Consequences Page 2

  Haughtily, Maude shook her mane of mousy hair. Here was the perfect opportunity to really make him see. ‘Benjamin,’ she began, leaning forward and pronouncing his name with charged emotion, ‘in the first place, your beautiful wife left you for another man, and she came back when that man spurned her just as soon as he knew she was carrying his child. Either he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, have anything more to do with her. So she came back to you. It’s the easiest thing in the world for a woman to dupe her husband into believing the child she’s carrying is his. She did that to you, and you fell for it good and proper.’

  ‘You don’t know it for a fact, Maude,’ he replied defensively. The notion that somebody might have made a cuckold of him he dismissed, for he considered himself too smart to be duped by a mere woman, however much she might be admired and desired by other men. So he tried to convince himself that Aurelia could not have been unfaithful, that it was not in her nature to be unfaithful. Yet he tried to recall the times he might have coupled with her, rare as they were, during the time when she must have conceived.

  ‘You don’t have to be Sir Isaac Newton to work it out, Benjamin,’ Maude went on. ‘I know what women are capable of, even if you don’t. Whenever you went away on business, she’d be off as well, flying her kite somewhere with somebody else. Some nights she didn’t even come back home.’

  ‘Hearsay, Maude. That’s only what Mary, that damned unreliable slut of a maid we used to have, told you. She was a mischievous little bitch with an axe to grind, and the biggest liar in Christendom to boot…’

  ‘I lived in that house as well, Benjamin, remember. I was nanny to your son, almost from the moment he was born. I knew what was going on.’

  He paused, pondering again the strength of the allegations, and the conviction with which Maude delivered them. ‘If Aurelia had been unfaithful I’d have known,’ he said with dwindling certainty. ‘She’s a fine-looking young woman, so it ain’t surprising men fancy her, but who on earth could she have been carrying on with?’

  ‘I would have thought that obvious.’

  ‘Well, it ain’t obvious to me. Pray, enlighten me.’

  ‘Clarence Froggatt, who else? That nincompoop whose wedding you’re going to…She was engaged to him once, you told me so yourself…’

  ‘You think she was seeing Clarence Froggatt behind my back?’

  ‘Yes, for ages.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure of it.’

  Benjamin pondered the suggestion a second or two more. ‘But it doesn’t add up,’ he said eventually. ‘He would hardly be marrying that girl Harriet Meese. I mean to say, compared to Aurelia she’s a gargoyle. God must’ve given her the plainest face he could find, and then hit it with a shovel. So why would he settle for a plain Jane if he could have a pretty one? It ain’t in a man’s nature. Aurelia is a good-looking young woman, even you have to admit that.’

  ‘But maybe he realised he could never have Aurelia – she being already married to you…Anyway, as far as her looks are concerned, beauty is only skin deep,’ Maude added with another outpouring of scorn, for she could never admit that Aurelia was beautiful.

  ‘But your beauty goes deeper, eh, Maude?’ He winked at her and grinned, in an effort to remove the intensity, which was becoming rampant in the discussion.

  ‘Oh, go on with you.’ Maude allowed herself a smile; there really was no doubt whom he preferred bedding, and the knowledge induced a renewed warm glow. She was reassured that at least she had this hold over him, this delectable sexual allure. He kept coming back for more. He loved it, and so did she. ‘So I might see you later, then?’

  He picked up his jacket, went over to her and kissed her. ‘I reckon,’ he grinned, and tiptoed down the narrow, twisting staircase.

  * * *

  Benjamin Augustus Sampson, twenty-seven years old by this time, was the sole issue of the late Benjamin Prentiss Sampson, and thus the sole beneficiary to the old man’s estate. Part of that inheritance was the once thriving Sampson Fender and Bedstead Works, which the son Benjamin had contrived to expand, albeit unprofitably, into the new and challenging world of bicycle manufacture. For young Benjamin Augustus lacked the acumen, commitment, integrity 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 ‘marri
age’ 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 from her stool, wearing a smile of pleasure at seeing the two visitors. ‘Is this a social call?’

  ‘Oh, definitely a social call,’ Aurelia answered with an engaging smile, ‘but with added profit for you, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m so glad it’s you to serve us, Harriet. We’ve called to choose some stuff for new dresses for a certain very lucky person’s wedding.’ She turned to Marigold for confirmation.

  Marigold duly nodded and smiled; she was the less self-assured of the two girls, lacking formal education, and generally took her lead from Aurelia in matters of commerce and couture. Marigold had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday.

  ‘I hope you mean for my wedding,’ Harriet suggested with a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Why? Is there some other we don’t yet know about?’

  ‘I’m not aware of any.’ She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘At least, not among my circle of friends.’

