The Resurrectionist

by James Bradley

  ‘My brother’s terms were acceptable then?’ she asks, and something in her voice reminds me of my barely articulated revulsion against Winter’s note, its too-generous terms.

  She holds my eyes for a moment longer than is necessary, and then sets her mouth.

  Ushering me in before herself she leads me to the parlour where we met a week before. On the table lies a portfolio; setting my own down beside it I touch it with my hand.

  ‘This is yours?’ I ask, and she nods.

  ‘You will not mind if I look?’

  She shakes her head and so I open it, leafing through the pictures it contains. A picture of an abbey, all romantic ruin, a pair of hands, the face of a man. The pictures a girl would make, I think, and old, besides.

  ‘You have had instruction before?’

  ‘When I was a girl there was a man in my father’s employ called Davidson.’ For a brief second she hesitates, before adding, ‘A convict.’

  Looking around I indicate the portrait above the fireplace.

  ‘That is his work?’

  ‘It is.’

  From the door comes the sound of a throat being cleared. The girl who admitted me is standing there. She is a thin thing, her dress hanging loosely on her narrow frame, and she averts her eyes, fixing her gaze upon the floor. Miss Winter does not make any movement to prompt the girl, and so at last when she speaks it is an ecstasy of embarrassment.

  ‘Please, Miss. Mrs Blackstable said I should sit with you and the gentleman.’

  Still Miss Winter says nothing, and so, embarrassed for the girl, I direct her to a chair and tell her to sit. Glancing back at Miss Winter I see she has looked away, out the window into the garden, her body tight.

  ‘Miss Winter,’ I say, and she turns.

  ‘Shall we begin?’

  As we work the girl sits staring at her hands. At first I think it is something we have done that has unsettled her, but as the hour passes I realise I have misunderstood: her discomfort lies not with Miss Winter’s silence, but in whatever purpose lies behind her presence here. For a time I speak to Miss Winter about the principles of composition, trying to gauge how much she already knows, asking questions, watching the way she answers, and then I set her the task of sketching a bowl of flowers which sits upon the table.

  While she works I take up the drawings in her portfolio once more. They are awkward, and pedestrian, all too evidently full of a girl’s restless longing and the desire for life to be more than it is. Lifting my eyes I look once more at Miss Winter. The task I have given her is of no great worth, a drawing to be made and then forgotten, but still she works at it with an intensity that is almost painful to observe. I want to lift a hand, to still her, yet it is difficult to set aside the sense that even her seriousness is somehow an act of defiance, though one enacted without care for consequence. It frightens me somehow, as if she might do herself harm in her desire to lose herself in this. Her hands are lined and reddened, the hands of a woman twice her age, and this small detail makes her appear more vulnerable than all the rest of it. I find myself gripped by the desire to ease whatever it is that she fights so hard against. It is a strange thing, tenderness, how near to pain it is, as if it were itself a sort of loss, a longing for a closeness we can never know.

  ‘MR MAY,’ CALLS MRS BOURKE as I take my leave of Joshua a week later. Surprised, I turn and see her on the stairs, Miss Lizabet skipping down below her.

  ‘You are leaving?’ she asks, beginning to descend, but I shake my head.

  ‘It was your husband’s wish that I attend on him before I go,’ I say, ‘but he is still occupied with Tavistock.’

  Mrs Bourke purses her lips in a gentle frown. I have heard her complain good-naturedly her husband might have married Tavistock, the farm manager, had he thought the other man capable of giving him an heir.

  ‘He will not be back for some hours yet, I think,’ she says. ‘Do not wait for him.’

  I am uncomfortable with breaking my word to Bourke, but I have come to trust Mrs Bourke’s judgement in many things, her husband most of all.

  ‘Miss Lizabet would play, I think. Perhaps you might walk with me while she does,’ she says as her daughter shakes the little doll she holds, her face fixed in a frown.

  ‘I have work –’ I begin, but Mrs Bourke places a hand upon my arm, and gives me a little push.

  ‘And you shall get to it,’ she says, ‘but not quite yet.’

