Midsummer's Eve Read online

  As for Peterkin himself, he was seeing Frances frequently and becoming more and more interested in the work she was doing.

  He said: “My father is not averse to this. He thinks it is good publicity to have a son who is interested in social welfare; and it makes a nice touch that I am working with the daughter of Joseph Cresswell, because as you know there have been rumours that my father trapped Joseph Cresswell into that situation. So for once I have his approval of what I am doing.” He smiled at me. “It suits me. For the first time I feel I am doing something I really want to do. My father has given money to the Mission … a sizeable sum, so that Frances is going to get that house she wants. Of course, Papa likes the press to know where the money comes from.”

  “I suppose he feels it’s a sort of expiation.”

  “Not him. He just feels it’s a neat touch for people to ask if the money goes to do such good service does it matter how it was come by?”

  “He’s very cynical.”

  “He’s just about the shrewdest and most cunning person I know.”

  “And you and Frances—you don’t mind using his money?”

  Peterkin looked at me quizzically. “No. I suppose we ought to. Frances and I have talked about it. Not that she thought of refusing it for a moment. Frances would take money from any source if it helped with her work. She needs that money. If you could see some of those people, you’d understand. Frances is a very wise young woman. ‘If good cometh out of evil,’ she says, ‘let’s make the most of the good.’”

  I thought a good deal about them all and it was brought home to me that life is not neatly divided between good and evil; and after that I began to make less critical judgements.

  After that brief visit we went down to Tilbury to join our ship which was taking ready-made garments, corn, oats, sugar, tea and coffee as well as some livestock out to Australia. There were only a few passengers so I supposed we should get to know our fellow travellers well during the voyage.

  Helena and I shared a small cabin with two bunks, one above the other, a little cupboard for our clothes and a small table on which was fixed a mirror. It was fortunate that most of our baggage had been put into the hold until our arrival. My parents had a similar cabin next to ours and Jacco was sharing with another young man.

  It was an exciting moment when we slipped away from the dock.

  The Captain invited us to his cabin. He was a pleasant man with a dark curly beard, the same dark curly hair and heavy-lidded brown eyes.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I hope you are going to have a pleasant voyage with us. Have you travelled on a cargo ship before?”

  We said we hadn’t and my father added that he had been out to Australia, but had travelled on a different kind of ship and that was more than twenty years ago.

  “Things have changed,” said the Captain. “In fact they are changing all the time. There are three other passengers besides yourselves. A young man who is going out to study something and a couple who want to settle. We should all get along fairly well. It just needs a little give and take if you know what I mean.”

  “I understand,” said my father. “To be in such close proximity for so long could in some cases be rather trying.”

  “We shall try to make the voyage as pleasant as possible. There are card games, and there is a piano in one of the rooms. We have a good pianist among us. We’ll make it tolerable but the main purpose of our voyage is to carry goods. That is why we are never quite sure how long we stay at certain ports, or even which ports we shall be calling at.”

  “We understand all that,” said my father. “What we want is to be taken to Australia as quickly as possible.”

  “Then we shall be able to satisfy you. I have invited the other passengers here so that we can all get acquainted. Ah, here are Mr. and Mrs. Prevost. This is Sir Jake and Lady Cador and their son and daughter …” He looked at Helena and added, “… and their niece.”

  We shook hands. The Prevosts were a pleasant-looking couple in their early thirties, I imagined, and while we were exchanging a few pleasantries with them the other passenger arrived. He was the one who was sharing a cabin with Jacco and as soon as he came in I thought there was something familiar about him.

  “This is Mr. Matthew Hume,” said the captain, introducing us.

  The young man smiled as we shook hands. He looked steadily at me and said: “We have met before.”

  “I thought so,” I replied. “I was wondering …”

  “Frances Cresswell’s Mission.”

  “Of course. You let us in when we called.”

  “We only met briefly but I remembered.”

  “That’s a strange coincidence,” said my father. “There are only three passengers apart from my family and one of these knows one of us.”

  “It was just a case of hail and farewell,” said the young man. “I was working at the Mission.”

  “I know something of it,” said my mother. “I believe it does very good work.”

  His face lit up. “Wonderful work,” he said. “Frances Cresswell is a remarkable woman.”

  “Well,” put in the Captain, “it is a pleasant surprise to find that you are not absolute strangers. We dine in half an hour and by that time I hope you will have decided that you are going to get along very well together during the coming weeks.”

  “I’m so excited to be going,” Matthew Hume told us. “I’ve been trying to get a passage for some time. I am longing to see Australia.”

  “We can’t wait,” said Mrs. Prevost. “Can we, Jim? It’s going to mean so much to us.”

  By the time we went in to dinner we felt we knew each other quite well.

