Rosa's Island (6 page)

Rosa went with Mrs Drew to see Flo settled in at Miss Dingley's house, and once more Henry took them. This time there was no drinking in the inn, and he waited for them in the marketplace where the hirings were.

‘Henry!' His father called to him. Jim and Matthew were with him. Jim had his hands in his pocket and had a sullen look on his face, whilst Matthew kept darting off to look at what was happening. There was entertainment in the marketplace as well as the hirings: fiddlers were playing catchy tunes, and an acrobat was turning
somersaults, whilst in many shop doorways there were singers telling of lost love, found love, dead mothers and similar heart-rending ballads, and holding out a cap or cotton bag to collect any offerings.

There were hawkers too, selling their wares, bags of cottons and fustians for the farmers' wives, sprigged muslin to tempt the young girls. There were stalls selling meat pies and sausages, fresh fish just caught from the sea, shrimps and eels from the river, and the stallholders called out to come and buy without delay; the women wore shawls over their shoulders to keep out the damp November air, and the men puffed on their clay pipes or chewed on wads of tobacco.

‘We need six more labourers,' Henry's father said as he came across to him. ‘Jim thinks we can manage with less, but we've further embanking to be done at Marsh Farm. With six men we could easily get another hundred acres.'

‘We're growing too big,' Jim muttered. ‘How we going to manage two farms? And besides, corn prices are falling.'

‘By 'time the land's ready for sowing, Matthew will be old enough to work full time,' his father said sharply. ‘And I'll worry about prices of crops like I've allus done! Now then, Henry. Go and see about them labourers. Pick willing men, I want nobody that's not ready for a hard day's work. Tell 'em they'll be employed on a weekly basis, all found. If they get drunk or don't turn up then they'll lose wages. Tell 'em there's to be no messing about. There's drains to be dug, banks and walls to be built.'

He turned to Jim as Henry moved away. ‘Then we'll enlarge Marsh Farm house and make it fit to live in.'

‘It's fine as it is,' Jim muttered. ‘There's onny me going to live in it. I don't need a bigger place.'

‘Pah!' his father mocked. ‘We've got to plan ahead. You'll be looking out for a suitable young woman afore long. You'll be getting married and having bairns.' He stared his son in the eye. ‘And if you don't, then one of 'other lads will.'

‘How can you think on it?' Jim spoke in a low voice. ‘I never wanted this land in 'first place. Suppose, just suppose—'

‘Enough!' His father rebuked him. ‘Not another word. You know what happened. It was 'Lord's work.'

‘'Devil's more likely,' Jim muttered.

‘It's 'Devil speaking through you now.' His father took hold of Jim's coat collar and even though he was much shorter than his son and had to stretch up to reach him, he pressed his face close to his. ‘Don't forget,' he whispered. ‘The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away.' He dropped his hands and gazed at Jim, whose face was flushed, and his eyes turned away from him. ‘Now go,' he ordered. ‘Choose two farm hands for Home Farm and make sure they're reliable with good references.'

Henry had been watching from a distance. He'd spotted some likely-looking men, strong and muscular, and was about to go towards them when he saw his father seize hold of Jim.

‘What's up?' he asked as Jim slouched towards him with both hands in his breeches pockets. ‘What's going on wi' Da?'

‘Nowt,' Jim muttered. ‘Nowt to do wi' you anyhow.'

‘Nowt!' Henry's voice rose in anger. ‘What do you mean, nowt? You're a grown man. How can you let him treat you like that, here in middle o' Patrington for everybody to see?'

Jim shrugged. ‘They'll onny think I'm soft in 'head and Da is boss. Which I am – and he is.'

‘I don't understand you,' Henry persisted. ‘Why—?'

‘Leave it,' Jim demanded. ‘Just thank God you're not in my boots, that's all.'

IT WAS A
sunny morning in early May when Rosa decided that she wouldn't go to school that day. I'm nearly ten, she thought. I've learned things already. I don't have to go. Delia was walking in front as she usually did, Matthew behind her, dragging his school bag in the dust, and Rosa lagging in the rear.

