Quietly, she got to her feet and went through the garden gate, her hand lingering on the worn gatepost. She looked back at the shabby little cottage and then climbed the bank to the high path. Through the tunnel of thornbushes, she walked in moonlight and shadow, along the bank until she came to the white shell beach under the down-swinging branches of the oak tree. The bank had been built as a sea wall years ago, centuries ago, and the sea had worn it away at the foot and tumbled the foundation stones—river stones, rounded by water—on the white shell shore. Alinor lifted one and slid it in the pocket of her gown, and another, for the other side. She felt their weight drag her down. She picked up another—the biggest, the heaviest—to hold it tightly and walk into the icy water that lapped closer and closer. She thought that all her life she had been afraid of deep water and now, in her last moments, she would face that fear and not fear it anymore. She thought that it would drag at her poor skirt, chill her warm body, lap against her belly, her ribs, that she would shudder when it reached her warm armpits, her neck, but that finally she would dip her head and taste the brackish salt of it and know that she would go down into the muddy depths of it, without protest and without fear.
She did not move. She stood at the edge of the sea, the stone heavy in her grip, and watched the moon’s dappled reflection, silver on the dark water as the waves crept up the shore, closer and closer. She heard the water lap at her feet and she stood still as the tide turned, and listened to it recede. But she did not move. She did not step along the silvery path of the moon, she did not walk into the water. She stood silent among the quiet sounds of the night, and certainty came to her.
She did not weep for herself, not for Alys, not even for Rob. She did not yearn for James to rescue her, she did not think of him with anything but love. She had loved him and lain with him, she had trusted him and she believed in him still; but she did not expect him to help her in this dark night. She did not think that anything would be illuminated by the dawn, she did not pray to a forgiving God, for she did not expect Him to listen to a woman like her, in a place like this.
She had no faith in her purpose or in her courage. She had no faith in herself as the cold murky waters lapped at her feet. But slowly she found that she had one belief—only one belief: that she would last through this night, that she would last through any night to come. She knew that she would not drown herself. She knew that she would not be broken by this terrible misfortune any more than she had been broken by the cruelty of Zachary or by the loss of her mother. She thought that the one thing that she had learned in this life, which had so many troubles and so few joys: she had at least learned to survive. She knew she could endure. She thought that all her life—raised by a courageous woman in hard circumstances, abused by a violent husband, loving two children and bringing them up in poverty—had taught her this lesson: to survive. She thought it was the only thing that she truly knew to do. She thought that she had found, embedded in her heart, like a drowned field post in a mudbank, a great determination to live.
Alys woke in the morning, as fresh-faced as a child, her eyes clear and her beauty undimmed by the night of crying. She found her mother making gruel and setting out the bowls on the table as if it were an ordinary day.
“Ma?”
“Yes, Alys?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to eat my breakfast and so are you.”
“But—”
“Eat first and then we’ll talk. You have to eat. Especially now.”
Alys pulled out her stool and sat at the table and ate as she was bidden. When she had finished and pushed back her bowl she said: “And now, tell me what you’re going to do. You can’t let anyone know your sin.”
“But you can?”
“It’s not the same. Richard and me were handfasted in the sight of God. He’s going to marry me. His parents will have no objection to me coming into their house with a new son and heir on the way. They’ll welcome me. In the old days half the girls in the parish used to be married with a big belly, you know that yourself. And only the strictest people mind, even now. Everyone’s glad to see that a bride is fertile. There’s no comparison to you and your adultery.”
Alinor bowed her head. “You know for sure that his parents won’t object?”
“They’re not puritans, and they know that I’m not loose. We were both virgins when we lay together and we were betrothed. They know we’ve been courting for months. My baby will have a good name and a beautiful farm for his home.” She broke off. “At least he would have done. Until now. Until this. Now, God knows what’ll happen. Nobody’ll let you work for them, nobody’ll dream of having you as a midwife. You’ll never get your license and no respectable place would have Rob as an apprentice.” She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed her eyes. “Ma! Think! Not even Uncle Ned will stand your friend or be your brother when he knows. He’ll deny you. And how will you manage here without his kinship? How will you even eat if you can’t use the ferry-house kitchen garden?”
Alinor was silent.
“You won’t be able to stay here! They’ll torture you. Mrs. Miller and all her friends, the parish council, the church court . . .”
“I know,” Alinor said quietly.
“Nobody will buy your herbs. They’ll come to you for nothing but love potions and poisons.”
“I know.”
As if Alinor’s stillness made Alys more determined, she rose to her feet and looked down at her seated mother. “It’s not possible for you to bear this child,” the girl said quietly. “You know the herbs to use, you know how it’s done. You’ll have to get rid of it. You know how. You’ll have to get rid of it.”
Alinor looked up into her daughter’s stern face.
“It’s not been long, has it?” asked the girl. “You’ve only been sick for a few weeks?”
Alinor nodded. She found she could not speak.
“Then it can be done and no one the wiser. I’ll go to work at the mill now. I’ll come home this afternoon early, saying I’m ill. You can take whatever you need to take at noon, and I’ll care for you. I’ll do whatever you need. I’ll look after you, Ma, I promise. You shall tell me what you need to eat and drink, and I’ll not leave you till it’s over. I’ll change your linen and care for you as it happens.”
Alinor said nothing.
“You have to be rid of this,” Alys pressed. “Richard can’t marry me if you are shamed, and that would break my heart and his, and our child would be born out of wedlock. You’ll have a bastard child, and a bastard grandchild. We can’t survive that. Your child is the ruin of us alclass="underline" you, me, and Rob. You have to end it. I’ve never asked you for anything, Ma, but I am asking you for this.”
Her mother sat silent, her face white.
“Your shame is my shame,” the girl repeated. “When the Stoneys hear you’re with child they’ll throw me off. I’ll never see Richard again. Then we’ll both be stuck here, both of us, with our bastards, without husbands. Don’t you think they’ll turn us out, with our big bellies on us? Don’t you think Mrs. Miller, and all the goodwives like her, will have us out of the parish before we can make a charge on it? And every husband shouting that we should go, to show that it wasn’t him?”