Children of the Tide (17 page)

‘His mother is dead, Mrs Collinson.’ She gave scanty explanation. ‘She died giving birth to him.’

‘And so the Rayners have shown compassion on the little one!’ Mrs Collinson clasped her hands together
in praise. ‘How commendable. But it is of course our Christian duty to assist others in their need.’

Sammi heaved a sigh of relief as the door opened and Mr Collinson entered and greeted her. He looked dour, his thin face hiding a benevolent nature.

‘Would you baptize this child, Mr Collinson? His mother is dead and I—’

‘You mean he hasn’t yet been baptized and you have brought him here?’ Mrs Collinson threw up her hands. ‘Take him out. Take him out at once. He is unclean until he has been blessed at the font!’

‘Come, come, Mrs Collinson,’ Mr Collinson protested. ‘We don’t believe in that superstitious nonsense. God blesses all of His children.’ He put his hand out to Sammi and she followed him, turning her head to see the indignant horror on Mrs Collinson’s face.

‘I don’t understand.’ She hurried beside the vicar across the lane to the church. ‘How can innocent babes be unclean?’

He opened the heavy church door and ushered her inside. ‘There are many who believe that children are conceived in sin, Miss Rayner, and therefore with their mothers must be cleansed before being accepted back into society.’

‘You don’t believe that, Mr Collinson?’ she asked as she watched him pour water into the font.

‘No.’ His face lit with a radiant smile. ‘I don’t. I believe that God accepts all of His children, sinners and all, without question. But,’ he raised his eyebrows, ‘don’t tell my bishop or my wife that I said so.’ He took the child from her and unwrapped his head. ‘We should also have witnesses to this baptism, Godfather and Godmother to guarantee his Christian upbringing. Is there no-one who will stand for him?’

She shook her head. ‘Only me. Can’t I be his Godmother? There is no-one else who cares.’

He looked at her for a moment, a candid question
in his eyes, and then nodded. ‘I will join you then as a second witness. Together we will take care of his spiritual upbringing. How do you name this child, Miss Rayner?’

Sammi hesitated.
It isn’t really up to me
, she thought.
But then no-one else seems inclined to trouble themselves. So what name shall I give him?

Her mind turned again to her grandmother. She wouldn’t have turned this child away. She would have shown compassion.
As James’s child, he would have been her great grandson, as much a part of her family as I am and my family and cousins are. How wide the ripples spread
.

And, she realized, he was the first. She gazed at him sleeping contentedly in the vicar’s arms. The first of the next generation.

‘Adam,’ she said. ‘Adam Foster Rayner.’

‘Can tha be sure he’s a Rayner?’ her uncle asked when she told them that evening. ‘There’s no proof.’

‘Why should the woman lie, Uncle? There’s no reason why she should walk all the way to Anlaby if she didn’t know; she could so easily have taken him to any other family with sons in Hull.’

‘Why did she walk all that way?’ Betsy wondered. ‘Why didn’t she just take him into Masterson and Rayner’s office?’

‘She’d have been turned away,’ her father said, lighting up his pipe and stretching out in his chair. ‘She’d never have got past ’door.’

‘Perhaps she was hoping to see a woman there,’ Sammi said thoughtfully. ‘Someone who would show compassion.’

Her uncle gazed at her as he sucked on his pipe. ‘Just as well tha was still there, then. She’d have been sent off wi’ a flea in her ear if it had just been James’s ma.’

Tom had been sitting silently, just listening to the conversation, and Mark had turned his back, whittling furiously on a thin sliver of wood.

‘God’s teeth.’ Mark dropped the wood and threw the knife on the table. Blood gushed from his hand.

‘Watch thy language!’ his father barked. ‘I’ll not have blasphemy in front of thy sister and Sammi.’

Mark put his hand to his mouth and sucked the blood. ‘Tha’ll not have blasphemy. But tha’ll have a bastard child in ’house!’ He pointed a bloody, accusing finger, first at Sammi and then at his brothers and then at his own chest. ‘Just wait. Afore long there’ll be rumours all round Holderness that ’child belongs to one of us. Why else would it be here? And if
she
stays here,’ he pointed again at Sammi, ‘everybody will think it’s hers and that she’s been turned out by her ma and da.’

For a second, no-one spoke. Sammi felt sick with dismay. She had had no intention of embroiling her uncle and cousins into any controversy over the child, and the fact that Mark had suggested that she had, horrified her. ‘No-one would think such a thing,’ she began, but Mark interrupted her.

