The Lock-Keeper's Son

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Over dinner?’ Algie gulped. This was an unanticipated honour. Either he or his idea must be considered worthy to warrant such a signal honour being bestowed upon him; Mr Sampson must be serious about manufacturing bicycles too, to be willing to go to such lengths. ‘That’s very kind, Mr Sampson. I’d love to. There’s just one thing, though … I don’t have a wife. I’m not married yet.’

  ‘Then bring your sweetheart. I presume you’ve got a sweetheart, a young chap of your age and looks?’

  Algie grinned self-consciously. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve got a sweetheart all right.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then.’ He inhaled on his cigarette again. ‘Then my missus and me will look forward to meeting her.’ He stood up, making it plain, despite the smile, that the interview was over. ‘Friday, then. Seven o’ clock.’ Mr Sampson held out his hand, and they shook on it. ‘In the meantime, Algie, keep this little chat we’ve had to yourself, eh? There’s no sense in inviting speculation from anybody yet. After all, the best laid schemes of mice and men …’

  ‘Oh, I agree, Mr Sampson. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word.’

  The invitation left Algie with a problem. From the pattern of the Binghams’ work hitherto, he knew it was extremely unlikely that they would be passing through the Buckpool Locks for at least two weeks and possibly more. Marigold would therefore be unable to accompany him to dine at the Sampsons’ grand home on Friday. So what should he do? Should he try and locate her and get her back to Brierley Hill by train? By this time she could be miles away, well out of reach, even if he cycled for hours. Besides, where should he cycle to? In which direction, on which canal? He decided instead that if Kate could be trusted to be on her best behaviour, and not of a mind to embarrass him, she might make a very presentable stand-in.

  ‘Kate,’ he thus addressed her that evening, when she and their mother had finished the washing up. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’

  ‘A favour?’ she queried suspiciously. ‘It depends. What sort of favour?’

  ‘I need you to help me out Friday night.’

  ‘Friday night? How?’

  He explained.

  ‘I can’t go with you,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll be seeing Clarence Friday night. We’m meeting some of his old school friends with their wives and sweethearts. It’s been arranged ages.’

  ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘And I really want this to go well. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, Kate. I can feel it in my water.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask somebody else. Ain’t Marigold likely to be about at all? Mind you, Marigold ain’t got the polish to pull it off like me, has she? And you can bet she ain’t got a decent frock to go in neither.’

  ‘Don’t be so snotty about Marigold,’ he protested defensively. ‘What a vile thing to say – “she ain’t got the polish”. She’s more of a lady than anybody I know … you included.’

  ‘Well, she ain’t borrowing my best frock, whether or no. I’ll need it myself.’

  ‘She won’t be here anyway,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Then you’m up the cut with ne’er a paddle … Course, you could always ask Harriet Meese.’

  ‘Harriet …’ he mused for a second. ‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘Harriet wouldn’t come with me. Her father wouldn’t allow her, anyway.’

  ‘She is twenty-one, Algie,’ Kate reminded him. ‘She can do as she pleases.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t go against her father, twenty-one or no.’

  ‘He don’t need to know,’ she suggested mischievously. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘How can I ask her? I shan’t see her.’

  ‘I shall,’ Kate declared. ‘I’ll see her tonight at rehearsal. She’s still keen on you, you know, our Algie, though the Lord only knows why. I’ll ask her for you if you promise me one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you won’t tittle-tattle to her about me and Reggie Hodgetts. I don’t want anything to get back to Clarence.’

  ‘Fair enough, our Kate. I wouldn’t say anything anyway.’

  ‘Good. Then I’ll see how the land lies.’

  ‘If she’s agreeable, tell her I’ll meet her at quarter to seven Friday, on the corner by the Elms.’

  Clarence Froggatt was wallowing in a fog of perplexity, suffering sleepless nights, wracked by doubt and anguish. The problem was, of course, Kate Stokes. Her avowed words did not seem to coincide precisely enough with his more recent perceptions of her. He did not know exactly how to express in simple terms what was to him becoming more apparent, so he was unable to discuss it with any of his friends – not that it was an easy thing to talk about – but he was tormented all the same.

