by Valerie Wood
Emily gazed at her; so Sam was one of the poor orphans that Granny talked about and not her after all, she decided, for she had both ma and da and she resolved to be kinder to Sam than she had been.
The cottage sat barely a mile from the banks of the Humber. From there they could smell the salt of the sea, feel the sharp wind on their faces or be shrouded in a sea of fog, which drifted in from the estuary and chilled them to the bone and made them hurry to pile up the fire with driftwood which Sam collected from the river banks and dried ready for use.
Sam walked across the marshy land every day to Cherry Cob sands, returning always with some treasure. He brought home eel, shrimps or mussels, sometimes a bunch of samphire which grew on the marsh, or a rabbit caught by a ferret which he kept in his pocket. His mind was a little slow, but his ability to catch, fish, net or snare was sure, and he always brought something home for the pot, which his granny had ready and waiting.
Emily begged time and again to go with him. ‘I won’t be a bother,’ she pleaded, ‘and I’ll keep ever so quiet while tha’s fishing. Please, Sam, let me come.’
He’d glanced at Granny Edwards, who shook her head. ‘Not yet. ’Tide’s fast and watter’s deep. Too deep for a bairn like thee.’
‘But ’other bairns go, I’ve seen them.’ She had watched the snake of youngsters wending their way across the marshland towards the mudflats. ‘And they go on their own.’
Granny weakened slightly. ‘They’re older than thee and know where to go and where not. Maybe when tha’s growed a bit.’
So she left it at that until a month had passed, but now winter was coming, a thin film of frost began covering the marshy land and the wind blowing in from the estuary was sharper and keener. They filled a sack with straw and pushed it into the window aperture so that no draught could penetrate and brought out a heavy blanket to cover the door. Driftwood was carried inside and Emily tied bundles of dry kindling with straw and stacked them in a corner of the room. Martinmas had passed, when the farm workers, ploughmen, dairymaids and labourers stood by the market cross in local towns and bid for the next twelvemonth’s work. Sam went to the town of Patrington and came home with a huge beam on his round face to say that he had been taken on as a regular labourer at one of the neighbouring farms. ‘I’m not sleeping in, Gran. I’ll come home every night.’
His granny gave a satisfied nod, pleased with him even though it meant her getting up at four-thirty each morning to make sure he had a breakfast of gruel or oat dumplings before he set out on his several miles’ walk. His midday meal he would eat at the farm and on his return a dish of rabbit stew or mutton broth and barley bread would be waiting for him before he finally tumbled wearily into bed.
Time hung heavily for Emily now that Sam had gone to regular work. She fed the chickens and swept the yard and did a few jobs of work, but when those were done and the old woman sat dozing over her knitting by the fire, Emily would stand outside and wonder what to do next. There were no children in the immediate vicinity and the ones she had previously watched going to the river bank no longer came through the day. By teatime dusk was closing in and there was not a soul to be seen in that vast, awesome landscape. She missed her brother, Joe, for they had always played together, and she wondered if he had managed to get another job of work.
So she stood one midday, after eating her dinner of bread and cold bacon, and looked across to the far reaches of the skyline. The winter sun was bright, glistening on the patches of frost which hadn’t cleared and outlining the stark bare branches of elm and ash in the distance. Granny Edwards had fallen asleep by the fire and the afternoon loomed long before her. Then Emily made a decision. She would go to the river. She could walk and just take a look, no more than that, and then come straight back home. Nobody will know, she pondered, and when I get back I can tell them that I was big enough to go by myself.
She slipped back inside for her shawl and to check that Granny was still sleeping, which she was, her mouth slack in a gentle snore and her knitting idle in her lap. Emily gave a little satisfied shrug and crept out again. The hens scuttled out of her way and she skipped along towards the track at the top of the dyke which she knew Sam always took to go to the river.
Though it was but a mile, it seemed much longer, for the track was muddy and stuck to her boots and slowed her down. Sometimes the path disappeared into a morass of mud and taking care not to slip down into the deep, water-filled ditch, she jumped down into the soggy grass. She kept on walking and thought she could hear the murmur of the tidal waters beyond the distant, low, green bank.