‘Everybody
will
think it.’ He stared her in the face and she shrank back from the anger she saw there. ‘Tha knows there’s every reason why. Women can hide a babby under their skirts ’till it’s time to drop.’ His lip curled. ‘We’ve onny thy word that it isn’t thine.’

‘
Enough!
’

Tom and his father rose to their feet at the same instant, and Sammi didn’t know who it was who had roared out. Uncle Thomas’s face was flushed and furious, while Tom’s was ashen.

‘Outside!’ Tom spat through clenched teeth. He pointed to the door. ‘Go on. Out!’ He moved towards his brother and helped him on his way with a prod to his ribs. ‘
Out
, I say!’ His voice grew to a roar and he started to unfasten his shirt buttons.

Without a backward glance, Mark reached for the brass door knob, leaving a smear of blood on it, and charged outside.

‘They’ll have a scrap now, Da.’ George rose to his feet and made for the door. ‘I’m going to watch.’

‘Sit down!’ his father bellowed. ‘This isn’t a game. Tom will give him ’hiding he deserves, and if he doesn’t I will, and thee as well if tha doesn’t watch thaself.’

Sammi sat frozen-faced and trembling. She wasn’t used to violence. Her father, Richard or Billy settled their differences by talking them through, and her father’s temper, which often simmered below the surface, was usually kept well in control.

But Mark had always been hot-headed and quick-tempered, yet she was amazed and not a little confused to find that his anger had been directed at her and the child.

‘Get your coat off.’ Tom rolled up his sleeves.

‘I’ve no quarrel with thee.’ Mark kicked the dust with his boot.

‘Shall I send Sammi out to fight with you then? Is that what you want?’ Tom pushed his brother on his chest and Mark turned away angrily. ‘Is that why you picked on her? A woman who can’t fight back?’

‘I didn’t pick on her. I’m onny saying what’s true; folks will think ’bairn belongs to one of us.’ Mark laughed mockingly. ‘Maybe tha won’t mind, tha’s allus been sweet on her.’

Tom aimed a fist at Mark’s jaw and he staggered back, holding his chin.

‘Truth hurts, does it?’ Mark undid his waistcoat. ‘All right, if tha wants to fight, so be it.’

They both unfastened their shirts and pulled them over their heads and dropped them. The night was warm and it was still light; a moon had risen over the sea and was shedding its brightness over Tillington, and the church and the mill stood out in silhouette against the sky.

Sammi came to the door and Tom heard her gasp as she saw them half-naked, preparing to fight.

‘Go back inside,’ he ordered. ‘We don’t need spectators. This is our fight.’

‘Aye.’ Mark gave a short laugh. ‘Go inside. Tha won’t want to see our Tom bleeding all over ’yard. ’Sight would sicken a lady like thee.’

She picked up her skirts and ran towards them and hammered blows at Mark with her fists. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she threatened. ‘Don’t you dare!’

Mark doubled over with laughter then swiftly picked Sammi up and swung her out of the way and, aiming a swift blow at Tom, hit him squarely on his nose.

‘Leave them.’ Betsy had followed Sammi outside and pulled her away, as she helplessly watched the two brothers punching each other with their bare fists. ‘They’ve been building up to this for weeks. Don’t think it’s just about you,’ she said calmly. ‘Mark’s been asking for a hiding and now he’s getting one.’

‘But they’re killing each other!’ Sammi with her hand over her mouth watched from the doorway. ‘I’m going to fetch Uncle Thomas.’

‘Aye, all right, little lass. I’ll go and stop them if it upsets thee.’ Her uncle knocked out his pipe and rose reluctantly from his chair at her plea to come at once. ‘But it doesn’t mean owt. They’ll not be sworn enemies ’cos of this, though Mark spoke out of turn; and it’ll not happen again.’ He went out into the yard and stood for a few minutes watching his sons as they grappled together on the rough ground. Then with a sigh, he walked across to them and with a heave of his brawny arms he took hold of both of them by their hair like a pair of young pups and hauled them to their feet.

‘Pump!’ he roared and both Betsy and George dashed forward to the water pump. George got there first and with a grin of delight started to work the handle. Sammi watched with her mouth agape as Uncle Thomas shoved both his sons beneath the
rushing water and held them there though they spluttered and cursed, until he finally let them go.

Then turning to the grinning George, who was having great enjoyment as he watched his two older brothers in such an exhausted bloody state, he grabbed him too and pushed him under the flowing water.

‘That’s not fair!’ he gasped as he came up. ‘I didn’t do owt. I never said a word.’

‘No?’ said his father. ‘Then I do apologize. But perhaps it’ll do for ’times when tha did and I didn’t catch thee.’

