The Trespass Read Online Free PDF Page A

afternoon. As if there weren’t enough to do, running the country.’ And then he stared at both of his sons. ‘You work for one of the Water Companies, thanks to me. Ask them what they’d think of trains running over their pipelines. Harriet—’ and she lifted her head slightly at the sound of her name, waiting yet not looking ( like a colt he suddenly thought) ‘—you are to go to stay with your Uncle William until this epidemic is over, you will be safer there than in London, London is not safe.’ (And he saw again the body of his old friend Mrs Ballantyre being thrown up into the nightcart and then he saw Harriet in her white nightgown and the two pictures rearranged themselves over and over in his mind.) He repeated the words more loudly than he needed to, ‘London is not safe. I have already sent word of your arrival.’
    Her quiet voice: ‘With Mary?’
    ‘Not with Mary,’ he said, ‘she is required here, obviously. The large carriage is ready, you will go this morning, one of the maids will accompany you on the journey.’ He did not mean his voice to sound harsh. ‘There is a wedding coming up in that family, is there not? That will amuse you.’ She must know how hard this was for him, how much he would miss her. He could not even bear to say goodbye. He stood abruptly. ‘You will write to me every day.’ Then he formally kissed her cheek, the way he always did, and left the dining room. The two young men rose also.
    ‘Goodbye, Harriet,’ they said. Richard and Walter, who had once found all their world in their sisters, took their cue from their father these days: they largely ignored Mary (although she had brought them up and they were fond of her), were bemused by the new and beautiful Harriet. These days they were men of the world (because their father had arranged positions in it for both of them) and they had business to attend to.
    The new maid, Lucy, having nervously cleared the dining room under the instruction of a footman, passed the door of the dark, wood-panelled drawing room; saw the two sisters arm in arm, leaning together, looking out of a window and over Bryanston Square. Their bodies rocked together almost imperceptibly, as if they were comforting each other.

TWO
    ‘Now, my dear Harriet, you must tell us all about London. Not about the cholera, of course. Have you seen Her Majesty? Have you been to the Ballet? Did you know that Alice’s wedding gown has come from London, for I insisted upon that. Tell us everything. ’
    Harriet’s Aunt Lucretia sat on her brightly covered sofa surrounded by her daughters, Augusta, Alice the bride-to-be, and Asobel. Her husband and their two sons were still in the dining room with the port bottle. Augusta served tea in dainty floral cups that seemed to Harriet to match the floral sofa and the floral wallpaper, and Asobel, who was eight, stared at her London cousin with interest.
    ‘We went to the Drury Lane Theatre when we were there last,’ her aunt continued. ‘Have you been there? The orchestra was magnificent; I felt the conductor improved Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony immeasurably – shortened it, made it more to my taste somehow. And tell me have you heard – oh the delight of her – the Swedish Nightingale?’
    ‘I was in Norfolk,’ Harriet answered gravely.
    ‘Ah yes of course, I had heard. For your education. Our two girls went to a Young Ladies’ Academy for three months to have their education and I must say it was worth every penny. They have returned infinitely more ladylike. Their father said to me he hardly knows them with their genteel ways. Tell me, my dear, what did you learn?’
    Harriet considered her answer for a moment. ‘There were many lists and catechisms we had to learn by heart,’ she said. ‘About whalebone, and umbrellas, and what Queen Elizabeth the First thought about silk stockings.’
    ‘Good heavens!’ said Augusta. ‘We learnt those things by heart too.’
    ‘All very useful I am sure,’ said