The Trespass (59 page)

Benjamin has been gone now for some months. Perhaps he has found the fabulous bird up in the north or perhaps he has left for England, which he said he must. Perhaps I shall see him there.

He and I spoke, just once, about the night my father died. Benjamin told me that three natives were imprisoned in the Wellington Gaol for some time and there was much agitation for their execution but they were, finally, released.

I am glad of that, dear readers of my journal.

The notebook and the letter fell gently to the grass where Harriet lay. She closed her eyes in the warm sunshine and undid the top button of her blouse, where it felt tight at her throat.

It had been so long since she had thought of London. She saw Mr Dawson in his Book Emporium, surrounded by knowledge. She remembered what he had said about Mary: ‘I believe she saw life in smiling terms … tha must take her with thee.’
And so I did.
She saw Cecil in his squashed top hat lighting the lamp on his cab in Oxford Street, agreeing to take her luggage to Gravesend, and whistling. She saw the one oak tree, her oak tree, in Bryanston Square. And she saw her brother Walter, standing hesitantly at the door of her room with the notebook in his hands, ‘Will you write a Journal again, Harry?’

*   *   *

She supposed she must be asleep. That it was the sun that caressed her eyelids so gently. She felt the warmth of the summer morning and she sighed with the pleasure of it. And for some reason an echo of Hetty’s curious words aboard the
Amaryllis
whispered to her from far, far away, the way they sometimes did.
Ain’t you done it? Don’t you miss it?

She began to dream: strange, languorous dreams. She dreamed of her beautiful mother, telling secrets of Mary Wollstonecraft and women, amid the laughter in the rose garden and the scent of the flowers. She dreamed of her sister Mary, dancing in the dark fields after Alice’s wedding. She dreamed of Asobel reading ‘Robinson Crusoe’ with wide eyes. And then she dreamed of Seamus, the little red-headed Irishman, so lovingly giving his sister Rosie a little bit of quietness. The sun seemed to caress her cheeks, and then moved gently across her lips. She thought she heard her Maori horse pulling at the grass, somewhere near. She dreamed of Piritania, named after Britain, holding her as she wept, and the smell of the oil in her hair.

All her dreams caressed her, like the sun that seemed, somehow, to be very gently smoothing her hair from her face.

Harriet opened her eyes.

Benjamin Kingdom sat beside her in the sunshine with his wild blond hair and his grey thoughtful eyes, as if she had conjured him. The same feeling that she had had in the bookshop, that winter’s day so long ago.

‘Good heavens,’ she murmured but for some reason that she did not quite understand she did not move.

‘Are you – all right?’ said Benjamin.

And she smiled up to him. ‘I’m all right, Ben,’ she said. ‘I’m just lying here dreaming.’

He smiled back at her and said nothing.

‘Have you come to the wedding? You are too late.’

‘Are you married?’ Something flickered across his face.

‘Edward and Hetty were married yesterday.’

‘Were they?’ he said. He did not sound surprised but for a moment or two he did not speak. Then he said slowly, ‘I saw that there was much between them. I think they have made a wise decision to follow their hearts rather than social convention for I believe there will be many upheavals in this country.’

‘Do you mean, by upheavals, social upheavals such as theirs?’

‘That, certainly. But I meant something else. I think there will be war, with the natives.’

Harriet looked at him carefully. ‘Over land?’

‘Over land. Not yet. But eventually. I saw it on my travels.’

‘Edward’s land?’

‘I am not sure. Possibly.’

And they stayed without speaking for a long time. And Harriet saw the embers of the fire, and the old woman’s carved face, and the silent shadows in the darkness along the shore, the night of the death of her father.

‘I made a cake for Edward and Hetty,’ she said at last, ‘in that camp oven we carried over the hills last winter. It is my greatest triumph.’

He smiled down at her, and she smiled lazily back. ‘I was dreaming before you came,’ she said. ‘I was dreaming of sunshine.’ She saw herself reflected in the grey eyes. Somewhere a bell-bird sang its high, joyous song. ‘Did you find the
moa?
’

‘No,’ said Benjamin. ‘The
moa
proved elusive, as, I expect, a fabled bird should do. But I have found some wonderful, wonderful old bones.’

Harriet laughed; she could not help it.

‘And kiwis. I have seen kiwis in the bush. Funny little things. This is a kiwi feather.’

For a moment she tensed as he leaned forward. And then he began, very gently, to again run the feather over her face and down her neck to her uncovered throat. After a moment she closed her eyes.

‘It feels so peculiarly – beautiful, Ben,’ she murmured, her eyes still closed. ‘It is a feeling I do not quite – understand.’

Very, very gently Benjamin undid just one more button of the high-necked blouse.

He felt her tense.

And then he saw her face.

By a supreme effort of will she had not jumped up. But her face had completely changed: her eyes were open, the colour had immediately gone from her cheeks, and her face as she stared up at him showed horror, and pain, and memory.

Benjamin, dismayed, sat back. ‘My dearest Harriet,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I am so very sorry.’

Very slowly, in the sunshine, Harriet’s face cleared again, her breath slowed, finally her eyes closed. Benjamin sat very still, the stillness he had learned from watching strange and beautiful birds that had come to rest on the branch of a tree, who may, or may not, have sensed his presence.

The sun was warm, again the bell-bird sang in the trees. There were other sounds: the humming of insects, a horse shaking its mane somewhere near; in the distance Quintus barked.

After a long time she spoke.

‘Is this something I could learn, Ben?’ said Harriet.

In September 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to give the vote to women.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

I am indebted to the authors of the following books:

Early Victorian England, editor GM Young; Oxford University Press, 1934

The Infernal Wen: London 1808–1870 by Francis Sheppard; Secker & Warburg, London, 1971

The Early Victorian Woman: some aspects of her life 1837–57 by Janet Dunbar; George G Harrap & Co, London 1953

The Victorian Woman by Duncan Crowe; Allen & Unwin, London, 1971

Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain by Anthony Wohl; Dent, London, 1983

The Handbook for New Zealand … compiled for the use of intending Colonists. By a late magistrate of the colony. Anonymous (actually, Edward Jerningham Wakefield); John W Parker, London, 1848

Narrative of a Residence in New Zealand. Journal of a Residence in Tristan da Cunha by Augustus Earle (editor EH McCormick); Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966

Tristan da Cunha, 1506–1902 by Jan Brander; Allen & Unwin, London, 1940

A Colonist’s Voyage to New Zealand by Alfred Fell (editor Arthur Fell); Townsend & Son, Exeter/Simpkin, Marshall & Co, London, 1926

Collected Letters: Charlotte Godley, introduction by Professor AP Newton; printed for private circulation, Plymouth, 1936

Twelve Months in Wellington, Port Nicholson by Lt John Wood; Pelham Richardson, London, 1843

Mary Taylor, writer of fiction: letters from New Zealand and elsewhere, editor Joan Stevens; Auckland University Press, 1972

Born to New Zealand: a biography of Jane Maria Atkinson by Frances Porter; Allen & Unwin/ Port Nicholson Press, 1989

Early Victorian New Zealand 1832–1852 by John Miller; Oxford University Press, 1958

Also by Barbara Ewing

Strangers

The Actresses

A Dangerous Vine

Barbara Ewing
is a New Zealand-born actress and author who lives and works in London.

THE TRESPASS. Copyright © 2002 by Barbara Ewing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

First published in Great Britain by Time Warner Books

First U.S. Edition: July 2003

eISBN 9781466863347

First eBook edition: December 2013