by Val Wood
There had been no news from him apart from a single note written to his mother before he left Liverpool on a sailing ship, not a steamship as he had hoped. The cheapest fare to America is seventy shillings, he’d written. So that’s what I’ve taken. I’ll be travelling steerage but I shan’t mind.
That was in March and they were now in June, so he should have arrived in New York several weeks ago. New York was to be the first port of call, he had told Harriet before he left, and then he would move on in an attempt to find work. ‘Mebbe I’ll find gold,’ he’d joked to his mother, but she’d answered that wealth didn’t mean happiness and he’d made no further attempt to console her.
When Harriet finished her chores each day, she made the most of the fine weather and began to explore her surroundings. During the winter months the weather had been so poor that she was confined mainly to the house, but now the sun shone. Mrs Tuke had acquired a young heifer in calf to continue the milk supply and called it Dora Two, the corn was plumping up, and the new lambs were no longer frolicking but were half grown and contentedly cropping the grass, unaware, Harriet thought thankfully, of what was in front of them. It had taken her some time to come to terms with the reality of animal husbandry, that the cattle, pigs and sheep were for eating and not just to enhance a pleasant pastoral scene.
She walked in the opposite direction to the manor and found farmhouses and cottages, not on the estuary bank as Marsh Farm was, but on the higher side of the road. On her way back one day and feeling thirsty, she had knocked on a cottage door to ask for a drink of water. The door was opened by Mary, who expressed great surprise on seeing her and invited her to come in and have a cup of tea, which Harriet was pleased to do as she had walked too far and her legs were aching.
‘I don’t get many visitors,’ Mary said, ‘so I’m glad of a bit o’ company.’ She poured Harriet a cup of weak tea with a minute drop of milk. ‘It’s goat’s milk,’ she said. ‘Not everybody likes it.’
‘It’s not so rich as cow’s milk, is it? Settles better on my stomach, but I don’t like ’smell of it.’
‘Better for you, anyway, now that you’re carrying,’ Mary said. ‘Will you be able to stop on at ’manor? Have you told ’mistress?’
Harriet nodded and sipped her tea. ‘She guessed,’ she said. ‘But she wants me to stay on, and afterwards too, if I can.’
‘Oh, you’ve made a good impression there.’ Mary nodded her head and her jowly chins wobbled. ‘Have you made provision for ’delivery?’ she asked. ‘For ’babby,’ she added, seeing Harriet’s nonplussed expression.
‘Oh, no, I haven’t.’ She had given little thought to it because it wasn’t a procedure she knew anything about, having had no friends in the same situation. She had vaguely imagined that Mrs Tuke might help her, having had two sons of her own.
‘I can do that, if you’d like me to,’ Mary told her. ‘I’ve brought many a bairn into ’world. Don’t do much now as I’m too far out from ’villages for anybody to fetch me. But I’m not that far from you if you should want any help. Somebody’d have to come for me if it’s at night, but I can walk during ’day.’
‘That’s really kind, Mary. I had thought that mebbe Mrs Tuke – Ellen – might—’
‘Not a good idea,’ Mary said. ‘She had a hard time wi’ her firstborn. Nivver known a woman cry as much as she did. Not that it was a difficult birth, there were no complications, but she nivver stopped weeping, even after it were all over.’ She chewed on her bottom lip before adding, ‘Don’t know who delivered ’second babby – that’d be your husband – but it weren’t me. I nivver even knew she was expecting till I happened to hear she’d got another son.’
It wasn’t anything Ellen Tuke ever discussed with Harriet; it was as if she was completely ignoring what was going on in her household. She had made no comment about her own pregnancies in connection with Harriet’s; neither had she ever acknowledged that she knew Mary, even though Harriet had mentioned her by name.
It was a mile walk to Marsh Farm and Harriet decided to speak to Noah nearer the time when she thought she might be delivered, and ask him to keep the horse and trap at the ready to fetch Mary. She was fairly sure now that she would get no help from her mother-in-law.
