The Trespass (21 page)

‘I am very glad to see you again,’ murmured Ralph, holding Harriet’s hand for a fraction longer than was necessary.

‘Nonsense!’ said Lucretia.

Sir Charles Cooper watched Lord Ralph Kingdom impassively.

‘My dear Charles,’ said Lady Kingdom, ‘we just happened to be passing and hoped we might see you. You have not been down to our part of the world since your niece’s wedding, I think. My sons have agreed to spend some time with me in the country before Christmas and we have decided to have a Christmas Ball to which we would very much like you and your family, all the Coopers of course (and she smiled imperiously at Lucretia), to attend so that we might see more of you. We have already been delighted by Harriet. An invitation will be delivered.’ Nobody ever said no, of course, to Lady Kingdom, but at this moment a bell began ringing over and over: the ship’s bell: it was time for visitors to go ashore.

Edward appeared, rushing through the door as if shot out of a catapult. His face was red and pale by turns, red from his exertions, and pale with distress as he began his final goodbyes. He showed surprise to see Lady Kingdom but greeted her pleasantly and shook hands warmly with her sons: ‘It was good of you to come, Ralph, Ben, I’ll let you know how it all turns out,’ and Benjamin said again, ‘I shall look for news of you, Eddie,’ and Ralph wished him good fortune. Then Edward said goodbye to his London relations, much shaking of hands and back-slapping from the men. Harriet somehow planted a remote, and at the same time intense, kiss on his cheek; Mary smiled at her favourite cousin and put her arms about his shoulders for a moment.

‘Please, please write, Edward,’ Harriet begged. ‘Please share this adventure with us if you can.’

‘Edward,’ said Mary softly, ‘do not have too many wild hopes. It will be a difficult life, I think.’ Both Harriet and Edward looked at Mary in surprise.

‘Dearest, dearest Mary,’ said Edward. ‘I am organised. You know that I have looked into this journey carefully and I have no fears. Just
write
to me!’ and he kissed her cheek.

And then he turned at last to his family. The unspoken question hung between them:
when would they ever meet again?
Lucretia, when the moment came, perhaps inspired by the presence of Lady Kingdom, behaved with great dignity as she put her arms around her son. Alice and Augusta had tears running down their faces which they endeavoured to wipe away and not make a public spectacle of themselves, even Cousin John looked upset as he said goodbye. William, biting his lip, shook hands with Edward over and over again, saying only ‘God bless you, my boy,’ but Asobel clung to her brother and wept aloud, sobbed and sobbed as if her heart would break. All around there was a crying sound as families began to disembark. For everybody understood: there was no turning back now. Not only did they not know when they would meet again, but it could be so many months before there was any news at all.

Farewell,
the voices cried to their loved ones and the word resonated with meaning:
fare you well on your long and hazardous journey.

Lady Kingdom and Ralph and Benjamin turned towards their carriage but most of the Coopers, gazing upwards, hardly noticed, so intent were they on seeing Edward still. Ralph’s (and Benjamin’s) last view of Harriet was of her staring up at the
Miranda.
She was looking intently, unaware that she was being watched, not at her cousin but at the prow of the ship as the sails began to fill. A figurehead had been carved on the prow, long hair streaming as she led the ship towards its destination.

And Lord Ralph Kingdom, as at last he turned away to escort his mother, did not know that Sir Charles Cooper was carefully watching him.

After interminable waiting there was the sound of the anchor being winched upwards, a loud metallic noise that grated on the ear, made everybody feel uneasy. The tall pilot they had seen boarding stood on the deck with the Captain issuing orders to the crew; the smaller sails that had been unfurled swelled, caught the wind suddenly, and then there was the heart-stopping moment when the ship began to move and the gap between the dock and the
Miranda
became wider, and wider, and wider. The families left behind stood staring at the water between, waving to the people they loved who were moving farther and farther away; they heard the harsh calls of the sailors and the sound of the capstan turning; watched the sails taking up and then losing the wind, taking it up and losing it, until the ship had turned away and was properly on its journey to the mouth of the river and the sea.

Farewell,
they all called, one more time, to the departing sails.

