The Hungry Tide (13 page)

She looked intently at Will who was watching her anxiously. ‘I know I can trust thee both to be good to her. I’ve taken care of ’lads already – they’re in Seamen’s Hospital, just for a bit like. They’ll look after them, till I – till I get back.’ Her voice broke and she bit back tears.

Maria put her arms around her. ‘What’s happening, Annie, where’s tha going? Tell us, we’ll help thee!’

Annie released herself from Maria’s embrace. ‘No, don’t make it worse for me, Maria. Don’t give me tha pity or I’ll weaken, like I always do. It’s time now for me to stand on my own two feet.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘All my life I’ve been ill-treated by men. My fayther, my husband and now by Francis. But I’ve put up with it, I’ve always thought that that’s what women had to do.’

She drew Lizzie towards her and the little girl buried her head in her mother’s skirts. Annie’s face hardened. ‘But when it comes to my bairns, then it’s a different matter. I’ll not let it happen to Lizzie. Nobody will harm her without answering to me!’

She smiled wistfully. ‘If I’d been lucky enough to have met somebody like thee, Will, things might have been different, but I was always attracted to ’wrong sort. So I’m begging thee to look after her, make sure she doesn’t make ’same mistakes as me.’

‘But where’s tha going, Annie?’ Will asked. ‘Don’t go looking for Francis, he’ll be in a foul temper after what’s happened here, and he’ll be looking for someone to pay for his sore head.’

Annie didn’t answer, she turned to kiss Maria on her cheek. ‘Tha’s been a good friend to me, Maria, be a friend to Lizzie too.’ She turned towards Will and he bent and kissed her tenderly on her upturned face.

‘Those are ’first loving kisses I’ve ever had,’ she said, her eyes brimming with tears, ‘except from my bairns. I know folk think I’ve neglected them, but nobody loves them more than I do.’

She flung her arms around Lizzie, then with a soft cry pushed her towards Maria and ran out of the room.

Will called after her as she ran swiftly out of the entry. ‘Wait, Annie – I’ll come with thee.’ But she was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

They both lay awake most of the night, staring into the darkness, their minds too unsettled for sleeping, Maria between Alice and Lizzie, her arms around both girls, consumed with a black foreboding about Annie, and Will at the bottom of the bed next to Tom, wondering what the morning would bring.

As dawn broke and Maria rose wearily to get ready for work, her body aching with fatigue, Will reached across and took hold of her hand.

‘Come back to bed, love, try to sleep for a bit longer.’

She sighed deeply but protested. ‘We need ’money Will, there’s nowt left.’

‘Come back to bed and get some rest. Tha must look tha best today.’ He smiled at the puzzled expression on her face. ‘I didn’t want to tell thee before, in case nowt came of it. We’ve got to see ’Mastersons this morning. We’re about to start a new life.’

Annie ran swiftly, her bare feet not heeding the sharp grit and the hard cobbles. She had to find Francis tonight whilst she still felt the angry fire and pain inside her. By the morning her rage would have vanished and he would once more be able to manipulate her with his sweet talk and his sexuality.

She knew that he met his cronies in the dram shops down by the river at the South End. It was not a place to be in after dark. In the old days the area was used by smugglers who brought in goods by boat to the wharf side. Now it was a haunt of rogues and thieves, and the mariners who had no conscience about selling their masters’ wares for their own profit. Under cover of darkness rolls of silk, cases of spirit and any other easily disposable goods were brought ashore and exchanged for money or for the return of a favour.

Annie kept to the shadow of the walls as she peered into the dimly lit windows of the taverns. If she was found nosing around, chances were that she would be given a cut lip and a black eye, or worse.

There was no sign of Francis as she crept quietly from one place to another, and she was beginning to feel cold. A chill wind was blowing off the river, and she wished that she could have a drop of rum or gin to warm her. Her anger was slowly melting as discomfort took hold when she heard the sound of his laughter.

Immediately it provoked her resentment, for it was the laughter of a man without a care or a worry in his being, and she watched him as he emerged from a gin shop just a few yards from where she was standing.

