Wild Island (34 page)

In Bergman's opinion the Maconochie Affair had only hastened changes already on the way. The Assignment System had been under attack in England for some time. His was by no means a lone voice, but newspaper editors, settlers, and above all John Montagu, were determined to vilify Maconochie as a traitor and a fool.

‘Montagu hates Maconochie,' explained Bergman, ‘and will add fuel to the flames if he can. And it's true that Maconochie's report will give the Molesworth Committee in London exactly the excuse they've been looking for to abolish assignment—perhaps even transportation altogether. If they do, the island will suffer. How can properties and businesses be worked without convict labour? There are no free labourers to speak of. Settlers come here to work for themselves, not labour for others.'

He told us that there were not nearly enough ticket-of-leave-men and free labourers to fill the need here. And even if there were, they'd have to be paid, which would bring profits down to nothing.

‘What will happen to the convicts if they are not to be assigned?'

‘That is the great question. England seems to favour keeping them in prison for the whole length of their sentences. That would be very bad policy. At present about nine-tenths of convict arrivals are immediately assigned to households, and thus are fed, clothed and sheltered by their masters. If the decision is made to introduce the kind of “probation prisons” the reformers want, all the prisoners' keep becomes an expense on the public purse. Settlers will have to be taxed to provide the revenue, and will have their servants withdrawn at the same time! A double blow. Worse still—we are refused any representation on the Government councils because it's a penal settlement. Gregson, Fenn Kemp and others have been complaining about that for years.

‘And where will the prisoners be housed? There are not enough buildings now. The irony is that Maconochie is not in favour of probation prisons himself. He argues that keeping hundreds of offenders penned together is the worst answer, and any man who's been in the Army would say he's right.'

He shrugged. ‘And if taxes don't bring in enough revenue, the Governor is supposed to sell land to make up the difference—but the only land left these days is isolated, or unsuitable for crops or animals, certainly not worth twelve shillings an acre, which is the price they're insisting Sir John ask for it.

‘Montagu is as bitter against Sir John as he is against Maconochie. He blames Franklin for bringing the mad Scotchman here, and makes no secret of having written to England to try to prevent Maconochie ever having another Government appointment. He was furious to discover Sir John has written recommending Maconochie for other posts in Hobarton.'

At this moment of crisis the Franklins could not attend Knopwood's funeral, nor could they easily send an empty carriage as a mark of respect as they would do at Home, since the funeral was to be at Knopwood's tiny Church at Clarence Plains—on the eastern side of the river, miles down the estuary. In these circumstances Henry Elliot was sent to represent them. I went down on the steam-packet hired by a group of Knopwood's old friends to convey members of the public who wished to attend. I went because I'd liked the old gentleman, but also, I admit, because I half-hoped he might have left ‘the books' for me, whatever they were.

As the crowd of mourners filed off the ferry onto the jetty near the Clarence windmill, the spring wind fluttered an orchard of blossom near the path. Wattle shone in golden bursts among the darker green of the hills. New wheat showed in a faint wash of green across the fields. The congregation was too great for the tiny wooden Church and many stood outside in the sun. Men, women and children, black-garbed and silent, stood in the field with heads bowed. Sheep nibbled across the paddocks behind the graveyard, shadows of the clouds raced over the ground in dark fleeing patches. On such a day it would be hard to leave the world and lie in the earth. Reverend Naylor read aloud Knopwood's words:

Friends die, and years expire, and we ourselves shall do the same . . .

Sophy gave a shudder when I described the scene next day.

‘How I should hate to be buried here! I pray nightly that I may survive until we reach England again,' she said.

