Children of the Tide (4 page)

He could get away with murder, Sammi thought. His mother’s favourite, whilst poor James— The two brothers were quite different in temperament as well as in physical attributes. Gilbert was self-assured, sociable, arrogant even sometimes. He was tall and athletic, and his side whiskers and his hair, which he hated, were red, like his father’s. James, on the other hand, was short and dark, like his mother, quiet and
dreamy unlike her, and absent-minded to an irritating degree.

‘So what’s happening? I gather you’re not having a party.’ Gilbert looked quizzically round at them as they sat still and silent. ‘Sammi! You’ve been letting that young pup tear up Father’s newspapers?’

She shook her head and rose to leave the room. ‘If you will excuse me, Aunt Mildred, Uncle Isaac, I’m rather tired. I think I shall go to bed.’

‘I shall go too.’ Her aunt rose from her chair. ‘It has been a very tiring evening. No doubt you gentlemen will find plenty to discuss.’ She ignored James, sitting hunched in a chair, and swept out of the room.

Sammi gave a sympathetic nod to James, said goodnight to her uncle and Gilbert, and left them. She wanted to weep. The thought of the innocent baby, whoever he belonged to, spending the rest of its infant days unwanted in an institution, filled her with dread and pity. The lamp had been left lit in her bedroom and a fire burnt brightly, making the room, with its dark heavy furniture, look quite cosy. Mary had left a covered jug of water at the side of the bed, and a small silver cup and spoon which must have once belonged to the Rayner children.

Sammi leant over the makeshift crib at the side of her bed and thought of the woman who had brought him. ‘How desperate she must have been to leave you,’ she murmured. ‘And how sad to have lost her daughter.’ She suddenly wanted to see her own mother, to feel the comfort of her loving arms and to tell her of the great sadness which filled her whole being.

‘Something momentous has happened, Gilbert, so you’d better sit down. James here has got into a spot of bother.’ Isaac outlined the evening’s events, starting with the woman coming to the house as it had been told to him, and finishing with their visit to Hull.

‘You never went searching for her, Father? Why,
she’d be hidden away deep down some alleyway where you’d never find her. It’s some trick. Some mischief. It can never be true!’

‘I must go to bed.’ Isaac got up and put his hand across his eyes. ‘I am so weary and sick of the whole business. And I have an important meeting in the morning. You won’t forget, Gilbert, will you? I need you there.’

Both his sons rose. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ James began, ‘so very sorry.’ His eyes filled with tears. He wouldn’t have upset his father for anything.

Isaac nodded, embarrassed at the show of emotion. ‘It’s your mother I’m sorry for. But you must find somewhere or somebody to take the child first thing tomorrow. I don’t know where,’ he said vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. Perhaps one of the hospitals. Ask Sammi if she’ll go with you. Then we’ll talk in the evening about what you shall do, where you shall go. Your mother’s fixed on that, I fear.’ He cast a glance at James’s look of misery. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

‘You blithering idiot, Jim,’ Gilbert remonstrated when their father had gone. ‘How did you get into such a scrape?’

‘I don’t know. The woman just said, “Are you young Rayner?” and when I said yes, she thrust the child at me.’ He started to pace the room. ‘The worst thing is that I can’t even remember it happening.’

‘Then it can’t be yours,’ his brother insisted. ‘It must be a prank. Somebody has given your name out instead of their own. But who would do such a dishonourable thing?’

‘No.’ James shook his head. ‘Father said I had to work back nine months, and when I did, I remembered.’

‘But you just said that you couldn’t remember!’

James blushed to his hair roots. ‘No, what I meant was that I couldn’t remember the er, the er, you know,
it
, happening with the girl. I can remember
going up to the room; you remember, Gilbert? It was the night your engagement was announced and we stayed at The Cross Keys. That’s the only time that I’ve been drunk or out with a woman, so that must have been the time.’ He sat down again and sank his chin into his hands. ‘What a mess! I’ve ruined everything for everybody. And I can’t even remember what she looked like! She was pretty, I know that; but I can’t bring to mind a single feature or even the colour of her eyes.’

They were blue, Gilbert deliberated with alarm.
The deepest, loveliest blue eyes I have ever seen, and her lashes were long and dark and thick and swept her cheeks when she closed her eyes. And now they’re saying she is dead!

