Читать книгу A Country Girl - Nancy Carson - Страница 8

While Algie was at the Bottle and Glass trying to get back into Seth Bingham’s good books, Marigold picked up her mother’s basket and made her way to the lock-keeper’s cottage. She tapped on the door and Kate answered it.

‘Oh, hello, Marigold,’ Kate greeted pleasantly. ‘Our Algie ain’t here, he’s at the Bottle and Glass.’

Marigold blushed at the implication. ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Stokes, not Algie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something for her.’

‘You’d better come in then.’

Marigold followed Kate into the scullery where Clara was at the sink. She greeted Marigold with a warm smile, which was returned.

‘Hello, Mrs Stokes … I just wanted to bring you these …’ She placed the basket on the table and invited Clara, by her demeanour alone, to peer into it.

‘Eggs!’ Clara declared. She looked up at Marigold and smiled. ‘For me?’

‘For being so kind, Mrs Stokes. For letting me have those choolips for me mom last time we was through here. She loved ’em, you know. As soon as I gave them to her she put them in a vase and they took pride o’ place in the Sultan’s cabin. They lasted ever so long, as well. She was ever so pleased with them. So when I knew as they’d got some new-laid eggs at a farm up by the viaduct when we came past this morning, I thought getting you a dozen would be a good way of saying thank you.’

‘You didn’t have to do that, Marigold,’ Clara said, touched by her thoughtfulness, ‘but it’s very kind of you. Thank you. It’s a lovely thought. Algie will enjoy having eggs for his breakfast in the morning, especially since it’s you that’s brought ’em. So will Mr Stokes.’

‘Did you hear about Algie falling in the cut this morning, and taking our horse with him?’

Clara laughed. ‘He told me all about it. I can just picture it.’

‘The silly devil,’ Kate chimed in with scorn. ‘I suppose he was acting the goat.’

‘It was an accident, Kate,’ Marigold said gently, immediately coming to Algie’s defence. ‘He couldn’t help it. It could’ve been much worse than it was, but it was an accident. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness. Him and me dad just took a look in the cut with the horse, and got wet.’

‘And now they’re celebrating the fact in the public, I suppose,’ Kate replied.

‘I hope so,’ Marigold said. ‘It’s just a pity our poor horse can’t be there with ’em as well. I think he deserves a drink after what he’s been through.’

Washed, dried and wearing his Sunday best suit, Algie Stokes left the Bottle and Glass after imbibing more beer than he was used to, in his endeavour to redeem himself in the eyes of Seth Bingham. He stepped unsteadily round the back of the public house, and winced at the bright afternoon sunshine that lent a dazzling sparkle to the canal’s murky water. He headed at once for the pair of narrowboats moored abreast of each other in the basin. The Odyssey was furthest from him.

‘Marigold!’ he called.

Marigold emerged from the Sultan. She stooped down to say goodbye to her mother, who was below in the cabin. She saw that Algie was wearing his best Sunday suit, his silver Albert stretched across his waistcoat.

‘How did you get on with me dad?’ she asked, clambering out of the narrowboat onto the towpath.

‘We’re the best of mates,’ Algie affirmed, with a misplaced sense of pride that amused her.

With an unspoken consensus they headed towards Wordsley, the direction he had taken at the beginning of his eventful ride that morning. Serenity enveloped them, a sort of reverential Sunday silence, punctuated only by the trickling songs of blackbirds. On other days such wistful and lovely birdsong went unheard, muffled by the intense throb of industry. Ducks and geese basked at the edge of the canal and a pen sat with propriety and elegance on a huge nest overlooked by the Dock shop.

‘How many drinks did you have to buy him?’ Marigold enquired.

‘Two.’

‘No wonder he’s the best o’ mates with you.’

‘He bought me one back as well.’

‘So you’ve had three pints?’

‘No, four, to tell you the truth. Somebody else bought us one besides. I never drink that many as a rule. ’Specially of a Sunday dinnertime.’

