by Val Wood
‘Nearly all over,’ he murmured. ‘Bear up if you can.’ He called to a seaman. ‘Bosun. Is all ready?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Parson White. Be so good as to start the service.’
A more unlikely parson Annie had never seen. He was a rough looking fellow with a pock-marked face and a patch over one eye, and wearing a ragged, striped shirt beneath a fancy embroidered waistcoat. On his head he wore a soft woolly cap which he pulled off as he stood forward; but when he opened his mouth he had a deep stentorian voice, well suited for a pulpit.
‘Dear Lord. Bless this thine servant, Tobias Linton. He was a fine man as we well know, and though he was but a landlubber, he was a good one.’ He raised his voice, getting into full swing. ‘And now his great storm has passed and he is coming in to shelter in thine harbour.’
Matt raised his head and stared at him in his good eye. Parson White coughed and cleared his throat and started to sing a hymn, his voice deep and rich, the crew joining in lustily.
When they’d finished, Matt let go of her arm and stepped forward, his head bowed. He waited for a moment as if composing himself, then lifting his head spoke clearly with only a trace of huskiness to betray him. ‘We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out of it. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.’
‘Amen.’
‘Commit the body to the deep.’
The inboard end of the platform was raised and Annie closed her eyes. The white shroud sliding into the water was nothing to do with Toby. Toby was back at the cottage, laughing, joking, his dark eyes merry and waiting for her.
* * *
‘May I join you for supper?’ She had left the door open to let in some air and Matt stood in the doorway.
‘It’s your cabin, Captain. Your ship.’
He cleared the table of charts and instruments which had been left littered there since she had first joined the ship, and called the boy to bring supper. A white cloth was laid with silver cutlery, two engraved glasses with the initial L carved on them and a matching decanter filled with red wine.
The boy brought in a tureen of soup, followed by a large platter which held a boiled fowl surrounded by dumplings.
She ate a little soup, but then looked warily at the cutlery. ‘I’m not very hungry,’ she said to hide her confusion. There seemed to be an uncommon amount of knives and forks.
He carved the bird and with a quick glance at her picked up a chicken leg with his fingers and started to eat. ‘You must excuse me, Mrs Hope, with my common seaman’s manners, but I don’t stand on ceremony whilst I am at sea.’
She too picked up a leg. ‘Then why bother with all of this.’ She waved the leg at the table.
‘I like to at least observe standards even if I don’t necessarily follow them, and besides its good for the lad. He might one day better himself and he would at least know which knife and fork went where.’
He’s laughing at me again. She tore into the meat with her teeth. It was good. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was.
‘I have a proposition to put to you, Mrs Hope. I know that we have had our differences, but those I think stem from our similarities.’
‘Similarities!’ She took a long draught of wine from the glass. ‘I think that we have none!’
‘We both have a quick temper and can be rude. There. I can admit it, why can’t you?’ There was a sparkle in his eyes, a challenge.
‘I don’t admit that I’m rude – but if I ever am, I’m only ever rude to you. Never anyone else. You’re the only one that has ever deserved it.’ I’m lying, she thought. I was never rude to Alan or Francis. I never dared. I was too scared. Scared of getting a beating. So why do I behave this way with him? Why does he rile me so much?
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Very well. Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?’
She gulped some more wine. ‘Why not? There’s nothing to lose by it.’
Nothing to lose. That’s what she and Toby had said. Tears came into her eyes and she blinked them away. And now Toby was gone. They had both lost.
‘Are you all right?’ His voice had become more gentle. ‘I’m sure all of this has been a strain for you.’
She swallowed and brushed away the tears. ‘Aye. It has. And now I must think again about my life, which way it’ll turn. Sometimes – sometimes—,’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’ I was so happy, she thought, and now I’m so full of misery again, just like before. Sometimes I wonder what life is about.
‘I need someone else to organise the running on shore now that Toby – now that Toby has gone. Will you do it?’ He was matter-of-fact, emotionless, and kept his eyes on her glass as he poured her more wine.
She stared at him. ‘Me? But I don’t know how. I don’t know the team or where they go.’
‘Josh can tell you all of that.’
‘Then why can’t Josh do the running. Why do you need me. I might have other arrangements to make.’
‘Josh can’t keep accounts or read, and though names are not written down, numbers are, each team member has a number and he or she is allocated a certain amount of goods. It needs someone with a sharp mind to keep a tally.’
‘I suppose I should be flattered.’ He doesn’t know that I’ve only just learnt to read and write, she thought smugly.
‘Flattery is the last thing I would think of Mrs Hope, especially where you are concerned.’ He got up from the table and she did also. ‘You have a few days to think about it. We’re homeward bound. You can give me your answer when we reach port.’
He gave her a small bow. Well you can tell he was born a gentleman, she thought scathingly, his manners can’t be faulted, but I know that it’s an act, he doesn’t mean any of it.
‘By the way.’ He turned towards her. The cabin was small and he was very close, almost brushing her skirt. ‘What were your intentions now that Toby isn’t around to – er, take care of you.’
