The Trespass: A Novel

by Barbara Ewing

  Sir Charles made things more difficult by at first refusing to let the matter be mentioned in The Times, abhorring publicity of any kind, as any gentleman would.

  For of course, on Wednesday, when he finally agreed that a very small paragraph should be inserted about his daughter’s mysterious disappearance, half-mad by then with grief and rage, he found that any number of people knew where Harriet had gone. There were for instance all the dignitaries from the embarkation breakfast on board the Amaryllis who had drunk her and her father’s health. And most importantly, of course, and to their horror, there were the officials of the New Zealand Company who were hoping for government preferment through Sir Charles Cooper himself.

  And most of all there was Lucy. Back, without a reference, into the horror of the dark, deadly weaving rooms of Spitalfields and her mother’s illness and no money, she sat for several days going over and over her mistress’s movements, what she could have missed. And a clue somehow floated above her head. Something to do with the furniture: always, the furniture had reminded her of something. And at last, the night before Harriet’s disappearance was made public, she remembered, and then at once she understood what Harriet had done. She put on her shawl and ran back all the way from Spitalfields to Bryanston Square. She hoped upon hope that Harriet was long gone. Lucy knew why she had gone. But Lucy was desperate. She had to have a reference or she would never get another position. She had to work. Her mother would die without Lucy to somehow support her. When Peters awoke next morning he found Lucy crouched in the kitchen with the cook.

  ‘I want to see the Master. I know where Miss Harriet went. I’ve been up to her room. I got to have a reference.’

  Peters tried to turn her out of doors, Cook refused to let him. ‘Tell the Master at least,’ she said, ‘or we’ll all be without places.’

  ‘What are you bothering him for? Tell me what you know.’

  ‘I want a reference,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll only tell him.’ There she sat, trying to warm her blistered feet by the fire, saying nothing more.

  At last she was sent for. Sir Charles stood in the cheerless drawing room. She was horrified at how he looked, old suddenly, and something else she could not describe in her head, a sort of madness in his eyes, and she thought again that if her own situation wasn’t so desperate she would never tell him anything.

  ‘Well,’ he said coldly.

  ‘I got to have a reference. I know where Miss Harriet has gone.’ These were unwise words: Sir Charles grabbed her and literally hurled her on to the floor.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I went to look. Her clothes are gone.’

  ‘Her clothes are in her room, we have seen them.’

  ‘They’re not her clothes, they’re Miss Mary’s clothes. Miss Harriet said she had given them to the poor.’

  ‘What?’

  He stared at Lucy for a moment and then ran upstairs, Peters and Lucy behind him. Sir Charles flung open the mahogany wardrobe, Lucy pushed back Harriet’s remaining gowns and showed the dresses behind. ‘These are not Miss Harriet’s dresses. Look how short they are.’

  ‘Where has she gone?’ It was almost a whisper.

  ‘It was the furniture, sir. There wasn’t so much but it was packed up just like Mr Edward’s furniture when he left. And we spent all that time in the Strand and I think she meant Peters to see her letter.’

  Sir Charles looked wildly at Peters who answered very quickly, nervously, seeing the look in his master’s eye. ‘It was a letter to Mr Edward, Sir Charles, which I happened to oversee. She took it to the New Zealand Company for delivery. To tell him of Miss Mary’s passing – I read it, it said nothing more.’

  ‘She meant you to read it,’ repeated Lucy, ‘else why weren’t it sealed? She took it in to them offices, Sir Charles, and I went too, but she went into another room with the gentlemen. And she was there for such a long time, over an hour, and I did think it was a long time, for a letter. I think that furniture was to go on a boat and I think she’s done like Mr Edward and gone to New Zealand! But now I got to have a reference.’

  And, like fate, as Sir Charles stared in disbelief at the stupid girl from Spitalfields, there was a loud banging on the door below and the footman admitted the Times-reading Chairman of the New Zealand Company.

  By the time Lord Ralph Kingdom, struggling with his duty, arrived at Bryanston Square determined to save Harriet even if it damaged his own reputation with Sir Charles, Sir Charles had already received all the information he needed and was on his way south.

