The Trespass (9 page)

Seamus bustled back with a jug of hot water. ‘I been keeping this on the fire out the back for an hour or two,’ he said. ‘In case you could come. You’ll have a cup of tea, miss?’

Harriet still stared in horror at the pile of dirty blankets where the voice had come from. She thought very quickly. ‘If you would not mind I would rather not,’ she said. ‘But – but thank you.’ Seamus looked crestfallen for a moment, poured the water into the teapot nevertheless. ‘What – what was it you wanted me to do?’

‘Let me just give Rosie a cup of tea, and I’ve got her a little bit of quietness to go in it,’ said Seamus.

‘Quietness?’

But he seemed not to hear and he took one of the cups across to the blankets and bent down and murmured encouragingly to the small voice inside them.

‘We want to go to Australia,’ he said, returning to the box. ‘Me and Rosie. That’s my sister. When she’s better. A whole new start where the weather’s better for Rosie and where there’s land for the asking. I can make honey and Rosie’ll help me. She’s such a fine worker, been a farmworker when there was work. Clearing stones. I should think there’ll be a lot of clearing stones in Australia, what do you think, miss? I thought I might get myself taken as a thief,’ he said, and he gave a little bright half-laugh but to Harriet it seemed full of sadness. ‘But I might have made a mistake and got sent to Newgate, and I needed to be sure Rosie could come too. John here said you might be kind enough to write us a letter. You’re sure then, are you, about the tea?’ and again he looked disappointed at her refusal, stared at his little carefully prepared display of cups and the old teapot. ‘Well, I’ve acquired the paper and the pen and the ink,’ he continued after a moment, ‘for I knew you’d not be carrying them, not expecting me and Rosie to be wanting your help as well. You’ll write us the letter? Will you?’ And again, when he stopped talking in his cheerful, engaging manner his face looked as if it would cry. ‘Just one short letter, that’s all we want. The Vicar won’t help any of us, we’ve tried him, and we don’t know who else to ask. And then John said he’d found you. Here now—’ and he moved the teapot and the cups carefully on to the floor and from a corner produced the paper, ‘—here’s the writables.’

Harriet felt as if all the other people in the room, all the snuffling and coughing and smelling people, were watching her. She flicked her eyes nervously across to the pile of blankets, then leant on the box where he’d placed the pen and ink and began to write as quickly as possible.

To the Agent of the Australia Company:

Dear Sir …

‘I do not know your name.’

‘Seamus Link.’

Dear Sir,

My name is Seamus Link and I wish to present myself …

‘And Rosie Link.’

… and my sister Rosie Link as assisted immigrants to your beautiful country …

When she had finished writing, Harriet said, wanting desperately to go but fearing she had appeared rude when she had refused the precious tea, ‘Do you really mean you will try to make honey?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Seamus, ‘I’ve got my Queenie and my nucleus and my sweetened water and my pollen pod. All safe in a box, all waiting for the signal to go. Such sweet Irish honey we’ll make them, will we not, my Rosie?’

There was no answer from the blankets and Harriet rose at last.

John Bowker walked her back across the piece of wood over the mud and into the air. She felt she had been holding her breath, breathed in now, gratefully, even though the alley was narrow and dirty and the people lounging stared without smiling. He led her back down the first alley and into the second one. Just before they reached the main street Harriet stopped.

‘Thank you, John Bowker,’ she said. ‘I can manage from here.’

He understood at once and did not press to come any further. ‘Thank you, Miss Harriet,’ he said. ‘If our lives change it will be because of you.’

‘No,’ she said to him again. ‘We change our own lives.’ But she had to ask him. ‘Does Rosie have the cholera?’

John Bowker looked shocked. ‘Is that what you thought?’ He looked at her oddly. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you where someone has the cholera, miss,’ he said sharply. ‘I ain’t that much of a fool.’

‘But – she—’

‘She was sick long before the cholera. She has a lump in her stomach. It eats her. There’s almost nothing left of her. It’s the cancer. They thought they had an aunt in Kent, they walked here when Rosie began to get ill. But they never found the aunt and then Rosie wasn’t well enough to move again.’

‘Oh. Oh – I am so sorry.’

