by Nancy Carson
‘Your father is very poorly, Mr Stokes, and I shall repeat what I have told your mother.’ He explained his diagnosis, and Algie was aghast. ‘If you need to send for me in the night, don’t hesitate.’
‘Thank you, Doctor Froggatt,’ Algie said, rising from his chair. ‘For everything.’
The doctor nodded his acknowledgement with a tired smile. ‘In the meantime, I’ll bid you goodnight. Are you coming home with me, Clarence?’
‘No, Father. You go on in the dogcart. I’ll walk back later.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Goodnight, Father.’
When the doctor had departed, Clarence said, ‘Kate, if you’d like to take a walk with me in the fresh air …’
‘What? At this time o’ night?’
‘Please. There’s something I need to discuss with you.’
‘Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’
‘I’d prefer not to wait.’
Kate got up reluctantly, tutting. ‘Fancy having to venture out into the cold on a night like this.’
‘I’ll go up,’ Algie offered. ‘You can do your talking here, save going out into the cold.’
‘Save yourself the trouble, Algie.’ Clarence flashed him a knowing look from beneath his telling frown. ‘We’ll go for a walk.’
Clarence’s voice sounded full of pent-up emotion. He’d spoken and heard little while they had been waiting downstairs awaiting news, immersed in his own thoughts. Kate’s effervescing over her stage success had gone largely over his head, and seemed, in any case, to exclude him, as if he’d had no part in the play. Nor did Kate show any signs of anxiety over her father. The severity of his suffering had hardly sunk in. She donned her mantle and bonnet, and followed Clarence outside.
‘What’s so important as can’t be said in the house nor wait till tomorrow?’ she asked expectantly, fully believing he had decided to propose marriage, prompted by her new-found local celebrity status. It would, after all, be a fitting tribute to what had been a day of overwhelming personal triumph for her.
‘I want to talk about us, Kate. The future.’
‘Are you about to ask me to marry you?’ she said, her eyes widening with pleasure and forgiveness, for being dragged out into the chill night air.
‘On the contrary, Kate. I’m telling you that I’m giving you up. I don’t envisage any future for us as a couple.’
Kate was stunned, uncertain how to react. ‘Well!’ she exclaimed, deflated and struggling to find an appropriate response. ‘That ain’t exactly what I expected to hear.’
‘I’m sorry, Kate. It’s not been an easy decision to make.’
‘Have you got somebody else?’ she asked, as if such a thing would be a cardinal sin.
‘No. Of course there’s nobody else. When do I have the time to see anybody else?’
‘You’ve picked a great time to tell me, when me father’s so bad,’ she said, her indignation rising at his thorough lack of consideration. ‘As if he ain’t enough to worry about. Now this.’
He wanted to say that she had not even mentioned her father while he was being attended to, that she had been oblivious to the poor chap and his plight, only interested in herself and how much people might admire her after the performance in the town hall. But he thought better of it.
‘So what’s turned you against me?’ she asked. ‘For ages now I’ve sensed as something was wrong.’
‘Oh, it’s not you, Kate, it’s me,’ he said softly, willing to shoulder all blame. ‘It’s something that’s been occupying me a while. You see, I really don’t want to be tied down just now. I have examinations pending. Important examinations. I need time for more study, without distractions.’
‘Shall you still belong to the Amateur Dramatics Society?’ This was a relevant question, for seeing him there in future might be too embarrassing, and she had no intention of giving up the literal limelight now.
‘Possibly not. I may well have to give it a miss next year.’
Well, at least that was a blessing.
Their footsteps crunching on the towpath’s ash surface were deafening in the silence that surrounded them. Kate fell quiet for long seconds, ruminating over what this all meant. ‘Of course, you’ve ruined me,’ she pronounced at last. ‘Who else is gonna be interested in me now?’
He felt like saying that she could pretend to be untouched, like she had pretended with him. She might even fool a more naïve or more besotted suitor.
‘I ought to sue you for breach of promise,’ she went on, ‘ruining me like you have.’
