Matt ran up the meadow. There’s no fire, he thought. No smoke from the chimney. What a woman, he smiled, she’s no housewife, no cook. But she’s—. He grinned with elation. She’s something special.
He’d met his old friend Greg in Hull, who on greeting him had said, ‘So, you found your little widow? I knew there was a reason for the smile on your face.’
‘She’s wonderful, Greg. The most wonderful woman I’ve ever met.’
Greg had slapped him on the back. ‘But I seem to remember, you said, she was impudent and opinionated and came from the gutter, and wasn’t your type of woman at all!’
‘I was wrong,’ he’d grinned. ‘She is from the gutter, but she’s my type of woman; she has fire and guts and isn’t afraid to say what she means.’
Greg had looked at him curiously. ‘And what do you intend to do with this wonderful woman? Are we going to get a chance to look at her? Will you introduce her to your father?’ he added cynically.
‘I shan’t let you clap eyes on her, you old sea dog. I wouldn’t trust you. And as for my father, he’s met her already.’ He’d stroked his beard and mused. ‘She was play-acting, pretending to be a foreign lady.’ He told Greg about the party. ‘But I think he liked her, he seemed to find her unique – which she is.’
He smiled now as he reached the cottage door, Greg had had such a look of incredulity on his face and had shaken his head in mock despair at his friend’s apparent derangement.
He banged on the door. ‘Come on, Annie. Where are you hiding?’ He peered through the small window. There wasn’t a fire, nor had there been for some days by the look of the dead ash in the hearth. He put his hand up to shield the reflection of the glass. Her dress was hanging up on the wall. Had she put it there to remind her of that wonderful night? The night when he had known that there would never be anyone else in his life but her.
He looked round for the key and on finding it opened the door. The cottage was cold and empty; the blankets were folded neatly at the bottom of the bed and the table was cleared, no milk jug or crockery, only a bread knife lying on a wooden board. He knelt and felt the ashes, they were cold and burnt through to a fine dust and hadn’t been warmed for a long time.
She must be ill. He came out in a cold fear. Mrs Trott will know, or Josh, yes Josh, he’ll know what’s happened. He dashed out of the door and ran back down the meadow.
Josh was waiting for him in the lane beyond the hedge. ‘I was waiting on thee, Captain. I knew tha’d be here about now.’
Matt grabbed his arm, ‘Mrs Hope, where is she? She’s not at the cottage. Is she ill?’
‘No sir, she’s not ill, not so far as I know, anyhow. But she’s gone, sir.’
‘Gone! What are you talking about, man? Gone where?’
‘I don’t know, Captain. She said as how she was having to be moving on, and when I came to give her a hand to load her things, she’d already flitted.’
Matt ran his fingers through his hair and clasped his head. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying, Josh. Why should she go, especially without telling me? You say you knew she was going? Why didn’t you get a message to me?’
Josh drew himself up in a dignified manner, yet touched his forehead. ‘Beggin’ tha pardon, Captain, but it wasn’t my place.’
Matt gave an exclamation. ‘Oh. No. Sorry. Of course not.’
He put his hand to his mouth. ‘There has to be a reason,’ he muttered. ‘Something has happened.’ There came a vague recollection of something Toby had once said. Something about her being in trouble with the law. But she had never discussed it with him. They had never spoken about their pasts, either of them. They had always been so wrapped up in the present. He cursed himself for not asking before. She might well have had fears and anxieties that I didn’t know of, that I could have shared, helped her with, he thought.
‘There’ll be a note,’ he said abruptly. ‘Bound to be. I’ll go back and look.’
‘Yes sir.’ Josh had a frown on his forehead as Matt turned and raced back towards the cottage. ‘I hope as I haven’t made a big mistake,’ he muttered. ‘I allus thought gentry was different from ’rest of us, but I could be wrong.’
There wasn’t a note, no sign to indicate where or why she had gone. Matt went down to the Trotts’ house to enquire, and then to the river for they seemed to think that she was catching one of the boats across into Lincolnshire.
‘Did she mention the ferry to you, Josh?’ he asked after returning from fruitless enquiries of the ferry men. ‘Try to remember if you can. What exactly did she say?’
He watched Josh’s face. There was something he wasn’t telling him, he wasn’t looking him in the eye.
‘She didn’t exactly say she was going across ’river,’ Josh said slowly, ‘Though I got ’impression that that’s what she meant. And – and I think we mentioned London, though I’m not altogether sure of it.’
