The Trespass (39 page)

A Union Jack and some canvas was made ready by one of the crew as the passengers stood there. The small body of the little girl, so tiny and unprotected in the same summer dress she had worn to the church service in the sunshine, was wrapped in the canvas and laid on the flag. The Captain himself, impeccable in his formal uniform and his hat (even though the clothes were wet), stood in the white morning light and commended the soul of one of God’s children unto His care. The mother stood, shocked and dry-eyed, staring at the small bundle; her husband had tears running down his pale and bloodied cheeks but he made no sound. As the Captain began the Lord’s Prayer voices joined in, reluctantly at first, unevenly, then becoming stronger as the familiar words took hold,

thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Very slowly and with great dignity, two exhausted-looking sailors dropped part of the deck rail and gently consigned the little canvas parcel to its vast, wild grave.

TWENTY-TWO

It is interesting to speculate what would have happened had the Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP, found Lady Kingdom’s two sons sitting across from him at the Captain’s table as the
Lord Fyne
disappeared from sight of Falmouth on 16 December 1849, but fate (in the shape of Lady Kingdom who absolutely insisted that her sons spend Christmas Day with her) had decreed that Lord Ralph and Sir Benjamin leave ten days later. The fishermen on the Falmouth pier raised their heads and pondered on the madness of humankind as departing ships got smaller and smaller and the wintry seas churned. In Falmouth they lived on the gossip of the seas: who was travelling, who drowned, which ships (of which there were a fair number) foundered in the Bay of Biscay and never even made it past the Spanish coast.

Sir Charles did not farewell the land; he sat at the Captain’s table drinking heavily; Peters lay in steerage, seasick and deeply fearful and full of vengeful thoughts about Harriet Cooper, whom he blamed for his fate.

If Lucy’s mother hadn’t finally died (her lungs full of cotton threads finally refusing to take in one more breath of air) Lucy might have had the dubious pleasure of living with Peters again, part of the small group of single female emigrants (clutching letters of good character signed by vicars) who were herded from their hostel by the matron on to the
Lord Fyne
and into the Unmarried Women’s Quarters in steerage. As it was Lucy was given permission to delay her departure briefly and did not travel on the
Lord Fyne
either.

And so it was that Lucy recognised, with a frisson of excitement, the two young gentlemen on the
Cloudlight
which sailed from Gravesend for New Zealand the day after Christmas Day. To his surprise Quintus found himself on board the
Cloudlight
also. All Quintus knew was that Lucy had secreted him under her thin coat and somehow got him aboard (where he was strictly forbidden); by the time he was discovered Lucy was (luckily for her and for Quintus) a favourite of the Captain (who had an eye for young girls) because she often sang on deck in the evenings even if the sea was wild. Her clear voice echoed over the ship with great sweetness, the winds snatching at her tune and throwing it up into the sky and then bringing it back again.

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe

Ripe I cry

she sang, and so Quintus’s presence was tolerated as long as he did not chase the hens and the pigs and the goats. At first he was seasick. Lucy thought he might die (for a ship was surely not a place for a dog) but she nursed him and whispered in his ear that she was taking him to see Miss Harriet and what would he bet that Lord Ralph Kingdom and Sir Benjamin Kingdom were going to be looking for Harriet also? At last Quintus found his sea-legs like any sailor and was, the sailors found, good company in the long watches of the night, sitting up with great alertness, staring keenly towards their destination with his ears cocked upwards. He also caught rats that ran about the ship, and quickly learned to find a safe corner to brace himself when the ship rolled. But Lucy continued to believe that dogs were not really made for ships: she persuaded one of the sailors to make a small wooden cage which he then nailed to the foot of her small space in steerage. If the steerage passengers had to suffer the battening down of hatches, so did Quintus.

It was not a good time to be leaving England: the weather was at its most treacherous as ships came out through the English Channel and, although the
Lord Fyne
had left earlier than the
Cloudlight,
both ships were extremely battered in the Bay of Biscay, could have been seen out from the same coast at the same time with fishing boats and small trading vessels all fighting for survival; the
Lord Fyne
in particular lost many days and then, limping southwards, finally had to call at the port of Lisbon for repairs.

