The Lock-Keeper's Son

by Nancy Carson

  Algie looked around at the turmoil that was beginning to subside now, wondering if there was anything else he could do. He went to one of the policemen and offered his services as a witness to the accident, if they should need him later. The policeman jotted down his name and address in his notebook and thanked him, and Algie went off in search of Marigold.

  He scoured the street, but there was no sign of her. Harriet and two of her sisters were heading towards the Bell, and she told him they hadn’t seen her either. A little later, as he walked further along High Street and even beyond the town hall, still he had not seen her. He saw a dogcart coming towards him carrying two men, and guessed correctly that it was Clarence conveying his father to the scene of the accident. He hailed them, asking Clarence if he’d seen Marigold. Clarence drew the dogcart to a halt briefly.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen her. I’m sure you’ll spot her though soon. Is it possible she might have gone home?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied miserably.

  ‘Maybe you’ll catch her up if you hurry.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  Clarence felt inside his cape and withdrew his fob watch. ‘Ten to eleven.’

  ‘Already? I’d best get a move on.’

  Algie felt like asking for a lift, but realised that conveying the doctor to the overturned tram was infinitely more important than his trivial tiff with Marigold, so he raised his hand in a parting gesture and hurried homewards on foot.

  Marigold was indeed returning home to the pair of narrowboats moored near the Bottle and Glass. She hurried through the dark streets, unsure of her way, frightened and watchful of drunks that lurched towards her so menacingly, running if she thought she was being pursued. Tears stung her eyes. Algie had lied to her. He’d been lying to her all along. He’d been seeing Harriet behind her back while she was traipsing up and down the canal network in the Sultan and the Odyssey, tied to her family and their work. It pained her to acknowledge the fact. He might as well have plunged a dagger in her heart, it hurt so much. She had harboured such cherished dreams of the future, happily settled with Algie. To be suddenly faced with his deceit was heartbreaking. She could not forgive him. How could she? Never would she be able to trust him again. There was no other course open to her now but to forget him. For her own self-esteem and future peace of mind she had to give him up, no matter how much it hurt. No more would she allow herself to be used and abused. Never again would she yield to his sexual desires. However much those pleasurable times had meant to her, they were in the past now and would not be repeated.

  Just what had been going on with that Harriet? And for how long? To think he had taken her to meet his gaffer … What did he see in her? Her face was like the stern of a narrowboat, her nose its rudder. It was the ultimate insult to be cast aside for a girl so plain. Well, at least she had found out about the two of them before it was too late.

  She arrived at the basin by the dry dock and slipped surreptitiously along the towpath where their two narrowboats were barely distinguishable silhouettes against the blackness of the night. A light shone feebly from the window of the Sultan’s cabin. She stepped onto the gunwale and opened the door.

  ‘I want to sleep in here tonight, Mother,’ she said, wiping tears from her eyes with the rag she kept in the pocket of her skirt.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, our Marigold?’ Hannah enquired, raising her eyes from the sewing she was doing by the yellow light of an oil lamp. ‘You’re crying.’

  The youngest child was asleep on his bed. Marigold pulled a stool from under the folding table that would later convert into the cross-bed. She sat beside her mother and father.

  ‘I’ve given Algie up,’ she whimpered. ‘If he comes after me he’ll go to the Odyssey, not this boat. He’s been seeing another girl while I’ve been away. Every time I’ve been away, I expect. I ain’t having nothing else to do with him.’

  ‘If it’s the truth, then I don’t blame you, our Marigold. Are you sure it’s the truth?’

  ‘Oh, yes … He as good as admitted it.’

  ‘Then you’m best off without him and no two ways …’ Hannah severed the thread between her teeth and put down her sewing. ‘But I am surprised, our Marigold. I wouldn’t have thought it of young Algie, he’s always so pleasant, he seems so open. And his father’s such a nice chap as well. Which reminds me, I haven’t seen Mr Stokes today.’

  ‘He’s bad a-bed.’

  ‘That explains it. It might explain why young Algie’s a bit strange as well, our Marigold. Maybe he’s worried about his dad.’

  ‘He is, but that ain’t it, Mom. His father ain’t that bad.’

