Children of the Tide (27 page)

‘Not true, Betsy,’ Tom admonished her. ‘We are perfectly sober, we simply shared a jug of ale and our sorrows.’

‘Sorrows?’ Sammi and Betsy cried simultaneously. ‘What sorrows?’

Billy hung on to Tom’s arm. ‘Tom has told me – in confidence – of his feelings for a young lady and I—’

‘Ssh. That’s enough.’ Tom put up a finger to silence him. ‘No more.’

‘Tom! Don’t tell me you have a secret passion?’ Betsy teased her brother. ‘Not you – old sober-sides!’ When Tom didn’t respond, she said cynically, ‘It doesn’t seem fair, does it, Sammi, that men can have grand passions but ladies cannot?’

Billy came to her and put his arm around her waist. ‘I am of the opinion, and I will discuss it with you, my dear cousin, when I am not under the influence of alcohol, but I am of the opinion that there are many discrepancies and injustices in our society which need to be swept away.’

‘A reformer, are you, Billy?’ she said a shade bitterly. ‘Then start with the women in society, for they are the ones who lose every time.’

‘No!’ Sammi protested. ‘Start with the children. They are the ones that we should look to first.’

‘I quite agree, Sammi,’ Billy said. ‘You took the very words out of my mouth. Excuse me.’ He staggered away. ‘I must go and sit down.’

‘You shouldn’t have let him drink so much, Tom,’ Betsy admonished. ‘Now he’ll go to sleep and miss the dancing.’

‘I didn’t!’ Tom complained. ‘We didn’t have much, but the Hull ale is strong.’

The dancing had started, and Betsy looked around the room wondering if anyone might ask her. She saw Charles Craddock looking her way and, catching his eye, she feathered her fan about her face.

‘Miss Foster. If you are not engaged, may I have this dance?’ He bowed towards her and Tom, who was standing next to her.

Tom started to say something, but Betsy took Craddock’s arm and allowed him to escort her to the floor.

‘Who’s he, Sammi?’ Tom frowned. ‘Have we met him?’

‘Yes,’ she answered flatly. ‘He introduced himself earlier.’ She felt strangely deflated, yet couldn’t reason why. ‘He thought I was Gilbert’s sister.’

Tom looked down at her. A wisp of hair had fallen about her face and he abstractedly smoothed it back from her cheek. ‘Why?’ he asked softly.

‘What?’ He was looking at her so strangely, as if he was preoccupied. She was bewildered by his mood, and caught up in a web of irrational confusion.

‘Why did he think you were Gilbert’s sister?’ He still gazed at her with his dark, dreamy eyes as if he was half-asleep.

‘Er – I don’t know.’ She looked away from him; she felt mesmerized, uncertainty flooding over her when her eyes met his. ‘The red hair, I think.’

He touched a ringlet that was coiled on her neck and she felt the brush of his fingers. ‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ He blinked and seemed to give himself a mental shake and wake up. ‘But still – I hope the fellow is all right.’

She had her doubts about Craddock, but her lips trembled unaccountably as she replied, ‘There you are again, Tom, constantly watching over her.’
Who is Tom harbouring a passion for? And why haven’t Betsy and I known of it? It must be someone in Holderness, but who?

‘Come on, you two. Tom! Invite Sammi to dance.’ Gilbert swung by with Harriet on his arm. ‘Come on, everyone must dance.’

‘I can’t, Sammi. I’m sorry. I don’t know how.’ Tom made his excuses.

‘I’ll show you, if you would like to,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s quite easy to waltz.’

Reluctantly he took her hand and led her to the floor and, with his hand on her waist and hers on his shoulder, she guided him around the floor; they swung in triple time, and as there were so many other couples dancing, it didn’t seem to matter if they missed a step or two.

‘That was lovely, Tom,’ she said as the music stopped. ‘You did very well.’

He raised her hand to his lips and thanked her, and was about to say something more, when there was the sound of a shrill voice which carried above all the others.

‘Hello, Billy, my old darling. Aren’t you going to talk to me?’

‘Billy?’ Sammi said in concern. ‘Who is talking to Billy like that?’

‘Not your Billy.’ Tom still held her hand and drew her towards him. He could see over the tops of heads, heads which were looking over to one side of the room. ‘Your Billy is still asleep in the chair.’

They walked to the side of the floor. Betsy was standing there with a look of merriment on her face. ‘It’s Mr Craddock’s friend,’ she whispered. ‘She’s three sheets to the wind; he’s gone to rescue her before she upsets the party. She’s found someone she knows.’ She nodded knowingly at Sammi. ‘Told you, didn’t I?’

