NANCY CARSON
A Country Girl

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by AVON 2017

Copyright © Nancy Carson 2017

Cover design © Debbie Clements 2017

Nancy Carson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008173548

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008134877

Version: 2018-01-09

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Author’s Note

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the Same Author:

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

‘Aye up, the Binghams are coming through the lock,’ Kate Stokes cried provocatively, knowing it would rouse Algernon, her brother, from his sun-induced reverie.

As soon as she’d heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hoofs and attendant voices, Kate had rushed to peer over the garden fence to see who was on the towpath of the canal which ran alongside. There was some personal motive in this, too – it could have been Reggie Hodgetts. Till that moment, she had been stooping down to tend their father’s vegetable patch, creating the illusion that she was a homely girl, which she patently was not. She was, however, extraordinarily pretty but with a tongue like a whip, and her relationship with Algernon was, at best, thorny.

Algernon had seemed unflappable as he leant against the back door of the lock-keeper’s cottage where the siblings lived with their mother and father. His face was sedately and serenely turned upward to receive the warmth of the spring sun. But, on hearing the news that the Binghams were coming through the lock, his heart missed a beat and he was at once stirred into a renewed vigour. The Binghams, you see, had a particularly lovely daughter, and he duly rushed to the fence to join Kate to gain sight of her. Sure enough, he spotted Seth Bingham leading his strong little horse as it pulled their pair of narrowboats towards the lock gates.

Kate flashed a knowing look at her brother. ‘I thought that might get you going.’

‘Why should the Binghams get me going?’ he protested, feigning indifference. ‘You were pretty quick off the mark yourself … to see if it was the Hodgettses, I reckon.’

‘The Hodgettses ain’t due past here till Tuesday.’

‘No, but you sprang up quick enough, just in case it was that scruff Reggie,’ Algernon countered. ‘So you’ll just have to wait till Tuesday, won’t you, before you can go gallivanting off with him?’ He glanced at his sister disdainfully. ‘Reggie Hodgetts ain’t much of a catch, is he?’

‘Mind your own business,’ Kate replied, at once rallying. ‘You’re interested enough in Marigold Bingham, the daughter of a scruffy boatman. I’ve seen you. Every time she comes a-nigh you’re up, ogling after her. You can’t keep your eyes off her.’

Algernon – who answered more readily to Algie – replied calmly, ‘She’s different. She looks nice. She’s got something about her. I’d like to see her without her working clothes on.’

‘Pooh, I bet you would, you dirty sod—’

‘I didn’t mean that. I mean I’d like to see her in her Sunday best—’

‘Huh!’ Kate exclaimed suspiciously. ‘I know what you mean. And you’m already a-courting Harriet Meese … You ought to be ashamed.’

‘Ashamed?’ he protested defensively. ‘Why should I be ashamed? I ain’t promised to Harriet Meese.’

‘You could do worse.’

‘And you could do better,’ Algie replied, as he scanned the towpath opposite for sight of Marigold.

‘Oh, well,’ remarked Kate loftily, ‘We all know Harriet’s face ain’t up to much.’

‘Neither is yours,’ Algie responded with brotherly disparagement. He would never let Kate believe he considered her nice-looking.

Kate reacted by bobbing her tongue at Algie, but he ignored her and watched the progress of the Binghams. Hannah Bingham, Seth’s wife, was at the tiller, steering the horse boat, the leading one of the pair which they used for their work. Hannah, he perceived, was not like the usual boatwomen. For a start, he had an inkling that she was not narrowboat born and bred. She did not wear the traditional bonnet of the boatwomen, which fell in folds over their shoulders and back, like a ruched coal sack, and which was about as appealing. She had large, soulful dark eyes, and was blessed with high cheekbones; a handsome woman still, who must have been a rare beauty in her youth. The Binghams seemed a cut above many of the boat families. Their boats were spruce and shining, and always looked freshly painted with the colourful decorations that were traditional among their kind. They obviously took care. They stood out.

A child was crawling at Hannah’s feet, tethered with a piece of string to prevent him falling into the canal. Various other sons and daughters, all youngsters, watched the proceedings, scattered randomly aboard the second narrowboat which they towed, known as the butty. A lark hopped about in a bamboo cage, set between tubs of plants which stood like sentries on top of the cabin.

‘I can’t see Marigold,’ Algie complained. ‘Is she there?’

‘There …’ Kate pointed impatiently. ‘Opening the sluice. Hidden by the hoss …’

He shifted along the fence and caught sight of Marigold Bingham bending over the mechanism, a windlass in her hand as she deftly opened the sluice that let water into the lock. Her dark, shining hair was pinned up, giving an elegant set to her neck. Algie was glad she never seemed to wear those hideous bonnets either. He waited, his eyes never leaving her until he was blessed with a rewarding glimpse of her lovely face. She walked jauntily back towards the boat swinging her windlass, the breeze pressing her thin dress against her body, outlining her youthful figure and slender legs. She patted the horse as she went, and Algie basked in the sunshine of the smile that was intended for her father.

‘How do, Mr Bingham!’ Algie called amiably, rather to draw Marigold’s attention than Seth’s. ‘And you, Mrs Bingham.’ He touched the peak of an imaginary cap as a mark of respect.

Seth Bingham turned around and addressed himself to Algie, whose face was bearing a matey grin as he peered over the lock-keeper’s garden fence. ‘How do, young Algie. It’s a fine day for it and no mistake.’

‘Mooring up here for the night, Mr Bingham?’

‘Soon as we’m through the lock, if there’s e’er a mooring free,’ the boatman replied. ‘It is Sunday, lad, after all’s said and done.’

‘God’s day of rest, they say.’

Seth scoffed at the notion. ‘For some, mebbe.’

To Algie’s delight, Marigold flashed him a shy smile of acknowledgement. He saw a hint of her mother in her lovely face.

‘How do, Marigold.’

‘Hello, Algie.’ She answered coyly, avoiding his eyes further as she stepped onto the butty.

Their strong little horse took the strain, stamping on the hard surface of the towpath to gain some purchase as it hauled the first narrowboat, the horse boat, slowly into the lock. Steadily, surely, the narrowboat, lying low in the water under the burden of its cargo, began to inch forward away from the side of the canal. Marigold had nimbly jumped aboard and was at the tiller of the butty now, waiting for her turn to enter the lock.

Algie watched, unable to take his eyes off her. She was as statuesque as the figurehead of some naval flagship, but infinitely more lovely. Her back was elegantly erect, her head, which he beheld in profile now, was held high, showing her exquisite nose to wonderful advantage. He reckoned Marigold was about eighteen, though he did not know it for certain. For years he’d kept an assessing, admiring eye on her, catching occasional glimpses as she passed the lock-keeper’s cottage. In the last three years he’d noticed how her looks and demeanour had really blossomed. It was as if he’d been patiently watching the petals of a slow-blooming rose unfurl into flawless beauty. She stood out from the other boatmen’s daughters; always had. In fact, she stood out from all the other daughters of men, boatmen’s or not. She was endowed with a natural grace where others seemed ungainly. If girls like Marigold, who lived and worked on the canals, hadn’t escaped to work in the factories by the time they were eighteen, it was generally because they were wed to a boatman, some by the time they were sixteen. Yet there was never anything or anybody to suggest that Marigold was spoken for. Maybe Seth was too protective of her, realising her worth, saving her for somebody with finer prospects. It would not surprise him.

‘You look a picture today, Marigold,’ Algie called, giving her a wink. ‘In your Sunday best, are you?’

She smiled shyly and shook her head as the butty slid forward. ‘Just me ornery working clothes, Algie,’ she answered in a small but very appealing voice.

‘Then I’d like to see you in your Sunday best. I was just saying to our Kate—’

‘Algie! Kate!’ Clara Stokes, their mother, was calling from the back door. ‘Your dinners are on the table. Come on, afore they get cold.’

Algie rolled his eyes in frustration that his attempt to get acquainted with the girl, his intention to flatter her a little, was being thwarted at such a critical moment. ‘I gotta go, Marigold. Me dinner’s ready. See you soon, eh?’

‘I expect so.’

He hesitated, aware that Kate was already making her way across the garden to the cottage. ‘Are you due down this cut next Sunday, Marigold?’ he asked when Kate was out of earshot, endeavouring to sound casual.

‘Most likely Tuesday, on the way back from Kidderminster.’

‘That’s a pity. I’ll be at work Tuesday. I shan’t see you.’

Marigold smiled dismissively. It was hardly of grave concern to her. Yet she wondered if his questioning her thus meant he was interested in her. The thought at once ignited her interest in him and she looked at him with increasing curiosity through large blue eyes, hooded by long dark lashes.

