The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  Now it was Mary Ann’s turn to pull a face and say, ‘Not very well. So many people have business with Mr Price and they’re not prepared to upset him by giving Dan a job. Mr Price has let everyone know that he believes Dan jilted his daughter and broke her heart.’

  Edwina sighed. ‘Oh dear.’ She was thoughtful a moment and then said, ‘There’s someone my father knows. A boat owner near Newark. I’ll see what I can do. Leave it with me, Mary Ann.’

  A week later, Mary Ann ran nearly all the way home, arriving breathless and holding the stitch in her side. ‘Dan. Where’s Dan?’

  ‘He’s out. Why, whatever’s the matter?’

  Mary Ann’s face was overjoyed. ‘Miss Edwina’s found him a job. At least, she’s arranged for him to go and see a boat owner near Newark and she’s put in a good word for him, so he can’t fail to get it.’

  ‘Here, here, slow down. I can’t keep up with you, lass. Sit down and tell me slowly.’

  Mary Ann sat down, taking huge gulps of air to steady herself. ‘Miss Edwina’s father knows a man who owns several boats . . .’

  ‘Ships, love, ships,’ Bessie, out of habit, corrected her.

  ‘Ships, then.’ Mary Ann was impatient to impart her news. ‘And Dan’s to go and see him. It’s a Mr Sudbury. One of his skippers has just been taken very ill and he’s desperate to find someone.’

  ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ Bessie began and then she clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, that sounds awful towards the poor feller who’s ill, but you know what I mean.’ Her face clouded. ‘Dan’s not a skipper though. He hasn’t the experience.’

  ‘Mr Price was going to make him a skipper if he’d married Susan, so he must have thought he was capable of being one.’

  Bessie was frowning. ‘How d’you know that? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Oh, er . . .’ Mary Ann realized suddenly that in her excitement she had let her tongue run away with her. ‘Dan told me.’ Mentally, she crossed her fingers, hoping the lie would not catch her out. She was sure Bessie would not have approved of her eavesdropping.

  ‘Well . . .’ Still, Bessie did not sound too sure, but she smiled and nodded and said, ‘At least he can go and see this Mr Sudbury. That’s something, ain’t it? But I shouldn’t get your hopes up.’

  Dan travelled to Newark the following day, leaving Mary Ann in a turmoil of excitement until she heard his footsteps in the alleyway that evening. She flew out of the house and across the yard to meet him, Bessie waddling after her as fast as she could. Dan caught Mary Ann in his arms and swung her round.

  ‘I’ve got a job. I’ve got a job and what’s more, we’ve got a home, an’ all. Mr Sudbury says we can live aboard the ship I’m to skipper. There now, what do you think of that?’

  Mary Ann gave a squeal of delight and Bessie clapped her hands. ‘I’m that glad for you, I don’t know where to put mesen. Wait till Bert hears. And to live aboard, an’ all. Oh, I’m that envious. It’s a wonderful life, Mary Ann. You’ll love it.’

  Mary Ann was still hugging him. ‘I don’t care where we live, as long as I’m with Dan.’

  That evening the house was alive with chatter as Dan related all that had happened and everyone plied him with questions.

  ‘Whatever did you tell him?’

  ‘Does he know you’ve not skippered before?’

  ‘Did he ask for references, ’cos I doubt old Price’d give you the time of day.’

  ‘It’s all thanks to Miss Edwina. Oh, but she is good.’ This was from Bessie.

  ‘One at a time, one at a time,’ Dan grinned happily. ‘I told him the truth. Everything. There was no other way, really, was there? But he’s a really nice chap. I took to him and I think he took to me. He’s a real, larger-than-life character. He wears a check jacket and trousers and a top hat all the time and always has a cigar in his mouth. And you should hear him laugh. It’s so loud it’s a wonder we can’t hear it from here.’ If it was possible, Dan’s smile broadened even further. ‘It seems that John Sudbury had a run in with Jack Price some years back. He can’t stand the man and they’re bitter rivals now for trade on this part of the Trent. So, he’s very happy to put one over on him. He said he’d heard of me. You know how river folk talk? And he’d heard nowt but good, how I was a good worker and that I was more than ready to take on my own ship. He wants me to take on all the work I can get downriver, to Hull, even into Yorkshire, if I can.’

  ‘How’s he paying you, lad?’

