Children of the Tide (36 page)

Uncle Arthur turned his attention to Tom. ‘Any
news of your brother, young Tom? Has he written yet?’

‘No, sir. Not yet. But he will, in time,’ Tom answered firmly. ‘When he has something to tell us.’

Arthur grunted at the response and then confronted James. ‘So, James. How is life in London? Starving yet, are you? Isn’t that what you artist fellows do?’ He clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Wearing hair long in London, are they? I thought it was the fashion to have it short these days, like Gilbert’s?’

Gilbert looked up as he passed, his curly hair was cut short and parted in the centre.

James threw back a lock of dark hair. ‘I don’t go in for following fashion, Uncle, I have my mind set on other things.’

His uncle pulled a face. ‘Oh, of course. An
aesthete
! But you’ll be giving up all this arty nonsense now, won’t you? You’ll be joining the family firm and giving your brother a hand?’

‘Why should James give up his career?’ William chipped in. ‘Give him a chance, Arthur, he’s only just got started.’

James cast a grateful glance at Uncle William. ‘I’m not cut out for business. I’ll leave that to Gilbert. Anyway, Billy has joined the firm, I don’t see that I am needed.’

‘Not for long,’ Billy muttered out of the corner of his mouth and added as James turned towards him, ‘I’m not cut out for it either.’

‘Well, I suppose if you are really dead set on it,’ Arthur pursed his mouth, ‘perhaps we shall have to see what we can do to promote you.’

James bristled. He didn’t need to be promoted. He would get where he wanted with his talent, if he had any, or not at all.

‘Now let me think. Who do we know, my dear?’ Arthur turned to his wife. ‘Ideally, he needs a patron.’

‘Thank you, it’s kind of you,’ James interrupted. ‘But I already have a patron who has seen my work,
and I have the promise of support from a well-respected art critic.’

‘Indeed!’ Arthur’s attitude was one of disbelief. ‘So soon?’

‘She is Madame Sinclair, and he is Massimiliano Romanelli.’ James rolled the name majestically and eloquently around his tongue. ‘He’s from Florence.’

‘Romanelli?’ Aunt Henrietta said curiously. ‘Did we not once meet someone by that name, Arthur?’

‘Oh, indeed you did, Aunt.’ James turned to her. ‘I almost forgot, but he did mention that he’d met you in York, many years ago.’

‘Well, bless my soul,’ Arthur broke in. ‘So we did. The very same fellow. How extraordinary! You remember, Mildred, don’t you? You remember the Italian fellow, Romanelli? Didn’t he come here a time or two?’

James’s mother, who had not been taking part in this conversation, had nevertheless overheard and turned her head towards their group. ‘What?’ Her hand fluttered to her neck, a nervous gesture which James noticed she had been using frequently. ‘Who did you say?’ Her fingers strayed to her mouth.

‘Romanelli!’ Arthur boomed. ‘Didn’t he come over here to see you and Isaac? Wanted to paint the river or ships or somesuch?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘What about him?’

‘It’s just that I’ve met him,’ James explained. ‘Through my patron. He’s quite taken with my work. He’s promised to introduce me to Rossetti.’

Mildred bit anxiously on her lips, she was very pale and her hands were shaking.

‘You don’t look well, Mildred.’ Ellen took pity on her sister-in-law. ‘I think the day has been too much for you. Would you like us to leave so that you can go and rest?’

‘No. No, please don’t go. I shall be spending enough time alone in the future. I’m grateful that you are all here now.’ Her gaze was drawn back to
James. He had his back partly turned to the window; the curtains, tightly drawn before the funeral as was the custom, had now been opened, and his profile was etched in silhouette. She drew in a succession of short sharp breaths. ‘
Massimo
,’ she whispered, and only James heard and understood the name and wondered why his mother would use the familiar shortened first name when he had only used it in full.

‘He said he remembered you very well, Mother,’ he said softly, realizing that she was unwell. ‘He asked if you were still as beautiful as you once were.’

‘Did he?’ Her eyes were vague, her voice a mere breath. ‘And he? How does he look?’

‘Well, his hair is dark, but he has a lot of silver streaks in it, particularly in his beard and sideburns. He’s quite distinguished-looking, I suppose – very Italian, with his long nose and dark eyes.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ A smile hovered briefly on her lips. ‘He used to joke about his Roman nose.’

