by Nancy Carson
‘Course I would.’
‘Well, I can see that now.’
He sighed profoundly. ‘There’s something I never told you, sweetheart…’
‘Oh, what now?’ she sighed, expecting more pain, more problems, when she thought she had devised a plan that would resolve all issues. ‘Don’t tell me there’s more.’
‘Just that, that night you’re talking about, I went to your narrowboat, your butty, to talk to you, to ask you something. It was late, though, and I reckoned you’d gone to sleep in the other narrowboat with your mother and father, to avoid me. Anyway, I didn’t have the heart or the guts to disturb you. So I decided to wait till next morning to ask you – but next morning you’d all gone. You’d disappeared. You, your family, the horse, the dog, and both your boats.’
‘So what did you want to ask me?’
‘I wanted to ask you to marry me.’
‘Oh, Algie…’ Tears began to well up in her eyes.
‘I wanted us to make plans. I didn’t see the sense in waiting any longer. I wanted you. I was sure of you, and I reckoned if we could live together as man and wife, it’d stop you fretting about what you imagined I was up to while you were travelling up and down the cuts. The way you left, though, so sudden, obviously determined not to see me, I knew it was all over between us. I’ll never forget how miserable I felt…And that same night my father died…’ Now tears welled up in Algie’s eyes too.
‘Like I said, Algie,’ she sighed, touching his face with supreme tenderness. ‘I take my share of the blame. I can’t spend the rest of me life blaming you or blaming Aurelia for what happened after that. It would just eat me up. It was fate, I reckon.’
‘Things just happened…’
‘Kiss me, Algie.’
His arm went around her and they kissed. It was sheer bliss and full of emotion. When they broke off, she said, ‘Do you still fancy me?’
He pulled up her shift and drew her to him by one cheek of her backside. ‘What do you think?’ he whispered.
She smiled and at last her eyes sparkled again in the unsteady amber light. ‘I still fancy you as well, Algie Stokes…’ She rolled on top of him and her dark hair cascaded deliciously over his face as she kissed him ardently.
* * *
Chapter 13
Pensnett was its usual grimy self as Marigold stepped briskly up the incline that served as its main thoroughfare. She had left home without Rose. She remained in the care of Clara, for today Marigold did not want the distraction of having to tend to the needs of her child. She was on a mission to see Aurelia, and it was pivotal. After so many sleepless nights, wallowing in thoughts mischievously skewed and warped by the interminable hours of the night, after unpleasant days detaching herself from Algie, she was not certain how she ought to broach this mission. She had no confidence as to whether Aurelia was amenable to a mutually acceptable outcome, whether she would even receive her. But such was her nature that she could not rest without having tried.
Last night, she and Algie had made love, deliciously as it turned out. She invited it, partly because she was yearning for some tenderness and even forgiveness, prepared to forgive too, but she also felt she needed to test Algie; she needed to analyse his response to her in the context of the disturbing knowledge that he had also slept with Aurelia – her very own half-sister. She imagined that his love or his lust – or both – for Aurelia must have been real and ardent, heightened perhaps by the inescapable fact that it was illicit. Marigold, at this time of her life – in her prime – had begun to realise that love and lust were two entirely separate states of mind. She thus realised that her own sexual tactic might have been a dangerous one, especially if Algie had failed her test. He had not, however. All the little tricks and techniques they had developed and perfected in their marriage bed they implemented just as delectably as ever, and probably even more so, heightened by the circumstances in which they found themselves. She had even silently wept as they made love, overwhelmed by this heady assortment of emotions.
So full of doubts about Aurelia’s greeting was she, that she recalled little of her journey to Holly Hall House. Before she knew it, her dainty boots were crunching the gravel drive, and she was tugging on the brass knob of the doorbell, waiting. Predictably, Jane answered, and with a smile of familiarity the servant stood aside as Marigold entered.
‘I take it she’s in, Jane?’ Marigold enquired anxiously. ‘She ain’t expecting me.’
