A Fallen Woman. Nancy Carson

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СКАЧАТЬ him. ‘It will turn into a real shiner before the night’s out.’

      ‘The bruise is neither here nor there. I’m telling you that in view of Stokes admitting everything I’m commencing divorce proceedings, based on your adultery, and I’m citing him as co-respondent.’

      ‘Well…something to look forward to at last,’ she goaded.

      Benjamin ignored her jibe. ‘When I recall how you have deceived me with your disgusting infidelity, and have lied to me about it all this time, I am flabbergasted at your gall. When I ponder how you and that twit Stokes sordidly brought a child into this world and you tried to pass it off as mine, it makes me feel physically sick. Did you really think you could get away with it? Did you really think I was that stupid? Well, you’ll pay the price, Aurelia. God alone knows where or how you will live, because I shan’t keep you. You’ll not get a penny from me. You and Stokes’s bastard can wallow in the gutter for all I care. Maybe the workhouse will take you in, but that’s your concern. Either way, I shan’t envy you.’

      ‘So what about Maude Atkins and your own bastard, Benjamin?’ Aurelia countered acidly. ‘Will she and her child likewise end up in the workhouse when you’ve had your fill of her? Because I suppose the poor soul is destined to become the new Mrs Sampson and live here, and end up as unloved as I have been in this vile mausoleum, while you gallivant off with some other beguiled and deluded young woman and father your next bastard.’

      ‘You have a very low opinion of me, Aurelia.’

      She rolled her eyes. Such a stupid, stupid man…‘Is it any wonder? Are you so dense that you can’t see why? Do you honestly believe you are such a wonderful catch?’

      ‘You seemed to think so when I saved you from the follies of your mad-brained father. You were grateful enough for marriage then. I have given you respectability, despite the fact that he shamed himself so—’

      ‘You hypocrite, Benjamin,’ she interrupted. ‘Can’t you see that you are exactly like my mad-brained father, whom you are so fond of disparaging? Can’t you see that what you’ve done in cavorting with our former nanny, under the same roof you share with your wife, is just as shameful as what he did with my aunt, Marigold’s mother? No, I don’t suppose you can, because you’re too stupid and too blind to see it. I don’t suppose for a moment that fathering a child with Maude Atkins is on a par with anything my father did, in your eyes.’

      ‘Listen, you harlot, I’ve kept you in fine clothes, fed you and provided a roof over your head. You’ve lived the life of a lady, wanting for nothing. Yet how do you repay me? You allow yourself to be seduced by that ne’er-do-well.’

      ‘Yes, it’s quite all right for you to be unfaithful, isn’t it? But not me.’

      ‘I am allowed to be unfaithful, Aurelia,’ he roared. ‘You, as my wife, are not. It’s that simple.’

      * * *

      Algie leaned his bicycle against the wall and went into the house, resigned to the inevitable chaos that his confession to Marigold would create. Clara, his mother, was in the kitchen preparing food.

      ‘My goodness, Algie, you look as if you’ve lost a sovereign and found a sixpence,’ she remarked on witnessing his sombre expression.

      ‘Maybe I have,’ he replied glumly. ‘Where’s Marigold?’

      ‘Out the back, fetching in the washing. It’s been a good drying day.’

      He nodded. ‘I’ll go and find her.’

      In the back garden, beneath billowing sheets, he saw her dainty feet and black stockings protruding below her long skirt as she reached on tiptoe for the wooden pegs that attached the sheets to the washing line. He called her name. As she pulled back a sheet, as if peering behind a curtain, she saw him approach.

      ‘Hello, husband,’ she greeted with a warm smile, ‘it’s been a good drying day.’

      ‘Mother said.’

      ‘Our Rose has been a proper little madam all day, though.’

      He forced a smile.

      ‘Here, Algie, help me fold this sheet properly, save getting it creased. Sheets can be a devil to iron if they get too dry and ain’t folded proper, all smooth like. Are your hands clean?’

      He inspected them cursorily. ‘Yes.’

      She held out one edge of a sheet to him and he took it. Between them they stretched it taut and made the first fold, then another. Marigold took the long folded sheet, gathered it in cross-folds, and placed it in the wicker washing basket at her feet.

      ‘Have you had a good day?’ she asked chirpily.

      ‘Not particularly.’

      She unpegged another sheet and offered him one end. ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

      ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about, Marigold.’

      She smiled enigmatically and he detected a twinkle in her eye. ‘Well, it can wait till I’ve got the washing in, I daresay.’

      ‘I daresay.’ He was glad of the delay and shrugged as they pulled on the sheet to make it taut before executing the first fold. When they had finished he took her hand and led her to the wooden bench at the top of the garden at the point furthest from the house, so as not to be overheard. They sat down, he turned to face her, conscience-stricken, and took her hands in his.

      ‘Before you say a word, Algie Stokes, I have something to tell you,’ she said, and it pained him to see how cheerful she was, and how soon his news would turn that cheerfulness into misery.

      ‘What?’ he asked, grimly.

      ‘Oh, just wait till I tell you.’ There was no mistaking the teasing frivolity in her eyes, the contentment.

      ‘So tell me,’ he demanded impatiently.

      ‘I’m having another baby. You’re going to be a dad again.’

      ‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaimed, closing his eyes and facing the sky. He let go of her hands and stood up, bewildered by her news. ‘How? I mean, when?…I mean, how long have you known?’

      She giggled at his obvious perplexity. ‘Oh, Algie…Since before today, o’ course. Ain’t you pleased?’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

      ‘I’ve been meaning to for days and days. But you can never be sure early on…’ she shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to get your hopes up, then have to tell you I was wrong.’

      ‘So how far gone are you?’

      ‘Well, I’ve missed two months. So I reckon I might be nearly three months already.’

      ‘Jesus,’ he repeated. He sat down beside her again and leaned against the backrest. This was a twist he had not reckoned on.

      ‘Ain’t you pleased?’ she asked again, disappointed at what seemed to her his detachment. ‘I thought you’d be ever so pleased.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