see if you can help him?’ ‘But I’m starving hungry.’ ‘Then have one of those jam tarts.’ She nodded at the tray on the table. ‘I’ve already given a few to Marigold.’ ‘Marigold?’ He picked one out and took a bite. ‘She’s been here?’ ‘She called to say they’d be moored up just beyond the Parkhead Locks.’ Algie beamed. ‘Good. That’s all I wanted to know.’ Clara gave him a knowing look. ‘Just mind what you’m up to with that young girl,’ she said. ‘Course I will,’ he said. ‘What d’you think I’m gunna do?’ ‘I’m just afeared she might get too attached to you, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt her.’ ‘Hurt her?’ he queried. ‘Yes, hurt her,’ Clara replied. ‘I wasn’t too keen on you seeing her at first, our Algie, but she’s won me over good and proper. She’s a lovely girl. Now … if you’re going to start seeing her regular, just be kind to her.’ What a strange thing for his mother to suggest, as if he was capable of being unkind. He shrugged at her apparent lack of understanding. ‘I don’t intend to hurt her, Mother. I think the world of her. I really like her. Can I have another jam tart?’ ‘Help yourself.’ He turned around and took another. ‘What I mean is, Algie, Marigold has it hard enough on the cut. So does her mother, who was never brought up to live life on a narrowboat. It ain’t like living in a nice comfortable house with a warm hearth, soft feather beds and running water laid on, ’specially when that’s what you’ve been used to.’ ‘Did you know Marigold’s mother?’ Algie asked, his curiosity roused. ‘Afore she lived on the cut, I mean?’ ‘Yes, I knew her. Not well, mind. But I knew of her.’ Clara transferred the cabbage to a pan containing cold water and immersed the shreds. ‘Marigold told me her mother came from round here. So I suppose you could’ve known her before, eh, Mother?’ ‘Not that well, like I say.’ Algie took another bite out of his jam tart. ‘So what brought her living on the cut in a narrowboat?’ ‘Because she wed a boatman, I suppose,’ Clara answered dismissively. ‘I ain’t so sure I would’ve done, but she did.’ ‘There’s good families on the cut, Mother,’ he commented, more in defence of Marigold than anybody else. ‘Old Seth Bingham’s all right. He’s a decent bloke.’ ‘I’m not saying he isn’t. And I’m sure Hannah must’ve thought so to marry him …’ He shrugged as if it was of no consequence. ‘As long as she’s content, I say. She seems content. So does Marigold.’ ‘’Tis to be hoped she is. ’Tis to be hoped they all are. So does this mean you’ve given up Harriet?’ Clara lifted the pan of cabbage onto the hob. The coals in the fire shifted and a flurry of sparks flitted up the chimney. ‘Yes …’ He took a last bite of jam tart. ‘Shame …’ Clara sighed. ‘She’s a nice respectable girl.’ ‘I know she is.’ ‘Have you told her yet?’ He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I’ve tried. I called to see her on my way home tonight, but old Eli wouldn’t let me. He told me to clear off. Says he’s forbid her to see me ever again. He already knew somehow as I’d been with Marigold yesterday. How d’you reckon he found that out, eh? He knew almost as quick as I knew it meself.’ ‘Oh, I bet your name’s mud,’ Clara said, with some conviction. ‘Word travels fast in a place like this. Everybody knows everybody else’s business.’ ‘But it made me look as though I hadn’t considered Harriet at all, and I had. I had, Mother, honest. I wanted to be straight with her … Oh, well …’ He shrugged, and turned to go. ‘I think I’ll go and see if my dad wants any help. If not, I’ll clean my bike. It could do with an oiling after its dunking in the cut yesterday.’ ‘Go on, then, and I’ll give you a shout.’ ‘Is our Kate back yet?’ ‘She’s upstairs, a-changing.’ ‘Changing?’ he queried disdainfully. ‘Let’s hope she changes for the better.’ The implication was lost on his mother, as he knew it would be. Algie lumbered outside. Out of curiosity he decided to inspect the far side of the shed, where he’d witnessed Kate and Reggie Hodgetts up to their antics, to see if there was any evidence of what had happened. He kicked over the traces and noticed a small footprint in the line of sandy earth where his father’s potatoes were planted, obviously that of a woman – Kate’s, of course. He kicked over that too, else his father was bound to see it and wonder what a woman had been doing there, and under what circumstances, trampling his precious produce. Despite Kate’s unsavoury wantonness, he still had to protect her; she was his sister, after all. After that, he passed through the gate, clambered over the lock gates and onto the towpath, heading towards the dry dock, where they repaired ailing narrowboats. Will Stokes was bolting a new cast-iron pinion wheel and brake to the lock’s winding gear. Narrowboats from both directions waited in the basins above and below while he completed the job, so they could continue their journeys. Meanwhile, the boatmen gathered around him watching, enjoying good-natured banter and swapping gossip with the workers from the dry dock, who lived in the row of cottages on the other side of a little cast-iron bridge. ‘Hello, Son,’ Will greeted. ‘Did you see the Binghams pass through earlier?’ ‘Aye, just before I started work on the lock.’ ‘I’ve come to see if you need any help.’ ‘It’s the time to come now I’ve nearly finished,’ Will quipped with a grin. ‘Just gotta tighten these bolts, check the alignment and grease it. You can pass me that tub o’ blackjack, though, our Algie.’ Will pointed with a huge spanner to the pail of thick, black bitumen grease. ‘Will it want warming up?’ Algie queried as he went to fetch it from the towpath where it was standing along with Will’s thick canvas toolbag. ‘No, it’ll be a bit on the stiff side, but in this warm weather it should be workable.’ Algie picked it up and took it over to his father. ‘I read today in the newssheet at work that Lord Sheffield’s eleven took a beating by the Australians.’ ‘Did they?’ A look of disappointment clouded Will’s face as he looked up from his work. He was a keen follower of cricket and liked to keep abreast of all the first class matches. ‘I never heard. What was the score?’ ‘The Aussies won by an innings and thirty-four runs.’ ‘Damn! Was W. G. Grace playing?’ ‘Yes, but he only scored twenty in the first innings and nine in the second. I reckon he ain’t half as good as what he’s made out to be.’ ‘Wait till the test match in July. He’ll show ’em who’s the best batsman in the world.’ ‘Pooh, I doubt it, Dad,’ Algie argued. ‘Not on his showing this week.’ A discussion ensued, also involving all the men gathered around, about the merits or otherwise of the world famous W. G. Grace. It seemed to go on for ages, by which time Will finished his task and collected his tools together. Father and son walked back to the cottage, but Algie removed himself to the shed, to tend to his precious bike. Algie was so proud of his Swift bicycle with its pneumatic tyres. It was in desperate need of a thorough clean after its unscheduled dip in the cut, so he set about polishing it up. When it was gleaming again, he picked up the oil can and oiled the wheel hubs and the brake linkages, then trickled a few spots over the chain. Rust was the arch enemy of the conscientious cyclist, especially when the machine had cost twelve pounds of hard-earned and hard-saved money. As he applied the oil, he became interested for the first time in the engineering that had gone into the bicycle’s manufacture. It struck him that with the proper jigs and fixtures at his disposal he could make a machine like this. It was hardly like building a complicated steam engine. His research into bicycles, before making his purchase, had revealed that the frames of some were made from bamboo, for lightness. But bamboo would not do for him. He would prefer to sacrifice that inherent lightness for the durability of steel. And so would most other folk who had to save hard and long to be able to afford a bicycle. They wouldn’t want to see their bamboo frame warp and split. The only obstacle he foresaw to building a machine like his would be making the wheels – all those spokes. A wheel seemed like a perfect work of art; so precise, so finely balanced. If only he had enough money to start a business making bikes … maybe he could even buy the wheels already finished from another firm. He would start designing bikes anyway. They were all the rage. Everybody was mad about bikes. Such enterprising thoughts eclipsed the immediate guilt he felt about Harriet Meese. However, it niggled him to realise that Eli, the grumpy old devil, had prevented him from seeing her when Algie believed he had a perfect right. He’d been anxious to explain to Harriet how he felt; that he honestly believed she would be better off released from any obligations of loyalty to himself. Their courtship, however apathetic on his part, had left him with a great deal of respect and admiration for her. Perhaps he should write to her, explaining his side of the story. The ride along the towpath towards the Parkhead Locks took Algie through the most squalid, intensively industrialised landscape on the face of the earth. From the lock-keeper’s cottage at Buckpool the canal followed the contour around the hill, meandering first between a tile works, a small ironworks, workshops, and several collieries. Some of the collieries were still active, others defunct, but all had their forbidding black spoil encroaching everywhere. There were gas works, brick and firebrick works with their attendant clay pits, generally filling up with dangerously murky water. Huge red-brick cones loomed, presiding over the bottle works and potteries to which they were attached. And all this before the area’s industry got to be really densely packed. Algie rode up the incline at the Nine Locks, keen to see the fresh, new girl in his life, not minding the visual blight which so much heavy manufacturing had engendered. Rather he wondered at it, when he bothered to contemplate it at all, as a symbol of a richer life; it brought relative prosperity, giving folk some opportunity to pick and choose what work they did; it sucked up like a sponge the young men from the countryside who came in search of their fortunes, as well as country girls who sought excitement, husbands, more lucrative work in factories, or the guarantee of ample food and a clean bed that working in service offered. At Round Oak it was overwhelming. The vast ironworks owned by the Earl of Dudley, and known to all as ‘The Earl’s’, surrounded him on every side. Its massive furnaces released roaring pillars of flame that would redden the midnight sky like a storm at dawn. The canal here vied for space not only with the furnaces, the rolling mills and vast travelling cranes, but with the network of internal railways and their clanking, hissing locomotives. Chimney stacks pricked the sooty sky; a haphazard array of obelisks erected in celebration of man’s daring enterprise. Beam engines dipped and withdrew their gigantic arms, pumping water out of deep mines, where night and day were ever one, and work never ceased. There were lesser ironworks, another glut of collieries with huge circling wheels atop their tall headgear. Glowing slag laced the tops of black spoil banks like the flame-licked soot at the back of a fire grate. The stoke-holes of brick kilns glimmered through their own smoke, and fountains of fiery sparks spat from under black-roofed workshops with sides open to the elements. Forges, where monstrous thudding hammers shook the earth, crudely smote and shaped yellow-hot metal into preordained designs. Algie reached Parkhead, spanned as it was by an impressive viaduct that bore the Great Western Railway between Oxford and Wolverhampton, and all points between. At last he spotted Seth Bingham’s highly decorated narrowboats moored abreast, at the basin near the entrance to the canal tunnel. Hannah was pushing some garment or other through the cast-iron mangle, while Marigold was amid the flutter of drying skirts and shirts, pegged out on a line which stretched from the chimney pipe to the front of their butty, and propped in the middle. ‘Marigold!’ Algie called, as he pulled up alongside and dismounted. She turned to greet him with a perky smile. ‘Hello, Algie. Your mother gave you the message then?’ He nodded and grinned. ‘Course she did.’ ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ve just gotta hang these last few things.’ ‘What time did you go past our house?’ he enquired. ‘About four, I think. Your mom gave me some of her jam tarts.’ ‘Nice, aren’t they? I had a couple meself.’ She nodded. ‘Beautiful. Shan’t be a minute,’ she said, and disappeared into the cabin. While he waited, Algie chatted affably with Hannah, who was wiping down the mangle. Seth appeared from inside the Sultan and passed the time of day while he emptied the dolly tub in the long grass that lined the towpath. He was still talking as he carried it off and stored it in what they called the laid-hole. Soon, Marigold re-emerged, and stepped off the Odyssey onto the towpath. She took his arm affectionately and they began walking away. ‘You didn’t have to stay in Kidderminster last night then?’ Algie commented. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘When we got to the carpet factory, Jack was there. I told him straight away as I didn’t see any point in us seeing one another anymore. I told him it was because I never knowed when I was gunna be there.’ Algie smiled with relief at this news. ‘And what did he say?’ ‘That I’d been taking him too serious, and that it was nice just to see me when we did go to Kidder, even if it wasn’t all the time. Anyroad, we was offloaded in no time.’ She chuckled at that. ‘Just goes to show, I’m sure he used to fix it that we couldn’t get offloaded, just so as he could see me of a night time, just like you said. Lord knows how much that cost me dad, losing time like that, but I ain’t said nothing.’ They walked past the locks, towards the bridge that would lead them away from the canal. Three canals met at this point and, in whichever direction the couple went, there were collieries and wharfs. There seemed no escape from the sights, sounds and smells of industry. ‘If we go up this way, we get to Scott’s Green,’ he told her, wheeling his bicycle beside him. ‘Beyond that there’s some fields. We could sit on the grass there.’ She smiled at him admiringly. ‘Where’re you bound for tomorrow then?’ Algie asked. ‘Wolverhampton. But we gotta go through the tunnel first, loaded with iron bars … And Victoria don’t like the tunnel’s blackness. He can hardly see where he’s going, poor horse.’ ‘So who’ll lead him?’ ‘Our Charlie. He always does … Anyway, what’ve you done to your lip? It looks ever so sore.’ Marigold peered at it with evident concern. ‘I walked into a brass rod at work,’ he said glibly, repeating the excuse he’d given his mother. ‘It’s much better now. It won’t stop me kissing you.’ ‘Ooh, I ain’t so sure as I want to kiss that,’ she said squeamishly, scrutinising it with a little more zeal as they strolled. ‘Are you sure you walked into a brass rod? It looks more like you’ve been fighting.’ ‘That’s what my mother said.’ He had no particular wish to expose Kate’s disgracefully immoral behaviour, yet neither did he see any point in concealing it from Marigold. He felt he could confide in her, so he confessed that he’d had a scuffle with Reggie Hodgetts and what it was over. ‘That slime?’ Marigold commented. ‘What does she see in him? My dad hates the whole family of ’em. Troublemakers, they are. Thankfully, we don’t see ’em that often.’ ‘I just hope he hasn’t put her in the family way, that’s all.’ ‘Oh, that would be terrible,’ Marigold agreed. ‘Anyway, they must have moored up somewhere close to our house last night. Let’s hope they’re miles away by now.’ They crossed the Stourbridge Road at Scott’s Green near the Hope Ironworks, then ambled over an area of rough ground before crossing the busy mineral railway that operated between the Himley Colliery and the wharf at Springs Mire in Dudley. From that point they found themselves in undulating open fields at an area known as Old Park. Algie rested his bike on the grass, then they sat down in a hollow behind a grassy hillock. Marigold inched herself close beside him. ‘Did you tell Harriet about me?’ ‘She knows I’m stepping out with you,’ he replied ambiguously. Marigold smiled with satisfaction while Algie remained quiet for a few seconds, looking out onto the distant headgear of the pits that lay towards Gornal. ‘I think our Kate’s a trollop,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t you think so, Marigold?’ ‘Depends.’ She teased some stray strands of dark hair from over her eye. ‘With him, yes, ’cause he’s horrible.’ ‘Would you do such a thing?’ ‘Lord, no,’ she protested. ‘Not with him at any rate.’ ‘And not without being married either, I expect, eh?’ he suggested experimentally, trying to glean whether she felt the same as Harriet about such things. ‘Some o’ the couples that live on the narrowboats ain’t proper wed,’ Marigold said guilelessly. ‘But they share a bed all the same, and I know zackly what goes on between ’em when they’m abed, ’cause I often used to hear me mom and dad at it when we was all abed in the Sultan. They’m proper wed at least, though, me mom and dad,’ she added, to set the matter straight. ‘But the way I see it, you don’t have to be proper wed to do such things. It ain’t as if marriage is some sort of key what opens a lock to that sort of thing.’ ‘You don’t go to church, I suppose, Marigold?’ he asked, somewhat astonished by the candidness of her response and yet encouraged by it. ‘I mean, it’s obvious you don’t follow the Church’s teaching.’ ‘Me? Go to church?’ She laughed at the notion. ‘When do I get the chance? The only time I ever went to church was when I was christened, me mom said. What would I know about what the Church learns you? Anyroad, what do I care?’ She paused, pondering Algie’s question before she spoke again. ‘Am you religious, then, Algie?’ ‘Me?’ he guffawed with exaggerated scorn. ‘I ain’t religious.’ ‘But you’ve been going to church regular with that Harriet.’ ‘And never listened to much of it.’ ‘Too busy whispering sweet nothings into her ear, eh?’ she fished. ‘No. I preferred the singing, to tell you the truth … Are you sure you don’t fancy kissing me, Marigold, with my bad lip?’ Their spooning was seriously impaired by Algie’s poorly lip, but that did not prevent him from endeavouring to see how far Marigold would let him go. Yet he began to feel guilty that perhaps it was too soon in their courtship to expect her to be submissive. She rebuffed his advances repeatedly, but without rebuke, which only served to enhance his esteem of her nature. ‘No, Algie,’ she replied firmly, after he’d attempted several times to fondle her breasts. ‘I ain’t a girl like that, to give in to a chap when I ain’t known him that long.’ ‘But you’ve known me years.’ ‘Not like that, I ain’t.’ ‘So how much longer d’you need to know me?’ ‘Dunno.’ ‘A week?… Two?… A month?’ ‘I don’t know, Algie …’ ‘Don’t you like me enough?’ ‘Yes, I do … That’s the trouble.’ He was heartened by her candid admission. ‘But I want you, Marigold.’ ‘What if I let you go all the way and you put me in the family way—?’ ‘I wouldn’t.’ ‘You can’t say that.’ ‘I just did. And I’ll say it again. I wouldn’t put you in the family way.’ ‘I was about to say, what if you put me in the family way and then scarpered?’ She looked into his eyes, her sincerity and emotion shining through like beacons. ‘I ain’t sure of you yet, Algie. You might still go back to Harriet, for all I know.’ ‘Never.’ ‘My dad says you should never say “never”.’ ‘But I mean it.’ ‘Well … maybe when I’m sure of you …’ ‘You can be sure of me now, Marigold.’ ‘Not yet I can’t.’ Algie and Marigold did not see each other after that night for several weeks. The Bingham’s haulage work took them serially up and down the Shropshire Union Canal between Cheshire and Wolverhampton and Algie did not know where he would be able to find her. He could have ridden fruitlessly for miles. He would have written her a letter, but even if Marigold could have read it, he would have no idea to where he should address it. So they had parted tenderly with the promise that she would leave a message with his mother again when they next returned to Buckpool. Algie’s thoughts were usually with Marigold while she was away. He was well and truly taken, and she a mere boatman’s daughter. Hardly a minute would pass when he did not think longingly about her, aching for the time when she would be in his arms again. Meanwhile, he kept himself occupied at night. Sometimes he would meet the chum whom he worked with, Harry Whitehouse, and they would tour the local public houses and assembly rooms. With a bravado that was entirely assumed they would laddishly ogle and talk to any likely females they encountered, but none measured up to Marigold. Other times, he would stay at home designing bicycles, dreaming vainly of the day when he could start his own business manufacturing them. Of course, it was a pipe dream. He did not have the finances, and he knew nothing about the ins and outs of embarking on such a venture. It was the sort of undertaking that should sensibly be shared with a solvent partner who was prepared to stump up some cash and take the attendant financial risk, but finding somebody like that was another matter. So there was little hope of ever accomplishing it. One evening, for want of something better to do, he even forced himself to write to Harriet: Dear Harriet, I thought it was about time I wrote to you to say what I called round your house to say when your father wouldn’t let me see you. I hope that by now the dust has settled and that you don’t think too badly of me, and that you are keeping well, your sisters included. The truth is, Harriet, my heart had not been in our courtship for some time, and I believe you sensed it. Priss seemed to, at any rate. It would have been unfair of me to keep you tagging along believing that at some time there would be something at the end of it. You are too decent a person and too loyal to be treated like that and I wanted to talk to you about it even before I met Marigold, my new sweetheart. Somehow I always seemed to lack the courage to get round to saying it. I suppose that, because I wasn’t committed enough to you, it was easy to be captivated by another girl. The trouble is, I wanted to tell you all this myself. I didn’t want you to hear it first from somebody else. However you found out, you knew almost as soon as I knew about Marigold myself. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know who told you, but gossip can be a wicked thing. The benefit for you, Harriet, is that you are now well rid of me and free to do as you please. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. So if another young man pops up who you like, well, you’ll be able to go out with him with a clear conscience if he asks you. I am only sorry that your father has forbidden us to meet ever again. Despite everything, I would still like to consider you my friend, and I suppose I always will. If ever I see you about, I hope that you will not ignore me because of my actions, which I realise must appear very unseemly to you. I remain, therefore, your friend, Algernon Stokes. During those long weeks, Marigold pondered deeply this unanticipated love affair which had so radically changed her outlook and expectations of life. She seemed to have grown up, almost overnight. She was no longer the frivolous adolescent girl who ran ahead to the locks as she’d done, even as a child, to help her father, but a woman, with a woman’s feelings. Her love for Algie was earnest, and growing more intense the longer she was away from him. She did not want to lose him, but was fearful that he might lose patience waiting so long, and so seek Harriet’s company again. Harriet was a perpetual concern, somebody Marigold worried about constantly. What if Harriet, eager to welcome Algie back, felt obliged to give in to any sexual demands he might make, just to make sure she held on to him? Such thoughts plagued her incessantly, especially when she went to bed at night. They kept her awake, rousing her jealousy and her anxiety to intolerable heights. It was an unremitting fear, a fear that made her all the more anxious to be with Algie and beat Harriet to it. Consummation of their love was the one factor that she believed had the potential to bind them together irrevocably, totally, both mentally and physically. It was the one single factor which would make sure Harriet Meese was forever shut out of Algie’s thoughts and Algie’s life. And although Algie had implied that that one single factor would at some time be expected in his relationship with Marigold, he had never actually pressed her too hard into feeling that it must happen immediately and at all costs. Whenever she had gently rebuffed his amorous advances, he had never shown any resentment, merely good-humoured resignation. Any reluctance had been on her part. Yet it was not a reluctance in the sense that she was unwilling. Oh, she would have been willing enough already. Her uncertainty about Algie had precluded her so far, and she’d told him so honestly. If, when next they met, he