Marigold gasped. ‘Your hold must be awash. I wonder you can still stand.’

‘Oh, I can still stand all right.’ He teetered exaggeratedly, pretending to be more unsteady than he really was. ‘I don’t think I can walk very straight though.’ The sweet sound of her laughter appealed greatly to him and he focused his admiring eyes on her.

‘Then it’s a good job you ain’t riding your machine, else you’d be taking another look in the cut.’

‘I was intending to give you a ride on it,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Shall I go and fetch it?’

‘Not on your nellie. Not if you’ve had four pints o’ jollop and you keeps plaiting your legs. Look at you, you’m all over the place.’ She chuckled again good naturedly at his seeming unsteadiness.

‘When we come back, I mean.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘How come it’s been so long since you came this way?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d be through our lock well before today.’

‘I told you, we had work that took us up to Cheshire. It’s a good earner to Cheshire and back to Birnigum, ’cause we generally loads up wi’ salt for the return.’

‘So you ain’t seen that chap in Kidderminster either?’

‘Course not.’

‘I bet you got your eye on somebody in Cheshire, though, eh?’

‘Me?’ she queried, with genuine surprise. ‘Course I haven’t.’

He was teasing her, but something in her voice suggested she was taking him seriously, and convinced him she was telling the truth. ‘I’d be surprised if nobody was interested in you, Marigold.’

‘Why?’ she fished, an expectant smile lighting up her lovely face.

‘Well, I mean … Somebody as pretty as you?’

‘Oh, I ain’t that special, Algie,’ she protested pleasantly, with no hint of coquetry. ‘I’m just ord’n’ry. Anyroad, what about you? I bet you’ve been seeing that Harriet.’

He shrugged non-committally.

‘I bet you have,’ she persisted.

‘There’s nothing serious between me and Harriet. I told you.’

‘I bet you’ll be going to church with her tonight again, whether or no.’

It was true, worse luck; Harriet was expecting him, and there was no sense in denying it. ‘Not if you agree to come out with me tonight, I won’t.’ He looked at her again to discern her reaction.

‘All right,’ she agreed, returning his look with a distinct twinkle in her eye. If she refused, then he would certainly spend the evening with this Harriet, and she must prevent that happening. ‘I’ll come out with you tonight, if you like. You’ll have sobered up by then, tis to be hoped …’

They walked along the towpath in a companionable silence for a moment or two, each considering the implications of what they had said. Algie casually kicked a loose stone and it plopped into the canal. He would have to give Harriet an explanation for failing to show up for church. But he was not sorry. It would afford him the opportunity to make the break from her as honourably as he could, as his father had said he should. Such a break from Harriet would be to their mutual benefit, freeing her to accept the advances of other young men, more deserving of her.

‘How far are we going?’ Marigold asked.

‘Not far, eh?’ Algie replied. ‘I’m tired. All that buggering about in the cut.’

‘Oh, well, you can bet it’s nothing to do with the beer you’ve had.’ Marigold glanced at him sideways with a knowing look, with no hint of recrimination, then burst out laughing at his peeved expression.

‘I can take my beer, you know,’ he replied sheepishly. ‘It’s the mucking about in the cut that’s done me in. I just hope I haven’t caught a chill. Anyway, let’s get off the towpath by Dadford’s Shed … There …’ He pointed to a huge new timber construction named after Thomas Dadford Junior who had supervised the building of the canal more than a century earlier. ‘We can go over the bridge there to the fields at the back of the sand quarry and have a sit down.’

‘If you like,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t fancy walking far. I got some new second hand boots on as I got from Penkridge Market the other day, and they’m a bit tight. I need to break ’em in afore I walk a long way in them.’

It was a short walk from Dadford’s Bridge and the wharf of the Glassworks, along a back way called Mill Street and then Water Lane, where they passed the sand quarry Algie had mentioned before the lane dwindled to a footpath. Marigold was surprised to find herself at a lovely quiet spot, nestling between steep hillocks and sandstone crevices, out of sight of the quarry, the glassworks and the rest of civilisation. A small and very clear stream rippled idyllically between clusters of young trees. Wafts of almond-scented gorse rose to meet them as they stepped over the soft grass, like velvet beneath their feet.