‘Mrs Sampson is in the morning room, Mrs Stokes. I’ll tell her you’re here. You’ve not brought the baby today, I see,’ she remarked conversationally.
Marigold, preoccupied, merely shook her head, forcing a smile in response. Jane scurried off to the morning room in search of her mistress, while Marigold remained in the hall, apprehensive. In a very few seconds, Aurelia appeared, immaculate in a white dress buttoned up to the throat. Her hair, faultlessly piled on top of her head, emphasised the elegance of her neck and posture. She was clearly dressed to go out.
‘Marigold. I wasn’t expecting you.’ She regarded her half-sister anxiously and waved the maid away. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Oh, Aurelia…’ Two words, uttered with a huge sigh, in a way that told of her anguish.
Aurelia perceived the angst, exposed by the tears that at once leached out of Marigold’s eyes and began rolling down her cheeks. Before she knew it, Marigold was clinging to her, her arms around her neck. Aurelia responded in a like manner and, as she held her younger sister in her arms, she felt the sobs of release pulsing vigorously through her entire body.
‘Marigold,’ Aurelia cooed. ‘Out with it.’
It was all she could think of saying in the circumstances. For all she knew Marigold might have lost the child she was carrying, Algie might be seriously ill; anything could have happened. For some time Marigold was unable to speak. Aurelia simply held her, feeling Marigold’s wet tears smearing her own face and seeping down her own cheek, until she realised that her own involuntary tears of sympathy were blending with them. Marigold’s sobbing subsided a little, and Aurelia gently released her, but immediately took her hands as she watched her sister’s distress. She turned Marigold around, put her arm around her waist and led her into the sitting room while fumbling for a handkerchief to dry her eyes.
‘Come on, my love,’ she said kindly. ‘We need to sit down and talk.’
Marigold duly sat down and looked forlornly up at Aurelia.
‘I’ll get Jane to bring us some tea.’
‘No,’ Marigold said. ‘Not yet. I don’t want her to see me weeping and all puffy-eyed. She’ll know summat’s up.’
‘So…Go on…You’ve come here to talk. What do you want to say?’ She sat beside Marigold, her back erect, knees inclined towards her sister.
‘Algie’s told me…Everything…About the divorce…About you and him…and Christina…Everything.’
Aurelia looked into her lap, feeling belittled by her younger sister, by her own sense of guilt, and by the mettle that had brought Marigold to Holly Hall House, for reasons as yet best known only to her. Feeling remorseful and indeed rather sheepish, Aurelia answered self-consciously, softly, ‘What can I say, Marigold? It happened. I wanted it to happen. I was a willing party. Berate me if you will. I’m as guilty as hell.’
‘Oh, I ain’t blaming you,’ Marigold sighed with a deliberate shake of her head. ‘I ain’t blaming you one bit. I ain’t blaming Algie, neither, for that matter. It happened, like you say. I have to accept it – I do accept it. If anybody’s to blame, it’s me.’
‘You? Why?’
‘For leaving Algie the way I did when I should’ve had more gumption. Course, I didn’t know I was carrying our Rose at the time. You see, I’d imagined he was having a fling with Harriet Meese behind me back. Now I know he wasn’t– course he wasn’t – but then I’d got it into me head as he was, and, for all his denials, nothing would shift it.’ She mopped up more tears that were still trickling down her cheeks. ‘
I just had to come and see you today, Aurelia. I just needed to tell you that I know what went on, and that I don’t blame you one little bit. I believe I have to thank you.’
‘Thank me?’
‘For the way you gave up Algie for my sake. It wasn’t till I really began to think about everything, that I began to understand just what it must have meant to you, giving him up, ’cause you must’ve known you was carrying Christina. I worked it all out, Aurelia…I didn’t sleep much the last few nights, thinking about it.
