Mrs. Cook

by Marele Day

  I have been fourteen weeks with Mrs Shanks at Packham, she has been in a very poor state of health, sometimes subject to spasms in her breath, which has been more frequently this summer than they used to be at that season of the year.

  As for myself I am but very indifferent, being very short breath’d, and my walking days are not what they used to be, half a mile is quite walk enough for me.

  Elizabeth was in a deep wide sea, she was drowning, her lungs bursting. When she finally took a breath she felt slime oozing down her throat. The thick black sea covered all the world, and Elizabeth was no bigger than a pea. She felt the touch of slippery fish on her skin and saw sharks coming at her, their teeth like bright little daggers. Far below, wraiths were reaching up for her, trying to pull her down to them. Dead sirens, mouths as big as sharks, their lamentations full of dread. Their floating cobweb hair threatened to strangle her. She was day and night in this sea from which she found no respite. Warm hands rubbed her cold ones but she thrashed them away. Elizabeth saw amongst the wraiths all her beloved dead, her whole family drowning in the cobweb hair weaving its way around gravestones: James Cook, 1779; Joseph Cook, 1768; George Cook, 1772; Elizabeth Cook, 1771; and the boys—Nathaniel Cook, 1780; Hugh Cook, 1793, and James Cook, 1794.

  She wanted to drown with them but the wraiths pulled her another way, offering her food that she tightened her mouth against as if their offerings were poison.

  There were periods when she remembered nothing. She must have slept but awoke again into the drowning sea. Sometimes she caught glimpses of a room, a woman in bed, with people surrounding her. Elizabeth saw Gates among them. Downstairs she heard Mrs Honeychurch’s voice, other neighbours from Mile End, and wondered what they were doing there and who the wretched creature in the bed was. Then the wraiths would call to her again.

  The opiates put her in a deathly dream but when they wore off Elizabeth raged. ‘You’ve taken my husband!’ she shouted at the Almighty. ‘All my children. Take their mother, I am ready to die.’ She flung the bedclothes away, offering herself.

  Elizabeth flailed about, shoving away the doctor, Gates, whoever else was trying to calm her.

  ‘Hush, marm. The neighbours will hear you.’

  ‘Damn the blasted neighbours. And damn the Almighty!’

  ‘Marm,’ said Gates, shocked. ‘You’ll go to hell.’

  ‘I am in hell!’ Elizabeth shrieked.

  They managed to hold her down. Elizabeth saw the little cup with slimy brown liquid being put to her mouth. She struggled against it but they forced it down. She tasted its bitterness on her lips, and a trickle of the mixture trailed a long way down her throat, as if her body were a large empty tunnel. She lay back on the pillows, her eyelids closing heavily.

  Eventually, there were cracks of daylight, a wind lifting the curtain, but it was too bright for her to bear. Elizabeth had no idea how much time had passed—hours, weeks, months. She sank back.

  She found herself in the dark brown dream of the alehouse. ‘Mama,’ she called, ‘I’ve lost Sam Bird.’ There was no response. The alehouse, usually so full of noise and smell and busyness, was deserted. Elizabeth climbed the stairs which seemed enormous; she had to lift her legs up to them. When she got to the top, she was surprised to find yet another set of stairs. Everything was still as the grave. ‘Mama?’ But the whole place was silent; Elizabeth couldn’t even hear her own footsteps. The second set of steps got narrower and narrower, and she had to press with her hands to stop the walls caving in on her.

  She hadn’t seen a door, it was as if a section of the wall had opened, and she found herself in a long attic. It was full of treasures—maps and charts, crockery, furniture, medals. Framed in the light from a small window, sitting on a high-backed chair, was an old lady as wizened as a walnut. She had a tiny little fan and as she waved it to and fro Elizabeth saw the glint of rings on her fingers. In the wrinkled old face were the bluest eyes Elizabeth had ever seen. She sat as erect as anybody the size of a walnut could sit. She did not open her mouth but Elizabeth quite distinctly heard her say: ‘I have been waiting all my life for you.’

