The Hungry Tide

by Valerie Wood

  ‘It’ll be like stepping back in time, going back to winter snow and ice,’ said Maria.

  John had slipped, unseen by his aunt, into the kitchen to say goodbye to Maria. ‘Yes, it is. It’s like another world out there, majestic, magnificent and terrifying.’

  ‘God go with thee, Mr John, and tha’ll be in our thoughts, and Will especially will be thinking of thee out on ’ice. He’ll miss it, more than he’ll ever say. We’re very lucky being here, and we’ve thee to thank for that, but Will will be restless, I know, for a week or two after ’ship has sailed.’

  ‘I was hoping to see him before I go,’ he said. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

  ‘Aye, I do, but first come and say goodbye to my babbies.’ She led him to a warm corner of the kitchen where the crib was hidden from any draughts.

  ‘Here’s thy cousin, Miss Lucy.’ Lucy stared at him from her pale blue eyes, her fine, fair hair almost covering the faint scar on her forehead. Her bottom lip trembled as he leaned smiling over her, and he pulled back in alarm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ laughed Maria, ‘she’s a bit careful who she smiles at. She smiles at ’master and she smiles at me who feeds her, and she loves Sarah and Lizzie, but for ’rest she only tolerates them.’

  ‘So, a real lady,’ he said, ‘and what of Sarah, will she give me a smile?’ He reached into the other end of the crib, and Sarah with an excited squeal grabbed hold of the short fair beard which he had been trying to grow for weeks as protection against the cold winds of the arctic. He picked her up and she made no objection save to hold on tighter to his whiskers. Removing her fingers from his hair, he held them to his lips and blew noisy raspberries through them. She chuckled in glee and patted his face with her other plump hand.

  ‘Oh, Sarah, will you be faithful until I return home, I wonder, or will you give your heart to someone else whilst I’m gone?’

  Maria smiled as she took her from him. ‘We’ll keep reminding her that she owes a lot to thee, Mr John.’

  ‘No, never do that, Maria,’ he protested. ‘I only want her to know that I was here at the beginning of her life, and that she’ll always be someone very important.’

  He left them then and used the back door to go and look for Will. As he rounded the stable block he almost bumped into Susan. He nodded politely and walked on, but she turned to him. ‘I hear as you’re going away – sir,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ He gave her no more information, and with a slight smile moved on.

  ‘Mr John?’ She held him back with her mild words and reluctantly he turned.

  ‘Are you going to be away for long?’ Her eyes held his.

  He shrugged his shoulders, confused by her presence and lost for words. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Would you like to say goodbye properly?’ Her smile would have melted an icecap. ‘I could slip away.’

  He was amazed at her boldness, though her voice and manners were modest and unassuming. Yet as he watched her, his colour mounting in embarrassment, he thought he caught a challenge in her eyes, defying him to refuse her offer and mocking his caution.

  ‘I think not. We were perhaps a little foolish.’ He was defensive, yet didn’t want to offend her. ‘You are very beautiful, Susan, and I – we – let our emotions carry us away in the heat of the moment. I would not want to upset your chances of a worthwhile relationship with someone else.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Someone who could perhaps offer you more than I can.’

  Her nostrils quivered and she smiled a twisted, derisive smile. ‘Tha’s talking of marriage? Somebody of my own class, tha means?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘For you must know that I can offer you nothing.’

  She turned away, contempt souring her lovely face. ‘We’ll see about that, sir.’

  He stood staring after her. There was a definite threat in her tone. She surely wouldn’t tell his uncle? If she did, it would mean instant dismissal for her and acute embarrassment for him. He could never look another woman in the face again if word got out, though his male friends would think it fine sport, not to have tumbled a serving maid, but having been found out.

  ‘What am I to do, Will?’ he asked when he eventually tracked him down in the wood where he was splitting logs. ‘I’ve upset a young woman. My own stupid fault, I just got carried away and I’m very much afraid that she feels I’ve let her down.’

  ‘Did tha promise her owt? Marriage or such?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Nothing like that, that would be quite out of the question.’ His brow creased into lines. ‘But I got the impression she thinks I owe her something.’

