A Safe Harbour (13 page)
Authors: Benita Brown
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction
Jane slipped the letter back into its envelope and put it in the shallow drawer set in her bedside table. She knew she would not be able to get back to sleep now. She had too much to think about. So Kate knew her secret, did she? Well, how much of a secret was it? She and William were not promised to each other. She doubted if they could even be considered a courting couple. To be that, both parties would have to be of the same mind, wouldn’t they?
She had adored William ever since she was a small child. He had been kinder than the other boys of his age and handsome in spite of his red hair. In fact, just like Kate’s, the hair was actually an advantage: a wonderful, rich red that went well with his greeny-blue eyes. She had been ecstatic when he had at last seemed to take notice of his younger sister’s friend, offering to walk her home if she and Kate had talked too long and night was falling; not just being polite but talking properly to her and asking her questions about her work in the big house in Jesmond.
And how difficult it had been for her. For the more she learned of another way of life, the more she knew she could never become the wife of a fisherman. Had she really dreamed, when she’d been a small girl, of marrying William and living in one of the cottages on the cliff top? Perhaps she had thought that her life as William’s wife would be no more onerous than her mother’s life as the wife of the village shoemaker and cobbler. But she had been wrong.
Kate’s letter had demonstrated vividly how hard the life of a fisherman’s wife could be, even if she didn’t have to sell fish from door to door. And the cottage. Even if she kept it spotlessly clean there would always be that smell of fish and wet sea boots. It would get in her clothes and in her hair; she would never be free of it. And as for her hands . . .
Jane got out of bed and pulled on her robe. First of all she removed the cinder guard and built up the fire a little, then she placed the small kettle on the hob. She would make herself a cup of tea. While she waited for the kettle to boil she prepared the tray and pulled the velvet-covered armchair nearer to the fire. It was only a small chair, she acknowledged, but it was well upholstered, stylish and extremely comfortable. Even her mother didn’t have a chair as fine as this, and in the cottage where William lived there were only wooden chairs and nowhere to sit in peace and take your ease.
No, she could never live that way. Not after what she had become used to. And she didn’t intend to go on living as a servant either. There was something she hadn’t told William when he came up to town and they went walking together. She had a plan. As she sipped her tea she wondered bleakly whether William would agree to it. She knew that he loved her, for he had told her so. But she doubted very much whether he would agree to what she had in mind. And where would that leave them?
Jane held the porcelain teacup with both hands, her delicate fingers spread across the pattern of rosebuds. Outside the wind gusted and a pattering of raindrops fell down the chimney, making the coals splutter and hiss. She closed her eyes. What on earth was she going to do? She sensed the time was coming when she would have to choose between the life she had planned for herself and the man she loved with all her heart.
Chapter Six
Kate pushed the shop door open and the bell above it danced and jingled on its spring. Mrs Willis hurried from the back room, blinking as a shaft of sunlight fell through the opening. By the time Kate had shut the door behind her, the village shopkeeper had taken up her usual pose, hands resting on the counter.
The shop in Front Street was on the ground floor of what had once been a large house. Large, that is, if compared with the fishermen’s cottages. A wooden extension had been tacked to the front of the building so that it jutted out into the street, creating a sizeable front and back shop.
Charlie and Alice Willis lived here alone and worked together although, these days, Charlie was seldom seen. Every now and then he could be heard coughing and spluttering and Alice would hurry through to tend to him. Charlie had been a miner and, although he had left the pit when he was still relatively young, he had not escaped unscathed. Everyone knew his lung condition had been brought on by years of breathing in coal dust. Now it was a matter of how long he had left.
‘Well, then, you’re up early. What can I do for you?’ Alice asked. She managed a smile but Kate thought she looked tired.
Kate looked round the display of stock. Alice sold everything from pegs and hairpins to beans and barley – that is if she could find anything that was asked for amongst the jumble. The shop was still reasonably clean, Kate thought, but disorder was taking over. Sometimes it was easier to leave Alice a list and call back when she’d had time to put the purchases together. And as she didn’t have much time that was just what Kate had decided to do.
‘Here’s my aunt’s order,’ she said, placing Aunt Meg’s neat list on the counter. ‘There’s not much. Tea, sugar, a bag of flour, some candles and some lamp oil. I’ll come back later. And here’s the rent money.’
‘Thanks, pet. Have you got the book?’
Kate handed over her aunt’s rent book and watched as Alice made the entry. In former days Mr Willis used to go the rounds of the few cottages they owned and collect the rent, but now their tenants obliged by bringing the payments to the shop.
‘How is Mr Willis?’ Kate asked.
‘Not so bad.’ That was all Alice ever said and you could only judge from the anxiety in her eyes what the truth of the situation was. ‘And Miss Lawson?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘All the better for having you to help her, I suppose.’
‘Well, yes.’ Something in Mrs Willis’s tone caused Kate to frown.
‘Aye, I thought it was about time she had someone to keep an eye on her.’
Kate was so surprised that she spoke without thinking. ‘What do you mean?’
Alice gave her what her mother would have called ‘an old-fashioned look’ as if trying to make out whether Kate really didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she said, ‘I could tell your mother was worried about Meg. I mean, she’s getting on, isn’t she? She probably thought it would be good for both of you. You lost your sweetheart, and it’s no secret your da was at odds with you, so your ma did a wise thing asking Meg to take you in. She probably pretended it was for your sake, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
Kate had finally understood what Mrs Willis had been hinting at. It seemed it was no secret that Meg Lawson liked a tipple, and the shopkeeper and no doubt others in the village seemed to believe that Kate had moved into Belle Vue Cottage in order to keep an eye on her Aunt Meg rather than because her father had thrown her out. She wondered if her mother had guessed this would happen.
