If it was intensely pleasurable, it was also strangely shocking. There was a sense of aloneness afterwards which had me clinging to Bella as though to a lifeline, while she clung and quivered in return. But it was not until later that it started to bother me, when it happened again, and was no longer such a spontaneous expression of comfort or joy. In the days that followed I became seized with severe unease, not to say guilt, at the realisation of what we had done. I was fond of Bella, she was my dearest friend, but I did not look on her with desire in my heart; and although she was beautiful and I could acknowledge that with no more than a touch of envy, the thought of her did not excite me.
Unfortunately, neither did the sight of any man in Whitby, and for a while I worried about what was happening to me. Then, as fate would have it, something occurred to take my mind off Bella. Towards the end of January I met Jonathan Markway crossing the bridge.
Nine
I had been avoiding Southgate for months. Ever since my dismissal, that stretch opposite the boatyards, where the Markways had their ship-chandlery, had been forbidden territory.
A year ago, I’d been congratulating myself on being accepted for the position of general maid in a household where they also employed a cook and a daily woman. It was, after all, only a short time after my grandmother’s funeral in Bay, when everything had been sold and the house given up, and I was urgently in need of employment. I was looking for a live-in position, but most of the local vacancies were daily, and the agency ones were all too far away for my liking. Old Uncle Thaddeus was still being kind to me then, and, knowing I was reluctant to leave the area, he recommended me to the Markways.
He’d known the family as business acquaintances for decades, but told me little about Mrs Markway, beyond the fact that the chandlery had belonged to her father and that she was the real business head, the one to be reckoned with. She spent much of her time in the shop, while her husband and elder son dealt mostly with the warehouse. The younger son, Jonathan, was serving an apprenticeship at sea.
He would have been about nineteen then, and he was at home the day I went to be interviewed. We came face to face suddenly, just as his mother was showing me the house. He was shy, I could tell by the way he looked at me and then as quickly glanced away. Yet in that first sweep of his dark eyes he seemed to absorb every detail of my appearance, from my red hair to the good black dress I was wearing. Awareness brought warmth to my cheeks and I was glad Mrs Markway had her back to us, her attention on the layout of the upper rooms and the work I would have to do.
In the light of what happened later, I dare say I should have paid more attention to that momentary alarm, but I was young then and thought myself invulnerable. And I should have listened to Cook, who tried her best to warn me about Mrs Markway, a woman who doted on her sons. She was determined to have the best for them, and the best, in her opinion, was to be found by her side, running the family business and making money. Jonathan might have rebelled and gone off to sea, but then, for Mrs Markway, nothing less than his own command would do, and for that he would have to apply himself to book-work as well as the more practical aspects of seamanship. Young women were not part of the plan – especially not servant girls, not even those with good family connections.
I was too much aware of my position to want to dispute that. Of the two sons, Dick was pleasant enough, a slow-moving and determined young man, dependable where the chandlery was concerned, but not my sort at all. As for Jonathan, he was already apprenticed to the sea, and, as I said pertly to Cook when she warned me, I’d already sworn on my mother’s grave that I wouldn’t marry a seafarer. She said I’d soon change my mind when I discovered they were the only ones available in Whitby.
I paid no attention to that, and generally tried to keep clear of the boys. But for all my fine words, and despite my prejudices, I couldn’t help but find Jonathan attractive. He was dark and graceful, with his father’s Cornish-Breton looks, and a similar taciturnity of manner. For a long time our exchanges were barely more than civilities, but one day I was bold enough ask about the books on his shelf, classic novels beside a treatise on navigation, a set of mathematical tables and volumes on rigging and ship stability.
He knew I came from a seafaring family, and, as I explained, at home in Bay books had been important. My father had left a complete set of the Waverley Novels – all of which I’d struggled to read since I was old enough to understand – and Grandmother had possessed some ancient histories which had been in the family for generations. Not even Old Uncle Thaddeus could persuade her to part with those. While she lived, if he wanted to borrow the histories, he had to pay a fee for the privilege, and they had to be returned within the month. He grumbled, but he paid up and respected her for it. I’m not sure that he admired me so much for selling them to him.
That conversation broke the ice, and afterwards Jonathan and I often talked. He lent me his books and I lent him those favourites of mine that I’d managed to keep. And when I evinced an interest in his studies, he was happy to show off a little, explaining the finer points of sail against the coarser advantages of the new steamships, and his desire to understand and master both. For the time being, he said, pointing out his ship at her winter moorings on the Bell Shoal, he was pleased to be aboard a lively brigantine, as fast and seaworthy as any man might desire. I smiled at his description, and, whenever he was aboard during the day, would steal a minute or two by the upstairs window, seeking out the Lillian amongst a score of others, trying to pinpoint Jonathan amongst the shipwrights and carpenters working aloft or on deck. Just a glimpse of him could cheer the day’s humdrum tasks for me, which should have told me much about my feelings. I found it was harder to ignore the tension between us whenever we happened to be alone.