  ‘Mmm. Is this ’same young woman that tha’d fallen in love with ’last back end when tha was here?’ Will bent to pick up a log and hid a wry smile.

  ‘Yes, the same. But I know better now, she’s not what she seems.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I even have my doubts as to whether she was a virgin.’

  Will put on an expression of grave shock. ‘Tha never bedded a maiden, sir?’

  John had the grace to blush and stammeringly answered, ‘Well, she said she was.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Well, and of course tha would know.’ Will nodded thoughtfully. ‘Of course tha would. Well, now tha knows what happens when tha plays with fire – tha gets tha fingers burned.’

  ‘Yes, I realize now, but what am I to do?’ He paced up and down the patch of woodland in his agitation.

  ‘Well, what I would advise thee to do,’ said Will, sitting down on a tree stump and wearily stretching his aching leg, ‘I would recommend a sea voyage. Preferably somewhere far away, like Greenland, and stay there until she gets tired of waiting for thee.’

  ‘Do you think that she will forget about it? That it will have blown over by the time I get back?’ John’s face lightened with relief, then darkened again at Will’s reply.

  ‘’Course, she might be so besotted with thee, that tha’ll never be able to set foot on land again.’ Will saw no reason to let his young friend off lightly, and considered that a few weeks ruminating on the folly of his ways was the best remedy for the rashness of his indiscretion.

  John sat down on the log beside him and moodily stared down at the ground. ‘Why aren’t you wearing your new boots?’ he asked suddenly.

  Will was silent for a moment. ‘It’s a sort of protest,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t expect tha would.’ He got up from the log and walked up and down, swinging his leg exaggeratedly. ‘Out here, on my own, I can be myself – Will Foster, ’man with one and a half legs. I don’t have to pretend, like I do with my boots on, that nowt has happened and I’m just ’same as I ever was.’

  John rubbed his fingers through his beard. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? It’s because I’m sailing on the Polar Star and you’re not?’

  Will turned his back and looked out towards the sea, unseen because of the dip of the land but its presence known by the persistent, rhythmic thrashing of the waves across the sands.

  ‘Aye, that’s it, I suppose. It’s just a year since my last voyage.’ He turned to face him, his face bitter. ‘I know I’m lucky. This is a job that hundreds would give their other leg for. But it doesn’t help me when I know that men are going off to do a man’s work, and I’m here – a servant at ’Big House – out of sight and hearing, unable to hold my head up as a man should.’

  ‘I had no idea that you felt this way, Will. I thought you’d settled here.’

  ‘Oh, aye. I’ve settled all right, even Maria’s settled when she thought she wouldn’t.’ He put his hand on John’s shoulder. ‘It’s difficult to explain. It’s not that I don’t like it here, I do. I like to be here by ’sea. ’Air’s good and we’ve got a grand house. It’s just that I’ve never been behodden to anybody before, apart from ship’s master, and I was always treated as a man by him, as part of a team.’ His face soured. ‘Not hidden away like something too ugly for ladies to look at.’

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nbsp; He stopped as he saw the expression of pain on John’s face. ‘I’m sorry, Mr John. I don’t mean to chide. I’ve just got an attack of gripes. I’ll be all right when ’ship has sailed.’

  ‘Mr John?’ John frowned. ‘You’ve never called me that before.’

  ‘No, sir. But thou art ’master’s nephew and it’s time I learned my place.’ He put out his hand to shake John’s. ‘Now be on thy way, young mariner, and God speed thee home again.’

  John turned and looked towards the wood as he reached the crest of the undulating meadow, but Will had turned his back. He was holding an axe, his arms high, and, as John watched, he brought it down on to the timber with a resounding crash.

  The whaling ships plying the northern seas sent messages home with the crews of other ships who were sailing back into port, and Isaac reported that he had heard from the Polar Star. ‘They’ve reached the Orkneys. The sea is calm and they should be sailing in a few days as soon as they’ve finished taking on supplies and extra crew.’

  Isobel dismissed Susan from the room as Isaac came in with the news. He looked tired: he had spent most of the last two weeks in Hull since John had sailed, and was discovering just how indispensable his nephew was.