  At first he was troubled by the fact that Kate had allowed him to seduce her at all. Because he was twenty-three now and contemplating his future, accustoming himself to the likelihood of marriage at some foreseeable time with a well-presented and respectable girl, he was more concerned with the virtue of eligible candidates. The fact that Kate had been so feckless as to allow herself to be seduced by him, of all people, only lessened his esteem. No girl worth having would have allowed him such intimate access without a marriage already arranged at the very least. This is how Clarence viewed it.

  But there was something else, something more fundamental. Something was radically amiss. His concern was triggered after they had made love the first time, naked in front of the fire in the drawing room after attending Harriet Meese’s birthday party. Kate had professed she was a virgin. Indeed, many were the times she had protested it adamantly. Nor would you expect anything less from a sweet, respectable girl of nineteen, however pretty and appealing to men. But recalling that first heady evening, he began to realise not only how readily her high moral principles had been overturned, but also how easily he had penetrated her, when she was supposed to be a virgin. Indeed, it had been so slick and instant that it belied her claims to innocence. Kate was not the first girl he had known intimately, and the previous one truly had been a virgin, giving him not only all hell’s game trying to puncture her seemingly inviolable hymen, but also the experience to know how awkward and unromantic such a thrilling event could turn out to be. But with Kate he had slid right in, like an otter slipping into deep water, and with about as much resistance.

  Something else … ‘Get closer into me,’ she’d said. ‘Rub yourself against me more.’ He recalled it so accurately, and with such a thrill at first; her breathy, urgent voice, how she had raised her long, shapely legs, still clad in silk stockings, to a sort of inverted crouch, to render herself more accessible. Where had she learned that? Then she’d sighed and groaned with ecstasy as he ground into her. That could surely only have been the supplication and reaction of a woman experienced in such things, a woman who required that sort of sexual play because she knew it would bring her more surely to a climax, when half the decent girls in Christendom had only half a notion of what a climax might be.

  At first, he’d been pleased with his apparent prowess and her response, delighted that his technique had made her wriggle beneath him with such toe-curling pleasure, but the more he thought about it, and the more they practised these techniques which she craved, the graver became his doubts.

  Until they had known each other in that way, Clarence had been becoming quite serious about Kate. He had had it in mind to announce to his parents sometime soon that the delightful young woman they’d recently met would, in a year or two, make him a virtuous and devout wife, despite her lowly upbringing. She was personable enough despite the handicap of her social class, and would certainly have fitted in with his family. After all, his father was only a doctor; educated, yes, but hardly aristocracy. The introduction into the family of a pretty girl, albeit only a lock-keeper’s daughter, would hardly cause them any acute social embarrassment. Of course, he would have expected a frown of disapproval from his mother, who tended to be the snob of the family, but once she got to know Kate … Unless, of course, he found it necessary to marry her because she was pregnant … Oh, perish
the thought!

  But – always assuming that she was not pregnant – he had changed his mind about Kate. She was certainly not the innocent young girl she’d purported to be, and it had been his unswerving intention to marry a girl who had been deflowered by nobody but himself. Somebody had previously deflowered Kate, though. He was not particularly interested who, or even how many had been before him, merely that she had been wanton enough to allow it in the first place, and then become so practised at it. To lead him into thinking that no such thing had ever happened was an even bigger mistake, because it implied that she considered him a fool. Well, he was not quite such a fool as she imagined.

  The Forest Princess, as performed by the Amateur Dramatics Society, was about as close to perfection as they would ever get within the confines of the thespian and material limitations of the company. After another successful and confident run-through with only one minor slip, the members broke up into relaxed but enthusiastic groups, discussing the play and speculating on the opening night a week on Friday. Priss Meese was tying up the ribbons of a fashionable new toque, having resorted to them, as she laughed with her younger sister and Mr Higgs, another member of the cast, when Kate Stokes, by now changed back into her ordinary clothes, approached them.

