Page 84 of Dark Tides
All through the service and the long sermon Johnnie wondered if he should tell his mother of Sarah’s plan, but a lifetime of loyalty to his twin through all the little adventures of wharfinger life silenced him. By the time they filed out of the church and walked home with the minister, Johnnie’s mind was made up. As Mr. Forth went upstairs to pray with Alinor, Johnnie turned into the counting house with his mother to balance the week’s books, fully decided to say nothing.
As soon as he was seated on the high clerk’s stool, he saw the address of Signor Russo, written in Livia’s large dramatic scrawl. He knew at once it must be the directions to the steward’s house in Venice, and without saying a word, silently palmed it as his mother came into the room and opened the ledgers.
One glance confirmed his fears. “I see she’s started another debt, and still paid us nothing from her last voyage,” he remarked. He did not say who it was, owing money to the warehouse. Only one debt had ever been left to run in the two decades that they had been in business.
“She’s sending for more antiquities,” his mother said tightly. “She’s so sure of selling these that she wants more. We’ll stand the charges again. She’s doing it for us, for all of us. She wants to buy a bigger warehouse, somewhere better for your grandma, and we’ll all livethere together. It’ll be a home for you, when you finish your apprenticeship, and for Sarah.”
“We only need more bedrooms because she’s here,” he pointed out. “We never needed a bigger house than this before. It’s been good enough for twenty years.”
“She has plans for us…”
“How does she get to make plans for us?”
His mother flushed. “She’s family, Johnnie. She’s your aunt. She has a right to…”
“Not like family at all,” he said gravely. “She brings in nothing. Nobody in the family is idle. Sarah brought home her pennies the day that she started work. You’ve always had my wages. Even Grandma grows herbs and makes her teas. Uncle Ned is on the other side of the world and yet he still sends us goods. Nobody takes money out. Nobody spends the family money. We never risk it. We’ve always earned, not speculated.”
“Livia’s not making pennies on lavender bags, she’s on the way to a fortune.” His mother bridled. “And as Rob’s widow and our kin we should support her. She thinks we could get a bigger warehouse and sell the antiques direct from Venice.”
“Is she going to put up the money for a bigger warehouse?”
“When she’s paid…”
“Or does she mean that we should be her banker?”
“We’d be in partnership,” Alys said defensively. “It would be a family venture. I trust her. I’ve come to love her as a sister indeed. I believe her word. I believe in her knowledge of the statues. She says she’s going to make a fortune, she says she’s going to buy a house and share it with us, she’s going to live with us. When I think of living with her, for the rest of my life, at my side—” She broke off. “It would change my life completely,” she said quietly.
“You want a bigger wharf?”
“A bigger wharf, a better house, somewhere with a garden for your grandma. And a companion, a friend for me. Someone to share the worry.”
Johnnie had a painful sense of his mother’s long years of loneliness. “I should do more.”
“No, Son, you do all I ask of you. But to have someone at my side, as a sister, now that you two have left home. It would be—”
“But Ma, is she… reliable?” he asked, trying to find the right words. “She came so suddenly? With nothing but what she stood up in? We know nothing about her? All that we know is what she’s told us.”
“Yes,” Alys said firmly. “We know she was Rob’s wife and the mother of his child. What more do we need to know? She has a true heart, I know it, Johnnie. And she’s found a family in us. We’re not going to fail her.”
The young man felt acutely torn between his sister’s secret and his mother’s trust. “I hope so,” he said uncertainly.
Alinor came down for dinner after praying with Mr. Forth, and Tabs served the family in the parlor with several different dishes and a jug of wine from Paton’s with their compliments to Miss Stoney on the day of her completing her apprenticeship. They had roasted oysters and roasted beef from the cookhouse, and Alinor had made Sussex pond pudding with a lump of sweet butter in the middle. After dinner they played at riddles, and then Johnnie and Sarah sang the rhythmic chants that the lightermen sung as they unloaded their boats, with much-amended lyrics to cover the usual obscenities. Alinor recited a country poem from Sussex that her mother had taught her, and Livia sang an Italian folk song with a swirling little dance that she did in the corner on the worn floorboards. It was late when they banked down the parlor fire and took their candles up the stairs to bed.
Johnnie stopped Sarah with a hand on her arm and slipped the scrap of paper with the address into her pocket without a word. Nobody noticed and the twins moved as one: Sarah to her bedroom that she shared with Carlotta and the baby, Johnnie up the narrow stairs to his attic room.
“Did you draw the runes?” Alinor confirmed with Alys as they went to her room.
“Of course, Ma.” The younger woman helped her mother into bed and went to her own room.
Livia was already in bed with her candle blown out. “It’s sad when a girl leaves her childhood,” she said into the shadowy bedroom.
“Not sad for her! Sarah is glad to have completed her time.”
“But now she will have to marry, and her life will be decided for her. Children and a husband, and she will never be able to do what she wants.”
“Not in England,” Alys said, lifting the sheet and sliding into bed.
Livia turned to her and put her head in the warm crook of Alys’s neck. “Ah, that’s good.”
