Silently and contemplatively the pair trudged from the beach, leaving behind them the pitiable women, foraging and ferreting before the turning tide reclaimed their property.
Harriet reached the street door to her house, straightened her shoulders and steadied herself for what she was about to see in the parlour. Taking a deep breath, she lifted the latch and opened the door. She stepped inside with Christopher just behind her.
Despite being early in the morning, the parlour was darkened by the thin sheet of black baize, which draped down over the window. The subdued fire and the rush lights, which would stay lit until Joseph’s funeral, painted eerie and unnaturally long shadows on the walls. As was customary, the looking glass had been turned around and the clock stopped at eight o’clock last night—the approximate time of her father’s passing.
Her mother was sewing beside the fire, her face heated and blotchy. She scrutinised Harriet, her eyes narrowing testily. She tossed her garments to the floor and reared up. ‘Hattie, do you be wanting a bannicking?’ she shouted. ‘Look at you! You don’t be wearing an inch of black.’
Tears began to gather in the corners of Harriet’s eyes. She knew that she shouldn’t be seen out without the appropriate mourning attire, but she had just been desperate to escape the house. She couldn’t have remained, not this morning, not while her mother was preparing him. ‘Sorry, Ma.’
‘You be disrespecting him,’ she yelled, pointing to the other side of the parlour—the side that Harriet had thus far avoided acknowledging. ‘Look at him.’
Harriet turned to face the wooden coffin. She looked at the grain in the wood, counting the numerous dark knots. She studied the two simple brass handles. She caught a glimpse of the inside, then she turned back to face her mother. ‘What are you sewing?’
Her mother sighed and returned to her seat, picking up the clothing from the floor. ‘I be trying to sew a new lining on my pelisse then I be a-dying it black. I be doing one for each of you girls and all.’
‘Ma,’ Harriet began. ‘Christopher’s lost all and everything in the storm. Do we got anything we can be a-giving him?’
Her mother glanced at Christopher and nodded. ‘You can take Joe’s clothes. He ain’t got much—just one or two outfits. You ain’t quite his size yet, but you be a-growing fast.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Lovekin,’ Christopher said. ‘If you be certain sure.’
‘That I am. We be a family of girls now with no need for…’ her voice trailed off. ‘You found yourself lodgings, yet, Christopher?’
‘Not yet,’ he answered dismally. ‘I be thinking of trying to track down the whereabouts of me older brother, Charles.’
Eliza set down her sewing and glanced at Christopher. The look was almost imperceptibly quick, yet Harriet spotted it; something shared, unspoken but conspiratorial, passed between them.
‘I don’t be thinking that a good idea, Christopher. Happen you could lodge here,’ Eliza said.
Christopher looked taken aback. ‘Here?’
‘Think your Ma would be a-liking that, Christopher,’ Eliza said. ‘We went back a long way, me and her. And fegs, I know I be a-needing the help now poor Joe’s passed on.’
‘But where will he be sleeping?’ Harriet blurted. She liked Christopher very much but she didn’t want him to be living under the same roof. And what was that look between them all about?
‘Don’t you be bothering yourself about that,’ Eliza answered. ‘I be having an idea of putting the rooms above the Black Horse to better use.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Lovekin,’ Christopher said. ‘I would be loving to lodge here.’ He faced Harriet. ‘If it don’t be too much trouble.’
‘No trouble,’ Eliza said.
‘I best be getting to work, then,’ Christopher said. ‘Since the storm we got a mountain of shoes to repair.’
Harriet mumbled a goodbye and forced a smile, whilst searching her feelings for the root of her resentment. It was because of him. She knew it. Richard. He might turn up any evening and he’d find Christopher here. That couldn’t happen. She skulked upstairs, deep in thought.
It was customary for there always to be a person keeping vigil beside a coffin from death until burial, lest the deceased should wake. Tonight, it was Harriet’s turn to sit beside her father’s body. Her sisters were asleep, her mother was in the Black Horse and Christopher was still at work.
She was sitting on a chair beside the coffin attempting to repair a long tear in their precious American flag. Her mother would have made a much better reparation, but Harriet wanted it to be she who saved it. She intended to speak with Mr Vine, the mast-maker, and ask for him to erect a new flagpole for it.
Harriet held her work up to the rush light and was disappointed. The stiches, ill-matching in colour, were obvious and shoddy. No! she thought in frustration, It ain’t good enough to go up no new flagpole! She flung the flag to the floor and rose from her chair.
He was there—in her peripheral vision—she could just see the dark shape of the coffin, the indistinct form of his head with his prominent nose and beard sticking out. Her eyes filled with resentful tears, her vision blurred and he vanished.
Her thoughts turned to Richard and how he had, on the night of such terrible storms, come all the way to the America Ground, under the pretence of handing back her shawl. Would he really have come all that way just for that under such conditions? Was it really too much to imagine that he shared
