A World Apart

by Peter McAra

  ‘Will the witness please come to the point?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Well, when I stops to watch, I sees that wicked little — ’

  The prosecutor aimed a theatrical warning glance at Amos. He stopped talking, nodded in the prosecutor’s direction.

  ‘Sir, I saw…the accused talking to one of the villagers. And I heard her saying things like, “The viscount is setting for to cheat honest men, and the village folk should rise up against him, and it is wrong that the rich — ”’

  ‘I said no such thing,’ Eliza exploded. ‘I said that Sir John was a kindly — ’

  ‘Silence!’ the judge bellowed, aiming a piercing stare at Eliza. He nodded at Amos to continue.

  ‘And she said the gentry were wicked men and — ’

  ‘Sir. I said no such thing. I — ’

  ‘The accused will be silent until she cross-examines!’ the judge shouted. The veins on his neck turned purple. He gained control of himself. ‘This court has the power to pass sentence summarily if the accused continues in contempt. The accused must remain silent or she may receive a heavy sentence forthwith, without benefit of reply.’ He glared at Eliza. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He turned to Amos. ‘Please continue.’

  Over the next few minutes, Eliza heard the scar-faced little man fabricate a tale of intrigue, threatened violence and planned destruction that would have been comic if it had not been metaphorically fastening leg-irons round her ankles as it unfolded. She bit her tongue and remained silent. Whenever Amos’s inspiration seemed to dry up, the prosecutor spurred him on with another loaded question. Surely the judge would not believe the ramblings of the furtive little creature. Eliza grew more and more certain he must be in Louisa’s pay. Eventually, the prosecutor finished questioning him. He sat down and shot a leer at Eliza. Then the judge turned to her.

  ‘The accused has heard the evidence in chief. Does she wish to cross-examine?’

  ‘Sir,’ Eliza began. ‘There is no truth in what the witness says, so I can hardly cross-examine him. I simply tried to explain to poor Rufus about the men of Tolpuddle.’

  ‘Tolpuddle? What of it, maid?’ Given the damning case against her, the consideration to which he was bound, and her foolishness in declining to cross-examine, the judge would indulge Eliza for a moment. Besides, it would give him a few more moments to enjoy her prettiness before he must face the next tedious case.

  ‘Sir, four honest men were transported to Botany Bay because they refused to work for seven shillings a week. And the people don’t think that be fair, sir.’

  ‘What do you think, maid?’

  ‘I think that unless these men be slaves, sir, and the master their owner, they have the right to trade their labour for wages, or not. They be nothing more than slaves if it be otherwise, sir. And slavery is not the way of the King and the folk of England, sir.’ The judge turned from his contemplation of the fields beyond the window and looked down at her. She fancied he tried to hide a smile.

  ‘And what of causing bodily harm to Viscount De Havilland? How do you plead?’

  ‘Sir. He… I…he fell out of his chair when I…stepped out of his…way.’

  ‘Girl. You must not think that your tender years will earn you mercy in a court of law. The court has a sworn statement from one John James De Havilland, Viscount, alleging that you attacked him, resulting in further injury to his already damaged right leg. How do you plead?’

  ‘Sir, I didn’t incite a rebellion, and I didn’t injure Sir John. The village folk were angry about the poor men of Tolpuddle — ’

  ‘For the last time, the prisoner will answer the charge of causing bodily harm. How do you plead?’

  ‘Sir. I didn’t do those things. I’m a teacher, not a rebel. Sir John got me into all this trouble when he — ’

  ‘Silence!’ The judge had reached his limit. He clicked his gavel on the bench. ‘Sentenced to one-and-twenty years transportation to Botany Bay. But for your extreme youth, you would surely be hanged.’

  ‘But I — ’

  The judge’s face again flushed deep purple. He was not given to raising his voice in court, but the girl was becoming insufferable.

  ‘For the last time, be silent, girl! If you cannot summon the will to be silent, I will be forced to give you a sentence that will silence you permanently.’

