Moon Rising (32 page)

Looking for a safe subject I asked about the family. She told me the lads were still fishing, although it was harder on their own and she didn't know how they'd manage in the winter. Or if they'd manage at all. Douglas, the eldest, was talking about shipping as crew aboard a collier or timber ship, or maybe even finding a berth on one of these new steamships out of the Tees. He just wanted to get away, and his brother with him.

She didn't blame them, and nor did I. Whatever they did, we both knew would be no harder than fishing, and could not be more brutal than life with Magnus Firth. The independence he'd clung to and held out like a carrot to the boys was barely more than a myth. Against the value of owning their own coble must be set the sheer precariousness of such a life, and the fact that alone, without their father, their chances of survival were even less.

At mention of Magnus there was a small silence, and then I found I couldn't avoid the subject any longer. Clearing my throat, I asked awkwardly: ‘About your dad, Bella – what really happened that night?'

She stiffened and looked away from me, out to sea, at all the sails, large and small, between us and the horizon. Then, with a shrug, she said, ‘Well, like I told them at the inquest, he was off to meet somebody at Saltwick – smuggling, I dare say, you know what he was like. There was a storm blew up – I think he got caught in it, and either missed his way and fell, or part of the cliff collapsed. If you think about it, really, it's the only thing that could have happened...'

It was all so plausible. ‘And did they search the cliffs?'

‘Aye, they did. But like I said to the constable, when he asked me did he have any enemies, I said my father had nowt else. And that's true, as you well know. They'd have better asked, did he have any friends...'

Silence stretched between us. Longing for her to confide in me, tell me the truth, I asked then whether the police had suspected anything remotely untoward. Whether in spite of the verdict they'd thought Magnus's death had been anything other than accidental.

She turned to me and moved her lips in what was more a grimace than a smile. ‘Nay, Damsy, I don't think so.'