‘Can you remember her, Gilbert? There were two girls, but one fell asleep on the floor and they had both gone when I awoke the next morning.’

Gilbert cleared his throat. ‘Like you say, she was pretty. Dark hair – not very tall, and slim, not much plumpness on her at all.’
She was so slender and fragile I could have picked her up with one hand, and her breasts were small and round. She was probably ill-fed, for when I brought her in …
He recalled seeing her begging outside the inn. She had extended her hand as he’d passed, asking for a copper or two, and in fun he had grabbed it and held on to it. It was small and cold and she’d tried to pull it away.

There was something appealing in her eyes as she’d looked up at him, and impulsively he had invited her in for supper. ‘Bring your companion too,’ he’d said, for she’d looked questioningly at the shabby girl at her side.

I swear I never meant her any harm
, he pledged silently as he stared at his ashen-faced brother.
It was only meant as fun to begin with. I never meant to go so far
.

She had been hungry, both girls were, but whereas her companion had torn into the bread and cheese and slices of beef, and drank thirstily of the ale that had been brought up to the room, she had eaten
slowly, as if she was savouring the taste, but had no great appetite. And as she ate, she watched him warily from her great, luminous, shadowed eyes.

By the time she had finished eating, the other girl, with a loud belch, had curled up on the floor by the fire and closed her eyes. ‘Thanks, mister,’ she’d said. ‘Wake me up if tha wants owt,’ and James, who was having difficulty in staying awake, had succumbed to the effects of the strong Hull ale, and fallen asleep on the sofa.

He had stretched out his hands to the girl and drawn her towards him; her shawl was thin and her dress shabby and mended, but her face and hands were clean. ‘What’s your name?’ he’d asked gently, for she suddenly seemed afraid.

‘Sylvia, sir. But my friends call me Silvi.’ Her voice had been low, and she trembled.

‘Don’t be afraid, Silvi. I’m not going to hurt you. You can go home now if you want to.’ He’d felt some kind of shame when he saw the relief on her face. She obviously thought that she would have to pay for her supper. But he was always careful. True, he had visited brothels, but only those which were well-run establishments. He had never taken a street girl; there was too much at stake, he couldn’t risk his health or reputation, or his forthcoming marriage.

But there was a waif-like charm about her which had appealed to him, a naïve freshness in her eyes which surely, he had thought, couldn’t stem from innocence. He had kissed her then, just a small, tender kiss on her cheek, but it had raised a yearning response in him, and when she lifted her bowed head to look at him, he had kissed her again, this time on her mouth.

‘I didn’t even know her name,’ James said gloomily. ‘The mother of my child, and I don’t even know what she was called.’

‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic, James,’ Gilbert said irritably. ‘What does it matter now?’ But it had
mattered then, when he had whispered her name again and again as he kissed her moist lips and ran his fingers through her long hair and down her slender throat.

‘What’s your name, sir?’ she’d asked softly as she’d lain beside him on the bed and he’d fumbled with the buttons of her bodice.

He had been hypnotized by her, struck by a melting, terrible need to possess her; and yet he hadn’t forced her. It was as if she willingly, yet timidly, acquiesced to a need stronger than either of them could ignore.

‘Rayner,’ he’d breathed in answer as his eyes feasted on her nakedness.

She’d touched his lips with her fingertips and gently traced around his eyes. Then she’d closed her eyes as he bore down on her and he saw the long lashes brushing her cheek. ‘Is that – what I should call you, sir?’ Her words fluttered, she drew in small gasping breaths and he thought that he had hurt her, though she assured him that he hadn’t.

He’d cradled her in his arms and given her gentle kisses on the top of her head; he’d felt loving and protective towards her and, as sleep overcame him, he knew most surely that he must see her again.

He was awakened early the next morning by the street sounds outside the window of the room, and found that she and her friend had slipped away. He’d thrown back the crumpled covers and stared at the dark red patch staining the white sheets and remembered now with shame; the relief, yet joy, that he had felt on discovering that she had been a virgin.

Isaac had left for the firm, Aunt Mildred and Anne were still in bed, and Gilbert was nowhere to be seen when James and Sammi, who had breakfasted together in almost complete silence, finally boarded the carriage which had come to collect Sammi.

