The Hungry Tide (41 page)

‘There doesn’t seem to be much worth finding, Mrs Love,’ she called down. ‘Just a lot of soggy clay.’

‘There’s more than that if you look carefully,’ was the answer.

She continued to scrabble with her fingers, poking in the crevices, dislodging small pebbles and showering a sandy deluge down on to Mrs Love’s head.

‘I’ve found a piece of wood, but I can’t get it out. It looks like old driftwood, from a ship or something,’ she shouted. ‘Yes, and a piece of bone.’ She scraped around the edge of the object with a pebble. ‘Oh, no, I think – yes, it is, it’s a piece of claw, quite large, a gull perhaps, I can’t really tell.’

Enthusiastically she put her finds in her pocket and moved along the cliff, holding on to the tough sedge grass and sea lavender that sprouted out of pockets of wet clay.

‘Come on, Sarah! Haven’t we finished yet, Mrs Love?’ Lucy was bored. ‘I want my tea.’

‘I won’t be long.’ Sarah prodded and poked again, pulling out clumps of grass. ‘There’s something here. Oh, I wish that I had Tom’s knife with me, it would be so much easier.’ Then she remembered the pins in her hair. She took off her bonnet and removed one of the whalebone pins that were holding her hair in place. Her curls cascaded down her back and she threw the bonnet down on to the sands below.

‘I won’t be long now,’ she called, and with the sharp point of the pin she continued to scrape.

‘There,’ she said triumphantly as she slid down the cliff to where Lucy and their teacher were waiting. ‘Look at that!’ She held out her stained hands to show them her find.

‘Ugh, what is it?’ Lucy peered at her hand with a distasteful expression on her face. ‘It doesn’t look very nice.’

Mrs Love took it from her and examined it carefully. ‘It looks like a large tooth,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know what kind or from what.’

The colour was light and the edges were smooth and round. ‘Whatever it’s from,’ she said, ‘it has been there a long, long, time. Like the piece of driftwood it’s been washed there by the ocean at some distant time in history, and pounded into the clay. Or perhaps this part of the land was below the water during the great flood the Bible tells us of.’ She shook her head regretfully, ‘I fear that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to tell.’

Sarah stared at the tooth, stroking and smoothing it with her fingers, her thoughts drifting away, her breath shallow. She heard the pounding of the waves and thought of the unknown creature immersed in the sea. Perhaps it had fought a losing battle here with some other stronger creature and its body had been left to batter against the coast; or maybe it had come to the end of its natural life miles out at sea, hundreds of years ago, and the tide eventually had carried it here, its bones mingling and becoming one with the grains of sand and particles of rock, but for the one tooth embedded in the cliffs for posterity.

The sound of the sea grew louder so that it filled her ears, banging against her eardrums; her vision became blurred and she swayed dizzily, she felt as though she was being carried along on a rushing, dipping bed of turbulent water and her legs trembled and crumpled beneath her.

‘Sarah! Oh, Sarah – Mrs Love, do something quickly. Sarah is ill.’ Lucy was frantic with alarm as she knelt over Sarah’s prostrate form.

‘It’s all right, she’s fainted, that’s all.’ Mrs Love gently patted Sarah’s face. ‘The climb up the cliff must have overtaxed her.’

Sarah stirred and her pale lips parted. ‘I’m all right,’ she said weakly. ‘Just let me rest a moment.’

Mrs Love looked around her at the long empty stretch of sand. ‘How to get her home is going to be a difficulty.’

‘I’ll go for help,’ Lucy said determinedly.

‘No!’ cried Mrs Love and Sarah simultaneously, both aware of the consequences should Mrs Masterson discover that Lucy was wandering the countryside alone, no matter what the purpose.

Sarah sat up and feebly brushed the sand from herself. ‘I shall be able to manage, really.’ She didn’t want a fuss, though she did feel a little weak. How silly of me, she thought, what a thing to do, fainting like that.

‘Look. Look. There’s Cousin John,’ Lucy jumped up and waved frantically to the figure above the cliff. ‘And your father, Sarah. Now all will be well. They will help us home.’

The old steps were long gone, though subsequent village children had attempted to make footholds for easier descent, and John slid and clambered down the slippery surface to assist them, the wet clay staining his clothes.