‘You’d have your work cut out,’ he replied evenly. ‘Even if you could afford it. We were never engaged. I have never asked you to marry me.’
‘So I’m left on the shelf now to rot, am I?’
‘Come on, Kate. You’re hardly on the shelf at nineteen.’
‘Nearly twenty. Soiled goods, I am, though. What decent, respectable chap is gonna want me when he knows I ain’t a maid?’
‘I believe any girl as beautiful as you are, Kate, can have her pick of men,’ he said sincerely, ‘whether or not you are a maid, as you so quaintly put it. Just beckon – and men will come running.’
‘Except you. You’re running in the opposite direction. And what if I’m pregnant, Clarry? What then?’
‘If you are pregnant, Kate, we shall deal with it. There are ways and means … However, you can rest assured that whatever transpires, I shall not marry you.’
‘Not? Even if I do turn out to be pregnant?… You swine!’
‘How would I possibly know that any child would be mine?’
‘How d’you think? I ain’t been with nobody else.’
‘I only have your word for that, Katie …’
While Kate was out walking with Clarence, and his mother was upstairs sitting with his father, Algie decided to take a walk along the canal in the other direction to make some sense of what had happened. The rain had ceased and holes were visible in the clouds, through which the moon sailed briskly, lighting up his way. The narrowboats belonging to the Binghams lay in darkness, which told him that Marigold had indeed returned safely; if she had not, her mother would still be waiting up for her with a lamp burning. That in itself was a relief; something less to concern him. Tomorrow, after breakfast, he would make his peace with Marigold.
He walked on, towards Dadford’s Shed and its adjacent bridge, passing the numerous locks, the winding holes and weirs that made the descent into Wordsley possible. He began to realise how remarkably perceptive Marigold had been. She had discerned that he had been diverted by another woman, a diversion he could hardly deny to himself, however futile. Marigold, though, had picked the wrong woman. She had jumped to the conclusion that it was Harriet, when nothing could have been further from the truth.
Yet why had he allowed himself to become so preoccupied with Aurelia Sampson? She could never be his. She might as well live on the moon, for she would be just as close there as she was in Brierley Hill. Even if she were still unmarried she wouldn’t look twice at him. She was way out of his reach. At that very moment she would almost certainly be lying in bed with Benjamin, probably doing what all young and virile married couples do. At least this rift with Marigold had brought him to his senses, made him realise how stupid he had been to allow himself to be so diverted.
Tomorrow, he would make a clean breast of it. He would tell Marigold all. He would confess how he had been boyishly infatuated with Aurelia Sampson, not Harriet, and tell her how daft he had been to let it affect his attitude and his true feelings. He would tell Marigold how much he loved her, how he hoped they would soon be able to marry, fulfilling her dreams and his. After all, if the new bicycle making venture was successful, he would be earning significantly more money than at present; enough to rent a decent house and live in comparative comfort. He would pledge eternal fidelity, and cross his heart and hope to die, to underline his good and true intentions. In time they would become highly respected members of the community.
/> He felt rain on his face again. Maybe he’d better go back home, save getting wet, and see how his father was. So, before he got as far as Dadford’s Bridge, he turned around.
Dadford’s Bridge … What lovely, romantic hours he and Marigold had spent in the fields nearby during the long, hot summer and early autumn, concealed from the world in grassy hollows and by gorse bushes. If only he were lying there with her now, and it were a warm, balmy evening. He would be sure to tell her how very much he loved her.
Only now was it clear to him how surreptitiously, but how surely, Marigold had stolen his heart. It had never been his intention to fall in love, but he just couldn’t help it. At the outset he had only ever envisaged a casual courtship, just somebody to have fun with whenever she and her family moored up close by. Never more than that. What tricks life played on us, trapping us when we least expect it. Yet who could fail to fall in love with Marigold? Delightful, lovable, beautiful, forthright poppet that she was. How could he have been so puerile, so selfish? Well, only now, after she had had the courage to walk away from him, was he beginning to realise how privileged he had been to have her love. Their silly argument had been a timely reminder, forcing him to realise her true worth. Well, it had certainly served to make him appreciate her the more, and made him sincerely regret his cavalier attitude earlier.
