Tidelands

“Not when they know that Da’s left us,” Rob contradicted her. “Not when they know you’re not a widow nor a wife. You’ll never get your license then. Even if the bishop comes back. You won’t be a woman of good repute. They won’t even let you into church; you’ll have to stand in the porch. They won’t let you in for communion.”

“Perhaps people won’t mind too much. Nobody liked Zachary.”

“They’ll call me a bastard!” he choked.

“They’ll be wrong,” she said steadfastly. “And you need not answer to it.”

He was silent for a moment. “Should we move away?” he asked. “Somewhere that you could call yourself a widow, and Alys and I could find work, and people wouldn’t know?”

“No parish would have us!” She tried to smile but he could see the pain in her face. “No parish would admit a widow woman with two children! They’d be too afraid that we’d fall on the parish and cost money. Mrs. Miller is afraid already, and we were born and bred here and have paid our tithes for generations. And besides, you know, gossip’d follow us, and it’d sound worse to strangers, people who didn’t know Zachary, and don’t know what he’s like.”

“I can’t face it here.”

“Yes, I understand. I do understand, Rob. But, at least here we have the garden and the boat and your uncle. I have my stillroom and my dairy and the brewhouse in Ferry-house. I work the garden with your uncle. There’s always work at the mill. They think well of you at the Priory, and Mrs. Wheatley, the cook, is a good friend to me. We’ll just have to make up our minds to tell everyone that Zachary has left me, so there’s no more talk of whether or not he’s dead. It’ll be bad for a month or two; but then something’ll happen and everyone’ll become accustomed.” She tried to smile at him reassuringly. “You’ll see. Some poor woman will hop over the stile and be shamed in church before us all. They’ll find something else to gossip about; they’ll talk about someone else.”

“They will blame you and they will look down on you, and you’ve done nothing wrong!” he said fiercely.

She nodded grimly. “Yes, maybe. But I have a good reputation as a hardworking woman with some skills, and that won’t change. Zachary was not well loved and nobody’ll miss him. I didn’t even miss him, but for the boat and his earnings.”

He nodded. “You’ll have to live without a husband for the rest of your life. And you’re—I don’t know—thirty?”

She smiled. “I’m twenty-seven years old. Yes, I’ll be a single woman for the rest of my life; but that’s no hardship for me. I have you and Alys, and I want for nothing more.”

“You might find someone you love,” he said shyly. “Someone might find you.”

“Nobody will ever find me here.” She gestured to the open door and the stretches of mud and slowly receding brackish water outside, as the low rumble of the tide mill started up like thunder, and there was a sudden gout of green water in the rife. “Nobody will ever find a woman like me in a place like this.”

James met with Sir William in the library after Walter had gone to bed. The candles were burned down in their sconces and the deerhound slept before the fire. Sir William was in his great chair by the fireside, James on the other side in a smaller chair. Both men had glasses of French brandy, smuggled by the hidden traders who came to the tide mill quay on the high tide dark nights, and left without showing a light. James was wearily explaining the king’s plan to trick the parliament and his refusal to leave.

“He wouldn’t come? Not even for the password?” Sir William repeated incredulously.

James shook his head. “No, sir, he would not.”

“You warned him of what might be?”

“I warned him, and I told him that it was his wife’s own plan and his son was waiting in his ship offshore. I begged him. He wouldn’t come.”

“God save him, this is a damnable mistake.” Sir William held up his glass in a toast. James clinked glasses and sat back in his chair.

“Are you sick?” Sir William cocked an eye at the younger man’s pale face.

“Perhaps a little fever. Nothing important.”

“So d’you think there’s any chance he might be right? That parliament will come to an agreement with him?”

“Newport is filled with royalists who boast that it doesn’t matter what he signs. They say he will sign anything, and once he’s back in his palace he’ll avenge his advisors that parliament executed, restore the queen, and bring the royal family back to London. He’ll take back his power and destroy his enemies. Everyone says that it doesn’t matter what he signs now—he will restore himself.”

“I doubt it. I really doubt it. The parliament men aren’t fools. It has cost them dear to get here. They’ve lost sons and brothers, too. They won’t throw it away on an empty agreement when he has given them every reason never to trust him. My own ferry-man doesn’t trust him! Anything they offer would have to be binding. They’ll tie him down with oaths. They won’t just hand him the treasury and the army for a handful of promises.”

“I was told that he will consent to nothing less,” James said wearily.