  Though we are separated by the barrier of our places in the house I am fond of my employer’s wife. She and Bourke were but newly married when I was first bonded here, she herself little more than a girl, still fresh from England’s shores and heavy with the child who would become Miss Lizabet. Just sixteen when Bourke met her on a visit to England, barely a year older when she arrived here as the wife of a widower fifteen years her senior with a son only ten years younger than herself. I remember glimpsing her as I went about my work, walking slowly through the gardens of the house, careful in her own company. Even then I admired her, I suppose, so young and so far away from all she knew, not just for her kindness but for her tact and lack of ceremony.

  ‘We have not seen much of each other of late,’ she says as we make our way across the lawn.

  ‘I have been occupied,’ I reply, and she smiles.

  ‘You have not been too much alone?’

  I shake my head. Of those few I might call my friends only Mrs Bourke would ask this of me.

  ‘I have my work.’ In front of us Miss Lizabet is spinning in slow circles, her doll held out in one hand, lost in some childish game.

  ‘Bourke says you give lessons to Miss Winter,’ Mrs Bourke says then. Startled I look at her, but there is nothing prying in her face. Perhaps my expression tells more than I mean, for there is an instant when she looks at me, and then away.

  ‘You think her fair?’ she asks.

  ‘You have not met her yourself?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Bourke has. Her brother keeps her close, I think, though I know not why.’

  ‘You do not care for him?’

  She ponders. ‘I think he is a man who cares very much for how the world sees him,’ she says.

  As she speaks Joshua appears. Miss Lizabet runs towards him, her doll held high, eager to tell him some secret she has discovered or perhaps to have him partner her in a dance. Mrs Bourke gazes at the two of them.

  ‘I am told Joshua grows more like his mother every month,’ she says.

  I look at her in surprise. ‘Bourke says that?’ But she shakes her head.

  ‘He would not say such things.’ Joshua lifts Miss Lizabet onto his shoulders provoking a delighted squeal. ‘But I know he sees it too.’

  NO DOUBT THERE ARE SOME who would laugh at the airs of those who are exalted in these colonies. Bigamists and kidnappers, cattle thieves and gamblers. There are men amongst us here worth more than baronets who speak with the commonest cockney tongue, women in the finest gowns who have sold their bodies on London’s streets. To laugh at them, or mock, however, is no easy thing, for what lies in their pasts is there for all of us. And so we conspire not to enquire, nor to tell, as if by this silence we might forget what was and make a life without a past, as if this were a land without history, a country founded on the air.

  And yet the past is ever there. In the land and in ourselves. There are things that come to us without words, movements in our selves. As real as thought, or memory. But without words they cannot be, without names they are not given life.

  These past weeks she is ever in my mind. Not the look of her but her presence in that room, the sense of some secret. It hums in me, something I cannot put aside. I am distracted in my work, distracted with my pupils, and yet I will not put a name to it, will not give this feeling shape. Still, with each passing week I find myself thinking on my next visit, wishing I might find a way to pierce whatever barrier it is she sets about herself. In the images that I make, in their colours and their lines, I can feel her pressing, feel the way
she is wound into their making. But I will not speak the word that might unhinge it all.

  IT IS BOURKE who tells me of his wife’s invitation, speak ing the words almost as a joke.

  Turning I ask that he repeat himself.

  ‘An evening of musical performances,’ he says again. ‘She bids me tell you she would find your presence gratifying.’

  ‘I have work,’ I demur, but Bourke is not to be so easily refused.

  ‘She asks it as a kindness to herself,’ he says.

  And so it is that two nights later I find myself at the Bourkes’, moving uncomfortably amongst the guests. Their faces are known to me, their business too. They laugh too loud, coarse and crowing, the women overdressed and bejewelled, their faces hardened by the sun. We speak in words polite and undemanding. And then I lift my eyes and see Winter at the door, his sister by his side. He enters the room with his head held high, and though he shakes the hands of his hosts there is little warmth in the greeting that I can see. His sister looks ill at ease. She holds her head high as well, but looks like a woman who is here against her will. If Mrs Bourke sees this in her manner she ignores it; instead she extends her arm and draws Miss Winter closer, speaking to her as if they were already intimates. Winter’s eyes do not leave his sister’s back, but with a smile Mrs Bourke bids him leave them. There is a moment when Winter might resist, but then he gives a nod, his face a mask, and turns away from the two of them.

