by Val Wood
‘Be careful what you say, Jack Fowler,’ Mrs Jennings warned. ‘It doesn’t do to blacken somebody’s name. Not without proof.’
He walked to the door. ‘I don’t have that,’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t even bother to try and get it. I onny know what I heard. Anyway, I’m off. Sunk Island won’t see me again.’
‘No?’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘No pretty girl to tempt you back?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not now. Maybe once, but not any more.’
Rosa had overheard the conversation outside the kitchen door and as soon as she heard the outer door open and Jack Fowler’s voice calling goodbye, she came into the kitchen. ‘When do we leave, Gran?’ she asked. ‘Will it be soon?’
Mrs Jennings nodded. ‘Furniture’s to be sold tomorrow, and we move out ’day after.’
‘Don’t you want to take it with you to Aunt Bella’s house?’
Mrs Jennings gazed around at the furniture, the wooden table, the old oak chairs which had belonged to her parents, the pendulum clock ticking on the wall. ‘There’s no room at Bella’s house; besides, she says that her furniture is better quality than mine.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But it’s not. This is good solid furniture, handmade by a craftsman, your great-grandfayther himself. Hers, why, you hardly dare sit on it in case it collapses.
‘But I’ll tek my linen, my second best, and I’ll pack up ’good quality for Mrs Drew to give to you when you grow up. And my best china that’s hardly been used since I was a young bride. It would have gone to your ma, to Mary,’ she said softly. ‘If she’d set up in her own home.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘But of course she never had ’chance.’
Next day after school Rosa helped to empty drawers and cupboards and lined a deep pine chest with clean brown paper. This was to be packed with the belongings she was taking to the Drews’ house. ‘I’ll put some of your ma’s things in as well,’ her grandmother said. ‘Some of her little treasures that she kept from when she was a bairn like you; and her wedding ring,’ she carefully put the plain gold ring in a small box, ‘and a few trinkets and suchlike that maybe you’ll tek a look at when you’re grown. Just so’s that she’s not forgotten,’ she added.
Rosa’s memory of her mother was already fading. She remembered the walks down to the riverbank and her mother calling across the water whenever a ship’s sail was seen, but of her face she could remember little. What she recalled most of all were the stories that her mother told as she tucked her up in bed, of her father, the Spanish prince, who would one day come for them.
Perhaps, she mused, as she lay in bed that night and gazed at the flickering dancing shadows, thrown up from the fire onto the whitewashed walls. Perhaps he’ll still come. He won’t know that Ma is dead. She turned over onto her side, tucking her hand beneath her cheek. I wonder why he came here anyway? I’ll ask the teacher on Monday if Sunk Island is very far from Spain.
The next morning the sale of effects began. It was early June and already hot, with a heat haze drifting over the sweet smelling hayfields which were almost ready for cutting, and a gentle breeze wafting in from the west. The farmers’ wives of Sunk Island came to look and buy, for they wanted to help Mrs Jennings who had lived in the community all of her life. Other people had travelled over from Patrington and the villages of Keyingham and Ottringham on the Holderness mainland, when they heard that there was a sale of good farm furniture. Many were looking for bargains and some had come out of curiosity.
‘It’s a sad day for you, Mrs Jennings.’ Mrs Drew stood in the yard with Maggie, who smiled at Rosa, though Rosa thought that she looked slightly low-spirited. The last time she had seen Maggie she was very cheerful.
‘Life has a habit of changing,’ Mrs Jennings replied. ‘And we’re not always consulted.’
‘Would you like to come back with us today, Rosa?’ Maggie bent to ask her. ‘We’ve got a bed ready in ’room I share with Flo, just till you settle in. Then you can go in with Delia and ’twins later on if you want.’
Rosa glanced at her grandmother, who nodded. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘You can do, there’ll not be much comfort here once everything’s gone. Just me feather bed. I’m insisting on tekking that. Our Bella’s beds are that hard and lumpy it’d be like doing penance every night. And me jug and bowl.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And ’chamber pot. I’m a bit particular about that sort o’ thing.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t like thought of using anybody else’s. Besides, mine’s china wi’ flowers on it.’