  * * *

  They rode wildly, changing horses when they could. It began to rain and darkness fell but nothing could stop Sir Charles, he rode like a man possessed, and the New Zealand Company Chairman kept sending urgent messages to God, asking him to delay the Amaryllis’s departure from the Cornish coast. The Chairman had been advised that the estuary pilot had already come ashore at Deal; another pilot was escorting the ship down the English Channel: it was now Falmouth or nothing.

  The weather got worse, they could hardly see where they rode; the Chairman had done this dash more than once for various reasons to catch one of his ships: this was the worst and wildest journey he had ever been forced to make. He kept assuring Sir Charles that the weather was in their favour, that the Captain would not depart into a storm. Trees fell across their path, they could hardly keep their way in the darkness, their clothes and their horses were soaked in rain and mud and sweat, still Sir Charles would not stop. Finally dawn broke, the storm eased, and Falmouth was still an hour away. The horses were whipped onward and Sir Charles Cooper never spoke.

  At last Falmouth came into view, they saw the sea in the distance; the rain had stopped but the waves were still crashing up along the shore. They galloped down towards the pier. Small fishing boats rocked on the waves and were thrown sometimes against the jetty. But there was no big ship berthed, and the horizon had disappeared. There was nothing but mist and fog and cloud as far as the eye could see.

  ‘I believe – they are sheltering somewhere, Sir Charles, further back along the coast.’ The Chairman was so exhausted he thought he would vomit. ‘They are probably – probably still carrying the Channel pilot. Yes, look! look, there is the pilot boat, tied up and waiting.’ The Chairman stood, bending over, trying to breathe.

  Two men were sitting trying to fish, right on one corner of the wooden wharf, their thin collars turned up against the weather. They watched the sweating visitors carefully, feigning disinterest. Sir Charles raced towards them, took hold of one of them roughly by the shoulder, pulled him to his feet.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  The man quite insolently pulled himself away from Sir Charles, saying nothing.

  ‘How long have you been here, man?’

  The fisherman stared at Sir Charles in his wet city clothes and spat. ‘We been here all night, have we. Waiting for the weather.’

  ‘We are waiting for a ship.’

  ‘Oh aye.’ He was pulling in his line.

  ‘We are waiting for the Amaryllis.’

  The fisherman laughed. ‘Oh aye.’ He threw the line out again with a flourish, regarded Sir Charles shrewdly, and the other one, standing by the horses, being sick over his trousers. ‘That’ll be a long wait then.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Amaryllis is long gone, sir, that’s what I mean. Never came near Falmouth, though we seen her riding, way, way in the distance. The pilot was disembarked here yesterday. Said the Captain thought that storm’d blow itself out if he could get well ahead of it. Gone to New Zealand, the pilot said. Why, they’ll be halfway to Africa by now, them will.’ The fisherman grinned to himself again and then looked up. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why he suddenly felt a pinch of sorrow for the arrogant gentleman who had arrived so wildly. His face had crumpled and his body seemed to go small as he stared outwards. The fisherman watched the man for a moment, curious, and then went back to his fishing.

&
nbsp; The man stared at the wild, green, changing sea.

  It reached outwards, on and on forever, to the other side of the world.

  NINETEEN

  On the second day out from the English coast, as the Amaryllis sailed into the notorious Bay of Biscay, the Captain himself (not unaccompanied of course) went to Harriet Cooper’s cabin under the poop deck. Behind the Captain hovered Mr and Mrs Burlington Brown, cabin passengers, who had agreed (after much discussion about the importance of Harriet’s parentage) to become the guardians of Miss Cooper for the duration of the journey: that it was their Christian duty to do so.

  The door was quietly but firmly knocked upon, the presence of visitors was announced, and then the cabin door opened by the Captain himself, majestic in his uniform and braid. The visitors, having received several earlier reports from the doctor of a silent woman with her face turned to the wall, something more perhaps than the seasickness from which everybody suffered, were surprised to see Harriet dressed in her neat black dress, and sewing a curtain.

