Tidelands Page 22

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose so.”

  There was a little silence. She did not seem shocked; she was neither flattered nor fearful. She stood, waiting for him to take his hand off her arm, and let her go. He supposed that men desired her all the time and that she regarded a touch at her breast, a grab at her waist, as a regular inconvenience, like rain.

  “Oh, well,” he said, letting her go, and returning to his seat behind his table, as if to restore himself to authority. “So: your lad. He can go to his apprenticeship when Walter goes to university.”

  She nodded. “And when’ll that be, sir?” she asked as calmly as if he had not propositioned her, as if it was merely another thing that she had not heard and would not repeat.

  Despite his own discomfiture, he smiled at her cool grace. “He’ll go in the Lent term,” he said. “After Christmas.”

  Alinor walked quickly on the hidden paths across the mire from the Priory to her home. The tide was ebbing and, as she went deeper into the harbor on the hidden ways, she could hear the suck and hiss of the waves reluctantly leaving the land, like her fears dogging her quick footsteps. As she walked past the net shed she heard the roar of the tide mill starting up, and saw the spout of water burst out of the millrace, coming directly towards her.

  She turned inland and climbed the path to her cottage, opened the door, and looked around. Suddenly the place seemed very small and poor compared to the groom’s loft at the Priory. Even the lowliest servants lived better than she did. She put the loaf of Priory bread under the bread cover, and saw that the fire was dark and cold in the hearth. She levered up the hearthstone and found her little purse of savings, safely buried. She took the twenty shillings for nursing James out of her apron pocket and added them to the purse with a satisfying clink of coins. Then she pressed the hearthstone back into place, and dusted the ashes over it.

  She rose up, brushing down her gown, and went to the front door. For a moment, she looked around at the cramped room, the low ceiling, the beaten floor of mud. Then she turned away from her shame at her poverty, and went outside, closing the door behind her, and along the bank to the ferry.

  The ferry-house door was closed, the ferry pulling at its mooring rope as the tide ebbed. The raised wadeway was nearly dry and Alinor lifted her skirt and paddled across in the cold water, and then walked down the lane to the mill.

  Alys was crossing the mill yard, carrying a bucket filled with eggs. Now that harvest was over, she was working as a maid-of-all-work for Mrs. Miller, gardening in the vegetable and herb patch, feeding and keeping the hens, feeding the ducks, picking and storing the fruit, smoking hams and curing meat. She worked in the dairy too, and in the brewhouse. If they were shorthanded in the mill she would help to weigh and bag the flour. Mrs. Miller might order her to help with baking in the mill oven, and always there was the endless task of scouring and rinsing, scalding and drying the tools for the dairy, for the brewery and the kitchen utensils.

  Alinor watched as Richard Stoney, Alys’s sweetheart, came out of the mill at a run and tried to take the bucket of eggs to carry them for her. She fended him off, but he caught her hand and kissed it. Alys looked up and saw her mother as Richard made a little nod of a bow and darted back to the mill. The girl came to the five-barred yard gate, dipped her head for her mother’s blessing, and rose up and kissed her.

  “Not plague then,” she said, knowing that her mother would never have kept the clothes that she had worn while nursing a plague patient. When Alinor came home from a death she always washed her hands and trimmed her hair, so that the bad luck would not follow her.

  “No, God be praised. They were pleased at the Priory. It was the tutor, James Summer, and they must have been afraid for Master Walter.” She smiled at Alys. “I see young Richard Stoney is eager to work.”

  She had thought that Alys would laugh, but the girl blushed and looked down. “He doesn’t like to see me do heavy work here. He wants a better life for me. For us both.”

  “He does?” Alinor asked. “Did you have a merry evening at his farm?”

  “Yes, they were kind to me, and we were . . .” she tailed off, her face illuminated. “You know what I mean.”

  “I understand,” Alinor said quietly.

  “So, what was wrong with Mr. Summer?”

  “Some sort of fever. It broke overnight. But, Alys . . .”

  “Shall I come home tonight, then?”

