Moon Rising (7 page)

Instead, she gave up her home and rented a tiny house just off the Square, taking on a variety of domestic jobs which were fitted into the requirements of the day. She was generally respected for that, and we were certainly well looked after, better clothed and fed than many children in the surrounding area. But what I remember most is the bare, scrubbed poverty of those years, and a longing for human warmth. Even while I sat on the broad stone wall and stared out to sea, I longed for the familiar smells of the kitchen at home, the big easy chair, like a nest before the fire, where Jamie and I would sit on Mother's knee listening to stories.

There were no easy chairs in Grandmother's house; easy chairs, she said, were for invalids and old men. The only chair with any padding at all was an upright one, and that was Grandmother's. Woe betide Jamie and me if we sat in it.

After a while, probably when Grandmother was beginning to recover, she started to tell us stories, not so much of mermaids and water-sprites, but mostly of her family, the Sternes. We heard of their travels and adventures, connections with Cook and Nelson, and even one who was part of the escort that took Napoleon to Elba. If her intention was to give us a sense of identity she certainly succeeded, but in the course of it she fired Jamie with such a desire for exploration that nothing less than Her Majesty's Navy would do. He was off fishing as a boy, stowing away more than once to escape going to school, and eventually, thanks to Old Uncle Thaddeus, he was allowed to go into the Navy with something approaching good grace. If not, he would have run off anyway.

Given her ideas on gentility and our general lack of funds, the most she could do for me was to teach me things that she trusted would be of use one day. Housewifery, of course; simple accounts, elocution and good manners. In her youth she'd travelled extensively with my grandfather, and learned enough of French and German to carry her through. The phrases she taught Jamie and me went with the kind of history and geography not always taught in schools, but they were relevant to a seagoing community which earned its bread trading with northern Europe and the Baltic States.

She expected me to marry and obviously hoped I would marry well – although she must have wondered at my chances. I know she made every effort to introduce me to all our relatives within striking distance, in the hope that one day such connections would pay off. As they did, eventually, although perhaps not in the way she envisaged. At the time I found it humiliating, since neither of us had the clothes to impress, and I was one of those girls who just kept on growing.

Despite my prickly nature – or perhaps because of it – she had me trained as a lady's maid by the Misses Sterne who lived a couple of miles inland. In return for their training, girls received board and lodging for six months and tuppence a week pin money. If they were any good – and most were by the time they'd finished – they received decent references and were introduced to a respectable employment agency in Whitby.

I had two posts through the agency, my first as under-housemaid in a large house north of Malton, then after that as lady's maid to a doctor's wife in Middlesbrough. It was not a good place, and when Old Uncle Thaddeus wrote to say he was concerned about my grandmother's health, I was glad to come home at once. There, I discovered to my chagrin that Grandmother had been unwell for some time, typically keeping this fact to herself. She was virtually confined to the house and could no longer get up and down stairs. When I would have remonstrated, she said with an echo of her old sharpness: ‘It's no good – I'm an old woman now and this body's about worn out.'

Remembering, I found myself smiling. It sounded as though she was about to discard the old, worn-out shell for something bright and new; and then I thought about it and hoped she was right.

I'd arrived home in mid-December. Over Christmas the nights were so bitterly cold I stacked the fire regardless of cost, to keep the cottage warm. One night, I remember going upstairs and falling asleep at once, only to wake in the early hours, shivering and wondering what was wrong. The air was like ice, and when I went down I found the fire out and the kitchen door standing open. Snow was drifting in across the threshold, while out in the yard it was an inch deep. At first I didn't see her. Against white walls, in her nightdress and covered in snow, she might not have been there. Not until I went out with the intention of looking over the broad, protecting wall, did I see her, huddled at the foot.

She was frozen and barely breathing, and, if she was conscious of me at all, gave no sign. Somehow I managed to get her inside and into bed. The fire was barely smouldering but the fire-bricks were warm, so I took one out and wrapped it in a blanket to place at her feet. Sometime later I was able to boil a kettle and make tea, and by then she'd wakened. Trying not to sound anxious or even bemused by what had happened, I asked if she remembered going outside. I thought it might have been a need for the privy, but she shook her head at that.

