Children of the Tide (34 page)

She sank to her knees, and pressing her lips to his cold hands, she started to weep.

Sammi was packing her bag to go home, when Billy arrived once more, this time with the news of Uncle Isaac’s death.

She sat by Uncle Thomas’s side as Tom broke the news to him.

‘He should have waited on a bit,’ his father said morosely and shifted himself awkwardly. His right leg was splintered and stretched out on his bed, but his left ankle hung limp and useless. ‘We could have travelled together. We’d have been company for each other.’

Tom protested and Sammi declared that he shouldn’t think that way, that he was much improved.

‘Aye, in my mind, lassie, not my body, and I’ve no fancy for hanging around with broken shanks. I’m no use to anybody in this state.’ A gleam came to his eyes as he tried to lighten their mood. ‘Why, I’d such notions of finding myself a rich young widow woman and leaving our Tom to carry on at ’mill. Now I’d know they’d onny be after me for my money.’

Tom and Sammi smiled bleakly at his joke, but Billy, standing by the door, didn’t.

‘Come, lad,’ said his uncle. ‘Don’t be so despondent. Death comes to us all sooner or later, and both your Uncle Isaac and I have had long lives, long enough to do what we wanted.’

‘Then you’ve been fortunate in that, Uncle,’ Billy said grimly. ‘There are some who don’t get that chance, no matter how long they live.’

They all looked at him. He seemed so bleak.
It cannot surely be unhappiness only for Uncle Isaac’s sake
,
thought Sammi. ‘You’re thinking of those children, aren’t you, Billy?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. I need to talk to you about them, Sammi, about one of them, anyway.’

After he had gone, Sammi unpacked her bag again, for Betsy once more took to her bed when she heard of her uncle’s death.

‘I don’t understand you, Betsy,’ Sammi taxed her. ‘We were fond of Uncle Isaac, but you were never so close to him to take on so.’

‘I’m just so afraid,’ she sobbed, ‘I can’t cope with unhappiness, Sammi. I only want to be happy, to have pleasure in life. I hate misery.’

‘We have to have one to know the other.’ Sammi grew impatient. ‘I don’t understand what is happening to you, Betsy. You must have some indisposition. I think we’d better ask the doctor to take a look at you next time he comes to visit your father.’

Betsy was so opposed to that suggestion that Sammi went downstairs in a huff and vowed that she didn’t know Betsy as well as she thought she did.

Uncle Thomas asked Tom to attend the funeral on his behalf. They would shut down the mill for the day, George and Luke could clear up after the builders, who had finished the kitchen extension and almost finished the engine house, and Betsy would stay and look after her father’s needs.

‘It’s not for me to say what tha should do, Sammi,’ her uncle said thoughtfully. ‘I expect tha’ll want to pay ’last respects to Isaac; and go home if tha must, but I’ll not fare so well with my own daughter’s ministrations as I’ve done with thine.’

She bent down and kissed him. ‘You’ve been a good patient, Uncle Thomas, but be tolerant with Betsy, I don’t think she is well.’

‘What ails her then?’ he asked sharply. ‘Has she some sickness that I haven’t been told about?’

‘I don’t know. I’d like her to see the doctor, but
she won’t hear of it. She’s unhappy, she needs something to cheer her up.’

She suggested that Betsy read to her father after supper, and asked Tom if he would take a walk with her. He nodded and put on his boots. They took the path towards the copse. The harvest had been gathered in before the rains of the last few days and the golden stubble glistened in the evening light.

‘’Farmers should be happy,’ Tom commented as they linked arms. ‘It’s been a good harvest.’

‘And the mill cap is restored and working again, but your father isn’t,’ she added softly. ‘Poor Uncle Thomas. I feel so sad for him.’

Tom squeezed her arm. ‘Aye, it’s a bad business, but at least he’s still with us. I was so afraid he would die.’

They walked on, both looking out at the cropped fields and over the undulating meadowland which stretched like a great prairie as far as they could see, broken only by clusters of hawthorn bushes and hedges or thickly planted copses.

‘I shall return home after the funeral, Tom.’ Her words hung in the stillness.

