Going Home (5 page)

As he watched them he lowered his spear which was now a firestick. The clearing was becoming cultivated, grass was growing and trees and bushes sprouted from the ground, their bare branches now covered with unfolding
leaves. Mimosa bushes were opening up bright yellow flowers which smothered him with their perfume. Tall trees shed silver-grey leaves down on him, and on the slim branches koala bears were hunched, chewing on tender gum-tree leaves. He could hear the hum of bees and he felt the sweetness of honey on his lips and as he looked up, cascades of waterfalls rushed down high escarpments and fell into crystal-clear streams and rivers.

He opened his eyes. Daylight was filtering through the treetops and Ralph was stirring beneath his blanket. Jack sat up and stared into space. Who am I? Am I a black man living in a white man’s world or a mixed breed belonging to neither? What part of my ancestry is the stronger?

Ralph sat up too and blinked. ‘I’ve had the strangest dream,’ he croaked. ‘But I know now what I am going to do. I’m going to England to find out who I am and where I came from.’

Jack nodded. His mind was still hazy from his own dream-filled night, yet he knew that he had to cross the long bridge between black and white. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘And I am coming with you.’

‘
LET’S GO HOME,
Ginny! I’m bored and I’m cold.’ Amelia pulled her fur collar up around her neck.

‘You’ll have to be patient, Miss Amelia.’ Ginny’s tone was sharp. ‘You were bored at home and wanted to come. You didn’t have to. Besides, Miss May still has to choose the material for her winter dresses, and we need more buttons and thread.’

Amelia sighed. ‘I hate shopping. Do be quick, May, and make up your mind.’

They had visited drapers, mercers and haberdashers in the town of Hull, but sixteen-year-old May could not decide whether to choose a rich dark red velvet which she thought looked so grown-up and Amelia said looked like curtains, or a pretty shade of green. ‘I wish Mama had come,’ she complained. ‘She would have helped me to decide. Amelia, you are of no help at all!’

‘Your mother doesn’t like to visit Hull, you
know that.’ Ginny now became cross with May. ‘The crowds make her nervous.’

‘The green is lovely. No really, May, I mean it. Have the green, it’s very pretty with your fair colouring.’ Amelia smiled sweetly at her sister. Anything, she groaned inwardly. Just choose anything and let’s go home!

‘It’s time you were married with a house full of children,’ Ginny grumbled at Amelia as they trundled home in the carriage. ‘That would stop you being bored.’

‘You never did, Ginny! Why inflict marriage on me? Anyway, I haven’t met anyone I want to marry.’

‘Your time in Switzerland hasn’t improved you, Miss, and anyway I’ve been too busy looking after all of you to think of getting married myself,’ Ginny retaliated and Amelia pondered that they must be the only family in the whole of the country who were put in their place and ruled so firmly by their housekeeper; even herself at nearly nineteen when she was supposed to be considered grown-up.

Then she relented as she always did and smiled mischievously at Ginny. ‘Poor old Ginny. What a lot you have to put up with. Six of us! It’s a wonder you and Mama are not white-haired.’

‘I comb cold tea on my hair,’ Ginny retorted. ‘Otherwise I would be.’

It was dark by the time they arrived home. The lamps were lit and the fires burning in all of the rooms and the two sisters asked if they could
have their supper from a tray by the fire in the sitting room. Ten-year-old Lily was curled up in a chair reading a book and blinked sleepily as they entered, and the eight-year-old twins Joseph and Hannah were stretched out on the floor drawing pictures.

‘Did you bring us a present,’ they chorused without even looking up.

‘Certainly not! Why would we do that?’ Amelia gave a secret smile at Ginny who had her arms full of parcels and placed them on a side table before leaving the room.

‘You did. You did!’ The twins jumped up immediately and Lily put down her book and looked up with interest.

‘No. I brought something for Lily, because she never asks.’ Amelia gave her young sister a box of chocolates and was rewarded with a kiss. ‘But as for you two, have you done anything to deserve a present?’

‘We’ve been very good today,’ Hannah said seriously. ‘And we haven’t made a lot of noise,’ added Joseph. ‘Well, not too much.’

‘Well, all right then.’ Amelia relented and picking up two more parcels handed them to the twins, a wooden engine for Joseph and a Russian doll for Hannah.

