The Trespass Read Online Free PDF Page B

for Harriet?’ said her uncle, still holding Alice’s hand.
    ‘Come then, Augy,’ said Cousin Edward. ‘Harriet will have to endure us,’ and he grinned at Harriet. Edward was their favourite cousin: he was rotund and earnest and kind, a younger version of his father. Edward had ridden to meet Harriet’s carriage in the small town near the farm. She had recognised his stocky figure riding towards them in the distance, and as he got nearer his round, amiable face was wreathed in smiles of welcome.
    ‘Do not call me Augy!’ said Augusta to her brother but she got up dutifully and went to the piano and she and her younger brother began to sing one of the popular songs of the day:
    I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls
    With vassals and serfs by my side
    And of all who assembled within those walls
    That I was the hope and the pride
    and Alice sat prettily, still holding her father’s hand, and Aunt Lucretia whispered loudly over the singing to tell Harriet all about Alice’s intended, and the wedding dress.
    *   *   *
    Dear Father,
    I am now arrived at Rusholme. Uncle William and Aunt Lucretia and the family are all well. They have made me very welcome and send their greetings to you.
    Your obedient daughter
    Harriet Cooper
    Harriet sat at a small table by the window, reminded of her childhood, before the gas was connected at Bryanston Square, by the flickering shadows the candle threw on to the walls of the room as she dipped the pen into the ink bottle. There was no prospect of gas at Rusholme but Uncle William, who forbade so little, forbade paraffin lamps in the house, having seen a neighbour’s house burn to the ground. In vain Aunt Lucretia spoke of ‘progress’, and ‘civilisation’, not to mention the dangers of candles also – but her daughters too preferred candles, hating the smell of paraffin in other houses. And so, all over Rusholme, soft candlelight flickered. The Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP, disliked immensely coming back to the country and the places of his childhood, but both Harriet and Mary, who had paid many visits here when they were younger, thought of Rusholme with a kind of exasperated pleasure: it was old-fashioned, it was inconvenient, there was an outside privy and lots of barking dogs. But Rusholme had a kind of unkempt charm that they loved. There were wild climbing roses at the front of the house and blackcurrant bushes grew in unchecked profusion everywhere and an ancient walnut tree stood outside the window. In order that Mary could get about more easily Uncle William had taught them to ride like their cousins: upright, sidesaddle, elegant. Some years ago a gravel drive had been put in for the carriages and the horses, and Grecian statues had been placed on the lawns. But the drive had become somewhat overgrown, and the statues last seen were covered in moss and arms had fallen off, around which wandering hens sometimes pecked and cackled.
    My darling Mary,
    I am here, in the room we always have, the one that looks over the roses and the walnut tree and the fields in the distance. I cannot say how I feel being here except that you cannot imagine how much I miss you already. I find being parted from you so difficult, and yet, of course, I am glad to be here also. I tell myself every hour that you will at least be here for Alice’s wedding, surely.
    Our cousins John and Edward and Augusta and Alice and Asobel seem much the same except that Asobel is eight years old now, and is very ‘energetic’ (that is the word I have heard the family use several times this evening). Uncle William and Cousin Edward are kind, just as they always were, and Aunt Lucretia has become rather grand.
    These are only first impressions after not being here for three years.
    Father must allow you to come to the wedding at least.
    Please write to me and tell me that it will be so, and please look after yourself, my dearest sister. There is no point in me being safe from the cholera and you