Tidelands

TIDELANDS, JULY 1648

Alinor walked with her boy on the seashore path to the Priory through a haze of midges and mosquitoes that rose as their steps crushed driftwood and dried reeds at the high-water mark. The tide was coming in; they could hear the bubble of the hushing well as they turned inland, away from the rising waters, across the Priory meadow, the haystacks as pale as straw in the late summer sunshine.

She said: “You’ll come home on Michaelmas Day and I’ll see you every Sunday in church.”

He was pale with fear. “I know,” he said shortly. “You’ve said it a dozen times.”

“I’ll come to the kitchen and ask after you on Friday. You can tell the cook if you want to see me before then, and she’ll tell me.”

“You said.”

She nodded. “If you really don’t want to go, you don’t have to. We can manage.”

“I’ve said I’ll go.”

She turned the handle on the wooden door set in the flint wall and suddenly remembered leaving the priest, Father James, to hide behind the haystack while she spoke to Mr. Tudeley. The metal handle was warm from the sunshine, the timbers of the door dry to her touch, just as they had been on that day last month. She felt that she was wrong to think of that moment, of that man, when she was sending her own son into service.

“Come on then,” she said, giving him a smile for courage, dismissing the day that a priest had looked at her with desire and said: “a woman like you.”

They went through the garden, to the kitchen door. The cook looked up from the table where she was kneading an enormous ball of dough, floury to the elbows. “You’re expected,” she said. She looked Rob up and down. “Good lad,” she said. “You mind your manners here and this will be a great chance for you.”

He pulled his hat off his head. “Aye, mistress.”

“You say ‘Yes, Mistress Wheatley,’ ” the cook corrected him.

“Yes, Mistress Wheatley,” he repeated.

“Stuart will take you up,” she said, turning her head and shouting towards the hall. “Where is that man?”

Stuart appeared in the doorway, a thin man dressed in the Peachey livery with down-at-heel shoes.

“Look at the state of you!” she scolded, without any hope of improvement. “Take Goodwife Reekie’s boy in to Mr. Tudeley. He’s expecting him. In his room. And then come straight back here. You’re wanted to get the platters down.”

He nodded to Rob and turned towards the door that led to the steward’s room.

“Wait! Say good-bye.” Alinor caught her son as he was following obediently, without another word to her.

He turned back to her, his face pale and closed, and dropped to his knee before her. She put her hand on his curly head in her blessing and then she bent down and kissed him. “Be good,” she said inadequately. She had no words for how much she loved him, how much she hated leaving him here. “God bless you, son. I will see you at church on Sunday.”

He rose up, his cheeks red with embarrassment at the emotion in her voice, yet anxious not to reveal his own feelings, and picked up the little sack of his belongings. He had almost nothing: a change of linen, his spoon and his knife. He followed Stuart out of the door.

Mrs. Wheatley laughed at Alinor fighting her tears as she watched her son leave. “Ah, give over,” she said kindly. “He’s not going to sea to fight against the prince. He’s not pressed for the army and marching into the wild North to fight Scotsmen.”

“I thank God for it.”

Mrs. Wheatley thumped the dough into a bowl and set it under a cloth beneath an open window to prove in the sunshine. “Will you take a glass of small ale before you go?” she asked. “Put a smile back on your pretty face?”

“Thank you,” Alinor said, taking a seat on the bench at the table. “Can I come at the end of the week, to ask how he’s doing?”

“Yes, you can bring me some samphire.”

“I will. And, Mrs. Wheatley, will you keep an eye on him?”

The cook nodded. “It’s a great chance for the lad.”

“I know it. But will you send for me if he doesn’t suit? If there’s any the least sign of trouble?”

“What could there be? He’ll get his schooling for free—his own tutor, not the day school—and his board, and he gets paid, and all he has to do is put up with the young master.”

“Is he difficult? I saw him last year when he was ill and he was a lamb then . . .”

“He’s a Peachey,” was all the cook said. “He’s the next lord. He was born to be difficult. But he’s not vicious. Your boy has fallen on his feet, to be sure.”

They heard footsteps in the stone-flagged passageway to the kitchen and Mrs. Wheatley immediately fell silent, picking up a jug of buttermilk and measuring it into a bowl. Mr. Tudeley put his head around the kitchen door.

“Ah, I thought I might find you still here, Mrs. Reekie. I have this for your boy’s first quarter.”

