Tidelands

by Philippa Gregory

  Alys giggled and raised her skirt away from the muddy hoofprints on the quayside.

  “Not taking any wool to market?” Ned asked his niece, holding the ferry steady for them against the pier.

  “Not today,” she said. “Ma is buying some lace for Mrs. Miller if she sees anything nice, and selling some of her oils.”

  “Ribbons for you?” he asked.

  “Vanity is a sin, Uncle,” she said with a toss of her pretty head that made him laugh.

  The tide was flowing slowly and smoothly inward, but even so, Alinor gripped the side of the boat with both hands, and when Red, the dog, jumped into the boat beside her she gave a little gasp of fear.

  “That tutor, James Summer, went north in the middle of the night,” Ned observed. “Over the wadeway on Sir William’s second horse by the light of the moon. Didn’t call me, but I saw him. Going to London, I suppose. Didn’t call for a light. Didn’t stop for a chat. Doesn’t talk much. Doesn’t do much teaching either, does he?”

  “I don’t know,” Alinor said.

  “Does Rob know when he’s coming back?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “He looked better than when he arrived. He was sick as a dog, wasn’t he?”

  “Fever,” Alinor said shortly, keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon.

  “Will you buy a sheep’s cheese for me at the market?”

  “Yes,” Alinor said. “We’ll be back before dinnertime.”

  He handed her out of the boat on the far side. “You might get a lift in a wagon. You could wait here for anyone crossing.”

  “We’ll start walking,” Alinor said, and she and her daughter made their way up the road as Ned pulled the ferry back to the island side to wait for customers going to Chichester market.

  After a little way, the two women turned left off the road to Chichester and took the footpath towards Birdham. The ground was marshy, but the unmarked path ran on the top of raised banks at the edges of the fields, and on stepping-stones over the streams. Climbing over stiles that crossed the hedges from one low-lying marshy field to another, they made their way to the little village, a handful of houses clustered on the road.

  They both paused on the grass verge of the one-track road. “Do I look all right?” Alys asked nervously.

  Alinor straightened her daughter’s cap, set her cloak a little more evenly on her shoulders. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s wipe our boots.”

  Despite all their caution, the hems of their skirts were dirty from the walk, and their boots caked with mud. Carefully, they lifted their skirts and wiped the sides and toes of their boots on the grass of the verge.

  “I’m sweaty,” Alys said nervously. “And muddy. Damn this place, I’m always muddy. He’s never seen me in a clean petticoat!”

  “You’re beautiful,” Alinor reassured her. “And he’s seen you a lot worse.”

  Stoney Farm stood back from the road, a low wall of knapped flints between the house and the lane, to keep the stock from straying. A grassy track led to the front door through a small orchard of fruit trees, the apple trees bowed low with ripe fruit, a picker’s triangular ladder leaning against one of them.

  It was a good-sized house, one of the best in the little parish, two bedrooms and a lumber room for storage under the reed-thatched roof, and below them a kitchen and two rooms: one used as a parlor and one used as a store. The kitchen ran the length of the back of the house, the brewhouse and the dairy were across the stone-flagged yard from the kitchen door, the barn and the stables made the fourth side of the square. As the two women walked towards the front door, Richard Stoney, in a suit of dark brown, and good riding boots, muddy from the stable yard, came bounding round the corner of the house and ran towards them.

  “You’ve come! Oh, you’ve come!” He skidded to a halt and stopped himself embracing Alys. He made a little bow to Alinor. “Mrs. Reekie, thank you for coming. Alys . . .” He shot her a warm conspiratorial glance. “Good day, Alys.”

  As soon as she saw the warm intimate look that passed between him and her daughter Alinor knew their secret as clearly as if they had told her. She was certain that they were lovers, that Alys had defied all her warnings, all the teaching from school and church, had evaded Mrs. Miller’s suspicious glare, had followed her heart and not her head, and had lain with this young man.

