Tidelands Page 7

  Alinor knelt and buried her face in her hands. Having rescued a papist, brought him to a royalist safe house, put her son into service under a cavalier lord, and lied to her brother, she feared she was very far from the bright light of day.

  Mrs. Wheatley nudged her. “Amen,” she said loudly.

  “Amen.” Alinor rose to her feet and joined in.

  It was the bidding prayer that released them. Sir William rose to his feet, remembered not to bow towards the old stone altar, which stood ignored, swept bare of the rich gold and silver, under the eastern window of the chapel. His lordship turned his back on the consecrated ground as if it were not his family’s long-revered sacred space, and led the way out. Everyone followed him. Only the priest stayed in the chapel, his head bent in prayer in the silent whitewashed room.

  “I go to breakfast now.” Rob appeared at his mother’s side as the household dispersed to work. At once Alinor put her arms around him and kissed the warm top of his head.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked him quickly. “Are you well treated?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I get beef for breakfast, and ham if I want it.”

  “You go,” she agreed. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”

  A quick smile and he was gone, trotting after Walter. As he came alongside, he deliberately bounced against Walter and the noble-born boy jostled him back as if they were both village children in the churchyard. Alinor, watching, realized that her son was happy, and his companionship with the son of the lord of the manor was a real friendship.

  Mrs. Wheatley led the way back to the kitchen, took up the peel, and shoveled fresh-baked rolls from the bread oven. She passed one to Alinor, who put it in her apron pocket and felt the warmth against her hip.

  “Thank you,” Alinor said, grateful for much more than the bread.

  Mrs. Wheatley nodded. “I knew you’d pine for him. But he’s doing well enough, as you see, and Master Walter is a friendly boy. There’s no spite in him.”

  On impulse, Alinor kissed the older woman’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said again, and took up her basket, unpacked the samphire leaves into the cool larder, and went out of the kitchen door into the kitchen garden. Dawdling down the paths, pretending to look at the growing herbs in the late summer blowsy richness, she arrived at the gate to the sea meadow. Only then, as she put her hand on the latch and turned to see Father James coming out of the house, did she admit to herself that she had been delaying in the hope that he would come after her.

  She found she was blushing and hot, and worse, she had nothing to say. She remembered that she should not speak of the first time they had met. That was a secret of grave importance. But if she did not speak of that, how could she say anything to him? She should be greeting him with deference, as a complete stranger, a guest of her lord, a minister of the church. But if they were strangers he would not be striding past the herb beds towards her, his handsome face alight with joy at seeing her. She did not even know what to call him, but he came so quickly towards her and took both her hands in his warm clasp that she could say nothing but: “Oh.” “Oh,” she said.

  “I knew that I would see you again,” he said hastily.

  “I . . .” She withdrew her hands and at once he released her.

  “Sir William has taken me on as his chaplain. I pass as a minister of the reformed religion. Nobody in the household but Mr. Tudeley knows any different. Your boy doesn’t know. He doesn’t attend Mass, nor does Walter. The Mass is completely secret, held only at night when the household is asleep. He is in no danger. He doesn’t know what I am,” he said in a rush.

  “He mustn’t know,” was all she could say. “He’s been raised . . . and his uncle served under Cromwell himself. He mustn’t . . .”

  “I know. Mr. Tudeley warned us when I said I would like Robert to share Walter’s lessons.”

  “You got Rob hired for my sake?”

  “I owe you a great debt,” he said. “You took me in and hid me and brought me to safety.”

  She nodded at his formal tone. He spoke as if she were one of the faithful—morally bound to assist a priest—as if there had never been a moment in the meadow, as if he had never said: “a woman like you.”

  “It was nothing.” She was cool in return. “My duty to Sir William. I know not to speak of it.”

  “And besides,” he said.

  “Besides?”

  Now it was his turn to be lost for words. “I wanted . . . I want . . . I hoped I might do something that would help you. I would have sent you money, but I thought this would be better.”

