Chapter 6 Caught by the Tides
Chapter 6
Caught by the Tides
M argate in early December was cold, the sea breeze no longer gentle but sharp, throwing sand into eyes and chilling the skin. The invalids had all gone home, now there were only the locals, so that the need for bathing houses and bathing carriages was greatly diminished, the beach almost empty aside from a few children or dogs running in the wind, unconcerned by the chill. But Northdown House was still a haven of cosy comfort and Laurence was glad he had chosen to visit before he returned to the family home for Christmas.
“You will not need to attend the Assembly Rooms this time, Laurence,” promised Lord Barrington on Laurence’s first evening there. “The season here is quite over until the warmer months see fit to bless us once again.”
Laurence did not say “thank goodness” out loud, but he thought it. “I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lilley in London,” he said instead. “We danced together at the Halesworth ball.”
“Indeed? I am glad to hear it. She will be joining me here in a few days, I hope your paths will cross.”
“Yes, Sir, I intend to stay a week, if you’ll have me.” Having Miss Lilley join them was unexpected, but he was glad for her sake that she had avoided any more of the Little Season.
“Capital, capital. Then we shall be a merry band.”
Frances arrived two days later as dusk came on, the worthy Deborah in tow. Lord Barrington welcomed her in the hallway with a cup of mulled wine.
“Frances my dear, it is wonderful to see you again so soon, I had thought not to enjoy the pleasure of your company this side of Christmas.”
“I begged Mama and since the season proper will not start until March she has let me off the Little Season, once I did not take the eye of the Duke of Buckingham.”
“Ah, yes, I heard of that. It was a bad business, losing the Duke and then his heir so suddenly, thank goodness he had a younger son. Now, allow your maid to do her duty by you so that you are ready for dinner with Mr Mowatt. I myself cannot dine with you, for my physician will be visiting me this evening and will expect to find me tucked up in bed with a hot mutton broth and nothing in the way of a sweet course. The man has no proper feeling for the joys of this earthly life. But Mrs Norris will not stint you and Mr Mowatt, you will always find a generous table when she is in charge.”
“I did not know Mr Mowatt was visiting just now,” said Frances, “though he did mention he would try to.”
“He is a devoted young man,” said Lord Barrington with a smile, turning to Deborah, still waiting with Frances’ trunk. “Deborah, I leave your mistress in your capable hands. You have all of twenty minutes to make her ready for dinner.”
“Yes, Sir.” Deborah bobbed, pointing the footmen towards Frances’ trunk and hurrying upstairs to be ready for her.
“Frances, I will bid you goodnight and see you tomorrow. Enjoy your dinner and be sure to eat some of the apple puffs on my behalf, for I shall be missing them dearly.”
Upstairs, Frances submitted to Deborah’s ministrations, washing and changing her dress and shoes.
“Not the blue silk, it is too elegant, there are only the two of us at dinner. Did you not bring something plainer?”
Deborah shook her head. “Lady Lilley has disposed of most of your plain clothes,” she said. “She complained you looked more like a maid than a lady. And besides the blue is not as fancy as the green,” she added, pointing to a frothy green confection spilling out of the trunk.
“Oh, do as you please,” said Frances, annoyed. “But no ringlets. Or jewellery,” she added, seeing Deborah lift out her jewellery case.
She descended the staircase to find Mr Mowatt waiting for her at the bottom.
“There is no need to take me in to dinner,” she objected. “I am well aware of the location of the dining room.”
“Good evening, Miss Lilley,” he said. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Is it?”
He offered her his arm and she took it after hesitating.
“Yes. I would have been forced to dine alone and one mouth could never do justice to Mrs Norris’ cooking.”
The table was laid out with beautiful floral decorations of white camellias and red holly berries, lit up by dozens of candles which made the silverware and glasses shine. Formal seating rules had been applied, so that their places were laid at either end of the long table, but Frances shook her head.
“That is an absurd seating. Benjamin, change the places. I am not about to shout down the table to Mr Mowatt all evening. We can sit closer together.”
