The Hungry Tide (31 page)

‘Oh, aye. I’ll come with thee, Da. If I have ’time. But I’m going to be a farmer, so I can only come when ’weather won’t let me work ’land.’

His young face was earnest as he tried to make them understand, and Will felt a vague ripple of regret as he nodded in silent agreement, and wondered why, when the sea, which he believed coursed through his veins alongside his blood, hadn’t run also into his only son.

‘Do you realize that I have been alone all day, whilst you have been sitting out there in that silly boat. If you had wanted fish for dinner, I’m quite sure that Mrs Scryven could have ordered some.’ Isobel walked up and down the drawing room in anger. ‘It has been raining all afternoon and I couldn’t even step outside to relieve the boredom.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear. It was most unfortunate, but a terrible storm blew up and we were lucky to get back at all.’ Isaac looked hurt. ‘I thought at least you might be a little worried.’ He blew his nose loudly. He was sure he’d caught a chill.

Loftily she gazed at him. ‘Why should I be worried? You’ve been in shipping all your life. You’re hardly likely to fall out of a little fishing boat.’

Sighing, he poured himself another brandy. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re perfectly right, of course.’

John took a stroll around the grounds after supper. His aunt had forgiven them and was genial enough at table. They had had an excellent meal of stuffed mackerel and baked cod and he felt relaxed and pleasantly tired and would soon go to bed, ready for an early start tomorrow. The rain had stopped and there was a fresh clean smell of wet earth and seaweed. He walked down to the edge of the garden where the pasture began and stood in the semi-darkness, his arms folded, listening to the murmuring of the waters and looking out at the dark streaked sky towards the horizon.

His senses alert to the sounds of the night, he was suddenly aware of a girl’s laughter, and, with a sudden quickening of his pulse, he recognized it as Susan’s. He drew back within the shelter of the hedge, for he didn’t want to spy, nor did he want to startle her. She laughed again, a teasing, playful laugh which made his stomach tighten. She wasn’t alone. He heard the answering deep voice of a man, one he had heard only today. They came into view, dark shadows against the skyline, their arms around one another, and then he with a laugh picked her up and swung her round as if she was as light as a feather, her legs and skirts swinging shamelessly.

He watched them as they returned to the house, skirting the forbidden garden, knowing their place, and returning via the stables and yard, unaware that they were being observed either by John or Will, in the shadows with a small sleepy child on his back and another one trudging wearily by his side as they made their way back home.

John didn’t of course expect Susan to share in any aspect of his life, but the fact that she had led him from the greenness of youth to the delights of manhood gave him a sense of possession. He was hurt that she should turn from him to another so easily. He didn’t remember now that he might have found himself in an undesirable predicament, and, as he walked back to the house, for the second time in his life he had a sensation of loss and felt very much alone.

John didn’t return to Monkston for another six weeks and then it was to say goodbye, for he was due to sail on the
Polar Star
the following week. There was a first sweet breath of spring in the air, a newness which seeped into the house as they opened wide the windows and doors, and into the bones of those who were aware of it. Narcissi and crocuses were showing tips of colour from within their shafts of green, and birds were nesting, flying busily across the lush green lawns with trailing straw and strands of sheep’s wool in their beaks, up into the gaps and crevices beneath the red-brown pantiles and deep into the safety of the prickly hedgerows.

‘It’ll be like stepping back in time, going back to winter snow and ice,’ said Maria.

John had slipped, unseen by his aunt, into the kitchen to say goodbye to Maria. ‘Yes, it is. It’s like another world out there, majestic, magnificent and terrifying.’

‘God go with thee, Mr John, and tha’ll be in our thoughts, and Will especially will be thinking of thee out on ’ice. He’ll miss it, more than he’ll ever say. We’re very lucky being here, and we’ve thee to thank for that, but Will will be restless, I know, for a week or two after ’ship has sailed.’

‘I was hoping to see him before I go,’ he said. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

‘Aye, I do, but first come and say goodbye to my babbies.’ She led him to a warm corner of the kitchen where the crib was hidden from any draughts.

‘Here’s thy cousin, Miss Lucy.’ Lucy stared at him from her pale blue eyes, her fine, fair hair almost covering the faint scar on her forehead. Her bottom lip trembled as he leaned smiling over her, and he pulled back in alarm.