  “That was kind of you, sir. But I need nothing.”

  “Because I—” He broke off.

  “Because you?”

  He took a breath. “I have never known a woman like you before.”

  “ ‘A woman like you in a place like this,’ ” she quoted his words back at him.

  He flushed. “Such a stupid thing to say.”

  “No! I was so pleased! It meant—”

  “Not that I think there is anything wrong with Sealsea Island.”

  “It’s very poor,” she said simply. “It must look very poor to you, who are used to so much better. Finer.”

  “I’ve never met a woman finer than you!”

  They were both shocked at his sudden honesty. It was as if they both heard the words and would have to go apart from each other in silence and think what they meant.

  “I’d better go,” she said, her hand on the latch but not moving.

  “Yes,” he said. “Can you buy the fishing boat now?”

  He watched her smile and then she raised her eyes to meet his.

  “I’m getting it next week,” she said with simple gratitude. “I’m going with my brother to see an old skiff at Dell Quay.”

  “Will you sail it home?”

  “Oh, no. We wouldn’t go all the way by sea around the island. I wouldn’t dare. We’ll borrow a cart from the tide mill and fetch it down the lanes. It’s only a little way by land, five miles.”

  “And will you be brave enough to take it out on the water?”

  “I must be,” she said steadily. “I have to be.”

  “Will you take me out? I could bring the boys. Your son must know how to fish—he could teach Walter.”

  Together they considered this; they imagined this next step.

  “I don’t see why not,” she said slowly, imagining how it would look to the servants in the household, what they would say at the mill if they saw the boat on the water with the four of them on board. “Would Sir William allow Master Walter to go out in a little boat?”

  “Why not? And Robert can guide us to your cottage. There would be nothing wrong in that.”

  “Nothing wrong,” she agreed with him.

  It was odd that their last words, as she bobbed a curtsey and went through the door to the sea meadow, was that there could be nothing wrong. They both knew that it was wrong: she should not be hoping that her son would bring him to her, and James knew very well that he should not meet her again.

  TIDELANDS, AUGUST 1648

  Rob led the chaplain and young Walter to the cottage along the shore path, in the heat of the afternoon, leaping like a goat over the briny puddles and pattering up and down from beach to bank and from tussock of reeds to dry land. Walter, in smart buckled shoes, slipped and slid after him, complaining of the mud and the incoming tide. Father James followed behind. The tide lapped inwards, closer all the time, seeping up the beach so quickly that they had to clamber from the shore to the high path on the bank as they got to the cottage. They could hear the hiss of bubbling water in the hushing well.

  Rob exclaimed at the sight of the skiff moored at the end of the rickety pier outside his mother’s cottage, and at his mother coming towards them smiling, a clean white cap hiding the twisted plait of her golden hair, a clean apron around her waist. Rob bounded forward, knelt for her blessing, and then bounced up to kiss her. “You remember Master
Walter,” he said. “And this is our tutor, our chaplain, Mr. Summer.”

  Alinor bobbed a curtsey to Walter. “How are you, sir?” she asked him. “You look a deal better than in the spring.”

  “I’m well,” he said. “Father says I’m as strong as a bullock.”

  Alinor made a little curtsey to Father James, but he stepped forward and took her hand and bowed over it as if she were an equal. “I am pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard much of you from your son, and I have admired your work in the Priory stillroom.”

  “Oh, it’s very neglected,” Alinor said. “We’ve done very little there since Lady Peachey’s death.” She glanced towards Walter as she mentioned the death of his mother, but he and Rob were already heading down the little pier to where the skiff was bobbing on the deep water of the channel, nudging the rotting stanchions of wood as the tide pushed it inward.

  “Have you been out in the boat? Did you find the courage?” Father James asked her quietly.

  “My brother took me the first time. I’d not been on the water since Zachary went missing.”

  “Your husband?”