Laurence watched, amused, as Miss Lilley stood waiting to be reseated. The blue dress she wore was plain, but the colour of it lifted the shade of her eyes, making them more blue than grey, which suited her, he thought. She should always wear brighter hues.
The seating rectified, they were now closer together, on opposite sides of one end, the dishes hastily rearranged to their new positions.
Mrs Norris, as expected, had produced a feast, starting with crawfish soup, which was followed by a roast turkey, the rest of the table laden with woodcocks, ragooed lobsters, fried oysters, mushrooms and beef collops as well as fillets of whiting. Lemon jelly, apple puffs, stewed pears and ginger biscuits would complete the meal.
“I wonder how the people of Margate get on when we visitors are gone for the winter,” Frances remarked, as she finished her crawfish soup.
Laurence frowned. “Get on?”
She gestured at the table and its bountiful platters of seafood. “Margate has gone from being a tiny fishing village of no import to a fashionable seaside resort in less than thirty years. Given its proximity to London, it would be even more so were it not that Brighton has the Regent’s favour. The population here has nigh on doubled in the last ten years, all to look after the gentry that come here to be taken care of.”
Laurence shrugged. “I do not see what is wrong with that. They have a fine Assembly Rooms, new shops and houses, all manner of activities in which to delight. They must be much better off.”
She tilted her head. “They?”
“The locals as well as the visitors.”
Frances frowned. “You think a fisherman goes to the Assembly Rooms, that they shop for feathered hats and silk stockings in the milliners, that they can afford a fine townhouse? All of the things you mention are for the visitors alone, or for the few merchants of Margate who have done very well from their patronage, but they had money to invest already, so they were not exactly poor before. The fishermen, the dippers at the bathing machines, the maids who clean the lodging houses and do the laundry, anyone of that sort must watch their little houses pulled down to make way for fine new lodging houses, they must pander to the visitors to earn their wage, and come winter – why, we are all gone, we return to our estates and lock up our holiday homes and they must make do without our money during the hardest part of the year, counting their pennies until we return again.”
Laurence was surprised to hear a woman speak of matters relating to political economy, it was something men might speak of after the ladies had retired to the drawing room and they were left alone with their cigars and port. But she was right, he had not thought of the ebb and flow of a town like Margate. London might ebb and flow but it was always full enough. “What would you have us do, then? Not come here at all? Surely then they would be worse off.”
“I do not think we should stay away. But perhaps spare some thought for whether, when fine new townhouses are built along the promenade, there should also be cottages built for the workers somewhere nearby? Is there a harbour and a beach where the fishermen can safely bring in their catch, or have they been pushed aside for the passenger boats arriving from London and told not to spoil the main beach which is full of fine families strolling and bathing? When Lord Barrington locks up Northdown House for the winter, he takes the staff with him to his main estate, or ensures they are all paid to work throughout the winter, none of them are dismissed till they are wanted again as many other fine houses do – not the footmen and cook, who are harder to come by, but the laundry maids, the kitchen boys and suchlike, who make little enough as it is. He is a thoughtful master to them but it behoves us all to think of these things, and to take action where we may, rather than to think the world was made for us alone to enjoy.”
Her eyes were bright as she spoke and Laurence found himself wanting to continue the conversation, even though dinner was drawing to a close. “Does Lord Barrington have maps of the local area?” he asked.
“He does. He is very fond of collecting maps and drawings of how Margate has changed in the time he has been here.”
“Perhaps…” He was about to say that he could look through them together after dinner, but he changed his words. “Perhaps you would show them to me?”
She looked at him as though she doubted his sincerity, but then nodded. She took an apple puff, shook her head at the offer of the lemon jelly and, having finished, looked at him expectantly. “Shall we go to the library, then?”
The library at Northdown was better endowed than many great homes, for Lord Barrington was an avid reader and had a fine collection. There was a shelf with a desk nearby set aside especially for the study of how Margate had changed, and here Frances led Laurence, pulling down a few books and then using little weights to spread out several maps.
“This, you see, is Margate when Lord Barrington first came here,” she said.
