Children Of The Tide

by Valerie Wood

  ‘Da!’ He shouted up to the top of the mill. ‘Da! ’Fantail’s adrift. I’d better come up and try to fix it.’

  His father’s muffled shout echoed down to him. ‘I’m up here already. I’ll take a look.’

  George chewed on his lip. He wished that Tom was here, he didn’t like the idea of his father leaning out of the access door to check the fantail, even though he had been doing it for years. They had all noticed that he was not as agile as he once had been, and often the pain he felt in his aching legs was etched upon his face; in the last few months he had given way to Tom and let him do the jobs which previously he had insisted on doing himself.

  ‘Let me go out, Da!’ he called again. ‘I’m a bit thinner than thee!’

  Before his father could reply there was another sudden gust of wind, and at the base of the mill George felt the building shake and the sails rock. ‘Fantail’s gone, Da!’ he yelled. ‘Now we’re for it!’

  The air was heavy with ominous thunder growls, and the sky was filled with a mass of sombrous clouds whose edges were lit with an opaline hem at each lightning flash. Thomas felt like a god in this lofty elevation. A god or a mariner, like the grandda I don’t remember, he meditated, as the dome above him creaked and shifted its timbers. He opened the access door leading out to the fantail and looked out across the fading vista. Across the fields and beyond the village of Monkston, he saw in the dim light the foaming white sea crests and the great waves breaking and dashing against each other in their run to the shore.

  ‘There’ll be more land lost tonight,’ he muttered, narrowing his eyes to define his vision. ‘William won’t be ower happy. It won’t be much longer afore they’ll all have to move back.’

  The wind dropped, and in the temporary stillness he heard the rhythmic banging of wood against wood, and saw the loose flypost swinging against the fantail blades. He cursed beneath his breath: he’d have to go out and try to secure it. He looked up and the heavens seemed not so far away. The eye of the storm was above him and the dark sky hovered above the mill in a simmering, pulsating agitation, threatening that at any moment in a boiling convulsion it would rip apart and destroy.

  He put his foot out and searched in the darkness for the narrow ledge, then felt the sudden thrust of wind catch him. He held onto the wall of the cap and, carefully easing himself out, he reached for a handhold. The crash of thunder startled him and, as the lightning flashed, illuminated below he saw the empty hay cart, the mill yard and the fields and copses beyond it lit in a flood of daytime brightness. For a moment he was mesmerized, and forgetting caution he straightened up and stared at the scene which he knew so well but which now was so different, as if he was looking from another world.

  The thunder cracked again and hid the sound of the fantail breaking, but he felt the shake of the cap as the blades flew off above his head, whisked away into the darkness with a whistling hiss. He bent quickly to crank the gears and avert more damage but as he did, the remaining flypost broke and crashed down upon his head. He raised his hand to his head, dazed by the blow and, straightening up, put out his other arm to steady himself.

  The rain started to fall, sheets of torrential rain wetting him through in seconds. He put his foot back, searching for the narrow ledge to balance on. His head throbbed, his vision blurred by the blow, and he felt the trickle of blood on his forehead. He shifted his feet again and turned to reach the door. He searched for a handhold. He was dizzy and nauseous. George would have to come up. He put out his foot; the ledge was wet and slippery and he misjudged the distance; there was nothing below him, only a void, a deep black hollow which gathered him up as he plunged in a swift and sudden descent.

  George heard his cry and the heart-stopping thud out in the yard. He ran out of the door and into the yard and stopped, horror-struck at the sight of his father’s twisted body lying motionless, half in, half out of the hay cart.

  ‘Da! Da!’ His shocked and whispered voice cracked as he bent over him. He touched his father’s face, patting it, trying to wake him, for his eyes were closed and he lay so still. ‘Don’t die, Da. Please, don’t be dead. What shall I do? I don’t know what to do! Da! Who’s going to help me?’ He stood up and ran to the gate to look down the lane. There was no-one about, the rain had been threatening all evening; people had finished their work and scurried home before the storm broke. He ran back to his father, the rain lashing against him.

