The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Susan,’ Ted’s bellow came down the companion. ‘You come home now. Do you hear me? I won’t have you on this ship a moment longer.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Susan muttered, wringing her hands. ‘Oh Mary Ann, please . . .’

  ‘Look . . .’ Mary Ann raised her head and then heaved herself up on to one elbow. She opened her mouth to speak again, but caught her breath and was seized by a fit of coughing.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, as she felt something slither out of her and rest, wet and sticky, between her legs.

  ‘Thank goodness!’ Susan said with relief. ‘It’s come away.’ Then she raised her voice. ‘I’m coming, Ted. I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘You’ll come now, woman.’

  But Susan remained where she was, busily washing Mary Ann. ‘I’ll be in trouble with him,’ she murmured, ‘but I can’t leave you like this.’

  Despite her exhaustion, Mary Ann was intrigued. ‘What do you mean? Why should he mind?’

  Susan glanced at her and then away again. In a low voice she said, ‘Ted told me I was to have nothing to do with Dan again.’

  ‘Well, you aren’t. I mean, you’re only helping me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m aboard Dan’s ship, aren’t I?’

  The two young women stared at each other as Mary Ann said shrewdly, ‘You mean he’s jealous of Dan?’

  Susan nodded. ‘Oh Mary Ann,’ she whispered and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  Mary Ann saw her brush the tears away impatiently and plaster a brave smile on her face. ‘There. That’s all I can do. But I think Dan should get his mother to have a look at you as soon as you get to Elsborough. I must go.’ But even then, she could not resist putting out a gentle finger and touching the cheek of Dan’s baby girl.

  As she turned away and put her foot on the first rung of the ladder, Mary Ann said, ‘Susan . . .’

  Susan paused and looked back at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mary Ann said. ‘I know it must have been hard for you.’

  Susan nodded, smiled and then climbed the ladder. Mary Ann lay back and closed her eyes, but a second later they flew wide open as she heard Ted Oliver’s voice again. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Mary Ann let out a startled gasp as she heard distinctly the sound of a slap and Susan’s cry.

  ‘Now, look here . . .’ began Dan’s voice.

  ‘Don’t you “look here” to me, Dan Ruddick. You just keep away from her now. You hear me. She’s my wife now. You cast her off when you took up with that little trollop down there. So you leave Susan be. She’s mine.’ A pause and then, ‘Come on. We’re going home.’

  Another startled cry from Susan and Mary Ann imagined that Ted had grasped hold of his wife and was pulling her after him. Straining her ears, she heard them climbing down the rope ladder and into a rowing boat that bumped gently against the side of the ship. Then she heard the splash of oars as Ted pulled away. The sound became fainter and, at last, Dan descended the ladder and came to the side of the bed.

  His face, showing none of the earlier exultation at the birth of his child, now looked grim with shock and despair.

  ‘He hit her, Mary Ann. Right in front of me. The bastard actually hit her. We couldn’t stop him.’

  Mary Ann lay back and closed her eyes, memories of her early life flooding back to her. Fleeting pictures of the beatings her mother had suffered at the hands of her father. She could almost feel the bruises once more that she had received from him.

  ‘Maybe he’ll finish up at the end of a rope,’ she said, bitterly.

  As she drifted into an exhausted sleep, the last words she heard Dan say were, ‘I’ll hang the bastard mesen if I catch him hitting her again.’

  Thirty-Five

  ‘Oh Mary Ann, she’s beautiful. What a little treasure. Look, Bert. Look at those big eyes.’

  The new grandmother was drooling over the baby, whilst the mother was lying listlessly on the bunk, refusing to even try to get out of it.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  Mary Ann, still weak and uninterested in her daughter, shrugged. ‘Haven’t thought of one yet.’

  ‘Not thought of one!’ Bessie was scandalized. ‘Why, I’d have thought you’d been discussing names for weeks. We did, didn’t we Bert? Rosemary was a favourite. Every time we picked Rosemary, didn’t we?’

  Bert grinned. ‘Aye. Good job we never used it though, eh?’ He tickled the baby under her chin. ‘She’s smiling at me. Look, she’s smiling at me.’

  ‘Wind,’ said Bessie knowledgeably.

