The Trespass (28 page)

‘Lucy.’

Lucy had been following the conversation avidly, her head bent over her sewing.

‘Yes, Miss Harriet?’

‘Could you – would you bring me an egg?’

‘A cooked egg, miss?’

‘Yes.’ Somewhere Harriet had heard or read that eggs were given to invalids because they were easy to swallow. Surely she could swallow an egg?

When Lucy returned with the egg, Harriet was dressed and sorting books on the floor. Lucy saw that the small glass lay in the washing bowl, the medicine trickled into the water.

‘Here is your egg, Miss Harriet.’

‘Thank you. Please tell them to call the carriage round. I wish to take my sister’s books to Oxford Street. Then I will go back to bed as Doctor Adams requests.’

‘This is not work for you, Miss Harriet,’ the housekeeper protested in vain. They talked in the kitchen uneasily about the inappropriateness of her behaviour but she could not be persuaded differently. The carriage was to take a great many books to Oxford Street. When Peters protested also Harriet asked him coldly if he expected her to carry the books herself; she and Lucy went with the books, Peters insisted on accompanying them, the footmen helped carry the books into Mr Dawson’s Emporium. Mr Dawson saw that the pale sister of Mary Cooper adopted a very formal manner in front of the servants: when the books had all been brought in and they had gone back to the carriage she stepped towards him quickly.

‘Dear Friend, if you will allow me to call you that, I am indebted to you. Now I know why Mary spoke of you so often. Tomorrow I will return and will be grateful for whatever money you can raise for the books, but I have kept some, the most important. I am,’ she whispered, ‘going away.’

‘Did tha call on the jeweller’s?’

‘It is all done. He was most kind and I thank you again for all you have done for me.’ He took the gloved hand she offered him and said no more.

‘What is today?’ asked Harriet suddenly of Lucy as the carriage turned back to Bryanston Square.

‘It is Wednesday, miss,’ said Lucy.

‘Wednesday,’ Harriet repeated after her. Her father must not return early.

*   *   *

She could not sleep. She could not pray: repeated the Lord’s Prayer over and over. She had, when Lucy had finally left her alone, packed the second, smaller, chest with books and candles and boots and her writing things and soap and linen and nightdresses and two small cushions from Mary’s room, the covers embroidered by Mary long ago. She was ready. But the hugeness of her task kept threatening to overwhelm her, more problems appeared, she did not know if she had the strength for two more days. Tomorrow she had to arrange the most difficult part of all: the removal of Mary’s furniture to the
Amaryllis.
She was entrusting this to someone she hardly knew. How poor her life, her friendships, her affections when she had to turn for help to a working man who happened to be passing. She and Mary had been their own whole world, not understanding that it would be shattered. She had read Mary’s letter over and over:
be strong, my dearest, most beloved sister, and always remember that you have been greatly loved by me,
and from the words she tried to take one more ounce of strength but over and over in her head other words came
I must sleep I must sleep I will fail if I do not sleep forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us
and at last in desperation she reached for the brown medicine bottle. She tried to be careful, to take less than the doctor had prescribed for her, a little was spilt on the bed linen. Then she lay there stiffly and waited for sleep to come at last. At some time a heaviness did come and the truth and the untruth of the world drifted over her as she watched anxiously for the grey light to appear in the gap in the curtains.

It was so hard to drag herself up but she knew she must: so much to do and it must be morning already,
everything must be concluded today everything quickly quickly,
so she forced herself up out of the mist of the laudanum and the opium and whatever else lay in the brown bottle and, her legs weak beneath her, she half-fell and knocked the contents of the chamber pot across the floor. The smell of the contents immediately permeated the room; in despair she seized a shawl, began ineffectually to mop up all that oozed around her in the cold, still-dark morning. A shocked Lucy (who had come even earlier this morning: it was not yet half past five) found her, tears rolling down her cheeks, pushing the reeking shawl back and forth across the floorboards.

Then Harriet knew she could not, after all, do it. She relinquished the soiled shawl to Lucy and lay on the bed in silence. Everything smelt of her own disgust. In vain Lucy said there was hot water, she could wash, the mess was cleared, breakfast could be made. Harriet remained unwashed on the bed, her head turned away. She would never escape from the house in Bryanston Square.

