Three of these girls, watching her, were whispering and laughing together, and suddenly one of them, nudged by the others, spoke out in a loud voice.
‘Some folk should go back where they belong and have their babies where they were got. Porthgaran, wadn it, or some place like that?’
Maggie stood still and looked at them and with one accord they turned their backs. But another girl, standing nearby, met her gaze and spoke to her.
‘You needn’t pay heed to Biddy Grose. Her chap’ve gone off with Nolly Geach and chance’ll be a fine thing if she ever find herself another.’
The girl, who was short and stoutly built, stood with her bare arms folded, picking at the skin on her elbows. She had a broad freckled face and hair as thick and red as a fox’s and she wore a man’s cloth cap. One of her front teeth was missing and she kept sucking the gap with her tongue.
‘You’re Maggie Care, aren’t you? You were dairymaid up at Boskillyer and Mrs Tallack turned you out. I saw you down here yesterday and the day before, I believe.’
‘Yes, I’m hoping to get work.’
‘Have you worked in the cellars before?’
‘Yes, in Porthgaran,’ Maggie said, ‘but only two or three times, that’s all.’
‘Mr Hall will take you on. I’ll tell him you’re a friend of mine.’ The girl took hold of Maggie’s arm. ‘My name is Martha Cledra but everyone d’call me Bussa,’ she said.
The dipper-boats had begun to come back and already the first gurries, wooden handbarrows filled with fish, were being carried up to the cellars. There was a lot of laughter and noise. Children ran about everywhere, trying to flip fish from the gurries, and the carriers bawled abuse at them. Up on the cliff there was more excitement. Another shoal had come into the bay. The huer was shouting through his trumpet.
‘Seems they’re coming in fitty now. That one’s on the Regina stem.’ The girl turned again to Maggie. ‘Got a place to live, have you, since being turned out at the farm?’
‘No, I’ve been sleeping up at the bal.’
‘Aw, my dear life, that’ll never do! Not in your condition it won’t. You’d better come home with me tonight. There are nine of us but we’ll squeeze you in somehow.’
‘What about your mother? Won’t she mind?’
‘My sister Kate’s in the same boat as you so none of us’ll cast any stones.’ Martha suddenly squeezed Maggie’s arm. ‘There’s old Mark Hall now,’ she said. ‘Come with me and I’ll get you signed on.’
Gus Tallack sat alone in his cottage looking out at the heavy rain which had kept him indoors for almost a week. The cottage kitchen was very dark for the windows, on the outside, were so thickly encrusted with salt that even today’s downpour did nothing to wash it away. In his lap, as he sat by the window, he held his big brown bible, open at Ecclesiastes. He had been reading for some time and the words of one verse still ran in his mind, and now, as he stared at the white rain sluicing down the window-panes, he spoke them aloud to the empty room:
‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’
Gus was not a pious man. He rarely attended church service. But he had been a fisherman and he had a fisherman’s simple faith, and in the two and a half years since his illness had first struck him down, he had turned more and more to the Scriptures, hoping to find guidance there. Often in the evenings, especially in winter, the bible was his only companion. He would read some favourite passage aloud and argue it over with himself. It did not always bring comfort, however, and once he had been so enraged by the sheer inscrutability of the Word of God that he had flung the bible across the room. But Ecclesiastes contained good cheer. It was full of simple truths; there was charity in it and plain good sense.
‘For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works.’
Gus leant forward in his chair and laid the bible on the window-sill. He took his watch from his waistcoat pocket and compared it with the clock on the wall. It was nearly half past twelve and he gave a little fretful sigh, for his nephew should have been here by now. For some days Brice had kept away; he had not even paid his Saturday visit and his share of the previous week’s takings still awaited collection; but this morning Gus had sent a message asking Brice to call at the cottage on his way home from the quay.
At a quarter to one Brice came, shedding his oilskin and sou’wester and hanging them up in the porch. He was still wearing his sea-boots and as he came into the kitchen he left a wet trail across the flags.
‘Isaac said you wanted to see me.’
‘I’ve been waiting to see you for twelve days! What happened to you last Saturday?’
‘I went to St Glozey for the sports.’
‘Surely you can’t have stayed there all day?’ Gus looked up at him irritably. ‘Aren’t you going to sit down?’
‘Well,’ Brice said. He glanced at the clock. ‘I wasn’t really intending to stay. I’m already late as it is.’
But he pulled a chair close to the window and sat down opposite Gus. He was not in the best of moods this morning, for the night’s work had been arduous, due to the rain and the squally winds. Neither he nor his crew had got any rest and by morning tempers had become badly strained and then, when the catch had been sold and unloaded, he had quarrelled with Ralph Ellis over cleaning out the fish-hold. Brice was particular about this: not a single fish-scale must be left to taint the next night’s catch; but Ralph had no time for such womanish ways and it was not the first time that he had refused to do his share. ‘I’m going home to sleep!’ he had said, and because the other four men had been inclined to take his part, Brice had sent them all home and had cleaned out the fish-hold himself.
Now, tired and out of sorts, he had to face his uncle Gus, and he could quite easily guess why the old man had sent for him.
