Tidelands Read online

  “Yes. I’d rather we didn’t take it, but, she says Richard will see us right.”

  Ned chuckled. “Lord! That girl! She’s borrowing her dowry from her betrothed?”

  “It’s the only way she’d find it. They asked for a fortune. We’ve earned all we can. He’s making up the difference. She’s determined that the wedding goes ahead next Sunday.”

  He smiled. “Well, it’s good that we have a new life coming into the new world that we’re making. If it’s a boy she could call him ‘Oliver’ for old Noll!”

  “She could,” Alinor agreed, thinking that James would never allow it.

  “D’you like living in your old home again?”

  “Of course,” Alinor confirmed. “But if you ever find a wife you want to bring back here, I’ll be happy to go back to my cottage. Or somewhere else.”

  He laughed at her. “Not I. And anyway, where else would you go?”

  Alinor smiled. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  James thought that the easiest way to see Alinor would be to walk back with Rob after dinner on the hidden tracks through the harbor, as the sky darkened to the early dusk of winter. He said that he needed herbs against the return of his fever.

  “She won’t sell herbs on a Sunday,” Rob reminded him.

  “I can tell her what I need, and she can bring them to the Priory when she is passing,” James invented.

  Overhead, above the thick gray clouds, he could hear the flocks of winter geese coming in to roost on the shingle beds out in the harbor, and once, the unearthly creaking noise of swans’ wings. It was too dark to see anything but the track beneath their feet and the occasional glimpse of a slim moon between the raveled clouds. Rob went sure-footed on the well-known twisting paths but James had to follow him carefully. He could not even see the route that the boy was taking.

  “And your mother is well?” he asked, trying to keep up.

  “Winter’s always hard on the mire,” Rob answered. “And Alys had to work on the ferry every day, even on the coldest days, and my mother was afraid every moment that she was out on the rife. When I went over to take a turn it was even worse for her. She’s terrified of deep water. But she’s well enough. It’s more comfortable living in the ferry-house, than in the old cottage.”

  “They’re in the ferry-house? Why did they move from the cottage?”

  Rob looked away from his tutor, ashamed of his father’s desertion. “We’re going to tell everyone that we think my father is dead,” he said. “After Alys’s wedding. But for my mother to keep her work and her good name, she can’t be seen as a woman living alone.” He stumbled and stopped and turned to his tutor. “It’s better for her to be thought of as a widow, under the protection of her brother, especially when Alys and I leave home. I am sorry to lie, sir. But we really have to.”

  James dropped his hand on Rob’s hunched shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “It’s no shame to you, nor to her, that your father chose not to come home. It’s no lie to say that you don’t expect him. And I’ll tell no one that I saw him in Newport. He’s dead to me, too.”

  Rob visibly brightened. “It’s such a little island. She can’t live here without a good name.”

  “And Alys is to be married?” James turned the conversation from the boy’s discomfort, as they started to walk again.

  “Next Sunday. She’s had to save every penny for her dowry.”

  “Your mother must be happy for her.”

  “It’s taken all of her savings.”

  James thought he was a fool not to have sent money. But how would she have explained it? And he would have been stealing money that had been given for his work for the king. He had no money of his own. How could he have robbed the cause he was sworn to, for the woman that he was forbidden to love? But the thought of Alinor in hardship made him flush with shame.

  “Your uncle Ned should never have left her for so long,” he said irritably.

  “It was Alys that did the ferry. Ma wouldn’t touch it. D’you really believe that my father isn’t coming home, sir?”

  James was glad to climb the bank that led towards the rife and see the looming darkness of Ferry-house. “It’s what he said. And better for your mother if he does not, don’t you think?”

  “Better for Alys too. The Stoneys would never have her if my da was still here.”

  “And better for you?”

  Rob flushed. “The apothecary wouldn’t have me as an apprentice if he met my da.”

  “Your mother will be a free woman in six years,” James said.

  “That’s such a long time,” Rob said, as a young man will say, and James—a young man only twenty-two years old himself—could not disagree.

  They reached the ferry-house door. Rob turned the latch and the door yielded. “Mr. Summer came with me,” he said as he went in and James stepped in behind him.

  After the darkness of the harbor, the room was bright, though it was only lit by firelight and rushlights. Ned was seated at the table, sharpening a pocket knife, Alinor and Alys either side of the fire, spinning, with their distaffs propped beside them and their spindles whirling at their feet. As James came in, Alinor jumped up with a gasp, her spindle skittering away under the settle.

  “You’re very welcome,” she said, recovering.

  “I thought I’d walk over with Robert,” James said awkwardly. “I thought I’d ask you for some herbs against my fever . . . if it comes back again. I didn’t mean to disturb you all.”

  Ned barely raised his eyes from his work but bobbed his head in a nod.

  “Will you take a glass of ale?” Alinor asked. “Please, sit.” She gestured to her stool at the fireside.

  “Thank you, and then I’ll walk back by the road.”

  “Dark night,” Ned observed.

  “Yes indeed.”

