Tam eased the folded paper open into a china-fine sphere heavy with handwriting. The ink was black, green, brown, and some parts of it were cross-written. Long joins disturbed these letters; I could see that the papers had been cut into Elliptical pieces and pasted together to make the globe. The work was so surely and tightly done that there were no holes in it at all, save for a round opening at the base of the Object.
‘That is how my sister writes, when she has much to say,’ said Mrs Heron, indicating the cross-writing. ‘She is very frugal. I suppose we are frugal, also—aren’t we, Tam? We make use of the materials we have to hand, thus.’
I was still rather caught on the idea of a humble missionary having silk. Hardly frugal!
‘My husband bought it for me,’ she said, when I made some enquiry. ‘When I first expressed the need to make a Balloon.’
The need for a Balloon!
‘I have seen a Balloon,’ I said. ‘Before now, I have seen one. In London, launched from Hampstead Heath.’
‘That is interesting,’ said Mrs Heron, and delicately withdrew her attention from the conversation.
‘Was it greater than ours?’ asked Tam.
‘Yes! It was so large a man and a woman were lifted up by it.’
Tam looked brightly at me, and then up at the sky. ‘I wish to launch a Mouse, but Mrs Heron says it is not good to do.’
‘It would be bad luck for the Mouse,’ I said. ‘He should not be able to steer. Do you know where Hampstead Heath is?’
‘London,’ said Tam.
‘Very good.’
He looked at me as if I were a fool. ‘You said it. Moments ago.’
Well—true. Why was I persisting in my attempt to talk to a child? Evidently, I was not doing it well. ‘Should you like to visit London one day?’ I asked him.
‘No!’ he said, and turned his eyes to the Balloon.
To my dear one, I read upon the sphere, and the elm is in blossom, and I pray nightly, and her son is making some reckless choices, and she needs comforting, and I cannot abide by cambric for that particular purpose, whatever you say, and how I miss you, and other ordinary intimacies. My mother had written me such things, when I was in London and she at home. This before she was shut away.
The true value of a social letter had never really struck me until that moment, as I gazed upon the Balloon writ all over with words that, between them, amounted to: I remember you, and I wish you to remember me, and here are some of my thoughts and daily happenings, that you might hear and see me, and have me closer to you. And I desire the same from you.
Please respond at yr. earliest convenience.
‘Where is your mother?’ I asked the child.
‘Where is your mother,’ he said. It was not clear if he was quoting me in disbelief at my further stupidity, or asking me, or something else, but he did not pause to explain. ‘We write twelve names here, every Balloon,’ he continued, indicating the inner surface of the sphere through its low opening. Here and there, I could see words written in red ink in the empty spaces. My vision blurred and flowered again at the eddying currents of script.
‘For the twelve Apostles,’ I said.
‘No,’ said the lady.
I looked about me for William, for I was struck anew with the sensation I had latterly felt that he might assist me through every strange encounter that I did not quite understand. I could not see him, although I gazed at the faces of the men singing and drinking around the fire. And yet, no matter that the conversation was half unintelligible, I possessed in me the peculiar need for the comfort of talk, and thus went on.
‘Did Mr Newton write of Balloons?’ I asked the Ballooning duo in general.
‘Sir,’ said Tam.
‘Yes. Well done,’ said Mrs Heron.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked.
‘Sir Isaac Newton,’ said Mrs Heron. ‘Not mister, as you have said. And in answer to your question: I believe Sir Isaac Newton lived somewhat before the Balloon, and therefore no, he did not.’
‘Ah—thank you.’ I lapsed into silence once more as I racked my brains to recall whether I had referred to the great Scientist as Mr Newton to anybody in speech, and therefore embarrassed myself. I could not call to mind an instance of this, but still I felt uneasy.
‘What is to-day?’ I asked.
‘Indeed,’ murmured Mrs Heron. She and Tam had drawn some other Items from the box and were working quietly together to fasten the paper sphere to a tin lamp of some rustic design, with a long white string coiled below. There was a simple harmony, and a quiet companionship, about their work.
