Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day drift away.
This is your time and your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
The Magical Bond of the Sea A late September wind from the northeast was sweeping over the waters of Raycott Harbour.
It blew in strong with the tang of the salt seas,
Past the grim lighthouse rock on the one hand and the sandbars on the other.
Up the long narrow funnel of darkly blue water until it whistled among the masts of the boats at the harbour and among the stovepipe chimneys of the fishing village.
It was a wind that sang and piped and keened of many things but what it sang to each listener was only what it was in that listener's heart.
And Nora Shelley,
Standing at the door of her father's bleached cottage on the grey sands,
Heard a new strain in it.
The wind had sung often to her of the outer world she longed for but there had never been the note of fulfilment in it before.
There's a new life beyond,
Nora,
Whistled the wind.
A good life and it's yours for the taking.
You have but to put out your hand and all you wish for will be in your grasp.
Nora leaned out from the door to meet the wind.
She loved that northwest gale.
It was a staunch old friend of hers.
Very slim and straight was Nora with skin as white as the foam flakes crisping over the sands.
She had eyes of tremulous haunting blue that deepened on the water after a fair sunset.
But her hair was as black as midnight and her lips blossomed out with a ripe redness against the uncoloured purity of her face.
She was far and away the most beautiful of the harbour girls but hardly the most popular.
Men and women alike thought her proud.
Even her friends felt themselves called upon to make excuses for her unlikeness to themselves.
Nora had closed the door behind her to shut in the voices.
She wanted to be alone with the wind while she made her decision.
Before her,
The sandy shingle,
Made firm by a straggling growth of some pale sea ivy,
Sloped down to the sapphire cup of the harbour.
Around her were the small uncouth houses of the village with children playing noisily on the paths between.
The mackerel boats curtsied and nodded outside.
Beyond them,
The sharp tip of the sandy point was curdled white with seagulls.
Down at the cove,
A group of men were laughing and talking loudly in front of French Joe's fish house.
This was the life that Nora had always known.
Across the harbour,
On a fur-fringed headland,
Stood Dalvais.
John Cameron,
Childless millionaire,
Had built a summer cottage on that point two years ago and given it the name of the old ancestral estate in Scotland.
To the ray-cocked fishing folk,
The house and grounds were as a dream of enchantment made real.
Few of them had ever seen anything like it.
Nora Shelley knew Dalvais well.
She had been the Camerons' guest many times that summer,
Finding in the luxury and beauty of their surroundings something that entered with a strange aptness into her own nature.
It was as if it were hers by right of fitness.
And this was the life that might be hers.
Did she so choose?
In reality,
Her choice was already made and she knew it,
But it pleased her to pretend for a little time that it was not,
And to dally tenderly with the old loves and emotions that tugged at her heart and clamoured to be remembered.
Within,
In the low-ceilinged living room with its worn uneven floor and its blackened walls hung with fishnets and oil skins,
Four people were sitting.
John Cameron and his wife were given the seats of honour in the middle of the room.
Mrs Cameron was a handsome,
Well-dressed woman with an expression that was discontented and at times petulant.
Yet her face had a good deal of plain common sense.
Not even the most critical of the Raycott folks could say she had put on airs.
Her husband was a small,
White-haired man with a fresh,
Young-looking face.
He was popular in Raycott for he mingled directly with the sailors and the fishermen.
Moreover,
Dalvey was an excellent market for fresh mackerel.
Nathan Shelley,
In his favourite corner behind the stove,
Sat lurching forward with his hands on his knees.
He had laid aside his pipe out of deference to Mrs Cameron and it was hard for him to think without it.
He wished his wife would go to work.
It seemed uncanny to see her idle.
She had sat idle only once,
That he remembered,
The day they had brought Ned Shelley in,
Dank and dripping after the August storm ten years ago.
Mrs Shelley sat by the crooked,
Small,
Paned window and looked out down the harbour.
The coat she'd been patching for her husband when the Camerons came still lay in her lap.
She was a big woman,
Slow of speech and manner,
With a placid,
Handsome face that had not visibly stirred even when she had heard the Camerons' proposition.
They wanted Nora.
These rich people who had so much in life wanted the blossom of girlhood that had never bloomed for them.
John Cameron pleaded his cause well.
We'll look after her as our own,
He said at last.
We have grown to love her this summer.
She's beautiful,
She's clever,
She has a right to more than Raichod can give her.
You have other children.
We are childless and we do not take her from you utterly.
You will see her every summer when we come to Dalvey.
It won't be the same thing,
Quite,
Said Nathan Shelley dryly.
She'll belong to your life then,
Not ours,
And no matter how many young ones folks have,
They don't want to lose none of them.
But I don't know as if we ought to let our feelings stand in Nora's light.
She's clever and she's been hankering for more than we can give her.
I was the same once,
And awed how I raged at Raichod.
I broke away finally,
And I said,
Went to a city and got work,
But it was no use.
I'd left it too long.
The sea had got into my blood.
I toughed it out for a couple of years,
Then had to come back.
Mr Cameron smiled.
He thought this dry old sort was a bit of a poet in his own way.
Very likely Nora got her ability and originality from him.
There did not seem to be a great deal in the phlegmatic,
Good-looking mother.
What say,
Wife?
Asked Shelley at last.
His wife had said in her slow way,
Leave it to Nora.