‘London! Good God, man. She’ll never get to London. Do you know how far it is?’
Josh shook his head miserably. ‘It’s a long way, I believe, sir.’
‘A long way! The woman must be mad! How has she gone? Is she walking? She’s taken Sorrel?’
‘No sir, she’s taken ’donkey-and-cart. They were hers. She gave me ’money for ’em some time back and I bought ’em for her.’
It had been planned then! A sudden anger brought a flush to his face. She’d never intended staying! Matt stared at Josh as he comprehended what had happened. She’d gathered some money together from selling her cloth and bought the donkey-and-cart and now she’d gone. She was probably off on another adventure. Well, men do it, he sneered sceptically. They have a good time with a woman and then clear off to pastures new. But why would she when they’d been so happy together? They had been happy hadn’t they? It wasn’t just him?
He was suddenly aware that Josh had been speaking to him. ‘What? The goods? No, nothing this time. I told Annie – Mrs Hope – that we wouldn’t risk it this time. In about three weeks. Then we’ll have something for you. We’ll carry on as usual. If we can.’
He turned and strode back to the cottage. He’d have one more look and then he’d have to leave; his crew would be getting anxious.
The room seemed so bare and deserted. He sat down on the bed and stared into space. Nothing. She had taken all that was hers, but she had left Toby’s clothes and his boots, she had taken nothing that didn’t belong to her. Not even the gown which she could have had, for no-one else will wear it if not her, he thought, as he stared at it hanging there. No-one else will wear it. He stood up. No one. No-one. He picked up the knife which lay on the table and holding the blade high, lashed out at the flimsy fabric, ripping it with sharp sweeping violent slashes until it hung in shredded tatters.
‘All hands on deck!’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
He couldn’t wait to sail away. To leave behind the solid earth, the meadowland and the cottage which had been Toby’s, but where at last he had laid Toby’s memory to rest. And now it held nothing for him, not now that she had gone.
‘Helm’s alee!’ He uttered the warning cry as he put the helm down to swing the ship up to the wind.
He’d told Josh that he would be back in three weeks but he doubted if he would return. I can’t face that river if she’s not going to be there to greet me.
He barely spoke to his men, giving them orders only and not indulging in his usual conversation with them – although they respected him as their captain they were not afraid to speak or joke with him – most of them had crewed with him for a long time.
They were two days and nights out into the German Ocean and the coastline of Holland had been sighted, when Parson White came to speak to him after supper. ‘Beggin’ tha pardon, cap’n, but some of the men, me included had been wondering if all’s well?’
Matt looked up from his table and ran his hand over his eyes. He’d drunk too much brandy, he decided, his head was swimmy and he couldn’t concentrate on writing up his log.
‘All’s well? What do you mean? Hasn’t the bell been struck?’
‘Sorry, sir. I wasn’t referring to the nightwatch; no, the crew are concerned that you are a bit under the weather – not quite yourself, sir.’
‘Kind of them to be so considerate,’ he said sharply. ‘Give the men my compliments. I’m perfectly well.’
‘The landlubbers are going to be disgruntled that there’s nothing for them this trip.’ Parson White rumbled on. ‘I reckon most of them rely on us to add money to their pockets.’
‘Well, there might be some changes,’ Matt replied abruptly. ‘There’s going to be another agent, and if it doesn’t work out we might have to find another port of call.’
Parson White squinted through his one good eye. ‘Why would that be sir? Mrs—, erm, – the young gentleman that is, seemed to be doing well.’
‘Oh, give up, Master Parson! I know that you know, that Mrs Hope and the young gentleman as you call her, are one and the same. But she’s gone. She’s moved on elsewhere.’
‘Ah.’ Parson White had a keen sense of perception and turned down his lips. ‘And do we know why or where she’s gone sir? It just seems a pity,’ he added as Matt turned a sour look at him. ‘She seemed to fit in just right – with the running and such, I meant.’
Matt rested his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands. ‘No. I don’t know why or where, but only that she’s gone and probably not coming back.’
‘Women are strange creatures,’ Parson White said chattily. ‘They get strange fancies, but usually they’re happy to stay where they’re comfortable. Mrs Hope was comfortable enough, I fancy?’
Matt nodded but made no reply.
Parson White eyed the captain. ‘She’d want for nothing, I wager. Probably had more now than she’d ever had in her life: yet she should choose to leave!’
