The River Folk

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘In the spring. About the end of February or the beginning of March, I think.’

  Bessie clapped her hands. ‘It might be born aboard the Maid Mary Ann. Somewhere on the river, just like I was. Maybe Dan’ll deliver his own bairn, just like my dad helped deliver me. Or, if you’re near here, he can fetch me. I hope it’s a girl. Oh, you will give me a granddaughter, Mary Ann, won’t you?’

  Mary Ann laughed. ‘I’ll try, Mam.’ Since her marriage to Dan, Mary Ann had begun to call Bessie ‘Mam’ rather than addressing her as an adoptive ‘Auntie’. It made her feel even closer to the woman, who had been more of a mother to her than her own had ever been. Bessie was delighted. She had allowed the girl to come to it in her own good time, but Mary Ann knew that every time she called Bessie ‘Mam’ it gave the older woman a little thrill of pleasure.

  ‘But don’t you think,’ Mary Ann was saying now, ‘that Dan will want a boy?’

  ‘You can give him a boy later. There’s plenty of time for that. No, we want a girl first, Mary Ann. And you can tell Dan I said so.’

  Mary Ann smiled. ‘Yes, Mam.’

  The winter months passed comparatively uneventfully. Duggie was still mate aboard the Maid Mary Ann, although hardly a week went past without him saying, ‘Well, I might not be here much longer. I’ve to see Mr Phillips about an apprenticeship . . .’

  Often without Dan’s knowledge, he helped Mary Ann. To her surprise it had been Duggie who had patiently helped her to learn what to do aboard the ship; Duggie not Dan, who relit the stove in the cabin for her if it went out; Duggie who praised her first culinary efforts and hung over the side of the ship to help her aboard when she returned in the cog boat.

  ‘You come up, love,’ he would call out. ‘I’ll get the washing . . .’ or the shopping or whatever she had been ashore to do.

  He had even coaxed her to learn how to take the tiller.

  ‘It’ll not happen often, Mary Ann,’ Duggie told her. ‘But you ought to be able to, just in case we ever get a time when we really need you to help out.’

  As her pregnancy advanced Duggie fetched and carried for her more and more. He even sculled the cog boat for her, taking her ashore whenever she needed to go. If Dan didn’t need him on deck, Duggie helped with the cooking whilst Mary Ann sat on the seat with her embroidery or sewing tiny garments for the expected baby. Then, when they were all three eating the meal later he would say, with pretended innocence, ‘This stew’s lovely, Mary Ann.’

  Two weeks before Mary Ann’s expected confinement, Dan said to her, ‘I’ve got to go to Hull with a cargo, I think you should stay at home with me mam.’

  ‘Oh I can’t, Dan. She wants me to have the baby aboard the ship.’

  Mary Ann had come to terms with her life afloat, although she had to admit to herself that it was only because of Duggie’s presence aboard. She told herself that she was happy, that she should be grateful to Dan, and to Duggie too, for taking care of her. But she could not love her husband in the same way that she had loved Randolph Marsh. When they lay together in the bunk bed and Dan made love to her, the only way she could respond to him was by closing her eyes in the darkness and remembering those times with Randolph. Only then would her body ripple with desire and move in unison with Dan’s hunger. Sometimes she bit so hard on her lower lip to stop herself from calling out Randolph’s name that she drew blood.

  When Dan said, ‘You really have taken to the life now, haven’t you, Mary Ann? I was so worried at first that you would find it so cramped aboard ship. That you’d feel . . . restricted,’ Mary Ann had to bite back the hasty retort that it was only thanks to Duggie if she had. Instead, she shrugged and said, ‘I’ve got used to it.’

  Tenderly Dan reached out and spread his hand over her rounded belly. ‘You’re getting very big, aren’t you? It can’t be long now.’

  Mary Ann smiled up at him. ‘Do you think it could be twins?’

  Dan laughed. ‘What, a boy and a girl. That’d please Ma, wouldn’t it?’

  Mary Ann grimaced. ‘Maybe, but I don’t know how I’d cope with two.’ She glanced around the tiny cabin. ‘It’s going to be hard enough with one. Still,’ she yawned, ‘I’ll have to manage. And I’m coming with you to Hull. Your mam would never forgive me if I gave birth to her grandchild in Waterman’s Yard instead of on the River Trent.’

