by Nancy Carson
‘Just afore we go in, Mother …’ Marigold checked Hannah, holding her back gently by her arm. ‘Thank you for being so good about me carrying this child … I’m sure I don’t deserve it. I was expecting you to go mad.’
‘What’d be the point of me going mad? You need our love and care at a time like this, our Marigold, not our condemnation.’
Seth appeared from the cabin of the Sultan, a grin on his face as he stood by the tiller. ‘I should get in here quick, afore this lot o’ greedy buggers scoff all the bacon …’
‘There’s plenty more,’ Hannah affirmed. ‘Why don’t you go and see whether the pump’s froze at the Navigation?’
‘Aye, in a minute,’ he said. ‘When you’n had your bre’fasses. I’ll go to the stables as well and see to Victoria. That poor hoss’ll want some fresh fittles and a drink o’ wairter.’
‘That poor hoss’ll be froze,’ said Hannah. ‘Throw that old rug over him, Seth. It’ll help to keep him warm. In fact, I’ll walk over to the pump with you. There’s something I want to tell you …’
Chapter 20
‘I still can’t get over Algie Stokes’s mother marrying Murdoch Osborne, you know, Harriet, so soon after poor Mr Stokes’s death,’ Priss said as they were walking to the Drill Hall. ‘I think it’s a scandal.’
Each was swathed in a scarf and a winter hat and mantle to keep out the awful cold, as well as muffs to keep their hands warm. The festive season had long since passed, but the bitter cold weather lingered on.
‘Maybe she just fancied having somebody to cuddle up to in bed at night, to keep her warm,’ Harriet replied dismissively, as much to defend Algie’s name as his mother’s. She adjusted her hat to deflect the cold wind from her face. ‘Lord knows, you need some protection from this weather, and a warming pan isn’t so soft and cuddly.’
‘But that’s the form of a girl of nineteen, not a woman of two- or three-and-forty, or however old she is.’
‘Of course, you’re an authority on cuddling up to a lover in bed, aren’t you, Priss?’ Harriet bantered with measured sarcasm.
‘Oh, thank you, dear sister,’ Priss responded, feigning sweetness. ‘How succinctly you put things.’
‘Because you’re the epitome of all that’s stiff-necked and straight-laced, that’s why.’
‘And you are not? Anyway, I still maintain that Clara Stokes should not have married Murdoch Osborne so soon after her husband’s death. Why, it almost looks as if they’d been having an affair before the poor devil passed on, and she couldn’t wait to get her feet up at his hearth.’
Harriet shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Priss. I really don’t. Clara would never go out at night – she was scared. When else would they have met to conduct an affair? And not only when, but where? In the back of his butcher’s shop with all that raw meat? In any case, even though I felt shocked – as you do – when I first heard about it from Father, I’ve since altered my opinion. I think it was quite a sensible thing to do. She’s had the sense to grasp an opportunity. At least the poor woman will have some security in her old age when Algie and Kate have fled the nest. Anyway, Algie and Kate couldn’t have objected too strongly either, else she wouldn’t have done it, I’m sure.’
‘Well, I don’t approve of second marriages in any case,’ said Priss. ‘Nothing would induce me to contract a second marriage.’
‘Time enough to muse over a second marriage once you’ve pulled off the first,’ Harriet quipped.
‘All the same,’ Priss went on, ignoring the sisterly taunt, ‘I’d be inclined to have nothing to do with Algie ever again if I were you, even if he does come calling, as Father has so indiscreetly invited him to do. You don’t want any of that embarrassment reflecting on you. There’s bound to be gossip. Considerable gossip. In fact, if Father were not a friend of Murdoch Osborne, I would strongly advise Mother to avoid his shop and buy our meat elsewhere. Maybe we should avoid the amateur dramatics society, too, for fear of our own characters being tainted.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Priss. You take things too far. Talk is so cheap. It’ll be just another nine-day wonder.’
‘Well, I’ve a mind to ask the sweet and beautiful Miss Stokes what she thinks of the affair.’
‘You would never.’