  ‘Thirds, Dad.’

  Everyone nodded approval, except Mary Ann who looked puzzled. ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It’s the way the earnings are shared between the owner and the captain. The owner pays certain expenses out first, then the money that’s left is split one-third to the owner, that’s Mr Sudbury and then two-thirds to the captain.’ Dan grinned, as if he could not, even yet, believe his good fortune.

  ‘And that’s all yours?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I’ll have a lot of expenses to pay out of my portion. Casual labour, towing, horse-hauling, even lock pennies when we have to go through locks or bridges that have to be operated to let us through and then of course there’s our living expenses . . .’

  ‘Oh stop, stop. I don’t want to know,’ Mary Ann laughed.

  Now Dan glanced apologetically at Mary Ann. ‘There’s just one thing. I had to tell him about the bit of trouble a while back. I thought it best to be completely honest with him. And it was a good job I was, because he’d heard all about it. He put his hand on my shoulder and said that clinched the deal as far as he was concerned. If I could be that honest about that, then he had no more worries.’

  ‘There you are. Haven’t I always told you, honesty is the best policy?’ Bessie reminded him.

  ‘You have, Ma. You have.’

  ‘It’s all down to you and your upbringing that’s got Dan that job today, our mam,’ Duggie teased, but Bessie only pretended to preen herself and agreed, ‘Of course it is.’

  The whole house shook with their laughter.

  Thirty-One

  ‘Mary Ann? Mary Ann, where are you?’ Dan’s voice echoed through the house on his return from another trip to Newark a week later.

  ‘Here, Dan, upstairs. I’m just packing,’ she called, then scrambled to her feet and hurried down the stairs carrying the pillowcase containing their clothes. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’ But when she saw his face, she knew that there was nothing wrong at all. In fact, everything was very right.

  His face was a picture of happiness and pride as he held out his hand to her. ‘Come with me. I’ve something to show you. And Mam too. Where is she?’

  ‘Across at Mrs Eccleshall’s, I think.’

  ‘Come on . . .’ Dan was like an excited schoolboy. He grasped Mary Ann’s hand and pulled her outside and across the yard. ‘Let’s get her. I want her to see it too.’

  ‘What, Dan? What are you on about?’

  He turned a beaming smile upon her. ‘My ship, of course. Our new home, Mary Ann.’

  Mary Ann gasped. ‘You’ve brought her home already?’

  Dan nodded as he rapped on Minnie’s door, calling impatiently, ‘Mam, Mam, are you there?’ Unable to wait even the moment it took for the door to be answered, he opened it and called again. ‘Mam?’

  Bessie appeared. ‘Whats the matter?’ For a moment her eyes were worried, but she too, on seeing his face, saw she had no cause for alarm. She, quicker to guess than Mary Ann had been, said, ‘You’ve got her? You’ve brought her home?’ She stepped out into the yard and began at once to move towards the alley. ‘Let’s be ’aving a look-see, then.’

  Minutes later, the three of them were standing on Miller’s Wharf staring in awe at the sleek lines of the keel.

  ‘She’s not new, of course, but she’s just been repaired, overhauled and repainted.’

  ‘She looks as good as new.’ Bessie’s round face was aglow with delight. ‘Just look at that paintwork. I like the colours. Blue, white and orange. Ve
ry smart. You’ll be able to embroider him a pennant in those colours for the mast, Mary Ann.’

  ‘So, how about it, Mam?’ Dan asked. ‘Are you coming aboard?’

  Bessie shook her grey head. ‘Oho, I don’t know about that, lad. I’m a bit too broad in the beam now to be clambering up and down ladders.’

  ‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘I want you to explain things to Mary Ann.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Bessie said, still doubtful, but she allowed Dan to help her aboard his first ship as master.

  ‘I can’t get down there,’ she said looking askance at the companion down into the stern cabin. ‘I’d forgotten how narrow they are.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Mam. Your dad was a big feller, wasn’t he? And he managed it.’

  ‘Oh, go on, then,’ Bessie said, ‘I’ll have a go, but don’t blame me if I get stuck and have to stay there for your first voyage.’

  Dan laughed. ‘That’s all right. You’d be good ballast if the weather gets rough, Mam.’

  ‘Oh you!’ Bessie said and took a swipe at him, but Dan ducked out of the way.

