The Hungry Tide (59 page)

They started to move away from him and he called to them. Hey, wait on, wait for me. I’m coming. He heard a familiar comforting sound, a plaintive vibrant echo, like music, calling him. He felt the soothing rhythmic rocking of the waters carry him onwards. By, lads, it’s grand to be at sea again. This is where we belong.

It was Martin Reedbarrow who found Sarah, alerted by Paul who’d gone wandering along the cliffs, thrown out of the house by his shrill, nagging wife, and come back to Monkston to see what was doing.

Paul was so frightened that he was incomprehensible, and Martin hadn’t at first understood his breathless gabbling. When at last what he said made sense, Martin shouted at him to fetch help from the village, then ran towards the sea as fast as his heavy frame would allow him, for he had become fat and short-winded as he’d grown older.

Paul had told his father that Joe and Sarah had gone over together, he had seen her red hair streaming behind her. He had been watching from behind an old gravestone as she sat on the cliff top, staring out to sea. He’d seen Joe come and go, and then come back again with Will, and his muddled mind couldn’t decide whether Joe had pushed her or whether he was trying to catch her.

The cliffs were high by the old church and the water was raging, dashing great plumes of white foam against the cliff face, but Martin placed his large feet surely and carefully as he scrambled down the broken surface, and reached the fresh fall of clay, which lay in peaks and ridges, breaking the full force of the sea’s raw energy which gathered momentum and flung Sarah’s light form towards him.

Waist-deep in water he reached out towards her. Her cloak and gown were heavy with water and the waves sucked at her, trying to tear her from his grasp, to gather her back. Desperately he held on, feeling the sand moving beneath his feet, dragging him down, and just as he felt that he too would succumb to the power of the sea, and his arms burnt as if on fire, he heard the sound of other voices and men from the village took her from him and pulled him back.

He carried her himself, back to her mother, cradling her like the daughter she now would never be. They had heard her moan, and turning her over pumped the sea water out of her until she retched and cried and they knew they had saved her.

Some of the men wanted to take a boat out and look for Joe, but Martin shook his head. It was useless, no sense in risking more lives. He knew his son wouldn’t stand a chance. His big landsman’s body would be dragged down. Joe hated the water, he always had. He was a countryman and had had no affinity with the sea despite living within sight of it all of his life.

Maria cried as they laid Sarah on a blanket on the floor in the warm kitchen at Garston Hall, and after hurrying to get brandy and hot water rocked her in her arms.

‘But where’s her da? Where’s Will? He was with Joe. They went running off together. Dear God. Don’t say he’s gone too.’

They found Paul and he nodded nervously. Aye, he did see Will go over, he fell with the cliff. He hadn’t stopped to look but had run to fetch his father.

A search party set out, but they found nothing, not that day or the next, but on the third day a message came from down the coast for them to come. It was Joe, an enormous blow on the back of his head and mud from the land still caked on the soles of the heavy boots which had dragged him down. The sea had returned him and deposited him gently back on the shore.

‘They’ll not find my Will.’ Maria’s eyes had dark shadows beneath them and her hair was more white than black. She smiled wistfully. ‘’Sea will keep him. I always knew it would. He’ll sleep soundly beneath those ’waters. I have no fear of that.’

She sighed. ‘I always thought that one day I would leave this place. I always meant to ask Will to take me back to Hull, to see that old brown river, and to wave to King Billy on his golden hoss, and finally to lie with my own folk. I realize now that it wasn’t meant to be. Here I’ll stay with my bairns and wait. ’Sea doesn’t frighten me any more, not now, in fact it’s quite a comfort – knowing that Will is out there.’

She put her sorrow to one side to care for her daughter, who lay wan and lifeless, not eating, not sleeping, and locked in silent distress.

Isaac Masterson had insisted that Sarah should stay at Garston Hall, that they make up a bed for her and give her everything she needed. He was beside himself with grief. So much sorrow, so much waste of life – John, Foster, Reedbarrow’s son, and Sarah so sick that they feared for her mind. He ordered the doctor to come and attend her, and he stood at her bedside and shook his head.

‘We could try bleeding her, get rid of the poisons which are obviously affecting her mind.’