‘Me too, I’m sorry,’ he said fiercely. He seemed then to be going to say something else but he did not, seemed to be somehow disappointed in her. He added formally, ‘Thank you for helping us, miss. We are very grateful.’

‘I am glad.’ She could not quite leave. ‘Was that – excuse me for asking – a
pig
in the barn with all the people?’

‘That’s Porky. He’s our savings.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He will pay for our expenses, when we sell him.’

‘Oh. Oh yes, I see.’ Still she stood there. ‘Excuse me for asking questions but a lot of things were – new – to me. What’s the – the – “quietness” he was giving to Rosie?’

‘Oh, he meant the Godfrey’s.’

‘The Godfrey’s?’

‘The Godfrey’s Cordial. It will help her to sleep. It’s like poppy tea and that.’ She tried not to look shocked.

‘Will Seamus really
take
bees? All that way? Surely there will be bees in Australia?’

‘He wants to take some of his hives. He says they’re special bees.’

‘On a ship?’

‘On a ship. When Rosie dies. The doctor says it will be a very short time now.’

‘But—’ Harriet’s face paled. ‘He included her in the letter.’

‘Of course. Do you think we would arrange all this around her without including her?’ He still spoke stiffly, and it flashed through Harriet’s mind that Rosie might have been his girl.

‘I am so sorry. I must have seemed rude. I thought it was cholera. In London we think everything is cholera. I was – sent here – into Kent. To get away from it.’

His face softened again. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, as we won’t meet again – I’m thinking you’re too beautiful and too rich for the cholera to get you, miss. It gets us lot, not you lot, and that’s why we’re going. Where it’ll be more equal. Goodbye, Miss Harriet. We’ll always remember you as our letter-writing—’ he paused for a word, ‘—angel.’ And he turned and went the way he had come, without looking back.

She walked quickly through the town and back along the dusty road to her uncle’s wheatfields. She thought of her sister Mary, still in London where it wasn’t safe, and was filled with such a longing to see her that her body actually shook as she passed the harvested bundles. When she got back to the house her aunt and her cousins were sitting looking more exhausted than when she left them. All three waved once more a limpid arm; they still wore their gloves.

‘My dear!’ said Aunt Lucretia. ‘Such splendid news! Your father is coming down tomorrow also, and honouring us with his presence at the wedding!’

Down by the summerhouse Asobel was chasing butterflies with a small net.

FIVE

When the maid brought in the hot water next morning, placing it, with a smaller jug of cold water, by the basin on the washstand, Harriet was sitting by the open window. A pair of peacocks were running across the grass: a brown, neatly stepping peahen and a male with his bright feathers displayed for all the morning to see.

‘Sun’s still shining, miss. Only has to last till tomorrow and we’ll all be happy.’

‘Yes,’ said Harriet.

*   *   *

Asobel, grasping her butterfly net by one hand and Harriet by the other, was waiting on the steps when the carriage at last arrived. As the black horses clip-clopped delicately along the overgrown drive Asobel felt her cousin’s hand tighten on hers so much that it hurt. She did not cry out but looked up at Harriet’s face. Asobel was only eight but recognised some urgent expression there that she had never seen on anyone’s face before. And then her cousin let go of her hand and flew (it seemed to Asobel) down the steps and to the carriage door. The driver was already there; he helped Mary step heavily down and then Harriet threw her arms around her sister. For just a short moment they stood there, quite still, and Asobel did not understand the feeling of desolation that came over her. Then the two sisters moved away from the coach and Asobel saw her Uncle Charles, of whom she felt quite scared, alight also.

Her mother and her father and sisters and brothers had heard the coach and stood on the steps also, waiting to greet the guests, and Donald in his butler’s uniform directed luggage.

‘Harriet,’ said the Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP. Asobel saw Harriet turn from Mary and give a small curtsey to her father, her eyes downwards. He stepped towards her and she stood very still as he held her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

Lucretia Cooper bustled forward. ‘Charles, my dear, how good of you to make the time. You will add to the
lustre
of our happy occasion,’ and the brothers shook hands, and the cousins bowed and bobbed and everyone was swept in through the doorway.

Asobel stayed silently by the coach, not looking at the doorway, biting her lip.

‘Asobel,’ Mary called.

‘Asobel,’ Harriet called.

The little girl turned and rushed up the steps. ‘Hello, Cousin Mary,’ she said, ‘you taught me to read, how’s your foot?’

