The Philosopher's Daughters Read online

  Violet seemed to feel this more keenly than Harriet. ‘It’s my friend to whom you should apologise,’ she said. She smiled at the man, the sweetness of her expression tempering the sharpness of her words as she added, ‘Please don’t treat her as if she were invisible.’

  Then she straightened her hat and pattered down the stairs, cutting a swathe through the ascending throng. Together with the man who had bumped into her, Harriet watched Violet in admiration until she was out of sight.

  Chapter 7

  Yellow Silk Slippers and Sunlight

  It was stupid to wonder if Charles Barclay mightn’t turn up at the time they’d agreed upon. In all the years Harriet had known him he’d never been unpunctual. Not long before he was due to arrive, she set up, on an easel in her father’s study, the painting he’d commissioned from her several months before.

  This was her second commission. Her first was for Aunt Charlotte, who had initially wanted a portrait of her beloved spaniel. Harriet had eventually persuaded her to settle for a painting of an interior in which her spaniel was seated on a red velvet armchair looking quite anthropomorphic; indeed that had been the point. Charles had been present when Aunt Charlotte had collected her painting and had appeared captivated by either the painting or the spaniel. It was several months after this that he’d placed his commission. A view from the house in which his friend and mentor James Cameron lived and wrote, he’d said. Not of her father but of what her father saw when he looked over the gardens; what visitors to the house saw when they sat in the drawing room. A symbol, Harriet had concluded. Inside looking out. The interior world and the outside stimulation.

  After Rose let Charles into the house, Harriet took him into the study, where a coal fire was burning in the grate. The painting was shrouded in a white cloth over which firelight fluttered. She hesitated, not wanting to remove the cover. The scent of witch hazel, in a vase on the desk, filled the air and overpowered the usual musty smell of the books in the cases occupying all the available wall space. The curtains hadn’t yet been drawn over the window and a half moon was visible through the top sash. Completely framed in one of the panes, it looked almost as if it were stuck there, immovable.

  Glancing at Charles, she saw he was jiggling his thick black eyebrows, raising first one and then the other in that comical fashion that had always made her laugh when she was a child. But she was a child no longer, and although she recognised his intention was to make her relax, she felt a heightened apprehension. She stood facing him so she could watch his expression. Poker-faced he undoubtedly was when it came to his own feelings, but maybe she would observe him showing some emotion; disappointment maybe or, if she were lucky, satisfaction. His opinion mattered to her; for years he’d been a part of their lives, almost a part of their family, more uncle than older brother.

  ‘It’s not as I intended,’ she said, whipping the cloth off the painting. ‘Not at all.’

  After a moment, Charles said, ‘I love it. You’ve framed it perfectly by including the window frame. You’ve made it clear it’s the view from James Cameron’s drawing room and not just a view of the gardens.’

  Harriet felt her spirits lift. Charles liked the painting; perhaps he’d understood what she was trying to convey. Yet suddenly his expression changed and she was shocked by what she saw. He was showing emotion: he was showing affection but not of an avuncular or brotherly kind. He bent towards her. Surely he wasn’t going to try to kiss her. She stepped back and busied herself folding up the cloth that had covered the painting, into smaller and smaller squares, anything to avoid that needy look in his eyes.

  ‘Let me paint you another view of the gardens.’ She wanted to distract him, wanted to apologise, although she was unsure for what. ‘From Father’s study this time. That’s the outlook we should have chosen first.’ She laughed and realised her laughter sounded like that of Aunt Charlotte when she was unamused; tinkling social laughter, not spontaneous.

  She went to the window. Putting her hand on a pane of glass, she felt its coldness. Charles moved to her side. They stood together, looking out at the view. The half-moon had shifted slightly and illuminated the garden and cast deep shadows on the unkempt lawn. Harriet shivered and closed the curtains, shutting off the view, closing off what had happened.

