Hidden Currents

by Rowena Summers

  ‘Then I’ll tell you myself. I’m leaving Bristol soon for a travelling job, and I’ll be gone about four months.’

  ‘What kind of a travelling job?’ Wilf’s interest was caught now. ‘I thought your life was on the river.’

  ‘So it is, and that’s where I want to be eventually, in a fine new boat big enough to take paying folk out for picnics and days out. But a boat like that costs money.’

  ‘So how are you thinking of getting this money then?’

  John gave a slight smile. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to start this conversation with Wilf after all, since the two of them had managed to bloody each other’s noses almost the first time they’d met.

  ‘With my fists. I’m going as a sparring partner for a fighting promotor.’

  ‘Christ, our Carrie won’t like that!’ Wilf forgot his own antagonism to this man, imagining his sister’s fury. She was no wilting daisy herself, and she could be as vinegary, as the next one with her tongue, but when it came to fisticuffs, she was dead against it.

  ‘She doesn’t like it, but she sees the sense in it,’ John went on. ‘We want to be wed on her birthday next June, and if all goes well, I aim to be naming my new boat after her as a wedding gift.’

  Wilf stared at him. Other men’s dreams weren’t the same as his, and he’d never had anything as grand in mind as owning a boat, but he could respect another’s dreams.

  ‘Then I wish you luck,’ he said now.

  ‘And you too,’ John said briefly.

  They had little in common, and he had the feeling they would never really be friends, but a mutual respect was better than nothing. And it was going to be far more comfortable in the family circle for them to tolerate one another, than to always be at one another’s throats.

  It was worth it, too, to see the delight in Carrie’s face when she saw them apparently conversing amicably. She didn’t even notice that each of them turned to the idea of playing the party game of charades with some relief.

  * * *

  Hours later, Carrie reflected that all in all it had been a good day. By then, she was snug in her bed in her old room, and Elsie sleeping on a mattress in the corner, having been persuaded to stay the night. Billy slept in Wilf’s room now, in Frank’s old bed, which gave Carrie some privacy.

  John and his uncle had arranged for the hire carriage to take them back up Bedminster Hill at about eight o’clock, and she and John had at last managed to have some time alone together in the scullery while Uncle Oswald was saying his thanks to her parents.

  ‘Am I allowed a Christmas kiss at last?’ John said softly. ‘I’ve spent the entire day wanting to hold you in my arms, instead of playing the gentleman and trying to be pleasant to your brother.’

  ‘Was it such an effort?’ she teased. ‘I thought the two of you carried it off splendidly, if you want to know.’

  ‘I don’t, and nor do I want to waste this time alone with you talking about Wilf,’ he said. ‘All I want is to hold you close to me.’

  He held out his arms, and she went into them willingly, wanting him every bit as much as he wanted her. She had already discovered that the waiting time of courtship could be as frustrating as it was sweet.

  ‘Then if you don’t hurry up and kiss me, I shall want to know the reason why,’ she whispered back.

  His mouth sought and found hers, and there was no more need for talking. The love that flowed between them was powerful and strong, and when she was in his arms she could forget everything else. Even the parting that was to come … resolutely, Carrie blotted it out of her mind, refusing to let it spoil these precious moments together.

  She leaned her head against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her body, and revelling in the warmth of his arms around her.

  ‘I wish it could always be like this,’ she murmured. ‘I wish we could always be together.’ She stopped, blushing, wondering if she had been too forward, but she felt him hold her tighter, and knew that his feelings matched hers.

  ‘And I wish I need never let you out of my arms for a single second,’ he said, his voice roughened with desire. ‘I wish I could watch you go to sleep in my arms every night, and waken you every morning with my kisses. I love you so much, Carrie.’

  She felt the sweet thrill of passion run through her veins at his words.

  ‘Oh John, I love you too,’ she whispered, winding her arms around his neck to hold him closer.

  The door handle rattled, alerting them that there was only a thin layer of wood between them and the parlour, and they broke apart reluctantly. As an engaged couple, they were allowed a certain amount of leeway and time to be alone, but not too much. And Sam Stuckey could make a fine old noise of clearing his throat when he decided young Travis had been alone with his daughter for long enough.

