Children of the Tide (8 page)

‘Oh?’ You’d know a Rayner anywhere with that red hair, she thought and watched him as he stared out
of the window. No, she corrected herself. The red hair came from Grandmother Sarah, and before that,
her
father, Will Foster. Yet the Foster cousins in Tillington were all as dark as gipsies, their colouring coming from a different stock.

‘James has gone back to his old school, Aunt Ellen, to see his drawing master,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s gone to ask him if he can recommend him to a tutor who can improve him in his artistic abilities and gain him employment.’ He turned and gazed at her from his dark brown eyes; she couldn’t tell, as he had his back turned to the light, what expression to read from them. ‘Mother says he must leave home over this – this catastrophe. She says if it gets out it will be the ruination of our respectability and position in society.’

‘Indeed! And what of the child?’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Is he simply to be abandoned? Does no-one care what becomes of him?’

She saw him draw breath, and briefly and swiftly he put his hand to his eyes, then withdrawing it said falteringly, ‘It is so regrettable. I will speak to my father on – on James’s behalf and that of the child’s. Provision will be made, Aunt Ellen. We were wrong to let Sammi take him, I realize now, but she was so taken with him that it seemed the obvious answer at the time.’

She nodded, pacified for the moment, and put down her cup and saucer. ‘I’ll wait to hear from you then, Gilbert. You or your father.’ She looked at him frankly. ‘I trust that you will make the right decision and soon.’

He escorted her down to where Johnson was waiting in the yard, puffing on a smouldering wet pipe as he sat on a mounting stool.

‘Ready then, ma-am?’ Johnson stood up and knocked out the pipe. ‘We’d best be off then. ’Master worries if you’re late. He allus thinks I’ve turned this cumbrous old carriage over and you’re lying dead in
a ditch.’ He flicked an imaginary speck from his frock-coat and adjusted his top hat. He gave her a small bow and extended his hand to help her in.

‘Good-bye, Gilbert.’ She leaned from the carriage window. ‘Tell Billy I’ll see him soon.’

Gilbert almost collided with Billy as he turned to run up the stairs.

‘Oh! Has my mother gone already?’

‘Yes,’ Gilbert answered shortly.

Billy watched the carriage pull out of the yard and lifted his hand in a wave. ‘I say, Gilbert—’

‘Not now, Billy.’ Gilbert took the stairs two at a time. ‘Can it keep?’ He closed the door behind him without waiting for an answer, and turned the key. He stood for a moment leaning against the door and stared unseeing, his mind only dwelling on the face of a girl, a girl with a cloud of dark hair who had shared her love with him for such a brief time, and who had died giving birth to his son.
His
son, whose tiny hand he had held. His son whom he had denied. He sat down at his father’s desk and looked up at the portrait of his grandfather. He seemed to gaze down, admonishing him. Gilbert clenched his fist and banged on the desk. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean this to happen.’

Tears gathered in his eyes and a lump came into his throat. He put his head in his hands and started to weep.

When James had delivered Sammi and the child safely into Johnson’s care, he’d crossed the High Street and entered The Black Boy Inn. He’d ordered a meat pie and a small glass of ale and contemplated what he should do next. Sammi had suggested that he should go to see his former drawing master and, on reflection, that seemed to be the only recourse. He didn’t want to go home and face his parents, particularly his mother, and although he wasn’t too perturbed about Anne’s opinion of his behaviour, he didn’t want to be in the house if there was any kind of hostile atmosphere.

The landlord brought his food and ale and placed it on the table in front of him. The aroma rose from the crust and he licked his lips. He had the normal appetite of a young male and now that the immediate problem had been driven away with Sammi, he felt quite hungry. He enjoyed the pie, mopping up the gravy with a chunk of bread, drank to the bottom of the glass and scribbled a note to Gilbert, explaining that he was going to York and why. Crossing the High Street once more, he gave the letter to one of the clerks in the office.

