Children of the Tide by Jon Redfern Page A

in her after that long-ago evening when he had come home elated, filled with a joy she suspected was caused by his having met and wooed a woman of his age. He had carried the look of a smitten man in love then, the gleam in his eye, the subsequent careful attention to his dress and his hair. But then, somehow rather slowly, he had soured. He had begun to curse. He acted as if he had been cheated of something — not just money in a card game. Had he discovered the pain as well as the pleasure of love and his disappointment had darkened every corner of his young life?
    Mrs. Grimsby bent down to stroke her son’s hair when she spotted something in his hand; gently pulling it open she found a small piece of fine blonde hair. “Mr. Grimsby, whatever do you imagine this to be?”
    She stood and placed her find into the hand of her husband.
    Old Richard Grimsby looked closely through his costly spectacles.
    â€œIt looks like a lock. A wisp of child’s hair, perhaps. None of our affair. Come. We shall have the footman give Geoffrey a good wash and a few cups of tea so that we can proceed. And we must urge him to find us a mute-boy. No funeral is complete without the sorrowful sight of a child in black.”
    â€œBut Mr. Grimsby,” his wife said with some alarm. “Wherever could he find such a child on short notice?” Old Grimsby sighed: “The workhouse, madam. Children abound in workhouses. And can be for ready hire.” Fingering the lock, Old Grimsby handed it back to his wife and said: “I imagine you may toss this curl away.”
    With that, Mr. Grimsby returned to his tea table. Standing alone by the stairs, her sleeping son at her feet, Mrs. Grimsby could not help but examine the lock further; she wondered if her son had been up to some mischief. But what could that possibly be, she asked herself. Why a lock of hair?
    My sweet lost boy, she thought, slipping the blonde curl into her apron pocket before taking hold of Geoffrey’s limp arm and, gently shaking him awake, helping him to stand.

    Under sunnier skies west of London, not more than six miles distant, there lay a small tree-shaded village. One resident, whose cottage sat under a spreading oak tree, Mrs. Bolton by name, had tended her dying husband and now was helping her sickly sister. The invalid had for years lived a hardscrabble life, working for mere shillings a month. In truth, Mrs. Bolton rarely spoke of her sister’s occupation although she accepted it as respectable to be a matron in the county workhouse.
    Now as the village clock struck the hour for the midday meal, Mrs. Bolton spooned two ladles of broth into a bowl, placed the bowl on a tray and walked from her large kitchen toward a snug room at the rear of her cottage. She stepped lightly while at the same time calling out:
    â€œComing, Jemima. I’m coming. Be patient.”
    Kicking the door open, Mrs. Bolton entered her sister’s sick room. A window guarded the light with a thin curtain; a tiny hearth and a narrow bed soothed the aching body of Jemima Pettiworth, who opened her eyes at this moment and from under her covers, pulled herself up to reveal her soiled cap, night dress, and pale yellow complexion.
    â€œNot this. Not this,” Jemima said, a low whine in her voice.
    â€œSimple broth, Jemima. Sit forward. That’s it.”
    â€œYou are too kind, sister,” Jemima said, a cruel edge to her words.
    â€œShall I or shall you?” asked Mrs. Bolton, holding up the spoon. Jemima snatched it and began to sip her broth with no further complaint. Mrs. Bolton sat in a chair next to the bed and waited. She ignored her sister’s manner. After all, it came from her years of living in the workhouse. The old stone building lay beyond the village, isolated on a low hill, a mud road leading up to its gate. Its bell was placed in a tower to sound over the fields. The wards housed villagers, farmers, children, and the poor and