Children Of The Tide

by Valerie Wood

  She turned to look at him, her eyes were bright as if she had been crying and there were deep shadows beneath them, and yet as he looked at her, he thought how different she looked. Her face had lost its customary sternness and she had loosened her hair from her cap so that it flowed around her shoulders. In her hand was a tortoiseshell mirror.

  ‘Ill? What do you mean?’

  ‘Seemingly he collapsed at the riverside. Mother, will you get dressed? We must go immediately. Spence is waiting now with the carriage.’

  She reached for her robe and put it around her and then threw back the quilted bedspread. ‘Then it is my fault. I have brought him to this.’

  ‘What nonsense are you talking, Mother? You were not there. And had you been, there wasn’t anything you could have done. Now, get dressed. I’ll send Mary up to help you and we’ll go as soon as you are ready.’

  His mother’s words, though he didn’t understand them, had increased his own sense of guilt, for once again he had been late to the office after spending a late evening playing billiards and losing money at cards. He had also fully intended seeing James off on his journey. Instead, having spent an uncomfortable night on a truckle bed in his empty house in Charlotte Street, he had fallen fast asleep at six a.m., and not woken again until nine.

  His mother came down within half an hour to where he and Anne were waiting in the hall. ‘We must send for James,’ he said as he handed them into the carriage. ‘He will have to come straight back.’

  His mother stared at him and clung to his arm when the carriage jerked as it turned into the road. ‘James?’ she said vaguely. ‘Oh, yes. I suppose that he must.’ She looked away out of the window. ‘He won’t arrive in London until this evening.’

  Gilbert was preoccupied with what he must do. His father took on so much of the responsibility of running the company, and Gilbert, unlike his father, had never been to the Arctic, had never sailed further than Holland, and therefore didn’t understand the needs of the whaling men who sailed in their ships.

  ‘You must give me his address, Mother, and I’ll get a telegram off straight away.’

  His mother clutched her fingers together in a tight knot. ‘But I don’t have an address. I don’t know where he is staying.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Gilbert stared at his mother. ‘But does Father know? You know how woolly-minded James is, he’ll forget to write!’

  She hung her head and bit her lips together. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘Your father said that he wouldn’t return, and I fear he may be right.’ Tears started to trickle down her face, and Gilbert and Anne looked at her in dismay. ‘The only person who could bring him back is your father.’

  Gilbert shook his head in disbelief. ‘And Father is unable to. If James doesn’t hear from him, then we may never see him again!’

  Anne fainted at the sight of her father lying so white and still, and had to be taken to an anteroom to lie down. Gilbert stayed a little while with his mother as she sat at Isaac’s bedside, and then left her to go to the office, to send messages to those who would be concerned.

  Mildred looked down at Isaac. ‘I’m sorry, Isaac,’ she whispered. ‘So very sorry that I have brought you to this. How I have wasted our life together, how very cruel I have been.’

  She ran her fingers over her cheekbones and around her mouth. ‘I looked in the mirror this morning after you and James had gone, and I saw myself as I was. Not someone still young and beautiful as he would remember me, but a middle-aged, bitter woman who has wasted away any chance of happiness with the man who really loved me – by waiting for someone to come back for me.’ She took hold of his still, pale hand. ‘And because of me we have lost a son; a son who loved you and hated me.’ She stroked his hand with her fingers. ‘But, please. If you will only get better, I will try to make it up to you. I’ll try to salvage some kind of happiness for you, for us both, before it is finally too late.’

  11

  When James emerged from the train at King’s Cross station he was nervous with pent-up excitement. He picked up his bag, said good-bye to the other occupants who had shared the long journey from Leeds Central station and walked out of the station concourse.

  There was a bustle here which was different from both Hull and York. There appeared to be thousands of people milling outside the station, but there was also a mêlée of hackney carriages, omnibuses crowded with passengers, cabriolets and costermongers’ carts; adding to the confusion were teams of drovers and their barking dogs who were bringing in flocks of sheep from the country districts on their way to market.

