Nancy Carson - A Country Girl

‘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.