As he walked quietly past their boats, he was almost tempted to tap on the window of the Odyssey’s cabin, in an attempt to wake her so that he could take her in his arms and just say, ‘I love you’. But he didn’t. He would only succeed in waking the other children who slept with her, causing ructions, and they would have no privacy in which to reconcile their differences. It must keep till morning. Then she would have slept on their argument and would be more inclined to forgive him. So he ambled past, crossed the lock gates and opened the garden gate to their own lock-keeper’s cottage.
His mother was downstairs, sitting at the table, her head in her hands, holding a handkerchief to her nose. Kate was with her, also in tears, trying to comfort her.
‘How’s Father?’ he asked apprehensively.
‘Your father’s dead, Algie,’ Clara croaked, and then wailed with a stream of tears running down her anguished face. ‘He passed away a quarter of an hour ago.’
‘Dead?’
She nodded.
His father could not be dead.
His father was not an old man. He had years of life left in him. He’d always been healthy, hardly suffered a day’s illness in his life.
‘How can you be sure he’s dead, Mother?’ he queried in anxious disbelief, but speaking softly lest it were true. ‘He might just be sleeping sound, hardly breathing. The laudanum could’ve done that. I’m going up to see him. I’ll see if I can wake him.’ Algie could hear the tremble of panic in his own voice.
‘Yes, go up and see him, if you want to,’ Clara blubbered. ‘But you won’t wake him. I wish to God you could, but you won’t, our Algie. He’s dead. Dr Froggatt said as how we should pray for him. He didn’t hold out much hope.’
Algie felt a tear trickle down his cheek. Already he was emotionally battered over his upset with Marigold. Now his father was dead. Could not the Lord have spaced his trials and tribulations more widely, so that he could come to terms with one before having to face the other?
‘I’m going up,’ he said. ‘I want to see my father. I can’t believe he’s dead …’
He rushed up the stairs and into the bedroom. One oil lamp was still burning, casting a flickering orange glow onto the pale green floral wallpaper of the bedroom. Will Stokes was lying lifeless, the sheets and blankets folded neatly down over his chest, leaving just his head visible above them. His face was pale and waxy, but he looked at peace, with no sign of the agony he’d suffered lately. His hair had been brushed so that not one was out of place. It was typical of his mother to do that last service for her husband.
Algie knelt at the side of the bed where his father lay, and he wept.
He did not want his father dead. He wanted him to turn his head, to open his eyes and ask him to give him a hand with one of the locks that needed attention. He wanted to talk to him, to discuss cricket and pick the best possible English team. If only he could ask his advice about the best thing to do about Marigold. His father would have known what to do, what to say. But now he could not ask him. He was gone from Algie. Gone forever.
Where was the justice? Where was the reason? If there was a God, why did He have to take his father? Why his father, a good and kind man who had never wished anybody any harm? Why did God see fit to take a man who had only ever helped folk, a man who had been a kind and gracious neighbour to all and respected by all, including the boat people? Why now? The questions were never ending and unanswerable.
But the grief was only just beginning.
None of the Stokes family slept well that night. Clara had lost her husband, Kate had lost her father as well as Clarence, whom she had grown to admire. Algie, however, thus far only believed he had lost his father, which was upsetting enough.
He got up that morning, lit a fire and put the kettle to boil, turning over in his mind exactly what he would say to Marigold. Of course, the fact that his father had died in the night would elicit all her sympathy, and ensure her reasonableness and forgiveness. He made a pot of tea and delivered a mug each to his mother and Kate, then went downstairs and outside to see Marigold. This was, he hoped, about to become the most important moment of his life. He was about to ask Marigold to become his wife.
But when he stepped outside he saw that the Binghams had gone. Their two narrowboats were no longer moored.
Only then did he realise he had lost Marigold too.
