A Safe Harbour (47 page)
Authors: Benita Brown
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction
Mollified, Susan followed her mother through into the back room. But a moment later she returned and thrust an envelope into Kate’s hand. ‘This letter came to the cottage,’ she said. ‘It’s addressed to your Aunt Meg so I suppose you’d better have it. It’s got a foreign stamp on. Seth says it’s from Canada.’
The letter had remained in the pocket of Kate’s pinafore all day. Only now, when she was sitting by the fire in her own room, did she open it. Her mother was with her. Somehow the news had spread amongst the women of the village that a letter with a foreign stamp had been delivered to Belle Vue Cottage and Susan Armstrong had taken it round to the shop for Kate.
‘Just as well Susan didn’t bring it to me,’ Nan said. ‘She could have done. Your da might have been there and I dread to think what would have happened if he had opened it.’ Nan stood by the fire where a kettle was coming up to the boil on a small hob. The glow from the fire illuminated her kindly features.
Kate was resting her feet on the plump cushion she used as a footstool. Her ankles had swollen and she had taken off her shoes. The letter, still unopened, was in her hands. It must be a long letter because the envelope was fat. She turned it over and over restlessly.
‘Well, why don’t you open it?’
‘I will. As soon as you’ve made that tea. I’m parched, Ma. I need a drink before I read it to you.’
Nan carried the kettle over to the small table near the window where there was a tray containing everything Kate needed to make a cup of tea. At the end of each day in the shop Alice would have a meal with Kate in the stockroom and then send her up to her room with this tray, and there would always be a little treat or two on it. Today it was a big slab of rich, sweet gingerbread. Nan picked up a knife in order to cut it into slices.
‘You can eat most of that, Ma, or take it home and share it with my brothers. I don’t want any.’
Her mother looked surprised. ‘But you’ve always liked gingerbread.’
‘I know. But at the moment it gives me heartburn.’
‘Pity,’ her mother said. ‘That’s to be expected, I suppose. But otherwise you’re all right, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Apart from my back, which feels as if it’s breaking – and look at these ankles. Lovely, aren’t they?’ Kate lifted her feet from the cushion and pulled her skirt up sufficiently to show her mother how swollen they were. ‘Oh, Ma, I just hate being like this!’
‘There, there, me bairn.’ Her mother spoke to her as if she were a little lass again. She took a small cushion from her own chair. ‘Here, put this cushion in the small of your back and settle yourself and drink this tea. And then, for goodness’ sake open that darned letter and read it to me!’
When they were both drinking their second cups of tea, Kate did as her mother requested.
‘It’s addressed to Aunt Meg,’ was the first thing she said.
‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?’ Her mother shook her head. ‘Poor Winifred, she doesn’t know about the accident yet. We’ll have to write and tell her.’
‘She’s hardly kept in touch with her family of late, has she?’
‘There’ll be a reason. You’ll see.’
And Kate found that her mother was right when she began to read the letter.
‘Dear Meg,
‘You’ll be wondering why I’ve taken so long to reply to your letter. Well, let me tell you that it’s something of a miracle that I even received it. It must have travelled thousands of miles chasing after me, and all I can say is God bless all the folk who took the bother to forward it.
‘Herbert and I have left America, you see. His shoe factory, which had been doing very well, began to fail. Progress and cheap labour meant that cheaper footwear could be made in the south. Well, anyway, Herbert decided that he must sell up before the situation became hopeless, take what money he could get together and start elsewhere. Oh, how I wept when I realized that we must sell our beautiful home as well as the factory. But needs must. I’d married the man for better or for worse and now I had to prove I meant it.’
‘Winifred always was a loyal little thing,’ Kate’s mother interrupted. ‘If you made a friend of her you knew it would be for life. But please go on, pet.’
So Kate continued:
‘Have you any idea how big this continent is, Meg? We travelled thousands of miles from the east coast to the west coast. We stopped many times along the way because Herbert had to establish addresses for various business papers to catch up with him. Thank God he did, or otherwise I wouldn’t have received your letter! Each time we stopped, Herbert would investigate whether there was any local enterprise that might be worth investing in. After all, America is the land of opportunity. But, you know, I believe he knew all along where we would end up and why.
‘Go along to the Fishermen’s Mission, Meg, and look at the maps they keep there. Look for Canada and on the far west coast look for a region called British Columbia. Then look for the Fraser River. Because that’s where we are, in a little town called Steveston. It might not be on the map. And it looks like this is where we’ll be staying because, at last, Herbert has established a new business.
‘We are the proud owners of a cannery. We process and can salmon. We are a small concern as yet; there are many well-established canneries here, but the sea is full of the redfish and Herbert says there’s room for us. He is determined to make a success of the venture.
‘Just think about this, Meg. I ran away from a fishing village and I have ended up in another one at the other side of the world. Fishermen are the same the world over. They take their living from the sea. And it’s a hard life. Men can perish at sea here just as they do at home. But here there is such progress, such wealth to be made. It truly is a new world.
‘A world fit for my great-niece or nephew to be born into. For, of course, Kate can come and live with me.’
‘There now,’ Nan said. ‘I knew Winifred wouldn’t let us down.’
Kate managed a smile before continuing.
‘Tell Nan that I would be proud and happy to give a home to her daughter. Kate would be such good company for me. Herbert is a dear, dear man, but he is not from home. He was born in America, as were his parents before him, and although we speak the same language, I’m sure that at times we appear “foreign” to each other. How marvellous it will be to have Kate to sit and talk to of an evening. For me to ask about people I once knew and the sights and sounds of my beloved Cullercoats.
