Before a final curtain can be drawn over Annie’s life, it is necessary to pass swiftly over intervening years; the years in which her happiness with Matt was almost complete. Almost, but not quite, for when a life is happy, time passes without awareness; but for Annie, at the birth of each of her sons, Tobias, Edward and Joshua, she was aware of a small pocket of emptiness deep inside her which never went away. As Matt gazed proudly and lovingly at each of these small beings, she thought each time of her other children.
Of her lost sons the memory faded, they became shadowy and distant as she was surrounded by her growing boys, but Lizzie’s pale timid face and large blue eyes, were still as bright in her memory as ever. And she would lie in her bed and listen to the slow tick of the clock and sense the dark shadow of a dead man descend on her. Only when Matt was there could she be comforted, when he held her in his arms and whispered that Lizzie would understand.
When Bonaparte turned his gaze on the shores of England, Matt took a commission as a lieutenant in the Sea Fencibles under the command of Lord Keith. This force was to be a last line of defence against invasion and made up of volunteers, mainly naval men and fishermen who would be protected against unjustified impressment.
‘I’m not needed here, Annie, not whilst Father is still master; but I can be useful along this coastline. Nelson favours this scheme though others are against it. And,’ he said, taking her hand in an effort to convince her, ‘it means that I shan’t be far away from you.’ He smiled and kissed her tenderly, ‘I know too, that you are safe here with Father and Harry and the boys. And by the time this war is over, Father will be ready to hand over the reins to me.’
So she had to let him go to Nelson, who it seemed needed him more than she did, and they exchanged a secret smile when Matt was told that one of his duties was to assist the coastal signal officers and the revenue men, and wondered if he would come across his old enemy Roxton.
It was at this time that Annie realized that she was no longer needed at the drapery shop in York, that her commitment to the running of the business was so small as to be neglible and that Robin and Rose would dearly like to buy it for themselves.
‘You deserve to have it, Robin, you have done so well here. I kept it on all these years as an act of defiance, because it was something which belonged to Harry and me that couldn’t be taken from us, and I knew that Henry Linton didn’t approve.’ She gave a warm smile. ‘But he and I have both changed and neither of us have to prove our worth to each other any more. And Harry! Why he’s not in the least bit interested in fashion or cloth; he’d rather be knee-deep in barley or sheep wash! I’ll write to Mr Blythe and ask him to draw up the necessary papers and you can take down the name of Hope.’
But Robin insisted on keeping the name. ‘Without hope, Annie, life isn’t worth a button. We’ll keep it to remind us of how things used to be.’ And so the sign above the renowned drapery and haberdashery establishment became Sampson, Hope and Deane.
The disbandment of the Fencibles, Henry Linton’s mild stroke and yet another pregnancy came within the same year. Matt would now be home for good, to run the estate with Harry while Henry Linton contentedly watched his grandchildren at play.
Matt ran his hands gently over her swelling abdomen. ‘If this is another son, Annie, we shall scare the wits from our enemies. We can start our own army or navy with the manpower we have here. Four sons,’ he whispered in the darkness, ‘yet, I would dearly love a daughter to spoil.’
And so she gave him a daughter. Elizabeth. But she would let no-one call her Lizzie. ‘You can call her Elizabeth or Eliza or Beth,’ she said softly as she lay exhausted with the tiny baby in her arms. ‘But not Lizzie, for I have one Lizzie already.’
And she whispered to the child when they were alone. ‘I’m happy, Elizabeth, but only as happy as I can ever be, for whenever I feel a joy welling up, like today, something always reminds me that I’m not allowed complete happiness. That I don’t deserve it.’
‘I’ve decided to go to Hull tomorrow, Matt.’ She had made up her mind, calmly and deliberately. Elizabeth was two, she and the other children could be left with the nursery maid, the governess and with Polly in over all charge. She would take Joan with her for company and Grigson would drive them.
‘But, I wanted to come with you, Annie, and you know that we’ve arranged for old Blythe to come tomorrow. Harry and I must both be here.’ Matt looked at her in dismay. ‘Leave it a while longer. You mustn’t go alone.’
She shook her head. ‘I must, Matt. I have to.’
He was anxious, agitated, and she stretched out her hand to him. ‘I must face this alone, Matt, and if I don’t go now, my love, I’ll never go.’
He took both her hands in his and kissed them, and held them against his lips. ‘I don’t want you to go. I’m so afraid, Annie. So afraid that you won’t come back.’
‘What? Matt! Not come back? Why would I not come back?’ It was her turn now to be afraid. ‘Matt? You don’t think—?’ She started to shake. ‘The law won’t be waiting—, will it? Not after all this time?’
