by Cecily Ross
Sarah pinched my wrist and hissed. Kate smiled at me and placed her finger to her lips. She returned her attention to Mr. Harral.
“Together, they overcome all manner of—”
Mr. Harral interrupted her with what appeared to be genuine interest. “Well, I should very much like to see this book of yours, my dear.”
Our book. When had she intended to tell me about this? I sat down again, hands gripping the edge of my seat to stop from shaking. Kate skipped out of the room to fetch her manuscript, and Eliza and Agnes exchanged dark glances. They too knew nothing of our sister’s project.
Mama, oblivious to the tension in the room, offered Mr. Harral more tea. “My, what nonsense girls get up to these days. And to think we have all these edifying volumes at our disposal.” She lifted her eyes and gazed at the shelves rising to the ceiling. “Novels!” she snorted.
“I have been writing too.” It was Agnes. We all turned to look at her. “Poetry,” she said, her chin raised, shoulders high. “In fact, one of my poems has been accepted for publication in the Norfolk News.”
“Really, Agnes?” said Mama. “How wonderful. I do love a rousing poem. You should have told us.”
Mr. Harral turned his attentions to Agnes.
“Well, well, a published authoress in the family. And what is your poem about, my dear?”
“I have called it ‘Death of a Monarch,’” Agnes continued. “It is a tribute to poor Queen Charlotte.”
Agnes too? Taking time off from her historical studies to write doggerel? At least the work was her own. But Katie? Claiming credit for our work, hers and mine, the collaboration I had thought destroyed years ago? I could hardly breathe.
At last, Kate returned and placed a stack of foolscap in Mr. Harral’s hands. She was clearly excited. “When the boy falls to the bottom of a deep crevasse, the little three-legged dog runs all the way to . . .” She blushed again. “Well, you’ll see if you read it.”
Yes, it was the same story that I assumed had been sacrificed to the interests of perfectly turned ringlets. The Swiss herd boy transformed into a sightless Scot, the loyal marmot into a sheepdog? The story that I thought had been ours together I now found my sister had been working on all this time without telling me. I was aghast at her perfidy, her betrayal.
We waited in silence while Mr. Harral perused the pages, slowly at first, and then more quickly, nodding and making faint grunts, whether of satisfaction or dismay I could not tell. Agnes’s literary triumph, to her obvious chagrin, was apparently forgotten. At last, Mr. Harral looked up from his reading and, removing his spectacles, turned his attention to Mama.
“Mrs. Strickland, I hope you will allow me to take these pages with me on my next visit to London. I do believe they have some merit.”
“Mr. Harral, they are the scribblings of a child, the, the . . .” —Mama’s hands were shaking as she wrung her handkerchief—“the product of an idle imagination. Surely . . .”
“Believe me, madam, times and tastes change, and there is a growing appetite in the city for fictions such as these. I have a friend in the publishing business, and he has told me he is on the lookout for talented writers, many of them women such as your daughters, whose stories he can put into print.”
“But to what end?” cried Mama.
“To be blunt, Mrs. Strickland, to a financial end. Educated, well-off people are hungry for such entertainments and they will pay for them.”
“Are you suggesting my Katie will receive money for this . . . this silly recreation?”
“I am. And it is one of the reasons for my visit today.” He looked around the room. “Please forgive me for my directness, but it is clear that since the passing of my dear friend and your loving husband, Thomas, your finances have been”—he paused and cleared his throat—“have been strained. Your girls, as lovely and accomplished as they are, have little hope of marrying without dowries. I doubt their departed father would disagree with me when I say they would not be ill-advised in making use of their natural talents so that you, Mrs. Strickland, can have some hope of maintaining your cherished home in something approaching a livable condition.”
Containing my rage as best I could, I concentrated on Mr. Harral’s speech and on Mama’s reaction. Despite the dearth of heat emanating from the hearth, her face turned crimson at his words. She stood and began rearranging the tea tray and, without looking at him, said finally, “Well, Mr. Harral, as always your perspective is most illuminating. I hadn’t quite thought our situation as dire as you seem to imagine. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should consider encouraging young Kate here—and Agnes too, it seems—to put at risk her most precious asset, her respectability, for the sake of a few shillings.”
