Wild Island (17 page)

‘Many months went by and there came nothing. Edward and I sailed to Italy, France—many places—but we were always the same. We tried to find England but we never arrived. Antoinette Cosway was lost. She turned into Bertha Mason and I did not know her.'

Rochester was so weak he could barely move, but his eyes were alert and his hand clasped Jane's. Adèle and Polly had made a garland of white paper flowers threaded on cotton and Jane wore it resting on her neat head. This was the only sign of festivity. Captain Quigley asked Rochester if he understood the nature of the ceremony and with an effort he turned his eyes and answered yes, he desired to marry Jane Eyre for better or worse, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Captain paused, continued. When it was over Jane bent and kissed him lightly before us all. We gathered afterwards in the saloon for a glass of wine at the Captain's invitation. Jane stayed with Rochester. Mrs Chesney brought out a last plum cake, but we were subdued. The Captain cleared his throat and told us Dr Seymour had recommended to Miss Eyre—Mrs Rochester—that she follow Anna's advice and return to England with her husband as soon as possible. We exclaimed in surprise.

‘Few ships return to England by this route,' the Captain added, ‘but I have altered our course to put us in the way of one.'

‘Do you believe it will save him?' Louisa Wallace asked the doctor.

He looked wearily at our puzzled faces. ‘Stranger things are known. The mind and spirit have profound effects on the body. If Rochester
is suffering from some kind of tropical fever it may ease his mind to know he's on his way home. If he remains on the
Adastra
. . .' He made a helpless gesture.

And so, I thought, I shall never see Van Diemen's Land. The Captain warned Jane it might be days before we spoke a ship able to take us back to England, but the following afternoon there came a cry from the mast top and a barque grew slowly larger to our view as though summoned from behind the horizon. The
Constantia
, heading to Liverpool from Sierra Leone, could take only two passengers. Jane did not want to leave Adèle.

After hasty negotiation it was agreed that room could be made for the child, but no one else. Anna's views and mine were sought. Anna shrugged and said calmly, ‘They must go, of course,' but I could not be sure she understood what this meant; that she and I must go on alone, and manage as best we could. I said they had my blessing. The doctor, Wallace, Quigley and the Chesneys assured me they would help us once we reached the island, and I felt a rising interest, a flutter of pleasurable excitement and fear.

While the pinnace was being launched to carry our passengers across to the
Constantia
, Jane and I packed a small trunk and a holdall. She gave me a banker's draft for five hundred pounds, and letters of introduction. Sailors arrived to take Rochester to the deck and we followed as he was carried up on the same pallet Bertha had once occupied. Jane kept close at his side.

‘I will write care of the Derwent Bank,' she said to me as they readied the bosun's sling for her.

The wind had risen and the light was fading. The short tropical dusk had begun. Shouts and orders flung through the wind, men clambered up the ratlines to alter the sails, and the ship swung slowly about. We embraced awkwardly and she was strapped into the sling and lowered over the side. I was left with the feeling of her thin body, wiry with energy and determination. The doctor brought Adèle forward but she suddenly wailed, ‘No, no. I will stay with Polly, and Harriet, and Anna.'

My eyes were streaming. The
Constantia
was gradually being borne away from the
Adastra
. McLeod lifted Adèle briskly, hauled himself into the bosun's cradle and was dropped with her down into the boat, where she fell weeping into Jane's arms. McLeod was winched back up and we watched as the pinnace set off towards the other ship. Even as Jane, Rochester and Adèle were hauled aboard the
Constantia
, her stern lanterns were lit, more sail bellied out and she began to veer away. We stood and watched until she disappeared. I could not stop weeping, praying silently for Adèle, and for Jane, who might be a widow before she reached England. And for Anna and me on our way to the colonies, and for poor Edward Rochester, three-quarters dead.

9

‘
HEADS WILL ROLL
,'
PREDICTED LEMPRIERE, BEAMING, PASSING
the claret to Boyes. It was the phrase that appealed to him, not the thought of bloodshed.