‘Why not? I’m sure she’d love to air her views. Who else has she got to air them to now that the equally sweet and beautiful Mr Froggatt has cast her aside? By the way, have you seen Clarence Froggatt lately?’
Harriet felt herself go hot, and was glad that the darkness of the night concealed her blushes from her sister. ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ she admitted, feigning nonchalance.
‘You’ve kept that quiet. So tell me.’
‘I was coming out of the circulating library as he was going in …’
‘Go on … Tell me more … Well, why are you hesitating, Harriet?’
‘Because … he asked to see me.’
‘And you haven’t mentioned it before? Harriet, fancy not telling me. You’re the limit. I take it you said yes?’
‘Of course I said yes.’
‘So when are you seeing him?’
‘Saturday. He’s taking me to the Public Hall at the Mechanics’ Institute in Dudley. The Netherton Amateur Dramatics Society is staging a play. And Father has given me permission to go.’
‘You dark horse! I’m certain you wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t dragged it out of you.’
They reached the Drill Hall. A fire was burning in the stove, a magnet for the chilled souls who had shown up already, standing dithering under the rafters in that bare, echoing room. Murdoch Osborne followed them in with Kate Stokes; a natural arrangement, Harriet realised, since he was married to her mother now and they lived in the same house.
Kate made a beeline for the two sisters. They discussed the bleakness of the weather, of course, and the fact that the Meeses’ tap had frozen up, before Kate announced what she’d been itching to tell them.
‘I’ve made up my mind that I want to become a professional actress on the London stage. The only problem is, my mother and my new stepfather are dead against it.’
‘Your new stepfather?’ Harriet glanced at Priss. ‘That sounds impressive, Kate. Of course, he has your best interests at heart, I’m sure. Still, we shall miss you like the devil if you go.’
‘The thing is,’ Kate went on, ‘I think I’ve got a lot to offer the acting profession. The way I go about it. I mean, considering I ain’t proper trained, my stepfather says I’m a natural. If nothing else, I reckon that gives me an edge over actors and actresses what am trained. I approach a character in a different way to what they do, you see. Take this part I’m playing in The Three Temptations for inst—’
‘I can understand your mother’s, and your new stepfather’s concerns, though Kate,’ Harriet interrupted. ‘Actresses are not considered the most reputable of women.’
‘Oh, tittle to that, Harriet. I want to bring something new to acting – a new way … with pride … and honour. Why should I be looked on as a woman of disrepute when I want to invent nice new ways?’
‘It’s a remarkable thing when you come to think of it, Kate,’ Priss interrupted, ‘that it should be left to you – what ain’t trained – to invent acting.’
‘But other women have acted before,’ argued Kate. ‘So I obviously didn’t invent it.’
‘Oh, but you’re missing the point,’ retorted Priss. ‘You see, inventors often take old ideas that have always been there, and apply them in ways that have never been tried before. Like you intend.’
‘Quite true,’ asserted Harriet, with a convincing gravitas that spoke volumes for her own acting ability. ‘I’ve never heard the role of an inventor more succinctly described. And you must certainly be considered one of them. Has it occurred to you that ever since the days of the enduring Polly, people have been putting the kettle on with tedious regularity, yet it was reserved for James Watt to discover the particular usefulness of boiling
water?’
‘I can’t say I ever thought about it.’
‘Well, there you are, you see. You should consider yourself something akin to a female James Watt, since you have invented a new principle in acting, in the same way that he invented steam. Nobody really knew anything about your code of acting until you came into the business. So we’re spot on when we say that you invented it.’
Kate smiled patiently. If Harriet and Priss were being sarcastic she was no judge as to their motive; if, on the other hand, they were trying to be witty, Kate felt it was far more useful to be pretty than witty, and better still to be a pretty actress. She was quite content on that score; she possessed something that patently neither of those two girls had in any measure. The Meese girls could never aspire to prettiness, or acting ability.
Harriet turned to Priss with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. ‘By the way, Priss, would you rather invent a husband or discover one?’
Priss rolled her eyes dismissively. ‘Women don’t invent or discover husbands. They meet them out, or get introduced to them after church, or at weddings.’
‘And all the better if they’re a somebody,’ Harriet remarked.
