The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  ‘I’ll ask ’questions.’ The answer was terse. ‘But yes, I’m his nan. His da’s mother. He lives here wi’ me. This is my house.’

  ‘W-will he be back soon?’ Jeannie risked another question. ‘Or is he at sea?’

  Mrs Carr frowned. ‘Did he tell you he went to sea?’

  ‘Yes. He said he was a fisherman.’

  ‘What d’ya want wi’ him?’

  Jeannie clutched the mug with both hands. ‘I’d rather speak to him.’

  ‘Who brought you? Did you come on ’train?’

  Jeannie bit her lip. She hadn’t expected to be interrogated. ‘I came by myself. On the train. When will Harry be home?’

  Mrs Carr took a deep breath, her thin chest rising and falling. ‘It’s a long way to come just to see somebody. Are you expecting?’

  Jeannie gasped. ‘I don’t – I want to speak to Harry.’ Tears began to fall. She was cold, wet and miserable and she didn’t want to talk to this horrible old woman.

  ‘Did he say he’d marry you? Did he mek any promises?’

  Dumbly Jeannie nodded and took another sip of tea; her teeth chattered on the metal lip.

  ‘Stand up,’ Mrs Carr ordered and Jeannie thought she was going to order her out of the house, but she obeyed and the old woman barked out, ‘Turn about.’

  Jeannie stared at her but did as she was bid. Mrs Carr nodded and then took the mug from her and refilled it from the teapot, though she didn’t offer any milk this time. She pointed a thin crooked finger indicating that Jeannie should sit again.

  ‘How old are you? How far gone?’

  ‘I’m s-sixteen. I last saw Harry in March.’

  ‘Five months, then. We’re still in August, aren’t we?’

  ‘Where is Harry?’ Jeannie said. ‘I need to talk to him.’

  ‘So do I,’ his grandmother said grimly, and Jeannie noticed that she had screwed the hem of her apron into a tight ball in her bony hand. ‘I’ll have summat to say when he gets in. He’ll feel ’sharp end o’ my tongue an’ no mistake.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Jeannie asked again. ‘I don’t want to miss my train home.’ She felt that she would have to go home; that she would get no satisfaction here.

  ‘You can stop here for ’night,’ Mrs Carr said unexpectedly. ‘He’ll probably be late in. If he’s not found work then he’ll be in ’pub ’avin’ a game o’ doms.’

  For a moment Jeannie didn’t grasp what she was saying. What did she mean? Inpub? Then she blinked. In the public house? Having a game of dominoes!

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And you think he’ll be late?’ Surely, she thought, if he hasn’t any work then he won’t waste time and money drinking and playing dominoes. Anxiety washed over her. Is this what he was like? Was he often out of work? Would she be better going home and living out her shame where she was known?

  There was a sudden crash as if a door had been flung open and a second later the door from the scullery opened too and Harry, his face flushed and his hair tousled, stood there grinning.

  ‘Hey up, Nan! I said as I wouldn’t be late, didn’t I?’ He didn’t seem to notice Jeannie sitting by the fire, though she had turned her head towards him. ‘There’s nobody much about so I thought I might as well come home.’ He began to untie the laces on his boots, trying unsuccessfully to bend down without falling over and grabbing hold of the table.

  ‘Happen everybody else is in work!’ his grandmother said sourly. ‘Have you been down to ’docks?’

  He straightened up and as he did so caught sight of Jeannie, her face almost level with his. His mouth opened as if he were about to speak, but he seemed to be dumbstruck and licked his lips instead.

  ‘Hello, Harry,’ Jeannie murmured. He looks like a naughty schoolboy, she thought, caught out in some misdemeanour. ‘Remember me?’

  ‘Jeannie!’ he breathed. ‘What ’you doing here? How did you find me?’

  ‘With difficulty,’ she said. ‘I had to ask several people.’

  ‘So …’

  He was trying to ask why she had come, she thought, but didn’t know how to frame the question.

  ‘You asked me to wait for you,’ she said quietly. ‘You said—’

  ‘You said you’d marry her,’ his grandmother butted in. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Well, aye,’ he blustered. ‘But not yet. I’ve no money, have I? No job.’

