The Trespass (17 page)

Lady Kingdom motioned to the Coopers graciously; they were introduced at last to the famous sons. Harriet observed that it was true they were a handsome pair: Lord Ralph dark and suave with black hair and heavy, brooding brows. He spoke easily and his wild, exciting eyes seemed to be deep pools of promise wherein young ladies probably often drowned. Sir Benjamin was a fair-headed, somehow stiller version of his elder brother: his blond curls may have been a trifle wild but with a little flicker of recognition Harriet saw that he had the same deep, amused grey eyes as his father, in the portrait.

Lord Ralph bent low over Harriet’s hand, an action that turned many girls rather faint. Harriet retained her equilibrium. She smiled and bowed her head to the gentlemen automatically, as she had been taught a hundred times. Aunt Lucretia and Augusta made little breathless sounds of pleasure. Harriet was aware that she was being scrutinised but could not speak. Her shyness was found charming by the young men, who had already been apprised of her beauty and saw that it was so; she was offered an arm and led to a card table and found herself playing whist, partnered first by Lord Kingdom, and then by the son of a bishop whose voice was high and who laughed a lot somewhat unnervingly in the rather silent room. There was conversation: Harriet heard about the weather, shooting, the countryside, the Swedish nightingale, riding, hunting and horses in general. Supper was served: the rotund cleric appeared and said a rather long grace. After supper one of the young ladies played several Beethoven pieces and Harriet heard Aunt Lucretia’s voice echoing out from the corner where the chaperones sat, speaking of hats. A little scatter of applauding white gloves ended each number. Then another of the young ladies rather daringly offered to sing a new number for which she had just acquired the sheet music. She sang ‘Yes! I Have Dared to Love Thee’ bent rather swooningly over the piano, glancing occasionally at Lord Ralph Kingdom who leaned back in his chair with his legs thrown out in front of him. Harriet saw that Sir Benjamin’s eyes twinkled slightly.

Finally the carriages were at the door and the sprinkling of guests slipped out into the night and were carried away. Harriet leaned into a corner of the Squire’s carriage in relief and closed her eyes but was forced to open them again by Lucretia’s excited talk.

‘You girls were a
great
success, you were of course much the prettiest there though I say so myself, both partnered in cards by young Lord Kingdom, such a successful evening and it was noticeable that you were paid the highest attention, the Belles of the Ball in fact!’

The belles of the small card table, Mary would say,
thought Harriet.

‘And I have decided that with Edward’s sad leaving coming upon us so soon,’ Aunt Lucretia went on, ‘we should ourselves hold a Departure Party!’

*   *   *

In her room, in her nightgown (a sight her sons had never seen), Lady Kingdom allowed her maid to brush her hair (her only indulgence). She closed her eyes.

She had always known of course that her elder son was – she chose her thoughts carefully – a little wild. But tonight her thoughts slid past her imposed boundaries to something it was necessary to face: there was something reckless, something extreme about Ralph which she feared and which seemed to be getting worse. It was imperative that she get him settled. A person in Lord Kingdom’s position: money, property, impeccable lineage, the House of Lords waiting for him, should be able to sew wild oats of course but should not be
extreme.
Lady Kingdom literally drummed on her dressing table, a most unaccustomed sign of agitation. She impatiently waved her maid away: she could not think properly if there was somebody else in the room, fussing about.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She was the head of the House of Kingdom and it was imperative that she urgently find her elder son a suitable wife. Last year they had been within a hair’s breadth of disaster: there had been a duke’s young wife, a whisper of duels. Now there was this ridiculous involvement with ballet dancers. The gathering of intelligence about her sons’ activities was part of the duties of the Reverend Cornelius Boothby (her second cousin twice removed) who, despite his unfortunate fondness for alcoholic beverages, had some talent for obtaining information. Last night he had told her that he had been reliably informed, never mind the
corps de ballet
and foolish little Mimi Oliver, that the
prima ballerina,
Fanny Cerrito herself, was believed to be throwing herself at Ralph and there had been public trouble at the theatre. It was well-known that the famous dancer, although most talented, was quite mad, and old, and a foreigner. Lady Kingdom found she was shaking with rage. The Kingdom name must not be sullied in this way.