‘But now I must ask a question. How far gone is the lass? This is important, for it will be a long and gruelling journey, whichever way she decides to come. If she chooses to come by sea all the way it means sailing round Cape Horn, and that could take fifteen weeks, maybe longer depending on the winds and the weather.’
‘Fifteen weeks!’ Nan said. ‘But that means—’
‘Whisht, Ma. Let me finish.’
‘She could make for a port on the eastern seaboard, of course, and continue the journey by train and then coach. This will be very tiring and the winter weather will become bleak as the journey continues. I would very much like Kate to be here with me for the birth of her child, but if she feels she ought to break her journey she can stay with a very good friend of mine in New York. Sarah Rubinowitz owns the lodging house for young women where I stayed when I was working in Herbert’s factory. It’s clean and respectable and Sarah would take great care of Kate if I wrote and asked her to.
‘Obviously resuming the journey with an infant would bring its own problems, so I would tell Sarah to find a trustworthy young woman who would like to make a life for herself in Canada, and I will pay her to accompany Kate and the little one. But, Meg, wouldn’t it be even better if you would come too? Please, please think about it. You wouldn’t have to work, but you could if you wanted to. Not selling fish from door to door but helping me to look after the young women who work in the cannery.
‘The other papers I’ve enclosed are self-explanatory. One is a letter to a business contact of Herbert’s in a shipping office on the quayside in Newcastle. It is a request to help Kate make the necessary travel arrangements. The other is a money order which Kate must present at the bank named, also in Newcastle. I have sent sufficient funds for both of you to come if you wish. And who knows, although two of you set out, it may be three who arrive!
‘Give my love to Nan and to Kate.
‘Love,
‘Winifred.’
‘Fifteen weeks or more!’ her mother said as Kate put the letter and the two documents back in the envelope. ‘And this is November,’ Nan continued. ‘When is the bairn due?’
‘I’m not sure exactly, but it should be some time in April.’
‘Fifteen weeks? That’s nearly four months, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Her mother counted up the months on her fingers. Then she looked up aghast. ‘That’s cutting it fine, even if you were to set off tomorrow. If the bairn comes early, as it very well could with all the travelling, the poor little ’un could be born at sea.’ Nan shook her head. ‘No, our Kate, you’ll have to go the other way,’ she said. ‘And it’s best if you set off as soon as possible. That way you might get to Winifred’s before it’s too late to travel on.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You mean you can’t go? Kate, you haven’t changed your mind, have you?’ Without waiting for an answer her mother hurried on, ‘Your Aunt Winifred is offering you a home – a new life – a wonderful life by the sounds of it. You’ll be able to bring up your bairn in a fine new country. There’ll be work a-plenty – not like here.’
‘I didn’t mean I’d changed my mind about going.’ Kate dropped her head, unwilling to meet her mother’s eyes lest Nan saw the uncertainty in her own and realized that she had never been totally convinced that she should go. ‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I can’t go yet. Not until Mr Willis . . . this is difficult to say, but you know what I mean.’
‘Until Charlie dies?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’
‘Alice depends on me.’
‘Maybe she does. But it would be easy enough to find someone else to work in the shop.’
‘But not someone she’s got used to – someone who’s grown close. And apart from the shop, Alice likes to talk to me now and then. Whenever she feels low.’
‘But she’s got her own daughter.’
‘I know. But I don’t think Alice wants to burden her. After all, Susan must be sorrowing too, mustn’t she? Can’t you see, it would be cruel of me to leave Alice now, when Mr Willis is so very ill.’
Her mother sighed. ‘Kate, you’ve got to think of yourself.’ She sounded exasperated. ‘Will you at least start making arrangements? The bairn won’t wait to be born just to suit you, and you have a duty to Jos’s child as well, you know. You’ve got to do your best for it.’
‘Even if it means going to the other side of the world?’
‘Do you think I want to lose you? Of course I don’t. You’re my daughter, my only daughter, and I wouldn’t urge you to go unless I believed it was the best thing for you – and my grandbairn.’
‘All right, Ma. I’ll write to my Aunt Winifred. But I’ll have to think about what I’m going to say.’
‘And you’ll start making arrangements?’
‘As soon as I can. And please don’t ask me when that will be.’
Nan insisted on seeing her into bed and as Kate slipped into her nightgown she felt the now familiar movements of her growing child. She stood very still.
‘Is it the bairn?’ her mother asked.
Kate nodded. She reached for her mother’s hand and placed it with hers on her belly. They stood still while the child moved inside her and when they looked at each other their eyes were moist.
‘I wonder if I’ll ever see my grandbairn,’ her mother said.
Kate was too full of tears to answer her.
The next day was Sunday and, with the shop closed, Kate borrowed Alice’s cloak again and walked to the ancient graveyard on the headland. Betsy had wanted to come with her but Alice, perhaps understanding Kate’s need to be alone, had found a job for the girl. She’d asked her to tidy the display in one of the windows, and when Kate left the shop Betsy was happily occupied with a supply of dummy tins and some brightly coloured display cards.
The air was cold but the sky was bright and there were quite a few people about. From the looks of them, in their carefully pressed Sunday best clothes, some had come on the train from Newcastle to enjoy the sea air.
The ruined priory always drew visitors and often you would see them wandering about among the gravestones marvelling at the carved sailing ships and the names of the sea captains who had sailed the seven seas before coming to rest in this last harbour. Or they would pause and be saddened by a headstone listing a whole family of fishermen lost in one storm.
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