‘I came because I felt my cousin should know about my sister’s death from me. He was very fond of her. It was – it was such a terrible sadness.’ Her voice shook just a little.
‘And your dear father came all the way to accompany you home again!’
And from the rustle of the dresses and the nodding of their ringlets she saw that they admired this picture tremendously: what a wonderful father, they said, what a wonderful man. The lights gleamed on their white bosoms and they spoke at last of the difficulties of getting servants in the new colony, how they were paid outrageous wages. They observed the lights from the Seagull, which was anchoring below them in the harbour, the sails were furled, small boats worried around the bigger ship like children, lanterns flickered as night fell. The Lieutenant-Governor’s wife informed them that messages had already advised Government House that the Seagull was carrying not only spices, but shipwrecked passengers from the South Atlantic Ocean. And the well-bred ladies shivered slightly, and pulled their evening mantles about them, for all had made the long journey.
The men entered the drawing room with much energy and intent, speaking of the settlers’ meeting that was now to be addressed by both the Lieutenant-Governor and Sir Charles.
‘And then I must meet the Seagull,’ said the Lieutenant-Governor. ‘We are not sure who is aboard after the terrible disaster of the Cloudlight of which we have had news. I expect they will not come ashore until first light but my men will row me out, it is my duty as Her Majesty’s representative here to hear their story most urgently. But first, Miss Cooper, to send us on our way, just one song.’
Harriet dutifully rose and walked to the grand piano in the corner of the room. For a moment, as her hands lay still in her lap, the room was silent; they could hear the wind blowing through the trees outside and voices called somewhere from the muddy roads that were not London. Somewhere in the house a door banged. But I will not sing.
Harriet played ‘Song Without Words’. The notes filled the big wooden room and drifted out into the night. Perhaps they were heard in the hills behind them, perhaps in the darkness soft-footed, sure-footed natives stopped, just for a moment, as they moved through the bush in total silence.
As the last notes echoed into stillness the Lieutenant-Governor wiped a surreptitious tear from his eye. The music of Mendelssohn reminded him of how much he yearned for civilisation, and for Home, and of how he loved his wife.
He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, my dear Miss Cooper. Captain Stark was not exaggerating your daughter’s gift, Sir Charles. You are indeed a fortunate man.’ His guest gave a slight bow.
‘I am indeed fortunate,’ answered Sir Charles Cooper. And he smiled.
‘And now,’ and the Lieutenant-Governor rose, ‘it is time for the gentlemen to attend to business. People have come from miles away. We shall address the settlers from a platform on the quay.’
Harriet was to go back to the hotel, Sir Charles decreed. They were to be escorted down to the harbour by soldiers of Her Majesty’s 65th Regiment, and as they were leaving several of the ladies told Harriet about the Wednesday afternoon concerts that the regiment’s band performed, and how they hoped to see her there.
‘We will be leaving the day after tomorrow,’ said Sir Charles, ‘on the White Princess for Sydney. I must return to London as soon as possible,’ and the ladies professed sadness at such a short acquaintance.
Harriet looked back once from the uneven road where her father held her tightly by the arm, held up her black glove for a moment, as a last goodbye to the smiling, waving ladies.
* * *
The Lieutenant-Governor may have thought that the passengers aboard the Seagull would wait until morning to disembark but he was wrong. As the ship had dropped anchor, as the sails had been furled and the ladies from Government House had looked down, Ralph and Benjamin were huddled together on a far corner of the deck. The Wellington wind whipped their words away almost as soon as they had been spoken, as if to lose them before they did further damage. In shock and anger and horror Ralph imparted to Benjamin what Lucy had told him. Such was their faith in Lucy that neither of them at any point queried the truth of what she had said.
‘This changes everything, Ben, everything.’ And Benjamin saw his brother’s closed and desolate face.
For a moment the younger man said nothing at all. So this, this terrible story, was the message, beating at his heart. This was what he had seen on her face when he had so lightly informed her that perhaps a God did not exist to protect her. He stared across the choppy water at the little town of which they had had such high hopes, where small lights glittered and blew. He had not understood that the beautiful adventure would turn out this way. Then he turned to his brother, his face grave.
