A Safe Harbour (48 page)
Authors: Benita Brown
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction
Kate was grateful that the wind was just sharp enough to keep folk away from the exposed graveyard today, and she made her way to Jos’s grave without seeing anyone at all. It was the first time she had been since the headstone had been erected and now she stared at the carved letters recording the birth and death of her childhood sweetheart and wondered if this was all a man’s life amounted to.
Jos was the first of his family to be buried here. His ancestors were buried far away on a hillside near the village of Burnmoor in the Cheviot Hills.
And I have to decide whether I should take your child even further away, she told Jos silently. If I stay here, people like my father, who did not welcome your family to the village, will not welcome your child either. If I go, the child and I will become interlopers, too, but in a land that has taken in many strangers and put them to work. That’s why I’m here today, Jos: so that your child can visit your grave at least this once before we say our last goodbye. Otherwise I don’t know if I would have had the courage to face you. And I want you to forgive me. I have fallen in love with the man you swore to repay for taking your livelihood. And yet in a way you have got your revenge. Richard Adamson cannot be with the woman he loves. How could you have known that woman would be me?
‘Isn’t that Kate?’ Howard asked. ‘Look, over there in the graveyard.’
Richard turned to look. The woman had her back to them. She was wearing a long cloak but the hood was down and the bright blaze of hair was unmistakable. ‘Yes, I think it is.’
Howard had brought his sketch pad and was sitting at his easel on some sort of folding contraption while he sketched part of the ruins. He had chosen what he called a romantic-looking arch which soared above a tumble of ancient stones that resembled a giant’s building blocks. ‘Not my usual style,’ he’d told Richard. ‘A touch too Gothic, but my mother has asked me to do something dramatic for her. When I begin the work proper, I shall add a night sky, a storm-tossed moon and a bat or two.’
Richard never knew whether his cousin was joking or not, but he acknowledged that Howard was a gifted artist and had even succumbed to his pleas to sit for him – or rather his mother had insisted. And today, again at his mother’s request, he had accompanied Howard on his sketching expedition in order to make sure that he packed up his drawing equipment in time to go home with him for Sunday lunch.
‘I suppose she is visiting her sweetheart’s grave,’ Howard said. ‘That may be the reason she turned me down.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I told you. I asked her to marry me. I said I wanted to take her to America but she didn’t seem keen on the idea. I should have realized it’s too soon. She will still be mourning her fisherman sweetheart. Ah, me!’ he said in the manner of an actor in a play.
Richard was taken aback by his cousin’s casual tone. But perhaps he was deliberately trying to make light of it. Perhaps he truly loved Kate and his pride had been hurt by her refusal.
‘We’d better leave her alone with her thoughts, don’t you think? Best not to disturb her,’ Howard said.
Richard had to agree, so while Howard concentrated on his drawing Richard tried very hard not to stare at the lone figure by the new headstone. He did not want her to be distressed in any way if she should turn round and see him watching her.
While he waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot on the cold slabs of stone, he thought about what Howard had just said, and cursed himself for causing her pain. Of course Kate was still grieving for her sweetheart. How could he have been so insensitive? He remembered with horror how he had kissed her on the beach the night he had found her in the cave. I am a monster, he thought. I imagined she shared my feelings because she responded to my kiss but now I realize that in her confusion and desolation she might even have mistaken me for the ghost of her drowned fisherman.
And yet what about the other night outside the village shop? Had he imagined her warm response simply because he desired her so much? Surely there was something there . . . surely she felt something that could grow into love if he gave her time. That’s what he must do. He must give her time to grieve properly. He would have to be patient.
He allowed himself a glance in Kate’s direction and saw that she had gone. He turned quickly and caught sight of her cloaked figure hurrying towards the substantial ruins of the fortified gatehouse that guarded the entrance to the priory. In spite of the decision he had just made it took all his self-control not to go after her.
Kate hurried back along the cliff road. She had seen Howard and Richard in the ruins but they had not been looking her way. She didn’t think they had seen her. Why did he have to be there? she thought. Why today when I had come to say goodbye to Jos? Is this some sort of punishment? Someone had once told her that the dead faded from your life as the years went by. But what about the living? She wondered how many years and how much distance between them it would take before Richard Adamson faded from her memory and from her heart.
Chapter Twenty-one
Alice wasn’t in the stockroom. There was a tablecloth on the upturned tea chest but that was all. Kate wondered if Charlie had had a bad night, leaving Alice exhausted. She went through to the door that led to the back room and stood there hesitantly. She wanted to see if Alice was all right but she didn’t want to intrude. She raised her hand to knock on the door but then dropped it again. If Mr Willis was asleep she didn’t want to wake him up.
Eventually she took hold of the door handle and turned it quietly, opening the door just an inch or two. She peered inside but couldn’t see through the gloom. The curtains were still closed. ‘Alice?’ she whispered, but there was no reply. Kate wondered whether she should close the door again and simply open the shop. Alice would awaken sooner or later. But as she stood there and her eyes adjusted to the dim light she became uneasy.
A faint red glow from the fireplace told Kate that the fire was still burning – but only just – and the room seemed cold. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Something was wrong. Kate pushed the door open a little further and went in. She gagged a little at the sour-sweet smell. The smell of a sickroom, she supposed, of sweat and urine, of desperation and fear.
She had never been in this room before. Before the premises became a shop this had been a dining room. When Charlie became bedridden Alice had some of the heavy old furniture taken out and had his bed brought down. There was still room for a table, a few chairs and a large chest of drawers, and by the fireplace there was a big old wing-backed chair and a footstool.
