The Lock-Keeper's Son

by Nancy Carson

  Will Stokes shook his head. ‘Nothing as can’t wait till I’m feeling better. I should feel better tomorrow, when all this has passed over.’

  Algie moved over to the window that overlooked the canal and peered out. ‘I see as the Tomlinsons have moored up in that new boat o’ theirs, the Jubilee. They’ve got it tarted up real pretty, ain’t they?’ Scanning the landscape, he peered to his right and saw, to his utter delight, the Bingham’s piebald horse come into view under the road bridge, straining against its collar and led by Seth as it hauled their lead boat, the Sultan. ‘Dad!’ Algie exclaimed with a grin, ‘I’ll see you later. Marigold’s just turned up.’ He rushed down the stairs to go outside and greet her.

  Marigold stood on the narrowboat’s gunwale, her back towards the towpath. In her well-worn coat and bonnet she looked, from behind, like any other working girl, except that she had this particular way of standing so elegantly; no slouching for Marigold. Then she heard footsteps, turned and saw him, and her blue eyes shone as she skipped off the barge to rush to him.

  However, Aurelia Sampson had not yet faded from Algie’s thoughts. She was still present, haunting him, not only with her polished and flawless beauty, but her apparent vulnerability as well from her unappreciative and overbearing husband.

  It was inevitable that he compared the two girls. Marigold’s face was no less beautifully constructed than Aurelia’s, but it lacked the pampered glow that affluence brought. They shared similar colour hair and eyes. Her figure was no less perfectly proportioned, but lacked the enhancement that fine clothes afforded. Algie wondered how they would compare if they both stood naked before him, washed and bedraggled having just stepped out of a hot bath, with no visible hint of their different backgrounds to colour his view. Which one would he choose, if a choice he were forced to have? He imagined they would look decidedly similar, little or nothing to choose between them in looks and age. Of course, he would choose Marigold. But something about Aurelia was gnawing at his soul …

  ‘Why’m you looking at me all queer?’ Marigold asked, as she sidled up to him and took his hand.

  ‘Am I?’ He hadn’t realised. He planted a kiss on her lips and smiled affectionately. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘You was looking at me as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s because I haven’t seen you for so long. I forget what you look like while you’re away, and so I have to feast my eyes on you to try and imprint you, like a photograph, on my rotten memory.’ It was no lie; he did tend to forget what she looked like, try as he might to picture her lovely face. ‘So where have you got to the last fortnight?’

  ‘We been to Birnigum. Then we been to ’Emel ’Empstead, then across to Hoxford and Banbury.’

  ‘What’ve you been carrying?’

  ‘Oh, all sorts. Iron bars, iron stone, flour, gravel …’

  ‘So you’re off to Kidderminster next?’

  ‘Worcester this time. We’m carrying china clay for the porcelain factory. But we shan’t leave here till Monday. I aksed me dad special to try and get here early today, so as I’d see you for two days running. Three if you get up early Monday to see me off … You still look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Algie.’

  ‘My dad’s poorly,’ he announced.

  ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘Something he ate, I think. He’s got terrible guts ache. He must be bad, because he hasn’t gone to work. He’s still abed.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ Marigold said with sincerity. ‘Give him my best wishes, will you? I hope he feels better soon.’

  ‘Oh, I daresay he’ll be better tomorrow. Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you, Marigold.’

  She beamed with anticipation, and her eyes sparkled like polished sapphires. ‘A surprise? What?’

  ‘More than one surprise, to tell you the truth. There’s been a lot happening.’

  ‘Go on then, tell me,’ she implored girlishly.

  ‘No,’ he teased. ‘I’ll keep you in suspense a bit longer. Will you come a walk with me this afternoon into Brierley Hill town when I’ve had my dinner? I’ve got to go and get some shopping for my mother, ’cause she doesn’t want to leave my dad while he’s poorly. It’d be nice if you could come with me. Then I could tell you all my surprises.’

  ‘Course I will, Algie.’ She squeezed his hand reassuringly. ‘I’ll tell me mom. She might want some things fetching as well.’

