‘Nothing, Lucy. Thank you. Take Quintus now.’ But before she let him go she suddenly knelt down and just for a moment buried her face in his coat. ‘Goodnight, Quintus,’ she whispered and he seemed to smile.
‘Goodnight, Miss Harriet.’
‘Goodnight, Lucy.’
She heard Lucy talking to Quintus as she went down the stairs.
And then, as if she could suddenly hardly walk, she made her way slowly across the room to her bed. Her head swam: she knew if she lay down she would not get up again. So she sat there for a moment, feeling her heart beat fast. Then with a great effort she got up again and walked to her jewellery box. She hardly glanced at the contents, removing only a tiny locket and a ring, both of which had belonged to her mother. Then she simply emptied the contents of the box straight in to the satin interior of a reticule: the bracelets and the necklets and the lockets and the jewelled brooches inlaid with diamonds that her father had begun to give her: was it enough to pay for a cabin? She had no idea.
Back to the bed. This time she did lie down and at once the room spun round and round. She had to close her eyes, but I must stay well and I must stay awake I have only two more days to change my life. But weakness and exhaustion overcame her and for the first night since Mary died, without the laudanum that had clamped down on her dreams, Harriet fell asleep.
* * *
She woke with a start. The lamp was still burning. Was someone in the room? At once her eyes flicked to the doorway and around the room, her heart began the over-fast beating. But the door was closed and the room was empty. And no clock ticked. The house was silent. She remembered all she had to do: she got up quickly. She went to the window and pulled the heavy curtain slightly, looked over the Square. London was in the time of most quietness: the time when it was truly night. The streetlights were burning but they were enclosed in a cold night mist, seemed like a row of ghostly candles. If there were moon and stars tonight they were not appearing, just dull, misty darkness. After a moment she made out the shape of the big oak tree in the Square. A shadowy figure walked beside the Square and disappeared into the distance as she watched. In the distance the traffic still rumbled, but muted now.
She turned from the window abruptly. She had to do this most difficult thing in the night: desperation gave her courage of a kind. She picked up the lamp, opened her door and stepped into the dark, silent passageway. She tried to breathe normally but could not still her heart, it pounded against her chest like a drum as she moved like a shade along the hall. She turned the handle of the door and walked into Mary’s room. Closing the door softly behind her, leaning against it with closed eyes, she was aware of little sounds in the room. She opened her eyes, raised the lamp, looked about the room in terror: realised after a long moment that the sounds, the small gasps of pain, came from herself.
The bed had been stripped and Mary’s books had been tidied away from the table. That was all. The pictures were still on the walls: the paintings of the English countryside, the copy of the Mona Lisa with her secret smile that her sister had so loved. But the emptiness of the room yawned at her. Mary was dead. With a sob Harriet put down the lamp and quickly crossed to the bed and knelt beside it. O Lord, she prayed, take unto thy heart the soul of my beloved sister Mary so that she may be comforted and see thy light. Even praying she could feel and hear the beating of her heart. O Lord, she whispered, tell Mary I miss her so.
Perhaps she knelt there for a long time, for her legs were stiff and cold when she at last tried to rise and she had to cling to the bed for a moment.
Then she went to the chest in the corner and opened the second drawer.
Mary’s jewellery box had belonged to their mother. It was bigger and older than Harriet’s and contained many pieces, much that had belonged to Elizabeth Cooper. Harriet had to walk to the long mahogany wardrobe to find Mary’s reticule; opening the wardrobe door she was overcome by the smell of her sister, as if, truly, she was there somewhere among the gowns and the bonnets and the shawls. Harriet, shocked, stayed stock-still. Then very slowly she leant her forehead against the clothes. Darling Mary, she whispered again, help me. Give me strength to do this. The dresses in the big wardrobe did not answer but Harriet breathed in the scent of her sister, who had been her life.