  ‘Well done, Kate,’ Harriet said generously. ‘Another flawless performance.’

  ‘Thank you, Harriet. But I don’t know about flawless,’ she answered modestly. ‘You were good, though.’

  ‘Me? Oh, my part’s hardly demanding. We were just laughing at how Miss Bennett fed poor Mr Froggatt the wrong line when he forgot his words.’

  ‘I know, ain’t she a gooby?’ Kate remarked. ‘Half asleep, I reckon she was. If he forgets them again I’d be better prompting him.’

  Clarence himself joined them. ‘Kate and I can walk part of the way with you girls, if you like,’ he announced to Harriet and Priss.

  ‘Actually, Mr Higgs is walking us home,’ Harriet said, almost apologetically.

  ‘Oh?… In that case—’

  ‘I wonder if I could have a quick word, Harriet,’ Kate butted in, keen to say what she had to say before the Meese girls left.

  Harriet stepped aside and turned to Kate. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s our Algie.’

  Her eyes widened with interest. ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’d very much like you to go out with him on Friday night, Harriet.’

  ‘Algie?’ Harriet’s eyes lit up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Some important do. Actually, he asked me to go with him, but me and Clarence are going to another do, so I can’t oblige him.’

  ‘What is it?’ Harriet asked. ‘What sort of do?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a reunion of some of his old school mates and their wives and sweethearts.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said again. ‘Isn’t he taking that girl Marigold Bingham to his reunion? Has he fallen out with her or something?’

  ‘No, no,’ Kate exclaimed, realising that Harriet had got the wrong end of the stick. ‘It’s me and Clarence what’m going to the old school friends’ reunion.’ She laughed at the easy mistake. ‘Our Algie’s been invited to dinner at his gaffer’s house. He needs to take a lady friend. It looks like they’m about to start up in business together making bikes.’

  ‘Algie’s starting up a business?’ Harriet beamed with pleasure at the prospect. ‘I always said—’

  ‘Anyroad, he wants to take you along ’cause you’d be the right sort of person to have at his side for dinner at his gaffer’s.’

  ‘He asked for me? Fancy.’

  ‘But he knows as your father mightn’t be too pleased. Like I said to our Algie: what his eyes don’t see, his heart won’t grieve about. I mean to say, you’m twenty-one now, Harriet. You can do as you’ve a mind.’

  ‘Well …’ Harriet mused, ‘I’d dearly like to see Algie again … If it can be done discreetly.’

  ‘Course it can be done. Can’t you just dress up and slip out the house without him knowing?’

  ‘Oh, on Friday, yes, I could. My father goes out Friday afternoons playing cribbage and he never comes back till late. He wouldn’t even know I’d been out.’

  Kate smiled triumphantly. ‘There you are then. Our Algie says to meet him at quarter to seven outside the Elms.’

  ‘The Elms? That big house on the corner?’

  ‘That’s the one. Far enough away from your place not to be seen, eh?’

  ‘Tell him I’ll be there,’ Harriet said smiling eagerly, trying unsuccessfully to suppress her excitement. ‘I’m keen to help, if he thinks I’m able.’

  ‘Oh, and, Harriet … Dress to kill. Take a tip from me and wear that green dress you wore for your party.’ Kate winked saucily, aware she was about to shock her friend. ‘You got a fine bosom, you know, Harriet. Might as well make ’em do for you. ’Specially if you feel inclined to get our Algie interested again. He’s only human, after all.’

  Harriet was already waiting. She saw a tallish man walking towards her up the hill, and recognised his jaunty gait in the dusk. As he got closer, she could see he was wearing his best Sunday suit beneath an open topcoat that flapped in the breeze. His silver Albert, looped across his chest, glinted by the light of the gas street lamps. She smiled in anticipation of being close to him after so long, trying to check her trembling. She had hardly slept since Wednesday thinking about this meeting and whether it would lead to a resumption of their courtship, which had ended so abruptly and unexpectedly nearly six months earlier. Kate had been right; her father would not condone its revival, and it would certainly present some serious family difficulties, but she would deal with those if and when the need arose.