‘What are you getting at? Come on, man, spit it out.’ Matt heaved a sigh and sat back in his chair and looked at the former cleric. He forgot sometimes that the man had taken holy orders. He was an intelligent man and but for his misbehaviour with the ladies of his living, could have been ensconced comfortably in a nice house with servants, a carriage to drive and a goodly supply of food and drink.
‘May I sit down, sir?’ He placed himself into a chair before Matt could reply and nodded his head as Matt moved the brandy decanter towards him.
He lifted his glass and reflectively studied the amber liquid. He spun it around the glass and then held it between his hands to warm it. Matt lit a candle and placed it in the middle of the table and the parson leaned forward and rotated the glass above it, warming the drink. He sniffed it appreciatively and then took a sip.
‘This is good,’ he nodded. ‘We must try for more of this,’ and it seemed to Matt that they could have been cronies in a gentleman’s club and not man and master on board a sailing ship.
‘As I was saying, sir. There has to be a reason for a woman leaving, or a man for that matter, and in my own experience, it’s usually the man who cuts and runs. It would have to be something very serious for a woman to leave the place where she’s most comfortable: they have no rights, as we know, the poor unfortunate creatures. Where would she go for one thing?’ He took another sip of brandy. ‘If she’s a lady, she might go to her family, though it’s doubtful that they would want her back. And if she’s not a lady—.’ He glanced at Matt: ‘then there’s only one way to go, I should say, and that’s downhill, for though she might get work – as a servant or a maid in an inn or such thing, it’s a very precarious existence for a woman, fraught with every kind of danger.’
Matt stared, horror-struck. He’d been so overcome by his own loss that he hadn’t thought that Annie might be in peril.
‘So, what we have to establish is why Mrs Hope went.’ The parson reached over and helped himself to another tot. ‘She has either done something dreadful and is running away to escape the law and its consequences – and I know only too well about that subject – or she has a conscience about something and can’t face you.’
‘You see.’ He stretched out his legs and crossed them. ‘I ran away several times, but only when I got found out or when the women were starting to bother me, as women do from time to time. It was a pity,’ he said, ‘for I was often very comfortable, but they would make demands on me, or start getting possessive, or pregnant, and then they would want me to marry them, and I couldn’t – for I was already married – several times.’
Matt smiled in spite of himself, the man would be in gaol if ever the law could catch him.
‘Yes,’ Parson White continued. ‘I remember one of my wives; the third one I think it was.’ He sighed. ‘She was a pretty little thing, but she started to get all kinds of strange notions when she became pregnant. They change you know,’ he added, ‘they become quite different, not rational. Anyway, she got these fancies that I wouldn’t love her when she became fat, and that I would go off with someone else if I was given half the chance. Which, of course, is exactly what I did do.’
Matt stood in the prow of the ship, his feet apart and his arms folded across his chest. The wind blew through his hair and he watched without seeing as the Breeze cut through the foaming waves. Above him the night canopy glittered with a million stars.
She’s expecting a child! Our child! Why didn’t she tell me? Did she think I would abandon her or not want her any more? Surely she knew me better than that? Out of his despondent melancholy came the recognition that she didn’t know him, that she only had a general opinion of men of her own class, and by her own admission had been hurt by them.
Why should she think that I’m any different? I could be worse. Men like me do take advantage of women like her, women without money or hope; they use their bodies for their own satisfaction and then abandon them, just as Parson White said. How cruel I must have seemed when I first met her – so harsh. And if indeed she loves me as she says she does, then she wouldn’t want me to be compromised and she wouldn’t want to be just taken care of – not with money – like some doxy.
He leaned against the bulwark and stared into the distance. How intolerable for her. He thought of his friend Greg and his question, ‘What will you do with this wonderful woman?’ Annie wouldn’t know of my intentions, even I don’t know what they are, I haven’t thought about it. I’ve just been so besotted by her. But I would never abandon her, or my child. My child! He felt a warming of his spirit. A child of his loins.
He turned towards his cabin below decks. He’d try to sleep. Tomorrow they would reach Holland. They would load as quickly as possible for an immediate turn around. With luck and a following wind they would reach home shores in just a few days and he would set in motion all posible means at his disposal of finding her and bringing her back.
But he lay sleepless and restless in his bunk. She had already disappeared once, from her life in Hull. Was she being searched for by someone from that town? She had hidden from the world in Toby’s cottage and he had protected her.
He sat up and put his head in his hands. She could so easily disappear again, only this time she might not be so lucky to find someone like Toby. The possibilities of the hazards facing her loomed large and menacing and he was gripped by a grim cold fear.