Nancy Carson - A Fallen Woman

They all laughed.

‘Anyway…this pastel blue satin,’ Marigold remarked, reverting to the task in hand. ‘How much d’you reckon I’ll need, Harriet?’

Harriet looked Marigold up and down. ‘Not that much, you’re so outrageously slender. Shall you want new underskirts as well?’

‘Oh yes,’ Aurelia urged with a nudge. ‘Taffeta. I’m sure Algie can afford it.’

‘Taffeta?’

‘Dear me, yes. The whispering sound it makes when you walk has such an effect on men.’

All the girls giggled conspiratorially.

‘As long as it has the same effect on Algie,’ Marigold remarked.

‘Perhaps you should wear taffeta underskirts to encourage the curate, our Priss,’ remarked Harriet.

‘I suppose it’s worth a try,’ Priss agreed.

Harriet unrolled more of the material across the counter. She measured the length she was to cut off against the brass yard-measure fastened along its edge, and began to wield her scissors.

‘So, Aurelia, how is Benjamin? I haven’t seen him since that cricket match he and Clarence played in, in July.’

‘Oh, please don’t bring Benjamin up in conversation,’ Aurelia remarked, with genuine indifference. ‘I’ve come out of the house to forget him, and I’d really rather not be reminded of him while I’m out.’

The girls, glancing from one to the other, smiled sympathetically, Harriet and Priss half aware of the truth of it.

‘D’you see what you have to look forward to, our Harriet?’ Priss remarked. ‘I suppose you’ll end up completely apathetic towards your husband as well.’

‘At least I shall have a husband to be apathetic towards.’

Priss turned to the other two and rolled her eyes. ‘Isn’t our Harriet a goose? I shall be so glad when the school holidays are over – I get less backchat from my pupils than I do from her.’

‘Oh, no, let the school holidays go on forever,’ Aurelia proclaimed. ‘You two are a regular double act, and we find you most entertaining, don’t we, Marigold?’

‘Better than a Punch and Judy show any day of the week.’

* * *

The bell of the shop doorway pinged pleasantly again as Marigold and Aurelia stepped outside into the warm sunshine. Carrying their respective parcels of silk, satin and taffeta, they made their way along Brierley Hill’s main street, towards the home of Mrs Palethorpe.

‘I feel so blessed, you know,’ Marigold confided. ‘When I was on the narrowboats my father could never have afforded to buy me a satin dress and have it made up by my own seamstress.’

‘I suppose it makes you appreciate it all the more,’ Aurelia acknowledged.

‘No two ways. I still can’t believe me luck. When I think back to when I had our Rose and I still didn’t know what had happened to Algie, and then I look at what I’ve got now – married to him and going to the dressmaker’s to be measured for a lovely new dress…Yet it’s something I s’pose you’ve always been used to, Aurelia?’

A brewery dray delivering barrels of ale paused at the cobbled entrance of the Turk’s Head public house which also served as tramcar waiting rooms. Marigold and Aurelia tarried to let it pass, and its iron-tyred wheels clattered over the cobbles as the driver tipped his cap in acknowledgement.

‘Whether I’m used to it or not, Marigold, you have no idea how much I envy you,’ Aurelia said earnestly. ‘You’re happily wedded to Algie, and you’d be happy even if he was a pauper. That louse I’m married to has had money all his life, and I confess, he’s never begrudged me new dresses and such. But I’m far from happy – far from happy. He’s not happy either – with me, I mean. So you see, Marigold, money alone doesn’t make you happy. We exist in a loveless marriage, Benjamin and me, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’

‘Oh, Aurelia, I do wish there was something I could do to help,’ Marigold stated fervently. ‘But at least you’ve got your children.’

‘And I dote on them. They’re the world to me. But my husband can’t hold a candle to yours. Cherish Algie, Marigold, because he’s worth it.’

‘Oh, Aurelia, I do wish there was something I could do for you,’ she repeated. ‘I hate to think of you being so unhappy. Ain’t there no chance of you ever again rekindling the love you had for one another before?’

‘Spare me the revolting thought. I couldn’t bear him to touch me, and that’ll never change. That’s why we sleep in separate rooms.’

‘I know, Aurelia, and I’m that sorry.’

‘We’ve not slept together since well before Christina was born. Nor would I allow him to touch me once I knew I was carrying her.’

‘Oh, Aurelia. I don’t think I could live like that; not sleeping with my husband, no hanky-panky in bed. I love the hanky-panky.’

‘Lucky you. Algie’s a different kettle of fish, though, isn’t he? He strikes me as being loving, attentive, hard-working…He doesn’t have a mistress, either, does he, like Benjamin does?’

‘I’d kill him…and her…’

Aurelia smiled affectionately. ‘I imagine it’s something you’ll never have to worry about, Marigold. Anyway, Maude Atkins is welcome to Benjamin. As long as she keeps him away from my bed.’

A tramcar thundered along beside them, the clatter and hiss of its steam engine making conversation momentarily impossible. They crossed the cobbled street, lifting their skirts to prevent the hems skimming the dust and dried slurry, and then turned into a descending hill lined on either side with terraced houses. One was the home of Mrs Palethorpe, the dressmaker.

‘You know, Aurelia,’ Marigold said, as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘Are you unhappy for the same reason as Benjamin?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘What I mean is…maybe he’s unhappy because he’s in love with another woman – this Maude Atkins – so are you unhappy because you are in love with another man, and can’t have him? You’ve never said as much.’

Aurelia felt herself blushing. However, she had no intention of confiding such information to Marigold, close as they were. Marigold had accurately assessed the situation, as she so often did; she might have had little or no education, but astute perception and common sense abounded.

Alerted by the lack of a response, Marigold looked at her half-sister. ‘You’ve gone red, our Aurelia…So there is somebody, eh?…Are you going to tell me who it is?’

‘Enough, Marigold,’ she chided good-naturedly and smiled as she knocked, still red-faced, on Mrs Palethorpe’s door. ‘Mrs Palethorpe will turn us away if she hears such talk.’

* * *

By the time Aurelia arrived home it was nearly five o’clock. Her first task was to check with Joyce Till, the nanny, that little Benjie and Christina were content. Benjie came running to her in the hallway and she scooped him up in her arms and hugged him.

‘I hope you’ve been a good boy for nanny while I’ve been out,’ she whispered fondly.

The child nodded his solemn avowal.

‘He’s been very good, ma’am,’ Joyce answered for the child.

‘Where’s Christina?’ Aurelia enquired.

‘Asleep, ma’am. I thought she seemed rather tired today, so I was inclined to let her sleep a while longer before she has her tea.’

Aurelia nodded. ‘So long as she sleeps tonight. Is she ailing, d’you think?’

‘Oh, not ailing, ma’am. Just tired, I believe.’

‘I’ll go upstairs and change. Then I’ll wake her.’

In the privacy of her fortress Aurelia closed the door quietly. It did her a world of good to get out of the house whenever she could. It did her good to see the people outside of it with whom she could communicate. She sat down on the stool at her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror. This time she was not disappointed with what she saw; she knew herself to be a good-looking woman and she valued her looks, for good looks were an asset when used effectively. She was beginning to perceive her good looks as a curse, however, having propelled her into this ill-fated marriage, this tawdry existence. She sighed heavily. Her beauty made her attractive to men; her beauty had first attracted Benjamin, but these days he was more interested in their pretty ex-nanny. Her beauty had tempted Clarence Froggatt, but he was about to marry Harriet Meese, who was patently not outwardly beautiful. So where had this enviable beauty got her? Her beauty had attracted the man she now loved so passionately, but she did not have him either.