‘Let’s sit down here,’ Algie suggested. He sat himself on the ground with his arms around his knees and looked up at Marigold who was still standing. He held his hand out to her. ‘Come and sit beside me, Marigold. I thought you said your boots were hurting you.’

She did as he bid compliantly and with an inherent daintiness. Algie tugged at a stalk of grass, one end of which he put between his teeth. In the distance a cuckoo made its wilful call, while a pair of young rabbits bobbed about playfully close by. Marigold drew his attention to them.

‘Ain’t they beautiful?’

‘They’re all right in a stew,’ he quipped, deliberately taunting her. ‘I reckon there’s too many uncooked rabbits knocking about.’

She responded by giving him a playful tap on the arm. ‘Tell me about Harriet.’

‘What d’you want to know?’

She shrugged. ‘How long you’ve been seeing her, what she’s like …’

‘She ain’t that interesting,’ he replied dismissively.

‘She can’t be that bad if you see her regular.’

‘I told you, it’s nothing serious. We aren’t courting proper.’

‘So how long have you known her?’

He shrugged. ‘About two years.’

‘Two years and it ain’t serious? It’s time she got the hint … Unless you’ve just been stringing her along.’

He shrugged again, but made no reply.

‘So you don’t love her?’

‘Love her?’ he repeated, disparaging the notion with overstated disdain. ‘If I loved her I wouldn’t be here with you. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t like her, though.’

‘But not enough to wed.’

‘Any chap would be a fool to marry a girl he doesn’t love, don’t you agree?’

‘Course.’

‘It wouldn’t do Harriet much good either, would it?’

She shook her head. ‘I suppose not. Does she work?’

‘Yes. For her father, in his drapery shop.’

‘Drapery shop?’ Marigold repeated in awe. ‘Oh, I’d like to work in a drapery shop. I bet she’s got some nice clothes.’

He took the stalk of grass out of his mouth and turned to her. ‘I’d rather not talk about Harriet,’ he said softly. ‘I reckon you’re a lot more interesting.’

The comment elicited a shy smile and she lowered her lids.

‘You know what I’d like to do?’ he said, as if confiding a great secret.

‘What?’

‘I’d like to kiss you.’

‘You must be drunk.’

‘I never felt more sober in my life.’

‘Get away with you,’ she chuckled. ‘You’ll be asleep in a minute. Me dad always nods off when he’s had a drink.’

‘I’ve never felt more wide awake. I want to kiss you, Marigold.’

She offered her cheek, teasing him.

‘On the lips, you nit,’ he said with a boyish grin.

She looked into his eyes earnestly for a few seconds, wondering whether to accede to his request. For Marigold this was a momentous step. As he leaned towards her in anticipation, she slowly tilted her face to receive his kiss. His lips felt soft and cool on hers, as gentle as the fluttering of a butterfly, a sensation she enjoyed.

‘Wasn’t too bad, was it?’

She focused on her new boots to avert her eyes. ‘No, it was nice,’ she answered softly. ‘It was really nice …’Cept I can smell the beer on your breath.’

‘Never mind that. Kiss me again.’

She lifted her face to his once more and their lips brushed this time in a series of soft, gentle touches. Marigold’s heart was pounding hard.

‘You kiss nice,’ he said softly.

‘Nicer than Harriet?’

‘A lot nicer than Harriet. Harriet ain’t got kissing lips like you. Her lips are too thin. When you kiss her they feel as if they’re worked by springs. I ain’t that struck on kissing a set of springs.’

‘So you reckon I’ve got kissing lips?’

‘For certain.’ He smiled with tenderness.

‘I bet you’ve kissed loads of girls.’

‘Not really …’

‘A lot, I bet,’ she suggested.