He shook his head and soothed her. ‘No. No. Not that. There’ll be no-one who will remember. No, it’s just—! I am selfish I know, but, it’s just that I have a terrible foreboding that if you find your other family, then you’ll stay with them and won’t come back to us—, to me.’
She stared aghast. How could he think such a thing? How could she leave her children, her home, her husband whom she loved? She saw pain in his eyes and sorrow, but something more—, could she see doubt?
Comprehension hit her like a blow and she understood the reason for his distress. Had he always been unsure of her? Had this lack of faith been constantly hovering within his mind? Twice in her life she had run away. Once from circumstances which even now she hardly dare contemplate, and had left her young family behind. And once she had run away from Matt, taking away from him the opportunity of deciding himself about the role of fatherhood and depriving him of Harry’s early years.
‘You have to trust me, Matt,’ she whispered. She reached to touch his face and saw a few silver strands in his sideburns and beard. ‘What can I say to convince you? I can only tell you that I love you. With my dying breath I will love you, and my children. I will come back to you.’ She shuddered as the black shadow descended on her once more. ‘Unless Fate takes a hand and keeps me from my promise.’
At the last minute she decided to take Tobias with her too, he was a mischeivous ten year old, with eyes as dark as the uncle he was named after, and as much exuberance, and was quite likely to cause complete havoc without her watchful eye on him.
She gave him strict instructions now as she left him at the Cross Keys inn with Joan, that provided he was on his best behaviour, then he could visit the quayside to look at the ships until she came back from her errand.
She had made enquiries from the landlord of the inn to ascertain if the shipping firm of Masterson was still there. If Will Foster still lived in Hull, then his old company might know of his whereabouts. If I find him, then I’ll find Lizzie and my lads.
The town looked different, she thought, as she made her way across to the High Street. There were new streets and buidings, although some of the old landmarks were still there. King Billy’s still here; she looked back down the Market Place and caught the gleam of gold from the equestrian statue, they haven’t got rid of him.
Her steps slowed as she reached the narrow High Street, so many memories came flooding back and she wasn’t sure if she could cope with the answers which her questions might bring.
This old street hadn’t changed at all, unlike the rest of the town, except that some of the merchants’ houses had been converted into business premises. The residents have moved away from the stink, she thought. It’s still there, the clinging, odorous smell of boiling blubber.
There was a sign up at the front door, Masterson and Rayner, but after a moment’s hesitation, she turned away and walked down the side of the building, down the staith which led to the river Hull.
‘Can I help thee, ma’am?’ A youth came out of the yard gate. ‘Are you lost?’
‘Lost?’ she answered vaguely. ‘I’m not sure. I think I might be.’
‘Well, this lane leads to ’Old Harbour, tha’ll not want to be down here. Where does tha want to be?’
‘I’m looking for Mr Masterson or Mr Rayner.’ Her words came out automatically. There, it’s done, she thought dully, the die is cast. Let Fate do what it will.
The youth nodded. ‘There’s only Mr Rayner now. Mr Masterson died a while back. If you’ll come with me,’ he politely doffed his cap. ‘I’ll ask if he’s free.’
She followed him through the yard and waited in a small room just inside the door. She felt as if she was trapped in time as she waited while he went in search of John Rayner. Along with the stench of blubber and seed oil and the acrid smoke of the charnel houses, she could smell the Humber and with it a faint tang of the sea. Gulls screeched over the river Hull, which ran alongside the High Street, and which she noticed, the boy still called by its old name, the Old Harbour, which once had been the only harbour for the whalers and trading ships of the world and which even now, she had seen, was crowded with shipping unloading onto the staith side.
‘Can I help you? I understand you are looking for me.’
Annie swung round at the voice. It was John Rayner, Masterson’s nephew. Gone was the good-looking young man that she remembered from long ago and a mature, handsome man stood in his place. He stroked his fair curly beard thoughtfully as he observed her.
‘Mr Rayner, you won’t remember me,’ she began nervously. ‘My name is Mrs Linton. My husband is Captain Linton of Staveley Park.’
Don’t give too much away too soon, Annie. She began to feel sick with apprehension. I shouldn’t have come alone. I should have waited for Matt.
He gave her a courteous bow and extended his hand for her to come inside and led her up a flight of stairs, through a room with a desk, and into a small sitting-room. He indicated that she should be seated and reached for the bell rope. ‘You’ll take a dish of tea, Mrs Linton?’
‘Thank you, no.’ She sat down apprehensively. She felt nervous and like the old Annie Swinburn she used to be, awkward and full of fear, now that she was back in the town where she had been born.
He sat down opposite her in a matching leather chair; there was a small dying fire in the grate and he bent to put on more coal.