  ‘Your uncle’s waiting, boy,’ Sam said pointedly, when the door opened, ‘and it’s starting to snow. You won’t want to be about too late if the weather sets in.’

  ‘That we won’t,’ John said briskly. They were already paying the hire carriage driver over the odds for coming out on Christmas Day, but they had had no choice. Uncle Oswald could never have got to Jacob’s Wells Road on foot, and John couldn’t have come without him. And the cost of hiring a carriage was a small price to pay for this best Christmas Day he had spent in years.

  Now, in the darkness of her bedroom, Carrie closed her eyes blissfully, remembering how John had held her so close and told her he loved her. She was in that lovely half-state of warmth, imagining a hazy future married to the love of her life, when she heard Elsie call her name.

  ‘Carrie, are you awake?’ the other girl said in a loud stage whisper.

  ‘I am now,’ Carrie said. ‘I was almost asleep.’

  ‘Well, I can’t sleep,’ Elsie stated. ‘Me mind’s too full of stuff, and me head’s going round and round.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have eaten and drunk so much then,’ Carrie retorted. ‘And Ma’s plum pudding’s not the best thing to go to bed on, neither.’

  ‘It ain’t that,’ Elsie said. ‘I was thinking about summat else.’

  ‘Tell me in the morning,’ Carrie said, but Elsie was wide awake now. In the end, Carrie could stand the noisy stage whispers no longer.

  ‘Look, you’re going to waken the whole house in a minute,’ she said crossly. ‘You’d better come over here and tell me what’s on your mind, then perhaps we can both get some sleep.’

  Elsie padded across the small bedroom and slid beneath Carrie’s quilt with a shiver, trying to snuggle up to her friend. The bed was much too small for them both, and Carrie wriggled in annoyance to get as far away from her as possible.

  ‘My God, but you’re touchy, ain’t you?’ Elsie said in amusement. ‘I hope you ain’t going to be this standoffish when you share a bed every night with your lusty John!’

  Carrie was thankful for the darkness of the night then, sure that her cheeks must be scarlet at hearing the careless remark. It might be just a casual thing for Elsie to say in her usual unthinking way, but it had intruded into her dream and ruined it. John had made it all sound so beautiful, watching her fall asleep, and awakening her with a kiss … and Elsie had the knack of making it all sound so ugly.

  ‘If that’s all you wanted to say —’

  ‘It ain’t. God, what’s up with you, Carrie? Ain’t we had a nice day? I was on me best behaviour, and I never made up to your Wilf for a minute, did I?’ she said indignantly.

  ‘You were very well behaved,’ Carrie said, mellowing at the hurt in Elsie’s voice. Just as swiftly, she reminded herself that her friend was entirely alone in the world, while she, Carrie, had everything. A good home, a loving family, and John. She was the lucky one.

  ‘So do you want to hear about Dewi or not then?’ Elsie whispered, unable to keep the great secret to herself for one minute longer.

  ‘What’s Dewi? Is it a dog or something?’ Carrie said, starting to giggle. She’d had a glass or two of port win
e as well, and her own head wasn’t as steady as usual.

  ‘Oh, thanks very much!’ Elsie said, with mock annoyance. ‘No, ninny, Dewi’s me little Welsh fellow. A real grand boyo he is too, with dark flashing eyes and a real swagger to his walk.’

  A vague memory came into Carrie’s mind at that moment, but she couldn’t quite capture it. Besides, she’d heard too many of Elsie’s sudden fancies before. She’d be mad about this Dewi fellow for a week or so, and then he’d be history, and there’d be some other strange name cropping up in her conversation.

  ‘It’s the real thing this time, Carrie,’ Elsie was whispering excitedly now. ‘Dewi’s better than all the others put together, and he makes me feel good.’

  ‘Oh yes. Until the next one comes along, I suppose,’ Carrie said, feeling her head begin to swim, and only half listening now. ‘I’ve heard it all before, Elsie. Go back to bed and go to sleep.’

