Wild Island (38 page)

‘I find it beautiful, Mr Montagu.'

‘
Et in Arcadia ego
.'

‘Indeed, sir.'

‘You are looking for a particular grave?'

I hesitated—but why? ‘Mr George Fairfax, who may have been an associate of Mr Rowland Rochester.'

My heart beat faster, but Montagu only made a slight sound and looked vaguely away after his wife. She had gone to join their two boys, who were in the corner feeding torn-off grass to a horse with its head over the fence. We wandered that way.

‘The Gospels instruct us to let the dead bury their dead,' Montagu said with his urbane smile, but I thought his eyes searched my face.

‘That is not always easy.'

‘No,' he agreed. ‘It is common, I suppose, to be intrigued by headstones. When I was a schoolboy we were made to learn Latin epitaphs. My favourite was always Sulla's. I no longer recall the Latin, but in English it construes: “No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.”'

‘Truly Roman, but scarcely Christian? No turning the other cheek?'

‘That is for saints, Mrs Adair. We must live like Romans among the hard realities of the world.
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
'

I said nothing, and he added, ‘You have a little Latin? I wonder what you make of my own family motto;
Desponendo me, non mutando me
?'

He waited.

‘“Use me . . .”' I said, ‘“but do not . . . change me”? Or perhaps, “You may command me, but you will not change me”. It is not exactly clear how it is meant. A soldier, perhaps, saying he will obey orders but will not alter his own nature? A statement—or is it a warning?'

He nodded but did not answer the question. I thought of the motto Franklin had adopted,
Nisu
: perseverance, exertion, work, struggle. We had reached Jessie Montagu and the boys. She explained that the fine weather had brought her husband down to join them. Mr Forster had already taken over the duties of Colonial Secretary in preparation for her husband's absence. They were walking to Mrs Henderson's cottage in the village, where there were always raspberries for the children at
this time of year. Colonel Arthur's children, of course, had formerly come with them. Raspberries are much preferable to strawberries, are they not? The children can never get enough. Those grown at Government Cottage were not sufficient for such a large group. Her words brought another Latin tag to my mind as we separated:
Qui multum habet, plus cupit
. Those who have much desire more.

Young Henry Gould conceived a passion for fishing, and since my habit was to row slowly upriver in the dory and moor under the willows to draw, we pursued our interests together on afternoons when Eliza was resting and John Gould bird-catching. The river was narrow and placid, an invitation to pleasant idleness. One hot afternoon when we returned to the landing stage, Jane Franklin and her maid Snachall were standing watching us.

‘Will you row me up to the willows, Harriet?' Jane said. ‘It looks so cool there. That will be all, Snachall. Take Henry back to his mother.'

She leapt easily into the rocking craft, settled herself and said, ‘You are handy at the oars, Harriet? You must not do too much, or you will coarsen your arms like a washerwoman. Where did you learn?'

‘On the Thames at Henley, my lady. I lodged there several weeks one year after I had been ill.'

‘Your husband did not object to your learning such a thing?'

‘He was in London. My stepmother Nina was with me. She believed the exercise would do me good.'

Nina and I had intended to stay a month, but after three weeks I was better, and anxious to go back to Tom. He was in the studio with Lottie, one of our models. One of those sights you can't unsee. Her nakedness on cushions on the floor, one white knee up, one bare white breast, her head arched back with pleasure. Tom thrusting away blindly in his passion. A small consolation: he was no more faithful to Lottie than to me.

‘It is astonishing what women can do,' said Jane. ‘My agent at the Huon tells me he has employed a husband and wife as shingle
cutters. They do everything together from the felling of the tree to the stacking of the shingles—and the woman is the neater and more hard-working of the pair, he says.'

After a pause she added, ‘I have been wanting to ask you whether Sophy has spoken to you about her cousin Mary? There seems a little awkwardness between them since Mary accepted John Price. It has been hinted to me that this is jealousy on Sophy's part, but I think not. I believe Price may have proposed to Sophy first, and in refusing him, she told Mary—so now they both know Mary was his second choice. Has Sophy mentioned it to you?'

‘No, nothing.'

Jane's face was leaf-shadowed by the willows as she said, ‘Marriage . . . From girlhood we are taught to regard it as the object of our lives, and to many women it seems to promise freedom, but so often it only leads to more . . .'

‘. . . confinements, ma'am,' I said.

‘Ah, very droll, Hatty. But what is the alternative? Sophy hasn't a penny of her own. Her situation will be hard if she doesn't marry here—as her mother expects her to, of course.'

‘I doubt Sophy will be easy to please.' I thought of her shudder when she spoke of men's appetites.

Jane did not hear me, or perhaps did not like the remark and decided to have one of her deaf moments. We sat, the gentle water lapping at the boat, each thinking our own thoughts, until she told me she had refused six offers before she accepted Franklin. They had been married ten years now, but had been separated more than a third of that time while he was away at sea.

19

CAPTAIN LAPLACE
'
S ENGLISH WAS CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN
Booth's French. The Captain, from the visiting French corvette,
L'Artemise
, was a likeable companion, surprised to find how much larger Port Arthur had grown since his last visit three years before.
L'Artemise
had been in Van Diemen's Land for two months this time, refitting and revictualling in Hobarton and making short forays up the coast to test her seaworthiness and guns. This was their last call at the peninsula, on their way out to sea and home to France.

Laplace was becoming extremely animated, his speech more rapid. Suddenly he lapsed into French entirely and Booth found it impossible to follow. It seemed the Captain needed French to express the high degree of astonishment he felt at—what? Not, Booth guessed, vegetables, although Laplace had just been called upon to admire row after row of beets and kale, peas and potatoes, carrots, Dutch turnips, tobacco plants, artichokes. They were walking—Laplace, Booth and Lempriere—between the bean rows in the Government Garden at Port Arthur. Laplace was waving a fistful of empty pea-pods. He had eaten the raw peas with relish. Scurvy had been rife this voyage; five of his men had jumped ship from the hospital in Hobarton.