‘What can I do for you, Mrs Linton?’ He dusted his hands together and she thought that his blue eyes narrowed for a second as he observed her.
Annie drew in a deep breath. ‘You won’t remember me, Mr Rayner, but I once lived in this town. My husband – my first husband that is—’ How I hate to even think of his name, she thought, he onny ever brought me misery and pain. ‘Alan Swinburn – he worked as boatsteerer and linesman with this company.’
John Rayner sat forward with a sudden exclamation. ‘I do remember you. I know who you are. You’re Lizzie’s mother!’
At first his questions had been sharp and direct. Accusing almost. But as she related her life, omitting her crime, telling him only that she had once been in mortal fear for her life, and had to flee, he became more compassionate and his face took on a sympathetic expression.
But when she asked how did he know her Lizzie, he smiled softly and said, ‘I have known her almost the whole of her life.’
‘And my lads? Do you know them too?’
He shook his head. ‘I regret, Mrs Linton, that your sons are dead. Your eldest boy died not long after you left, and Jimmy was lost at sea.’
She sat silently as he explained the circumstances. She had known in her heart that her sons were gone from her. Ted had been a sickly child, she always knew that he wouldn’t make old bones. And now Jimmy lay beneath the Arctic waters with his father. ‘May they rest in peace,’ she whispered.
‘Amen to that,’ John Rayner spoke softly as if not to disturb her thoughts.
She stared at him. He knows Lizzie! How does he know? ‘You know my Lizzie?’ She spoke the words out loud. ‘You know where she is?’
‘Yes.’
A deep silence gathered in the room as she waited for him to continue, although she could hear the voices of men in the yard and the rattle of wheels on the road outside.
‘How is it that you know all of this, Mr Rayner?’ She was puzzled as to this gentleman’s involvement with her family. ‘And you know of my daughter? How is that? Is she in your employ?’
A flicker of a smile touched his lips and he shook his head. ‘No, she is not. But as I said, I have known Lizzie for most of her life. She went with the Fosters and their children to a place called Monkston on the Holderness coast, where they were in my uncle’s employment. Mrs Linton, – your daughter Lizzie married Tom Foster, who is now a miller; and I married the Foster’s youngest daughter, Sarah. Lizzie is my sister-in-law.’
She felt tears flood her eyes again and she could hardly breathe she was so choked with emotion. After so many long worrying years, to know that Lizzie was alive and well and cared for. And she would be cared for, for she remembered young Tom Foster and what a grand lad he had been.
And she was a miller’s wife; not living in poverty as she had always imagined, but with status in a community! Annie’s heart almost burst. Lizzie had resiliance after all, she wasn’t now the nervous, frightened child she had once been. She had risen above the wretchedness she had known and she had done it without her mother’s help.
She took out her handkerchief again and wiped her eyes and saw John Rayner watching her. His face looked troubled.
‘I suppose you want to meet her?’ He spoke quietly, an anxious note in his voice.
‘Why, yes!’ She looked at him in surprise. ‘That is why I have come.’
‘Is that wise?’ He held her gaze. ‘It has been a long time. She is not the child she was; perhaps not the child that you are expecting her to be?’
‘I know that she is now a grown woman, of course. Perhaps she even has childre’ of her own?’
He nodded. ‘They have two sons, both healthy. She and Tom have a settled life.’
A great depression began to envelope her. It stole into her mind and body weighing her down with its heaviness. What was he trying to say?
‘Lizzie never speaks of her childhood in Hull, Mrs Linton. Not that I am aware of at any rate, though I have heard her and Tom speak of the games that they used to play at Monkston when they were children. For those who don’t know of her background, it would appear that she had spent the whole of her life at Monkston.’
Annie felt faint. ‘You’re not saying that she would deny me, her own mother?’
John Rayner took hold of her hand as if she was a child in need of comfort. ‘I’m not saying that. Lizzie is a kind, caring woman. She has found fulfilment with Tom and her family and is no longer the nervous child that she once was.’
It was as if he was repeating her own thoughts. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ she whispered. ‘That I shouldn’t see her now that I’ve at last found her?’
‘It isn’t my place to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, Mrs Linton. I am only telling you how things are.’ He looked down at her hand which he still held. ‘Do you think Lizzie knew why you went away? And if she did know, does she remember? Or is it locked away in the furthest reaches of her mind?’
She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘Do you know why I went, Mr Rayner? Does everyone know?’
He shook his head. ‘I know because Will Foster told me. He’s dead now, is Will. He was a good friend of mine, and he told me in confidence many years ago, when I asked why Lizzie’s mother had gone.’ He patted her hand and strangely she felt relieved that he did know. ‘I have told no-one. This is the first time anyone has asked me.’
