The Trespass (7 page)

LAND AVAILABLE, said the brightly coloured brochures.

‘Have you been to London?’

‘We walked there, year before last, we’d heard about the work on the railways. But I wasn’t used. I worked at Smithfield for a while, being a country man I had some skills. But not for long, it’s a right brutal, disgusting place is Smithfield Market, I was becoming disgusting meself. I walked back again, to Canterbury.’ Harriet stared at him. It had taken many hours to come here by her father’s coach.

‘Yes, of course I will write the letters,’ she said at last. ‘Shall you come tomorrow?’

‘They’ve laid us off, miss. Could I come to the servants’ door?’

Harriet thought for a moment. ‘No, I shall walk to the town in the afternoon. I have done that several times. I could meet you by the clock. You will need to sign the letters yourself, can you do that? I could not sign them for you.’

‘Course,’ said John Bowker stoutly. ‘I can write me name, of course I can. I’ll wait by the clock tomorrow then. And – thank you, miss. You could change my life.’

‘You change your own life, I think,’ said Harriet. ‘Sometimes other people help you.’

Neither of them had noticed Cousin John coming towards the summerhouse. He looked in amazement, and then anger, at John Bowker.

‘What the devil d’you think you’re doing here, bothering Miss Harriet? How dare you! Get out of here!’ and, in the doorway of the summerhouse, John Cooper struck the other man across the shoulder. ‘Get out of here at once!’

‘John.’ Harriet had risen, blushing. But John was still pushing at the workman, named John also. And Harriet saw that John Bowker began to raise his hand too, and then, with an incredible effort it seemed, he let it go. He said nothing as he turned and walked away across the grass, carrying his precious handbill. He did not run.

‘My dear Harriet, whatever were you thinking of? You do not speak to the workmen.’

Harriet had pushed the brochures under some books. ‘He – he only wanted to ask me something.’

‘What? What did he have that he could ask you about?’

For a moment Harriet considered telling him the truth, which was so simple. And then she did not.

‘The time, I think,’ she said vaguely, picking up the books, putting the brochures inside them.

‘Whatever would your father say? Or my father, for that matter? That is how a girl’s reputation is quite ruined if anyone had seen you, Harriet.’

Harriet looked at him curiously, did not answer. He took her arm to lead her back to the house, at the same time firmly taking the pile of books from her. He thought, vaguely, that he might, one day, marry his cousin Harriet. She was extremely quiet, and obviously pliable. And beautiful. He glanced at her. She seemed in some way cast down. ‘Never mind, Harriet, we shall say no more about it.’ He did not notice that she shrank from his arm under hers as they walked up the lawn in the late-afternoon sunshine. Across the grass in the distance a gay marquee with lots of little flags waited silently, ready for the celebration.

*   *   *

That night Mrs Lucretia Cooper had, during dinner, an attack of neuralgia and an attack of the vapours, both at once: after the soup but before the mutton.

Around the polished oak dining table (covered right down to the legs, a white, stiff double damask tablecloth) the Cooper family had just begun dinner. William was standing, in the process of carving. The maid was just removing the soup plates when there was such a piercing cry from the far end of the table that the maid dropped a plate on Cousin John who sprang to his feet protesting angrily while at the same time looking at his mother in alarm. The screaming went on at the other end and everyone else spoke at once so that a great cacophony of sound rose to the candles in the chandelier.

William Cooper shouted, ‘STOP!’

He hardly ever raised his voice, so that when he did everybody was so surprised they became silent immediately.

‘What
is
it, Lucretia?’

She was now half-lying back in her chair with her napkin to the side of her face so that both Alice and Augusta rose to go to her. She did not answer her husband but sobbed.

‘Mamma?’

‘Mamma dearest?’

‘What
is
it, my dear?’ said William Cooper.

‘It is the Wedding,’ sobbed Aunt Lucretia at last. ‘Things will never be ready, we will be shamed before the whole County, not to mention Sir Marmaduke Miller’s family to whom we are to become joined in matrimony. What if Lady Kingdom should come, the mother of the most eligible young men in England? There will not be enough food. The gowns are not ready. I cannot manage, William, I cannot manage and my neuralgia is not to be borne and a cholera epidemic lurks in the bushes.’

