The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  ‘There’s a young lad at ’front door wi’ a message from somebody called Mike Gardiner,’ he said. ‘He says will you go to ’dock straight away.’

  Jeannie dressed hurriedly and her mother got up to make her a hot drink. Stephen was sound asleep in a chair.

  ‘We’ll follow on,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll give Jack his pobs and dress him and make sure he’s warm.’

  Jeannie nodded. She was so frightened she felt sick and could barely answer, but she sipped her tea and reminded her mother to put Jack in the pram to save her carrying him.

  It was not yet five o’clock and still dark when she left the house. There were other people, mainly women, going in the same direction, scurrying towards St Andrew’s Dock. The streets were eerily silent but for the clatter of boots and clogs. The horse trams were not yet running and only the occasional butcher’s shop or baker’s had lights on as they prepared for the day’s business.

  The women did not speak to each other, simply hurried side by side with the same purpose, to learn the fate of the ships and the men on them, and facing the same uncertain future. The dock gates were open and they went through without hindrance, hurrying alongside the waterway, looking about them to find somebody who could answer their questions.

  Jeannie spotted Mike and ran towards him. His face was grey and drawn and Jeannie knew how anxious he must be about Aaron. He drew Jeannie towards him and put his arm round her. ‘There’s a ship coming up ’estuary,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Onny one. There’s no news of either of ’others so I fear they’re lost. We’ll find out when this one comes in.’

  ‘Has nobody seen her name?’ she asked. ‘Surely …’

  He shook his head. ‘She’s bearing no light or flag, but she’s ’size of—’ He swallowed hard. ‘News is that she’s ’size of ’Arctic Star, so it might be her. But we don’t know for sure.’

  Harry’s ship. Jeannie took in the news and clutched Mike’s arm. ‘How long before she’s here?’ she whispered.

  ‘Another hour, mebbe,’ he said. ‘Then there’ll be relief and grief at ’same time.’

  ‘The others might be safe,’ she murmured. ‘Or there might be more news.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, without conviction. ‘Mebbe so.’

  They walked together to the dock entrance so that they might be among the first to see the ship approaching; half an hour went by and then another quarter. Jeannie shivered. It was so cold; she couldn’t imagine how much colder it would be out at sea.

  Dawn was breaking, long pencil-thin slivers of silver, red and gold breaking open the dark sky and heralding another day, when they saw the broken mast and ragged rigging of the advancing ship, escorted by the pilot boat all the way in through the huddle of vessels already docked. A thin cheer went up from the waiting crowd, which had increased in size as the news spread that a missing ship was homeward bound. But beneath the cheer was the wail of a plaintive keening.

  ‘I can’t look,’ Jeannie gasped, and she couldn’t see for her tears. Which ever vessel it was meant heartbreak for the families of those who were still missing. And for her, it meant she had lost either a husband or a dear friend and his father. ‘Can you see which it is yet, Mike?’

  He didn’t answer, but squeezed her shoulder; she felt him shake and knew it was bad news. She heard the sob in his breath and then a gasp. ‘I’m sorry for you, lass.’ He couldn’t keep the anguish from his voice or hold back the tears which poured down his face and into his beard. ‘It’s Scarborough Girl that’s come home,’ he choked. ‘Not ’Arctic Star after all.’

  There were many tears and cries of grief when Scarborough Girl brought the news that the Arctic Star had perished in one of the worst storms that Ethan and his men said they had ever endured. They had seen the ship in difficulties and gone to her aid, but they were in trouble themselves as their vessel was besieged by battering seas.

  ‘We managed to get a line aboard the Arctic Star before she went down,’ Ethan wearily told the director of M and R, who had come to the dock with everyone else to wait for news about the company’s ship. ‘But she was swamped by massive waves which threw her over on her beam ends. We brought two men aboard, but one died of exposure. The other is safe and will be able to tell you what happened.’