Her thoughts were jumbled. Her resolve to at last seek out Lizzie was crumbling. Would she indeed be welcomed back, or would Lizzie despise her for leaving her? But what else could I have done, she thought desperately? What had been the alternative? I never wanted her to know that I had killed a man, no matter that he deserved it. And if she didn’t know, should she tell her now?
She raised her head and her words came out thick and slowly. ‘You think it would be best if I went away without seeing her?’
‘If you care for Lizzie, and I’m sure you do, then it would be the wisest, most loving thing you could do.’
She refused his offer of refreshments but accepted his insistence that she should be escorted back to the inn. He called for the youth, Bob Hardwick, who had spoken to her earlier and as they waited for him to appear, he assured her that he would contact her if ever he felt Lizzie was troubled and needed her.
Annie felt weak, yet calm. It was the right decision; and though she was saddened, within her pain lay a tenderness, a small spot of joy which came from knowing that Lizzie was happy. I wouldn’t spoil that happiness, she thought as she looked back at John Rayner, still standing watching her from his door. I know now that she is loved and cared for. She doesn’t need me, I was the one who needed her. She stifled a sob as she took Hardwick’s proffered arm. It’s the price I must pay.
The market vendors beneath their canvas stalls were shouting to attract custom from the crowds of people who were milling in the Market Place. They held up squawking chickens, wriggling rabbits and ripe cheeses as they passed.
Annie permitted herself a smile. There was good natured bantering with the customers haggling for a cheaper price; young children chasing one another between the stalls, and a group of militia men were idling their time away ogling young women and getting a lipful of cheek from them.
She gave a deep sigh. She felt curiously disburdened. Her fears had passed. She could look forward to the future. Tomorrow she would go home. There was nothing for her here. She was a stranger.
Across on the other side of the Market Place she could hear the voice of a preacher. He was imploring all to follow in the way of the Lord and to be saved from damnation as he had been. Each time he finished preaching a judgement, someone rattled on a drum.
‘Hey!’ A shout came from behind her. ‘Hey!’
Annie walked on towards the Cross Keys. Bob Hardwick turned around.
‘Hey! I know thee!’
All her old instincts returned. She knew better than to turn around. To turn around was to invite confrontation, or to invoke a request from a beggar. Or to be confused by a jostling pair who would apologize for mistaken identity and then make off with a purse or baggage. Young Hardwick should surely know better than that.
‘Annie Swinburn!’
Bob Hardwick slowed his step and glanced doubtfully at Annie, then he turned again. ‘Be off with thee,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t be bothering us. Go on, clear off.’
Annie’s temples started to pound and she felt a flush mounting her cheeks which rapidly disappeared, leaving her white faced as an old woman confronted her.
‘I knew it was thee. I knew one day tha’d come back. I’ve been waiting on this day!’
Annie with frightened hammering heart, stared mesmerized into the malevolent glaring face of Mrs Morton, Francis Morton’s mother.
‘Be off with thee, woman.’ Bob Hardwick made to turn the old woman away, but with a surprising strength she lashed out, taking him unawares and making him stagger backwards.
Mrs Morton pressed her bloated face towards Annie, her eyes were hidden beneath pads of swollen flesh and her breath was rancid. She lifted her arm and Annie warding off what she thought to be a blow, knocked off her own velvet hat; her pins came out and her long hair tumbled down.
‘Hah. It’s thee all right. I’d know those locks and innocent blue eyes anywhere. I’ve dreamt of meeting thee again for twenty years.’
‘You’re making a mistake. I’m not who you think I am.’ Annie’s voice was tight and nervous.
The woman screwed up her eyes. ‘Huh. Fancy talk and fancy clothes. Tha allus did think tha was a cut above everybody else.’
‘Get away.’ Bob Hardwick seemed to recover his senses. ‘You don’t know this lady. Be off or I’ll call ’constable.’
Annie shuddered. So this was it at last. She should have known. Should have guessed that Mrs Morton would wait to avenge her precious son. Like a spider in its web she had been waiting all these years.
‘Don’t know her? Don’t know her? ’Course I knows her.’ She pointed an accusing finger at Annie and she shrank back against a shop window.
The shopkeeper came out, wiping his hands on a white apron. ‘Clear off, Meg Morton. Tha’s nowt but a troublemaker. Leave ’lady alone.’
A jostling throng started to gather around them and Annie began to shake. Some of the onlookers had come for sport, but she remembered how quickly their laughter could turn to violence. If they should believe Mrs Morton! She turned to Bob Hardwick. He was a stocky fellow – if they could elbow their way out of the press.
He’d gone! Wildly she looked around but all she could see was grinning faces. Then she saw him. He was running up the Market Place. She saw him stop and grab a boy and point a finger and then set off running again.