“My dear Elizabeth, I am not suggesting sending them out on the streets to fend for themselves. I only meant that times are changing and we must change with them. At least allow me to show Catharine’s story to my publisher friend . . .”
“Please, Mama, please,” said Kate.
Agnes joined in. “Mama, what harm is there?”
And when the others (even I joined the chorus) cried out in support of the idea, Mama gave her reluctant assent. Mr. Harral shook her hand warmly, and I showed him to the door.
“Are you a writer too?” he asked as I handed him his greatcoat.
“Well, yes, I . . .”
“Keep it up, then. There may be a future in it,” he said before I could finish, and he was out the door and away.
After he left, I hurried upstairs to find Kate, who had repaired to her room, apparently to gloat in private.
“You, you,” I sputtered. “How could you?”
She calmly reminded me that she had told me she would deal with Eliza and Agnes. “And that’s what I did, Susanna. I quietly persuaded them to return the manuscript, saying I could read it aloud to the little boys at bedtime. They relented and forgot about it, as I knew they would. As you can tell, I have made many changes to the story since then.”
“But you didn’t tell me. You hid it away all this time and didn’t say a word. It was my idea, the fruit of my imagination. Who are you? Who would do such a thing?” In a torrent of rage, I began ripping the quilts and pillows off her bed and hurling them on the floor, calling her a cheat and a traitor. She did nothing to stop me. But she called me “wild” and “unpredictable” and said I must control my temper and curb my tendency to look for drama and perfidy at every juncture.
“You have taken the collaboration of our two imaginations,” I sobbed, “and made it into something unrecognizable, without even asking me. How could you?”
“Susie, The Highland Piper became my creation long ago.” She looked at me kindly. “If you are going to be a writer, then you must write. Thinking about it is not enough.”
I had nothing to say to that. I left her room and went to sulk in the cold and comfortless library. I am calmer now, but her betrayal still rankles. Not so much over the appropriation of our story, because what she said is true: I do spend more time dreaming than actually putting pen to paper. What really hurts is that, in my mind, Kate and I are soulmates; my thoughts are hers, her triumphs partly mine. And so to know there is a part of her she does not share with me, a part that is about her and not us, is difficult to accept.
Later, at lunch, Katie was as serene and gentle as a summer’s day, betraying nothing to the others of our disagreement. In her mind, the matter is closed, while I continue to suffer silently. How good she is. She has the uncanny faculty for forgetting past sorrows and dwelling on the present. We are so unalike, it is a wonder we ever agree on anything. While I rail at the injustice I see at every turn, she seems to accept her fate with an equanimity I cannot fathom. Beside her, I feel like a wild Suffolk girl, my heart bursting alternately with anger and passion. There are times when I cannot bear her imperturbable patience, and yet I wonder what I should be without it.
JANUARY 1, 1819
A new year. With Kate’s example in mind, I have res
olved to apply myself to composing the poetry that is roiling inside me like a storm at sea. Agnes has brought to my attention the verses of Sir Walter Scott, whom she says she is trying to emulate in her own writings. I intend to outdo her; she has grown unbearably smug now that her work is to be published. Still, I envy her diligence (she is at her desk from after breakfast until noon every day without fail), and her glossy dark brown hair. How I detest my mouse-coloured frizz.
I have just finished the most remarkable novel, a tale of horror and hubris. It is called Frankenstein. How it made its way into the library at Reydon Hall, I shall never know, but it fell into my hands quite by accident as I was retrieving a cloak from Eliza’s room and it fell from the pocket. The book is fearfully dog-eared, proof it has been making the rounds with my elder sisters for some time, though likely withheld from Katie and me for fear of disturbing our young and fertile minds. The author is called Anonymous, which only deepens the story’s strange aura. How I should like to meet him someday.
