by Erica Brown
‘Sshh,’ she said, and began to sing softly, a lullaby her mother had sang to her.
Echoes of the ocean, blowing through the trees,
Keep safe my sweet one, bring him home to me.
Sing to my child, sleeping in our bed.
Softly blow her tears away, for soon I’m sure we’ll wed.
His lips moved as his eyelids slowly closed. ‘Patience,’ he said one last time before his head fell to one side. He slept.
After closing the door behind her, a slow chill seemed to seep down her spine. First he’d told her to have patience, and now he was asking for her forgiveness.
The blood seemed to drain from her brain as a sudden and incredible thought came to her. Could it be that he was in some way responsible for her birth? Was it possible that he were her father?
She tried to sieve the facts. Otis was in Barbados, and her mother had lived in Barbados, but all three of the brothers had been there at various times. Jeb would not have been allowed to marry her mother, but he was a caring man. That much was obvious by his adoption of Tom and his past ministering to the poor. Was it possible that Otis and his brother had formed some sort of pact? Had it been agreed that Otis would look after Viola, her mother, whilst Jeb Strong had gone back to England to pursue his clerical career?
Blanche took Alicia May back to the room the child shared with the monthly nurse. Thoughts and suspicions about Tom, about Nelson and about her parentage whirled around in her mind. It seemed as though her head was filling with layer upon layer of questions for which no easy answers seemed forthcoming.
As she lay the baby down in her crib and covered her tiny form, the stress she’d suffered since arriving in this land, flooded over her and she cried long and bitterly. Her tears were not just for herself, but also for the unwanted children, the newborn babe, the boy with ringworm on the dockside, and the stinking squalor in which Edith’s family lived.
Wrapped up in self-pity, she didn’t hear the door open, the soft tread of fine leather shoes upon the woven richness of the Turkish carpet.
‘Blanche?’
Recognizing the voice, she spun round. Nelson! Oh, it just wasn’t fair! Why had he appeared now, when her cheeks were streaked with tears and her dress smelled of stale milk, regurgitated by the baby?
‘I thought you’d been ordered to London,’ she said, wiping her eyes.
He grinned boyishly. ‘I disobeyed. Anyway, Father’s gone into Bristol, no doubt still trying to get the better of Conrad Heinkel.’
Blanche remembered the kind man she’d met at the sugar refinery and hoped he had the courage to stand up to Nelson’s father.
She grinned at his outfit of smock and floppy hat. ‘Where are you going dressed like that?’
‘Painting!’ he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide.
‘You didn’t wear those clothes in Barbados.’
Gently, he kissed her cheek then whispered in her ear, ‘At times I hardly wore anything in Barbados.’
Blanche felt her cheeks getting hot. ‘Does the outfit help your artistic ability?’
He waved a finger at her in mock annoyance. ‘One day I will be remembered as Turner will be remembered.’
She didn’t know who Turner was, but presumed he was noteworthy. She studied Nelson’s classic features.
‘I’m sorry about Barbados,’ she said, ‘but I can’t leave, not until Alicia May is a little older.’ It seemed a weak excuse, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the newborn, whose mother seemed uncaring about the child’s welfare.
It was the best excuse she could think of. Tom had said that Nelson would have kept her as a mistress and would marry his cousin. She didn’t want it confirmed so didn’t mention it. Neither did she admit her real reason for staying.
He sighed and kissed her hair. ‘We’ll get there eventually, but in the meantime… when is your next day off?’ He wrapped his arms around her.
‘Tomorrow.’
He flushed with pleasure. ‘Tomorrow I shall be painting a picture of the village church. Can you be there by noon?’
Blanche hesitated as she remembered what Tom had said. She could never be a wife, only a mistress, and even that might not be a permanent position. Nothing had really changed. She was being asked to meet him in secret. She was a fool to hope, but when she thought of Barbados, her mouth became dry and her heart beat against her ribs like a battering ram. She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ll see you then,’ he said, kissed each of her cheeks, then dashed away.