From somewhere distant she heard Lucy’s voice. ‘Please, Miss Harriet, let me wash you at least and change the bed. Please. I will lose my position if anyone sees you like this.’ There was something desperate in the girl’s voice, perhaps Harriet’s own desperation heard it. Without a word she allowed herself to be sponged and changed; the bed was cleaned, Lucy put the quilt over her. She could hear the ashes being taken from the fireplace and someone calling in the street. She fell asleep.

*   *   *

Lucy saw her wake almost five hours later, saw the hands clench and unclench as she returned from sleep. The fire had been lit, it crackled and glowed; the room was clean and warm, the morning light did its best to shine through the half-opened curtains. Lucy saw that Harriet looked about the room, collected her thoughts, then she turned her head slowly and saw the maid who sat, as usual, sewing beside the fire.

‘What time is it, Lucy?’

Lucy said nothing about the smashed clock; looked at the pocket watch on Harriet’s small table. ‘It is almost a quarter after eleven, Miss Harriet.’

Harriet was silent for a moment. ‘Quarter past eleven on Thursday morning?’

‘Yes, Miss Harriet.’

Harriet sat up at once. ‘I would like to get dressed.’

Lucy had hoped that today would be restful, that Harriet would stay in bed. ‘I will fetch some more hot water,’ she said dubiously.

While she was gone, Harriet took some money from where she had placed her store, counted it. It was the third or fourth time she had counted it: Mary’s money and the money from the jeweller. She had paid for her passage on the
Amaryllis
and had money left. It still felt odd, handling money, being in charge of anything but a few coins for church collection: to her it seemed that she now had a great deal of money. She walked in bare feet along the icy hall, to Mary’s room. There stood the empty bed and mattress, a small table, an oil lamp, and the chest of drawers where she had found Mary’s letter. That must do. The Mona Lisa smiled down at her, as if she had a secret. Quickly she went back to her own room. When Lucy came with the hot water she found her mistress staring at the two locked box-chests.

‘Peters is not here,’ volunteered Lucy, pouring the water. ‘He has been sent for.’

‘Sent for?’ Harriet’s heart lurched violently.

‘A message came this morning while you was sleeping. He was sent for to Norwich.’

‘Is my father to return earlier? He is not coming today?’ Suddenly her voice was tight and breathless.

‘I’m not sure, miss.’

‘Find out for me please. Quickly, quickly.’ She could not do anything while Lucy was gone, stood transfixed, her heart beating uncontrollably. If her father was to come home earlier she was lost:
he must not come yet. O Lord, as I am thy servant and as you are all-powerful please help me and deliver me from evil as thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever amen.

‘He will be back on Friday evening.’ Lucy was puffing slightly from running up the stairs.

‘I thank God!’ breathed Harriet and did not notice that Lucy looked at her curiously.

Soon after midday the servants were again taken aback when Harriet appeared downstairs.

‘A man with a cart is coming for all my sister’s belongings, and her furniture,’ she said. ‘To take it to a poor deserving family in Newman Street. Please have everything that I have marked from my sister’s room, and the two chests from mine, carried out to the back.’ They did not know whether to obey or disobey, Miss Harriet was obviously not at all well, yet Miss Harriet was obviously to be the new mistress of the house and might have power over their positions. Muttering to themselves that the furniture was much too good for Newman Street they carried it downstairs and out to the mews. And there Harriet saw, whistling in the icy wind, the driver, Cecil: such was Harriet’s relief that he was waiting there that it seemed to her as if he had appeared by magic. Today he sat on a cart, chatting to a servant from another house. Servants of Sir Charles Cooper muttered and heaved, coming and going from the house: perhaps they did not see Harriet speak to the driver at some length, give him a paper, give him some money. The furniture was tied on, and the wooden chests, and covered with some canvas; the servants went quickly back inside, out of the cold. Lucy, just at the last, waiting for her mistress who seemed not to notice how cold it was, thought she heard Miss Harriet say to the driver, ‘I will see you there,’ but she may have been mistaken. Then the driver, seeming not to mind the cold, tipped his hat, called to his horses, and the cart carrying two chests and Mary’s furniture trotted away.

Lucy had to bring Harriet in, for she stood at the door in the mews, watching the cart until it disappeared into George Street.

*   *   *

An hour later Harriet had slipped out the back door and into the wintry city by herself. She wore a shawl just as Mary used, walked quickly through to Oxford Street. Mr Dawson in his emporium was waiting for her; counted out for her seven sovereigns. She looked at the precious money shining in her gloved hand and then up at Mr Dawson, wondered if it was too much for books, if he could spare such a sum.

