‘Indeed, madam, my timing was very ill-chosen, but I was driven by such ardent admiration and deep affection—’
‘Oh, do stop,’ she said. ‘I have no interest in the confessions of a young man’s heart. Susannah is upset, for she was very troubled by your poor mother’s turn. She is possessed of a tender heart and strong natural sympathies, and she was quite alarmed at how no one of your family rushed to the Lady’s aid, or went after her, when she withdrew from the room. Indeed, I could see that she was undertaking to go herself, until I stopped her with a Look. And she was naturally troubled anew by your proposal, which, she said, shows that you were thinking only of yourself at the moment that your mother sorely needed a friend.’
I leapt to my feet. ‘Madam, no!’ I cried. ‘I was thinking of—’ But I could not honestly conclude my remark, for I supposed I had indeed been thinking of myself. ‘Madam, with all my deepest respect for you and for Miss Prendergast, perhaps I might be permitted to say, humbly, that knowing Mamma as I did, indeed do, I felt at that time that she would wish for a moment alone.’
‘No, one or the other of you ought to have gone with her. Sit down, Mr Fox,’ she said dryly. ‘I find myself in danger of chastising you, and that is not my wish. Indeed, this is not at all the matter I wish to discuss with you now.’
‘It is not?’ I said, sitting meekly.
‘I watch the people about me, my boy,’ she said. ‘I have observed you as you have grown from a white and weedy boy into a white and weedy young man. Like a little sapling trying to thrive in the shadow and root-system of an enormous Oak.’ She did not speak cruelly, although her words were not pleasant to hear. Rather, she spoke as though she were referencing that which was commonly understood.
Nevertheless, I could not speak at once. White and weedy! ‘I do not blame you, you know. It is a difficult thing, to have the father you have had.’
‘Madam,’ I said. ‘I thank you for the charming frankness of your words …’
‘Oh, do not talk to me about charming frankness, Gabriel Fox,’ she said. ‘I was born in the previous century, which was a different time, and have now lived long enough—and have acquired enough money—that I have earnt the right to speak as naturally as I please, without much care for Convention, which is, in fact, a Suffocating Net that keeps us low, and away from one another.’
I made to say something more, but she held up a hand, and I fell silent.
‘Neighbour, I have a task for you,’ she went on, ‘and I urge you with every fibre of my Being to accept, for it may be the making of you. And you are sorely in need of a making!’
The old lady began the great task of rearranging her person, and I arose to assist her, hovering in a very ungainly way.
‘Sit down,’ she told me. ‘You are an exceedingly anxious young man, aren’t you? Forever leaping to your feet.’
‘I hoped only to assist you, madam,’ I said, resuming my seat, and resolving to remain there, come hellfire.
‘Assist me? In sitting more comfortably? I am not quite so far gone as that,’ she said, calm and a little amused. ‘You have not enquired about the task I have mentioned, which tells me you are not over-eager to have it,’ she continued. ‘But have it you shall.’ And now she opened the Bible upon her lap to remove two small paper packets tucked within. ‘This is a letter of credit,’ she said, passing the first to me. ‘And this is a personal letter,’ she told me, giving me the second, which was considerably more substantial than the first. ‘I charge you to deliver this letter on my behalf, Mr Fox. It must be delivered by hand, for I do not have an address.’ She sighed, and closed her book, and stroked its cover absent-mindedly. She wore a large Ruby upon her right hand, and it glimmered as she moved. ‘Your mother has made me think of this,’ she said, ‘though it has long been my intention to send my letter. I wrote it many years ago. Lady Fox’s words yesterday—her pure and simple expression of Unhappiness—now there was what you call charming frankness—did flare a little light on the circumstances of my own heart.’
Was Mrs Prendergast confessing to me that she was Unhappy? The prospect seemed so unlikely it was almost comical. This not only because the lady had ever radiated a deeply self-satisfied contentment from the very core of her being, but also that she clearly did not think terribly highly of me, and surely would not bother confiding in me. I turned the packets she had given me over in my hands. The one Mrs Prendergast had told me contained the letter of credit was unmarked, but the other, the personal letter, was inscribed with a name.
