WINNER 2015 NEW WRITER COMPETITION
Congratulations to Judith Leask, winner of our 2015 New Writer Competition with her entry 'A New Light'.
Judith has won £40, a free entry to our Open Short Story Competition with free critique, and online publication.
We thoroughly enjoyed reading 'A New Light'. We thought the characters interesting and intriguing. The engaging story full of action kept us gripped and eager to discover how it ended. Scroll down the page to read Judith's winning entry.
Keep an eye on this website for our 2016 competition schedule to be issued end of September where we will announce our 2016 New Writer Competition. Alternatively, email Debbie at erewashwriterscomps(at)hotmail.co.uk if you'd like to be added to our competition information mailing list.
About Judith Leask
Judith Leask’s favourite period for literary-based escapism is the early 19th century. Having taken up writing around 9 months ago, she has been working on some longer pieces from that era, imagining that they may tie together to become a novel. With a husband, two small-ish children and a full-time job, Judith appreciates her occasional evenings with the Stratford Wordsmiths group, who have helped her enormously. The book currently distracting Judith from her writing is David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks.
A New Light
“It is coming! The Cormorant is coming in! It’s been spotted by the lookout!”
Theodore Harrison looked up from his book to see an excited girl flying towards him through the garden, tripping down the steps by the fountain and neatly side-stepping the abundant purple flowers of the bougainvillea vine that was threatening to overtake the gravel path. He smiled at her indulgently.
“Are you quite sure? When was it spotted?”
“I saw the messenger come up the driveway just a few moments ago, and overheard him say in the hall that the ship had just been sighted. It will still be a long way off, I am sure. Say we still have time to go and look!” At eleven years old, Amelia was slightly too old to jump up and down with excitement, and looked as though she were only just restraining herself.
The expected arrival of His Majesty’s Ship the Cormorant, one of the few remaining ships-of-the-line still in service and larger than any seen in the West Indies for the last three years, had caused much excitement amongst the colony’s inhabitants. Most were anticipating an enlivened round of social activities, but Amelia just wanted to watch the ship make its way into the bay. Harrison, secretly as keen to view the spectacle as Amelia, had promised to take her to the cliffs above the point to see it.
The coolness and the sudden shade of the large, marbled hallway came as a relief to him as he followed Amelia inside, allowing him to relax his face and see more easily – and what he saw was the small figure of Miss Gilmore, Amelia’s governess, paused in her descent of the stairs.
“Amelia – there you are!” began Miss Gilmore, before her excited pupil interrupted her with the news of the ship. Harrison watched the dappled, coloured light from the stair window play over her face as she listened, her expression changing from keen interest to a wary concern.
“Oh, I had not thought to go out this morning, Amelia, I do not like the way that this breeze blows”. As a crestfallen expression came over the child’s face, she hastened to explain her concern over the warm breeze that had been blowing from over the mountains since the preceding evening – she feared a storm was building.
“But it is surely far too early in the year for a storm,” Harrison responded to a look of mute appeal from Amelia, “and this wind would barely be termed a ‘stiff breeze’ on board a ship. I acknowledge your greater experience of this island’s peculiarities, Miss Gilmore,” – this with a charming smile and a slight bow, met with a shy smile in return – “but perhaps the occasion might merit a sense of… adventure?
”Harrison wondered at the misgivings that the young governess had expressed, as they exited the west gate of the formal gardens and took the path between the fruit-trees towards the sea. Although he did not know her well, he had not perceived her to be excessively nervous - and the sky was its usual brilliant blue, the crashing of the palm-tops as they were shaken by sudden gusts was nothing unusual. But the direction in which they were leaning was out of the ordinary, he admitted.
As Amelia ran on ahead a little way to catch sight of the sea, her pale blue dress sending out long white ribbon streamers from her waist, Harrison considered his shy companion, who was walking a little apart from him as if unsure of the propriety of their situation.