  There was not room for three visitors in the cabin: as Miss Cooper was decorously dressed the Captain felt it was therefore perfectly respectable for him to be the person to move inwards and initiate the conversation.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Cooper. I am Captain Stark. The Amaryllis sails under my command.’ He was immediately startled by her appearance: they had not warned him that she was beautiful.

  ‘Good morning, Captain Stark.’

  ‘We have been anticipating your presence in the dining room, and on deck, my dear young lady. You have not been seen anywhere since the ship left Gravesend. Miss Harriet Cooper, we thought, was only a ghost.’

  Harriet smiled and the Captain saw that the face lit up astonishingly for a moment. ‘I believe I am real, Captain Stark. I expect you have many passengers who, like me, have taken a short while to find their – I was going to say “balance” but I believe the correct term is “sea-legs”.’

  ‘But my dear Miss Cooper, we did not even see you farewelling the English coast off Falmouth, which is most people’s last memory of their country!’ Harriet regarded him steadily and silently.

  ‘But perhaps you were too sad to say goodbye? As for “sea-legs”, we have only just begun our journey and the Amaryllis’s passage towards Spain has been unseasonably calm.’ Trousers walked past the small uncurtained window and footsteps sounded on the deck above. Harriet recalled all her lessons in etiquette.

  ‘How lucky we are, Captain Stark, to be in your experienced hands.’

  ‘I hope you will still say that in weeks to come. The Bay of Biscay is only the first of the seas on our journey not known for its charity towards us but at the moment the wind speeds us well. We are in God’s hands.’ And Harriet nodded gravely.

  ‘Now.’ and he turned to the business in hand, ‘we have been most concerned that you, as a young lady travelling alone, should be properly chaperoned. Mr and Mrs Burlington Brown – Mr Burlington Brown is travelling to New Zealand as the Chairman of the Starlight Gas Lighting Company – have agreed to spend time with you as your guardians, which is only right and proper for a young lady like yourself. I would have arranged this with your father, had he come aboard with you, and I was most sorry not to meet your brother, who I understand farewelled you at Gravesend.’

  Harriet inclined her head gracefully.

  ‘I will leave you with the Burlington Browns then, and will expect to see you at my table for dinner. We dine at three.’ And the Captain bowed and was gone, leaving her other visitors to fill the space.

  The voice of Mr Burlington Brown of Starlight Gas Lighting boomed, ‘My dear Miss Cooper.’ His eyes flickered over the small, feminine things in the cabin, settled somewhere near the ceiling. ‘Perhaps a prayer.’

  ‘Perhaps a prayer,’ echoed his wife.

  Harriet looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. ‘Here?’

  ‘God,’ said Mr Burlington Brown, ‘cares not whence our devotions rise upwards,’ and his wife nodded several times. ‘You have not been present at our evening prayers in the dining saloon. The Captain of course will have Sunday services on deck as we near the Equator. But let us pray now, in anticipation of our well-spent time together on the Amaryllis. Your father, I am sure, will be glad of our presence.’

  There was the sound of the wind filling and stretching the sails above them, and of the rush of the sea as it carried them along. Mr Brown and his wife knelt together suddenly beside the bed where Harriet was sitting, taking up most of the floor space of the cabin; she heard their knees crack. She saw that Mr Burlington Brown had made notes on a large piece of paper; she herself slipped to the floor also but not before a vision of Mary’s quizzical face seemed to flash before her.

  Almighty and everlasting God (he began),

  and Harriet closed her eyes, trying to draw comfort from the familiar words,

  have compassion on thy daughter Harriet who travels alone on this long journey. Save her from the follies and dangers of youth and make her obedient to thy will in all things.

  Their bodies swayed with the movement of the Amaryllis, paper rattled as Mr Burlington Brown strove to see, in the dim light from the window, what else he had written. Below them the sea churned; they felt the ship’s speed under their knees.

