Lovers Meeting (32 page)

He paused to give them a second or two to think about what he had said, then went on, ‘We have a choice. We can stay aboard her, fight to keep her afloat and risk her sinking under us, but I don’t think she will. Or we can get back into the boat and hope for a rescue.’

He swallowed the last of his tea and passed the empty mug to Josie. Their hands touched briefly and their eyes met.

‘I don’t want to get into the boat again,’ Josie said primly. Then, as they stared at her: ‘And then there’s the way I have to get out. I’d rather stay here.’ There was silence for a second and then hoarse guffaws.

Tom grinned, realised he had been forgiven and looked around. ‘Is that how you all feel?’

He got a rumbling chorus of ‘Aye!’

Tom started again to drive the weary men on. He gave his orders: ‘We want steam, Joe, as soon as you can. And the pumps working, the donkey-engine to hoist in the boat. We need timber for the hatch on number one hold, hammers, nails and canvas …’

Josie went back to the galley. She did not need to be told what to do. During the next two hours the boat was hoisted in, the pumps started to suck some of the water out of the
Northern Queen
and the broken hatch covers forward were repaired. Josie worked in the galley, cautiously because the rolling of the ship – which had never ceased – gradually worsened. She was wary of being scalded by some pan hurled from the stove despite the ‘fiddles’ around it, designed to prevent just that. Every few minutes her gaze was drawn to the scuttle that gave her a view of the distant skyline and the approaching storm.

She finished with the stove just in time. And just in time she felt the first tremor through the gratings under her feet, heard the rumbling, regular,
thump
,
thump
! of the engines turning over. She ran outside on to the deck, looked up and saw Tom in the wheelhouse on the bridge. The
Northern Queen
was under way. And the storm was upon them again. Josie saw the black shadow of the first squall sweeping over the sea towards her, then it was on her with a cold wind that snatched at her skirts and hurled a spatter of rain into her face.

Josie waved at Tom up on the bridge and saw him lift a hand from the wheel to reply, then she ran back to the galley. She had cooked a pie made from corned beef, and a jam tart. She served the meal in the saloon that was next to the galley and the men ate in shifts as they could be spared from their work. Tom came last, leaving Bucko Daniels at the wheel. Josie staggered in from the galley, bearing the hot plate held in a cloth and balancing against the roll and pitch of the ship. As she set his meal before him, Tom stared. ‘I thought it would be sandwiches again.’

‘Tomorrow it may be,’ Josie replied darkly. ‘I can’t use the stove in this weather.’ But she did. Over the next six hours she twice boiled water to make hot drinks for the men, steadying the kettle on the stove with one hand swathed in a cloth, while holding on to the solidly fixed galley table with the other. The sea pounded the ship. She had closed the dead-lights over the scuttles so she could not see out, but she could hear the smash of the seas against them and against the door of the galley.

The storm growled away as the day died. Josie slowly realised that the ship was not rolling so badly, she was steadier. The howling of the wind had dropped to a whisper. Her legs trembled but it was not from continual bracing to keep her balance but from tiredness. She was in a daze of weariness when she ventured out on to the deck and found the sea still rising and falling in long slow humps and valleys but not whipped into mountainous waves by the wind.

She fetched yet another mug of tea and climbed to the bridge. Tom Collingwood, standing tall and rock steady at the wheel, turned to blink red-eyed at her. Josie said, ‘I’ve brought you a drink.’

‘Thank you.’ He let go of the wheel with one hand to gulp at the tea.

Josie asked, ‘Are we going to stay afloat?’

‘Aye.’ Tom nodded and grinned at her.

‘You’re tired.’ She knew how she felt.

‘Aye, but I could go for another twenty-four hours. I won’t need to, though. Bucko will be up in another half-hour. Then I’ll sleep for a bit.’ He drained the mug and handed it back to her. ‘You do the same, Mrs Miller. You’ve earned it. Find a cabin and get some sleep.’

Josie was too tired to argue, did not want to. She turned away, but as she reached the head of the ladder leading down to the deck he called after her, ‘You’ve been a first-class hand, Mrs Miller.’ Josie laughed. First-class hand, indeed!

