Charles died in 1827, Isaac in 1831. Dear Gates, who had been with Elizabeth for more than fifty years, died in 1833. Lord Sandwich was dead, Sir Joseph, Sir Hugh, Cousin Frances. Everyone.
Elizabeth remembered the games of bullet pudding played at Christmases long ago. She was now the only one left in the game. Soon, the bullet would fall to her. But Elizabeth had to make sure the living would remember the dead before she could finally lay herself down.
Lawyers drew up a long and complicated will for Elizabeth Cook. She remembered everyone. James’s relations and her own, all the Smith descendants. Her friends, neighbours, her doctor. She bequeathed bank interest from her investments as well as specific items—the Copley Medal to the British Museum, the contents of her kitchen, wash house and scullery to one servant, and bedroom furniture to another. She made bequeaths to the Elizabeth Cook’s Monuments School of the Indigent Blind, the Royal Maternity Charity, to widows and poor aged women. She also left money to continue the family monument in Great St Andrew’s Church, the church in which she wished to be buried, in the middle aisle as close to her sons, James and Hugh, as may be.
Elizabeth had a headstone made for Gates in the church grounds at Clapham, which read simply: ‘Elizabeth Gates, of this parish, died 30 July, 1833’. Then she commissioned William Wyatt to sculpt a memorial in St Mary’s at Merton, to the Smiths. Charles and Isaac, their nephew Isaac Cragg Smith, Caroline Cragg Smith who died in childbirth, and her infant. ‘Sacred to the memory of those whose names are here recorded,’ the inscription read, ‘and whose remains are deposited in the family vault adjoining the chancel of this church. This monument was erected by Mrs Elizabeth Cook, widow of Captain James Cook the circumnavigator in affectionate remembrance of the many estimable qualities of her departed relatives.’
The sculpture featured a kneeling woman looking upwards to memorial plaques. Carved into the stone beneath her were the words ‘THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH’.
May 13 1835. Elizabeth chose a fine spring day to slough off her worn old coat.
‘Mrs Cook?’ enquired Sarah when she came in to open the curtains and attend to her mistress. Elizabeth was very still and quiet. Sarah was alarmed. She crept over to the bed, bringing her cheek close to her mistress’s nose, and was relieved to feel the warm dampness of breath.
‘Gates?’ said Elizabeth, her voice barely a whisper.
‘It is Sarah, Mrs Cook. Sarah Westlake.’
‘Where is Gates?’
Sarah hesitated. The mistress knew Gates was dead. She visited the stone in the churchyard the first Friday of the month. It was not like Mrs Cook to let her mind wander so. ‘Shall I plump the pillows? Are you feeling all right?’
‘Bring me the embroidery.’
‘Which embroidery would that be, marm?’ There were so many.
‘My husband’s voyages.’
Sarah looked about at all the paraphernalia that crowded this room but which Mrs Cook would not have stored away in cupboards. The embroidery hung on a wall, beside the coat of arms and Captain Cook’s medals. Sarah carefully lifted the embroidery down and laid it on the bed. Her mistress felt around for it. Gently Sarah guided her hand, such a cold hand, till it found the embroidery. Something was terribly wrong. ‘I shall get Charles to fetch Dr Elliotson.’ She pulled the tasselled cord which would bring a servant to the room.
‘Is Cousin Charles here?’
‘No, Mrs Cook. Charles Doswell, your servant.’
He came to the door and Sarah signalled him to get the doctor.
‘Please open the window.’
‘But Mrs Cook, it is cold, you’ll catch your . . .’ Sarah was going to say ‘death’ but stopped herself. Her eyes may have deceived her, but it appeared to Sarah that her mistress smiled.
‘Open the window, the bird wants to fly out.’
‘There is no bird in here, marm.’
‘Open the window.’ Sarah heard the determination in her mistress’s thin small voice, and opened the window a crack. ‘More. It is a big bird.’
‘But Mrs Cook—’
‘Do as I ask.’
Sarah sighed and opened the window fully, letting the crisp breeze carry in the morning song of birds, although Sarah was sure there were none in the house.
‘Thank you, you may go.’
‘I will stay, if you don’t mind, marm. Till Dr Elliotson comes.’
‘If we are having visitors you must make tea.’
Sarah reached her hand out to touch her mistress’s forehead but withdrew it. She quietly went to a stool in the corner and sat down.
Elizabeth’s eyes were closed but she saw everything as her hands glided over the embroidery of the world. The great continents, the equator and all the latitudes. The tips of her fingers traced James’s voyages across the oceans. She felt the breeze of the world through the window, and it occurred to her that with such a breeze blowing in there was no longer any need to breathe. She could finally let out the breath she’d been holding all her life. Breeze flowed effortlessly through her.
The white bird, as large as the room itself, started to lift its great wings. Elizabeth heard voices, felt her clothes being loosened, the coldness of a stethoscope on her breast. But she was already lifting into the air on great white wings.
She saw the house in Clapham, heard sobbing, such a small sound in the greatness of the world. ‘Elizabeth.’ Sequins danced in the breeze. Elizabeth was ready, she would fly with the bird wherever he took her. She nestled in the soft downy feathers of his bosom, high above everything.
Down below was a river of ice. Elizabeth saw all the stalls and amusements of the Frost Fair before she was born, boys playing skittles, food sellers, jugglers. She saw her mother and father walking arm in arm towards the printer who would print their names in the ice, the great dome of St Paul’s, and all the buildings of the city. How small the hustle and bustle of life appeared.
‘Elizabeth,’ the bird called once more. How her heart thrilled to hear that voice. Up, up they went, over the whiteness of ice. The bird no longer needed to flap his wings, he had found the tides of wind and sailed with them. Below was the continent of ice, yet Elizabeth felt warm and safe in the feathery bosom. She saw all the peoples of the world as the bird rode on the winds circling the globe. Eskimos, Tahitians, English, Chinese. Higher and higher he went, towards the stars that were her babies, and higher and higher, to the bright star, whose light would guide her into the Great Ocean.