The Trespass (24 page)

He turned and looked out of the window into the greyness of the sky and the bareness of the trees. He spoke gruffly and did not turn back to look at her. ‘I liked your mother very much. She was very pretty, she had a low and pleasing voice and there was something about her that made everyone around her want to smile. Charming.’

How bare the trees were. How grey the day.

‘If I am to be truthful about her I would add that I always felt that her ideas for the education of your sister were a mistake. But of course she always made your father’s happiness her first priority, of that I can assure you. She was a wonderful wife to him. One can understand, in a way, why he has not married again. Your father’s happiness and comfort were always her prime concern, nothing got in the way of that, which is as it should be, of course.’ Harriet made no sound, no answer. After a moment’s silence the doctor continued, still looking out across the Square.

‘I always felt that your mother, too, read rather too much than was good for her, though no doubt you will find me old-fashioned for thinking so. I am old-fashioned, I expect. But I have seen many things in my profession as a doctor and nothing I have learnt has made me wish to be more modern.’

Still Harriet made no sound. The doctor sighed and turned back towards the room, although not exactly looking at her. ‘I would very much like to say something to you, my dear, if you will allow me. The reason I am against too many books is that I do feel that young ladies have a duty to be satisfied with the limitations that their sex has put upon them, otherwise they will be unhappy – and perhaps make others unhappy too. There is too much human misery in the world, Harriet, for us to add to it with our small dissatisfactions.’ He knew he was lecturing Harriet but felt it was his duty, he thought only of her happiness of course. And then the doctor seemed suddenly to sigh and his voice sounded quite different.

‘Ah, I do remember how your mother laughed, her gift of laughter. Your house in Clapham was full of laughter, a most pleasant place to visit. And most of all I remember—’ and he turned and looked at Harriet at last, ‘how much she wanted another daughter. She told me that if God gave her another daughter as beautiful as Mary, she would thank him for it, for the rest of her life. She knew you were a girl before she died, she smiled at me when I told her.’ And he turned back to the grey morning square.

He thought perhaps he heard her crying.

Then there was a tap at the door.

The doctor turned then and saw Harriet standing in the middle of the room with the damned dog right beside her, looking up at her face. If she had been crying she had stopped now. He thought for a moment that she was going to say something to him: she seemed to flutter; it was as if she were a bird, waiting to –
fly
– it was the only thing he could think of. She stood facing him, unstill, holding the bottle of laudanum, he was sure she would speak. And then Lucy entered and said, placing a tray on a small table, ‘Your breakfast, Miss Harriet,’ and the moment was gone.

‘Thank you, Doctor Adams,’ said Harriet, and although he saw from her face that she
was
thanking him, not for the medicine but for the words, nevertheless he also felt himself dismissed in some way, as if she had made up her mind about something.

He went down the stairs of the dark, silent house and allowed the footman to fuss with his coat, for he was thinking of Harriet, wished he had seen the smile again, the one that lit up her face, just the way her mother’s had.

*   *   *

Lucy saw Harriet eat the food: silently, neatly, disinterestedly, as Quintus looked on enthusiastically. But she ate it nevertheless, the first time Lucy had seen her eat anything.

‘Would you like to go down to the drawing room, miss? There is a fire there, it would be a change for you.’ Harriet looked at the maid.
The drawing room? Where she and Mary had had their last conversation? About the Ladies’ College. And the wind.

‘No. I would like the carriage brought round, please.’

Lucy looked deeply alarmed. It had been her job of course to empty the bowls from the wash stand, full of vomit. And sweep up the broken mirror. And the clock. She had seen the look on Harriet’s face as she stared at her father. ‘The carriage, Miss Harriet? Do you mean to go out?’

‘Yes, I am going out. Please tell them I want the carriage here.’ Then, quite harshly, seeing Lucy’s face, ‘My father said I was to have anything I want.’

‘Yes, miss. I will get my shawl, miss.’

‘I wish to go alone, thank you, Lucy.’