‘Hello, little Asobel, my foot is splendid. Won’t you come and help us unpack? Harriet has told me what a fine reader you are now. I have brought you a present.’

Alice and Augusta still stood in the hall. They liked Mary, they greeted her pleasantly. But neither could help remembering what their mother had said about a cripple at a wedding.

But their younger brother Edward had no such qualms. He bounded over from speaking to his uncle and kissed Mary on the cheek, his eyes shining with pleasure. ‘I say, Mary, this is a treat,’ he said joyfully. ‘Shall I carry you upstairs like I used to try to when I was a boy?’

Mary laughed. ‘And dropped me, Edward, as I well remember! I can walk quite well, I just take a little longer. But I will meet you in the drawing room later, I have brought—’ and she lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘—the old chess set,’ and Edward grinned. Mary and Edward had played chess together since they were children, when Edward had suddenly understood that his older cousin could not run and play like the others. They had both become experts. Chess was not really a game played by elegant women, it was rather too cerebral, as Mary was often told, but she smiled, and played, and won. Now Mary turned again to her cousins. ‘Will you show me your wedding gowns?’ she asked, and Alice and Asobel, and even Augusta (who had a particularly beautiful dress to compensate for not being the bride) squealed in delight and ran up the stairs. Harriet, as she always did, walked behind Mary as she leaned on the banister walking slowly upwards, Harriet asking questions, chattering, making her sister’s slow journey seem entirely natural. Harriet looked back once, briefly: her father and her uncle had already disappeared into the study.

For the rest of the afternoon the polished brass doorknocker on the front door never stopped banging. Flowers arrived; Lucretia’s sister and her family arrived from Nottingham and had to be revived after their long coach journey; the dressmaker arrived to make final adjustments to the wedding apparel. The Vicar arrived to have a final conversation with Alice about her duties as a wife, followed by a final conversation with her mother about the choir, accompanied by wine and Madeira cake. Outside the servants moved chairs and tables into the marquee, the band rehearsed ‘Home, Sweet Home’ and several of Strauss’s waltzes, and Lucretia Cooper kept rushing out and looking at the sky.

Dinner was a huge affair with Sir Charles Cooper and Mary and the large family of Lucretia’s sister. The nieces, exuberant girls from Nottingham, giggling and screeching despite their mother’s protestations, were excited beyond redemption at the prospect of such a large and romantic event. Even during grace there was a ripple of heavy breathing and excitement in the air. Cousin John looked at the Nottingham girls sourly, he felt they were making far too much noise; looked then across at his other cousin Harriet, so quiet, so restrained and – yes, it was true – beautiful. He would look further into the matter of marrying her, when he was ready. Charles Cooper, handsome (Lucretia proudly observed) in his white cravat and dark, tight-fitting jacket, drank his brother’s ale and remembered how much he hated the country; grimly observed his nephew staring at his daughter. Observed how beautiful his daughter looked, her face animated and open as she listened to her sister and reported something across the table to the small child.

Harriet felt her father’s look. She did not look at him directly at all, but something left her face and she became quite still, her hands in her lap.

After the consommé of lobster and the fresh turbot William Cooper stood at the head of the table, holding his – already much replenished – glass. He welcomed the guests at some length and then proposed a toast to his daughter Alice who was – and he found a large handkerchief and blew his nose noisily – leaving the bosom of the family where things would never be quite the same again.

‘Oh Papa!’ cried Alice, much moved herself.

‘Don’t cry, Papa,’ said Asobel sensibly. ‘I’ll still be here. And Augy and the boys.’

‘Don’t call me Augy!’ hissed Augusta.

‘Yes we’ll still be here, sir,’ said John, wishing to appear jovial in this company. ‘You shan’t get rid of us so easily as you did Alice.’

‘You’ll all marry and leave me,’ said William Cooper, ‘I shall simply be alone.’ For just a split second, Harriet saw, he seemed to exchange glances with his younger son. But then the moment was gone and he looked dramatically and dolefully around the table, bringing out his handkerchief again, warming to his theme. ‘You’ll all leave and I shall remain here alone!’ and then Lucretia began to cry also, saying, ‘You have forgotten me, William. You have forgotten your Wife!’