Tom said nothing for a moment, then murmured, ‘We shall miss you, Sammi, Da particularly; but if you feel that you must …’

She glanced up at him, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. She hoped that he would understand: it wasn’t that she didn’t want to stay. ‘Betsy is relying too much on me. She’ll perhaps manage better if I am not there. She is mistress after all, and Nancy is working well since you spoke to her, and does as she’s told.’ She shook his arm. ‘You do understand, don’t you, Tom? I realize now that I was most inconsiderate to impose on you because of Adam, but he is doing so well now under Mrs Bishop’s care.’
But I shall miss him
, she thought sadly.
He knows me now, and his little face smiles when he sees me. Oh, dear. I don’t know what to do
.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, grim-faced. ‘I quite forgot that Adam was the original reason for your coming to stay.’

‘But also, Tom,’ Sammi felt that she had to find some other justification for leaving, ‘I have to make amends with Mama and Pa. They are unhappy about the situation. It has to be resolved.’

‘So we all need you, Sammi!’ They reached the copse and turned again for home, and as they reversed their direction he moved to the other side of her so that she might be away from the overhanging hedge. He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘We shall have to chop you into little bits,’ he said lightly, ‘so that we can all have a piece of you.’

‘Silly,’ she chided. ‘You will manage perfectly well without me.’ She remembered what Billy had said at Gilbert’s wedding about their shared confidences, and asked hesitantly, ‘Have you ever thought of marrying, Tom?’

The question was so sudden that he stopped in his tracks and she nearly fell over him. ‘Sorry,’ they both said, ‘my fault.’

She looked up at him and couldn’t make out the emotion which was so evident in his face; his eyes narrowed and he clenched his lips firmly together: she couldn’t tell whether it was anger or dismay that he was feeling.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in confusion. ‘That was an intrusion. I shouldn’t have asked such a personal question. Please forgive me, Tom. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right, Sammi!’ he said brusquely. ‘Are we not friends that you can ask me anything?’

‘We always were,’ she murmured and wondered why she felt so miserable.

‘As a matter of fact, my father said only a little while ago that I should marry and bring a wife to the mill house.’ He turned towards her, his eyes searching hers. ‘He even suggested that I should ask
you
– to find me someone suitable.’

She stared at him, her eyes wide. ‘Oh! I couldn’t possibly do that, Tom. I should never be able to find anyone that I would approve of sufficiently.’
And if I did
, she thought,
it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to visit so often, for any wife of Tom’s would surely disapprove of my friendship towards her husband
.

She saw his face lighten at her words as he assured her, ‘Then I will have to remain a bachelor all my life, Sammi, for I have no inclination to look for myself.’

So he didn’t have a secret passion after all, as Betsy had suggested, she reflected, and felt quite light-hearted at the thought. They turned off the path into the lane; dusk was falling rapidly, and long shadows from the horse chestnut trees were spreading in dark pools.

‘’Evening, Master Tom, Miss Rayner.’ Luke Reedbarrow with Annie Greaves, a girl from the village, by his side, were about to take the path which they had just left.

The girl looked at them curiously. Sammi knew her by sight, her family used to live in Monkston on her father’s land until their cottage was devoured by the sea, and they had been rehoused in Tillington. Tom nodded to them, but barely spoke; he and Sammi looked at each other incredulously after the pair had disappeared from view, and Sammi knew that they had both had the same thought. Why was Luke Reedbarrow walking out with another young woman when he had been given permission by her father to court Betsy?

Betsy waved them off on the day of Isaac’s funeral as the Rayners’ carriage turned around in the yard. Sammi and her mother were dressed in black. Aunt Ellen in matt black crêpe, and Sammi in one of her mother’s old velvet gowns which had been hastily altered and trimmed with white lace at the neckline to relieve the blackness. Uncle William was clothed
in full mourning suit for his brother, Richard and Tom both wore black armbands on their jackets.

She closed the door and prepared a drink for her father and George, and sent Nancy upstairs to clean the bedrooms of the dust which was still settling from the new building work. They now had a new bathroom with a proper cast-iron bath, and Tom had bought a new marble wash-stand and a flowered jug and washbowl to stand on it. An additional bedroom had been built above the kitchen which, though small, would be suitable for a live-in maid.

Betsy doubted if they would find a village girl. They were all moving to Hull to go into service, and she felt something of a pang of envy at what she thought of as their good fortune.

I almost wish I could do the same
, she thought dejectedly.
I can see myself being stuck here for ever, with no prospects at all of moving out. Not now, not with Da as he is
. And she thought of Mark who had escaped to fresh pastures.
Though he might well be dead for all we know, for the devil still hasn’t written to us
.