  ‘We’ll put ’banns up then. She’s pregnant.’

  He took a gasping breath. ‘Pregnant!’

  Jeannie nodded. ‘That’s what happens, Harry,’ she said. ‘When two people … You said you wanted me to marry you and come to live in Hull.’

  Harry hung his head and didn’t look at her and scratched the back of his neck. Then he was almost knocked sideways as his grandmother stood up and hit out at him.

  ‘You great daft ha’porth!’ she shouted. ‘How could you think o’ bringing a bairn into ’world when life’s difficult enough trying to scratch a living and you wi’ no job?’

  ‘I didn’t think, Nan,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t think about having a bairn.’

  She reached out again and slapped him and he flinched but didn’t retaliate.

  ‘Well, you’ll marry her if she still wants you,’ she bawled at him. ‘I’ll not have folks talking about me and saying my grandson is a ne’er-do-well who doesn’t honour his commitments.’

  Jeannie was astonished. For support to come from such an unexpected quarter as this mean-faced, sharp-tongued woman completely flummoxed her. But her share of censure was yet to come as Nan Carr turned on her.

  ‘And as for you, young woman, if this is how you carry on in Scarborough, then shame on you. Did your ma not tell you ’difference between right and wrong? Were you a virgin?’ she snapped. ‘Or did all ’lads in Scarborough know you?’

  Jeannie was stung by the question and began to cry. She stood up and picked up her damp shawl. ‘No, they didn’t,’ she said between sobs. ‘I’d never been touched by a lad before. Harry was the first and I went with him because he said he loved me and wanted to marry me.’

  ‘Loved you,’ the old woman sneered. ‘Aye, he loves you all right. He’ll have to love you for ’next forty years. Then you’ll know what love is!’

  She stormed out of the kitchen and into the scullery, banging the door behind her, and could be heard clattering pots and pans.

  ‘She’s got her dander up,’ Harry remarked. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll calm down in a bit.’

  ‘Harry!’ Jeannie snuffled. ‘Didn’t you mean it when you said we’d be wed?’

  He rubbed his hand over his chin and Jeannie noticed that he hadn’t shaved. ‘Well.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose I did at ’time.’ He glanced at her. ‘You look right bonny, Jeannie. You’ve put on a bit o’ weight.’

  She took a breath. ‘I’m pregnant, Harry, that’s why.’

  ‘Oh, yeh! Do you mind?’

  Jeannie gazed at him. He looked sleepy, which she guessed was from drinking, but he was still very appealing. ‘About the bairn? Not if you don’t. But I won’t hold you to marriage if you really don’t want to. I’d get a bad name in Scarborough, but I’d manage somehow.’

  He came towards her and kissed her cheek. ‘You were lovely that day up by ’castle,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve never …’ He paused.

  ‘What, Harry? Never what?’

  ‘Oh, nowt,’ he said. ‘It was your fost time, wasn’t it?’

  She pulled away from him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know it was. But not yours, was it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Got to get experience somehow, haven’t we?’ He reached out and ran his hands over her hips, then drew in a breath. ‘By, you look good, Jeannie. If Nan wasn’t in ’next room …’

  She backed away again. ‘But she is,’ she whispered, and was glad that the old woman was within hearing because she knew that otherwise she would be tempted. She swallowed and licked her lips. What was it about him that attracted her so irresistibly? He wasn’t handsome, not the way Ethan
was handsome, but he was very fetching with his cheeky grin and eyes that seemed to swallow her up.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Harry, be sensible. I’ve to think about the bairn. Are we to be married or not?’

  His eyes roamed her face, her body, even down to her feet. ‘Course we are. Nan said, didn’t she?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JEANNIE PONDERED HARRY’S remark as she travelled back to Scarborough the following morning. He had escorted her to the railway station and seen her on to the train. His grandmother had curbed her temper the day before and come back into the kitchen to tell him that he must put up the banns the next day and that she would go with him to make sure that he did. She told Jeannie that she should go home and ask her mother to send a letter saying she gave her consent to the marriage, and that Harry would send her a postcard telling her when the marriage was to take place. She also said that after the ceremony she and Harry would live with her.

