The Lock-Keeper's Son

by Nancy Carson

  ‘The Bottle and Glass. Algie finds it handy. And the Samson and Lion.’

  ‘So, Kate … I’d like to see you sometime, if you’ve a mind to … if you’re allowed.’

  ‘Course I’m allowed.’

  ‘Good. Sometime other than rehearsal night, though.’

  ‘If you like.’ She smiled, pleased with her conquest.

  ‘Are you free tomorrow night?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered softly, lowering her lids. ‘Will you call for me, or what?’

  ‘Could we meet somewhere?’

  ‘Meet?’

  ‘Well … because I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to borrow the dogcart again tomorrow,’ he said apologetically. ‘My father might have been called out, you see. He’s the local doctor. Otherwise I’d gladly call for you.’

  ‘Oh … all right, then. Where?’

  ‘How about the top of Moor Lane? Can you manage eight o’ clock?’

  ‘I reckon so.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll see you there then.’

  While Marigold was absent, Algie Stokes was once more at a loose end every night. He spent more time designing bicycles on the scullery table, fathoming ways he could build them. The prospect of fulfilling his dream of manufacturing them seemed to recede the deeper he delved. He was beginning to accept that expensive – too expensive – machinery would be required to draw and bend the steel tubes from which they would be manufactured, the stamping presses needed to press out components for flanges and the chain, the new-fangled welding equipment. Then there were rods to be cut for the brake mechanism, threads cut and tapped so they could be linked together, sprockets forged and machined. Some things could be bought in already finished, things like wheels and bearings, rubber handle-bar grips and tyres. But still he had not discovered where he could source the wheels. Once he knew where, he could actually build a bicycle, making every other part by hand. If it was successful he could build another and maybe sell it. It would be a long-winded process making bicycles that way, but at least he would build up a knowledge that would be invaluable. It was the only way he could accomplish his dream – and even then only in a very small way.

  But big oak trees from little acorns grow …

  Summer rolled on in weeks of shimmering heat; a long, hot summer. England beat Australia in the first test at Lords, and Marigold had her nineteenth birthday miles away from Algie. They grew used to being apart, sometimes for weeks at a time. When they were reunited, however, they generated a smouldering heat of their own that vied with the summer’s. Marigold was certain that Algie was intent on marrying her eventually to obviate the pain of being apart. Certainly, she was intent on marrying him, and she looked forward to the day when they would be together always, looking after the little house which they would rent, close to the canal of course, so that she could see her family regularly and entertain them when they travelled her way. She dropped many hints about marriage.

  As they lay in their hollow one evening near Dadford’s Bridge, hot after making love, she decided to broach the topic again. She was committed to him entirely and was anxious to know just where she stood in his future.

  ‘D’you ever think about us being together always, Algie?’ she asked softly.

  ‘How d’you mean, together always?’ He plucked a piece of straw from the ground and put it between his teeth, gazing up at the sky as he lay on his back, his shirt hanging out, his trousers still loose about his waist.

  ‘I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to be apart from one another for weeks on end, like now, with me traipsing up and down the cut?’

  ‘It would, I grant you,’ he replied.

  She smiled, encouraged, and snuggled up to him. ‘It could happen, Algie.’

  ‘How?’ Of course he knew how, but he wanted to hear it from her.

  ‘If we get wed. If we was to get wed I’d be with you all the time – ’cept when you was at work, o’ course.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that myself, and I think I’d like to marry you,’ he said, gazing at the sky. Then he turned to her and smiled his affection. ‘But I’m not sure you’re old enough yet, my flower.’

  ‘Course I am. I’m nineteen.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’re nineteen,’ he said gently, ‘but in my book, nineteen’s a bit too young to get wed.’

  ‘But not too young to do what married folk do?’

  ‘That’s different, Marigold. You can’t compare the two things.’

  ‘Why is it different?’

  ‘It’s nature at work. Human nature. Just remember, not long ago it was legal for girls to be wed when they was twelve. In that case, they weren’t considered too young by some to conceive.’