‘So when shall you pass this way again on the way to Kiddy?’ he persisted.

‘Dunno,’ she replied, and he noticed that she blushed. ‘We might not be going to Kiddy for a while. We might be going up again’ Nantwich or Coventry. It depends what work me dad picks up.’

‘Course …’ He sighed resignedly. Yet her blush somehow uplifted him, and he wallowed in the wondrous thought that he might appeal to her too. But he had to go. His dinner was on the table. ‘Ta-ra, then, Marigold. See you sometime, eh?’

She smiled modestly and nodded, and Algie strolled indoors for his Sunday dinner, disappointed.

‘Our Algernon’s keen on that Marigold Bingham, our Mom,’ Kate said over the dinner table.

‘You mean Hannah Bingham’s eldest?’

Kate nodded, unable to speak further yet because of a mouthful of cabbage. She chewed vigorously and swallowed. ‘Fancies her, he does.’

‘He’d be best advised to keep away from boat girls,’ Clara commented with a warning glance at her only son. ‘Anyroad, what’s up with Harriet Meese?’

‘Nothing’s up with Harriet Meese as I know of,’ Algie protested. ‘I just think as Marigold Bingham’s got more about her than the usual boat girls.’

‘Fancies her rotten, he does,’ Kate repeated, with her typical sisterly mischief.

‘So what?’ he said, irritated by her meaningless judgement of him and of his taste in girls. ‘There’s nothing up with fancying a girl, is there, Dad? It ain’t as if I’m about to do anything wrong.’

‘Just so long as you don’t.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Algie muttered inaudibly under his breath.

Will Stokes was, for the moment, more concerned with cutting a tough piece of gristle off his meat than heeding the goading remarks of his daughter. ‘Oh, she’s comely enough, I grant yer,’ Will remarked, looking up from his plate, the gristle duly severed. ‘But looks ain’t everything. Tek my advice and stick with young Harriet. Harriet’s a fine, respectable lass. She’ll do for thee. Her father’s in the money an’ all, just remember that.’

‘Money that’ll never amount to much if she’s got to share it with six sisters, come the day,’ Clara commented, as a downside.

‘Well, our Kate can talk, going on about me and Marigold Bingham,’ Algie said, aiming to turn attention from himself. ‘She often wanders off with that Reggie Hodgetts off the narrowboats …’

Kate gasped with indignation and blushed vividly at what her brother was tactlessly revealing. She gave Algie a kick in the shins under the table.

Noticing her blushes, Will eyed his daughter with suspicion. ‘’Tis to be hoped you behave yourself, young lady, else there’ll be hell to pay – for the pair o’ yer.’

‘Course I behave meself,’ she protested, glancing indignantly at Algie. ‘You don’t think as I’d do anything amiss, do you, Dad?’

‘I should hope as you got more sense.’ He wagged his knife at her across the table in admonishment. ‘Else I’ll be having a word with young Reggie Hodgetts. You’ve been brought up decent and respectable, our Kate. Tek a leaf out o’ your mother’s book, that’s my advice. There was never a more untarnished woman anywhere than your mother. That’s true, ain’t it, Clara?’

‘I had to be,’ Clara replied, conscientiously trimming the rim of fat off the only slice of roast pork she’d allowed herself. ‘Else me father would’ve killed me.’

Algie pondered his mother, trying to imagine her as a young woman being courted by his father. She had been a fine-looking young girl then, he knew it for a fact. For a woman of forty-two, she still held on to her looks and figure remarkably well. It was obvious from whom Kate had inherited her looks and figure, which the local lads found so beguiling.

He finished his dinner quietly, deeming it politic to add nothing more to that mealtime conversation. His thoughts were still focused on young Marigold Bingham. He’d noticed her blushes as she’d spoken to him and he wondered … Algie was in no way conceited, and he rejoiced in the thought that maybe he had aroused her interest. If so, it was the greatest event of his life so far. Damn his dinner being ready at exactly the moment when he was about to get to know her a little better. Right now she and the rest of the Binghams would be moored in the basin outside. So frustratingly close …

So conveniently close …

There was a knock on the door. One of Seth Bingham’s younger children had come to pay the toll for passing through the locks. Algie waited. His mother moved to clear away the gravy-smeared plates, cutlery, pots and pans, which she stacked in an enamelled bowl. When she and Kate were in the scullery washing them, and his father was sitting contentedly in front of the parlour fire with his feet up and his eyes shut, attempting his Sunday afternoon nap, Algie silently and surreptitiously made his exit …

Although Algernon Stokes was twenty-two and a man, yet still he was a boy. Or, more correctly, a lad. His view of the world had not yet been tainted by its artificiality and pretence, so he lived life, and looked forward to what it offered, with a naïve enthusiasm that emanates only from youth. He was largely content. His upbringing had been conscientiously accomplished by a strict yet fair father’s influence, endorsed and abetted by his mother, although she still followed him around the house dutifully tidying up behind him. His sister Kate was tiresome, though, a bit of an enigma to Algie, and a nuisance to boot. Algie was utterly fascinated with girls in general, yet absolutely not with Kate in particular.

He had drifted into a sort of half-hearted courtship with a girl called Harriet Meese, only because she had shown an interest in him in the first place, an interest which flattered him enormously. She was not his ideal, however, hence his half-heartedness. His ideal girl was beautiful of face and figure, utterly desirable and unresisting, even prepared to risk ruin by submitting to his sexual endeavours; qualities he believed he might find in Marigold Bingham. Many young men his own age were married, some had even fathered children already, and Algie envied their access to the sensual pleasures they must all enjoy in their marital beds, for such pleasures had always been denied Algie. The thought of spending the rest of his life in celibacy horrified him, but from his point of view, it looked as if he was destined to, unless he could nurture some girl who appealed to him physically, and who would be unreservedly willing. Thus, he had become preoccupied with finding a solution. It boiled down to this: he was twenty-two already, but he hadn’t lived. Therefore, he might as well still be seven.

Marriage would have offered a solution, but not marriage to Harriet. Oh, most certainly not to Harriet. He would not rule marriage out completely, though, if the right girl came along. On the other hand, why not simply bypass the institution of marriage altogether? The world offered too many pretty girls to have to settle for just one, especially one whose face was particularly uninspiring, as Harriet’s was. He knew from hearsay that there were plenty of girls willing enough to partake of those delectable stolen pleasures for which he yearned, if only such girls were not so damned elusive. He was thus inclined to believe they all inhabited another planet. They never seemed to pass his way at any rate. Even if they did, he would hardly be able to recognise such qualities in them as he was seeking, and why would they look at him twice anyway? He was nothing special, or so he thought. He did not like his own face, he did not like his dark, curly hair, nor his tallness, nor the shape of his nose either. How could he possibly appeal to women? Especially the sort of women that would interest him, who just had to be pretty, with appealing, youthful figures. Otherwise there was no point to it.

That same spring Sunday afternoon in 1890 was one of those delightful, lengthening days which herald the approach of summer. Soft sunlight caressed distant hills, and already the air, bearing the sweet smell of greenness, had a mollifying summer mildness about it. A warm breeze gently flurried the fresh crop of young leaves that bedecked the trees after their long winter nakedness. A flock of pigeons flapped in unison overhead, wheeling gleefully across the blue sky in celebration of their Sunday release into glorious sunshine.

The lock-keeper’s cottage was situated alongside the Stourbridge Canal at an area called Buckpool, set between the township of Brierley Hill and the village of Wordsley, yet no great distance from either. The warmth of the spring day cosseted Algie as he stepped out into it. He stopped to appreciate it, closing his eyes, wallowing in the sensual touch of sunlight, a touch too long denied him. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself the luxury of a sensual thought; that of spooning in the long grass of some secluded meadow with Marigold Bingham. He’d had his eye on her for so much longer than he would care to admit.

Hannah, Marigold’s mother, saw him and waved amiably.

‘Still having your dinners?’ Algie called, disappointed that he’d mistimed his appearance and they hadn’t finished.

‘You gotta eat sometime,’ Hannah called back. ‘Even on this job.’

‘I’m just on me way to the public.’ He felt it necessary to explain his presence, even though the explanation was an instantly conjured lie, in case Marigold, who could be listening, might rightly presume that he was seeking her and decide to avoid him. ‘I just fancy a pint after me dinner.’

‘You’ll very likely see Seth in there.’

‘That’s what I was wondering,’ he fibbed.