She found a cabin with its bunk neatly made up. Suits of clothes hung behind a curtain in one corner and a small chest of drawers held clean shirts and socks. The cabin looked as if it waited for its owner to return. Then Josie realised that the owner had probably drowned. She borrowed a robe that hung behind the door but would not touch the other clothes. She washed herself and her clothes in a bowl she found in the galley, behind its locked door, and hung the clothes above the stove to dry. Then she handed Bucko Daniels a mug of tea as he went up to the bridge and told him, ‘Call me when you come off watch, please.’ Because she had no clock, let alone an alarm.

‘Righto, Mrs Miller.’

In the cabin she bolted the door and took off the robe, shivering as she remembered its owner. She crawled into the bunk naked, curled up small because of the cold at first, but the heat of her body soon dispelled that and exhaustion brought sleep rushing down on her.

Her last thought was: First-class hand. She fell asleep smiling.

‘Mrs Miller!
Mrs Miller
! You asked me to call you!’ Bucko’s voice came hoarsely through the cabin door.

‘Yes, I’m awake!’ Josie lied. She had been jerked from sleep by his hammering at the door and now it took a huge effort to get up from the bunk. How long had she slept? Four hours, the length of the mate’s watch on the bridge. It felt more like four minutes. Yawning, she pulled on the robe and her shoes. In the galley she washed and dressed in the clothes that had baked dry over the stove. They looked as she had expected them to look but in the absence of an iron she grimaced and carried on.

She prepared a meal and set it to cook then made two mugs of tea and carried them up to the bridge. As she handed a mug to Tom Collingwood she said, ‘It seems calmer.’ The sea was smooth and the
Northern Queen
was rising and falling gently as her blunt bow butted into the waves.

‘This swell is fading away.’ Tom sipped at the tea. ‘I’ve had men checking the level of the water in her every hour and we’re gaining; the pumps are sucking more out of her than is coming in. We’re making seven knots and we’ll be home and dry tomorrow.’

Feet thumped on the ladder and Dougie Bickerstaffe appeared on the bridge. ‘’Scuse me, Skipper, Mrs Miller, but the chaps are asking if we’re putting in to Blyth or the Tyne?’

Tom chuckled. ‘To hell with that. We’re putting in to neither and taking her home.’

‘Aw! That’s champion!’ Dougie dropped down the ladder to report the good news, and Josie followed. She went back to her task of feeding the men and making unending jugs of tea all through the day. Then she slept again, soundly, and woke in the night still ready to sleep but puzzled at what had awakened her. Then she heard boots clumping on the bridge ladder and realised the watch was changing. She got up and dressed, went to the galley and made tea, then took the two mugs to the bridge.

The wheelhouse was dark save for the glow from the compass binnacle which lit Tom’s face dimly. It hung, eyes gleaming in shadows, over the wheel which he gripped with one hand while reaching for the mug with the other. He smiled at Josie. ‘You’ll be glad to get ashore.’

‘I will.’ She was definite about it and they both laughed. Then, scanning his face, realising that the shadows around his eyes were not all due to the light, she said, ‘There’s a chair just here.’ It stood to one side of the wheel and was about four feet high, with a cushion on the seat and a step that would serve as a footrest.

‘Captain’s chair,’ explained Tom. ‘He could sit in that and look out over the screen.’

‘Well, could I steer? Then you could sit in that chair for a rest.’

He glanced at her, startled by the suggestion. ‘Steer? You?’

‘Why not? Does it need a lot of strength?’

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘not when the sea is like this.’

‘Or skill?’

‘Not when—’ He broke off from repeating himself. Instead he looked across from the compass card, studying her for some seconds. Then: ‘What if I say no?’

‘I’ll go back to bed.’

He grinned. ‘All right. Come here.’ He set her behind the wheel with her hands on the spokes. Josie was nervous at first but then interested as he taught her, standing close behind her, his hands on hers, swallowing them. And after a time he stepped back and said, mildly surprised, ‘You seem to have got the idea.’ Josie had shown that she had got it some time ago. He climbed on to the chair and settled down to watching over her. He said little and once or twice he dozed for a minute or two to jerk awake and sit up straight, blinking. He would rub at his jaw and the black stubble that now bristled thick there rasped under his hand.

They were together on the bridge when the sun came up. He took the wheel from her then and steered for the mouth of the River Wear and Sunderland. He said, ‘You know what this will mean to us?’

‘Yes.’ And she told him.

He nodded. ‘Charlotte is going to be all right.’