  “I used to row for him when he was lobster potting.”

  “And do you think you will manage it alone?”

  “I can,” she said, swallowing her fear so that her voice was steady. “As long as the water’s not too deep, or the tide running too fast.”

  He nearly laughed at her determined expression. “Ah, Mrs. Reekie, even I can see you’re not a natural waterwoman.”

  “I’m not.” She smiled back at him. “But I know I can take the boat out with a line and troll for mackerel, and I can use a net, and I can row to the islands where the gulls nest, and take the eggs, so already I’m set to make a better living than before. I have to be brave. This is a great chance for me, for my children. I’ll never go out of the harbor, I’ll never put out to sea, but this is our trade. Everyone on this island is a fisherman. I have to do it too! And if I were to be so lucky as to catch a salmon and sell it to Sir William—well, then I would have paid for the boat with one day’s work.”

  “I thought that you bought the boat with the money from one day’s work?” he teased her.

  At once her eyes danced. “That was a very fat fish,” she said mischievously, and made him laugh.

  They were at the step up to the pier and, without thinking, he put his hand under her arm to help her, as if she were a lady and he were courting her. She felt the warmth of his hand on her arm and she did not draw away but they both looked studiously at their feet until she had stepped up and he released his grip.

  “The lines are in the boat,” she told the boys. “And the bait.”

  Rob stepped easily from the rickety pier into the boat, and then held it for Walter, as it rocked against the pier. James hesitated and looked at Alinor. “Will you get in next?” he asked her, offering her his hand.

  She sat down on the timbers of the pier so that she could lower herself into the boat without assistance, settling herself on the central seat. James untied the rope, stepped down into the boat, and seated himself beside Alinor, taking one of the oars. “Shall we row together as the boys fish?” he suggested.

  She agreed and turned her face away from him, but he could see her color rising as they were shoulder to shoulder, moving together, each placing the oar and heaving gently, moving in rhythm as the boat eased away from the land and into the channel. The water inside the harbor was calm, though they could hear the seethe of the hushing well in the center of the deep waters. The tide was flowing in, the current moving fast, but they rowed easily out into midchannel and then held the boat still, as the boys baited their hooks with earthworms and dropped them over the side.

  “Disgusting!” Walter exclaimed delightedly. “Where d’you get worms from?”

  “I dug them for you.” Alinor smiled at him. “And if you want to catch fish again, you can dig your own. However disgusting.”

  The little boat bobbed as the tide pushed it inland, and Alinor and James held it steady. “Is that the ferry-house?” James asked her, nodding to the low cottage at the far end of the harbor.

  “Yes, my family home, where my brother lives now as ferryman. There’s the pier before it, and the ferry is moored on the other side. And see? Just across the rife, on the mainland, that’s the granary store on the quay, and the tide mill and the miller’s house.”

  “Will he be milling today?”

  “No, he mills when the tide goes out. The tide comes in and fills up the millpond and when it ebbs he opens the sluice, the water pours into the millrace, and turns the wheel. He was milling on the afternoon ebb. I was in their dairy today, churning butter. Alys, my daughter, is there every day, she works in the house, and mill, and farm.”

  “I’ve got a bite!” Rob said suddenly. He pulled up his line and there was a writhing shiny-scaled mackerel. Confidently, he unhooked it and dropped it into the woven reed basket in the bottom of the boat.

  “Is that what they look like?” Walter demanded, peering in. “I’ve only ever seen them cooked.”

  “There’s bound to be more,” Alinor assured him. “They travel together, like scoundrels. Bob your line up and down, Master Walter.”

  James watched her as she feathered her oar to keep the boat steady, copying her, so the push of the inflowing water did not force them into the deep channel that ran towards the ferry-house.

  “Now you can see my brother’s ferry,” she said, nodding towards the channel before them and the big raft moored before the ferry-house. “And farther up the channel, inland, is the wadeway. It’s underwater now so you can only see the cobbled bank that runs down to it.”