He allowed her to believe it. It could do no harm. ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Have you kissed lots of chaps?’

‘Me? No … Only Jack from Kidderminster.’

‘Who kisses the best?’ he enquired. ‘Me or him?’

‘Dunno,’ she answered shyly.

‘Does he kiss you like this …’ Algie put his arm around her, and his lips were on hers with an eager but exaggerated passion.

She turned her face away. ‘Algie, it’s not so nice when you kiss me that hard. You hurt me mouth. It’s much nicer when you do it gentle. Gentle as a butterfly … Butterfly kisses.’

‘Sorry … Like this, you mean?’

He resumed kissing her tenderly again.

‘That better?’

‘Yes, that’s much nicer. I don’t reckon as you’ve kissed that many girls if you think they like it done hard.’

‘I never tried to kiss anybody that hard afore, to tell you the truth. There’s nobody I ever wanted to kiss that hard.’

She glanced into his eyes briefly with a shy smile.

‘Will you be my girl?’

She picked a daisy from the grass at her side before she answered, and twizzled it pensively between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Will you give up Harriet if I say yes?’

‘Course I will. Will you give up that Jack in Kidderminster?’

She hesitated and Algie imagined she was torn which way to jump. Perhaps he was rushing things.

‘Well?’

‘I dunno, Algie …’ she replied with a troubled look.

‘What’s to stop you?’

She sighed deeply. ‘I do like you, Algie …’

‘But?’

‘Well … I can’t say as I know you that well yet. How do I know you won’t still see Harriet behind me back? I mean, if we keep going to Cheshire and Birnigum and back it might be weeks afore I see you again. I don’t see the sense in promising to be yourn if you’m still gonna see that Harriet behind me back while I’m away.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he asserted, trying to sound as convincing as he could. ‘Anyway, if you keep going to Cheshire you won’t see Jack either, so you might just as well decide to pack him up as hang on to him. ’Specially if you got me. I could ride to Kidderminster on my bike to see you if you were moored up there the night. You wouldn’t end up having nothing to do. As a matter of fact, I could ride to see you at lots of places if I knew where you intended to moor up nights.’

‘I dunno, Algie …’

‘Is it because you love Jack, then?’

‘No, it’s because I ain’t sure of you.’

‘Do you still want to see me tonight?’

‘Course, if you still want to,’ she said quietly.

The Meese household, with the exception of their maid and the cook, whose afternoon off it was, had assembled in the parlour. Harriet sat in an upholstered chair expectantly while Priss was perched on its arm, awaiting the imminent arrival of Algie Stokes.

‘He’s very late,’ remarked Priss, twiddling her gloved thumbs impatiently. ‘I don’t think we should wait any longer. He’ll see you in church, Harriet, I’m sure, if he’s coming at all.’

Eli shuffled impatiently, and donned his hat. ‘I’m hanged if I’m going to wait around any longer for that ne’er-do-well. As churchwarden I have a responsibility to be at church in good time.’

‘Yes, please go on, Father,’ Harriet urged. ‘All of you. Except you, Priss, if you don’t mind. I’d rather you wait to walk with me in case he doesn’t show up. I do hope he hasn’t had an accident on that bicycle of his.’

‘He’ll get no sympathy from me if he has,’ Eli said self-righteously. ‘Right, come on, you lot. Let’s go. We’ll see Priss and Harriet at the church with Lover Boy, if he ever deigns to show his face.’

In a swish of satin skirts, the younger Meese girls and their mother left the house and walked down the entry behind Eli in an orderly, if chattering, single file. Emily, the third daughter, eighteen, closed the door behind them with a wave, a smile and a flurry of audible footsteps as she ran to catch them up.

‘What if he has had an accident, Priss?’ Harriet speculated fretfully.

‘Well, it would hardly surprise me. But how will you know? You can’t walk all the way to their cottage tonight to find out. Anyway, we can afford to wait ten more minutes yet. He might show up.’