They must have left very early, and it was sure to have been at Marigold’s behest. Otherwise, they would still be there, waiting till first light on Monday to leave for Worcester, as she had told him they would. Maybe he should ride along the canal till he caught up with them. He sat on the sturdy wooden arms of the lock gates and sighed, pondering this latest blow.
Obviously, Marigold did not want to see him, she did not want reconciliation. If she did, she would still be there, available and anxious for his apologies or, as she might choose to perceive them, his excuses. No, she had made it all too plain.
It was over.
Finished.
He tried hard to make sense of all this, but no sense would come. Would he ever come to terms with what he had lost? Would the world ever be the same again? If only he could turn back the clock to the time of Marigold’s previous visit, before his fateful dinner at the home of the Sampsons with Harriet Meese. From that moment he would do things differently. He would politely decline Benjamin Sampson’s offer and hold out until the time was ripe to start his own business, thus obviating the need to visit them. Then he would never have met Aurelia Sampson, whose loveliness and perceived vulnerability had so blinded him and clouded his judgement. He would have clung to Marigold. If he’d had any sense at all he would have gone to see the vicar of St Michael’s and asked for the banns of marriage to be read out; he, Algernon Stokes, bachelor of the parish, and Marigold Bingham, spinster of the parish of … of what parish? How did you define your parish if you spent your life travelling the country’s canal system?
But Marigold was gone anyway. His father was dead. Could his life get any worse? Hot tears stung his eyes, and he forced them back. How could he go back in the house blubbering like a baby? Think of the effect it would have on his mother, who would burst into tears merely at the sight of Will’s hat, or even the tea mug he always used, let alone at sight of his broken-hearted son. He sat on the thick arm of the lock gate and listened to the sound of cascading water, trying to come to terms with all that had happened.
Clara and Kate had risen from the bed they had shared, so as to leave Will lying at peace till they could arrange for an undertaker to have a coffin made. They were sitting in their nightgowns with puffy eyes, brooding over mugs of steaming tea. Clara looked pale and
drawn, and both shivered in the cold, although the fire had caught and was volleying swirls of grey smoke up the chimney when Algie returned.
‘Marigold’s gone,’ he announced sombrely.
The significance of his words was not apparent to them, preoccupied as they were with Will’s sudden death.
‘It can only mean one thing – that she don’t want me anymore … What with that, and my father dying all of a sudden …’
Tears came again, unstoppable and relentless. His shoulders shook with the double dose of grief, and he choked on a great, violent sob that seemed to tear its way out of his heaving chest. His father, whom he loved dearly, had died in pain, and nobody had realised how poorly he was. His one true love, Marigold, was gone, no doubt also wracked with the pain of a broken heart that he had so unthinkingly, so stupidly, so immaturely inflicted. He did not know, he could not tell, which hurt the most; the pain of losing his father, or the pain of losing Marigold. Combined, they were unbearable.
‘She’ll be back this way in a day or two,’ Clara said kindly. ‘I’ll watch out for her.’
‘Not if they get work to take ’em somewhere else,’ he said bleakly. ‘Anyway, she doesn’t want to see me anymore. It’s plain enough.’
‘I feel sorry for you, our Algie, but your suffering’s no worse than mine,’ Kate declared. ‘Me and Clarence finished last night as well. He chucked me.’
He looked up at her through his tears. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Kate.’ At once he felt guilty, for what he’d told Clarence must have caused it.
‘So was I.’ She drew a handkerchief from down her sleeve and dabbed at the tears filling her eyes. ‘But there’s plenty more fish in the sea,’ she added stoically. ‘I shan’t grieve long over Clarence Froggatt.’
‘I wonder what time Dr Froggatt will come,’ Clara said, changing the subject. ‘Of course, he won’t know as your father’s dead. We could save him the bother.’
‘Well, I ain’t going a-nigh his house, Mother. But our Algie could go.’
‘I think Algie’s got enough on his plate, our Kate. Anyway, the doctor will have to see him so’s he can sign the death certificate.’