‘Forgive me—no. What is the date?’
‘Oh, I see. It is the thirteenth day of July, I believe.’
‘It is a Wednesday,’ said Tam.
‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe,’ said Mrs Heron. She said it without thinking, as some say ‘God bless you!’ at a sneeze, lest the sneezer die of plague.
‘I was not born on a Wednesday, so that is not me,’ Tam told me. ‘On what day were you born?’
‘I do not know,’ I said.
‘I do not know either,’ said the boy. ‘Only that it was not Wednesday.’
‘It was a fine day, whichever it was,’ said Mrs Heron, and she and Tam exchanged a fleeting smile. Her attention to him was simple and motherly, and their manner together more natural than mine had ever been with my own mother.
Mamma had gone into the attic the previous December, on Boxing Day. She had been there now for six-and-a-half months.
The sea before us rustled like writing-paper.
Once Mamma had removed her bonnet on a social call where it was not appropriate, and had subsequently stayed quite some time longer than was polite. The lady Mamma had been visiting on that unhappy occasion had complained to her husband, who had gone so far as to report it to Father at the Club on a London visit. Instead of dismissing it as the trifle it no doubt truly was, Father brought it home with him, and we were compelled to address it en famille. That had been an embarrassing discussion for all but Father, I think, who delivered a Lecture for Mamma’s edification, leaning back contemplatively in his chair.
I do not know if that had been the beginning of Mamma’s doom. The seasons rolled on, each one sparser than the last. Perhaps it is more likely that it was simply one thread in a tapestry which, when all such threads were skilfully stitched together, made a picture of the attic door. Mamma and I had never discussed it, but once, privately, she had given me a certain look, and I had pressed her hand in a certain way, and thus we communicated our mutual understanding—I think that is what occurred. It must have been lonely, that slow death she suffered of discreet exclusion from all the kinds of things that happened: the salons and balls, parties, soirées, Informal Gatherings of Friends, dinners, luncheons, picnics, Charitable Visits to the Poor and, in short, all the diversions that add texture to a gentlewoman’s days. Lonely too must have been the understanding at home that it was her own failing that caused it. And had I ever indicated with the merest positioning of my own body that I participated in this careful and courteous expulsion from Society?
I hoped I had not.
It was rather hypocritical of Father, I thought, to bear so heavily on the conventions of Society, and hold Mamma to such account. He himself preferred to remain mostly retired, excepting the Club, and any engagements he could not get out of. Well—despite the antiquity of our family and our house, Father was, after all, merely a Baronet. This might impress the villagers, but could hardly impress anybody who was anybody. Perhaps, then, rather than be Unimpressive, Father stayed away. A startling idea! That instead of holding himself separate because he felt superior to the foolish mores and inhabitants of our social circle, he would hold himself separate because he felt inferior!
I had thought it best not to dwell on such things. For how can such a quiet and subtle Mechanism as Society be approached? What can one do?
‘Silence descends,’ murmured Mrs Heron. Indeed, all conversa
tion had stopped, and even the men at the fire along the beach had fallen quiet.
‘I was thinking of my father and mother,’ I said.
‘What of them?’
‘I do not know—it is difficult to say.’
I felt my own failing, and perhaps weakness, more keenly than I ever had before. Now so far removed from that Society, it actually puzzled me that I could have been so weak, and for what reward?
‘It is incredible to me—extraordinary that we—People—occupy so narrow a plane!’ said Mrs Heron. ‘We go along the ground, and skim across the water, when all above is the vast chamber of the Sky—and all below the vast chamber of the Sea! Oh, do not mention miners to me,’ she added, as an aside to Tam. ‘They do not go so very deep. Have you the match?’