Blanche ran to the door and watched him go. Closing her eyes, she laid her head back against the door. Tomorrow she would prove to herself once and for all that she still felt the same about him, that their love would overcome all obstacles. But Tom’s steady gaze haunted her. Surely she was a fool not to accept his proposal of marriage. But she couldn’t help it. Memories of Barbados made her feel warm and happy, but could it be that the passion ignited on a sunlit island coloured her memories of Nelson? She shook her head and reached for her sewing box and one of George’s shirts. Tonight she’d make herself busy, which would at least keep the doubts at bay and make time pass more quickly.
Mending the shirt was not enough to keep her occupied. It was her duty to iron and mend the children’s clothes once they were returned from the laundry. A pile of hot coals glowed in the grate, warming the room and heating the core for the iron. Just as she was putting the glowing piece of iron into the casing with the help of a pair of tongs, someone knocked at the door and slowly pushed it open.
A mop of brown hair, then a pair of brown eyes appeared followed by a wide smile. ‘Hello, Blanche. Can we visit you?’
Blanche smiled, up ended the iron and placed her hands on her hips. ‘What better visitors could I have? Are the others with you?’
Rupert, Caroline, Arthur and George, the latter red-eyed as usual and sucking his thumb, filed into the room.
Blanche forced herself to forget about Nelson for the moment, and concentrate on them. ‘Have you come to see Alicia May?’
‘Yes,’ said Caroline, always defensive about showing her feelings, like her mother, thought Blanche, and was instantly worried about the girl’s future.
‘And to see you,’ added Rupert.
Blanche raised her finger before her lips. ‘Speak softly. Your sister’s sleeping and I’ve got lots to do.’
They dutifully filed round the crib and grinned down at their little sister. Rupert was fascinated by her tiny little fingers curling around his own.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at your lessons?’ Blanche asked.
‘Mrs Grainger’s got a cold and is confined to bed,’ said Caroline. ‘She left us some work to do, but we don’t feel like doing it.’
Blanche shook her head. ‘She won’t like that.’
Rupert sighed in the worldly way of a young man far beyond his nine years. ‘We know. She’ll probably lay the birch across our backsides or a ruler across our hands. She might even lock us up in the attic with the spiders.’
At the mention of the attic, George promptly burst into tears.
‘Rupert! You shouldn’t frighten him like that.’ Blanche knelt down, threw her arms around him and hugged him close. ‘Oh, George! Spiders can’t hurt you.’ She shivered at the memory of sugar spiders. Thankfully, they wouldn’t thrive in an English climate.
‘It’s not the spiders that frighten him,’ said Rupert. ‘It’s those old paintings. Their eyes watch you. Even when it’s dark, you know they’re looking at you. Mamma felt like that about them, that’s why she prefers mirrors.’
‘You can’t blame George,’ said a know-it-all Caroline. ‘It’s usually him that ends up there. It wouldn’t happen so often if he didn’t wet the bed.’
Blanche hugged him even closer. She’d tried every way of getting him to stop wetting the bed, refusing drinks after six at night, rousing him from sleep every so often. Nothing had worked.
‘We’ll have to do something,’ she said, though wasn�
�t sure what. Lady Verity would bequeath the supervision of her children to anyone, so long as she wasn’t bothered with them; Horatia was disinterested in her half-brothers and sisters; and Emmanuel counted his children in the same way he did his money – things to be accumulated, and perhaps used to gainful end. That left only Nelson and Tom. Tom knew something of what was going on. She thought of telling him to forget dead boys and do something to help those still living. But that would be unfair. It couldn’t be easy stepping into a dead person’s life and feeling somehow that you’d inherited his advantages by default.
That left Nelson. She purposely swept aside his inadequacies, resurrecting the man she thought she’d known in Barbados.
Between Nelson leaving and the children arriving, Duncan stayed hidden behind a dusty curtain in the nursery. Horatia called him her ‘watcher’, her eyes and ears below stairs. Oh, her father and stepmother didn’t care much for what happened in the servant’s kitchen, but she did. She knew the value of knowing what was going on. And she would certainly want to know what the children’s latest nurse was up to.
