by Nancy Carson
It seemed likely nevertheless, that she was protecting her own future. After all, Kate might someday marry. He might himself marry one day – as soon as he found Marigold it was indeed his intention. When that happened he would not necessarily want his mother living with him, dependent upon him wholly. It could create friction in his household. Often had he heard it said that a wife and her mother-in-law are not necessarily compatible. Both believe they know the young husband best, what’s best for him, and inevitably each tries to impose her conflicting will upon the other. So wouldn’t it be for her own good to marry, even so soon after being widowed?
‘I think I ought to tell you both,’ Clara said, breaking the awkward silence, ‘that afore I met your father, Murdoch and me were sweethearts.’ She allowed a second or two for this revelation to be absorbed, while Kate flashed grudging glances at her. ‘Oh, we were only young. I was only seventeen or eighteen, and he would have been about twenty. But when I met your father, I gave Murdoch the go-by. Whether or not it was the right thing to do I’ll very likely never know, but it upset him a lot. He used to send me letters saying how heartbroken he was, begging me to go back to him. Anyway, the letters stopped after a bit and I heard as how he’d took up with another young woman called Elizabeth Caddick. Within six months he’d married her.’
‘Proves he’s a fast worker,’ Algie remarked scornfully.
‘That’s as maybe, our Algie, but I’ve always had the feeling that he met and married Elizabeth Caddick on the rebound. I don’t think as he was ever very happy with her, even though he had daughters by her. And the daughters never had much to do with him once they’d grown up, and nothing at all since Elizabeth passed away. Her influence on them, I daresay.’
‘So you reckon he’s always had a hankering for you, do you, Mother?’ suggested Algie, scornful of the notion.
‘I do.’
Algie looked intently at his mother and suddenly realised that there was an aspect of her life and her character about which he knew nothing. She was forty-three years old, had been married at about twenty, and was certainly not unattractive even now. Her face and figure were still youthful for a woman her age. He tried to imagine her at the time of her marriage; about Kate’s age, lovely and alluring, stirring the hearts, the souls and indeed the loins of many young men. For all he knew she might have been of a passionate nature, too. Perhaps even wanton. Kate was wanton, after all. Perhaps Kate had inherited that from her mother, as well as her looks. It must have come from somewhere.
‘So what do you intend to do?’ Algie asked, emerging from his thoughts, seeing his mother in a new light. ‘Are you going to accept him?’
‘Well, it would solve all our problems.’
‘I’d rather we solve our problems ourselves, without any help from Murdoch Osborne. I can look after you, Mother. We don’t need him.’
‘You mightn’t need him, our Algie. But don’t you think that’s a bit selfish? You aren’t thinking about what might be best for me, are you? What about when you and our Kate meet somebody a-piece and want to get wed? You won’t want me stuck with you then, nor should you.’
Algie sighed. ‘It sounds as if your mind’s already made up.’
‘Oh, but only if I have your blessing,’ Clara affirmed. ‘I wouldn’t do it without your blessing. You know that, don’t you? Both of you?’
Kate shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s up to you what you do, Mother. It ain’t as if you’re that well-known in Brierley Hill. Who’d care tuppence what you did? Who’d know that you’d only been a widow five minutes, apart from a few folk? Course, plenty folk know me.’
Algie rolled his eyes at his sister’s vanity, while Clara looked at her son for his response.
‘Well, our Algie?’
‘Look, Mother,’ he said earnestly, ‘I’ve got no wish to stand in the way of your happiness, if you think it’ll make you happy. You deserve to be happy. But I reckon it’d be the wrong thing to marry again so soon after my father’s death. That’s my position. If I said, “All right, marry Mr Osborne”, I’d feel that I was betraying my father. I’m sure you must see that, Mother?’
‘Course I do, our Algie.’
‘But if I condemn it, Mother, I’ll feel as if I’m betraying you. Because, believe me, I can see your point of view. So what am I to do? What are you to do?’
‘Maybe you should let me be the judge, our Algie …’
He shrugged. ‘You’re my mother and I love you. I don’t want you to make a mistake you might live to regret.’