  CHAPTER 13

  The judge tried perhaps another twenty prisoners before his day was over. Towards the end, he admitted to himself that he was becoming a mite tetchy. He had suffered a trying journey to the assizes, and an uncomfortable night at the inn after an indifferent meal which gave him the bloat. Now he looked forward to a good dinner and some fine French wines at the home of John De Havilland, viscount of the estate of Morton-Somersby. In an hour, he would join his host and forget the tedium of his judicial duties.

  ‘To King and Country!’ John De Havilland announced. Charles Fortescue, Judge, raised his glass to his friend’s toast.

  ‘Thank God for a drink,’ the judge said. ‘Court was most trying today, John.’

  ‘Oh? Why so?’

  ‘Sometimes I become so vexed at the silliness of those poor felons in the dock, I wonder what to do.’ He took a long drink from his crystal glass. ‘Mmm. Excellent. Bordeaux, is it not? And by the way, you should not concern yourself further over your little kitchenmaid. She’ll be in Botany Bay for one-and-twenty years, supposing she lives that long. A pretty child indeed. I don’t wonder that you might have fancied her, let your hands stray a little. Though to give her her due, she didn’t directly accuse you.’

  He sipped his wine again, nodded towards his host to show he appreciated its quality. ‘Wise of you to have had a word with me beforehand. If the maid had said anything, er, untoward, I was sufficiently informed to nip it in the bud.’

  ‘Thank you, Charles,’ De Havilland said. ‘That reminds me. Your consideration as agreed.’ Sir John opened a sideboard drawer, took out a small chamois leather bag which bulged with coins.

  ‘Thank you, John,’ the judge said as he hefted the bag in his cupped hand, then slid it into his pocket. ‘I won’t count it. I trust you. And you can rest. The source of your disquiet will soon be ten thousand miles away.’

  John De Havilland reached for the wine bottle and gestured to his guest. With the troublesome servant girl out of the way, he had yet another reason to be grateful. Now there could be no foolishness between his son Harry and the wench. It was now nigh on three years since he had sent Harry to Oxford to remove him from the tempting arms of his schoolroom companion.

  A simple, honest soul like Harry might well grow into the idealistic young dreamer who would seek out and marry his childhood sweetheart when he came of age. The tale told to her father by Louisa, of the wench and Harry lying naked by the lake, had served to remind him that where there’s smoke, fire will likely follow. Now that the wench was a full-grown woman she looked extremely fetching — had not he himself noticed this, and come to regret the fact? However, his friend the judge’s ruling had put paid to the disconcerting possibility that the wench might one day become his daughter-in-law, or at least mother to his son’s bastard.

  ‘Ah, yes indeed, thank you, John. A most trying day. Thank you.’ The judge drained his glass, then held it out to the bottle proffered by his friend.

  ‘And your little kitchenmaid has wits too. She impressed me somewhat when I asked her about the men of Tolpuddle.’

  ‘Enough of the kitchenmaid, Charles,’ John De Havilland murmured. The judge sensed that his friend had responded to his remark a mite too quickly. Why should he act so?

  ‘How has the drought served your farm?’ Sir John continued. ‘Oh, before you answer, excuse me. Try some cognac. Extraordinary stuff. I came by it recently. I’ll fetch it from my study.’

  As his host left the room, the judge recovered the chamois pouch from his pocket, opened the drawstring, and began counting the coins he spilled onto his lap. Damne
d rogue! There were only twenty guineas, not the twenty five agreed.

  The judge considered his options. He could hardly confront his host. Very well, he would alter the court records in the morning — forgive the maid of the assault charge. Both he and his guest knew that the charge was false. If anything, she could have had him charged with assault, rather than the other way about. She deserved at least a gesture of that trifling scale. The charge of inciting unrest could stand. The girl had an arrogance, an intelligence, that needed to be cut down to size. The twenty one year sentence was perhaps a little heavy, but in the circumstances, it should stand. And his host would never know the difference.

  From the moment De Havilland returned with the squat dark bottle, the conversation followed the narrow, well worn tracks of farming, the weather, and the cost of labour. As he retired after a dinner of pheasant and beef and more good wine, the judge amused himself by recalling the maid’s words as she stood in the dock. The surprisingly erudite prisoner had offered from the dock some interesting legal nuances via her comments regarding slavery and British law.