  ‘Never,’ Bert insisted. ‘She knows who her grandpa is. She’s smiling at me.’

  Bessie looked at him fondly. ‘’Course she is, Bert.’

  Mary Ann listened to them and silently ground her teeth. Why didn’t they go away and leave her alone? And they could take the squalling brat that pulled and sucked at her and made her breasts sore with them.

  They were looking at her, watching her, concern on their faces. ‘Do you want to call her after your mam, love?’ Bessie asked gently.

  Mary Ann lay against the pillows and closed her eyes, remembering the thin little woman who had been so dominated, so overpowered by Sid Clark that she had not had the strength for her own survival, yet alone that of her only child. Mary Ann could scarcely remember affection or any kind of care from her mother. She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at Bessie and Bert standing there. These two warm-hearted souls had been far more like proper parents to her than ever her own had been.

  ‘Or you could call her after yourself, or even after our Dan. Danielle. That’s a nice name.’ Bessie pulled a grimace. ‘Bit posh, mebbe, for the likes of us. But it’d be nice.’

  Briefly, the question flitted through Mary Ann’s mind. Was there a feminine form of Randolph? But, of course, she did not voice the question aloud, although the thought of even suggesting it made her smile impishly.

  Misreading it, Bessie said, ‘You like that? Danielle?’

  Mary Ann moved her head on the pillow. ‘No. I’d like to call her after you, Mam.’

  A flush of pleasure crept up Bessie’s neck and suffused her face. Bert put his arm around his wife and squeezed her waist. ‘Aw, now that’s nice. Isn’t that lovely, lass?’

  Mary Ann was touched to see tears in their eyes.

  ‘Me proper name’s Elizabeth,’ Bessie said.

  Mary Ann sighed and closed her eyes again, but, seeing how much pleasure her sudden decision had given them both, the smile stayed on her mouth. ‘That’s settled then. Elizabeth it is. We’ve already asked Duggie to be her godfather. Do you think Miss Edwina would agree to be her godmother?’

  ‘I’m sure she’d love to be,’ Bessie said, as she laid the child beside Mary Ann and added softly, her voice breaking with emotion, ‘Thank you, Mary Ann, for giving us a beautiful granddaughter. You’ve made me and Bert very happy, to say nothing of our Dan. He’s fair puffing out his chest like a pouter pigeon.’

  Bert moved forward too and leant over the bed to kiss Mary Ann’s forehead. ‘We’re very proud of you, lass.’

  Mary Ann felt a peculiar lump in her throat. She looked down at her baby daughter. She had been so locked away in her own discomfort that she had turned against her child, blaming its arrival for feeling so dreadful. Now, she really looked at her for the first time, seeing her through the eyes of the besotted father and the doting grandparents.

  They were right, she was a pretty little thing, Mary Ann saw now. With dark wisps of hair and dark eyes, round cheeks and a surprisingly smooth skin. Her small mouth worked in sucking movements yet she made no noise and merely gazed up, unblinkingly, at the face of her mother.

  ‘Hello,’ Mary Ann said softly, gently tracing the shape of the tiny face with her finger. ‘Hello, my little Lizzie.’

  Mary Ann could see the relief in Dan’s face when he climbed down the ladder into the cabin later to find her out of the bunk bed and sitting
on the bench seat feeding her child.

  ‘Feeling better, love?’ he asked tenderly and reached out to touch the baby’s head.

  ‘Much better. I’ll soon be up and about.’ There was a pause before she added, ‘Did your mam and dad tell you her name?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘Mam said you’d decided, but she said you’d tell me yourself.’

  Mary Ann smiled up at him. ‘We’ll christen her after your mother, Dan. Elizabeth. All right?’

  She didn’t need to hear Dan’s answer – it was written in the broad smile that wreathed his face. ‘But I thought,’ she went on, ‘that we’d call her Lizzie. What do you think?’

  Dan nodded. ‘Fine by me.’ He paused a moment, watching them, then he said, ‘If you’re really feeling better, Mary Ann, we should take the ship back to Newark. Mr Sudbury has been very kind – very understanding – but it’s time I was earning us all some money again.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mary Ann said at once. ‘But I can’t do much just yet.’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ Dan held up his hand in protest. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to, my love. Besides,’ he smiled down fondly at them with love and pride in his voice, ‘You’ve enough to do looking after our daughter. Duggie says he’ll do the cooking for a few days.’