The twins, Lydia and Nellie, had left home and were in service at the same house in Ottringham in Holderness. Flo was still with Miss Dingley and Mrs Jennings, and was described by Mrs Jennings as ‘a treasure'. Maggie was still at home and, at twenty, had given up the thought of ever finding a husband, her former suitor, Jack Fowler, having left the district without even saying goodbye. Mr Drew still piously attributed everything to the will of God, be it drought or the breaking of the riverbanks; in the case of household disasters such as the breaking of eggs in the hen coop or the milk turning sour, this was considered to be Mrs Drew's inability to manage affairs efficiently. In his evening prayers he asked God to give strength to the young queen who
now occupied the throne and to ask her to look kindly on the affairs of her Crown land.

‘Come on, Rosa, we're going to be late,' Matthew called to her. ‘I don't want to get a black mark, not now when I'll soon be leaving.'

Matthew's father had insisted that he stay on at school until he was thirteen, although he had been allowed to take time off for haymaking and harvesting. ‘You need a good education,' he'd told Matthew. ‘It's not enough that you know how to sow and reap. To be a farmer today you have to watch corn prices from abroad as well as 'home market. It's different from when I was just starting out.'

Matthew had been reluctant but there was no arguing with his father: what he said was law. Matthew didn't really mind school and he liked being with Rosa, although he had to be careful that the other lads didn't realize it or his life would have been unbearable. So he joined in with playing jokes on the girls, pulling ribbons out of their hair and knotting their pinafore strings, or putting spiders or frogs in their desks.

‘Leave her,' Delia called. ‘Let her be late if she's a mind to. Why should we care? She's nowt to do with us.'

‘Don't be daft, Delia. And don't be so mean, either,' Matthew retaliated. ‘Course she's to do with us, she lives with us.'

Delia tossed her head and walked on. ‘She's nowt to do with me.' She looked over her shoulder. ‘But we all know that you're sweet on her, Matthew Drew!'

Matthew started to race after her. ‘I'll get you for that.' She began to run. He caught up with her and pulled on her thin brown plaits, forcing her head back. ‘Why should I be sweet on her? She's onny a bairn, same as you.'

‘Ow!' Delia kicked out at his shins and he jumped back but didn't let go. ‘Cos you're allus hanging round her, tekking her across marshes and catching tiddlers and that.'

‘You could come too if you liked,' he argued, ‘but you're that dowly you never want to.'

‘Phew, I've got better things to do than trail about wi' you,' she scoffed.

Rosa slowed down as the other two quarrelled and looked round for somewhere to hide. There were very few hedges, though many deep ditches which divided the fields, but nothing else, no buildings or walls, only Marsh Farm and that was too far off for her to run to and not be seen. She gazed across at her former home and meditated. It's Drews' land now and Jim Drew is living in our old house all on his own.

She'd looked through the window one day and seen the familiar kitchen which had been so cosy when she had lived there with her grandmother, but now was stacked with boxes of crockery and household ware which Jim Drew hadn't bothered to unpack. The fire grate which had always been blazing, with a kettle steaming over it, was full of cold grey ash and a few dead sticks. Jim came to his mother's house to eat and only went to the Marsh Farm house to sleep and wouldn't have his mother or Maggie come in to clean for him. He always looks miserable, Rosa thought, as she
scrambled into a steep-sided ditch. Mrs Drew wishes he would find a wife.

She clung tightly to the side of the grassy banks, for the water was deep in the ditch and she knew that should she slip she could drown. She peered over the top. Matthew was looking round for her. Delia had run off towards school from where there was the sound of a handbell ringing. Matthew was scratching his head in puzzlement and she gave a little smile and wondered what excuse he would make for her. Delia, she was sure, would paint the worst possible, blackest picture. That Delia disliked her intensely was quite obvious, but Rosa cared not in the slightest for her opinion.