MARCH 22, 1819
Spring has come to Reydon Hall. Daffodils cluster among the trees and along the drive, yellow explosions in the sunshine. Today is the first truly balmy day after a month of rain and fog. Katie works steadily on more children’s tales. I am applying myself diligently to one of my own, the subject of which I will keep to myself for now . . . for obvious reasons.
Kate and I have become friends with Mr. Harral’s daughter, Anna Laura. Of course, we often played childish games with her and her brother, Francis, when Papa was alive, but I had not seen them in at least two years. What a pleasure it has been to reconnect with this fine young woman and her very handsome sibling now that Mr. Harral has taken such a kind interest in our affairs. He lost little time in inviting Kate and me to spend an afternoon at the family’s home near Southwold. While not grand, the Harral house is filled with books and paintings and has an intimacy which I’m afraid our beloved Reydon with its cavernous rooms and labyrinth of corridors will never achieve. Anna Laura was shy at first. She and her brother are reserved and polite, perhaps as a consequence of their father’s restrained and erudite bearing (he is nothing like Papa despite their shared interests), or it could be the household’s subdued energy has something to do with the presence of the second Mrs. Harral, the first having died of consumption around the time of our own father’s death.
“Papa says she is still getting used to us,” Anna Laura remarked after her stepmother came upon the four of us playing a game of jackstraws in the drawing room during our visit.
“Anna Laura, dear, would you mind lowering your voices,” Mrs. Harral said without acknowledging my sister and me, though we had not yet been introduced. “I have a most fearful headache.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and index finger, then craned her neck to see what we were doing. “Really, Francis? Children’s games? Surely you have better things to do?” And she was gone.
Francis scooped up the scattering of coloured sticks from the carpet and began sliding them into their wooden box. “How can she get used to us when nothing we do is right?” He was pale with anger. “I’m going for a walk.”
Kate put a hand on his arm. “Let me go with you, Francis. I should love to see the garden.”
After they left, Anna Laura’s earlier reticence disappeared. “Please excuse my brother. Our new mother, is very hard on him. Papa says she loves him, loves both of us, that she only wants the best for us. I understand. It must be difficult to be a mother to someone else’s children. But it’s hard for us too; she is so often out of temper.”
She jumped to her feet, pulling me with her. “Come on. I’ll show you the stables. We have new kittens, only a week old.”
Since then, whenever we visit, Mrs. Harral continues to act as though we do not exist. Eliza says she is older than Mr. Harral and that she was obliged to marry “beneath her” because of her age, despite having a modest income. How my sister discovers these things, I do not know, only that she and Agnes return from Norwich each week with many such stories. I do not care if Mrs. Harral holds us in contempt. What can she do to us? Her husband’s encouragement and influence are the important things.
JUNE 10, 1819
Katie’s Highland piper story is to be published. Imagine our amazement when Mr. Harral appeared at our door and called my sister to him. Without a word, he pressed five golden guineas into the palm of her hand (which she promptly dropped on the floor, so great was her surprise, where they scattered like laughter and sent us all scurrying to retrieve them). Mr. Harral says his publisher friend was delighted to pay such a sum for the work. The book shall be called The Blind Highland Piper and Other Tales, and will be published in the fall. I am, of course, filled with envy, but also overcome with happiness for my sister’s success. We celebrated with a bottle of claret at dinner; even Mama was flushed with excitement, and with her blessing, we have decided to spend a portion of the money (the rest will be set aside for repairs to the east wing roof and next winter’s coal) on a trip to London at the kind invitation of Papa’s cousin Mrs. Rebecca Leverton of Bedford Square in Bloomsbury. I cannot wait to make her acquaintance. Mama, in an unguarded moment (the claret, I imagine), treated us to a detailed description of our wealthy cousin, married to the prominent architect Thomas Leverton, who built, among many other things, a splendid triumphal arch in Yorkshire, commemorating the American victory in the War of Independence. Eliza, Agnes, Kate and I will make the journey and stay for a fortnight.