  The man nodded wearily. ‘She was an old ship,’ he said. ‘But seaworthy. We won’t replace her, and we can’t replace those who were lost with her. It’s a very sad day.’

  ‘It is indeed. We too lost a man overboard,’ Ethan told him. ‘A young man on his first trip. I must find his mother to tell her how brave he was. This was our first voyage in Scarborough Girl and she’s served us well in terrible circumstances.’

  He sought out Jeannie, who was sitting on a fish box gently rocking Jack in his pram. Her mother was with her; Stephen had gone on board the ship to greet his father.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jeannie,’ he said quietly. ‘So sorry to bring you this news.’

  Jeannie didn’t answer. She felt numb, as if she was in yet another nightmare from which she would presently awaken. Then she said softly, ‘At least I know what happened to Harry. There’s no news of the Mariner or its crew. Their families will always wonder and wait.’

  ‘She’s lost,’ he told her. ‘We saw her once before the storm hit, and then nothing.’

  ‘Did you see Harry?’ Jeannie asked. ‘Before the ship went down? I suppose – I suppose you couldn’t tell one man from another?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was all confusion: great waves, thunder and lightning, and she was adrift and low in the water, probably heavily laden with fish. Her masts had been struck, I think; they were shattered, anyway. Ours were covered in ice. And it was quick, Jeannie.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘She went down in minutes; the men wouldn’t have suffered for long.’

  Rosie and Billy came to talk to her, and Ethan took Mary to see Josh and then went to join those who had lost men from the Arctic Star and the Mariner. Rosie was very distressed.

  ‘I know we didn’t see eye to eye most of ’time,’ she wept, ‘but he was my brother. Have you seen Connie?’ she asked suddenly. ‘She’s on her own; she’s crying.’

  ‘I can’t talk to her just now,’ Jeannie said. ‘I have my own sorrow to bear without sharing hers. I’m sorry for her, though.’ She looked up at Rosie; Rosie who was once Connie’s friend. ‘She’s pregnant,’ she told her. ‘She’s expecting Harry’s child.’

  And so Rosie and Billy went to comfort Connie, who was crouched in a corner like a frightened animal. Dot and Sam arrived at the dockside. Sam was relieved that his investment was safe, but like Dot and Rosie he was distressed over the loss of life on the other vessels, especially Harry’s. Dot said that when they were ready they must all go back to their house for breakfast, and the men, Ethan and Josh, for a hot bath if they would like one.

  Ethan thanked her but said he and his father would go back to Mike’s, where he would be lodging for the foreseeable future.

  ‘You’ll not be expected at work today, Jeannie,’ Dot told her. ‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’

  Jeannie said she would, and that she would bring her mother. She wanted someone to take care of her life until she found the energy and the will to do it herself. She waited with Ethan for his father and Stephen and her mother to appear, and saw Josh hand Mary down from the deck to the quay. She also saw how he held on to her hand and she didn’t pull away. Stephen walked at her other side and put his arm in hers.

  Jeannie glanced at Ethan, her eyes pricking, and saw that he had noticed too. Neither of them said anything, but when they joined them, and Mike and his son, they walked as a family might, but with one relative missing, out of the dock and on to Hessle Road.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  IT WAS DECEMBER and almost Jack’s third birthday. He was a lively, happy child, chattering volubly and constantly getting into mischief. He loved his time with Dot and especially now that there were other children to play with, for Dot had found her vocation. She had never
wanted children of her own but she was fond of other people’s, mainly, she said, because she could send them home at the end of the day.

  The daughter of a friend had seen how good she was with Jack and asked if she would take care of her little girl when she went back to work. Dot agreed, and one request led to another and before she had quite realized what was happening she and Minnie had cleared a room where they now looked after four children. It brought her in some money of her own, which she spent mainly on children’s toys.