  There was no reason to keep her daughter from her home. Guiltily, she realized that never before had she wished to be alone in the cottage. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ve a loaf of bread from the Priory for your dinner.”

  “I’ll bring some curd cheese,” Alys promised. “Jane Miller and I are making it, this afternoon. Mrs. Miller will give me a slice.”

  “Is she here?” Alinor asked.

  “In the kitchen, sour as crab apples,” Alys said under her breath.

  “Is her back paining her?”

  “Her bottom,” Alys said vulgarly, and Alinor gave her a little cuff around her cap.

  “You’d better talk like a goodwife if you want me to go and see Richard Stoney’s parents.”

  At once the girl’s face lit up. “Will you go to see them?”

  “If he’s promised you, and you wish it, I’d better talk to his parents.”

  “Oh, Ma!” The girl plunged into her mother’s embrace. “But why now? Why d’you think we can ask them? Did his lordship give you a great fee for nursing?”

  “Yes, he did, a fortune. And something even better than a fee. He said that he will apprentice Rob to an apothecary at Chichester. It’s as good as giving me ten pounds. Now I know Rob is provided for, I can put all my savings into your dowry.”

  Alys did not think for a moment that this would leave her mother without anything against accident. She thought only that she could be married to the young man that she loved.

  “How much’ve you got?” she demanded.

  “One pound and fifteen shillings,” Alinor said proudly. “Farmer Johnson paid me well for the birth of his son, and the boat only cost us three shillings. A whole pound and fifteen shillings altogether. Sir William gave me a pound for nursing the tutor. That’s more than I’ve ever had in my life.”

  “How ever have you saved it all?”

  “Rob’s wages.” Alinor was silent about the pay for leading James to the Priory at midsummer. “And Farmer Johnson, nursing Mr. Summer just now, and the herbs and fishing, especially the lobsters.”

  “But it still won’t be nearly enough.”

  “Thirty-five shillings down, and more to come?” Alinor demanded. “They’ll be surprised we have so much. We can tell them that Rob is going for an apothecary. He’ll earn well in the future. He’ll promise some of his wages.”

  “It won’t be enough. They thought they’d get a girl who would inherit land. They want some neighbor’s girl whose father owns the fields nearby. Richard has sworn he won’t have her. He’s told them he wants to marry me. We’ve just got to force them to agree.”

  “We’ll do the best we can,” Alinor said quietly. “Tell Richard we’ll call on them on the way to market tomorrow.”

  “Ma!” Alys gasped, her face alight, and she turned and bounded across the yard to the mill while Alinor tapped on the kitchen door and let herself in.

  Mrs. Miller was leaning on the kitchen table, rolling and turning pastry, battering it with an icy roller. Alinor thought that the pastry would be as hard as the woman’s heart.

  “Goodwife Reekie,” she said grudgingly as Alinor entered. “Alys told me you were nursing at the Priory.”

  “It was the young lord’s tutor that was taken ill,” Alinor said. “Him that was at harvest home, Mr. Summer.”

  Neither women referred to the jealous glance that Mrs. Miller had shot down the table at the beautiful younger woman, nor how the young lord’s tutor had gone to speak to Alinor as soon as the table was cleared, and she had stormed away from the harvest home, leav
ing Alys unsupervised, to dance all night with Richard Stoney.

  “Is he sick?” Mrs. Miller asked. “Did he take sick in Newport? I wouldn’t be surprised. The island’s always feverish in summer.”

  “Yes, he took a fever,” Alinor said. “Very sudden, very hot, but he’s better now.”

  “You nursed him?”

  “Sir William insisted. He sent for me at once, to make sure that it was not plague.”

  “God save us!”

  “Amen.”

  “And it was not?”

  “No. I wouldn’t be here if there was any danger. I wouldn’t bring sickness to your door, Mrs. Miller.”

  “Don’t speak of it,” she said quickly, and knocked on the wooden table, as if Alinor could bring disease by naming it.

  Alinor knocked too, a counterpoint to the rhythm of superstition. “No, of course not. I only came in to see if you wanted any of your garden herbs picked and distilled. I’m going to do a batch for myself, and some at Ferry-house. And to ask if Alys might have a day off tomorrow.”

