A Fallen Woman

‘Well, that’s the way you have to be with servants when they get above themselves, ain’t that right, Mother?’

‘You have to let ’em know who’s gaffer and no two ways, else they’ll do hell and all to get the better of you. What I particularly don’t like about servants, though, is the way they carry tittle-tattle. Your life’s never your own. Before you know it, the world and his wife know your business.’ She bent down and opened the oven door to a sizzling of fat and a rejuvenated aroma of the roasting mutton. Using a folded rag, she pulled the meat dish out carefully. ‘It’s done now, our Algie. Are you going to carve it?’

‘When I’ve changed out of these working clothes, Mother.’ He carefully handed Rose to Marigold.

‘Shall we take a cup of tea up to Daddy while he changes?’ Marigold suggested to the child.

‘Have we got any beer instead?’ He turned to look at her. ‘I’d rather you bring me a glass of beer.’

* * *

‘Let’s sit in the back garden,’ Algie said that same evening when the meal and the washing-up had been done, and Rose put to bed. ‘It’s a grand evening. Are you coming, Mother?’

‘I want to tidy my bedroom up a bit, our Algie,’ Clara replied. ‘There’s all sorts of clutter about, and I wouldn’t want our Rose to pick up anything as might hurt her. I’ll be back down in a bit.’

Algie nodded. ‘Keep your ear tuned for her then, eh? Just in case she wakes up.’ He turned to Marigold. ‘Come on then, flower.’

From the table, Marigold picked up the mug containing the tea she’d half-finished, and followed Algie through the hallway to the back door. The low summer sun had infused the wisps of high cloud with flushes of gold that toned Marigold’s creamy complexion and reflected in her blue eyes.

Much of the garden, by this time in shade, was still an informal arrangement of unkempt grass, with randomly spaced apple and damson trees fruiting promisingly, planted many years earlier. Marigold had set herself the task of converting this meadow into a more formal affair, but while she had made a valiant start she still had a great deal to do.

She stopped at one of the trees to inspect the fruit that was ripening, and took a drink of tea, tepid now.

‘It looks like we’ll have plenty damsons, Algie.’

‘All well and good. But what d’you propose to do with ’em?’

‘Make jam,’ she said simply. ‘Or chutney. My mother can have some next time she comes. She’ll be able to pass some of it to the other narrowboat folks. Apples as well. Have you seen how many apples we got? I could make cider. Me and me dad used to make cider.’ She finished off the tea. ‘Oh, look!’ she suddenly exclaimed with a childlike whoop, pointing. ‘There’s a hedgehog over there.’

She handed Algie the empty tea mug and held her long skirt against her legs to stop it rustling as she crept towards the hedge at the bottom of the garden where she’d spotted her quarry. The animal rolled itself into a ball and remained still as it became aware of her approach. Marigold stooped down and stroked it gently.

‘It’ll prickle you.’

‘Course it won’t.’

‘You’ll pick up flees. It’ll be crawling with flees.’

‘Oh, look at the poor little thing, Algie,’ she cooed, ignoring his cautions. ‘Keep your eye on him while I fetch him some bread and milk. I bet the poor thing’s hungry.’

Algie smiled indulgently. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, and ambled back towards the house. He loved this gentleness, this girlish sentimentality his wife always exhibited towards lesser entities. Such an endearing characteristic, which bemused him and yet delighted him too.

He returned with a saucer of milk and a thick slice of bread he’d hacked off the loaf. Marigold, meanwhile, was still trying to coax the bewildered creature into giving her some attention. Algie stooped down beside her. He placed the saucer of milk near the living ball of spikes and broke the bread into chunks.

‘Let’s leave him be,’ he suggested. ‘Let him find the bread and milk for himself.’

Marigold turned and smiled, and he thought how delightful she looked, her skin caressed and tinted by the low golden sun. He stood up, took her hand and led her away from the hedgehog.

‘Sometimes,’ he said slowly, deliberately, ‘I look at you, and at our Rose…and I see this house…and…’

‘And?’

‘Well…’ He shrugged, hardly able to express himself adequately. ‘I ask myself whatever did I do to deserve it all?’

‘Oh, Algie,’ she softly sighed. ‘You daft thing.’

He squeezed her hand and turned to look at her. ‘I suppose I’ve got Aurelia to thank in the first place. It’s a good job she and I knew each other. I mean, if it hadn’t been for her going to stay at your Aunt Edith’s at the same time as you were there having our Rose, we might never have found each other again, had we?’

‘I know,’ she answered dreamily. ‘I thought I’d lost you forever. It was as if you’d disappeared off the face of the earth. And there I was having your child.’

‘But what a blessing it was to find you…and what a hell of a shock to find out you’d just had my child. It changed my life…’

‘Mine as well,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve never been so happy, Algie.’ Her eyes misted with emotion.

‘Nor me…Yet it’s all been such a change for you, flower. I mean a life on the narrowboats, never knowing where you’re gonna be from one day to the next, is different from living in a house fixed on dry land, eh?’

‘Course it is.’

‘But you’ve adapted. You’ve adapted well.’

‘Well, my mother taught me all there is to know about cleaning and cooking, and they’re the same wherever you are. Some things I miss though – like when I used to run ahead of me dad’s brace of narrowboats to open the locks ready.’ She laughed as she recalled it. ‘But I don’t miss the times when we heaved to at night, and me and me mother used to maid, mangle and peg out the washing on the towpaths, come rain, snow or shine.’

‘Nobody would guess, looking at you now, as you’d spent your life on the narrowboats, though. You can put on a show of elegance and good manners just as well as Aurelia.’

‘Except I’m a bit more shy than what she is. Aurelia’s got lots more confidence than me – she ain’t backward in coming forward – comes from being educated proper, I reckon.’

‘Maybe so, my flower, but one thing you ain’t short of is common sense. And that counts more than having had an expensive education – for a girl at any rate.’

They had reached a bench that was in desperate need of a lick of paint. Beyond it, over the hedge, was a field edged with a row of tall elms.

‘It’s funny the way things turn out, ain’t it?’ Marigold went on, smoothing the creases out of her skirt as she sat down. ‘I mean…I know we was lucky to have this house as well, and that bit of money your mother inherited—’

‘Which we put into the business,’ he interrupted.

‘Yes, but you work hard, Algie. And you’re careful with money.’

‘I don’t take chances. But in business you can’t afford to stand still either. Things are changing all the time. Especially in the bike business.’

‘I suppose sometimes you make your own luck, eh, Algie?’

He put his arm around her and she snuggled up to him. ‘Maybe I hit on the right thing at the right time with the bikes,’ he said. ‘It was just a feeling I had that building bikes was the right thing to do. Anyway, we’re doing all right. We’re getting more orders all the time. In fact, I’m setting on two more men next week – old workmates from Sampson’s.’

Marigold regarded him with sudden anxiety. ‘Oh, Algie, do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘What? Employing old workmates?’

‘Pinching Benjamin Sampson’s workers.’

‘Sod Benjamin Sampson. Anyway, Sampson’s ain’t doing too well, by all accounts.’