  It was a perplexing thing to hear. Elizabeth did not understand, but she suddenly felt completely overwhelmed by darkness; it was coming in through the window, through the floorboards, she could feel it cold and sticky like treacle. Elizabeth started to climb up the leg of the chair to get away from it. The walnut woman stretched out her hands, and when Elizabeth finally reached the safety of her lap, the old lady put her arms around her.

  ‘What would they think, seeing you suffering so?’ she whispered into Elizabeth’s hair, rocking her as if she were a baby, fluttering the fan so that Elizabeth could feel its gentle breeze. ‘You have travelled beyond the horizon. It is not always easy, but it is bearable.’

  From out of the air, the walnut woman produced a little bird and gave it to Elizabeth. It was battered and worn, the green and red paint chipped, but she recognised it straightaway. How good to see Sam Bird once again, to know he’d been here all the time. The old woman started humming a little song, a lullaby that Elizabeth herself had sung to the children when they were babies. Just before Elizabeth felt herself drift off to sleep the old lady whispered, ‘It is time for us to change places.’

  Elizabeth’s eyes opened abruptly. ‘Change places?’

  ‘You stay here and I’ll go down into the house. You won’t be lonely, all the things of your loved ones are here to play with and we can visit each other as often as we like. But I need your help.’ She said it in such a way that it sounded like a game.

  ‘What must I do?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘I have been waiting in the attic for so long, I’m not sure I can move my legs. I would just like you to be here, in case I fall.’ It was an easy thing for Elizabeth to do. She could pick the little woman up and place her on the floor, or put her in her pocket. ‘No, I must do it myself.’ She moved herself to the edge of the chair and Elizabeth saw tiny legs appear. The walnut woman wiggled them a bit as if she had just put them on and was trying them out.

  In no time she was standing on the floor, steadying herself by resting her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. Now that she was off the chair she seemed to have grown to normal size. At first she shuffled, as if she did not know the proper movements for walking. But soon she was gliding effortlessly. Elizabeth skipped beside her, right till the moment that the old woman disappeared down the stairs.

  EMBROIDERY ON SILK OF

  CAPTAIN COOK’S VOYAGES BY

  MRS ELIZABETH COOK

  Such a celebration to see the new century—1800! There were those who thought the world would end, who stood on street corners loudly proclaiming it, but others held hopes for a more enlightened future. In the closing years of the eighteenth century there began in earnest a campaign to abolish the slave trade, with Elizabeth’s Clapham neighbours forming the nub of the crusade—banker John Thornton who lived on the south side of the Common, his brother Henry on the west side near Battersea Rise, and their friend William Wilberforce. It was in the oval library of Henry Thornton’s house that the campaign was planned, with Zachary Macaulay, James Stephen and others.

  London was the city of progress, of newness and an unshakeable belief in its own glory. It was the grandest city in all of Europe, none other could match it. Experiments were being done with gas lighting and some envisaged the whole of London being lit by gas, although Sir Humphry Davy declared that: ‘it would be as easy to bring down a bit of the moon to light London, as to succeed in doing so with gas.’ Above it all, above the palaces and prisons, banks and hospitals, parks and squares, the docks and the riverside’s steam-powered industries, hovered the city’s thick belching breath. Elizabeth was glad of the fresh, genteel air of Clapham.

  Elizabeth joined her neighbours to watch the fireworks on the Common on that cold frosty night of 31 December, 1799. Cousin Charles and his wife Mary, who had bought a very nice property at Merton, Dr Elliotson and his family, the Ravenhills a
nd other Clapham neighbours had persuaded Elizabeth to come out.

  It was six years since Jamie and Hugh had passed away but December and January were still difficult months for Elizabeth. She felt even more keenly their loss in the midst of the festive season which families held so dear.

  In that terrible winter the crazed china she was had shattered completely. She’d thrashed about, damning the Almighty, challenging Him to take her. But He had not. He had taken her whole family and left her stranded in this life. ‘It is not always easy but it is bearable.’ The words of the old woman in her dream echoed back to her. She had mended but there were too many cracks in Elizabeth for her to go back to unblemished joy, to the weightless happiness she’d felt as a young bride when she had embarked upon her journey with James. Grief was ever a part of her now. But she prayed that the load would lighten, that she would not crumple under the weight of it. For the sake of her celebrated husband and her dear children, it must not affect her dealings with others. She prayed that, in public at least, what Mr Banks and others called her ‘excellent character’ would be maintained.