For her aunt’s sake she would have liked to have told Mrs Willis the truth, but she couldn’t. And now she realized she had something else to worry about. Her aunt was a popular figure in the village and if folk believed she needed someone to keep an eye on her then she probably did. Aunt Meg had written to her younger sister, the mysterious Aunt Winifred who had run away to America and done well for herself. As soon as they got a reply the plan was that they would make the news public. Or rather they would say they’d had an unexpected letter from Winifred who, after all these years, wanted to make it up with her family, so Kate was going to go and visit.
Kate had accepted that she would be going to America, even though she knew it would break her heart to leave her mother and her brothers. Not to mention her aunt, whom in these few short weeks she had come to love almost as much as she loved her mother. But if Meg really did need someone to keep an eye on her, what would happen when Kate was gone? Kate resolved to speak to her mother about it.
‘Are you not out with your aunt today?’ Alice asked.
‘No, she’s left already. We’re going our separate ways today.’ Kate smiled. ‘Aunt Meg trusts me to go round by myself at last. I hope I won’t lose her any customers.’
The village streets were quiet. Back from the night’s fishing, the men would be settling in their beds now, while their womenfolk got on with their allotted tasks. On the way back to the cottage to pick up her creel Kate reflected on all that her aunt had taught her. Not just how to sell the fish but also how to bid for them at the beach auction. Until today they had gone the rounds together but Meg had decided that now there were two of them it would make sense to try to find some new customers.
‘That way we can save a bit money towards your passage to America,’ Aunt Meg had told her. ‘Mind you, I’m pretty sure Winifred will provide for that, but I don’t want you to arrive in America a pauper.’
So today Meg had set off for new territory in Monkseaton leaving Kate to do an easy round. She was to visit the long terraces of big houses facing the sea right here in the village. ‘I have a few good customers here,’ her aunt had told her, ‘and it’s not too far to walk. When you’ve done you can go home and put your feet up for a while.’
Until now Kate hadn’t accompanied her aunt to these houses. She’d stayed at home and caught up with some housework in the cottage. A short while later, when she set off, she realized she felt apprehensive. These people lived in the village and yet they were not part of it. They were business people from North Shields and Newcastle. One of the houses was owned by a London merchant who used it as a holiday home for his large family of small children.
All the houses were imposing but the largest and most imposing of all was that of Richard Adamson, who owned the biggest trawler fleet that fished out of North Shields. The Adamson house was double-fronted with a massive stone-pillared entrance porch.
She was more confident with the selling now and she was pleased to find that most of the servants who answered the doors to her were local girls, even some she’d been at school with. But her aunt had warned her that that would not be the case at the Adamson house.
‘Mr Adamson will come to the door himself,’ her aunt had told her. ‘They’re most particular about their fish. He’ll be expecting you. I try to go at the same time every week.’
‘Why doesn’t Mrs Adamson come to the door?’
‘Creaky old bones.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The only Mrs Adamson in that house is his ma and she’s getting on. And, in any case, she used to be a schoolteacher afore she married. Real bonny lass she was, but she knows nowt about fish. Mind you . . .’ Aunt Meg had tilted her head to one side and frowned, ‘I’m saying she’s old but she’s probably only about the same age as meself.’
Kate had smiled. She had no idea of Aunt Meg’s correct age and she was sure that the older woman would never tell her.
Meg hadn’t noticed Kate’s amusement and she went on, ‘So there’s no young Mrs Adamson, although I’ve heard there might be soon, and from a very grand family. I shouldn’t imagine she will answer the door. And furthermore, coming from the kind of background she does she’ll probably persuade Richard that it’s the cook’s job to buy the fish like in the other houses.’
‘Richard? You call Mr Adamson Richard?’
Her aunt had smiled broadly. ‘Aye. Well, not to his face, but him and me are old pals.’
‘Really?’
‘Divven’t look so amazed. It goes back a long way, to when he was a little lad.’ Aunt Meg had settled back in her chair to tell the story. ‘He was coming back from the village shop one day – he’d bought himself a bag of boiled sweets – when some of the village lads set about him.
‘I found them in the back lane. They were calling him names – making mock of his fine clothes and his shiny boots. They had no shoes at all, of course.’
‘I can’t believe they would do that,’ Kate had interjected.
‘Aye, well there was hard feelings about the Adamsons even then. Folk don’t like people to get above themselves, do they? It didn’t matter that the Adamsons had worked damned hard for their success. Anyway, one of the lads had grabbed the bag of sweets but young Richard wasn’t going to give it up that easily. He hung on to it and the bag tore. There were pear drops, sour cherries and pineapple cubes scattered all over the lane. I can see them in my mind’s eye now – all the bonny colours.
‘Well, it was too tempting; most of the lads went after the sweets, but it looked as if two of the bigger ones were going to do Richard harm, so I dashed forward, picked him up and ran all the way to his house with him.’
‘He must have been grateful.’
‘Was he heck! He yelled all the way that I should have left him to sort it out. He kicked and screamed and wriggled like an eel. Finally I set him down and walloped him.’
‘You what?’
‘I tapped his behind. He got such a shock that he stopped yelling, and after a while he had the grace to thank me. We’ve been pals ever since.’
Now Kate stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to the front door. Her aunt had told her not to go down to the servants’ entrance in the half-basement. She hoisted the creel on to her shoulder and took firm hold of her basket. She had never spoken to Richard Adamson, although she had often seen him striding along the cliff top or the beach with his dog. These days he was often accompanied on his walks by the American. Kate knew the men to be cousins and yet they looked quite different. Mr Munro appeared to be quite at home in his fashionable clothes but Mr Adamson, for all his wealth, had the rugged air of his hardy forebears.
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