Wild Island (58 page)

‘I have a bad conscience about Mrs Fry,' Jane admitted with a rueful smile. ‘Four years ago, before we left London, I promised to send her a report on the Situation of Female Convicts in the island, and . . .' she groaned, ‘it is still not done.'

But once the Ladies Committee was begun, the report would be easy. She was counting on me for the Committee—but it must wait another month; Sir John was to tour the Richmond region in early August, and she would go with him. It was a perfect opportunity to call on Captain Booth's brother James, who had now arrived in the island and established himself and his family in a handsome stone house on the road into Richmond, about half a mile from the town. James Booth's years as a naval Captain meant the visit was essential, even without their friendship for ‘our' Booth.

In the end the first meeting of the Ladies Committee did not take place until early September. It was ‘by invitation', but Jane must have invited quite a number, I thought, because she was plainly mortified by the few who arrived on the designated evening. Apart from Jane herself, there was Miss Williamson, Miss Kezia Hayter, myself, and four women I did not know. No Sophy.

I had assumed Miss Hayter would be a Quaker like Mrs Fry, but she was not, although she was devoutly religious. She was small, dark, pretty, and at twenty-four, much younger than I had expected. She blushed when Jane gave her good wishes on her engagement to Captain Charles Ferguson, Master of the
Rajah.
At that first meeting we accomplished only the formal request that the Governor be Patron of our Society and his wife Patroness, and the business of our name. After three hours of a discussion at once convoluted, pedantic, heated and inane, we voted to call ourselves ‘The Society in Aid of the Measures of Government for the Religious and General Instruction of the Female Convicts of Van Diemen's Land', a title which owed more to irritable exhaustion than consensus.

At the second meeting a fortnight later, the membership had dwindled to four. We sat in a row like schoolgirls for an hour while Jane read aloud a draft of her report to Mrs Fry, plainly anticipating a chorus of approval at the end. Instead there was dismayed silence. Her harsh criticism of the convict women was particularly severe against those who returned to the Female Factory to bear illegitimate children. They must be separated from their babies immediately after the birth, in Jane's view.

The more we politely demurred, the more adamant she became. Maternal attachment, she argued—always supposing these women capable of feeling any such sentiment—must be sacrificed for the welfare of the child, whose future would best be ensured by removing it from the pernicious influence of the parent. We protested that this would make these children virtually orphans at birth. Jane nodded approvingly; the Orphan Asylum would raise and educate them properly. The meeting ended with dissatisfaction on all sides.

As I was trying to leave quickly, Jane called to me. ‘Harriet! Could you spare a moment?'

I had never felt less in sympathy with her than I did just then, but she was a friend, and tonight she looked . . . ‘forlorn' was the word that came to mind. Dejected and lonely.

‘Your friends at Richmond, Harriet,' she said when we were seated again. ‘What are they saying about this Coverdale Affair, as the newspapers call it? Do the locals really blame Sir John, or are Robert Murray and his cronies making a mountain out of a molehill again? Don't be afraid to tell me the truth. I need to know.'

Another awkward matter. I knew from Mrs Chesney that many at Richmond, formerly strong supporters of the Franklins, were angry about what they considered to be Sir John's unjust treatment of their popular young doctor, John Coverdale. Coverdale had been the subject of a complaint, and there had been an enquiry, with a verdict that the doctor should be merely reprimanded. But the Governor had dismissed him, and the decision was deeply resented.

Before I could answer, Jane added, ‘In reality it is neither mountain nor molehill, but a sign that Montagu is scheming again, plotting against us.'

‘What makes you think Montagu is behind it?' I asked.

She looked at me directly, and said, ‘You know my husband, Harriet—his dislike of paperwork. Montagu put the order for Coverdale's dismissal in front of Sir John and recommended him to sign—and John did so, without knowing the full circumstances.'

With his mind on matters more congenial to him, I thought. His new lighthouses, and his ideas for a naval base here, the Observatory . . .

‘And why shouldn't he sign?' Jane continued, ‘If his Colonial Secretary tells him to?'

‘But why would Montagu want Coverdale dismissed?'

‘Oh, Montagu doesn't care about Coverdale. His aim is to disgrace us. To make my husband look a fool. I begin to believe he plans to bring about our dismissal—because he loathes us, or in the hope of claiming the Governorship himself. He kept quiet while Ross and Crozier were here, but now they're gone, these attacks begin again.'

‘But there's been a petition from Richmond?' I said, ‘And Coverdale is reinstated?'

‘Sir John has ordered his reinstatement; Montagu refuses to comply. He accuses me of drawing up the petition, of inciting the Richmond
people to protest—in order to give my husband an excuse for reversing a bad decision!'

‘Mrs Parry says Mr Aislabie has written to the
Colonial Times
admitting that it was he who got up the petition . . .'