  There was a silence as Alinor went to the cool buttery at the back of the house and drew a glass of ale each for James and Rob, and then brought another for Ned. Rob sat beside her on the bench against the wall.

  “Is it strange to be home?” James asked Ned.

  Ned shrugged. “It’s not the life I’d have chosen, but none of us can live the life we’d have chosen.” He paused. “Maybe you can,” he said. “Maybe his lordship does.”

  “Not anymore,” James said honestly. “I never thought this would happen, and I never thought it would end this way.”

  Ned put his knife carefully in the worn leather sheath and put the whetstone to one side. “Pity that you didn’t,” he said gruffly. “Could’ve been stopped years ago.”

  “I agree,” James said, trying to find some common ground. “I have thought for a long time that we should have found a way ahead without going to war. That we should have made an agreement so that we could find a way to end our differences and live together.”

  “Well, now we have,” Ned said with a little smile. “Though p’raps not the agreement you’d have wished. Can you live in this new England?”

  “I hope to,” James said. “I hope to regain my home, and I hope to live there, with my family, and help . . .”

  “Help what?”

  “The ruling and governing of the kingdom . . . of the country.”

  Ned raised his head and stared at James as if he could not believe the quiet words. “And why should you, and the likes of you, rule and govern us, when you’ve disturbed our peace for nearly ten years?”

  James swallowed. “Because I am an Englishman and I want to live in peace.”

  “I’m sure we all want peace,” Alinor interrupted.

  Ned smiled at her. “Aye. I know you do, Sister. And I hope that we’ll have it now. What’s your opinion on how the country should be run?”

  Alinor flushed a little. “Ah, Ned, you know I only know my trade. I think midwives should be licensed, and women should be churched after their confinement. For the rest—how would I know?”

  James had a sudden sharp memory of his mother’s astute vision, which had gu
ided their family through years of change; she knew the world as well as her husband, and could calculate political advantage quicker than any man.

  “Are you in favor of petticoat government?” James asked Ned, trying to smile.

  “I’d rather be ruled by good-hearted women than by all the cavaliers who will be turning their collars, and flocking back to their houses, now they’ve lost.”

  James flushed with anger. “I can’t agree with you,” he said shortly. “I think we’ll have to differ.”

  Ned rose from the table. “Have done,” he advised James. “It’s as I thought. You’re what I thought. If you weren’t on cavalier business, or papist business, it was secret business and bad business. As for me, I don’t care what you did, as long as you cease doing it now.”

  “Mr. Summer was my tutor,” Rob spoke up for him. “I’d not have had a chance at an apprenticeship without his teaching.”

  Ned nodded, and put his hand on the seated boy’s shoulder. “I know. I know he did well by you.” He paused. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “Some of us have to work early in the morning. And this lad has to start at Chichester tomorrow morning, and that’s a great beginning for him. He should be early to bed and early to rise.”

  “Yes.” James got to his feet. “I’m going. I just came for some herbs, for fever. I’m sorry we can’t agree.”

  “I’ll see you out,” Alinor said, quickly going to the front door. “I’ll walk you round to the road.”

  “Don’t let him fall in the rife and drown,” Ned remarked with such a bitter smile that his words seemed more of a threat than a joke. “That’d be a loss to the future government. Good night, Mr. Summer. Or will you go by another name when you take up your lands? Was that ever your name at all?”

  James turned back towards Ned and stretched out his hand. “I will have another name, and I am sorry to have sailed under false colors with you. I lost my faith some time ago, and we were both a witness to the death of my king. I have been waiting to make my peace with all my countrymen and with you. I hope you will, one day, forgive me for my sins as I forgive those you have done unto me.”

  Ned was surprised into taking the man’s hand and shaking it. “Aye, very well,” he said. “And no false dealing in future?”

  “None,” James said. “The war is over for both of us, and for the king.”

  “Aye,” Ned said with quiet satisfaction. “It’s surely over for him.”

  Alinor was waiting at the front door with a shawl over her head. “I’ll shut up the hens,” she called back to the firelit room.

  As they stepped out into the still cold air James could see the pale outline of her face and her dark eyes in the light of the sickle moon. He thought that he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life than this woman in this bleached and blackened landscape, with the harbor water shining like a sheet of pewter behind her, and the sliver of an ice-white moon in the sky above her.

  “Aren’t you cold?” he asked, and put his arms around her as if he would straighten her shawl, but found himself holding her, as easily and naturally as if they had never been parted. She came into his arms but at once he felt a difference in her. Through the layers of homespun he could feel her body but it was strange to him. Something about her touch horrified him, as if she was a shape-changer in a frightening story, and he flinched, stepped back, and looked at her. He saw that the pallor of her face was not just moonlight.

  “J-James,” she said, stumbling over his name.

  “My love?”

  “You came back for me?”

  “As I promised, the minute that I could.”

  She sighed, and he realized she had been holding her breath from the moment he had stepped over the threshold. Her anxiety only alarmed him more. He glanced back at the darkened doorway, and she took him by the hand and led him around the corner of the house and through a gate into the vegetable garden that ran alongside the deserted road.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said.