  ‘I’ll have to get thee indoors, Da, but I don’t know if I can lift thee.’ He knew that he couldn’t. His father was a big man and heavy. The only thing he could do was try to drag him out of the cart and into the mill, yet he was so afraid of hurting him further. He could not accept that his father was dead, but he knew that he must move him inside out of the rain. ‘Then I’ll run for ’vicar. He’ll know what to do, Da. He’ll send for ’doctor, then tha’ll be as right as can be.’

  George put his hands beneath his father’s shoulders and was sickened at the sight of his bleeding head and contorted legs. His head sank down and he started to sob, weeping great tears that ran unchecked. A clatter of hooves made him look up and through his blurred vision and the torrential rain, he saw a figure leaning from a horse, trying to open the gate.

  ‘Richard! Richard! Thank God tha’s come. Help me. Please.’ He sprinted to open the gate and let him in. ‘Da’s fallen from ’top of ’mill. I can’t lift him.’

  Richard slipped from his mount’s back and ran across the yard. ‘Oh, God! Is he dead?’

  George, his face sheet-white, shook his head. ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to be breathing.’

  Richard put his head to his uncle’s chest. ‘I think I can hear a beat.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go for the doctor, but let’s cover him over first. Fetch that tarpaulin that’s covering the sand; that’ll do – anything that will keep him dry.’

  The rain was falling in torrents, they were soaked through, their hair plastered to their heads, but together they dragged the heavy canvas over George’s father, draping it over the top of the cart to keep the weight off his body.

  ‘I’ll ride as fast as I can.’ Richard re-mounted. ‘Let’s just hope that the doctor is in and not out on some other errand of mercy.’

  As he rode off, George crept under the tarpaulin with his father and held his limp hand. ‘Please don’t die, Da,’ he kept repeating. ‘What’ll I tell our Tom? He’ll wish he’d never gone to ’wedding. How shall we tell Mark when we don’t know where he is? It’s my fault. I should have gone up to ’top instead of thee.’ He shivered and started to weep again. If he had insisted on taking his father’s place, he might have been the one lying broken in the cart instead of his father, his life shattered and at an end before it had even started.

  Richard returned with the doctor within fifteen minutes, having caught him returning from another call and just descending from his carriage; he immediately climbed in again, turned around and arrived at the mill just as Thomas made a small sound.

  ‘He’s alive, Doctor!’ George cried. ‘There’s some hope, isn’t there?’

  Doctor Wilkins bent towards Thomas’s crooked legs. ‘Hope, George?’ He knew all the miller’s sons and daughter, having delivered each one of them into the world. ‘What hope is there for a miller with a broken body?’

  He straightened up. ‘Cease your weeping, lad, and let’s bring your father inside. There’ll be more tears shed before long. I can do nothing for him.’

  22

  Betsy had said she wanted to spend an hour shopping before they returned home and Sammi had agreed, although Tom insisted that they should spend no more time than that, as he was anxious to get back to the mill; but when they awoke the morning after the wedding, Betsy had changed her mind, she complained that she still felt nauseous.

  She put her hand to her midriff and winced. ‘I’m not used to such rich pastries and tarts, and I’m sure the butter must have been rancid.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you eating any of it though, did it,’ Tom rema
rked. ‘I saw you stuffing yourself with bon bons and petit fours or whatever they were called.’

  Betsy groaned. ‘Oh, what a feast, and how I’m paying for it. Is no-one else suffering?’

  Sammi and Tom both shook their heads and tucked into a breakfast of omelette and ham, whilst Betsy sipped a cup of lemon tea.

  Austin Billington had spared no expense at the wedding breakfast, and had employed French pastry chefs to make exotic breads and sweet cakes, and pies filled with partridge, chicken and veal, while the English chefs had cooked roast beef and dumplings, cold ham and tongue for those with a plainer taste in food. Lobster, poached turbot, quails’ eggs and salmon tempted those with a delicate constitution, and an array of rich desserts and a succulent pyramid of peaches, apricots and grapes scattered with glistening spun sugar completed the meal, and they had all eaten to capacity.