  Algie was intent on going straight to the Binghams’ narrowboats when he returned, but his mother was outside waiting for him, a shawl thrown about her shoulders. By the dim reflection of the lights from the Samson and Lion she looked fraught.

  ‘What brings you outside in the dark?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen Marigold?’

  ‘Marigold?’ His mother queried, totally unaware of her son’s anxiety over his sweetheart. ‘No, I haven’t seen Marigold. I thought she was with you.’

  ‘She was, I was just about to see if she’d come back.’

  ‘Can it wait till morning, our Algie? It’s your father. He’s took a turn for the worse.’

  ‘He’s worse?’ Algie’s attention was immediately diverted. ‘What d’you mean, he’s worse?’

  ‘He’s in terrible pain, our Algie, and feverish. I don’t believe it’s what he’s eaten after all. I think it’s more serious.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I wish I knew. I was hoping as Clarence would bring our Kate back soon, so’s I could ask him to fetch his father to come and have a look at him. I’m sure he could give him something to ease the pain, if it was only laudanum.’

  ‘Doctor Froggatt’s attending to folk in the town, Mother. A tramcar toppled over. I saw it happen with my own eyes. I never saw anything like it. Dozens are hurt. Clarence went and fetched him to tend to them. He might be hours yet. Some folk had got dreadful cuts, kids an’ all.’

  Clara sighed agitatedly. ‘Just when we need him … It’s one thing after another. D’you think you could go back and find him and ask him to come and see your dad. I bet Clarence would bring him.’

  ‘Course I will. I’ll be quicker on my bike though.’

  He rode as fast as he could back to where the tram had overturned. Engineers had arrived and were trying to right it, so that the debris could be cleared and the wreck hauled back to the depot. Algie looked around. Many of those hurt had left by then, as had the bulk of the crowd. Dr Froggatt was still there, however, sitting on a low wall as he attended to the wounds of the crash’s victims, working by the light of a naphtha lamp the police had supplied. He approached, and Dr Froggatt looked up at him enquiringly.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Dr Froggatt, my father’s very ill, and my mother wondered if you could come and see him. D’you think you’ll be here much longer?’

  The doctor studied him for a second. ‘I’ll be here yet a while, lad,’ he said apologetically. ‘There are still a few people to tend to. It’s been a hectic night …’ He looked down again at the gaping cut he was stitching in a man’s lower arm, then back at Algie. ‘Aren’t you the chap who stopped my son and me earlier, when he came to fetch me?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Doctor. Clarence is courting my sister, Kate.’

  ‘Oh, you’re that Kate’s brother, eh? My son said you live in the lock-keeper’s cottage at Buckpool. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Doctor.’

  ‘Course, I’m acquainted with your father. So what’s the matter with him?’

  ‘We don’t rightly know. He’s got terrible pains in the gut, he’s been sick, and now he’s feverish. We thought at first that it was something he ate, but now my mother isn’t so sure, he’s in that much agony.’

  ‘How long has he been suffering?’

  ‘Since the day before yesterday.’ />
  ‘Hmm,’ murmured the doctor. He stood up and dismissed the man he had been attending to, telling him to call and see him at his surgery in a week’s time to have the stitches removed. He turned to Algie again. ‘While I see to the next person here, would you like to alert my son? He’s in the Bell, I believe. If he can get the dogcart brought to me I’ll certainly go and see your father.’

  ‘I wonder, Dr Froggatt … If you would be so good as to drive the gig yourself. My sister could go with you, maybe. My mother could do with her help, I reckon.’

  ‘Very well. While you round them up, I’ll deal with these last couple of people.’

  Algie hurried on to the Bell, leaving his bicycle leaning against the hotel’s wall. He rushed upstairs to the assembly rooms where the party was in full swing. The first person he saw was Murdoch Osborne, who greeted him cordially.

  ‘I’m looking for my sister and Clarence Froggatt,’ Algie said. ‘My father’s poorly and he’s taken a turn for the worse. Mother needs our Kate back home.’

  ‘Your father’s bad?’ Murdoch queried. ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘We don’t know. Dr Froggatt’s going to have a look at him if Clarence takes the dogcart to him.’