  Placing Miss Winter’s arm inside her own Mrs Bourke leads her off across the room. Though she wears a gown of pale green which suits her well beside Mrs Bourke she looks awkward and sad. That this should be is the stranger because she is fine-featured, and possessed of a dignity which draws the glances of the men and the scrutiny of the women as she is introduced. Even once the music starts, and the singer, a pretty girl recently arrived from India, begins, I see the way they look at her from behind their fans, and too the way she ignores their stares, gazing ahead, this careful attention of theirs only acting to place her further apart, as if she were a stranger in this place.

  Then comes Bourke’s voice at my shoulder.

  ‘Your pupil makes a pretty picture with my wife.’ His eyes are upon the two ladies. Though he is a good husband and a faithful one, he is a man who appreciates the charms of the fairer sex and is comfortable in their company. I begin to compose a reply, but then her brother is standing there at Bourke’s side.

  ‘Mr May,’ he says, his voice inviting no familiarity.

  ‘Mr Winter.’

  ‘How does your sister find her lessons?’ Bourke asks. Winter regards me carefully.

  ‘She has not said she finds them unsatisfactory,’ he says. Bourke chuckles.

  ‘A rousing endorsement, to be sure. And you, May, how do you find her as a student?’

  ‘She shows some promise,’ I say, ‘though I am not the first to offer instruction to her.’ Then, turning to Winter, ‘There was another tutor, a convict, she said.’

  ‘An employee of my father’s,’ he says abruptly.

  ‘Your sister says he was the author of the portrait which hangs in your drawing room.’

  ‘He was a man careless in everything,’ says Winter. I hold his eye with my own.

  ‘Yet he taught your sister well, I think.’

  ‘My sister takes instruction well enough when it pleases her,’ Winter says. Suddenly I am angry for her.

  ‘That is true of all of us, is it not? It is not a habit of our species that we thrive under the yoke.’

  Winter regards me coldly, but before he can reply the singer finishes her aria, provoking a scattering of applause. The girl bows prettily, and Mrs Bourke steps forward, hands raised to quiet the audience.

  ‘Perhaps we might find another amongst our ranks who would perform for us?’ she asks, looking around. There is laughter from a pair of men in one corner; fixing them with a stare Mrs Bourke shakes her head. ‘We’ll have none of your sailors’ songs, Mr Wilkinson, I’m sure. I’ve heard more than enough of them down by the docks.’

  Grinning delightedly at the general amusement which greets this remark, Mrs Bourke lifts her hands again. ‘Well?’

  People shift and murmur, but when no one steps forward Mrs Bourke extends a hand to Miss Winter.

  ‘You play, do you not?’ she asks. ‘Perhaps you might do us the honour?’

  Miss Winter seems to grow very still, though she does not shrink from the request.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I think not.’

  Mrs Bourke shakes her head. ‘Please,’ she replies, ‘we crave accomplishments in this place. And I am sure you will have talent possessed by none of us.’

  Standing there, I feel a sort of tenderness, Miss Winter seeming still to hesitate. But then she bows her head and consents.

  With Mrs Bourke beside her she takes a seat upon the piano stool, her hands resting on the keys.

  ‘What should I play?’ she asks. Mrs Bourke looks down at her solicitously.

  ‘That is a matter for you to decide,’ she says. And so Miss Winter gives a nod, and then slowly, carefully, begins to play.