  ‘All right, so I ain’t too young to get pregnant.’

  He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

  ‘No. I had a show only a fortnight ago, and I ain’t seen you since.’

  He smiled with relief, still gazing at the sky. A skylark was soaring overhead; he hoped he was not in its line of fire if it dropped its dinner. ‘That’s a blessing. So what’s brought this on, this yearning to be wed so soon?’

  ‘It’s just that we’d be together, Algie. We’d sleep together every night. Just think … Oh, you’ve no idea how much I miss you when I’m away, how much it hurts. I pine to be with you. I do, honest. I love you. I want to share your life.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with having dreams, my flower,’ he said softly. ‘But where would we live? I’m not living with my folks when I get wed. They’d drive us both potty.’

  ‘We could rent our own house. Our own little love nest.’

  ‘It costs money to rent houses, Marigold. Money up front. Then we’d have to furnish it. I haven’t got that sort of money. It’ll take a year or two to save for that.’

  ‘You could sell your bike.’

  ‘Sell me bike?’ He stirred at that, and sat up, half indignant at such an alarming suggestion. ‘I ain’t selling me bike.’

  ‘But that’d give us the money we needed, Algie.’

  ‘So it might, but I’m not selling it. Not for nobody. I worked hard for that bike. I’ll never sell it.’

  ‘I’d work then,’ she said earnestly, offering a viable alternative. ‘I’d get a job. They’m always after willing workers at glassworks or brickworks, and there’s enough of them hereabouts. I could work in a shop, maybe, like your Kate. Maybe she could put a word in for me where she works …’

  He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I love you, Marigold, with all my heart, but it’s too soon yet. It’s much too soon.’

  ‘But I want to be with you, Algie. Not a couple of nights every two or three weeks, but every night … every day of every week.’

  ‘I’m trying to be sensible …’ He turned to look at her, at the intense expression in her lovely eyes. He could have hugged her. It touched him to the core that she loved him so much, that she wanted to be with him all the time. He felt blessed to be so adored by this delightful waif, but marriage was a step too far yet. You got married when you were about twenty-five, and not before if you had any sense; not twenty-two like he was, nineteen like she was.

  ‘What about if you got me pregnant?’ she asked.

  ‘Then that’d be different,’ he responded reassuringly. ‘But I always try to be careful, so don’t ever try and trap me by saying you are when you aren’t.’

  ‘Oh, Algie,’ she whispered, her disappointment manifest in her eyes at a notion that was so alien to her nature. ‘I’d never do that. I couldn’t. I could never lie to you about anything. And you know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cause if you ever found me out in a lie you’d never believe me again, would you? That’s why. So I won’t lie to you. Ever.’

  He planted a kiss tenderly on her lips and lay down again. ‘I’m lucky to have you, Marigold,’ he acknowledged warmly. ‘I know I am. And I don’t rule out ever getting wed to you. I hope we shall wed someday. You
’d be a good wife. But it’s too soon yet, my flower. It really is. So just have a bit of patience.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ she conceded, disappointed.

  ‘Anyway, I got dreams of my own as I want to see come true first …’

  ‘What dreams? Tell me.’

  ‘You might laugh.’

  ‘I won’t laugh. Course I won’t laugh.’

  He propped his head up on his arm as he lay facing her. ‘I want to start my own business making bikes. I want to be my own gaffer. I want to be rich.’

  She beamed. ‘That’s a great big dream,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I’ll help you if I can.’

  ‘There’s just one problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I haven’t got the money. You need money to start up a firm, same as you do to start your own home.’

  ‘Borrow it.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘A bank?’ she suggested with a shrug. ‘They’m the ones who lend folk money, ain’t they? On the other hand, you could find somebody wealthy who’d be prepared to come in with you as a partner.’

  ‘I don’t want a partner, Marigold. I want to do it on my own.’

  ‘But if you want it that bad, maybe you got no choice but to find a partner. It don’t mean you wouldn’t be your own gaffer, even if you had a partner, the way I see it.’