  Dan went down the vertical ladder first and helped his mother climb down, followed by Mary Ann.

  ‘Oh Mary Ann, she’s beautiful. Just look at this lovely wood.’ Reverently, Bessie ran her hands over the varnished mahogany of the cabin’s interior. Every panel was a cupboard door, which Bessie was now opening and closing with excitement. ‘So compact,’ she enthused.

  Next to the ladder down which they had climbed was a tiny stove complete with a hob on the top bar of the fireplace for the kettle or pans. It even had a minute brass fender and fire irons. On the opposite side of the ladder, on the port side and round the after end of the cabin, was a locker with cushions on it for seating.

  ‘And that’s where you put your coal,’ Bessie said, pointing to a part of the locker on the port side. ‘And then your pans go under there.’ Now she was pointing at the lockers across the end of the cabin. Above this was a drop-leaf table and above that, the polished, built-in cupboards. On the starboard side of the cabin was a double bed.

  ‘And look here.’ Bessie was pointing to the opposite side again. ‘This is what they call the spareside. It’s a spare bed.’ Her smile widened. ‘This is where your bairn’ll sleep. See?’

  ‘Oh, so you think there’s going to be one then, Mam?’

  ‘There’d better be, our Dan,’ Bessie said, closing the drawer. ‘Else I’ll want to know the reason why.’

  Dan put his arm around Mary Ann’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  ‘Oh Mary Ann,’ Bessie was saying ecstatically. ‘You’re going to be so happy here.’

  Mary Ann was not so sure. It all looked so small and cramped and she still had to experience her first trip on the water.

  They climbed back up the ladder, Bessie heaving and grunting as she did so, until they all three stood on deck again.

  ‘You’ll have to learn how to scull the cog boat,’ Bessie said, leaning over to look at the tiny boat moored aft of the ship.

  ‘The what?’ Mary Ann gaped at her.

  ‘This little boat.’ Bessie beckoned her. ‘It’s called a cog boat and it’s only got one oar and you scull it. Like this.’ Bessie demonstrated as if gripping the oar in both her hands and sculling the little boat through the water.

  ‘You’ll soon learn how to do it. I used to be a dab hand at it. I could scull faster than me dad by the time I left the river.’ She sighed and gave one last look at the small vessel bobbing gently on the rippling river. ‘But I reckon my sculling days are well and truly over.’ She laughed, but there was a tinge of nostalgia in the sound. ‘Reckon I’d capsize it now. It’s handy for you to get to shore to do your washing and fetch supplies, an’ that. You’ll soon get the hang of it all, love.’

  Mary Ann thought about the cramped conditions of the cabin, the enclosed bed she would share with Dan, no doubt squashed by his broad shoulders against the side of the bunk, the tiny stove where she would be expected to do all the cooking. Then she looked down at the boat, which was her only means of transport to the shore and, she could not help the thought from entering her mind, her only escape from the ship.

  ‘Mm,’ was all Mary Ann said in reply to Bessie, but in that one sound were all the doubts and fears she was feeling inside.

  Of course she had realized how different her future life with Dan aboard this ship would be from the one she had planned as the wife of Randolph Marsh and lady of the manor. But now she was facing the reality of it.

  Bessie was dragging her back from her daydreams. ‘What you want to do is this. On wash days, you take all your washing in the cog boat and you scull up to the next lock or wherever there’s a wash-house. If you time it right, by the time Dan gets there, you’re done. And then, when he’s travelling without a load you can string a line up in the hold, peg all your washing on it, open the fore and aft hatches and, as you sail, your washing dries lovely.’ Bessie beamed with pride. ‘And not so much as a smut or speck of dirt to be seen.’ She sniffed derisively. ‘Not like I have to put up with in the Waterman’s Yard. I reckon half the time, me washing comes back in dirtier than what it went out.’

  Bessie moved towards the gangway from the ship on to the jetty. ‘See you Sunday and don’t be late for yar dinner. Twelve o’clock sharp. By the way, Dan.’ Bessie paused at the head of the gangway and turned briefly to ask, ‘What’s this little beauty called?’

  Dan’s laugh echoed across the river. ‘I reckon it’s a good omen, Mam. I thought so the minute I saw her. At the moment, she’s called the Maid Marian. Mr Sudbury calls all his vessels after something to do with Robin Hood, but he’s given me permission to alter the spelling a bit.’ Dan put his arms around Mary Ann’s shoulders and hugged her to him. ‘From now on she’ll be the Maid Mary Ann.’