‘He always likes a pint or two afore he has his Sunday dinner.’ She said the word afore as if she considered it strange that Algie should want to drink beer after his dinner. ‘I don’t mind keeping it warm in the stove till he gets back. He likes the beer at the Bottle and Glass, you know. It’s why we moor up here when we’m this way.’

‘I might see him inside then.’ Algie smiled openly, hiding the disappointment at his inability to speak to Marigold without making his intentions obvious to her mother, and continued on the route to which he’d unthinkingly committed himself.

He walked the few yards to the next lock, which lay beneath the road bridge. There, he left the canal, crossed the road to the public house and entered the public bar. Inside, he leaned against the varnished wooden counter and greeted the publican, Thomas Simpson, familiarly. He ordered a tankard of India pale, peering for a sight of Seth Bingham through the haze of tobacco smoke. Seth was sitting on a wooden settle that echoed the shape of the bowed window, in conversation with two other men whom Algie recognised as boatmen also. They acknowledged him, but he thought better of getting drawn into their company, for it was likely to cost him the price of three extra tankards. He decided to give himself fifteen minutes to finish his beer, by which time he imagined Marigold would have finished her dinner. Then he would try again to catch her while her father was still supping and, perhaps, her mother’s back might be turned.

The huge clock that adorned one wall had a tick that sounded more like a clunk, even above the buzz of conversation, and Algie watched its hands slowly traverse its discoloured face. He drank his beer, trying to appear casual and unhurried, as if he was really enjoying it. He dropped the occasional greeting to various men who approached the bar for their refills, and took a casual, benign interest in a game of bagatelle other men were playing.

Eventually, he stepped outside once more into the unseasonably warm sunshine of the late April afternoon. At the bridge he hesitated and, for a brief second, watched the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it lapped softly against the walls of the canal, plucking up the courage to approach Marigold again. He looked for the Sultan – the name given to Seth Bingham’s horse boat – and saw Marigold conscientiously wiping down the vivid paintwork of its cabin with a cloth. It was now or never, he thought as he rushed onto the towpath and approached.

‘Busy?’ he asked, beaming when he reached her.

She looked up, momentarily startled, evidently not expecting to see him, and smiled when she realised it was Algie Stokes again. ‘It has to be done regular, this cleaning,’ she replied pleasantly.

Up close – and this was as close as he’d ever been to Marigold – she was even more lovely. Her skin was as smooth and translucent as finest bone china. Her eyes seemed bluer, clearer, and wider; her dark eyelashes so unbelievably long. Her lips were upturned at the corners into a deliciously friendly smile, and he longed to kiss her. The very thought set his heart pounding.

‘Your two boats always look sparkling,’ he remarked with complete sincerity. ‘I’ve noticed that many a time.’

Marigold smiled proudly. ‘It’s ’cause me mom’s so fussy. She don’t want us to be mistook for one o’ them rodneys what keep their boats all scruffy. And I agree with her.’

‘Oh, I agree with her, as well. Where’s the sense in keeping your boat all scruffy when you have to live in it?’

‘And while we’m moored up, what better time to clean the outside?’ she said with all the practicality of a seasoned boatwoman. ‘We’m carrying coal this trip and the dust gets everywhere.’ She rolled her eyes, so appealingly. ‘You can taste it in your mouth and feel it in your tubes. It gets in your pores and in your clothes. It’s the devil’s own game trying to keep anything clean when you’m a-carrying coal.’

‘I can only begin to imagine,’ he replied earnestly, truly sympathetic to the problem. ‘I know what it’s like in our coal cellar. It must be ten times worse on a narrowboat. So you’re bound for Kidderminster, you reckon?’

‘Tomorrow. We’ll be on our way at first light.’

‘What time d’you expect to get there?’

Marigold shrugged. ‘It’s about dinner time as a rule. Then it depends if we can get offloaded quick. Some o’ them carpet factories am a bit half-soaked when it comes to offloading the boats, ’specially if you catch ’em at dinner time. Me dad likes to wind round and get back. He gets paid by the load, see? Me, I don’t mind if we get stuck there till night time. We do as a rule.’

‘Got much more cleaning to do?’

‘Only a bit. We’ve all got our jobs, but I’ve nearly finished mine for today.’

‘Fancy a walk then?’ Algie enquired boldly, seizing the moment.

‘A walk?’

He nodded. ‘I could take you a walk over the fields or up the lanes, if you like. You must be sick o’ looking at the cut all the time.’

She instantly flushed. ‘I’ll have to ask me mom.’

‘Ask her then.’ Algie’s heart skipped a beat. Marigold had agreed in principle. This was significant progress. All that stood in the way now was perhaps her mother.

Marigold smiled with blushing pleasure, and nipped inside the cabin.

Algie could no more help flirting with a pretty girl than some people can help stammering, but he had not the least intention of breaking anybody’s heart. For a start, he did not take himself seriously enough, he was not good-looking enough to succeed. The desire to elicit a smile from a pretty face was strong within him, however.

Hannah Bingham nipped out, holding a limp dishcloth. ‘You want to take our Marigold a walk?’ she asked, not unpleasantly.

‘If you’ve got no objection, Mrs Bingham,’ he answered with an apologetic but appealing smile. ‘She says she’s finished her jobs.’

‘I got no objection, young Algie, as long as she’s back well afore sundown.’

‘Oh, she’ll be back well before then, Mrs Bingham, I promise.’

‘Then you’ll have to give her a minute to spruce herself up if she’s going a walk.’ She turned and spoke to her daughter in the cabin. ‘Our Marigold, change into another frock if you’m going a walk with young Algie.’ She turned back to Algie and smiled. ‘Why don’t you come back in ten minutes when she’s ready, eh?’

Algie grinned with delight. ‘All right, I will, Mrs Bingham.’

He could hardly believe his luck. Marigold had agreed to accompany him on a walk, and her mother had sanctioned it. The prospect of getting the girl alone had, till that moment, seemed an improbable dream, but a dream he’d diligently clung to. He sauntered back to the lock-keeper’s cottage, thrilled. Maybe he had a way with women after all. Maybe he did possess some fascination or irresistible power over girls, despite his doubts. For so long he’d thought it unlikely. There was a suspicion meandering through his head – he knew not from where it came – that, in any case, a handsome face was not the be-all and end-all for women, but he just didn’t have the experience to know if it was true. For the time being, it was enough that some young women blushed when he spoke or smiled at them; and he made a point of smiling at all those girls who were pretty, whatever their station in life, rich or poor. If they thought he was ugly or uninteresting they could always turn their heads and ignore him. Yet they seldom did. Only the very stuck-up ones, and stuck-up girls he could not be doing with anyway.

He returned home to wait. Over the fireplace in the parlour was a mirror. He stood in front of it and looked at himself, but was not impressed. He straightened his necktie and tried unsuccessfully to smooth his unruly curls with the flat of his hand.

‘Oh, there you are,’ his mother said, suddenly appearing from the brewhouse outside. ‘Fetch some coal up from the cellar for me, our Algernon. There’s scarcely any left in the scuttle.’

‘Can’t our Kate do it?’ he complained. ‘I’ll get all mucked up and I’m going out in less than ten minutes.’

‘Our Kate’s busy changing beds ready for washing day tomorrow,’ Kate herself chimed in, opening the stairs door as she descended with a bundle of sheets and pillowcases in her arms. ‘You wouldn’t be very pleased if your bed was black as the devil from the coal in the cellar, would you? Anyroad, where are you off to of a Sunday afternoon?’

‘Mind your own business.’

‘I’ll mind me business if you’ll fetch the coal up.’

‘Oh, all right,’ Algie muttered reluctantly, knowing it to be futile attempting refusal to these two women, ranged against him with a singular will. He opened the door to the coal cellar and disappeared with the scuttle.

His task completed, he went to the brewhouse and washed his hands. Behind him, his mother complained that he had left damp coal dust on the scullery floor, which he’d brought up from the cellar on the soles of his boots.

‘Our Kate should have gone down,’ he called back. ‘She’s got smaller feet than me. She wouldn’t have made so much mess.’ Then, before he could be asked to perform any more disagreeable chores, he dashed outside and returned to the Bingham’s butty, waiting for Marigold to appear.

From where the Stokes’s cottage stood, the canal descended by a series of locks and basins towards Wordsley. You could see, beyond the massive cone of the Red House Glassworks, green valleys swooping between wooded hills and leafy glades. Towered and spired churches clad in the ivy of centuries dotted the landscape, as well as cosy homesteads, farmhouses and stately old manor houses. Nibbled pastures, where sheep and cattle grazed, receded into the hazy green distance. It was a sight that cheered Algie’s heart.

