A Safe Harbour (58 page)

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Authors: Benita Brown

Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction

BOOK: A Safe Harbour
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Caroline laughed. ‘I suppose it’s time I made my confession,’ she said.
 
‘Confession?’ Howard asked. ‘What could you possibly have to confess?’
 
‘We did not meet by chance. I knew you were living here and we had been walking round for days in the hope that we would find you. Poor Jeannette, I tested her friendship severely.’ She turned to smile at Richard. ‘And it’s still being tested, because each time I visit Howard she has to pretend to her grandmother that we have been out walking together. But, fortunately, Jeannette has a secret of her own.’
 
‘And that is?’ Richard was intrigued.
 
‘She visits a small convent nearby and spends her time in prayer and contemplation with the nuns.’
 
‘But what could be wrong with that?’
 
‘Her family are not Catholic. Her parents want her to return to England at the end of the year and marry some prosperous and respectable businessman just like her father. They would not be at all pleased if they thought their daughter had discovered a vocation to become a nun.’
 
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ Howard asked. ‘They are both in love. One young woman with a religious ideal and the other . . .’ he reached across the small table and took Caroline’s hand, ‘the other with me.’
 
Richard was happy for them but he could not bear to see the way they looked at each other. The bliss they had found made him feel more lonely and despondent than before. He would have left there and then, but there was still the other question to be asked and, as he remembered the day Howard had left Cullercoats, his anger returned.
 
‘What’s the matter?’ Howard asked suddenly.
 
‘The matter?’
 
‘Your face. You have an expression like a thunderstorm just about to break over the German Ocean. Surely you are not angry because I have asked Caroline to marry me? After all, you had more than enough time to ask her yourself.’
 
Caroline withdrew her hand from Howard’s and looked uncomfortable.
 
‘No. I acknowledge my fault. But there’s something else . . .’ He glanced at Caroline who responded immediately by rising from the table.
 
‘I must go soon. I’ll retire to pin up my hair.’ She left them alone.
 
‘Why did you leave Cullercoats so suddenly?’ Richard asked. He saw no point in delaying the matter further.
 
‘Because I was angry with you.’ All traces of good humour had vanished from Howard’s tone.
 
‘You
were angry with
me
?
’
 
‘Of course. I’d heard the rumours – in fact I’d heard a quartet of harpies taunting Kate about the baby she was expecting. They believed she’d been consorting with both of us, and as I knew I couldn’t possibly be the father, I assumed you were.’
 
‘Couldn’t possibly?’
 
‘No question about it. So as I knew I hadn’t seduced the girl, that left you.’
 
‘But I didn’t – and I thought you were responsible.’
 
They stared at each other as each absorbed the fact that they had wasted time and energy being suspicious of and angry with each other.
 
‘When I left I thought you might do the decent thing. Marry the girl. But when Caroline arrived she told me you hadn’t.’
 
‘Caroline talked about it?’
 
‘Oh, don’t worry, she was discreet. I had to coax the information out of her. She was angry, too, at first. Angry for a different reason. But now I’m pleased to say that is all in the past. But, in any case, how is Kate?’
 
‘I have no idea. She’s vanished. She’s left Cullercoats and if anyone knows where she is, they’re not saying. But I have an idea . . .’
 
‘What is it?’
 
‘I think she may be with her brother. He ran off after he’d sunk my trawler.’
 
‘Oh, yes. Her elder brother William, wasn’t it? I was surprised when I heard that.’
 
‘So was I, and I have my suspicions about what really took place that night.’
 
‘You haven’t pursued the matter further?’
 
‘No, and I’m not going to. The man who went overboard didn’t drown. The
Tyne Star
is back in action, and there’s been no more trouble. I think it best to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m hoping the fishermen and I will learn to live together in peace.’
 
‘Very wise. A lesser man would be motivated by revenge. But you’re a good man, aren’t you, Richard? Much better than I could ever be.’
 
Richard was saved from having to respond by Caroline’s coming back into the room. With her hair pinned up she looked almost respectable again. Almost. She picked up her shawl and draped it around her shoulders. ‘I must go now and rescue Jeannette from the nuns,’ she said.
 
Howard hurried over and picked up her parasol. ‘I’ll walk down to the street with you,’ he said.
 
Caroline turned to Richard. ‘Give me time to write to my parents before you say anything to your mother.’
 
‘Of course.’
 
‘I really am fond of her, you know. I would hate you to think I made friends with her for . . . for any other reason.’
 
Richard nodded.
 
‘And now there’s something I must say to both of you,’ she said. ‘I could hear what you were talking about just now and I marvel at how stupid we’ve all been. About Kate, I mean. Just think back to last summer. There was a tragic accident in the village, wasn’t there? A drowning.’
 
‘Two young fisher lads,’ Howard said.
 
‘One of them was Kate’s sweetheart,’ Richard added.
 
Caroline smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘That’s right. How could we have forgotten. Her sweetheart drowned just days before their wedding.’
 
 
Four passengers alighted from the train at Burnmoor. Two middle-aged women, a young woman and a girl. They made their way through the streets of the village to a track that wound up into the hills, the Cheviots. As the two older women chatted companionably the young woman and the girl looked about them with interest. One of the older women nodded and smiled now and then to curious passers-by. It was obvious that they knew her but were not sure about her companions. Soon the little group left the neat rows of houses behind them and headed towards open countryside.
 
As the track began to climb they passed a tidy inn nestling against the rise of the hills. When they reached a place where the track diverged the woman who was not a stranger led them along the left-hand path, which dipped down again towards a sheltered valley. The track was wide enough for a cart and deeply rutted at the sides with rough stones in the middle, some of them big enough to turn your ankle. But the leader of the group was surefooted, as if she’d trodden this way many times before. She guided her little party safely.
 