On she tramped, lifting her mudborn boots from the sucking ooze until she finally reached the bank. She scrambled up, crushing nettle and dead heads of sea aster beneath her feet and pushing her way through prickly, red-berried thorn and bramble; and there before her triumphant gaze lay the shining mudflats, which shimmered in the winter sun and harboured hundreds of curlew and redshanks which searched and fed on the crustaceans beneath the mud. Beyond the mudflats lay the broad waters of the Humber and the banks of Lincolnshire on the other side.
She heaved a sigh of satisfaction. She had got here by herself, without assistance from Sam or anyone else. ‘I am big enough,’ she declared aloud and jumped down on to the grassy shore and found herself almost knee-deep in water. The grass which looked so firm from the bank was marshland with hidden pools and rivulets. The mud beneath the water sucked and oozed around her legs and with difficulty she splashed and pulled and made her way back to the bank, where she found a dry patch and sat down to take off her boots. She tied them together with her laces and hung them around her neck, wrung out the hem of her dress, then, cautiously and gingerly watching where she put her feet, she walked towards the river.
The tide was out and the quaggy mud sucked between her toes, but she ventured further until she reached shallow water and stepped into it. It was icy cold around her ankles and she quickly came out again, though she lingered on the edge and searched for pebbles to throw into the water, but found only a few shells and some chunks of driftwood, which she threw into the waves, disturbing the bobbing gulls and shelducks which were resting between the crests. A fleet of ships, with their canvas sails filling in the sharp breeze, was sailing downriver towards the mouth of the Humber on their way to the sea, and she waved her hands to them, wondering where their journey was taking them.
‘I’d like to go on a ship,’ she murmured and she bent to peer downriver towards the spit of Spurn peninsula, trying to see as far into the distance as she could. There seems to be no beginning or end to it, she thought, where does it go to or come from?
The curlews called their flute-like cry and above her redshanks flew, whilst behind her on the banks, woodpigeons rustled and foraged amongst the berries and haws. She played for a while, splashing in the pools and collecting small pieces of driftwood to take home for the fire, until she began to feel a chill. The sun had gone, disappearing behind a thick bank of cloud and a mist began to drift in from the river; it settled on her hair like raindrops and her shawl felt damp. The tide too was rushing towards the shore. It gushed and babbled, trickled and frothed and percolated into all the muddy pools and gullies, absorbing them into one.
She decided to return home, for she wanted to get back before Granny Edwards awoke from her sleep, but she had mistaken the time it had taken her to come and the time she had spent by the river, and as she pulled and tugged her wet boots back on to her cold red feet, she realized that the light was going, the mist was getting thicker and that she must run if she was not to be found out.
Behind her she could hear the rush of the tide as the waters of the estuary travelled their journey, but in front of her, as, frowning, she endeavoured to locate her path home, there seemed to be only a lonely silence in that isolated vista. She shivered, the stillness wrapped around her, cocooning her in a thick, damp curtain. She shook her head to dispel it and turned again to the river to welcome its rushing sound, but the gesture increased
her isolation as she realized that her only way was forward, to march into the silence and break it by her own presence.
‘Sam,’ she called bravely, ‘Granny Edwards! It’s me, Emily. I’m coming.’ Her words echoed around her, swirling like the mist, which was becoming thicker by the minute. She stepped forward. She must run. But which way? She had lost the defined path and the dyke which she had followed here, and there was only hummocky grassland and patches of watery waste, which once more sucked and snatched at her boots.
She wandered for what seemed like hours and the darkness descended and the mist became thicker and colder. She stumbled straight on at first, but not coming across the dyke she then veered right, searching for the slight incline which would indicate its presence, but she heard again the sound of the river, louder now than before and a faint creak, creak which was eerie to her ears, and peering through the darkness she saw the outline of masts and a huddle of small boats moored in a creek, their masts and rigging creaking as they swayed gently in the water. On the far side of the creek a dim light glimmered, but she couldn’t see a bridge or road and she was afraid of falling into the water. She shouted again and again, but there was no answering shout and she turned and struck out once more back the way she had come.