  Many of the women in the crowd were fashionably dressed. Some in dome-shaped crinolines and velvet jackets trimmed with fur, others, though they wore cages beneath their gowns, had the fullness of their skirts pushed back, making the front flatter and the bustle enormous. Their headwear, he noticed, as he watched and admired for a few moments, was small and neat; toques and spoon-shaped bonnets placed precariously on high-set chignons and ringlets, as well as on neat smooth coils. But he noticed, too, that amongst the affluent crowd, and mingling between the hurrying top-hatted men of business were small boys in threadbare coats and caps too big for them, and labouring men who appeared to have no labour at that time of day, and were listlessly watching the scene with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

  He hailed a hansom cab and asked the driver to take him to the riverside village of Chelsea, and sat in the low-slung cabriolet gazing with bright eyes at the prospect of the new life in front of him as he was bowled along the streets of London.

  Red brick and grey Portland stone dominated the scene, and pillared porticos fronted some of the more elegant buildings. He glimpsed small squares with cobblestones and plane trees within the railed gardens, and black-and-white timbered houses with overhanging gables which reminded him of the Tudor houses in York. Cool courtyards with marble and stone statues were glimpsed behind low walls, with the flickering shadow of tall trees dappling enclosed circles of grass. The cab driver took him along the tree-lined road by the Thames. Steamers, yachts and pleasure boats plied along the choppy water, and there was a village atmosphere as they approached Chelsea, with its pretty houses and flowering gardens.

  Batsford’s lodgings were in a tall Georgian house in Cheyne Walk, overlooking the Thames. James opened the high iron gate which led into the small square of grassed garden, mounted the three steps to the front door and rang the bell.

  A man’s felt hat appeared from the basement steps and beneath it a woman’s face, upturned to look at him; as she walked up the steps the rest of her appeared. A large apron covered her black dress and she carried a pail in one hand and a broom in the other. ‘There ain’t nobody in, my dear, but Mr Batsford or Miss Gregory will be back soon if you want to wait.’

  ‘Mr Batsford will be expecting me, I think. I’ve come from Yorkshire.’

  ‘I dare say, sir,’ she agreed. ‘But that wouldn’t stop him going out for his walk along the bank. I can’t let you in. He wouldn’t like that. He don’t like folk seeing his things. Not without him being there. You can sit on the steps or across on the seat by the river.’ She pointed over her shoulder towards the river and then threw the contents of the pail into the garden and once more disappeared below into the basement.

  James put down his bag and sank down onto the steps. He was stiff with travelling and also hungry. There was no food available once he had left Leeds and he had eaten his parcel of food before the train had gathered steam and left the station. He sat for half an hour on the cold step and was beginning to feel chilled. Dusk was drawing in and a damp mist from the river was thickening about him; leaving his bag behind, he got up and crossed over the road and stood looking at the river, at the busy traffic of steamers and barges which were travelling up and down the Thames, and at the donkeys and carts, farmers and country folk, who were passing over the old bridge which ran over the water towards Battersea. He glanced down the road; there were a few people strolling in groups of three or
four, hansom cabs and gigs were bowling along with their jaunty high-stepping pairs or single horses, and striding along in the middle of the road was a short figure with a swirling cloak and a large black hat.

  He watched the man as he approached and saw him turn into the gate and stop as he saw James’s bag on the steps. He stooped to look at it and then turned back towards the river.

  James lifted his hand in greeting and hurried across. ‘Mr Batsford? I’m James Foster Rayner. I believe Clive Peacock has written to you about me.’

  Batsford rubbed his clean-shaven chin. His hair was long and dark, and beneath the rim of his hat, a greying fringe on his forehead was curling in the damp air. ‘Did he? Perhaps he did. You’re right, I’m sure he did write about somebody.’ He fished around in his waistcoat pocket, brought out a key and put it in the door. ‘You’d better come in while I try to remember what it was that Peacock said about you.’

  James picked up his bag and followed him in to the small hallway.