At last, with Mary’s reticule in her hand, she walked back to the chest and emptied the jewel box. At the very bottom of the box Harriet knew there was another compartment: it was their secret when Harriet was a little girl. She opened it: there were some papers inside. There was a prospectus for the Ladies’ College in Harley Street. There was a letter from their mother to Mary that Harriet had seen before, the long graceful curl of the letters faded now, but still folded there. And there was a letter with Harriet’s name on it. Startled, she picked it up, turned it over several times in her hand in the light of the lamp, opened it. There was no date.
My dearest sister Harriet,
If you are reading this it may be because something has happened to me, perhaps something we did not expect. I have worried for some time about what might become of you without me here. I would like to think that God would watch over you and bless you but in my heart I cannot be certain that the person to whom you should be able to turn has (Here some words were heavily scratched out.)
I therefore decided, on my thirtieth birthday, when I understood that Mother’s provision for us would perhaps never be available, to begin to try to accumulate a little of the one thing we must never mention or have anything to do with because we are young ladies.
I may not have been able to obtain our mother’s legacy but have sold some of her jewellery, and some of mine. I feel I have had every right to act as I have done because I believe it is what our mother would have wanted me to do. Look at the back of the bottom drawer of this chest. Go to Mr Dawson at his Book Emporium. He will help you.
Be strong, my dearest, most beloved sister and always remember you have been greatly loved by me, your sister Mary
Harriet, who had not believed there was room for any more pain, saw her own tears blurring the beloved handwriting. She wiped them away, made herself kneel down and feel at the back of the bottom drawer.
A box was filled to the brim with sovereigns.
She stood at once with the box of money and the letter, picked up the reticule full of jewellery and closed Mary’s drawers. She could not carry the lamp as well; she would come back for it: suddenly she felt it was important to get these treasures back to her own room. She felt her way back along the corridor; she had left her own door slightly ajar, now she pushed it open, placed everything in a drawer, then at once felt her way back to Mary’s room where she could see the lamp dimly burning on the chest. She was halfway across the room to close the door of the wardrobe when out of the corner of her eye she realised that someone stood in the doorway. Her heart gave a great lurch and she screamed.
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Harriet.’
It was Peters, her father’s manservant, who stood at the door of Mary’s room. He did not have a light of any kind; he looked like a black shadow, she could not tell how long he had been watching her. With an immense effort, even though her legs felt as if they would give way, she walked to the mahogany wardrobe, closed it, walked back to the chest and picked up the lamp. Then she stood silently in front of him, for he barred the way out of the room.
‘Is everything all right, Miss Harriet?’
Still she said nothing. Her heart beat too fast.
‘I thought I heard a noise,’ said Peters.
‘It was me, Peters. I came to say goodnight to my sister.’ In the lamplight she saw that her words had disconcerted him; she took the moment to slip past him with the lamp and walked quickly to the door of her own room. At the doorway she looked back. Seeing her watching him he closed the door of Mary’s room and turned away into the shadowy corners that led towards the servants’ staircase.
On her bed, as the house became silent again, Harriet picked up the coins in a kin
d of wonder. She had not properly handled money ever before in her life; she counted them several times in disbelief and a kind of elation, feeling them, turning them over and over in her hand, seeing the face of the Queen. There were one hundred and ninety-one sovereigns.
Finally she knelt beside her bed. Dearest Lord who knows all things, please guide thy servant. She hesitated and then added uncertainly: Thank you, Lord, if this has been by thy hand. Then at last she rose. She could hardly believe what the day had held. Then she lay down, let her head touch the pillow at last. She fell at once into a deep, deep sleep. Underneath the pillow one hundred and ninety-one sovereigns lay.
Quintus barked below, chasing rats.
SIXTEEN
When Lucy appeared at first light, to set the fire, to bring the water, to empty the chamber pot and the washbasin, she found to her surprise that Harriet was already awake, sitting at her table in her nightdress and her shawl. She seemed to be signing a lot of papers, Lucy observed as she knelt beside the dead fire, clearing the ashes.