  The weather that Saturday was overcast as they walked to the town by road hand-in-hand, each carrying a basket. October’s relative mildness had been ousted by a definite autumnal nip that foretold that bitter cold must inevitably follow.

  ‘So, what’s this news you’ve got to tell me?’ Marigold prompted. ‘I could hardly eat me dinner for wondering what it was.’

  ‘Well … you know I asked Mr Sampson for advice on starting a business making bikes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he’s asked me to go in with him. I get a new job on Monday, with my own office, sorting it all out and getting it under way.’

  ‘Oh, Algie …’ She looked up at him in admiration. ‘That’s just … just brilliant.’

  ‘I get a rise in wages too, and if we do well I’ll be able to buy shares in the firm.’

  ‘But it ain’t like having your own firm, by the sounds of it?’ she queried.

  ‘Oh, no, course not. I could never afford to have my own firm anyway – I’d already worked that out. But this is the next best thing. I’ll be a sort of partner to Mr Sampson. His right-hand man. We’ll be building bikes to my designs and I’ll be in charge of making them most of the time, ’cause he’ll be away signing up wholesalers who’ll sell the bikes. Just think, Marigold … If I do well …’

  ‘So when was all this arranged?’

  ‘A fortnight ago. He asked us round to his house for dinner.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Yes …’ He must be careful here not to let slip about Harriet. ‘But you couldn’t go with me, ’cause you wasn’t here.’

  ‘I don’t know if I would’ve felt comfortable anyroad, Algie, with swanky folk like that. I bet they live in a great big house with all the trimmings, and servants to wait on them hand and foot, eh?’

  ‘Oh, yes, course,’ he replied, as if it could be no other way.

  ‘I couldn’t be doing with that. I wouldn’t know how to act. I mean, I’m from the cut. I ain’t no better than one o’ them servants they’ve got, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘Course you are, Marigold,’ he said kindly, upset that she should demean her own worth. ‘Brush your hair tidy and put you in your best frock and nobody would know the difference between you and a lady.’

  ‘Till I opened me mouth, I suppose. Anyway, did you have a nice time?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Sampson were very hospitable. Especially her … She was very nice … and beautiful with it. I reckon she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life, you know.’

  ‘Fancy,’ she said, peeved that he should think so, let alone having noticed another woman.

  ‘Like I said, put you in your best frock, and you’re just as lovely.’ He smiled reassuringly, aware and sorry that he’d offended her sensitivity. ‘You are just as beautiful in your own, more simple way.’

  ‘Simple now, am I?’

  He cursed himself for not having chosen his words more carefully, words that would not have invited her innate jealousy. ‘I didn’t mean simple in the sense that you’re daft, Marigold. I know you’re not daft. I mean you’re just … less cultured—’

  ‘It ain’t my fault if I am,’ she pouted. ‘What schooling have I had? I do me best.’

  ‘I know you do, and I’m full of admiration for you, else I wouldn’t be here with you. What I mean is, you’re more natural, you got no airs …’

  ‘So I’d have been like a fish out of water, what with all their wealth, their put-on airs, and maids running about all over the place.’

  ‘There was one maid that I saw. Onl
y one.’

  ‘But I bet they got more.’

  ‘If they can afford it, all well and good, but I didn’t see any more.’

  ‘What was the maid like? Does Mr Sampson pick ’em for their looks? Did you fancy her as well?’

  ‘No, I didn’t fancy the maid, as it happens.’

  ‘That’s a wonder.’

  They walked on in silence for some minutes, Algie determined not to speak until she made some apology. He made allowances for their enforced absences being responsible for exaggerating her notions that he might be unfaithful to her between times. But he had not been entirely unfaithful. Any disloyalty had been only in his mind. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  It was Marigold, predictably, who broke the silence.

  ‘You said you had more than one surprise for me,’ she said meekly, the closest thing to an apology he was likely to get.

  On reflection, maybe he did not deserve an apology. Maybe she was spot-on with her assessment of him. Maybe she was blessed with the same sort of intuition that informed Harriet of what he was like where handsome women were concerned. In any case, maybe he ought to take Marigold’s sensitivity into account more often, that she loved him and loathed being away from him for weeks on end, that she didn’t want to be taunted with how lovely other women might be, with whom he’d been in contact.