‘Maryanne Maginn,’ I read aloud.
‘Maryanne,’ said Mrs Prendergast. Any trace of comedy was gone as she pronounced the name. ‘She has long been lost to me, and I would have her back.’
That morning in the hut, I had prised open my sore and crusted eyes, beheld my clothing of the day before in a sodden lump upon the floor, and rolled forth to untangle two masses of paper from the jacket. The first mass was my letter of credit, and the second was the letter Mrs Prendergast had written for her long-lost Maryanne Maginn. Even my reflections upon the importance of Letters upon the beach with Mrs Heron and her Balloon had not inspired me to remember these vital epistles, abandoned to wet ruin in the clothing I had torn from my cold and hurting body upon our return from the disastrous hunt.
From his comfortable repose in a bunk near mine, William asked me why I was on the floor, and in despair. The more I tried to salvage the papers, which were still dripping with sea water, the more torn and lumpish they became, and the more the ink flowered and bled, until, ultimately, I was left with nothing but a soggy grey mass in either hand, representing all the money I had in the world, and all the substance of my Purpose there.
‘Now you are Truly Free,’ William said.
‘I hope you will forgive me for remarking that your observation is most profoundly unhelpful, William.’
‘I forgive you. Besides—perhaps it is untrue, and you are not Free at all. Do you know that the Chinese believe that if a man saves your life, you belong to that man? Or perhaps it is the other way around. I do not recall.’
‘Of course I do not know that,’ I said. ‘And we are not Chinese.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘I am grateful that you saved me.’
‘You say the words, but you do not seem particularly glad to have life.’
‘I suppose in this moment I am not, but I am sure it will pass.’ ‘Go and pay a visit to Cook, and he will make you glad to be alive. Anyway—are you not selling your irons to Jack? You might make a little money thus, which will be enough to get you on your way.’
‘I made a gift of them to him.’
‘What! After all our walking! Why?’
‘I wished to be rid of them.’
‘You would have been rid of them had you sold them.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I paused, and got up off the earthen floor. ‘Perhaps he will let me have these clothes in payment for them,’ I said, for not only were my own things still almost as wet as they had been while actively in the sea, but they were crusted and clogged with salt and sand, and would require a thorough laundering. The only good thing to come of my own dousing was that my handkerchief, which had remained filthy and folded in my pocket, was perfectly clean once more, with my mother’s clever embroidery shining a clear green against the white.
How could I return to Hobart-town, and take up once more my Purpose, without my letters? I had no money! And no proof of she whom I represented.
‘Do you know of a farmer called McNamara?’ I asked William.
‘Oh, yes, he is a landholder of some note west of here,’ said he. ‘Cattle, I believe.’
‘I have heard he is seeking labourers,’ I said.
‘Where would you have heard that?’ he asked.
‘Oh—at the Royal Hotel.’
‘I worked for McNamara,’ said Byrne, who had been snoring mere moments before. ‘As a Free man. Pendle worked for him as an assigned man. I would not go there again.’
/> ‘Beggars should not be choosers,’ I said.
‘You are not a beggar,’ said William.
‘I may be, now.’
‘The work is very hard,’ Byrne told me.
‘I am a farmer’s son,’ I said. ‘I am entirely capable of hard work.’
‘Are you, truly?’ asked William, propping himself upon one arm, and squinting, for the air was gelatinous with night-farts. ‘When you say you are a farmer’s son, do you not mean you are the son of some squire, who lives in a big house, and has land that is farmed for him by an army of men?’
‘I work with the men in the summers,’ I said, with some indignation. There was general laughter; more men than I had previously thought were awake and listening to our exchange. ‘No, you would not manage at McNamara’s,’ said Pendle, from some dark corner somewhere. ‘Come back south to Hobart-town when we take Cook to-day.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘I will introduce you to my mother.’
‘I had thought you slept outside, Jack!’ said Byrne.