Chapter Nineteen
With each breath of wind, a shower of blossom blew like snowflakes among the mossy gravestones and marble mausoleums. Tom barely noticed. Walking through the long grass, he paused only to watch the fallen blossom form a fragrant drift around the tombstone of Jasper Strong. Old Josh was waiting for him there, his pipe sticking out like a twig from the side of his mouth, smoke curling around his head.
‘Saw the old sweep who used to do the job before this one,’ he said once the formalities were out of the way, ‘the bugger that used to do the chimneys years ago, and asked ’im a few things on your behalf.’
Josh puffed on his pipe. He never rushed anything. As a boy, Tom remembered watching him toil in the garden. He’d seemed incredibly slow compared to the younger gardeners, dipping and rising with methodical frequency along the furrows and plants. At the end of a planting session, when beans and peas were being sown, or young cabbages transplanted to permanent spots, Josh had always planted more than anyone. Yet they’d appeared to be doing the job far faster than Josh. But that was his secret. He never rushed, but he never slowed either. He had one speed and it got the job done.
Tom waited.
‘Drunken old bugger,’ he said. ‘Used to beat ’is missus and youngsters. Son showed me a broken finger. It was ’im that used to go up the chims for ’is father, so your boy going up the chim was nothing to do with ’im!’
Tom sighed. That much he’d already guessed. But why had Jasper climbed the chimney? Tom couldn’t believe that the boy could have done it at his own volition. Someone must have suggested it. But who and, more to the point, why?
He was sombre when he left Josh and walked back through the cemetery. With head bowed, he walked past the rows of headstones capped with moss and bound with weeds, sad-eyed angels and ornate crosses. He kicked at the grass, sending clods of earth flying through the air. He finally came to the Strong mausoleum. He stopped, not because he wanted to admire it, more because he was disinclined to go back to the house until he had thought things through. So far, there was no one to blame for Jasper’s death. He’d been just a boy who loved ships, who had wanted to climb masts but had climbed a chimney instead.
Mud clung to one of the names. It spoilt the look of the thing. Absentmindedly, he plucked some wet grass and began rubbing the mud from the marble. Slowly the name was revealed. Tom straightened, surprised at what he saw, though not quite understanding its significance.
Grass rustled beneath the hem of a woman’s dress. Tom turned, disappointed when he saw it was only Edith.
‘Captain Tom. I was just out for a walk. I didn’t expect to see you here.’
Tom instinctively knew that her presence was no accident. She was grinning broadly at him, her cheeks salmon pink and her eyes full of something more than excitement – hope perhaps.
Tom flung the grass to the ground, watching it scatter with the wind before rubbing his hand on his thigh. He was in no mood for Edith’s mundane chatter. He spoke sharply. ‘Where I go is my affair.’
The colour that adorned Edith’s face seeped down into her neck. Even her ears turned pink. ‘I didn’t mean to be cheeky.’
She sounded genuinely regretful, and Tom felt sorry he’d snapped at her.
‘Sometimes I like to be by myself,’ he said, unable to stop his gaze straying to the name that had been hidden in mud. He sighed and shook his head. ‘Though I really should find somewhere more interesting than a graveyard. Please don’t mention I was here to anyone else. They’ll think I’m mad.’
‘Oh no, they won’t,’ Edith blurted. ‘You ain’t the only one who comes ’ere. Nelson comes here to paint, and even her ladyship came here, before she had the baby, of course.’
Tom frowned at the thought of Lady Verity visiting anywhere unless there was food on offer. ‘Why would she?’ he asked.
Edith shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She only came the once and brought me with her. And she walked! Can you believe that, her ladyship walking rather than getting the carriage out?’ Frowning, she went on. ‘Told me not to tell anyone too.’ She beamed amiably, her broad face growing broader. ‘But I can trust you, Captain Tom.’
‘Where did she go?’
Edith shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. She told me to wait by the gate.’
Puzzled, Tom shook his head, his eyebrows knotted. ‘Why would she want to come wandering around a churchyard?’
‘There’s the baby’s christening.’