  ‘I miss that boy, but he has to go.’ Wearily he sank into a chair and reached for the brandy decanter on the table beside him. ‘It’s so important that he learns every aspect of the business if he’s to take over from me eventually.’

  Susan moved silently away from outside the door where she had stayed listening and smiled archly to herself. She slipped into the kitchen and gaily greeted Will, who was bringing in baskets of logs for the fires.

  ‘How do, Will.’ She glanced around the kitchen. Mrs Scryven’s back was turned and Maria and Janey were out of the room. She reached up and gently tugged his beard, drawing herself up close so that her lips were close to his, and said softly, ‘Is tha well, this fine day?’

  He removed her hand from his beard and playfully smacked her rump as he would a child. But it was no child who boldly caught his hand and held it for a moment as she waited for his reply.

  ‘I’m well enough,’ he said, withdrawing his hand. She smiled, amusement showing in her eyes, and raising her eyebrows moved away as Mrs Scryven turned around.

  He scratched his head thoughtfully as Mrs Scryven gazed stonily at him and at Susan’s retreating back as she went out of the door.

  ‘She’s trouble, that lass. Just mark what I say, Will. She’s out to cause trouble.’ She pointed a wet, urgent finger.

  Will shrugged. ‘Not for me, Ma, I won’t be tempted. But I can see she might lead some poor fellow a dance.’ He smiled a wide, disarming smile. ‘Somebody not used to ’wiles and tricks of women like I am.’

  ‘Hmph, there’s no man yet who can best a woman if she’s set her mind to it.’ She came up close to him, the top of her head reaching only halfway up his chest so that he had to bend his head down to hear her whispered words. ‘If tha has a friend who needs a word of warning, then give it, before it’s too late.’

  Maria came into the kitchen with a basket of clean linen on her hip and stood watching them with an amused expression. ‘And thee my best friend, Ma Scryven, I would never have thought it of thee.’

  ‘Aye, well, we’re never too old, or too young,’ she answered darkly. ‘So don’t say tha wasn’t warned.’

  Will remembered her words a few days later when Martin Reedbarrow sought him out. ‘I hope tha doesn’t mind, Will. But seeing as we’re of an age, I thought I’d ask thee first, for I don’t want to mek a fool of missen.’

  ‘Ask me what?’ Will looked up at the broad-shouldered countryman who topped him by a couple of inches, but who wouldn’t look him in the eye and kept his gaze firmly on his boots as they walked along the cliff top.

  ‘I’m thinking on getting wed,’ he said, a slow blush crimsoning his face.

  ‘There’s nowt wrong with that as far as I can see, Martin. Tha’s a free man.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Martin. ‘That’s not a worry. My poor lass has been buried this last twelvemonth, and it’s hard, I can tell thee, trying to bring up a family without a woman. Youngest babby’s gone to Tillington to be nursed, and our Nellie does well to look after other childre’, ’though she’s only a bairn herself.’

  ‘Well, tha’d best be getting wed then, if tha can find somebody willing to take thee and thy brood on board.’

  ‘That’s just it. Lass I’m tekken with is only ’same age as our Janey and I don’t know if it’s right.’

  ‘If tha’s both willing, then it’s right enough. But I can’t see a young maid tying herself down with a readymade family ’size of yours.’

  Martin shuffled his feet. ‘Well, she’s almost said as she will. ’Says as I’m ’sort of man she cares for.’ He shook his big head from side to side. ‘I’ll tell thee, Will, I can’t believe as how somebody like her would look at ’likes of me. I’m fair bowled over. I’m on fire wi’ thought of it.’

  Will’s brows furrowed anxiously. ‘Well, that’s as may be, but it doesn’t mean she’d make thee a good wife and mother for thy bairns. Fancying looks of some lass isn’t same as sharing thy life with her.’

  Martin looked defiantly at him. ‘Well, she’s shared my bed already, said she trusted me to look after her and make it right.’ A look of pure beatification lit up his open, honest face, then, as he saw Will watching him, he looked away in confusion. ‘Anyway, I’ve made my mind up. I shall ask her next time I see her.’