A look of raw longing flashed across Tam’s face. He produced a palmful of matches from his pocket and sifted through them to select one which to me looked identical to the others, but which had evidently distinguished itself somehow to the child. He struck it against the lamp and touched it to the wick. We all shifted our feet a little as the Balloon glowed, the words writ here and there all across it now transcendent. The Balloon trembled and departed Mrs Heron’s hands, and she let the white string run through her fingers. A still and silent picture of the line hot from the whaleboat and slicing into the waves passed before me. I watched the Balloon rise and rise, until it could rise no more, for Mrs Heron had closed her hand. The little craft hovered benignly above, drifting like a boat in the current, anchored to the lady. We looked up at it together.
‘I have caught a little Mouse, for the day when Mrs Heron says yes, we may launch it,’ Tam told me softly, as we gazed above. ‘He is called Tam. That is what people call him. But his name is Thomas Mochrie.’
‘Is that your name?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how should you like to fly?’
‘Fearful!’
‘You are fearful?’
‘Flying is fearful! I should be very happy.’
The men on the water had conquered the Island of the Nation of Red, for they had taken down the flag, and had harnessed the whale, and were dragging it back ashore. They moved so slowly they seemed not to move at all, except that if I looked away and then back again, they were nearer. I looked then back towards the house, whence Mr Heron had emerged on his preposterous legs to watch the whale brought in. In the moment I saw him, however, he was looking not at the whale, but at the Balloon. His face was peaceful with wonder.
‘Like a Chinese lantern,’ said I.
‘What’s a Chinese lantern?’ asked Tam.
‘Why, it is something like your Balloon. From China.’ I hoped he would not ask me more, for I had never seen a Chinese lantern, only read of one. He looked a little like he might enquire further, but Mrs Heron spoke instead.
‘Will you certainly join the party to Hobart-town to-morrow?’ she asked. ‘It was kind of you to offer, and, of course, it will be the most convenient mode of delivering you back to civilisation, such as it is. And you spoke so well in favour of taking Cook home to his family.’
‘Yes, I will, if Mr Heron so decides,’ I said.
‘He will so decide.’
Tam had grown quite still, and he now looked from the Balloon to Mrs Heron. ‘So, you are really going away?’ he asked her. She put a soft hand on his shoulder, and seemed about to say something, but did not.
I looked from the Balloon to the lady and child together and then out to sea. The whale startled me with its closeness; Mr Heron and some others had come to wade out and help draw her in. Night had fallen, and the fire leapt high, and the men bore lamps, and the Balloon circled above us all. Limp and dreadful was the whale amongst all the glimmering.
We had been at table, in the wreathed and garlanded Hall, and we had vanquished already many rich courses, and had shored up against Linzer torte and plum pudding with custard. Through the windows it seemed evening had fallen already, as it so often does on Wintry afternoons. It had not snowed that year, not yet. The snow would come soon enough, bringing with it the end of birdsong, and the sacred hush of the white drifts.
Our crystal shone in the gentle candlelight. The glossy holly leaves wound about the candle-sticks seemed more orange than green. Sir Ranulph and Lady Oxford were each serenely holding forth, he on the topic of the Christmas Sermon we had latterly endured, and she on some matter relating to the South of France. Father sat, speaking but little, nodding sombrely and surveying us all with a proprietorial air. Sir Ranulph was at Father’s right; Lady Oxford to his left. Other such minorly distinguished persons glinted and chattered about them. Mamma was arranged at the foot of the table, looking pleased and quite merry, conversing animatedly with Mrs Pilkington. Susannah Prendergast, at my side, was gowned in the colour of ivory. I could hardly see where the silk ended and the skin began. At Church she had worn a nicely festive hat, modest enough for the occasion, but with a gay Tartan ribbon. Now there was a heartbreaking little comb enamelled with a woodland scene in her hair.
This easy and familiar tableau represented not a small success on the part of my family. Mamma had been out of favour for some years, and for us to have gathered an even somewhat well-connected party of personages on Christmas Day really did augur well for Mamma’s social recovery. When extending her invitations, she had represented it as an intimate gathering of our nearest Friends and Relations, thrown together in the merry spirit of the season. As such, our manner was peaceably gay. In reality, the occasion was an iron-clad military campaign, and we were advancing as one upon the well-defended Fortress that was Society.
