Miss Eunice, who would not of course for a moment have thought of disobeying her brother, nevertheless did not wish to leave Edward, especially not in the company of Hetty. But when she tentatively mentioned to the general company Hetty’s health and the uncertainty of Hetty’s fate none of the men even bothered to answer her.
Finally Sir Charles addressed the official from the New Zealand Company. ‘If this is the land you were offering to farmers unseen, Thompson, then my nephew Edward Cooper has been made a fool of.’
The official had been prepared for this, had had conversations with other company officials before he embarked on the boat journey across the harbour, had made plans for this. Sir Charles Cooper was a member of Her Majesty’s Government after all and the New Zealand Company needed all the help it could get. He inhaled rapidly and began talking fast.
‘Sir Charles,’ he said, ‘there has been a terrible mistake. Mr Edward Cooper’s land is not here, it is further northwards, through the hills at a place the natives call Wairarapa – and there is more land up at Wanganui by the river, we have much good land there. He of course has a choice, Sir Charles, a choice of a fine agricultural acquirement, we were just, as it happens, in the process of informing him of our regrettable mistake when you arrived on the Lord Fyne yesterday. My deepest apologies, Mr Edward, I will take you north tomorrow or whenever suits you and indeed, Sir Charles, we would like you to see the flat, fertile land we have in store for him, to take the good news homewards, as it were.’ He looked at Sir Charles anxiously but Sir Charles merely pulled on his cigar and said nothing.
‘I am heartened to learn of your mistake, Mr Thompson,’ said Edward, expressionless. ‘If there should be room on the boat for me to return with you now I certainly will not let you out of my sight.’
‘There is not room on the boat,’ said Sir Charles, ‘for either you or Mr Thompson if the two ladies are to return.’ Mr Thompson’s look of horrified protest was ignored. ‘It will do you good,’ said Sir Charles, ‘to live on the land you so easily dispense to others. I understand that the journey is rather tedious by road. I will, of course, although I hope to return to England in two days’ time with my daughter on the White Princess, keep a close eye on the progress of the farm of my nephew, and thus of the progress of the New Zealand Company. I am sure the Prime Minister will be interested in my report. There has been much talk of your activities in the House.’
‘But what about Hetty?’ said Miss Eunice quickly. ‘She cannot stay here.’
Harriet appeared at the door, dressed in black, her face so pale that Edward moved uneasily, watching her. ‘Hetty is my maid,’ said Harriet quietly but urgently, ‘she will of course come with me.’ It was the first time she had spoken since her father had arrived.
‘I have my own arrangements for your well-being,’ said Sir Charles sharply. ‘I do not wish you to bring a crippled maid to—’ and he paused for an infinitesimal moment before he added, ‘interfere with my plans.’ And there was something in the way he said crippled and interfere, so that Harriet understood he spoke of Mary and that he was repeating what he had said to her when he embraced her. You will be punished, he had whispered to her, tonight you will be punished.
And so, less than an hour after they had arrived, those who were travelling boarded the small sailing boat back to Wellington. From the shore Edward called to Harriet, said he would set off for Wellington very early in the morning with Mr Thompson and bring letters for her to take back to his family in England which he would write today. And he waved in his usual cheerful manner, yet felt ill at ease at the sight of his cousin’s face. Hetty said nothing, knowing that now that her arm was healing she would somehow survive. She noted Harriet’s white face, expected her father had a husband arranged for her in London, was sorry to see her go who had been so kind but knew that the gentry’s lives were a hundred miles removed from her own.
* * *
And around Wellington town the news spread like wildfire: a Member of Parliament from Home had come: with them at last was someone who would make a difference, who could take their case back to the Mother of Parliaments and pave the way for the dissolution of the New Zealand Company and to self-government for the colony. So that the natives at last would learn what it was to not co-operate with Men of England.