  To end the silence, she seized on the first thing that came into her mind. ‘I should like to travel,’ she said. ‘On my own, dressed as a man. I should make a handsome man, don’t you think?’

  ‘You must dress as you wish. But you should realise that you’re now sounding just like Mrs Smythe.’

  She knew that Charles was really saying that she was being silly.

  ‘That’s not kind to Mrs Smythe,’ she told him. She thought of Mrs Smythe and her volumes of exquisitely sensitive poetry, published under the pseudonym of John George, the names of her two boys. Mrs Smythe wasn’t silly but she tried to conceal her identity behind a carapace of youthful playfulness. Harriet knew that Charles liked her poetry but this was the first time he’d revealed his opinion of her frivolity. It was also the first time he’d revealed he had emotions. He must be very provoked indeed.

  She had always thought of him as rationality personified.

  * * *

  Harriet washed her face in the basin in her bedroom, and removed the hairpins restraining her hair. In the dressing-table mirror she watched her reflection as her hair fell across her cheeks like smooth brown curtains. She bent forward so her hair completely concealed her face and then flicked it back.

  What had happened with Charles that afternoon was bothering her still. He had become overfond of her, the sort of attachment she thought she’d never inspire. Of course, she was fond of him too; for years she’d held him in the highest regard. When she was small, he’d been her father’s pupil at Oxford and a regular visitor to their house. Later he took a civil service job in the Colonial Office. Some years afterwards, when Father had become a professor of moral philosophy at University College in London, Charles had continued visiting the house in Gower Street.

  She wondered if her affection for him could ever develop into something stronger. She doubted it. This was not through any flaw in Charles’ character: he was a good man, an intelligent man. It was simply that she didn’t want love of that kind. It was too constraining.

  But she would hate any misunderstanding to jeopardise their friendship. Perhaps she’d been mistaken when she thought Charles was about to kiss her. Yes, that must be it: she’d been mistaken. He’d simply been leaning forward to get a better look at the painting. No wonder he’d appeared perplexed by her behaviour. Perhaps he was afterwards mortified to think she’d misinterpreted his action, that simple inclination towards her.

  Yet he’d been too close, his lips barely a couple of inches from her own, until she’d moved away. And there was his expression too; was that what desire looked like? Or perhaps it wasn’t desire at all but need, as she’d thought at the time. If only she had more experience, or someone with whom she could talk over such things. A mother would surely notice, as would Sarah. But Sarah had gone and she certainly couldn’t talk over such matters with Father, nor did she want to with Aunt Charlotte or with Violet.

  On the dressing-table top was the old ivory-backed hairbrush that used to be her mother’s. She picked it up and began to brush her hair, sweeping away her cares, in 200 long smooth strokes, until her scalp was tingling. Though it was pointless yearning for her mother, logic couldn’t banish those memories that had come to her more frequently since Sarah had left. She remembered her mother as a lively loving person. But perhaps her memories might be no more than a crude caricature of the truth. Or worse, even a misrepresentation of the truth.

  No, surely she was wrong. The last memory of her mother was unchanged, it was unchanging, a constant in her life. The sunlight, slanting across the room, illuminated her mother, who was lying in bed, laughing. Four-
year-old Harriet crawled across the floorboards to the Persian rug to retrieve the decapitated doll’s head that had landed there. Her carefully choreographed puppet show wasn’t going to plan. She hadn’t intended that the main character should literally lose her head in mid-scene, but her mother was enjoying the diversion so much that Harriet abandoned her original plan and began to improvise. She pretended that her crawling across the floor was an intended part of the play, that she was actress as well as puppeteer. While her mother clapped, she crouched down again out of sight at the end of her bed and restored the doll’s head to its torso before resuming the scene. The more her mother laughed, the more improvisations Harriet introduced. She lifted the dolls up and down and had them turn up in surprising parts of the bed, now one side, and now another, the slanting rays of the sun illuminating the dolls like spotlights in a theatre. Her perspective of the room was child’s-eye. She saw the detail of the floorboards, the enormous fireplace, and even some balls of dust under the bed, next to which her mother’s yellow silk slippers were neatly lined up, taking the shape of two disembodied feet.