  Her playing is not elegant nor even terribly fine, but she plays with such intensity, such longing, that it hardly seems to matter. What it is I do not know, only that it is as sad and wonderful as anything I have ever heard. She does not look around, nor seek the eyes of these watching her, just plays, and plays, sometimes dropping notes or faltering here and there as she goes, but it is almost as if this awkwardness is of a piece with her manner, the intensity of her longing made the more painful to hear by this clumsiness. And when she is done I lift my hands and clap, watching as she bows her head not to the audience but to the piano in front of her, then rises, and after clasping the hand of Mrs Bourke for a moment slips away.

  For a long time after she has gone I stand watching the space where she last stood. All evening I have sought to avoid her gaze, whether out of sensitivity to her or myself I am not sure. But now I find I would speak to her, though I do not know what words I might say. And so, with a word or two to those I pass I follow her out through the doors into the garden. Outside the air is cool, and smells of dust and smoke, the sandstone of the courtyard worn and golden in the light from the lamps. Two men are standing, smoking quietly. She is by the steps down to the lawn with her brother, the two of them in conversation with the Bourkes. Though he speaks amiably enough I see the way he holds her arm, the anger in him. Her face is turned half-away, and she cannot see me; motionless I will her to turn my way, to look at me. But she does not, instead taking the hand of each of the Bourkes in turn as her brother bids the two of them farewell. Only as they reach the drive does she turn, and her eyes meet mine, before she looks away again and they are gone.

  Perhaps it is the memory of her music, but tonight I cannot sleep. All night her presence here, the sense that in her quietness there lies some sympathy. Overhead, possums scrabble on the roof, nightjars hoot and cry. It frightens me, to be so possessed. Come three I rise, thinking to work, and light the lamp upon my desk. In its glow insects move, points of light which dart and weave. One by one I open the boards between which I keep my drawings, following the lines of the birds I have sketched upon these pages. In their making they brought me happiness, but now they seem clumsy things, poor transpositions of the life. They do not move, nor call. Looking up I see my reflection distorted in the window’s glass, a chiaroscuro in the lamp’s golden light. Its features familiar, yet strange, as if the face were not my own but a mask, and beneath it only emptiness.

  I AM IN THE ROBERTSONS’ DRAWING ROOM with Amelia when her mother enters. Glancing round I wish her good morning, then return my attention to Amelia’s page. Behind me Mrs Robertson seats herself, and I can feel her observing us.

  ‘I am told she is a pupil of yours,’ she says at last.

  ‘She?’ I turn to her. Mrs Robertson smiles, as if my question amuses her.

  ‘Miss Winter, whose playing so enraptured everyone the other evening.’

/>   I keep my gaze steady, but Mrs Robertson has seen what she sought, and taking up her fan flutters it at herself.

  ‘What do you make of her?’ she asks.

  ‘She shows promise,’ I reply, but Mrs Robertson only laughs.

  ‘You are most politic. What of her character?’

  ‘You are not acquainted with her?’

  Amelia has turned to listen. Mrs Robertson raises a hand to shoo her off.

  ‘Leave us,’ she says, and with a bob to me Amelia stands. Only when she is well outside does Mrs Robertson give me a look which might charm another man.

  ‘I know her brother is said to be worth forty thousand.’

  I just sit. Then, with sudden carelessness, she gives a laugh.

  ‘Really, Mr May, I sometimes think you are even more of a hermit than you say. Do you not know of the scandal surrounding her?’

  ‘Scandal finds many, given time,’ I say, but Mrs Robertson is not to be denied.

  ‘It is said her brother left Van Diemen’s Land on her account. She bore a child to an officer, a man married with a wife back in England.’

  Perhaps the effect of this news upon me is visible, for Mrs Robertson smiles unpleasantly.

  ‘There is no child that I have seen,’ I say quietly.

  Mrs Robertson laughs. ‘No. I am told it died, no doubt fortunately.’

  I think for a moment to walk away, leave Mrs Robertson there, but that would reveal more than I suspect she already guesses.

  ‘Yet you have introduced Amelia to her brother,’ I say instead. A cold silence falls, and I know without another word I will not be welcome here again.

  ‘There is much forty thousand will forgive,’ she replies, then, rising, brushes her dress.