He pulled out his pocket watch and immediately broke into a run. He was familiar with the coaches to York and realized that he had just time to catch the two o’clock diligence before it moved off. James had often wished that the railway companies would make up their minds about a direct line to York, rather than having to take the route via Selby and changing trains at Milford Junction to get there.

For the moment, the regular coach service was the most efficient and reliable, and for several years as he’d travelled the journey to and from his school, he’d watched with his artistic eye the changing vista from the flatlands of Hull through to the gently rolling meadows which skirted the foothills of the Wolds.

In the summer months, the fields of Dunnington on the north-eastern fringe of York were covered with the pale blue flowers of chicory and which, at the end of autumn, swarmed with itinerant workers brought in to gather and harvest the root and transport it to York for drying.

He bought a ticket and climbed aboard, and by early evening the coach was dropping down into the Vale of York towards his destination.

He weaved his way through the warren of familiar dog-leg lanes and narrow passages, which cut a way through half-timbered buildings of merchant houses and ancient dwellings. Some of these lanes were medieval pathways with room for only one pedestrian to traverse, and which, he recalled, could be very awkward if a person of the opposite sex was met up with half-way through. He was reminded of the rules given out by the school housemasters that if this should happen, then no matter what the female’s class, be she rich or poor, the young gentlemen should immediately raise their hats and turn around and go back the way they had come, giving the lady free passage to continue.

A small smile touched his lips as he remembered the additional ruder names which he and his friends had invented for the snickets and alleys which threaded a hidden path through the centre of York. Names to confuse new pupils who were not familiar even with the strange-sounding hidden courts such as Mad Alice, Cheats Court, or the Hole in the Wall, which lay at the foot of the majestic Minster.

He hurried on, anxious to see Peacock before he
went in to supper. He pushed open the iron gates set in the high stone walls which surrounded the old school, and walked up the path to the thick oak doors.

‘Mr Rayner, sir.’ The porter greeted him cordially. ‘Didn’t expect to see you back so soon!’

‘I didn’t expect to be back, Lawson. But life is full of surprises.’

‘You’ve discovered that already, sir? Then your education is continuing.’

James waited in an anteroom while Lawson went to look for Peacock, and as he paced the floor he reflected on the change of attitude in Lawson’s demeanour towards him now that he was no longer a student. Then, he would watch all the young gentlemen, diligently noting what time they went out and came back, whether they were suitably and tidily dressed and reminding them at all times that their behaviour reflected the school’s reputation. Not one note of jollity ever passed his lips, yet now he had a positive twinkle in his eyes.

James had often wondered why his parents had sent him to this school in York, when there were equally good schools nearer to home. Gilbert had attended the Grammar School in Hull which had a fine reputation, but when, at eight, James had questioned his father as to why he should have to go to York, he was told that it was for the best.

He stood up as Henry Peacock came into the room and extended a hand towards him in greeting.

‘Rayner! How good to see you. What brings you back so soon?’

James shook his hand and gently retrieved it. Peacock had a habit of holding on to a boy’s arm or shoulder when discussing or admiring a work of art, and there was much contemplation in the dormitories after the lamps were dimmed as to whether or not he was effeminate with unmanly traits, or an aesthete. James had always hotly defended the master, stating that Peacock had only eyes for beauty of line and
form, and was quite above such commonplace qualities as they were suggesting.

Peacock had opened his eyes to the sculpture and architecture which lay all around them in this ancient city. He had taught him to observe the stark beauty of winter-bare branches in the city parks, and the delicate veil of green as spring unfolded and divulged her presence. So, too, had he shown him the richness of the medieval stained glass in the Minster; made him run his hands over the texture of the stone that he might sense the throbbing of ancient chanting voices still held within the fabric; and told him of the time, twenty years before, when, as a young man, he had wept unashamedly after a fire had destroyed the carved bosses and central vault of the nave.

‘I need your advice, sir. I couldn’t think who else to ask. I trust you don’t mind?’ He looked frankly at him. Their eyes were almost on the same level. Peacock was a small man, a little shorter than James himself, but his extravagant mode of dress, his velvet jacket and braided trousers, his long greying hair and clean-shaven chin, caused others to notice his appearance rather than his lack of height.

