A Country Girl. Nancy Carson
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wear a hat?’
‘According to the journals I’ve been reading, London girls are no longer wearing hats. They regard them as old-fashioned, and I’m inclined to agree. Anyway, does my hair look such a mess that I should cover it with a hat?’
‘Your hair looks very becoming, our Priss. I teased it for you myself. But you really ought to wear a hat. Don’t you think so, Algie?’
Algie duly pondered a moment, stumped for an opinion, not really bothered one way or the other. ‘Not if she doesn’t want to, Harriet. Let her go to church without a hat if she wants. Who’s it going to hurt?’
‘But it is Sunday. All the ladies will be tutting.’
‘Let ’em tut,’ Priss said defiantly. ‘I don’t care.’
Harriet shrugged resignedly. ‘Once she’s made her mind up there’s no persuading her, is there? Shall we go, Algie?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, come on, then. See you there, eh, Priss? Unless you want to walk with us …’
‘No, I don’t want to play gooseberry. I’ll be along with the others.’
Algie led Harriet down the cobbled entry. As they walked along High Street facing the low setting sun, he thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and Harriet linked her arm through his familiarly.
‘Priss asked me to ask our Kate if she wanted a ticket to see the plays,’ he said conversationally.
‘Oh, yes, the plays. It’s only a fortnight away and we’ve sold plenty of tickets already. I need to know so’s I can get her one. I know how she likes to see our plays.’
‘I’ll ask her.’
‘What about your mother and father? D’you think they’d like to come? They’re ever so comical.’
‘My mother can be comical,’ Algie quipped. ‘I’m not so sure about my father, though.’
She landed him a playful thump. ‘I mean the plays, you goose. One’s a farce, the other’s a comedy.’
‘Sounds like our house two nights running. But you know my mother never goes out of a night.’
‘Oh, I forgot. What a shame that fear of a bolting horse can stop you going out of a night. It’d be a change for her, though, to go out with your father.’
‘I know it would, and you know it, but she won’t budge. Not at night.’
‘As a matter of fact, there’s something else I’m supposed to ask your Kate, Algie.’
‘What?’
‘Well, she’s quite a pretty girl, isn’t she?’ Harriet admitted grudgingly, ‘and Mr Osborne wants to recruit some “pretty girls” into the Little Theatre, to use his words. I must say, though, I was a trifle narked when I heard him say it, so was our Priss. I mean, how demeaning to us. Not everybody can be pretty, can they? It would be a boring old world if they were. Priss told him so as well. Well, you know our Priss … But you know what men are like. Anyway, he mentioned your sister by name and I said I would enquire after her. Mr Osborne would like her to come along one rehearsal night so he can assess her ability to act.’
‘I’ll ask her then, shall I? I reckon she’ll jump at the chance to show herself off. You know how vain she is.’
‘But, in the long run, it all depends whether she can act,’ Harriet affirmed. ‘Not how pretty she is.’
‘It might divert her from that ne’er-do-well Reggie Hodgetts she seems so fond of.’
‘Reggie Hodgetts?’
‘The son of a boatman,’ Algie explained disdainfully. ‘A proper rodney. Plies the cut regular in that filthy wreck of a narrowboat his family own.’
Harriet gasped in horror. ‘Oh, goodness, a boatman? I hope she’s not thinking of throwing her life away on a mere boatman. A rodney at that.’
‘It’s coming into contact with ’em like she does,’ Algie responded defensively. ‘Being a lock-keeper’s daughter and all that, I reckon. Mind you, some of the boat families are all right. I see a family called the Binghams occasionally. They’re decent folk. Most of them are.’
‘You must make Kate see sense, Algie.’
‘She won’t take any notice of me. You know what it’s like between brothers and sisters.’
‘Then I’ll have a word with her when I see her – discreetly, of course.’
He considered Marigold and how Kate might reveal his secret desire for the girl, a mere boatman’s daughter, if she thought Harriet was poking her nose into her liaison with Reggie Hodgetts. ‘No, don’t,’ he blurted earnestly. ‘It wouldn’t do any good. Our Kate’s too headstrong to take any notice of anybody. She’d only resent you for it. She’d think you were meddling.’
‘All right, if that’s what you think, Algie.’
They arrived at the door of the old red-brick hulk of St Michael’s Church which stood loftily at Brierley Hill’s highest point, sensing at once the cool reverential ambience as they entered. Harriet bid a pleasant good evening to the sidesman who handed her a hymn book, and made her way to the family’s regular pew on tiptoe, so that her heels did not echo off the cold hard floor. Algie followed in her wake.
When the service finished the congregation gathered outside by the light of a solitary gas lamp installed above the main door; a collection of nodding bonnets, top hats and fawning smiles, all content in their self-righteousness. Some merely drifted away into the night in a random procession while others tarried, determined to elicit recognition from or conversation with the vicar, or even the curate. By now there was a chill in the air as the Meese women and Algie lingered outside waiting for the head of the family. When Eli Meese rejoined them he announced that he was going to the Bell Hotel for his customary two pints of ale, which would give him an appetite for his supper. He would be about an hour.
‘I take it as you’ll see me girls and me wife home safe and sound, young Algie?’ Eli said patronisingly as he parted.
‘Course I will, Mr Meese.’
Actually, it had occurred to Algie to leave the company of Harriet and the rest of the Meeses as soon as the service was over, with the idea of seeking Marigold again; her father was likely to be in the Bottle and Glass for the evening getting pie-eyed, so why not take advantage? But to make an unusually early departure, on whatever flimsy excuse he could quickly invent, would only draw comment and speculation after he had gone, especially when he had given Eli his undertaking to see the family home safely. So, as they ambled down the path through the churchyard to the road, he decided to exercise discretion, to remain patient and wait till Marigold’s next passage through the lock at Buckpool.
While the others walked on ahead, Priss attached herself to Algie and Harriet.
‘I thought the sermon tonight was a bit of an unwarranted rebuke to us all,’ she commented airily. ‘The vicar’s wrong about God being just, you know. I hardly think He’s just at all, not all the time anyway. I’ve come to the conclusion that He is often unjust. Look how so many good and kind people suffer, while too many evil rogues prosper. What did you think of the sermon, Algie?’
‘Me? I didn’t listen to it.’
‘Algie was daydreaming as usual, Priss,’ Harriet said with measured scorn.
‘I was contemplating more earthly things,’ he replied.
‘Oh, but you shouldn’t of a Sunday,’ she reproached. ‘Anyway, what earthly things?’
Actually, he’d been contemplating Marigold Bingham; her smooth skin, her fine complexion, her beautiful face and her delicious figure. She’d been the cause of a troublesome disturbance in his trousers during the sermon as he’d allowed himself