‘Yes, he might,’ Harriet sighed. ‘But it’s unlike him to be late. You can normally set your clock by him. He’s normally so punctual that Mr Bradshaw could write his timetable by him.’

‘Except there’d be a printing error for today’s times,’ Priss commented airily. ‘But you know what a palaver Father makes of getting to church early. You’d think he was the vicar instead of the churchwarden, the fuss he makes.’

‘Maybe Algie has had an accident and his fob watch got broken, and he doesn’t know the time … Maybe we should invite him to tea of a Sunday in future. Then he’ll be here ready, fob watch or no.’

‘Steady on, Harriet,’ Priss said. ‘That’s taking things a bit too far. But I suppose it depends how serious you are about him. Personally, I wouldn’t shed any tears over him. It’s not as if he’s serious about you. Besides, has it ever crossed your mind that you could do better for yourself? I’ve noticed how the curate looks at you …’

Harriet shrugged. ‘Oh, no, Priss, the curate admires you.’

Priss sighed and smiled sadly. ‘I only wish he did.’

‘I had a feeling you liked him like that, Priss.’

Priss felt herself blushing. ‘Oh, I’d be very good for him,’ she said candidly. ‘I’d make an excellent clergyman’s wife, you know. But I bet he thinks we’re dreadfully plebeian, being a family of drapers.’

‘At least we’ve got gas and water laid on, Priss. Anyway, I suspect it would be rather dull being married to the curate,’ Harriet speculated. ‘Living with him would be like taking board and lodgings in the church.’

‘Oh, I don’t agree. The curate is an ideal sort of person to marry, with his high principles and conscientiousness.’

‘Yes, you could sit up in bed with him at night and discuss Constantine the Great’s contribution to Christianity,’ Harriet suggested. ‘Or the relevance of the Book of Revelations to the Second Coming. That would be very stimulating, and be sure to beget you lots of offspring.’

‘Don’t be coarse, Harriet. I think the curate is too superior a person to fall in love with anybody anyway,’ Priss surmised sadly. ‘Like Algie Stokes in a way, except that Algie Stokes is not superior at all.’

‘I know Algie’s only a brass worker, Priss, but so what? I’ve known him ages and he’s a dear, gentle soul. Just remember, our father came from nothing. If he hadn’t had a bit of luck in the early days, he might have ended up a brass worker or an iron worker.’

‘Yes, and look where we’d be …’

‘It is honest employment after all, though, Priss.’

‘Anyway, from what I hear, it was not luck that brought Father his prosperity, but sheer hard work, determination and a belief in himself.’

‘And who’s to say Algie won’t develop along the same lines?’

‘Of course, he might,’ Priss conceded. ‘But he shows no sign of it. He’s far too immature.’

They waited the whole ten minutes, but Algie did not materialise. So the two sisters hurried to church in the warm evening air without him, curious as to what had become of him.

‘Where you taking me tonight?’ Marigold asked when Algie called for her again that evening.

‘We could go for a drink.’

‘I’d have thought you’d had enough to drink for one day.’

‘I feel all right now. Sober as a judge in fact. I had a nap after my tea. Tell you what, why don’t we go and have one drink, then go back to that spot down by Dadford’s Bridge again? It was nice and peaceful down there.’

‘If you like,’ she said, content to go along with it. It would mean that they could lie in the grass and kiss to their hearts’ content. The experience earlier had set her heart pounding and she’d enjoyed the exhilaration.

To avoid Seth Bingham, who had installed himself at the Bottle and Glass, they stopped first at the Samson and Lion, which backed onto the canal a little further along. Algie fetched the drinks and took them outside where Marigold waited.

‘Does your mother go on to your dad about him drinking of a Sunday?’ Algie enquired as they stood outside the public house overlooking the towpath, drinking glasses in hand, enjoying the warm summer evening.

‘No, never. Why should she? She reckons he deserves his day of rest in the public bar, if that’s what he enjoys. He works hard every other day, never stops. Up at the crack o’ dawn, he is, to see to Victoria and get him ready for when the locks open so’s we can be on our way. He don’t stop neither till dusk when we moor up for the night and he’s found a stable.’