Her eyes flashed. What was he implying. ‘You thought I stayed around for what I could get out of Toby. You thought I was his mistress! His doxy! Someone like you just wouldn’t understand what there was between us.’
He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her towards him, his face flushed and close to hers. ‘Make no mistake, Mrs Hope. I understand perfectly about my brother. But I don’t for one moment expect ever to understand you.’
They glared at each other, their eyes wide, and she caught her breath as she saw his lips so close to hers. She felt the powerful strength as his arms came around her and enfolded her in a crushing embrace. His mouth was demanding and passionate as he sought hers, his hand on her head clasping her hair. She closed her eyes and responded, for a moment only. Then reason took over, some judgement of mind which she had never before experienced – before she had only a devious instinct for survival. She pushed him away, hitting him on the chest with her fists.
‘Don’t treat me like some street woman that you’ve picked up,’ she snarled.
‘How should I treat you?’ His smile was scornful as he pulled away from her and headed for the cabin door. ‘Like a lady that you’re trying to be and not the alley cat that you are?’
In anger at his words she picked up a knife from the table and held it aloft as if to strike, and he lifted his arm to parry, but as the blade glittered, another memory came to mind and with a small sob she lowered it.
‘I meant you no harm, Captain,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
He looked at her and opened his mouth as if about to speak, then with his hand on the door latch stopped for a moment. ‘Forgive me, Mrs Hope. I can’t think what came over me. It’s been a wretched day, emotions are running high. Shall we forget this little scene ever happened?’
She lifted her head. ‘It’s forgotten, Captain. It was nothing.’
* * *
But she couldn’t forget it. Not the look in his eye
s nor the touch of his mouth on hers nor the salty smell of the sea in his beard. She could taste it as she licked her lips and as she lay in the bunk at night she felt again his arms around her.
As she thought of him, other images came into her mind. The sight of Toby sitting with her, reading with her, his long brown hair falling over his eyes, and his mouth moving, telling her something.
‘What is it? What must I do?’ She paced the floor of the cabin as the ship cleaved its way through the seas back to port.
She left the cabin, wanting to clear her head, and climbed the companion-way to the upper deck and felt the wind on her face and heard the rush of it as it swept and filled the sails. The sky was dark with a million stars and as she stood, her head lifted up gazing into space, Matt Linton appeared beside her.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She explained her presence. ‘I came up for air.’
‘You should have called for someone. It isn’t safe for you on deck alone. The winds could freshen, you could so easily be swept overboard.’
‘And then I’d join Toby,’ she whispered.
‘No. We’re near enough to land, your body would be swept to shore, Toby’s won’t. He’s weighted down and I did soundings for the deepest water, that’s why we’ve been so long at sea. This is a shallow sea, but Toby won’t come to shore.’ His eyes looked sad. ‘I made sure of that. Not ever.’
‘I’m so afraid,’ she said. ‘He’s in the dark.’
He looked up at the stars, then he turned to her. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s in the light.’
They stood silently, their animosity forgotten as their sorrow united them. Then softly he spoke. ‘I shall tell my father he died of a fever whilst he was taking a trip with me. He need never know what really happened.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’ll tell him that we couldn’t bring his body back. He’ll understand – or think he does, the reason why.’
‘Your father? You’ll go to him?’ She didn’t know why she had picked up the idea that Matt and his father never met.
‘Yes. He’s a hard, unreasonable man and there’s no love lost between us, but he still deserves to be told of his son’s death. Also there’s a housekeeper and man who’ll want to know, they became fond of him. They came later, after Mrs Trott. We shall dock the day after tomorrow. I’ll hire a horse and go straight away. I can take you as far as Hessle,’ he added.
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I won’t go back just yet.’ She had finally made up her mind and she’d remembered what it was that Toby had said to her. ‘I have some business to attend to in Hull,’ she said. ‘When I’ve dealt with that, then I’ll come and I’ll tell you what I’ve decided. I’ll tell you if I’m in with you or if I’m moving on.’
He looked annoyed as if his plans had been dashed, as if someone else had had the bad manners to make a decision without consulting him.
‘As you wish,’ he said coldly. ‘I’ll meet you at Toby’s cottage in four days time.’
They said goodnight and she returned to the cabin and lay down on the bunk. She wouldn’t sleep again, not now that she had to think of the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow was the day she would brave the streets of Hull and risk the danger of being recognized. The day she would go and search for her children.
19
‘Can you lower a boat to take me off? I don’t want to sail into the dock.’
She felt Matt eye her curiously but she didn’t explain why she didn’t want to sail with the Breeze into the New Dock. That she might see someone she knew was her greatest fear, and though the morning was still dark as the ship was manoeuvered from the Humber into the river Hull, or the Old Harbour, as it was known in the town, she knew that there would be women waiting there as soon as they heard that a ship was coming in.
She guessed that there would be no wives or sweethearts waiting for the crew of the Breeze, for these were not local men, but from Liverpool and Bristol and some, whose sharp accents she could hardly understand were from as far away as Kent on the south coast. The women who would be waiting for these men were no friends of hers, nor would she acknowledge them, but it was possible that someone from amongst them might recognize her as once being a friend of Francis Morton, in the days when she accompanied him to the inns and taverns around the waterfront.