And then a kind of eerie silence, or so it seemed to the shocked, bereft families left behind, echoed about the dock. There was not a silence at all of course: the cries from the costermongers and the merchants who had been selling items to the passengers right up to the last minute were not muted as they made their way from the dockside, the barges and the small boats noisily crowded the river as always; yet perhaps the people left behind heard nothing for a moment but the beating of their own shocked hearts as they abruptly understood the reality of what had happened.

Then somebody called loudly about boats to London and the spell was broken and the steamboats filled up with passengers as the white sails of the
Miranda
diminished in the distance.

The country Coopers, all their faces pale with sadness on the river boat, were adamant they would return at once to Rusholme no matter how long it would take; Lucretia muttered that Asobel had had far too much excitement. All of them secretly wanted to write to Edward at once, this minute, tonight, to catch the next boat, to send something at least of themselves to the loved one who had gone.

Darkness came inexorably on; they had almost reached Blackfriars Bridge when there was a commotion of boats and people. A woman had jumped off the bridge, her body was being pulled out of the water; her shawl or her dress was entangled in boats or detritus or oars or hooks, it was hard to see exactly as the lanterns moved backwards and forwards in the dark. Lucretia immediately stopped Asobel watching: in horror the others saw the body, arms hanging, dress open, being finally thrown up on to a small barge. It seemed like a bad omen. Their own steamboat rang its bell, little boats flashed across the bow again, they moved towards the pier beside the bridge.

The carriages stood waiting under the gaslights. Sir Charles, who had stood aloof on the small deck as they travelled back on the subdued boat, irritated the whole journey by the fact that his nephew John seemed to be hovering with some question of import, turned abruptly to his brother and sister-in-law.

‘I am required to return to Parliament even at this hour. Thank you for your kindness to Harriet. The epidemic is almost over and I see no reason for her to return with you to Rusholme.’

Under the gaslight Mary saw that Harriet stared at her father in startled, then shocked, surprise. She had not brought her belongings with her; her father had said nothing about her returning. Before anyone could speak Asobel, still clutching her globe of the world, exhausted and shocked and grieved by the terrible day, threw herself at Harriet.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, Uncle Charles, you cannot take her away too!’

People turned in disapproval at the commotion beside the coaches, at the small, spoilt little girl behaving so improperly. Lucretia was mortified.

‘Asobel!’ she said sharply.

But Asobel’s little arms reached around all the petticoats and the corset and the skirt and the mantle, feeling for some sign of the realness of Harriet somewhere there, after the unreality of the day, reaching for Harriet herself. And the globe of many colours fell from her hands and smashed into a hundred pieces on the cobblestones at Blackfriars Bridge.

Harriet’s face, by the side of the River Thames, was as pale and as white as the moon.

THIRTEEN

The yellow, dank fog that had never really lifted from London that day had mixed with the night, making any journey hazardous, but the country Coopers were not to be persuaded and had left for Rusholme, Asobel in tears still, refusing to kiss Harriet and Mary. She huddled, weeping, into her mother’s skirts as the coach rolled away from Bryanston Square. Sir Charles and his sons had gone about their business and Mary and Harriet were left in the empty house. They drank tea in the drawing room where the fire was lit as usual but where, as usual, the chill of the house was never quite removed. Harriet stared into the flames.

‘What would make someone jump off a bridge into the Thames?’ said Mary suddenly, violently.

‘Mary?’ Harriet looked up, alarmed, and saw her sister pull herself together at once.

‘It’s all right, darling. I’m all right.’ And Mary smiled.

Again Harriet looked into the flames, and saw, not the woman in the water, but the woman with the streaming hair on the prow of the
Miranda,
leading all the passengers to a new world.

‘It is hard to understand that Edward has already gone, already begun his fantastic adventure.’ Harriet spoke slowly. ‘I love you, Mary, and I wished we two were going on the
Miranda
also.’

Mary only smiled again, stared too into the fire. For some time the sisters sat in silence.

‘I have another new maid,’ said Harriet.

‘Father chose her, of course. But she is the one I spoke to you about, Lucy. I saw her doubly polishing all your furniture again, and telling Quintus you were returning.’