  Jeannie had been promoted to forewoman of her team on the fish quay and been given a rise in wages. The rooms in her house were constantly occupied, although Doris and Jim had moved out as she thought they would, making way for an older single man who was quiet and well behaved and in regular work. All of her lodgers paid on the dot, none was in arrears and no one gave her any trouble. Perhaps the regular visits of Mike and Billy and the occasional appearance of Ethan assured them that as a young widow she wasn’t friendless or unprotected.

  The previous year she had heard through Mrs Norman that Connie had given birth to a son and had gone to see her. She found her in a miserable state, living in one damp dark room and reliant on handouts from the Poor Law. Jeannie had felt sorry for her and taken her some of Jack’s baby clothes. She’d sat down to talk to her and suggested that as Connie had no contact with her mother she should write to her father in Brixham and ask if he could help her.

  ‘The child is his grandson,’ she said. ‘And his – well, his wife, even if they haven’t been able to marry, was Harry’s mother, so young Harry here is her grandson too.’

  Jeannie didn’t hold out too much hope, as Rosie had told her that she had written to her mother to tell her about Harry’s being lost at sea, and that he had been married and had a child. A postcard had come back with a few words expressing her sorrow and asking Rosie to send condolences to Harry’s widow, but saying nothing about Jack.

  Nevertheless, she helped Connie write the letter, guessing that she wouldn’t do it on her own, and a reply came back from Connie’s father within a fortnight to say that she was welcome to stay with them until she got on her feet and that there was plenty of work down there that she could do.

  ‘A fresh start for you, Connie,’ Jeannie had said, thinking of the relief for them both that they wouldn’t have to meet or compare their children. When she told Dot what had happened, she put up the money for Connie’s train fare to Brixham.

  During that first summer after Harry was lost, Jeannie scraped enough money together to take Jack on the train to Scarborough. She wanted to visit Granny Marshall who, although unwell, constantly asked Mary about her first great-grandchild. Jeannie wanted to visit old friends and Josh’s family too, and more than anything to show Jack the sands and let him dip his toes in the sea.

  She also wanted to re-evaluate her life. She needed to think about her past, and if possible decide what she wanted to do with her future. She knew that her mother wanted her to come back and live with her in Scarborough, but she told her she wasn’t ready to make that decision, saying that she couldn’t yet leave the people who had supported her when she was at her lowest ebb. She told Mary of the fish parcels she had found on her doorstep, the box that had held a potato, a carrot, an egg and a small screw of paper containing a scraping of tea. Gifts from people who had very little themselves.

  In truth, though, she wanted to look out from the harbour walls, breathe in the salty air and remember her childhood when life had seemed so simple, when the days were long and sunny and without constraint. Did Ethan ever think of those days, she had wondered, now that he was living in Hull and making a hard though successful living? Does he remember them with affection, and – she had paused in her thinking as she’d watched the ships leaving the safety of the harbour and heading for the open sea – will he ever forgive me?

  Jeannie was dressing Jack in the warm gansey and socks she had knitted for him, telling him that the next day was going to be his birthday and he would be having cake, when someone tapped on the back door. It was early for visitors, so she opened the door cautiously.

  ‘Ethan!’ she said when she saw his big frame filling the doorway. He was carrying a parcel. ‘Will you come in?’

  ‘Only for a minute,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d catch you before you went to work. I’ve brought a present for Jack. Isn’t it his birthday tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, amazed that he had remembered again, as he had last year. She led him through into her room. ‘I’m just about to take Jack to Dot’s or I’d offer you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I can’t stop. I’m leaving on the midday tide so I wanted to bring his present before I went. It’s a wooden train,’ he said, bending down to give Jack the parcel. ‘I hope he likes it.’

  ‘He’ll love it,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘It’s very good of you.’

  Ethan smiled at Jack, who had taken the parcel from him and sat down on the floor and was now trying unsuccessfully to undo the string. Then he turned his gaze to Jeannie.