There was a sudden shout from further up the street and the crowd as one turned their heads, necks craned to see what was happening elsewhere. ‘It’s sodgers,’ came a cry. ‘Now there’ll be trouble.’
Annie saw from the corner of her eye a flash of colour, the clatter of hooves and rumble of cart wheels. She felt the grip of a hand on her arm.
‘Don’t think tha’ll get away, dearie.’ Mrs Morton hissed in her face. ‘I’m off to fetch ’law. There’s nowhere for thee to hide in this town. I know all ’places, all inns and hidey-holes, and I’ll find thee, don’t think that I won’t.’
‘Now then, Ma. What you up to? Come on, leave ’lady be.’ A fair-haired man pushed his way through the dwindling crowd who were leaving for excitement elsewhere. Annie thought she would faint. Her breath came short and shallow and she gasped. It could have been Francis Morton risen from the dead. The same fair hair, laughing blue eyes and full sensual mouth.
‘Sorry ma’am.’ He touched his forehead. ‘Me ma here is allus looking for somebody she used to know. She’s forever stopping young women, thinking they look like ’one she wants.’ He smiled at her, his eyes appraising her. ‘I’ll take her home, she’ll not bother thee again.’
Mrs Morton lashed out at him and he caught her in a tight grip. ‘Tha’ll not take me anywhere ’till I’ve fetched ’law. This is her, I’m telling thee. She’s come back like I allus said she would.’
‘Aye, Ma, we know,’ he humoured her and turned to Annie. ‘She allus blamed a woman for my brother Francis’s death. She’s been looking for her for years.’
Mrs Morton had been watching him as he spoke, her eyes darting from him to Annie. She gave him a sudden shove which sent him off balance releasing her from his grasp and she tore off up the street. ‘I’m fetching ’law,’ she shouted as she scurried away. ‘Keep hod of her, Ralph, don’t let her get away.’
Another shout erupted from up the street; there came the sound of a pistol shot followed by a woman’s scream. Both Annie and Ralph Morton looked up. A mob were swarming around a company of soldiers, she could see their red uniforms and the plunging heads of horses.
Bob Hardwick came running back. ‘I’ve sent for ’constable and Mr Rayner,’ he said, breathing hard.
Another great shout erupted from the crowd. The three of them turned as the crashing of carts and the frightened whinnying of horses rent the air. They saw the flash of steel as soldiers drew their swords and the arms of the rabble reaching up to drag them down from the backs of their mounts.
‘Look out! Look out!’
A pair of greys, pulling on a gun carriage, their reins hanging free as their driver fought for his life beneath a melee of flailing fists and battering boots, threshed their forelegs in the air and tore away down the street towards them, the gun carriage and its cannon swaying and rattling behind them.
The crowd scattered, stalls were overturned as the mass of people fell back, trampling on one another in an effort to get out of the way. Bob Hardwick grabbed Annie and drew her back into the shelter of the shop doorway.
Morton scanned the street towards his mother’s retreating figure. ‘Ma! Ma! Watch out!’
Mrs Morton’s black swaying shape was alone in the middle of the road as she scurried on in determined purpose.
‘Ma!’ Morton’s voice rose to a scream and he sprinted towards her as the horses, in their mad bolt for freedom, gained on her.
Annie turned her head and closed her eyes, but not before she had seen the black robed figure of Mrs Morton tossed and hurled beneath the flying hooves and heavy wheels of the lumbering gun transport, like a bundle of bloody rags.
Someone ushered Annie into the shop and gave her a chair. She bent over and put her head on her knees and the shopkeeper fetched her a cup of water.
He shook his head. ‘What a dreadful thing to happen! She’s been a hazard for years, wandering around ’town, causing trouble, but even so!’ He looked down on Annie, he’d been watching and listening to all that happened. ‘Don’t blame thaself, ma’am. Her family shouldn’t have let her out on her own. There’s enough of ’em to look after her.’
Annie took a deep breath. Her last adversary. She was surely dead. No longer able to accuse her. But she felt no joy, no relief; only remorse that the old woman should be trampled down in the way she had been. Was Mrs Morton any worse, she wondered, in her addled determination to bring her son’s killer to justice, than she had been in protecting her own daughter from him?
A shadow fell over her. It was Morton. He looked down on her and she felt a sickening fear. His face was white, there was a coldness in his eyes and a slight tic twitching on his upper lip.
‘She’s dead. Never stood a chance. It’s as if she never heard owt, she was that determined to get to ’magistrate.’ His stare was accusing. ‘There’s more to this than meets ’eye. She said she knew thee.’
