The Trespass: A Novel

by Barbara Ewing

  There she sat, her face blank.

  * * *

  Edward arrived by boat just in time, slipped quickly into the church with his hair smoothed down and his earnest face deeply disturbed; looked in disbelief at the presence of Ralph and Benjamin; stared in distress at his pale cousin, having had as yet no chance at all to speak to her. Miss Eunice Burlington Brown, manoeuvering herself (in becoming black) to Edward’s side in the church, was mortified to see that he looked at her blankly before at last realising who she was and bowing apologetically. The vicar prayed for everlasting life for Sir Charles Cooper.

  The small procession, escorted by red-coated soldiers, left the church on the hill and wound upwards to the cemetery at the back of the town. Sir Charles Cooper’s body was carried on a cart. No prancing horses with waving plumes, no lines of carriages of the rich and influential: many of the mourners like Lord Ralph and Sir Benjamin were not even wearing black, having no mourning clothes among their possessions. But all wore black armbands as they toiled upwards. The sky was overcast and grey, the Wellington wind blew softly across the town. Trees on the hills bowed and sighed and the scent of manuka hung in the air.

  And for some reason Harriet had insisted on attending: it was not at all the thing for a lady to do in these circumstances but none had liked to forbid her, so strange was her manner, so cold and still. Lord Ralph, pale-faced, had finally offered her his arm: she looked at him so blankly, as if she was in a trance, that he drew back; it was Lucy who helped Harriet over the uneven earth tracks to the burial ground. (Benjamin suddenly remembered the small, desolate figure in the chapel at Highgate Cemetery, forbidden to follow her sister to her grave, and his heart contracted, understanding now that desolation.)

  The Maori chief and several of his men stood above them as they came up the track: the procession stopped in alarm, the soldiers felt for their guns. But the chief’s head was bowed: finally, at a sign from the Lieutenant-Governor, the procession moved onward to the new grave.

  The vicar spoke a few more simple words, the body was lowered into the ground, watched carefully by Harriet. But it was Edward Cooper, not Harriet, who threw some handfuls of earth into the final resting-place of the Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP.

  In the distance could be heard the eerie sound of wailing of native women.

  * * *

  Tea was served at Government House, and plates of food.

  The drawing room was crowded with people: Harriet suddenly could not breathe, escaped to the garden. The boy George was there with Quintus who, seeing Harriet, ran towards her, barking, looking up at her face. He seemed almost to be smiling. George too watched Harriet for a moment as she stood looking at the sea, calming her breathing. He had heard the people talking. Then he said:

  ‘Did your father die, lady?’

  For a moment she did not answer him. George tried again, most persistently. ‘Lady, did your father die?’

  ‘Yes!’ Harriet let out a long, long breath at last. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. My father died.’

  ‘My father died. And my mother. Did you cry, lady?’

  Harriet shifted focus at last: looked at his scrubbed and anxious face.

  ‘I did cry,’ she said. ‘When my sister died. But that was a long time ago.’

  Quintus stood between them listening, his ears cocked.

  ‘My good friend has told me not to cry and to be a man and not to think about dying but in the night I think of them.’

  ‘You cannot help it,’ said Harriet gently. ‘You cannot help remembering.’

  George spoke very fast. ‘They did drowned in the water and there was screaming and waves and the waves went over me and my mother held on to me and I can read now but I want to see my mother before I go to heaven where she is, I want my mother now, I heard her screaming in the water and I ain’t never going in the water again.’

  The Lieutenant-Governor was at her side. ‘Now, young George, off you go and play, do not bother Miss Cooper today,’ and he took Harriet’s arm firmly, moving her away from the boy and the dog. ‘A little walk around the garden,’ he said determinedly, and for a moment or two they walked in silence.

  ‘You see the remains of our roses,’ he said at last. ‘But I fear it is a long way from England, all the same. You will be glad, my dear, to be Home again after such terrible tribulations.’ She did not answer.