  He saw the swirl and rush as the river flowing out past the ferry-house met the incoming sea.

  “Is it very deep?”

  “It rises more than six feet, and it’s fast. Everyone can cross at the lowest point, and people drive or ride. But everyone takes the ferry at high tide, or goes all the way round inland. You have to take the horses from the traces and take them across on the ferry and then take the coach across separately, so it’s a lot of work.”

  “I’m surprised his lordship does not build a bridge.”

  She shook her head and a lock of golden hair fell from the modest cap. “There’s no good ground for building,” she said. “It’s all sand till you get to the tide mill quay. And the mire moves in every storm. The wadeway gets washed away every spring tide, or in the winter storms. Master Walter’s father spends all his time rebuilding it, doesn’t he, sir? We’d never keep a bridge up. It’s all sand and silt.”

  “So your brother is the gatekeeper to the entrance to the island?” James remarked. “Like a porter on a drawbridge to a castle.”

  She smiled. “Yes. And our father before him, and his father before him.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the Flood, I suppose,” she said irreverently, and then exclaimed: “Oh! Excuse me . . .”

  “You don’t offend me,” he laughed. “I’m honored to be rowed by a daughter of Noah.”

  “I think I’ve got one!” Walter exclaimed. “Like a pull?”

  “That’s it,” Alinor confirmed. “Pull it out gently, gently, and swing it into the boat.”

  He pulled too hard and the fish came flying out of the water, swinging into Alinor’s face.

  “Watch out!” Father James said, catching the line and holding it away from her as the boy reached out to take the fish, and then flinched, as it writhed on the hook.

  “I can’t . . .”

  “If you want to eat it, you take hold of it,” Alinor advised him.

  The tutor laughed. “She’s right. Take hold of it, Walter, and unhook it.”

  Grimacing, the boy unhooked the fish and gasped as it wriggled from his hand and dropped into the basket, as Rob exclaimed: “Another! I have another!”

  They were in the middle of a shoal of fish and as soon as they baited their hooks they were pulling them from the water. Ja
mes and Alinor kept the boat in the middle of the channel as the boys fished, exclaiming at their catch and counting as the basket filled up, until Alinor said: “That’s enough, that’s all that you can eat today, and all that I can dry.”

  “Don’t you sell them fresh?” James asked her.

  “If my husband had a big catch on a Friday I would take it to Chichester Saturday market, but it takes two hours to walk there, and two hours back again. You can’t sell fish in Sealsea village—everyone catches their own—though I sometimes sell them at the mill. The farmers’ wives buy fish when they come to get their corn ground, or if a grain ship comes in they’ll buy some. Mostly, I dry them for sale, or salt them down.”

  “Shall we row back in?”

  “Can’t we go out to the hushing well?” Rob asked her. “Walter has never seen it.”

  Alinor shook her head, and she and James timed their strokes together and rowed back to the pier. She shipped her oar and stretched out her hand to the pier timbers to pull the boat in, while Rob stood to drop the looped mooring rope over the worn pole.

  “You’ll have to wait till you can row yourselves to go there,” she told Walter.

  “Why won’t you go there, Mistress Reekie?” Walter asked her.

  She steadied the boat as the boys got ashore, and Father James followed them. Then she stood up and handed them the basket of fish, balancing easily against the rocking of the boat.

  “I am a foolish woman and I have a horror of deep water,” she told him. Father James put out his hand to help her onto the pier and she took it.

  “But you’ve lived all your life on the water,” Walter remarked.

  “All my life on the mire,” she corrected him. “Tidelands: neither land nor sea, but wet and dry twice a day, never drowned for long but never drying out. I never go out to sea; I don’t even go out to the deep heart of the harbor. My work has always been on the land with the plants and herbs and flowers. I’m only recently a boat owner, thanks to your father hiring Rob.”

  Rob tied off the boat loosely so that it could fall with the tide.