  After breakfast, they set off on the journey home, but the coachie was ordered to stop several times as Betsy felt sick and had to get out to take deep breaths of air. Sammi stepped out, too, and looked across the meadows and corn fields, and cherished the sight of the poppies which swayed in a scarlet profusion in the breeze. In the deep ditches of Holderness the tall feathery flowers of meadowsweet raised their creamy heads, and beneath their feet, the fragrance of pineapple rose up from the greeny yellow flowers of crushed mayweed.

  ‘The corn is looking good, Tom. You’ll be kept busy.’

  ‘If we ever get home, I expect we shall be.’ Tom was impatient. ‘Whatever is Betsy doing?’

  ‘She’s coming.’ Sammi took her seat beside him. ‘I think her sickness is going.’

  ‘I trust we shall be busy,’ he responded to her previous comment. ‘The crops will soon be ready, but the farmers are complaining that they’re not getting the price they need to make a living. Wheat is coming in from America and Canada which is cheaper than ours, and they say it makes better bread.’ He glanced across at her. ‘The small farmers will lose their land if they can’t sell their crops and pay their rent; it’ll be left to go fallow, for not all landowners are like your father and farm it themselves, and whatever happens,’ he added with a sudden grin to this gloomy tale, ‘the miller will get the blame for the high price of bread. He always does!’

  Betsy, her face pale, climbed back into the carriage, and Sammi pondered morosely on what Tom had said. Her father had spoken of the hard times that some of the farmers who rented land from him were having, and though he understood their needs, being a working landowner himself, there wasn’t much more he could do to help them.

  Sammi had seen for herself some of the farms where the farmer struggled to make a living and keep his family well fed. And she had seen, too, the cottages of labourers who worked on neighbouring farms, where the wind whistled through the door and the rain poured through the roof, and the pinched faces of the children looked out through the cracked windows and ate only bread and potatoes.

  Her father was also having difficulties because of the land loss every year, and although he had perceptively bought farms inland when they came on the market, he became more worried every winter as another piece of Monkston land slid into the sea.

  ‘They’ve had some rain out here.’ Tom looked out of the window as they continued their journey. ‘The road’s flooded, and just look at the corn! It’s been flattened. There’s been a storm all right.’ He opened the window and leaned out as they approached Tillington. Another minute and they would turn the bend in the road and see the church steeple on the rise, and to the left of that the mill.

  ‘’Fantail’s gone!’ He gave a sharp exclamation. ‘The sheers are swinging. Why haven’t they been up to secure them? Something’s wrong!’ He turned towards his sister and Sammi. ‘Something’s wrong!’

  ‘Don’t be such a pessimist, Tom.’ Betsy was indifferent and languid, and kept her hand on her midriff. ‘Da’s probably waiting for you to go up and fix it.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘You know Da’s not like that. It would be his first job as soon as the rain stopped, or even before it did!’ He jumped out at the gate and opened it for the driver to pull in.

  ‘Off you go, Tom.’ Sammi realized that he was waiting to hand them down. ‘Betsy and I can manage without—’ She stopped as the house door opened, and it was only then that they all realized how quiet it was. There were no builders working on the house, the sand in the yard was still piled as high as it had been when they left, and George’s face as he stood in the doorway was pale and working with anguish.

  ‘It’s Da,’ he whispered, his eyes shadowed and enormous. ‘He tummelled off ’cap. ’Doctor says there’s nowt – nothing can be done. He’s concussed. His right leg is shattered and so is his left ankle.’ He moved away from the entrance as Tom strode past him into the house, and his eyes filled with tears of remorse as his sister and Sammi hesitatingly approached.

  Thomas lay on a makeshift bed in the parlour where they had taken him, his face almost as white as his beard. His eyes were closed, but his features contorted and his body flinched as if in pain.

  Tom knelt beside him and with his elbows resting on the bed put his head into his hands. ‘I should have been here,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘I shouldn’t have been gallivanting off enjoying myself.’