  Dan was a good husband, Mary Ann thought, and he would make a wonderful, loving father. She did love him, she told herself. She really did. She glanced down at the infant in her arms. Lizzie’s blue gaze was fastened upon Mary Ann’s face as she sucked contentedly. The baby’s tiny fingers fluttered, uncontrolled, and touched her mother’s breast. Mary Ann trembled beneath the feather-light touch and in that moment she vowed, I will be a good mother to you and a better wife to Dan.

  And so doing, she locked away the memories of Randolph Marsh and determined to think of him no more.

  Their life together – the three of them that had now become four – evolved into a pattern. Most of the time, Mary Ann and the growing child travelled aboard the ship. She worked hard and kept the promise she had made to herself, and only when the child was fast asleep and all her chores done did she allow herself to pick up her embroidery. Now her work had a purpose, for she learnt how to smock and to make intricate delicate lace, too, with which she decorated her daughter’s little dresses.

  Duggie’s presence still lightened Mary Ann’s days and he was a second father to Lizzie. His good humour never flagged. Rarely was Duggie Ruddick seen without a smile on his face and a quick-witted quip from his tongue. And his teasing was never cruel, never barbed. He was like the brother Mary Ann had never had and she could have wished for none better.

  He seemed to have a succession of girlfriends, but no one serious. Whenever they moored to load or unload, or went home to Waterman’s Yard for the weekend, there always seemed to be a girl on the wharf waiting to catch a few moments with Duggie.

  ‘You’re a right Jack the lad,’ Mary Ann teased him. ‘Aren’t you ever going to settle down?’

  Duggie pretended to frown and drew in breath in a whistle. ‘Not me, Mary Ann. I’m not going to stay here all me life, you know. I’ll be away to seek me fortune one of these fine days.’

  ‘Leaving? You’re going to leave us? Have you got an apprenticeship?’

  He pulled a face. ‘I reckon that’s passed me by, Mary Ann. I’m getting a bit too old now.’ Then he laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not leaving yet. Besides, it’s only a pipe dream. I’ll probably end me days on this stretch of river. But sometimes . . .’ His face took on a dreamy expression. ‘Just sometimes, when we’re at Hull, I look out down the Humber and out into the North Sea and wonder what’s out there beyond the horizon. I wonder what I’m missing. I get a bit restless and long to pack a few belongings on me back and head off into the unknown.’ Then he gave a mocking sigh. ‘But, like I say, I’ll probably never do it. I like me mam’s cooking – and yours,’ he added hastily, ‘to go too far away.’

  ‘You needn’t spare my feelings, Duggie. My cooking isn’t a patch on your mam’s or on yours, if it comes to that. Even I look forward to Sunday dinner in Waterman’s Yard.’

  ‘Your cooking is a lot better than it used to be, Mary Ann, and it’s amazing how you manage in that little cabin, so don’t belittle yourself.’

  Mary Ann coloured at his praise. For all his teasing, Duggie was always truthful.

  So the routine of their lives continued. Whenever they were moored in Elsborough, they spent time with Bessie and the family, and Mary Ann always tried to see Edwina. Her visits to the school, she told herself, were to keep up her learning, and to prove this to herself as much as to Edwina – and to Bessie – every time they went there she insisted that Edwina should teach her a new embroidery stitch. But when their heads were bent together over the fine stitches, Mary Ann had to bite upon her lips to stop them from asking, ‘How is Randolph? Where is he and what is he doing? Is he happy?’

  Then came the day when Mary Ann stepped into Edwina’s office unannounced to find that Edwina already had visitors.

  A smartly dressed woman was sitting on the chaise longue set against one wall of Edwina’s study. She was reclining languidly against the cushions and smoking a cigarette in a long, ebony holder. She was not particularly good looking, Mary Ann thought, her eyes drawn to the stranger as she stood in the doorway, but with the skilful use of cosmetics, her hair trimmed in the short haircut of the day, and her fashionable clothes, the woman oozed sophistication. But her mouth had a petulant twist to it and her eyes, squinting at Mary Ann through the haze of her cigarette smoke, were dull with boredom.

