I would have loved to tell him that his roof was really Cousin Martha’s, her inheritance from those relations he despised so roundly; but I had to content myself with a tart word of agreement in order to get out in one piece. Why, I was thinking as I ran down the steps, why did I ever come to this house? But then Bella caught up with me, pushed a rough-hewn chunk of bread and bacon into my hand, and begged me not to be angry.
‘Last night, Damsy – I’m sorry. I was just mad at you having a good time without me. I’d been shifting boats and canvas all day, and came back to find I’d missed most of the fun. I didn’t mean it.’
I couldn’t stay angry with Bella for long, and I was grateful for the sandwich, so I grinned and bit into it at once. I’d almost forgotten how good bacon tasted – I had certainly forgotten what day it was until the bells of the parish church started ringing, and Bella asked jokingly whether I was hurrying to morning service.
‘Not this week,’ I retorted, which was another joke of sorts, since I had been saying much the same thing all summer. But I didn’t want to confess that I meant to go to the station, so I told Bella I was intending to call at the studio, to see whether all was well after last night’s flooding.
‘Pity – now the tide’s down, we could’ve gone to see the wreck.’
‘Which one?’ I countered. But as I said that we dropped down some steps and rounded a corner to see the lower harbour laid out before us, the Russian ship looming large on the sands of Collier’s Hope. During the hours of darkness, the lashing tail of the storm had denuded the Dmitry of her masts and spars, stripping her decks and holing her below the waterline. In a broad swathe across the darker beach, her cargo of silver sand was shining in the morning sun.
Children were playing around the wreck, a group of fishermen casting knowledgeable eyes over it. Amongst a group of onlookers on the nearby pier was a man setting up a tripod and camera. I could not see his face and it took me a moment to identify the tall, spare outline of Frank Sutcliffe, one of Jack Louvain’s friends and rivals. An excellent photographer, Jack said; better than all the others put together. I wasn’t qualified to judge, but he certainly seemed to work harder and longer hours. But there again, he was married with a family, and unlike others could not afford to play the artist.
All along the harbourside was evidence of last night’s flooding. Mud and silt clogged the gutters, and bits of flotsam littered every corner and recess. When we reached the studio we found Jack gazing morosely at a wet and muddy floor. Relieved to see us, he handed over mop and broom as though they were painful to him. I was less enthralled by the idea of cleaning up in my Sunday clothes, but what really annoyed me was the failure of my secret plan to go to the station. It was with very ill grace that I tucked up my skirts and started work.
Only when we were finished, when the floor was clean again and most of the furniture and props had been returned to their proper places, did Jack mention his early caller. It seemed our friend of the day before had stopped by on his way to the station, to leave a note in the box. With a smile, Jack handed it to me to read for myself. Deciphering the untidy writing, I finally made it out. He asked for photographs of both wrecks to be sent to him at the Lyceum Theatre, whereupon he would forward his cheque.
On the back of the envelope he had scribbled in pencil: ‘Wonderful portraits displayed on the wall opposite the door. The cards of fisherfolk look very fine – would you send me a set?’
At that, I had difficulty not laughing aloud, since I knew very well where my portraits were displayed. But Jack read my face and, with a rueful chuckle, said: ‘I see, it’s not my work he admires – it’s you, Damsy!’
I protested, blushing, while gazing at his signature, trying to make out the surname. I was seeing his eyes intent upon mine, feeling his arms around me, hearing his voice from across the street as he told me his name was Bram...
Jack said significantly: ‘Mr Bram Stoker, no less. You know who he is? Business manager to our most eminent Shakespearian actor...’
As I looked up in astonishment, he handed over a small carte-de-visite portrait of a distinguished-looking couple. The man was older and somewhat hawk-faced, the woman recognisable even to me as reputedly one of the most beautiful and talented in England. The reverse claimed it to be the only authorised photograph of the Lyceum Theatre’s great actor-manager, Henry Irving, with his leading lady, Ellen Terry.