Over the hill in the opposite direction lay, incongruously, a black industrial wilderness of slag heaps, mines, glassworks, and forges. Foundries and ironworks belched forth acrid brown smoke from great chimney stacks, and red flames from open hearth furnaces, even on this warm spring Sunday. Humble little red-brick houses shared this desolate eastward outlook, sparsely dotted with clumps of coarse grass, railways, viaducts and bridges as well as the interlinking canals with their locks, basins and wharfs. This was the astonishing landscape of the Black Country, that broad tract of man-made bleakness that lay roughly between the opposing boundaries of Wolverhampton to the west and Birmingham to the east. Yet it held as much diversity as you could reasonably assimilate in a month of Sundays if you cared to look. Prosperity lived symbiotically with hardship, as did culture with ignorance, good taste with bad, virtue with wantonness, respectability with indelicacy, and hard work with idleness. Significantly, the Black Country, for all its limited size, generated a disproportionate amount of the enormous wealth that enabled Britain to wield such undeniable power in the world.

Marigold popped her head round the cabin door.

‘Oh, you’re back then.’

‘Yes, I’m back. Are you ready yet?’

She nodded and stepped out onto the gunwale, then onto the towpath. ‘I just wanted to change me frock, wash me face and tidy me hair up a bit. Me mom don’t like me venturing away from the cut in me working frock. She says it’s common to do that.’

He smiled his response, looking her up and down. The frock was plainly cut in muslin and well-washed, the floral pattern almost faded from enthusiastic and frequent laundering, but she looked divine, and there was no shame in cleanliness. It fitted her perfectly, enhancing her slender figure. Her dark hair had been hurriedly brushed and re-pinned, and it was tidier now.

‘You look ever so nice,’ he said sincerely.

‘Thank you. So do you in your Sunday best suit. Where you taking me?’

‘There’s a path over the fields to Kingswinford. I bet you’ve never been there?’

She shook her head. ‘Not if there ain’t a cut what goes there. Is it far?’

‘A mile, a mile and a half, maybe – nothing really. But it’s a fine afternoon for a stroll.’

‘What is there at Kingswinford? Anything special?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing special. It’s just a nice walk over fields.’

He led her back to the bridge he’d just come from and onto the lane that led first to Wordsley.

‘I’m thinking of getting meself a bike,’ he announced, in a manner calculated to impress.

‘A bike? Blimey.’ Marigold sounded duly impressed. ‘I wish I could have a bike. I could ride to the locks ahead of our narrowboats and open ’em ready. It wouldn’t half save us some time.’

‘Suggest it to your dad. Mebbe he’ll buy one.’

‘I doubt whether he could afford one. How much do they cost?’

‘About twelve pounds with pneumatic tyres. Pneumatic tyres are best. You don’t want solid tyres.’

‘Twelve pounds?’ Marigold queried with disbelief. ‘That’s a fortune. Me dad would never spend that much, even if he’d got it to spend.’

‘I’ve been saving up for ages.’

‘Where would you moor it?’

‘In our shed.’

‘What d’you do for a living, Algie, if you can afford to buy a bike?’

‘I make brass bedsteads at Sampson’s up at Queen’s Cross in Dudley. A bike will be handy for getting to work and back.’

‘Don’t you fancy being a lock-keeper, like your dad?’

‘Me? Nah. It don’t pay enough wages. You get your coal for free, granted, and a house to live in as part of the job, but I wouldn’t be a lock-keeper. Me dad gets called out all hours. I wouldn’t want that. I like peace and quiet. How about you, anyway? D’you intend to spend the rest of your life on the narrowboats?’

‘Depends,’ she said with a shrug.

‘On what?’

‘On whether I marry a boatman – a number one, f’rinstance.’

‘A number one? You mean a chap who owns his own boats?’

‘Yes.’

‘Got your eye on anybody?’ he asked, dreading her answer, but grinning all the same.

She shrugged again. ‘Dunno. Nobody on the boats at any rate.’ She gave him a sideways glance to assess his reaction.

‘Who then?’

‘I ain’t telling you.’

So there was some chap in her life. Damn and blast. It was naïve of him to think otherwise, a girl like Marigold.

‘Go on, you can tell me.’

‘There is a chap I like,’ she admitted. ‘He ain’t a boatman. He works at one of the carpet factories in Kiddy. He’s one that generally helps offload us.’

‘Oh, I see … So the crafty monkey sees to it as you don’t get offloaded on the same day as you arrive. That way, you have to stop over till next day, eh? Then you can meet him at night. Is that it?’

Marigold blushed, smiling in acknowledgement of the truth of Algie’s astute assessment.

‘So you’ll be doing a spot of courting tomorrow night, then?’

‘I suppose. It depends.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jack.’

‘Shall you tell him about me?’

‘What is there to tell?’ She glanced at him again.

‘Well … you could tell him that you went a walk with another chap.’ He regarded her intently, and caught a look of unease in her clear blue eyes at the idea.

‘So, what about you?’ she asked, intent on diverting the focus from herself. ‘Do you have a regular sweetheart?’

‘Me? Not really.’

‘Not really? You either do or you don’t.’

‘There’s this girl I’m sort of friendly with … But it ain’t as if we’re proper sweethearts … I mean we ain’t about to get wed or anything like that.’

‘And shall you tell her you been a walk wi’ me this afternoon?’

‘Like you say, there’s nothing to tell, is there?’

‘Not really …’ She smiled at his turning the tables back on her. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Harriet.’

‘That’s a nice name.’

‘Maybe we should get Harriet and your Jack together, eh?’

She laughed at that. ‘Is she pretty, this Harriet?’

‘Nowhere near as pretty as you. Jack would fancy you more than Harriet, for certain. I do at any rate … I’ve been noticing you for a long time … seeing you come past our house from time to time. I’ve often thought how much I’d like to get you on your own and get to know you.’

‘Have you, Algie? Honest?’ She laughed self-consciously.

‘Yes, honest.’

‘That’s nice … I’m surprised, though.’

‘Don’t be surprised. Next time you come through the lock and pay your penny let me know you’re there, eh? ’Specially if it’s of a Sunday, or if you’re mooring up for the night close by. We could go for walks again then. I mean to say, the summer’s only just around the corner.’

‘And you wouldn’t mind me asking for you?’

‘Course not. I’d like you to. I’m inviting you to.’

She looked him squarely in the eye, with an open, candid smile. ‘I just might then … And your mother wouldn’t mind?’

‘Why should she mind?’

She shrugged girlishly. ‘Dunno … What if she don’t like me?’

‘Oh, she doesn’t dislike you, Marigold. She knows your family. Lord, you’ve been coming through our stretch of the cut long enough.’

‘How old is your mom, Algie?’

‘Two-and-forty.’

‘She don’t look it, does she? She looks about thirty. I mean she ain’t got stout or anything.’

‘No, she doesn’t look her age, I grant you. She looks well. We got a photo of her when she was about your age – what is your age, Marigold, by the way?’

‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in July.’

‘Anyway – this photo of me mom – she was really pretty when she was about eighteen. There must’ve been one or two chaps after her, according to the things I’ve heard said …’

‘But your dad got her.’

‘Yes, me dad got her. Just think, if he hadn’t got her, I’d have been somebody else.’

‘No, Algie,’ she chuckled deliciously. ‘If he hadn’t got her, you wouldn’t have been born. It’s obvious.’

‘Course I would. But I’d have been somebody else, like I say.’

She smiled, mystified and amused by his quaint logic.

‘Your mom’s nice-looking for her age as well, ain’t she?’ Algie said easily. ‘It’s easy to see who you get your pretty face from.’

‘So how old are you, Algie?’ Marigold asked, not wishing to pursue that line.

‘Two-and-twenty. I’ll be three-and-twenty in September.’

‘So how old was your mom when she had you?’

‘Can’t you work it out?’

‘I can’t do sums like that, Algie. I ain’t had no schooling like you.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He smiled sympathetically. It was difficult to imagine what it must be like for somebody who couldn’t read, something he took for granted. ‘Well, she must’ve been about one-and-twenty,’ he said, answering her question. ‘Something like that. What about your mom?’

‘My mom was nineteen when she had me.’

‘Nearly your own age,’ he remarked.

‘I reckon so,’ Marigold admitted. ‘She must have bin carrying me at my age.’

‘So how old is your dad? He looks older.’

‘He’s nearly fifty.’

‘Quite a bit older, then?’

‘I suppose,’ she mused. ‘It’s summat as I never thought about. Anyway, I don’t see as how it matters that much.’

‘Nor do I,’ he agreed.