A sea boat was lowered from the davits into the river and she descended the ladder, her toes curling around the rungs, following Parson White and another seaman who were to row her across the narrow waterway to the quayside.
She raised her arm to Matt who was standing on deck watching her as the boat pulled away. The schooner continued down the river, past the warehouses and riverside homes of ship owners and master mariners. He didn’t return her wave but folded his arms and turned his back.
‘You’ll take care now, miss? There’s some scoundrels about. You can’t trust anybody these days, they’ll have the coat off your back if you as much as turn it for a minute.’ Parson White helped her out of the boat and she climbed the iron steps to the quay.
She almost laughed as this villainous looking scoundrel gave her advice, but she promised that she would heed his warning as she ran in the darkness towards the narrow familiar alleys which until only five months ago she had always called home.
I’ll go first for Lizzie, she panted as she ran through the alleys and courts, taking short cuts across the town. Will and Maria will be up, Maria will be off to work afore long. She slowed down to catch her breath. Or maybe not. She’ll have had her bairn. She might have got ’sack – and poor Will, I wonder if he got work, hard enough to get work with two legs, but with onny one—!
She slipped through a narrow slit in a brick wall which led into Wyke Entry, the small court where her friends the Fosters lived, and where, in the room above them, had lived the late, but not lamented, Francis Morton.
There was a candle burning in the lower window and she bent to look through. She frowned and rubbed the dirt from the glass with her finger. Maria had always been clean and houseproud, but now the room looked dirty and there were people, men and women, sleeping in heaps all over the floor. Three dogs were tied to a chair leg and one looked up, its lips starting to curl as it saw her.
She pulled back from the window. They must have shifted. Where will they have gone?
Upstairs in the Morton house, she heard a sudden cry and pressed herself against the wall. The window was flung open and a bowl of slops thrown out, splashing onto the floor just beyond her feet. A loud cursing told her that Mrs Morton was alive and well, and in fright Annie dived back through the slit, the smugglers slit, they used to call it, and ran as fast as her feet would carry her away from the court.
I’ll go home and see what’s doing, she thought, at least to what was home. Though how I ever lived in that dirty alley, I don’t know. Realization was dawning on her that for the past few months she had lived a life of comparative luxury in Toby’s wooden cottage.
But the room which had been hers was now occupied by several Irish families, she could hear the lilt of their voices as they called on each idle beggar to shift themselves and get off to work.
What’ll I do? She hugged her cloak around her. The morning was cold and a light drizzle was falling. Everywhere looked grey and dingy. She looked up at the upstairs windows of the buildings. There was no light showing, but then, there wouldn’t be, few people in this alley could afford candles or oil for light. They did what they had to do by the dim natural daylight which filtered down through the narrow walls and rooftops, and when that was gone, if they had no fire they sat in the dark or went to bed.
A window above her was raised, and a bucket was emptied down into the alley. The stench of urine and excrement was strong and she put her hand to her mouth and retched. ’Old woman’s still there then, she never would wait for muck cart. Poor old lass. What a life, stuck in one room. Annie, get going, there’s nowt for you here.
The iron gate to the Seamen’s Hospital in the long street of White Friar’s Gate, where or
phans of seamen lost at sea were given a home, was chained and padlocked. She looked up for the bell and pulled on a rope, she heard it jangling across the yard and inside the building.
A man opened a door to the building and looked out. ‘Tha’s too early. Come back at six.’
‘I – I want to find out about some bairns who were left here. Two lads.’
‘Whose lads?’ He didn’t move from the doorway or come out into the yard but simply poked his head round the side of the door.
‘Er – my sister’s lads, Swinburn’s the name. She left them here while she went to find work.’
He came out buttoning up his jacket. ‘I don’t remember that name.’
‘Are you sure? She – she asked me to come for them.’ She grasped the iron bars of the gate. ‘Is there anybody tha can go and ask, Matron or Master?’
She had seen the matron when she had brought them. A formidable woman, she had asked her to sign a form, and Annie hadn’t listened to her when she had read it out; she had been in such a turmoil of despair over Francis and his treatment of Lizzie, and she’d blotched the paper as she struggled to sign her name.
‘Can’t ask Matron, she’s busy supervising breakfast, and Master isn’t here.’ He put his hands in his pockets and jingled some coins. ‘’Course I could go and look on ’list.’
‘Oh, please. Would you?’ She gripped the railings and looked through at him. ‘They’re here, nobody else would have fetched them out.’
He stood and stared at her, then let his gaze drift skywards.
Oh, God. He wants money and I haven’t any. She patted her thigh where her money bag would normally be. But she hadn’t brought it out with her. She hadn’t expected – we thought, Toby and me – we thought that we wouldn’t be long down at ’riverside. I didn’t need money. And I left my moneybag hidden at the cottage.
‘I haven’t any money, but I can bring thee some later. Please, go and look at the list. I’m desperate to see my lads.’