‘Quite right,’ agreed Mrs Drew, ‘I should feel just ’same. Well, all right then. We’ll take Rosa back with us and Jim can pick up her box later.’ She moved off towards the house with Mrs Jennings. ‘Jim said would I look to see if there was anything he might need. Perhaps ’table and chairs, though I expect he’ll still live at home for a while.’ She glanced over her shoulder to where Rosa was standing with Maggie. ‘Who does Rosa favour, Mrs Jennings? In personality, I mean?’
She had been surprised at the reaction of Delia when she was told that Rosa was coming to live with them. ‘I don’t want her to come,’ she’d said fretfully. ‘She onny does what she wants!’
Matthew had interrupted her. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘She’s allus asking questions at school and ’lessons are better, ’cos ’teacher explains what she means.’
‘And she gets into trouble,’ Delia had griped. ‘She’s allus looking out of ’window to see what’s going on. She has to stand in ’corner then,’ she’d added with satisfaction. ‘And she got ’cane one day.’
‘Is she—?’ Mrs Drew hesitated as she questioned Mrs Jennings. ‘She’s not wilful or disobedient, is she? Because I’m afraid that Mr Drew is very strict with his children. He gives ’girls the strap as well as ’lads if they misbehave.’
‘She’s never had ’strap, Mrs Drew, and nor did her ma! Never ever been need.’ Mrs Jennings looked shocked. ‘I’ve allus brought her up strict like, and though she’s allus been a deep child, preoccupied you might say, she’s never been wicked. Never!’
‘That’s all right then.’ Mrs Drew patted her arm, for Mrs Jennings had a worried expression on her face. ‘We won’t worry about it. I know that Mary went a little strange towards ’end, but that wasn’t surprising being left as she was, and with a bairn to bring up as well.’
‘Aye,’ Mrs Jennings responded with a sigh. ‘For him to just disappear like that! I’ll never understand it. He borrowed Mr Jennings’s hoss to ride into Hull – said he had to meet a ship. ’Hoss came back on its own a week later but no sign of him. Our Mary was devastated.’ She blinked her eyes. ‘It’s brought all ’memories back, Mrs Drew, selling up today. I’ll be glad when it’s all done.’
Mrs Drew patted her on her arm again and Mrs Jennings said with a catch in her voice, ‘And you’ll let Rosa come to see me, won’t you, Mrs Drew? Mothering Sunday would be nice. And when ’bridge is made over ’channel she’ll be able to come on her own; God willing I’ll still be here by ’time it’s finished!’
‘There’s no need to wait for Mothering Sunday,’ Mrs Drew assured her and thought that when Jim was settled into Marsh Farm, Henry would be busier on their own farm, and Maggie could perhaps then be allowed to go off on her own. ‘Our Maggie will bring her over,’ she said. ‘Perhaps once a month?’
But they were busy with haymaking during June and the women of the house and the children, too, worked long hours preparing food for the workers and taking it across to the big barn where they ate, and the itinerant workers slept. Even school was neglected and not all the pupils turned up for lessons, being needed at home and in the fields.
‘I’ll take Rosa to see her gran, shall I, Ma?’ Maggie asked during the latter part of August. ‘If we don’t go soon, we shall be in ’middle of harvest and shan’t be able to.’
‘Yes,’ her mother agreed. ‘Go on Sunday after church and take Mrs Jennings a fruit cake. She’d like that.’
Rosa’s spirits rose when she was told that she would be visiting her grandmother.
She had had a good summer, she had enjoyed the company of Maggie and Flo, whose room she was still in, by choice, and she liked the twins, but not Delia who was spiteful and irritable and would sometimes pinch her as she passed her.
There were the two older brothers, Jim and Henry. Jim was quiet, inclined to be gloomy, and she sometimes wondered if he wanted her there, for she often found him gazing at her with a downcast expression on his thin face. But Henry had given her a sly wink on her first day after supper, when Mr Drew had placed her in front of him and lectured her on how to behave, and how she must always remember that the good Lord was constantly watching over them and noting everything they did.
She’d stood with her hands behind her back and her lips tightly clenched as he droned on, and it was then that Henry, standing out of sight of his father’s gaze, had winked his eye and pulled a face and almost made her laugh.