  ‘How are you coping, Jeannie?’ he asked. ‘It’s been a while since I came. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about you, it’s just that, well, I know you needed time to come to terms with the loss of Harry.’

  That wasn’t the reason, she knew very well. Being the man he was, he wouldn’t have wanted her to be gossiped about because he as a single man came calling too often. It was different for Mike, who was almost a surrogate grandfather to Jack, and for Billy, who occasionally did jobs for her, for he was now married to Rosie and they came together.

  ‘I’m managing,’ she said, looking back at him. ‘I have to. But I manage very well with the support of my friends.’ She smiled at him so that he knew he was included. ‘Those who call and ask how I am.’

  ‘We’ve all been concerned about you, Jeannie,’ he said softly. ‘Nobody more than me.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and I appreciate it.’ She glanced away, looking down at Jack, who having given up on the string was now struggling to tear the wrapping paper. ‘But sometimes I’m lonely, even with Jack to comfort me. I need love to sustain me and I’ve been deprived of that. No, that sounds ungrateful. I don’t mean that I haven’t the love of friends and family. Without all of you who’ve been so kind and thoughtful I wouldn’t have survived.’

  She laughed then, as Jack with a great shout of triumph tore the paper and revealed the toy train. ‘And Jack, of course, he’ll always love me – his love is unconditional.’ But there was a catch in her voice as she continued. ‘It’s being without someone special in my life that’s the hardest of all.’

  She saw Ethan’s expression freeze and realized that he thought she was speaking of Harry.

  ‘Harry wasn’t that person,’ she said softly. ‘He only married me because his grandmother told him to. He was obeying the rules that she had laid down, but he didn’t really believe in them, he told me that himself.’ She paused, and when she went on there was regret in her voice for what might have been. ‘He didn’t love me, and I know now that I didn’t love him. I was young and foolish and was swept away.’

  Ethan took hold of her hand. ‘Is it too late for me? You know that I love you, have always loved you. My mistake was in not telling you. I was too shy to say anything and I thought you knew.’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I told you I was young and foolish.’

  ‘You’re still young.’ Tentatively he stroked her cheek. ‘And you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘What was the question?’

  ‘Is it too late?’ He held her gaze with his blue-green eyes. The colour of the sea on a sunny day.

  Jeannie moistened her lips. ‘What about Jack?’ she whispered.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Can you love him? Another man’s child?’

  ‘He’s your child too, isn’t he? I love him already.’

  It was too soon f
or promises, they both knew that, but each felt a lifting of spirits as they parted. Ethan’s trip would be a short one, for he said he would no longer risk his men’s lives or his ship on a long winter voyage, and there was a spring in Jeannie’s step as she walked to the fish quay after dropping Jack off at Dot’s. A smile lifted her lips, the first in a long time.

  A parcel came from her mother the following day containing a present for Jack’s birthday, a soft toy she had knitted and stuffed which Jack clutched to him, crowing with delight, and a letter for Jeannie.

  You already know that Josh is still waiting for an answer to his second proposal which came after the ill-fated voyage. He’s a persistent and patient man. He says that he will not leave Scarborough again – one voyage on a trawler was enough for him – and he’s fishing successfully from the smack. Stephen goes with him at weekends and occasionally Tom plucks up the courage to go too, although he still prefers dry land, especially now that Sarah is expecting their first child.

  So what should I do, Jeannie? Do I spend the rest of my days alone, or shall I take a chance at marrying again? Josh will make a loving husband, that I am sure of, and I would once again have a family to look after. Stephen is anxious for it to happen and so are his sisters. But what is holding me back, my dearest Jeannie, is not knowing whether or not you are going to return to Scarborough, for if you do, then more than anything I would want you and Jack to live with me in your old home so that I can help you in your life.

  Jeannie folded up the letter and put it on the mantelpiece. She hadn’t realized that her mother was waiting for her to make a decision about her life before making such a momentous one about her own. Well, she would write and tell her. But not yet.