Rosa's Island

by Val Wood

  ‘No. That’s not till later.’ Matthew mused. ‘Perhaps something is being delivered.’ He gave an exasperated exclamation. ‘Da only tells us what he wants us to know, but I’ll ask Jim,’ he determined. ‘Mebbe he’ll know.’

  Jim hedged and said he knew nothing when Matthew asked him, but he seemed uneasy and jittery and wouldn’t look Matthew in the eyes. ‘What’s up with you?’ Matthew enquired. ‘I’m onny asking a simple question. I’d ask Da but he’d want to know why I was wasting time down at ’river instead of working.’

  ‘And why were you?’ Jim asked. ‘Nowt better to do?’

  ‘I went with Rosa,’ Matthew said bluntly. ‘She gets no time off with looking after us. We just went for a walk, that’s all.’

  Jim gave a sudden grin. ‘Nowt better to do then, had you?’ Before Matthew could reply, he said, ‘I don’t know why you don’t marry her! You wouldn’t have to tek her walking then.’

  ‘What! And have poor lass still live at home looking after all of us?’ Matthew joked at the suggestion.

  ‘Why, aye! Course. Who’d look after us if she didn’t?’

  ‘Delia?’ Matthew raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Heaven help us!’ Jim groaned. ‘No thanks.’

  The following week, Rosa decided that she would go again to the riverbank. Just for a short walk, she thought. The men were out and she had finished all of her tasks.

  It was a warm afternoon, a gentle wind was blowing, scattering the few clouds in the wide sky, and in some of the meadows flocks of sheep were grazing. As she gazed on the tranquil scene and felt the pull of the breeze in her hair, and the salty smell of the estuary touch her senses, she knew that she never wanted to live anywhere else.

  I belong here, she mused. Even though I have foreign blood. I’m bound by this river that once ran around the land, and even though the boundaries are silting up, there still seems to be an invisible rim around the island separating us from the mainland. Generations of family who had been born here, she felt, were holding her fast.

  Yet I’m curious, she thought, as she strode out along the long embankment. Where did my father come from? Why did he come here? What did those foreign papers say? Fred had not yet been to collect them from his lawyer, though he had said he would be going into Hull again soon.

  She was walking towards Hawkins Point, the isolated place where Henry had found her when she was a child, and she saw gangs of men working on the drainage channels beyond the salt marsh where vegetation had flourished and trapped the silt, building up the growth of land that was only covered at high tide. The field drains drew off the water from the land and returned it to the Humber by the drainage channels, leaving behind a rich and fertile earth.

  She knew she would be visible to the men as she approached; her figure would be etched against the skyline, no trees or hedges here by the riverbank to conceal her. One of the men straightened up and looked in her direction and then another did the same and they both stood watching her. As she drew near, one of them threw down his spade and walked across towards her.

  He touched his hat and looked up at her, for she was on the embankment and he was on the lower ground. ‘Grand day, miss,’ he said in a soft Irish accent. ‘Just the day for a walk.’

  She nodded and agreed.

  ‘But be careful how you walk, miss.’ He seemed to look at her keenly. ‘The ground is muddy – wouldn’t want you to slip into the marsh!’

  ‘It’s not muddy up here,’ she said. ‘It’s quite dry on the bank. Besides,’ she added, ‘I’m used to walking along here. I’ve always lived by the river. I’m used to it.’

  ‘I seem to know you, miss,’ he said. ‘Did we meet some years ago when you were just a little lassie?’

  ‘I don’t know. Did we?’ He did look vaguely familiar and she thought that he might be the same Irishman she had met with Henry.

  ‘I believe we did.’ He smiled and he had a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Did you not tell me that your daddy was a prince?’

  She laughed. ‘I might have done. That’s what my mother used to tell me.’

  ‘And you’re still here on Sunk Island?’ he queried. ‘Has no fine young man wanted to carry you off to a more civilized place?’

  She bridled slightly at his personal question, yet it was asked in an easy and friendly manner.

  ‘I like it here.’ She only half answered him. ‘It’s my home.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. And I suppose you know the island well? There’ll be no secrets out here in this flat land?’