Sunday morning was warm and fine and she had on her best dress and a new bonnet which Maggie had made for her out of an old flowered dress of her own. Her hair, which was thick and black, had been braided tightly into two plaits so that it wouldn’t come undone, but even now as they knelt in church she could feel wisps of it straying and tickling her neck.
‘Come on then,’ Maggie said merrily. She seemed much more cheerful, as if the prospect of an outing pleased her, and they left the others to go home, whilst they set off towards Patrington.
‘Can I come?’ Matthew shouted after them. ‘I won’t be a bother!’
‘No,’ Rosa called back. ‘Aunt Bella doesn’t like childre’.’
‘So why are you going?’ he yelled. ‘You’re onny a bairn!’
She turned her back on him and gave a little skip. He was always following her around, offering to show her where there were birds’ eggs and the best dykes for catching tiddlers, and she had decided that eventually she would allow him to show her. She might even ask her gran if he could come with her on a visit one day. But not yet. He would have to wait until she was ready.
‘We’ll go across ’channel,’ Maggie said. ‘Henry keeps a boat there, he won’t mind if we use it.’
Then they heard a piercing whistle and on turning around they saw Henry waving to them and shouting for them to wait.
‘Da said I had to go wi’ you,’ he said as he caught up with them. ‘Sorry, Maggie, but you know how he is.’
Maggie muttered something incomprehensible and Rosa looked up at Henry. He was stockily built like his father but there the similarity ended. Henry had an open merry face and was quick to smile and to joke, whilst his father appeared totally humourless.
‘Can we go in your boat?’ Rosa asked him. ‘Cos we’re going to see my gran in Patrington.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ he said solemnly. ‘It might cost you.’
‘How much?’ she enquired. ‘I’d have to ask my gran for some money.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what. Give us a kiss and we’ll call it quits.’ He grinned at her and Maggie gave him a shove.
‘Don’t tease her,’ she said. ‘She’s onny a bairn.’
‘Aye, and a bonny one. When she’s grown into a beauty, as she will, I’ll be able to say I was first to steal a kiss!’
Rosa lowered her lashes and looked at the ground beneath her feet. The track was muddy and squelched beneath her boots. If we have to walk round by Salthaugh Grange, she considered, we shan’t get there for hours. ‘All right then.’ She proffered her cheek. ‘But what about Maggie? Does she have to pay?’
He pulled a face. ‘Well, I won’t want a kiss from my sister, will I? I might get her to make me a bit o’ cake or a few tarts or summat. She’s a right good baker is our Maggie.’
‘But not much good at owt else,’ Maggie muttered. ‘And not to be trusted to go out on my own, not even at seventeen. Wish I’d been born a lad!’
‘What?’ he objected. ‘And be at Da’s beck and call all hours of ’day? Can’t do right for doing wrong! At least Ma’s not a taskmaster like him. Our Jim’ll be glad to get away I don’t doubt.’
‘Ssh.’ Maggie looked down at Rosa. ‘Little ears are flapping.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, and they were almost at the narrow channel which divided the island from Holderness. ‘I’m not coming with you to Mrs Jennings. I’ll come as far as ’marketplace and then meet you there after.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll be in one of ’alehouses. You can come and find me.’
She gasped. ‘I can’t do that!’ she said. ‘You know I can’t. If Fayther should hear – or Ma!’
They climbed into the little boat and Henry shoved off from the bank. Rosa felt a thrill as the water swayed beneath her. She couldn’t remember going off the island before and although this was only a narrow channel, she felt as if she was partaking in a great adventure.
‘It’s all right,’ Henry was saying to Maggie. ‘I’m onny joking. I’ll look out for you from ’window. Can’t have much anyway, Da would smell it on me breath, and besides I’ve to be sober for ’morning. I’ve to go wi’ Da and Jim to look over Marsh Farm. Da reckons new accretion is sour and hasn’t been worked proper. Old man Jennings left it fallow. Da wants to sow it wi’ grass and clover to bring it right.’
‘Well, Da knows about farming,’ Maggie began, and Henry interrupted her. ‘Aye, and about God and ’Devil. He’s an expert on all o’ them.’
