Children of the Tide (10 page)

‘You are bad, Betsy.’ Sammi gave Betsy’s arm a shake. ‘You’re such a tease.’

Betsy fell silent, then said petulantly, ‘I know. But there are few men to tease around here, Sammi. I want to go to parties and meet some nice young men, not farm lads like the ones around here. I want their hands to be smooth, not rough. I want them to smell of spice and cologne, like Gilbert and James, and not of pigs and sheep or grain. And I want them to coax me and compliment me, not just want to tumble me in the hay.’

Sammi stopped in her tracks and stared at Betsy. ‘Betsy! You haven’t done that, have you? Say that you haven’t!’

Betsy shrugged her shoulders and brushed off the question. ‘How could I? I can’t get out to meet anyone. I’ve got three brothers and a father to keep an eye on me. The chance to keep a tryst would be remarkable, I can tell you.’

They continued their walk up the lane towards the
mill, and then Betsy pulled on Sammi’s arm. ‘Don’t let’s go back in yet. Let’s just take a walk in the meadow. Just for another ten minutes. I don’t want to go back to the chores.’

Poor Betsy
, Sammi thought.
She should have been the daughter of a landowner and not a miller, instead of me. She was made for wearing pretty clothes and partying. I hope Aunt Mildred invites her to Gilbert’s wedding. Perhaps she would meet someone there
.

But she thought it highly unlikely that Aunt Mildred would invite the Fosters to the wedding. She didn’t care for Uncle Thomas’s blunt manner, and as she didn’t consider that they were proper relations, even though Isaac and Thomas were cousins, she made sure that they had little social contact now that all the sons and daughters were grown up.

The wind was brisk, blowing in from the sea. They both put their heads down and huddled into their shawls.

‘Let’s walk as far as the new copse, Sammi, then we’ll turn back for home.’

The young saplings were bending in the stiff breeze, but they would hold, their young slender trunks were resilient and they had been planted in and around a clump of mature trees which gave them shelter and some protection.

‘There’s someone in there.’ Sammi slowed her steps.

‘Poachers probably. Somebody after a pheasant, or maybe they’re rabbiting. No. It’s not.’ Betsy smoothed her windswept hair. ‘It’s Luke Reedbarrow.’

A youth of about twenty came out of hiding and walked boldly towards the two girls. ‘I’m glad it’s only you, Betsy. I’d have been in right trouble if Redshaw had caught me in ’copse. He’d have said I was up to no good.’ He touched his cap. ‘’Morning, Miss Rayner.’

‘You probably are up to no good, if I know you, Luke Reedbarrow.’ Betsy arched her eyebrows. ‘And
I’ll thank you to address me as Miss Foster and not by my first name.’

He looked astonished for a moment, then his mouth twitched in a wry grin. ‘Beggin’ tha pardon, Miss Foster. I was forgetting meself. I was thinking we were friends. I quite forgot tha was miller’s daughter.’

Sammi watched them as they sparred and she couldn’t decide if Betsy was serious and meant what she was saying, or indeed if he was apologizing.
It doesn’t seem like an apology
, she thought.
In fact, he appears to be very familiar
.

His deep blue eyes seemed to be appraising Betsy, sweeping down from her face to her neck, from her shawled bodice and down to her booted toes. He caught Sammi’s eye and touched his cap again. ‘Haven’t seen thee about much, miss. Not till just yesterday when I saw thee with Mrs Rayner in ’carriage.’ He gave her an engaging smile. ‘I thought I was seeing things at first when I saw thee wi’ a babby. Why, I thought, it can’t be Miss Rayner’s, I was sure I’d have heard tell if she’d got wed.’

‘I’m sure you would indeed have heard if I’d got married,’ she interrupted his flow. ‘But I haven’t, you may be assured. We’d better get back, Betsy.’ She turned away from him. ‘Your father will be wondering where we have got to.’

‘I’ll walk back with thee.’ Luke Reedbarrow shortened his long stride to walk alongside them. ‘Ma will have me dinner on ’table and she doesn’t like me to be late.’

There was a gap in the flowering blackthorn hedge which bordered the back of the mill house’s garden, and Sammi looked through as they passed. The vegetable garden which Tom and his father worked between them was dug over and planted out with potatoes and onions, and early peas and beans were spiralling green tendrils over a trellis of canes. A dozen sheep were grazing in a small paddock where hens were also scratching, and on the other side of
the house, nearer to the mill, was a granary, a stable and a barn with a dilapidated roof where they kept the bedding and fodder for the animals. Sitting astride the roof with tiles in his hand she saw Mark; he looked up as they went by and she waved.

