Going Home (15 page)

Then I have got it wrong, Amelia pondered. Which means that we are different. That great gulf of sea divides us in more ways than distance.

‘But my father’, Phoebe continued, ‘hates
Jack, hates Ralph, hates Ralph’s parents, and my mother says that if I should write to Papa, then I am not to mention that we are visiting your mother and father. Not that I am likely to,’ she said. ‘Write to him, I mean.’ She gave a dry laugh without humour. ‘The day that I write to Papa he will get a very big surprise.’

By the time Amelia and Phoebe reached them, May and Jack had found a sheltered spot on the sea side of the promontory, tethered the horses to a stake in the ground and laid out the blankets and unpacked the hamper. The maid, Prue, laid out a white cloth and unpacked the other basket, bringing out meat pies and pasties, boiled eggs, cold ham, a bottle of lemonade, curd-cheese cake and sweet apple tart.

They ate immediately as they were all hungry after the walk and the fresh air. When they had finished Phoebe rose to her feet and said, ‘I’m going to view this magical place.’ She picked up her skirts and ran up the dunes, disappearing over the other side.

Ralph was lying on his back, already half asleep, but Jack rose to his feet. ‘Perhaps I’d better follow her?’

‘She’ll come to no harm,’ Amelia began, but he was already halfway up the dunes to the top. She looked around. May was paddling in the water and Lily had disappeared, to look for her lost town, I suppose, she thought, and continued to help Prue to clear away.

Lily stood in a concealed hollow looking towards the entrance of the estuary. If she tried very hard she could imagine the island which had been thrown up by the sea, had become a township, had had a thriving shipping and fishing industry and sent MPs to Parliament in medieval times; and had then succumbed to the waves, drowning its inhabitants, its animals, houses, churches and inns, until there was nothing to be seen but the heavy swell of the waters.

A sudden movement startled her. She had thought that she was alone, but no, there was Miss Boyle running down the undulation towards the river shore. Lily started forward to join her, to tell of what she knew, but she stepped back as another figure ran down in front of her: a man, lithe, swift and dark-skinned. He caught up with Miss Boyle, who had looked back and slowed as she saw him. Lily saw her smile and hold out both her hands which he took into his and put to his lips.

Lily sank down into the hollow so that she could no longer see the two figures. She was grown-up enough to know that she had witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to, and child enough not to understand the significance. She pondered, thinking of her two elder sisters: May, who sighed and mooned over Mr Mungo, and Amelia, who having had much earnest conversation with him, was becoming, Lily imagined, rather attached to him.

I had better pretend that I have not seen anything, she decided. Grown-ups are such odd people, they do and say very strange things and make life most complicated. Books are so much easier to understand. She sighed and rose to her feet. There was no sign of Miss Boyle or Mr Mungo on the shore and no sound of voices, only the sigh of the sea and the rush of the river and the rustle and whisper of the marram grass beneath her feet.

ROGER TOOK RALPH
and Jack on a tour of the estate, whilst Amelia escorted Mrs Boyle and Phoebe into the town of Hull to do some shopping.

‘I’m impressed by your efficiency, Roger,’ Ralph remarked. ‘The hedges are neat, the crops are thriving, the farms are in very good order.’

Roger nodded. ‘Uncle Sam keeps everything up to scratch and I liaise with the farm bailiff. Uncle Sam isn’t good with book work, so Mother looks after that with the farm manager.’

‘Is that usual in England?’ Ralph queried, ‘for a woman to run an estate?’

‘Not really,’ Roger said. ‘But Sam’s father, Roger Francis, bequeathed the estate to him on condition that Mother ran it with him. He’s not able to,’ he added, ‘not by himself.’

Ralph nodded. He’d noticed that Sam was rather ponderous and slow, though he was not thick-witted or even as odd as his half-sister
Deborah. But there’s something missing, he pondered. It must be a family trait.

‘The estate is a good size to handle, not running to the acreage that we have back home. It takes us a week to ride over our land,’ he said.

‘Do you farm, Jack?’ Roger asked.

‘Yes, we have land, only not in our own name. And sheep.’ He grinned. ‘And gold!’

‘Mother has a gold nugget on the mantelpiece in the drawing room,’ Roger said. ‘It was given to her by an old Aborigine when she was in Australia.’