  ‘But my dear Harriet, out of sadness joy sometimes comes. It is with great pleasure that I have understood that Lord Ralph Kingdom wishes to speak to you.’ Harriet stopped walking. Surely, surely, Lord Ralph Kingdom, here with his brother, and somehow her maid, and her dog, would not speak to her again of marriage? Had he not told them she had refused him? She took a deep, trembling breath, and reminded herself that, for the first time in her life, she was free.

  I will not marry.

  I will not go back.

  ‘I just want you to know,’ continued the Lieutenant-Governor, encouraging her to walk on, ‘that my wife and I will of course do everything in our power to assist you in any of your arrangements. This has been a quite dreadful time for you; that your father should have been caught up in the difficulties we are experiencing here is most terrible and I cannot say how distressed I am at the turn of events. I shall remember always the look of pride and affection upon his face when you played the piano for us, only yesterday. Ah my dear, my dear. You will, of course, need someone to look after you.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘In the end they are uncivilised, the natives – primitive, savage and malign. I believe they have been provoked by the foolish actions of a minority of the settlers, but that of course is no excuse. We believe we have found the perpetrators, who will be summarily dealt with; there will be executions of course.’

  ‘It was the Maoris who killed my father?’

  ‘I am sure so, but unfortunately we cannot identify the gun. Your father was killed with a bullet from a pistol. It is regrettably true that there is trade with the natives in firearms – but muskets, not pistols. We do not sell pistols to natives. The native chief – whom I believe to be an honourable man, on his own terms of course – tells me he knows of no pistols. But of course black-market trading goes on all the time and we will find the gun, and so the murderers.’

  ‘It was definitely the Maoris?’ She kept getting odd flashes in her mind, Piritania holding her as she wept, the smell of the oil in her hair.

  ‘My dear Miss Cooper, we are in a primitive, barbarous land, but we are men of England. Who would kill someone like your father, if not a native? They were looking for trouble last night. The old chief insists they were merely gathered at the back of the town in support of his speech, and it is true, I have learnt from experience, that there is a certain theatricality, sometimes, about their formalities. He said they were all there because they had planned a big gathering of their own later in the evening, but I have it on good authority that the pas were empty, on both sides of town.’ Again the Lieutenant-Governor sighed. ‘Ah – forgive me, my dear, this is men’s talk. But I wanted to assure you, Miss Cooper, that every effort will be made to bring the killers to their maker and all the reports that go to London on the White Princess will, of course, tell how your father died in support of his country while with his beloved daughter. And if, after such sadness, you are to leave New Zealand with the prospects of joy, my wife and I will be delighted.’

  Handsome, debonair and pale, Lord Ralph Kingdom was striding towards them, across the grass: in this public place, on the day of her father’s funeral, she could do nothing but allow him to lead her down the lawn.

  * * *

  They sat on a bench, overlooking the harbour. Above them, on the flagpole that usually intimated ships’ arrivals, the Union Jack flew at half-mast. Occasionally it was caught by the wind, flapped against the pole.

  From the drawing-room window they could be seen in the distance. Benjamin, making polite conversation with the Lieutenant-Governor’s old aunt, moved away from the windows. But the aunt, a rather gra
nd lady of much social pretension (who thought Sir Benjamin Kingdom most marvellously presentable and hoped he would stay for the good of the new colony’s many unattached young ladies), was nevertheless enthralled at the prospect of a proposal going on under her nose and kept observing, during her conversation with Sir Benjamin, the couple under the flagpole. They had been there for some time: they seemed not to be speaking a great deal; Lord Ralph did not seem to look at Miss Cooper, he looked rather at the sea and the hills.

  * * *

  Lord Ralph Kingdom’s tone was formal and cold as he stared outwards.

  ‘I presume, Miss Cooper, that you have not changed your mind.’

  ‘I am sorry, Lord Kingdom, for your long journey and I am conscious of the honour you do me. But as I told you last night, I could not marry you. Nothing has changed.’ She made as if to rise but his hand detained her even though he did not look at her.