Alice looked quite pale and distressed to hear all this but nevertheless with her sister Augusta patted her mother, telling her it would be all right, that the maid was bringing her laudanum, that there was almost no cholera in Kent and anyway only poor people got cholera.

‘There have been poor people
here!
’ cried Lucretia. ‘Putting up the marquee. Leaving their germs. And the band – how do we know where the band has been?’

‘But my dear, you engaged the band, it is the farmworkers’ band, I pay for the trumpets, you said you heard them at the Church fete.’

‘But I don’t
know
them!’

Asobel observed her mother’s display with interest, but quite dispassionately as if she was somebody else’s mother altogether.

William Cooper, once he saw that the young women were in charge of his wife, continued to carve the mutton. The maid had, in the general disturbance, skipped providentially away from Cousin John who now mopped at his trousers absent-mindedly as he asked querulously down the table: ‘It will all be all right, won’t it, Augy, I mean everything will be in time and what not and so forth?’

‘Of course it will, John,’ answered Augusta. ‘Do not be ridiculous. Mamma is only tired and who is to blame her with so much to be done. And do not call me Augy.’

Alice suddenly burst into tears and had to be comforted by the others. The meal proceeded rather haphazardly and afterwards, seeing that Aunt Lucretia was about to have another attack and was mentioning cholera and bandsmen again, Harriet felt it best to excuse herself and go to her room.

*   *   *

She sat at her window, just the way she so often did at home. There was neither the all-pervading smell of meat nor the smell of the streets. Nor the bells of the midnight carts taking away the bodies. Here she could smell lavender and the grass and the roses. The cesspool to which the servants carried the waste was far down past the main garden; only occasionally did something unpleasant drift towards the house. She stared out across the farm. It was very beautiful in the fading light and there was the slightest chill to the air and she realised with surprise that it was, really, autumn. Bundles of hay leaned together, shadows in the distance. The poplars lining the long drive moved slightly in the small breeze, she heard a horse snort and stamp its feet from the stables and she gave a small sigh of pleasure as she again caught the scent of the last roses of the summer. But she knew it was not the scents nor the sounds nor the country shadows that calmed her of course but something else.
I am not afraid, here.

She turned at last into her room and pulled out the brochures and read them carefully. Each place sounded like paradise: ‘cheap land’, ‘temperate climate’, ‘all welcome’, ‘assisted passage’.

On the table there was a quill pen, some ink and sheets of paper, a seal, and a wax taper. She sat beside these and thought of what John Bowker had said, how he would walk to London with the letters. And then she began to write.

To the Agent for the Canada Company:

Dear Sir,

My name is John Bowker. I wish to present myself for your consideration as an assisted immigrant to your beautiful country. I am a fit, hard-working labourer of twenty years and am free to travel at any time. Please advise me if my journey is possible.

I remain, Sir

Yours faithfully

She stared again at the Canadian brochure. All that space and freedom to begin a new life. Just for a moment she closed her eyes and saw herself and her sister, sitting on a Canadian mountain. Then she pulled herself together, drew another blank page towards her and wrote:

To the Agent for the New Zealand Company:

Dear Sir,

My name is John Bowker …

When she had finished the letters for John Bowker who wanted to have a new life, she picked up the book her father had sent her, flicking from page to page.

… the highest aim of this writer does not extend beyond the act of warning the women of England back to their domestic duties, in order that they may become better wives, more useful daughters, and mothers, who by their example shall bequeath a rich inheritance to those who follow in their steps … 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.

Then for a long time she sat quite still. Afterwards with a supreme effort she picked up her pen and dipped it once more into the ink.

My dearest Mary,

If I tell you I have been writing letters all evening you will wonder if my circle of friends has become somewhat enlarged. (Yes, I have written to Aunt Julia, TWICE!) But I have been doing a good deed for one of the workmen here who cannot write and who wishes to travel to a different country and start a new life. Cousin John hit this man for speaking to me in the summerhouse.