Alinor took the purse, heavy with five shillings, in her hand and tucked it in the pocket of her apron. “Thank you,” she said. “And thank you very much for the opportunity for Rob . . .”

Mr. Tudeley waved away her thanks and withdrew. Mrs. Wheatley nodded at Alinor. “No more than you deserve,” she said stoutly. “With two young children to bring up and no husband to be seen. And Rob’s a good boy, I’m sure. I’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry.”

“Yes, I know,” Alinor agreed, reluctant to leave even now.

She bobbed a curtsey to Mrs. Wheatley and went out through the door to the walled kitchen garden, and crossed it, looking back at the house, searching the windows of the tall building in case her son was looking out. There was no one there. The leaded panes of glass reflected the dazzle of the sun high in the noon sky. She could see nothing. She raised a hand in case he was looking out for her and turned to walk home. She felt as if she were leaving a part of herself behind.

On Friday morning Alinor left a sleepy Alys in the warm bed, and went out in the dawn light to pick samphire on the shingle seashore while it was still fresh, damp and salty with the sea fret. The tide was on the ebb. She could see the little waves breaking on the sandbar, far out to sea, and the horizon was a glorious line of gold with low-lying banks of cloud catching the light of the sunrise. The little birds ran back and forth in the shallow water, sometimes wheeling away in a flock, to settle a few yards farther down the beach. At six o’clock by the stable clock she tapped on the kitchen door of the Priory and when Stuart opened it, his hands dirty with wood ash from the fire, she walked in and put down her basket on the dresser.

“Aye, there you are,” said Mrs. Wheatley, flushed from the heat of the bread oven where she was shoveling in rolls with a long-handled wooden peel. She closed the door with a thick woolen cloth over her hand and came over to look at the basket, pulling away the fresh green leaves from the top to make sure that the crop underneath was as good.

“Tuppence?” she offered.

“Certainly,” Alinor said pleasantly, though it was cheap.

“You’ll be hoping to see your boy,” the cook guessed. “You can come up to the chapel with me for morning prayers. You’ll see him then.”

Alinor shook her wet shawl out of the door and put it on a hook, then pulled her cap lower over her fair hair. “If I may,” she said.

“I knew you’d be desperate to see him,” the cook said shrewdly. “But he’s well. He’s not pining. At any rate, he eats well enough, he’s not off his feed.”

Stuart gave a short laugh. “He’s not that!”

“Did I ask you?” the cook demanded, and Stuart ducked his head and went out to stock the wood basket, as a bell in the hall sounded three times.

“We can go now,” Mrs. Wheatley said, rinsing her hands under the pump at the kitchen sink and drying them on the cloth at her waist. She laid aside her stained apron, revealing a clean one underneath, and led the way out of the kitchen.

The two women went down the stone-flagged corridor towards the entrance hall. Three dairymaids were waiting outside the carved wooden door to the Peacheys’ private chapel, lined up before the wall in silence. Alinor and Mrs. Wheatley joined them. His lordship’s valet, Stuart, another footman, a couple of grooms, and two gardeners took the opposite wall.

Alinor heard the Peachey family descending the great wooden stairs. First, his lordship, magnificent in dark red velvet with a rich lace ruff, tall hat on his head, cane in his hand, gloriously overdressed for a country morning, for attendance at his own private chapel. His eyes flicked incuriously over his household and stable staff; he did not even notice Alinor. Behind him came his son, dressed more plainly in a brown suit of knee breeches, and a jacket over a linen shirt with a short white collar. He was bareheaded with his light brown hair brushed smoothly, falling to his shoulders. He recognized Alinor, who had nursed him in two illnesses, and he smiled at her and turned to speak to the boy who followed him down the stairs. It was Rob. Alinor would have known him in a heartbeat for her boy, her beloved boy, but he was transformed. He was wearing an old dark green suit of Walter’s with a clean white linen collar edged with a little lace, white woolen stockings to his knees, and black shoes with buckles. Everything was a little too small for his long legs and growing frame, the jacket sleeves showed his bony wrists, the breeches were pulled too high; but he looked nothing like the boy who had emerged unwashed from the cottage by the mire to play barefoot in the churchyard before school.

When he saw his mother, his beaming smile was just the same, and Alinor’s face shone back at him. With a tiny lift of his shoulders he showed off the jacket and the white lace collar, and Alinor nodded her silent admiration. As Sir William arrived at the foot of the stair, Mr. Tudeley, the steward, stepped forward to greet his lordship, and Rob came to his mother, knelt for her blessing and then bounced up, and hugged her tightly.