‘Mother seems to have washed her hands of me,’ James said bitterly. ‘I knocked on her door but she wouldn’t see me.’

He looked down at the baby in her arms. ‘I feel nothing for it. Should I?’

‘No tenderness for something small and helpless?’ she asked, embarrassed that James had admitted that the child might after all be his.

‘Well, I feel sorry for it, but, well, it doesn’t feel like mine. Not like Sam that you gave me.’ He fondled the pup’s ears as it sat beneath his seat. ‘I’m so sorry that you have to take the pup back, Sammi, but Mother couldn’t possibly let him stay, not now, if I’m going away.’

‘It’s so unkind,’ Sammi said hotly. ‘How could your mother send you away? Or the child?’

‘Oh, she’ll never accept the child, and I don’t think she knew what to do with me in any case, now that I’ve finished school. She says that I moon about.’ He stared moodily out of the window. ‘I suppose I do. I never quite know what to do with myself. I miss the other fellows, you know. We used to have such grand talks.’

The carriage rattled on through the hamlet towards the turnpike road, and Sammi looked out of the window at the surrounding countryside and the neat
cottages and handsome mansions. It was a desirable place to live, she thought; near enough to the River Humber to feel the breezes from its waters, and good air coming down from the Wolds. A prettier place than her own Holderness countryside.

‘But not the place for you, James.’ She spoke her thoughts out loud. ‘It’s perhaps as well that you have to go away.’

‘What?’ James, locked in his own thoughts, looked perplexed.

‘Why don’t you get in touch with your master from school? You know, the one who said you should paint. Ask his advice.’

‘It’s odd that you should say that. Peacock. I was just thinking of him.’

The carriage slowed in front of the redbrick workhouse just outside the town, and came to a stop. James pulled down the window and put his head out.

‘Is this the place, sir?’ Johnson called down from his box.

‘Tell him no, James,’ Sammi said impulsively. ‘We’ll try the charity homes first and ask them, this looks so gloomy.’ She was thoughtful as they drove on into the town, and then suddenly said, ‘Let’s walk. We’ll ask Johnson to wait for us. If the guardians see us in a carriage they might not be inclined to take him.’ She looked down at the sleeping child. He was so still. He had cried during the night and she had given him water to pacify him, but she knew that, like the baby lambs on her father’s estate which she hand fed when their mothers had died, he needed more sustenance now.

Gilbert had heard the child cry, he’d knocked softly on her bedroom door and asked if he could come in. He said that he couldn’t sleep and offered to go down to the kitchen to warm some milk. He watched her as she tried to spoon it into the baby’s tiny mouth and then, surprisingly for Gilbert, she thought, he stroked the child’s cheek with his finger.

Johnson drove the carriage into Masterson and Rayner’s yard, and Sammi asked him to wait for them there. ‘You won’t be long, Miss Sammi?’ he queried. ‘Your mother needs ’carriage this afternoon.’

She promised that they wouldn’t be, and James held one arm as they walked across the High Street and she crooked the baby into the other. They retraced their steps from the previous evening and made their way down Silver Street, the street of jewellers and pawnbrokers, and into the ancient street named Land of Green Ginger, looking for charity homes and hospitals.

The old town of Hull was expanding rapidly as the increasing population demanded more space. The crumbled medieval walls had come down long ago, and the land was built upon to accommodate the migrant settlers who came seeking employment: labourers and craftsmen, fishermen, railway workers, merchants and manufacturers, all vied for space; and, crushed in between and behind the impressive business premises in the main streets of the town, the heaving and crowded slum dwellings were homes for the poor and the destitute.

‘There can’t be one down here, James.’ Sammi put her hand across her nose and mouth. ‘We’ve come the wrong way!’

They had turned a corner and found themselves in a stinking alley. An overflowing cesspit had spewed its contents towards the dilapidated and decayed houses, and the stench was intolerable. They hurried back the way they had come, back to the crowded Whitefriargate, where shoppers strolled past the parade of shops, and fashionable ladies inclined their heads to bankers in top hats and stovepipe trousers, and brushed shoulders with fishwives in shawls and clogs.

They found a hospital, tucked away off the main street, a neat but dark house with a locked and barred gate and iron railings around its front area. James
rattled on the gate to attract attention, but no-one came.