  He grinned, impressed with her surprisingly mature grasp of things. ‘You’re not daft, are you? Maybe you’re right. To tell you the truth, I’d wondered about a partner. I’ll have to think about it.’ He kissed her again as a token of his thanks, a kiss they lingered over, a kiss that reignited their mutual desire.

  Dusk was falling fast. The sky was darkening, decorated with crimson-edged feathers of cloud. The land, the trees, the gorse, the buttercups and dandelions had become smudged with the limpid redness of the sun which was hidden by the high hill behind them. Colours were rendered indistinguishable one from another.

  He was tempted to say so much that was in his heart but it was difficult to find the right words. He was inclined to tell her just how much he loved her; that he would not only be prepared to marry her when the time was right, but proud to. He could not trust himself to deliver such potent words sincerely enough, believing it would sound laboured and contrived if he did. He was inclined to tell her that she was just right for him. Her demeanour, her natural warmth, her intelligence, all these qualities he adored. Yes, she would make a wonderful little wife. Anyway, if he said too much it might all come out funny and make her think he was too keen. So he left it unsaid …

  Chapter 9

  Benjamin Augustus Sampson, twenty-five years old, was the only son and sole beneficiary to the estate of his father, the late Benjamin Prentiss Sampson; self-made man, industrialist and brass founder. Benjamin Augustus inherited from his father the Sampson Fender and Bedstead Works at Queen’s Cross in Dudley, which he continued to run. But he lacked the acumen, commitment and foresight of the old man. He was not particularly interested in the manufacture of bedsteads and fenders, so the business merely drifted. The factory continued to produce what it had always produced with no earnest effort at improvement or innovation. It was a tap that provided an endless supply of wealth, which young Benjamin rather took for granted. As an only child he’d wanted for nothing and, while he was a conventional enough chap in the normal way of things, he would stop at nothing to have what he wanted. Part of the problem was that he knew little about, and appreciated less, what his father had achieved, or how he had achieved it.

  Benjamin Sampson Snr, on the other hand, had been one of three children, born to Enoch Sampson and Eliza Crump, his common-law wife, both nailmakers from Lye, which was little more than a shanty town that lay between Stourbridge and Halesowen. Enoch and Eliza had died young of consumption within a year of each other, before they could procreate more. Their children were subsequently taken into the care of the workhouse. Benjamin had lived his young life within sound of the clinking anvil and roaring bellows, taking for granted the conditions he was born into, knowing nothing else. He had learnt to make nails, and toiled with his mother and father from dawn every day till late into the night … for his keep. Fresh bread was a rare delicacy to be savoured and he knew nothing better. But as he was carted to the workhouse some miles away he saw the way other people lived; fine houses, neatly tended gardens, and children with clean, fresh faces and beautiful clothes. In the workhouse Benjamin was separated from his sisters amid tears which went unheeded by the sour-faced officials, who manifested harsh voices and rattled bunches of keys. He was stripped and bathed unceremoniously, dressed in strange clothes, then cast into a pack of other boys, all dressed alike, all with sullen faces and furtive glances. It was the catalyst Benjamin Prentiss Sampson needed to better himself. At ten years old he was given work in a brass foundry and learnt all about the trade. He worked hard and long, harder and longer than he had ever worked making nails, learning all the time. He learnt to do the jobs of others who fell absent, and learnt that above all he could rely on himself, if on nobody else. His two sisters died in the tender care of the workhouse, but Benjamin managed to escape it and he thrived. He saved what money he earned and, in 1856, had enough to start his own business making fenders and hearth ware, employing more and more men as the years went by. He developed a morbid fear of being short of money, for he quickly learnt what privileges money brought, compared with the quality of life without it. In 1862 he met and married a respectable girl, and found time to father a son, Benjamin Augustus, born in 1865.

