The Soldier's Curse

by Meg Keneally

  The kick may have been an accident. But what happened next was certainly not.

  After he mounted, the man drew back the hand in which he held his riding crop, and slashed it with full force across Mary’s face. Mary fell backwards into the dirt, howling and holding the bleeding gash in her cheek, as the man rode off with his daughter, her face looking back, an anguished mask.

  The incident probably didn’t have a bearing on the man’s subsequent decision to raise the family’s rent to unpayable levels, some time later. Certainly, they were not the only ones in the area to face such an impost, but their increase was the largest. Without a hope of paying, they packed up their belongings and headed towards the nearest city.

  Mary’s face was permanently disfigured by the blow. She could probably still have made a marriage, but felt she wasn’t in a fit state to do so, and never would be. Surely the only man she could attract with such a horrific wound, which pitted her cheek almost to the corner of her mouth, would be a man not worth having, she said. So she hunted for work. She told her brother she wanted to be a nursemaid, but no one would hire a disfigured woman with threadbare clothes and no references. Neither would any of the shops take her on. She tried to sell flowers for a short while, but as she picked her ragged stock from the roadside, there wasn’t much interest.

  The city wasn’t kind to the family. They found a space in a squalid tenement, for a little more than they had paid for the farm, but there they had at least had fresh air and access to the running water of the nearby stream. Here, neither of those things existed.

  The boy’s mother sickened and died. His father took to drink, and eventually lost his wits and his sight to it. Mary found enough work to keep them fed. When he was thirteen, a friend, whose father was one of his sister’s customers, enlightened him on what kind of work she did, in the slightly jeering tone of one whose sire had enough money to pay for such visits. The men she let inside her didn’t care about a marred face.

  In fact, they weren’t above marring it further. One night the back of a hand against her one smooth cheek sent the side of her head into a wall, with enough force to sever the connection between her brain and the rest of her body.

  It was as well that the boy was resourceful, and that the petty thievery with which he fed himself went undetected. One by one the boy’s brothers and sisters drifted away, until he drifted himself, and kept drifting until he found himself sleeping at the foot of a strangling fig and its host, the one slowly enclosing the other until no trace of the original was left.

  Chapter 19

  Monsarrat was greatly troubled by the tone in Diamond’s letters. Not just the escalation from endearments to admonishments, although that was concerning enough. But there was a frantic depth of feeling there, a well of need, which Monsarrat had never personally experienced and did not understand. He wondered whether it was Honora, and only Honora, who had been capable of stoking such feeling in the captain, or whether the grasping desire was floating like a cloud around him, latching onto the first likely prospect.

  Monsarrat had never come close to being married. He had his pretensions, and a great number of them, and they would not have been satisfied by the kind of woman who would have been happy to settle for a clerk’s salary. There had been that walk with Lucinda Ham in Exeter, and a few others with various young ladies of good family. He might have pressed his suit with one of them, were it not for the fact that even shadow Monsarrat knew it would lead to certain discovery.

  And then, of course, there was his trial, conviction, and transportation, none of which were conducive to meeting the right kind of woman or, for a while, any woman.

  For many years after he left Mr Collins’s residence, there was no one for whom Monsarrat felt genuine affection. Samuel Smythe probably came close, but that friendship was built on deceitful sands, which had of course ultimately opened and swallowed Monsarrat whole.

  There had certainly been women. Many of them found Monsarrat’s dark, brooding appearance compelling, and sought to rescue him from whatever turmoil sometimes appeared so plainly on his features. And occasionally, after a wild night in Exeter with some of the rowdier solicitors, he would find himself following the group to a house of ill repute, thankful that his barrister’s fees stretched far enough to allow such indulgences.

  Apart from these fleeting encounters, female companionship had not been easy to come by, nor did he desire it once his circumstances changed. But when reversals occurred in Monsarrat’s life, they tended to occur swiftly and completely. And one such reversal bore the name of Sophia Stark.

  Before his ticket of leave, Monsarrat’s diligence and fine work at the Parramatta court had earned him some small freedoms. In his own time in the late afternoons and evenings, before he returned to his hut on the floodplain beneath Parramatta’s version of Government House, he was permitted to sit in a small parlour in the Caledonia Inn in Church Street and rent himself out as a scribe to the considerable number of convicts and former convicts – called ‘emancipists’ – who wanted letters written for posting to other parts of the colony or to relatives in Britain.