  We sat at table with the Captain and his Chief Officer and I found myself in earnest conversation with Matthew Hume. He seemed to want to talk to me. I supposed because I was not exactly a stranger. The Mission kept coming into the conversation. He said that he had at one time thought of going into the Church and then he had visited Frances’s Mission and had been amazed by what he saw there.

  “Dear Frances,” he said, “she looks to people like me to help all the time. She said she wants people with a social conscience, people who were born into the world of wealth—or comparative wealth—to give something of themselves to those who were born in less fortunate circumstances. Frances knows exactly where she is going, and as soon as I went to the Mission I began to feel I did.”

  I nodded and thought of Peterkin. “My cousin feels like that, I believe,” I said.

  “I have seen some terrible sights,” he went on. “Heartrending. And I’ve been to some of the prisons. That’s why I am going out here … to study the conditions of those who have been transported. I am going to write a book about it. I want to call attention to it. I think it is wrong. I think it is evil. We’ve got to stop it.”

  He was fervent and he seemed to me very young. I wondered how old he was. Twenty-three? Hardly that.

  “I have had the honour of meeting Mrs. Elizabeth Fry,” he told me. “She has talked to me about prisons and she has done a great deal …”

  We were interrupted by someone’s asking the Captain about the ports we should call at and wondering how long we should stay at them.

  The Captain said it would depend on what had to be set ashore and what taken on board. We would be informed of when we must return to the ship.

  “But we should like you to obey orders in that respect,” he said. “The tides have to be considered before the wishes of the passengers, especially in ships of this kind.”

  The Prevosts were talking about what they wanted to do.

  “We’re going to acquire a little land,” said Jim Prevost. “It’s going very cheaply. Life was getting difficult at home. Trouble over the Reform Bill, the Corn Laws and the bad harvests. They say the climate out there is just wonderful.”

  My father pointed out that in no part of the world could the climate be relied on and there were such things as droughts and plagues in Australia. He knew bec
ause he had lived there for nine years. True, that was more than twenty years ago, but the weather patterns had not changed.

  The Prevosts looked abashed and he went on quickly: “I am sure the advantages will make up for the disadvantages. And I have heard that in some parts of Australia no price at all is asked for the land.”

  The Prevosts brightened and my father began to talk about his experiences of farming in Australia.

  So the evening passed.

  Helena had hardly spoken, but she did display a little curiosity in her surroundings and I was sure the voyage was going to be of great interest.

  I could not be anything but exhilarated to be at sea. The crew was friendly and ready to explain anything we asked and the weather was benign even in the notoriously hazardous Bay of Biscay.

  Helena wanted to stay in the cabin a good deal. She was quite ill which seemed a bad omen when we were not experiencing any really bad weather. She said it was the movement of the ship. Jacco and I revelled in the life. We would race each other along the open decks which were rather restricted, but we enjoyed it; then we would lean over the rail and look right down into the swirling sea-green water.

  There was so much to learn about the ship and we awakened each day to a feeling of excitement.

  My father and mother used to walk along the deck arm in arm with a smile of contentment on their faces while he talked about his experiences as a convict for he said the journey and the prospect of being in Australia again brought it all back to him most vividly.

  There were our fellow travellers, too. The Prevosts were so enthusiastic about their project and they were constantly trying to corner my father to make him tell them all he knew. One evening, when he was in a particularly mellow mood, he told them that he had been sent out as a convict, recounting the story with a certain amount of wit, making light of his sufferings so that it was quite entertaining.

  When Matthew Hume discovered that my father had actually experienced life as a convict he was beside himself with joy.

  “First-hand knowledge!” he cried. “That is what I am after.”

  “I daresay it has changed a lot since my day,” my father reminded him. “Life is changing all the time.”

  “But what an opportunity!”

  He would sit beside my father, notebook in hand.

  “Such a piece of luck,” he said.

  “It wasn’t for my father,” I reminded him.

  He was serious. “But look. Here he is now, a man of standing, and he has gone through all that.”

  “He did have an estate to go to and a title waiting for him.”

  “I want the whole story,” said Matthew.

  He was very earnest, a little lacking in humour, but he was a young man with a purpose and I liked him for that.

  I said to my mother: “There is an innate goodness about him.”

  She replied: “He certainly has reformation at heart, but it is often like that with the young. They have dreams of making this and that right and often they are not very practical. Their world is made of dreams rather than reality.”

  “Don’t tell him that. He is intoxicated with his dream.”

  Our first port of call was Madeira where we were putting off goods and taking on wine. It gave us an opportunity to go ashore and my father arranged for us to go round the island in a carriage. My parents and the Prevosts were in one, Helena, Matthew Hume, Jacco and myself in another.

  It was a beautiful sight with its mountains and magnificently colourful flowers and it was wonderful to be ashore after being so long at sea. We were all rather merry—with the exception of Helena, but we did not expect her to be otherwise as she never was. We had a meal in a tavern in Funchal close to the red stone Cathedral and the flower market. Then we went back to the ship and very soon were at sea again.