‘It’s all right,’ laughed Maria, ‘she’s a bit careful who she smiles at. She smiles at ’master and she smiles at me who feeds her, and she loves Sarah and Lizzie, but for ’rest she only tolerates them.’

‘So, a real lady,’ he said, ‘and what of Sarah, will she give me a smile?’ He reached into the other end of the crib, and Sarah with an excited squeal grabbed hold of the short fair beard which he had been trying to grow for weeks as protection against the cold winds of the arctic. He picked her up and she made no objection save to hold on tighter to his whiskers. Removing her fingers from his hair, he held them to his lips and blew noisy raspberries through them. She chuckled in glee and patted his face with her other plump hand.

‘Oh, Sarah, will you be faithful until I return home, I wonder, or will you give your heart to someone else whilst I’m gone?’

Maria smiled as she took her from him. ‘We’ll keep reminding her that she owes a lot to thee, Mr John.’

‘No, never do that, Maria,’ he protested. ‘I only want her to know that I was here at the beginning of her life, and that she’ll always be someone very important.’

He left them then and used the back door to go and look for Will. As he rounded the stable block he almost bumped into Susan. He nodded politely and walked on, but she turned to him. ‘I hear as you’re going away – sir,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

‘Indeed, yes.’ He gave her no more information, and with a slight smile moved on.

‘Mr John?’ She held him back with her mild words and reluctantly he turned.

‘Are you going to be away for long?’ Her eyes held his.

He shrugged his shoulders, confused by her presence and lost for words. ‘Possibly.’

‘Would you like to say goodbye properly?’ Her smile would have melted an icecap. ‘I could slip away.’

He was amazed at her boldness, though her voice and manners were modest and unassuming. Yet as he watched her, his colour mounting in embarrassment, he thought he caught a challenge in her eyes, defying him to refuse her offer and mocking his caution.

‘I think not. We were perhaps a little foolish.’ He was defensive, yet didn’t want to offend her. ‘You are very beautiful, Susan, and I – we – let our emotions carry us away in the heat of the moment. I would not want to upset your chances of a worthwhile relationship with someone else.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Someone who could perhaps offer you more than I can.’

Her nostrils quivered and she smiled a twisted, derisive smile. ‘Tha’s talking of marriage? Somebody of my own class, tha means?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘For you must know that I can offer you nothing.’

She turned away, contempt souring her lovely face. ‘We’ll see about that, sir.’

He stood staring after her. There was a definite threat in her tone. She surely wouldn’t tell his uncle? If she did, it would mean instant dismissal for her and acute embarrassment for him. He could never look another woman in the face again if word got out, though his male friends would think it fine sport, not to have tumbled a serving maid, but having been found out.

‘What am I to do, Will?’ he asked when he eventually tracked him down in the wood where he was splitting logs. ‘I’ve upset a young woman. My own stupid fault, I just got carried away and I’m very much afraid that she feels I’ve let her down.’

‘Did tha promise her owt? Marriage or such?’

‘Good heavens, no. Nothing like that, that would be quite out of the question.’ His brow creased into lines. ‘But I got the impression she thinks I owe her something.’

‘Mmm. Is this ’same young woman that tha’d fallen in love with ’last back end when tha was here?’ Will bent to pick up a log and hid a wry smile.

‘Yes, the same. But I know better now, she’s not what she seems.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I even have my doubts as to whether she was a virgin.’

Will put on an expression of grave shock. ‘Tha never bedded a maiden, sir?’

John had the grace to blush and stammeringly answered, ‘Well, she said she was.’

‘Oh, aye. Well, and of course tha would know.’ Will nodded thoughtfully. ‘Of course tha would. Well, now tha knows what happens when tha plays with fire – tha gets tha fingers burned.’

‘Yes, I realize now, but what am I to do?’ He paced up and down the patch of woodland in his agitation.

‘Well, what I would advise thee to do,’ said Will, sitting down on a tree stump and wearily stretching his aching leg, ‘I would recommend a sea voyage. Preferably somewhere far away, like Greenland, and stay there until she gets tired of waiting for thee.’

‘Do you think that she will forget about it? That it will have blown over by the time I get back?’ John’s face lightened with relief, then darkened again at Will’s reply.