But Maria wouldn’t let him near with his jar of leeches, and he didn’t come again.

Lucy came to see her and gently stroked her cheek and held her hand. ‘Please get better, Sarah. I can’t bear to see you like this.’

Sarah gave a small sad smile of recognition and then turned away.

‘You’re making so much of the girl, Isaac. I don’t understand you.’ Isobel was sharp and irritable at Isaac’s distress. ‘I’m sad too, for goodness sake, over poor John. And it isn’t as if Sarah was one of the household any more. She cut herself off from us, we didn’t make he go.’

‘Sarah might well have been one of us,’ he replied wearily. He was too old to deal with such troubles, and told her all he knew. ‘John loved her and she him, this is why she is so sick, she thinks there is nothing left to live for.’

She stared at him, angry and confused, her pride battling with her fondness for John.

‘Then it’s a pity we didn’t know sooner,’ she said bitterly. ‘If he had married her, at least he would still be here with us, and not gone to his death on some foolhardy voyage.’

Sarah opened her eyes reluctantly. The sun was shining through the curtains and falling on to the mirror on the chest across the room, sending bright reflections flitting across her face. The brightness reminded her of something, some white, bright light that she had seen she knew not where. But that had been a cold, hard light, without colour or warmth, unlike this pale gold glow which bathed the room.

Maria came in and sat by the bed. She stroked Sarah’s forehead and smoothed the hair away from her face.

‘Ma. Where is this room?’

Maria was startled for a moment, then a sudden joy returned to her, for this was the first response they had had from Sarah since she had been brought here so many weeks ago. She smiled delightedly. ‘Why, Sarah, tha’s been in here many times, surely? Tha’s at Garston Hall. Doesn’t tha know this place better than thine own?’

‘Yes, Ma. But this room, how else do I know it?’ she whispered. There was a pounding in her weakened body, an awareness coming fast and strong that she was alive after all, and not trapped, cold and alone, beneath the icy waters.

She had known without them telling her that her father was gone. She had felt his body beneath hers as they struggled deep in the watery blackness, felt him pushing her with all the strength of his muscular arms, forcing her up against the savage waves, and just as she was about to learn the truth and solve the wondrous secrets of the universe, he had heaved her out of the water to face life and its pain.

There was some other person also, someone kind and loving who in his eagerness to save her from herself had gone too, and she felt the guilt weigh heavily upon her. Someone who had gathered her into his arms to cushion her body as they plunged down the cliff and sank beneath the waves. She hadn’t remembered who he was until she saw the tear-stained, saddened face of Janey, who spoke in whispers of her lost brother.

‘Ma?’

She saw her mother wipe away a tear, but she turned a smiling face towards her. ‘I’ll tell thee a secret then, Sarah. This is ’same room as tha was born in. Only Mastersons never knew. We never told them that tha was born here.’

Maria saw the question on Sarah’s face. ‘Tha was in such a hurry to come into this world, that there wasn’t time to get me home to Field House. Mr John had been using this room, for he’d come unexpected and we weren’t ready for him. It didn’t have a fine bed like this, though, just a truckle bed and a chest, but he brought me in here, and here tha was born.’

She looked down at her daughter and patted her hand. ‘I’m going to fetch thee some soup. Tha looks so much better, perhaps tha might eat?’

Sarah lay back on the pillow. There had to be a reason why she at last felt comforted, why she now felt warmth flowing through her bones where before there had been only a lifeless chill.

John had been here. Here he had slept, walked the floor and sat in the chair, touched the door knob and left part of himself indelibly stamped in the fabric of the walls and the air that she breathed.

She pushed the sheets and hangings to one side and cautiously rose from the bed. Her legs were weak and she clung to the chair and windowsill as she looked out of the window. Spring was almost there, tender green growth was pushing its way out of the frosty earth, the first signs of an abundant vitality fighting for existence. She could see the sea. Where the cliff had fallen away there was a wide band of silver and grey glistening in the morning sun. She heard the soft breathing of the surf, and it no longer menaced her as it had when they brought her here and she had hidden, cold and lost, cowering beneath the sheets.

She could go on now, she wanted to live. She sensed John near, felt his presence, and knew now that he would always be with her, would never leave her, that through endless time they were united.