  ‘Did he say you were a poet or a plumber? My memory is not what it was. I get so engrossed, you know, when I’m busy with a work that I don’t absorb what anyone is saying or doing. In fact, if it were not for Miss Gregory reminding me to eat or drink and sending me out for my constitutional walk, I would stay locked in my room for weeks.’

  He was a man of about forty, with a gaunt face and myopic grey eyes. He peered at James through round spectacles which perched half-way down his nose.

  ‘No, sir.’ James grinned at him. ‘I am in neither of those occupations. Peacock suggested that I might become an artist.’

  ‘Might become an artist?’ Batsford frowned. ‘You either are an artist or you are not! You cannot become one by a mere suggestion. Come. We cannot talk out here.’ He led the way up the stairs until, at the third and final floor, he opened up another door which led into his rooms. ‘I make no apology for the state of housekeeping. If you can find a free chair you may sit down.’

  James glanced around the room. An unmade bed was beneath the window. Unfinished sketches and paintings leant against the walls. Empty picture frames were stacked in untidy piles in the corners of the room, and in two of the three chairs, an assortment of velvet and lace drapes and shawls, fruit and vegetables, bread, bowls and jugs were heaped in a colourful confusion. In the third chair, a young woman lay fast asleep.

  ‘That’s Miss Gregory.’ Batsford flicked his hand towards her by way of explanation.

  ‘Oh,’ James whispered.

  ‘No need to whisper.’ Batsford unfastened his cloak and let it fall in a heap on to the floor. ‘She won’t wake up for hours.’

  James gazed at Miss Gregory. She was full-lipped, with long lashes on her heavy sleeping eyelids, and her thick reddish hair floated across her face and shoulders like a shawl. She wasn’t what he considered beautiful, he contemplated, but she had an interesting face. He viewed her with all the astute experience of his eighteen years, safe in the knowledge that he could observe her without her awareness; he wondered if she was Batsford’s model.

  ‘Is this where you paint, sir?’

  ‘What?’ Batsford was searching amongst a pile of papers, books and unwashed dinner plates which were littering an oval table. ‘Oh, no. Not at all. Ah, here it is.’ He pulled out a sheet of writing paper from beneath the jumble. ‘I knew it was around somewhere. No. I’ll show you.’

  He waved a finger at him and opened a door to what James had thought must be a cupboard. Inside the door were steps leading up to another room within the roof space of the building.

  ‘This is magnificent,’ James breathed. Though the room was now dim, he could imagine it as it would be during daylight hours with the light flooding in. It was a long room, painted white, spreading the length of the building. A skylight was set in the roof and a large window overlooking the river had been added. Unlike the living-room, this studio was bare: uncluttered but for an easel with a virgin canvas; a table, with neatly arranged boxes of water-colours and tubes of oil paints, a jug holding various brushes, and a chaise longue draped with a heavy shawl.

  ‘Magnificent,’ he repeated, ‘to have a room such as this with no distractions, no discord or ornament to sidetrack one’s concentration. Nothing to interrupt the inner thought or inspiration.’

  Batsford’s face broke into a smile. ‘So! Perhaps you are an artist, after all?’

  ‘I’d like to be, sir; if I’m good enough. But I need to be good enough to earn my living. I want to be independent from my parents.’

  ‘Peacock says that you have talent, but that it needs to be brought out. Well, I trust his judgement, but I don’t take many pupils. We will talk. Do you have any money?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Erm, a little, sir. I took the precaution of not bringing much with me, in case of pickpockets, you know. My father will transfer a sum to a bank as soon as I am settled.’

  ‘Good.’ Batsford swept out of the studio and down the steps. ‘In that case we will eat.’ He picked up his cloak from the floor and swung it around his shoulders. ‘I know of a place where we can eat a good meat pie and drink a glass of wine and meet some friends you might be glad to know.’ He banged the door behind them, mindless of the sleeping Miss Gregory, and marched along out of Cheyne Walk and around the corner into the King’s Road, with James hurrying beside him.