But she did ask her one morning if she might borrow the trap to go on an outing and asked her if she’d like to come too, but Ellen had replied brusquely that she wouldn’t as she had plenty of other things to do. Harriet apologized and asked if she could do anything to help, but Mrs Tuke shook her head. ‘No, you go,’ she said, and it seemed to Harriet that perhaps she might be trying to make amends for her indifference when she added, ‘Mek ’most of your free time, for you’ll have none later on.’
Harriet took a deep breath of air as she drove along the top road, passing Mary’s cottage, to an area Mrs Tuke had described as Broomfleet. Ellen had told her that if she drove far enough she would reach the Market Weighton canal, which went through the Broomfleet lock before emptying into the Humber.
‘You’ll see butterflies and moths along there,’ she said, ‘and wild flowers in ’meadow grass, though it’s mainly agricultural land.’
Harriet gazed at her. It was the first time she had imparted any information about anywhere but their own farmland.
Ellen looked away, as if embarrassed, and said, ‘My brothers and me used to walk along ’estuary bank, and ’lads used to swim in ’canal.’
‘I didn’t realize you had any brothers,’ Harriet exclaimed. ‘I don’t recall you mentioning them before.’
‘No, mebbe not.’ Ellen clammed up. ‘They’re long gone, anyway.’
How strange, Harriet mused as she cracked the whip over the old mare’s head and they slowly moved off. She seems to have cut herself off from everybody, and doesn’t even want to talk about them.
The drive towards the small village of Broomfleet was through flatlands, or marshlands as Ellen Tuke called them, and the estuary was in sight most of the time, with the county of Lincolnshire clearly in view on the other side as the day was bright and sharp without any hint of mist.
The landscape was mainly agricultural, as Ellen had described, but the meadows where cattle grazed were scattered with wild flowers, attracting bees and hundreds of fluttering butterflies: white, orange-tipped, brown tortoiseshell, and some with coloured rings and spots that Harriet hadn’t seen before and which filled her with such delight that she kept stopping to look. In the hedgerows pale pink dog roses flourished and there was a rustling and twittering of tiny wrens and busy sparrows; in the ditches she saw violets and golden star-like flowers which she couldn’t name, not having seen them before. White flowers gave off the aroma of garlic and mustard, and she caught a glimpse of a twitching snout, beady eyes and a prickly body before their owner swiftly disappeared again.
It was a long meandering drive to the canal and Harriet knew she should be turning back almost as soon as she arrived, but she couldn’t resist getting down from the cart and looping the reins round a tree stump so that she could stand by the edge of the water. A grey heron disturbed by her presence flew off in an awkward long-legged flight towards the reed beds. She heard the croak of nesting water birds, mainly black, some with a white head shield and other smaller ones with a scarlet marking. Looking in the other direction she saw the lock gates and the railway bridge in the distance, and she guessed that the bridge carried the waggons and trucks from Brough railway station.
Fletcher had told her that the canal had been dug for drainage and navigational purposes. Over the years, interested parties, mainly farmers, had petitioned for the area to be warped, as Fletcher had wanted to do at Marsh Farm. The additional land would have aided agriculture, but those with navigational interests opposed and blocked the schemes.
She looked down to see the rush of water as it entered the Humber, saw too the busy shipping lanes as barges, keels, sloops and commercial vessels took their contents to and from Hull, Brough, Howden and Goole, across to Lincolnshire and on towards
the Trent Falls. To her delight, she also spotted the sleek and shiny head of a seal.
She gave a satisfied sigh as she headed back to Marsh Farm. At least I now know where I’m living, she thought. I’m not isolated in a small farm on the edge of ’estuary but am part of a wider community. Not a large one, she thought, as she had seen no one but a lone fisherman down by the water’s edge, but there are seamen and bargemen on those boats, and lock keepers, and engine drivers on the trains which cross the bridge, and they’ll have wives and children living some kind of life, just as I am.
As summer came to a close, Noah became more and more irritable. He shouted at everyone that he was having to do everything himself since his good-for-nothing brother had cleared off, and in the next breath raged that he’d better not come back or he’d find a shotgun waiting to welcome him.
Mr Tuke generally slunk off into some corner where he couldn’t be found, but Ellen yelled back at Noah, saying that he was the one who wanted the farm and was now realizing he couldn’t manage it alone. She shook a fist at him, saying, ‘Now we know who did most of ’work,’ which infuriated Noah even more.