  We were a day out from Madeira. At dinner we had been more vociferous than usual, talking of our experiences in Madeira and telling each other that we must make the most of the next port of call.

  We were all given a taste of the Madeira wine which had been taken on board and we were very convivial. Glancing at Helena I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. I thought, She is not getting any better. Is she going on grieving for the rest of her life? After all, as my mother had said, if John Milward had been man enough he would have defied his parents. I wanted to say to her: “Think of the Prevosts going out not knowing what they are going to find. Think of that nice earnest Matthew Hume with his mission in life. Helena, you will have to make the best of it.”

  When we retired that night I wondered if I could talk to her. But it seemed there was little one could say to someone who was so wrapped up in her grief.

  I did try.

  We were in our bunks—she was in the one above—and the ship was rocking slightly as it often did.

  I said: “This is like being rocked to sleep.”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Are you sleepy?”

  “No.”

  “There is something I wanted to say. Couldn’t you try to be interested? Everything is so new to us. Madeira was lovely but you might have been anywhere. I don’t think you noticed anything.”

  She was silent.

  “You’ve got to try to forget. Don’t you see, you’ll never get over it until you do.”

  “I’ll never get over it, Annora. There’ll be something to remind me always. You don’t understand what happened.”

  “Well, tell me then.”

  “I don’t think I can. Though I suppose you’ll have to know. Annora, I think I’m going to have a baby.”

  “Helena!” I whispered.

  “Yes. In fact … I’m almost sure.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “It is. You see, when John came back … and he was going to defy his family … it happened. Nobody had ever really cared for me before. It seemed wonderful. And now it’s all finished and I’m going to have this little baby.”

  I felt so shaken I did not know what to say.

  I wanted to get up and go straight to my parents and ask them what was to be done.

  I could only say: “Oh, Helena, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m terrified.”

  “I daresay my mother will know what to do.”

  “A baby, Annora. Think what that means. I’ll never be able to go home. What would my father say?”

  “He can hardly set himself up as a pillar of respectability,” I reminded her.

  “I know. That makes it worse.”

  “I’m glad you told me, Helena.”

  “I’ve wanted to … ever since I knew.”

  “When …?”

  “I think about April.”

  “That gives us time to work something out.”

  “What can we work out?”

  “What can be done. My mother will know what is best … and so will my father. It’s a good thing you’re here with us.”

  “I know.”

  “A baby,” I said softly. “A dear little baby. In a way it’s wonderful.”

  “It would be,” said Helena, “if …”

  “But still there’ll be the baby.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking of the baby. I saw it … fair-haired, rather like Aunt Amaryllis, with a sweet flowerlike face. For a few moments I forgot Helena’s dilemma contemplating it.

  “I haven’t known what to do. Sometimes I’ve thought it would all be settled if I jumped over the side of the ship.”

  “What an awful thing to say! Put that right out of your mind. This is going to give us problems but we’re all here to help—my parents, Jacco, me—all of us. It’ll all come right. It really will and there’ll be the dear little baby.”

  “I can’t think of it like that. There’s too much to be faced. I never thought this would happen. I thought we were going to be happy together.”

  “You should perhaps let John know.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Then you could be married.�
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  “No, no.” She sounded hysterical so I said quietly: “No, I suppose not. Do you mind if I tell my mother?”

  “I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “But they will know in time and they’ll help. I know they will.”

  “I feel so much better now you know.”

  “Poor Helena. What you must have gone through … and all because of what happened …”

  I thought, If it hadn’t been for that chairmanship they would have gone on as planned and nobody would have known.

  “Helena,” I said, “you have been very sick. Ever since you came on board.”

  “Yes, I think that’s what it was. I feel awful sometimes in the mornings.”

  “You should have told me right away.”

  “I couldn’t. But you know now.”

  “Helena, I want to tell my mother in the morning. She will know what is best to be done. Do let me tell her.”

  After some hesitation she said: “All right. And you’ll help me, won’t you, Annora?”

  “We all will. I’ll do anything in the world, I promise.”

  “I’m so glad to be with you.”

  “I’m glad we’re here. It will be all right, Helena, I know it will.”

  “I feel it might be, now that you know,” she said. “It’s like a great weight being lifted from my mind.”

  I felt immensely gratified, and a great tenderness swept over me and with it a desire to protect Helena.

  I took the first opportunity of talking to my mother. I told her that I had something very important to say and that I wanted to talk to her alone.

  We found a spot on deck. The sea had turned choppy and we were alone there. We sat down on a bench and I burst out: “Helena is going to have a baby.”

  I had rarely seen her so startled.

  “A baby!” she echoed.

  “Yes. She thought she and John were going to be married, you see.”

  “Oh yes. I see.”

  “What shall we do?”

  My mother was silent for a while. Then she said: “Poor girl. No wonder she’s been looking as though she would like to jump overboard.”