‘On the other hand, Algie, if I turn Murdoch down I might live to regret that as well.’
He nodded his acknowledgement of her dilemma. ‘All I want is for you to be content. If you feel that marrying Murdoch Osborne is the right thing to do, then so be it. Whichever way you decide to jump, I’ll stand by you … if that makes you feel any easier.’
Chapter 19
Clara Stokes and Murdoch Osborne were married by special licence on the bitterly cold and bleak noon of Tuesday the 9th of December 1890. Murdoch stood at Clara’s side in superb dignity, dominating the room in a brand new waistcoat, his shiny new hat occupying one of the vacant chairs along with his new gloves, acquired hurriedly and specially for the occasion.
Clara went through it all with surprising calm, and a ready acquiescence of this rapid marriage. She had had only a few days to think about it and all that it meant. Everything had been so sudden. A decision, so unexpectedly required of her, prompted an urgent answer and had to be made. She had been a widow for only four short weeks. Perhaps that in itself was unique. Ideally, she would have liked a longer time in mourning, if only in fairness to Will’s memory, but her family needed a home, and Murdoch’s was quickly offered; an opportunity too good to miss. Today, seeing all with extraordinary clarity, she was filled with an unanticipated calmness of spirit, for her son and daughter had ultimately sanctioned this union. Merely by his proposal, Murdoch had already given her so much; her sudden preoccupation with, and thoughts that they might even recapture, their youthful courting days, eclipsed almost entirely her grief over Will. Who would have thought, only four or five weeks ago, that she would be married to somebody other than Will?
It was curious how little she pondered Murdoch’s first wife, but she’d never known her except by sight and what she’d heard. In all the times Clara had visited his butcher’s shop she had never once knowingly caught sight of either Elizabeth or his daughters, since they obviously never contributed to his business. It was likely they’d been kept out of the way, confined to the green rurality and cleanliness of Kingswinford. Doubtless, his daughters were at some select school anyway. Clara felt no twinge of jealousy, no great desire to know more. As far as she was concerned, Elizabeth Caddick belonged to his distant past. Maybe she would happen upon a photograph or two when she was installed at Badger House, Murdoch’s home in Kingswinford’s tree-lined High Street. Even Will, so recently deceased, was already bewilderingly consigned to the past too, yet he was of course still vivid in her memory.
Murdoch’s newly adopted family sat with him and his invited witnesses in a private room at the Bell Hotel, to which they’d been conveyed in a hired victoria. Now they were going through the motions of celebrating, with pints of best bitter for the men and whisky with orange cordial for the ladies.
‘We’re in good time for Christmas,’ Murdoch said magnanimously to Clara. ‘I’ll be sure to get a decent flitchen of bacon and the plumpest goose in Staffordshire, for the best Christmas fittle we’ve all ever had, ha?’
Clara smiled agreeably and nodded. She was beginning to look forward to it.
‘Aye, well see if you can get me a goose an’ all, Murdoch,’ Eli Meese responded. ‘Consider this as me firm Christmas order.’
Murdoch grinned amiably. ‘It’s as good as in your oven, Eli, dear friend … Look, the men’s tankards need replenishing. Let me get ’em filled, ha?’ He stood up to go to the bar.
Algie was surprised that Murdoch had
asked Eli Meese to be one of the witnesses (the other was a chap Clara knew vaguely but Algie knew not at all), yet here was Eli, supping a pint with apparent contentment and joviality, unfazed by Algie’s presence.
‘I’ll see to these,’ Eli declared unstintingly, and got up from the settle, thrusting a fat hand into a pocket of his ample trousers. ‘Who wants another?’
Clara and Kate decided they had had sufficient, but Murdoch definitely wanted another pint.
‘Algie?’ Eli prompted.
‘Yes, I’ll have another, thank you, Mr Meese. That’s very generous.’ Eli had actually spoken to him. Wonder of wonders.