To my astonishment, for it was unlike her to be fey, she said she'd gone in answer to my grandfather's voice, calling to her from the cliffs. But when she went out she realised that he was aboard his ship in the bay. Unable to reach him, in her disappointment she sank down against the wall. ‘I suppose I was dreaming,' she murmured wistfully, ‘of when we were young...'

Aware of my own helplessness, I felt a
frisson
of alarm. I sent for Old Uncle Thaddeus, and he came at once to sit with her. As he left, I could see by his contorted features how much he'd always cared for her. To my shame, I can still recall my embarrassment.

Since my feelings for him were at best equivocal I found myself resenting him. He had always admired her, respected her, and by comparison I felt I was judged and found wanting. Whether he was aware of my childishness or not, he sent for Grandmother's closest relatives and, as she deteriorated, I was grateful for the help the women gave me. It was agony to hear those rasping breaths, impossible to persuade her to drink more than an occasional mouthful of water. In the evening of the following day she gave up the fight and passed away.

For her sake I was relieved. I shed a few tears, remembering to leave the door open as I went outside. It was frosty and starlit, very still over the water. There were a few fishing cobles coming in, but I found myself – foolishly, no doubt – scanning the bay for the sails of a schooner. White sails against a dark sea; my grandfather's ship, perhaps, waiting to ferry the departing soul of Damaris Sterne to a longed-for reunion.

Foolish or not, remembering that night brought back a wave of grief so strong it caught me unawares. I was young then, and ten months seemed a long time, long enough, surely, to get over such a bereavement. But the silly spat with Bella had touched a well-spring somewhere, and I found myself crying for what seemed no reason at all.

Expecting to wake early, I had hoped to get to the station to check train times, so that I could plan a chance meeting. It was not to be, however. During the night the storm finally blew itself out, and we were all so exhausted after a week of hardly any sleep at all that the entire household slept on like logs. When I finally poked my head out of the jumble of shawls and blankets, the sun was up and shining from a clear blue sky, the gulls were crying, and someone in the house was frying bacon over a wood fire.

My stomach, which had no right to grumble, complained as though I'd not eaten for a week. Although there was little chance of bacon for me, I hurried through my ablutions with cold water and a sliver of carbolic soap, and hastily dragged a brush through my hair. Fortunately my best winter skirt and bodice had not been worn for some time and were dry, whereas everything else smelled of wet wool and seaweed.

Magnus Firth rarely spoke to me directly, but just as I was hoping to skip through the kitchen with a light word in passing, he blocked my way with his foot and demanded to know where I had been the day before. I glanced at Bella, bent over the fire, but she only shrugged. Her father was at the table, hunched over a breakfast that made my mouth water.

‘So where were ye?'

‘With Mr Louvain,' I said quickly. ‘Helping him get pictures of the wrecks.'

‘That's not what I heard,' he said. Dipping chunks of bread into the fat on his plate, he handed them to the waiting children. ‘I heard you were seen with a fancy stranger.'

Why it should be any concern of his, I could not imagine; but was afraid to say so. Unwashed and unshaven, with his shaggy black hair and thick, powerful arms, he was the kind of man to make any woman nervous, and he certainly had that effect on me.

‘A visitor,' I said. ‘Mr Louvain wanted me to show him round.'

For a long moment, Magnus Firth eyed me narrowly. ‘Aye, well, just ye remember – we'll have no bastard bairns in this house.'

I felt myself flush from breast to scalp, more with fury than embarrassment. ‘You've no right -'

‘I've every right,' he stated aggressively. ‘I might not be one of your
grand
Sterne relations, but I'm your cousin by marriage, and you're residing under
my
roof, missy, dinna forget that.'