Since taking up residence at Government House, somewhat at a loose end since his position in the Navy had concluded its term, he had found it difficult to make Jane Gilmore out. She had evidently led, or at least encouraged, a broad education for the governor’s daughter - he had on a few occasions been surprised by the maturity of Amelia’s conversation. She possessed a strong understanding, for her age, of history and international events, and he had very much enjoyed discussing them with her; the complexity of her questions about the natural world indicating that she possessed an unusually sharp mind, for a girl.
But he had had very little conversation with Miss Gilmore herself – he had found it difficult to draw her into his discussions with Amelia. He suspected she was holding back – was this just a natural feminine reserve? Or had she reached the limits of her capacity to instruct Amelia? He moved a little closer to her in order to begin a conversation while searching for something to say, unsure of what he would learn of her.
“Have you lived your whole life on this island, Miss Gilmore?” was his opening enquiry.
“Yes, I have, Mr Harrison,” she replied, looking up with a slight smile.
“And so you must have had a fine governess yourself – there is no school for girls on this island.”
Miss Gilmore paused briefly. “No, I did not have a governess. I was brought up with my cousins, who had a tutor.”
“How fortunate for you that your relatives provided this for you,” Harrison observed.
Miss Gilmore looked a little troubled at this, looking down at her hands and rubbing her thumbs together for a moment. “I was not supposed to be his pupil, but my aunt cared very little about what I did, and I found that, as long as I took care to keep my work to myself, I could receive the same education as my cousins did.”
“What made it necessary to keep your work to yourself? I hope you will forgive my curiosity.” Harrison could sense an interesting tale lay behind these fairly bland remarks.
“My cousins – well, for the most part, it was my aunt, really – they did not take kindly to my displaying a good level of education. My elder cousin once had a fit of melancholy after I completed an exercise in mathematics more quickly than he did, which infuriated my aunt. I think I understand - they were boys, they were well-bred and of, well, pure English descent, which I clearly am not.”
Harrison was a little surprised at her allusion to her darker skin, which hinted at the likelihood of a slave ancestor somewhere. Perhaps she feels this as an injustice, he thought. He decided to steer away from that line of conversation.
“And so you sat at the back of their school-room every day, and completed their lessons?”
“I was very fortunate that the tutor was a kind man, and he aided me in my subterfuge,” Miss Gilmore replied with a slight smile. “He would, for the most part, ignore me when teaching my cousins, but would mark my work later. He was a great lover of the works of Shakespeare, and would even secretly loan me his books.”
“I am astonished that your aunt did not realise where such an education might lead for you.”
“I do not believe she thought a very great deal about me at all,” Miss Gilmore said reflectively. “She seemed genuinely shocked when I informed her that I had been offered this position as governess.”
Harrison was amused at the idea of this scene. He looked around him for a while, taking in the houses that they could see, of varying sizes; although none were so grand as Government House, he was able to admire some neatly-painted wooden structures with columns standing proudly before their grand entrances. Far from tiring of his conversation with Miss Gilmore, he wanted to know more. Had she simply learned to hold back in formal company, he wondered?
As they made their way along the coastal path, climbing higher above the sea, he found himself speaking of his own childhood – the crowded school, the severe masters who favoured the better-off boys, and his seeming inability to know when and how to look cowed and remain silent, which had resulted in so much woe. Amelia was thoroughly delighted by his tales, amused by the idea that such a knowledgeable adult could once have been a troublesome boy at school.
The walkers made good time in their keenness to look out for the ship – a walk of half an hour took them to the point above the town where the flat grassy terrain allowed a good view of the sea on three sides. Having decided on the spot from which to look, Harrison put down his knapsack containing a number of prized books, a navigational chart of the bay showing depth soundings, a telescope, and a compass.
The long grasses that covered the headland were streaming out flat in the wind, which had perceptibly strengthened in the time that they had been walking. For the first time, Harrison took notice of the worsening weather. The strength of the breeze was becoming unpleasant, but it was not unusual – Harrison’s two years on the island told him this. What caught his attention was its direction – from over the land, rather than off the sea. Was this significant? He thought not. Amelia was exclaiming at the sight of the ship, and his attention was taken up with finding the books and the chart and looking through the telescope at the particular set of the sails.