  Now Alinor understood why Alys was so determined that the betrothal should go ahead. If Richard could not persuade his parents to agree to the marriage then he and Alys would have to part, and his parents would probably take him away from the tide mill to make sure that the couple never met again. Alys would be known as a girl who had lost the man of her choice, and her eventual marriage would be widely known as second-best. If it was ever known that she had lost her virginity it would be hard to find a reputable young man for her to marry at all, and Mrs. Miller would be within her rights to turn her away from work. Most village betrothals started with a promise and a bedding, but times had changed, and godly people and families on the rise condemned young love as both unchaste and bad for business.

  “Oh, no,” Alinor whispered under her breath.

  “What’s the matter?” Alys tucked her hand in Richard Stoney’s arm and turned to her mother. Defiantly, she met her mother’s reproachful gaze and, in the face of her happiness, Alinor could not be angry. The young couple were beautiful together, so well matched in height and looks; she could not blame them for being unable to wait for the reluctant consent of his parents. He was dark eyed and brown as a hazelnut, with a tumble of dark curls to his plain white collar. Alys beside him looked fair and delicate, her hair, a paler gold than her mother’s, modestly tucked beneath her white cap, her features as regular and pretty as a painted china doll.

  “Nothing,” Alinor said. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  Alys met her eyes and flushed as if she realized that her mother had guessed her secret. “Ma?” she said uncertainly.

  “We’ll talk later,” Alinor ruled.

  Alys blushed deeply, and drew closer to Richard, as if she were claiming him. “Ma, this is the man I’m going to marry,” she announced.

  Richard flushed like a boy but stood with pride. “If you permit,” he said politely. “I have promised. I have given my word. We are betrothed.”

  “Let’s see what your father says,” Alinor replied cautiously.

  Holding Alys’s hand, Richard led the way up the path to the house. Alinor followed, thinking guiltily that Ned must be right, and the wildness that he saw in her had come out in her daughter. She had failed to control the lust that lived in every fallible woman since Eve, and she had failed to teach Alys any better.

  The front door opened with a creak from disuse, and Mrs. Stoney stood in the doorway, her maidservant behind her.

  “Good day, Mrs. Reekie,” she said formally.

  “Good day to you, Mrs. Stoney,” Alinor replied, struggling for calmness.

  The woman turned to her son. “Go and fetch your father,” she said. “He’s in the barn.”

  Richard looked as if he did not want to leave Alys, but he went obediently as Mrs. Stoney led the mother and daughter into the best room at the front of the house. It was furnished sparsely with solid dark furniture; a large cupboard laden with expensive pewter took up all of one wall. There was one great chair with a woven back and arms, which was clearly for the master of the house, and a second chair beside it. Alinor put her basket of oils down by the door and moved tactfully to a smaller chair beside the dark wooden table, laid with a small piece of tapestry, anchored by a bowl of heavy pewter. Mrs. Stoney seated herself in the second-best chair; Alys stood beside her mother and was not invited to sit at all.

  They heard the men coming in the back door and the noise of Mr. Stoney knocking mud off his boots. Then he came into the room. He was a short, bluff, red-faced man with a ready smile and a handshake for Alinor, who rose to greet him.

  “How do?” he said to her. “How do?” Then he turned to Alys. “And h
ow’s the prettiest maid in Sussex today?”

  Alys curtseyed and went to him for a smacking kiss on both cheeks.

  “Will you take a glass of ale, Mrs. Reekie?” he invited.

  “Bess is fetching it,” his wife said.

  “And the young people can walk round the orchard, I suppose,” he said.

  Bess entered with a tray of pewter mugs, and Richard and Alys escaped.

  “He loves to walk her round the farm,” Mr. Stoney confided. “He’s that proud of it. Our only child, y’know.”

  “I know.” Alinor took a cup and sipped. It was home-brewed small ale and Mrs. Stoney had sweetened it with apples from her orchard. Alinor could taste the fruit. “This is very good, Mrs. Stoney.”

  The woman smiled at the polite compliment. Alinor observed her smugness and wondered if she would be a kind mother-in-law to Alys, who would live with them at this farm and share a house with this woman for life.