  ‘There’s your sister, look.’ He pointed towards her.

  Algie thanked him and barged his way through the crowd of folk. Kate was accepting the plaudits of her fellow performers and her smile was radiant, until he interrupted her. He explained what had happened and she tugged at Clarence’s jacket to alert him while he was speaking to somebody else. She repeated what Algie had told her, and he looked with alarm at Algie.

  ‘My father wants the dogcart?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes, he’s still outside at the crash. He says he’ll take our Kate back home, because Mother will need her. I’ll walk back there with you, if you like, Clarence, and you can go back home to your house with your father when he’s done at ours.’

  ‘Sounds fair,’ Clarence agreed, and they all left, bidding a brief farewell to Murdoch Osborne.

  ‘Let me know how he is,’ Murdoch entreated as Kate swept past him.

  When the doctor and Kate were on their way, Algie walked with Clarence to the lock-keeper’s cottage, wheeling his bike in the gutter.

  ‘What an eventful night, eh?’ Clarence remarked. ‘The success of the play, that tramcar crash with all those poor folk hurt, and now your father being so poorly. My father will have had quite a night of it, don’t you think?’

  ‘And it’s not over yet,’ Algie replied grimly. He thought of Marigold and his stomach churned. ‘To top it all, me and Marigold have had a row,’ he admitted. ‘I haven’t seen her since before I saw you. I wanted to see if she’d got back to their boat all right, but I never had the chance. First thing in the morning I must go to her and make my peace. It’s bad enough the worry over my father, without worrying over her as well.’ He wondered which was bothering him more, his father’s illness or Marigold’s abrupt departure.

  ‘Strange creatures, women,’ Clarence said. ‘At certain times of the month some of them are prone to behave very irrationally. My father reckons it’s something to do with their monthly cycles. I must say, I sometimes find it difficult to make out Kate. She can be very queer at times.’

  ‘Marigold has got this streak of jealousy in her,’ Algie confided, as if they were blood brothers. ‘And she can be bloody obstinate. She’s convinced I’m still seeing Harriet Meese, and once she’s got something into her head there’s no shifting it. To tell you the truth, I’m not the least bit interested in Harriet Meese, but you try telling Marigold that.’

  ‘Harriet’s a fine girl, though, Algie, old man. She can be very charming … and what a figure … And you did take her to dinner at the home of some friends, did you not? Or so Kate tells me.’

  ‘Only because Marigold wasn’t around. I would’ve taken Marigold. I would rather have taken Marigold. She’s my girl.’

  They stepped out purposefully, anxious to get to the lock-keeper’s cottage as soon as they could.

  ‘How are you and Kate getting on?’ Algie enquired. ‘You reckon she’s hard work as well sometimes, do you?’

  ‘Kate worries me, Algie.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Can I be frank with you, Algie? I mean quite brutally frank? Man to man?’

  ‘Course. What’s bothering you?’

  ‘Well … you know how it is with us men and our girls … We have the need to … well … not to put too fine a point on it … to release some of our pent-up energies.’

  ‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean, Clarence,’ Algie replied with a matey grin. ‘And I reckon I’m lucky with Marigold … you know what I mean? But that’s just between you and me, Clarence.’

  Clarence looked at Algie and smiled knowingly. ‘I am the soul of discretion, Algie. Depend on it. You’re a lucky chap, you know – she’s a very pretty girl, is Marigold.’

  ‘Oh, she’s lovely,’ Algie agreed.

  ‘So is Kate, of course. I thought she would never come across with the goods at one time. Fought me off virtuously for ages. But then, suddenly, she changed. Needless to say, I didn’t need any second bidding.’ He wondered whether he was being too frank and looked apologetically at Algie. ‘I really hope you don’t regard—’

  ‘I ain’t in the least surprised,’ Algie replied.

  ‘Oh? What do you know that I ought to know?’

  ‘I oughtn’t to say, Clarence. Already I think I’ve said too much. Kate is my sister. It wouldn’t be fair to say anything else.’