When Kate looked at the chair she realized that it had been serving Alice as a bed. There was a pillow and an eiderdown but they had been pushed aside. Mrs Willis was not there. Kate held her breath as she crossed the room towards the bed. Alice was on top of the bedclothes, fully clothed, sitting up amongst a heap of pillows. She was cradling her husband in her arms. Her mouth was open and her breathing stertorous. She had taken the pins out of her grey-brown hair and it fell down on to her shoulders like the hair of a young girl. But her face was old and lined with worry.
In contrast Charlie’s face looked peaceful and unlined. His eyes were open as he stared up at the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in,’ Kate said quietly, but he didn’t shift his gaze to look at her. And then she realized that the eyes were unseeing. Charlie was dead. He had died in his wife’s arms.
As Kate stared at them, wondering what to do, Alice stirred. She opened her eyes and, seeing Kate, she smiled sadly and eased her arms out from under the body of her husband. As she did so she whispered an endearment to him and apologized for disturbing him.
Kate was appalled. ‘Alice . . . he can’t hear you . . . he’s . . .’
‘It’s all right, pet, I know,’ Alice said. ‘It’s habit, I suppose. Now, will you go and get Susan for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘And, Kate, I know there’s no love lost between you and my daughter, and I’m not blaming you, but you’ll break it gently to her, won’t you? She loves her da.’
Kate bent down swiftly and kissed Alice’s brow. ‘I know she does and I’ll do anything to help you and her. You only have to ask.’
But Susan didn’t want Kate’s help. When she opened the door of Belle Vue Cottage she regarded Kate with open hostility. ‘What is it?’ she asked. And although it was a cold morning with frost coating the cobblestones, she did not ask her to enter.
‘Susan – your mother needs you to come to her. It’s your father. He . . . he died during the night.’
Susan Armstrong clutched at her neck and her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t speak.
‘What is it, Susan?’ Seth appeared by her side.
Susan was shaking her head and making keening sounds.
‘It’s her father,’ Kate said.
‘Charlie’s left us?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
‘Listen, pet, put your warm coat on and go straight to your ma,’ her husband told her.
‘What about the bairns?’ she managed through gulping sobs.
‘Don’t worry about the bairns. I’ll mind them.’
‘What about work?’
‘I’ll take the day off.’
‘No – that wouldn’t be right – not when you’ve just started.’
‘I’ll look after the children,’ Kate said. ‘I’d be happy to.’
Susan stopped crying abruptly. ‘No you won’t. You’ll get back to the shop. That’s your job.’
‘The shop? But I thought your mother wouldn’t want to open today.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. And whatever Ma might say, I’m telling you to open it. Seth, you must go to work. But first of all, go along to the Donkins’ cottage and ask young Ellen to come along and look after the bairns. Now you,’ she turned back to Kate, ‘go back and tell my mother that I’ll be there as soon as possible.’
Kate opened up the shop as Susan had told her to do. Alice, her hair now neatly pinned in its usual bun, came through to see what she was doing. She looked shocked. But before she could say anything Susan arrived. She must have seen the expression on her mother’s face because she said, ‘It’s all right, Mother. I told Kate we should open as usual. We can’t let folk down, you know.’
Weak with grief and exhaustion, Alice tried to convince her daughter that the shop ought to close as a mark of respect for Charlie.
‘All right. We’ll close at midday. That way folk will be able to get what they need,’ Susan said.
Kate marvelled that although Susan appeared to be genuinely grief-stricken, she could still care about such matters. And she had noted the use of the word ‘we’. Having watched this small exchange Kate envisaged many battles of will ahead between mother and daughter.
That night the walk home from Tynemouth station took William past the Long Sands. He’d just returned from Jesmond and an evening out with Jane. He was dressed in his best, as Jane always insisted when they went into town, and tonight they had been to Alvini’s in the Haymarket. That is, they had been to the coffee shop on the ground floor, not to the high-class restaurant above.
Jane had ordered hot chocolate for herself, coffee for William and a selection of pastries. And although she had given the outward appearance of enjoying herself, William could tell from the nervous way she fiddled with the long-handled teaspoon that she was hiding her anxiety.
‘Isn’t this grand?’ she said as she glanced round at the other smartly dressed customers. ‘You know, William, once we live in town, we’ll be able to do this more often. And even go to the Palace Theatre next door.’
William had never been to the theatre in his life but Jane had accompanied Mrs Coulson and her daughter now and then. The theatre and the department stores. To Jane these provided a very good reason for wanting to live in town and William, looking at the way her eyes were shining as she tried to share her enthusiasms with him, didn’t want to deny her anything.
But eventually she fell silent. She picked up the teaspoon again and chased the froth around the bottom of the tall glass. When she’d popped it in her mouth she left a bubble or two of froth on her upper lip. William was entranced. He would have liked to lean across and take the froth from her lip with the tip of his tongue. He smiled as he imagined the shocked reaction of the respectable folk around them if he gave way to his impulse. But how were they to know that the big, strong, intelligent lad William knew himself to be could be vanquished in an instant by the flash of a particular pair of blue eyes?
‘I’ll be opening my shop before Christmas,’ Jane said eventually. ‘In time to make and alter party frocks. I’ve ordered some lovely new fabrics and style patterns of the latest fashion. But listen, William, I have to ask you. Mr Rennison . . . Mr Rennison wants to know . . .’
‘Tell him I’ll take the job,’ William said.
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