‘My patron, Madame Mariabella Sinclair, jokes about her nose too.’ He smiled tenderly as he thought of her. ‘But she is nevertheless very beautiful.’

‘Mariabella?’ His mother’s hand again fluttered to her throat and played with the string of jet around it.

James nodded, aware that all of his relations were now listening with interest. ‘She is Italian, married to an Englishman. Romanelli was her guardian until her marriage to Sinclair, it was she who introduced me to him.’

‘And so she is promoting you?’ Arthur commented. ‘Is she very rich?’

James bridled and felt his face flush. ‘She is not promoting me, Uncle,’ he said thinly. ‘She is helping me to get started by introducing me to the right people, people who know about Art, like Romanelli.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘Sounds like the same thing to me.’

Mildred rose shakily to her feet. ‘If you will excuse
me, I will, after all, go and lie down. Please feel free to stay as long as you wish,’ she assured the relatives and guests. ‘Gilbert and Anne will attend to you. James!’ She put out her hand. ‘Would you help me upstairs?’

Tom sat by his father’s bedside in the parlour and told him of the events of the funeral, then, saying that he was tired, he said goodnight to him and to George and Betsy who were in the kitchen, and went up to his room. He sat on the edge of the bed. The house felt empty without Sammi, even though she had only been gone a few short hours, and both his father and George had said that they were missing her already. Betsy hadn’t commented, but then Betsy didn’t seem to be saying much at all lately, having become tearful and morose since their father’s accident. Tonight though, she seemed to have recovered a nervous energy, busying herself constantly since supper, and telling him and George that they could get off to bed and that she would lock up when she had finished doing what she had to do.

Sammi had collected her belongings after they had returned from the funeral, and Aunt Ellen had come inside and waited for her; Tom thought that they both seemed preoccupied.

‘Will you be able to manage, Betsy?’ Aunt Ellen had asked. ‘I’ll find you some more help as soon as I can.’

‘Don’t worry, Aunt Ellen.’ Betsy was much more cheerful than usual. ‘I’m feeling much better. I can manage well enough, with Nancy’s help.’

But
I
can’t manage
, Tom thought, as he leant with his chin in his hands.
At least I can, but I don’t want to. I miss Sammi so much already. How can I cope for the rest of my life without her?
For he was in no doubt whatsoever that Sammi was destined for someone other than him; someone with more money, prestige,
and position. He looked at his hands and turned them over. They were strong hands, used to rough work, brown and hard and with his right thumb flattened, just as his father’s was.

He sighed and got up and opened the window wider to look out across the night sky. There were few clouds, which promised a fine day tomorrow, and he breathed in the heady summer night air. There was a scent of honeysuckle, lavender and roses, a sweetness which reminded him so much of her; and an earthy smell of harrowed earth, the rich balmy smell of grain and, blowing on the slight breeze, the salty aroma of the sea. He leaned on the window-sill and looked across to where Monkston lay.
She doesn’t notice me, of course
, he reflected.
I’ve always been here. I’ve always been part of her life, one of her kinsfolk, and although we were always close, I have been just as one of her brothers. And today, at Uncle Isaac’s funeral, someone upset her and I suspect that it was James. He said something to her out in the garden – but what? I felt jealous, angry even, when I saw her with James, and I don’t know why. But they had had their heads together as they walked around the garden, and I felt excluded. Yet
, he mused,
when she came inside again, she came across to me and sat beside me as if she wanted to confide, but didn’t know what to say. Everyone was on edge, understandable under the circumstances – James, Gilbert, Aunt Ellen, Aunt Mildred more than anyone. There was a strange atmosphere
.

As he started to undress he thought of Mark, which he did most nights, and wondered where he was, thinking that, if it hadn’t been for Mark’s chance flippant remark, he might never have opened his own eyes to Sammi.
She’s so young
, he mused, as he slipped between the sheets and lay wide-eyed in the darkness, with his arms behind his head.
She must never suspect how I feel; yet I sometimes think that everyone in the whole world must know, that even Sammi wonders, and that is why she questions me. Have we lost something, Tom? she asked after Gilbert’s wedding, and I kissed her hand in
reply, when really I wanted to hold her in my arms. Yet I would never want her to suspect that what she had lost was a friend, and found a lover
.

