He thrust open the door and beheld two men at a bench manipulating metal tubes. One he recognised as his own ex-employee, Whitehouse, and nodded cursorily to the man.
‘Is Algernon Stokes, Esquire, about?’ he asked, sarcastically pronouncing the word esquire.
‘In the paint shop, Mr Sampson,’ Whitehouse answered deferentially. ‘I’ll go and fetch him for yeh, if yer like.’
‘Tell him it’s urgent.’
Benjamin stood and waited, grim-faced, looking around, taking mental note of the trappings of bicycle manufacture as Algernon Stokes, Esq. had organised it.
Within a couple of minutes Algie appeared, wiping his oily hands on a grubby rag. He was dressed in shabby working clothes and could easily have been mistaken for a labourer.
‘Benjamin,’ Algie greeted cautiously. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘You and me need to have a little chat, Stokes,’ Benjamin replied, unsmiling.
‘Oh? About what?’ The fact that Benjamin was actually present and called him by his surname put Algie on his guard.
‘I think it would be to your advantage if we talk somewhere more private than this workshop.’
‘My office if you like – over there in the corner.’
Benjamin had wondered, as he mentally noted the workshop, whether the untidy cubicle-like construction of wood and glass in the corner was the administrative hub of the pitiful empire. The invitation confirmed it.
‘Is there room in there for both of us as well as all the paraphernalia that furnishes it?’ he scoffed. ‘No, it’ll be better if we talk outside. Walls have ears.’
‘As you like,’ Algie responded lightly, aware that Benjamin seemed even more brusque than usual, and that something monumental was plaguing him. He tossed the rag he was holding onto the workbench and headed for the door.
Benjamin followed, taut with anticipation.
‘Did you enjoy the wedding?’ Algie asked conversationally, trying to ease the manifest tension. ‘I thought old Eli Meese put on a decent spread and gave Harriet a good send-off. Don’t you?’
‘I ain’t here to mull over that circus.’
Algie smiled to himself. ‘What then?’
They stopped walking at the periphery of the untidy parcel of land that accommodated the entire Ranger Cycles domain, well away from the ears of employees.
‘I’ve got a very big bone to pick with you, Stokes. You see, when I got home from my bit of business after the wedding, Aurelia was sitting in the scullery brewing a pot of tea.’
‘That’s a scandal,’ Algie exclaimed with sarcasm devised to rile. ‘Is it true then that you can’t afford a maid these days?’
‘Oh, don’t try to be clever with me, Stokes,’ he retorted impatiently. ‘Unfortunately for you, it presented the opportunity – long overdue – for me and my wife to have a bit of a heart to heart. I think you know, Stokes, that my marriage hasn’t been the outright success it might have been, what with one thing and another, but I managed to eke a confession out of Aurelia last night – that you and she had quite a fling a while back, afore you got wed.’
‘Aurelia told you that?’ Algie’s heart went to his mouth with a thump. Although it was not beyond the realms of possibility that Benjamin could have found out about the affair with Aurelia, as far as he was concerned it was unlikely that Aurelia would ever confess it, especially to her husband. So how should he respond? The consequences could be monstrous.
‘Aye,’ Benjamin continued assertively. ‘She confessed everything, including the fact that you fathered her second child – Christina.’
‘Christina? You’re saying she’s mine?’ Algie suddenly became very hot, and clearly agitated. ‘But…But…’ he stammered. This was a notion Algie had of course pondered, but never allowed himself to acknowledge, simply because the implications, if revealed, would create too many difficulties.
His hesitancy and unwitting lack of a denial was as good as an outright confession to Benjamin. He had thrown Algie and felt vindicated, so the conviction of his accusation grew stronger. ‘Yes, yours, Stokes. As sure as eggs is eggs. The child’s a bastard – your bastard.’
‘And how can you be so sure?’
‘Because she and me never coupled at the time she must have conceived, that’s how.’
Algie recalled that Aurelia had implied that she and Benjamin had coupled at about the time they were having their affair, to his grievance then.
‘Well, I suppose you were getting all the coupling you could cope with from Maude Atkins, eh?’ Algie riposted, recovering quickly from the shock of the accusations and aiming to give as good as he was getting.
‘That’s neither here nor there, Stokes, and bugger all to do with you. A man has to satisfy his needs, as you must know. Now…we’re both men of the world. We both know the consequences of what’s gone on. So I just want to let you know that I’ll be petitioning for divorce…Adultery…Aurelia’s adultery, o’ course. And you’ll be named as co-respondent.’
Algie gulped. This was serious stuff, and hitherto unanticipated. Suddenly, without warning, he was about to be thrust centre stage into a scandal that could destroy the people he loved. He’d had no time to ponder the consequences. There was Marigold to consider, his daughter Rose, his poor mother, not to mention the stigma that would attach itself to them all.
‘And what if the boot were on the other foot, Benjamin? What if Aurelia decided to divorce you for your adultery? You’re as guilty of it as she is, by your own admission.’
Benjamin shrugged indifferently. ‘Either way, I’d win custody of my son. Aurelia ain’t worthy of keeping the child, she ain’t a fit mother, so there’s no advantage to her divorcing me. Anyway, she couldn’t afford to divorce me. Without me she ain’t got two pennies to scratch her backside with. Besides, I want the satisfaction of citing you as co-respondent. I want the world and your little wife to know that you broke up my marriage.’
‘I broke up your marriage? You vindictive swine, you ruined your own marriage, without any help from me. I’ll fight you all the way, Sampson. Every inch of it.’
‘If you must. But you’ll take your medicine.’
‘On the other hand, Sampson, I’ll make sure it’s very expensive for you.’
Of course, Algie had to concede to himself that he was guilty of the affair, and that affair carried with it its inevitable burden of consequences, consequences which he must accept. He’d never seriously dwelt on the notion that Aurelia’s second child might be his. He should have done. Most decidedly he should have done. By some strange human quirk of unwillingness to consider and countenance the far-reaching outcomes, he had not…Now it came as a bewildering predicament.
‘If you intend to deny what is patently true, Stokes, then I’ll have no alternative but to seek out that guttersnipe of a bargee’s wench you married and impart the news to her—’
Algie lashed out instinctively at hearing the unwarranted slur on Marigold, and with his oily fist hit Benjamin in the side of the face at the cheekbone. Benjamin reeled and stumbled, his top hat flew off his head and rolled in a bobbling arc towards the gate, assisted by the breeze. It gave Algie the greatest satisfaction; he had yearned to do it for such a long time, as just recompense for so many grievances accumulated over time.
‘Go within a mile of my wife, Sampson,’ Algie rasped, his voice thin with boiling anger, an oily finger wagging furiously, ‘and I’ll part you from your overworked bollocks. Now sod off.’
Benjamin