  Prepare thy daughter Harriet for whatever future thou hast planned for her. And may we all live together on our journey to the other side of the world in Christian peace and harmony and love; endeavouring to administer to each other comfort and friendship, and above all, dear Lord, keep us safe on our journey. We pray for thy blessing on our dear Queen, and our dear country; on our friends and relations and family. We pray for thy blessing on the soul of Harriet’s dear departed sister (he had been apprised of her circumstances: he thought he heard a sharp intake of breath) and on Harriet’s father, the Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP, until he is happily reunited with his daughter. We pray for all who are afflicted in mind, body, or estate. We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

  Amen.

  ‘Amen,’ said Mrs Burlington Brown.

  ‘Amen,’ said Harriet.

  She opened her eyes, saw Mr Brown already helping his wife to her feet; Harriet rose also.

  ‘Now, my dear Miss Cooper,’ said Mrs Burlington Brown, ‘it is a little blustery, to put it mildly, but we walk on the poop deck once in the morning and once in the evening, with my husband’s sister, Miss Eunice Burlington Brown, who is travelling with us. At first the steerage passengers thought they too could wander on any part of the ship but the Captain soon put a stop to that and our walks now are brisk and pleasant, if somewhat overly invigorating. I and Miss Burlington Brown will call for you each time we set out that you may walk with us, as it would not of course be proper for you to walk alone. Then perhaps we could do some reading together.’

  ‘I should like that very much,’ said Harriet, ‘I have some of my books with me. It will be a pleasure to read in the fresh air, think of a poem by Wordsworth on the open sea, I shall very much look forward to that.’

  Mrs Brown demurred. ‘I meant Bible readings, Miss Cooper,’ she said firmly, ‘or other books of moral merit. We are most exercised with the importance of moral merit on a ship, on a journey. We shall read perhaps in the dining saloon, or our cabins. The weather is not at all suitable for spending long periods in the open air.’

  ‘However,’ said her husband, who was beginning to feel uneasy again in the small, feminine room (a hairbrush, a small piece of jewellery, the smell of something like lemons), ‘these matters we will discuss when six bells rings. Come, my dear.’

  And then they were gone, and Harriet was alone again in her cabin, quite still. She heard again the wind in the sails and the sea rushing by. There was a creaking of timbers everywhere about her as the ship strained forwards, which might have been alarming but was yet somehow rhythmic and comforting to listen to. Last night she had understood that they had truly left England. That she was safe at last. Last n
ight she had at last opened the surprising letter that Cecil had left for her. His handwriting was large and child-like.

  Dear Miss Harriet,

  I met Miss Mary at Mr Symond Dawson’s Book Emporium in Oxford Street, Mr Dawson was my tutor at the Working Men’s Club she was a good woman was Miss Mary. One night she said to us both if anything happens to me please take care of my sister Harriet, it sounded odd to us as if you did not have a family. Mr Dawson and me was at the funeral but you did not see us. That is why I was waiting for you outside the Parliament, hoping to be of assistance, I had followed you when you went in that lady’s carriage.

  If you come back to London I will always serve, my sister Phyllis will find me.

  Yr true friend

  Cecil Forsythe (esq.)

  Mary’s care had still lived on.

  Last night also Harriet had heard one of the sailors singing fare you well, my lovely girl from somewhere in the darkness. And the words had echoed on and on in her dreams, fare you well, my lovely girl, my lovely girl. And then this morning she knew it was time at last to look forwards, not back.

  She gathered a shawl about her and for the first time since the ship had sailed away she went outside and up on to the deck. Strong winds blew about her at once and she clung to the rail.

  Her first reaction as she looked upwards was one of amazement. The white sails full of the wild Biscay winds were so beautiful. She had never seen a ship in full sail before, how the sails reached out towards their destination like a myriad of white birds, how the ropes pulled taut and strained against the spars and the masts. As she walked further on to the main deck the wind whipped at her too, tried to fill the shawl as if it was a sail also, pulled at her skirt and her hair and her face, brought tears to her eyes. She turned away from the wind, saw the lifeboats swinging above. Right at the back of the poop deck, a lone sailor stood, holding the wheel.