They left the lane and ambled on towards Kingswinford over fields of sheep-cropped turf, tunnelled by rabbits and sprinkled with glowing spring flowers. Young pheasants, silvery brown, fed near a stile, hardly bothered at all by the couple’s approach.

‘It’s lovely here,’ she commented. ‘Maybe we should stop here a bit.’

So they sat down and talked for ages, never quite reaching Kingswinford, never stumped once for conversation. When it was time to go they returned by the high road, passing the Union workhouse which provided yet another topic of conversation. Marigold decided she liked Algie. He was easy to talk to and she felt at ease with his unassuming manner. She enjoyed being with him. He was handsome, too, and his obvious admiration of her made her feel good about herself.

‘It’s a pity I can’t see you tonight,’ he said, about to leave her at the pair of moored narrowboats, ‘but I go to church of a Sunday night.’

‘With your family?’

‘No, with Harriet.’

‘Oh … with Harriet …’

‘Well, she’s always been brought up to go to church.’

‘I bet she’s been learnt to read and write proper as well, eh?’

‘What difference does that make?’ he said kindly, so that she should not feel inferior to Harriet. ‘Anyway, don’t forget to ask for me when you’re next passing, eh, Marigold?’

She shrugged. ‘I might …’

Chapter 2

The sinking sun cast a long, animated shadow of Algie Stokes as he ambled that evening along the rutted road known as Moor Lane on his way to see Harriet Meese. To his right lay a rambling Georgian mansion, an island of prosperity set in a sea of stubble fields. The grand, symmetrical house seemed entirely at odds with the tile works, the slag heaps and the worked-out mines which it overlooked. No doubt it had existed long before its sooty neighbours had been dreamed of; a rural haven, set in bowers of peace and tranquillity. But no more. Yet it never occurred to Algie what the well-to-do occupants might think of the black, encroaching gloom of industry. He never noticed any of it, taking for granted these immovable, and probably eternal, man-made elements of the unromantic landscape.

The crimson glow from the sun at his back was augmenting the ruddiness of the red-brick terraced houses he was passing. He bid a polite good evening to a passer-by, and his thoughts returned to the golden sunshine of Marigold Bingham’s natural loveliness. Yet, strangely, he was finding that he could not ponder Marigold without Harriet Meese also trespassing unwanted into his thoughts. Mental comparison was therefore becoming inevitable. Maybe it was a guilty conscience playing tricks.

Harriet was twenty years old, the second of seven daughters belonging to Mary and Eli Meese. Eli was a respectable trader who described his business as ‘a drapery, mourning and mantles shop’, situated in Brierley Hill’s High Street, where the family also lived above the shop. Four of the seven daughters were sixteen or over – of marriageable age – but Harriet was blessed with the most beguiling figure of them all, wondrously endowed with feminine curves. She was slender and long-legged, her curves and bulges were in the appropriate places, and as delightful in proportion as Algie had ever had the pleasure to behold in or around Brierley Hill. However, to his eternal frustration he had never been privileged to know Harriet’s sublime body intimately. Nor was such a privilege likely as long as they remained unmarried. Chastity had been instilled into Harriet from an early age, both at home and at church. So, despite Algie’s most earnest endeavours, he had never so much as managed to unfasten one button of her blouse, nor lifted her skirt more than eight inches above her ankle without a vehement protest and an indignant thump. It was, of course, her figure which was the sole attraction, since her face was her least alluring feature.

After a twenty minute walk, Algie strolled up the entry that lay between Eli Meese’s drapery shop and his neighbour, and tapped on the door. Priscilla, Harriet’s older sister, a school teacher who was manifestly destined for eternal spinsterdom, answered it. Facially, she was unfortunate enough to resemble Harriet but, even more regrettably, not in figure. Her crooked lips stretched into a thin smile, yet her eyes, the most attractive feature in her face, creased into a welcoming warmth as she led him into the parlour.

‘Looking forward to church tonight, Priss?’ Algie enquired familiarly.

‘I always do,’ she responded. ‘But sometimes, you know, after I’ve sat and listened to the sermon, I wish I hadn’t bothered. Sometimes, if it’s a good sermon, I get a thrill up and down my spine, and for three or four days after I’m inspired. Once, I remember, after the vicar had preached about generosity, I took it all to heart and took a bag of bon-bons to share amongst the children in my class for a few days … until after that they expected it every day. But on another Sunday he preached against vanity and the love of nice dresses … Well, I was livid. I love nice dresses, as you know, Algie.’

‘Is Harriet ready, or am I in for a long wait?’

‘I should sit down if I were you. She’s been around the house again checking whether there’s enough coal in the scuttles and on the fires, rather than leaving it to the maid. I wouldn’t mind, but she always waits till it’s time to get ready to go out. Besides, it’s pandemonium upstairs right now, with everybody vying for space to get ready. I got ready early, you know, Algie. You’ve no idea what it’s like, all seven of us sisters trying to get in front of the mirror at the same time, not to mention Mother, and when Mother gets there there’s no room for anybody else anyway. Father got tired of waiting. He’s already gone … How is your mother, Algie, by the way?’

‘In good fettle last time I noticed, thanks.’

‘Does she manage to get out these days?’

‘Only in daylight. She won’t go out at night after what happened …’

Priss nodded her sympathetic understanding. ‘I know. Such a pity … But how’s your father?’

‘Oh, he’s well.’

‘What about Kate?’

‘Oh, she’s fit enough, the sharp-tongued little harridan.’

‘Sharp-tongued?’ Priss uttered a little gurgle of amusement. ‘Are you joking? I’ve never thought of your Kate as sharp-tongued. She always seems so cheerful and pleasant, whenever I meet her.’

‘Oh, she’s always cheerful and pleasant to folk she doesn’t know very well. You should try living in the same house.’

‘But she’s such a pretty girl, your Kate. I’d give anything for her looks.’

‘But you wouldn’t want her character or demeanour, Priss.’

‘Oh, I don’t know … People seem to like you more if you’re pretty than if you’re plain. Mind you, I always think that if you go to church regularly and do your duty by your neighbour, you’ll find plenty of people ready to like you … so long as you carry yourself well and don’t stoop,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Anyway, I’m sure Kate’s nowhere near as black as you paint her … Which reminds me, Algie – will you do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Would you mind asking her if she wants tickets to see the plays? It only wants a fortnight.’

‘I daresay Harriet will remind me …’

Harriet appeared at that precise moment, wearing a white skirt printed in a delicate, blue floral design, and blouse to match. The ensemble did full justice to her figure. Because of the family’s business, the Meese girls were able to indulge themselves in the latest materials and designs, and several dressmakers too were always keen to run things up for them, for the recommendations they customarily received from the family.

Harriet greeted Algie with a smile as she put on a short jacket, also white. ‘I’m ready,’ she announced. ‘Are you ready, Priss?’

‘I’ve been ready ages.’

‘But you haven’t got your hat on,’ Harriet reminded her.

‘Oh, but I’m not going to wear a hat, our Harriet.’

‘Not wear a hat?’

‘According to the journals I’ve been reading, London girls are no longer wearing hats. They regard them as old-fashioned, and I’m inclined to agree. Anyway, does my hair look such a mess that I should cover it with a hat?’

‘Your hair looks very becoming, our Priss. I teased it for you myself. But you really ought to wear a hat. Don’t you think so, Algie?’

Algie duly pondered a moment, stumped for an opinion, not really bothered one way or the other. ‘Not if she doesn’t want to, Harriet. Let her go to church without a hat if she wants. Who’s it going to hurt?’

‘But it is Sunday. All the ladies will be tutting.’

‘Let ’em tut,’ Priss said defiantly. ‘I don’t care.’

Harriet shrugged resignedly. ‘Once she’s made her mind up there’s no persuading her, is there? Shall we go, Algie?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, come on, then. See you there, eh, Priss? Unless you want to walk with us …’

‘No, I don’t want to play gooseberry. I’ll be along with the others.’

Algie led Harriet down the cobbled entry. As they walked along High Street facing the low setting sun, he thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and Harriet linked her arm through his familiarly.

‘Priss asked me to ask our Kate if she wanted a ticket to see the plays,’ he said conversationally.

‘Oh, yes, the plays. It’s only a fortnight away and we’ve sold plenty of tickets already. I need to know so’s I can get her one. I know how she likes to see our plays.’

‘I’ll ask her.’

‘What about your mother and father? D’you think they’d like to come? They’re ever so comical.’

‘My mother can be comical,’ Algie quipped. ‘I’m not so sure about my father, though.’

She landed him a playful thump. ‘I mean the plays, you goose. One’s a farce, the other’s a comedy.’

‘Sounds like our house two nights running. But you know my mother never goes out of a night.’