When the barman had poured it, Eli first passed Murdoch his pint, then handed Algie his with a magnanimous grin, as if they had been chums since the dawn of time. He then decided to sit himself beside Algie, to Algie’s consternation, and placed his own foaming pint on the table before them.
‘Last time we met, young Algie, I was a bit miffed with thee, as I recall.’
Algie felt himself redden. ‘Understandable to some extent, Mr Meese, in view of what happened.’
‘Aye, well, I was maybe a bit hasty. All I was interested in was protecting me daughter and her good name.’
‘I understand, Mr Meese.’ Algie dipped into his pint self-consciously and took a swig. ‘But I could’ve smoothed it all out proper before somebody else put their oar in, without you having to be involved and upset.’
‘Aye, I realise now as you was calling to see her to explain all, which is commendable enough. You can’t beat being straight, you know. Our Harriet never would have a word said again’ thee anyroad. I know as you ain’t a bad lad at heart, Algie.’
‘That’s nice to hear.’ He managed a smile.
‘She’s a good wench, is our Harriet.’ Eli gulped at his beer and wiped away the foam that clung to his top lip with the back of his hand, awaiting Algie’s inevitable confirmation of his pronouncement.
‘Yes, I know it as well as anybody, Mr Meese. And I was only sorry that I was the cause of her being upset. ’Specially when I think so highly of her.’
‘Well, mebbe your best way round it would’ve been to give the wench up afore you begun messing with others. Still, it’s all water under the bridge now, lad.’
Algie nodded, looking suitably remorseful, yet not quite sure why he’d been forgiven so unexpectedly.
‘Anyroad,’ Eli went on, ‘since you’m now the stepson of my good old mate Murdoch Osborne, it puts a different slant on things altogether.’
Ah! So that was it. He’d gone up in the world. He was more acceptable now that he was Murdoch’s stepson. Which actually surprised him – he would have thought that his mother’s scandalously early marriage to Murdoch might have had the opposite effect. Well, indeed it might with some folk, but evidently not with Eli. He wondered what Harriet and Priss Meese thought of that aspect of the affair.
‘What’s more, I got no objection anymore to you being friendly with me daughter,’ Eli continued. ‘I just wanted you to know, that’s all. Ever since you and she parted she’s been mooching round our house with a face as long as a station platform. Don’t know how best to cheer her up. That ain’t to say as she’s maudlin all the while. Sometimes she’s bright enough, but the wench has got nothing to interest her much at the moment. Course, she needs another chap, somebody to perk up her interest in herself again. Young women do, you know, Algie. It’s only natural, take it from me.’ He took a quick slurp of his beer. ‘Otherwise they go to seed. Pop round to our house sometime, young Algie, and see if you can’t buck her up a bit.’
Algie smiled graciously, hiding his astonishment at receiving such an invitation. ‘You never know, Mr Meese. I might just do that.’
‘Any time. So how d’you reckon you’ll take to living in Kingswinford?’
‘It’ll be further to travel to work.’
‘Still got that bike?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve still got me bike.’
‘Saves a fortune in tram fares and shoe leather, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Well, it’ll be hard work pedalling all the way up to Dudley, but at least I’ll be able to freewheel back.’
Eli even laughed. It was the first time Algie had ever seen the man laugh at all in his presence.
The parish of Kingswinford was somewhat different to Brierley Hill. Although only a couple of miles or so away, it was mostly green fields, small farms and big houses. One clay pit and a coal pit, the spoil of which seemed to be slowly encroaching down the hill from Pensnett, was still far enough away not to be seen. Kingswinford was devoid of the industry and its sulphurous smoke that hung over the Black Country so gruesomely. The village was where many of the successful, black-coated factory owners and merchants took up residence, a respite from the pit banks, the soot and the squalor where they spent their working hours and made their fortunes.
Badger House, Murdoch’s home, promised a life of relative bucolic splendour, for he had done himself proud as a High Street butcher. It was typical of Kingswinford’s gracious style, suggesting rustic peace and quiet. This double-fronted gentleman’s residence boasted a pillared porch and well-swept steps up to the glossy green-painted door. Algie saw it for the first time when the wedding party returned from the Bell Hotel. He thought how pleasant it must look in summer with its shrubbery of laurel and laburnum to the side, and a smooth lawn at the front, coated now in crunchy frost, with what looked like a pear tree set in the middle, yet sorry-looking in the grey cold of winter.