Father Philip Connolly, the Catholic priest, was at the funeral, loud with drink and weeping for his dear old friend, although many in Hobart had thought it a scandal to see the Church of England minister on familiar terms with the Papist. It was Father Connolly who gave Henry Elliot a parcel, which Henry brought to me in the Bird Room next day. Rectangular, the hard shape of wrapped books, it was addressed in an old man's shaky hand: ‘Mrs Adair in care of Lady Franklin, Government House, Hobarton'. Three books, two bound beautifully in leather:
Gulliver's Travels
and
Robinson Crusoe,
and an unbound copy of
The Tempest
, sewn coarsely along the spine. The Swift carried a bookplate, a leafy border framing an empty shield on which was written in faded ink: ‘
Ex Libris
Rowland George Fairfax Rochester'. There was also a loose fragment of paper carrying a note in Knopwood's writing: ‘Purchased Hobarton 1837'.

17

BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THESE BOOKS
,
ROWLAND HAD BEEN
merely an irritating puzzle to me, an enigma compounded of fragments. Eleven years older than his brother Edward, if he were alive he would be fifty-one now. Personable, by all accounts: a fair-haired, cheerful man. Musical, but ‘a scholar too', Mrs Fairfax had said. Certainly Anna had loved him, and Lady Mary Faringdon too, presumably. And Catherine Tyndale? Women are capable of loving even the most blighted failure of a man, of course, but I doubted he was that. And now, in the books, certain marginal annotations in spidery writing made me feel a startling, breathing presence; a man who read attentively, whose questions were as important to him as mine to me.
What latitude is this?
he asked himself at one point in the Defoe.
Shall I ever see it?
And almost hidden in an inner margin close to the spine
: If Friday had been a woman? Would Crusoe have kept his religion then, or brought up a tribe of little brown Crusoes? What story would Friday tell of their meeting?

The two largest bookshops in the town, Fullers and Solomons, assured me the books had never graced their shelves. Oldham's, Beddome's and Meredith's, ‘OBM's', was equally certain. I went next to Davis's Seed and Stationery Warehouse, where I had purchased my writing and drawing materials on the day after our arrival. I could
not recall seeing any books, but Davis's advertisement in the
Courier
claimed ‘upwards of 5,000 volumes on well-assorted subjects': a sizeable number for a seller of seeds.

A door at the back of the shop led to a narrow corridor, and thence to a warren of book-crammed alcoves smelling of glue, paper and dust. A labyrinth; at its heart no Minotaur, but two affable, bespectacled gentlemen pottering gently in an alcove equipped for repairing and binding books. Mr and Mr Davis, father and son. Seeds were their bread-and-butter, stationery a sideline, books their abiding pleasure, they said happily. They were not so much sellers as
collectors
, although they reluctantly admitted they
might
sell a book, if pressed. Both men were walking catalogues of their stock, which was at least as extensive as they claimed.

They had not sold these items to Mr Knopwood, poor old gentleman, but they knew where he had obtained them. They recognised this copy of
Gulliver's Travels
(a
very
fine binding), as having been for sale for many months on a stall at the weekly market down by the Rivulet. They had considered buying it but already carried three copies. The seller was Mr Harry Bentley, a notorious rag-and bone man who set up most Thursdays between the Dog Woman and the cage-birds.

When I left the Davises I was carrying four books I had not intended to buy and they had not intended to sell. The following Thursday I went early to the market before I was expected at the Bird Room, and found it to be like any such event in England: the same bellowing dusty beasts, the hawkers and pedlars, stalls and tents. The bird-seller was a fat young man seated on a yellow chair with a pair of parrots on his shoulders. On the fence behind him hung cages of canaries, pigeons and finches. The Dog Woman next to him sat on the ground with her back against the fence, legs stretched out in front, feet lolling outwards like those of a rag doll. Six puppies in a box wrestled sleepily beside her. Four other dogs were tethered to the fence: one pair old and resigned, the other young and hopeful.

Next was Mr Harry Bentley, a man of unfathomable age in a long green coat and brown wool cap, one side of his face disfigured
by a livid scar, which dragged it into a permanent leer. On the fence behind him hung old clothes. Coats hunched with the burden of hard times, boots suspended by their laces. Bits of china and a few tattered almanacs lay on a cloth beside him. He glanced at the books I showed him, and said, ‘Ain't no call, see? Munce they was sat there afore Parson took 'em.'