  Puzzled, she shook her head. ‘None,’ she stated. ‘Everyone knows everyone else and what they are doing.’

  Another man detached himself from the group of workers and came towards them. ‘Seamus,’ he called. ‘The foreman is grumbling about you not working. You’re giving the Irish a bad name.’

  ‘Sure and don’t we have one already? I only came to warn this young lady about slipping on the mud, but born and bred here, she is, and doesn’t need my advice.’

  ‘Ah!’ The other man, who was younger, in his mid-thirties, with red hair which curled on his collar, stared up at Rosa. ‘Begging your pardon, miss, but you put me in mind of another young woman who used to walk along by the river. Do you remember her, Seamus? When you first brought me to Sunk Island?’

  ‘That’s a lot of years ago. You were only a lad then,’ Seamus interrupted and folded his arms across his chest. It seemed to Rosa that neither of them were in the least concerned about getting back to work or about the foreman’s opinion of them.

  ‘I’m Seamus Byrne, miss,’ the older man introduced himself. ‘And this is my brother John. I brought him to Sunk Island on his first trip out of our mother country. Now who was that young fella you were friendly with?’ Seamus turned to his brother. ‘I wonder if he’s still here?’

  ‘Jim?’ John Byrne creased his eyebrows as if trying to remember. ‘Jim – something? Brewer? Drewer?’

  ‘Drew!’ Rosa said. ‘Jim Drew. Yes, he’s still here. I live with his family, although Jim farms Marsh Farm where I used to live. But who,’ she asked quickly before they could interrupt again, ‘who was ’young woman you saw? It might have been my mother!’

  John Byrne pulled himself up the steep bank to stand level with her, and his brother with a wave of his hand went back to the gang. ‘Perhaps it was,’ he said softly. ‘She was married to a Spaniard that we had business with.’

  ‘My mother,’ she whispered. ‘And father.’

  ‘So what happened to him? Did he go back to Spain?’

  Rosa gave a sudden shiver. A dark cloud had drifted over the sun, blocking out its warmth. But it wasn’t just the sun’s disappearance that had made her feel cold. There was something in this man’s eyes and in his voice which seemed threatening, and chilled her through to her marrow.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘I never knew him.’

  John Byrne gave her a sudden warm smile and her doubts melted away. ‘Then you missed a grand fellow,’ he enthused, and his voice was engaging and his grey eyes appealing. ‘And if you could have seen him at the helm of his ship with a goodly breeze blowing and the sails billowing and a fast cutter chasing us, well there was a prince of a man to admire.’

  She gazed at him with her lips apart. ‘A ship?’ she breathed. ‘He had a ship?’

  ‘Sure he did. Did no-one ever tell you? A fine vessel it was. Sometimes—’ He dropped his voice. ‘Now don’t be telling anybody for they’d be laughing at me, but sometimes, with the sun setting on the horizon, the sails looked as if they were made of gold!’

  She suddenly wanted to cry at his words. Here was a man who knew her father and he said he was a prince of a man. But – ‘Why was a cutter chasing his ship?’

  John Byrne shook his head. ‘Well now, there’s a story that would take some telling, Rosa, and I’d need a promise that you wouldn’t repeat it, for what we were doing was scarcely legal!’ His face hardened slightly. ‘A man can go to jail for what we did.’

/>   ‘Did my father go to jail?’ she asked. ‘They say he disappeared, but perhaps the law caught him?’

  He shook his head. ‘We would have heard. We would have shared the same cell.’

  His voice again was cold and she asked cautiously, ‘Did you go to jail?’ and when he nodded, she said, ‘I’m sorry. Was it my father’s fault?’

  He appeared to hesitate and his mouth tightened, but then he answered light-heartedly. ‘Not a bit of it. Why, he wasn’t here, was he? He’d disappeared. Gone to ground.’

  He turned round to look at the men working on the channels and said, as if reluctantly, that he had better be getting back. ‘They’ll stop my wages if I don’t, but my word it’s been grand talking to you, Rosa. Can we meet again?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’ He was handsome and engaging even though he seemed to have an undercurrent of tension within him. But then, she considered, if he has been in jail it would make him distrustful of strangers. But she wanted to hear more about her father and his ship. And she would also like to know why he was here on Sunk Island in the company of two Irishmen.

