A Fallen Woman. Nancy Carson

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СКАЧАТЬ hanky-panky in bed.’

      Marigold rolled her eyes in disbelief. Such a notion was alien to her. ‘What, and miss out on all the fun?’ said she earnestly. ‘You don’t want none of that celibacy, Priss.’

      ‘Thank you, Marigold,’ Harriet remarked with a twinkle in her eye, ‘for confirming that sort of thing is fun.’

      ‘Well, it is and no two ways,’ she affirmed, then turned to Priss. ‘Ain’t there nobody else you fancy, Priss, who might be less inclined to this celibacy nonsense?’

      ‘She once had a crush on the apothecary, Mr Tapper, didn’t you, dear?’ Harriet answered for her with a shrug. ‘But nothing came of that either.’

      ‘There’ll be somebody waiting just around the corner, you’ll see,’ Marigold suggested with evident sympathy.

      ‘Oh, tell me which corner and I’ll skip over there at once.’

      They all laughed.

      ‘Anyway…this pastel blue satin,’ Marigold remarked, reverting to the task in hand. ‘How much d’you reckon I’ll need, Harriet?’

      Harriet looked Marigold up and down. ‘Not that much, you’re so outrageously slender. Shall you want new underskirts as well?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ Aurelia urged with a nudge. ‘Taffeta. I’m sure Algie can afford it.’

      ‘Taffeta?’

      ‘Dear me, yes. The whispering sound it makes when you walk has such an effect on men.’

      All the girls giggled conspiratorially.

      ‘As long as it has the same effect on Algie,’ Marigold remarked.

      ‘Perhaps you should wear taffeta underskirts to encourage the curate, our Priss,’ remarked Harriet.

      ‘I suppose it’s worth a try,’ Priss agreed.

      Harriet unrolled more of the material across the counter. She measured the length she was to cut off against the brass yard-measure fastened along its edge, and began to wield her scissors.

      ‘So, Aurelia, how is Benjamin? I haven’t seen him since that cricket match he and Clarence played in, in July.’

      ‘Oh, please don’t bring Benjamin up in conversation,’ Aurelia remarked, with genuine indifference. ‘I’ve come out of the house to forget him, and I’d really rather not be reminded of him while I’m out.’

      The girls, glancing from one to the other, smiled sympathetically, Harriet and Priss half aware of the truth of it.

      ‘D’you see what you have to look forward to, our Harriet?’ Priss remarked. ‘I suppose you’ll end up completely apathetic towards your husband as well.’

      ‘At least I shall have a husband to be apathetic towards.’

      Priss turned to the other two and rolled her eyes. ‘Isn’t our Harriet a goose? I shall be so glad when the school holidays are over – I get less backchat from my pupils than I do from her.’

      ‘Oh, no, let the school holidays go on forever,’ Aurelia proclaimed. ‘You two are a regular double act, and we find you most entertaining, don’t we, Marigold?’

      ‘Better than a Punch and Judy show any day of the week.’

      * * *

      The bell of the shop doorway pinged pleasantly again as Marigold and Aurelia stepped outside into the warm sunshine. Carrying their respective parcels of silk, satin and taffeta, they made their way along Brierley Hill’s main street, towards the home of Mrs Palethorpe.

      ‘I feel so blessed, you know,’ Marigold confided. ‘When I was on the narrowboats my father could never have afforded to buy me a satin dress and have it made up by my own seamstress.’

      ‘I suppose it makes you appreciate it all the more,’ Aurelia acknowledged.

      ‘No two ways. I still can’t believe me luck. When I think back to when I had our Rose and I still didn’t know what had happened to Algie, and then I look at what I’ve got now – married to him and going to the dressmaker’s to be measured for a lovely new dress…Yet it’s something I s’pose you’ve always been used to, Aurelia?’

      A brewery dray delivering barrels of ale paused at the cobbled entrance of the Turk’s Head public house which also served as tramcar waiting rooms. Marigold and Aurelia tarried to let it pass, and its iron-tyred wheels clattered over the cobbles as the driver tipped his cap in acknowledgement.

      ‘Whether I’m used to it or not, Marigold, you have no idea how much I envy you,’ Aurelia said earnestly. ‘You’re happily wedded to Algie, and you’d be happy even if he was a pauper. That louse I’m married to has had money all his life, and I confess, he’s never begrudged me new dresses and such. But I’m far from happy – far from happy. He’s not happy either – with me, I mean. So you see, Marigold, money alone doesn’t make you happy. We exist in a loveless marriage, Benjamin and me, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’

      ‘Oh, Aurelia, I do wish there was something I could do to help,’ Marigold stated fervently. ‘But at least you’ve got your children.’

      ‘And I dote on them. They’re the world to me. But my husband can’t hold a candle to yours. Cherish Algie, Marigold, because he’s worth it.’

      ‘Oh, Aurelia, I do wish there was something I could do for you,’ she repeated. ‘I hate to think of you being so unhappy. Ain’t there no chance of you ever again rekindling the love you had for one another before?’

      ‘Spare me the revolting thought. I couldn’t bear him to touch me, and that’ll never change. That’s why we sleep in separate rooms.’

      ‘I know, Aurelia, and I’m that sorry.’

      ‘We’ve not slept together since well before Christina was born. Nor would I allow him to touch me once I knew I was carrying her.’

      ‘Oh, Aurelia. I don’t think I could live like that; not sleeping with my husband, no hanky-panky in bed. I love the hanky-panky.’

      ‘Lucky you. Algie’s a different kettle of fish, though, isn’t he? He strikes me as being loving, attentive, hard-working…He doesn’t have a mistress, either, does he, like Benjamin does?’

      ‘I’d kill him…and her…’

      Aurelia smiled affectionately. ‘I imagine it’s something you’ll never have to worry about, Marigold. Anyway, Maude Atkins is welcome to Benjamin. As long as she keeps him away from my bed.’

      A tramcar thundered along beside them, the clatter and hiss of its steam engine making conversation momentarily impossible. They crossed the cobbled street, lifting their skirts to prevent the hems skimming the dust and dried slurry, and then turned into a descending hill lined on either side with terraced houses. One was the home of Mrs Palethorpe, the dressmaker.

      ‘You know, Aurelia,’ Marigold said, as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘Are СКАЧАТЬ