‘You went to Aunt Edith’s with the intention of staying there with little Benjie, till you and Algie could go off somewhere and live together. That’s true, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
‘So you must’ve had no intention of going back to Benjamin. And you must have known you was carrying Christina. But I was already at Aunt Edith’s, having our Rose. When we talked later and I told you Rose was Algie Stokes’s child and that I had lost him, I reckon you thought about it and decided to give him up, ’cause you told me you knew him and knew where he lived, and you would get a message to him. I reckon you did that for my sake and for Rose’s sake. I’m right, ain’t I?’
‘It was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in all my life,’ Aurelia admitted, wiping her tears. ‘But yes, I went back to Benjamin after all, and allowed him to think my baby was his. But it was the right thing to do.’
‘And then, no sooner had you left Aunt Edith’s, Algie turned up – ’cause you’d sent him.’
‘Yes.’
‘I can imagine how much it hurt, Aurelia. If you’re like me – and I reckon you are – you must have loved him more than anything.’
‘More than anything,’ Aurelia confessed, deeming it prudent to use only Marigold’s words.
‘I won’t ask whether you still love him, Aurelia, for fear you say “yes”, but if you do, I don’t want us to fight over him. Promise me we won’t fight over him – ever.’
‘Never,’ Aurelia responded with a further abundance of tears, realising the expediency of omitting any response that might confirm that, yes, she still loved Algie Stokes.
‘Because you’re my sister and my friend,’ Marigold continued, ‘and he’s my husband, and I want it to be that way always. I couldn’t stand it if I lost either of you. Not only that…not only that,’ she repeated after a deep sigh, ‘I want to help you through your divorce. After all, you’ve got nobody else, have you?’
Never had she expected this. Never had she dreamed such consideration might be remotely possible. She dabbed her eyes with her white handkerchief.
‘You have no idea how much that means to me to hear you say that.’ Her voice was strained, taut with emotion.
‘Well, one good turn,’ Marigold replied, feeling stronger and more confident now she had staked out her position.
Aurelia’s tears, having started, seemed unstoppable. She flung her arms around her sister. ‘Marigold,’ she uttered, choked with emotion, ‘you really are the most surprising person. The nicest, most understanding sister anybody ever had. You can be sure I’m never going to take Algie away from you. He’s yours, by right of marriage, decided a long time ago. More than anything, I value the friendship and affection I feel from both of you. I don’t want to lose you either. I can get along knowing I have that friendship and affection.’
‘Well, you have,’ Marigold declared.
‘As to what the future holds for me now, I can’t say with any certainty, except that sooner or later I shall have to leave this house, with just Christina to look after.’
‘Not little Benjie?’
‘Not little Benjie, I suspect. Benjamin – abetted by the courts – won’t allow me to have custody.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Marigold stated, her conviction unwittingly invalidated by her ignorance of the law.
‘If only…’
‘Anyway – who knows, you might get wed again, someday,’ Marigold suggested, more brightly now her ordeal was over. ‘Many’s the chap who’d be glad of you. Look at you – you’re a picture. And you’re sure to have more children.’
‘I can’t think who might be daft enough to want to marry me, knowing I’ve been divorced, especially for adultery, and with an illegitimate child to prove it. I’m a fallen woman, Marigold.’
‘Not in my eyes,’ Marigold remarked kindly.
The conversation evolved into less controversial things, but the two half-sisters were feeling closer to each other than ever before. There seemed to be a strengthened bond, and Aurelia was even more alert to it than Marigold. Hitherto, she had only ever imagined she would lose the sorority and affection of her half-sister once the divorce and the reason for it were out in the open. Never had she imagined an unstinting offer of support.
After a while, they decided they were both presentable enough to face Jane, so Aurelia rang for her to request a pot of tea. As they drank it and talked more, feeling decidedly happier, and even laughing a little, Aurelia explained that she had been about to go out in search of a solicitor who could handle her divorce.
‘If you still want to go, I’ll go with you,’ Marigold at once offered. ‘I got nothing else to do.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘Course I’m sure. Clara’s looking after our Rose, so now’s a good time.’