‘Oh, I forgot. What a shame that fear of a bolting horse can stop you going out of a night. It’d be a change for her, though, to go out with your father.’

‘I know it would, and you know it, but she won’t budge. Not at night.’

‘As a matter of fact, there’s something else I’m supposed to ask your Kate, Algie.’

‘What?’

‘Well, she’s quite a pretty girl, isn’t she?’ Harriet admitted grudgingly, ‘and Mr Osborne wants to recruit some “pretty girls” into the Little Theatre, to use his words. I must say, though, I was a trifle narked when I heard him say it, so was our Priss. I mean, how demeaning to us. Not everybody can be pretty, can they? It would be a boring old world if they were. Priss told him so as well. Well, you know our Priss … But you know what men are like. Anyway, he mentioned your sister by name and I said I would enquire after her. Mr Osborne would like her to come along one rehearsal night so he can assess her ability to act.’

‘I’ll ask her then, shall I? I reckon she’ll jump at the chance to show herself off. You know how vain she is.’

‘But, in the long run, it all depends whether she can act,’ Harriet affirmed. ‘Not how pretty she is.’

‘It might divert her from that ne’er-do-well Reggie Hodgetts she seems so fond of.’

‘Reggie Hodgetts?’

‘The son of a boatman,’ Algie explained disdainfully. ‘A proper rodney. Plies the cut regular in that filthy wreck of a narrowboat his family own.’

Harriet gasped in horror. ‘Oh, goodness, a boatman? I hope she’s not thinking of throwing her life away on a mere boatman. A rodney at that.’

‘It’s coming into contact with ’em like she does,’ Algie responded defensively. ‘Being a lock-keeper’s daughter and all that, I reckon. Mind you, some of the boat families are all right. I see a family called the Binghams occasionally. They’re decent folk. Most of them are.’

‘You must make Kate see sense, Algie.’

‘She won’t take any notice of me. You know what it’s like between brothers and sisters.’

‘Then I’ll have a word with her when I see her – discreetly, of course.’

He considered Marigold and how Kate might reveal his secret desire for the girl, a mere boatman’s daughter, if she thought Harriet was poking her nose into her liaison with Reggie Hodgetts. ‘No, don’t,’ he blurted earnestly. ‘It wouldn’t do any good. Our Kate’s too headstrong to take any notice of anybody. She’d only resent you for it. She’d think you were meddling.’

‘All right, if that’s what you think, Algie.’

They arrived at the door of the old red-brick hulk of St Michael’s Church which stood loftily at Brierley Hill’s highest point, sensing at once the cool reverential ambience as they entered. Harriet bid a pleasant good evening to the sidesman who handed her a hymn book, and made her way to the family’s regular pew on tiptoe, so that her heels did not echo off the cold hard floor. Algie followed in her wake.

When the service finished the congregation gathered outside by the light of a solitary gas lamp installed above the main door; a collection of nodding bonnets, top hats and fawning smiles, all content in their self-righteousness. Some merely drifted away into the night in a random procession while others tarried, determined to elicit recognition from or conversation with the vicar, or even the curate. By now there was a chill in the air as the Meese women and Algie lingered outside waiting for the head of the family. When Eli Meese rejoined them he announced that he was going to the Bell Hotel for his customary two pints of ale, which would give him an appetite for his supper. He would be about an hour.

‘I take it as you’ll see me girls and me wife home safe and sound, young Algie?’ Eli said patronisingly as he parted.

‘Course I will, Mr Meese.’

Actually, it had occurred to Algie to leave the company of Harriet and the rest of the Meeses as soon as the service was over, with the idea of seeking Marigold again; her father was likely to be in the Bottle and Glass for the evening getting pie-eyed, so why not take advantage? But to make an unusually early departure, on whatever flimsy excuse he could quickly invent, would only draw comment and speculation after he had gone, especially when he had given Eli his undertaking to see the family home safely. So, as they ambled down the path through the churchyard to the road, he decided to exercise discretion, to remain patient and wait till Marigold’s next passage through the lock at Buckpool.

While the others walked on ahead, Priss attached herself to Algie and Harriet.

‘I thought the sermon tonight was a bit of an unwarranted rebuke to us all,’ she commented airily. ‘The vicar’s wrong about God being just, you know. I hardly think He’s just at all, not all the time anyway. I’ve come to the conclusion that He is often unjust. Look how so many good and kind people suffer, while too many evil rogues prosper. What did you think of the sermon, Algie?’

‘Me? I didn’t listen to it.’

‘Algie was daydreaming as usual, Priss,’ Harriet said with measured scorn.

‘I was contemplating more earthly things,’ he replied.

‘Oh, but you shouldn’t of a Sunday,’ she reproached. ‘Anyway, what earthly things?’

Actually, he’d been contemplating Marigold Bingham; her smooth skin, her fine complexion, her beautiful face and her delicious figure. She’d been the cause of a troublesome disturbance in his trousers during the sermon as he’d allowed himself to imagine her lying warm and playful with him in some soft feather bed. He could hardly admit as much to Priss or Harriet, though.

‘I was thinking about the bike I’m going to buy,’ he fibbed judiciously.

‘Can you afford a bike?’ Priss queried, sincerely doubting it. ‘Surely they cost a fortune?’

‘I’ve been saving up for months. Now I’ve got enough money to buy one.’

‘But a bike? Couldn’t your money be more wisely spent?’

‘On what?’

‘Well, you’re two-and-twenty now. The same as me. And our Harriet is only two years younger. Have you not considered the future?’

‘Priss!’ Harriet hissed indignantly, digging her sister in the ribs with her elbow as they walked.

‘Don’t prod me, Harriet … I only mean to say that if you are contemplating marriage, then it would be far more sensible to save your money, rather than buy a bike.’

‘Who says we’re contemplating marriage?’ Algie remarked clumsily. ‘We’ve never discussed marriage, have we Harriet?’

‘You’ve never discussed it with me.’ There was a catch in her voice, which suggested antagonism at the lack of any such conversation.

‘I just assumed …’

‘Assume nothing, Priss,’ Harriet said with resignation. ‘Algie obviously has other priorities … and so have I, come to that.’

Eli Meese, Harriet’s father, having risen from humble beginnings as the son of a house servant, had embarked on his road to fortune buying bolts of cloth and selling them in lengths to whoever would buy. He viewed this as a means of escaping the pits and the ironworks. His first enterprise involved the purchase of two thousand yards of flannelettes at tuppence ha’penny a yard, which he sold at fourpence ha’penny a yard from market stalls in several of the local towns. Business prospered and he rented a shop in Brierley Hill as a permanent base. Soon afterwards, he met and married Mary, from whom his daughters inherited their uninspiring faces and would, in time, also manifest her stoutness. When their first child, Priscilla, was born he bought the building which was still home and workplace to him and his family. Eli was proud of being a self-made man. He had raised himself from obscurity to his present position, one of considerable standing in the community. He had made money a-plenty and, as money always commands influence, so Eli grew to be a man of some consequence in Brierley Hill, being not only churchwarden at St Michael’s but Guardian and Justice of the Peace as well. In his social elevation he sought to do his best for his daughters, and ensured that each received as decent an education as he could reasonably afford at the Dudley Proprietary School for Girls, to and from which they took the tramcar every day.

Eli was not entirely comfortable with the thought that his second daughter, easily the most appealing of those of marriageable age, could feasibly end up with the inconsequential son of a lock-keeper. He had hoped she would have set her sights higher, but was wily enough to realise that to forbid the liaison would only serve to launch it into more perilous waters, the consequences of which could be devastating and too painful to contemplate. In time, Harriet’s superior education would reveal itself to both of them, and Algernon Stokes would come to recognise his social and mental inferiority – and so would she. Meanwhile, he tolerated Algernon without actually encouraging him at all. Besides, Algernon’s father, Will, used to be Eli’s regular playmate in those far off days of mutual impoverishment. The lad’s mother, Clara, too … Indeed, when Clara was a young filly and Eli was a young buck with a weather eye for a potential mate, she had been a feast to the eye and a definite target. The trouble was, she was too preoccupied with his rivals and would have nothing to do with him. So he had to content himself eventually with Mary, who he’d put in the family way. Mary would never fetch any ducks off water. Her plainness, though, had proved an advantage in one respect, Eli pondered; she was never attractive enough to appeal to anybody else, which ensured her fidelity. On reflection, perhaps he had been too hasty in agreeing to marry her. The acquisition of wealth had made him much more appealing to other women – better-looking women – he’d noticed over the years.