It’s no good. I’m finished. Annie felt a great weight pulling her down. He’ll be so bitter about his mother, he’ll be prepared to believe anything she’s ever said. I can’t go on. I can’t keep on running any more. When the constable comes, I’ll tell him.
A figure blocked the doorway obscuring the light. She lifted dull eyes and prepared to stand. It wasn’t the constable, it was John Rayner. He was holding Annie’s hat in his hand. He glanced at the figures grouped around Annie, his eyes lingering momentarily on Morton, and then came towards her.
‘Such trouble. I’m so sorry. I came as quickly as I could.’ He gave her her hat and with trembling fingers she put it on and tucked her hair into it. ‘I’d better take you back to the inn. You’re very shaken I can see.’
‘Just a minute, sir.’ Morton blocked his path. ‘Beggin’ tha pardon, Mr Rayner, but there’s questions to be asked of this lady. My ma—afore she was just run over, said she knew her from a long time back.’
John Rayner expressed his sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry about your mother, Morton. So very tragic. There are people out there who have a lot to answer for if they listen to their consciences. There’s a soldier dead too, people injured. A bad day all told.’
He shook his head in commiseration. ‘Your mother was mistaken, I fear. Mrs Linton is a relative of mine, here on a visit. It is highly unlikely that your mother knew her.’ He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder as he bent his head and started to weep. ‘Take her home. Let her rest in peace.’
She told Joan and Tobias that she had witnessed an accident which had shaken her. She would go straight to bed and tomorrow they would go home. Home, she thought. I’m going home.
‘Did you find news of your family, Annie?’ Joan looked at her anxiously. ‘Was Mr Rayner able to help you?’
‘Oh, yes. He did. He helped me in more ways than I could ever thank him for. He was able to tell me all I wanted to know.’
The next morning she was awakened by the insistent banging of a drum. The preacher was back in the Market Place, lecturing and cajoling. We all find our happiness in different ways, she thought, as she looked out of the window on to the street below. This unknown preacher has found his in the way of the Lord, and mine is waiting for me up on the hillside. She was leaving the past behind, the spectral shadows of the Morton family which had been hovering over her were gradually disappearing; only the future was important now.
‘Mamma, Mamma. I want to show you something before we go home.’ Tobias pulled on her skirt as they climbed into the carriage. ‘Yesterday, Joan took me to see the ships in the dock, and then we saw the Humber. Mamma!’ His eyes were shining. ‘I don’t want to be a farmer like Grandpa and Harry. I want to be a sea captain, like Papa used to be. I want to go to Trinity House School.’
She had given one son to the sea. Her eyes filled with tears when she thought of Jimmy, lost from a whaling ship. How could she risk giving another?
‘Please, Mamma, can we drive that way so that I can show you where it is?’
‘Of course we can, though I do remember. You forget Tobias, that once I lived here.’ She smiled down at her eager young son and felt a sudden thrill of achievement. A son of hers going to the finest naval school in the land, and right here in Hull, where her own humble beginnings had been? Why, this town might be proud of her yet. Goodness. Tobias might even become an Admiral! Anything was possible!
Annie leaned her head against the leather seat as the carriage moved off and thought of Matt. She couldn’t wait to see him, to share with him the joys and the sorrows. They would be up on the Wolds before dusk, home at last. Home, how sweet the word.
She opened her eyes as she heard again the sound of the preacher. She put her head to the window. She could see his black-coated figure and an incongruous red waistcoat, his large hat and beneath it some kind of spotted bandana. Beside him stood a woman with a drum.
‘Stop!’ She pulled down the window to call to Grigson. ‘I want to get out.’
She jumped down from the slowing coach. ‘I’ll be a moment only. I must speak to the preacher.’
‘Annie – Mrs Linton, please.’ Joan was agitated at the picture of her mistress dashing across a public place.
‘I’ll go with her, I’ll look after her. Don’t worry.’ Tobias, in search of fun was out of the coach in a flash.
Annie took hold of Tobias’s hand as they approached the preacher. He had his head lifted to the sky and one eye closed in supplication. The other was covered by a black eye-patch.
‘Parson White,’ she breathed. ‘You’re alive!’
He opened his eye and closed his mouth and stared at her. ‘Mrs Linton? Can it be?’
‘Parson White,’ she repeated. ‘You’re not dead!’
He shook his head. ‘As I live and breathe, I’m not dead! The good Lord wasn’t ready for me and here I am.’ He put out his hands and grasped hers. ‘Tell me that the Captain is alive and well!’ He glanced at Tobias. ‘Tell me that this is another of his sons!’
She nodded, too choked to speak. When she was able to continue she said huskily. ‘But Matt said you were dead. He said you had saved his life and that you had been knocked into the sea and were drowned.’