‘You’re one in a million, Marigold.’
‘Course, I wouldn’t go into his room with you – that’d be a private matter between you and him, and I wouldn’t want to hear what went on – but I could go there with you. If you want me to.’
‘Marigold, I would be so grateful…You can’t imagine the uncertainty, the doubt, the confusion this divorce has brought on me…I need to know where I stand, what the likely outcome of all this will be.’
‘Course you do. So come on, let’s go.’
‘I believe Dudley might be the best place. Around Wolverhampton Street, I think, is where the best solicitors are.’
* * *
The two women boarded a tram at a stop close to Holly Hall House. It rumbled towards Dudley, rattling across the points where the rails converged with those of the Kingswinford line. The interior bore advertisements for soap, tea, furniture polish and appeals to respect the floor by not spitting onto it.
The route from Holly Hall to Dudley is of necessity uphill. On the summit you encounter the steepled parish church of St Thomas, known locally as Top Church. From there, it is a steady descent down High Street before rising again at the town’s Market Place where you get a grand view of Dudley Castle sitting on top of the next towering hill.
Wolverhampton Street ran perpendicularly to High Street, and was evolving into two distinct sections. When they first turned into it Marigold, hardly familiar with the town, saw that it was narrow and lined on both sides with furniture shops, jewellery shops and a plethora of public houses; a hive of activity. A hundred yards or so further on it met Priory Street, which entered from the right. From that point, Wolverhampton Street became immediately broader, and took on the look of a quality suburban street with large Georgian houses that developers were converting one by one into offices. In such houses several solicitors had set up shop.
The front door of one was invitingly open, set in a stucco wall which bore a brass plaque – its highly polished surface induced approval from Aurelia. The name of the firm, Round & Round, however, elicited some comic nuances, which were redeemed by the more prosaic Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths.
‘Should I try this one?’ Aurelia suggested. ‘I like the way that plaque is so clean and shiny. It shows attention to detail, so maybe a tendency to do things right.’
‘Maybe the state of the plaque’s got more to do with the charwoman what cleans it,’ Marigold replied more plausibly, but smiling her encouragement.
So they entered, Aurelia first. She was carrying a black leather bag, which contained the papers that signified the birth and death of the divine illusion called love as applicable to her and Benjamin. As t
hey traversed a hallway, they walked on linoleum, not half as spruce as the polished brass plaque that adorned the wall outside. A man with a stepladder was wielding a brace and bit at the bottom of a narrow staircase to their right, which was likewise devoid of carpet. They faced a door on the left that bore a bronze sign with the word ‘Enquiries’ machined into it, and entered.
Two young clerks with rolled-up shirt sleeves, one wearing spectacles, occupied a pair of ink-stained desks, festooned with bundles of papers neatly tied up with pink ribbons. They faced each other in an office that was cramped, dingy, dusty and smoky. Each glanced up from his work on hearing the door open, followed by the gentle patter of women’s heels approaching on the linoleum-covered floor. Faced with the two unanticipated visions that had just entered, they then looked back at each other as if to communicate secretly by eye some potential female prospect. The fellow with the spectacles was smoking and he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray already overburdened with ash, ready to be of service. He also had the presence of mind to get up from his chair to ask if he could be of help, unlike his colleague.
‘I need to see a solicitor,’ Aurelia stated with a deliberate air of superiority, which she adopted to conceal her lack of confidence in this strange and forbidding environment.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ the spectacles answered, not in the least intimidated.
The vision smiled, a dazzling smile. ‘I do not. I am making enquiries as to whether your firm might act for me, and I would like to discuss the possibility with somebody competent in appropriate legal matters.’
‘So what sort of action do you wish to discuss?’
‘That, I would prefer to divulge to the person competent in appropriate legal matters, whom I wish to see.’ She smiled patiently.
‘Very well, ma’am. May I have your name?’