They studied the chart, and decided the course the ship would take from its present position; they watched the sails change shape as it manoeuvred; and Harrison watched the expression on Amelia’s face, the fascinated concentration causing her brow to furrow. He took delight in seeing this change to glee as the ship turned when they had predicted it would, her hazel-green eyes looking up at him with a smile in them, as she held back her wavy chestnut hair that had broken free from under her hat and flew forwards over her face.
The wind – it was blowing from the east, he now realised, as he looked at the chart again. He recalled Miss Gilmore’s expression of concern that she did not like the way it blew from over the mountains. Harrison had been fortunate enough never to have experienced a hurricane during his time in the Caribbean, but he was sailor enough to know that a warm easterly wind could mean trouble. It was at this moment that he caught Miss Gilmore’s eye.
Whatever happened, it was important to appear composed and unconcerned.
“Such a treacherous wind, Miss Gilmore. I think we are in for a little stormy weather after all. But perhaps it may not be too severe.” Harrison’s bright tone fell flat when, used as he was to receiving eager smiles, he instead caught her worried glance at the accumulating cloud that preceded her instruction to Amelia to gather their things.
It was too late, the rain broke before they could pack the books away, and Amelia cried out in distress as large raindrops broke upon the surface of the map and transformed themselves into dilute pools of ink, trailing pale blue and grey rivulets across the surface. She was having difficulty in keeping hold of it in the wind now; as Harrison reached across to assist, it was whipped away altogether, and sailed high into the air, turning over and over, out over the sea, soon lost to sight within the rain.
Harrison took hold of the bag which contained the books, roughly piled in, and they ran across the headland. A sudden gust drew a squeal from Amelia, causing him to reach for her hand; the wind caught the book bag and tipped it upside down. The books were half-soaked in any case, he told himself in his distress as he collected them from the ground, broken and muddy.
The perfect blue-green sea had now disappeared; what could still be seen of it through the near-impenetrable sheets of water descending from the sky was a turbulent and murky grey morass. The ship had reached the relative safety of the harbour and had hurriedly taken in all sail, although it continued to suffer from the crashing blows of the waves breaking over its bow and running along its decks.
Harrison was glad to have descended from the headland and moved away from the sea, but the wind was now so strong that he was finding it difficult to keep his footing; Amelia and Miss Gilmore, being so much smaller, were faring worse than he. Almost as terrifying were the objects flying through the air – he held his breath as a large palm branch passed not far above their heads.
Miss Gilmore was leading them towards the nearest building – it was some type of shed on the outskirts of the grounds of one of the properties. Harrison all but carried Amelia for the last few minutes, and was grateful that Miss Gilmore could manage to wrestle with the door, both to open and close it. Once inside, Amelia slumped wearily against it.
“Oh, no, Amelia, you must stay away from the door.” Miss Gilmore was anxiously looking up at the creaking roof as she spoke, then surveyed the interior of the shed. She moved several large boxes in front of the door – Harrison of course dived to help - then took her pupil by the arm. “Hide under the bench please. Quickly now!”
They pulled out a number of tool-cases, boxes of nails, and other assorted items from under the large wooden workbench that spanned the width of the shed away from the door, and crawled underneath. Harrison was in an agony of embarrassment, his every instinct as a well-bred, well-mannered gentleman rebelling against the idea of allowing these young ladies to sit, crowded in next to him, upon the bare earth floor. There was, however, no alternative; he was further in an agony of anxiety for their safety whilst under his care.
He began to reflect on Miss Gilmore’s quick thinking and cool-headed action, which were unexpected characteristics. Why had he never come across such traits in a woman before, he wondered? He soon realised that he had, but not in a genteel lady, which opened up a new train of thought.
Harrison’s world had been overwhelmingly filled with strong male company – at school, university, in the Navy. He remembered only brief flirtations with young ladies at society events, such as with the delightful Juliette at the governor’s ball a few weeks ago. Juliette had been in awe of his past responsibilities, and he had basked in the warmth of her admiration.