‘Well, let’s face it, dear Harriet, you wouldn’t want to marry a nobody,’ Priss replied. ‘Fancy if you were really somebody and you were introduced to a nobody, and you were silly enough to marry him, and his common relatives all turned up. That’s why I rather like our curate, because he has a whole cupboard full of glorious ancestors who aren’t a bit common.’
‘When I go in for a husband,’ Harriet said, warming to the change of theme, ‘I shall prove you completely wrong, Priss, and discover him, after the manner of Sir Walter Raleigh and the tobacco plant.’
‘Oh, and he will trample all over you, after the manner of Sir Walter Raleigh and the cloak,’ countered Priss with mocking laughter.
Kate sighed impatiently. ‘I think we ought to be sitting down ready,’ she said. ‘My stepfather looks as if he’s ready to begin.’
‘By the way, Kate,’ Priss said. ‘How do you feel about your mother re-marrying so soon after losing your father?’ She felt a nudge in the ribs from Harriet for being tactless.
‘Well,’ replied Kate thoughtfully, anxious to say the right thing, ‘I don’t think anything would ever tempt me to wed a second time … no matter how many husbands I lost. But it was her own decision.’
‘By the way, Kate,’ Priss said, smothering her amusement. ‘Harriet bumped into Clarence Froggatt in the week. He’s taking her to the Public Hall in Dudley on Saturday to see a play …’
‘Harriet Meese is going to the Public Hall in Dudley on Saturday night,’ Kate mentioned to Murdoch as they drove home to Kingswinford in his gig after rehearsal. ‘There’s a play on.’
‘Who’s going with her, ha?’ Murdoch asked. ‘Priss, or her father? He ain’t mentioned nothing to me about it.’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate lied. ‘But I’d like to go as well,’ she said, pulling up the collar of her mantle to keep out the bitter cold wind. ‘I’d like to see some other actors and actresses at work. I think it would do me good to watch others acting.’
‘Well, the experience would do you no harm,’ Murdoch replied.
‘Couldn’t you take me, Murdoch? I mean to say, you’d enjoy it as well.’
‘What’s the play called?’
‘I got no idea. All the same, I’d love to see it.’
‘We’ll ask your mother if she wants to go. If she fancies a night out, then we’ll all go.’
‘She won’t go, Murdoch,’ Kate predicted scornfully. ‘Not me mother. She never wants to shift from the fire. ’Specially in this weather. But you and me could go.’
‘Well, I’ll ask her anyway. It’s only right, ha? If she don’t mind us two going off on our own, then I’ll be happy to take you.’
‘She won’t go, I can tell you that for nothing. Didn’t you know she won’t go out at night for fear of being run over? She’s afeared of horses taking fright. You’d never get her in this gig either, for the same reason, in case the horse took fright.’
‘Well, that’s daft,’ Murdoch stated. ‘You can’t live your life in fear that summat might happen, when the odds are that it wouldn’t.’
Kate smiled with self-satisfaction in the darkness. ‘You try telling her that. Anyway, fancy you and my mother used to go courting together when you was young,’ she said. ‘You could’ve knocked me over when she told us.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Was you in love with her then?’
‘Me? I was mad about your mother when she was a young woman. It cut me to the quick when she broke it off with me and started seeing your father instead. I don’t think I ever got over it proper.’
‘Ah, well, you got her in the end.’
‘Except that your father copped for the best of her … when she was young and beautiful. She’s still a nice-looking woman, mind. You remind me of her a lot when she was your age, Kate, my flower … Did I tell you before, ha?’
The following evening, while Clara was waiting for her new husband to return from his butchering, she went to the kitchen to see if she could be of any help to Freda the cook. A tray of liver faggots was roasting in the oven and smelled delicious, and Freda was just about to slide in a tray of jam tarts.
‘I just wondered if I could be of help?’ Clara asked hesitantly.
‘Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself about coming to help me, ma’am,’ Freda tried to assure her. ‘ ’Tain’t your place to sully your hands in here, ma’am.’