‘One head should go, at least,' said Boyes. ‘But I'm not sure it will. And there you have the problem in a nutshell.' He gazed at the ruby lights in his glass, lips compressed.

Even when Boyes was at his most informal, Booth thought, he still looked like a Colonial Auditor. It was something to do with his dry smile, his long thin narrow figure, as neat as a column of figures.

Lempriere shook his head and seized a folded newspaper lying on a side table. ‘Franklin must do something. Montagu has gone too far this time. Robert Murray defends him in the
Times
, of course, and Thomas Macdowell ignores the whole matter in the
Chronicle
—because they are both Arthurites—but Gilbert Robertson in the
Colonist
has attacked. You see?' He pointed to the page. ‘Robertson calls it “the climax to the presumption of the Arthur faction”.'

He read aloud: ‘John Montagu has declared himself Governor of this colony. This attempt to defeat the ends of justice is conduct disqualifying all persons implicated, from holding office . . . and those persons are Captain Forster and Mr Montagu, brothers-in-law, fellow Councillors and conspirators in this plot.'

‘What plot?' asked Booth. He was too tired to talk or to think; could follow the conversation only by a constant effort of will. It was a month to Christmas. They were in his cottage, sitting round the fire after a dinner that had not been one of Power's best, thought Booth, although it might simply be that he had no appetite himself. The others had eaten briskly enough. They were four this evening, an unusual foursome. They met in town, but it was rare for them to be on the peninsula all together. Boyes was here to oversee an extraordinary audit for the accession of the new queen. Amounts produced, whether boots, bricks, cabbages or coal, must tally exactly with quantities used, sold or stored. Boyes would inspect the records himself this time, rather than delegating it, as with the quarterly audit.

Bergman was here for another round of surveying at Point Puer. His amused brown face conveyed a lively temperament wholly different from Boyes's cool detachment, and yet the two men had much in common and were close friends. Booth had been looking forward to the evening, but had woken this morning feeling bilious and ill, lethargic and restless at once. A touch of the yellow fever again. He'd fought it off for nearly a year, and now Casey wasn't here to give him the usual dose. Transferred at his own request, posted to New Norfolk. A blow, but probably for the best. His replacement, Dr Benson, had agreed with Booth's self-diagnosis, bled him, and administered some filthy draught. Tonight he felt better but weak, labouring under the weight of an enormous lassitude.

‘At any rate,' said Boyes. ‘You're looking at last week's
Colonist.
Matters have moved on. The plot thickens.'

‘What plot?' Booth repeated.

‘The newspapers call it “The Clapperton Affair”,' said Boyes with a twist of the lips. The intrigues of Hobarton were a perpetual source of sardonic amusement to him, and not a little irritation. ‘When Alfred Stephen lost his wife last year, he was left with several small children and a heavy load of work as Solicitor General. He found an emancipist called Clapperton to employ as house steward, general factotum, and for eight months everything went like clockwork.
Then Stephen discovered Clapperton had stolen all the monies given to him to pay household accounts, and was adding insult to injury by telling the tradesmen Stephen refused to pay.

‘Stephen brought charges against Clapperton, who was sentenced to transportation. As you know, for those already here, that means hard labour on a road gang, or a spell at Port Arthur. But some weeks later the Stephen children went to play with the Montagu children—and found Clapperton cooking in the kitchen at “Stowell”! They told their father, of course, and it turns out that Matthew Forster, who was magistrate at Clapperton's hearing, had assigned the man to Montagu's household at Montagu's request. Completely improper—against every rule. But Clapperton is an excellent cook, apparently.

‘You may laugh, gentlemen,' Boyes continued, looking down his thin nose at Bergman and Lempriere, ‘but the matter is profoundly serious. Not only for Montagu and Franklin, but for all of us. It's the first major hurdle of Franklin's term here. If the matter becomes known to Whitehall, Franklin's manner of dealing with it will be carefully scrutinised. And it might well affect the outcome of the Molesworth Enquiry, which is in full hunting cry. It's exactly the kind of abuse of the assignment system our masters are on the
qui vive
for. Especially those who would like to abandon assignment—and transportation altogether.'