But dearest Mary, imagine! Imagine if
we
were free to just decide to travel like that, to the other end of the world. The climates they say are temperate and a new life is to be had for everyone. How we would laugh as the ship pulled away, to Canada say, with you and me on board. We will find gold. We will take Quintus, of course. (You will see I have got quite carried away by my charitable labours.)

It occurs to me as I write that the serving maid here (who tonight spilt soup on Cousin John’s trousers while Aunt Lucretia was having hysterics), or indeed any of our maids at Bryanston Square, could go to any of the new countries. They would know what to do, they would obtain work, they would make their own living. But what should we do, you and I, who are only trained as ‘help-meets’? Father sent me ‘The Women of England: Their Social Duties & Domestic Habits’: I knew in my heart that he would never let me be a governess, or do anything at all.

I have now met Alice’s intended. He was here last night for a small musical evening. He is exactly as you would expect – but quite handsome and Alice is almost beside herself with joy and expectation. Alice sang ‘Then You’ll Remember Me’ and then the intended (Mr Alfred Miller) sang ‘Home Sweet Home’. Uncle William asked me to play the piano so I gave a feeling rendering of ‘The Loreley Waltz’ by Johann Strauss that everybody is whistling, and Uncle William wiped away a tear, a satisfactory evening all round as you can see.

And lastly but most importantly, tomorrow is your thirtieth birthday and I am not there to celebrate with you. The cholera seems very far away. I pray for you, my dearest sister, that you shall be happy and healthy for thirty years more, and that we may not be parted much longer.

Your loving sister

Harriet

PS And yesterday I learned something more from Asobel (who is of course the source of all my knowledge here!). Aunt Lucretia has a friend who is employed by the Royal household. In what capacity I do not know, a wardrobe mistress perhaps to the Queen from what Asobel spoke of. But she writes regularly to Aunt Lucretia about how things are done at Windsor and the like and of course that would explain the floral wallpaper and the wax fruit, which delights have not yet come to Bryanston Square in such profusion. And the very long tablecloths!

FOUR

In London, on the day of her thirtieth birthday, Mary Cooper asked to speak to her father’s lawyer, Mr Frith. He was coming out of her father’s study where he sometimes went over papers even though her father was at the Palace of Westminster.

She offered him tea in the drawing room; he placed his top hat in the hall.

‘Ah,’ said Mr Frith, ‘this is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Cooper,’ and he leaned back in the chair by the fire, his eyes watching Mary carefully, how she limped as she poured from the teapot into the china cups and brought the cup to his side, how ugly the limp made her, an old maid to her bones. Her father said that she spent her life reading books. How very much he disliked women who didn’t fit in to the scheme of things.

‘Mr Frith,’ she said, without any preamble but with her warm smile, ‘I am thirty years old. I know my mother wanted to make provision for me because of my disability. She wished part of her own inheritance to come to me, if I was unmarried, when I was thirty.’

Mr Frith smiled also. ‘My dear Miss Cooper.’ And then he sipped his tea for some moments before he went on and the summer fire spat in the grate. ‘My dear Miss Cooper. Your father, as you know, became of course the arbiter of all your mother’s money when they married and her money belongs to him. You have your dress allowance, and your pin money for your no doubt worthy charitable activities. Whatever else, if I may be so bold as to ask, would be the needs of a young lady like yourself, who has all her happiness provided by her father?’ He sipped his tea again, still watching her carefully.

‘I believe my mother thought it important for women who did not marry to have money of their own. It was my mother’s wish, Mr Frith.’

Mr Frith smiled again. ‘My dear Miss Cooper. Much water has passed under the proverbial bridge since the very sad day of your mother’s demise. Your father, as I am sure you realise, has your best interests at heart at all times: I am sure you know and understand this. If you have any other little expenses, your father, I have no doubt, will provide. What is it, my dear, a new gown? A piece of pretty jewellery that has caught your eye? What can I arrange for you? Say the word.’ And he smiled benevolently.