  ‘Nevertheless they think I am proposing to you now so we shall have to use up the time. People have been informed that I came to New Zealand to propose to you, and propose I must. It is not known by anyone but my brother that I was ashore last night.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  He answered her in a low voice, as if they could be overheard, although there was no-one near.

  From the window the Lieutenant-Governor’s aunt saw the girl’s head whip round suddenly so that she was staring at her suitor.

  ‘What did you say?’ said Harriet.

  He repeated the words. ‘I shot your father. He did not deserve to live, he had no right to live. He has destroyed my happiness and I have no regrets about what I have done.’ He continued to stare outwards.

  She simply stared, white-faced herself, at the white face of Lord Ralph Kingdom, one of the sons of England, and at the wild eyes where, they said, women drowned.

  It was as if the barbarous country made barbarians.

  Her hands began to shake. For some moments she held them across her mouth and rocked backwards and forwards slightly and he heard that she made little gasping sounds. But if he feared she would run screaming to the house he gave no sign. After some time she stopped shaking and her hands returned to her lap.

  ‘Who else knows this?’ she said in a low, low voice.

  ‘About last night? Only my brother Ben. And he knows the reason. Lucy told us.’

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘She was afraid. She guessed your father might be here. She thought I should know—’ he still did not look at her, ‘what your father did to you.’

  There was a long, long silence. Some small birds with tails like open fans flashed past them and into a big tree in the corner of the garden. Distantly, from the harbour, men shouted and carried barrels and logs across the sand. The Union Jack made a hollow sound as it suddenly flapped against the flagpole.

  At last Harriet felt able to speak. ‘Forgive me, Lord Ralph, but why is Lucy with you?’

  ‘She was coming to New Zealand of her own accord, to bring you your dog.’

  Harriet made a small, odd sound. Lord Ralph did not know if she was crying, or laughing. He would not care, he told himself as he watched the sea, either way. Tomorrow he would be gone from here.

  From the window, the Lieutenant-Governor’s aunt saw Harriet lean across so that her head was very close to her companion’s although she was not looking at him.

  ‘Ralph, I have to explain something to you,’ Harriet said in a low voice. For some reason she wanted to speak truthfully to him, to try and explain something to him, perhaps to make him understand. She perhaps owed that to the man who had crossed the world to find her, and then saved her life, even if she did not love him. She paused as if to gather unspeakable words together; he waited as if transfixed, suddenly staring at her: had his action made her change her mind?

  ‘Ralph, you must understand that I have never, never spoken about this, about – my father – to another living person. Even with my sister Mary, she knew of course, there was no need for words, and there were no words for this. I did not know that Lucy guessed. If I have the courage to talk to you now of what is, literally – unspeakable – it is because – of what you have done.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘And because, now, we both have – secrets.’ She felt him staring at her, she took his look, swallowed several times and continued doggedly.

  ‘Ralph – I would like you to understand something. I think my father has damaged me. Not in the way that perhaps you have—’ she stopped and then made herself continue, ‘imagined – but in another way. I think he has made it impossible for me to—’ she felt her face flush but still she forced herself go on, ‘to wish to – perform my duties as a wife.’

  Her words shocked him: this was not how any respectable woman spoke, or thought. But something in her face touched his heart, made him understand that she was bravely pushing away the way women spoke, because she was trying to tell him the truth. For just one moment he let down his guard, as if her honesty had triggered his own.

  ‘Something happened to me on the journey here, Harriet. I was happy.’

  For just a moment their eyes met in something like closeness. And then as if he had already said too much he moved away from her slightly. This time at least she would remember him as a gentleman.

  It never occurred to him for a moment that she would remember him as a murderer.

  They sat in silence and watched the harbour. The White Princess was already loading, small boats plied to and fro from the shore’s edge, carrying flax and timber. It was Harriet who finally spoke.

  ‘Peters knows you came ashore last night. I would not trust Peters.’

  ‘I will employ Peters, and he will remain grateful,’ said Lord Ralph. ‘I know how to manage people like Peters.’

  The timber and the flax crossed the sand, a group of native women laughed with some of the crew from the White Princess, the laughter echoed upwards.