‘I’ll be off then.’ Luke walked with them to the mill gate. He nodded to Sammi and as he raised his hand, he turned to Betsy, lingering for a moment as if he was about to say something. ‘I’ll be off then,’ he repeated.

‘So you said,’ Betsy said pertly. ‘Well go on, then. You’ll be late for your dinner.’

‘I can’t make him out,’ Sammi said as she took off her shawl in the parlour. ‘But then I never could, not even when we were at school.’

Sammi, with Betsy and George, had attended the village school in Tillington until she was ten, and had then had a governess at home in company with her sister Victoria, who was considered too delicate for the rough and tumble of the village children.

‘Is he dimwitted or not?’

‘No! He’s not!’ Betsy answered sharply. ‘He puts on an act. He says that everybody thinks that all the Reedbarrows are stupid because of one of his relations who wasn’t quite right in the head. He’s handsome.’ Her voice became softer. ‘Don’t you think, Sammi?’

Sammi shrugged, she hadn’t thought of Luke Reedbarrow as being handsome; he was big and fair and he reminded her of a young bullock, and he disturbed her by his manner. His eyes were hypnotic: there was a challenge in them, as if he was compelling any woman to be aware of him. There was an animal magnetism about him which she found both fascinating and yet repulsive. She glanced at Betsy who was gazing meditatively into space, and guessed that she felt it too.

‘Have you told Uncle Thomas about James, Sammi?’ Ellen Rayner sat down in a chair in the Fosters’ kitchen and accepted a cup of tea and slice of fruit cake from Betsy.

‘No Mama. I’ve only told Betsy. I wasn’t sure whether I should.’

‘It will come out sooner or later, seeing as the child is here in Tillington, so better from us than a garbled story from the village gossips.’

‘Don’t be telling me anything about that family unless I need to know, Ellen. You know I’ve no time for that woman, though Isaac was always all right, leastways he was when he was a lad.’ Thomas stretched his stockinged feet out towards the fire. He was scrubbed clean from the dust of the mill, which accumulated under his finger-nails and on his eye-lashes and beard, making him look greyer than he was. He was ready now for his supper, but quite prepared to have to go out again, should the wind rise and set the sails turning.

‘You needn’t have known anything at all if it hadn’t been for my impetuous daughter taking it upon herself to interfere in something which didn’t concern her.’

Sammi started to protest at the harsh words, but she was silenced by her mother’s raised finger.

‘James has apparently fathered a child, and Sammi has brought it home,’ Ellen began.

Uncle Thomas sat up in his chair. Tom flushed and stared first at his aunt and then at Sammi. George from behind his hand suppressed a laugh, and Mark sneered. ‘That fop! He wouldn’t know how!’

His father rose from his chair. ‘Outside!’ he roared, pointing his finger to the door. ‘Go on. Out! I’ll not have you speaking in that manner in front of ladies.’

Mark bit his lip but defiantly stood his ground. ‘It’s true and you know it, Da, he’s nowt but a daft lass.’

‘Out!’ His father took a step towards him. ‘Get tha head under that pump and wash tha mouth out. And
don’t come back until tha’s ready to apologize!’ he shouted at Mark’s retreating back.

‘Sorry, Ellen.’ He breathed heavily as he sat down again. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with that lad; he gets worse.’

Ellen nodded. Mark had never been an easy child. He was only six when his mother had died, and he had fretted over the loss of her. George and Betsy had been only babies and didn’t remember her, and Tom at eight years old was already a sensible, steady child who comforted his father and helped him and the housekeeper who came to live in, to look after the other children.

Mark seems always to have a grudge against the world
, she thought,
whereas Tom, who must have missed his mother, too, is calm and patient and always tolerant
.

She sketched the final details and concluded by saying, ‘If Sammi hadn’t decided to interfere, we shouldn’t be involved, but she did, and so we are.’

‘But Mama!’ Sammi burst out. ‘We took him to a charity home, James and I. But I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t pretend that he didn’t exist! You taught us to think of others – to be considerate. How could I leave that poor child, especially if he’s family?’

Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, and she put her hands to her face. Ellen compressed her lips into a determined line. Betsy and George both looked embarrassed, whilst Tom, looking quite miserable, stared down at his feet.

‘Come, come.’ Uncle Thomas spoke gruffly into his beard. ‘Something will be sorted out; don’t worry m’dears. It’ll come right at ’end. It always does.’

