Tidelands

He nodded. “He’s walked her to the ferry every evening since harvest home. They sit on the pier, talking and talking like there was any news here. He doesn’t go till I tell her it’s the last crossing of the day.”

“It’s hot enough,” Alys interrupted. “Surely that’s hot enough!”

Alinor and Ned threaded the carry pole through the loops again, took the heavy pot out to the scullery, and set it down on the brick floor.

“I’ll see you later,” Ned remarked. “You can leave the water in the copper for me. I can’t recall when I last had a proper wash, and your water is always so sweet.”

He closed the door on the two of them and they both stripped naked, washed each other’s hair, and then took it in turns to pour jug after jug of water over each other. The tincture of soapwort made the water as cloudy and as slick as soap, and the oil of lavender scented the whole room. They were both shivering when they dried themselves, standing on the cold brick floor, and then they toweled their heads, dressed themselves in their clean linen and brushed gowns, and went out through the kitchen with their damp hair tumbled down over their shoulders.

Ned was on the bench outside the door, smoking his pipe and watching the bright water lapping at the pier. The tide was coming in fast, washing over the cobblestones of the wadeway, foaming in the rife against the outflowing river water. “Going to be a nice day,” he remarked. “You two look as fresh as daisies.”

Alys and Alinor, holding their skirts bunched up so that not a speck of mud should mark the hems, walked gingerly back along the bank and down the steps to the cottage. Their linen caps were dry and pressed smooth on top of the earthenware fire cover. They plaited each other’s damp hair and then pinned the caps on top.

“How do I look?” Alys asked, turning towards her mother.

Alinor looked at her daughter, the perfect skin of a girl tinged with a rising blush, her golden hair hidden by the white cap, her wide blue eyes and her mischievous smile. “You look beautiful,” she said. “I don’t think anyone could resist you.”

“It’s his mother I’m worried about. His father’s very kind to me; but she’s hard-hearted. Ma, we’re going to have to talk her round. Can’t you take a potion, or something?”

“A love potion?” Alinor laughed at her daughter. “You know I don’t do such things.”

“She has to agree we can marry,” Alys said again. “She has to.”

“He’s an only son: they’re bound to want the best for him. But everyone says he can wrap them round his little finger. Will he have told them that we’re visiting today?”

“Yes, and he’ll have told them why. He said they’ll give us breakfast. We can’t be late.”

“We don’t want to arrive at dawn. We don’t want to look too eager.”

“I am eager!” Alys insisted.

Alinor had a sudden flash of memory of James’s touch, and the taste of his mouth, the thudding of his heart as he pressed her against the hayrick. “I understand eagerness,” she said, turning away. “I do. But first we’ve got to put out the herbs and the oil, and feed the hens and cover the fire.”

“I know!” Alys said impatiently. “I know. I’ll do the hens.”

As Alys shooed the hens out of the door, took two eggs from their nests, and put them in the crock, Alinor poured flaxseed oil from the jug into a big glass pitcher packed with the last of the fresh basil leaves, and corked it tight. She made another pitcher filled with comfrey and put the two of them on a shelf outside the cottage where the rising sun would strike them, and warm them all day long till the spirit was drawn from the herbs and into the oil. Alinor went to the corner cupboard where she distilled her oils and dried her herbs, and she took a dozen little bottles and put them in her basket.

“Are you ready?” Alys demanded. “D’you have everything? Can we go now?”

“Is the fire covered?”

“Yes, yes!”

“And the marks against fire?”

Alys bent to the hearth, took up a twig of kindling, and drew the runes against house fire. “There!”

“We want it nice . . .” Alinor began.

Alys completed the phrase, laughing: “to come back to.”

“I know! I know!” Alinor admitted her predictable instruction. “But it’s what my mother always said, and it’s always true.”

“It’s perfect to come back to. Mrs. Miller herself would admire it. Let’s go.”

The two women walked in single file back along the bank to Ferry-house. The tide was high, and a farmer was leading his big cob horse off the ferry and climbing into his saddle off the mounting block.

“Going to Chichester market, Goodwife Reekie?” he greeted Alinor.

“Yes. Are you keeping well, Farmer Chudleigh?” she called up to him.

“I am,” he said. “But I’ll thank you for that goose grease of yours when the cold gets into my old knees.”

“I’ll bring you a jar,” she promised him.

“You two look like you’ve been new-minted,” Ned complimented them. “So clean you’re shiny.”

Alys giggled and raised her skirt away from the muddy hoofprints on the quayside.

“Not taking any wool to market?” Ned asked his niece, holding the ferry steady for them against the pier.