Moon Rising by Ann Victoria Roberts Page B

the contemplation of his sins. During that time, the anger that had waxed and waned during my walk built up again, fuelled by anguish, frustration, and the absolute conviction that Old Uncle was not going to believe me.
    It was not the best way to begin an important discussion.
    From his expression as he looked down at me, I knew immediately that he’d assumed I was in the wrong. That set light to my temper and I flung accusations like Roman candles, all kinds of things that had little to do with the problem in hand, but everything to do with my sense of injury. His influence had secured me the job, I said, so surely he could use that same influence to set Mrs Markway straight – to make her retract those accusations and clear my name.
    His response to that was a curt demand as to why he should do such a thing when the whole affair was my own fault. The issue of the books was a matter for regret, but if I was so unwise as to set my cap at young Markway, then I must be prepared to take the consequences. How the boy’s mother went about dismissing her servants did not concern him. Furthermore, he was not used to being spoken to in such a manner, especially by a mere chit of a girl. Eliza Markway was a difficult woman, he’d grant me that, but I should have thought twice before making a play for her favourite son.
    â€˜Good sense should have shown you better than that, my girl! I shall try to help for the sake of your grandmother – but without references it will not be easy. Until you have somewhere else to go you may stay...’
    But by that time I didn’t want his help. Shaking with fury, on the verge of tears, I told him I would find my own jobs and never bother him again.
    I wish now that I could recall sweeping out with pride, but I was trembling so badly I fumbled at the door and almost tripped over the threshold. Old Uncle tried to prevent me from leaving, even called after me from the front gate, but I couldn’t wait to be gone. I ran off down the precipitous main street, slipping and sliding on cobbles all the way down to the Wayfoot, where house walls suddenly became defence walls and the sturdy little town met the sea.
    I could go no further, unless I wanted to drown myself, and for a fleeting moment I was foolish enough to consider that as a dramatic form of revenge. But I stopped, and, like the child I was, sank down, sobbing furiously, on a smooth rock-seat. The night was calm and cool and after a while it soothed me. I tried to think what to do, while the tide lapped at a row of cobles drawn up on the beach, and gulls muttered on their rooftop nests.
    To my mind, there’s freedom and there’s being cast adrift, and in that moment I was adrift like a boat at the slack of the tide. I could have been turned either way. That I turned back to Whitby, and ultimately took refuge with my cousin Bella and her family, might have seemed arbitrary, but Bella was also a friend. In retrospect, I can see that I headed back to Whitby mainly because I was too proud to apologise to Old Uncle Thaddeus. No matter what I’d done, the Firths were unlikely to judge me harshly; and anyway, a long and lonely walk seemed easier than having to explain myself to my other relatives in Bay. In my mind’s eye they assumed ranks of blank incomprehension, row upon row of sensible, practical women, who would no more have understood my predicament than ever have found themselves in it.
    ~~~
    Such thoughts and emotions flashed through my mind that January day as I watched Jonathan coming towards me. How I wished he’d come home a few weeks ago – things might have been different then! Seeing him now, so clean and slender and handsome, I felt branded. Not just by his mother’s accusations, nor even by the smell of the fish-basket on my arm, but by my association with the Firths. I wondered whether everyone in Whitby knew about Magnus and his daughters and, if they did, what they were saying