Page 127 of Dark Tides
“An officer?” Alys started, suddenly pale, rising to her feet and opening the door.
Johnnie exchanged one appalled look with his mother. Alinor went white and grasped the arms of the chair.
“Nay!” Tabs said dismissively from the hall. “A porter from the Custom House. He’s got a box for you.”
“Oh, of course, of course.” Alys put her hand to her pounding heart and laughed with relief.
They all crossed the narrow hall into the warehouse and found the porter pushing his barrow loaded with barrels and boxes through the half door of the warehouse. The wintry air blew in with him. “Delivery for Reekie,” he repeated, resting the barrow on its legs. “And duty to pay on the goods.” Alys felt in her pocket for a shilling and paid him for the delivery. “I’ll come down and pay the duty after Christmas,” she said.
“Aye, it’s not a gift!” he joked.
Alys managed a strained smile as Johnnie took a crowbar down from the wall and began to lever the top off the first box. At once the storehouse was filled with the heady scent of strange herbs. Alinor leaned over the barrel and inhaled the perfume.
“Sassafras,” she said. “No wonder it brings such health.”
“No wonder it’s so expensive,” Alys exulted. “Uncle Ned has sent us a fortune, just as we need it. Will you make posset bags with it?”
Alinor was rifling in a box of bark and roots. “And here are some seeds for us to set, and some other herbs.”
Johnnie loosened the ring and took the lid off a barrel. “Dried fruits,” he said.
“God bless him,” said Alys. “It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“You read his letter.” Alinor dusted it and handed it to Alys as Johnnie carefully replaced the lids and followed his mother andgrandmother into the warm parlor. Livia slipped ahead and took a seat beside the fire.
Alys cut the seal, opened the single sheet of paper, and read the letter telling of his preparation for winter. Alinor looked out of the window towards the river, listening intently to the list of goods, his preparations for the season, and his blessing. When Alys had finished she said only: “Read it again.” After the second reading she breathed out slowly, as if she had almost been holding her breath, and said: “I always used to garden with him, it’s strange to think of him working alone.”
“It sounds as if he is doing well,” Alys said cheerfully.
“Aye—what does he call the marrows?”
“Squash. And the berries are called cranberries. But other things sound the same—thatch and hens—Ma. Think of him having bees? Just like you used to do! Some things sound just the same as England. And some things sound better? Being free, without a master and without a king.”
Her mother nodded. “He’ll like that,” she said. “And what he says about how you can just pick up your bed roll and musket and go. He always wanted to be free to leave Foulmire; and now he is. I must be glad that he’s free.”
“And he thinks of us,” Alys pointed out. “He thinks of you when you think of him, at the full moon.”
Alinor smiled. “I suppose it’s the same moon,” she said. “The same moon shines on my brother as it does on me. It shines on us all, wherever we are.” She took the letter and turned it over in her hands.
“I’d give so much to travel!” Johnnie said. “But I’d go East rather than West.”
“Oh, would you?” Livia asked limpidly.
“He’s always wanted to join the Honorable East India Company,” Alys told her. “But you need to have a patron to get a place in the Company. That’s what they call it—as if it needs no other title—the Company.”
“A patron?” Livia asked, as if this were news to her, and Alinor glanced at her. “What sort of patron?”
Johnnie was excruciatingly embarrassed; but could do nothingbut answer her. “You can only enter the Company with a patron, Aunt Livia.”
“Someone like the noblemen who purchased my antiquities?”
“Yes, those sort of gentlemen,” he agreed shortly, wondering why she was leading him on to lie to his mother. “Someone like them, I suppose.”
“But I know people like this!” Livia exclaimed smiling. “They buy my goods—they would not buy anything from here, but they buy my goods on the Strand.”
“I know,” he said awkwardly. “But it’s a far cry from buying your antiquities to sponsoring a young man from nowhere. There’s no reason they should recommend me, just because they like a column twined with ivy.”
Livia flickered a dark gaze at him like a lover’s secret glance. “Not so far,” she said. “And it was honeysuckle.”