  ‘You will return to England of course? Your father will have made provision for you.’ Harriet saw that he spoke matter-of-factly, there was no irony in his words. ‘Your brothers will be responsible for you. You will need the protection of your brothers.’

  She answered him slowly. ‘No, Ralph. I want to stay here.’

  Again she had shocked him. ‘Why?’

  She paused before she answered and then she said, ‘I feel at home here. There is something about the space and the air that makes me feel as if I belong.’

  ‘But you belong, surely, in England, in a civilised country. You could not be happy here for long.’

  ‘I shall try.’ And she smiled at him, that old remembered smile that lit up her face, and he turned away in pain. He could not know what she was thinking. In this uncivilised country I have become free.

  They sat for some time on the bench in the garden. Dusk was falling. He could not help himself.

  ‘You will always remember me,’ he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Ralph. I will always remember you.’

  So at last he said, ‘It must be reported then, that you have refused me.’ With a touch of his old panache he added: ‘They will not believe it.’

  ‘No,’ said Harriet gravely. ‘They will not believe it.’

  A little later, watched from the drawing room, the two of them walked slowly, not arm in arm but close together, towards the Government House. They made an extraordinarily handsome couple. The wind caught Harriet’s hair. She put up one graceful arm to the side of her head, walked with her hand beside her pale face, holding back her dark hair.

  From the window Benjamin, looking out at last as a frisson of excitement shivered over the drawing room at the couple’s return, thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as Harriet Cooper at that moment.

  He turned away.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Two things were arranged, even if the hoped-for betrothal was not: Sir Benjamin Kingdom would not be returning to England in the meantime, he would walk into the interior of the southern island and see
if there was any sign of the existence still of the fabled tall bird, the moa. And Lucy was employed, until she got to know the new country and found ways of finding her own dreams, as Harriet’s maid.

  The Lieutenant-Governor’s aunt felt extremely angry at Miss Cooper’s foolishness and made so bold as to mention to the world in general that London society might never forgive her. Surely to refuse the proposal of the mighty Kingdom family was unforgivable?

  ‘I dare say, ma’am,’ said a banking official recently arrived from London, ‘that her brothers will have inherited a great deal of money. Sir Charles Cooper was a very rich man and Miss Cooper will have friends enough.’

  ‘Not,’ said the Lieutenant-Governor’s aunt in her grandest manner, ‘the people who matter,’ and Mrs Burlington Brown nodded sagely.

  Edward Cooper, loyal Edward, bemused by everything that was happening, bowed coldly to the aunt.

  ‘My cousin will always have the support of her family, ma’am,’ he said stiffly, ‘and her decisions are her own affair.’

  * * *

  Harriet did not go down to the harbour to farewell the White Princess on its way to Sydney. Such was the disappointment of her hosts, the Lieutenant-Governor and his wife (not to mention the disapproval of their aunt); such was the incredulous disbelief of Mrs Burlington Brown and Miss Eunice who had never known such an extraordinarily handsome man as Lord Ralph Kingdom, that Harriet deemed it more politic to stay in her room in Government House. (Mr Burlington Brown felt some kind of personal glow, his protégée would stay under his personal care and guidance.) But the others all seemed to imply that it was her duty to marry Lord Ralph, she had failed in her duty. They tried to be kind, they tried to put her unfeminine behaviour down to grief; tried to understand that she might want to stay, however briefly, in the country where her father was buried. But everybody felt she had made a most terrible mistake in not accepting Lord Ralph Kingdom’s proposal of marriage, one he had travelled so far to offer. Her cousin Edward particularly, despite his public support, remained uneasy: he felt that there was something else in all this, in the extraordinary appearance of the Kingdom brothers, in Lord Ralph’s pale silence, in Harriet’s containment, that he did not understand. He hurriedly wrote page after page to his family, letters to be sent with the White Princess, trying to make sense of all that had happened in the last days. He wrote letters of condolence to Richard and Walter on the loss of their father, to add to Harriet’s brief notes.