TWENTY-NINE
From the moment he saw her again in the blue dress against the horizon, Sir Charles Cooper did not let his daughter out of his sight: there were introductions and smiles and bows and arrangements but she was at no time alone until later that afternoon when she was locked (by Peters) in the room Sir Charles had arranged for her at Barratt’s Hotel. She was to dress. They were to dine with the Lieutenant-Governor: various important officials were to dine with them. Sir Charles Cooper in person was like gold in the new colony in these tempestuous times: a Member of the British Parliament with the British Prime Minister’s ear: people fought to meet him, to give him their point of view. There was to be a large public meeting later that evening that Sir Charles could not avoid addressing: settlers hearing of his presence had begun arriving in the town.
At last Sir Charles insisted on a moment alone with his daughter whom he had not seen for so long: the officials who wished to speak to him nodded understandingly. (Something odd about the daughter, they whispered to each other: so pale and silent and beautiful.) Sir Charles placed Peters outside the door of Harriet’s room with strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed. There was fresh fruit on a small table by the window, a waiter brought whisky for Sir Charles.
‘That will be all.’ The waiter was dismissed. With his glass in his hand Sir Charles came to sit on a chair beside his still, pale daughter dressed in fresh black mourning clothes. (But there was no mention, at all, of Mary.) Someone had unpacked Harriet’s luggage from the Gentlewomen’s Private Hotel and prepared the clothes, a servant had earlier brought in a tin bath and hot water.
For a time Sir Charles sat in ominous silence, unnaturally close to her beside the small table so that she was almost jammed between the window and her father; his leg was against hers, red apples rested on a blue plate, and yellow peaches, and she did not know how to slow the beating of her heart and he did not speak. Outside the wind had come up again, rattled the wooden windows of the hotel. Voices passed by on the quay below them, words and phrases drifted up to the room … the natives say the Seagull from Africa is in the straits: it will bring spices tonight, pepper and myrrh … what is myrrh?… there is a meeting tonight, someone from the Queen … there will be mail at the Post Office.
‘Harriet.’
She raised her eyes quickly. Her father’s face was unnaturally calm but something in his eyes glittered wildly and her heart contracted yet again in fear. He was so near that she smelled the whisky.
‘Harriet.’
She quickly stared down again at the fruit plate.
‘You have, by your very foolish actions, forced me to leave my business, and my country, at great inconvenience, to come to this godforsaken place to find you and bring you home again. I have wasted months of my life sailing oceans, because of you.’ His voice was calm and tight. ‘There is a price to be paid for this.’
The plate had a willow pattern on it: a Japanese figure ran, forever frozen as Keats had said.
‘Harriet, I wish you to run my household in Bryanston Square. That is the future that I have planned for you. Richard and Walter will no doubt leave eventually but we shall remain, you and I. It is what I have always wanted. You will meet many people, and your life need not be unpleasant.’
Under the soft, furry skin of the peaches blue trees reached outwards to the plate’s rim. She saw the cold dark house in Bryanston Square, the watching servants, she heard Quintus barking, chasing rats.
And then suddenly her father reared up and began to shout and move about the room and if the whole of Wellington could hear he seemed not to care.
‘You have nothing to say? No apology to give me? How dare you! How dar
e you shame me so publicly! You are my daughter. You are my daughter. You may do nothing without me, nothing without my permission, nothing without my financial support. This—’ he pulled suddenly, crudely, at her black dress so that one small button flew off and bounced across the floorboards, ‘this was paid for by me, belongs to me. You belong to me. And I wish to know how you arranged to get here, how you paid for your passage, how you were able to obtain money without my permission!’
She saw Mary’s treasure at the back of the drawer, Mary’s letter.
‘How did you find money to pay the New Zealand Company?’ he shouted.
‘I sold my jewellery.’ Her voice was flat.
‘I gave you that jewellery.’
‘My mother’s jewels.’