  ‘No, come on, old man, out with it. You’ve made a comment. You must either substantiate it or withdraw it. Whichever way it is, I beg of you to tell me the truth, since I’ve formed my own conclusions. A great deal may depend on what you say.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, Clarence, I don’t think you’re the first.’

  ‘Really? She led me to believe I was.’

  ‘Our Kate?’ Algie said scornfully.

  ‘My God …’ Clarence rolled his eyes as his own doubts suddenly seemed justified. ‘It’s interesting you say that, Algie. The first time it happened … you know … after she’d claimed so insistently that she was a virgin, I … well, it all seemed too easy … Look, I hope you don’t mind me talking about your sister like this, Algie?’

  ‘Me? Course not.’

  ‘But you know how it is first time for a girl – bloody hard going – quite literally … It struck me at the time that she was no more a virgin than I was.’ Clarence sighed and they walked on in silence for a little while. Then he said, ‘I wish it were not so, Algie, old man, because I’d quite taken to Kate. But if a girl with her looks, who could really have any man she wanted, is inclined to looseness, then what peace of mind would I have if we ever got wed? I’d be afraid to turn my back lest she was flat on hers with somebody else. Good Lord, no.’ He shuddered at the thought. ‘Ah, well. It was great fun while it lasted, but I think that will be the end of it. It just remains now to tell her.’

  Just as Algie and Clarence arrived at the lock-keeper’s cottage, Dr Froggatt was upstairs pronouncing his diagnosis on Will Stokes.

  ‘Peritonitis,’ he said grimly to Clara. ‘All I can do is treat him with comforting applications. Mr Stokes is obviously in a great deal of discomfort, and running a temperature. I’ll need bread for poultices, Mrs Stokes, and hot water.’ He rummaged through his black bag. ‘I have some laudanum here that will deaden the pain for your husband. If he could be persuaded to take a few drops in a small amount of brandy … And do you have another lamp?’

  It was shortly before midnight when Dr Froggatt treated Will Stokes with comforting poultices by the light of two oil lamps. Clara watched anxiously. Dr Froggatt hardly spoke while he worked, except for the occasional grunt, from which Clara was unable to discern satisfaction or concern. All she knew was that her husband was suffering.

  ‘I have done my level best, Mrs Stokes,’ Dr Froggatt said forebodingly, looking at Clara with sympa
thy. ‘Tell me, are you a praying woman?’

  ‘Not especially, Doctor.’

  He smiled benignly through his tiredness. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to start, you know. Your husband is going to need every bit of God’s help he can get, as well as your careful nursing.’

  ‘You don’t sound very encouraging, Doctor,’ Clara said.

  ‘Unfortunately, we do not know very much about peritonitis. We don’t know what sets it off, but by the time we’ve diagnosed it, it’s generally too late. The effects of its poisons, you see, are rapid and generally lethal, which makes it a very dangerous illness.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll recover?’

  ‘That I cannot promise. Your husband should sleep now after the laudanum. Keep him comfortable and warm, and apply more poultices if you think they are beneficial. I’ll call again tomorrow. If you need me in the meantime, don’t hesitate to send for me.’

  Chapter 15

  Algie, Kate and Clarence sat in the scullery awaiting news of Will. The floorboards above them creaked as Dr Froggatt shifted his weight from one foot and one plank to another as he worked on the patient. Kate’s enthusiastic recounting of her successful evening irritated Algie, who was listening with his other ear for the doctor’s muffled comments and his mother’s softer, anxious replies. He could only conjecture on what might be happening. One thing was certain; Will’s illness was infinitely more serious than any of them had hitherto imagined.

  The sporadic comments, deadened by the barriers of bed, mat, a layer of linoleum and floorboards, then became a conversation, but unintelligible to Algie. The sound of water being poured into a basin from a jug telegraphed to him that the doctor’s work might be over.

  ‘Hark!’ he said, interrupting Kate’s unremitting flow. He looked at his sister with apprehension, and she clung to Clarence’s arm. ‘The doctor’s finished, by the sounds of it. They’re coming down.’

  Dr Froggatt descended the stairs carrying his bag and entered the room.

  ‘How is he, Doctor Froggatt?’ Algie asked, his face an icon of anxiety.