  Betsy made no sound; she stared at her father and sank into a chair and began to weep. Sammi moved towards Tom and put her hand on his shoulder. There was nothing she could say or do to comfort him, she knew, but still she whispered, ‘Don’t blame yourself, Tom. Uncle Thomas wanted you to go to the wedding. And had you been here, it might still have happened.’ A small tremor ran through her at the thought that it might have been Tom lying there instead of his father. Milling was by its very nature a dangerous business, full of potential hazards and imminent perils, from toppling down the narrow ladders to losing fingers in the sail blades, or falling from the cap as her uncle had done. She squeezed Tom’s shoulder and he put his hand over hers and patted it.

  ‘I know. Thank you, Sammi. I’m glad that you’re here.’

  But I’m supposed to be going home, she thought, as she went up the dusty stairs to take off her outdoor clothes. Perhaps I had better stay a few days longer.

  The doctor came again and gave Thomas a dose of opium and told them, ‘He appears to be coming out of concussion. I’ll splint his leg and we’ll keep him as free of pain as we can. Just make him as comfortable as possible. That’s all we can do.’

  Ellen and William came as soon as they heard the news from Richard, and sat by Thomas’s bedside. William was shocked and anxious. ‘Two of our men to be struck down so suddenly.’ He shook his head despondently. He was as close to and as fond of his cousin Thomas as he was of his brother Isaac. ‘I feel so helpless – it’s as if the family is being wiped out.’

  ‘Nonsense, William,’ Ellen remonstrated with him. ‘How can that be when we have all these fine young people about us?’

  Sammi came and put her arms around him to comfort him. ‘We’ll never be wiped out, Pa. The Fosters and the Rayners will go on for ever. Tell him, Tom – we will, won’t we?’

  Her father sighed but smiled at her earnestness. ‘Yes, of course we will, Sammi. How could I think otherwise with all of these kindred?’

  Tom looked up at the question and gazed at her. He didn’t answer, but a deep hurt filled his eyes. He excused himself and abruptly left the room.

  ‘Please stay, Sammi,’ Betsy had pleaded with her. ‘I can’t manage on my own. I don’t know how to cope with sickness – and if Da should die I wouldn’t know what to do. Please, please stay.’

  Sammi agreed that she would stay a little longer. Betsy was in a deep shock, her face was pallid, she couldn’t stop trembling, and she could hardly bear to go near her father’s bedside. The doctor came in every day to administer the medication, and arranged for a woman to come in and change Thomas’s bedding and take it away for washing, whilst Sammi, at frequent intervals, bathed her uncle’s face with cool water when he sweated w
ith pain. Sometimes he became lucid and tried to speak to them. He asked for Tom and gave him instructions on who he should send for to help them with the milling while he was incapacitated; he had forgotten the details of his accident and thought that he was laid up with some sickness.

  At other times he was delirious and called out for his father and mother as if he were a child again; or he would shout for his wife to bring him a jar of ale into the mill.

  Betsy became increasingly more depressed and each day pressed Sammi for assurance that she wouldn’t go home.

  ‘But you must tend your father, Betsy,’ Sammi admonished her. ‘He needs you more than me.’ She felt so tired, her uncle’s demands were beginning to exhaust her, yet she felt compelled to sit by his bedside and watch over him when Tom and George were working so hard and so long, and Betsy spent more and more time lying on her bed weeping and saying that she felt ill.

  The fantail had been replaced on the cap, and the farmers were starting to harvest the barley which spread across the land like a layer of golden sand; the wheat was on the turn from its verdant hue to pale gold, and Tom said if they didn’t do the milling, then the farmers would take it elsewhere.

  ‘There are plenty of other millers willing to do it,’ he said, wiping his forehead with a cloth and accepting a jug of lemonade which Sammi had brought in for them, and replying to her scolding that they were working too hard. ‘But we could do with some help.’

  ‘Could you not get a young lad to help with the sacks?’ she asked.

  ‘He’d have to be strong.’ George took a gulping draught from the jug. ‘Those sacks are not exactly full o’ feathers. We couldn’t tek on any recklin’.’

  ‘Would you take on Luke Reedbarrow, Tom? I saw him in the lane the other day and he asked how your father was. He said if there was anything he could do—’