‘Indeed I was knocked into the sea and I thought that my last moment had come. I was down in the depths as deep as could be. But something or someone called me back, and I rose to the surface.’
He clasped his hands together and closed his eye again. When he opened it he looked down at Tobias. ‘I was saved, young sir, to serve my fellow man. My fellow man saved me and I will give my life to serve him—, them!’
‘But what happened, you old rogue?’ Annie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Matt will be so delighted when I tell him.’
Parson White raised a finger. ‘Tell him by all means that his fellow mariner is alive and well and sends his humble regards. But don’t reveal the manner of my escape, I beg you. It would upset him greatly.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper so that Tobias couldn’t hear.
‘I was in the sea and drawing my last breath. I knew that I couldn’t possibly survive. The ships were on fire. It seemed that even the sea was alight there was so much conflagration, and I was ready to meet my maker. Suddenly I felt something nudging me. I thought at first it was a spar or piece of floating timber, and I grabbed it. It turned over. It was a man’s body. A body so blown apart that it was barely recognizable.’
He put his hand across his face. ‘But I did recognize him. Hadn’t I shared his grog? Hadn’t he and I and Captain Linton fought the same enemy?’
‘Greg Sheppard!’ she whispered. She had never met Matt’s sea captain friend but he spoke so often of him, that she felt she knew him.
‘Aye. It was he. There was no doubt in my mind. And he held me there above the water – didn’t leave me once. It was as if it was his last act, even though he was well and truly gone from this world, to save me for some purpose.’
He blew his nose, loud and long. ‘So don’t tell the captain how he was, only that he died a hero’s death.’
‘You can tell him yourself,’ she smiled. ‘For he’ll want to come and see you when I tell him that I found you.’
‘Tell him, too, that I have got me a good woman.’ He pointed to the small woman in a brown bonnet and cloak who was sitting on a stool holding a drum.
‘Aye, she set me on the right path. She feeds me and takes care of me.’ He winked his eye. ‘Aye, and gives me a good deal more besides.’
‘So, you’re a respectable married landsman now? You’ve given up the sea for good?’ Annie nodded amiably at the woman.
‘Ah, well.’ He shuffled his feet. ‘The sea has given me up, I fear. I’m too old now for such a life, but the good Lord is happy to employ me. As for marriage,’ he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I was once married, ma’am, sanctified by church and law.’ He cleared his throat. ‘That good lady is still alive, but—,’ he raised his hands to the heavens. ‘We,’ he indicated the woman, ‘we have God’s blessing on us until such time that the first Mrs White departs this life. Which won’t be for some considerable time, I fear,’ he added in an undertone, ‘for she was very much my junior.’
Annie laughed and shook her head. ‘You are, I think, a hopeless case, Parson White. But I am so pleased, so very pleased to see you again.’ She grasped his hand and squeezed it.
‘And I you, dear lady, and your son. Your other son?’ he remembered. ‘He is well, I trust?’
‘Matt gave me five children,’ she said, drawing Tobias to her. ‘All healthy, and this one wants to be a seaman like his father.’
Parson White scrutinized Tobias. ‘He has the look of his father and the eyes of his uncle. He’ll make a good sailor, I’ll be bound.’ He drew closer. ‘Tell me, Mrs Linton, and then I will detain you no longer, for I see your coachie getting anxious in this melee. Captain Linton and yourself,—erm, though you were of course married in the sight of God and witnesses right there on the waterside, were you, that is to say, did you ever wed again in church to conform with society’s rules?’
She stared and stared, then slowly shook her head. She had always thought that she was a respectable married woman. Was this reformed reprobate parson telling her she wasn’t? She had never once questioned her married state and neither, as far as she knew, had Matt.
It was too ridiculous for words. She started to laugh. She laughed and laughed until her sides ached and tears ran down her face.
She was still laughing when she stepped into the carriage, and she waved to Parson White as they bowled away, and his wife, in God’s eyes, gave a rattling tattoo on her drum.
They climbed and dipped over the chalky downland and fell silent as they viewed the steep-sided grassy dales and the wooded dells. They could hear the rattling cacophany of pheasants and saw their bright plumage as they pecked in the ploughed earth. An owl, up early, called from the woods and Annie listened intently for an answering cry from its mate. There. The reply came clear and strong echoing over the valley.
Soon they would be home. They were almost on the edge of their own land, and the old house, hidden in a fold of the hill, would be waiting, waiting with a houseful of children, a father and a husband.
Annie pulled down the window and called to Grigson to stop. Joan gave a deep sigh and glanced significantly at Tobias.