Betsy smiled up at Luke in the darkness of the copse. ‘I’ve missed you, Luke. I have to admit it.’

He grinned down at her. ‘Tha misses what I do to thee. Go on, say it. Tha likes what I do.’

She sighed and drew him closer. ‘Yes. I shouldn’t, but I do.’ She nibbled his ear. ‘My da told me again, we can court if we want. Do you want?’

He pulled away. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve told thee afore, I’m not ready to settle down. I’ve no money for one thing.’

‘But we could have an understanding, like people do, until you were ready.’

Luke gazed at her anxiously. ‘Is that what tha wants, Betsy? I never thought that tha did.’

She sat up and brushed the grass from her skirt and contemplated. ‘No. It isn’t. I’m fond of you, Luke, but I don’t think that I’m ready for settling down either.’

He put his arms around her and squeezed her. ‘Tha’s best thing that’s ever happened to me, Betsy. I’m greedy for thee. I can never wait to see thee and hold thee.’ He ran his big hands so gently and sensuously over her. ‘You’re beautiful; so round and soft. I could eat thee.’ He kissed her passionately on the mouth and she pulled him down towards her. ‘Maybe one day, eh? Maybe one day we’ll get wed, and then we can do this all ’time.’

‘But then we won’t want to, Luke,’ she mumbled beneath his lips, and eased herself slightly to move his crushing weight from her. ‘I don’t think married folk do.’

Sammi sat by her window, red-eyed and drained of weeping tears which she had held back until she reached the sanctity of her own room. It was all so
familiar and well loved, and it was only now that she realized how much she had been missing her home. She had missed, without realizing it, the spaciousness of the rooms, the sweep of the wide staircase, the smell of polish on the floors and furniture and the soughing of the sea which was so constant. And yet there was a turmoil inside her, an emptiness and unhappiness which wasn’t wholly the fault of James, who had so cruelly and decisively told her that Adam was most definitely not his and he could not therefore accept any responsibility towards him.

‘But how do you know now, James, when you didn’t know before?’ she had asked, as with a terrible understanding, she realized that if James had been duped and Adam wasn’t his, then no-one else would claim responsibility for him.

‘I can’t possibly tell you that, Sammi.’ A blush had come up on his face. ‘But I know.’

As they came back into Aunt Mildred’s house from the garden, she had seen Tom standing on the steps by the door and he had looked angry about something. And if it hadn’t been for that intense expression on his face and realizing that he had some troubles of his own, she would have confided in him; it had been on the tip of her tongue to do so as she sat beside him.

She had wanted to cry when she left the mill house. Uncle Thomas had patted her hand and although Tom hadn’t said much, she wondered if he would miss her not being there.
I do hope so
, she’d thought as they’d driven away, and she’d turned to see him standing at the gate, with Betsy and George waving at the door,
for I shall surely miss him
.

How foolish I am
, she pondered as she leaned on the window-sill and breathed in the sharp salty air and felt the breeze ruffle her hair.
I shall see them all again in only a few days, but it won’t somehow be the same
.

Sammi tiptoed into Victoria’s bedroom early the next morning. A kettle of water on a burner at the side of the bed was steaming gently to help her breathe. Victoria was hot and restless, her chest heaved and sighed in an effort to draw a deep, satisfying breath.

‘I need some sea air,’ she heaved. ‘It’s the only thing to cure me.’

Sammi got up and opened the window wider; Victoria always said that when she was ill, but, she thought,
we can’t get any nearer to the sea than we are. We’re practically sitting in the water now
.

‘I wish Grandmama Sarah was here. She would know what to do.’

Sammi turned at her sister’s breathless words. Victoria had always had a special empathy with their grandmother, who made up her own potions and medications for anyone – villager or landowner – who was sick, and her reputation was widespread. When she had died, Victoria, more than any of them, was devastated and took to long solitary walks where, she said, she felt she could be close to her once more.

‘I’ll take you for a walk along the sands,’ Sammi promised now. ‘Just as soon as you are feeling better and able to get up.’

‘Sammi?’ Victoria whispered. ‘Will you bring Adam that I might see him?’ Their mother entered the room as she spoke and Victoria gave her a weak smile. ‘I would like to see him.’

Sammi and her mother exchanged glances and Sammi felt her heart sink. She would have to tell her what James had said. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise. ‘Yes,’ she answered dully. ‘I will bring him.’