A Fallen Woman. Nancy Carson

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СКАЧАТЬ and foresight of his father, who, from excruciatingly humble beginnings, had become a self-made man.

      Young Benjamin, however, was not particularly interested in the manufacture of anything. The factory existed merely as a tap to provide a continuous but diminishing supply of money; money that he took for granted and spent unwisely. He failed to understand the mysteries and mechanics of how it was generated, or indeed why it should dwindle. It was a tap that dripped uncontrolled, always lowering the level of the reservoir that had been its working capital.

      As an only child Benjamin had wanted for nothing, and in adulthood expected everything. He understood little about, and appreciated less, what his father had achieved, or how he had achieved it. Nor had he ever come close to appreciating the astonishing setbacks his father had overcome to be so successful.

      For the record, the old man had been one of three illegitimate children, born in 1831 and raised in the area aptly known as Lye Waste, east of Stourbridge. He knew of nothing other than the absolute squalor he was born into, but from the age of three he had learned from his unmarried parents how to make nails. When his mother and father died of consumption, he and his two sisters ended up in the care of the workhouse. While they were being unceremoniously carted thence, he looked about him and noticed the way other people lived; he saw fine houses, neatly tended gardens, and other children at play. This indelible memory of a superior world was the stimulus the intelligent Benjamin Prentiss Sampson needed to better himself.

      His two sisters died of consumption in the tender care of the workhouse, but Benjamin contrived to escape it, and he thrived. He saved what money he earned and, in 1856, had enough to start his own small business making fenders and hearth ware. In 1862, having shed the shackles of poverty and gained the respect of the business classes, he met and married a respectable girl and found time to father a son, Benjamin Augustus.

      Old Benjamin gladly paid for the lad’s schooling, another privilege that money could buy, and nurtured high hopes for him. Education ensured that the lad spoke more correctly than the father, distancing him from the likes of the workhouse inmates and his employed workers. Ultimately, there was something about the son that the father admired and even envied; his demeanour, his confidence, the undeniable charm of which he was capable. If expensive schooling had taught him little else, it taught him the benefits of fine manners – when, how and whom to beguile; social tools which make it easier to get what you want.

      When he left school he joined the prosperous Sampson firm to learn the business. Young Benjamin, however, could muster enthusiasm for little except cricket, his first love. If he could have spent his life playing cricket he would have happily done so.

      It was cricket that eventually brought Aurelia Osborne to his attention. She was the older of two daughters of Murdoch Osborne, a well-known local butcher, womaniser, and a key member of the local Amateur Dramatics. For all his dubious reputation, Murdoch had nobly insisted his daughters received a proper education. It had endowed Aurelia with confidence, cordiality, grace, and an eloquence that surpassed Benjamin’s; so the charmer was also charmed.

      Because of her innate politeness when they first met, she seemed amenable to his attentions, even flattered, willing to talk about him. He was encouraged. Eventually, after several weeks of insistent love notes, posies of flowers and packages of delicious chocolates swathed in ribbons, she agreed to meet him – alone. A few more short weeks saw the departure of Clarence Froggatt from her life. Soon after, Aurelia’s mother passed away, having lived a life of abject disillusionment and unhappiness, due to the reckless and feckless extramarital dalliances of her husband, Murdoch, which included an affair with her mother’s own sister.

      Hence, Aurelia despised her father.

      The word ‘marriage’ soon entered Benjamin and Aurelia’s vocabularies. He was desperate to get Aurelia into his bed, and she was desperate to quit her father’s dominion. So they swiftly arranged a wedding. Every day and every night thereafter would be a honeymoon – or so they both envisaged.

      Within a few months it was obvious the marriage was not working. Aurelia fell pregnant, however. Her expanding belly, subsequent lack of interest in the normal bedtime activities of young couples and confinement disadvantaged him for too long. The introduction of a pert young nanny into the household was a tempting distraction. She was not as striking as Aurelia, but was pretty, petite and alluring; in all, a dangerous attraction. And the more dangerous the attraction the more reckless the chase, and, ultimately, the more exhilarating the consummation.

      The nanny was a living, breathing young woman who tantalised him with her youthful figure and cheeky smile. He would brush past her, catch the scent of her perfume as it drifted to him, and she would turn her head and smile provocatively with her large expressive eyes, at exactly the same time that he turned to look at her. She recognised his interest and played on it. They schemed to be together and he would engineer any opportunity to visit her bedroom.

      Thus, their marital problems had begun, so that by this time in August 1892 – two children later –Benjamin and Aurelia both had cause to regret their marital haste.

      * * *

       Chapter 3

      Brierley Hill’s High Street was a stretched-out thoroughfare, the busy main highway that carried the horse-drawn traffic and steam tramcars between the larger towns of Dudley and Stourbridge. The road was lined on either side with black, cast iron gas street lamps, public houses and terraces of shops with doors invitingly open. The spaces over shop windows were bedecked with painted wooden boards and sometimes enamelled metal panels, painted in black or green, with fancy white lettering, informing the passer-by of treats that lay within, or which upright citizen owned the emporium.

      One such panel announced the Drapery, Mourning and Mantles Establishment of Eli Meese, Esq. It resembled every other store on High Street, except for the long entry at the side with a floor of criss-crossed blue bricks and a door let into one wall, which was the entrance to the living accommodation. These quarters occupied three further storeys, part of a drab, soot-besmirched, red-brick terrace with flaking green paintwork to the window frames and doors. Within these walls Eli resided with his wife, seven daughters and two servants.

      The shop at street level was the target for two disturbingly lovely young women who bore a perceptible resemblance to one another. As they made their way along High Street in the warm sunshine wearing dazzling white summer dresses, not only men, but women too turned to look.

      They were half-sisters, sharing the same father, but until fate intervened some year or so earlier, they had not been aware of each other’s existence. Now they were as close as sisters could be, often discussing their secrets and innermost feelings about their respective husbands and the state of their marriages. So it was that Marigold Stokes knew and understood that Aurelia was so desperately unhappy, while she herself was perfectly content with her own lot.

      As they opened the door of the shop, a bell tinkled, signalling their entrance, as did the sound of their dainty heels on the dry, unvarnished floorboards. The musty smell of cotton prevailed, and the two young women caught each other’s eye and wrinkled their noses simultaneously. Countless bolts of cloth, the finest that Manchester could produce, and in the very latest colours, patterns and textures, lined the walls and every appropriate flat surface.

      Harriet Meese, Eli’s second daughter, unattractive of face but more alluring of figure – and unreservedly pleasant of personality – was on solitary duty behind the counter.

      ‘Aurelia! Marigold! How nice of you to call.’ She put down the needlework that generally occupied her during quiet moments and got up eagerly СКАЧАТЬ