Her father, having asked constantly if they had heard from Mark, no longer asked if they had received a letter, and seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that his second son had gone for good.

There was a knock on the door and Luke put his head around, and seeing that she was alone, stepped into the kitchen. ‘Is your da sleeping?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ she answered in a low voice. ‘Why would he be sleeping at this time of the morning?’

‘I was just hoping that he was so that I could come and have a chat with thee.’ He put his arms around her. ‘It’s been ages, Betsy, since – you know. I’ve missed thee.’

She pushed him away. ‘Don’t. Not here. The girl’s upstairs.’

‘She won’t hear owt. Come on, just give us a little kiss, nowt else.’

She put her face up to his and felt the tingling sense of want that came every time she was near him.

‘Meet me later, Betsy. I need thee.’ He ran his hands around her waist and hips. ‘We haven’t been together for weeks.’

‘I’ve not been well.’ She moved away as she heard Nancy clattering upstairs and her father cough. ‘And I don’t know how I can get away now, not with Da confined to the house.’

‘Come tonight,’ he persuaded. ‘After they’re all in bed. Tha’ll not be missed.’

She considered. Perhaps she could. Sammi would have gone, she said she was returning home with her parents after the funeral. ‘All right,’ she smiled, and felt a sudden lightening of her spirits. ‘I’ll try to come at about ten o’clock. Wait for me by the footpath.’

He took the jug of tea from her and with one more brief kiss he left her and went back to the mill. Nancy came downstairs, wiping her brow and complaining about the dust.

‘If you don’t like the work, I can soon find someone else who does,’ Betsy said irritably. ‘You’d better watch your step, my girl, or you’ll find yourself given notice and no reference.’

Nancy sulked and muttered, ‘Sorry, Miss Betsy. I weren’t complaining. Shall I take ’maister’s drink in to him?’

‘No, I’ll do it.’ Betsy relented a little. ‘Make yourself a drink to slake your throat and then clean the bath tub. Only don’t scratch it.’

‘No, miss.’ Nancy took the kettle from the side shelf of the new range and placed it on the fire, where it was soon steaming. ‘It’s grand, Miss Betsy, having all these conveniences – makes life a lot easier. I suppose if Master Tom and Miss Rayner should ever wed, she’d expect summat a bit grand, seeing as she’s used to it.’

Betsy turned back from the doorway, a tray in her hands with her father’s teapot and large cup and
saucer on it. ‘What did you say? Whatever do you mean?’

Nancy looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, miss. It’s onny what I heard.’

‘What?’ Betsy put the tray back on the table. ‘What did you hear?’

Nancy hung her head. ‘I suppose folks are jumping to conclusions, Miss Betsy. But Annie Greaves asked me if it were true what she’d heard, that ’young babby at Mrs Bishop’s was Miss Rayner’s and was Master Tom his fayther? It’s ’cos she’s living here. She’d seen them together, walking together all comfortable like.’

Betsy stared at her. Mark had warned them that people would talk, that they would assume the child belonged to one of them. ‘How ridiculous!’ she snapped. ‘You of all people, Nancy, should know that Miss Sammi has stayed on to help look after my father. She has long been a good friend of all of us, not just Master Tom.’

‘I said that there was nowt in it, miss. But babby’s there for all to see, and there’s no mistaking it’s got red hair just like Miss Rayner. And somebody else said,’ she added defensively, ‘that they thought it was Master Mark’s bairn and that was why he’d left in such a hurry. They said as how Mr Rayner was coming after him with a shotgun.’

Betsy sank down on a chair. The very idea was ludicrous. Such rumours. Sammi marry Tom! How ridiculous. Why, her parents would have very different plans for her. She was bound to marry someone with land and estate, someone with more wealth than Tom. Then a doubt slowly crept in. Had Sammi spoilt things for herself by taking on this child? This child who was supposed to belong to cousin James? It wasn’t Sammi’s child, Betsy knew that, but no-one else knew. Anyone who didn’t know would think that he was hers. And if there was a doubt, no-one of quality would take the risk of marrying her.

Her father shouted, ‘Betsy! Where’s my tea?’ and
she got up from the chair and picked up the tray again.

‘The child is not Miss Rayner’s as you very well know, Nancy, nor is it Master Tom’s or Mark’s. The rumour is malicious, obviously started by a troublemaker, and I will hear no more of it.’