‘Sorry, Tom.’

The two brothers were upstairs changing out of their wet trousers.

‘It’s Sammi you should be apologizing to.’ Tom’s voice was bitter. ‘That was a terrible thing to say.’

‘I know.’ Mark sat on the edge of the bed and peeled off his socks. ‘I’ll tell her I’m sorry.’ He grinned slyly. ‘It’s true though, what I said about tha being sweet on her. Tha allus had a soft spot for her, even when we were bairns.’

Tom didn’t answer him, but sat tenderly touching his swollen nose. Mark, too, ran his fingers over his jaw, and with his tongue felt a chipped tooth.

‘It’s not really her or ’babby that’s irritating me,’ he confessed. ‘I just feel – I just feel that life’s moving on without me. I’m stuck here, day in, day out, shifting sacks of grain and flour, and I can see myself still doing it when I’m Da’s age.’ He shook his head despondently. ‘There’s got to be more.’

‘Well, what do you want to do?’ Tom was sharp. Mark’s words had hit a nerve. ‘You could go somewhere else and be a miller. You could go to Beverley to Uncle Joe’s, he’d take you on.’

Mark reached into a cupboard for another pair of breeches. ‘Look at these,’ he said, throwing them on the floor. ‘They’ve not been washed! Betsy should get
herself organized.’ He rooted around for another pair. ‘No. I don’t want to go to Beverley. That would be just ’same as being here.’ He pulled on an old pair of cord breeches and buttoned them. ‘You know, when I’m up on ’top of barn mending ’roof, I can see right across to Monkston. I can see ’ocean, and ships sailing across it, and I just thought – I’ve lived within ’sight of German Ocean for twenty-four years and never once been across it. All I’ve ever done is fished from a coggy boat within sight of ’land.’

‘You should have been a sailor then,’ Tom said grimly. ‘You didn’t have to be a miller, nobody forced you.’

‘It was expected though, wasn’t it?’ his brother replied resentfully. ‘Carrying on family tradition. Well, I’d like to do something for my own sake and not because Da and his da did it. Aye, maybe one day I’ll up and go, ’cos I want more than being rooted here and maybe bedding and wedding some village lass. There’s got to be more to life than that.’

‘Betsy? Are you asleep?’

‘No. I’m wide awake.’

Sammi sat up in bed and, leaning on her elbow, looked across the room at Betsy in the other bed. ‘Do you think I should go home? I don’t want to be a trouble. I didn’t think. I’m really sorry about what happened tonight.’

Betsy turned over to face her. ‘No. Don’t go, Sammi. I like it when you’re here. There’s no-one to talk to otherwise, only Nancy when she comes in of a morning, and she doesn’t have any conversation.’

‘I should think she doesn’t have the time to talk, and anyway she comes to work, not to be a companion. You need more help, Betsy. It’s not right that you have to do so much. Can your father afford more help, do you think?’ she whispered into the shadows.

‘Yes, of course he can, he just doesn’t think of it,
that’s all. I’ve asked him, but he never gets round to doing anything about it.’ Betsy yawned. ‘And I’m too lazy to keep pressing him.’

‘I’ll ask Mama, shall I?’ Sammi lay down in bed again and stared at the square of light from the window. ‘When she eventually comes. She’ll know what to do.’ She was missing her family more than she thought she would. It was different here, fewer comforts, no servants to bring tea or cook or make the beds. She realized how sheltered and cushioned she had been in her own home. ‘By the way. I almost forgot. I saw Luke Reedbarrow today. He gave me a message for you.’

‘What? Oh, Sammi – what?’ Betsy was out of bed and sitting almost on top of Sammi in her eagerness. ‘Tell me!’

‘All right, all right. Erm, he said that he’d waited, and would do the same again.’

‘Yes – anything else?’ Betsy shook her arm. ‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ Sammi said. ‘Should there have been?’

Betsy folded her arms around herself and Sammi saw her in the half light, smiling triumphantly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

‘You’ll be careful, Betsy? If your father should find out you were meeting someone!’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, Sammi.’ Betsy climbed back into bed. ‘Don’t worry. I probably won’t go.’

As the dawn broke its light through the square window in their room, and the insistent call of a cuckoo echoed from the copse behind the mill, Sammi turned over and opened one eye. She forgot for a moment where she was and looked hazily at the empty bed next to hers. Then she remembered and closed her eyes again. Betsy had obviously turned over a new leaf and had gone to prepare breakfast for her father and brothers before they started in the mill. She gave a deep sigh and snuggled beneath
the covers.
Just a few more minutes and I’ll get up and help her
.