The Dog Woman nodded and cackled.

‘'e 'ad a li'l white dorg,' she said. ‘Li'l dorg fer you, missus?'

I shook my head. ‘Mr Knopwood bought them from you?'

Harry Bentley drank from a bottle and passed it to her. After a moment's thought I indicated a glass jar with the tiny skeleton of a mermaid in it and handed him four shillings, though it was not worth sixpence, and he told me he'd had the books from a woman at a farm. Where was the farm, and who was the woman? He shrugged, spat to one side. With a few more coins I learned it was out Copping way, near Bream Creek or thereabouts. The woman was ‘the wife of him as kep' the Eagle 'n' Chile at New Norfolk'.

‘Carmichael,' said the Dog Woman, ‘Seth Carmichael.'

They could not or would not say more, but this was enough. The Inn at New Norfolk again. I walked back to the Bird Room, recalling that Copping lay beyond Richmond and Sorell and wondering if I could reach it from the Chesneys'. But how had the woman come by the books? Stolen them from a dead man?

I was about to recount all this to Eliza, but when I reached the Bird Room, saw she was being sick into a basin. When the spasm was over she confessed she was now certain she was carrying another child, which she had been trying to avoid. Poor John was vexed. Their plans for the summer must be altered. They had intended to travel to the new Wakefield Colony in South Australia in January, and then to ‘Yarrundi', her brother's property in New South Wales. Now she would have to remain here while John went alone, returning before the baby came. To make matters worse, the strong odours of the Bird Room seemed to increase her nausea each morning, just as
many new specimens had come in. Would I come every day until she recovered, instead of only three days as at present?

During early November, therefore, Eliza joined me at around noon, and in the mornings I worked alone, apart from visitors. Sophy was the most frequent of these, agitated by ‘appalling' news—the Montagus and their children were moving into Government House—at Aunt Jane's invitation!

‘After the trouble that man has caused! Now the vile creature and his wife and children must stay with us as though they were
friends
,' she cried. ‘November, December . . . Their ship sails in
March
. The whole
summer
.'

The Colonial Secretary was taking his family home on eighteen months leave. In the meantime they could not live in ‘Stowell' because the entire contents had been sold at auction, bringing four thousand pounds. The house itself had been up for sale for months, but there were no buyers and it was now let unfurnished.

‘Why can't they stay with the Forsters?' Sophy demanded.

Jane Franklin said it was only right to take them in. Montagu, after all, was the most senior official next to Sir John. Gus Bergman laughed and said he thought there was a good deal of method, as usual, in what others were pleased to call Lady Franklin's madness, ‘a characteristic mixture of impulsive generosity and acute intelligence'. For one thing, this was a shrewd way of securing the definite departure of the Maconochies, whose disorganised leave-taking might otherwise take months. And perhaps Lady Franklin, like many others, believed the Montagus were not really intending to return to the island. Even
The True Colonist
had asked why the Colonial Secretary had sold every last teaspoon if he was to return in eighteen months.

‘Montagu probably hopes to obtain a better post somewhere closer to Home,' Bergman said. ‘But in any event, whether it turns out to be a last friendly gesture or a useful insurance for the future, this seems to me good strategy on Jane Franklin's part.'

Finding spare rooms was the difficulty. Eliza must stay on of course, now that her interesting condition was known. And charming
Captain Laplace from
L'Artemise
, the visiting French corvette, was staying for a month with his two senior officers while his ship was in dry dock. Three bedrooms were uninhabitable, and another must be kept for Sophy's younger brother, Tom, expected from England any day. Miss Williamson, Eleanor's governess, could not be asked to move. So it must be Sophy who decamped for a few months to make way for the Montagus.