‘Yes, Miss Harriet.’ Lucy curtseyed, hurried downstairs, and had the extraordinary thought that Harriet would run away. Lucy’s heart began to beat faster: she had to keep this place, she could not lose this place, her mother needed the money, her mother lay in Spitalfields with the inflammation of the lungs that weaver women always got, would die without Lucy’s help.

Harriet slowly pinned on her hat, slowly pulled the veil over her face. Her hands shook. There was no mirror. Quintus watched her intently.

Downstairs there was much consternation. Peters, her father’s chief manservant, was firm. He was his master’s eyes and ears as they all knew. The master’s instructions had been quite clear. Harriet was to be watched over at all times until he could be back to take charge again: no-one had imagined for a moment she would be anywhere but in her room.

‘This is ridiculous, she oughtn’t to go out at all till Sir Charles comes back.’

‘And she don’t want me to accompany her,’ said Lucy, confused. ‘She said she wanted to go alone.’

‘She can’t go alone and that’s that.’ Peters was adamant. ‘If we can’t persuade her she’s not to go I shall ride with one of the footmen on the carriage and you, Lucy, will ride inside. She’s sick. She’s probably got hysteria. It’d be more than our jobs are worth to let her go out alone. Suppose something happened to her, suppose she fainted. He would never forgive us.’
Watch over my daughter
were the last words Sir Charles had said to him.

‘Then you tell her,’ said Lucy.

‘You can’t be afraid of a
young girl!
’

‘You tell her.’ Lucy was afraid for herself: she had to keep this position; a broken mirror meant seven years’ bad luck.

Down the stairs, slowly, Harriet walked, the dog just behind her. The servants fell silent at once. Her pale face shone under the black clothes. They saw that she hardly saw them, that she looked at the walls and the doors and the rooms in an odd way as if they, not her, had changed. Servants stood, uneasy in the hallway, nobody spoke. She stared at the door of the drawing room for a long time. And then she said to Peters, ‘Is my carriage there?’

‘It is called for, my lady. But we feel that you must not go out alone – you have been very ill. Some of us must accompany you.’

‘I shall be visiting friends. I shall be quite safe.’

‘Young ladies never go out alone, Miss Harriet. The Master left strict instructions with us, that you were to be – looked after.’

His words hung there in the dark hall and to Harriet the servants in their black were like gaolers, an army of gaolers left by her father. She remembered how Mary had described them as chess pieces and she saw it too, standing on the squares in the hall at odd, pointed angles, or was it her? Quickly she put out her hand and steadied herself at a small hall table.

‘The last words of my father to me were that every wish of mine was to be attended to. I wish to visit an old friend of—’ her voice faltered and then she went on, ‘an old friend of my sister, who will be waiting to see me. I shall not be gone for very long. I do not wish to be accompanied by servants.’

Silence in the hall: nothing moved on the chessboard. The will of Peters and the will of the pale, beautiful girl quivered in the gloom. Harriet remained motionless, her hand still on the table. Peters did not falter. That she was her father’s treasure was known to everyone: she must be watched over.

They heard the carriage and horses stopping by the door. Quintus barked. Still the footman did not open the door to the dank winter day, waiting for instructions. The other servants stood, waiting also. And then somebody banged on the doorknocker outside.

Immediately the tableau was broken, the door was opened and the illustrious Lady Kingdom could be seen in the grey misty morning, descending from her grand coach with the help of two servants. She swept into the hall and, seeming not to notice that Harriet was dressed for outdoors, was at once escorted into the drawing room; Quintus was removed by Lucy. Harriet slowly took off her hat and her mantle and walked into the drawing room as if in a dream, to preside over her first call. The servants were shut out: reverted to their place in the scheme of things.

Lady Kingdom gave formal condolences for the death of Mary.

Harriet gave a formal, polite reply, in the room where she had last sat with her sister.

Lady Kingdom commented adversely on the weather for some time.

Harriet agreed.

Lady Kingdom asked Harriet if the servants in the house were satisfactory. ‘I believe they were chosen by my father, that is what he prefers,’ said Harriet, as if all satisfaction was encompassed in that answer, and her guest, acknowledging Sir Charles’s odd domestic situation, nodded, satisfied.