‘I’m going to walk,’ Annie said. She took off her hat and threw it onto the seat and then bent down and unfastened her boots and slipped them off. She rolled down her stockings and took those off too and tucked them inside her boots. ‘I want you to drive on.’ She smiled at the relieved look on Joan’s face, she had never been over-fond of walking, ‘and tell Captain Linton where I am.’
‘Shall I walk with you, Mamma? There might be wild animals or robbers waiting to jump out at you!’ Tobias watched her anxiously.
She patted his cheek. ‘Wild animals and robbers are no match for your mother, didn’t you know that? No. You go on home and tell the others that I’m coming, and tell Cook we’ll have a celebratory supper tonight, and you can all stay up late.’
She watched as the carriage rattled away and waved her hand to Tobias’s outstretched arm hanging from the window. She put her hand to her head and pulled out her hairpins and combs and put them in her pocket. Her hair dropped long and free, lifting in the slight breeze. She walked on feeling the sharpness of the chalk road beneath her bare feet, not minding it, but enduring the self-imposed discomfort as it sharpened and intensified her thoughts.
This walk she had wanted to take alone. She needed a quiet time to consider her past as well as the future which lay in front of her; to try to recognize the person she had once been and had now become, and to know if they were one and the same.
At the top of a rise she took a rest; her heart was hammering from the uphill climb and her breathing was rapid. She undid the buttons on her tight wool jacket and let her gown beneath it flow free without restraint.
‘That’s better,’ she breathed, ‘now I can go on.’ But she paused a while longer to look back. She was overlooking a deep valley; to the right of the track she had walked up was a wood of mature trees. The leaves had turned to autumn gold; oak and ash glowed as the sun dipped, red and fiery behind her, and sycamore shed their crisp large leaves creating a yellow-brown carpet.
To the left of the track was a steep incline where the pasture land was cropped short by bleating sheep and scurrying rabbits. She narrowed her eyes as she saw the flash of a red bushy tail as a fox pounced on its supper and sped off with a screaming rabbit between its jaws.
But the view she was searching for lay in the far distance on the road she had just travelled. The scene which had always brought her comfort, even in the depths of her worst despair. The Humber, a brown river, flowing deep and strong and carrying the waters of other, lesser rivers, surged on without her, sweeping on in its inevitable rush to the sea.
‘If ever I come this way again,’ she whispered. ‘I shall not be alone.’ She took one more glance, the sky was darkening, the river was almost a trembling pencil line merging with the shores of Lincolnshire.
She turned away and looked up the valley towards the next rise. That was the place where she had waited once before, when Matt had come home. When she reached it this time it would be too dark to see the river again.
A figure sat on horseback atop the rise. It had to be Matt, come to fetch her home. She waved her hand and he waved back and urged his mount towards her.
He looked down on her from his horse’s back. ‘So, Mrs Linton. You came home after all?’ He joked, but she saw anxiety on his face.
‘Is all well at home?’ she asked. ‘Father? The childre’?’ Her old dialect slipped out and he smiled, and dismounted.
‘All’s well,’ he said. ‘Did you find what you were seeking?’
She nodded and felt a fleeting shadow of pain. He put out his arms. ‘We’ve missed you, Annie.’
She didn’t move into the shelter of his arms as she might have done, but stood back and studied him seriously. ‘Captain Linton! Wilt tha marry me?’
He gave a short laugh and his eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘What? How can I marry you? I’m married already. I have a beautiful wife, five handsome children, so how could I possibly marry you? Besides who would ever marry such a creature? Look at you – why, you’re no lady, with your hair hanging down your back and your coat undone and your feet bare!’
‘I’ve come up from ’gutter, Mayster,’ she croaked. ‘Take pity on me!’
He took one large stride towards her and enfolded her close in his arms. ‘Oh Annie, never leave again. I’ve missed you so much.’
She could no longer smell the sea or the river on him. She could smell the aroma of land, of hedgerow and meadow grass and the smoky fires of home.
With her arms wrapped tight around him she kissed him. ‘Wilt tha marry me, Captain Linton? How many times do I have to ask?’
He laughed and returned her kiss. ‘All right, you scarecrow. I’ll marry you.’ He leapt onto his horse and put out his hand for her to come up. ‘Only tell me when we’ve had one marriage ceremony, why we should want another?’
She put her arms around his waist as they broke into a canter and whispered into his ear. ‘Well, it’s like this, Captain. When I was returning home from Hull, I met an old preacher – he’d once been a seaman and a smuggler—!’
His laughter and then hers resounded around the valley. It was echoed by the screeching of a barn owl which flew on silent wings across the hedges; was caught and repeated by the raucous cry of the pheasants, and the evocative bark of a fox. And where the chalk valleys descended gently into open flatlands and muddy shore, the mighty river Humber flowed ever onwards towards its destination.