Cowslips were growing in scattered clumps along the banks and behind the ditch was a straggly hawthorn hedge, planted to give some protection from the prevailing winds in the flat landscape. It was also home to blackbirds, hedge sparrows, wrens and long-tailed tits, and Rosa could hear their complaints as her presence disturbed their habitat. As she crouched, trying to keep still, she heard the rustling of long-tailed field mice and saw a sleepy hedgehog shuffling out of a nest of leaves and straw. Wild violets and golden celandine grew in the hedge bottom, whilst above her the long stalks of cow parsley waved their creamy heads and exuded heavy perfume which tickled her nose and made her want to sneeze.

She saw Matthew give one last look round before going through the gate and across the yard; she waited a few minutes more before she
scrambled out of the ditch and headed off in the opposite direction towards the marshland and the river, as she and her mother used to do when they were keeping a lookout for her father's ship.

There would be men working there, she knew, for there was constant work on the accretions as more and more land was claimed from the river, but they wouldn't bother about her, they probably wouldn't even see her, she thought, and if they do I'll just say I've got a day off school.

She took a deep breath. She valued solitude and this she had missed since living with the Drew family. There was never a time to be alone, always someone asking questions, talking, busy doing, and what she wanted more than anything was to feel the silence and isolation of the island wrap around her.

She gazed up into the vast infinite sky. It was so wide and boundless and made her feel so small. There were no hills or undulations to obscure the landscape, no trees against the skyline, only acres of rolling farmland and a wide canopy of drifting clouds floating against a backdrop of pale blue and meeting a slender finger of brown river, and beyond that the low grey line of Lincolnshire, at the horizon.

‘Hah!' She gave a little laugh and started to run, then lifting her arms up, she gave a jump and somersaulted, her skirt, petticoat and pinafore flying over her head. Her plaits came undone and her long dark hair ran free.

She half ran and skipped down long tracks, sometimes cutting down the sides of cornfields or along the wide dykes, avoiding when possible the
farm workers who were out in the fields. Some of them looked up as she passed and she gave them a cheery wave and most waved back, and she continued on her passage towards the river.

There were few houses on Sunk Island, and those which were there were old though substantially built. There was talk at the Drews' dinner table that more were to be built as the island accreted and more embanking was undertaken, and farmers, answerable now only to the Crown agents, were eager to come and work and live on the rich fertile land.

‘Where's tha going, little lass?' A voice hailed her from across the fields. A man was standing by a bullock-drawn waggon, cupping his hand to his mouth as he called.

‘Hawkins Point,' she called back.

‘Don't tummel in,' he shouted. ‘It's muddy, there's been some flooding down there.'

‘I won't,' she called in answer, and, worried that he might come after her and fetch her back, she quickened her stride.

The sun was getting higher as she reached the marshy waterlogged area along the edge of the river, though the wind was blowing strongly and whipped her hair around her face. The tide was going out, flowing swiftly down deep runnels and narrow channels on its way back to the river, and she looked down at her feet to find the dry patches to walk on.

‘Always watch your feet.' It was as if her mother's voice was speaking to her and a sudden vision of her face, which she had lost before, came back to her. ‘I will, Ma,' she whispered. ‘I'll
be careful. And I'll find out where my da is so that you don't have to search any more.'

It was with this sudden clarity of vision that she knew that was why she was here.

As she watched where she put her feet so that she didn't sink, she trod on clumps of yellow kingcups and thrift. Grey sea lavender spread a carpet over the marsh and crane flies buzzed around it, and as she stepped carefully she took hold of the tall reeds and rushes to steady herself, to come at last to the lonely Hawkins Point.

There was nothing in the land behind her. No habitation, not a single person to be seen in the silent isolated landscape, no sound but the sigh of the river, the cry of the birds, the herring gulls and curlews overhead, the piping of the redshanks and plovers which were sifting out crustaceans from the mudflats. The wind soughed through the grass and rippled across the young green corn, for the reclaimed land was cultivated almost to the edge of the marshland.

She stopped and wrapped her arms around herself as she saw a grey heron standing motionless among the reeds, and she too waited without moving, until she saw it pounce and emerge with a struggling frog between its beak. It flew with its long legs trailing, along the river's edge towards a thick bank of reeds. She waited a moment and then another appeared, flying low in swooping graceful motion from the direction of the dykes, to join its mate.