  Still, Dan looked doubtful. ‘It’s a cargo of potatoes and you know what that means.’

  Mary Ann nodded. Dan would be stopping at several berths at villages along Trentside to pick up their cargo. The farmers brought their potatoes in sacks, which had to be loaded by hand, and the trip to Hull would take much longer than a straight run.

  ‘And it can get very rough on the Humber, you know.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Mary Ann said at once with feeling, and Dan grimaced apologetically as he added, ‘Still, you’re not due for another couple of weeks, are you?’

  ‘No. I’ll be fine.’

  Dan cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. ‘Oh Mary Ann, I do love you. I’m so proud of you the way you’ve learnt how to do everything. Do you know that? I’m sorry if I was a bit sharp with you at first. It was a big thing, you know, getting my first command. Am I forgiven?’

  Mary Ann put her arms about him and buried her face in his chest. Unseen, she screwed up her face, for a brief moment riddled with guilt that she could not love this good man as he deserved to be loved. And there was something else too. She didn’t know how to tell him the piece of news that she had heard the previous day in the town.

  A week earlier, whilst they had been upriver near Newark, Susan Price had married Ted Oliver.

  ‘Dan. Dan! I’ll have to go below.’

  ‘Not now, Mary Ann,’ he yelled at her above the noise of the wind. ‘I need you on deck. You’ll have to stay at the tiller.’

  The wind was driving up the Humber from the North Sea. Squalls of rain lashed the ship, stinging Mary Ann’s face until she screwed up her eyes, unable to see, but still, doggedly, she clung to the tiller. ‘I have to,’ she gasped, the rain cold in her mouth. ‘I have to go below.’

  They were on their way back from Hull with a cargo of wheat, loaded in bulk, for one of the waterside mills in Elsborough.

  ‘I’ve got dreadful pains. The baby’s coming.’

  Dan, his face wet with the rain, stared at her, horrified. ‘For God’s sake, Mary Ann. Not now.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ she screamed back at him as another pain wracked her body. She bent double, still hanging on to the tiller with one hand but clutching at her stomach with the other and gasping.

  ‘Another half an hour, Mary Ann. Hang on if you can. Another half an hour and we’ll be into the Trent.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ she countered bitterly. ‘Never mind me. We’ve got to make the Trent. It’s got to be born on the Trent.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I didn’t mean that. It’ll be calmer there. More sheltered. That’s what I meant.’

  Mary Ann didn’t answer. As the contraction eased, she stood up and resumed her task.

  ‘All right?’ Dan’s face was anxious, but he dared not let her leave yet. True, like his mother, he wanted his son or daughter born on the water, but not in it.

  When they reached the calmer waters of the River Trent, the ship was stable. The wind still rocked her from side to side and flapped her sails, but now the Maid Mary Ann was in no danger of capsizing.

  ‘You can go below. Duggie and I can manage now.’

  ‘Oh thanks.’ Mary Ann’s tone was heavy with sarcasm. As she began to move towards the companion, another spasm of pain shot through her. She doubled over and fell to her knees.

  Dan was beside her in an instant. ‘Oh, love, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

  Tenderly, now, he held her until the pain subsided, then he lifted her up and together they staggered towards the ladder. Dan went down first and then Mary Ann followed, Dan guiding her feet on to each rung. Another pain creased her and she cr
ied out, her foot slipping so that she fell heavily against him.

  ‘There, I’ve got you,’ he gasped. ‘You’re all right. Here, let me help you get these wet clothes off.’

  ‘I can manage,’ Mary Ann snapped. ‘Just go back and sail your blasted boat.’

  Dan looked for a moment as if she had slapped him physically in the face, but then he said quietly, ‘We’ll sail a little further and then we’ll drop anchor.’

  Without waiting for her to argue, he climbed the ladder and disappeared. Left alone, Mary Ann leant on her hands on the side of the bed and groaned. Then, feeling another twinge, she stripped off her wet clothes and prepared the bed for giving birth. As she climbed into it, she wondered just how long it would be before she would get out of it again.

  When Dan came down to her again, she said, ‘It seems to have quietened down now. The pains aren’t coming so often.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a false alarm,’ Dan said hopefully. Much as he wanted the child to be born on the river, he would have liked to have been a little nearer Elsborough, a little nearer some knowledgeable help. ‘Can I sail a bit further upriver, then?’