  There was a young boy, no more than a year old, sitting on Edwina’s lap. As he turned to see who had come into the room, Mary Ann was startled by the brightness of his blue eyes. For an instant, Mary Ann trembled. The child’s eyes were so like Randolph’s that there could be no mistaking the little boy’s parentage.

  Edwina raised her head and smiled. ‘Mary Ann, how nice. Come in, my dear. Come and meet my nephew, Lawrence.’

  Thirty-Six

  Edwina made the more formal introductions as Mary Ann moved forward into the room.

  ‘This is Celia, my sister-in-law.’ Tactfully, Edwina cleverly avoided mentioning Randolph. ‘And this is Lawrence. He’s only a couple of months younger than your little Lizzie.’

  Mary Ann drank in the sight of the child. He had Randolph’s fair hair and blue eyes, and as she glanced between them she could see that, although the child had inherited the shape of his mother’s mouth, whilst hers wore a sulky expression, his was upturned in a cherubic greeting.

  She moved forward, squatted down in front of the little boy and held out her finger for him to grasp. ‘How do you do, Master Lawrence? What a handsome little man he is.’

  ‘He’s like his father.’ The woman spoke behind her, her tone bitter. ‘He’ll no doubt break a few hearts when he’s older.’

  Mary Ann drew in a breath sharply. Did Celia know who she was? Did she know all about Mary Ann’s affair with Randolph? And if so, who had told her? She was sure he would not have done so, so that left only one person. She glanced resentfully at Edwina, but Edwina gave a little shake of her head. Aloud she said, ‘He has some of your features, Celia, surely, and he’s so placid. Such a good baby.’

  ‘He doesn’t take after either of us for that, Edwina. I’m sure Randolph was a demon as a child and my mother never tires of telling me that I dispatched twelve nannies single-handedly.’ Celia stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray and stood up. Smoothing down her skirt, she said, ‘I’d better be going. Are you sure you don’t mind looking after him, Edwina? His wretched nanny has a dreadful cold and has taken to her bed.’

  ‘Much the best thing. You don’t want the little man to catch it.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ The woman sounded as if she didn’t care one way or the other, only that her own life should not be disrupted. ‘It’s really most inconvenient. I have a luncheon appointment with Mrs Phillips.’

  Mrs Phillips was the w
ife of one of the town’s most influential men. He owned the huge engineering works that was one of Elsborough’s major employers. So, thought Mary Ann, Celia had wasted no time in ingratiating herself with the town’s elite.

  Edwina, with no such pretensions, smiled. ‘It’ll be a real pleasure. If it didn’t sound so horrid, I could wish that the nanny might catch a cold more frequently if it means I get the chance to look after him.’

  Celia shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘If that’s the case, you can have him on her afternoon off and welcome.’

  ‘But that’s the only time you get to spend with him,’ Edwina protested.

  ‘I’m not very good with young children, Edwina. I don’t pretend to be. I’ll get on better with my son when he can hold an intelligent conversation.’

  She slipped on her coat and picked up her handbag and gloves. She stood a moment looking down at the sweet picture Edwina and the child made. ‘You’re very maternal, aren’t you, Edwina? You really should get married and have children of your own before it’s too late.’ Then, losing interest, she said, ‘I must go. Deakin can pick Lawrence up at four o’clock in the Bentley.’

  ‘Very well,’ Edwina murmured, her attention captivated by the child in her lap. ‘I’ll take good care of him.’

  Since her brother’s marriage, Edwina had moved out of the family home and now lived in an apartment at the top of the school building. Mr and Mrs Marsh senior, of course, still lived at The Hall.

  ‘My dear Edwina, of that I can be sure,’ Celia said, as she reached the door. ‘Goodbye and thank you again. You’re such a treasure. Goodbye – er . . .’ She hesitated, trying to recall the name she had just been given. ‘Goodbye – Mary Ann, is it?’

  Mary Ann nodded as she said quietly, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Marsh.’

  As the door closed behind Celia, Mary Ann said, ‘She didn’t even say goodbye to him.’

  Edwina sighed. ‘No. Like she said, she isn’t very good with young children. She never takes a lot of notice of him. It quite upsets me to see how offhand she is with the little chap. I’m just praying that she will change once he gets a little older and, to her mind, more interesting.’