‘Ralph. You cannot – you must not – desert her now. Her flight is at last explained and her need of you may be very great. We must find her and make sure she is safe.’
‘But—’ and Ralph’s voice was low and desperate, all his joy gone, all the vicissitudes of the journey suffered for nothing, ‘but I could not, of course, marry her now – O God I cannot bear to think of it.’ Ralph buried his head into his arms as he leant on the dark deck rail and his muffled voice continued. ‘Think of it, Ben, think of it, Sir Charles Cooper to—’ and a groan of pain seemed to escape from the deck rail, ‘—I am heir to the Kingdom fortune, my wife must of course be – that is to say – pure, pure as driven snow, my children’s mother … I could not, Ben. Not a woman who has been—’ he searched and searched for the word he could not say, ‘who has been – no, it is out of the question. I could not.’ And then he repeated, I cannot bear to think of it.
Again Benjamin was silent. He heard the sailors whistling out to the small boats that had already brought traders aboard to meet with the Captain and discuss his cargo. He looked at his brother, partly in pity, partly there was something fiercer in his eyes.
At last, in a dark corner of the deck of the anchored Seagull, there in the night harbour so far from home, Benjamin took a deep breath and, because he knew he must, gave Miss Harriet Cooper back to his brother.
‘Ralph, listen to me. The world is changing as at no other time in history – you and I have often discussed this, how lucky we are to be alive in such a time of discovery and invention and discourse. We are lucky enough also to be well-educated, well-connected men and I believe we should be in the forefront of those changes and I cannot help but think that our – our attitude towards, our whole way of thinking about, women – is to be one of those changes.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I am talking about Miss Cooper and the misfortune that has come upon her that is surely not her fault.’ Benjamin heard the wind blowing through the rigging above them. ‘What a terrible – what an unspeakable thing to happen to a young girl. No wonder she could not tell you why she was leaving.’
‘She is ruined.’
‘How many women have you—’ Benjamin chose his words carefully, ‘—known? It has not, I believe, ruined you. It has not, has it, defiled you and made you impure?’
Ralph, who had been staring down at the dark choppy water, looked at his brother first in amazement and then in anger. ‘How dare you speak to me like that! That is entirely different!’
‘It is only different, Ralph, because we think of women so differently from ourselves.’
‘Of course.’ Ralph’s voice was even angrier. ‘Women are different, quite different beings! They are to comfort and to cleanse us, to give us peace and to bring out the best in us. That is what I believed Miss Cooper would do for me. But women of course can only do that if they—’ again he could not find the right words, ‘if they are pure. That is the most important quality that they must have.’
In the darkness Benjamin shook his head. ‘So the other women you have known and expended so much energy not to mention money upon are not, now, worthy of any man? If they were worthy when you met them, worthy enough even for you to set up an es
tablishment with one of them, is it not you that has therefore ruined them?’
‘Don’t play with words, Ben. There are no words to discuss Miss Cooper now, now that we know this – this unspeakable thing. What you are talking of is different. Entirely different.’
‘I wonder if it is. I believe that if women are good and intelligent, and care about the world and its many inhabitants as we all must learn to do, then, I think, they are more likely to bring out the best in us. Miss Mary Cooper, the beloved elder sister, died because she was visiting the poor in Seven Dials during the cholera epidemic.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know, that is all. Miss Harriet Cooper loved her sister and must have known what she was doing. It is clear from even the short acquaintance we have had with Harriet that she is an intelligent woman.’
‘None of this matters. An impure woman could never be the mother of my children, no matter how intelligent. And impure in such a – no, I cannot think on it – such a terrible way. It is out of the question. The Kingdom bloodline is too important.’
‘If she has had the courage to run away from the vile actions of her father, to cross the world alone, then it seems to me she must be a good woman and a very brave woman, as was her sister. Do you not think these would be qualities worth passing on in our family?’