He waved a cheerful goodbye to someone inside and made a sly remark to which there was an answering guffaw of male laughter, and then turned to walk towards Annie where she stood, pressed close to the wall, hardly daring to breathe.

She watched as he passed within inches of her, so close that she could have stretched out a finger to touch him. But she let him go. She could see his handsome face with a smile still lingering on it, and for a moment she experienced a yearning to hold him close just once more.

But the thought of the miseries and hurt that she had endured, and the fear that Lizzie would follow the same path unless she stopped it here and now, gave her courage. She put aside her own longings and hardened herself against Francis, whose concern, she knew, was only with his own bodily needs.

She draped her shawl over her head and covered her face, so that only her eyes were showing, and stepped out of the shadows behind him.

‘Hello, mister,’ she crooned. ‘Does tha fancy a bit of entertainment?’

Francis swung round. He obviously had not heard her behind him and knew that that was dangerous in a place like this, where the unwary could so easily find themselves in trouble.

‘Who is it?’ His voice was cautious.

‘Does that matter?’ she answered softly. ‘There’s no need for names when tha’s taking thy pleasure.’ She was close to him now and could sense his awakened interest. She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered her.

‘I need to call thee summat – if we’re to know each other!’

She kept her voice demure, for she knew that timidity excited him, while vulgarity in women offended and angered him. ‘Then call me Angel, and I’ll take thee to Heaven!’

He took hold of her arm firmly. ‘I’d like to see ’angel’s face before we go to Paradise!’

She simmered with fury as she listened to his honeyed words and knew that this was all sport to him. She determined that this was one game that he would lose.

‘Come with me then,’ she said as gently as she could, keeping her emotions in check, but with a quaver in her voice. ‘I know a quiet place where we can be comfortable, and then tha can look at me – all tha wants!’

As she took his hand in hers she could feel the throbbing of his pulse, and his anticipation. He moved closer towards her as she led him down towards the river.

‘Hey, wait a minute.’ He stumbled as he followed her down beneath the old wooden wharf. ‘Where’s tha taking me? I can’t see, it’s as black as Hell down here. We’ll slip into ’water and I can’t swim.’ Panic showed in his voice and Annie felt the satisfaction of power.

‘It’s all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘Tha’ll be able to see in a minute. We’re underneath ’wharf, but don’t worry, it’s quite safe, ’tide is out and there’s only soft mud below. There’s a walkway under here where we’ll be able to sit down.’

She led him, his hand gripping hers, until they reached a stretch of wide planking, where he sat down in some relief.

‘Well, that’s taken ’passion out of me,’ he said roughly. ‘Tha’ll have to work hard for thy reward now. Is this thy regular patch?’

He peered curiously at her. There were some small chinks of night sky coming through the planking above them and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he reached out for her shawl. ‘I know thee, I know that voice!’

‘And so tha should,’ said Annie, her voice bright and merry, as he pulled the shawl away from her face. ‘What a lark, eh, Frankie, tha didn’t guess?’

‘What’s thy game, Annie?’ He took hold of her roughly. ‘Has tha been following me? For if tha has!’

She was on dangerous ground, she heard the threat in his voice, but it only served to harden her resolve.

‘No, no, not following thee, Frankie – just looking for thee. I missed thee – didn’t tha miss me?’ She put her head on his shoulder and stroked his thigh with long sensuous movements, feeling the muscles tense beneath his breeches.

He didn’t answer but she could hear the quickening of his breath as desire returned.

Gently she traced the outline of his mouth with her fingers, then slowly slid her hand down his throat and chest, until it came to rest at the belt on his breeches. She fumbled as she tried to undo the heavy buckle, until with a grunt he came to her assistance, and with clumsy haste tore off the belt, throwing it to one side.

‘Lie down!’ he commanded roughly as he knelt above her, and as she turned to obey she slipped her hand under the folds of her skirts to find the object she had concealed there.

His breath rattled in his throat as the thin steel blade found its mark in the softness of the flesh below his ribs and brought him to his feet.