Josie reached up to pull his head down. She kissed him, not caring about the stubble, then ran back to her galley. The men, and Tom among them, would want breakfast. She went at it singing.

Tugs nudged the
Northern Queen
alongside the quay and Tom Collingwood rang down ‘Finished with engines’ on the engine-room telegraph. The ship lay still and he climbed down from the bridge, his weariness forgotten in the exhilaration of bringing her in – and knowing his mind and heart now. He knew what he wanted and who he wanted. Then he saw the sunlight glinting on the big Blakemore motor car standing on the quay. His lips tightened and he looked for Felicity but did not see her. He recognised her maid, Susie, standing by the car, and now Jarvis, the chauffeur, was coming up the gangway Bucko Daniels and the hands had just rigged. He looked for Tom and handed him an envelope. ‘From Miss Felicity, sir.’

Tom ripped open the envelope and read the note: Felicity had been distraught when he had not returned to take her to the ball. The ball? He remembered he had said he would be back in time to take her – and he was forty-eight hours too late. He muttered, ‘The damn ship sank!’ He read on: fortunately a friend of her father’s had escorted her. He had invited her family to his villa in Biarritz and she was going with them. ‘Everyone goes to Biarritz about this time.’ They would all be returning to London in a month or so.

Tom crumpled the note and crammed it into his pocket. He could not write to her to tell her he could not, in all honesty, go on with the marriage. In the code of the time, a gentleman did not do that. He had to speak to her and her father. And until he did so he could not court Josie Miller, a girl in his service and in his house. That would seem like the seduction attempted by her former employer. He had to wait and keep his mouth shut.

Josie had seen the note delivered, saw him scowling now and guessed Felicity was the cause. She was not singing as she made her way down the gangway. Kitty Duggan was hurrying along the quay towards her but still some way off. Josie stopped to greet Susie: ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came wi’ Jarvis to get out o’ the way,’ Susie answered cheerfully. She was very smart in an expensive tailor-made motoring costume that showed her ankles. Josie thought it would be one of Felicity’s. Susie explained, ‘Everybody’s packing stuff to take out to France. I’ve done my whack and I wasn’t going to slave away doing theirs.’

Josie queried, ‘France?’

‘That’s right. We’re off to that Major St Clair’s villa in Biarritz. The family went yesterday and me and a few more are going tomorrow.’ Susie grinned. ‘Your boss won’t half cop it when she gets back. She was bloody furious when he didn’t turn up to take her to the “do” the night afore last. The major took her. I haven’t seen him but they say he’s an officer in the French Army. While she was there she signed up another two bridesmaids. That makes six so far.’

Now Jarvis returned and Susie skipped into the car, crying, ‘Ta-ra!’

Josie walked on as the car pulled away, thinking, Six bridesmaids. Then Kitty was hugging her and demanding, ‘What’s the matter with you?’

Josie answered, ‘Nothing, I’m fine.’

Kitty disagreed. ‘You look as miserable as sin!’

Josie forced a smile. ‘I’m just tired.’

She was facing bitter reality. They were no longer at sea in a world of their own. She could not go on with this
affaire
. Sooner or later Tom would find out her true identity and conclude that this impersonation meant she was up to no good. And he was to be married to Felicity Blakemore in just a few months from now.

Josie could see only one way out.

23

June 1909

‘I will now call this meeting of the Langley Shipping Company to order.’ Tom Collingwood’s tone was jocular but he had an unusual air of uncertainty about him. He stood in his office in the Langley house, his back to the empty fireplace; now they were moving into summer the fire was not needed on a fine day like this. In the square outside the children were playing barefoot. Josie sat upright in the swivel chair at the desk but was turned to face him. Kitty Duggan poised equally straight on the edge of the armchair. The morning sunshine winked on the brasswork of the fender around the fire.

‘It’s been a week now,’ Tom went on, ‘since we brought the
Northern Queen
into this river, the first fuss has died down and we’re now able to see our way more clearly.’ He grinned. ‘That means I’ve been to the bank and the manager, pending the salvage settlement and the insurance from the
Macbeth
, will let us have enough money to open the yard.’ He explained, ‘The insurance on the
Macbeth
will go a long way towards building a replacement. We can expect the court will award half of the value of the
Northern Queen
and her cargo. The owners of the salving vessel, the
Macbeth
or the
Macbeth
’s boat, will take up to three-fourths of that. The balance will go to the crew.’