The May day was warm and the grass at the sides of the track was long and lush. It smelled sweet. Birds sang high overhead and insects buzzed. The girl took in a deep breath of the clean, fresh air and began to run ahead. When she spied a dwelling in the sun-filled valley below she stopped and clasped her hands together. This was just like her dream. A slight wind ruffled her hair and she took flight, racing down the path to stop at a gate. There was someone there to meet her. A young woman whose hair shone bright in the sunshine. She held a tiny infant in her arms.
 
‘Kate!’ the girl said.
 
By the time the rest of the party reached the gate Kate and Betsy were sitting on a bench set before a sun-warmed wall of the farmhouse. Betsy was staring with awe and delight at the child in Kate’s arms. Kate looked up and saw her mother, along with Mary Linton and her friend Jane, and her eyes filled with tears of happiness.
 
She rose and went forward to meet them. ‘Your grandchild is pleased to see you again,’ she said to the two older women. Then she turned to the young woman. ‘Jane, this is my daughter Josephine.’
 
Baby Josephine obligingly opened her eyes and Kate turned a little to protect her daughter’s face from the sun.
 
‘Her eyes are blue,’ Jos’s mother said.
 
‘No, I think they’re green,’ Nan Lawson said and Kate laughed.
 
‘I don’t think we can tell what colour they are yet,’ she said, ‘but there’s no mistaking the colour of her hair, is there?’ Kate eased the shawl back a little to reveal a soft mass of red-gold curls and for a moment all five of them stared at the child in wonder.
 
‘She’s beautiful,’ Nan said. ‘Just like you were. And how she’s grown since Mary and I were here last.’
 
‘Yes, the bairn’s thriving,’ Mary Linton added. ‘And she’s the image of Jos, isn’t she?’
 
Kate and Jane’s eyes met and they smiled at each other.
 
‘Hawway, then! Aren’t you lasses going to step inside?’ Mrs Linton’s brother had appeared in the doorway of the farm. ‘Hilda has a fine spread waiting for you.’
 
Mary Linton led the way with Nan, and Kate and Jane followed. Betsy was hanging on to Kate’s skirt and staring up at both her and Josephine as if she never wanted to lose sight of them again.
 
‘So you’ve been here in Burnmoor all the time?’ Jane asked Kate quietly as they sat at the table. ‘You know I thought you and William might be together.’
 
Josephine had fallen asleep and been placed in her crib. Kate was enjoying the farmhouse tea along with her family. ‘Why did you think that?’ she asked.
 
‘The messages your mother gave me, I suppose. One from William along with one from you. But, tell me, are you happy here?’
 
‘They’re very good to me. They couldn’t have been kinder.’
 
‘For Jos’s sake, I suppose?’
 
‘More for Mary’s sake. She begged me to let her raise the child, you know, and when I said I couldn’t part with any child of mine, she suggested that instead of going to . . . some other place, far away, I should come to her family so that she could stay close to her grandchild. I searched my conscience and I found that I couldn’t deny her that. And I made the right decision. Mrs Linton’s brother sent one of the lads to fetch her when my pains began and she was here when her first grandchild was born. My mother came with her.’
 
‘Jos’s child,’ Jane said quietly.
 
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was pregnant, but my mother made me promise not to,’ Kate said.
 
‘No, I should be the one to say sorry. There was something your mother said in an unguarded moment that made me think . . . something about your condition . . . and I didn’t pursue it. I was too wrapped up in my own problems. But we’re still friends, aren’t we?’ Jane sounded anxious.
 
‘Yes, and we always will be.’ Kate smiled at her old friend and Jane relaxed. Then Kate said, ‘I wish you could have seen Mary Linton and my mother when they first saw the baby. My little Josephine has brought them such joy.’
 
Jane looked troubled. ‘Kate . . .’
 
‘What is it?’
 
‘What about your father . . . does he know?’
 
‘No.’
 
‘But he must have realized that your time will have come.’
 
‘Even if he has, he won’t care. He told my mother he never wants my name mentioned again.’
 
‘That’s wicked.’
 
‘It is. But in any case they hardly ever speak to each other these days. He’s . . . he’s failing. My mother thinks the drink will kill him. Thank God she has Thomas to help her.’
 
‘My mother says your brother has changed.’
 
‘Yes, he’s more serious – steadier.’
 
‘And does he know about Josephine?’
 
‘He does and he wants to come to see his niece as soon as it can be arranged.’ Kate broke off and smiled.
 
‘But tell me, Kate,’ Jane said. ‘If you hadn’t come here, where were you going to go? Where was that “other place”?’
 
‘I’ll tell you later, I promise you. But now I think we had better stop gossiping and do justice to Hilda’s table.’
 
 
‘I’ve been here in my dreams, you know,’ Betsy told Kate after the meal. They had wandered out into the sunshine again and Kate and Betsy were sitting on a rug spread under a tree in a small orchard. The younger girl looked up into the branches above them. ‘What are they?’ she asked.
 
‘They’re apples,’ Kate said. ‘But they’re still very small. They have to grow much more before they’ll be ready to pick.’
 
Betsy looked up in wonderment and Kate found her thoughts returning to that time nearly a year ago now when Jos had changed their lives for ever for a sackful of unripe apples that had dropped too soon from Farmer Bains’s trees. She looked over towards the farmhouse where her mother was sitting on the bench cradling Josephine in her arms. Mary Linton and Jane sat at each side of her rapturously engaged in baby worship.
 
‘Betsy, will you do something for me?’ Kate asked.
 

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