The maid, named Araminta, who opened the shining green door for them, was decidedly plain. Murdoch had previously described her as having a face like a pumpkin and figure like a bag of washing, and claimed she was engaged. The cook, Freda, was middle-aged, but could once have been a beauty and Algie assumed that she must have been married at some point. But he liked the servants, admired their conscientiousness, and was always appreciative and pleasant to them when they inevitably came into contact.
While the family’s luggage was being brought in, they were shown to the sitting room at the rear, where French windows looked out onto a lawn that was host to more fruit trees; apple and damson. Beyond lay a field, lined with tall elms on one side, and a haystack in one corner, giving the distinct impression that it was closer to the countryside than to the collieries and ironworks.
Life seemed destined to settle quickly and easily into an agreeable routine at Badger House. Clara had never been used to servants, and felt no social superiority over them. Rather, she approached them with a certain deference. It was with guilt and some reticence that she began to give them their orders and they, in turn, recognised her awkwardness, which resulted in empathy between them. Kate on the other hand, immediately fell into the part into which she had been cast – the lady of the manor. She was only too eager to let them know that she considered herself way above them, and quickly established a lofty position in the domestic hierarchy.
On the evening of the second day of his marriage, Murdoch and Kate left the house together in his trap to attend the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society’s rehearsal at the Drill Hall. Clara and Algie stayed at their new home, warm in front of a blazing fire, enjoying the novelty of the bright light that the gas lamps emitted. Clara was quietly planning what small changes she might make over the coming weeks to the décor, and arrangement of knick-knacks and furniture. That aspect had evidently been neglected during Murdoch’s widowhood, and not since addressed with any enthusiasm by Araminta either.
Algie’s bedroom overlooked the main road at the front of the house. Much as he relished the comforts of this house he dreaded bedtimes. He found himself lying in his cocoon listening for the creak of bedsprings from the room his mother now shared with Murdoch. It was torture. He hated to think of her being subjected to something that he believed she would not relish, putting up with it for the sake of gaining a roof over their heads. As far as he was concerned she had made the ultimate sacrifice, a sacrifice he would rather she had refu
sed.
Such shenanigans would naturally occupy and preoccupy all young newly-weds, but the middle-aged …? Surely not. So he tried to divert his attention with thoughts of Marigold. He wondered what she was doing, where she might be, how she felt now about their parting. Did she regret, by this time, running away? Was she as desperate to see him as he was to see her, or was he actually fading from her thoughts little by little, day by day? Come Saturday afternoon if he could, and certainly on Sunday before darkness fell, he would cycle along the likely stretches of canal to see if the Binghams were moored up anywhere, or at least ask if anybody had seen them. For his own peace of mind he had to know where he stood. Did Marigold still love him and want to be his wife, or was she so disenchanted with his antics that she would have nothing more to do with him? He had to find out. It was driving him mad.
He pondered Aurelia, too, as he lay in his new bed. And the more he pondered her, the stronger was the realisation that, against all expectations, and for some reason too obscure to fathom, she seemed to be interested in him. The way she had stood at her front door and waved him off with such apparent reluctance provided the clue, as did the way she held him so tenderly, encouraging him to share his grief over his father’s death. Aurelia was no ordinary, uncaring person. She was a delightfully sensitive soul, but a soul he firmly believed was troubled, owned and overseen as she was by that overbearing, undeserving, unsympathetic jackass who was her master. If only he had known her before the jackass. They would have been a perfect match for each other. Algie would have loved her, heart and soul, and she him. He was sure of it. But then he was deluding himself with silly, romantic daydreams, as he so often did. He could never have competed against the jackass’s wealth and position … nor even his looks come to that; not realistically. Aurelia, therefore, was one who would have got away anyway … as Marigold almost certainly had.