‘Lucy.’
‘Yes, Miss Harriet.’ Lucy scrambled to her feet, gave a small, nervous curtsey. Was she too late this morning? Yet it was only just after six o’clock and she had already put the water on downstairs.
‘I am going to clear my sister’s room. There are two large box-chests in the attic. I used them when I went to live in Norfolk. Please tell them to bring them to my room after breakfast.’
‘Yes, Miss Harriet. Will you have breakfast in your room?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’ll get it now then, after the water, well, let me just light this fire, you will be cold.’ (‘Poor thing,’ said Lucy in the kitchen, filling a big jug with hot water, ‘having to touch her poor dead sister’s things in her state.’ ‘I would have done it this week,’ said the housekeeper, vexed, ‘it’s not a task for her and heaven knows how she has got it in to her head, just now, with her father away. I shall assist her at any rate.’)
But when the footmen had delivered the box-chests from the attic, and the housekeeper knocked on her door, Harriet said: ‘Thank you, but it will take me some time to sort things. I shall call for you when I require your assistance.’
Sending Lucy to the Pharmacy in Oxford Street, asking her to bring back some Morison’s Vegetable Universal Pills, and camphor oil (remembering Edward’s medical box), Harriet quickly packed half a dozen of her own gowns into one of the boxes, her new stout boots, some shawls and several bonnets. Then she made herself walk down the passage again to Mary’s room. She steeled herself for the remembrance of Mary again: as she walked in she suddenly saw how small Mary’s stripped bed looked. She stared at it for a long moment. But – of course! Hastily she gathered together some of her sister’s dresses and hats and carried them back to her own room; put them in her wardrobe behind one of her gowns, so that it did not look as if her own clothes had been moved in any way. Then quickly went through all the books: she would have liked to take every one, all their favourites, all the books they had read together all their lives, but she knew it was not possible. The ones she did choose she put down the side of the gowns in the chest, putting chemises and petticoats and stockings in the space that was left. This first box was full: she closed the lid and locked it, hiding the key at the back of a drawer with the one hundred and ninety-one sovereigns. The books that were left she piled against the wall.
As she came down the stairs she stopped for a moment below the large painting of her mother that hung in a bend of the staircase. Sometimes it was said she looked like her mother. Like the painting of Augusta and Alice and Asobel (for family painters had always wanted to please their subjects), Elizabeth Cooper had been painted to look angelic. But from the angel eyes laughter shone.
Never again – and Harriet’s mind faltered for a moment – would Mary recall for her the magic picture: the laughter in the rose garden; now only Harriet herself would be able to recall the memory of a memory.
And the memory of a painting.
For some minutes she stared at her mother, taking her into her heart.
Then she walked down the stairs to the hallway.
Peters was ready for her: he was dressed to accompany her. But Harriet was ready too: ‘I would like to have Lucy to travel with me,’ she said. ‘As you have observed, a young lady does not travel alone.’
She had managed to put all the jewellery together in one larger reticule together with the signed papers for the New Zealand Company and some of Mary’s sovereigns: this reticule she secreted in a large pocket inside her mantle. Hanging from her gloved hand was another smaller bag, from which a letter showed. Icy wind blew into the hall as the footman opened the door and Harriet and Lucy and Peters and one of the footmen all hurried to the coach, Lucy picking up Harriet’s skirts and petticoats and bundling them in behind her mistress before climbing in beside her.
‘Tell them Oxford Street,’ said Harriet, and named the jeweller that the bookseller had told her of. ‘I mean to have something made in memory of my sister,’ she said to Lucy. But when the coach stopped and the footman opened the door, Harriet prevented Lucy from leaving the coach. ‘Stay here, Lucy, with my reticule. It has a very important letter in it. I am on a sad mission here, I would prefer to do it alone.’ As the servant of the jeweller bowed her inside she looked back. Peters had already alighted from his place on the carriage and was watching her, was already questioning Lucy.