Amelia, meanwhile, was sitting between the two adults, her knees drawn up under her chin, leaning for comfort against her governess. Harrison and Miss Gilmore seemed to innately understand that their conversation should serve to distract and comfort Amelia – and also that, in doing this, they would distract and comfort themselves. Miss Gilmore said that they would use the time to practise mental arithmetic and the dates of the reigns of the kings and queens of England; this served for a time, punctuated by bangs and crashes of flying objects against the roof. At each of these moments all three of them instinctively ducked their heads; Harrison, more used to appearing calm in dangerous conditions, was able to observe and admire the effort of will that each of his companions made to focus once more on their mental task.
After their concentration had dwindled, they sat for some time listening to the strange, other-worldly noises of the wind whooping and howling around the building, and the heavy bursts of rain that intermittently pounded the roof. The wall to one side of them was running with water during these downpours, and rivulets snaked their way across the earth floor and around the various tools and equipment lying there, and forming muddy pools. At one point, Harrison ventured forth from underneath the bench to find some sacking to pile around their feet, which was only partially successful in keeping the water away.
“I’m afraid I will not be able to return you ladies to Government House in the immaculate condition of attire in which you left it,” he said light-heartedly. “Before very much longer we will be able to enjoy a mud-bath.”
Amelia seemed quite shocked that he should be concerned with their appearance in the circumstances; Miss Gilmore smiled at her. “Mr. Harrison has done all he can to help us, but he is worried that he will be blamed for what has happened to us. Your father though, will not hold him responsible for the weather.”
Harrison smiled in return, but knew that Amelia’s father would hold him responsible for what happened to them; and in any case, Harrison would hold himself to blame.
But the wind was beginning to calm, their voices were now more audible to each other, and in a short while more it was clear that a steady light rain had settled in. Harrison felt relief settle upon him like a blanket. He dared not catch Miss Gilmore’s eye – instead he crawled out from under the bench and unfolded his long limbs, easing the stiffness from his neck, and began to pull the boxes away from the door in order to look outside.
They ran most of the way home – not because of the rain, as their clothes were already soaked – but from relief, Amelia putting up her face and spreading her arms to the rain, to relish the abandonment of the concerns and expectations that would normally restrict her.
Harrison turned back to see the light in the sky to the west that was turning the clouds a fearful yellow-orange colour, highlighting their massive, dense, misshapen formations that provided a vast chaotic sky-scape.
There were many aspects of this day that would remain in Harrison’s memory – he refused to mourn the loss of his possessions, determinedly pushing the rankling remembrance of this from his mind. No, he would take with him something more valuable and less tangible, and he knew that he did not yet really understand what that was.
END
“It is coming! The Cormorant is coming in! It’s been spotted by the lookout!”
Theodore Harrison looked up from his book to see an excited girl flying towards him through the garden, tripping down the steps by the fountain and neatly side-stepping the abundant purple flowers of the bougainvillea vine that was threatening to overtake the gravel path. He smiled at her indulgently.
“Are you quite sure? When was it spotted?”
“I saw the messenger come up the driveway just a few moments ago, and overheard him say in the hall that the ship had just been sighted. It will still be a long way off, I am sure. Say we still have time to go and look!” At eleven years old, Amelia was slightly too old to jump up and down with excitement, and looked as though she were only just restraining herself.
The expected arrival of His Majesty’s Ship the Cormorant, one of the few remaining ships-of-the-line still in service and larger than any seen in the West Indies for the last three years, had caused much excitement amongst the colony’s inhabitants. Most were anticipating an enlivened round of social activities, but Amelia just wanted to watch the ship make its way into the bay. Harrison, secretly as keen to view the spectacle as Amelia, had promised to take her to the cliffs above the point to see it.
The coolness and the sudden shade of the large, marbled hallway came as a relief to him as he followed Amelia inside, allowing him to relax his face and see more easily – and what he saw was the small figure of Miss Gilmore, Amelia’s governess, paused in her descent of the stairs.
“Amelia – there you are!” began Miss Gilmore, before her excited pupil interrupted her with the news of the ship. Harrison watched the dappled, coloured light from the stair window play over her face as she listened, her expression changing from keen interest to a wary concern.