He raised his hand. ‘They belonged to my friend Miss Mary Cooper and tha’art her sister. That is enough for me.’ Then he looked at her closely. ‘Will you be safe, lassie?’

‘I think I will be safe, Mr Dawson. God will watch over me.’

‘There’s some that say perhaps there is no God.’

She saw in her mind the grey eyes of Benjamin Kingdom, quickly pushed them away. ‘Mary and I have talked about this,’ said Harriet. ‘There has been no doubt in our minds. We believe in Him.’

‘Then may He take great care of you, Mary’s sister.’ Once more he took her hand. ‘Good luck, lassie.’

‘I do not know what I should have done without you.’

‘You know where I am. Let me have news of you.’

Out in Oxford Street, she took a few small coins from under her glove. From a flower-seller she bought a bunch of violets. As she gave the coins to the girl, somebody called Harriet’s name. Perhaps she did not hear; if she did she did not turn. Holding the violets to her she turned quickly away, hurrying through an alley, back towards Bryanston Square.

Lord Ralph Kingdom, who had halted his cab when he saw her, was shocked. Young ladies did not walk alone in the streets of London, wearing a shawl and carrying violets.

*   *   *

A footman opened the door on her return: the housekeeper in the hall looked most disturbed.

‘We did not know you had gone out, Miss Harriet.’ The housekeeper observed the violets disapprovingly.

‘I just wanted a little air. Please have the carriage brought round for me.’

‘You are not going out again? In this terrible weather? I think it may snow.’

For once she did not need to dissemble. ‘I am going to Highgate,’ she said. ‘To see my sister.’

*   *   *

She hardly remembered the earlier journey to Highgate but sometimes in her dreams she saw plumed black horses, trotting. Now Sir Charles Cooper’s carriage came up the lane to the cemetery again, swept in the gates and came to rest beside the colonnade. The superintendent at once came to the door of the vehicle, raising his top hat, bowing, enquiring how he could be of any assistance to Sir Charles Cooper’s daughter.

Harriet told Lucy and the footmen to wait for her and, accompanied by the superintendent who gave her his arm in a most dignified manner, walked up the hill. Despite the cold wind gardeners worked over the immaculate flowerbeds and the tidy graves, they bowed respectfully as they saw her dark clothes. Here on the cemetery hill the air was clear: London could hardly be seen far below them on the dull late afternoon: only a grey-yellow shroud with black smoke rising, seen in the distance. Soon dusk would fall and the lights of the city would flicker beneath them. Other people dressed in black passed by; Harriet did not see them, looked only ahead, to where her sister lay, to where they had kept her from, the day of the funeral. The superintendent, having shown her the way, held back respectfully and turned away: she moved forward and to the side of the path where Mary’s new grave, still earth-turned, still with some of the stiff wax lilies from the day of the funeral, suddenly appeared before her. At first she just stared, there among the urns and the angels. Then very gently she moved forward across the grass, knelt beside the earth, to be nearer to her sister. She removed the lilies, placed the violets where she thought her sister’s hands might be, crossed in prayer against her body. She stared at the earth for a long time. After a while, somewhere inside her wild, anxious mind, a picture came to her of Mary lying there in the ground. More than two weeks now, waiting for the grave to sink down into the receiving earth. Would worms be crawling all over her sister?
No! That was not what Death was, Death was glory in God.
But still she saw the body, remembered the blue lips, saw worms, crawling over Mary’s withered, cholera-ruined face.
O God! No! It is not that! Dear Lord, help me to know that my sister Mary is with thee and that her soul has gone to heaven. Dear Lord, help me.

There was no answer. The sky faded. A family walked decorously by, staring inquisitively at the kneeling black figure; somewhere at a discreet distance the superintendent thought of his tea while Harriet Cooper wept beside the grave of her sister. At last, with the light dimming, she sat up and began speaking to her sister, softly at first but then, hidden in the dusk, as if Mary was there to hear her, as if she could pour out her heart at last:
Dearest Mary, you must forgive me, for I am going away from you and I have come to say goodbye. We talked of going, you remember. To where the wind is so clean and nobody gets ill, where we would so have wanted to go together. It will be right, Mary, because of you. I found the letter and the money, I will go to New Zealand. To New Zealand, Mary! It is so far away that surely I will be safe at last. I will make a new life but you will always be part of it. But I wanted to tell you that I will not be coming to talk to you here, perhaps for a long time, but I will talk to you always, in my heart.
She stood at last, still staring at the earth where now the violets lay.
Goodbye, my darling.