‘Yes—but Robert Murray won't publish it. I doubt any of the papers will. The Derwent Bank—Montagu is of course a Director with Swanston—holds the mortgages on all the newspapers in the island except Gilbert Robertson's. . . .'

I said what I could in the way of comfort, thinking all the time how frustrating it must be for her. If she were Governor, she would out-manoeuvre Montagu, but instead she could only watch and be loyally silent as her husband blundered on. When I reported the conversation to Gus, he thought Jane had good reason to be worried, and at the next meeting of the Ladies Committee, there was more evidence of this.

I arrived late and most reluctantly for this third meeting, on the tenth of October—to find Jane alone in the room, pale, furious, melancholy.

‘Montagu has won,' she said. ‘He and his cronies, Murray and the Macdowells. Swanston. I have been made to look an utter fool. Miss Hayter has withdrawn from the Committee and refuses to have any further dealings with female convicts. All on account of a vicious, contemptible attack in the press.'

The newspapers had been flung on the table; two articles declaring it immoral for respectable women, especially unmarried ones, to associate with convict females. The other three women on the Committee had immediately resigned too. There was also an article in a London newspaper charging her with ‘petticoat government' and interfering in matters of her husband's office. The piece had been written by Murray and sent by him to London months ago.

‘To be vilified by the local press is one thing,' Jane said, her voice unsteady. ‘I am accustomed to it—as much as one can ever be. But to be pilloried in London! The lies and distortions these colonial papers stoop to are not known there. Some will choose to believe their calumny.'

She looked ill and I felt sorry for her. Her hair had begun to fall out again, as it had before when she was suffering with nerves. Marie had been able to dress it so that it hardly showed, but Marie had left to be married. She and her lieutenant were settling at the Huon on ten acres, which, Gus told me, Jane had given them on generous terms. The new maid, Stewart, was less skilful with hair, better with a needle.

There was a lull of two weeks then, although the newspaper attacks on Jane did not stop. I was at the ‘Palace' in early November working on a portrait of Tom, which Jane intended for his mother Isabella, when Sophy rushed in, furious. An hour before, she and Aunt had been at work in the anteroom when Nuncle came in, greatly agitated. Montagu had been with him for
three hours
complaining of Jane. He claimed she had made slanderous ‘insinuations' about the Arthurites and Montagu—to Forster!

‘As though Aunt would speak to Forster about Montagu!' Sophy cried. ‘Or about anything of importance! But Montagu is so plausible—and my uncle so little accustomed to dealing with barefaced liars—he does not know what to believe. He asked Aunt, “Have you said anything which could be so misconstrued?” and then to me, “And you, Miss? Have you been interfering? You had better tell me if you are in any doubt.”'

Sophy paced about until Tom calmed her again.

‘And Aunt replied, “How can you ask us, John? What kind of fool must I be, to criticise Montagu to Forster? This is ridiculous. He wants to drive a wedge between us. How I wish you had called me in to answer him directly.”'

Jane then wrote to Montagu without telling Sir John, denying all his accusations and strongly objecting to his method of tackling her husband behind her back. Montagu replied, not to Jane, but to Sir John. He had been monstrously insulted, called a liar. He would never again enter Government House while Lady Franklin was in residence, nor would he allow his wife to do so. He began a policy
of working to the letter of his duty, making everything as awkward as possible for the Governor.

He had previously been used to dealing with about half the paperwork himself, trivial matters which only wasted the Governor's time. Now he did nothing: every scrap of paper, every change of time for a meeting, every most minor issue, was laid before Sir John. While feigning reticence, Montagu also made sure his rift with the Franklins was widely known. The Arthurite
Van Diemen's Chronicle
redoubled its viciousness; the Arthurite MacDowells called a public meeting to discuss the Governor's inadequacies; hecklers disturbed Franklin's public speeches and jeered the Vice-Regal carriage.

This year's Regatta was postponed until February in the hope of better weather later in the summer. Rain had deluged the last two Decembers.

‘Thank Heavens! One less thing,' cried Jane Franklin. ‘All I want now is peace and obscurity.'

But the Horticultural Society Prizegiving was in late November. She had promised to judge the Best Potato Bed, the Best Small Garden, the Best Vegetable Plot, the Finest Compost. For a whole long hot day she must go about in the carriage admiring rhubarb, mangelwurzels, leeks, geraniums, mixed herbaceous borders; remembering names, accepting jam, posies, giant marrows. A retinue was essential: Sophy and Eleanor, Miss Williamson and myself.

We were running late that morning. Sophy had lost a shoe. We waited in the carriage. It was found; we were away. A hundred yards outside the gates there was a disturbance. A small woman with a child in her arms, shouting at the open carriage, trying to stop it, calling and waving as it left her behind.

‘Oh stop, please stop!' I cried. It was Jane Fludde, with Thea. I was out before the carriage halted, ignoring the cries of Jane and Sophy, waving the driver on, turning to run back. As the horses pulled away again, I thought I heard Sophy say, ‘Well, honestly . . . !'