  Mary Ann fell in the river three times before she could scull the cog boat properly.

  ‘I reckon I ought to have learnt you how to swim first,’ Dan laughed as he fished her out of the river for the third time.

  ‘I’ll soon have no dry clothes left at this rate,’ Mary Ann wailed, standing, dripping, on the deck of the ship and looking the picture of misery. ‘I’ll never get the hang of the wretched thing,’ she muttered, casting a malevolent glance at the little boat bobbing innocently a few feet away.

  ‘You will. You’re doing fine. Really you are. It’s all a matter of keeping your balance. One day you’ll be sculling up and down this river faster than I can sail.’

  Mary Ann glanced at him disbelievingly and squelched away to find some dry clothes yet again. Laughing, Dan followed her.

  ‘I’ve brought you a little present, Dan,’ Bert held out a brown paper parcel. ‘It’s from me and yar mam.’

  ‘Just to let you know how proud we are of you, son,’ Bessie beamed.

  ‘Oh Dan, open it, open it,’ Mary Ann said, excitedly. She was still a child when it came to presents. Maybe it was because she had had so few in her young life.

  Dan unwrapped the gift, a seaman’s peaked cap.

  ‘I reckoned now you’re going to be a captain, you’d better look the part,’ Bert said.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Dan grinned and put on the cap. ‘It fits perfectly.’

  ‘’Course it does,’ Bessie said with pretended indignation. ‘I took one of your old caps to be sure the size was right.’

  ‘So how’s married life then?’ Duggie asked as they all sat down to Sunday dinner. ‘Recommend it, do you? Reckon I ought to try it?’

  ‘It’d be a brave girl to take you on,’ Bessie remarked, setting the joint of beef in front of Bert whilst he sharpened the carving knife on a steel.

  Mary Ann joined in the good-humoured teasing, saying, ‘Who do you think would have him, Auntie Bessie?’

  Before Bessie could answer, there was a knock at the back door and a voice called, ‘Coo-ee. Anybody in?’

  ‘It’s Phyllis. Now what does she want? Just as we’re sitting down to dinner, an’ all.’ Things had n
ever been quite the same between Phyllis and Bessie since Phyllis had caused the trouble at the Boxing Day party. Ever since then, Phyllis had always seemed to take sides against Bessie in any argument.

  ‘Minnie’s my only real friend,’ Bessie had said to her family after Phyllis had once again sided with Amy concerning Mary Ann’s marriage to Dan. ‘The rest of ’em, I can take ’em or leave ’em.’

  Bert had smiled and put his arms around her waist. ‘But, my angel, if one of them were in trouble, you’d be there, now wouldn’t you?’

  Bessie had chuckled. ‘You know me too well, Bert Ruddick. That’s your trouble.’

  Now, as they heard Phyllis calling again, ‘Anybody home?’ Bessie said, ‘’Spect it’s a bit of choice gossip she can’t wait to pass on.’ She raised her voice and called, ‘Come in, Phyllis, if you must.’

  Phyllis appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. You’re having your dinner. I’ll come back later.’

  ‘No, no. You might as well say what you’ve come to say. Bert’s not carved yet and I’m still dishing up.’ She turned to face her neighbour, hands on hips, and asked, ‘What’s the Horberry Gazette got for us this week, eh?’

  ‘If you’re going to be like that, Bessie Ruddick, I’ll keep what I know to myself.’

  ‘Pigs might fly,’ Bessie murmured.

  ‘Hush, my angel,’ Bert warned softly.

  Phyllis appeared to be struggling with her desire to impart her titbit of news and her need to withhold it to spite Bessie. Her desire won. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. ‘Have you heard the news?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Bessie said and paused as she bent to lift out two tureens of vegetables, keeping warm in the oven. Placing them on the table, she added, ‘Not afore you, Phyllis.’

  Phyllis beamed. ‘There’s to be a big wedding at the parish church in June. Mr Randolph and Miss Celia Thompson have announced the date of their marriage. By, it’ll be a posh affair, won’t it? Nellie Goodrick says she doesn’t know how she’s going to cope with all the catering. Mind you, she’s already made the wedding cake.’