‘Of course,’ I muttered, wincing at my own stupidity, ‘Irving and Ellen – that’s who they are, and I didn’t realise. He must have thought me so ignorant!’
‘He enclosed it with his note,’ Jack said importantly, taking it from me and showing it to Bella. ‘There’s no mistake – Mr Bram Stoker really is who he says he is. To think he was helping me out there on the cliffs, and I missed getting a picture of him!’
Bella wrinkled her nose at me. ‘Well, Damsy got a good meal out of it, anyway!’
‘I told you he was a gentleman,’ I said quickly, hoping to forestall any more disclosures. ‘He was just being kind, that’s all.’
I caught a speculative glance from Jack, but he said nothing more. He was tactful and I appreciated it. In fact I liked him a lot, and often wished he was taller or more distinguished-looking, or perhaps a little less devoted to his work. But although he liked to tease, and even paid me compliments from time to time, I didn’t think he was much interested in me. Except as an occasional model, of course.
Several days later, as I was passing the studio, he called me in to show me a letter he’d had in response to the photographs. It was short but appreciative, praising the quality of the pictures as well as their artistic merit. Jack was almost glowing with pride and I was just as thrilled, feeling part of the merit was mine. Not just for my face on two or three cards, but for the fact that I’d spent several hours in his company.
Even so, a little while later, I stood for a moment gazing up at the group of framed enlargements on the wall. The one that claimed my attention showed me seated amongst the rocks, holding a withy basket and wearing the typical working dress of a Whitby fisherlass. Caught by the breeze and in sepia tones, even my hair showed to advantage, while the striped flannel petticoat and turned-up overskirt made an attractive pattern against the rocks.
At the time I thought it a very pleasing and romantic portrait of myself gazing wistfully out to sea; nevertheless, I imagine one of the main attractions to the male collector would have been the several inches of ankle so carelessly displayed. Local men thought nothing of it when we turned up our skirts for working on the beach, but Whitby’s summer visitors were often shocked, and we girls were not above some deliberate teasing.
I’d never been concerned about it, much to Old Uncle Thaddeus’s horror. But suddenly truth dawned. It was not that I was dressing up like a fisherlass, nor even doing the work – though he regarded it as a huge step down from domestic service – but the fact that I was posing for photographs for strange men to gaze at. The idea obviously appalled him. And it was Mr Stoker who made me think of it. If I’d been innocent before, all at once I pictured him gazing upon my naked feet and ankles, and found myself growing hot from head to toe.
Jack startled me, his words so appropriate I feared he could read my mind. ‘Quite a compliment, really,’ he said, ‘because when you think about it, he must spend most of his time in London, in company with beautiful women – all those actresses and so forth. Not to mention society ladies,’ he added with a sidelong smile. ‘But still, thinking about it, in London I suppose good photographers must be ten a penny, too.’
‘Oh no,’ I said earnestly, confident in my powers of discernment, ‘not good photographers. Even in London, I’m sure they’re not common.’
With a grin Jack patted my shoulder. ‘Well, maybe we’ve proved something of a novelty, eh, Damsy?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, feeling unexpectedly flat. I wanted to bask in the compliments, enjoy the idea of being admired and in Mr Stoker’s possession; but I could only think that
he was in London, and that he would soon forget Whitby’s fisherfolk and photographers. Together with his pictures of wrecks and storms, after a few days of curiosity we would be mislaid, pushed to the back of a drawer and forgotten.
Seven
After the ferocity of those October gales, November was a cold but quiet month; then, as the winds and storms of winter began to settle into their usual habits, and ice started forming on ropes and halyards, the sailing ships began to come home. Regular Whitby vessels took up their winter moorings in the upper harbour, and itinerant visitors made arrangements for caulkings and bottom-scrapings at various shipyards along the River Esk.
Almost against my will I started to look out for the Lillian, the ship which had borne Jonathan Markway southwards in the spring, and would no doubt soon be bringing him home again. Before I could grow too sentimental, I told myself that his mother would be looking out for him too; and when he asked what had happened to Damsy Sterne, she would have great pleasure in telling him her version of the truth. I could see her, inflated with self-righteous indignation as she told him what a red-handed thief I was. It wouldn’t matter that he could put her right at once, because the damage had been planned and implemented more than half a year ago, while he knew nothing about it. She’d had her victory, and it was too late now to change anything.