Sarah protested that she was quite able to stand and walk alone, but she was overruled by Lucy who demanded that John must carry her. With great solicitude he picked her up, insisting that he should at least help her as far as the slipway where her father would be waiting.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr John,’ she said softly. ‘I could have managed.’ She smiled at him, her brown eyes level with his blue ones. ‘I’m quite heavy, I think?’

He wrinkled his nose. The wind was blowing her hair into his face, and he laughed. It was a pleasurable sensation, like being stroked and caressed by gossamer, and her body was soft and warm within his arms.

She lifted her hand to move her hair away from his face, and as he turned towards her she inadvertently touched his cheek. He drew in his breath involuntarily and looked at her, wondering if it was a deliberate gesture, but she smiled back at him, her lips parted and her eyes innocent. ‘I’ve lost the pin.’

‘What?’ His mind was confused and he felt his heart begin to race.

‘The pin! From my hair.’

He put her down as they reached the slipway and waited for the others to come.

She held out her open hand, stained with sand and clay. ‘I was using it to prise this out of the cliff.’

He hardly heard what she was saying, heard only the sound of her voice as he watched her lips move. He saw the line of pale golden freckles which ran across the bridge of her small straight nose and the way her cheeks dimpled as she smiled.

‘It was a lesson, you see!’ Her face wore a puzzled expression as she realized that his attention was focused elsewhere.

‘A lesson?’ He shook his head as if to waken himself. A lesson! Great Heavens, what was he thinking of? She was just a child, not yet grown into womanhood, even though she was in his cousin’s employ; and here he was, with thoughts that he should feel ashamed of.

He took hold of her hand, deliberately and firmly so as not to be misconstrued, to look at the object she held there, but felt instead a force running through her fingers into his, an electric charge which tingled and sparked, kindling and melting her flesh with his.

‘What’s that in thy hand, Sarah?’

John started and dropped her hand as Will came up behind them.

‘It’s part of a tooth, I think, Fayther.’ Sarah answered her father, but her eyes held John’s, a look of bewilderment on her young face.

‘Aye, it’s a tooth all right. It’s a whale tooth. Where did tha find it?’

‘It was buried in the clay, about halfway up the cliff.’ She indicated vaguely back down the sands.

Will looked out to sea thoughtfully. ‘It’s been there a long time, I reckon, but everything gets washed to shore sooner or later.’

‘But not always in the same form.’ Mrs Love joined the conversation as she and Lucy came up the steep slope towards them. ‘I was just explaining to Miss Lucy and Sarah about the remains of animal and plant life deposited here, when Sarah became unwell.’

Sarah held out the tooth to John. ‘Would you like to keep it? It will perhaps bring you luck next time you sail.’

He took it from her. ‘I don’t often get the opportunity to sail these days, but yes, thank you, Sarah, I shall keep it always.’ His voice was unsteady as he gazed down at her. ‘Now, perhaps we had better return home,’ he said, glancing at the others, ‘so that Sarah can rest. I was just about to return from my walk, as I expect visitors this afternoon, when I saw Will – er, Foster. So it will be my pleasure to escort you.’

‘I can’t think what got into thee, child.’ Will walked at his daughter’s side, chiding her gently, whilst the others came behind. ‘A strong lass like thee, fainting like that.’

She smiled and took his arm. ‘It was nowt, Fayther, but this child is also a woman, and it’s the time of my monthly flux.’

He gazed down at her, young and fresh-faced, with a look of awakening beauty, and shook his head in wonder. It seemed but yesterday when she was born and now here she was with a woman’s mind and body.

He sighed. ‘Time is measured by ’seasons out here, Sarah. As summer follows spring and reaping follows sowing, so ’years have slipped by without us even noticing.’

‘That’s what is so wonderful, Fayther.’ She turned an animated face towards him, her eyes glowing. ‘It’s like the flowers and herbs pushing their way up through the earth every spring, nothing can stop them; not the frost or the snow, and we know that when they die in the winter, it’s not for ever, that next year it will start all over again.’

Her face had a radiance which began deep in her eyes and spread to her lips so that her whole face was glowing. ‘And that is what is happening to us, we are constantly growing and renewing and creating, one following another. Do you know what I mean?’

He put an arm around her and laughed at his ardent daughter who had discovered the meaning of life and was attempting to explain it to her father, who knew nothing.