Tom looked at Edith. She was gazing at him adoringly, her eyes unusually round, as if she were trying to read his mind – or his heart. He couldn’t believe that Verity would have come here to see the vicar about her baby’s christening. More likely, she would have summoned him to the house. ‘I don’t really believe that, but then, I also do not believe that you were merely out for a walk. Was there something in particular you wanted to see me about?’
She could not possibly get any redder. He felt slightly smug. It confirmed his own masculinity, though in a hundred years, he could never feel any passion for her. That, unfortunately for both of them, lay in another direction.
‘I was thinking how nice it was, that day we went into Bristol and that kind gentleman at the refinery gave us chocolate. I don’t want to be forward, you understand, but I would just love to do that again. Wouldn’t you?’
Tom smiled. Of course he would, if it meant having Blanche close to him again. He’d barely seen her since asking her to marry him.
‘I would very much like to. Take my arm. I’ll escort you back to the house.’
She took it gladly, slipping her plump, childlike arm through his. He felt her eyes feasting on him as she chattered like a magpie, mostly about her family; the things they’d done, the travelling, the achievements. Outrageous lies, perhaps, but entertaining.
‘One more question,’ said Tom. ‘Were her ladyship’s hands muddy?’
‘Yes,’ said Edith, ‘I think they were.’
So Verity had rubbed mud onto the Strong mausoleum, but why?
He was successful in not meeting her gaze. Being kind to her was one thing. Encouraging her affection was quite another. He wondered how many admirers she’d had in her life. Not many, he thought, not many she’d want anyway.
‘I thought you wouldn’t have time for walking out, Edith, not with the arrival of our little Alicia May,’ he said, and watched her face.
‘I’m only a nursemaid. Brown is the nurse proper.’ She said it contemptuously.
‘You mean Blanche?’
‘She’s supposed to be called Brown, Lady Verity’s orders.’
‘I call people I like by their proper names, Edith. For instance, I never call you Clements, do I?’
Realizing she’d made a tactical error, she looked at him regretfully, opened her mouth then shut it again.
He could do without her adoration, and he wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but he would not and cou
ld not tolerate her jealousy. He saw enough of that in Horatia.
‘I’m taking the children down to the Miriam Strong tomorrow,’ he said, returning to their earlier topic of conversation. ‘A day out will do them good, besides which, it’s time they learned more about ships and the sea. After all, they are members of the Strong family and will be expected to oversee its trade in years to come. And if they are to oversee its trade, they need to know about ships. The children will need female companions, of course.’
Edith was all attention.
‘I shall require that both Blanche and you accompany us. The monthly nurse can look after the littlest Strong for the day. Perhaps you could approach Blanche with regard to this? I myself will clear the matter with Lady Verity.’
Adoration shone in her eyes and he felt the sweaty nervousness of her palms. He’d tried to sound formal but no matter how he spoke or looked at her, Edith remained in love with him.
Back at the house, they went their separate ways, Edith to see Blanche, apologize and blame the time of the month for her unfriendliness. She would do anything for the chance of a day out with Tom Strong.
Tom had no intention of asking Verity for her permission to take the children down to the ship. He would do it anyway, and the likes of Mrs Grainger wouldn’t dare stand in his way.
In the meantime, he had a question to ask. He would have headed straight for Jeb’s room, but was waylaid by Horatia, a vision in blue with velvet ribbons in her hair and a pearl-edged cameo at her throat.
‘Father wants you,’ she said, sliding her arm through his, and gripping him close as though they were conspirators in some treasonable plan.
She smelled of violets, which meant the dress was new. For his benefit? After a few weeks, the dress would smell of her body and be liberally sprinkled with rose water. Such heavy garments rarely got washed.
‘Goodness,’ she said, wrinkling her nose and suddenly pushing him away. ‘You stink of smoke and grass. Where have you been?’ He did think of telling her that after a day in the refinery, he’d visited one of the most iniquitous dens in the city before strolling around the graveyard, but decided against it. After all, Horatia was a lady. Although she had a cast-iron constitution, she feigned disgust if she so wished, but now he sensed the opposite was true. She rather liked his roughness, the dirt and sweat of hard walking, hard drinking – even of hard whoring. He sensed she viewed him as a challenge to be met and conquered. A lot of women had.