  He smiled forgivingly, his eyes brimming with affection, and he put his arm around her as they walked. ‘That play our Kate’s in …’ he said. ‘Tonight’s the last performance. I got tickets for me and you to go and see it.’

  So he did think about her sometimes. ‘Oh, Algie …’ She beamed up at him. ‘That’ll be lovely. Will it be a grand do?’

  ‘Yes, a grand do. Best frock for you tonight, my girl. All the bigwigs of the town will be there.’

  ‘What’s the play about?’

  ‘About a Red Indian princess, and how she falls in love with an Englishman.’

  ‘Ah, that sounds right up my street … A Red Indian princess, did you say? Do they have a royal family then, them Red Indians?’

  ‘Seems like it. Anyway, our Kate’s taking the part of the princess.’

  ‘Well, she is nice-looking, your Kate. She’ll make a lovely princess, I bet. Is she still courting?’

  ‘By the skin of her teeth, by the sounds of it.’

  And so they chatted on in their desultory way, all the way to Brierley Hill. There, Marigold was enchanted by the variety of little shops, but Algie studiously avoided the Meeses’ drapery, mourning and mantles emporium, not only wary of seeing Eli, but apprehensive of bumping into Harriet as well.

  Algie had received instructions to call into Murdoch Osborne’s butcher’s shop for the Sunday joint, and Murdoch was quick to greet Algie amiably.

  ‘Have you been to see the play yet?’ he enquired, as he placed a small joint of beef on the scales and juggled his weights.

  ‘We’re going tonight, Mr Osborne,’ Algie replied.

  ‘This your sweetheart, young Algie?’ Mr Osborne asked, wiping his blood-stained hands on his already soiled apron.

  Algie smiled self-consciously. ‘Yes, she’s the one.’

  Murdoch eyed her up and down, while Marigold likewise weighed him up. ‘A bobby-dazzler, ain’t she?’ He flashed a wink of bravado at Algie. ‘I can see why you’ve took to her.’

  Algie smiled again, uncertain how to reply.

  ‘Anything else, young man?’

  ‘That’s the lot for me, Mr Osborne.’ Algie paid and took the meat, all wrapped in newsprint.

  ‘Oh, and give your mother me fondest.’

  Algie grinned uncertainly. ‘My sweetheart wants serving as well …’

  Murdoch looked at Marigold with anticipation.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, and glanced at Algie with embarrassment. ‘I don’t need nothing today.’

  Algie apologised for his mistake, bid Mr Osborne goodbye and left the shop with Marigold in tow.

  ‘I thought you wanted to buy some meat,’ Algie said when they were outside and out of sight.

  ‘I didn’t like him,’ Marigold replied with a shudder. ‘That’s why I wouldn’t buy off him. Did you see how he looked at me? Eyed me up as if I was a prize side of bacon, he did, then talked to you about me as if I wasn’t there.’

  ‘It’s just his way,’ Algie said. ‘He doesn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Whether or no, I don’t like him. He gi’d me the creeps. Fancy having his hands roaming all over you. Ugh!’ She screwed her face up in distaste at the thought. ‘I’ll go to another butcher for our meat … Why did he ask if you’d seen the play?’ she added. ‘What’s it got to do with him?’

  ‘Because he’s in it. He runs the show.’

  ‘Damn and blast! Have I got to see him again?’

  Marigold looked a picture when Algie called for her that evening to go to the play. Her face shone from the effects of soap and water and she had acquired a new dress for Sunday best. Her mother had suggested it some weeks before, when she perceived that Marigold and Algie were courting more seriously. Since they were often in the vicinity of the Stokes’s home on Sundays she was ever likely to be asked in for tea, and she couldn’t go to Sunday tea looking like a dishmop. The dress was plain, ultramarine in colour, and made from cotton, and was suitable for all sorts of occasions. It was eminently suitable for attending a play at the town hall. Over it, she wore a new darker blue mantle and matching bonnet, and Algie was delighted with what he saw.