Laurence leant over the paper. The shape of Margate, with its natural curved bay, was at once recognisable, but as for Margate itself, it was barely there at all.
“Look,” said Frances. She pulled out a drawing, a sketch titled Marcoaet, which must have been made from a boat, for it looked across the harbour and towards the town. But again, there were fewer than thirty houses or buildings, including an old windmill up on the hill and the spire of a church. “By a Dutch artist, van Overbeck. It was drawn sometime between 1663 and 1666. As you can see for yourself, Margate barely existed except as a little fishing village. It was probably only the safe natural harbour that drew anyone to live here at all.” She picked up a quill and dipped it in ink. “Since I was a child, this is a list of all the new buildings in Margate and the ones I can recall that are no longer standing.” She wrote quickly, with an odd letter y to which she gave a curly loop as though it were a whorl on a shell, the list growing longer down the page, an impressive feat of memory.
Laurence was standing very close to Frances and while she spoke had become aware of her scent. Not a perfume, for as far as he could tell she did not wear any, but her personal scent, a waft of salt air and lavender soap, the apples she had eaten and something else that he could not put into words, something fresh and cool. But she was looking at him, waiting for a response.
“Remarkable,” he managed. “How did he obtain it?”
She shrugged. “I do not know. He collects such things. As you can see, there were a few fisherman’s cottages, and then further back some farmhouses. Nothing much more. Before that time it was called Mergate or Meregate. Marsh-Gate because it lay between two tidal streams, or perhaps Sea-Gate. Later as it grew it all merged together and became Margate.”
Laurence re-appraised her as she spoke. He had thought her plain when he had first met her, but she was not, only not given to all the fripperies and furbelows of her peers. He had thought her topics of conversation odd, and they were, but only for a woman, a man speaking as she did would be known for his scholarly interests. There was something appealing about time spent with her, she was certainly different from any of the women, married or not, that he knew. He had grown to enjoy her company, he realised.
“Show me the later maps,” he said, taking a seat at the desk beside her. “Do you have the drawings of Northdown House when it was being planned?”
The three of them spent a few days happily resuming their daily walks by the sea, though for shorter periods, since it was cold, with the rest of their days in the library, gallery or drawing room. Along the seashore Laurence spent part of the time talking with Lord Barrington and part of the time walking alongside Frances, offering her shells that he spotted and listening to her descriptions of them. By the third day he had proudly learnt the Latin names of at least five kinds of shell and felt himself quite the collector.
On the fourth morning Lord Barrington was absent at breakfast, and Laurence was summoned to his bedchamber by a footman. His uncle lay propped up on cushions in his bed, looking pale, though he smiled readily enough at the sight of Laurence and his voice still seemed strong.
“Laurence, my boy, I am weary today, I shall not be fit for much. Be so kind as to drive out with Frances to some beauty spot or other where she can collect shells. You can take the carriage of course, and one or two of the footmen to look after you. Her maid can go with you if she desires a chaperone, though I am sure I can leave her in your care. A morning outdoors will brush away the cobwebs.”
Laurence bowed and gave orders that the carriage be brought round but Frances, oddly, hesitated at the idea. They had passed an enjoyable evening together, so he was uncertain of the reason for her reluctance.
“Are you concerned that we might be alone, that it might be remarked upon? Your maid can come with us and I can assure you that –”
She shook her head, impatient. “There is hardly anyone about at this time of year and anyway, who cares what gossips think? Besides, Deborah will only complain about the cold.”
“Then you do not wish to go out because…”
“The tide.”
“The tide?”
“It is rising,” she pointed out as though to a simpleton.
“There is plenty of time,” he said, piqued that she should think him ill informed, though truth be told he had forgotten about the tide. “It will be at its highest point by…”
“Half past twelve,” she said.
“Well, we will be long returned, wanting sustenance since it is hardly the right weather for a picnic. Fetch your collecting basket, we will have a brisk ride there and an hour or so for your shells.”
“I do not wish to bore you.”
“I could do with the walk.”