John watched them from behind and tried to shut out the sound of Lucy’s chatter as she hung on to his arm. He wanted to concentrate on the fullness of feeling, the profound stirring which he felt within him as he watched the two figures in front. The tall frame of Will, his red hair fading to the colour of dark sand, bending down to listen to Sarah, whose hair reminded him of the spiralling autumn leaves which were falling from the trees, leaving a splash of red and gold.

He felt a sense of envy as he watched her take her father’s arm, and tried to put his thoughts into perspective. He had watched her grow, as he had watched Lucy, but Sarah had always been special because he had been there at her beginning. He had heard her first cry, and seen her first stumbling steps. ‘Genesis,’ he murmured, and Mrs Love glanced at him curiously.

It wasn’t a purely physical sensation which held him in its grasp, for he was now a man of some experience and he acknowledged her for the child that she still was. This was something more. He recognized an awareness growing within himself, that his other brief love affairs had been but the first sip of wine, a mere apprenticeship to prepare him for what was to come.

‘Tell me about your visitors, John.’ Lucy’s eyes lit up at the prospect of company.

‘Stephen Pardoe, you have met him already, and his sister Matilda.’ John answered his cousin vaguely as they awaited tea in the drawing room and he gazed out of the window at the dusk gathering over the garden.

Mr Pardoe and his sister had arrived at the house shortly before their return, and were now in their rooms changing from their travelling clothes after the long journey from their home in London.

‘Is she very pretty?’ Lucy gazed at herself in the gilt mirror.

‘Who?’

‘Why, Miss Pardoe, of course. Who else, silly?’ Lucy laughed, arranging her curls as she preened at her reflection.

‘Oh, yes – yes, she is. Very pretty.’

‘And are you going to marry her? Is that why she’s here?’

‘What are you talking about, Lucy?’ He turned irritably away from the window. ‘What nonsense is this?’

‘Nonsense? I don’t call it nonsense. Why should anyone come all the way from London if it wasn’t for some purpose?’

He sat down on a sofa and spread himself, tapping his fingers on the upholstered arm. There had been a purpose, he had to admit. Miss Pardoe was attractive, and talented, and intelligent, which was why he had invited her along with her brother to meet his relatives.

‘Stephen Pardoe is one of my best friends,’ he answered sharply, ‘and as his sister is not familiar with this part of the country, I felt it would be hospitable to invite her.’ He got up again and paced the room. ‘They will be travelling on again in a few days to visit friends in Harrogate.’

‘Well!’ said Lucy with a gleam in her eyes. ‘If you’re not in love with her and going to propose marriage, I can’t imagine why you are being such a cross patch!’

Her face suddenly creased in alarm as a thought struck her. ‘Oh, don’t tell me she’s refused you already?’ She flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, my poor John! How can you bear it?’

He disentangled himself from her sympathetic embrace. ‘Lucy, do behave. There is nothing to tell. I assure you, you would be the first to know. Now be a good girl and please ring again for tea.’

Isobel too thought that there was a purpose to the visit, for although John had brought parties of house guests before, this was the first time that he had specifically invited an eligible young lady, even though ostensibly she was merely accompanying her brother.

And eligible she certainly was, as Isobel had ascertained during her discreet enquiries. That Stephen Pardoe’s father was a banker she already knew, and subsequently discovered that his only daughter Matilda was the apple of his eye. No expense had been spared on her education in the arts and in music. She had a delightful singing voice, it appeared, and was an accomplished painter and needlewoman. Moreover, everyone who had met her testified to her charm and beauty.

She surveyed her from across the dining table. Delicate garlands of fragrant dried lavender and thyme decorated the table, the candle light flickered and the flames in the hearth glowed, reflecting the lustre of the silver and glassware on the table and giving a deep burnished gleam to Miss Pardoe’s dark hair.

Isobel felt complacent. The dinner had been excellent. She had to admit that there was no-one they knew who had a cook as fine as Mrs Scryven. She had excelled herself today, and they had dined on watercress soup, sole stuffed with thyme, lambs’ kidneys sautéed with juniper, and wild duck with piquant crabapple jelly. Miss Pardoe must surely be impressed, and they had yet to sample the dessert, lemon balm soufflé and mulled pears with cream. She gave a small belch; she was getting fat, she knew, and she looked with some envy at Miss Pardoe’s tiny waist; at the silk-embroidered bodice above her looped skirt, which showed a glimpse of matching petticoat.