Nancy Carson - A Fallen Woman

* * *

On a warm sunny day that August in 1892, Marigold was pulling weeds from a flowerbed in the front garden of Badger House, the gentleman’s residence in Kingswinford that had only recently become their home. Algie swerved his bicycle expertly through the gate and onto the yielding gravel of the driveway that led to the unused stable at the rear. He dismounted, and Marigold rose up from her knees, wiped her hands on her apron and hurried towards him, all her love in her welcoming smile.

‘I’m glad you’re back early, Algie.’

He leaned the bike against the wall under a window of the house, put his hand to her slim waist, gave her a broad smile and a peck on the cheek. He saw his child’s bassinet standing in the lengthening shade of the laburnum, and took Marigold’s hand. ‘How long’s she been asleep? Is she due to wake soon?’

‘I ought to wake her now, Algie, else she won’t sleep when it’s her bedtime.’

He stood looking at his daughter then bent down and stroked the smooth skin of the baby’s face, disturbing her. She grimaced and opened her blue eyes wide, bewildered for a second. A smile appeared as soon as she saw her father’s benign countenance peering down at her. He lifted her carefully from the bassinet and held her to him. ‘Hello, little poppet,’ he murmured. Rose rubbed her eyes and immediately began sucking her thumb as she appraised the world from over his shoulder.

‘Daddy’s home,’ Marigold said softly, standing before them both. ‘Come to see his little girl.’

‘Where’s Mother?’ he enquired.

‘Cooking your dinner. She would insist, Algie…’ Marigold sounded apologetic.

‘Shall we go inside then, and say hello to Grandma?’ he whispered to Rose, still absorbed with her thumb.

Walking slowly across the lawn towards the front door Algie stopped. He looked at Marigold and nodded towards his bicycle. ‘That’s the new model we’ve been working on. What d’you think?’

‘It don’t look no different to the last,’ she answered with the honesty of a woman totally unversed in the mysteries of bicycle design.

‘Oh, it is different. Different shaped handlebar, different mudguards, frame. And it’s a good four pounds lighter. Benjamin Sampson will have a fit when he sees it, ’specially when he knows we’ll be putting a lamp on the front for free. We can get the Lucas Planet lamp for less than three bob apiece. We’ll build it into the price of the bike, o’ course…Let’s go and say hello to Grandma, eh?’

Grandma was indeed cooking dinner in the vast kitchen with its huge range, and the smell of mutton roasting made Algie feel hungry.

‘You’re back early,’ Clara Osborne, Algie’s mother, declared.

‘Aye, early and hungry,’ he replied. ‘It smells good. But you ought to be outside enjoying the sunshine, not stuck in here cooking.’

‘Well, I thought it would give Marigold a chance to get out into the garden and the sunshine. It’ll do her no harm.’

‘Maybe we should get a couple of servants,’ he suggested. ‘Somebody who can cook. We can afford it now.’

‘I’ll have no truck with servants, our Algie,’ replied Clara predictably. ‘I can cope with a bit of cooking.’

‘Yes, and what about the washing, the ironing, the cleaning, and looking after our Rose here? This is a big house, Mother. You and Marigold need help to run it.’

‘Whether or no, I wouldn’t thank you for servants. I didn’t like the last lot what was here.’

Algie knew what she meant. ‘ The last lot ’ belonged to another life, another time, for Algie and his mother had lived in this house before, and left it, driven out by the shenanigans of her late second husband. Since then it had become part of his unwanted inheritance. For many months there had been no buyer, so Clara deemed it a fitting place for Algie and his new wife and child to inhabit, so they moved back in. After all, the family was likely to expand. Furthermore, it occupied a fine spot in the old parish of Kingswinford, far enough away from the industrial miasma that putrefied the Black Country…It was also ready furnished. Algie, however, would not hear of moving there unless his widowed mother accompanied them.

Algernon Stokes, known to all as Algie, was twenty-four. His upbringing had been conscientiously accomplished by a strict yet fair father’s influence, endorsed and abetted by his mother. Prior to marriage, his view of the world had become tainted by its pretence and callousness. Life had already doled out its share of disappointments, including the ordeal of his father’s sudden death. Marriage to Marigold had been his saviour, however, and he looked forward to all that it offered. He was now largely content, and he had been enterprising enough to start his own business.

‘I agree with your mother, Algie,’ Marigold chimed in, going over to the range to shift a pan of cabbage that was boiling over and sizzling on the great hob at the side of the fire. ‘We don’t need servants. We can manage well enough, can’t we, Clara? I ain’t no better than a servant anyway.’

‘Marigold,’ Algie pronounced reprovingly. ‘Never put yourself on a par with servants. Put yourself on a par with Aurelia. She’s got servants.’

‘Yes, I know – a maid and a nanny,’ Marigold asserted. ‘But I always feel as if they’m looking down on me, servants. Mind you, Aurelia soon puts them in their place.’

‘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.’