“I knew you would come,” he said with a giggle in his whisper. “I knew you would.”

“I had to see you. I couldn’t wait till Sunday. Is everything all right?”

“It’s well,” he said. “It’s very well.” He released her and fell into line with the Peachey procession. His lordship walked down the hall, his high heels clicking on the stone floor, his beribboned cane tapping a counterpoint to his stately progress towards the chapel doors, followed by his son, Mr. Tudeley, and then Rob. All the servants curtseyed or bowed as his lordship went by, and then followed in strict order of precedence as the double chapel doors opened wide for them, and there, bowing to his lordship in the doorway, in a suit of dark black with the austere white collar of the reformed preacher, was Father James.

He rose up from his bow and preceded the Peachey family to the ornately carved seats in the chapel. He went past them to step behind the bare communion table, which was placed firmly at the crossways of the chapel. There was nothing on the table but the Bible in English, and the Prayer Book, approved by parliament, open at the morning service. There was nothing to betray him as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church: no vestments, no candles, no incense, no monstrance displaying the sacred host. It was as clean and clear as any chapel in the land. Oliver Cromwell could have prayed in the Peachey pew without troubling his conscience.

His lordship took his place in his seat, his son beside him, Rob a little farther along, and the household assembled behind them. Alinor, standing beside the cook, a few pews behind Sir William, could not take her eyes from Father James as he bent his dark head and read the bidding prayer. He raised his head and, for the first time, he saw her.

His expression changed at once. She knew that her own face was frozen. It felt like a physical shock to see him after thinking of him with such secret delight for so long. She had thought that they would never meet again; and yet here he was, under the same roof as her son, just a few miles from her home. Dutifully, Alinor bent her head and repeated the new prayers. She watched him from under her eyelashes as he moved slowly and confidently through the phases of the service, from the bidding prayer to the declaration of faith.

When he looked up from the Prayer Book and their eyes met again, he seemed intent only on the words of the service. He did not acknowledge Alinor, and she kept her head down, trying not to watch him, wondering if he had won a place for Rob in the Peachey household as a great favor to her, or if he had put her son in grave danger: in a royalist house with a recusant priest.

The household took communion in strict order of precedence—bread only, no wine at the plain wooden table set square in the middle of the chapel like a dining place for common men. Sir William went first, his son next, the steward behind him. Alinor smiled to see her son follow the steward. As a companion of the young lord he went before all the servants. Alinor followed Mrs. Wheatley and found herself in front of Father James, her hands cupped to receive the holy bread from his steady hand. She took it and swallowed it and said “Amen” clearly before she moved away. Her mother had always been particularly observant of the ritual of the church service. A wisewoman should always make clear that she had swallowed the bread and was not smuggling it out for use in healing magic. Alinor could almost hear her mother’s voice as she went back to stand behind the Peachey family pew. “Take care. Never cause folk to question. You have to be—always—in the bright light of day.”

Alinor knelt and buried her face in her hands. Having rescued a papist, brought him to a royalist safe house, put her son into service under a cavalier lord, and lied to her brother, she feared she was very far from the bright light of day.

Mrs. Wheatley nudged her. “Amen,” she said loudly.

“Amen.” Alinor rose to her feet and joined in.

It was the bidding prayer that released them. Sir William rose to his feet, remembered not to bow towards the old stone altar, which stood ignored, swept bare of the rich gold and silver, under the eastern window of the chapel. His lordship turned his back on the consecrated ground as if it were not his family’s long-revered sacred space, and led the way out. Everyone followed him. Only the priest stayed in the chapel, his head bent in prayer in the silent whitewashed room.

“I go to breakfast now.” Rob appeared at his mother’s side as the household dispersed to work. At once Alinor put her arms around him and kissed the warm top of his head.

“Is everything all right?” she asked him quickly. “Are you well treated?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I get beef for breakfast, and ham if I want it.”

“You go,” she agreed. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”

A quick smile and he was gone, trotting after Walter. As he came alongside, he deliberately bounced against Walter and the noble-born boy jostled him back as if they were both village children in the churchyard. Alinor, watching, realized that her son was happy, and his companionship with the son of the lord of the manor was a real friendship.

Mrs. Wheatley led the way back to the kitchen, took up the peel, and shoveled fresh-baked rolls from the bread oven. She passed one to Alinor, who put it in her apron pocket and felt the warmth against her hip.