  “I could do with some basil oil and oil of comfrey,” Mrs. Miller said. “Of course Alys can have the day off. I don’t have enough work to keep her busy as it is. She’s always dawdling in the yard and talking with the men. I have to tell you, Mrs. Reekie, she’s running after that Richard Stoney every hour of the day.”

  “I’m sorry for that.” Alinor resisted the temptation to defend her daughter. “I’ll speak with her. But I know she’s learning so much from you. In the dairy and bakery.”

  “Well, of course, I can do more in a big kitchen than you can in your little cottage.” Mrs. Miller warmed to the flattery. “I daresay my kitchen is twice the size of even Ferry-house. Are you two going to Chichester market?”

  “Yes. Can I buy anything for you?”

  “Nothing, nothing. I can’t afford to waste my money on fripperies. But if you see a piece of lace, just enough to trim a collar and an apron, not too rich, not too fancy—you know the sort of thing I like—you can buy it for me, if it’s not too dear. And a piece for Jane, too. I can put it in her dowry drawer.”

  “I will,” Alinor promised. “If I see anything pretty.”

  “I’ll give you the money,” Mrs. Miller said. “You can bring it back, if there’s nothing nice.”

  “Oh, I’ll take my own money, and you can just repay me, if I find anything.”

  “No, it’d be too dear for you,” the older woman said smugly. “I’ll want something worth at least three shillings, and I know you won’t have that. Turn your back and I’ll get out my purse.”

  Obediently, Alinor turned her face to the sideboard where the Millers’ well-polished pewter and one trencher of silver was proudly displayed. Behind her she could hear the noise of Mrs. Miller going to the drawer in the big wooden kitchen table, pulling it out and taking out her purse, and her “tut” of irritation as she found that she did not have enough money to hand.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Just wait a minute.”

  “No hurry,” Alinor said pleasantly, her thoughts far away from Mrs. Miller’s purse, conscious only of the heat of her lips and the ache in her body and her longing for James.

  “Just a moment,” Mrs. Miller said again, but now she was immediately behind Alinor, her voice strange and echoing. Startled, Alinor’s head jerked up and she clearly saw, in the silver trencher, the miller’s wife standing on the hearthstone, behind the glowing embers, pulling a red leather purse from a hole in the brickwork chimney. The woman turned with sooty fingers, and met Alinor’s eyes, flinching at her reflected gaze. Obviously, Alinor had seen her hiding place. Alinor looked down and heard the scrape of the brick sliding back into place.

  “You can turn round now,” she said, flustered. “Jane’s dowry. I’m short in my own purse. I’ll just borrow from Jane’s dowry.”

  “Of course,” said Alinor coolly, turning and looking at the floor, not the fireplace.

  “It’s my own money,” the woman said awkwardly. “It’s me that put it by for her. Surely I can borrow from my own daughter’s dowry, since I put it by for her since she was a baby?”

  “I understand,” said Alinor. “And I didn’t see.”

  “It’s the same purse that your mother got from the pedlar. We bought them together, years ago. Red leather.”

  “I didn’t know,” Alinor said. “I didn’t see.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Mrs. Miller lied. “And I wouldn’t mind if you did. I can’t bring myself to keep it at the goldsmith’s. I like it where I can see it. Now and then I top it up. Always have done. Of course, I don’t mind you knowing where it’s kept. Haven’t I known you since you were a little girl? Didn’t your own mother attend my birth?”

  “She did,” Alinor agreed.

  Mrs. Miller pressed three silver shillings into Alinor’s hand. “There. If you see some fine lace, not too fussy, for a collar and a pinny, you can pay up to three shillings for it.”

  The coins were hot from being stored behind the fire. Alinor thought that anyone who touched them would have guessed their hiding place at once. But she said lightly: “I’ll look for lace for you, and bring it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Very good,” Mrs. Miller said. “Alys can help you pick the herbs now and then go home with you if you want. I don’t need her for anything else today.”

  “Thank you,” Alinor said, and went to fetch her daughter to come to the herb garden and pick comfrey and basil for Mrs. Miller.