If Lady Kingdom noticed that her hostess was deathly pale she gave no indication, for these things were best not mentioned. She enquired after the health of her father. Harriet did not say that her father had gone to Norwich.

‘He is well, thank you, Lady Kingdom.’
He undid the buttons on her nightdress he leaned forward.

‘Much exercised still by your sister’s funeral, I have no doubt.’

Harriet inclined her head.

‘It was a well-attended funeral. Your father had much honour given him.’

In the silence in the drawing room the fire spat
and then he.

Harriet suddenly spoke, a little fast. ‘I was on my way to see my father. He had asked me to visit him. At Westminster.’

‘Then when we have had tea, I shall take you there.’

Thus reminded, Harriet rang the bell. Tea appeared at once.

Harriet poured. If her hands shook a little as she passed a small, exquisite cup and saucer to her visitor, again it was not commented upon.

Then Lady Kingdom expressed deep regret that Harriet and her father would in the circumstances be unable to attend her Christmas Ball.

Harriet inclined her head again, from which Lady Kingdom understood that Harriet was also regretful.

Soon afterwards, to the consternation of Peters who was hovering in the hall, the two ladies swept into Lady Kingdom’s coach and were gone, along Bryanston Square and down towards Oxford Street. Unbeknown to Peters or to Lady Kingdom, a small hansom cab rattled along behind them, always keeping them in view.

‘Lord Ralph is particularly sorry not to see you at Christmas.’ Lady Kingdom raised her voice effortlessly against the noise of the carriage wheels rumbling beneath them.

‘Your sons are well, Lady Kingdom?’

She nodded. ‘Benjamin has come under the influence of that madman Darwin, but Ralph says he will grow out of it. Ralph will call on your father, my dear, he wishes to present his condolences in person.’

‘That is kind.’ Harriet looked out into the crowded streets, unchanged by Mary’s death, wild and noisy and rackety and filthy as ever. All those people hurrying by, laughing, living their lives, knowing nothing of her pain. And bleakly one of the harsh rules of the world came to her:
no-one can ever know another person’s sorrow.

The carriage rolled on towards the Palace of Westminster, delayed partially by a herd of recalcitrant cows and sheep which were being whipped unwillingly towards Smithfields Market. Having seen her charge safely into the hands of the parliamentary footmen who would escort her to her father immediately, Lady Kingdom drove away, contemplating that the girl, though so grieved at present and still not at all what she herself would have chosen, had beauty and grace. But Miss Cooper was
beneath
them; Lady Kingdom shuddered at a marriage into Water Boards and sons of squires. The girl would require much education in what it meant to marry into one of the great families of England (for so Lady Kingdom saw the matter). But Ralph had shown interest and in the circumstances she supposed the match must be pursued. Ralph was a fool, but he must be saved from greater folly.

Inside the Palace of Westminster Harriet waited as if for her father. She could not think of what else to do; servants hurried away: it was recognised at once that she was the other daughter, in mourning of course.
He loosened his clothes little panting sounds came from him.
She sat quite still in the huge hall where workmen still laboured on the new Parliament. She froze as she suddenly thought Sir Charles approached her, but it was another honourable gentleman on another mission. When the servants at last returned with the news that her father was not present, she asked them to hail her a cab although she had never been alone in one in her life. There was a cabman just outside, he was leaning on some railing almost as though he had been waiting for her.

‘I know that young lady’s family,’ he said cheerily, ‘I’ll take her.’ She asked the servants to tell the driver to take her to the Strand and the driver helped her into his hansom cab, the one that had rattled along behind Lady Kingdom’s coach. In the privacy of the closed cab Harriet fumblingly took some papers from her reticule. She knew the address off by heart; she had no money with her; young ladies did not handle money. She told the cabman to wait. Then she entered the premises of the New Zealand Company.

Again servants took charge of her, placed her on a high-backed couch in a reception room. Many men in frock coats moved purposefully in and out of the doors. There were two women there with their husbands, there was a group of women in bonnets laughing nervously. At the far end, some obviously poorer people were waiting. And there was Harriet Cooper, tall and still on the high-backed couch, waiting also.