  After her time in court, Eliza was led back to the cells. Susannah lay on the straw, her trial over before Eliza’s had begun.

  ‘How goes it, dear?’ Susannah smiled, running her fingers past her ears. ‘Oh. You’re pale.’ Eliza heard the sympathy rising in her voice. Eliza curled up in her pile of straw and sobbed. She sobbed as if to dissolve her very heart into tears and flood the floor of the cell with them. Whatever stratagem she tried, the sobs would not cease.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw Harry taking the hand of a hopeful debutante as they began a waltz, the scandalous new dance craze, as the music echoed round a stately ballroom. Next, her foster-mother standing at the cottage door, looking towards the village square, as she had done every morning throughout Eliza’s childhood. Eliza was Hannah’s pride. She sensed the woman’s devastation at the loss of the child she had loved as one of her own. Now they would likely never see each other again. Eventually, her sobbing ceased.

  ‘So you’ll be joining Susannah on a picnic to Botany Bay! Lucky lass!’ Her companion injected a full measure of cheerfulness into her words. ‘They do say as the sea air is good for a touch of the vapours. Dry thy tears, child. Soon we’ll be ten thousand miles from this pox-ridden hole of a country. I’ll warrant Botany Bay cannot serve us any worse than life in an English prison.’ Her voice lifted. She was making an effort to sound cheerful. ‘I heard tell of a convict who was sent there come back to England a rich man, with thousands of acres and a fine house and servants to his credit.’ Eliza heard the rustle of straw in the darkness as her companion tossed and turned. She wished the woman would fall silent and leave her to her private thoughts.

  ‘When I was in prison these last weeks waiting my trial, I fell to thinking about the life which lies ahead of me,’ Susannah said brightly. Eliza winced. Susannah sounded as if she was in a mood to talk. ‘I decided I wished to be sent to Botany Bay,’ she said. ‘If the judge is disposed to be kindly to me, I’ll annoy him, I thought. I heard tell of a man who shouted at a judge and came within a whisker of hanging. And him in court just because he couldn’t pay the rent. Anyways, the judge sent him to Botany Bay.’ She paused, then spoke again, her voice more thoughtful.

  ‘Because I has a child living in England, I thought the judge might see fit not to part mother and daughter. Though a fat lot my Sophie cares for her wayward mother, I can tell you. She’s lady’s maid to a grand dame in Sussex, and never thinks of her mother from one year’s end to the next, I’ll be bound. Indeed, like as not she thinks I’m dead, and wouldn’t have it otherwise. It would upset her applecart if I was ever to visit her in her country estate.’

  Susannah fell silent again. Eliza knew it would be for but a moment. ‘Though it’s all my fault, to be sure.’ Susannah’s voice lifted again. ‘I was a terrible mother to her — couldn’t keep her in three meals a day, let alone a respectable roof over her head. I gave her to my friend, wife to a lacemaker. Lucy couldn’t have children, though she wanted them sore desperate. Me, I were the other way about.’ She paused again. Eliza hoped her monologue had run its course. It was not to be.

  ‘Eliza,’ she said after a minute of quiet. ‘If ever I’m to have another child, I swear to you before God, I’ll keep him close, and fend for him, and care for him, and love him, if it takes the last drop of blood in my body. Would that I’d done that for my Sophie. Who knows,’ she laughed softly in the dark. ‘I might be with child to the fine gentleman who’s put me here. I was with him for a month and more. And he had me hundreds of times, or so it seemed at the time.’ She sighed noisily.

  ‘Anyways, I needn’t have worried that the judge would be kindly to me. He sat there looking like a man with a gripe in his belly, and gave me fourteen years in Botany Bay afore I could blink. My gentleman will be happy to be rid of me. He were a fine young gent, to be sure. He wooed me with poetry and fine gentleman’s words whenever he wanted to have his way with me. What could I do? And often I was a little drunk when he visited. He saw to that. He liked his fine wine, did young Jeremy. Anyways, one day after he’d used me, he began to sneak away without leaving me something for my trouble. So I grabbed a stick and caught him across his back with it.’ She laughed. ‘I must have been full of passion indeed. When I hit him, I broke the stick over his back. So what did he do? Instead of leaving a sovereign for me on the dresser, he cuts and runs, and comes back in a trice with a constable.