  He waved goodbye and she watched him as he made his way back down to the group of men. He was not tall, but broad-shouldered and lithe, and she thought that she could imagine him with his feet steady on the deck of a ship. Yes, she thought, I would like to talk to him again. But as she walked back towards home, a thought struck her. He called me Rosa! I never told him my name! Then she remembered speaking to his brother Seamus that day with Henry, and Seamus had asked her name. How odd that he should remember it after so long, and when did he tell his brother, for him to remember it too?

  As she walked back to the farm, she saw Jim travelling home on a waggon and he drew to a halt to give her a ride. She climbed up and he said dryly, ‘Been playing twag again, Rosa?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have. I’ve been for a walk. I saw someone who used to know you, Jim,’ she added. ‘He said you used to be friendly when you were young lads.’

  She furrowed her brows as she wondered what the two brothers had been doing on Sunk Island. Were they digging field ditches and channels then? They must have been desperate for work to come such a long way.

  ‘Mm?’ Jim stopped by one of the dykes and got down to look at the water. ‘Dyke’s full,’ he commented as he got back in the waggon. ‘Must be a blockage further back. Who knew me? One of Holderness labourers was it?’

  ‘No, an Irishman. Two in fact. One is called Seamus and I’ve seen him before – when I was a child. The other one who knew you is called John Byrne.’

  She had turned to Jim as she spoke and was startled to see his sudden change of expression. The colour had drained from his cheeks and he had a look of extreme fear.

  ‘He’s come back, has he?’ he muttered. ‘I allus knew that he would, sooner or later.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ROSA HAD GONE into the dairy to escape the heat. The dairy cows which they kept for their own use were producing gallons of thick creamy milk. The churns, buckets and jugs containing it were covered with muslin cloths to keep the flies away. After rearing the calves, butter and soft cheese were made and the surplus milk or cream used in cooking and baking, for custards and breakfast gruel.

  She wiped her forehead. She was tired, there was too much to do for one person. Next week haymaking was to start and she would have to provide food for the itinerant workers as well as the men of the family and young Bob and Harry.

  She looked at the basket of eggs which she had placed on a shelf that morning and which she still hadn’t had time to wash, and determined that she would put up with it no longer. ‘No matter how he grumbles,’ she muttered to herself, ‘James Drew is going to have to get me some help or I shall tell him I’m leaving and going to live with Gran and Aunt Bella.’

  She picked up an empty bucket to fetch some water from the rainwater butt. That too was a worry, for the spring and early summer had been dry and they had to be sparing with the use of water, the tubs and butts beneath the gutters and drainpipes were getting lower, and the brick well which had been built beneath the yard to catch the rainwater from the house was half empty. They could use river water for washing and cleaning, but it was brackish and unfit for drinking.

  Rosa turned towards the door and gave a startled gasp. A woman stood there, her bonnet and long skirt outlined in silhouette against the brightness of the day outside. ‘Flo? Is that you?’

  ‘No.’ The unmistakeable carping voice of Delia answered. ‘Not Flo. It’s Delia. Where’s Da?’ she asked abruptly, without greeting Rosa.

  ‘Out somewhere.’ Rosa went towards her. ‘However did you get here?’

  ‘Carrier, and walked some of ’way.’ Delia’s eyes were shadowed and she looked tired and dirty. ‘I’m desperate for summat to drink and I’m that hungry.’

  Rosa took in her dishevelled appearance and turned back into the dairy and ladled some milk into a small bowl. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Drink that. You look all in!’

  Delia quaffed it in one gulp and licked her lips. ‘Where’s Da?’ she asked again. ‘Is he likely to be in yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. Not until supper. All of the men are out. Jim’s over at Marsh Farm and Matthew’s gone over to Patrington. You’d better come in to ’kitchen and sit down.’

  She led the way across the yard and into the kitchen. Has she come home to stay? she wondered. And why does she look as she does, as if she’s been sleeping out in the open? Delia’s skirt was muddy and torn at the hem and she was carrying her winter cloak even though the weather was so warm. But what bothered Rosa more than anything was that she was also carrying the leather bag which she had taken with her when first going into service.

