For the people of the Black Country, past and
present, who have always inspired me with their
warmth, their humour, their can-do positivity, and
their collective achievements.
1892
Aurelia Sampson awoke early. The dream she reluctantly left behind had been delicious, yet disturbing. It had been about him. She had met him clandestinely, as she had in wakefulness. Adulterously, she had shared a strange bed with him that over time would become familiar – in a room lit only by a flickering coal fire, in a second-rate hotel – exactly as she had in wakefulness. The astonishing realism of the dream provided a sense of contentment and she had not wanted it to end, but when she awoke, the cruelty of truth brutally shattered that transient happiness.
With her slender fingers she rubbed tears that welled unbidden in her eyes, allowing herself both the luxury and the heartbreak of thinking about him for a few more precious moments. She stretched languidly before slipping out of bed. As she stood up and eased her feet into her dainty slippers, she shook out her long dark hair, running her fingers through its sleep-entangled strands. She moved to one of the windows, parted the curtains and opened the sash. The warm summer breeze seemed to whisper secrets through the elm trees, which cast crisp, slanting shadows across the lawn and the curving gravel drive.
Aurelia turned, and in the cheval glass that faced her from the opposite side of the room she caught a full-length glimpse of herself. The sunlight streaming in from behind outlined her slenderness through her nightgown of thin white cotton, and rimmed her hair like a halo; yet no saintliness did she see in that reflection. Her face was in shadow, so she moved forward and studied her features more intently. Her eyes were intensely blue, but still wet with her tears. Her lips were full and, according to him, delightfully kissable. But he was not there to kiss her. Those lips had not enjoyed the intimacy of loving caresses for many long months, and she sorely missed the intimacy.
Although she was lonely, she appreciated the sensation of sleeping alone in this, her bedroom. There was a time when she would never have expected to leave the marital bed, but events had ultimately dictated it. It was now her private domain, her own fortress. Within its confines she could shut out the rest of this cold and cheerless house, which she shared with her cold and cheerless husband. She no longer felt any part of it, nor of him. Within this fortress she savoured her privacy; it protected her. It protected her especially from any unwelcome invasions from her husband. It safeguarded her things; those on the washstand, her potions, lotions and brushes on the dressing table, her chemise draped over a chair, other flimsy essentials lying on the ottoman.
This fortress was spacious, but dauntingly, hideously furnished. It occupied a corner of the first storey and in each outward-facing wall was a window, curtained with ancient pink and blue draperies that had faded long ago. One window overlooked the front garden and the gravel drive twisting through it, which led to the main road connecting Brierley Hill with Dudley. Despite being set well back from the highway you could still hear the clatter and huffing of steam trams, and the rattle of carts’ wheels as they trundled by.
Aurelia’s late father-in-law had built Holly Hall House, that mausoleum in which she lived so unhappily and so alone, except for the quiet and loving companionship of her young children. Through her husband’s lack of will to render it more modern it remained defiantly a shrine to the old man, a mix of the fussy ornateness of French Empire and the sombre bulkiness of 1860s English. Rich swags and wall coverings with swirling arabesques vied for irrelevance with oil paintings of noble stags set amid backdrops of Scottish hills and lochs. These dubious, incompatible niceties, these manifestations of questionable taste, these affectations of wealth, were not Aurelia’s cup of tea, but her attempts at moderating and modernising such long-established extravagances had hitherto proved fruitless.
Aurelia was twenty-four years old and, from the moment of her marriage at nineteen, her destiny was fixed; the pattern of her life was irreversible and fated to be miserable. Never had she felt that she belonged in this house. Always she felt she was just a trophy, destined before long to become a superfluous, unheeded trophy at that, a mere visitor who had no sway and no influence. For this house and everything in it belonged to her husband Benjamin by right of inheritance. It would never change, never be allowed to change, not because everything in it was sacrosanct but because Benjamin had no interest in changing it. They had discussed her ideas and he had dismissed them; why change what was not necessary to change?
Nevertheless, while the house, its material contents and even Aurelia, belonged to Benjamin, Aurelia’s heart did not.
It had long been her intention to generally brighten up the ambience of her private fortress, to change the décor, the wallpaper, the curtains, the eiderdown – when circumstances might permit. Within its four walls a small bookshelf spanned a writing bureau. A book, with a bookmark peeping out, lay on a bedside table alongside a photograph of her late mother. Poor mother, she thought fleetingly as she glimpsed it. Significantly, no photograph of her father was in evidence.
Her wardrobe door was ajar. She reached inside for her dressing gown, duly wrapped it around her and tied the cord at her waist. Another day to face, she thought, one more day destined to be as dismal as any other, with more miserable, empty hours, save for the time she would spend with her children.
She opened her bedroom door and stepped silently onto the landing. With a stealth acquired only by a fervent desire not to waken her husband Benjamin, she stole past his bedroom, supremely careful not to make a sound and thus have to face his long-faced indifference earlier than need be.
Noiselessly she pushed open the door to another bedroom across the landing. In that room her small son Benjie (she preferred to call him Benjie and not Benjamin, so as to differentiate him from her husband) was sleeping the exquisite soft sleep of childhood. She peered lovingly at his dishevelled head, and was moved almost to weeping again, but this time by the look of absolute