The
Cloudlight,
which had left England later, therefore overtook the
Lord Fyne;
sailed bravely down towards the tropics. Several of the women who were cabin passengers on board the
Cloudlight
(some of whom had already swooned at the sight of Lord Ralph Kingdom) remarked together that although, indeed, they could not find fault with the way their Captain handled his ship, it was quite clear that he, when not sailing his ship,
drank,
and in the important areas of class and breeding he was sadly lacking. They spoke to one another in low voices, serving tea in their immaculate gowns, remaining polite to the Captain of course, and smiling at their husbands. And although Lord Ralph Kingdom and his wonderful brother bowed to them dazzlingly it was clear that their minds were elsewhere. As the journey progressed, the ladies dressed less exquisitely; sometimes, suffering from
ennui,
they did not dress at all.

On the
Cloudlight
Lucy observed that the two heroic young men (for so she liked to think of them after all the romantic stories she used to read to Quintus: heroes sailing across the world to save the princess) were followed about by a large clerical gentleman who smiled all the time but somehow looked rather sad. Once too she saw Lord Ralph Kingdom looking at her curiously, as if he had seen her somewhere before. But it had been dusk when he found Harriet in the Highgate Cemetery and Lucy was only a maid, after all.

Sir Benjamin Kingdom stood often on the deck and watched the changing sea. He had done what his mind, and possibly his heart, had insisted upon. They were travelling towards something important, that was all he understood, and the great, exciting world lay before them, to be unravelled.

TWENTY-THREE

On the
Amaryllis
it took days for the cabins, let alone the steerage area, to be cleaned and dried and restored to some sort of order after the storm. Almost every single item of clothing of every person on board had been soaked as the water seeped into cabins and trunks. When she was alone Harriet rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed her own cabin inexpertly but readily; for just a moment she saw herself in Bryanston Square trying to clean up her own excreta, the day she nearly gave in: remembering that terrible dawn, she scrubbed her cabin with a kind of joy.

Mr and Mrs Burlington Brown were rendered speechless by Harriet’s account of the storm. Miss Eunice Burlington Brown could not believe that Harriet had done such a thing. At first she thought they were disturbed at the danger she had been in on deck: soon she understood that it was the danger she had been in while remaining in the cabin of Mr Aloysius Porter and Mr Nicholas Tennyson that concerned them so fearfully.

‘You mean, my dear Miss Cooper, that you were alone with two men for a whole night?’ Eunice Burlington Brown had become quite pale.

‘I think I have not properly explained. Mr Nicholas Tennyson saved my life.’

‘Then why, having saved it, did he not escort you to your cabin?’ Mr Burlington Brown’s face loomed in front of her.

‘I truly think it was not possible, or even thought of. The danger was too great. I had nearly been swept off the
Amaryllis.
’ Harriet was puzzled by their shock and anger. The bruises and cuts on her face had not yet disappeared, nor the big bruises on her body. She had been hit, it was presumed, by the cage of chickens, which was never seen again after that dreadful night.

‘Nothing, Miss Cooper, can be as dangerous as spending a night alone in a confined space with two young men. No wonder young girls are not allowed to make this journey alone if the rudimentaries of good breeding are so easily thrown away. Surely you see that your reputation is ruined, completely ruined! What would your father say?’

‘I imagine anyone who cared for my safety might thank Mr Tennyson for his bravery.’

‘His “bravery” as you call it did not go so far as escorting you to your own cabin,’ retorted Mr Burlington Brown, ‘which any gentleman would have done immediately. I am afraid I am going to have to speak to Captain Stark. We explained to you when we first agreed to take on the responsibilities as your guardians that etiquette and social mores must at all times be adhered to, that it was up to us to keep standards high and never allow vulgarity or impropriety. We simply cannot allow such breaches of propriety.’

The Captain, in this instance at least, was more sanguine. He observed Harriet’s injuries and spoke to her kindly, understanding how terrified she had been. To the young men he was more admonitory: a young lady should always be delivered to the safety of her own cabin, he said to them curtly, her honour is paramount: their behaviour had not been that of gentlemen.