  At the sound of her voice, the hens, warm in their house, clucked sleepily to her. She bent, and latched the door of their house, bolting it at the top and at the bottom.

  “I have to tell you something first,” he said rapidly. “I met with my parents, with my mother and my father. I told them of you. I told them that I will pay my fine to parliament and regain our house. I will take you there, and in six years’ time, when you are declared a widow, we will marry.”

  He saw her blanched lips tremble and he was afraid that she was about to argue. But, to his surprise, she consented at once: “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I will marry you and live wherever you wish. Yes. And I have something to tell you.”

  “You will come with me?” He could hardly believe her words.

  “I will. But I have to—”

  “My love! My love! You will come with me!”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Anything! Anything!”

  The hens clucked again at the voices. “Hush,” she said, drawing him away from the henhouse. “I have to tell you . . .”

  He took her hand. “Of course. What is it, my love?”

  She drew a breath again, as if she could not speak. Then her words were so soft he had to lean towards her to catch them. “I am with child,” she said.

  For a moment he did not understand what she was saying; he could not hear the words. Each single word made sense, but together they made no sense at all and he could not understand it—coming from her, to him.

  “What?”

  “I am with child.”

  “How?” he asked stupidly.

  She found a ghost of a smile. “The way it usually happens. When we were in the hayloft together.”

  “But how?” he asked again. “How could it be?”

  “What should prevent it?”

  “I thought you would prevent it!” he retorted, too loudly for caution.

  “Hush,” she said again, and led him farther down the path to the bottom gate, so that they could not be heard from the house.

  Irrelevantly, he suddenly thought how much he hated a winter vegetable garden, so dark and muddy and nothing growing. He thought how poor it was, and how ugly. He thought how much he disliked it that the hens recognized her voice and clucked back at her. The future Lady Avery should not pull turnips and feed her own hens; and her hand in his was rough. “Are you sure?”

  Now she smiled. “Of course I am sure.”

  Her smile infuriated him, as if she thought him a fool. “I do understand well enough,” he snapped. “It’s not that I know nothing. It’s just that I thought that you—a married woman, a wisewoman—would have made sure that it did not happen.”

  She shook her head; she was maddeningly serene. “I don’t do that sort of work.”

  “It’s not work when it is for yourself!” he argued like a Jesuit. “It would be work, and a sin, if you were preventing the child of another: a sinful woman, or an adulteress. But for yourself there is no sin in a woman choosing to eat some herbs, or drink some drink, as soon as you knew. Or better still, before you did the act!”

  “Did the act?” she repeated, as if she could not understand his words.

  “Then it would be no sin at all as there would be no intent. D’you see? If there is no evil intent then there is no sin. Why did you not take the herbs the morning that we parted?”

  “I was thinking of nothing but us, nothing but us and the hayloft as if it were a time outside time,” she admitted. “I was longing for the evening when I would see you again. Then you were gone, and I was just longing.”

  She tightened the shawl across her rounded belly. “Of course, once I knew, I thought what I should do. I thought about it all night long. It was a long night, and a cold one . . .” She trailed off. She wanted to tell him how bright the beach of shells had been in the moonlight, the heavy stones that she had chosen, the thought of walking into the mire, the certainty of death by drowning, and her revelation that
the life of their baby was a joy to her.

  Then she saw his face, closed and angry. “But I would never have done it. I wouldn’t use herbs to poison any baby. I certainly wouldn’t poison my baby. And I’d rather die than poison a baby of ours.”

  She saw his shoulders hunch with an instant revulsion. “It’s not a baby yet,” he said. “Not in law. Not till it quickens. Not in the sight of God. Has it quickened yet? No?”

  Wonderingly she looked from his scowling eyes to his hardened mouth. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Of course. We conceived him in September. I felt him move at Christmas. I know there is life in him. He sleeps and wakes inside me, I can feel him. Perhaps he dreams.”

  “It’s not a boy child!”

  Again, she looked at him with her steady dark gaze. “Of course, no one can say for sure. But it is a child, and I believe it is a boy.”

  “It’s not. It’s a nothing. It’s not too late . . .”

  “Too late for what?”

  “For you to take the herb or the drink or whatever it is that you know. Not too late for that.”

  “Not too late for me to push a bodkin into my belly to kill it in the womb,” she remarked.

  He gulped. “Of course, I wouldn’t want you to do that. But, Alinor . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Alinor, I want to take you to my home, I want you to live there as my wife. You will be the next Lady Avery.”

  At once she was diverted. “Is that your name?”

  “Yes, yes, what of it? That’s not the point. What I am saying is that I cannot take you to my mother and my father if you are big with a child and you are still another man’s wife. If you allow it to be born, it will take Zachary’s name. I cannot raise a child named Reekie in my own home! Bad enough that my mother will have Alys and Robert as her grandchildren! I cannot, Alinor. You must understand, I cannot. It would be to shame you, and shame me and my name.”

  “I didn’t know that was your name,” she repeated. “Avery! Are you Lord Avery?”