  In his bedroom at the Priory, James was packing a clean shirt and clean hose in a saddlebag with his Bible and a purse of gold coins, all that was left from the queen’s money to buy her husband’s freedom. Sir William was standing by the window and looking down into the orchard below.

  “You can leave your sacred things here,” he said. “I’ll keep them safe for you, until you return to claim them.”

  “Thank you,” James said. “If I don’t come back, you can be sure that another priest will.” He tried to smile. “My replacement. I pray that he does better than I.”

  “Don’t take it so hard,” Sir William said. “You did what you were asked to do. You reached him with a good plan and a waiting ship. You didn’t miscarry. You didn’t steal the gold, you didn’t betray him. Half the people he employs would have sold him to our enemies. If he had wished it, he would be free now, and you would be the savior of the kingdom.”

  “Yes,” James said. “But he did not wish it, and I am very far from the savior of the kingdom. I am a Nobody. Worse than that, I am a Nobody with no home and no family and no faith. No king either.”

  “Ah! You take things hard when you’re a young man. But listen to me: you’ll recover. You’re not even well yet, just up from your sickbed. When you get back to France, tell the Fathers that you need some time. Rest for a while, eat well, and only then tell them about your doubts. It all looks better when you’re well. Trust me. It all looks different when you’ve had a good sleep and a good meal. These are hard times for us all. We have to get through them one step at a time. Sometimes we fall back, sometimes we press forward. But we keep going. You’ll keep going.”

  James straightened up from tightening the straps on his bag and looked at Sir William. Even the lord of the manor, a cheerful thoughtless man, was struck by the bleakness of his pale young face.

  “I wish I could believe it, but I feel as if everything that I know, and everything that I am, has been knocked out of me. And all I can pray is to be allowed to do something else and live another life entirely.”

  “Ah, well, perhaps your road lies that way, who knows? These are times of great change. Who knows what will happen? But there will always be a welcome for you here. If they send you back to England you can return here as Walter’s tutor until he goes to Cambridge, and as a welcome guest anytime after that.”

  “What will become of young Robert?”

  “I’ve taken care of that. We owed Goodwife Reekie a debt, don’t you think? She came as soon as I sent for
her, and she went in with you when we didn’t know what was wrong. She could’ve been locked up with a dying man, for all we knew. She risked taking the plague and God knows what would have been the end of that. She nursed you well, didn’t she?”

  James turned away and opened a cupboard door to hide his face. “Perfectly adequate,” he said to the empty shelves.

  “And she made it clear that she’ll keep her mouth shut. She never said a word about finding you when you first came here. She can be trusted. I’ve promised her that her boy will have an apprenticeship. Mr. Tudeley will arrange it. Apothecary in Chichester. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it for her silence, and it will keep her indebted and silent forever.”

  “I’m glad!” James said, turning back to Sir William. “That’s generous and good of you, sir. She’s a woman who deserves some good luck. I didn’t tell you, but I ran into her husband at Newport. He told me he was never coming home to her.”

  “Zachary Reekie.” His lordship named his missing tenant with aristocratic distaste. “No loss, if you ask me. Better for her if he’d drowned.”

  “Maybe, but it leaves her in an awkward position.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Not if she doesn’t see him, and no one sees him. If no one ever reports seeing him, then in seven years’ time she can declare him dead, and herself a widow.”

  “Seven years?”

  “That’s the law.”

  “Would she know that?”

  “No! How would she? Doubt if she can read.”

  “She can read. But I doubt if she knows the law. I didn’t. If no one sees him in seven years she’s free?”

  “Exactly.” His lordship tapped his nose, indicating a secret. “Seven years from when he first went missing. So, he disappeared—when?—last winter, I think, when the navy was still commanded by parliament, before we got the ships back. He ran away to serve them, as a rogue like him would, and never came back. So, he’s been gone nearly a year, at least. In six years’ time she’ll be free and can take another husband. She’s a young woman. If she can get through six years with her name untarnished, then she’ll have a life ahead of her. There’s more than one man who’d be glad to have her. I should think more than one would even marry her.”