In his mind Ralph could see Benjamin’s grey, wise eyes: the eyes of their father. Voices called, small boats nudged against the Seagull beside the rope ladder at the other end of the deck. Somewhere a sailor laughed. For a long time the brothers were silent.
At last Ralph said, in a low voice, ‘What fools have you been meeting with, to speak to me in this way?’
‘Not fools, Ralph. Educated men. And women. There are many people who think as I do.’
‘Mother would not agree with you.’
‘Mother comes from another time, another world almost.’ Benjamin’s voice was very quiet: both of them saw their mother sitting so uncompromisingly in the cold rooms of their world. ‘A few women of her generation were lucky enough, or brave enough, to obtain the freedom of thought that can come with true education. Mother was not one of them, as well you know.’ They had never spoken in this way of their mother in their lives, it seemed almost inappropriate to do so, even now. ‘Yet I cannot but think that her life could have been – happier, if she had been able to think about some things differently.’
Ralph sounded impatient. ‘Happiness has nothing whatever to do with it. Mother has always done her duty.’ It was true that their mother had always done her duty, never once had her sons seen her less than immaculately prepared for their infrequent visits; never once had she complained of the long, empty days in the cold, high-ceilinged manor where she lived out her life. ‘She has always done her duty,’ Ralph repeated. ‘As women must.’
Benjamin did not answer.
The wind ruffled their hair and their clothes and caught again at the rigging and at the sea below them. The Seagull moved and swayed at its anchor.
And then Ralph whispered on to the wind: Harriet – with her father: it disgusts me.
‘I shall go ashore myself then,’ said Benjamin shortly and he quickly went below. Ralph caught the sudden disdain in his younger brother’s voice.
* * *
Below deck Benjamin knocked quietly at the door of the cabin Lucy shared with George. Lucy answered.
‘Is he asleep?’
‘No.’
George was reading. Perhaps he was reading. He sat with his back to them holding a book but there was something tense and unnatural about his shoulders.
‘I am going ashore.’ Lucy wished passionately that she also could go ashore now, tonight, touch the new land at last: was glad that she would have freedom soon to catch at the dreams that would change her life. ‘I will arrange accommodation for our embarkation in the morning.’ He wanted to say something to Lucy of Harriet, of his brother. But what?
Suddenly George ran and flung himself at Benjamin.
‘Take me, take me, I want to come with you because now the storm will come!’ The boy was screaming with fright. ‘Take me! Take me!’
Benjamin looked distressed, tried to hold the small flailing body still, puzzled. But Lucy understood at once.
‘There ain’t going to be a storm here, George, I’ve told you. Don’t be such a ninny.’ And she took him firmly by both arms, shook him to make him look at her. ‘Look at me, George,’ she said loudly, and he looked at her. ‘This is the peaceful side of the world, like I’ve told you and told you. Sir Benjamin is going ashore in a rowing boat to make it nice for tomorrow.’
‘He went in a rowing boat last time,’ said George, and now he was sobbing, burying his head in Lucy’s apron, and Benjamin understood at once: in George’s experience if a ship dropped anchor it was shipwrecked.
‘Here, George,’ he said, ‘look at this!’ and he unclipped his pocket watch from his jacket. George looked up but still the tears ran down his face. ‘I wouldn’t be leaving you with this, would I? if you were going to be shipwrecked again!’
George took the watch and said no more, but his body shuddered still, from weeping, and his eyes held more pain and fear and memory than a small boy’s should.
Benjamin came up on deck and whistled for a boat, the way he saw the sailors do.
‘I am going ashore,’ he said to Ralph. ‘Will you not come with me? We must, at the very least, be assured that she is safe. And we may ascertain also whether Sir Charles Cooper is here.’
His brother’s face still held the look of rage and disgust and disappointment and if Benjamin had not known such a thing was totally out of the question he would have sworn his brother had been weeping. ‘I could not see him,’ said Ralph. ‘I would kill him if I saw him. I cannot see her. Surely you understand.’