Passengers were taught how to tie themselves to their beds for future reference.

Miss Eunice Burlington Brown, be-hatted, insisted on sitting with Harriet in her cabin and reading from ‘The Women of England: Their Social Duties & Domestic Habits’.

‘I think this will assist you, my dear Harriet,’ and she cleared her throat. ‘I will read the important bits.’

The women of England are deteriorating in their moral character … When the cultivation of the mental faculties had so far advanced as to take precedence over the moral, leaving no time for domestic usefulness … the character of the women of England assumed a different aspect.

‘I have read this book,’ said Harriet, ‘my father gave it to me.’

Miss Burlington Brown was delighted, and she fanned herself with her glove in the small room. ‘I shall read on a little,’ she said.

Women of England, you have deep responsibilities, you have urgent claims; a nation’s moral wealth is in your keeping … In her intercourse with man, it is impossible but that woman should feel her own inferiority; and it is right that it should be so. She does not meet him upon equal terms. Her part is to make sacrifices in order that his enjoyment may be enhanced.

‘I am hoping to be domestically useful,’ said Harriet humbly. ‘For my cousin Edward has bought a farm in New Zealand.’

Miss Eunice pricked up her ears at once. ‘He has a farm?’

‘If he has already arrived,’ said Harriet. ‘I see now that the journeys are haphazard and uncertain. We may arrive before him.’

Miss Eunice suddenly saw herself married to a farmer perhaps. She had had hopes of Mr Aloysius Porter: his behaviour might yet prove him not to be the one; it was important to keep all one’s options open.

‘Are you fond of your cousin, Harriet dear?’

‘He is my favourite cousin,’ answered Harriet. ‘He is the kindest man I know.’

‘Does he—’ Miss Eunice could not help herself, ‘does he have a – that is, an intended?’

‘I do not believe so,’ said Harriet.

‘Is he – handsome?’
Somewhere in the cabin Mary gazed down, her quizzical eyes dancing.

‘To my eyes he is handsome,’ smiled Harriet. ‘Although I may be biased. Miss Eunice, do you think that perhaps we could walk together on deck now?’

‘Of course, dearest Harriet.’ Miss Eunice’s eyes shone with unexpressed hopes for the future, with one man or another.

*   *   *

In steerage, although the
Amaryllis
had now crossed into the calm of the tropics, people screamed in the night, dreaming.

*   *   *

TO THE DEAR READERS OF MY JOURNAL

3 January 1850

4.30 am On this third day of this new year we are becalmed! It is our thirty-eighth day at sea. We crossed the Equator some days ago and now we are in the Southern Hemisphere. I believe – although it is so long since we caught sight of any land – that we are travelling parallel to the bottom half of the coast of Africa, all that wild, undiscovered land of which we know almost nothing. I think often of Asobel’s globe and the route she had drawn for Edward, travelling near land so that he would always be safe. But Captain Stark has told me that often we must avoid land, not cling to it. He expects soon to pick up the trade winds which will help us to travel on southwards and round the Cape of Good Hope, and so eastwards towards our destination.

I have never been so hot in my life, which is why I get up at first light and come and sit here on the poop deck to write to my dear readers. It does not matter that it is so early – time has no meaning at all (except at the Captain’s table of course, where etiquettes are most strictly observed). I have seen sunrises that I could never have imagined in a thousand years: how the sun appears, just a strand of light at first, and then more strands, forming a glorious flaming whole that fans out across the still, calm sea, which changes colour every day. How could I have even imagined that this is how the sun rises, looking out sometimes from my bedroom window over the rooftops of Bryanston Square?

But now – such sights I have seen! I have seen fish that fly into the air, they fly upwards and then twist again down into the water and their shining scales catch the sun. And I have seen the friendly porpoises, they play around the bows of the Amaryllis to the delight of all the children on board; they seem to nudge each other and then they too leap into the air, and in the air they seem to shake themselves for joy before they dive back into the water. Of course some of the men try to shoot them: when they succeed the children weep.