Such were the ruminations, contemporary and nostalgic, of Eli Meese as he supped alone in the saloon of the Bell Hotel sucking at his clay pipe, his head enveloped in an aromatic cloud of blue smoke. Because he was an important citizen and a Justice of the Peace, few of the lesser locals these days considered themselves socially fit to sup in the same room with him. One man, however, walked into the hotel some little time after Eli, greeted him as an equal, and asked if he would allow him to buy him a drink.

Eli grinned in acknowledgement. ‘A pint of India pale, please, Murdoch.’

Murdoch Jeroboam Osborne paid for the drinks and took them over to the table where Eli was sitting. ‘You was deep in thought when I walked in, ha, Eli? Summat up?’

Eli swigged the last inch of beer that remained of his first helping, then sighed as if deeply troubled. ‘What d’yer mek o’ Will Stokes’s lad, Murdoch?’

Murdoch pulled a stick of tobacco from his pocket and began cutting it into workable pieces with his penknife as he pondered the question. ‘Can’t say as I know him that well, but he seems a likeable enough lad. Ain’t he a-courtin’ your Harriet? I’ve seen him a time or two come to meet her from the Drill Hall after our rehearsals, ha?’

‘Between me and thee, Murdoch, that’s what’s troubling me. I ain’t so sure he’s quite up to the mark, if you get me drift.’

Murdoch laughed. ‘I seem to recall as his mother was well up to the mark at one time, ha? Still is, if you want my opinion.’

Eli grinned conspiratorially. ‘Aye, you’m right there and no mistake. Proper little poppet, was Clara Bunn. Many’s the time I’ve wished …’

‘And the daughter takes after her,’ Murdoch remarked with a twinkle in his eye.

‘Ain’t set eyes on e’er a daughter so far’s I know,’ Eli replied. ‘But is that right? Another poppet? Like her mother was, eh, Murdoch?’

‘The image.’

‘I ain’t surprised. D’you see anything of Clara these days?’

‘Calls in me shop regular.’ Murdoch began rubbing the pieces of tobacco between the palms of his hands to render it into shreds. ‘If there’s e’er a boiling fowl or a rabbit spare I generally let her have it cheap. She’s grateful for that. I’ve always had a soft spot for Clara.’

‘She could’ve done a sight better for herself,’ said Eli, secretly meaning that she could have had him if she’d played her cards right. He gazed blandly into the clear golden depths of his beer. ‘She could’ve had the pick of the chaps in Brierley Hill – and beyond, but she settled for Will Stokes. Who’d have thought it at the time, eh? Will was never gunna be anything but a lackey to the Stourbridge Canal Company.’

‘Oh, Will’s a decent enough chap, but we can’t all be businessmen, Eli, ha?’ Murdoch scratched his chin, then took his pipe from his pocket and filled it with the shredded tobacco. ‘You got your drapery and I got me butchery. But it ain’t in everybody … So do I conceit as you ain’t too keen on young Algernon’s attentions to your Harriet, ha?’

‘I got no intention of encouraging it, Murdoch, let’s put it that way. She can do better for herself.’

‘Is she took with the lad?’ Murdoch struck a match and lit his pipe, his head quickly shrouded in waves of pungent smoke as he sucked and blew to get it to draw.

‘I wouldn’t like to say as she’s took with him. It’s hard to say for definite. But these attachments have a way of creeping up on folk. ’Specially these young uns what don’t know their own minds. I’m afeared that afore I know it, he’ll be telling me as he’s got to marry her and asking for me blessing. I don’t want to be asked for me blessing.’

‘Aye, well when she’s one-and-twenty – and that can’t be too far yonder – he won’t even need to ask, will he, Eli, ha? If he wants the wench he’ll just do it. Anyroad, I reckon as she could do worse. A lot worse, ha? The lad’s young, he’s working as far as I know. He might mek summat of hisself yet.’

‘Well,’ pondered Eli, lifting his fresh glass of beer, ‘’tis to be hoped … Got any more o’ that baccy, Murdoch? Me pipe’s gone out.’

As he walked along the towpath alongside his horse, Seth Bingham whittled a toy top from a piece of wood for his children. All that remained was to find a strong switch from which to make a whip to set it spinning. He could imagine their delighted faces when he presented it to them and showed them later that day how it worked.

Marigold jumped down onto the towpath from the butty, where she had left Rose, her younger sister, in charge of the tiller. They were approaching the flight of locks at Dadford’s Shed, on the way back from Kidderminster, and would soon be outside the lock-keeper’s cottage where Algie Stokes lived. She began walking alongside Seth, ready to run on and open the locks ready for the ascent.

‘What you makin’, Dad?’

‘A whip ’n’ top.’

‘A whip ’n’ top? For the little uns?’

‘It’ll keep ’em occupied while we’m moored up.’

‘Will it spin?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Course it’ll spin, when I’ve made a whip for it.’

‘But it’ll want painting, won’t it?’

‘It’d look better painted, I grant yer,’ Seth agreed. ‘But let’s see if it spins all right first. If it does, we can soon paint it.’

‘I’ll paint it,’ Marigold offered. ‘With the kids. But it might be an idea to make more than one, you know, Dad. They’ll want a whip ’n’ top a-piece once they see it.’

Seth laughed. ‘I daresay they will, but they might have to wait.’

Seth continued whittling a second or two more, when neither spoke.

‘Have you got some pennies for the lock-keeper, Dad?’ Marigold asked, breaking the pause. ‘I’ll run on and make sure we can get through ’em all, and pay Mrs Stokes.’

Seth felt in the pocket of his trousers and fished out a handful of change. ‘Here,’ he said inspecting it. ‘And fetch me an ounce of baccy from the Dock shop while you’m at it.’

Marigold rushed to the lock. No other narrowboat was heading towards them from the opposite direction to occupy the lock and impede their progress. Rather, the last narrowboat through the locks had come from the opposite direction so all the levels would be set for them to enter without waiting for them to empty. She opened the first lock, while Seth led the horse towards it, then made her way to the Dock shop, where she bought her father’s ounce of baccy and put it in the pocket of her skirt.

She glanced back, saw their horse boat, the Sultan, entering the lock, and waved cheerily to Seth. She opened the next lock, then hurried to the next, amiably passing the time of day with a couple of the workmen from the dry dock that lay in an adjacent arm of the canal. A dog, from one of the rows of terraced cottages, joined her as she headed for the next lock, and she stooped down to fuss it.

‘Hello, Rex,’ she cooed, having become familiar with the animal over the years. She stroked it under the chin and it looked up at her with round, trusting eyes. ‘I ain’t got nothing for you this time. But next time, I’ll bring you some bones to chew on … I promise I will.’ The dog seemed to understand, and returned with its tail swinging, seemingly happy with the pledge, to the cottage he’d come from.

She reached the lock situated outside the lock-keeper’s cottage and she was aware of her heart pounding. What if Algie was there? What if he hadn’t gone to work and he was at home? She would see him again. It would be lovely to see him again so soon. Before she opened the lock, she crossed it to get to the cottage on the other side and climbed the steps to the garden and the back door. She tapped on the door and waited, scanning the well-tended garden and its crop of spring flowers that were blooming like an array of bright lamps. The door opened, and Clara Stokes greeted her, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘Hello, young Marigold.’

‘Hello, Mrs Stokes,’ she replied deferentially. ‘We’m just coming up through the locks. Can I pay you?’

‘Course you can, my flower.’ Clara held out her hand and Marigold dropped the pennies into it. ‘Ta.’

‘I was just looking at your flowers, Mrs Stokes,’ Marigold said, turning round to admire them again. ‘Them choolips am really pretty. I would’ve thought they’re a bit early, though, wouldn’t you?’

Clara was making out a chit for the payment, but looked up to appreciate the tulips with her. ‘Yes, they’re grand, aren’t they? They are a bit early, like you say. Mind you, we’ve had some nice weather to bring ’em on.’

‘Me mom likes choolips. They’m her favourite flower. And those are a lovely colour.’

‘How is your mom?’ Clara enquired.

‘She’s well, thank you, Mrs Stokes. It’s her birthday tomorrow. I’d love to be able to give her some choolips. Would you sell me some, Mrs Stokes?’

Clara smiled. ‘I’ll do better than that – I’ll give you some to take to her. Let me get a pair of scissors to cut them with.’

‘Are you sure?’ Marigold queried, calling after her as Clara left the scullery for the sitting room. ‘I’d just as soon pay you for ’em.’

‘They cost nothing to grow, Marigold,’ Clara called back. ‘I’ll charge nothing for them. I just hope they give your mom a bit of pleasure.’

Marigold smiled gratefully. ‘That’s ever so kind. Thank you ever so much, Mrs Stokes.’

