Children of the Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

his father’s. James, on the other hand, was short and dark, like his mother, quiet anddreamy unlike her, and absent-minded to an irritating degree.
    ‘So what’s happening? I gather you’re not having a party.’ Gilbert looked quizzically round at them as they sat still and silent. ‘Sammi! You’ve been letting that young pup tear up Father’s newspapers?’
    She shook her head and rose to leave the room. ‘If you will excuse me, Aunt Mildred, Uncle Isaac, I’m rather tired. I think I shall go to bed.’
    ‘I shall go too.’ Her aunt rose from her chair. ‘It has been a very tiring evening. No doubt you gentlemen will find plenty to discuss.’ She ignored James, sitting hunched in a chair, and swept out of the room.
    Sammi gave a sympathetic nod to James, said goodnight to her uncle and Gilbert, and left them. She wanted to weep. The thought of the innocent baby, whoever he belonged to, spending the rest of its infant days unwanted in an institution, filled her with dread and pity. The lamp had been left lit in her bedroom and a fire burnt brightly, making the room, with its dark heavy furniture, look quite cosy. Mary had left a covered jug of water at the side of the bed, and a small silver cup and spoon which must have once belonged to the Rayner children.
    Sammi leant over the makeshift crib at the side of her bed and thought of the woman who had brought him. ‘How desperate she must have been to leave you,’ she murmured. ‘And how sad to have lost her daughter.’ She suddenly wanted to see her own mother, to feel the comfort of her loving arms and to tell her of the great sadness which filled her whole being.
    ‘Something momentous has happened, Gilbert, so you’d better sit down. James here has got into a spot of bother.’ Isaac outlined the evening’s events, starting with the woman coming to the house as it had been told to him, and finishing with their visit to Hull.
    ‘You never went searching for her, Father? Why,she’d be hidden away deep down some alleyway where you’d never find her. It’s some trick. Some mischief. It can never be true!’
    ‘I must go to bed.’ Isaac got up and put his hand across his eyes. ‘I am so weary and sick of the whole business. And I have an important meeting in the morning. You won’t forget, Gilbert, will you? I need you there.’
    Both his sons rose. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ James began, ‘so very sorry.’ His eyes filled with tears. He wouldn’t have upset his father for anything.
    Isaac nodded, embarrassed at the show of emotion. ‘It’s your mother I’m sorry for. But you must find somewhere or somebody to take the child first thing tomorrow. I don’t know where,’ he said vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. Perhaps one of the hospitals. Ask Sammi if she’ll go with you. Then we’ll talk in the evening about what you shall do, where you shall go. Your mother’s fixed on that, I fear.’ He cast a glance at James’s look of misery. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’
    ‘You blithering idiot, Jim,’ Gilbert remonstrated when their father had gone. ‘How did you get into such a scrape?’
    ‘I don’t know. The woman just said, “Are you young Rayner?” and when I said yes, she thrust the child at me.’ He started to pace the room. ‘The worst thing is that I can’t even remember it happening.’
    ‘Then it can’t be yours,’ his brother insisted. ‘It must be a prank. Somebody has given your name out instead of their own. But who would do such a dishonourable thing?’
    ‘No.’ James shook his head. ‘Father said I had to work back nine months, and when I did, I remembered.’
    ‘But you just said that you couldn’t remember!’
    James blushed to his hair roots. ‘No, what I meant was that I couldn’t remember the er, the er, you know,
it
, happening with the girl. I can remembergoing up to the room; you remember, Gilbert? It was the night your engagement was announced and we stayed at The Cross Keys.