By the end of October Harriet had begun to feel sluggish, and although she still rose early Ellen said she’d do the first milking, leaving Harriet to prepare breakfast for Noah and Mr Tuke. Noah barely spoke in a morning, and as she went to bed earlier than he did and slept in Fletcher’s box room at the back of the house, she didn’t always hear him come up to bed.
But there was one night when she couldn’t sleep and went downstairs to sit in the easy chair. She heard the dog bark and the clatter of hooves, and a few minutes later she heard the rattle of the latch and Noah came in. He looked startled to see her sitting in her nightgown and shawl by the banked-up fire.
‘What you doing up?’ he growled. ‘Time you was abed.’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, and was about to ask him where he’d been, then stopped herself. There was something in his eyes, and a smell of ale on him, that made her decide that discretion would serve better.
But she thought that now might be a good time to suggest that Mary could help her at the birthing but would need collecting from her home. Noah frowned and said wasn’t there anyone nearer and wouldn’t his mother be able to do what was necessary?
‘No,’ she said. ‘She won’t. Perhaps you’d like to deliver it?’ She shuddered at the thought. ‘You’ve had experience with animals; it must be ’same.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Fletcher used to do that,’ he said. ‘I can’t be doing wi’ all o’ that fuss. I’ll fetch ’midwife when ’time comes.’
That’s a relief, she thought, sitting on by the fire as he staggered upstairs. He’d been drinking, she knew, but it was well past midnight, so where else had he been?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After that night Harriet became aware that Noah frequently left the farm on Friday and Saturday evenings, but now, if she was awake and had gone to sit downstairs, she made sure that she was back in bed before midnight so that there was no confrontation with him.
She wanted to ask his mother where he might be going, but Ellen was taciturn and didn’t encourage conversation and Harriet guessed that she was worrying over Fletcher. She seemed to have no empathy with Noah, which seemed odd to Harriet. I’d have thought she’d be glad to have one son at home.
The time dragged, even though she tried to keep busy and do most of her usual jobs on the farm. I’d have had to keep working if I’d been pregnant in Hull, she thought, and being under the eye of a mill foreman would have been much worse. At least here I can sit down occasionally and take my time over milking and feeding the animals.
One Saturday evening, when they had finished supper and cleared away, Ellen was preparing vegetables by the sink for the next day’s meal and Mr Tuke was snoring by the fire. Ellen had given Harriet some white cotton material and she was sewing a layette at the table by the light of the lamp when she became aware of Noah looking at her and chewing on his fingernails.
She attempted a hesitant smile but he didn’t respond and simply stared at her, then, abruptly, got to his feet and headed for the door. ‘Don’t lock up,’ he muttered to his mother as he went past her. ‘I might be late.’
Mrs Tuke watched his back as he slammed out of the door and silently shook her head, then bent it again to finish what she was doing.
A few minutes later Harriet heard the striking of hooves across the yard and knew it wasn’t the old mare that Noah was riding. When Ellen came to sit down opposite her, Harriet murmured, ‘Where do you think he’ll be going? To ’alehouse?’
‘Mebbe.’ Ellen glanced at her husband, who was slumped back in the chair with his mouth open. He’d become flabby and corpulent over the summer, demanding larger portions of meat, more butter on his bread and potatoes, more cream on his apple or bramble pies; Ellen turned her face away from him with an expression of distaste. ‘Mebbe not.’
‘Where then?’ Harriet persisted. ‘He’s tekken ’stallion so he’s riding hard.’
Ellen gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Reckon that’s what he’s doing then.’ She looked again at Mr Tuke and her lips curled. ‘Stallions, ’pair of ’em. Like father, like son.’
Harriet put down her sewing. ‘What?’ She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you so innocent that you don’t know, or can’t guess?’ Ellen’s voice was cutting.
Harriet put her hand to her mouth. Did she really want to know where her husband had gone on a wet and windy night? Though October had been a mellow month, now they were in November the weather had turned foggy and damp, so what, she wondered, was so urgent or important that Noah had to saddle up and canter off when it was almost bedtime?