  There was a small silence, and she felt Elsie sit up in bed. She guessed the girl was staring down at her, even though she couldn’t see much in the darkness. If it wasn’t for the snow clouds lightening the sky a mite through the bedroom window, the room would be in its usual inky blackness. Carrie tugged the quilt back around herself, wondering how much more pointed she could be that she wanted to be left alone and to get some sleep.

  ‘You ain’t heard that I’ve done it before though,’ Elsie said quietly.

  For a second, Carrie wondered if she was dreaming, or if Elsie had really said what she thought she’d said. She twisted round in the bed at once, staring through the gloom. Elsie lay back in satisfaction, and folded her arms across her chest, sure that she’d got Carrie’s full attention now.

  ‘What do you mean — you’ve done it?’ she said. Though she knew full well what Elsie meant. Of course she knew. She hadn’t been born yesterday. What she didn’t understand was why Elsie was making such a show of telling her. She’d hinted so many times before that she knew all about laying with a boy, and that it was a fine old pastime … not that Carrie had really believed her goings-on for one minute. She’d never really known if it had all been said for show, to shock … but she was saying it now as if it was the first time …

  ‘Me and Dewi,’ Elsie said. ‘Dewi and me.’

  It seemed as if she couldn’t say anything else for the moment, and Carrie sat up now, wrapping the quilt around her shoulders and snapping out a question.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that all this time you’ve been play-acting with me, and that you and Dewi —’ God, she was doing it now, splicing them together like bookends — ‘that it’s the first time you’ve ever actually done it, with this Dewi?’

  ‘I do,’ Elsie said, as solemnly as taking an oath. And then her voice suddenly dissolved into sheer delight and awe. ‘And Carrie, I can tell you it’s even better than I ever imagined it could be! It needs to be done with someone you really like, see? So I reckon you’ll be all right with your John,’ she ended up in her more usual style.

  ‘So you’ve been lying to me all this time? You’ve been as — as —’ indignantly, Carrie had no intention of letting this go.

  ‘Virginal, that’s the word, duck, though when the minister says it he makes it sound as wicked as fornicating, don’t he?’ Elsie said with a snort of laughter. ‘But I never really meant to deceive you, Carrie. It was just too easy, I suppose, and people have always thought the worst of me, anyway, so why not let ’em, I say?’

  There was a sudden loud banging on the wall between Carrie’s room and her parents’ bedroom, and they both jumped with alarm.

  ‘If you two girls ain’t going to go to sleep tonight, then go downstairs to do your-talking and let those that want to sleep get some,’ Pa bawled out.

  ‘Sorry Pa,’ Carrie called back.

  She glared into the dimness to where she could see Elsie hunched up on the bed, and hugging her knees. Her hair was spilling all around her in its usual disarray. And if there was ever a moment when she could believe that Elsie Miller had been — had been — fornicating — it was now, when she looked so wanton and so brazen.

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ she said. ‘I just want to go to sleep, so I’d be obliged if you’d go back to your mattress and give me some room.’

  She yanked the quilt away from Elsie as she spoke. There was no logical reason why she should feel so upset, or so betrayed. Elsie had played the flirt often enough … but all the time, Carrie supposed she really had believed that it was all a game, or she had simply wanted to believe it. But now, everything was different between them.

  Elsie had had carnal knowledge of a man, as Mr Pritchard would say in his direst sermon voice, and that was a sin. Carrie shivered as her friend almost flounced out of her bed and curled up on the mattress on the floor, tugging her blankets around her.

  ‘I might have known you’d go all po-faced about it,’ she snapped. ‘God help your John when he tries to lay a finger on you, that’s all. You’ll probably go screaming for the constables.’

  The hammering on the bedroom wall effectively shut her up at last, but Carrie lay sleepless and restless for a long while afterwards. She felt a soft trickle of dampness on her cheeks and dashed it away angrily.

  When she and John were married, everything between them would be beautiful. They would have waited for intimacy between a man and a woman, the way God intended folk to wait, until they had the Church’s blessing on their union, and their families had come together to witness it all. Making love should be a celebration and an avowal of love, not like Elsie and Dewi’s hole and corner affair.