Clara smiled patiently. Being referred to as ‘ma’am’ was patronising, she felt; she couldn’t be sure whether the servants were being sarcastic. ‘I’m sure you realise, Freda, as I’ve never been used to having servants, and especially a cook to do my husband’s dinner. It’s something that I always did myself when my Will was alive.’
Freda, fearing that her position in the household could be in jeopardy if the new Mrs Osborne insisted on cooking her husband’s dinner herself, retaliated with an argument that she had already considered and rehearsed in her head in anticipation of this conversation. ‘But it ain’t just one person to cook for nowadays, is it, ma’am? I mean to say, there’s your son and your daughter to feed besides. And not only them … there’s young Araminta and meself to feed, an’ all. We all need feeding. It’s too much to expect the lady of the house to contend with … And besides, I’ve always been used to it. I’m trained in it.’
‘Did Mr Osborne’s first wife ever offer to help, Freda?’
‘Never set foot nowhere near the kitchen, ma’am. Mind you, she was sick for years.’
‘How’s Araminta coping with the extra work? Does she say?’
‘Why don’t you ask her? She used to give me a hand when she’d got a minute. Trouble is, now she ain’t got a minute. Mebbe you ought to consider setting on another maid to help her.’
‘Yes, it’s a thought,’ Clara agreed. ‘There must be a lot of extra work now with us here. I’ll talk to my husband about it.’ She heard the sound of horse’s hoofs and the rattle of wheels outside, and knew that Murdoch had returned, conveying Kate with him, for Kate always called at the butcher’s shop when she’d finished work at the bakery shop. A ride home saved her precious legs. ‘He’s back now. I’ll go and mention it right away.’
Murdoch and Kate entered the hallway through the front door just as Clara came in from the kitchen. She smiled at him, took his hat and scarf and hung them on the hall stand.
‘It’s cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey, ha?’ he commented. ‘My fingers are tingling with cold, holding them reins.’
‘Come and warm yourself up by the fire, Murdoch,’ Clara suggested, ‘before you catch your death.’
‘My poor cheeks will be all dry with this weather,’ Kate complained. ‘And my nose feels as if it’s about to drop off.’
‘Come and sit by the fire,’ her mother urged.
‘No, I’ll
get chilblains and mottled legs if I get too close to the fire. I daren’t have mottled legs, Mother. You never know when I might have to show them.’
‘I should hope you don’t show them anybody.’
‘In a play, I mean,’ Kate replied impatiently.
Clara followed Murdoch and Kate into the sitting room where a coal fire burned brightly in the big marble grate. ‘Murdoch, I’ve just been talking to Freda. She reckons Araminta’s rushed off her feet with all the extra work she’s got, now that me and our Kate and our Algie are living here. I was wondering if we should engage another young maid to help her out.’
‘I don’t see why not, Clara,’ Murdoch replied generously. ‘A young wench of twelve or thirteen wouldn’t cost a lot, ha? No more than ten or twelve pounds a year. See to it, Clara, my love.’
Clara smiled at his amenability. ‘I will. She’ll be pleased at the news.’
‘How long’s our dinner going to be?’ he asked.
‘Not long. Nearly done, I think. We could sit at the table ready, if you like.’
‘I’ll just run up the yard afore I take me mantle off,’ Kate said. ‘Mind you, it’s enough to freeze you in that privy. It’s a pity we can’t have an inside privy, you know, Murdoch. Lots of houses like this have got inside privies these days.’
‘Unhygienic in the house,’ Murdoch claimed. ‘Not to mention the stink, ha?’
‘But they have water closets now. Water closets don’t stink.’
Kate made her exit and Murdoch sat in his favourite chair in front of the fire. ‘There’s a play on at the Public Hall in Dudley, Saturday night, Clara. I wondered if you fancy going to see it. Kate said she’d like to go, and I’d like to as well. Fancy going?’
‘On Saturday?’ she queried, stalling to give a positive answer.
‘Yes, Saturday. We’d have to go by tram though, since there’s only room for one passenger in the gig.’ That should clinch it, Murdoch believed.
‘No, you and our Kate go, Murdoch, and take the gig. I wouldn’t dream of going out of a night in this weather anyway. I’d rather stop warm by the fire.’