Of course I am delighted with my sister’s success, but I cannot deny that something ugly slithered inside me at the news. It distresses me that I sometimes harbour flashes of ill will toward my sisters, particularly Agnes and Kate. I cannot reconcile my love for them with the cold fingers of jealousy that grip my throat when I consider their successes. There is something wild in it, some part of me I cannot tame, a place where love and reason do not reach.
JUNE 14, 1827 (REYDON HALL)
Despite the fine weather, Anna Laura and I spent the afternoon indoors revising our poems, mine a bucolic tribute to the strenuous labours of the men and women who toil daily in the fields and meadows of Suffolk. I have called it “The Reaper.” Anna Laura is composing a sonnet in praise of friendship: a celebration, she says, of our ever-deepening connection. When we emerged from the library at tea time, we were dizzy with exhilaration. I have great hopes of finding a publisher for these, my most cherished works, even though my children’s stories and rustic sketches are most in demand. Indeed, my first book, the Spartacus novel for children, has sold so well that I am besieged with requests. (Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration, though Newman, the publisher, has asked for more of the same.)
I do not think the thrill of seeing my words in print will ever pale. Five years ago, when I unwrapped that novel and held it in my hands, felt the weight of it, the texture of the paper between my fingers, and read the fine, orderly type, it was like an affirmation of my own existence, the birth of something real. Since then, I am blessed to have seen my writing published again and again, and the novelty never wears off. But it is my poems I love best, and wherein I believe my rendezvous with destiny lies. Perhaps cousin Rebecca will see fit to subsidize my work as she has so generously done for Agnes’s two poetry volumes. Indeed, my elder sister spends much of her time in London these days, staying with cousin Rebecca at Bedford Square, which is within walking distance of the British Museum. That great institution provides Agnes with a trove of ideas for historical plots and themes. She has become quite the society belle, spending what little she earns on hats and dresses. Indeed, I believe she will soon join Eliza (an editor now at the Court Journal) and take up permanent residence in London.
Kate, whose success with children’s stories continues, thinks that Agnes’s increasing immersion in London society has made her distant and superior, but I think our ambitious and handsome sister is well on her way to literary greatness. I am determined to follow in her footsteps, and I intend to visit the metropolis again as so
on as I can manage the fare to London. If I cannot stay with cousin Rebecca, I will presume upon the hospitality of our cousin Thomas Cheesman (the other “Coz”), whose house on Newman Street is, in Eliza’s opinion, “an unfit venue for respectable young women.” I told her that I am certain Cheesman’s relations with his housekeeper are entirely, as he claims, above board. He is harmless, a good-natured eccentric, a painter who, though he lives in a state of perpetual chaos, is nevertheless immersed in the world of arts and letters to which I aspire. Kate can continue to piddle away her time here in the country turning out children’s stories if she wishes, but I do think the engine of publishing resides in the city.
JUNE 15, 1827
It seems that the clear, pure air and rural quiet are not the only attractions Reydon holds for Kate. When Anna Laura and I emerged from our work this afternoon, we surprised my sister and Mr. Francis Harral engaged in an obvious tête-à-tête. They were sitting together on the small wrought-iron bench under the plane tree outside the conservatory. Anna Laura’s brother appeared to be rescuing a tendril of Kate’s hair that had escaped from her pins. It was a tender moment—the dappled light, the tentative angle of her chin, his attitude of rapt devotion—and I made an immediate mental note of the tableau as future material. Anna Laura, realizing we were about to intrude on their privacy, tried to pull me back through the French doors, but the couple were all at once aware of our presence and came apart in a little dance of embarrassed confusion. A pretty scene, indeed.
I am delighted, really, that my dearest friend’s brother is courting my favourite sister. Although I have little desire to assume the marital yoke myself, wedlock has long been my sister’s cherished ambition. Kate and Francis: I wish them well. It promises to be a perfectly appropriate conjunction of our two families. Mr. Harral has proved a valuable mentor to me and my sisters. He has generously published our poetry in his newspapers, The Suffolk Chronicle and The Bury Gazette, and Agnes in particular has benefited hugely from his vast knowledge of history and the arts.