  “So, our young people want to make a match of it,” Farmer Stoney said to Alinor. “Richard came to me after harvest home and said he had plighted his troth without a word to me.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Boys, eh? And he’s brought her back here a few times, and we like her very well. But I should really be talking with her father.”

  “As you know, my husband’s at sea,” Alinor said cautiously. “He’s been gone nearly a year now. All the arrangements fall to me.”

  “Your brother doesn’t act for you?” Mrs. Stoney inquired.

  “I decide about my own children,” Alinor said with quiet dignity. “My brother advises me when I need it.”

  “Does he know you’re here today?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.

  “He does.”

  “Well, you’re no fool, I know that,” the man said encouragingly. “But you must realize that we could look very high for Richard. He’s our only son and he’ll inherit all of this, when we’re gone. There’s nothing owed on the farm. I had it entire from my father, and I improved it, and I will pass it on entire. It’s a tidy inheritance.”

  “I know,” Alinor said. “It’s a beautiful farm. But Alys was taken with your son even before she knew who he was, when she first saw him at the mill. She had no thought of all of this.”

  Mrs. Stoney sniffed, as if to say that she doubted it.

  “It would be a love match,” Alinor pursued. “But of course, she will bring a dowry.”

  “Does she have her own linen laid away?” Mrs. Stoney asked.

  “No,” Alinor said, thinking of the corner of the room of the little cottage, the box of treasures that held nothing but a paper contract and a red leather purse of dross. “Not yet. But by the time of the wedding, I will be able to send her with some sheets . . .” She saw the disapproving look on the woman’s face. “And some wool,” she added.

  “This is what comes of sending him to the Millers’ farm,” Mrs. Stoney complained aside, to her husband. “You sent him to learn milling, but all he has learned is disobedience.”

  “He can make his own choice,” her husband rejoined. “She’s a pretty girl and she knows all that she needs to know to be a working farmer’s wife. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Reekie?”

  “She does everything at the tide mill,” Alinor confirmed. “Mrs. Miller keeps a very good place and Alys has learned housewifery there. She works in their dairy, she can milk cows, she can brew, she bakes bread, she cooks, she spins of course, and she sews. And I’ve taught her the herbs and the uses of them. She can read and write. You’ll find her very able in the dairy and the brewery, in the bakery and even outside.”

  “Would she bring your recipe book?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.

  Alinor flinched. She had a recipe book inherited from her mother with cures for all known ailments and injuries, the proper uses of herbs and how to grow them, use them, and distill them. It was her greatest treasure and the bedrock of her practice as a healer. “I will copy them,” she promised. “I will copy them for her. And, of course, if there were any illness or trouble I would come to you for free, as family.”

  Mrs. Stoney looked as if it was not enough. “And these savings?” she inquired. “What dowry will she bring?”

  “I have thirty-five shillings saved just now,” Alinor said with quiet pride. But obviously, this was not enough; the woman merely raised her eyebrows. “I will have another ten by their wedding day if they marry at Easter,” Alinor added. “And my son, Rob, will have his quarterly wages from the Priory at Candlemas. That’s another fifteen shillings.” Alinor tried to speak calmly about these tremendous sums of money, far more than she had ever earned before, but she saw Mr. Stoney’s glance at his wife and her firm shake of her head, her down-turned mouth.

  “We can’t let him throw himself away,” he explained.

  “I can add from my fees as I earn them,” Alinor said. “I attend almost all the births in Sealsea Island. I could promise a monthly payment in their first year of marriage—say—from my fees.”

  Mrs. Stoney pursed her lips.

  “My son is to be apprenticed to a Chichester apothecary,” Alinor said, her voice level, but her heart pounding. “He’s to go in the Lent term when Master Walter leaves for his university. I know he would want to see his sister happily settled . . .”

  “An apothecary?” Mrs. Stoney asked, and when Alinor started to explain, she interrupted: “But what use is that to us?”