‘It was too cold. And the whale gave me Nightmares. Keep the clothing, Mr Fox,’ he said to me, sitting up to plant his feet upon the floor and rub his face with his hands. And the men began musing amongst themselves about two of their number who had slipped into the trees together in the night, in order to embrace. I found this comforting, in fact: my troubles were so little and unremarkable to them that they could fluidly move the discussion to other topics, and not thrash and wail in despair at the hopelessness of my situation.
That comfort did not last long, slipping from me as I exited the hut in the pre-dawn dark, for I was too occupied with the cold to allow myself to indulge any such warming sensation as that.
MY BELIEFS DO NOT CONTROL THE UNIVERSE
I had said but little since we had departed the station. The men about me spoke from time to time, but the overwhelming mood was grave, and their pronouncements were brief, and spoken in low voices. The corpse of Mr Cook loomed very large. I was occupied internally, giving myself some hard words over and over, chastising myself again and again for my own foolishness and distraction, which had led me so far from Maryanne Maginn, and thus Susannah. What would I do without money? I should have to find work of some kind, and try to raise enough funds for my passage Home, and there face down Mrs Prendergast, and my own failure, and my eternal Loneliness, and consider what to do next.
No! I could not think of it. I must indeed find work, and for the first time in my life make some money. Then I must divert all my energies to the securing of Maryanne Maginn, and let no Distraction come upon me. And were she dead, I would bring her back to life, and carry her on my back to Norfolk, and throw her at Susannah’s feet.
We would occasionally pass a hamlet or a house on shore, or a drift of smoke suggestive of human life beyond the trees. These settlements were quiet, although there were people and animals here and there. Women mending nets mouthed words below the breeze and water. A dog barked; a seabird called. A man shouted and a woman called a reply. Cows raised their heads to watch the boat skate by. A boy Tam’s age stood knee-deep in the water, grey-skinned with cold, watching us. Tam had wanted to go with us. He was afraid, he had said. They had told him he would only be in the way. The coast undulated, sweeping wide and then narrow, rearing high into rocky cliffs, and dipping low again, rustling with papery trees. Great pools of sunshine moved across the land. I fancied I saw my own family’s house, that great and ancient Hall, perched upon a rocky clifftop—but of course it was not there. The only structures on so grand a scale upon that Isle were not built by men but were entirely natural, like mountains, and whales.
The problem in the lamplight of the morning had been where to stow Cook in his shroud. In the bilge was not correct, although most convenient, and, anyway, Mrs Heron’s and Mary’s bags—though they had brought little, a carpet-bag for Mrs Heron and an old leathern pouch for Mary—were stowed there, wrapped in oilskin in order to keep them dry. My own clothes, damp still from my time in the sea, were bundled there, too, tied with string. There was some decking aft and stern on all the whaleboats, enough for a corpse, but this had also seemed incorrect, for the men had tried it, while I watched, for I had given up all facility of my own. They stood back to survey their work, and saw that they had made of Cook a dreadful figurehead. And that is why they had finally lashed him betwixt us all. Thus, as I rowed, my elbow nudged him again and again, and although I perceived that the shroud was dry, I slowly developed the sensation that his body was yet soaked with sea water, and this wetness seeped into my jacket and onto my skin that way, and I began to shiver all over my body, not from cold, but that I was clammy with water from the corpse.
No one had pissed over the side all morning. I suppose this was in deference to the presence of ladies, and perhaps the corpse. Before we had departed, it had been decided with Heron back at the station that we would row without stopping in order to make the best time, but either no one had considered, or no one had been bold enough to mention, the necessities of Nature. Therefore, when the sun was high above us, we very hastily pulled into a cosy bay and leapt out, dragged the boat upon the sand and helped the women down, and dispersed rapidly and apologetically into the trees.
When we convened once again, the tacit understanding was to pretend that we had pulled in for dinner. Mary had great handfuls of dry leaves, and some sticks under her arms, and without ceremony, she used a kind of magic unknown to me to spark a fire using no tool but her bare hands. ‘Do we need a fire?’ asked Mrs Heron. ‘Surely we shall not stop long?’ ‘Need a cup of tea, of course,’ said Mary. She had produced, from somewhere, a tin pot with a handle, and a packet of tea, a loaf of bread, and a large ceramic jar, stopped with cork, which she opened with a knobby hand. ‘Mutton steamer,’ she said.
