Tidelands

TIDELANDS, DECEMBER 1648

Alys and Alinor walked along the harbor bank to church on Christmas Day, a hard frost turning the inland water meadows white as snow on their right hand, the harbor frozen like iron on the other. They were dressed in layer upon layer of winter clothes but they had no special ribbons or favors pinned to their capes. The new parliament had ruled that Christmas was not to be marked with any feasting or merrymaking, but must be a day like any day. Red trotted ahead of them and then circled back, the only joyful one.

Alinor looked at the winter sun, casting shadows that underlined every bank and puddle and reedbed on the wet harbor. She wondered if James was with his family, if he were thinking of her. She hoped he was somewhere warm and merry. She loved him so much, she even wished him happiness without her.

The church was cold and plain and bare, and there was no singing and no Christmas carols. The minister preached a sermon announcing that it was the birth of Jesus Christ and that the day should be filled with quiet reflection, that wassailing and Christmas ales and special puddings and roast dinners were nothing but worldly show and greed. The birth of our Lord should be considered reverently and thoughtfully. Godly work could and should be done; it was not a holiday for visiting and dancing and carousing. How would the birth of God be served by people sinning? How should the Lord be greeted, if not by quiet reflection and steady labor?

The prayers for parishioners who were sick or dying went on for long minutes; the cold weather was always hard on the poor of Sealsea Island. Alinor bowed her head and thanked God that she and Alys were well housed in the ferry-house and Rob lived in luxury at the Priory. The minister prayed for the soul of old Mrs. Hebden, buried in frost-hard ground, and invoked God’s aid for other men and women who would not survive the cold season and were going hungry to save their winter stores. The church was freezing, the service dragged on and on, longer than ever, and when the congregation was finally released and spilled out of the porch, it started to snow.

“The dog looks for you,” the minister complained to Alinor as she went past him. “He sits in the church porch and looks for you.”

“He does not harm, he’s a good dog, my brother’s dog.”

“People remark it,” he said.

“It means nothing,” Alinor said quickly. “Just a dog missing his master.”

“It’s ungodly how he attends to you,” the man complained.

“I’ll leave him at home next Sunday. I apologize. He’s pining for my brother.”

“Is Edward still in London?” the minister asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, glad to change from the dangerous topic of a loyal animal, a familiar.

“He wanted to be with his old regiment in these important times, I suppose?”

“That was his plan.”

“Godly work,” he said. “Witness to the end of days.”

“Yes,” Alinor said. “He’s very devout. Praise the Lord.”

She curtseyed to him and then went to the squire’s household. Alinor curtseyed to Sir William and to Walter and then kissed Rob. “Happy Christmas,” she whispered to him.

“You’d better come back to the Priory,” Mrs. Wheatley invited her. “We’re going to be having a good dinner: Christmas or no Christmas.”

“Do come,” Rob supplemented.

“I’d better not,” Alinor said. “My brother wouldn’t like it. And Alys has to keep the ferry.”

“Just come for dinner,” Rob urged her. “I’ll come back with you and work the ferry on the evening tide.”

“Do let’s,” said Alys.

“Oh, very well,” Alinor said. “But we have to get back to the ferry for high tide this afternoon. You know that Christmas is not a holiday anymore.”

“It is at the Priory,” Rob whispered to her. “We keep to the old ways. You should see what Mrs. Wheatley has been cooking!”

Alinor took his arm and they walked side by side after the Peachey household towards the big house, Red trotting behind them, his tail waving like a standard.

“This’ll be my one and only Christmas at the Priory,” Rob reminded her. “Next year, I’ll be at Chichester.”

“And I’ll be married,” Alys chimed in from her mother’s other side.

Alinor, happy to be between her two children, hugged Rob’s arm, took Alys’s hand, and wondered where she would be next year, and if she would be walking to church with James carrying their child.