That last evening, he was lingering in the yard as I came out of the kitchen for a breath of air. It was my habit before going up to the cramped quarters I shared with Cook, a moment of peace and quiet before bed. Instinctively, as he approached, I moved into deeper shadow. Lamps were still lit, and with windows on every side there was little chance of our meeting being entirely unobserved.
He said he would be leaving early the next morning, and wanted to say goodbye while we had this chance to be alone. A rush of innocent delight brought a blush to my cheeks, and I was glad of the darkness. But then the full import of his words reached me and suddenly I was tongue-tied; my smile became an anxious frown as I struggled for a reply.
‘I’ll miss you,’ he said earnestly; and: ‘I’ll miss you, too,’ I whispered at last, aware that the words were true. Suddenly, I had to remind myself of all my firm intentions in order not to give way to foolishness.
Unaware of my conflict, he went on: ‘I just wanted to say, if you want to borrow any of my books while I’m gone – the novels, I mean – then it’s all right. I know you like to read. I’ll mention it to my mother.’
‘Thank you,’ I managed, while my throat felt close to choking.
‘Take whichever ones you want...’
I promised I would, all the time wanting to hold him, not his books. But then, leaning closer, he whispered: ‘I hope you’re still here when I come back...’ He was only a little taller than I, and, for one panic-stricken moment, as his eyes caught the lamplight, I thought he was about to kiss me. Instead he reached for my hand, and the lightness of his touch travelled through me like a shock.
‘I expect it’ll be near Christmas,’ he added gently, but at the time we were barely into March and that reminder was all I needed to bring me to my senses. ‘Well, then,’ I responded breathlessly, jerking my hand free, ‘I’ll pray for good weather and a safe return. Now, we’d better go indoors, before your mother wonders what we’re up to out here.’
I ran upstairs after that, to stand rigidly by the window until I heard Cook’s footsteps, when I slipped into bed and turned my face to the wall. Early next morning, watching Jonathan leave, I was acutely aware that I’d have given anything to be going with him, to be climbi
ng into the boat, crossing that open stretch of water and boarding the brigantine waiting for the tide...
If Mrs Markway seemed remarkably cool after that, I tried not to feel that her ill-temper was directed solely at me. It lasted for several weeks, until the day she surprised me leaving Jonathan’s room with one of his books in my hand. I’d returned Gulliver’s Travels and was borrowing Tristram Shandy, but beside my bed was another volume, an anthology of verse that I’d been reading for some time.
Mrs Markway took one look and accused me of stealing the books. My protests only made things worse. According to her I was wicked, a liar and a thief; nothing I could say would deflect her. Indeed, at every mention of Jonathan’s name she became more incensed and, when Cook spoke up for me, Mrs Markway flew into a rage and threatened to sack her too. With her jowls quivering, she told me to pack my things at once and leave – she would not have me in the house a moment longer. She even examined every single one of my own books, to be sure, she said, that none of them had been stolen from her son and secreted away.
The injustice left me open-mouthed with shock. Like someone blind, when she’d gone, I felt for my other possessions and placed them in my box, while Dick hovered in embarrassment on the landing, ready to help me carry it down.
Fortunately the month was April and the weather was good, and although I might have lacked many things I was not without relatives. Even so, by the time I arrived in Robin Hood’s Bay it was early evening, and Old Uncle was on his way to a public meeting, long white hair and beard gleaming in the dusk.
He was not pleased to see me, and had no time to talk, so I had to go to the house and wait until he returned. His housekeeper took me through to the kitchen, where she gave me something to eat, but I felt very much like the condemned man abandoned to the contemplation of his sins. During that time, the anger that had waxed and waned during my walk built up again, fuelled by anguish, frustration, and the absolute conviction that Old Uncle was not going to believe me.
It was not the best way to begin an important discussion.
From his expression as he looked down at me, I knew immediately that he’d assumed I was in the wrong. That set light to my temper and I flung accusations like Roman candles, all kinds of things that had little to do with the problem in hand, but everything to do with my sense of injury. His influence had secured me the job, I said, so surely he could use that same influence to set Mrs Markway straight – to make her retract those accusations and clear my name.
His response to that was a curt demand as to why he should do such a thing when the whole affair was my own fault. The issue of the books was a matter for regret, but if I was so unwise as to set my cap at young Markway, then I must be prepared to take the consequences. How the boy’s mother went about dismissing her servants did not concern him. Furthermore, he was not used to being spoken to in such a manner, especially by a mere chit of a girl. Eliza Markway was a difficult woman, he’d grant me that, but I should have thought twice before making a play for her favourite son.
‘Good sense should have shown you better than that, my girl! I shall try to help for the sake of your grandmother – but without references it will not be easy. Until you have somewhere else to go you may stay...’
But by that time I didn’t want his help. Shaking with fury, on the verge of tears, I told him I would find my own jobs and never bother him again.
I wish now that I could recall sweeping out with pride, but I was trembling so badly I fumbled at the door and almost tripped over the threshold. Old Uncle tried to prevent me from leaving, even called after me from the front gate, but I couldn’t wait to be gone. I ran off down the precipitous main street, slipping and sliding on cobbles all the way down to the Wayfoot, where house walls suddenly became defence walls and the sturdy little town met the sea.