  On the anniversaries of the deaths of James, Nat, Jamie and Hugh, Elizabeth fasted and meditated, using as a guide her Book of Common Prayer, or the big Bible that had accompanied James on his voyages. She submitted herself to the pain of praying to God the Father, who had bid Abraham sacrifice his child as a test of faith. In the Lord’s Prayer Elizabeth had to summon all her strength to say, ‘Thy will be done on earth.’ Often she faltered, felt the words stick in her throat.

  Sometimes on the anniversary of Hugh’s death Elizabeth took the coach to Cambridge. The service was faster and the roads much improved since that time long ago when she and James had journeyed to Yorkshire. On her visits to Cambridge she knelt and prayed in Great St Andrew’s Church, where Hugh and Jamie were buried. She also sat alone in the grounds of Christ’s College. She imagined spring in those gardens, pansies and daffodils, crocuses, but on the anniversaries of the deaths it was always winter.

  After silent prayer, Elizabeth walked in the college grounds. Souvent me souvient. I often remember. The coat of arms was on the oriel window above the master’s lodge. Upholding the banner were two white carved yales with gilt antlers. These were the arms, badges and motto of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, foundress of Christ’s College. Elizabeth knew the story of the illustrious foundress of the college into which Hugh had been accepted, of her piety and great political influence, but when she gazed at the portrait, it was not the mother of the king that Elizabeth saw, but the girl she once was, pregnant and widowed at the age of thirteen.

  Sometimes Elizabeth walked the curved streets of that brown-brick town, the voices of choir boys floating like feathers over the buildings, floating upward to heaven. As her black silk skirts swished along the cobbled streets, she moved in the midst of boys the same age as Hugh had been. Young men full of the promise of youth, some self-important, others engaged in horseplay, but all of them ardent, and in passionate conversation about mathematics, poetry, botany, music and, no doubt, young ladies.

  Elizabeth walked among them, invisible to them in her old age, and she gazed at their unmarked faces, belief in their immortality wrapped around them like a gown. Each year she was older, but the faces in the street were always young.

  How hard it must have been for Jamie to lose his only remaining brother to the fever, to be the only Cook child left. Elizabeth often wondered if that was part of his determination not to be dissuaded by his friends, to brave the terrible storm that night. Was he foolhardy? Jamie’s body had been found on the shore of the Isle of Wight, with a head wound and his pockets emptied of valuables. No trace of the boat’s crew had ever been found.

  Elizabeth made enquiries through Cousin Isaac regarding these puzzling circumstances but no further information came to light. Finally she put the mystery to rest in her own mind—Jamie had drowned while attempting to join his ship, his body had washed ashore, and his corpse had been robbed. Such indignity was not uncommon.

  Elizabeth had three extra servants, including a footman, by the turn of the century, but old Gates was still with her and swore she would remain for the rest of her life. Gates responded well to the additional help and took on the role of housekeeper, making sure her underlings were fulfilling their duties. ‘Too much parsley on the anchovy toasts,’ she’d say to Mary. Or, ‘Marm likes the bread cut half an inch thick.’ She was getting too old to perform active duties, although the last person to realise this was Gates herself. The young servants probably considered her a nuisance, but Elizabeth kept her on. She and Gates had grown old together, knew each other’s ways.

  At the dawn of the new century Elizabeth decided to embark on the work of her life. Whilst she admired Fanny Burney, Hannah More and Ann Radcliffe, she did not have the inclination herself to take up the pen to tell a story. Rather, she took heed of the words addressed to Madam Melpomeme Metaphor, the central character in a play Elizabeth had seen called The Female Dramatist. Madam Metaphor had been told to ‘turn her pen into a needle, and her tragedies into thread papers’. It was intended as a slight but Elizabeth found needle and thread an excellent medium.

