Midsummer's Eve

Helena and I were together all the time. Matthew was out all day and would come back full of excitement. He talked to people and when he returned he kept to his room writing copious notes.

The relationship between him and Helena was a very unusual one.

I was sure he thought that he had done his good deed by marrying her and there his responsibility ended. Helena said: "It was wonderful of him, but it is not like a marriage, Annora. It couldn't be ... after John. There couldn't be anyone else for me.”

"Not after he deserted you!”

"He didn't know about the baby.”

"He ought to," I said.

"Oh, I couldn't bear that. I wouldn't want him to come back to me because he thought he ought to. I think that would be something between us all our lives, and it would have its effect on the child. He might resent it because it was due to the child that he had come back. After all," she added with unexpected rationality, "if he had wanted to marry me, he would, no matter what anyone said, I mean if it had been the most important thing in the world ...”

We took one of the buggies and went to the shops. There we bought clothes for the baby. I think Helena enjoyed that. We rode through the town and when we saw Hyde Park, we felt quite near home.

"These are our people, Helena," I said. "We shouldn't feel that we are strangers in a strange land.”

"I'm glad to be here with you, Annora. What should I have done if I had had to face all this at home?”

"There would have been a way. There always is.”

"But this was like a miracle. Your planning to come out here ... and then my coming, too. Suppose I had been at home!”

"Your mother would have helped you.”

"I know. But I think I should have died of shame.”

"People don't die of shame.”

"I should have done what I nearly did.”

"No more talk of that," I said briskly. "I think this gown is absolutely lovely.

Oh, Helena, I can't wait for the baby. I'm already thinking of it as ours.”

It was quite a pleasant morning really. When we were back in the hotel we examined the clothes, put them away carefully and talked of the baby. I was thinking of my parents and wondering what they were doing. I imagined them, riding out in this strange land, and beside them, leading them, would be the boastful Greg.

Those days seemed long. I was waiting impatiently for the return of my family. I longed to hear what they had found at Sealands Creek.

Matthew was exuberant. He was succeeding beyond his expectations. He was taking Greg's advice and not telling those he spoke to that he was recording their words. That way they spoke frankly.

When we dined in the evening he talked continuously of what he had discovered that day. He did not ask what we had been doing or how Helena was feeling. I have noticed since how so many of those who devote themselves to doing good for the masses have little time for the individual. True, Matthew had married Helena as an act of uncalculated goodness; but that was a spectacular event. It was the small things he had not time for.

I started to tell him about our shopping expedition but changed my mind.

"I met this fellow," he was saying. "He's been on the hulks before he came out. What luck for me! I have very little on the hulks. He told me they lived on board and left the hulk each day to do ten hours' hard labour. His hulk was in the river ... some of them were in the docks. He described it to me so that I could almost see it. I'm getting it on paper tonight so that I don't forget a detail. There is a lower deck with a passage down the middle ... and on each side of the passage the space is divided into wards. They have about twenty of them all jammed together for there is little space. There are no beds. They sleep in the darkness on the floor.

It's a terrible life. Many of them are glad when they leave the hulks for the journey across the sea. What these people suffer! It's uncivilized. It's got to be abolished sooner or later. I'm going to see this comes about. I'm not going to rest until I do.”

"I suppose," I commented, "this is how things get done in the world. People like you protest forcibly through the right channels.”

"That's so. Many of the men riot. They ill-treat... or attempt to ill-treat ...

their guards. That's not the way. It has to be done peaceably ... with words ... words. That is where the strength lies.”

"And it is people like you, Matthew, who do it. I wish you all success.”

"I can't do much until I get into Parliament and when I do that, all that I learn here will be of the utmost use to me.”

How could one talk to such a man about baby clothes. My parents came back without Jacco.

They said: "He's staying. He's quite fascinated by the place and he's all right with Greg and the people there.”