  “She and Rob will inherit the right to the ferry, and Ferry-house—”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Stoney said finally, “but we’re looking for a bigger dowry, to be paid in full on the wedding day. Maybe with land adjoining, maybe one of our neighbors. Not pennies as and when. Not as and when, Mrs. Reekie. It’s a pity that you don’t have a husband to earn a living for you. A great pity. But we can’t let Richard throw himself away. For all that she’s a lovely girl, and we like her very much. She would have been our choice, if the money had been right. We thought you’d have had more, to be honest. I’m sorry. We thought you were in a better way.”

  Alinor gritted her teeth to stop herself exclaiming that once she did have more: her inheritance from her mother, her dowry in her mother’s red leather purse; but Zachary had taken it, as a husband’s right, and wasted it as a husband can do, and now Zachary was not here to answer for it, and the red leather purse held only shavings of old coins.

  “But she has her own wages,” Alinor urged him, growing more anxious. “If you want her to keep working at the Millers’, she could bring home her wages. And she can spin.”

  “Then he might as well marry our servant Bess!” Mrs. Stoney objected. “Maidservant wages as dowry! No, no, she’s a lovely girl but if she’s got nothing but thirty-five shillings and farm work wages. I look higher for my son than that.”

  Mr. Stoney looked as if he regretted her sharp tone. “No disrespect,” he said.

  “What did you have in mind?” Alinor asked. “For my brother would perhaps—”

  “Nothing less than eighty pounds,” Mrs. Stoney said smartly. “I’d take nothing less.”

  “Eighty pounds!” Alinor gasped at the unimaginable sum.

  “We’re going to have to refuse,” Mr. Stoney said gently. “Regretfully but—”

  “I have sixty pounds!” Alys interrupted suddenly from the door. She stepped into the room, white-faced, Richard behind her, gripping her hand. “I have it,” she claimed. “I have savings of my own that my mother doesn’t know about.” One fierce glance at Alinor warned her to say nothing.

  “Were you listening at the door?” Mr. Stoney asked his son, frowning.

  “We came past the window and we overheard,” his son replied. “We weren’t eavesdropping, sir, but my mother was speaking very clearly. We must marry. We love each other.”

  “How much d’you have?” Mrs. Stoney asked the girl.

  “I have sixty pounds,” Alys said boldly. From the pocket of her gown she pulled a fat red leather purse and put it down on the dark wood table before her mother. “Sixty pounds,” she said defia
ntly. “Sixty pounds down, and the rest to come. Is that enough?”

  With a pang of terror Alinor recognized at once the heavy red leather purse that Mrs. Miller had pulled from its hiding place behind the brick in the millhouse chimney: it was Jane Miller’s dowry. She opened her mouth and found she could say nothing.

  “Is that enough?” Alys asked, her voice shaking. “Is it enough?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Mr. Stoney remarked gravely. “How has a maid like you got more savings than her mother?” He turned to Alinor. “How have you got a fortune like this? Did you know she had put this by?”

  “My father gave it to me,” Alys spoke rapidly before her mother could reply. “His prize money from the navy. He won it serving in the navy, and when he came home last time, he gave it to me for my dowry. I was always his favorite. He gave it to me for my dowry if I wanted to marry before he came back.”

  “I should think your mother could have used the money often, over the past year,” Mrs. Stoney said mistrustfully. “Everyone knows how hard she works. Shouldn’t you have told her? And given it to her?”

  “My father and my mother didn’t always agree,” Alys said boldly, ignoring Alinor, her eyes only on Mrs. Stoney’s grim expression. “My father told me to keep his savings safe for his return, and use it only for my dowry. I have to be obedient to my father, don’t I?”

  She turned to Mr. Stoney, certain he would support male authority. Solemnly, he nodded: “An order from your father? Yes, you had to obey it.”

  “He hasn’t left you, has he?” Mrs. Stoney turned to Alinor. “Deserted you? If he gave his daughter her dowry before he went? Was he planning on never coming back?”

  At once Alys saw that she had overplayed her hand. Before Alinor could reply, the girl interrupted: “Oh, no! My da would never leave us! He promised to come home. He just left his savings with me, in case I wanted to marry before he returned. He’s a sailor at war, he knew that he might be a long time away. There was no way of knowing how long his voyage might last. He was just trying to do the best for me.”

  “But you said that they did not always agree?”