She hesitated but then gave a brusque nod and went to dress, returning in a grey dress topped with a pelisse in soft brown velvet trimmed with brown fur, a nod to Deborah’s concern that she would catch a chill, for the sun, while bright, was not warm.
Laurence gave orders to the driver that they were to go to Broadstairs, a town close by to the east, from where, at the current low tide, they could walk round to Margate in a couple of hours, which he felt would give them ample time for Miss Lilley to collect shells and for him to avoid any visits from the eager young woman of Margate and their mamas who might have heard he was in town. The carriage could go ahead and meet them in Margate, rather than following them along the coastal pathways above the cliffs.
True to her word, Frances did not bring Deborah, and so once the carriage had been dismissed, they were alone on a windswept beach, walking along at her usual slow pace, eyes always searching.
“I am sure we will be comfortably in time to round Botany Bay before the tide is too high,” he said after a while.
It was odd to be alone in the company of a young woman. Laurence was all too aware that it would be frowned on by anyone of good standing and, should they meet anyone along the way, they would be sure to assume the two of them were at the very least engaged. Perhaps he should have insisted on the maid following them, for the sake of appearances at least.
She did not answer, only stooped to pick up a large mussel shell which was lined with shimmering mother of pearl, brushing the sand away from it and tilting it in the light before dropping into her basket.
“It is curious, is it not,” he tried again, for there ought to be some conversation, “that the moon should govern the tides?”
“The Greeks believed that the goddess of the moon was Selene,” she said, still scanning the sand, “and that her chariot of white horses pulled the tides to and fro. Even without the scientific knowledge we have today, they understood that the moon was linked to the tides. There are many such instances of stories hiding scientific knowledge within them. I believe that is why Lord Barrington likes reading myths and legends from around the world. He appreciates the truths hidden within fiction.”
“Are there myths and legends regarding shells?”
She paused from her searching and met his gaze, as though he had finally said something of importance. “Shells have been used as objects of great import all over the world,” she said. “Cowrie shells were used as currency in Africa, conch shells are blown for ritual sounds, shells were divine offerings to Aphrodite since she was supposed to have come ashore in one, as well as honouring her as the goddess of the sea. And of course, the scallop shell has been used for hundreds of years by pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. They wear one on their person and the way is marked with scallop shells. The scallop is seen as a symbol of renewal and rebirth, of becoming your true self.” She gave a shrug. “And of course they are used for decorative purposes, for jewellery and suchlike.”
He looked her over. She wore no jewellery at all, not even earrings, unlike most women of his acquaintance, who considered themselves only half dressed without their necklaces and earrings, their bracelets and brooches. “I would have thought you might like pearls,” he said. “Since they are found within shells.”
She nodded. “They are beautiful,” she said. “They remind me of shells when I see them.”
“Have you ever found one yourself?”
“Only tiny seed pearls, once or twice. Not yet grown to full size. They take years to grow. Once a bit of grit gets inside a shell, it must be covered in layers of nacre.”
“Nacre?”
“The pearlescent coating on the insides of shells. They build up over the piece of grit to make the pearl.”
“I believe pearls are a symbol of beauty and love,” he said, the gallant words coming automatically, though he immediately wondered if such words were too flirtatious. He was accustomed to speaking in such ways to the married women with whom he spent most of his time, but perhaps he should not have spoken in such a way when alone with a young woman. Pearls, after all, were frequently given to brides to be worn on their wedding day.
She grimaced. “I would prefer to think of them as symbols of wisdom and experience,” she said. “A pearl is created over many years, an oyster turning something painful to itself into something bearable. The beauty we enjoy is a by-product of its efforts.” She stooped again, selecting a stone which had a hole through it, bored by the sea over many years, and held it out to him. “This is called a hag stone. You are supposed to be able to look through it at a witch and see through her disguise.”
He took the stone and looked down at it in his hand. It was tempting to look at her through it, to make a joke about seeing her true self, as he would have done with his sisters. If he had been wooing her, he would have made a seductive comment about seeing her stripped of her disguise, and enjoyed a little banter between them as to what she might therefore be wearing… or not. Neither seemed right. Instead he held it up and looked through it to the sea, then stiffened.