I would have loved to tell him that
his
roof was really Cousin Martha's, her inheritance from those relations he despised so roundly; but I had to content myself with a tart word of agreement in order to get out in one piece.
Why,
I was thinking as I ran down the steps,
why did I ever come to this house?
But then Bella caught up with me, pushed a rough-hewn chunk of bread and bacon into my hand, and begged me not to be angry.

‘Last night, Damsy – I'm sorry. I was just mad at you having a good time without me. I'd been shifting boats and canvas all day, and came back to find I'd missed most of the fun. I didn't mean it.'

I couldn't stay angry with Bella for long, and I was grateful for the sandwich, so I grinned and bit into it at once. I'd almost forgotten how good bacon tasted – I had certainly forgotten what day it was until the bells of the parish church started ringing, and Bella asked jokingly whether I was hurrying to morning service.

‘Not this week,' I retorted, which was another joke of sorts, since I had been saying much the same thing all summer. But I didn't want to confess that I meant to go to the station, so I told Bella I was intending to call at the studio, to see whether all was well after last night's flooding.

‘Pity – now the tide's down, we could've gone to see the wreck.'

‘Which one?' I countered. But as I said that we dropped down some steps and rounded a corner to see the lower harbour laid out before us, the Russian ship looming large on the sands of Collier's Hope. During the hours of darkness, the lashing tail of the storm had denuded the
Dmitry
of her masts and spars, stripping her decks and holing her below the waterline. In a broad swathe across the darker beach, her cargo of silver sand was shining in the morning sun.

Children were playing around the wreck, a group of fishermen casting knowledgeable eyes over it. Amongst a group of onlookers on the nearby pier was a man setting up a tripod and camera. I could not see his face and it took me a moment to identify the tall, spare outline of Frank Sutcliffe, one of Jack Louvain's friends and rivals. An excellent photographer, Jack said; better than all the others put together. I wasn't qualified to judge, but he certainly seemed to work harder and longer hours. But there again, he was married with a family, and unlike others could not afford to play the artist.

All along the harbourside was evidence of last night's flooding. Mud and silt clogged the gutters, and bits of flotsam littered every corner and recess. When we reached the studio we found Jack gazing morosely at a wet and muddy floor. Relieved to see us, he handed over mop and broom as though they were painful to him. I was less enthralled by the idea of cleaning up in my Sunday clothes, but what really annoyed me was the failure of my secret plan to go to the station. It was with very ill grace that I tucked up my skirts and started work.

Only when we were finished, when the floor was clean again and most of the furniture and props had been returned to their proper places, did Jack mention his early caller. It seemed our friend of the day before had stopped by on his way to the station, to leave a note in the box. With a smile, Jack handed it to me to read for myself. Deciphering the untidy writing, I finally made it out. He asked for photographs of both wrecks to be sent to him at the Lyceum Theatre, whereupon he would forward his cheque.

On the back of the envelope he had scribbled in pencil: ‘Wonderful portraits displayed on the wall opposite the door. The cards of fisherfolk look very fine – would you send me a set?'

At that, I had difficulty not laughing aloud, since I knew very well where my portraits were displayed. But Jack read my face and, with a rueful chuckle, said: ‘I see, it's not my work he admires – it's you, Damsy!'

I protested, blushing, while gazing at his signature, trying to make out the surname
.
I was seeing his eyes intent upon mine, feeling his arms around me, hearing his voice from across the street as he told me his name was Bram...

Jack said significantly: ‘Mr Bram Stoker, no less. You know who he is? Business manager to our most eminent Shakespearian actor...'

As I looked up in astonishment, he handed over a small carte-de-visite portrait of a distinguished-looking couple. The man was older and somewhat hawk-faced, the woman recognisable even to me as reputedly one of the most beautiful and talented in England. The reverse claimed it to be the only authorised photograph of the Lyceum Theatre's great actor-manager, Henry Irving, with his leading lady, Ellen Terry.

‘Of course,' I muttered, wincing at my own stupidity, ‘
Irving
and
Ellen
– that's who they are, and I didn't realise. He must have thought me so ignorant!'