‘Very different. A bit aloof, really. And middle-aged.’
He and Aurelia first met when Benjamin, who used to employ Algie, invited him to dinner at his house to discuss a business proposal. She was the most fascinating creature he had ever seen, and her beauty left him thoroughly disconcerted. He was inexorably drawn to her. Often he wished he had never set eyes on her, for she embodied not only the utterly desirable, but also the frustratingly unattainable.
‘We don’t get the chance to talk these days,’ Aurelia remarked candidly.
It was the truth, and he could utter neither confirmation nor denial. Always he had found her to be forthright, always disquietingly direct.
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ she added.
‘How is he these days?’ Algie indicated with a nod that he meant Benjamin, then settled on Aurelia’s glistening eyes, wallowing in their deep blue depths.
‘As unpleasant as ever.’
Algie sighed, exasperated at this deplorable, despicable waste.
‘He’s hopeless with money. That share of the money my father left – you know? It’s all gone. He said he wanted it to invest in the business. So I stupidly gave in and let him have it. My guilty conscience, I suppose. But I’m sure it never was…Invested, I mean. He simply squandered it. The business is worse off than ever.’
Algie shook his head in sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, Aurelia.’ He sounded truly sincere. ‘Things don’t look good for Sampson’s anyway, from what I hear. But if there’s anything I can do to help…to help you, I mean, not him or his business.’
She put her hand on his arm in acknowledgement of his concern, and it was like a pleasurable bolt of electricity surging through him. ‘You have your own responsibilities these days, Algie.’
‘I’m all too aware…’
‘But Marigold is a treasure. She’s my one true friend these days. I don’t know what I’d do without her.’ Then her face lit up with a smile and her vivid eyes widened, so appealingly. ‘I understand your business is doing well, though. Marigold tells me you’re expanding already.’
‘We’ve got a full order book, if that’s any indication. We’re making as many bikes as we can, but it’s not enough to meet the orders we keep getting.’
She laid her hand on his arm again affectionately; always the sort of woman who had to touch and feel. ‘I’m so glad for you, Algie.’ She stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss briefly on his lips, then looked steadily into his eyes, as if apologetic that it was such a brief kiss when both would have favoured a lingering version. But then, she was always so disconcertingly forward. ‘I’m so glad for you,’ she added.
Benjamin was at that moment a particularly riveted observer, observing what appeared to be strong empathy between his wife and Algie Stokes.
Just then, an usher called out, asking everybody to take their places at table.
* * *
At the top table, portly Eli Meese sat next to the groom’s mother, Mrs Beatrice Froggatt. She was an unassuming woman, attired in a plain but well-made blue chiffon dress that buttoned up to her throat, where was fastened a blue and white cameo brooch. Clarence’s father, the eminent Dr Froggatt, enjoying a day off from tending the sick and dying of the parish, rubbed shoulders with Eli’s heroically proportioned wife, mother of the bride, and done-up like a turkey cock in a vast cream concoction which, when she tacked down the aisle of the church, resembled the wind-filled mainsail of some fabled argosy.
An old friend of the groom, Robert Sankey, tall, athletically built and handsome of face, was the best man. He had distinction, came across as being casual in demeanour and just a little bit negligent of his attire, but not of his dark, glossy hair. He sat next to Priss Meese, the chief bridesmaid. By their very number, the younger bridesmaids spilled out onto the adjoining tables that flanked the room, but their eyes were fastened on this appealing Robert Sankey.
Because of her fussy nature, Priss seemed to spend only half her time at the table, constantly up and down, watchful, hospitably anxious, ensuring that things were going right and that everybody was content. She perceived it was her duty as a member of the bride’s family to spread herself amiably among the guests. Priss was even plainer of face than her newly married sister was, and her fleecy dark hair unravelled relentlessly into an unruly mop as the afternoon advanced.
At the two long trestles sat various relatives, mutual acquaintances of the bride and groom from the Brierley Hill Amateur Dramatics Society, and from St Michael’s Church, including Mr Cuthbert Delacroix, the curate.
Aurelia sat next to Algie Stokes. Marigold sat opposite him, with Benjamin Sampson at her side facing Aurelia.
Benjamin engaged Marigold in conversation, oozing the smoothness that he could turn on like a tap when with an attractive woman. Nevertheless, Marigold knew too much about him for it to have any effect. Besides, her former life on the narrowboats had taught her wiliness. She was entirely aware, too, of the business rivalry between Benjamin and Algie, how Benjamin had conspired to lure Algie with false promises during their catastrophic relationship as employer and employee. She knew that only Algie’s resentment at being thus exploited had prompted the momentous leap into starting his own business – Ranger Cycles – with the help of a hundred pounds he borrowed from his mother. To Benjamin’s profound envy and irritation, that small rival business was thriving.
Marigold had not the slightest notion, however, of the depth of Algie’s partiality for Aurelia.
Because Marigold and Benjamin were sitting so close to them during the wedding supper, conversation was confined between the four of them, with only the occasional word to those others sitting near them. After the customary speeches, when everybody had partaken of a drink or two and had become a little more relaxed and the general hubbub more noisy, their comments to each other loosened up, talk focusing on the bride and groom at first; neutral territory and uncontroversial.
‘How long have they been courting?’ Aurelia asked conversationally.
Algie shrugged. ‘A year. Eighteen months. I’m not sure exactly.’
‘Soon after he gave up your sister then, Algie?’
‘Must have been.’
‘Do I understand from that, Algie, that Clarence Froggatt courted your sister?’ Benjamin queried, desperately trying to home in on their conversation while also blarneying Marigold.
‘For a time, yes. And she led him a merry dance, I believe.’
‘Well, I’m hanged. I never knew. I bet my wife knows all about it, though.’
‘Only because Marigold told me,’ Aurelia answered dismissively.
‘Well, I suppose she has an interest in knowing what Clarence is up to at any time, since she was engaged to him once.’ He smiled all round to suggest it was a well-intentioned, rational comment, spoken without rancour.
‘Once upon a time,’ Aurelia answered coolly, irritated that he should refer to her in the third person rather than speak to her directly. ‘It was a long time ago. But why should I want to keep tabs on Clarence Froggatt? We went our own separate ways. And he looks perfectly content that we did.’
‘Even so,’ Benjamin replied. ‘You still know things about him that I don’t. I just wonder how you know.’
‘Women’s gossip, how else? Anyway, why shouldn’t I be curious? Why shouldn’t I want to wish him well?’
‘This sister of yours, Algie…is she here?’
‘It’s hardly likely, Benjamin, she lives in Norfolk,’ Algie explained. ‘When she’s not performing.’
‘Performing?’