  Delia sat down in a chair with a huge sigh and started to pull off her boots. ‘Oh,’ she groaned. ‘My feet!’

  Rosa cut some bread and cheese and put it on a plate and handed it to her. She took it without a word of thanks and started to eat ravenously. ‘Mek us some tea, will you?’ she said, with her mouth full.

  ‘Ever heard of please?’ Rosa said sharply, but lifted the kettle off the fire to warm the teapot.

  Delia didn’t answer and went on eating until she had finished all that was on her plate. She reached to put it on the table and muttered, ‘Thanks,’ as Rosa handed her a cup of steaming tea.

  Rosa sat down opposite her. If Delia had come home for good, then there had to be some rules laid down. She would not tolerate rudeness or aggravation from her. Absolutely not, she decided. So the rules must be decided now.

  ‘You said you’d walked some of the way?’ she said. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I got a lift with a carrier to Aldbrough, and then I thought if I kept to ’coast road, I’d mebbe get another lift to Withernsea, but a farm hand came along in his cart and said he’d give me a lift as far as Lelley mill which was where he was going, and then I could cut across country to Keyingham.’

  She glanced sideways at Rosa and shifted in her seat. ‘Well, that was all right for a bit, and we’d gone a few miles when he started hinting that I’d have to pay him for ’ride. When I said that I’d no money, he said that that was all right, I could pay him in some other way.’

  Rosa took in a deep breath of horror and stared at Delia. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I jumped off ’cart.’ She wrinkled her nose distastefully. ‘He was an old fella and smelt of pigs.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I ran.’ She sniffed and rubbed her nose with her hand. ‘I thought he might come after me, but he didn’t. But I got lost cos I didn’t know which road to take. Then I saw a sign for Humbleton and I’d heard of that, so I walked there and got lodgings for ’night.’

  ‘I thought you said that you hadn’t any money?’ Rosa said curiously.

  ‘That’s what I told ’farm hand, but I had my wages,’ Delia said reluctantly. ‘So I paid for my bed and a cooked breakfast. I asked directions, and I walked all yesterday.’

&nb
sp; She leant forward and cupped her chin in her hands. ‘I thought I’d get home in the day, but it was that hot on Holderness Plain I could barely find energy to walk, and there were hardly any farms where I could ask for shelter or a drink, so I just kept on walking till nightfall and then I slept under a hedge. I got up at daybreak and started walking again, then I saw a sign for Keyingham so I knew it wasn’t much further.’

  ‘Why?’ Rosa asked. ‘Why didn’t you send a message and Matthew or Jim would have come for you?’

  Delia turned her head away. ‘I couldn’t stand working for that woman any longer. She treated me like a slave. Do this. Do that. So I asked for my wages and left.’

  ‘Were you given notice?’ Rosa asked quietly. There could be no other reason why Delia should suddenly depart from her employment, even if the landlady was as obnoxious as she and even Matthew had said she was.

  ‘No,’ Delia replied sharply. ‘I just said, didn’t I? I couldn’t stand it any longer.’

  Rosa stood up. ‘Well, as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. I’ve been wanting some help. There are five men in for supper. You can start scrubbing ’potatoes while I chop up ’mutton for the stew.’

  Delia glared at her. ‘Don’t think you can give me orders about what’s to be done. This is my father’s house, not yours. I hardly slept last night, I’m going to have a lie-down.’

  ‘Then you’ll get no supper,’ Rosa replied calmly, even though she was seething inside. ‘Everybody has to work for a living here and if you’re staying then you have to share the load. There’s too much for one person to do. I was about to tell your father that I needed some extra help.’

  ‘Tell him?’ Delia said scornfully. ‘You’ll not get far doing that. Nobody tells him anything!’

  Rosa faced her. ‘I was going to tell him that if I didn’t get help then I was leaving. If you’re staying, the two of us can manage ’work between us. If you’re not willing, then I’ll leave anyway and you can stay on your own.’

  Delia stared back at her, her face defiant. Then suddenly her expression changed and her features crumpled as she started to cry. ‘I can’t,’ she wailed. ‘I can’t stay on my own. I’m in trouble.’ She screwed up her eyes but the tears poured down her cheeks.