Booth could catch the general tenor of his exclamations: ‘
éton
nant
. . .
sangfroid . . . insouciante
. . .' accompanied by shakings of
the head and an exaggerated, humorous pursing of the lips. Not vegetables, surely?

Climbing beans, taller than the men, felt their way into the sky on curling tendrils, questioning gently in the light breeze, reaching out for each other overhead. Booth found the greenish dappled light immensely pleasing, as he did the scarlet flowers, the glimpses of hidden beans. He could hear the murmur of high voices in the distance: Lizzie collecting strawberries with the Lempriere children. On the other side of the bay he could see his own cottage and the signal mast. It was Sunday; the morning service was over. There was half an hour until luncheon. Laplace's French came faster still and Booth was entirely lost. Lempriere obliged.

‘The Captain considers us astonishing. Such a penal colony! So few weapons, so few soldiers, so many more convicts than when he was last here—and only a flimsy wooden stockade to contain them! He cannot understand it. Why are prisoners allowed to act as domestic servants and boat crews? And such a ridiculously small number of solitary cells. To be sure there are leg irons, the triangle, the lash, the promise of bloody flayed flesh for those who make sins . . . er, misbehave . . . but
mon Dieu
, it is not enough!'

We French, he says, we do things differently. We comprehend prisons, punishment. We know what we are about. Protestants do not understand the nature of good and evil. We admit the English are incomparable in certain matters (‘but he does not say what,' added Lempriere in a wry aside to Booth) but two things the French understand better than the English: love and prisons. No, three things: food, love and prisons. Four things only: food—which is of course to include wine—and prisons, and love, and perhaps
la mode, aussi
.

Captain Laplace laughed and began again, explaining to Lempriere—Booth could guess now—the adventure of yesterday. Well, it had been amusing. Booth could not help smiling himself. He and Laplace had been out together in the number one whaleboat, and at a certain point Booth had begun to sense an unusual mood among the six convict oarsmen. He had spoken to Laplace in bad
French, warned him to be ready in case there should be an attempt to take over the boat (Laplace had not understood a word). And then, in English, as though answering a question put to him by Laplace, he had said loudly that of course he always carried pistols and would instantly shoot without mercy to foil any attempt at escape.

But the truth was, he had forgotten to bring the guns! Laplace and Lempriere were laughing. Booth smiled broadly and explained that he believed the lash to be a punishment of
dernier
resort, indicating a failure of his system. He would rather have healthy able-bodied men who could work, than keep a hospital full of flayed invalids who were an expense first and a trouble later, seeking every chance to escape.

Laplace shrugged. ‘It depends on your purpose,' he said. ‘Is this settlement meant for punishment or reform? Or for the business of colonising? How do you dare train up a boat crew to such fitness?' He waved his arm in the general direction of the cove. There had been a friendly race between a crew from
L'Artemise
and Booth's number one whaleboat two days ago, and the French had lost by a wide margin. Laplace went on, ‘These felons can chase a whale ten miles in a heavy sea, and you trust them not to use it against you?' He shrugged, made one of those explosive French sounds, threw up his hands.

‘The purpose of this establishment is both punishment and reform,' Booth answered, sounding pompous to his own ears. ‘These men must eventually form the free population of the colony, but at present they must be kept at work.' That was the necessity: building, always building. England was sending its prodigal sons in ever-increasing numbers. Booth repeated what he'd said to Arthur two years ago: keep them working and fed; be stern but fair. The Government will gain by the work, the prisoners will have no time to think of escape.

They had reached an open central area of the gardens, where there was a toolshed, water-butts, and a section of overhanging roof for shade. Here Mr Manton, the Wesleyan missionary, joined them. The conversation continued: reform or punishment, good and evil. Lempriere was talking about Rousseau, Laplace emphasising the dangers of becoming too close to one's prisoners, of knowing them too
well. Manton kept clearing his throat as a prelude to interrupting—with his usual harangue on the forgiveness of sins, probably. Booth was free to pursue his own thoughts.

Although he would not admit it to Laplace, he believed his whaleboat crew was hatching a scheme of some sort. Yesterday's episode had made him certain. And whatever it was, Woolf was certainly in it. His eyes had slid away towards another prisoner, George Moss, when the guns were mentioned. Like Woolf, Moss was a London Jew, and the two men, reasonably enough, seemed to be friends. Nothing unnatural, a bond of race and experience, no doubt.

And yet Mick Walker was their accepted leader, and surely Walker would not countenance any such plan? He had too much to lose. St John Wallace appeared to be training him as a kind of model prisoner, for demonstration purposes. Maconochie would have approved. ‘
Monstrare, to show.'
Men, not monsters. Walker must know he was likely to gain considerably by this treatment. An early ticket of leave? A pardon? It depended on what influence Wallace could bring to bear, either with Franklin or at home. But the Arthur faction wouldn't like it.

Laplace had asked Booth about Walker after the boat race, astonished by the prisoner's extraordinary beauty, he said. Trust the French to say such a thing out loud. Laplace appeared puzzled when Booth explained Wallace's interest, and had at last shrugged, smiled, dismissing the matter with the remark that all Englishmen preferred other men to women, it was well known. Booth had smiled at the time, but it came into his mind with sudden unease that the interviews between Wallace and Walker were something like a courtship. A mutual pleasure in discovering each other's qualities—although naturally you wouldn't say so in official correspondence. Wallace had been away from the settlement for some weeks now, for Christmas and the birth of his child. It would be wise to keep an eye on how things progressed when he came back.