‘Molesworth?' said Lempriere, delighted. ‘What a picture the name conjures! An elderly judge—long face, grand wig,
pince-nez
.'

‘So you might imagine,' said Boyes nodding, ‘but William Molesworth is twenty-seven, ambitious, arrogant, and not long sent down from university after a blazing row with his tutor. A thousand times more dangerous to Montagu than a woolsack of elderly judges. Molesworth is desperate to make his political mark, and his overbearing, well-connected mother supports him. If Molesworth gets wind of the Clapperton case—and he will if Franklin dismisses Montagu—then Montagu loses everything. His career will be finished at the age of forty-five, just when he's managed to scheme and haul himself to within reach of his goal, which is to secure a Lieutenant
Governorship for himself. And if Franklin
doesn't
dismiss Montagu, then he'd better have a watertight excuse for not doing so, or it will look as though he is ready to ignore this kind of illegality.'

Gus Bergman laughed again. ‘If Arthur were still here, Gilbert Robertson would be behind bars by now for splashing the case all over the newspapers.'

‘If Arthur were here the problem wouldn't have arisen,' said Boyes. ‘Montagu would not have dared to have Clapperton assigned to him. Arthur kept Montagu and Forster in check, and now he's gone they'll test the water to see exactly how much they can get away with. Arthur used the law to his own advantage, but he was careful never to overstep in any way he could be held accountable for.'

Lempriere shrugged. ‘Then surely Sir John has no choice. He must dismiss Montagu, reprimand Forster, and let them take the consequences.'

‘That's exactly what Maconochie, Franklin's secretary, is advising. But Franklin doesn't seem to find it so straightforward,' said Boyes. ‘For two reasons, I think. Sir John is deeply religious, and genuinely hesitates to ruin a man's career. Doesn't believe in casting the first stone. And he likes Montagu—as he tends to like everyone. He also believes he needs Montagu's help; Franklin's been here less than a year, and he wants to keep the administration in the hands of a man who knows it well. Montagu is an excellent Colonial Secretary.'

‘
Et alors
?'

‘Well, Franklin may yet listen to Maconochie. I hope he does. In the meantime, he's ordered Clapperton to a road gang. But the worst is, Montagu has evidently taken fright and decided the best form of defence is attack. He's leapt to accuse Franklin of bias, of taking Alfred Stephen's part, of being weak, failing to support his senior officers, etcetera, etcetera. In short, he'll say anything to put himself back where he sweats to be, in the right.'

‘The Arthurites are used to having their own way,' grumbled Lempriere. ‘Now they cannot believe it when they are opposed. They
should remember they set the precedent for dismissing a Colonial Secretary when they got rid of poor Burnett.'

Booth had liked Burnett, who had been dismissed for selling part of his land grant, a minor breach of regulations, commonly ignored. Not nearly as serious as this Clapperton business, and yet Arthur had abandoned Burnett and given the position of Colonial Secretary to Montagu. The four men sat considering.

‘Arthur and Montagu had clearly been planning Burnett's fall for some time,' said Bergman. ‘Burnett was inefficient and ill, and they couldn't stand it. Arthur held a mortgage on a property of Burnett's and asked for repayment just when Burnett was in greatest difficulties.'

‘I'm sure Montagu remembers,' said Boyes. ‘And no doubt it fuels his fears. Burnett has returned to England practically a pauper, looking desperately for another appointment. Most of our generation depends on the King's shilling to keep us from the Workhouse. Montagu came out of the war with nothing, like so many of us. Dismissal means not only the loss of salary, but of reputation—which makes it difficult to secure another position. If he's disgraced, Montagu will have to take any post he can find: clerk, tutor, private secretary—which is precisely why his present outbursts against Sir John are so violent. His aim is clearly to turn the story about until he appears to be the injured party.' He shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Otherwise his hopes are gone.' ‘The Arthur faction will save him,' said Lempriere. ‘They'll stick together.'