The Hungry Tide

by Valerie Wood

  ‘Indeed. Most agreeable.’ He had a dull headache that wouldn’t go away. Too much brandy after supper had obviously not agreed with his digestion.

  ‘Will you meet them again when you next visit London?’ she probed anxiously.

  ‘I shall see Stephen in the course of business, I expect, but it’s doubtful if I will meet Miss Pardoe. She has a very busy social calendar, I believe.’

  Isobel jumped in with both feet. ‘You could do worse than look in that direction for many advantages, John. She has great charm, perfect breeding and, as I understand it, a considerable fortune.’

  ‘In that order, Aunt?’ John allowed himself a smile.

  ‘You may laugh, but the matter requires consideration. You will soon be thirty, just the right age for a man to wed, and Miss Pardoe is just past twenty-one. She surely won’t wish to wait much longer to be married.’

  ‘I understand that she has had several offers already, Aunt,’ he said stiffly, ‘but has turned them all down. Miss Pardoe seemingly isn’t willing to tie herself to some scheming young buck, or a gouty rich old man, just for the sake of conforming to society’s whims.’ He bowed, excused himself and headed for the door.

  ‘In that case, she should view you very favourably,’ was her parting rejoinder, ‘as you are in neither of those categories.’

  He wished that he hadn’t invited the Pardoes. Although he had been charmed by Matilda and had entertained vague, romantic ideas concerning her, he was adamant that his aunt would not be allowed to matchmake. He had seen the light in her eye the moment he had introduced his guests and knew instantly that she would start to scheme.

  ‘Well, I won’t allow it,’ he muttered testily as he hurried briskly across the hall. ‘I’ll make my own decisions.’ His head still ached, he had had the most abominable night’s sleep again. The flowers by his bed had pervaded the room with their sweet, heavy perfume, and instead of soothing, it induced in him wild, restless dreams which caused him to cry out, waking him up, so that sleep evaded him and he had lain awake gazing into the grey of the morning, hearing the breathing of the sea and seeing a gentle smiling face beneath a cloud of hair, not black as night, but shining bright as the sun.

  He knocked on the door leading to the kitchen and heard the scurry of those inside. Mrs Scryven opened the door and beamed at him, her round face more wrinkled and brown than he remembered.

  ‘Mr John! How pleased I am to see thee.’ She bobbed a crooked curtsey and invited him in to the warm kitchen, the mouthwatering smells there whetting his taste buds.

  He smiled at Lizzie, who he thought looked brighter and prettier and not so pale and wan as formerly.

  ‘Mrs Scryven, I have the devil of a headache. Have you something hidden away in those cupboards that would clear it?’

  She peered up at him, her eyes narrowing to slits. ‘I have something to take away an ordinary pain in thy head,’ she said, her voice low, ‘but I can’t take away ’cause. Only tha can do that, sir.’

  He stared back at her. What on earth was she talking about? ‘It’s just a headache, Mrs Scryven, nothing more.’

  She nodded her head. ‘Well, we can soon fix it if that’s ’case, sir. Just one moment, please.’

  She pulled out a drawer in a large oak dresser and took out a pale, faded green leaf, its texture crisp and crumbling. ‘Try this, Mr John, ’flavour is bitter, but tha’ll find it works.’

  He chewed it as she directed and pulled a face. ‘It’s vile! I shall forget the headache now that I have that revolting taste in my mouth!’

  She nodded, her mouth twitching, and bade him sit down whilst she poured him a small glass of her own ale. He drank thirstily, it was cool and aromatic and he hoped that she would offer another, but she didn’t; she stood politely waiting for him to finish and then took the glass from him, waiting for him to leave.

  ‘Good day, sir.’

  He heard the crisp rustle of Sarah’s gown as she crossed the hall towards the stairs and he swung round to return the greeting. She smelt of summer, an essence of roses and sweet woodbine, and for a moment he was filled with a longing to bury his face in her hair and breathe in the fragrance.

  He realized that he was staring as she gazed hesitatingly down at him from the foot of the stairs, a look of puzzlement on her face.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Mr John?’

  ‘Sorry, er, no, not at all. Good day, Sarah.’