‘D’you like living in a narrowboat on the cut? Wouldn’t you rather live in a house like ordinary folk?’

‘I don’t know nothin’ any different, do I? I see folk like you living in houses, but I’ve never lived in a house … well, not as I can remember. My mother lived in one, though. She comes from somewhere round here.’

‘Fancy,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know … So, how d’you manage, living in so small a space?’

She smiled into his eyes. ‘Oh, we manage. We’ve got everythin’ we need. It’s just all in a small space. I sleep in the butty on the cross-bed with two of my sisters, and one of my brothers sleeps on the side-bed. Me mom and dad sleep in the Sultan with our Billy, the youngest.’

‘I often wonder how very young children get on, living on narrowboats. I mean, what do they do?’

‘All sorts of things,’ Marigold replied. ‘Me dad makes ’em fishing rods, and he’s taught us all to fish. They spend ages fishing. It keeps ’em busy. They know every type of bird, every fish we ever catch …’

‘What about schooling?’ he asked.

‘Never had much schooling.’ She sighed with regret. ‘Oh, I’d have dearly loved to have had some proper schooling, all of us would, but we’m never in one place long enough. The inspectors came once or twice asking to see our attendance books, but even they know what it’s like travelling ’tween towns all the while, pressed for time and money. It must be nice to have had some schooling, so’s you could see words wrote down and be able to read ’em proper, instead o’ mismuddling ’em, like I do.’

He smiled with admiration for this slip of a girl. ‘Finish your beer and we’ll go, eh?’

Soon, they left the Samson and Lion.

‘Give me your hand,’ he said.

She found his hand, and turned to look at him with tenderness in her eyes. They walked on, hardly speaking but companionable enough, till they reached Dadford’s Shed and the bridge. In the distance, the bells of Wordsley Church were pealing melodically, as they would be at St Michael’s in Brierley Hill.

‘You’d be with Harriet now if you wasn’t with me,’ she remarked, prompted by the sound of the church bells, as they crossed the road into Water Lane.

‘I reckon so,’ he replied frankly. ‘But not anymore I won’t, if you say you’ll be my girl.’

‘Did you send word as you wouldn’t be able to see her tonight?’

‘How could I? There was no time.’

‘P’raps you should’ve gone to see her instead then. She’d have been waiting.’

‘Well, it’s done now. Anyway, she’s got sisters to go to church with. She won’t miss me … You know, I don’t think her dad likes me that much. They never say so, but I can tell by the way he is towards me – a bit offish.’

Marigold offered no reply other than a sympathetic smile.

They reached the dell where they had been earlier. It was all in shadow since the sun, now low in the west, had traversed the sky. As before, he sat down on the ground and beckoned her to join him, which she did. He put his arm around her and drew her to him, hugging her.

‘Have you thought anymore about what I said?’ he asked her.

‘What was it you said?’ she replied, not quite sure what he meant.

‘About being my girl …’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘What is there to think about?’ he said. ‘I told you I’d give up Harriet. By not going to see her tonight, I already have done.’

‘I know,’ she said seriously. ‘And I believe you …’

‘So why dilly-dally? Tomorrow night I’ll ride to Kidderminster on my bike and we can be together again …’

‘I couldn’t meet you till after I’d told him.’

He grinned, impressed by her obvious integrity, but had no wish to appear too triumphant. Not yet at any rate. ‘So you’ll tell him then, that you don’t want him anymore?’

She nodded. She had made up her mind. ‘I might get to talk to him while they’m offloading the boats. I want to be straight with him, Algie.’

Algie beamed. ‘Course you must. It’s the only way. So you’ll be my girl?’

‘I will,’ she said, as solemnly as if she were taking her wedding vows.

‘You’re sure?’

She nodded again and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

He hugged her and planted a kiss on her lips, hardly able to believe his good fortune.