  Mary Ann ran her hands over her stomach then she nodded. ‘Can we get near home do you think? So you can fetch Bessie?’

  Dan leant across the bed and kissed her. ‘We’ll try. Hang on, Mary Ann.’

  But they had only gone a few miles when Mary Ann was crying out, ‘Dan, Dan. My waters have broken. It’s coming, oh it’s coming.’

  Once more Dan anchored and came down to the cabin. ‘We’ve only got as far as Eastlands’ Ferry. Can’t you hang on a little longer?’

  ‘No, no.’ Now she was writhing on the bed, her whole body bathed in sweat, her dark hair plastered to her face.

  ‘Oh, let me die. I just want to die,’ she moaned. As the pain gripped her once more, she screamed, ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want it.’

  Dan was beside himself, feeling helpless and ignorant of what to do.

  There were towels and hot water all ready, but he had no idea what they were for.

  ‘I’ll go for help. I’ll take the cog boat and go for help.’

  Mary Ann clutched at him, her grip vice-like in her agony. ‘No, no, don’t leave me. I’m going to die. Don’t leave me.’

  ‘Duggie will go then.’

  Once Duggie had gone, Dan sat with her, holding her hand, wiping her forehead, his agony almost as bad as hers as he watched her suffer.

  ‘Oh, why doesn’t it come?’ she moaned, lying back exhausted against the pillows.

  Dan stood up suddenly. ‘Where the hell has Duggie got to? He can’t have been daft enough to try to go all the way to Elsborough, surely?’ He stared down at her, anxious and afraid. He’d sooner face a mountainous sea than this. ‘Something must be wrong,’ he muttered. ‘You need a midwife or a doctor and you need one now.’

  ‘Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.’

  ‘Mary Ann, I have to. I’ll have to swim to the bank and . . .’

  Desperate now, he was already climbing the ladder as she called out weakly, ‘Don’t leave me, Dan. Oh, don’t you leave me too.’

  As she heard him step on to the deck and begin to run across it, Mary Ann whimpered, ‘Why does everyone leave me? What have I done so wrong?’ Then, as pain seized her again, she cried out, ‘Mam. Mam!’ not knowing whether it was for her own mother she called, or for Bessie.

  Out of a haze of pain, she heard voices and then Dan saying loudly, ‘There you are. I was just about to set off myself. Thank God . . .’

  Mary Ann closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer. Duggie had come back. Duggie had brought Bessie. Everything would be all right now. Bessie was here. Bessie would take care of her . . .

  She heard Dan’s boots scraping on the ladder and his voice calling out to her. ‘Mary Ann? Duggie’s back and he’s brought someone to help you.’

  Bleary-eyed, Mary Ann turned her head to see Dan coming towards her. Behind him, coming carefully down the vertical ladder, was Susan.

  Thirty-Four

  ‘Get her out. I won’t have her here.’ Mary Ann screamed, trying to push herself into the farthest corner of the enclosed bunk bed, away from the woman coming towards her.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mary Ann.’ Dan, in his anxiety, was frowning and his voice was unusually sharp. ‘Susan’s come to help you.’

  ‘I want Mam,’ she cried, the sweat shining on her face. Then, lest he should think her half-demented with the pain, she added, reverting to her childhood name for the woman she now thought of as her own mother, ‘I want your mam. I want Auntie Bessie.’

  Susan leant over the bed. Gently and with infinite kindness, she said, ‘Mary Ann, it was too far for Duggie to go for Mrs Ruddick. Let me help you, now that I’m here. I’m sure I can, but Duggie can set off to go for his mother, if you want him to.’

  Mary Ann’s eyes were huge in her red face. ‘How can you help?’ she asked harshly. ‘You haven’t had a baby.’

  She saw Susan wince at the deliberate shaft, but calmly she replied, ‘No, my dear, but when I was fifteen, my mother had my little brother. I was there at the birth. Admittedly, I don’t know as much as Mrs Ruddick, but,’ she smiled now, ‘I think I can safely say I do know a little more than Dan or Duggie.’

  At that moment, a pain gripped Mary Ann with such ferocity that she threw herself backwards on the bed and arched her body. Her screams echoed down the river.