“Is it a seal?” He pointed out to sea.
She turned at once and they watched the spot he had pointed to, where the waves broke offshore and there was foam. And yes, there was a dark brown head, bobbing up and down, steadily regarding them.
“Do you often see them?” Laurence asked, enchanted. He had never seen a seal before and there was something about its curiosity that was endearing, how it stared at them even as they stared at it.
“Sometimes, when there are not too many people. Not on the main beach at Margate, but here, on the quieter shores.”
“Perhaps she is a selkie,” he said, smiling. “Should I ask her to marry me, do you think?”
She turned away from the seal, regarding him with her head tilted to one side. “Marry you?”
“A selkie is a seal-bride,” he said. “There is a story of a man who saw a beautiful woman emerge from a sealskin. When he hid her sealskin, she agreed to marry him and was a loving wife, even bearing his children. But one day she found the sealskin where he had hidden it and she returned to the sea, never to be seen again.” He thought. “I never understood why she would be a loving wife but then return to the sea just because she found the sealskin again. Surely, if she loved him, she would have stayed regardless?”
She said nothing for a few moments, and he thought perhaps she disagreed with him or was uninterested in the story, but after a few more paces she stopped and turned to face him, her bonnet ribbons fluttering in the wind.
“I understand why she would go.”
“Who?”
“The selkie.”
“Do you? Why?”
“It is exhausting not to be your true self, to have to wear a mask to be considered acceptable. It is why I do not much like to be in society. I can wear the clothes my modiste and mother have insisted on, I can make polite conversation, I can sit and sip tea at one house after another until I could scream, but when I get home I will sit alone and in silence for the rest of the day, just to recover.” She looked at him, as though judging his expression, then continued. “I know I am not like other people, that you and everyone else finds me odd, but that is the truth of it. I do not know how other women bear the season, though I can see for myself that they can and do, indeed they seem to find pleasure in it.” She looked back at the sea, now empty, the seal having disappeared. “Perhaps the man should have allowed the selkie to come and go from the sea, that she might not grow exhausted by the ways of humans. Perhaps then she would have stayed with him forever.” She turned away from the sea, began walking onwards. “The tide is rising,” she called over her shoulder. “We must make haste.”
Laurence stood, watching her walk away. She had shown him a part of herself he had not been expecting, had countered his light-hearted story of a selkie with a truth buried in the story that had never occurred to him, that tinged the tale with sadness rather than mystery, that the man had not been able to see that his bride was unhappy, had not allowed her true self to be known, had made her hide it away until she could bear it no longer and had abandoned what love had been between them, unable to sustain her human form without respite. He looked back out to sea, but the seal was gone, had dived below or returned to its own kind somewhere else. Ahead, Miss Lilley’s brown velvet and fur pelisse was the only seal-like form on the beach, and he hurried after her.
Within an hour they had reached Botany Bay, where giant chalk stacks rose up out of the water, but Laurence had forgotten how slow their pace was when gathering shells. The sea was already lapping at the stacks. They would not reach Margate, it would take another half an hour to reach that shore. The quickest way off the beach was just beyond the chalk stacks, but the water was already knee deep and rising. They could not retreat, for the shoreline was rapidly receding behind them. Above them were steep cliffs which were unsafe to climb.
“We may have to wait at the top of the beach there, against the cliff, until the tide begins to fall again,” he said. “But it will be a few hours.”
“No need,” she said. “We will walk through the gap in the stacks to the other side, where we can reach the higher beach. There is a little path cut into the cliffs where we will be able to leave the sands and reach the clifftops. From there we can walk to Margate in safety.”
It was an unexpected decision, but he nodded. The water was still only knee high, so he could carry her in his arms. He would be soaked, of course, but it would be safe enough. “I will remove my boots. If you would not mind holding them while I carry you, I think it will be safer than allowing water to get inside, which might weigh them down.”
She frowned at him. “ Carry me?”