‘’Course, she might be so besotted with thee, that tha’ll never be able to set foot on land again.’ Will saw no reason to let his young friend off lightly, and considered that a few weeks ruminating on the folly of his ways was the best remedy for the rashness of his indiscretion.

John sat down on the log beside him and moodily stared down at the ground. ‘Why aren’t you wearing your new boots?’ he asked suddenly.

Will was silent for a moment. ‘It’s a sort of protest,’ he said bluntly.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, I don’t expect tha would.’ He got up from the log and walked up and down, swinging his leg exaggeratedly. ‘Out here, on my own, I can be myself – Will Foster, ’man with one and a half legs. I don’t have to pretend, like I do with my boots on, that nowt has happened and I’m just ’same as I ever was.’

John rubbed his fingers through his beard. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? It’s because I’m sailing on the
Polar Star
and you’re not?’

Will turned his back and looked out towards the sea, unseen because of the dip of the land but its presence known by the persistent, rhythmic thrashing of the waves across the sands.

‘Aye, that’s it, I suppose. It’s just a year since my last voyage.’ He turned to face him, his face bitter. ‘I know I’m lucky. This is a job that hundreds would give their other leg for. But it doesn’t help me when I know that men are going off to do a man’s work, and I’m here – a servant at ’Big House – out of sight and hearing, unable to hold my head up as a man should.’

‘I had no idea that you felt this way, Will. I thought you’d settled here.’

‘Oh, aye. I’ve settled all right, even Maria’s settled when she thought she wouldn’t.’ He put his hand on John’s shoulder. ‘It’s difficult to explain. It’s not that I don’t like it here, I do. I like to be here by ’sea. ’Air’s good and we’ve got a grand house. It’s just that I’ve never been behodden to anybody before, apart from ship’s master, and I was always treated as a man by him, as part of a team.’ His face soured. ‘Not hidden away like something too ugly for ladies to look at.’

He stopped as he saw the expression of pain on John’s face. ‘I’m sorry, Mr John. I don’t mean to chide. I’ve just got an attack of gripes. I’ll be all right when ’ship has sailed.’

‘Mr John?’ John frowned. ‘You’ve never called me that before.’

‘No, sir. But thou art ’master’s nephew and it’s time I learned my place.’ He put out his hand to shake John’s. ‘Now be on thy way, young mariner, and God speed thee home again.’

John turned and looked towards the wood as he reached the crest of the undulating meadow, but Will had turned his back. He was holding an axe, his arms high, and, as John watched, he brought it down on to the timber with a resounding crash.

The whaling ships plying the northern seas sent messages home with the crews of other ships who were sailing back into port, and Isaac reported that he had heard from the
Polar Star
. ‘They’ve reached the Orkneys. The sea is calm and they should be sailing in a few days as soon as they’ve finished taking on supplies and extra crew.’

Isobel dismissed Susan from the room as Isaac came in with the news. He looked tired: he had spent most of the last two weeks in Hull since John had sailed, and was discovering just how indispensable his nephew was.

‘I miss that boy, but he has to go.’ Wearily he sank into a chair and reached for the brandy decanter on the table beside him. ‘It’s so important that he learns every aspect of the business if he’s to take over from me eventually.’

Susan moved silently away from outside the door where she had stayed listening and smiled archly to herself. She slipped into the kitchen and gaily greeted Will, who was bringing in baskets of logs for the fires.

‘How do, Will.’ She glanced around the kitchen. Mrs Scryven’s back was turned and Maria and Janey were out of the room. She reached up and gently tugged his beard, drawing herself up close so that her lips were close to his, and said softly, ‘Is tha well, this fine day?’

He removed her hand from his beard and playfully smacked her rump as he would a child. But it was no child who boldly caught his hand and held it for a moment as she waited for his reply.

‘I’m well enough,’ he said, withdrawing his hand. She smiled, amusement showing in her eyes, and raising her eyebrows moved away as Mrs Scryven turned around.

He scratched his head thoughtfully as Mrs Scryven gazed stonily at him and at Susan’s retreating back as she went out of the door.

‘She’s trouble, that lass. Just mark what I say, Will. She’s out to cause trouble.’ She pointed a wet, urgent finger.