  The twenty-two-year-old Harriet felt soothed by this memory. And she still had those slippers. She took them out of the drawer where she kept them and carefully removed the layers of tissue paper wrapping. Putting one hand inside each slipper, she held them up to the light. For a moment she felt comforted by them, comforted by the memory of yellow silk slippers and sunlight, her last recollection of her mother.

  Then her vision blurred. Yellow silk slippers and sunlight were all very well. But with Sarah gone, she had no one left to talk to about the things that mattered. Irritably she wiped her eyes. She was strong, and would weep for no one, least of all for herself.

  Chapter 8

  ‘I’d Put Money on Rationality Any Day’

  It was early December before Harriet received a letter from Sarah. There were a couple of postcards from Aden and Colombo, and Sarah telegraphed as soon as she and Henry arrived in Sydney. Yet you didn’t learn much from a telegram. Especially one that simply stated, ‘ARRIVED SAFELY STUNNING SCENERY BOTH WELL LETTER FOLLOWS LOVE SARAH.’ Even the most imaginative mind could only guess at the nature of the stunning scenery and wait with growing impatience for the letter.

  At last it arrived. On a cold bleak Monday morning, Rose deposited the morning post on the breakfast table next to Harriet’s plate and stood there, breathing heavily. Harriet glanced at the pile of letters, on the top of which lay an envelope embellished with Sarah’s neat copperplate writing.

  ‘It’s come,’ said Rose and coughed.

  ‘I’ll read you the news later,’ said Harriet. ‘As soon as breakfast’s over.’ She shuffled through the pile of letters to see if her father had also received one from Sarah. There was another slimmer envelope addressed to him and she put it next to his plate. Then she sliced open the top of her envelope and pulled out the closely written sheets.

  Dearest Harriet,

  You’ll be wondering about us, so I’m sending this to you right away, even though it’s a rather brief affair. We’ve been in Sydney for a week and have been busy every day. To begin with, we stayed with the Arnotts, who were so kind to Henry when he was here before. They’ve been kind to me too, treating me as if I’m a member of their large family. Before we’d even arrived here, Mrs Arnott went to the trouble of finding several possible places for us to rent.

  Last week we visited all of these and have now taken the loveliest rooms in a house right next to the harbour. We fell asleep last night to the sound of water lapping against the sandstone shelf not far from our window and in the morning we awoke to hear magpies carolling. Then we heard the strangest sound, like a rusty door creaking, and Henry told me it was probably a gang-gang cockatoo, a rare sight even in Sydney.

  You would love the light here. Clear and bright, it makes the eucalyptus leaves shimmer in the early mornings and evenings, although in the middle of the day – or when the sky is overcast – they can look a rather drab olive-green. The harbour too sparkles and I’m sure, if you were here, you’d want to paint the light and the waves, and become frustrated immediately, because even you can’t convert paint into pure light, although you’re so talented!

  The voyage out seemed to go on for ever, to begin with. I was seasick for the first week and although Henry was most attentive, I missed you and Rose terribly. Then I rallied and spent much of my time on deck with Henry, at first keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon until I was confident that the seasickness was a thing of the past, and then we began to read those books you thoughtfully provided before we embarked. Henry and I took turns reading to each other. He has such a lovely voice and reads so expressively, and we passed many happy hours that way. I have to confess, however, that we haven’t yet finished Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, although we read a little bit of it each day while we were at sea.

  We made several friends on the ship but were glad on the whole to be left alone to get to know each other more, and how happy we are, although we’re so far away from family and friends. Henry has decided to work as a stock and station agent for a while. Mr Arnott has offered him employment, and he has accepted. He’ll start next week. Mr Arnott’s office is in an old sandstone building in Sussex Streets, not far from the wharves at Darling Harbour, a useful location because most of the produce is transported by ship. We visited the office this morning, and it seemed delightful, although very messy with paperwork everywhere, not to mention samples of grain and corn of various types that are quite foreign to me. I fear this work will involve much travelling on Henry’s part, which will mean absences from home (I am already calling these rooms home, although I haven’t yet had time to unpack all our things).