  They stopped as they came to the boundary of Garston land and Martin cut through a gap in the hedge. ‘I shan’t care what folk say. If it’s what we want, it’s nowt to do wi’ anybody else.’

  ‘Nobody’s saying it’s not right, Martin. Just be sure, that’s all, don’t let her string thee along.’ Will smiled to lighten the mood. ‘I’m not saying tha’s a fine catch, but tha’s got a good piece of land and tha needs some strong lass to help thee with it, not some flibbertigibbet who doesn’t know how.’

  Martin’s face flushed with anger. ‘Susan’s no flibbertigibbet. She’s a good worker. She ran her father’s inn practically singlehanded before she came here. He was nowt but a tyrant, that’s why she left.’

  Will rubbed his beard in bemusement: the situation was beyond him. He could see that if he said anything more, Martin’s temper would explode, and he was obviously so blinded by the girl’s charms that his judgement was impaired.

  He looked out at the grey sea, barely a ripple disturbing its flat surface, unable to look Martin in the eye. ‘I didn’t realize it was Susan that tha was talking about. Well, if tha’s made up thy mind, I’ll wish thee well. She’s a fine looking lass.’

  Martin frowned at him from over the top of the newly budding hedge. ‘Aye, I meant Susan. Who else is there round here? And I’ll thank thee to treat her wi’ respect. I’ve told thee all of this in confidence, remember?’

  Will swallowed hard. He had no wish to fall out with Martin. He raised a hand as he turned to walk back. ‘I’ll remember, Martin, I wish thee luck with thy plans.’

  Susan waited another two weeks before confronting Mrs Masterson. She drew a faint smudge of soot beneath her eyes to darken them, and on her rosy cheeks she brushed some flour.

  ‘I am visiting the Smallwoods for dinner, Susan. Tell Walters to have the carriage at the door in an hour, and I think I shall wear my grey—’ She stopped as Susan leant on a chair and put a hand to her head. ‘What is the matter with you? If you are feeling ill, leave the room at once and send Mrs Foster to attend to me.’

  ‘No, no, ma-am, I’m not ill. Leastways – not exactly.’ She clasped her hands together imploringly and took a deep, sighing breath. ‘Oh, ma-am, I don’t know how to tell you.’ She hung her head and gave a shuddering moan. ‘But I must.’

  Isobel surveyed her in horror. She was going to tell her something perfectly appalling, she could tell. She sat down and reached for her smelling salts. ‘Do I really need to know?’ she said f
aintly, ‘If you’ve been falling out with the other servants, then you must settle it between you.’

  ‘No, ma-am, it’s not as simple as that. Oh, how I wish that it was.’ A tear slipped down Susan’s cheek and she carefully wiped it away with a piece of clean white linen.

  Isobel leant back in her chair, closed her eyes and waited. She might have known that things were going too smoothly. The household was running well, her social life improving now that she was getting to know people. There was bound to be something to spoil it.

  ‘Well, come along then, if I have to know, then you’d better tell me.’

  ‘You’re not going to like it, ma-am, and I would hate for you to turn against me.’ The girl gave a little sob and turned a tear-stained innocent face to her mistress.

  Isobel sighed and silently waited.

  ‘’Fact is, ma-am, I’m in trouble. In ’family way.’ She put her hands to her face and her shoulders shook with silent, shuddering sobs.

  Isobel rose to her feet, a look of disgust on her face. ‘You wicked, wicked girl. How dare you – and in my employ.’ She turned away so that she didn’t have to look at her. ‘You will have to leave immediately. I can’t possibly keep you here now.’

  ‘Yes, ma-am, I realize how wicked it was – but, but, it wasn’t all my fault, ma-am.’

  Isobel turned towards her and regarded her contemptuously. ‘Don’t pretend to me, young woman,’ she said icily. ‘No woman should put herself in a situation where a man can take advantage of her.’

  ‘But I trusted him, ma-am. On account of who he was. I never thought that he would force me.’ She broke into loud sobbing.

  ‘For goodness sake control yourself, Susan.’ She glared at the girl. ‘Are you telling me that someone forced his attentions on you?’