It was a long walk from Hull to Anlaby and the woman holding the newborn baby was tired when she arrived at Humber Villa, the grand home of the powerful Rayner family. She was shabby, but refused to be intimidated and when young John Rayner appeared at the door she thrust the child into his arms, saying it was his. The mother had died, the father was 'young Mr. Rayner', and then the woman vanished, leaving the respectable shipping family of Hull shattered.
No-one wanted to be responsible for the child. No-one thought to ask which 'young Mr. Rayner' was the father - for surely it could not be Gilbert who was about to make an excellent marriage? It was left to Sammi, James' young girl cousin, to take the baby back to her parents' home on the Holderness coast, rather than see it raised in the misery of one of Hull's orphanages.
Her
arrival home with the unwanted child was to signal the beginning of
a family furore. James was banished to London, and disaster began to
beset the three branches of the Rayners.
Extract from CHILDREN OF THE TIDE:
It was a long walk from Hull to Anlaby. It was also an unknown country
as far as the woman was concerned. A country far removed from the mean
streets of Hull. She raised her head and sniffed. For a start there
were no foul smells, but for another, the road was lonely and therefore
threatening. She shifted her bundle from one arm to the other. The child
wasn't heavy, how could it be, being only a few hours old? It was merely
unwieldy, a cumbersome parcel that was unwanted. An anger began to envelop
her, an anger which displaced the lethargy and dullness that usually
swamped her mind. The anger was not directed at the babe, but at life
itself for giving her this heartache, a life given an additional sorrow
for the daughter she had lost.