‘Everything of your mother’s belongs to me. Therefore you have stolen from me and you are a common thief! Everything you say is yours belongs to me, is provided by me, everything, every breath that you take belongs to me. I am your father. And as you well know you owe me absolute obedience.’
He controlled himself at last, breathing heavily, drinking whisky.
The peaches were yellow; the apples were red; the plate was blue.
At last he sat again beside her, even closer, leant across the table and took her hand in his.
‘Harriet,’ he said.
She felt again his leg pressing against her; slowly his hand moved to her face, her neck. But now he was breathing heavily again and suddenly it was the other kind of breathing, the kind that she had almost made herself forget, and now remembered. As if they had not travelled thousands and thousands of miles across oceans, as if they were back in her room in Bryanston Square.
Shouts from the harbour floated through the window, and laughter, a boat being re-moored; again the wind rattled the wooden window-frames. Edward and Hetty will be safe in the little house though the wind may blow.
‘Harriet.’ And his voice became almost a whisper. ‘Harriet—’ and his voice seemed to catch as the wind blew around the hotel and along the shore. ‘I will come to you tonight, in this room. Tonight, after the meeting. For you must be punished.’ His hand again stretched across to her, and his hand brushed her breast. The smell of the whisky and no other sound but their breathing in the room, but outside, among the voices, marching feet could be heard approaching as if they were changing the guard. As if they were in England.
She could not move, her legs felt like lead. But at last she forced herself to raise her eyes to her father and with an immense effort of will she said: ‘Father.’
‘What is it, Harriet?’ His hand moved slowly down her arm.
‘Father, I beg you.’
‘You will beg me, my darling.’ And she thought he smiled.
‘I beg you to let me go, to let me go and live my own life. Away from you.’
He sat back very slowly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Father.’ The wind blew, on and on. ‘This would be for – for your own sake, as well as for mine.’
As she spoke the Wellington afternoon light slanted across the table and just for a moment as the light caught the side of her face she suddenly looked like her mother. He stared, incredulous, sat back; Harriet saw his wild, confused eyes.
Perhaps he is mad? The thought flashed across her consciousness.
And then Sir Charles Cooper rose and hit Harriet across the face. He knocked the table, an apple rolled on to the floor and then a peach. She did not cry but tears spilled out of her eyes: her father reached again for his whisky.
‘You have dragged me here, Harriet, and you have angered me greatly. You do not apologise, you do not look at me, you do not answer. You somehow seem to think that you are superior to me, to your father, and yet without me you are nothing. Without my jewellery you could not have got here, without my name the New Zealand Company would never have allowed you to travel. All the respect in the world that you receive, you receive because you are my daughter!’ And even as her face throbbed with pain Harriet knew that this was true.
‘Without me, you are nothing, and I intend to teach you that lesson. Indeed,’ and his voice became quieter, ‘I intend to teach you things, Harriet, that you have never imagined.’ And he suddenly smiled again. ‘I intend to teach you to beg.’
Harriet thought at once of her precious sovereigns that lay hidden in the embroidery bag that she had thrust under the bed. He must not find the sovereigns: they were her key to freedom, he must not find them, he must not know that she still had money. Her heart began to beat even more rapidly.
He stood before her, still smiling slightly. ‘Did you know that women beg, my darling girl? They cry out, and beg for more. That is what I will teach you.’
And there was something in his voice, something in the way that he spoke to her that made her understand he was not, after all, speaking of sovereigns. And then suddenly Hetty’s words tumbled around her head: ain’t you done it don’t you miss it? ‘I intend to make use of the time,’ his voice went on, ‘that it will take us to get back to England again. By the time a hundred days have passed and I have had the hours and the days to teach you, then, I do assure you, Harriet Cooper will have changed.’
Slowly, in a kind of horror, Harriet looked up at her father.
‘She will have learnt to be pleased to obey her father,’ he said. And he smiled once more.
He is mad, she thought again. He is mad.
