Wild Island (66 page)

The unveiling ceremony in Westminster Abbey two weeks later seemed an anti-climax. The Abbey was magnificently itself, stone lifted to heights beyond possibility, the sublime enfolding the human in intricate embrace. We were too few in a corner, a cold little gathering. Sir George Back was the only one who looked warm—large, ruddy, gleaming with prosperity. Beside him was old Mrs Osmar, widow of the purser of the
Erebus
. She was fragile and fine as ancient lace, needing her daughter's assistance for every move. Mrs Blanky, widow of the ice-master, was equally ancient but much different. Her vivid brown eyes glared from a shrunken little brown face; her scrawny determination strong as tarred twine. Sophy stood next to her, almost a caricature spinster. Shabby, umbrella'd, deaf, the last surviving authority on the wishes of Nuncle and Aunt, shouting ‘Hush!' in ringing tones.

Sir George Back performed the unveiling. Another irony, I said to Gus. George Back was one of the few people in the world Sir John detested, because of Back's selfishness on two very early Arctic journeys. We had often heard the story in the old collapsing Palace a million miles away.

And then it was time. The veil was drawn back and there was the bust of Sir John in Carrara marble.

‘A fine heroic portrait,' murmured Sir George to the surrounding air, ‘but not a perfect likeness.' He read aloud, sonorously, Tennyson's lines:

Afterwards Gus and I went to Regent's Park and sat in the Zoological Gardens and talked about Eliza Gould; a fond old couple, holding hands. The prisoners behind these bars were neatly labelled. Shrill children fed the monkeys who swung about looking, as the Queen had said when she visited the monkey house, ‘dreadfully, horribly human'. Perhaps it's true, I thought, perhaps we are no longer angels
or devils, as we once believed we were, but merely animals, as Mr Darwin insists.

‘I shall be glad to be getting home,' I said.

We called on Sophy once more before we sailed. She was copying out her aunt's correspondence which she had been retrieving for years, and changing words, as I have said before, leaving out lines, destroying some letters altogether.

Seeing the expression on our faces, Sophy grew defensive: ‘I lived with Aunt for forty-five years—
forty-five years
—and nobody, no, not even my uncle, understood her as I did. I think I might be allowed to know, Harriet, what my aunt meant. What she would have wished.'

She was beginning to breathe gaspily, always a sign that her feelings were hurt and yet she knew she might be in the wrong. As we took our leave she went back to her editing, protecting dearest Aunt and Nuncle from posterity, deciding what should be kept, and what should vanish as though it had never been.

Acknowledgements

ANY NOVEL WRITTEN OVER NEARLY FORTY YEARS, AS THIS ONE
has been, must acquire debts of gratitude to a host of people. Foremost comes my family—
sine qua non—
my husband Brian, Kate and David, and Elizabeth; Richard and Jane; Sheila, John, and Lyn, all of whom have given me unflagging support. I'm particularly grateful to Kate and to Elizabeth McMahon, who read the manuscript innumerable times and made many acute suggestions. And to Bruce Cornelius, with whom it all began.

Dear friends were early readers: Ruth Blair, Jenny and Paul Boam, Trauti and David Reynolds, Mary and Saxby Pridmore. Their encouragement kept me going; their companionship and hospitality have enriched my life as well as my work. Margaret Scott, Sarah Day and Cassandra Pybus were supporters from the outset; Caroline Lurie kindly read an unfinished draft; Maureen Matthews always told me I could do it. Amanda Lohrey has been the most generous and perceptive mentor a writer could have in the later stages.

My heartfelt thanks to Hannah Fink, who introduced me to my agent, Gaby Naher, who then showed the manuscript to publisher Jane Palfreyman at Allen & Unwin. I am immensely grateful to Gaby
and Jane for their confidence in
Wild Island
, and would like to thank the Allen & Unwin team, especially senior editor Sarah Baker, for their friendly expertise.

From the beginning I had wonderful help with historical research. Gillian Winter and Margaret Glover gave me a wide array of useful archive references. Margaret Glover's ‘Women and Children at Port Arthur' was an early pleasure (together with many other articles published in the papers and proceedings of THRA, the Tasmanian Historical Research Association), and the beautiful
First Views of Lake St Clair
, by Gillian Winter and Tony Brown, has been a recent one. I am very grateful to Ronnie Bramich and his family for access to his fascinating thesis on the development of old Government House in Hobart. Cynthia and David Hooker gave me
The Fate of Franklin
by Roderic Owen just when I needed it. Kerry Dunbabin and John Evans shared their wide knowledge of the peninsula and east coast areas. The modern Lempriere family took the trouble to bring me copies of their forebears' family tree. Alison Alexander's
Obliged to Submit
(later
Governors' Ladies
) fed my interest in the period; her prize-winning monograph,
The Ambitions of Jane Franklin
, was published by Allen & Unwin just as
Wild Island
was finished.

Many other writers have enlarged my knowledge, but a few books have been particularly important:
The Journal of Charles O'Hara Booth
edited by Dora Heard; Volume 1 of L. Robson's
A History of Tasmania
; Kathleen Fitzpatrick's
Sir John Franklin in Tasmania, 1837–1843
; also Ian Brand's
Escape from Port Arthur
; Ken McGoogan's
Lady Franklin's Revenge
; Penny Russell's
This Errant Lady: Jane Franklin's Overland Journey to Port Phillip and Sydney, 1839
, and Joyce Eyre's master's thesis on ‘The Franklin-Montagu Dispute' (for knowledge of which I'm indebted to Ruth Blair and Ralph Spaulding). I borrowed Mrs Chesney's shopping list from
Kettle on the Hob: A Family in Van Diemen's Land, 1828–1885
by Frances Cotton.

The staffs of the Tasmaniana Library, the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, and the Library of The Royal Society of Tasmania were always patient and helpful.

I am very grateful to Arts Tasmania for a Small Grant; to
Southerly
for publishing two extracts from early drafts of the novel; and to the Australian Society of Authors for a ‘Mini-Mentorship' towards manuscript development.

Profuse gratitude, always, to Charlotte Bronte for
Jane Eyre
and to Jean Rhys for
Wide Sargasso Sea
. Errors and omissions are, regrettably, all my own work.