Time had lessened nothing. In dismissing me without a reference, she had effectively ruined my chances of respectable employment. Injustice still burned and my pride hurt still. I needed to speak to Jonathan, but wasn’t sure I’d be given the opportunity. So, I looked out for him each day, while trying to pretend concern for the ship.
It was a busy time in Whitby, quite different from the summer. In summer, there was always a kind of tea-party gaiety about the harbour, as though we were children showing off for the benefit of rich relations. But with winter came a different kind of visitor, and the town was suddenly full of men. Fathers, brothers, husbands, bringing with them a hearty, no-nonsense virility, a demand for plain speaking and straight dealing. These were men who knew the warts and the wrinkles, for whom the frills and furbelows were unnecessary. Even so, in my experience there was still a level of deception, since they only ever spent the winters at home, while their women worked hard to eliminate conflicts and make everything right. Homes and children were polished to an almost unnatural brightness, and both the table and the hearth must always glow with welcome.
As the forest of masts thickened in the upper harbour, I was reminded of early childhood, watching every day for my father’s ship, and, with the time of year, confusing his imminent arrival with the coming of Christmas. The traditional carol, I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In, might have been written especially for me. To me in those days, my father seemed like God and Father Christmas and the Three Wise Men rolled into one. With his passing the season was never the same again.
Even so, we did have some fun that year on the Cragg, and Bella and I enjoyed making simple presents for the children. Meanwhile, in less busy moments, I caught myself wondering what I’d done in exchanging the indoor life of a domestic servant for the misery of selling fish in winter. It was bitterly cold standing at a stall on the open quayside, and not much better scouring local beaches for mussels and limpets for bait. Bella and I and the other girls walked miles, taking our lives in our hands as we went up and down the cliffs at low tide. They were high and steep and unstable, sections of clay and shale liable to give way at unexpected moments. We risked our necks most days, and woe betide us if we were not successful. Without bait for the long-lines, Magnus couldn’t fish, and although he sometimes had other irons in the fire – not always legal – it was mostly true to say that if he couldn’t fish, the family didn’t eat.
After successful trips the catch had to be sold, and not only on the quayside. Sometimes, while Martha bundled herself in shawls and petticoats to mind the stall, Bella and I would walk miles inland with heavy baskets of fish. If there was a glut, we would take the train a few stops up the line towards Middlesbrough and walk the moorland farms from there.
As we blew on our chilblains and eased our cracked and blistered feet in heavy boots, Bella and I often agreed that death had to be preferable to a life of flither-picking, skaning mussels, and hawking fish. Sometimes one of us – usually me – would draw comparisons with the phrase ‘a fate worse than death’, and we’d giggle and make jokes about the idea of ruination. But Bella always said it was a matter of public opinion; you were only ruined if you got caught, or fell for a baby, or had a reputation worth spoiling. Faced by her mother’s example, she swore she’d rather have the idle existence of a rich man’s mistress than that of a poor man’s wife, no matter what folks said; and if only a rich man would make her an offer, she’d be away on the next train. Or she would if she could, if it wasn’t for her father.
It was meant to be a joke, so we laughed together. Some might have thought she meant it, but I didn’t. I never believed she would do that. There had been too many snide references to ‘my’ Mr Stoker for me to be convinced that Bella would walk the path she warned me against. Even so, her remarks were disparaging enough to put dents in my dreams; after a while I simply stopped talking about him – or even hazarding guesses as to when Jonathan Markway’s ship might be back. Anyway, like my employment with the Markways, Jonathan was now part of the past – had to be. It was just that I was anxious about him.