Clara stepped back inside the room with her scissors, and Marigold followed her up the garden path.

‘How’s Algie?’ she asked, with becoming shyness. ‘Is he at work today?’

‘Oh, he’s at work all right,’ Clara replied, diligently picking out the best tulips and laying them on the ground as she snipped them. ‘Earning his corn. At least it keeps him from under my feet.’

‘I was talking to him Sunday,’ she volunteered. ‘We went a walk afore he went to church.’

‘Yes, he said so.’

‘Did he?’ Marigold sounded pleased with this revelation. ‘He’s nice, your Algie.’

‘I daresay he’d be pleased that you think so,’ Clara replied non-committally.

‘Does he go to church every Sunday?’

‘Most. Only the evening service, though.’

Marigold felt herself blush, and was glad that Mrs Stokes was bending down with her back towards her, unable to witness it. She wanted to mention that girl called Harriet whom Algie had told her about, but had no wish to sound as if she was prying. ‘I suppose Mr Stokes is out and about on the canal somewhere?’ she suggested, to deflect any further focus from herself.

‘He’s checking the locks. You’ll very likely see him as you go by … There … that’s about a dozen blooms.’ Clara gathered the cut tulips from the ground and stood up. ‘I’ll wrap them in a bit of newssheet, eh?’

‘That’s ever so kind, Mrs Stokes, really,’ Marigold said, following Clara back towards the cottage.

‘Come inside while I do it.’

Marigold followed her inside, into the little scullery. She noticed the blackleaded range, pristine and shiny, with the fire burning brightly and a copper kettle standing on the hob. In front of the hearth lay a podged rug, made from old material, the colours and textures of the cloth organised into an appealing pattern. A scrubbed wooden table had four chairs around it, and beneath the window was a stone sink. There was little enough room to move, but to Marigold, used only to the tight confines of the narrowboats’ cabins, it was enormous.

She watched while Clara wrapped the tulips in a sheet of newspaper and asked again if she could pay for them, but Clara only refused with a reassuring smile. ‘Take them, young Marigold,’ she said kindly. ‘Your mother will like them.’

‘That she will, Mrs Stokes. Thank you ever so much.’

‘You’re welcome. Give your mother my best wishes, won’t you?’

‘Oh, I will …’ She did not move, hesitating at the door, and Clara looked at her enquiringly.

‘Is there something else, Marigold?

‘Yes … Will you tell Algie I called, please, Mrs Stokes? He said to ask you to. Will you give him my best wishes?’

Clara smiled knowingly. She did not dislike this slip of a girl. ‘Course I will.’

On the afternoon of the following Saturday after he’d finished work, Algie purchased his bicycle, a Swift, made in Coventry. His intention was to ride it all the way back from the shop in Dudley, stopping at the Meese home on the way to show Harriet; he reckoned she’d still be working in their shop. At Holly Hall, however, a mile away, the chain came off, which gave him a nasty jolt since he was pedalling hard, trying to see how fast he could make it go. As a result, he banged his crotch awkwardly against the crossbar, making him wince with the sheer agony of it. With little alternative but to try and ignore the pain, he dismounted, glad of the opportunity to bend down and nurse his crotch as he replaced the oily chain carefully around the cogs. The job done and the pain slowly receding, he continued on his way, more gingerly this time. He would have to adjust the chain properly when he got home.

‘Oh, I say,’ Harriet exclaimed with approval when she saw the bicycle. ‘Can I have a go on it?’

‘Yes, but mind how far you’re going.’ He was afeared that the chain might come off again, and had visions of walking miles trying to retrieve both the machine and Harriet if that happened. ‘And don’t get the wheels stuck in the tramlines, else you’ll be off.’

Harriet cocked her leg over the saddle, in what was for her, a most unladylike but forgivable manner. She set off from the kerb shakily, emitting a girlish scream of apprehension. ‘I won’t go far,’ she yelled over her shoulder.

Algie watched with a grin as she rode no more than a hundred yards in the direction of Dudley, then turned around with a series of inelegant wobbles. She didn’t have the confidence to use the pedals and merely scooted with her long legs astride the crossbar, the hem of her skirt unavoidably hoisted to an immodest height so untypical of her.

‘I’ll get arrested with my skirt up like this,’ she said, laughing, as she returned to his side. ‘No wonder girls don’t ride these contraptions.’

‘All you need is to wear a pair of trousers instead of a skirt,’ he suggested with a measure of practicality.

‘Don’t be a goose,’ she scoffed. ‘Who ever heard of such a thing!’

‘Well, I think it’s a good idea. These machines can be just as useful for women as for men …’ The comment was prompted by what Marigold had said about cycling ahead of the narrowboats to open the lock gates. ‘But you women won’t benefit unless you change your attitude.’

‘What attitude?’

‘Your attitude to what you’re prepared to wear. Trousers, for instance. Women used to wear trousers when they worked in the mines.’

‘Some women that worked in the mines wore nothing at all, I’ve been told,’ Harriet responded with scorn. ‘But you won’t find me going about with no clothes on. Anyway, can you imagine what I’d look like?’

‘Lord, I daren’t even begin to think about it, Harriet …’

‘Seen the Binghams lately, Dad?’ Algie asked one day on his return from work. ‘I ain’t seen ’em for a fortnight.’

Will Stokes looked at his son with a wry smile. ‘They ain’t been a-nigh, Son, not since that day your mother laid bare me tulip patch. Still got your eye on young Marigold, have yer?’

Algie smiled. He was able to admit such things to his father. He was able to talk to him about anything. ‘Could be,’ he answered with a wink. ‘Would you blame me?’

‘Nay, she’s a bonny wench, our Algie. I can understand you being interested. But if you seriously want her, don’t lead young Harriet on, that’s my advice. It ain’t fair. She’s a decent young madam is Harriet, and I’m sure she wouldn’t do that to you. So be straight with her.’

‘Oh, I intend to be, Dad. Once I’m sure of me standing with Marigold. I got no intention of two-timing her.’

Will shook his head. ‘If you got no serious intentions for young Harriet, you should tell her straight, Marigold or no Marigold.’

‘I know, Dad, but I don’t want to burn all my bridges … Not yet …’

On the Wednesday night, that last day in April, Algie accompanied his sister Kate to the town hall, which had been hired by the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society for two performances that week of two plays; My First Client, a farce, and a comedy called You Know What. Both had the audiences guffawing with laughter.

After the show, Harriet returned from backstage and formally introduced Kate Stokes to Murdoch Osborne, the society’s leading light and principle organiser.

‘Me and Miss Stokes are already partly acquainted, ha?’ Murdoch said pleasantly. ‘Her mother’s a regular customer of mine, and I see Miss Stokes most days on her way to work at Mills’s cake shop, ha, Miss Stokes? I can see a definite resemblance to your mother, you know … and that’s a compliment, ha?’

Kate blushed becomingly. ‘Thank you, Mr Osborne.’

‘Now then. Harriet here tells me as you might be interested in joining our little theatre group.’

‘I never thought about it before, but I think I’d like to try it,’ Kate replied coyly, imagining receiving the audience’s applause and appreciation, as rendered so enthusiastically for tonight’s star, Miss Katie Richards.

‘Have you been involved in drama before?’

‘Never, but I’m a quick learner. I learn poetry ever so quick. I would soon learn me words, I’m sure. I’d really like to try me hand at it.’

Murdoch Osborne was watching her, fascinated by her large, earnest brown eyes. ‘You’re a very pretty girl and no mistake, Miss Stokes … and we’re fortunate to be blessed with so many lovely girls in our Little Theatre.’ He glanced at Harriet for a look of approval at his flattery. ‘We start casting and rehearsing next Wednesday for our next production, a play entitled The Forest Princess, set in North America. I’m keen that we cast the part of Pocahontas right.’

‘Pocahontas?’ Kate queried, wide-eyed.

‘Pocahontas was a beautiful Red Indian princess who lived in the seventeenth century, Kate … Can I call you Kate?’

‘Oh, yes. Course.’

‘Good. Thank you … I was about to say … I would be very grateful if you could attend.’

‘Thank you, Mr Osborne, I will. What time should I get here?’

‘Oh, we don’t meet here. We meet in the Drill Hall—’

‘Why don’t you call for me on the way, Kate?’ Harriet suggested helpfully. ‘You could walk up with me and our Priss.’

‘Oh, right,’ Kate beamed. ‘Could I?’

‘Course. It’s always best, I think, if you can go somewhere strange with somebody you know. Especially the first time.’

‘Then that’s settled,’ said Murdoch Osborne with a triumphant grin. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you then.’