‘Bitch!’ he gasped as oblivion started to cloud his comprehension. ‘Bitch. Curse thee!’ He fell again to his knees, his hand clutching the wooden shaft of the knife, and as he sprawled, his other hand touched the belt as it lay on the planking. With a sudden spasm he grasped it and lashed out at Annie, the buckle catching her on her cheek, drawing blood.

In cold fury she raised her knees to her chest and with an explosive force kicked out with both feet, knocking him off the walkway down to the mud below.

In unhurried calm and without looking down, she made her way back, feeling her way as surefootedly as she used to when as a child she had played beneath the wharf, scrambling and swinging from the creaking beams above the muddy water, daring and being dared by the other children. The ‘River Rats,’ they were named, for some of them, without a roof to call their own, made their homes there.

She ran, her feet making no sound, back to her room where she bundled bread into a cloth. The few remaining coins which she had left from Alan’s bonus she wrapped in a piece of rag and attached under her skirt. Taking more rags, she carefully wound them around her feet before putting on her boots.

She took one last look around the bare room before she opened the door, and caught sight of Alan’s bag in the corner where she had left it. It had been lying there ever since she had brought it home on the day she learned of his death, how in a drunken stupor he had got in the way of a careering barrel of blubber.

She’d found the sharp flenser’s blade quite by chance as she had searched the bag one day, desperately hoping to find either money or something to sell, so that she could feed the children and buy some comfort for herself. She knew that she should have returned the knife to the company, for the men were forbidden to bring implements ashore. She always meant to but never did, and kept it hidden away.

She shuddered now as she realized the enormity of her action, but she steeled herself to think only of Lizzie. Her sons she knew would one day be able to take care of themselves.

She drew her shawls around her. She was wearing all the clothes that she possessed, and quietly closing the door behind her she stepped out into the night.

She had no clear idea of where she was going, but she headed off towards the Humber once more, feeling comfort in its familiarity, and knowing that if she kept to its shores she would eventually reach the riverside villages of Hessle and North Ferriby. Following the river’s course to the town of Selby, where no-one would know her, she would try to get a ride to York or even London.

With this in mind she strode purposefully away from the town, glancing only briefly towards the area where she knew Lizzie would be sleeping safely in the custody of Maria and Will, and out through the old town walls.

She reached the river bank as the day lightened and the fog from the river shifted and eddied, and in a few minutes, as protectively it drew a curtain about her, she was lost from view.

Maria put on her white collar and smoothed out her dress. It was very tight, and she draped her shawl about her to cover her body.

‘I’ve heard that some society ladies don’t care to see pregnant women,’ she said nervously to Will as they prepared to go out. The children were clean and tidy, and Tom was hopping from one foot to the other in his impatience to be off. ‘I hope Mrs Masterson isn’t one of them. Annie says that they pretend it isn’t happening to them.’

She looked anxiously at Lizzie as she mentioned Annie’s name, but the girl appeared not to notice as she was busily engrossed in fastening on a clean apron which Maria had given her.

‘Don’t believe everything tha hears.’ Will laughed at her. ‘I happen to know that Mrs Masterson is in ’same delicate situation as thyself.’

‘Delicate situation! What is tha talking about, Will Foster?’

‘Never mind, tha’ll find out soon enough. Come on, we mustn’t be late or it’ll look bad.’

As they walked, Maria was consumed with apprehension. She had heard that Mrs Masterson was a great beauty, but very imperious and fastidious, and she wondered if she would come up to her exacting standards.

‘Don’t be scared, Maria, she won’t eat thee.’ As if he had been reading her mind, Will took her hand comfortingly.

‘What does tha think I’ll have to do, Will? Shall I have to clean ’house and wash ’china and glass? And what if I break owt, will I have to pay?’

He squeezed her hand. ‘It can’t be worse than working on ’staith side, can it? There’s no worse taskmaster than old Johnson.’

He was right, of course. Johnson, who was in charge of the women, was hated for his meanness and foul tongue, and would cut the women’s wages on a mere whim.

But how will we ever manage, she thought, living in a quiet country district amongst strangers, with their different customs and strange talk? She smiled to herself, the townspeople used to mock the country folk for their slow ways when they came into town to sell their produce, but oddly enough, when a bargain was struck, the country folk were not often the losers.