‘You indulge them, Amelia,’ her mother remonstrated as she entered the room.

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘Ginny says I should get married and have a house full of children of my own.’

‘Not yet,’ her mother disagreed. Marrying off her daughters was not a priority in her eyes. ‘You’re not ready yet!’

‘I’m not,’ she allowed. ‘And besides, no man would have me! I’m far too controversial and self-opinionated. Most men that I’ve come across want a pretty little lady to adore them and agree with whatever they do or say.’

‘And how many young men have you met who are looking for those requirements?’ Her mother poured the tea from a flowered china pot.

‘Well, not so many I admit! But when I was in Switzerland, young men were invited to the Academy just so that we could practise the lessons we had been taught; the art of polite conversation and so on.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid you and Papa wasted your money, Mama. I never was commended. I was told time and again that I was far too outspoken.’

Her mother laughed. ‘I might have known. But you wanted to travel. It seemed for the best.’

Amelia dropped her voice so that the younger children couldn’t hear. ‘I have to do something, Mama! I need an occupation!’

‘Your father and I have been discussing that. We know that you have been restless since you returned home, and we wondered if you would like to stay with Aunt Anna for a while?’

‘Aunt Anna! But how would that help?’ One of
her father’s sisters was married to a businessman and lived in York.

‘Well, you are not fully occupied here, and I thought that as York is such a busy city and Anna is involved in so many things, there would be more for you to do than there is in Holderness. There would be concerts to attend, and the theatre and the chance to meet people; and you would be perfectly safe under their roof.’

Amelia lifted her head and looked thoughtful. ‘Aunt Anna does
good works
doesn’t she?’

‘She does.’ Her mother smiled. ‘But she isn’t pious. Quite the contrary. She stirs up authority and people’s consciences.’

‘So what is she doing now?’

Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you write and ask her?’

‘Perhaps I’ll write and ask if I might visit. I’ll go before winter really sets in and the weather’s too cold.’

It was agreed she should visit and her father took her to the Hull railway station the following week acompanied by Nancy, one of the maids. Amelia had wanted to travel alone but her father, and also her mother, had refused to allow it. ‘It’s not fair,’ she’d complained. ‘I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way there. Why should I have someone with me the whole time? You never did, Mama, when you were young!’

Her mother had shaken her head at her. ‘It
was different for me, as you very well know, Amelia. Our lives were not the same. And you may think I had more freedom than you, but I hadn’t. I had much less.’

Amelia was contrite. What a pig I am, she’d thought. I am so inconsiderate. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. Of course you are right to be worried.’ But she still railed against what she thought of as the restraints of womanhood.

‘I’ll write when I’m returning, Papa,’ she said, kissing him goodbye at the station. ‘Just one or two weeks, that’s all. Aunt Anna will have had a sufficiency of my company by then.’

She felt sooty, cold and crumpled when she left the train at York and on arriving at her relatives’ house was pleased to be shown to a pleasant room, which in daylight overlooked the Knavesmire. There was a bright fire burning and a brass kettle of hot water waiting, which Nancy poured into a bowl so that Amelia could wash and change before going down to supper.

Aunt Anna and her husband Albert hadn’t any children of their own, but Anna made up for this deficiency by looking after everyone else she came into contact with, and she fussed over Amelia, making sure she had the best seat by the fire and a footstool for her feet, and a fire screen just by her so that the heat of the flames didn’t spoil her complexion.

‘I’m perfectly comfortable, Aunt, thank you,’ Amelia insisted as her aunt plumped up a cushion behind her. ‘Really I am.’

‘Do you follow the racing, Amelia?’ Albert boomed. ‘Lots of ladies do nowadays. Grand sport, you know.’

Amelia smiled. Her uncle had chosen this house especially for its close proximity to the racecourse on the Knavesmire. ‘I have been to Beverley once or twice with some friends and their parents,’ she said.

‘Then you must come with us some time,’ he said, ‘though your aunt isn’t very keen.’

‘Phww,’ his wife snorted. ‘I have other things to do with my time; besides, the ladies who do go are only interested in what everyone is wearing. They’re not in the least interested in the horses!’

‘So, what is occupying you at the moment, Aunt? Have you taken up a cause?’

‘I have, and you may well be interested, my dear. We could do with someone like you. Young and unmarried with time on her hands.’