Tears started to fall, but she stumbled on. She was cold and hungry for it was long past her suppertime. Her hands still clutched the driftwood which she had collected and her wet skirt rubbed against her legs making them cold and sore.
‘Sam,’ she shouted, ‘Granny Edwards! It’s me, Emily!’ She listened, but heard nothing. ‘Da! Da! I need thee. Come and get thy little Em. I’m onny a little bairn.’ She sank down on to the wet grass and started to sob. ‘Da. I want my da!’
She laid her head down on the grass and as she did, found that it rose in a slight incline. She reached out with her hands, discarding the driftwood, and stretching up realized that the ground rose higher. She clambered on hands and knees up the incline and came to the top. Below her lay the dyke, the waters rushing and gurgling from the river through the fields and wetlands and towards home.
She hurried on, slipping and sliding, but keeping to the edge nearest the field so that if she fell she would fall into the land rather than into the water. Then she stopped. There was a sound. Muffled, but there it was again. Someone was shouting. Voices were shouting her name.
‘Sam,’ she shrieked, ‘Sam! It’s me, Emily!’
Again came the call. ‘Emily! I can’t see thee. Keep shouting!’
‘I’m on ’dyke. Come quick.’ Her voice rose in sudden panic now that help was near. ‘Come and get me. I’m lost.’
The voices grew louder and soon she could make out distant shapes looming through the fog. Lanterns sent out an eerie, fluctuating light and soon she saw the broad figure of Sam running towards her. ‘Emily! Come on, tha’s all right now. I’ve got thee.’
He picked her up, crushing her in his arms. ‘Don’t cry, Em. Tha’s safe now. We’ll soon have thee home.’
Another man wrapped a blanket around her and two young lads with him gazed at her curiously. ‘Tha should have asked us,’ one of them said. ‘We’d have taken thee down to ’river if that’s where tha’s been.’
She didn’t answer, but looked with streaming eyes at the small crowd who had been searching for her and started to shake, with cold and fear at what might have happened to her and relief at being found.
‘Will Gr-Granny Edwards be mad at me, Sam?’ she whispered as they neared the cottage. ‘I never told her where I was going.’
‘Aye, I expect she will be,’ he answered bluntly, ‘but she’ll be glad that tha’s safe, so don’t bother too much if she rattles on at thee.’
But Granny Edwards didn’t rattle on at her, she seemed curiously subdued as she took off her wet things, Sam turning his back as she stripped Emily down to nakedness, and with a rough towel rubbed her vigorously all over until she was glowing, then, wrapping her in a warm blanket and with her feet in a mustard bath, she sat her by the fire. ‘Here now, drink this down and tha’ll soon be right as rain.’
She put a spoonful of honey in a small tankard and half-filled it with ale, then taking the poker from the coals she plunged it into the liquid. It sizzled and steamed and withdrawing the poker she grated a nutmeg into the ale and handed it to Emily. ‘Tha’ll mebbe not like ’taste, but drink it down anyway.’
Emily sipped it, the taste was bitter but with an overlying sweetness and she felt the heat trickling down her throat, warming her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t mean to be a bother.’ Tears started to spout again and her mouth trembled as she spoke, ‘I wanted my da. I shouted for him, but I knew he wouldn’t hear. He’s too far away.’
Granny Edwards drew her chair nearer to Emily. ‘Aye, he is far away, but I reckon maybe he did hear thee and that’s why tha was found.’
Emily looked at her, not understanding. ‘I might as well tell thee ’news now, as wait till ’morning,’ the old woman said and looked at her with sorrow in her eyes. ‘I got ’message this afternoon. They woke me up from my nap and I knew tha’d gone off somewhere, but I had to wait till Sam came home to look for thee, even though I called and called.’
Emily hung her head; so she would have been found out even if she hadn’t got lost and been late home.