  He was confused. This young woman standing before him was his cousin’s companion, a child almost, a servant. No – no, not a servant! He couldn’t think of her as a servant, no more than he could think of Maria and Will as servants. Mrs Scryven and the others, yes, they were there to serve, that was their function. They expected their master’s patronage as their right, just as they expected to be fed and clothed as their right. But Will and Maria were his friends, and this was their daughter, who in her innocence was setting his thoughts in turmoil and turning his world and his plans upside down.

  She smiled and turned to leave, one hand holding a book, the other clasping the bannister rail.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She turned back, her eyebrows raised in query.

  He couldn’t remember what he was going to say, though he felt that it was important; his wits had wandered away like his elusive dreams, leaving him abstracted.

  ‘Oh, hmm, I was just going to tell you – that I once slid down that bannister rail!’

  She laughed suddenly, her face childlike, expectant and surprised. ‘Did you? What fun!’

  ‘Yes. On the day you were born, in fact.’ He smiled back at her. His headache had lifted and he felt a sudden elation and an alarming desire to do it again. ‘You won’t tell my aunt, will you?’

  He watched the pleasure on her face at the anticipation of a shared secret, and saw streaks of gold gleaming in her brown eyes as she laughed.

  ‘I won’t tell,’ she answered and impulsively put out her hand. ‘I promise.’

  He took it and held it for a moment, abstractedly stroking the soft young skin with his thumb.

  Gently she withdrew her hand from his. ‘Was there something more, sir?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Was there something more you wanted to say?’ Her eyes held his.

  ‘Oh. No. I beg your pardon, Sarah. Nothing more.’

  19

  Tom strode briskly through the yard at Garston Hall and across the lush meadow. It was a good idea of Sarah’s that he should take Lizzie with him on the journey to Aldbrough. A trip out together would mean they could have a good talk like they used to when they were young.

  Nowadays it seemed that there was never time, everyone was always busy. Only at mealtimes when they were all seated at the big table in the kitchen at Garston Hall did they talk, and then it wasn’t proper conversation for there was always a bell ringing somewhere and somebody would have to jump up and attend to the demands of the gentry.

  If there was a big party on with a lot of guests, and his mother and Ma Scryven were too busy to stop and eat, then Tom and his father would collect a basket of food that had been prepared for them and take it home to Field House where they ate in silence, neither of them bothering to speak without the women there to prompt them.

  But he wanted to talk to Lizzie. She bothered him, made him feel nervous somehow. She had changed recently, become distant, and it seemed that at times when he came across her she would deliberately avoid him. She’d got something on her mind, he was sure of that. He frowned, his dark eyes bewildered. Perhaps he had upset her without meaning to. Something he had said. He sighed at the whims and fancies of women with all the profundity of a young male.

  ‘Hello, Lizzie.’ He put his head around the door. ‘Sarah said I would find thee here.’

  Lizzie looked up from her mending. It was her day off and she chose to spend it here at the place she thought of as home, away from the bustle of the kitchen at Garston Hall. ‘Did tha want me for summat, Tom? I’m not specially busy, just doing a bit o
f stitching.’

  He came in, sat down opposite her and stretched out his long legs. ‘Mustn’t it be grand to sit down just when tha feels like it, like ’gentry do?’

  ‘Then I’m just like ’gentry today,’ she said as she stitched a tear in an apron pocket. ‘It’s my day off, to do what I like with. I can sit, or walk or do my sewing. Today I can pretend to be Mrs Masterson.’

  Tom looked at her. Her cheeks were pink from the fire and she had let her long fair hair fall from its customary knot and had tied it loosely at the nape of her neck with a blue ribbon, which, he noticed now, matched her eyes.

  He rubbed his dark bristly chin with its three days’ growth of beard. He’d grown tired of scraping his whiskers and had decided that the time had come to put away his youth and grow a beard.

  He cleared his throat nervously. ‘There’s just one difference though, Lizzie. Tha’s much prettier than Mrs Masterson.’

  She blushed and looked away. ‘Well, she is quite old,’ she answered awkwardly. ‘She used to be pretty.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But our ma is still bonny, and she’s only about ’same age as ’mistress.’