And to Nora it was left.
When she came in at last,
Her face stung to radiant beauty by the northwest wind,
She found it hard to tell them after all.
She looked at her mother appealingly.
Is it a go or stay girl?
Demanded her father brusquely.
I think I'll go,
Said Nora slowly.
Then catching sight of her mother's face,
She ran to her and flung her arms about her.
But I'll never forget you,
Mother.
I love you always,
You and father.
Her mother loosened the clinging arms and pushed her gently towards the Camerons.
Go to them,
She said calmly.
You belong to them now.
The news spread quickly over Raycote.
Before night,
Everyone on the harbour shore knew the Camerons were going to adopt Nora Shelley.
There was much surprise and more envy.
The shorewomen tossed their heads.
Reckon Nora is in great feather,
They said.
She always did think herself better than anyone else.
Nate Shelley and his wife Spauld are ridiculous.
I wonder what Rob Fletcher thinks of it.
Nora asked her brother to tell the news to Rob Fletcher himself.
But Meryn Andrews was before him.
She was at Rob before he had fairly landed,
When the fishing boats came in at sunset.
Have you heard the news,
Rob?
Nora is going away to be a fine lady.
The Camerons have been daft about her all summer and now they're going to adopt her.
Meryn wanted Rob for herself.
He was a big handsome fellow and well off,
The pick of the harbour men in every way.
But he had slighted her for Nora and it pleased her to stab him now,
Though she meant to be nice to him later on.
He turned white under his tan,
But he did not choose to make a book of his heart for Meryn's bold black eyes to read.
It's a great thing for her,
He answered calmly.
She was meant for better things than can be found at Raycott.
She was always too good for common folks,
If that's what you mean,
Said Meryn spitefully.
Nora and Rob did not meet until the next evening,
When she rowed herself home from Delvey.
He was at the shore to tie up her boat and help her out.
They walked up the sands together in the heart of the autumn sunset,
With the northwest wind whistling in their ears and the great star of the lighthouse gleaming wildly out against the golden sky.
Nora felt uncomfortable and resented it.
Well,
Fletcher was nothing to her.
He never had been anything but the good friend to whom she told her strange thoughts and longings.
Why should her heart ache over him?
She wished he would talk,
But he strode along in silence with his fine head dropping a little.
I suppose you've heard I'm going away,
Rob,
She said at last.
Yes,
He nodded.
I heard it from a hundred miles more or less.
It's a splendid thing for me,
Isn't it?
Well,
I don't know,
He said slowly.
Looking at it from the outside,
It seems so,
But from the inside,
It may not look the same.
You think you'll be able to cut 20 years of a life out of your heart without any pain?
Oh,
I'll be homesick if that's what you mean,
Said Nora petulantly.
Of course I'll be that at first,
I expect it.
But people get over that,
And it's not as if I were going away for good.
I'll be back next summer,
Every summer.
It'll be different,
Said Rob stubbornly.
You'll be a fine lady.
A new life will change you,
Not all at once maybe,
But in the end,
You'll be one of them,
Not one of us.
But will you be happy?
That's the question I'm asking.
In anyone else,
Nora would have resented this,
But she never felt angry with Rob.
I think I shall be,
She said thoughtfully.
Anyway,
I must go.
It doesn't seem as if I could help myself if I want to.
Something beyond there is calling me,
Has always been calling me,
Ever since I was a tiny girl and found out there was a big world far away from Rakot.
It seemed to me I would find a way to it someday.
That was why I kept going to school long after the others stopped.
Mother thought I'd better stop home.
She said too much book learning would make me discontented.
But father let me go.
He understood.
And now it seems as if a gate were open before me and I can pass through into a wider world.
I must go,
Rob.
I really must go.
Yes,
If you feel like that,
You must,
He answered.
And it's best for you to go now,
Nora,
I believe.
I'm not so selfish as not to be able to hope you'll find all you long for.
But it'll change you all the more if it's so.
Then suddenly,
He declared passionately and unexpectedly,
Nora,
Whatever am I going to do without you?
Don't,
Rob.
You won't miss me long.
There'll be many another,
Nora protested.
Well,
I'd rather love you than not hurt as it will,
Said Rob grimly.
I never had much hope of getting you to listen to me,
So there's no real disappointment there.
You're too good for me.
I've always known that.
A girl that's fit to mate with the Camerons is far above Rob Fletcher.
Fisherman.
I'd never had such a thought,
Protested Nora.
And to her surprise,
She watched his stalwart figure walk out of sight around the point and raged to find tears in her eyes and a bitter yearning in her heart.
For a moment,
She repented.
She would stay.
She could not go.
Then over the harbour,
Flashed out the lights of Dalvey,
The life behind them glittered,
Allured and beckoned and she knew she must go.
She had made her choice.
When Nora Shelley went away with the Camerons,
Dalvey was deserted.
Winter came down on Raycoat Harbour and the colony of fisherfolk at its head gave themselves over to the idleness of the season.
This was a time for lounging and gossiping and long hours of lazy contentment smoking in the neighbours' chimney corners when tales were told of the sea and fishing.
The harbour laid itself out to be sociable in winter.
There was no time for that in summer.
People had to work 18 hours of the day.
In the winter,
There was spare time to laugh and quarrel,
Woo and wed and were a man so minded,
Dream as did Rob Fletcher in his loneliness.