‘I know,’ Jack nodded. ‘He was my great-grandfather. It was the first gold to be found near Creek Farm. Your mother had been kind to him, giving him food and not turning him off the land as so many white people did.’

‘Then Jack’s father took my father to look for more,’ Ralph added. ‘And they found a rich seam.’

‘It must be such an exciting country to live in,’ Roger said rather wistfully. ‘I wish I could see it.’

‘Come back with us when we go,’ Jack said. ‘Surely you can be spared for a year or two? Everything seems to run very well here.’

‘I’d like to,’ Roger sighed. ‘But I’m not sure if I could.’

Amelia showed Mrs Boyle and Phoebe the sights of Hull, the fine buildings, the old inns, the river and the docks. They stopped for lunch before they started the important business of shopping.

Amelia sipped her coffee and looked out through the window into the market-place. There was the usual busy activity of traders and shoppers, carriers’ carts and carriages and as she looked across, she saw a familiar figure on the footpath at the other side. It was a young girl dressed in a thin skirt and shawl who was begging from passers-by.

‘Excuse me just a moment.’ She rose to her feet and went to the door of the café and looked out. A carriage went by, obscuring her view, and then a horse and cart and by the time they had passed, the girl had gone.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said to her companions as she returned to the table. ‘But I thought I saw someone I knew. Someone I met in York.’

‘What a pity,’ said Mrs Boyle. ‘Had she seen you, your friend could have joined us.’

‘She wasn’t a friend, Mrs Boyle,’ Amelia corrected. ‘It was a young girl. A poor girl, one I taught when I was living in York.’

‘You were a teacher!’ Phoebe exclaimed. ‘Not for a living, surely? As a philanthropist?’

‘Not either of those reasons,’ Amelia explained. ‘I was helping two sisters who run a school in York for poor children. My aunt, who knows the Misses Fielding, asked if I would be willing to assist them, so I did. I found it very fulfilling,’ she smiled. ‘Very satisfying.’

‘So why is the young girl in Hull?’ Mrs Boyle asked. ‘Has she left York?’

‘Yes. Her father was going to look for work in
Hull.’ Amelia paused. ‘If it was her, I’m almost sure she was begging.’

Whilst Phoebe and her mother looked in the shop windows and then went inside to make their purchases, Amelia took a turn a short way up and down the streets near by. But there was no sign of Moira and she was convinced that the girl she had seen had been her. I must come back another day, she pondered, and make enquiries. There will surely be an Irish community here in Hull. Someone must know of the Mahoney family.

It was decided that Amelia and her father, Phoebe, Jack and Ralph would set off early the next day for York. Amelia’s mother had arranged for several ladies in the neighbourhood to come to Elmswell Manor for luncheon. The ladies were keen to meet Mrs Boyle and learn of life in Australia, and, Emily suspected, to learn more of her own background, but if this was the case then they were disappointed. Mrs Boyle spoke of the bush and wildlife, of highly cultured Sydney, of the foreign ships which frequented the harbour, and said nothing of the controversial beginnings of the country.

Jack insisted on travelling on top of the carriage with the coachman to make more room for the others inside. ‘I can see the countryside better too,’ he insisted. ‘I must take memories home with me to tell my countrymen.’

Ralph was fairly quiet on the journey. Worried, Amelia suspected, about a possible
meeting with his father, if, in fact, Edward Scott was his father. Perhaps Ralph’s self-assured manner covers doubts and uncertainties, she mused, and glanced at him as he gazed out of the window. His expression was inscrutable. It must be deplorable to discover that you are not who you thought you were. Better by far to know of your parents’ background, convicts though they might be, than to have no knowledge at all.

Her own mother’s background had been explained very fully and Amelia, far from being ashamed of it, had decided that her mother had been very brave to overcome such adversities and was now living a successful and fulfilled life.

Phoebe was chatting to Amelia’s father about voyages which her father had made. ‘I believe you knew him, Captain Linton? You have made voyages together?’

‘Yes, we first met on the
Flying Swan
, and then on one or two other voyages over the years. But I made only short trips whereas your father preferred longer voyages, and I make very few now. I don’t like to leave my wife and family for too long,’ he smiled.