“Thank you,” Alinor said, grateful for much more than the bread.

Mrs. Wheatley nodded. “I knew you’d pine for him. But he’s doing well enough, as you see, and Master Walter is a friendly boy. There’s no spite in him.”

On impulse, Alinor kissed the older woman’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said again, and took up her basket, unpacked the samphire leaves into the cool larder, and went out of the kitchen door into the kitchen garden. Dawdling down the paths, pretending to look at the growing herbs in the late summer blowsy richness, she arrived at the gate to the sea meadow. Only then, as she put her hand on the latch and turned to see Father James coming out of the house, did she admit to herself that she had been delaying in the hope that he would come after her.

She found she was blushing and hot, and worse, she had nothing to say. She remembered that she should not speak of the first time they had met. That was a secret of grave importance. But if she did not speak of that, how could she say anything to him? She should be greeting him with deference, as a complete stranger, a guest of her lord, a minister of the church. But if they were strangers he would not be striding past the herb beds towards her, his handsome face alight with joy at seeing her. She did not even know what to call him, but he came so quickly towards her and took both her hands in his warm clasp that she could say nothing but: “Oh.” “Oh,” she said.

“I knew that I would see you again,” he said hastily.

“I . . .” She withdrew her hands and at once he released her.

“Sir William has taken me on as his chaplain. I pass as a minister of the reformed religion. Nobody in the household but Mr. Tudeley knows any different. Your boy doesn’t know. He doesn’t attend Mass, nor does Walter. The Mass is completely secret, held only at night when the household is asleep. He is in no danger. He doesn’t know what I am,” he said in a rush.

“He mustn’t know,” was all she could say. “He’s been raised . . . and his uncle served under Cromwell himself. He mustn’t . . .”

“I know. Mr. Tudeley warned us when I said I would like Robert to share Walter’s lessons.”

“You got Rob hired for my sake?”

“I owe you a great debt,” he said. “You took me in and hid me and brought me to safety.”

She nodded at his formal tone. He spoke as if she were one of the faithful—morally bound to assist a priest—as if there had never been a moment in the meadow, as if he had never said: “a woman like you.”

“It was nothing.” She was cool in return. “My duty to Sir William. I know not to speak of it.”

“And besides,” he said.

“Besides?”

Now it was his turn to be lost for words. “I wanted . . . I want . . . I hoped I might do something that would help you. I would have sent you money, but I thought this would be better.”

“That was kind of you, sir. But I need nothing.”

“Because I—” He broke off.

“Because you?”

He took a breath. “I have never known a woman like you before.”

“ ‘A woman like you in a place like this,’ ” she quoted his words back at him.

He flushed. “Such a stupid thing to say.”

“No! I was so pleased! It meant—”

“Not that I think there is anything wrong with Sealsea Island.”

“It’s very poor,” she said simply. “It must look very poor to you, who are used to so much better. Finer.”

“I’ve never met a woman finer than you!”

They were both shocked at his sudden honesty. It was as if they both heard the words and would have to go apart from each other in silence and think what they meant.

“I’d better go,” she said, her hand on the latch but not moving.

“Yes,” he said. “Can you buy the fishing boat now?”

He watched her smile and then she raised her eyes to meet his.

“I’m getting it next week,” she said with simple gratitude. “I’m going with my brother to see an old skiff at Dell Quay.”

“Will you sail it home?”

“Oh, no. We wouldn’t go all the way by sea around the island. I wouldn’t dare. We’ll borrow a cart from the tide mill and fetch it down the lanes. It’s only a little way by land, five miles.”

“And will you be brave enough to take it out on the water?”

“I must be,” she said steadily. “I have to be.”

“Will you take me out? I could bring the boys. Your son must know how to fish—he could teach Walter.”

Together they considered this; they imagined this next step.

“I don’t see why not,” she said slowly, imagining how it would look to the servants in the household, what they would say at the mill if they saw the boat on the water with the four of them on board. “Would Sir William allow Master Walter to go out in a little boat?”

“Why not? And Robert can guide us to your cottage. There would be nothing wrong in that.”

“Nothing wrong,” she agreed with him.

It was odd that their last words, as she bobbed a curtsey and went through the door to the sea meadow, was that there could be nothing wrong. They both knew that it was wrong: she should not be hoping that her son would bring him to her, and James knew very well that he should not meet her again.