  ‘Dan,’ Susan said, taking charge without any further permission or otherwise from Mary Ann, ‘I need hot water, a bowl, soap, plenty of clean towels . . . Ah, I see you’ve already made a start. Good.’

  Dan, thankful to have something positive to do, hurried to do as she asked, although there was barely room in the small cabin for them to move around each other. At last, Susan said, ‘I think you’d better go on deck now, Dan. Out of the way.’

  But Dan shook his head. ‘No, I’m staying here. I want to see my son born.’

  Mary Ann, through a haze of pain and near delirium, saw Susan smile and heard her say softly, ‘And if it’s a girl?’

  Dan’s voice came clearly to her. ‘I’ll love her just the same.’

  ‘Sit over there, then, and keep out of the way, Dan Ruddick. This is women’s work.’

  At that moment, Duggie poked his head down the companion. ‘How’s she doing? Anything you want?’

  ‘We’re fine, Duggie . . .’

  Panting between contractions, Mary Ann gasped, ‘You speak for yourself,’ but Susan only smiled and went on, ‘But you could take the expectant father out of my way.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ Dan declared and Duggie grinned. ‘He’s too big for me to shift, Susan. Sorry, you’ll have to put up with him. Just watch he doesn’t pass out, though.’ He laughed and added, ‘I’ll wait up here, though, if it’s all the same to you.’

  Then Susan was bending over Mary Ann again. ‘Now, my dear, the next time you get a strong pain, I want you to push.’

  Mary Ann, between spasms, blinked at her. ‘Push? Push what?’

  ‘Well, sort of . . . bear down. You’ve got to help the little mite. It can’t come into the world without a bit of help from you. You’ve got to push it out.’

  ‘Have I?’

  Susan nodded and as Mary Ann’s face began to twist with the pain once more, she said, ‘Come on, Mary Ann, push!’

  An hour later a baby girl made her way noisily into the world. Mary Ann, weak and exhausted, was scarcely aware of Dan’s triumphant shout and of Susan’s smiling face as she cut the cord, lifted the child and put the red and bawling infant into its father’s arms.

  ‘You have a daughter, Dan. So you’d best forget all about having a son for this time.’

  Even through her fatigue, Mary Ann was aware of Dan and Susan standing close together, their heads bent over the child, marvelling at its lusty cry and its waving limbs.

  ‘By, she’s a little fighter, ain’t she?’ Dan was grinning broadly.

&n
bsp; ‘She’s a little beauty. And just look at all that black hair.’

  ‘Oi, what’s going on down there?’ A shout from above made both Dan and Susan look up with startled eyes. ‘Out of me way, Duggie Ruddick. It’s not you I’m after.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Susan said, suddenly agitated. ‘That’s Ted. He must have come looking for me. I must go.’

  ‘Wait a minute. You can’t leave her like that.’ Mary Ann saw Dan nod towards her and Susan turned back with a little start, almost as if she had completely forgotten about the mother.

  ‘Oh dear, no. You’re right, I can’t. The afterbirth hasn’t come away yet.’ For a moment, Susan seemed uncertain, and when another shout from on deck filtered down to them, she jumped visibly.

  ‘Susan? Are you down there?’

  ‘Look, Ted . . .’ Now they could hear Duggie trying to reason with him.

  Susan whispered to Dan. ‘Give the child to me. She can lie beside Mary Ann. You go up there and tell him what’s happened while I see to her.’

  Mary Ann lay back against the pillows. She was beginning to shiver now. All she wanted was to be wrapped up warmly and left to sleep and sleep. And she certainly didn’t want the yelling infant beside her.

  ‘It’s not coming away. Can you push again, Mary Ann?’

  Weakly, Mary Ann said, ‘Whatever for? She’s born now.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s what they call the afterbirth. It has to come away. If it doesn’t, you could be dreadfully ill.’

  ‘I am dreadfully ill now,’ Mary Ann moaned, and lay with her eyes closed. ‘I just want to die.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Susan said, sharply. ‘You’ve got a baby to think about now.’

  ‘I don’t want it. You can keep it.’

  ‘ “It” is a “her”,’ Susan reminded her brusquely. ‘Now, come along. We’ve got to get this afterbirth out. Just sit up a minute, Mary Ann.’

  Mary Ann did not move, making no effort to assist the woman who was trying so hard to help her, limited though her own knowledge was.

  ‘Mary Ann . . .’