  Nan had taken her upstairs. The top step led straight into the front bedroom. She pointed out the double bed and told Jeannie that she would share with her that night. ‘I’ll have no carryings on in my house,’ she’d said grimly. ‘You’ll wait till you’re wed for that.’

  Then going from that room she’d opened a door to show her Harry’s tiny room with a single bed and nothing more and told her that she would try to buy a larger second-hand bed once they were married.

  Jeannie had spent an uncomfortable night sleeping in a strange bed with a woman she didn’t know, aware that Harry was only on the other side of a thin wall.

  It’s not what I want, she thought as the train steamed back to Scarborough. I don’t want to live with her. But reason told her that she would have to. If Harry hadn’t regular work then there’d be no money for a place of their own. It would be the same in Scarborough, she knew. We’d have to live with my ma and I don’t suppose he’d like that either. But at the back of her mind was the anxious thought that Harry was only marrying her because his grandmother had said that he must. Would he have agreed to it if old Mrs Carr hadn’t insisted?

  I know nothing about him, she thought. I don’t know any more now than I did before I came. She wasn’t filled with joy as she felt she should have been; rather, she was downcast and desolate to think that she was leaving home and all that was familiar. As she stepped off the train in Scarborough the sun was shining and the air felt fresh; it had been dull and raining in Hull when she left.

  ‘It won’t always be raining,’ her mother reassured her when she told her. ‘When the sun shines Hull will look as good as Scarborough.’

  ‘It won’t, Ma.’ Jeannie burst into tears. ‘Am I doing the right thing? Tell me. Please.’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I can’t, lassie. You must decide. If you want to marry Harry, then you’ll live with him wherever the work is. And think of this. Mebbe his grandmother needs him to live there, to help pay the rent. It can’t be easy for her.’

  ‘It’s a bigger house than ours, Ma.’ Jeannie wiped her tears. ‘It’s got an upstairs and a yard with a privy. And gas light.’

  In their cottage they still had oil lamps and candles. Their landlord hadn’t updated any of his properties, but as Jeannie looked round now and imagined the prospect of leaving, she thought it was perfect.

  ‘It sounds just fine.’ Her mother smiled. ‘And Harry’s grandmother seems like a very sensible woman.’

  In truth, Mary was relieved. The knowledge of there being an older woman in the household slightly allayed her fears about her daughter’s marriage. She had told Jeannie she would support her if she wished to bring up the child alone, and she had meant it, but she could not deny that she was glad the child would be legitimate.

  ‘I’ll send a letter today,’ she assured Jeannie, ‘one they can give to the parson. And listen to me, bairn.’ She squeezed Jeannie’s hand. ‘I’ll come with you to see you married, and so will Tom, and he can give you away. We’ll be witness to your marriage. We’ll show this new family that your own folk will always be there to support you.’

  A week later, Jeannie received a badly written postcard with many crossings out, saying that the wedding would take place on the first Saturday of October, signed with the letter H. She showed it to her mother, who nodded and thought privately that it would be just in time. Jeannie’s pregnancy was beginning to show, and she was sure that people they knew were looking curiously at them.

  I’ll have to see Ethan and explain, Jeannie thought. She had avoided him as much as she could, although he still came over to speak to her when she was working on the nets. She always kept her shawl loosely around her and her back to him, speaking to him over her shoulder, and she didn’t think he had noticed anything different about her.

  She was on her way down to the harbour early one morning when she saw him walking ahead of her and took her courage in her hands to call to him. He turned and gave her a wide smile, and for just a moment she felt a tinge of regret.

  ‘Ethan,’ she began, ‘can you spare a minute?’

  He nodded and gazed at her. ‘Any time; you know that.’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘You’re going to be upset with me,’ she said. ‘You’ll be angry.’

  He gave a little laugh, though she felt it was forced, and took her arm so that they could lean on the railing and look out across the beach where the sea was far out and the sand was soft and golden.

  ‘I’ll never be angry with you, Jeannie,’ he said softly, his eyes on the ocean. ‘I might be angry over circumstances, or frustrated over things which I can do nothing about.’ He turned towards her. ‘But not with you.’