* * *
Harriet emerged from the jeweller’s shop in about fifteen minutes. The large reticule was empty of jewels, and lay once more deep in the pocket of the mantle. But over two hundred more sovereigns lay there also, heavy and powerful.
She asked to be taken to the Strand. In the carriage she at once saw that the letter, which she had not sealed, had been moved. Lucy observed her mistress’s face.
‘It was Peters, Miss Harriet,’ she whispered nervously. ‘He read the letter.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Harriet as the carriage rumbled along Oxford Street and down towards Piccadilly, ‘what an extraordinary thing for a servant to do. I shall complain to my father.’
‘He said, miss,’ Lucy faltered, ‘that he had your father’s permission.’
‘To read my mail?’
‘Yes, Miss Harriet.’
‘How very odd. Then he will know that I am delivering the letter to the New Zealand Company on the Strand. It is to send my cousin Edward in New Zealand the news of my sister’s death. That is why we are going there.’
‘Yes, Miss Harriet.’
Harriet was silent for a moment. ‘And I suppose he asked you what I was doing in the jeweller’s?’
‘Yes, Miss Harriet. I told him about your sister’s memorial piece.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not that it’s his business, miss, if you don’t mind me saying so; he’s always poking his nose in everyone’s affairs, no-one likes Peters, miss. He tells everything to the Master.’ And then she stopped at once, fearing she had gone too far.
But Harriet said nothing more, stared out at the carts and the carriages and the omnibuses, held her precious mantle about her. He leaned towards her, undoing the buttons.
When the carriage stopped in the Strand Harriet allowed Lucy to come with her. When they got to the reception vestibule they both sat for a moment. Then as the frock-coated men approached them Harriet said, ‘I shall deliver my letter, Lucy,’ and disappeared inside. The letter she had written for Peters to read she tore into many pieces as she handed them the money, secured her passage and showed the disappointed gentlemen her father’s signature, instead of her father himself. ‘It was a letter to my cousin about my sister’s death,’ she explained as the pieces of paper of her torn letter floated down into a receptacle, ‘but of course—’ as she took the ticket from them, ‘I will be there to tell him in person, before any letter.’
‘You will be prepared in time? For the sailing on Friday?’
‘Of course,’ said Harriet. ‘My father has don
e everything he can to make it easy for me, and will be at Gravesend if it is possible,’ and they were satisfied.
As she came out of the building with Lucy she caught sight of yesterday’s whistling cabman. She thought he did not see her but she gave the smallest of smiles under her veil as she stepped back into Sir Charles Cooper’s carriage. Cecil watched her carefully, saw how she was watched also by Peters. Cecil whistled thoughtfully.
* * *
They saw that she was serious about completely clearing Mary’s room: before they were allowed to assist her, chests of drawers had been emptied, books were stacked in a corner, the wardrobe was empty.
‘The room is to be cleared completely,’ she said to the housekeeper. ‘There must be nothing here to remind me of my sister. I have packed her clothes in the two chests and I have arranged for all her furniture also to go to a deserving family in Newman Street who were known to her.’
But then, almost at once, she fainted. In vain she told them she did not need to see the doctor: he was called, came very quickly and insisted she should get into bed again.
‘You cannot tell grief to go,’ he said to Harriet. ‘It takes its own time.’
‘I know that,’ said Harriet.
‘Giving away Mary’s things is something you may regret later. And most certainly should not be done without your father’s permission.’
‘I believe he will understand,’ said Harriet.
‘You need to eat a little food, and to rest. Wait till your father returns before you arrange these matters of Mary’s belongings and whatever else you have got it into your head to do. It is most inappropriate for the servants to see you clearing drawers and wardrobes and goodness knows what else the housekeeper has told me that you have been doing.’ Again he thought her hysterical, yet understood that the loss of her sister had been a body blow. ‘I would like you to take a little laudanum, Harriet,’ he said. ‘Just to calm you,’ and he reached for the brown bottle.
The Trespass: A Novel Page 21