Harriet nodded. ‘The one who sings, and reads stories to Quintus,
to be continued next week.
’ And she gave a small smile. But both women knew that in this house servants were a drifting, uncertain presence: sentinels. Spies.

Another maid came in to ask Mary something about a lack of sugar. Somebody (said the maid) had been stealing it again. Harriet watched her sister as she dealt with the matter calmly; when the maid had gone she said: ‘Oh Mary, I have missed you so much. I only feel half myself when you are not there. But you look – pale somehow, and you have been very quiet. Have you been working too hard?’

‘Working? I don’t
work.
If only I did. If only I could do something useful. I—’ To Harriet’s immense surprise Mary’s voice broke slightly. ‘I feel as if I am wasted. I am trained for nothing. I want, so much, to do something, make something of my life before it is too late. My friends and I have still been going into St Giles even though the epidemic seems almost to be over, but I cannot get away every day if Father wants something and I feel—’ she searched for a word, ‘—stupid, as if I am not to be taken seriously. I want to – I want to…’ Mary’s face looked angry, an expression Harriet had almost never seen there. ‘I am thirty years old. I expect half my life is already over and I have done nothing. I think I am – Mother always insisted I was – an intelligent woman and I feel that intelligence shrivelling and wasted. For I may only use it in
ordering sugar!
’

Harriet could hardly comprehend this sudden change in her sister. She looked at Mary, confused. ‘But, darling, this isn’t like you at all.’ She racked her brain for comfort for her sister, so unusually needed. ‘There is still the Ladies’ College perhaps?’

‘I told you: I may not have my money.’

Harriet moved to her sister, sat beside her. ‘Mary.’ And she took her sister’s hand. ‘Whatever you feel, it must not be that you waste your intelligence. You taught me. Everything I know, I know from you, I’ve learnt from you. I am a product of you. How can you be wasted?’

And then Mary became herself again, as if a storm had passed by. ‘I know,’ she said, and she kissed Harriet briefly. ‘I don’t know what has made me speak like this. I am just tired. Everyone will be tired after such a day. It was sad saying goodbye to Edward, not knowing what will happen to him. And I so hated seeing that woman being – fished – from the water. It was somehow like a portent. I wish the others had waited till tomorrow to return to Rusholme.’

‘It was Asobel. She will be ill if she does not get back to normal. Poor child.’

Mary said quietly after a moment, ‘Lord Kingdom seemed much interested in you. That would be considered a triumph indeed.’

Harriet’s manner changed at once. ‘I certainly don’t see why he should be in the least interested. In fact Cousin John told me – warned me! – that he is engaged with one of the
corps de ballet
of Taglione or some other dancer! so I do not think you need to worry. We have hardly exchanged a dozen words. The other one, Benjamin, is more – more interesting. He said it was possible there is no God.’

Mary looked at Harriet strangely. ‘My darling. My darling sister. You cannot doubt, no matter what happens, that there is a God who created us, who sees us, who watches over us. How, otherwise, could we be here? Who would be watching over Edward on his long journey? How could there be music and paintings and all the beauty of the world? I believe there is a God, and he is the reason we exist in this beautiful world. Nothing I have read has persuaded me otherwise.’

‘I know,’ said Harriet humbly. ‘I know, Mary.’

The fire spat.

‘Nevertheless it is true that Lord Ralph seemed interested in you. I am not sure why else they were there. One might have hoped that Father would have been pleased at such elevated attention. But – he did not like it.’

There was another silence. Harriet said at last, ‘Is that why he made me stay?’

‘Perhaps. And Cousin John is obviously looking for the moment to press his suit.’ But seeing her sister’s face, Mary changed the subject. ‘I hope Edward will be careful.’

‘When you said goodbye, you seemed to be warning him. That was unlike you. I thought you were pleased for him.’

‘I had some – some other information.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I read as much as I could of all the literature Eddie received from the New Zealand Company when he was in London—’

‘So did I. It sounded very sensible and exciting, all at the same time. And the people who wrote those handbooks had been there. They would know.’