“Oh, I had not thought to go out this morning, Amelia, I do not like the way that this breeze blows”. As a crestfallen expression came over the child’s face, she hastened to explain her concern over the warm breeze that had been blowing from over the mountains since the preceding evening – she feared a storm was building.
“But it is surely far too early in the year for a storm,” Harrison responded to a look of mute appeal from Amelia, “and this wind would barely be termed a ‘stiff breeze’ on board a ship. I acknowledge your greater experience of this island’s peculiarities, Miss Gilmore,” – this with a charming smile and a slight bow, met with a shy smile in return – “but perhaps the occasion might merit a sense of… adventure?
”Harrison wondered at the misgivings that the young governess had expressed, as they exited the west gate of the formal gardens and took the path between the fruit-trees towards the sea. Although he did not know her well, he had not perceived her to be excessively nervous - and the sky was its usual brilliant blue, the crashing of the palm-tops as they were shaken by sudden gusts was nothing unusual. But the direction in which they were leaning was out of the ordinary, he admitted.
As Amelia ran on ahead a little way to catch sight of the sea, her pale blue dress sending out long white ribbon streamers from her waist, Harrison considered his shy companion, who was walking a little apart from him as if unsure of the propriety of their situation.
Since taking up residence at Government House, somewhat at a loose end since his position in the Navy had concluded its term, he had found it difficult to make Jane Gilmore out. She had evidently led, or at least encouraged, a broad education for the governor’s daughter - he had on a few occasions been surprised by the maturity of Amelia’s conversation. She possessed a strong understanding, for her age, of history and international events, and he had very much enjoyed discussing them with her; the complexity of her questions about the natural world indicating that she possessed an unusually sharp mind, for a girl.
But he had had very little conversation with Miss Gilmore herself – he had found it difficult to draw her into his discussions with Amelia. He suspected she was holding back – was this just a natural feminine reserve? Or had she reached the limits of her capacity to instruct Amelia? He moved a little closer to her in order to begin a conversation while searching for something to say, unsure of what he would learn of her.
“Have you lived your whole life on this island, Miss Gilmore?” was his opening enquiry.
“Yes, I have, Mr Harrison,” she replied, looking up with a slight smile.
“And so you must have had a fine governess yourself – there is no school for girls on this island.”
Miss Gilmore paused briefly. “No, I did not have a governess. I was brought up with my cousins, who had a tutor.”
“How fortunate for you that your relatives provided this for you,” Harrison observed.
Miss Gilmore looked a little troubled at this, looking down at her hands and rubbing her thumbs together for a moment. “I was not supposed to be his pupil, but my aunt cared very little about what I did, and I found that, as long as I took care to keep my work to myself, I could receive the same education as my cousins did.”
“What made it necessary to keep your work to yourself? I hope you will forgive my curiosity.” Harrison could sense an interesting tale lay behind these fairly bland remarks.
“My cousins – well, for the most part, it was my aunt, really – they did not take kindly to my displaying a good level of education. My elder cousin once had a fit of melancholy after I completed an exercise in mathematics more quickly than he did, which infuriated my aunt. I think I understand - they were boys, they were well-bred and of, well, pure English descent, which I clearly am not.”
Harrison was a little surprised at her allusion to her darker skin, which hinted at the likelihood of a slave ancestor somewhere. Perhaps she feels this as an injustice, he thought. He decided to steer away from that line of conversation.
“And so you sat at the back of their school-room every day, and completed their lessons?”
“I was very fortunate that the tutor was a kind man, and he aided me in my subterfuge,” Miss Gilmore replied with a slight smile. “He would, for the most part, ignore me when teaching my cousins, but would mark my work later. He was a great lover of the works of Shakespeare, and would even secretly loan me his books.”
“I am astonished that your aunt did not realise where such an education might lead for you.”
“I do not believe she thought a very great deal about me at all,” Miss Gilmore said reflectively. “She seemed genuinely shocked when I informed her that I had been offered this position as governess.”