  Algie had not seen Harriet since their split. As he ambled towards her, he perceived that she had lost a little weight, become a little leaner, but not unbecomingly so. Her face looked thinner, as were her lips, which did not enhance her features, and her nose had a more pronounced bump, but her figure looked more refined. Maybe it was the dimness that exaggerated the effect, for her eyes were warm on him as she smiled her greeting.

  They began walking together, about a yard apart, with polite enquiries as to each other’s health and the health of their nearest and dearest. When the pleasantries were exhausted, it was Harriet who volunteered to raise the topic of the evening in hand.

  ‘It was such a surprise when Kate told me you’d asked her to ask me if I’d go with you tonight. I had the shock of my life. How far is it?’

  ‘Holly Hall. We’d better get a move on. My gaffer wants us there for seven.’

  ‘Oh, well, Holly Hall’s not far. We can walk it in less than a quarter of an hour. And in any case it won’t hurt even if we’re five minutes late.’

  A tram huffed and rattled past them in the other direction, in a clangour of metal and steam, its iron wheels rumbling over the iron rails that bore it.

  ‘You don’t mind walking, do you, Harriet?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she reassured him. ‘We might wait ages for a tram to come our way at this time … Kate said something about you and this Mr Sampson going into partnership. You must be very excited.’

  ‘I don’t want to count my chickens yet, Harriet. Ever since I bought my bike I’ve had the notion that I’d like to set up a firm to make them. But, money being tight like it is, I knew it wouldn’t be possible to do it on my own. Anyroad, I told Mr Sampson about my idea and he must’ve pondered it, ’cause he said he wanted us to talk more about it. I think he might be about to make me an offer, seeing as how he asked me to bring along my wife.’

  ‘But you haven’t got a wife,’ she grinned.

  ‘I told him that, and he said I could bring my sweetheart.’

  ‘But I’m not your sweetheart, Algie … am I?’

  ‘No, but you used to be … sort of.’ He smiled at her amiably, a little embarrassed that she might be asking if she could be once again. ‘And you said in your letter as we should still be friends. Anyway, I’m grateful to you for helping me out.’

  �
�So where’s Marigold? Why aren’t you taking her?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because she could be anywhere between Kidderminster and Nantwich, or Wolverhampton and London. Or anywhere else on the blasted canal network for that matter. Too far away to be able to go with me tonight, anyway.’

  ‘So you haven’t fallen out with her?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  Harriet concealed her sigh of disappointment. ‘How often do you see her then?’

  ‘Oh … a couple of nights every two or three weeks.’

  ‘Not too often then?’

  ‘Not often enough. If she’d been moored up by our house tonight she would have come with me, but I knew she wouldn’t be. That’s why I asked you. In any case, you’ll be more at home hobnobbing with the Sampsons than Marigold might’ve. She isn’t used to hobnobbing. I reckon she’d have been out of her depth a bit, and I wouldn’t want to put her through that.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful,’ Harriet said. Privately, she felt put down by his inference that she was his second choice, but delighted that he thought her more suitable for the occasion than Marigold. She could have made some disparaging comment about the girl being deprived of culture and home comforts as a canal worker’s daughter, but suspected Algie would not appreciate it, especially since he was merely the son of a lock-keeper. In any case, she would not win back his affection by being catty. It was not Marigold’s fault that she was where she was, or who she was. It must be difficult for a girl born to commonplace circumstances with a commonplace intellect to make her world a larger one.

  ‘I understand she’s very pretty,’ she said instead.

  ‘Oh, she is,’ Algie replied emphatically. ‘She’s really beautiful … and bright with it, considering she’s had little or no schooling.’

  ‘I feel quite sorry for her,’ Harriet remarked.