  ‘You have heard of Rossetti, of course, and Ruskin? You may perhaps meet them in due course. If I decide to take you, I mean. Rossetti is in Paris just now, he has at last married dear Elizabeth and taken her on honeymoon. He is working more and more in oils, but alas, her illness distracts him.’

  James was speechless. To hear the revered names dropped so casually from Batsford’s lips stunned him so much that he couldn’t even bring himself to question him about them. They entered an inn and Batsford made his way to a rear room where several people were seated at a long table. He introduced James as a friend of Peacock’s from Yorkshire, and dropped random names so quickly that he couldn’t immediately match names with faces. But there were several young men there, two whose names he caught as William Morris and Burne-Jones, who were maybe only six or seven years older than himself, which he found encouraging as he had expected to meet only older persons such as Batsford and Peacock. Two young women were in the company, one a poet and the other, Eve, a model for Burne-Jones.

  He bought supper for Batsford and himself and looked in some dismay at his thin pocket-book when he had paid the bill, but he ceased to worry over finances as he became engrossed in such conversations as he had never dreamed of: of literature and poetry, of architecture and art, of music and symbolic beauty, and his head swam with the wonder of it all. He drank his fourth glass of red wine and leaned his elbow on the table, cradling his head in his hand. He smiled blearily at Eve, who was sitting opposite him, and thought that she must be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He tried to ask her if one day she would model for him, but each time he opened his mouth, nothing but a jumble of muttered words fell from his loose tongue. He was desperately tired and he put his head on the table and closed his eyes.

  When he awoke, daylight was streaming in above the bed where he was lying in Batsford’s living-room. There was no sign of Batsford or Miss Gregory, but on the table which had had some of the objects swept aside, was a jug of milk and a fresh loaf of bread. He poured himself a glass of milk and cut a thick slice of bread and as he sat on the edge of the bed, eating and drinking, he wondered how he had got back to Batsford’s rooms, for he could remember nothing. But he had no headache or tiredness. He was simply filled with a joyous expectation of happiness and fulfilment.

  I am going to be a painter, he exulted. I shall meet Rossetti and talk to him and perhaps ask him his opinions of my work. I might even go abroad to study. Maybe to Paris or Florence or Venice, where I will observe the paintings of the great Masters, and meet with the contemporary painters of today. I shall one day be renowned for my mastery in the techniques of realism or – perhaps – mysticism. All
this he would do, just as soon as he had persuaded Batsford that he must take him as a pupil, and had found himself a room and bought paint and canvas.

  He listened. A faint sound, a creak of a board or a window opening, and he surmised that there was someone in the upstairs studio. He put down his empty glass and brushed crumbs from his shirt and wondered what had happened to his shoes. He opened the door and mounted the steps to the studio, unwilling to intrude if Batsford was working. Which he was. He had his back to James and was completely absorbed with his subject which he was portraying on the canvas.

  James drew in a sudden silent breath and his jaw dropped at the sight of Miss Gregory lying languidly on the chaise longue, her eyes closed as they had been yesterday evening. One plump arm was behind her head, her glorious hair covering one abundant breast, whilst the rest of her was completely naked. Once more he gazed at the sleeping woman, but this time he was open-mouthed, as he had never before seen a real woman in nakedness. When painting in school they had only ever used wooden manikins, and Peacock had often bemoaned the loss of real flesh and form, to the amusement and regret of his students.

  As he silently observed her, he was in some way reminded of his cousin, Sammi. Not in a lascivious manner, for it wasn’t the woman’s body which reminded him, but the sweep of her hair which was thick and luxuriant as Sammi’s was, and in the complete, innocent repose which surrounded her. At the thought of Sammi, his mind immediately linked with the child, and the reason for him being here, so far from home. How in heaven’s name? How could I have been with a woman ? How could I have been with a woman and known such beauty, and not remember? It cannot be possible!

  As he pursued these silent questions, Miss Gregory opened her eyes. They were large and dark, with huge pupils which stared right back at him. Her eyebrows raised, and in a single swift movement she drew a muslin shawl, which was lying beside her, around her body, and in doing so portrayed herself, not as a human form, but as a sensual physical woman.