Harrison was amused at the idea of this scene. He looked around him for a while, taking in the houses that they could see, of varying sizes; although none were so grand as Government House, he was able to admire some neatly-painted wooden structures with columns standing proudly before their grand entrances. Far from tiring of his conversation with Miss Gilmore, he wanted to know more. Had she simply learned to hold back in formal company, he wondered?
As they made their way along the coastal path, climbing higher above the sea, he found himself speaking of his own childhood – the crowded school, the severe masters who favoured the better-off boys, and his seeming inability to know when and how to look cowed and remain silent, which had resulted in so much woe. Amelia was thoroughly delighted by his tales, amused by the idea that such a knowledgeable adult could once have been a troublesome boy at school.
The walkers made good time in their keenness to look out for the ship – a walk of half an hour took them to the point above the town where the flat grassy terrain allowed a good view of the sea on three sides. Having decided on the spot from which to look, Harrison put down his knapsack containing a number of prized books, a navigational chart of the bay showing depth soundings, a telescope, and a compass.
The long grasses that covered the headland were streaming out flat in the wind, which had perceptibly strengthened in the time that they had been walking. For the first time, Harrison took notice of the worsening weather. The strength of the breeze was becoming unpleasant, but it was not unusual – Harrison’s two years on the island told him this. What caught his attention was its direction – from over the land, rather than off the sea. Was this significant? He thought not. Amelia was exclaiming at the sight of the ship, and his attention was taken up with finding the books and the chart and looking through the telescope at the particular set of the sails.
They studied the chart, and decided the course the ship would take from its present position; they watched the sails change shape as it manoeuvred; and Harrison watched the expression on Amelia’s face, the fascinated concentration causing her brow to furrow. He took delight in seeing this change to glee as the ship turned when they had predicted it would, her hazel-green eyes looking up at him with a smile in them, as she held back her wavy chestnut hair that had broken free from under her hat and flew forwards over her face.
The wind – it was blowing from the east, he now realised, as he looked at the chart again. He recalled Miss Gilmore’s expression of concern that she did not like the way it blew from over the mountains. Harrison had been fortunate enough never to have experienced a hurricane during his time in the Caribbean, but he was sailor enough to know that a warm easterly wind could mean trouble. It was at this moment that he caught Miss Gilmore’s eye.
Whatever happened, it was important to appear composed and unconcerned.
“Such a treacherous wind, Miss Gilmore. I think we are in for a little stormy weather after all. But perhaps it may not be too severe.” Harrison’s bright tone fell flat when, used as he was to receiving eager smiles, he instead caught her worried glance at the accumulating cloud that preceded her instruction to Amelia to gather their things.
It was too late, the rain broke before they could pack the books away, and Amelia cried out in distress as large raindrops broke upon the surface of the map and transformed themselves into dilute pools of ink, trailing pale blue and grey rivulets across the surface. She was having difficulty in keeping hold of it in the wind now; as Harrison reached across to assist, it was whipped away altogether, and sailed high into the air, turning over and over, out over the sea, soon lost to sight within the rain.
Harrison took hold of the bag which contained the books, roughly piled in, and they ran across the headland. A sudden gust drew a squeal from Amelia, causing him to reach for her hand; the wind caught the book bag and tipped it upside down. The books were half-soaked in any case, he told himself in his distress as he collected them from the ground, broken and muddy.
The perfect blue-green sea had now disappeared; what could still be seen of it through the near-impenetrable sheets of water descending from the sky was a turbulent and murky grey morass. The ship had reached the relative safety of the harbour and had hurriedly taken in all sail, although it continued to suffer from the crashing blows of the waves breaking over its bow and running along its decks.
Harrison was glad to have descended from the headland and moved away from the sea, but the wind was now so strong that he was finding it difficult to keep his footing; Amelia and Miss Gilmore, being so much smaller, were faring worse than he. Almost as terrifying were the objects flying through the air – he held his breath as a large palm branch passed not far above their heads.