It was Harris who heard the clatter of hooves in the stable yard and the crunch of gravel as the messenger dismounted, and looked down from his narrow window above the stables into the darkness of the yard below.

He listened intently to what the man had to say and bade him wait whilst he went to the house. Not wanting to wake the whole household, he threw gravel up at Janey’s window, hoping that he wouldn’t break the glass. He saw her face appear behind it, and beckoned her to come, his finger on his lips.

She came, a guttering candle in her hand, prepared to scold at being woken at such an hour, but wrapped her shawl tightly over her nightshift and went to waken the master as she was requested. She made Mr Masterson a warm drink and wrapped a hot brick in a piece of old blanket, whilst he hurriedly dressed and Harris harnessed the horses to the carriage. She nodded obediently when her master told her not to discuss with anyone why he had departed so rapidly in the middle of the night.

No-one else heard them go. Not Maria, dreaming of Will as she slept in Mrs Scryven’s old room, unable to face going back alone to Field House. Not the other servants, who would sleep soundly for the next few hours until dawn. Not Isobel Masterson, who slept high on her pillow to save disturbing her hair, and not Lucy, who smiled as she turned beneath her soft sheets. And not Sarah, who slept peacefully for the first time in weeks.

I’m too old for this, thought Isaac, and tried to ease his burning joints as the carriage rattled through still, sleeping villages, too old to deal with difficulties such as this. He shivered in spite of his warm greatcoat and warmed his bony hands on the hot brick, pulling the rug which Janey had given him around his narrow shoulders. Dare I hope for good news? No, I dare not, in case I am disappointed.

There was news of a ship, but not his: the
Stellar
which had been lost with the
Northern Star
. If I hear that all is lost, then I shall sell my ships and my company and retire to oblivion in Monkston and wait for death, he told himself. He trembled as he climbed down from the carriage and leant heavily on Harris’s supporting arm.

There was only a handful of men waiting in the yard, and the watchman told him that the
Stellar
had been sighted late last evening just off the Humber, and that even now she had dropped sail and was being escorted by the pilot boat through the mud and sand flats round the stump of Spurn towards the mouth of the River Hull and the harbour entrance.

‘I would like to be there,’ said Isaac, ‘as she comes in,’ and a sedan chair was sent for to carry him there.

A small group of women was already waiting as the ship drifted in on the tide, pulled by a small cobble. They waited silently and patiently, with a glimmer of hope where previously all hope had been abandoned. As dawn broke and the eastern sky lightened, showing streaks of rosy gold and the promise of a fine day, the
Stellar
moved slowly towards the dock, cleaving her way through the muddy water, passing through the huddle of boats which filled the narrow waterway and sweeping up the mist which drifted there, sending it floating high over the rooftops of the riverside warehouses into the dense mass of buildings in the town.

Isaac was bent low over his stick as the crew came ashore, narrowing his eyes in a vain effort to recognize any of the faces. The only men he would likely know were those who had served on his vessels since boyhood, men like Hardwick who had been with the company all of his working life. Isaac had little to do with the crews these days, he had left so much to John.

Beside the gangboard he saw Carstairs, the owner of the whaler, greeting the crew as they appeared. Isaac slowly walked towards him to ask if he had news of the
Northern Star
.

Carstairs shook his hand, holding it with both of his in sympathy. ‘I haven’t heard all the details, but I understand she is lost, my friend, broken up off Lancaster Sound. It’s only by the grace of God that the
Stellar
has returned.’

As shock and despair showed on Isaac’s grey face Carstairs added quietly, ‘But I understand that some of the men were saved, the
Stellar
took them on board. They have had a dreadful time, but they have opened up new territories if we wish to pursue them – if it is worth the risk.’

‘My nephew was on board.’ Isaac spoke in barely a whisper. ‘Have you news of him?’

‘I know little more than you.’ Carstairs shook his head. ‘We must wait and watch.’

There were tears of happiness as the men tumbled ashore to be greeted by their families, and also tears of sorrow as they gave news of those who wouldn’t be returning. Twenty lives had been lost from the
Northern Star
and eight from the
Stellar
.