was still as keen on her as he had been last time, she would feel much more at ease, much more inclined. They had talked about it, and he had asked her views on whether she felt it was right before marriage. Since then, she had considered everything there was to consider on the subject, and with some preoccupation, including the risks, the shame on her family if she became pregnant, the subsequent worry it would most certainly cause her mother, who had worries of her own without adding to them. She’d anticipated the guilt she might feel doing something which would only collect her mother’s and father’s total disapproval. She’d also pondered the life she could expect if Algie was dishonourable and left her with a child, to a life on the narrowboats with all that it entailed. It was not an arrangement she would wish for. Rather she looked forward already to a life on dry land in a nice warm house with a cosy fireplace … with Algie. Yet she had to trust him. For her own peace of mind there was no alternative. She could hardly go through life mistrusting this man she loved so much. It was not that he did not inspire her trust, more that she lacked confidence in her ability to keep him interested, and she was increasingly apprehensive about Harriet in consequence. If she submitted to Algie, she would be doing it out of sheer love and respect for him; to better their relationship; to add a deeper, more understanding dimension to it, to render it more secure. Naturally enough, she had no idea of what physical sensations to expect from full-blown lovemaking, but its promise was tantalising. She’d heard other women talk about it from time to time – usually married women – and their comments, whether sincere or boasting, whether guileless or bravado, led her to believe that it must bring some sort of pleasure as yet unimaginable, but intense enough for them to ignore the risks, whatever some might claim. She was not too young for that sort of thing, either, especially when she considered that her mother must have been already carrying her at the same age. She was big enough and old enough to bear children, old enough to be married, so certainly old enough to conceive a child. She even knew of girls who’d had babies at sixteen. She thought about talking it all over with Algie first, but dismissed the idea. She knew his opinion already. It would be like inviting a hungry man to share a meal with her. In any case, there was nothing he could say that might significantly alter her position. The more she considered it, the clearer it became: it was time to break any hold that Harriet might still have, and achieve it by allowing Algie to make love to her, body and soul. She had already discerned his susceptibility. Besides, the prospect of it thrilled her; she was sure she would enjoy it at least as much as him … Chapter 7 (#u2542aeb5-000a-597b-ab58-670783b22293) Kate Stokes had quickly fallen into the habit of calling for Harriet and Priss Meese on Wednesday nights so they could arrive together at the Drill Hall for rehearsals. This particular Wednesday towards the end of June was no exception, and Kate tapped on the side door at the top of the entry that led to the Meeses’ house. She was not invited in, however, nor was she likely to be as the sister of that bluebeard Algie, yet neither did Harriet and Priss keep her waiting out of deference to her; after all, she was not Algie, but his sister who had no control, no dominion over him. As they all walked down the entry together, the clickety-tap of their dainty boots echoed off the blue-brick floor. They dispensed with the small talk within the first fifty yards and got down to the more serious business of discussing The Forest Princess. ‘How are you getting on with your lines, Kate?’ Priss asked. ‘Pretty well, I reckon,’ she replied brightly. ‘It’s a big part, but I’m determined to learn the words by heart till I’m sick to death of ’em. I don’t want nobody moaning to Mr Osborne that he should’ve picked somebody with more experience to play Pocahontas.’ ‘All that archaic language,’ Harriet remarked. ‘All those thees and thous.’ ‘I know … Still, that’s how they used to talk in the olden days.’ ‘Even the Redskins, according to whoever wrote the play … What do you think of Mr Osborne as Powhatan?’ ‘As Pocahontas’s father? I reckon he’ll be all right, ’specially when he’s wearing that feather headdress, and he’s got some o’ that grease paint on to make his fizzog brown.’ Priss smiled. ‘I think so too … He’s quite a character, you know, is Mr Osborne. So dedicated to the society.’ ‘You know that Katie Richards who played the lead part in that comedy you did before?’ Kate asked. ‘In My First Client, you mean?’ ‘Yes. She hasn’t spoken to me at all, but I’ve tried to smile at her and that.’ ‘I suppose she feels a bit put out that you’ve taken the lead role from her,’ Harriet suggested. ‘Not that any of us take for granted that we’re going to get plum parts.’ ‘Well, it ain’t my fault, is it? I mean, I didn’t ask for it. Mr Osborne asked me.’ ‘What’s your opinion of Mr Froggatt?’ Harriet enquired falteringly. ‘Mr Froggatt?’ Kate looked at Harriet and perceived that she was blushing. ‘Oh, he’s a sweetheart.’ ‘You like him, do you?’ ‘I’m glad it’s him playing the part of John Rolfe—’ ‘The man you marry,’ Harriet added coyly, as if there were some hidden ironical twist to it. Kate laughed. ‘I know … Now he’d be a fine catch for you, Harriet. Still unwed, handsome—’ ‘And excellent prospects …’ Priss remarked typically. ‘The only son of Dr Froggatt. You could certainly do worse for yourself than Dr Froggatt’s son, our Harriet.’ ‘But it’s foolish of you to think of Mr Froggatt and me in that way, Priss,’ Harriet protested mildly. ‘It’s like comparing us with the princess and the frog, only the other way round. I’m sure he’d be far more interested in Kate.’ ‘Do you think so?’ queried Kate, affecting surprise. ‘I’m sure of it … if he thought you were available.’ ‘Oh, I’m available.’ ‘Oh, are you, Kate?’ Harriet sounded surprised. ‘Algie told me not so long ago that you were seeing some chap … Somebody called Hodgetts, I believe he said.’ ‘Our Algie told you that?’ Kate became suddenly alarmed. If news of her wantonness at the back of the shed had reached Harriet after all … ‘When did he tell you that?’ ‘Oh, before he … before he became interested in that … that other girl.’ ‘Well, our Algie was wrong, Harriet,’ Kate said emphatically. ‘And I’ll tell him as much when I get back home. I ain’t tied up with nobody. ’Specially nobody called Hodgetts. I don’t know where he got that daft idea from. Wait till I see him.’ ‘He was quite concerned for you,’ Harriet persisted, loyally defending Algie. ‘He said he didn’t like him very much. The thing is, Kate, you could have your pick of men, if you don’t mind me saying so, a girl with your looks. It’s why I mentioned Mr Froggatt. He seems to look at you with such great interest.’ ‘Me? I don’t think so, Harriet. I think you must be mistook.’ ‘Well, I don’t believe so. I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes. How he looks at you when he’s reading the part … And, oh, my goodness, how he held your hand so tellingly in the scene where he proposes to you in front of Powhatan. Even though you were only reading, and not yet acting.’ ‘Oh, I think he was just trying to get into the mood of the part, Harriet,’ Kate responded dismissively. ‘Anyway, he’ll have a long wait if he thinks I’m going to be interested in him … I could always tell him that you fancy him, though, Harriet. I’d be happy to give your chances a boost.’ ‘Oh, no, please don’t, Kate. Oh, I beg of you, don’t say anything.’ ‘Are you sure? I could have sworn I detected some interest in him.’ ‘Oh, I think he’s very nice, to be sure, but he’s hardly for me …’ ‘What do you mean, hardly for you?’ pried Priss. ‘Well … it wouldn’t be fair on him …’ ‘Oh? Why on earth not?’ ‘Because I’m still smarting over Algie, to tell you the truth.’ ‘Lord knows why,’ Priss remarked disdainfully, and rolled her eyes. Harriet shrugged. ‘It’s easy for you to scoff, Priss, but losing him has hurt me far more than ever I thought it could.’ ‘Good gracious, Harriet!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘You really do surprise me.’ ‘I surprise myself, Kate. He wrote to me, you know, apologising for not being straight with me sooner.’ ‘He wrote?’ Kate queried. ‘What did he say?’ ‘As I say, it was just an apology. I ought to reply soon.’ ‘I wouldn’t,’ Priss said. ‘After the deceitful way he treated you.’ ‘But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still be friends, Priss. I like Algie. He’s basically very decent …’ She turned to Kate. ‘So what’s he been doing lately? Seeing his new lady friend, I imagine.’ ‘I don’t think he’s seen her for weeks. She hasn’t been our way at all lately, as I know to.’ ‘Maybe it’s all over with her then?’ Kate shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say. He don’t tell me his secrets. But I wouldn’t trouble myself over him, if I was you. He ain’t worth it. I told you … And the best way to get over one love affair is to get started with another. It’s better than any poultice, you know.’ Harriet smiled demurely. They arrived at the Drill Hall and entered. The Little Theatre group was a mix of all the social classes, people with a shared interest in being involved, in however small a way, for the satisfaction it gave them. Seats had been set in a circle in the middle of the room, and several were occupied already by an assortment of women, some not so fashionably dressed, others in tight-bodiced costumes and the latest in toques and bonnets. Harriet, Priss and Kate sat down and said good evening to those already seated. Murdoch Osborne was standing by the stove, talking to the assembled males of the group and Katie Richards. Presently, Clarence Froggatt, well-dressed in a smart jacket and a necktie, arrived and made his way at once to the three girls. ‘Good evening, Pocahontas,’ he greeted, beaming with abundant good humour. ‘Good evening, Miss Alice. Good evening, Miss Anne.’ ‘Good evening, Mr Rolfe,’ Kate answered for all three, likewise using his character name, while Harriet blushed decorously and averted her eyes. ‘Learned our lines yet, have we?’ He looked from one to the other expectantly. ‘I’ve been working hard learning mine,’ said Kate. ‘Splendid. Maybe we should attempt a first run through without the script, you and I at any rate, Miss Stokes.’ ‘If you like, Mr Froggatt.’ She smiled at him, more coquettishly than previously, after hearing Harriet’s observations of his apparent regard for her. ‘But I would’ve thought that was up to Mr Osborne.’ ‘Oh, he’ll be delighted that we’re both being so conscientious, I’m sure.’ More of the players arrived and eventually Murdoch Osborne called them all to order. Accordingly, the men drifted towards the vacant seats within the circle. ‘Miss Stokes says she’d like to go through the play without the aid of her script, Mr Osborne,’ Froggatt announced, glancing at Kate for her approval. ‘Is that all right by you? I’ll endeavour to do likewise.’ ‘Learnt your parts already, ha?’ said Murdoch. ‘Well, let’s hear it then. Let’s see if you can get through it without referring to the scripts. I’ll be pleased as Punch if you can.’ So they began running through the play. Some received coaching from Mr Osborne as to how they should express their lines, including Kate and Clarence Froggatt. Kate felt herself blush as Clarence harkened to Murdoch Osborne and gave greater expression to Rolfe’s admission of love for Pocahontas. ‘You’ve just got rid of your comrades and you’re thinking aloud about her, as you’ve been left to keep watch over that part of the forest,’ Murdoch directed, interrupting Rolfe’s flow. ‘But you ain’t seen Pocahontas yet, remember. All you know about her is what you’ve been told, and that she saved the life of Captain Smith. Try it again.’ Clarence Froggatt cleared his throat. ‘How I wish I could catch sight of her. Such a gentle maid would be much pleasanter acquaintance in these wilds than yon rough comrades. I am already half in love with this forest maid for saving my friend Smith … ’ He glanced at Kate hoping for some unfeigned reaction, watched closely by Harriet. But Kate’s eyes were in her lap. ‘That’s more like it,’ Murdoch said with approval. ‘Now … you see a panther stalking his prey and you follow it. Suddenly, you spot a Red Indian girl reclining under a tree and you realise the panther is about to attack her. You begin to tremble at the responsibility that befalls you … Carry on …’ ‘Beneath the shade of yon tree a Red Indian girl reclines. I’ll nearer steal … Is she the panther’s prey? Yes, there he is, crouching low, unseen.’ He pretends he is levelling a gun. ‘Heaven nerve my arm!… Well shot! The brute is down, the maid unhurt … She comes this way.’ ‘Aye, that’s passable for now,’ Murdoch claimed with a nod to Froggatt. He turned to Kate. ‘Right-ho, then, Pocahontas. What have you got to say to this pale-faced stranger who just saved your life?’ Pocahontas looked at Rolfe with contrived coyness. ‘So thou art the stranger whom the forest maid must thank. Within yon shady nook where she a moment sat to rest, a panther lies dead. One instant more, without thy aid, and it is she who would have been the dead one. How shall the forest maid thank the stranger?’ ‘Nay, no thanks, sweet maid. It is enough to have saved thee. Mention it no more … May I ask thy name?’ ‘Matoka is my name. The tribes of this land, which your people call Virginia, know me as Pocahontas …’ ‘Well spoken, both,’ Murdoch Osborne remarked with an amiable smile. They continued their reading. At each attempt the company’s confidence grew, the meaning they put into the words became more earnest, and the whole play more believable. At the end of it, Murdoch Osborne took Kate to one side. ‘I’ll give you a lift home in the gig, Kate. I should hate anything to happen to our leading lady for want of seeing her home safe. It’s a rough part of Brierley Hill you have to walk through, and there’s no lamps to speak of.’ ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Osborne,’ Kate replied. ‘But you needn’t trouble yourself. I’ll come to no harm. I normally walk part of the way with Harriet and Priss Meese.’ ‘Listen, it’s no trouble. I’d rather I took you than not.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you.’ ‘Just give us the nod when you’re ready.’ She was about to return to the company of Harriet and Priss, who had moved towards the door to make their exit, when Clarence Froggatt approached her. ‘Kate, would you allow me to walk you home?’ ‘Stone me if there isn’t a sudden outbreak of gallantry hereabouts,’ she exclaimed dryly. ‘I’ve just accepted Mr Osborne’s offer to drop me off in his gig. Save my legs, it will.’ ‘Oh,’ Clarence said, disappointment manifest in his eyes. ‘That’s very thoughtful of him. I can offer you nothing as grand as a gig. Merely Shanks’s pony. Another time, maybe?’ ‘Who knows?’ Kate smiled sweetly. ‘In the meantime, Clarence, my friend Harriet Meese might appreciate your company if you’re going her way. She could do with an escort.’ ‘But won’t her sister be with her?’ ‘Two for the price of one, eh? Maybe your luck’s in, Clarence …’ That same evening in June, Algie Stokes had returned home from work to the news that Marigold had called, and that the Binghams would be moored up in the basin at the Bottle and Glass. Before even he had his tea, he hurried to their narrowboats, full of excitement, to cast his eyes over her lovely face again and to arrange to see her later. He was enchanted, and it showed. Marigold, too, was suddenly on top of the world after all the nagging doubts she’d harboured; doubts which she now recognised were stupid and unreasonable. Algie still loved her, and she felt uplifted, relieved, ecstatic. It was obvious he did, else he would not be so happy and so keen to see her. She made an effort to look her best for him when he returned after he’d eaten and, when she smiled, affection oozed from her clear blue eyes. ‘You look nice,’ Algie remarked as she stepped off the gunwale of the narrowboat to be with him. ‘Do I?’ she said, needing his reassurance. ‘You look nice enough to eat.’ ‘I want to look nice for you, Algie.’ ‘Well, you do,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s lucky the weather’s been so fair, don’t you think?… And I’m glad to see your poorly lip’s mended.’ He grinned waggishly, aware of what she meant. ‘Yes, it’s very serviceable now, I reckon.’ They headed, with an unspoken accord, in the direction of the secluded dell close to Dadford’s Bridge. There, they might have expected to find at least one more courting couple, but again they were alone and sat down on the grass, hidden from the rest of the world in their own private little hollow, surrounded and hidden by gorse bushes and the steep, grassy knoll behind them. Algie took off his jacket, rolled it up and laid it on the ground behind them. ‘Rest your head on my coat, eh?’ She did as she was bid and smiled up at him adoringly. He lay beside her, his head propped up on his arm, looking at her lovely face. ‘I’ve missed you such a lot, Algie,’ she whispered softly. ‘I was thinking about you nearly all the time I was away.’ Touched by her openness, he bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I missed you as well, my little flower.’ ‘We kept getting loads up to Cheshire and back. It seemed as if I was never going to see you again.’ ‘Well, you’re here now.’ ‘Have you really missed me?’ she asked earnestly, delaying receipt of another kiss. ‘Yes … I really have.’ ‘And you ain’t snuck off to see Harriet?’ ‘No, never,’ he protested sincerely. ‘I promised I wouldn’t, and I haven’t. She doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. She doesn’t interest me. I thought you understood that.’ She lifted her face to his and her kiss was an apology for making the suggestion. ‘I just have to be sure, Algie. You must’ve guessed by now that I can be a bit jealous … Besides,’ she added wistfully, ‘I was away so long …’ ‘You don’t have to be jealous, Marigold,’ he said with evident concern for her feelings. ‘There’s nothing to be jealous about. I told you I’d wait for you. And I have. I’ll always wait for you. I promise.’ She smiled, her anxiety dispelled. ‘Kiss me again, Algie. Long and gentle this time. A butterfly kiss. I always think of your gentle kisses as “butterfly kisses”.’ He obliged her, lingering, tenderly savouring her sweet lips. ‘I’ve been dying to come down here with you again, Algie.’ ‘Honest?’ ‘Honest.’ She snuggled up to him contentedly, her head resting on his shoulder, relishing his arms around her. A certain rigidity inside his trousers, unruly as ever, was insisting on more adequate accommodation, and he shifted his position to relieve the discomfort. He thrust his knee tentatively between hers, and she allowed it. Her long skirt was a frustrating barrier between them, but still he could feel the tantalising warmth of her thighs caressing his. He kissed her again, more ardently this time. His tongue probed her mouth while he held her small backside and pressed himself against her. ‘I want you, Marigold,’ he sighed heavily. ‘I want to go all the way with you.’ ‘So it seems, by the feel of that thing against me belly,’ she replied, feigning disregard, even though she enjoyed the sensation and her heart was pounding like a drum because of it. ‘I suppose you don’t want to?’ ‘Why do we have to talk about it, Algie? It spoils it all, talking about it.’ ‘Would it spoil it if I were to tell you I love you?’ he asked. ‘It’s easy to say as much just to get your way,’ she said challengingly. ‘You have to mean it.’ ‘I do mean it. I missed you like hell while you was away. I was thinking about you all the time.’ She melted in his arms at this admission, and he hugged her. ‘If only I’d known where to find you …’ He lifted her chin and planted another kiss on her lips. ‘I’d have been there, believe me. Like a shot from a gun.’ ‘I think I’ll always love you, you know, Algie,’ she said dreamily. ‘I thought about it a lot while we was up and down the cut.’ He took that as an invitation to undo the buttons of her blouse. ‘What are you doing?’ she said, feigning surprise, but with no indignation. ‘Undoing your buttons.’ ‘What for?’ ‘’Cause I want to feel your titties.’ ‘Well, you won’t feel them proper through my chemise … Let me loosen it first.’ She undid the buttons at the side of her skirt, slackening it, then pulled her chemise up above her waist. ‘There …’ His breathing came heavier. He placed his hand on her bare stomach and the smoothness and tautness of her skin astonished him. Gently, he explored higher and reached one cool, silky breast. It was the first time he had ever felt a girl’s breast like this, and he gave it an experimental squeeze. To his amazement it returned immediately to its original delightful contours as soon as he relaxed his gentle grip. To make sure it was not a unique phenomenon, he repeated the experiment with the other. ‘They’re so smooth,’ he whispered, his voice a tight thread of emotion. ‘They’re ever so nice to feel, even though they ain’t that big.’ ‘I think they’re plenty big enough, Algie,’ she replied, smiling to herself at his candidness. Then, feeling the need to be rewarded with a show of affection for allowing him unfettered access to her breasts, said, ‘Kiss me, Algie. Another butterfly kiss.’ He was entirely content to kiss her again, and did so more passionately. While he was working her lips he wondered what it might be like kissing these delightful breasts, and pulled up her chemise a little further before nuzzling each in turn. To his astonishment, her small pink nipples hardened in response to his moist caresses. ‘Oh, that’s ever so nice, Algie,’ Marigold sighed. He was encouraged and, deeming it his bounden duty to venture south in the interests of seeking even greater mutual pleasure, took a handful of skirt and pulled the hem up above her knees. When his fingers ventured through the elasticated leg hole of her long drawers and found the soft, warm flesh of her thighs there, he thought his chest would burst with the intensifying pounding of his heart. He returned to her mouth, plying her lips with gentle little bites and kisses, while he located the slit in her drawers and thereby gained access to the warm mound of hair secreted within. ‘Oh, Algie …’ Her whimper was a mix of anxious resignation and pleasant expectation, but not discouragement. Certainly not discouragement. He caressed the soft, moist place between her legs with the greatest care and devotion. This was a moment he had only ever tried to imagine before; to be allowed such extreme liberties by a girl he really loved and admired. But the reality far exceeded the capability of his imagination. He was actually touching, feeling a girl … there … in this, the most mystical, the most privileged, the most private of places. It was a landmark in his life. It would be a landmark in the life of any young man – the first such extraordinary intimacy … Surely, it could only lead to that ultimate familiarity which he had always feared was going to elude him. Without doubt, this was a red letter day. He found it difficult to control his trembling at the electrifying prospect. To add to his private elation, he encountered no resistance from Marigold, only complicity. After all her teasing last time they met, she seemed as anxious as him after all to fulfil what must have since become a mutual wish. She in turn, was convinced of Algie’s love. With this wondrous shared experience of total commitment to draw on, further doubts would not plague her next time they were apart. Algie reluctantly removed his hand from the split in her drawers. But it was necessary in order to progress to the next stage and unfasten his fly. His trapped and aching manhood sprung free, like a jack-in-the-box released, while she virtuously avoided sight of it. Breathing heavily again, and feeling as nervous as he’d ever felt in his life, he rolled on top of her and guided himself back to the place he had just vacated. She parted her legs a little wider in anticipation, closing her eyes as she felt him press against her for entry. ‘Oh, Algie …’ The girlish tremor in her voice betrayed her nervousness, but she resigned herself to the inevitable outcome, welcoming it. After an abortive series of gentle pushes, he confessed with frustrated inadequacy, ‘I can’t get him in, Marigold.’ ‘You ain’t lined up right, I s’pose,’ she whispered tenderly. ‘Help me then. Guide him in.’ ‘It’s like steering a narrowboat into a lock, ain’t it?’ She gave a little giggle to hide her embarrassment. ‘It only just fits and you’ve only got a little opening to aim at.’ She held him, and he felt her cool fingers gently embrace him as she carefully guided him into her, raising her knees and her backside to make his entry easier. ‘There,’ she breathed, suppressing a little cry of pain; pain she had expected, pain which she was prepared to endure in her willing submission to this man she loved with all her heart. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/nancy-carson/a-country-girl/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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