  ‘That’s because ’mistress is never really happy, and Maria is good and gentle inside, and it always shows through. Besides,’ she said, smiling wistfully, ‘she has your da, and he tells her that she’s lovely and that makes her so.’

  There was no privacy in the kitchen at Garston Hall and Lizzie had seen the bond of affection between Will and Maria, the impulsive touching of hand on hair, the spontaneous warmth. She noticed these things and basked in the reflected comfort which she knew had been absent in her own parents’ lives.

  Tom stood and looked down at her. ‘Lizzie?’

  She raised her eyes in query and he saw the silky lashes, only slightly darker than her hair, which encircled them. ‘Yes?’ she answered softly.

  ‘Er.’ He ran his fingers through his thick black hair and scratched his head. ‘I have to go to ’mill at Aldbro’ to tek ’grain. Would tha like to come for a ride?’

  She felt inconsistent emotions of disappointment and elation. It wasn’t what she wanted him to say, but the thought of sitting next to him in the waggon filled her with a disturbing pleasure.

  ‘Mrs Masterson would have to have a chaperone. She wouldn’t travel alone with a man. It wouldn’t be seemly for a lady.’ She tried to be arch, but she knew it didn’t suit her, so she giggled instead.

  He looked at her in astonishment. ‘But we’re practically brother and sister, Lizzie. Why would we want a chaperone?’

  She winced and stared at him. How could such a bright, shrewd, handsome lad be such a dullard? ‘It was a joke, Tom,’ she said briefly. ‘I’ll just get my shawl.’

  There was a constrained silence between them as they sat side by side on the jolting waggon. Tom clicked his tongue and cracked the whip over the horses’ haunches as they pulled out of the village and on to the long road.

  ‘Ist tha cold, Lizzie?’ He saw her shiver and reached for a clean sack to put over her knees. ‘Perhaps tha’d rather have stayed by ’fire, than come out on such a day?’

  The morning was grey and cloudy, though it wasn’t raining, and the road stretched on in front of them, the bare fields shorn of their crops and supporting a scattering of cattle and sheep.

  ‘No, I’m enjoying it.’ She looked around her. ‘It’s not often I get out of ’village.’

  ‘Wouldn’t tha like to work somewhere a bit more lively, like Hull, or Scarboro’, like our Alice?’ he asked, looking sideways at her.

  She clasped her shawl closer to her. ‘Oh, no, Tom, I couldn’t. I’d be that scared of being on my own. Besides, I need to be near to folks that I care about.’

  He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again when he couldn’t find the words.

  ‘It’s a pity there isn’t a mill a bit nearer,’ she observed after a time. ‘It’s a long way to come to grind corn.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been saying for long enough,’ he replied eagerly. ‘There’s enough folk traipsing up and down this road to warrant building another one a bit nearer to Monkston.’

  He mused over this line of thought for some time. ‘Tillington. That would be ’best place. Not Monkston, it hasn’t got a hill, and anyway at ’rate it’s falling into ’sea, there’s not going to be owt left to harvest.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘But Tillington – there’s that rise behind ’church. That would be a good place to put a mill. It would catch all ’wind blowing on or off ’sea. Nowt to stop it – straight off ’Wolds or straight off ’sea. By, if only I had some money, Lizzie,’ he protested earnestly, ‘that’s what I would do. Buy some land and build a mill.’

  ‘That’s a grand idea, Tom.’ She turned to him and joined in his enthusiasm. ‘Then all ’farmers would come to thee, even big ones like Mr Masterson.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, carried away with the idea. ‘They’d be doffing their caps at me to keep in favour. Then when I was rich enough, for millers do get rich, I’d buy another bit of land and build a house, and keep a carriage for my wife to drive in, just like Mr Masterson does.’ He turned laughing towards her. ‘How does that sound, Lizzie?’

  She bent her head and answered quietly, ‘It sounds right grand, Tom. I hope as tha’ll still talk to them as used to know thee, when tha was poor.’

  He drew in the reins, and the horses bent their shaggy heads to eat the grass at the side of the road. ‘Lizzie?’

  She turned her head away to hide the tears that were glistening on her cheeks.