For a moment – just for a fleeting moment – I almost said: ‘You were lucky then, weren't you?' But even as the words were forming on my lips I felt them stiffen into silence. She didn't want to tell me. And if she knew that I knew, was there not a possibility that she might see me as a threat? I told myself that it was an unworthy thought, but it was there, even so.

~~~

Bella brought gin for me next day, which was my afternoon off, and together we heated the water and prepared the bath. For at least two hours that evening I soaked and sweated and protested as Bella kept the heat up and the gin flowing. Red as a boiled lobster and as maudlin as Cousin Martha at her worst, I was finally allowed out, weak and dizzy, to stagger to my bed. The night passed in a drunken haze of spinning lamps and window frames, and I remember being horribly sick. Bella stayed the night and I was vaguely aware of her in the bed beside me, but that was all. Nothing happened, except I had a monstrous hangover next morning, and spent most of the day in the outside privy.

Only after I'd recovered from that foolishness did I start to think more clearly. If I really was carrying Bram's child – and that doom-laden thought was beginning to outweigh everything else – then it was time to start making plans. Bella's confident assertions about gin and herbal mixtures made me realise that other people's advice was not always a substitute for good sense, and for too long I had not been utilising mine.

As I discarded false hope, it seemed my choices were bleak. Abandoned, with a child to care for, it would be all too easy to fall back on the Firths, sliding into the habit of joining Bella in places like the Neptune and the Three Snakes as she touted for business. If that idea made me flinch, I turned abruptly from the thought of leaving any child of mine with the likes of Cousin Martha, to be dosed with gin every time the poor mite cried. That seemed infinitely worse. The best I could do would be to swallow my pride and throw myself on Bram's generosity, and trust that he would be willing to continue his support.

It was a gamble, but the alternatives were far riskier. There was no point in being hasty. As he'd said I could, I wrote to him at the Lyceum, not to mention my condition but to thank him for the cheque, which I assured him was now safely invested at the bank. He'd always said that he took his holidays in August, and I ventured to suggest that he might spare me a day or two to talk things over. It was important, I wrote, and I needed a quick reply – a simple yes, or no, would do.

He would be busy, I said to myself as July wore on, as I hurried home each day to look for his reply. I even took to asking Mrs Newbold, when we met, whether any letters for me had been delivered to the farm; but that was a dangerous exercise, as she was already looking on me with suspicion in her eyes. At the end of the month she started reminding me that the rent had barely four weeks left to run, and, when I said loftily that I would continue to pay if she would but advise me of the sum required, she snapped back that the agreement had been with the London gentleman, Mr Stoker. If he required the cottage for another month or more, then that would be acceptable, but the owners would not thank her, Mrs Newbold, for letting out their property to some chit of a girl who was no better than she should be.

Stung, I retorted: ‘We'll soon see about that!' while my face flamed with guilt and fury. I flounced off in the direction of the cottage to write another letter to Bram, this one tersely phrased, to the effect that I needed his agreement to keep the roof over my head. A week later, all discretion was abandoned, my phrases to the point. I was expecting his child, I said, and didn't know what to do; would he please contact me at once.

I thought a reply would come by return, but when nothing came by the end of the week, I was forced to reach the conclusion that he had no intention of contacting me.

I felt hollow. Well over a year had passed since I'd walked out on Old Uncle Thaddeus, and, instead of improving, my situation was infinitely worse than it had been then. I was carrying a child, my job was uncertain, and it seemed I was about to be turned out on the streets. Disgust overwhelmed me. I even suspected that Old Uncle was right and I was wrong. Had I been possessed of the right degree of humility, I could have gone to him and apologised; I might even have begged his help. But I was both too proud and too ashamed for that, and, more importantly, didn't trust him not to come up with some means of punishment specifically designed to break my will. Instead, feeling desperate, I went to see Bella, and Bella went to see Nan Mills.

That was the worst mistake I ever made. It was nearly the last, too, but by then fear and recklessness had mastered good sense. Before I met that appointment, however, I went to the bank on Low Lane to speak to Mr Richardson about investments. While I was there I mentioned to him my problem about the cottage, managing to imply that the owners' agent was having difficulty accepting a young woman as a responsible tenant, and my previous guarantor was no longer in a position to help. Although it was not my intention at the time to play the part of a weak, defenceless and misjudged woman, that aura must have been clinging about me. I could not help but notice the speed and concern with which Mr Richardson prepared to spring to my aid, and before our interview was over he had noted all details and was making arrangements to pay the next month's rent from my account.

‘But I shall have to find fresh accommodation before the end of September anyway,' I told him, ‘and a new job, I'm afraid. What I'm doing now is purely temporary.'

‘And what are you doing now, my dear?'

My shame-faced account of misfortune was no act. I explained that I'd been trained as a ladies' maid by the Misses Sterne at Fylingthorpe, which calling I'd followed until my grandmother's last illness called me back to Bay. Since then, I said, a combination of fortune and misfortune had led me to my present position at the hotel, which was as temporary assistant to the housekeeper. The claim was inflated and a risk of sorts, since he could have checked up; but I had the feeling he liked me too much for that. There was no need to fake emotion as I went on to tell him I thought it was time for me to leave Whitby and start afresh elsewhere.