He stared back at her, confused. “Well, of course, Miss Lilley, I hardly think you can walk through the sea, it is far too deep. It would be dangerous.”
“Nonsense,” she said briskly. “I will be entirely unharmed if we are quick about it.” “Though,” she amended, “my boots will likely be ruined, and Deborah will have plenty to say about seawater on the hem of my pelisse and gown, but she will get over it and my modiste and shoemaker will be delighted to make new ones. Now then.”
To his horror, she strode forwards. The sea was already lapping at her boots, but as she reached the curved archway between two chalk stacks, wider than a large door, the top of the arch towering high above her, she scooped up her pelisse as well as her skirts and pulled them upwards. Laurence saw her cream stockings, the pink silk ribbon bows holding them up at the knee, then one shocking glimpse of the bare white skin above, before the water was already swirling between her knees, threatening to wet her thighs. He stood, staring as she walked through the archway and then disappeared to the other side, before hastily pulling off his boots and following her. The cold seawater drenched his legs and lower breeches at once, but he made his way through the arch and through the shallower water up to the beach, where he found her, skirts and pelisse back in place, her little boots sodden, the pale brown leather turned dark. She watched him as he replaced his boots, unable to avoid sand getting inside them.
“I expect your man will be able to remove the sand and dry them out. Now, we had better use the cliff top walk, for we cannot make Margate, the water is already too high. The path to it is up here.”
She made her way up the beach, soft sand sucking at her feet, making her walk slowly towards the tiny path at the top, cut through the chalk cliffs, allowing them to reach the upper ground away from the beach. Laurence followed behind in silence. He had expected to carry her, would have seen it as the gentlemanly thing to do, had offered it without any intentions of intimacy, of the opportunity to touch her. But her actions had stunned him, both her bravery in risking the deep wading alone, but also her lifting her skirts so high, affording him that momentary image which would not now leave him, the delicate pink bows and above them that flash of skin, the whiteness of her thighs, how the foam had swirled between her legs. He was breathless with desire both at what he had seen and her lack of coyness. And yet she had not been brazen, there had been no intention to arouse in her actions, only her matter-of-fact solution to the situation in which they had found themselves. If he had been the man in the story who had seen, for one second, the stirring sight of the woman beneath the sealskin, he too would have grabbed at the fur and hidden it away to keep her by his side. As he reached her at the top of the cliff, the sea below them, he thought for a moment of pulling her towards him, of slipping his hands beneath the brown velvet pelisse to find her warm body, looking into her wide grey eyes before kissing her upturned lips.
“The carriage will be a welcome sight when we reach it,” she said, looking him up and down. “We are both in need of a warm bath, are we not?”
Her words only brought more images to his mind, the steam rising, the heat and wetness of her skin against his if they were to share a bath together, the pink bows of her stockings lying discarded on the floor… He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the fantasy before it subsumed him.
“You do not think you need to be warmed after that experience?”
“It was nothing,” he managed. “But I admire your bravery,” he added.
“I am not a damsel in distress in need of rescuing,” she retorted. “I have been caught by the tides more than once over the years, which is why I warned you of them. But no matter, there is little harm done. Now, we had better make our way to Margate or the footmen will think us lost.”
They walked in silence back to Margate, where the carriage, as agreed, was waiting and returned them at a brisk pace to Northdown House, where Deborah exclaimed over Miss Lilley’s wet boots and hurried her away for a bath. Laurence refused one, uncertain that he wished to continue his thoughts about Miss Lilley. He changed into clean clothes and left Roberts to deal with the boots, returning to the drawing room, where he poured himself a drink and tried to clear his head. His thoughts about Miss Lilley were inappropriate, and besides, he had no interest in such an odd woman. No doubt he was missing the charms of his usual bedfellows, that was all.
The evening passed with the usual delicious food, some conversation and an early night for all, but Laurence spent a restless night, thanks to dreams of wide-eyed seals diving through waves which rose ever higher while he searched in vain for someone – he could not see whom – lost in the darkening waters, waking more than once with sweat on his brow.