Miss Gilmore was leading them towards the nearest building – it was some type of shed on the outskirts of the grounds of one of the properties. Harrison all but carried Amelia for the last few minutes, and was grateful that Miss Gilmore could manage to wrestle with the door, both to open and close it. Once inside, Amelia slumped wearily against it.
“Oh, no, Amelia, you must stay away from the door.” Miss Gilmore was anxiously looking up at the creaking roof as she spoke, then surveyed the interior of the shed. She moved several large boxes in front of the door – Harrison of course dived to help - then took her pupil by the arm. “Hide under the bench please. Quickly now!”
They pulled out a number of tool-cases, boxes of nails, and other assorted items from under the large wooden workbench that spanned the width of the shed away from the door, and crawled underneath. Harrison was in an agony of embarrassment, his every instinct as a well-bred, well-mannered gentleman rebelling against the idea of allowing these young ladies to sit, crowded in next to him, upon the bare earth floor. There was, however, no alternative; he was further in an agony of anxiety for their safety whilst under his care.
He began to reflect on Miss Gilmore’s quick thinking and cool-headed action, which were unexpected characteristics. Why had he never come across such traits in a woman before, he wondered? He soon realised that he had, but not in a genteel lady, which opened up a new train of thought.
Harrison’s world had been overwhelmingly filled with strong male company – at school, university, in the Navy. He remembered only brief flirtations with young ladies at society events, such as with the delightful Juliette at the governor’s ball a few weeks ago. Juliette had been in awe of his past responsibilities, and he had basked in the warmth of her admiration.
Amelia, meanwhile, was sitting between the two adults, her knees drawn up under her chin, leaning for comfort against her governess. Harrison and Miss Gilmore seemed to innately understand that their conversation should serve to distract and comfort Amelia – and also that, in doing this, they would distract and comfort themselves. Miss Gilmore said that they would use the time to practise mental arithmetic and the dates of the reigns of the kings and queens of England; this served for a time, punctuated by bangs and crashes of flying objects against the roof. At each of these moments all three of them instinctively ducked their heads; Harrison, more used to appearing calm in dangerous conditions, was able to observe and admire the effort of will that each of his companions made to focus once more on their mental task.
After their concentration had dwindled, they sat for some time listening to the strange, other-worldly noises of the wind whooping and howling around the building, and the heavy bursts of rain that intermittently pounded the roof. The wall to one side of them was running with water during these downpours, and rivulets snaked their way across the earth floor and around the various tools and equipment lying there, and forming muddy pools. At one point, Harrison ventured forth from underneath the bench to find some sacking to pile around their feet, which was only partially successful in keeping the water away.
“I’m afraid I will not be able to return you ladies to Government House in the immaculate condition of attire in which you left it,” he said light-heartedly. “Before very much longer we will be able to enjoy a mud-bath.”
Amelia seemed quite shocked that he should be concerned with their appearance in the circumstances; Miss Gilmore smiled at her. “Mr. Harrison has done all he can to help us, but he is worried that he will be blamed for what has happened to us. Your father though, will not hold him responsible for the weather.”
Harrison smiled in return, but knew that Amelia’s father would hold him responsible for what happened to them; and in any case, Harrison would hold himself to blame.
But the wind was beginning to calm, their voices were now more audible to each other, and in a short while more it was clear that a steady light rain had settled in. Harrison felt relief settle upon him like a blanket. He dared not catch Miss Gilmore’s eye – instead he crawled out from under the bench and unfolded his long limbs, easing the stiffness from his neck, and began to pull the boxes away from the door in order to look outside.
They ran most of the way home – not because of the rain, as their clothes were already soaked – but from relief, Amelia putting up her face and spreading her arms to the rain, to relish the abandonment of the concerns and expectations that would normally restrict her.
Harrison turned back to see the light in the sky to the west that was turning the clouds a fearful yellow-orange colour, highlighting their massive, dense, misshapen formations that provided a vast chaotic sky-scape.
There were many aspects of this day that would remain in Harrison’s memory – he refused to mourn the loss of his possessions, determinedly pushing the rankling remembrance of this from his mind. No, he would take with him something more valuable and less tangible, and he knew that he did not yet really understand what that was.
END