  Old Benjamin was canny enough to realise that an education would ensure that his son would never be subjected to the misery and ignominy he had suffered, so gladly paid for his schooling; another privilege that money could buy. Young Benjamin was merely an average pupil, though, excelling in nothing, mediocre in most things. When the lad left school, he was drafted into the prosperous Sampson firm to learn the business, being no good at anything else. Young Benjamin, however, was not interested in the business. He lacked imagination and could muster enthusiasm about little, except cricket. He wanted to spend his life playing cricket. The fact that cricket was a game played only in summer was a fact that he ignored. Nor did his accent ever become particularly refined. He could, however, be utterly charming, but only when he chose to be, something that schooling had taught him about fine manners and the art of getting what you want.

  It was in mid-September, towards the end of the cricket season, when young Benjamin Augustus Sampson was at the factory he’d inherited, poring unenthusiastically over some ledgers in his office upstairs. He heard footsteps on the floorboards of the landing, followed by an apologetic tapping on his door.

  ‘Enter.’

  The door opened tentatively and Benjamin looked up to see the face of Algernon Stokes apprehensively peering round it.

  ‘Algie!’ The acknowledgement was more a statement of fact than a greeting, and thus not particularly welcoming. Not a time to ooze charm. ‘What’s up?’ he growled.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you, Mr Sampson …’

  ‘Well, come in and shut the door.’ He regarded Algie with the grand impatience of God-given superiority. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, er … nothing’s up, Mr Sampson … I … I wanted to ask your advice on a particular matter, that’s all … But if you’re too busy I could come back another time.’

  Mr Sampson, however young, was senior to Algie. He made a show of taking his watch out of his fob and noting the time. ‘Make it quick then. It seems to me, that since this is your working time, I shall be paying for me own advice.’

  ‘Then I’ll come back when work’s finished.’

  Benjamin smiled patronisingly. ‘No, I want to leave this place on time. Sit down and tell me what’s up. A burden shared is a burden halved, they say. I suppose it’s to do with work?’

  ‘Not altogether, no …’

  Mr Sampson almost bridled, as if about to conclude the interview at once, but Algie was not about to
be overawed having got this far.

  ‘Mr Sampson, I’d like your advice – you being a successful businessman and all – on how best to go about starting a business.’

  A mite flattered at being thus described, Benjamin visibly straightened his back with some pride. He also regarded his lowly employee a little more curiously. ‘You want to start a business?’

  ‘Well, not right away, Mr Sampson. But sometime soon.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Algie couldn’t help but smile, pleased that he had gained the interest of his gaffer. ‘Manufacturing, sir. That’s why I thought as you’d be a good person to ask.’

  ‘Manufacturing what? Not bedsteads and fenders, I hope.’

  ‘Bicycles, sir.’

  ‘Bicycles? Ah …’ Benjamin swept his fingers through his long and dark wavy tresses, and leaned back importantly in his padded leather chair.

  Algie nodded. ‘Bikes are all the rage. And they wouldn’t be too hard to cobble together, once you’d got the right equipment.’

  ‘Bikes,’ Benjamin mused. ‘I don’t know much about bikes. I drive a gig and a carriage meself, as you know. Are you sure folk will buy bikes with all the damned hills we’ve got round here? It’d be hard work pushing the pedals, I reckon.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But everywhere ain’t so hilly as it is round here.’

  ‘Maybe not … Maybe you’m right. Norfolk’s flat, they say …’ He cogitated for a second, trying to formulate a response that might make him sound plausible. ‘My advice, Algie, is that you should only mess with something you know about. Better the devil you know … You know the old saying.’ Benjamin was quite full of old sayings.

  ‘Oh, I know a bit about bikes, Mr Sampson. I bought one. You might have seen me riding it. And I’ve been studying it. Matter of fact, I was studying bikes long afore I even bought one. You could make a good strong bike with steel tubes, you know, so long as you got the right jigs and tools to bend them and draw them in the proper places. The only thing I couldn’t make is the spoked wheels and the ball bearings – oh, and the pneumatic tyres and rubber handle grips.’