‘Mutton?’ I asked.
‘Kangaroo,’ said William. ‘All meat is mutton to good Mary.’ ‘And, in fact, not kangaroo, but wallaby,’ said the Scotsman.
‘I need water, for the tea,’ said Mary, and William courteously arose to retrieve the cask from the boat.
Mary kindly scooped a great mound of pink and gelid meat onto a piece of bread. This was a troubling repast, in the visual sense, but I accepted it like any ruffian, with both hands. We used to eat jugged hare sometimes in the summer, when the groundsman’s boys would set snares and bring us their catch. When I was a very small child, my mother would take me to look at the traps, and I would cry, and she would comfort me, and we would think of names for the poor brown hares, like Flop-ear, and Trumpet, and, later, we would eat them, unsentimentally, smiling at one another with red fibres in our teeth. My mother loved to tell me the story of the man who died of eating hare.
After it had been so long promised, I could scarcely taste the Steamer—be it mutton or kangaroo or wallaby—all but sickened as I was by memory.
Mrs Heron did not eat, but instead rose from her place by the fire, and went and stood by the whaleboat—by Cook.
Before we had left, Heron had said: ‘Do not take longer than you require.’ I was free, but the others had assured him they would not. ‘You might sleep in the boat,’ he said, and the men said with all due respect they would stay in a place called Wapping, and Heron did not answer but nodded. There was some unspoken significance in this which I did not comprehend.
‘You, Mr Fox—will you go with Mr Montserrat and my lady wife to the house of Mrs Montserrat?’ he had asked me.
I could not remember if I had been told whether Mrs Montserrat was Jack’s mother or his wife.
‘Yes, he will,’ said Jack, and Mr Heron put a hand on his breast and shot a private look upwards to God, presumably, as though I had just been Saved.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Will you give the lady my warmest regards?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack.
I supposed Mr and Mrs Heron must have made their private farewell in the house, for they parted with placid warmth, as though they were friends who had passed a very nice visit together,
and would see one another sometime soon, probably.
‘Where is Tam?’ asked Mrs Heron.
‘I have not seen him, Leah,’ said her husband gently.
Mrs Heron looked about her, gazing into the trees particularly. ‘I had wished—’ she began, and fell quiet, and then she said, ‘Tell him God bless him.’
‘I shall,’ said Heron. ‘Send your lady mother my regards,’ said he to Jack, once more. ‘Be so kind.’ He had the look about him of a man who wished to say more.
‘Yes, I will,’ said Jack.
Gazing into the flames on that beach, halfway to Hobart-town, with the dead Cook moistly awaiting us to finish our tea and rum and kangaroo steamer, I was visited by a vision of Mr Heron as I had last seen him, his massive legs the last of him to fade from view as we rowed away. I stole a glance at Mrs Heron, and wondered if she had seen her husband for the last time.
‘Shall we be off?’ called Mrs Heron. The wind had risen, and it whipped her skirts.
I had grown generally warm by the fire, but my arm was still cold where it had nudged continually against Cook. ‘I find I cannot help but disturb Cook with my elbow as I row,’ I said, as we stamped upon the fire, and threw sand on it, and gathered together our few things. ‘Does anybody else present find themselves continually brushing up against his shroud?’
The men looked at me. Along with my Cannibal William, present were Jack, and Byrne, and Pendle, and the tall Scot, whose name was McAvoy. ‘No,’ said William.
‘But if you are, it does not matter,’ said McAvoy as we were spilling down the sand to the whaleboat. ‘He does not care.’
I did not feel I could say, But I care, for it troubles me very much.
Mrs Heron said something to me, but whatever it was, the wind picked it from her lips and threw it away.
When I left Mrs Prendergast, I found I could recall but little of our conversation—perhaps because there had been not much of substance to it, other than some practical directions regarding my voyage. The lady’s knowledge of Maryanne Maginn and her circumstances was paltry enough, and she had, I think, kept some of what little she did know from me.
A Treacherous Country Page 15