She breathed deeply, endeavouring to calm herself. Tonight she had observed that Ralph had been greatly taken with the very quiet, and in truth very beautiful, Miss Harriet Cooper. Miss Cooper was not at all suitable, her family was not of sufficient pedigree at all despite the mother’s fine family line and the eminence, these days, of the father. But what was Lady Kingdom to do? Ralph’s downfall was his ridiculous and oft-repeated belief that he was in love: she must try and turn that weakness to her advantage. Harriet Cooper was modest and quiet: it was important that a respectable girl be urgently found over whom Lady Kingdom could have complete control. Lady Kingdom continued to breathe deeply.

This was not what she would have chosen, but Miss Harriet Cooper might have to do.

*   *   *

Next morning at breakfast Edward’s Departure Party was discussed. Asobel was delighted and asked if she might wear her peach flowergirl’s dress. Even William seemed to think Edward’s departure merited being celebrated in this way. John asked Harriet if she thought there should be dancing and Lucretia began fluttering at once at the short time left to arrange matters. Edward himself smiled amicably at every suggestion but it was clear that his mind was elsewhere and he soon excused himself and went out into the barn where his packing boxes were being stored.

Lucretia, Augusta, Asobel and Harriet all followed him at once to give advice and assistance. Furniture, they had discovered, was not to be provided in the cabins on board the ship. Beds, chests of drawers, tables – if they could be used inside the cabin on the voyage they could be carried free of charge.

‘Any bed, so long as it is thin,’ said Edward. ‘The cabins are extremely confined, in fact I can sleep on one of my boxes. Any old table. Small. But I can use one of my boxes for that too.’ But his mother and his sisters wanted furniture suitable for his house in New Zealand, not
boxes,
and arguments ensued.

‘There will be no room in the cabin,’ said Edward in exasperation, ‘and I do not want to spend money on storage.’

Lucretia announced that she had read in
The Times
about Ayckbourne’s Float, a portable life preserver that could become as small as a handkerchief, and had urgently sent for one. Augusta carefully packed a Palmer’s Patent Lamp. Harriet read aloud from several ‘Emigrants’ Handbooks’: one mentioned the importance only of ‘strong and useful clothing’; another insisted that a gentleman would need seventy-two calico shirts with dress fronts and twelve pairs of dress kid gloves.

‘I am a farmer!’ insisted Edward. ‘It is the farming clothes that will be of the most importance.’ Lucretia and Augusta pursed their lips, talked about the importance of clothes for a gentleman and folded embroidered waistcoats and silk cravats and kid gloves carefully.

Harriet read on:

opportunities will occur on the voyage of catching rain water as it runs from the sails; the emigrant’s wife should always take advantage of this as it will add materially to her own comfort and that of her husband, to wash as much as possible of a limited outfit.

‘What will you do, Edward,’ said Asobel, appalled, ‘without a wife?’

‘I will manage,’ said Edward firmly.

They packed packets of Price’s Patent Candles, matches, little cloths they had embroidered, books – ‘You must still
read,
Edward,’ said Harriet firmly – pens, even paper although Edward told them paper would be available in the new colony. Ten pounds of soap was insisted upon by Lucretia.

Edward baulked finally at a rather large painting of Queen Victoria; he agreed nevertheless that an artist from Canterbury should be contacted, to make (at some expense) a smaller copy of the painting of Augusta, Alice and Asobel which hung on the drawing-room wall.

Asobel had got it into her head that he should take a doll that she had loved since she was small. When Edward said no, spoke of space in the boxes, and the unlikelihood of old dolls being useful in his new life Asobel burst into tears.

‘You don’t understand,’ she said woefully, looking up at her brother, ‘I want you to take Lizzie because she will always make you think of me.’

Edward gave a small sigh and pushed at his hair so that it stood on end. ‘Then of course I will take her, thank you,’ he said and the battered Lizzie, whose gown had once been so elegant, was found a place next to a new Bible beside some of the soap and a comb. He also suddenly grabbed from a cupboard his old, child’s cricket bat, his first cricket bat, and pushed it down one corner of a box. His mother now burst into tears.

‘Mamma, whatever is the matter?’

‘I saw you slip in your first cricket bat! You are thinking of your children! You will settle and marry there and have children there and never return!’