  She looked up at him. ‘I’m going to be married,’ she said. ‘To Harry.’

  He flinched and his eyes seemed to spark. ‘When?’

  ‘In October,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all arranged. We’re to be married in Hull and that’s where I – we’ll live.’

  He leaned on the rail and put his head in his hands and she watched as he shook it slowly as if disbelieving what he had heard.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ethan,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m really sorry. I said you’d be angry.’

  He turned his head to look at her. ‘I’m not angry,’ he said, but she knew that he was for his voice was bitter. ‘I’m – I’m – devastated. Hurt,’ he added, ‘and – I want to kick something – or myself, for not telling you before how I felt, rather than thinking that you always knew.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Her voice broke as she spoke, for she didn’t like to see him like this, so sad and unhappy. ‘But even if I had …’ She stopped, knowing it was unfair to tell him how she had felt about Harry.

  ‘You still wouldn’t have wanted me, not after you met him, with his sweet talking and persuasive ways!’

  And as if he had guessed after all and in a totally uncharacteristic manner, he grabbed at her shawl, revealing her swelling belly. His mouth turned down and his eyes were moist, whether with tears or anger she couldn’t tell.

  ‘You’re pregnant,’ he said accusingly. ‘Did you go with him willingly or were you forced?’

  ‘I wasn’t forced, Ethan.’

  He turned on his heel and walked away, down towards the boatyard, and lost himself among the crowd of boatmen, fishermen and net braiders.

  She cried then; cried for the loss of a friend, for the life she was leaving behind and with anxiety over the one that was to come.

  She hadn’t much to take with her, only a few clothes, two shawls and her spare pair of boots, but her mother had found the money from somewhere – she wouldn’t say how or where – to buy her a blue striped skirt and matching bodice with long sleeves. Jeannie used her final week’s money to buy a blue bonnet trimmed with white lace.

  ‘I might never wear these again, Ma,’ she said guiltily. ‘I’m being reckless.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ her mother said, her voice choking. ‘We want it to be a day to remember and I don’t want anyone to think we can’t afford a wedding dress for my o
nly daughter.’

  Jeannie put her arms round her mother and hugged her. ‘Tom’s hardly spoken to me since you told him,’ she said. ‘Do you think he’ll come?’

  ‘He’ll come,’ Mary said. ‘He’s embarrassed, that’s all. You’re his baby sister, don’t forget.’

  Jeannie had never thought of Tom in that way. She had always felt that she was a nuisance to him when they were younger. She was always sent to fetch him back from wherever he was, interrupting his games when he was wanted at home.

  On the day, the three of them caught the early train to Hull. Tom had been allowed a day off work and wore his only suit with a clean white shirt which his mother had starched so much that the high collar cut into his neck and he had to turn it over. He carried a bowler hat that had been his father’s and his mother had kept. Mary wore her best skirt and fitted jacket with a paisley shawl, and a straw hat trimmed with a herring gull feather which she had dipped into squeezed blackberry juice so that it had become a rich vibrant purple.

  A young man, who Jeannie thought looked vaguely familiar, met them as they came off the platform.

  ‘Are you Jeannie?’ he said. ‘I’m Harry’s mate, Billy Norman. I’m his best man.’

  Jeannie recalled then that she had seen him at Scarborough station the first time she had met Harry. She nodded and gave a nervous smile.

  ‘This is my mother and my brother Tom,’ she said, and was glad that Tom was there, so tall now and broad.

  ‘I’m to look after you till ’wedding,’ he said. ‘Harry’s nan said it were bad luck for ’groom to see ’bride afore ’wedding.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ Jeannie heard her mother say beneath her breath. But Mary added in a louder voice, ‘So what are we to do until eleven o’clock? We can’t stand here all morning.’

  ‘There’s a pub near St Barnabas’s church. We can wait there,’ Billy said. ‘That’s where we’re going after. They’re putting on some victuals for us.’

  ‘We’re not going to wait in any pub,’ Mary said decisively. ‘My daughter isn’t in the habit of frequenting alehouses. How far is it to the church?’