‘Mind! My dear fellow, I am flattered to say the least. Come, we will take a walk. It is a pleasant evening and besides, I have no stomach for the food which is being prepared. I have smelt it and my juices have dried up in apprehension.’ He went to fetch his outdoor clothes: a faded cape which once was black but had now a hint of green, and a battered felt hat which he angled carefully onto his head. He drew on to his pale hands a pair of woollen mittens, and they stepped outside.

They walked by the white-painted cottages and redbrick residences which lined the banks of the river Ouse, and James haltingly explained his predicament while Peacock listened without comment.

‘Come,’ he said, when James had ground to a halt. ‘We will take some refreshment. I know of a coffee
house if you have any money, for I have only a little. My salary …!’ He gave a meaningful gesture towards his pockets.

‘I have a little money, sir.’ James felt for his pocket-book. ‘Enough at least for a small supper.’

There were few people in the coffee house, which they reached by turning down a narrow passage and into a small court. It was warm and dark, with only a single candle set on each round table.

‘Well, my dear fellow, this is what I suggest you must do. And I must say that the circumstances which have befallen you, whether of your own creation or not, will perhaps prove to be the emergence of you.’ He removed his mittens and, dropping them with a flourish onto the table, he leaned back on the spell-backed chair in a reflective manner. ‘You have the makings of a lazy fellow, I regret to say, who, if you had ample means at your disposal and were not in such a precarious and impecunious state as I, would sit around waiting for some opportunity to present itself. As it is,’ he continued, ‘you have no alternative, if you are to help support this child, but to go out and find your living.’

He stretched his long fingers and joined them, tip to tip, into an arch, and with one eye closed, peered through it, framing James’s face. ‘Your parents will naturally think that they could be ruined socially by such a misdemeanour. The bourgeois classes set much store by convention, and the mediocre opinions of others towards them matters greatly. You should be thankful, James, that you are not a female in such a predicament, for you would, without any doubt, be packed off to an asylum to end your days.’

James felt a great joy unfolding inside him. This, he realized, was what he had missed since leaving school; the conversation, the ideology and sometimes heated exchange of words with his peers. He had had no conversation since going home, and his intellect was starved.

Peacock took out a pencil and scrap of paper from a pocket hidden in the depths of his cape and, pushing aside the cream jug and coffee pot, he leaned on the wobbly table and started to write in an elegant hand, a name and address in London, which he handed to James. ‘This is where you must go.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I assume your father will assist you financially until you can earn a living.’

James nodded tentatively. He would be in a predicament if he didn’t, but his father had said, ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

‘I will write to Batsford immediately I get back to my room, and he will have the letter the day after tomorrow,’ Peacock continued. ‘The fellow is an excellent tutor and a painter in his own right. For a small fee, he takes students in order to eke out a living while he paints. He has not, like so many of us, sold his soul in exchange for a little comfort and a regular, if meagre, salary.’

It was almost dark when they finally left the coffee house and, although Peacock suggested that a bed could be found in the school, James declined with thanks.

‘I have relatives in York, sir. I can stay there. I used to stay with them on my holidays if the weather was bad and I couldn’t get home.’

‘Does your uncle keep a good cellar? It is of no comfort whatsoever if the bed is warm and the wine poor.’ Peacock once again drew on his mittens and wrapped his cape around him. A fresh breeze had sprung up and he shivered.

‘I believe he does,’ James smiled, ‘although I am no expert on the matter, but he does have an excellent cook.’

‘I will leave you, then, in the anticipation that you might eat another supper, and I will return to the aroma of overcooked cabbage, and compose a letter to Batsford.’ Peacock hesitated slightly and then, tapping his mittened fingers against his chin, said, ‘It
is perhaps only fair to warn you, James, that the bohemian classes are unconventional. You may find their attitudes and behaviour a little strange or even disturbing, especially as you have been brought up with middle-class standards of morality. Be circumspect at first, choose your companions cautiously until you are sure of them. But accept them for what they are and do not put a judgement on them too hastily.’