A Country Girl. Nancy Carson
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