The crowd parted and then reassembled as the music began again, and they saw Charles Craddock and his lady friend talking to Harriet’s father. Austin Billington, with a brief nod, moved away from them and came towards Sammi, Tom and Betsy, who were the nearest group of people who were not dancing.

‘Now, my friends,’ he said vigorously, ‘I haven’t yet had the chance to talk with you.’ His face was rather red and he glanced over his shoulder at Craddock and the woman, who appeared to be arguing.

‘Gilbert’s cousins if I remember correctly,’ he said, as he put out his hand to Tom. ‘How do you do, sir – Miss Rayner, Miss Foster.’ He bent forward conspiratorially and indicated over his shoulder. ‘I don’t know how those two came to be here.’ He pursed his mouth. ‘Not my sort at all.’

Gilbert joined them. ‘I’ve lost my wife already,’ he nodded towards the floor where Harriet was dancing with an elderly man. ‘Betsy, will you take pity on a fellow whose wife has gone off?’

‘Well, married men are not my style,’ she replied flippantly, ‘but as it’s you, Gilbert, I’ll make an exception.’

She took his arm and as they turned to the floor, Craddock’s lady friend appeared once more at Austin Billington’s side. Her face was blotched and her dress was awry.

‘Come on, Billy-boy, aren’t you going to have a dance with your little Letty?’ She crooked a finger under his chin. ‘I don’t usually have to do the asking, do I?’ She giggled. ‘You’re the one who generally asks me to dance.’ She lifted her skirts, showing her ankles and waved a foot provocatively.

‘Look here.’ Billington wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘I don’t know who you are, madam. You’ve obviously confused me with someone else. Where’s the fellow who brought you?’ He looked wildly around for Craddock who was sitting in a chair with his pin-striped legs crossed, his jacket open showing his red braces, obviously enjoying his host’s discomfiture.

‘She’s only having a bit of fun, Billington, old chap!’ he called out. ‘She don’t mean any harm.’

‘Excuse me, Sammi.’ Tom stepped forward and bowed towards the woman. ‘Perhaps, ma-am, you would give me the honour of a dance?’ He took hold of her arm and led her away from Sammi and Billington. ‘Now be a good girl,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘and come with me, and if you don’t, then I shall
have the manager of the hotel show you to the door.’

She gazed up at him with pencil-smudged blue eyes. ‘Ooh! You’re just ’sort of man I’ve been looking for,’ she hiccupped. ‘Somebody masterful and ’andsome. And rich.’

‘Then you don’t want me, Letty. You’d better stick to your Mr Craddock.’ He pushed her into a chair in the foyer. ‘Now stay there and don’t move.’

‘He’s not my Mr Craddock,’ she pouted. ‘He only brought me to make a stir. He’s like that. Nowt but a trouble-maker.’

Tom went back to the dance and sought out Billy, who was just stirring from sleep. ‘Hello, Tom. What are you doing here?’ He looked around. ‘Oh,’ he groaned. ‘Have I been asleep? Have I missed anything?’

‘Not a thing.’ Tom hauled him to his feet. ‘But I need you to help me out. Come on.’ They walked across the room to where Craddock was still sitting, swinging his legs and cradling a glass of wine. ‘Craddock!’ Tom greeted him like an old friend. He was much taller than Craddock and towered over him. He put out his right hand.

Craddock looked up. ‘Yes.’ He put down his glass and raised his hand. ‘Have we met? Forgive me if I don’t get up, old fellow.’

Tom’s hand closed around his and gripped it hard. ‘I’d rather you did,
old fellow
, there’s someone waiting for you.’ He pulled and, like a cork from a bottle, Craddock was sucked from the chair.

‘I say,’ he protested, but said no more as he was marched, with Tom holding one arm behind his back, and Billy close by his side holding his other elbow, towards the hotel exit.

‘Miss Letty wants to go home,’ Tom said. ‘See that she gets there and don’t come back. The party is over.’

The chimes of two longcase clocks in the hotel foyer, one in deep profundo, the other a pause behind in bell-like melody, were striking eleven. The guests ceased their chatter and gathered together their wraps and cloaks, their top hats and greatcoats, and prepared to leave. Gilbert and Harriet had already been waved off in their carriage, to spend the night in their house in Charlotte Street, before leaving the next day to spend a few days in Scarborough.

Ellen and Victoria and the York Rayners had left with Mildred for Anlaby, where they had been invited to stay the night, and although conversation between Ellen and Mildred was a little strained, it was decided that to refuse would appear churlish. Because there was insufficient room for them all, Sammi, Betsy and Tom were to spend the night at a small respectable hotel which had been booked for them, and Billy was returning to his lodgings.