How kind and considerate he is, she thought. She compared him with her own father who had never given her or her brother Edwin any affection throughout their childhood, but had always expected them to conform to his ideals, particularly that of mixing with the right kind of
people in order to improve their ‘livelihood’. How very irked Papa is going to be with both of us, she pondered. Can we stand up to him, I wonder? Well, I can, she determined. But I’m not sure of Edwin. He is not as strong-willed as I am.

As they clattered through the gates of York, Phoebe marvelled at the antiquities, at the towers and turrets along the city walls and the half-timbered shops and inns with their upper-floor jetties overhanging the lower. ‘It is amazing that these old buildings are still standing,’ she exclaimed, ‘and that they haven’t rebuilt.’

‘Public opinion has always been against demolition,’ Captain Linton explained. ‘And although there has been some destruction of the walls, and some rebuilding, I don’t think there was money to spare for new development. It is just as well for us, for now we can enjoy all the treasures of the past. More and more discoveries are being made so that York will one day have an even richer heritage than it has today.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ she said, and wound down the window to call up to Jack. ‘Jack! Isn’t it wonderful?’

How odd, Amelia thought, that she should share her delight with Jack and not with Ralph when I thought that they were almost affianced. But then she changed her mind again as Phoebe gave Ralph a wide smile and allowed him to hand her out of the carriage as they arrived at an inn. They have known each other for so long,
she acknowledged. It is just the familiarity of old friends and different customs from the one we are accustomed to in England.

After discussion over morning coffee it was decided that Captain Linton and Ralph would hire horses and ride over to Nunthorpe to call on Edward Scott, and that Jack, Phoebe and Amelia would walk across town to visit the Fielding sisters. They would all meet back at the inn later in the day.

How surprised they will be to see me, Amelia thought as she knocked on the sisters’ door with pleasurable anticipation at meeting her friends again, but her smile became fixed when she saw how pale and thin Elizabeth had become.

‘Oh, please come in,’ Elizabeth said. ‘How lovely to see you.’

‘I’m sorry not to give you notice of our visit, Elizabeth,’ Amelia kissed her on the cheek, ‘but our arrangements were only made yesterday and I did so want you to meet our friends.’

Elizabeth dropped a curtsey to Phoebe and then Jack and invited them to sit down. ‘It doesn’t matter at all,’ she insisted. ‘We have so few visitors that I am delighted that you should call. Harriet is out at the moment but will be back shortly. She has gone for an interview, Amelia. She is hoping to obtain the position of governess in a household in the city.’

Amelia murmured that that would be most convenient as she could still live at home, but was inwardly dismayed at the thought that the
school must be failing if Harriet was having to resort to outside teaching.

‘Miss Boyle and Mr Mungo are visiting from Australia,’ she explained. ‘Mr Hawkins, who is a distant cousin of mine, is also with them, but today is on business elsewhere in York. I hope to have the opportunity to introduce you on another day.’

She saw a nervous swallow in Elizabeth’s throat as she said, ‘Australia! What a long way to come. Are you – are you visiting relatives?’ She glanced at Jack Mungo. ‘Or friends?’

‘I have come with my mother, Miss Fielding,’ said Phoebe. ‘Her brother lives in the family home in Southampton, as does my grandmother, whom I had never met before coming to England.’

‘And I am accompanying Miss Linton’s cousin,’ said Jack. ‘He is searching out relatives in this country and thinks he has found them here in York.’

‘Ah! How interesting.’ Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap and for a moment there was a strained silence, then they heard the front door open and Harriet call from the hall.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You’ll take a cup of tea, Miss Boyle, Mr Mungo?’

There was a murmur of voices as Elizabeth greeted her sister in the hall and then Harriet came in. ‘How lovely to see you, Amelia. We have missed you so.’

Introductions were made and Amelia saw
Harriet’s eyes widen when she was introduced to Jack, and decided that an explanation was necessary.

‘Do you remember, Harriet, on the day before I left York, that I mentioned that I had met – er, a foreign gentleman who asked for directions? Wasn’t it strange that he should turn up at our home with our cousin Ralph Hawkins?’

‘Indeed I do remember,’ and Amelia caught a look of mischief in Harriet’s eyes. ‘I remember the conversation very well! How do you do, Mr Mungo. I am very pleased to meet you.’

She sat down on the arm of a chair, leaving the seat free for Elizabeth when she returned. ‘I believe you have travelled from Australia?’