Tom, George and Betsy stood by the yard gate to wave good-bye as the carriage pulled away, and Tom closed the gate after them. Mark stood back from them all and turned away as they came towards him. His dark hair was damp from pump water: he knew better than to defy his father.

‘You’ll be for it now, Mark,’ Betsy laughingly confronted her brother. ‘Da will have something to say about you being so rude in front of Aunt Ellen and Sammi.’

‘You mind your own business, Betsy Busybody,’ Mark snapped. ‘Or otherwise I won’t mind mine, and I’ll tell him about thee seeing Reedbarrow.’ He grinned as, startled, she began to protest. ‘Don’t think I don’t know,’ he sneered. ‘I saw thee this morning. Didn’t see me, did tha? No! Well, I was up on ’barn roof and
I
saw thee.’

‘So what if you did!’ She pushed her face towards his. ‘I was with Sammi, he just happened to be passing by at the same time. Anyway,’ her voice rose shrilly, ‘I’m sick of you three always watching me, seeing who I’m with or talking to. I can’t even go to the privy on my own but there’s somebody following me.’

‘That’s enough, Betsy,’ Tom admonished her. ‘You’ll get the same treatment as Mark if you talk in that way. Stop it, both of you. Mark, go and make your peace with Da, I know you apologized to Aunt Ellen, but Da will expect the same. George, go and lock up the pig pen; look sharp, ’cos there’s a wind getting up, and we’ll be needed aloft.’

His brothers went off, Mark sullenly kicking a pebble which was in his path, and George with his hands in his breeches pockets whistling a tune.

‘Is it true what Mark says, Betsy?’ Tom caught her arm as she turned to go into the house. ‘Have you been seeing Luke Reedbarrow?’

She shrugged. ‘What if it is? I can see who I like, it’s nothing to do with Mark – or you,’ she added defiantly.

‘Da wouldn’t like it, you know that perfectly well.’ He stood with his feet apart and arms folded, barring her path.

‘Well,
I
like it! So there’s an end to it. It doesn’t mean anything, Tom,’ she added pleadingly. ‘He’s just somebody else to talk to, to flirt with. I never see
anybody, I don’t go anywhere. Don’t tell Da. Don’t spoil my only bit of fun.’

‘Betsy, you don’t understand!’ He took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘Luke will think you’re egging him on. He’ll read more into it than you intend. Men are like that. Don’t be such a little fool. Look, if even James can get a girl into trouble—’ He stopped, embarrassed by having to talk this way to his sister. ‘I’ll get Aunt Ellen to talk to you.’

‘Aunt Ellen!’ She burst out laughing. ‘What makes you think that Aunt Ellen can tell me anything I don’t already know? Oh, Tom, you’re as green as the rest. I haven’t lived all of my life in the country not to know how things are! But you needn’t be concerned. I won’t tie myself to someone like Luke Reedbarrow for the rest of my days. Credit me with a little sense. No, he’s purely for my amusement until someone better comes along.’

Laughingly, she left him staring after her, shocked by her outspokenness. They had always, brothers and sister, been treated as equals by their father, until the day when Betsy was about thirteen; then he had brought the boys together and told them that their sister had come into womanhood, and was therefore to be protected. They’d understood immediately, and each in their own way had kept a watchful eye on her. She was escorted to any village function, and any predatory male was given a silent warning by their presence.

He was bewildered by her attitude. She wasn’t grateful for their concern, rather she was irritated by it. Betsy, it seemed, was going to live her life the way she wanted to.

How strange women are
, he thought, then reflected that he hadn’t known enough women to be able to judge. Even Sammi, who, as a high-spirited child, would usually listen to reason, had behaved in a manner which had surprised him. She had defied the adults in the family and made her own decision about
bringing James’s child to Holderness. He breathed out a sigh. He had been so startled by Aunt Ellen’s words in their kitchen, not an hour ago. ‘James has fathered a child and Sammi has brought it home.’

He had stared in confusion as he saw a very different Sammi from the young cousin he had always known. Sammi, with tears streaming down her face and wisps of red hair escaping from her ribbons had, by defying her elders, become an adult, and for a brief, tormented second only, he had misunderstood and thought that the child was hers.

Billy dampened his fair hair in an attempt to hold it down, and vowed, as he looked in the bedroom mirror of his lodging house, that he would have it cut shorter, as most of the young men in Hull appeared to be doing. The house where he lodged was situated in a small court just off The Land of Green Ginger, a street so called because of its association with spice merchants many centuries before, and where, on warm muggy evenings, the residents would lift their heads and declare that they could still smell the aroma of nutmeg and ginger drifting about them.