Tidelands Read online

  Alinor knelt and buried her face in her hands. Having rescued a papist, brought him to a royalist safe house, put her son into service under a cavalier lord, and lied to her brother, she feared she was very far from the bright light of day.

  Mrs. Wheatley nudged her. “Amen,” she said loudly.

  “Amen.” Alinor rose to her feet and joined in.

  It was the bidding prayer that released them. Sir William rose to his feet, remembered not to bow towards the old stone altar, which stood ignored, swept bare of the rich gold and silver, under the eastern window of the chapel. His lordship turned his back on the consecrated ground as if it were not his family’s long-revered sacred space, and led the way out. Everyone followed him. Only the priest stayed in the chapel, his head bent in prayer in the silent whitewashed room.

  “I go to breakfast now.” Rob appeared at his mother’s side as the household dispersed to work. At once Alinor put her arms around him and kissed the warm top of his head.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked him quickly. “Are you well treated?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I get beef for breakfast, and ham if I want it.”

  “You go,” she agreed. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”

  A quick smile and he was gone, trotting after Walter. As he came alongside, he deliberately bounced against Walter and the noble-born boy jostled him back as if they were both village children in the churchyard. Alinor, watching, realized that her son was happy, and his companionship with the son of the lord of the manor was a real friendship.

  Mrs. Wheatley led the way back to the kitchen, took up the peel, and shoveled fresh-baked rolls from the bread oven. She passed one to Alinor, who put it in her apron pocket and felt the warmth against her hip.

  “Thank you,” Alinor said, grateful for much more than the bread.

  Mrs. Wheatley nodded. “I knew you’d pine for him. But he’s doing well enough, as you see, and Master Walter is a friendly boy. There’s no spite in him.”

  On impulse, Alinor kissed the older woman’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said again, and took up her basket, unpacked the samphire leaves into the cool larder, and went out of the kitchen door into the kitchen garden. Dawdling down the paths, pretending to look at the growing herbs in the late summer blowsy richness, she arrived at the gate to the sea meadow. Only then, as she put her hand on the latch and turned to see Father James coming out of the house, did she admit to herself that she had been delaying in the hope that he would come after her.

  She found she was blushing and hot, and worse, she had nothing to say. She remembered that she should not speak of the first time they had met. That was a secret of grave importance. But if she did not speak of that, how could she say anything to him? She should be greeting him with deference, as a complete stranger, a guest of her lord, a minister of the church. But if they were strangers he would not be striding past the herb beds towards her, his handsome face alight with joy at seeing her. She did not even know what to call him, but he came so quickly towards her and took both her hands in his warm clasp that she could say nothing but: “Oh.” “Oh,” she said.

  “I knew that I would see you again,” he said hastily.

  “I . . .” She withdrew her hands and at once he released her.

  “Sir William has taken me on as his chaplain. I pass as a minister of the reformed religion. Nobody in the household but Mr. Tudeley knows any different. Your boy doesn’t know. He doesn’t attend Mass, nor does Walter. The Mass is completely secret, held only at night when the household is asleep. He is in no danger. He doesn’t know what I am,” he said in a rush.

  “He mustn’t know,” was all she could say. “He’s been raised . . . and his uncle served under Cromwell himself. He mustn’t . . .”

  “I know. Mr. Tudeley warned us when I said I would like Robert to share Walter’s lessons.”

  “You got Rob hired for my sake?”

  “I owe you a great debt,” he said. “You took me in and hid me and brought me to safety.”

  She nodded at his formal tone. He spoke as if she were one of the faithful—morally bound to assist a priest—as if there had never been a moment in the meadow, as if he had never said: “a woman like you.”

  “It was nothing.” She was cool in return. “My duty to Sir William. I know not to speak of it.”

  “And besides,” he said.

  “Besides?”

  Now it was his turn to be lost for words. “I wanted . . . I want . . . I hoped I might do something that would help you. I would have sent you money, but I thought this would be better.”

  “That was kind of you, sir. But I need nothing.”

  “Because I—” He broke off.

  “Because you?”

  He took a breath. “I have never known a woman like you before.”

  “ ‘A woman like you in a place like this,’ ” she quoted his words back at him.

  He flushed. “Such a stupid thing to say.”

  “No! I was so pleased! It meant—”

  “Not that I think there is anything wrong with Sealsea Island.”

  “It’s very poor,” she said simply. “It must look very poor to you, who are used to so much better. Finer.”

  “I’ve never met a woman finer than you!”

  They were both shocked at his sudden honesty. It was as if they both heard the words and would have to go apart from each other in silence and think what they meant.

  “I’d better go,” she said, her hand on the latch but not moving.

  “Yes,” he said. “Can you buy the fishing boat now?”

  He watched her smile and then she raised her eyes to meet his.

  “I’m getting it next week,” she said with simple gratitude. “I’m going with my brother to see an old skiff at Dell Quay.”

  “Will you sail it home?”

  “Oh, no. We wouldn’t go all the way by sea around the island. I wouldn’t dare. We’ll borrow a cart from the tide mill and fetch it down the lanes. It’s only a little way by land, five miles.”

  “And will you be brave enough to take it out on the water?”

  “I must be,” she said steadily. “I have to be.”

  “Will you take me out? I could bring the boys. Your son must know how to fish—he could teach Walter.”

  Together they considered this; they imagined this next step.

  “I don’t see why not,” she said slowly, imagining how it would look to the servants in the household, what they would say at the mill if they saw the boat on the water with the four of them on board. “Would Sir William allow Master Walter to go out in a little boat?”

  “Why not? And Robert can guide us to your cottage. There would be nothing wrong in that.”

  “Nothing wrong,” she agreed with him.

  It was odd that their last words, as she bobbed a curtsey and went through the door to the sea meadow, was that there could be nothing wrong. They both knew that it was wrong: she should not be hoping that her son would bring him to her, and James knew very well that he should not meet her again.

  TIDELANDS, AUGUST 1648

  Rob led the chaplain and young Walter to the cottage along the shore path, in the heat of the afternoon, leaping like a goat over the briny puddles and pattering up and down from beach to bank and from tussock of reeds to dry land. Walter, in smart buckled shoes, slipped and slid after him, complaining of the mud and the incoming tide. Father James followed behind. The tide lapped inwards, closer all the time, seeping up the beach so quickly that they had to clamber from the shore to the high path on the bank as they got to the cottage. They could hear the hiss of bubbling water in the hushing well.

  Rob exclaimed at the sight of the skiff moored at the end of the rickety pier outside his mother’s cottage, and at his mother coming towards them smiling, a clean white cap hiding the twisted plait of her golden hair, a clean apron around her waist. Rob bounded forward, knelt for her blessing, and then bounced up to kiss her. “You remember Master