But I had plans for the future, I said, and with regard to my £100 I wanted it investing at once, in something with a chance of good return. At that Mr Richardson raised his eyebrows and asked whether I understood the risks involved. His advice to me would be to start small, and build up to the point where I could afford to lose a little.

At that I cut him off, and with a tight smile said I wanted to invest all my money in shipping. I was prepared to spread the risk over two or three local owners who were always advertising shares in Baltic and North Sea cargoes, but I would like one of the ships to be the
Lillian.
Whether from sentiment or superstition – or simply as an antidote to my own sense of recklessness – I felt the need to held on to something, and Jonathan Markway, aboard his ‘good seaboat', was the safest image I had.

‘It's a gamble, I know, but less so at this time of year. And anyway,' I added coquettishly as I gathered my things and prepared to leave, ‘don't you think we come from a long line of gamblers in Bay? My father and grandfather gambled with their lives – and lost. This, after all, is only money...'

On that piece of heresy I left, emotions high and my heart beating so frantically I thought it would burst.

It was a fine, warm afternoon, and the bridge was busy with townsfolk and visitors, all having some reason for crossing from one side of the harbour to the other. Ladies with parasols jostled elbows with Scottish fisherlasses in headscarves and greasy aprons; smart young men in blazers dodged between elderly couples and invalids in bathchairs. Seamen and shipbuilders, coastguards and harbour officials, were all going about their business that afternoon quite unconscious of the reckless young woman in their midst, who had persuaded herself that the stakes were high enough to warrant risking all for a future free of shame and poverty.

With Jonathan on my mind, I was startled, walking through town, by the glimpse of a young man's reflection in a glass window. He looked so much like him, for a moment I was stopped in my tracks, torn between apprehension and a rush of foolish longings. But then he moved and, when I saw his face, the resemblance to Jonathan was slight, mainly a combination of youth and colouring, of curly dark hair and tanned skin. A look so prevalent amongst the Cornish fishermen.

Offshore, the luggers were idling at anchor in the heat of the afternoon. Watching them, I found myself wishing I could turn back the clock. Jonathan's occupation, which had seemed such a drawback to begin with, now seemed no problem at all. I could even see advantages in being married to such a man. With the feeling that I'd give anything to start afresh, I wondered where he was, whether he still thought of me, and, laceratingly, what he would think if he knew what I'd been up to, the state I was in as a result.

Reluctantly, I went back to the cottage. I knew I should eat, but there was no fire and it was too much trouble to light. Instead I cut a piece of cheese and buttered some bread, slaking my thirst with a glass of water. Why hadn't Bram replied to my letters? He'd written so much, surely he could spare me a few lines? Like the thud of a steam hammer the questions banged at me as I looked at his desk, his chair, his view from the window. But none of the answers made sense. Even if my letters to him had gone adrift, I felt if he loved me at all he would have written anyway, just to ask how I was faring without him.

But that was always the point where emotion took over from logic, when I had trouble controlling my grief. I swear, if I'd had any intimation that I still mattered to him, if the words uttered so sincerely just a few weeks ago meant anything, then I would not have gone ahead with what I was about to do. But with no word at all, I felt I had no choice. Life was hard enough alone, but with a young child, ostracised and unprotected, not even £100 would take me very far. At the end of it, I could see nothing more clearly than the workhouse, and I was too proud to contemplate that.

At sunset I picked up the few things I'd been asked to bring, together with a sum of money, and set off for the Cragg. Bella met me at the top of Cliff Lane – no more than a few paces from where Bram and I had first kissed last autumn – and we went along from there. It wasn't far, but as soon as we were out of sight of the road we stopped to drink from the bottle she'd brought. The neat gin tasted oily and made me want to vomit, probably from nerves as much as recent memory: it took an effort of will to keep it down. The second swig was easier, the third I barely noticed apart from a lingering shudder as we arrived at Nan's and knocked at the door.

The house, like so many on the Cragg, was tall and narrow, tucked into a corner between neighbouring roofs and walls; somehow managing to give an impression of solitude and secrecy amidst that rookery of homes and workshops and lodgings. As on my previous visit I was impressed by its cleanliness in an area that was generally poor and often less than cared-for. Even the outside walls were recently whitewashed, giving a cool blue tinge to the warm summer shadows and providing a foil to pots of herbs ranged along the window ledge. Inside, it reminded me of my grandmother's house at Bay, with scrubbed stone floors and white deal tables, an array of pewter plates and utensils on painted shelves in the kitchen. In such a place it was hard to imagine anything illegal going on.

Despite the warm evening, a small fire was burning and a kettle steamed gently on the hob. Nan Mills in her white cap and apron reminded me of the children's nurse at my first place of work, and I wondered if that was what she'd been, and why she was called ‘Nan'. But if she sought to give an impression of uniformed efficiency, better that than the smiling, slovenly, half-drunken carelessness of a Cousin Martha.