‘So that girl of yours is expecting a child and your mother has turned her out of the house!’ Gus’s upper lip curled in contempt, showing his strong, white, irregular teeth. ‘How exactly like Rachel, by God, to make no allowance for nature!’ he said. ‘And she a woman who goes to church, calling herself a Christian.’
‘You can’t expect me,’ Brice said, ‘to join you in abusing my mother.’
‘I don’t see why not if tes what she deserves!’
‘I hear Maggie’s got work in Hall’s cellar so no harm has come to her.’
‘Have you also heard where she’s living?’
‘Yes, with the Cledras in White Hope Lane.’
‘And you say no harm has come to her! From what I know about that girl, the Cledras’ is no place for her, and you know it as well as I do myself. Nick Cledra’s a drunkard and a thief and his slut of a wife is almost as bad.’
‘Nobody made her go to them. She should have done as my mother said and gone back to Porthgaran where she belongs.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say about her? A girl you had working on your farm? A girl you as good as told me you loved ‒’
‘No! I never told you that!’
‘What did you tell me, then?’
‘Whatever it was ‒’ Brice began.
‘Yes? Well? Spit it out!’
‘Whatever it was, I made a mistake,’ Brice said, coldly. ‘I feel sorry for her, of course, as I would for any unfortunate, but ‒ she is nothing to me in that way.’
‘Not any more, I can see that! You’re just about chokeful with it all. Now that you know the girl had a lover and is going to bear his child it’s turned you against her properly and you can’t even bear to think of her. You’d like to be able to clap your hands and hey presto! ‒ She doesn’t exist!’
There was so much
truth in this that Brice, for a while, could find nothing to say and sat in silence, feeling ashamed. But he was tired, both in body and mind, and his uncle’s contemptuous attack had roused some stubborn resentment in him so that, for the moment at least, whatever pity he felt for Maggie was deadened by the pity he felt for himself.
‘And what,’ he asked, eventually, ‘would you expect me to do for her?’
‘Go and find her, of course, and take her back home with you.’
‘That is out of the question. Whatever you may say about my mother, she is mistress in her own house, and I am bound to consider her.’
‘You told me not so long ago that your mother didn’t rule your life.’
‘No, she doesn’t, but then neither does Maggie Care.’
‘If you had an ounce of spunk in you, you’d marry the girl, baby or no. Your mother would have to accept her then. She would just have to make the best of things.’
‘You are joking, of course.’
‘Am I? Yes, perhaps I am. You’re too much of a stick, my boy, to do what’s plainly the bestmost thing. Too much tied up in your dignity. Too much afraid of what folk will say!’
‘I certainly don’t want a second-hand wife, if that’s what you mean by my dignity.’
‘You loved her once. You could love her again. And she could come to love you in time, if only you were to give her the chance.’
Brice felt he had had enough. He rose and pushed back his chair.
‘Maggie has already loved one man ‒’
‘And that man is dead, so I’ve been told.’
‘Yes, he was one of her father’s crew, and they were all drowned together.’
‘Father, brother, lover!’ Gus said. ‘All lost to her in a single night.’ He looked up at Brice with dark-gleaming eyes. ‘And the only thing you can think about is that you have suffered some hurt to your pride!’
‘I would help her if I could but marriage is out of the question,’ Brice said. ‘And now, if that’s all you wanted with me, I’d just as soon be getting home.’
‘Oh, get home by all means, back to your mother!’ Gus exclaimed. And then, over his shoulder, he said: ‘Don’t forget to pick up your share. You’ll find it on the mantel-shelf.’
Brice collected the heap of coins and went to put on his oilskins. As he let himself out he called, ‘I’ll see you again on Saturday,’ but his uncle did not answer him.
Gus, left alone in the cottage kitchen, had taken up the bible again and it lay in his lap, between his hands. But he was not reading it; he was staring into space; and between his bushy, grizzled brows there was a frown of intense concentration, for something was working in his mind. His bearded lips were pressed close together and his breath came heavily through his nose.
He was used to sitting long hours in his chair but whereas, most days, he shifted about restlessly, easing his body this way and that, now he sat perfectly still, so deeply absorbed in his thoughts that the old ornamental clock on the wall chimed away the quartered hours without once drawing his fretful glance.
When at last he bestirred himself, it was with a sudden alertness and quickness, humping himself round in his chair and gazing, sharp-eyed, about the room as though to catch it unawares in all its squalor and shabbiness. His upper lip curled in disgust. A little growl moved in his throat. And his hands, taking hold of the heavy bible, slammed it shut and held it aloft.
‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,’ he declaimed, ‘for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’
He laid the bible down again and wheeled himself towards the door. At the onset of his illness, he had had a double wooden ramp laid down at the threshold, so that he could wheel his chair up and over the doorstep; and outside the porch door he had had an old ship’s bell hung up so that he could summon help when needed. He now wheeled himself outside and rang the bell and its clangour echoed round the yard, and when he looked up at the sail-loft windows, he could see two startled faces looking palely down at him. Rain was still falling heavily, so he wheeled himself back indoors and sat waiting impatiently, and after a while Isaac Kiddy came in, half in eager anticipation that perhaps some calamity had occurred, half in reluctance in case it had not.