Stallions, Mrs Tuke had called her husband and son, although looking at Mr Tuke, sprawled so slovenly in his chair Harriet couldn’t imagine him ever being virile or attractive to any woman.
‘So,’ she murmured. ‘Do you think that Noah has gone to meet a woman?’
Ellen Tuke clasped her hands in her lap and didn’t speak but gazed at Harriet pityingly, her lips curled. Then she took a heaving breath and said slowly, ‘I thought that being a townswoman you’d be worldly, but I gather that you’re not.’
‘I’m trying not to think about it.’ Harriet lifted her eyes to her mother-in-law. ‘But if it’s not just one woman, then—’
‘A brothel,’ Ellen stated flatly. ‘That’s where he’ll have gone. No point in beating about ’bush. There’s nowhere else he could go. Any half-decent woman will be within her own four walls at this time o’ night.’
‘So – where?’ Harriet whispered. She’d always thought of herself as a woman of the world. She’d met enough men at the various alehouses and hostelries where she’d worked over the years to know when they were on the lookout for a willing woman, and she noted the areas where the brothels were in order to steer clear of them after dark. But she had never thought that she would marry a man who would go looking for such places because his wife wasn’t available.
‘Where?’ Ellen scoffed. ‘I could mek a guess at a couple o’ places, but there’s one in particular where they’ll tek any man, young or old, rich or poor, if he dare tek ’chance of coming out unscathed.’
What was it she said when I first arrived? Harriet tried to remember. Something in response to Mr Tuke’s probing question to Noah about where they’d met. Was it a brothel, he’d asked, and – yes, Ellen had said there was no need to travel to Hull to find one, that he’d be able to find one closer to home. And Mr Tuke had been angry and told her to shut her mouth.
Was this how she knew? Had Mr Tuke been to a brothel seeking a woman when his wife was pregnant?
Harriet shuddered. If that was where Noah had gone, the worry was what would happen after she’d given birth. Would Noah seek her bed again? Would he pay for a woman’s services when he had a wife at home? And if he had been with those women, were they clean? And if they weren’t, would he pass on a disease to he
r?
Mr Tuke suddenly snorted and sat up and looked at them both. ‘What?’ he rasped. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, Mr Tuke,’ Ellen responded calmly, ‘that you might as well be in bed as snoring by ’fire.’
‘I wasn’t snoring,’ he growled. ‘Don’t ever snore,’ but he heaved himself out of the chair and went to the door and out of the porch, leaving the door wide open so that a cold draught blew into the kitchen. Mrs Tuke tutted and got up to close it after him. He was back within a few minutes and headed for the stairs.
‘Nivver snore,’ he grunted. ‘Nivver in my life.’
Mrs Tuke waited until they heard the bedroom door bang shut and then she said, as if there hadn’t been any interruption, ‘It used to be in ’centre of Brough, but folk got sick of seeing men going in and out, and men didn’t like it either in case their wives found out. So the madam,’ she added scathingly, ‘found another place on ’outskirts of town and although this was a long time ago, to ’best of my knowledge she’s still there.’
‘From Mr Tuke’s time?’ Harriet asked. ‘Surely …’ She wanted to say that the madam would be too old, but that would imply that Mr and Mrs Tuke were old too.
Ellen got up from the table and came to sit in Mr Tuke’s chair, motioning Harriet to sit opposite her. She gave several deep lingering sighs, and after a moment or two said, ‘I found out that Mr Tuke frequented Miriam Stone’s establishment and gave him an ultimatum.’ She shifted about in the chair and gazed at the coals in the fire, chewing on her lip. ‘It was her bed or mine.’ She glanced sideways at Harriet. ‘Mebbe you’d mek a different decision, but I don’t need to know about it.’
‘Of course not,’ Harriet said meekly. ‘Noah’s your son, after all.’
Mrs Tuke, deep in thought, silently shook her head.
Then Harriet had a sudden thought which filled her with dismay. ‘I – I suppose it’s difficult for young men,’ she ventured. ‘When they live so far out from other folk; I mean, erm, where do they go to meet decent young women?’