Free Children of the Tide by Valerie Wood Page B

before, when, as a young man, he had wept unashamedly after a fire had destroyed the carved bosses and central vault of the nave.
    ‘I need your advice, sir. I couldn’t think who else to ask. I trust you don’t mind?’ He looked frankly at him. Their eyes were almost on the same level. Peacock was a small man, a little shorter than James himself, but his extravagant mode of dress, his velvet jacket and braided trousers, his long greying hair and clean-shaven chin, caused others to notice his appearance rather than his lack of height.
    ‘Mind! My dear fellow, I am flattered to say the least. Come, we will take a walk. It is a pleasant evening and besides, I have no stomach for the food which is being prepared. I have smelt it and my juices have dried up in apprehension.’ He went to fetch his outdoor clothes: a faded cape which once was black but had now a hint of green, and a battered felt hat which he angled carefully onto his head. He drew on to his pale hands a pair of woollen mittens, and they stepped outside.
    They walked by the white-painted cottages and redbrick residences which lined the banks of the river Ouse, and James haltingly explained his predicament while Peacock listened without comment.
    ‘Come,’ he said, when James had ground to a halt. ‘We will take some refreshment. I know of a coffeehouse if you have any money, for I have only a little. My salary …!’ He gave a meaningful gesture towards his pockets.
    ‘I have a little money, sir.’ James felt for his pocket-book. ‘Enough at least for a small supper.’
    There were few people in the coffee house, which they reached by turning down a narrow passage and into a small court. It was warm and dark, with only a single candle set on each round table.
    ‘Well, my dear fellow, this is what I suggest you must do. And I must say that the circumstances which have befallen you, whether of your own creation or not, will perhaps prove to be the emergence of you.’ He removed his mittens and, dropping them with a flourish onto the table, he leaned back on the spell-backed chair in a reflective manner. ‘You have the makings of a lazy fellow, I regret to say, who, if you had ample means at your disposal and were not in such a precarious and impecunious state as I, would sit around waiting for some opportunity to present itself. As it is,’ he continued, ‘you have no alternative, if you are to help support this child, but to go out and find your living.’
    He stretched his long fingers and joined them, tip to tip, into an arch, and with one eye closed, peered through it, framing James’s face. ‘Your parents will naturally think that they could be ruined socially by such a misdemeanour. The bourgeois classes set much store by convention, and the mediocre opinions of others towards them matters greatly. You should be thankful, James, that you are not a female in such a predicament, for you would, without any doubt, be packed off to an asylum to end your days.’
    James felt a great joy unfolding inside him. This, he realized, was what he had missed since leaving school; the conversation, the ideology and sometimes heated exchange of words with his peers. He had had no conversation since going home, and his intellect was starved.
    Peacock took out a pencil and scrap of paper from a pocket hidden in the depths of his cape and, pushing aside the cream jug and coffee pot, he leaned on the wobbly table and started to write in an elegant hand, a name and address in London, which he handed to James. ‘This is where you must go.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I assume your father will assist you financially until you can earn a living.’
    James nodded tentatively. He would be in a predicament if he didn’t, but his father had said, ‘We’ll see what we can do.’
    ‘I will write to Batsford immediately I get back to my room, and he will have the letter the day after tomorrow,’ Peacock continued. ‘The fellow is an excellent tutor and a painter in