I could go no further, unless I wanted to drown myself, and for a fleeting moment I was foolish enough to consider that as a dramatic form of revenge. But I stopped, and, like the child I was, sank down, sobbing furiously, on a smooth rock-seat. The night was calm and cool and after a while it soothed me. I tried to think what to do, while the tide lapped at a row of cobles drawn up on the beach, and gulls muttered on their rooftop nests.
To my mind, there’s freedom and there’s being cast adrift, and in that moment I was adrift like a boat at the slack of the tide. I could have been turned either way. That I turned back to Whitby, and ultimately took refuge with my cousin Bella and her family, might have seemed arbitrary, but Bella was also a friend. In retrospect, I can see that I headed back to Whitby mainly because I was too proud to apologise to Old Uncle Thaddeus. No matter what I’d done, the Firths were unlikely to judge me harshly; and anyway, a long and lonely walk seemed easier than having to explain myself to my other relatives in Bay. In my mind’s eye they assumed ranks of blank incomprehension, row upon row of sensible, practical women, who would no more have understood my predicament than ever have found themselves in it.
~~~
Such thoughts and emotions flashed through my mind that January day as I watched Jonathan coming towards me. How I wished he’d come home a few weeks ago – things might have been different then! Seeing him now, so clean and slender and handsome, I felt branded. Not just by his mother’s accusations, nor even by the smell of the fish-basket on my arm, but by my association with the Firths. I wondered whether everyone in Whitby knew about Magnus and his daughters and, if they did, what they were saying about me, living under his roof. As Jonathan came closer, I wished I could turn back the clock. Or at least look as though I was profiting from something, if only the wages of sin.
He had never been mine, nor I his; even so, seeing the light in his eyes I felt I had betrayed something. The low winter sun, dazzling and revealing, almost blinded me as he stopped to speak. I was squinting so badly it was necessary to edge round in order to see his face, and when I did I wished I hadn’t. He might have been pleased to see me at first glance, but now that he could see me properly – looking so much less than my best with that heavy basket of fish – his dark eyes revealed his embarrassment. It could have been shyness and a genuine dismay at my fall in fortune, but I felt besmirched by recent events and was prepared for condemnation. At his greeting, which would surely have thrilled me before Christmas, I was suddenly angry.
‘By the way, how’s your mother getting on?’ I demanded waspishly before he could think what to say. ‘I haven’t seen her since she sacked me for stealing your books.’
A flush of colour stained his tanned skin and he looked away, upriver, to where ships moored on the Bell Shoal made a dark forest of masts against the bright sky. Watching his reaction, I told myself he was trying to identify the lines of his own ship, a means of escape from all this. It seemed an age before he drew breath, before he turned back to me with lowered brows and a glance that glittered.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, stiffly, ‘I heard about that, and I’m truly sorry. I thought I’d explained, but there was obviously a misunderstanding. I wish it could be set straight, but – well, since it’s too late for that, I can only apologise. Especially about – well, about you losing your job.’
While I looked stonily downriver, wondering whether it was an apology I could accept, he paused and shook his head. ‘My mother isn’t well, you know – it’s difficult.’
I was so astonished, and he was so obviously embarrassed, I didn’t try to keep him. Gone were the more civil questions that had been on my mind, such as where had he been, why were they late coming home, and had it been a good trip? For one painful moment our eyes met, and then I heard myself expressing regret, and on that note we parted, he to his work aboard a ship being repaired and refitted, and I to mine, hawking fish.
I cursed myself for a fool, but afterwards, when my tortured pride had settled again, it struck me that I might have misunderstood that statement about his mother. He may have meant that she was physically unwell, therefore it would have been unkind to challenge her decisions; on t
he other hand he could have been suggesting that his mother was going a little mad, even losing her reason. On reflection I thought the latter was most likely, and tried to feel sorry. I didn’t succeed. I felt sorrier for myself.
Sorrier, but more or less cured of my infatuation with Jonathan Markway. At least I told myself that. With his dark curly hair and whipcord slenderness he’d become more good-looking than ever during the months he’d been away. Except I kept repeating Grandmother’s old saying, handsome is as handsome does, and felt he’d let me down just by not being there when he was needed. Another reason for never marrying a seaman, I decided, while trying not to compare that kind of life with the one I was living at present.
I rarely caught so much as a glimpse of the other Markways, although Bella kept her ears open for gossip. She’d heard the old man had a mistress over towards Bay, and Mrs M. was making everybody pay for it, including the customers. So maybe she was a little mad, after all. I found myself feeling sorry for Jonathan, cooped up in the same house, but had no opportunity to express it. Whenever I saw him, it was rarely to speak to and never to exchange more than the briefest of greetings. For several weeks, during the worst time of the year, he remained before me like a reminder of what might have been. Bella told me to forget him, he wasn’t worth sighing over, but that was easier said than done.
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