  Elizabeth and Gates took the carriage into London. How busy and crowded the town was, almost a million inhabitants according to the census of 1801. They crossed Westminster Bridge and entered Pall Mall. Elizabeth and Gates, in their old-style goffered hats, looked at the young women walking arm in arm. Despite the war with Napoleon, French fashions—Empire style, it was called—had traversed the Channel. Young women had thrown off their whalebones, corsets and stays, and adopted high-waisted dresses with long flowing trains. As they stopped to peruse the windows of the Pall Mall shops, they resembled classical statues. Elizabeth reasoned that the style allowed for more mobility than her hooped skirts, but she was sure she would never expose her bosoms in that way, or go about with naked arms. It was as if the young women had come out in their nightgowns. They wore no hats and instead of the extravagant bouffant hairstyles of Elizabeth’s youth, the Pall Mall women wore cropped hair, with curls sticking to their cheeks. ‘They look as if they are ready for the guillotine, marm,’ remarked Gates.

  One fashion that Elizabeth was willing to engage in was map embroidering, which had arisen largely, Elizabeth reflected, through her husband’s bringing back to London the shape of the world. When Elizabeth was a girl, they used to put their own maps onto linen or silk, drawing the outline first on tissue paper and pinpricking around it. They laid the paper on the fabric, sprinkled on powder, then marked in pencil where the powder fell through the pinpricks. These days maps were printed directly onto the fabric, and the outlines of continents and countries simply had to be followed in stem or cross-stitch. It was such a printed map that Elizabeth Cook was intending to purchase.

  For the new work, Elizabeth decided to buy new tools, so she and Gates went into Deards and looked at all the pretty needle-cases and scissors, as well as the purely decorative baubles that Deards sold. There were chatelaines, a kind of handbag in which to carry small tools, which hung on delicate chains attached to a clasp at the waist. But Elizabeth judged the chatelaine to be cumbersome and had instead made herself a folding case with compartments in which to carry her embroidery tools when she was going about. At home she had the oriental box.

  ‘Oh, marm, look at this!’ Gates exclaimed.

  Elizabeth made her way over to the item her servant was pointing out—a beautiful white satin case lined with pink, containing pencils for drawing, scissors, compass, and bodkin in gold and mother of pearl. The scissors had elaborately carved handles. Elizabeth much preferred her own folding scissors. ‘Do you like it, Gates?’

  ‘Oh, very much, marm. It would do you proud.’

  ‘And you,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Oh, marm,’ said Gates. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Nonsense, Gates. Of course you could.’ Elizabeth was pleased to see that though her servant was the same age as hers
elf, an old woman in her sixties, she could still flush like a girl. ‘Sir,’ Elizabeth called to the shopkeeper. He looked up. Elizabeth suspected that he was reading a novel held furtively under the counter. So many ladies came to admire the items in his shop but few made a purchase. ‘We will have this folding case.’

  ‘Certainly, madam,’ he said, invigorated by the promise of a sale. ‘Shall you take it with you or will I have it sent?’

  It could easily fit into Gates’s pocket, there was no need to go to the extravagance of having it sent.

  Every Thursday, promptly at 3 pm Elizabeth Cook held dinners. She invited her many Smith relatives, or new friends and neighbours such as the Ravenhills and the Elliotsons, Mrs Hook, Miss Bower, Mr Stark, the Warrens, Miss Davies, Miss Williams.

  Dinner today was with old friends—Sir Joseph Banks, his sister Sophia, and his wife Dorothea. Yes, Sir Joseph had finally married. In March 1779, at the age of thirty-six. Sometimes Elizabeth smiled at the memory of that pompous young whippersnapper full of himself, now eclipsed by the man of influence and prestige who was consulted, as James had once been, on every aspect of South Seas exploration.

  He had been elected President of the Royal Society when Sir John Pringle had retired, the year after James received the Copley Medal. He maintained contact with scientific men of all nations, even France, despite England being at war with Napoleon. Sir Joseph had been involved in organising George Vancouver’s voyage to survey the north-west coast of America, and was a patron of William Bligh, proposing him for command of the ill-fated breadfruit expedition on the Bounty. When the shame of the mutiny had died down, Banks had recommended Bligh for the position of governor of New South Wales. Elizabeth heard that a mutiny of sorts had occurred again, this time with the New South Wales Corps. Bligh was an excellent officer, but not always a likeable man.