  The Arnotts held a party in our honour four days after we got here. I’m writing separately to Aunt Charlotte to tell her of the success of my blue silk dress, for I don’t want to bore you with details of the impression created by her good taste. Indeed, were I to tell you, I fear your prejudices about the divisive nature of fashion might be reinforced, for it became clear during the evening that the blue silk excited more envy than admiration from some of the younger women I met. However, since I intend to wear the same outfit to all possible events in future – a piece of information I shan’t be revealing to Aunt Charlotte – I’m sure that habit will breed indifference – if not contempt. After that I’ll wear some of the other outfits, but by then they will be so out of date that pity will come my way.

  Fortunately, Henry didn’t notice any of these niceties and we were united in our warm appreciation of the Arnotts for their kindness in every detail. I have never met such friendly and generous people; it must be something to do with the climate here that makes these people so.

  Last week we had a most enjoyable evening dining with Father’s old friends Professor and Mrs Morgan at their house near Mosman Bay. You would remember them from when we lived in Oxford, which the delightful Mrs Morgan talks of a lot, although she’s glad they emigrated. The good professor is shielded from the harsher realities of life by his wife and his great intellect. (Is this harsh? Perhaps people say of me that I’m protected by you and Father and Henry and my own musical fantasies!) Mrs Morgan is one of the kindest people I’ve ever come across. Once she learned where Henry and I met, she invited us to accompany her to the next meeting of the local equivalent of the Women’s Franchise League. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what you, my beloved sister, know – that Henry was at that WFL meeting entirely by accident. Mrs M certainly makes me feel connected, and I’m more than happy for this connection to extend to the entire WFL membership, whose cause is undeniably of the greatest importance.

  There are just two things that mar my happiness – the absence of my family and the lack of a piano. While the latter can be easily fixed (and indeed a piano will be arriving next week), the former can’t, unless you can be persuaded to pack your bags and come to see us in this
new city. A city that seems, even after over a century since settlement, to be sitting precariously on the edge of this vast continent whose interior is, according to the books you gave us, still so little understood.

  I must finish – the mail will be collected in two hours and I have yet to write to Father and Aunt Charlotte. I promise I’ll write again soon. I’m looking forward so much to hearing from you and I hope a letter will be arriving any day, although it would be unreasonable to have expected correspondence to have got here ahead of us! It seems so long, dearest Hattie, since I last heard from you.

  With all my love,

  Sarah

  Harriet read the letter through twice. Her immediate desire was to dash off a reply but she felt so cold that she dragged her chair closer to the coal fire and huddled over it while imagining Sarah living by the water in a country where winter was summer. Shutting her eyes, she visualised herself sitting in Sydney on a sandstone ledge by the harbour, watching triangles of light flicker off the surface of the sea below an enamelled blue sky. Try as she might she couldn’t conjure Henry into this little fantasy, though it was easy to picture Sarah inside the stone house a few yards away from the water’s edge.

  Distracted by an unexpected sound, Harriet opened her eyes and was surprised to see Charles Barclay smiling down at her and asking how she was.

  ‘Perfectly well,’ she said, struggling with difficulty out of her reverie, or perhaps it was a dream, and noting with surprise that she was still in Gower Street. She offered Charles a chair and some tea. Afterwards she read him selected passages from Sarah’s letter.

  ‘She sounds very happy.’ Charles stared at the coals in the grate, as if they were the reason for his visit.

  Harriet felt she was a poor hostess this morning, transported so suddenly from Sydney where she’d been on the verge of discovering the meaning of light on water. ‘I expect Father will be down shortly,’ she said at last, to break the silence.