Diver's Daughter by Patrice Lawrence

Author:Patrice Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2019-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

A GOLD COIN ON THE COMMON

Mama is beautiful. She is not beautiful like the rich ladies in their ruffs and furs and jewels, though she would be so much more beautiful than them if she ever had a chance to wear pearls and silk. She has brown skin, warm beneath the dust and dirt of our lives. She has marks from the smallpox and each scar reminds me that I am lucky to have her alive. Her eyes are almost the same colour as her skin, and her lashes are black and long. They twitch in her sleep like they can hear music and are longing to dance. Her hair, when it’s free from her coif cap, is thick and tied in one or two plaits.

As March tipped into April, I spent every moment I could with her. I’d be tidying Claire’s chamber while Mama helped Claire eat, or I’d be sitting with Claire on her bed as Mama told us stories or sang us songs in her own language. I’d stand side by side with Mama as we chopped vegetables and I’d help her sweep away the old rushes on the floor and lay down new ones. I hurt if I couldn’t see her because I knew that each day a new bead would drop into Griffin’s bag. I wondered how often he counted them and smiled at the fortune he saw coming his way. Then I’d remember the woman in the pillories. Her face would fade away and it would be Mama’s instead.

I still walked around the town but I kept my head down. Folks had always glanced at Mama and me wherever we went, although less so in Southwark, where all manner of people made their home. Now I did not want to meet anyone’s eye. Mama and I were foreigners. Did they think badly of us? The day before, I had seen two young women coming towards me. Servants, I’d thought. They’d turned to each other and one whispered. Did they believe I was a witch about to curse them? Did the priest in St Lawrence’s Church see me pass by and wonder why I hadn’t attended service on Sunday? Did he think Mama had been baptized a Catholic and wonder if she’d converted? Did he question whether I’d been baptized at all? The path that Mama and I were treading felt so delicate.

Sometimes I would see Jacques Francis down by the wharf. We would nod to each other, but we wouldn’t speak. He would never change his mind, I knew that now. But, I had to remind myself, I was an adventurer. Adventures always went wrong before they ended well. It just meant making a different plan. One day I was sitting by Biddles Gate trying to work out what that plan could be when a voice called up to me.

“You!”

I looked down. It was the young fisherman who’d been there the day I first saw Jacques Francis. He was standing by an upturned boat. He rubbed his hands together.

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