‘I want you to go to Mark Hall’s cellar and find that girl, Maggie Care. Tell her, when she’s finished her shift, I want her to come and see me here.’
Isaac stared.
‘What do ee want with the likes of she?’
‘Never mind what I want her for. Just go and give her the message.’
‘This is the second time today I’ve had to go out on messages,’ Isaac said, grumbling. ‘First I had to go down to the quay and take a message to Brice and now I’ve got to go to the cellars and find this maid, Maggie Care, though whether tes right to call her a maid ‒’
‘Are you going, then?’ Gus roared.
‘Ess, surely, I’m just on my way. I’ve only got to finish the bit crowst I was eating when you rang that bell and then I’ll be off with this message of yours, though just what tes you’ve got in mind, wanting to see a maid of that sort, is just about past my comprehension …’
The old sail-maker went at last and his errand took him almost an hour. He returned smelling strongly of drink, having broken his journey at The Brittany for a nip of something to keep out the wet.
‘I gave the maid your message, you, and she said she’d come at eight o’clock. She was besting to know what you wanted her for but of course I couldn’t tell her that ‒’
‘She’ll know soon enough when she gets here,’ Gus said. ‘You can get yourself back to your work.’
It was dark by the time Maggie arrived, for the rain, which was still falling steadily, had brought the day to an early close. Gus had already lit the lamp and it stood on the hob of the fireless stove and in its half circle of light he and the girl, sitting one at either side of the hearth, looked at each other appraisingly.
‘We’ve never met, you and me, but we know as much about each other as the folk in Polsinney have to tell, and that’s plenty to be going on with, I seem. Have you been told I’m a dying man? Yes, you’re sure to have heard that, having been at Boskillyer a month, and what you didn’t hear there you’ll have heard in the fish-cellars, no doubt.’
‘Well,’ Maggie said. She was at a loss.
‘You don’t have to worry about my feelings, cos what they say is only the truth, and the only difference between them and me is that I know when it’s going to happen, though not to a navvy-gravvy, of course. There are compensations in that it gives a man the chance to think and see about putting his house in order.’
Gus gave a sardonic laugh and his glance flickered round the room.
‘As you can see, it needs it,’ he said.
Maggie also glanced round the room. There was a patch of damp on one wall and the wallpaper was black with mould. Neglect was manifest everywhere and after the recent heavy rain a cold clamminess hung on the air so that, as she looked around, her skin came out in gooseflesh and a little shiver ran over her. Her shoes were full of water from the puddles she had walked through and her wet skirts clung coldly over her knees. She turned to look at Gus again and found him watching her intently. So far she had scarcely spoken. She had left it all to him. But now, in a quiet voice, she said:
‘Why have you sent for me, Mr Tallack? What do you want to say to me?’
‘I wanted to see for myself what sort of girl this Maggie Care was that I’ve been hearing so much about.’
‘And now that you’ve seen, are you satisfied? Am I what you were led to expect?’
‘I suppose, after the treatment you got from my sister-in-law, you’re a bit suspicious of us Tallacks, but I mean you no harm, I promise you.’
‘Mrs Tallack only did what many another would have done.’
‘She put you out in the road,’ Gus said. ‘Don’t you bear her a grudge for that?’
‘No, I don�
�t think so,’ Maggie said.
‘And what about my nephew Brice?’
‘I don’t quite understand what you mean.’
‘He fancied himself in love with you. Surely you must have realized that.’
‘I think he’ll have changed his mind by now.’
‘Maybe you could change it back.’
‘I wouldn’t want to,’ Maggie said. ‘There was only ever one man for me and he is dead. I shall never love anyone else.’
‘What was the young man’s name?’
‘Jim Kenna.’
‘He brought you a packet of trouble before he went and got himself drowned.’
‘No more than I brought on myself.’
‘Life, in this Christian country of ours, can be very hard for a young girl with an illegitimate child to bring up. At present you’re lodged with the Cledras, I hear, but that’s no suitable place for you, or for your child when it comes.’
‘No, I know,’ Maggie said. ‘The Cledras have been good to me but we sleep three in a bed and I certainly can’t stay there long.’
‘Well, I’ll come to the point,’ Gus said. ‘I’m not a rich man ‒ far from it ‒ but I have got a bit of property. This cottage is mine, such as it is, and so are the sail-loft and barking-house. The barking-house is not in use ‒ I sacked the man who worked it for me and I haven’t bothered to find another ‒ but the sail-loft brings in a bit of money, and of course there’s the boat but you know about that.’
‘Yes,’ Maggie said, ‘I know about that.’
But she could not follow the trend of his thoughts and waited, still puzzled, for him to go on.
‘Well, I’ve got a proposition in mind and I’ll put it to you fair and square, without beating about the bush.’ For a moment Gus sat looking at her and his dark brown eyes, in their crinkled lids, reflected the glow from the little lamp. ‘If you would consent to marry me, it would give you and your baby a home and some security for the future, cos when the time came for me to snuff out, my bit of property would come to you.’
Polsinney Harbour: A heartwarming family saga set in Victorian era Cornwall Page 7