To keep our spirits up as we walked the frozen lanes together, I would air various wild schemes for aiding our escape from the Cragg. One of them involved Jack Louvain and his sets of picture-cards. He always said that photographs of Whitby fisherfolk sold like fresh cod on Fridays. To city dwellers, our photographs were the next-best thing to taking a day trip to the seaside to view us in person. In the wider world we were not as popular as Highlanders in full dress, or even foreigners in the quaint costumes of their native lands, but we were quaint enough in the clothes we wore to work.
As Jack said, apart from his commissioned portrait sittings, we were his chief source of income. From time to time, however, he liked to produce slightly different sets of pictures, for what he called a more limited but lucrative market. Hoydenish girls, shawls and starched bonnets cast aside, in rather less of the local costume than might be seen on Whitby’s quays. Striped petticoats, tight-laced bodices with a bit of bosom and a lot of bare throat – and legs often bared to the thigh. The poses were wistful or merry, depending on the scene. Perhaps seated on an oak barrel or pile of nets, the girls were sometimes dressed as boys or masked like smugglers, or several would be posed together in a tableau. And all in front of the main backdrop in Jack Louvain’s studio, the one he’d painted himself, with the view from the West Pier, looking up towards Sandsend.
He’d used the word artistic when putting the idea to me, but I’d known he wanted something saucy, and not even my rebelliousness stretched that far. After I’d mentioned Old Uncle Thaddeus, Jack hadn’t asked again, but I knew he’d mentioned it to Bella once or twice. And she claimed she’d have done it. It wasn’t so very different from the photographs he’d taken before, and for the right price she might even have risked it; but Jack, she said, wanted too much for too little.
She called him mean, but I disagreed. Jack had his costs to meet. I thought if she could contemplate the risk of her father finding out, then she should do it, since with the money gained we could almost double my dwindling nest-egg and make what I called a proper investment. But those words always produced a groan from Bella. She thought my idea of investing in shipping was as reliable as ice on a hot summer day. Attractive while it lasted, until the ship went down or the broker cheated you, or there was a sudden glut on the market. She’d heard all about investments in shipping from her mother; and where had it got Martha Sterne, or that famous legacy of hers? The only thing left was the house, and even that rattled and shook in the wind. No, she said, she’d rather wait for the boats to come home, and sell what cargo was landed.
Her point was v
alid enough, but even then I was aware of its limitations. Like Cousin Martha, I had shipping in my blood and, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, I kept coming back to the same thing. It was hardly a new idea: it had been shared in Whitby for generations, by spinsters, widows, adventurous youths and elderly gentlemen alike. It wasn’t wildly foolish to invest in part-shares of the cargoes carried in and out of Whitby, but it was risky. What was needed was a calm head and good advice. And money. Money that the investor had to be willing to lose.
My confidence always waned at that, especially when I thought of Cousin Martha and her solace in the gin bottle. Despite that, the quayside was the very place to set me going again, since from there it was possible to see almost every ship in the harbour. When I’d identified them all and wondered yet again, worryingly, where the Lillian might be, I would pass the time counting cargoes and trying to assess their values.
During our quiet times, Bella’s favourite topic was my life in service. To me it was like telling stories at bedtime to the young ones, since Bella knew every jest, every moment of sadness and every cause of indignation, yet still wanted me to repeat them. She loved the idea of life indoors, of becoming a cook in a grand kitchen, with unlimited food and warmth, huge menus to interpret and minions to do her bidding. It was a fantasy for her, just as I dreamed of owning shares and outdoing Old Uncle Thaddeus. When I paused to think, however, I realised that Bella’s fantasy was not – or should not have been – unattainable.
I remember asking whether she’d always wanted to go into service. She just shrugged and looked away, so I gathered it had been important. Eventually, she said: ‘Well, it was talked about when we left school, but Isa got to go, so I had to stay.’
It was the old story, but I felt angry anyway. Bella’s sister Isa generally got most of what she wanted, while Bella seemed destined to pick up what was left. It seemed such a shame. Isabella and Arabella were twins, beautiful girls with beautiful names, even though they were rarely used in full. As children they’d fascinated me, since when they were young they’d been almost impossible to tell apart. I’d soon learned the difference, however; I had good reason to know which was Isa.
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