  ‘Lizzie, what’s up? Why ist tha crying?’ He gently wiped away the tears with his fingers and she didn’t notice the roughness of his ploughman’s hands.

  ‘I don’t know, Tom,’ she whispered so that he could hardly hear her, ‘I suppose it’s because I can’t bear to think of thee doing summat without me.’

  He put both hands around her face and turned her so that she had to lower her eyes or look at him. ‘How could I ever do owt without thee, Lizzie? Tha’s part of my life, always have been. I said a long time back that I would tek care of thee, and I meant it.’

  Bashfully he kissed her wet cheek, tasting the salt of her tears and sensing a deep emotion within her and a great happiness unrolling inside himself. ‘I shan’t ever be rich – tha knows I’m only boasting about that. But if tha’ll have me, just as I am—?’

  Her tears started to flow even faster now, and she could hardly speak she was so overwhelmed. ‘Oh Tom,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m so happy. If only tha knew how long I’ve been waiting for thee!’

  He put his arms around her and held her close and she lifted her trembling lips to his. The inward conflict of loving affection he had felt as a brother towards her, which had been rocking unsteadily for so long, vanished, leaving in its place a glorious, passionate elation which left him bewildered and totally bemused.

  ‘Tha’ll wed Lizzie in church then, Tom?’ Mrs Scryven viewed the young couple critically as they stood blushing in the kitchen after announcing their intentions.

  ‘Aye, nowt less.’ Tom was determined on that score.

  Will shook his head and lit his pipe. ‘Tha’s ower young, Tom. I reckon tha should wait a bit.’

  ‘What difference does it make, Da,’ Tom stood straight and tall facing his father, ‘whether we wed now or later?’

  ‘Babbies is ’difference,’ said Will, looking at his son. ‘Once they start coming, thy youth is over and tha’s got responsibilities of other mouths to feed. It’s not easy, lad, thy ma and me know only too well.’

  Lizzie blushed and looked down, slipping her hand out of Tom’s, embarrassed at the scrutiny of the family and the knowing grins of the other servants. They shouldn’t have blurted it out like that in front of everybody, but they were so excited they wanted everyone to share their happiness.

  Maria caught her gaze and smiled. ‘No, it’s not easy, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way, Will, and nor would thou, if tha’s honest.’r />
  Briskly she dismissed the other servants about their tasks, and sat down to talk to Tom and Lizzie. ‘Tha’ll have to give up thy room here, Lizzie, once tha’s wed, and live with Tom and us at Field House. It’ll be like old times when we first came here, except that we’ve more room now that Sarah is living here at Garston, and Alice hardly ever comes home.’

  She gave a small inward sigh. Alice didn’t visit them as often as she might and Maria missed her.

  ‘We were having a laugh, Lizzie and me,’ said Tom, feeling a sense of pleasurable possessiveness as he linked Lizzie’s name with his. ‘About what we would do if we were rich.’

  ‘And how would tha manage to get rich, son? Can we all share in ’secret?’

  ‘It’s like this, Da. I’ll buy a piece of land and build a mill and become a miller, and ’money will start pouring in like ’grain that I’m grinding.’

  Will laughed. ‘I always knew tha’d make a good tradesman. It’s a good dream, Tom. But first dream of finding ’money to buy land, and tha won’t do that with a wife and bairns to feed.’

  He looked across at Lizzie and said soberly, ‘I’m only saying it for thy own good, Lizzie. Tha knows I only want best for thee and Tom, and that’s why I’m saying wait a bit.’

  She shook her head. ‘Tha’s been better than a fayther to me, Will, and I hope that I’ve been as good as a daughter should be.’ She swallowed nervously. ‘Only I have to go against thy wishes this time. I love Tom and I want to marry him, and to have his bairns. And if we have to struggle, well, I shan’t mind that either. Everybody I know has lived in poverty – me ma and da, and Maria and thee until we came out here to live. This has been like heaven to me – to have clean clothes and good food, and now that I know that they exist, well, I shan’t give them up, and Tom and me’ll work to have them always.’

  She stopped, too overcome to go on. Tom gazed at her in amazement. It was the longest speech he had ever heard her make and he swelled with pride. What couldn’t he achieve with such a woman behind him?