‘Very well, Ralph, I will go alone. I will find out what I can.’ Again Ralph heard something in his brother’s voice, something harder, less respectful. Benjamin whistled again and the sailors threw down a rope ladder and a small boat, bobbing on the choppy water in the wind, was rowed off by two men towards the shore, a lantern at the bow to guide them in.
Ralph Kingdom, illustrious Englishman, man-about-town, heir to an untold fortune, watched the boat getting smaller, saw the dark shapes of his brother and the sailors. He strained to see Ben’s little boat land in the darkness, saw lights moving up the sand. Ben was a good man, but he knew nothing about women.
Terrible visions again filled his mind, disturbed his body. I cannot tell you, she had said and now he knew; he shook his head from side to side to try to cast out the pictures that came to him: terrible, unthinkable, exciting pictures of the woman he had loved.
And then quite unexpectedly Ralph heard himself say: I will have her. For just a moment he seemed startled by his own words, and then extraordinarily pleased by them. He suddenly leant over the deck rail and whistled out for one of the small boats. Swiftly he went below to his cabin, moved quietly. In a moment he was back on deck. As he was rowed towards the lights on the shore words went round and round in his head. I will have her. I love her. I will have her. And just as the boat touched the shingle on the shore: I will forgive her.
But his mind was not able to say: I will marry her.
* * *
The meeting of the settlers was to be held not far from where Benjamin had been deposited on the shore by the boatman, near one of the wooden jetties. He walked up the beach on to the harbourside, and saw at once hundreds of lanterns, heard the voices. Some were angry, some were excited, some sounded as though they had been drinking. Women stood in bonnets, children played in the crowd, running between people, running down to the water, pulled back every now and then by their mothers. There was to be a meeting soon, people informed him, and rumours flew around him: any moment, they said; in an hour, they said; a Member of Parliament from Great Britain, they said. And someone had the name: Sir Charles Cooper, they said, from England. So he was here. Benjamin walked quickly al
ong the quay; saw, without seeing, Wellington: the stores and the sheds, the neat houses and the notices advertising wigs and the immortality of the soul. Where then was Harriet? His mind was filled with his brother, with Harriet Cooper, and his heart was weighed down with the pain of understanding at last. But now he must find her: I know about your father. Are you all right? Are you safe? Suddenly there was a stir, a commotion further down the quay. Soldiers were already escorting the speakers to the meeting. Benjamin quickly turned back to follow Sir Charles, and so find Harriet.
* * *
Harriet had been safely returned to Barratt’s Hotel through the throng of people, the settlers and the traders and the sailors; just for a moment Sir Charles had entered her dark room and closed the door. Outside the escorting soldiers and the Lieutenant-Governor waited.
‘Get ready, my darling girl,’ he said and his words slurred slightly. ‘I will not be long.’ He pulled her towards him as he stood by the door, ran his hand, again, down her body, and she heard the crowds on the street calling and laughing and voices selling meat and flour and nails. ‘I will be back as soon as possible. I will expect you to be ready.’ He caught her head to his chest for just a moment, and spoke into her hair. ‘Do not think of sleeping, Harriet. I have the laudanum, my darling, and you will sleep when I determine.’ And then he kissed her mouth, and then he turned to go but just as he opened the door he turned back.
‘This is the punishment,’ he said. And she saw that his face held a look of triumph at what had, at long last, been won.
She heard him instructing Peters to lock the door of her bedroom and not move from there. And then she heard the heavy lock being turned.
She was poised like an arrow. She had made her plan. She knew she could not go back to the ladies at Government House, or to the Burlington Browns so concerned to keep up standards. She knew she could not: her powerful father would be informed at once, her word against his would be considered so improper, so unbelievable, that they would say she was mad, not him: her flight from England was proof enough of that. Even Edward could not help her now. Somewhere in the hotel someone was playing the piano in a jaunty out-of-tune kind of way, and voices sang of ‘Black-Eyed Susan’.
The Trespass: A Novel Page 41