Tidelands

“Not today,” she said. “Ma is buying some lace for Mrs. Miller if she sees anything nice, and selling some of her oils.”

“Ribbons for you?” he asked.

“Vanity is a sin, Uncle,” she said with a toss of her pretty head that made him laugh.

The tide was flowing slowly and smoothly inward, but even so, Alinor gripped the side of the boat with both hands, and when Red, the dog, jumped into the boat beside her she gave a little gasp of fear.

“That tutor, James Summer, went north in the middle of the night,” Ned observed. “Over the wadeway on Sir William’s second horse by the light of the moon. Didn’t call me, but I saw him. Going to London, I suppose. Didn’t call for a light. Didn’t stop for a chat. Doesn’t talk much. Doesn’t do much teaching either, does he?”

“I don’t know,” Alinor said.

“Does Rob know when he’s coming back?”

“He didn’t say.”

“He looked better than when he arrived. He was sick as a dog, wasn’t he?”

“Fever,” Alinor said shortly, keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Will you buy a sheep’s cheese for me at the market?”

“Yes,” Alinor said. “We’ll be back before dinnertime.”

He handed her out of the boat on the far side. “You might get a lift in a wagon. You could wait here for anyone crossing.”

“We’ll start walking,” Alinor said, and she and her daughter made their way up the road as Ned pulled the ferry back to the island side to wait for customers going to Chichester market.

After a little way, the two women turned left off the road to Chichester and took the footpath towards Birdham. The ground was marshy, but the unmarked path ran on the top of raised banks at the edges of the fields, and on stepping-stones over the streams. Climbing over stiles that crossed the hedges from one low-lying marshy field to another, they made their way to the little village, a handful of houses clustered on the road.

They both paused on the grass verge of the one-track road. “Do I look all right?” Alys asked nervously.

Alinor straightened her daughter’s cap, set her cloak a little more evenly on her shoulders. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s wipe our boots.”

Despite all their caution, the hems of their skirts were dirty from the walk, and their boots caked with mud. Carefully, they lifted their skirts and wiped the sides and toes of their boots on the grass of the verge.

“I’m sweaty,” Alys said nervously. “And muddy. Damn this place, I’m always muddy. He’s never seen me in a clean petticoat!”

“You’re beautiful,” Alinor reassured her. “And he’s seen you a lot worse.”

Stoney Farm stood back from the road, a low wall of knapped flints between the house and the lane, to keep the stock from straying. A grassy track led to the front door through a small orchard of fruit trees, the apple trees bowed low with ripe fruit, a picker’s triangular ladder leaning against one of them.

It was a good-sized house, one of the best in the little parish, two bedrooms and a lumber room for storage under the reed-thatched roof, and below them a kitchen and two rooms: one used as a parlor and one used as a store. The kitchen ran the length of the back of the house, the brewhouse and the dairy were across the stone-flagged yard from the kitchen door, the barn and the stables made the fourth side of the square. As the two women walked towards the front door, Richard Stoney, in a suit of dark brown, and good riding boots, muddy from the stable yard, came bounding round the corner of the house and ran towards them.

“You’ve come! Oh, you’ve come!” He skidded to a halt and stopped himself embracing Alys. He made a little bow to Alinor. “Mrs. Reekie, thank you for coming. Alys . . .” He shot her a warm conspiratorial glance. “Good day, Alys.”

As soon as she saw the warm intimate look that passed between him and her daughter Alinor knew their secret as clearly as if they had told her. She was certain that they were lovers, that Alys had defied all her warnings, all the teaching from school and church, had evaded Mrs. Miller’s suspicious glare, had followed her heart and not her head, and had lain with this young man.

Now Alinor understood why Alys was so determined that the betrothal should go ahead. If Richard could not persuade his parents to agree to the marriage then he and Alys would have to part, and his parents would probably take him away from the tide mill to make sure that the couple never met again. Alys would be known as a girl who had lost the man of her choice, and her eventual marriage would be widely known as second-best. If it was ever known that she had lost her virginity it would be hard to find a reputable young man for her to marry at all, and Mrs. Miller would be within her rights to turn her away from work. Most village betrothals started with a promise and a bedding, but times had changed, and godly people and families on the rise condemned young love as both unchaste and bad for business.

“Oh, no,” Alinor whispered under her breath.