Granny took hold of her hand in an unaccustomed show of affection. ‘I got ’message to say that thy da died two days ago. He’s in heaven now I have no doubt, for he was a good man. And thy ma and brother have gone to ’poorhouse.’
Chapter Three
Emily’s grief was deep, for now she knew that she wouldn’t see her dear da again, whereas, if she had previously thought about it at all, which she meditated guiltily hadn’t been very often, she had felt that her stay with Granny Edwards would be temporary and that she would eventually return home.
‘If tha’s good and say tha prayers every night,’ she was assured, ‘then tha’ll meet him again at heaven’s door.’
Emily sniffled. ‘Does that mean I have to be good every day for ever, Gran?’ she asked doubtfully, for if that was the case then she feared that she would not be there to greet him. It was very hard to be good all of the time.
‘Tha shall go to chapel wi’ me on Sunday,’ Hannah said determinedly. ‘We’ll pray for his soul and for thy ma and brother’s bodily comfort and trust in God. And, we’ll ask Him to look down on thee,’ she sighed deeply, ‘and me too, to give me patience and fortitude to bring up yet another bairn.’
Emily looked skywards when she was out of doors. She wasn’t sure that she wanted someone watching her the whole time. Just suppose, she thought, just suppose I do something bad by accident, will God think I did it on purpose and still punish me?
She was dressed in a clean dress and warm shawl on the following Sunday and followed Hannah, who in her best black dress and cloak strode out down the four-mile road towards the village of Thorngumbald, where she attended chapel every Sunday, wet or fine, sun or snow. She had never suggested taking Emily before and neither did Sam attend. Emily was quite excited. Perhaps there would be other children there whom she might play with or talk to, perhaps those who visited the river, though, she considered, perhaps she had better not mention that subject just yet or Granny would start muttering again that ‘she might have drowned and in my care at that’.
Hannah shook her umbrella in the air. ‘We’ll have a fresh going on now that tha’s here for good.’ She looked down at Emily. ‘Thy ma sent word to ask if I’d be thy guardian. Well, what could I say?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Can’t see this bairn going to ’poorhouse along with ’other one.’
‘Tha’d rather have had our Joe, I expect?’ Emily ventured.
The old lady stopped abruptly. ‘Why, I never said that! When did I say that?’
‘When I came. Tha shouted at Sam and said he should have brought Joe.’
‘Huh! Tha’s got sharp ears for a little ’un.’ She walked on and then glanced down
. ‘No, I reckon tha’ll be all right. Tha’s willing enough and not a bad lass. I expect we’ll get along.’
Emily smiled and skipped along after her. The praise was sweet. She’d try to remember to include Granny Edwards in her prayers.
As she came out of the chapel clutching her new prayerbook, she looked curiously at the small group of children who were gathered there waiting for their parents to finish their conversation with other members of the congregation. They were scrubbed and clean, the boys with well-brushed hair and shiny faces and the girls neat in black stockings with starched pinafores over their dresses. Emily waited for Granny Edwards, who was in earnest discussion with the minister. She kept nodding over to Emily and the minister too looked her way and shook his head in a commiserative kind of way. He shook a finger as he spoke and they both turned their heads towards the building next door.
A young boy came across to Emily. ‘Thou’s little lass that got lost down by ’river!’
Emily nodded in agreement. ‘I shan’t get lost again,’ she said defensively. ‘It was only ’cos it was foggy.’
‘It’s allus foggy down there.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘If tha likes, we’ll tek thee next time we go. Mebbe next Sat’day if it’s fine.’
She looked towards Granny Edwards, who was bearing down on her. ‘I’ll have to ask,’ she whispered. ‘If she says I can, I will.’
The boy scooted off towards the group of other boys and girls who were waiting for him and she turned to ask the question, but was forestalled by Granny, who was saying, ‘Well, that’s got that settled. Minister says he’ll put in a word for thee wi’ schoolmistress. Now our Sam is in regular work we’ll be able to manage. Tha’s nearly six, so all being well tha’ll start school after Christmas.’