I had put it to Susannah that it would be well received if she would sing later, and she was telling me she sang only Indifferently—which I felt sure must be modesty, not truth—and she advised that I ought to ask Mrs Pilkington. That lady sang like a Nightingale, and would certainly be kind enough to oblige us, perhaps accompanied by Miss Georgiana on the pianoforte, she said.
The general conversation reached a natural lull, and into this Lady Oxford said, ‘Apphia, my dear, what is this curious Pastry before us? It is so charmingly done.’
Mamma gave an engaging little description of Linzer torte, and how that Viennese delicacy came to be upon our table every Christmas-time by way of Mamma’s maternal line, who were Viennese themselves. This last remark was made very humbly, for it was well known that the Viennese line to which Mamma referred was grand indeed, comprising many lofty Personages. Her description was necessarily directed at all seated, for in order to answer Lady Oxford’s question, Mamma was compelled to address her across the several places between them.
Father cut her off after perhaps a minute’s speech, by saying, ‘Dear Apphia, it is not Viennese at all. Anybody can tell it is named after the town of Linz, in the north.’ With that, he began to tell Lady Oxford of something entirely unrelated to Linzer torte or Vienna.
Susannah’s guardian, the Ancient and Terrifying Mrs Prendergast, radiated ominous feeling from opposite us. Into the shocked quiet, I rather desperately made the suggestion that, if Susannah were too shy to sing alone, she might try a duet with Mrs Pilkington, adding that we had received some new and quite charming airs from London only perhaps a fortnight before, including a duet or two, that she might look at. Or she might try a duet with me; no matter how she felt her voice might be lacking, she should be glad of my accompaniment, for I was so terrible that she would be Angelic by comparison.
Susannah seemed reluctant to resume our talk, for she still looked somewhat appalled at Father’s dismissive words to Mamma, but she correctly, I suppose, put those feelings aside and said, ‘I am not shy—do you not know me at all? I am merely sensible, and sensitive of my particular talents, or lack thereof, in this case, and really had better not sing. Why do not we not play a round of cards instead? Mr Fox and Miss Georgiana will no doubt join us, if we ask.’
It was at this juncture of our conversation that we both at once became aware that the general susurration
of conversation had fallen away. Instead of this chatter, we came to hear my mother’s voice, though not loud, as she listed my father’s many failings, and her feelings on the matter. Into the now ringing silence, Mamma had quite calmly said down the table to my father that he was an ungenerous man, and that he was unkind, vain and boring, and she was sick to death of him, and that Linzer torte may be from Linz originally, but was well loved in Vienna too, and many other things.
My father lowered his fork back onto his plate and left it there. I felt cold shivers of dread come upon me so forcefully that my own fork clattered from my hand.
Mamma rose to her feet, her green-and-white silk rustling like a bird’s wings. She looked young in that moment, as if I had been granted a glimpse of her before she had married my father. Her dark hair was usually quite grey at the temples, but the candlelight shone in such a way that it became golden-red. Her eyes gleamed. There was a great and clumsy bumping of chairs as the gentlemen rose with her—I too; not Father—only for her to tell the party at large: ‘I find this life quite unbearable, thank you.’
Susannah had looked and looked at my mother, little pink spots in her cheeks, where most others looked down, or discreetly out the windows, or at the ceiling, or anywhere but Mamma. I willed Susannah to look at me, but it was very likely she had forgotten my presence altogether. Freddie, standing with the other gentlemen, seemed frightened.
Mamma did not weep later, nor beg forgiveness, which is what really sealed her fate.
‘It is what she would have wished for,’ my middle brother John told me, after Father had shut the attic door, as though she had already died.
‘And what of your return to England?’ asked Mrs Heron. ‘Will you also be sailing soon?’ And so we stood, amiable and polite, conversing Englishly on the shore of the edge of the Known World, at a station afire with hope and grief and queer private Symbols dancing about in people’s heads.
‘I should dearly love to go Home, but I cannot,’ I said. ‘I have a task here I must complete.’
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