  ‘“This woman set upon me,” he says, and he shows the constable the broken stick. “What took her, I don’t know, Constable,” he says. “I’ve treated her most kindly. She cannot handle her liquor, most likely. So now my back is broke,” says he. And he holds his back and groans pitiful. “And I’ll likely be sore and bent for the rest of my days.”

  ‘“Which won’t be too many if I has my way,” I says to the constable. “This man is a liar and a cheapskate, sir. He wooed me and took advantage of me, then abandoned me. And me but a poor woman from a village who’s lost her way in the city.”

  ‘“So you breaks your stick across his back, woman, and maims him for life,” says the constable. “That’s assault and battery, to be sure. It’s the lockup for you, madam.”

  ‘“Where’s the justice in that?” says I, and when the constable lays hands on me, I hits him. In truth, I was enjoying myself, Eliza. I just wanted him to respect a poor woman’s plight. But eventually, the two of them got the better of me, and here I am. I cannot but think it’s for the best.’ She stopped. ‘Are you awake, child?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eliza said, hoping the weary catch to her voice would tell what she could not say in words.

  ‘I’ll stop my ravings, child,’ Susannah said, in a voice that seemed to come from a new person. ‘You need to make peace with yourself. Goodnight, little one. Tomorrow is a new day.’

  Eliza heard Susannah plump her pile of straw, and turned her own face to the wall. She felt the scratch of broken stalks on her cheek, heard the straw crackle against her ear. The cold of the stone floor began to soak into her hip where it pressed hardest. She moved to ease the discomfort, but kept quiet lest the noise should signal to Susannah that she lay awake in the dark. The reek of stale urine caught in her nose as she lay close to the floor. She breathed through her mouth so as not to suffer the smell. Someone snored in the nearby men’s cell, a gulping, frightened gasp, repeated at every breath. Then it quietened. The scuffling closer to hand must be rats foraging in the straw. She shivered at the thought of their pink paws scurrying over her, their sharp claws pricking her skin, and hunched her body in futile defence.

  Eliza had been brought low by the events of the past weeks. She must stop wallowing in the misery of it, take heart from Susannah’s resilience. Now Eliza saw that the woman she had thought garrulous had acted so in order to distract her young companion from her misery. Eliza made efforts to recall her days in the schoolroom at the Great House — the happiest days of her life. Sometimes at
luncheon she would sit on a handsomely carved chair upholstered with plum velvet, eating cakes passed to her by the smiling Harry. She pictured such a scene.

  ‘I saved this one for you, Eliza,’ Harry was saying. ‘See how it has a fat cherry on the top. The same colour as your lips.’ Then Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper. He turned to see if his sister was listening. ‘But I’ll warrant it doesn’t taste near as sweet.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Harry De Havilland hurried to his Oxford chambers to read the letter the clerk had given him as he walked away from his latest philosophy lecture. The lecture, on the birth and growth of the Renaissance, had been boring, the lecturer a corpulent old man who sniffed as he talked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand every minute or so. Harry was pleased to have been given the letter. Now he would have something to read other than the next incomprehensible chapter of the ancient textbook lying open on his cluttered desk. As he walked, he thought of Eliza — how she would have loved the book’s erudition as it told of the quirks of St Ignatius, the Society of Jesus, the mysterious mountains of the Basque Country which were home to the saint.

  He tore open the letter and scrutinised the signature at its end. It was from Mrs Hawkins, venerable housekeeper of the Great House. Every time he remembered the village of his upbringing, he suffered the pangs of a love torn apart by his cold, authoritarian father. The man had likely never known love himself. Doubtless Harry and his sister had been born from a businesslike transaction between a wealthy but plain woman, the mother he never knew, and the elderly man who needed to sire children to inherit his estate. She would likely have been rejected by the young gentlemen of the day, pining for love and for babies as the years passed. And he, a breeder of fine cattle, would have seen her as a submissive dam, preferring an old bull to a life of spinsterhood. Then she died as she gave birth to Harry, the son she had never known. He sighed, flicked open the folded paper, and read.