‘Mamma, I took the bat as a memento, that is all, just – just something of mine from home. You know I always kept it. But I will leave it if you prefer?’

‘No, no. But promise me I shall see my grandchildren!’

‘Edward, you cannot get married without us being there!’ Augusta looked as if he had just told her he was marrying tomorrow. ‘We would want to know her, to check that she was suitable!’ Edward, who had been trying very hard to remain calm, looked as if it was just possible that he might explode.

‘It says here,’ said Harriet quickly, ‘that as in other countries where there are aborigines, bright beads and materials are good things to trade in –
baubles,
it says here.’

‘I have bought my land,’ said Edward. ‘I would be embarrassed to trade for such a thing in baubles. And please, all of you, remember I am not going to the moon. There are already many stores in Wellington where no doubt daily requirements can be procured.’

‘Don’t you give Lizzie to anyone at all,’ cried Asobel, ‘for land, or anything. I will check, when I come, that she is living with you.’

Suddenly Harriet, unable to contain her own fears, asked Edward if the idea of the long sea journey frightened him. Lucretia put her hands to her mouth in horror at the subject being mentioned; Edward stood up from the boxes.

‘I do not think you should be frightened, Mamma. I am not a fool. I know very well that ships have been lost and the oceans are wild and almost unexplored, and that Pacific storms are tempestuous and dangerous. But hundreds of journeys are without incident. Hundreds! And you know the
Miranda
has taken the route before. If one does not venture … I heard of a ship that foundered only one day outside Liverpool! The journey will be part of the adventure,’ he concluded, smiling at all the women who loved him. ‘I am in God’s hands and I believe He will protect me, if it is His will.’

*   *   *

Edward and his father then locked themselves in the study, together with John, for financial discussions, from which the women were of course excluded. Harriet overheard the odd sentence about gold and stocks and bank drafts, mourned that she was not a man, could not enter these interesting dialogues, wanted to ask how everything was arranged, but knew of course it would be a great impertinence to do so. She knew nothing about money, had none of her own, took something to church but hardly ever held money, actual money, in her hand. She longed to know if English money was currency so far away, supposed it was if Queen Victoria owned the country: would Edward pack money in his luggage, nail it into one of his boxes, take it in a special bag? She was ashamed of her rather odd curiosity, knowing this was not women’s business. The three men then came out of the study and went back to the barn: sorted wheat seeds and barley seeds, and even flower seeds, packing them with delicate care. Harriet, on the periphery, tried to understand their farmers’ art. The possibility of taking small trees: apple trees, cherry, roses, was discussed but rejected, considered impractical on the long journey; sometimes Harriet found herself thinking of Seamus and his bees.

Asobel heard Lucretia ordering the coach to take her and Augusta to the town to find an artist to copy the painting and to ‘make arrangements for the Departure Party’ so she dragged Harriet off to the drawing room to ‘read’ – this was their compromise most days after the ban on teaching; they had gone back to ‘Robinson Crusoe’ with renewed vigour now that Edward was about to have what Asobel envisaged as similar adventures. The globe always sat beside them now, adding reality to their stories. Nobody in the world, Asobel maintained, knew where New Zealand was better than she.

Later, their mind full of adventures, they went back and sat on Edward’s boxes while he packed and hammered and nailed outside the barn.

Asobel stared at the growing number of containers. ‘The boat will sink, Eddie,’ she proclaimed in worried tones.

‘This is the last of the big boxes,’ said Edward. ‘Better to think of things now than when I am thousands of miles away.’

Harriet read aloud:

The Colonist who is anxious to carry with him the memorials of the Fine Arts of the Old World can purchase at the British Museum casts in plaster of the antiquities contained in that institution.

Edward was fitting in a rake and a pitchfork.

‘To put on the piano, these plaster casts? When you all come to visit me you will be able to bring the accoutrements of civilisation with you.’

‘Eddie, what I want to know is,’ said Asobel with great concentration, holding up her globe, ‘will you be going along past other countries so that you can see land all the time in case anything goes wrong? Or will the boat have to go away from the land and be by itself in the middle of the sea?’ She had actually made a chalk mark across the world to show how Edward’s ship could get to New Zealand by almost always, with a few oceanic exceptions, travelling along beside land.