  Clarence Froggatt had collected Kate from the bakery shop and delivered her home in good time to get washed and changed for her evening performance. He had collected her again later and whisked her off to the town hall to get into her stage make-up and flimsy costume in good time for the play.

  ‘How’s your dad?’ Marigold asked as they embarked on a steady walk to the town for the second time that day.

  ‘He’s no better. Worse, if anything. I’m a bit worried about him. So is my mom. She’s even been rubbing Elliman’s Embrocation over his belly, and giving him Lamphrey’s pills, but neither seems to have done him any good.’

  ‘You think a lot of your dad, don’t you?’

  ‘Course I do. He’s my dad.’

  ‘I think a lot of my dad as well.’

  The rain had kept off, even though the sky had looked ominously grey all day. The town hall that night did not reflect the day’s drabness, however. The gas lights, brilliantly flaring, cast a warm glow over the carriages that rolled up outside depositing the wealthy and the local dignitaries – who all milled about, chatting with friends and acquaintances who happened to be arriving at the same time. The approach of a steam tram ensured that the horses and carriages could not tarry, occupying the tramlines. When it pulled up outside the town hall it disgorged passengers by the score, to the rattle and hiss of the little engine that hauled it. Unused to such activity and the excited atmosphere, Marigold stood and watched spellbound, her eyes wide, a smile of expectancy brightening her delightful face.

  ‘Oh, Algie, ain’t it grand watching all these fine folk?’ she said dreamily. ‘I could watch ’em for ages.’

  He smilingly allowed her this preoccupation for a few minutes, then said, ‘I reckon we’d best get inside and find our seats.’

  ‘Tickets please,’ said a military-looking man with a waxed moustache who was standing by the door to the auditorium.

  Algie fished in his pockets and drew out his two tickets. The man inspected them officiously.

  ‘Right at the front,’ the waxed moustache said, as if begrudging them such a privilege.

  Algie turned to Marigold. ‘Hey, fancy that. We got seats right at the front. Fancy our Kate being able to get tickets for seats right at the front.’

  As he pushed open the doors, the glare of the house lights met them, and Marigold became even more thrilled. Several men, heavy swells, all tall, all moustached, turned to stare at her lovely smiling face as Algie led her towards their seats at the front.
As the town hall filled up, a buzz of anticipation ran through it. Brierley Hill was normally only privileged to host concerts from its Amateur Dramatics Society a couple of times a year, and so they were always well-attended. Occasionally a choir would put on a performance, either in the town hall or in St Michael’s Church, sometimes an organ recital, but church music, which is how even Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue’ was perceived, was not everybody’s cup of tea.

  The lights went down and a hush fell over the audience. The curtains swept open to reveal a painted backdrop of a river bank depicting a wooden fort flying the Union flag. In front of various crude, distant dwellings players stood, dressed as seventeenth century colonists. The action began when they assembled round a group of seven military men who entered, Clarence Froggatt among them.

  Marigold listened to the dialogue for a few seconds then whispered to Algie, ‘They don’t half talk funny, don’t they? Can you understand what they’re on about?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be how they spoke in the sixteen hundreds, I think.’

  ‘Oh …’ She was content with the explanation for a minute or two, then whispered, ‘When does your Kate come on?’

  ‘Soon, I would think.’

  The next scene was the inside of a wigwam. Powhatan entered, whom Marigold immediately recognised as the butcher she’d met earlier and didn’t like.

  ‘That’s him from the butcher’s,’ she whispered, heard by those behind who tittered with amusement at the remark. Algie laughed too.

  ‘The sun has set,’ cried Powhatan poetically, but to Marigold he was still the odious butcher. ‘And Pocahontas returns.’

  At which point, Pocahontas made her entrance. There was a collective gasp, especially from the ladies, when they saw how revealing her short costume was, rendered from pieces of yellow chamois leather stitched coarsely together. Her lissom legs, slender arms, face and elegant neck had been browned with stage paint to give a tanned effect, and her dark hair, hanging loose over her shoulders, afforded her a look of exotic authenticity. She looked strikingly different, but also disturbingly, almost indecently lovely, and a deathly hush enveloped the auditorium in anticipation of her first line.