Billy walked with them to their hotel, which was across the town near the Market Place, and they all smiled as Tom put his hand in the air to feel the quality of the breeze. ‘I hope Da and George have got finished milling,’ he said seriously. ‘There’s not been much of a breeze here today.’

‘Yes, it’s very sultry,’ Sammi agreed. ‘I think we’re in for a storm.’

‘I want to show you something before you go to the hotel.’ Billy led them towards Holy Trinity Church and the street down the side of it. ‘You especially, Sammi.’

He pointed down towards some cellar steps and a
low doorway which had cardboard and sacking draped across it. ‘Look. Look down there.’

‘What am I looking at?’ Sammi peered down but could see nothing.

‘It’s someone’s home,’ he said. ‘Dozens of children live there.’

‘They live there? Under the ground?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve been in. That young girl who was waving to me earlier, she took me in to show me. It’s horrible, Sammi; yet they’d rather live there than in a children’s refuge. They say they have their freedom.’

Sammi bit her lip to stop it trembling. ‘I’ve seen the children in the hospitals. They’re so cowed. They’re kept clean and fed, but there’s no love, no-one to tuck them up at night. Does no-one care?’ she cried. ‘And this is how Adam might have lived.’

Tom gripped her arm. ‘Those who should care are not doing so.’ His voice was tight and restrained. ‘If James is accountable for the child, he shouldn’t be leaving the responsibility to you. What kind of a man is he? He didn’t even turn up for his brother’s wedding!’

‘I know,’ Sammi whispered. ‘Something’s wrong. It’s not like him.’ This was the first time Tom had made any comment about the situation. ‘But I can’t send him away, Tom. Not while there’s the smallest chance that he has Rayner blood.’ She looked down the cellar steps. ‘I couldn’t see him here – no, not any child, not if I could help it.’

‘Sammi’s right. You wouldn’t believe the conditions that these children live in,’ Billy said passionately, ‘and yet down there, in that depressing damp hole in the ground, they consider it a palace compared to the hovels they have lived in before.’ He was silent for a moment and they all stood watching him as a great flood of emotion spilled out. ‘Some of them have lived in filthy lodging houses that you wouldn’t keep your pigs in, Tom! They’ve shared the same bed
as their parents and eked out a bowl of broth between them when there has been nothing else. Their mothers and sisters become prostitutes to earn money to eat, and then become pregnant again, and so the vicious circle begins again.’

‘We’re lucky, aren’t we, Billy?’ Betsy said softly. ‘To live as we do. I wonder how we would survive in those conditions.’

‘We wouldn’t. We would go under. We haven’t the stamina – and yet, do you remember, Sammi, when Grandmama told us that her parents had once been very poor? Her father had an accident which meant he couldn’t go to sea any more.’ He shook his head. ‘But they were not like these people: these people are in the lowest level of society. They have no hope of pulling themselves out of the gutter unless someone puts out a hand to help them.’

‘And that hand is yours, Billy.’ Sammi stared at her brother. ‘That’s what you are saying, isn’t it? You’re going to help them?’

‘I think so.’ He looked at them in turn, his eyes vague, not seeing them but something else. ‘I don’t know how, as yet, but I’ll do something, somehow.’

They were silent as they made their way back towards the hotel, each wrapped in thought: Billy with a vision in mind of an ideal world and Sammi wondering why James hadn’t come to the wedding, hurt that he hadn’t written to enquire of Adam, and puzzled as to why Tom seemed angry with her.

Betsy let her mind drift over the day and considered her future, not knowing what she wanted.
Billy has his ideals, Tom’s rooted at the mill, and Sammi, well, one day she’ll marry a rich landowner if she doesn’t spoil her chances. I wonder if Harriet is finding it wonderful in Gilbert’s arms? I wish! I wish! What do I wish? That Luke was sharing my bed tonight? How shocked everyone would be if they could read my thoughts
. She had thought of Luke often during the day and evening, even when she was dancing with Charles Craddock, who had intimated
to her that he was interested in her. He wore expensive clothes, his hair was sleek, he had the air of a rich man.
But he is not a gentleman
, she mused,
though he may think he is
. Not like Billy or her brothers Tom and George or even Mark in his way, were gentlemanly in their manners.

But then
, she wondered,
do I deserve a gentleman, for I am not a lady in the proper sense of the word! And I could use you, Charles Craddock, if I’d a mind, just as you would use me, given half the chance
.