Mrs Jennings’s cousin’s house was built of grey brick, not of mud and thatch like others which lay along the dusty lane. It was situated close by the stone-built St Patrick’s church, called, because of its stately splendour, the Queen of Holderness. The church, an outstanding edifice with a magnificent spire, was a landmark from both the river and the long roads of the flat countryside for many miles. The village had a weekly market, and a Hiring Fair each Martinmas. Timber was brought into Patrington Haven, a mile out, but as Sunk Island’s accretions built up towards the mainland, so the haven was gradually silting up and the merchants, fishermen and farmers were starting to take their trade to Stone Creek at the west end of Sunk Island.
Maggie knocked on the door of Miss Dingley’s house. The brass knocker, shaped in a lion’s head, gleamed, and as Rosa looked up at it she wondered if that was her grandmother’s work, for she always said that she liked her brasses to be well polished.
A young girl in a white cap and apron answered and asked them in, when Maggie explained who they were. ‘Mrs Jennings is out at ’minute,’ she said. ‘She’s just slipped to ’butcher’s but won’t be long. Miss Dingley is at home,’ she added. ‘I’d best tell her that you’re here.’
They waited a few minutes in the small hall and then were ushered through into the parlour where Mrs Jennings’s cousin, Miss Dingley, was sitting in the window, with the blinds half drawn over the lace curtains to keep out the sun.
She sat upright in her chair, a dark wool shawl over the shoulders of a purple bombazine gown, and a lace cap on her grey head. ‘I saw you coming,’ she said without preamble. ‘I thought, here are strangers to Patrington who don’t know their way about. And then, when I saw ’child, I fathomed that it would be my cousin’s kin.
‘Come here,’ she said to Rosa, ‘and let me take a look at you.’
Rosa walked across to her chair and stood in front of her. Gazing solemnly at Miss Dingley, she gave her no smile as she thought that none would be expected, but simply bobbed her knee.
‘What’s your name?’ Miss Dingley asked. ‘It’s something foreign, but I can’t remember what.’
‘Rosa,’ she replied, and wondered at her name being called foreign, for she hadn’t known that it was.
‘Hmm! And how old are you?’
‘Eight,’ she said, and wished that her grandmother would hurry up from the butcher’s. ‘Will Gran be long?’ she asked. ‘Cos we have to meet Henry and get back.’ Some instinct told her not to mention the alehouse, or was it perhaps the warning look on Maggie’s face?
‘And who is Henry?’ Miss Dingley addressed Maggie with suspicion, and looked down her sh
arp nose at her.
‘My brother, ma’am. He brought us over ’channel from Sunk Island.’
‘And you are?’ Miss Dingley continued to gaze at Maggie.
‘Margaret Drew, ma’am.’ Maggie bobbed her knee.
‘And still living at home? Not in service?’
‘No. There’s plenty to do at home, Ma says, without me going off to do for other people.’
‘Mmm,’ Miss Dingley nodded. ‘Your mother sounds like a sensible woman. How many of you are there?’
‘Eleven, counting my parents and Rosa.’
‘Eleven! Good heavens. Not so sensible after all! And will none of them leave home and give your mother some peace?’
‘Flo wants to go into service. She’s sixteen. Da wouldn’t let her go before, he says there are too many perils waiting away from home. And ’twins, Nellie and Lydia, want to go if Da will let them, Delia’s too young yet.’
‘And your brother has taken Mr Jennings’s farm?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie answered patiently. ‘My eldest brother, Jim. Then there’s Henry, he’s ’middle one, and Matthew, he’s eleven.’
Miss Dingley shuddered and put her hand to her brow. ‘Eleven!’ she said and Rosa wondered if it was Matthew being eleven, or the fact that there were eleven of them, which was putting Miss Dingley in such a dither.
‘I thank the good Lord that I’ve been saved from all of that,’ she murmured, and broke off as the front door slammed. ‘That will be your grandmother, I expect,’ she said to Rosa. ‘Noone else slams ’door the way she does.’
‘We’re used to having ’door open at Gran’s house,’ Rosa told her. ‘We never shut it except in winter. I expect it slipped out of her hand.’
‘You’re very forward, child.’ Miss Dingley frowned. ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, nor am I likely to.’
Rosa, chastened, looked at Maggie who gave a slight raise of her dark eyebrows and a warning glance, but they were saved from any more disparagement by Mrs Jennings entering the room. On seeing Rosa, she gave an exclamation of pleasure.