‘Harriet, my darling, darling girl.’ He moved to her and began fumblingly to undo her hair, pulled her head to his body, winding her long, dark hair around his hands.
The marching feet got nearer. They stopped outside the window, a military voice called commands.
‘Escort for Sir Charles Cooper!’
Sir Charles did not let Harriet go. ‘I am not ready,’ he called sharply, her hair still in his hands.
There was a sound of urgent voices and then Peters’ voice came gabbling through the door. ‘Soldiers have come for you, sir. There seems to be some trouble with the settlers arriving, wanting to speak to you, so the Lieutenant-Governor has sent an escort for you to come to Government House.’
‘Damn you!’
‘I am sorry, Sir Charles. The Lieutenant-Governor’s officer is here with me. He is asking for you.’
For a moment there was silence on either side of the door. Sir Charles pulled, but more gently, at Harriet’s dark hair, stared at his daughter’s ashen face, and the red mark where he had hit her. ‘You had better not come,’ he said in a completely normal voice, ‘there may be trouble. You will be safer here.’ Then he pulled her to her feet and very deliberately, his eyes holding her eyes because he had her hair in his hands, he let one hand run down her body; even through her clothes, her petticoats and her corset, she felt his hand ain’t you done it don’t you miss it? on parts of her body she did not even know how to name, as Hetty’s words flew wildly.
‘Wait for me,’ said her father.
Then he leaned close and kissed her lips. ‘I have been waiting,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘all your life.’
Then he marched to the door and flung it open and she heard him say to Peters, ‘Stay here.’ She heard him striding towards the front door of the hotel, soldiers giving orders as he went outside into the windy, dangerous late afternoon where the small boats pulled at their moorings on the shore.
As if she could still not move Harriet vomited on to the small table.
The door opened. Peters came right into the room where she stood so white-faced and seemed not to even notice. He put his mouth close to her ear, she could smell his breath. ‘I will never, never forgive you,’ and his voice hissed through the room and a hanging lantern moved in the wind from the draught from the open door. ‘I have travelled through hell because of you. I nearly drowned near Tasmania because of you. Don’t try anything clever because this time I will be watching your every move. You will never, never escape again.’ And then she heard the door being locked behind her.
Harriet took one deep, shudderin
g breath, only one. And then, very quickly, she got up and went to the washstand in the corner. She wasted no time at all: it was her life and her sanity and she knew it.
First she quickly washed her face, scrubbed at it, rinsed her mouth, spat him away. Then she took a towel and wiped up her own vomit from the table. So clearly she saw the maid Lucy, cleaning up after her, in another life. She looked about her again, as she had when she was first locked in. The room was square, with one window that looked out on to the harbour and a smaller one on to a side alley; there was no other door than the one Peters was guarding. Her room was visible to anyone passing in the street but in the alley, in the dark, she might be invisible. She stared out. What else could she do but jump out on to the road below when night came? While her father was addressing the meeting of the settlers. Through the window and along the busy, bustling waterfront, the sun was low on the horizon. How could she have let her guard down, waited too long at Edward’s house? How could she have persuaded herself that distance would keep her father away? People walked along the road as if this was an ordinary day, she saw a man calling and a young boy bowling a hoop along; the hoop was light and got lifted by the wind and the boy ran after it, laughing with delight. Soldiers marched by again in their red coats. Small boats lay tied to posts on the shore: whaleboats, small rowing boats, native canoes; the wind was making the water rougher now, the small boats moved and jostled, bumping drunkenly. Out in the harbour, the Lord Fyne lay at anchor near the White Princess which her father said was to take her with him to Sydney on their journey back to England. Far, far out she thought she saw a sail. She remembered the voices: the natives say the Seagull from Africa will land tonight, it will bring spices, pepper and myrrh. Beside the hotel people were selling potatoes and honey. She would have to wait for the darkness. Few people noticed a lady in a black dress staring intently out of the hotel window, with her hair undone.
The Trespass: A Novel Page 39