  ‘So what lovely materials do you have in stock?’ Aurelia bubbled; she was out of that house which depressed her so much, and had shed temporarily its burden of oppression for the brief time she was away from it. ‘Time’s running short and we have to get new dresses run up at Mrs Palethorpe’s. We reckoned that if we could decide on some stuff today we could take it directly to her and save time.’

  ‘I happen to know that Mrs Palethorpe is rather busy, though, Aurelia,’ Harriet remarked apologetically. ‘I’m sure you can guess she’s making mine and all the bridesmaids’ dresses too. They should all be finished by Friday, though. She’s the best dressmaker for miles, so it’s no wonder she’s so busy.’

  ‘That’s why we want her to make our dresses, Harriet – because she’s the best.’

  Harriet smiled her innocently crooked smile. ‘Indeed. So what colours do you fancy?’

  ‘I thought blue,’ Aurelia answered. ‘Silk or satin. Blue for Marigold too, I think.’ She looked at Marigold for confirmation, for they had tentatively discussed the options earlier.

  ‘A different blue to Aurelia’s, though,’ Marigold answered in a small, almost apologetic voice. ‘I’d hate folk to think I was copying her.’

  ‘Blue is a good colour for both of you. It will contrast the lovely dark hair you both have, and bring out the colour of your eyes.’

  After Harriet had shown them materials in an abundance of blues, but with the girls prevaricating, she had a flash of inspiration. As a slave to exclusivity, she had been withholding a bolt of material for her own use first, but she did not want to lose the custom of these girls just for the vain fancy of being the first woman to be seen in this beautiful new fabric. Therefore, she decided to offer it.

  ‘I’ve just remembered…we have a lovely iris-coloured silk, new in…’ Harriet swept out of the door at the rear and into the storeroom, returning with a rustle of skirts and the said bolt of silk, which she dropped on the counter. At sight of it, Aurelia’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Oh, I say, I do like that.’ She ran her fingers sensually over its smooth surface. ‘What do you think, Marigold?’

  ‘It’d suit you down to the ground and no two ways, Aurelia.’

  Aurelia mused over this latest offering but said, ‘Maybe you should have this stuff, Marigold.’

  ‘No, you must have it if you like it,’ Marigold responded unselfishly. ‘I think I fancy something paler anyway.’

  ‘Then how about that pastel blue satin?’ Harriet suggested, pointing towards a particular roll of cloth they had both considered suitable. ‘It’s very good quality, and I’m sure Algie would admire you greatly in that.’

  Marigold smiled to herself at the prospect as Harriet dutifully extracted the bolt from the pile. She tried to picture it made up into a suitable dress to wear at a late summer wedding. ‘Yes, I reckon it’ll do nicely,’ she agreed, not wishing to prolong the exercise of choosing.

  ‘How is Clarence?’ Aurelia enquired, looking up and butting in conversationally. ‘Is he getting nervous as the big day approaches?’

  ‘A little more than I am, I do believe,’ Harriet replied, unravelling the roll further so as to lay and measure a length of the pastel blue
satin across the well-worn counter. ‘Mind you, he’s had lots to take his mind off it, getting our house ready.’

  ‘So you’re not going to live with his father and mother?’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ the bride-to-be answered, rolling her eyes. ‘At that surgery? Among all those poor sick folks that continually turn up for evil-smelling potions?’

  The two customers were laughing at Harriet’s derision when they heard a commotion of tin buckets clanging together from the yard at the rear of the shop; the maid was evidently on a mission of sorts from the living quarters upstairs. Eventually, the rear door of the shop opened and Priss, Harriet’s older sister, appeared.

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d seen you two heading this way when I looked out of our front room window upstairs,’ she said, making no reference to the noise outside for fear of drawing unnecessary attention to the minor calamity in the household’s censored sanitation arrangements. ‘How are you both?’

  ‘We’re well, thank you,’ Aurelia said pertly. ‘We’re after stuff for dresses for the wedding. We were just talking about the bridegroom.’

  ‘Clarence? Oh, I suspect poor Clarence is a little daunted by it all, Aurelia,’ Priss suggested. ‘I feel quite sorry for him. After all, not only will he come out of it with a mother-in-law, but six sisters-in-law as well. I think the awful truth is just dawning on him.’

  ‘I rather think you’re wasting your sympathy there, dear sister,’ Harriet pronounced.

  ‘Me? I doubt it. The poor chap won’t stand a chance.’

  ‘As long as he takes notice only of me, and not the aforementioned mother-in-law and six sisters-in-law, he’ll pass muster.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Priss said in a confiding manner, addressing the two pretty customers, ‘she’ll order the poor chap about something scandalous, and expect him to obey all her bidding.’

  ‘Which will only be to his benefit,’ Harriet replied. ‘Anyway, I shall be subtle about it, and do it in such a way as he always thinks everything is his idea.’