Amelia raised her eyebrows. Aunt Anna was forthright to say the least, but it was a trait she admired, particularly in women. ‘Tell me about it,’ she invited. ‘Although of course I won’t be imposing my company on you for long, I must be home in time to prepare for Christmas.’

They were interrupted by the sound of the supper bell but as they entered the dining room and took their places at the table which was set with fine silver and fragrant bowls of flowers, Anna discoursed on her latest pet
project. The plight of the Irish immigrants in York.

‘You see, most of them came over to England years ago, when the railways began. There was no work in Ireland but plenty here in England. The Irish navvies came in their thousands and the women and children followed. Now, of course, there is no work for any of them, and in any case the inhabitants of this country resent them. They say there isn’t enough work for our own people, let alone the Irish.’

She toyed with her soup, then pushed her dish away. ‘And of course they are perfectly right. But they can’t go back to their own country. There’s nothing for them there either.’

Her husband grunted. ‘Lazy good-for-nothings most of ’em! All they seem to do is sing about how good it was in Ireland and how they wish they were back. They should go, that’s what I say!’

Amelia ignored his remark and asked her aunt, ‘So how are you able to help them?’

‘Well, it’s the children really that I want to help. I would like to think that they have a chance even if their parents haven’t. So I’m trying to get them into school. The boys are most unwilling and don’t stay more than a day or two, and some of the children are Catholic and their mothers will only let them go to a Catholic school, if they will agree to them going at all.’

She sighed and looked down at her plate
which had been served with cold beef and ham. ‘You see, Amelia, most of these people are so poor that they need the children to work to bring in some money, but there are one or two families who do want their children to have an education, and so I am able to place them into school.’

‘And who pays for the children’s education?’ Amelia asked and glanced at her uncle as he gave a snort.

‘Various benefactors.’ He answered for his wife. ‘Your aunt has amazing powers of persuasion.’ He nodded his head sagely. ‘Believe me, Amelia. She could charm the tail off a donkey!’

Amelia glanced from one to the other; she believed he was right. ‘But how do you think I can help? I don’t have any money of my own.’

‘Oh, I don’t want your money, my dear.’ Aunt Anna was aghast. ‘No, that wasn’t my intention at all. But we do need some practical help. Well, here you are, heaven sent. An intelligent, well-educated young woman.’

Well-educated! Amelia laughed and thought of the two schools who had asked her parents to remove her as they said she was disruptive and was leading the other children astray.

‘You’re just the person,’ her aunt continued. ‘You can help the Misses Fielding – if you will,’ she added. ‘They would be so pleased!’

‘But,’ asked Amelia, slightly bemused, ‘who
are the Misses Fielding? And help them in what?’

‘Oh! Didn’t I say? Two sisters. They run a small school in York for poor children.’ Anna beamed at her. ‘You can be a teacher!’

‘
GOODNESS, IT’S SO
hot down in Sydney. There are people fainting in the streets!’ Phoebe came into the drawing room and flung herself onto a sofa, kicking off her shoes as she did so. ‘And guess what everyone is talking about, Mama! I met Josephine Challis and she had heard it from Louise Mortimer.’

Mrs Boyle smiled and stood back to admire her flower arrangement, which she then placed on a corner table. ‘Those two young women are becoming regular gossips!’ she murmured. ‘Whose character are they dissecting now?’

‘No. No.’ Phoebe protested. ‘Not who – what! Louise heard it directly from Ralph himself.’

‘Ralph?’ Her mother raised her eyebrows. ‘I suppose you mean Mr Ralph Hawkins? You young people do not concern yourselves with the niceties of manners any more!’

‘Oh, Mama! I have known Ralph Hawkins since we were at dame school! He wouldn’t expect me to call him
Mr
Hawkins any more
than I would expect him to call me Miss Boyle. Unless you or Papa were present, of course, and then he would!’

Her mother sighed; her strong-willed daughter always seemed to win arguments. ‘So what is it that you heard? Though if it is something disreputable I do not wish to know!’

‘Oh, nothing disagreeable. Quite the contrary and I am
so
envious.’ Phoebe got up and walked across to the open window. She looked out at the small neat garden and the view of the harbour below, which was filled with sailing ships and steamers. ‘He’s going to England!’