  Carrie’s own grand thoughts began to annoy her. She wasn’t grand, or pompous … but this was the way Ma always spoke of such things — if she ever talked about them at all. It was the way Mr Pritchard referred to them in sermons — if he ever referred to them at all. And she knew full well she risked the wrath of Pa if ever she did anything so wicked as lying with a man before she was wed … or if she was found out, she could almost hear Elsie say mockingly …

  And it was true. By now she knew she was as capable of passion as anyone else, and there were times when she ached to feel John’s arms around her, and discover the last great mystery of two joining as one. And it was probably getting caught out and fearing the sting of Pa’s leather belt, that stopped her more than anything else. So much for noble thoughts.

  Chapter 18

  On Boxing Day afternoon, there would be the annual small boat races on the river to look forward to, when boats of all descriptions vied for the honour of monetary prizes donated by local boatbuilding firms.

  By morning, the ground was blanketed with a moderate covering of snow, though the wind had begun to blow much of it into swirling drifts. The Stuckeys shivered in the sharpness of late December, their breaths blowing great plumes of air into the cold, as they opened doors a fraction to inspect the day.

  ‘For God’s sake, close that door,’ Sam roared at Billy, as the boy lingered with the toe of one boot delightedly kicking up the snow.

  ‘I’ve got to see if it’s deep enough to get me tray out to slide down to the wharf,’ he complained. ‘Can I, Pa?’

  ‘Depends if there’s enough snow left for it by the time this wind’s done. If there ain’t, you’ll end up bumping your backside from top to bottom, and be all the sorrier for it. Don’t come crying to me if you can’t sit down for a week.’

  ‘I won’t, Pa,’ Billy said. ‘I won’t go hurting meself, neither.’

  ‘Do you know better than your Pa now, then?’ Sam growled, suffering with a bellyache from yesterday’s over-abundance of ale and goose and port wine.

  ‘Oh, let the boy be,’ Ma said mildly. ‘He’ll learn the hard way, same as all of us. You go and stoke up that fire for me, Sam, and let me get on with the breakfast. You’ll be taking him down to see the races, in any case?’

  ‘I daresay. I sure as hell ain’t letting you go sliding down there in your condition, woman,’ he retorted. ‘I suppose those two girls will be comin
g as well. Giggling and jabbering halfway through the night, they were. Though, come to think of it, I ain’t heard no sound from our Wilf yet,’ he said suddenly, his grumbles switching to the unusual fact that his eldest son wasn’t up and about.

  ‘That’s because he was off out early,’ May said briskly. ‘He wanted to take a look around this workshop Gaffer Woolley’s putting his way.’

  She leaned against the doorpost for a minute, her hand in the small of her back as the familiar nagging little pains stabbed at her. The babby wasn’t due for a week yet, but she knew the signs well enough. A woman’s body always made a show of practising the pains before it was quite ready to push the babby out.

  May was an old hand at helping other women give birth, and was prepared for the ordeal to come. This time, she’d be the patient, and as soon as she was sure the contractions had properly begun, Carrie would go and fetch the midwife, Mrs Green, to help her with the birthing. The men would be banished from the vicinity, and if it happened at night, as most babbies seemed to do, then young Billy must just bury his head beneath the bedclothes and ignore any small sounds she might make.

  May gritted her teeth. She would bear her pain tight-lipped for as long as possible, but she knew the pangs of childbirth only too well. She’d been through them four times already, and she tried not to dwell on the fact that this little lot was coming at a time when her body was settling into middle-age and was nowhere near as supple as of old. But if the Lord hadn’t wanted her to have another babby, He wouldn’t have sent her one, she affirmed, with her own brand of logic, and there was no going against the Lord’s Will.

  ‘Are you all right, Ma?’ she heard Carrie say, as the girl came clattering down the stairs with Elsie following.

  ‘Just a twinge, duck.’ She moved away from the doorpost and gave the girls a brief smile.

  ‘You sit down, and I’ll make the porridge and breakfast toast,’ Carrie said, but May waved her aside.

  ‘I’m not an invalid yet, girl, and I don’t aim to be acting the lady until my time. Yesterday was an exception, with so many folk in the house and the heavy lifting and all, but I’m quite capable of managing breakfast.’