  As he seldom spoke without purpose, and maintained a neutral expression, some of his customers came to view him as a vessel into which they could pour their distress. Barely coherent ramblings of wives and families left behind, wise fathers and gentle mothers who might well now be dead, paramours who had probably married somebody who had not committed a crime, or at least not been caught in that commission.

  He drew what meaning he could from these emotional purgings, put them into finer and more measured language, and wove them through the words dictated by his customers.

  It became known that you could go to the tall dark-haired man at the Caledonia with only a vague idea of what you wanted to say, and emerge with a letter written in the finest script, and with the finest sentiment. Gradually, demand for his services grew, so that he had to turn people away in order to return by curfew to his hut. He had no intention of jeopardising the ticket of leave which he hoped was coming by being found away from his quarters after the allotted time.

  He even, to his chagrin, had to turn away a pretty, trim dark-haired woman, with a slightly foxy face which stirred him.

  She was back the next afternoon, however, and had evidently been waiting some time, as a small queue of people had formed behind her.

  As she sat down opposite him, he asked how he could help her.

  ‘In all sorts of ways, I should imagine, but taking some dictation will do for now,’ she said, with a smile that to his mind was a little too arch for a first meeting.

  She wanted a letter written to her brother in Kent. He was a few years older than her, and she had not seen him for ten years, nor heard word of him for nearly that long. He was a terrible waster, she told Monsarrat, and she had always been concerned for his future. ‘If you had asked our mother which one of us would be transported, she would instantly have pointed to Charles,’ said Sophia.

  He asked her what she would like to say to him, and she dictated a mundane letter, telling him of the guest house she owned, the difficulty in securing curtains which were heavy enough to speak of quality at a cheap enough price, and how she pretended there was a husband upstairs should any of her guests give trouble.

  Doing his best with the information she gave him, Monsarrat crafted as fine a letter as had ever left the colony, and found himself asking her to let him know if she ever received a response. She thanked and paid him, and left.

  The next day she was back, but deliberately stayed at the rear of the line, stepping aside to let later arrivals pass her. Monsarrat stole occasional glances at her, but knew that his customers would become peevish if he seemed to be paying attention to anything other than transcribing then translating their thoughts into fine and edifying language.

  When the line finally drew her towards him, she took a seat in front of his desk and smiled.

  ‘I am presuming you have not yet had a response from your
brother,’ said Monsarrat.

  She chuckled. ‘You hear the navy boys boasting about how fast the ships are now, as though they were solely responsible for it. But no, there is no ship that fast.’ Her face clouded slightly. ‘I don’t expect a response, not really. There’s been none for ten years, and I don’t expect that will change. But perhaps he’s getting the letters, you see, and reading them, and knowing that he still has a sister, although at an impossible remove. Or, if the letters do not reach him, they may at least reach someone who knows what has become of him, who may one day be kind enough to enlighten me on that score. I will continue to write until I receive word that he has died, or I die myself.’

  Monsarrat found himself uncharacteristically lost for words. The small frown that had rippled over her face made him want to sail for England and find this poor correspondent of a brother, sit him down, and make him dictate a letter back to her.

  ‘Regardless,’ she continued, ‘that’s not why I’m here. I came to ask you a question. A little indelicate perhaps, but I’d appreciate your honest answer. How much do you rely on the coins you get paid drafting these letters?’

  From anyone else, Monsarrat would have found the question rude. But he didn’t hesitate a moment before answering her. ‘His Majesty very kindly feeds and lodges me, so I have no need of the money for the present. I am seeking to put it by for the happy day when my ticket of leave arrives.’

  ‘In that case, do you feel you could tear yourself away one afternoon during your free time? You see, belief in my fictional husband is wearing thin amongst some of the more amorous of my guests, and I would be greatly indebted to you if you would give him form – for an afternoon.’

  Monsarrat had already entertained very vague thoughts of playing the role of Sophia’s man for more than an afternoon. And he felt honour-bound to help prevent the molestation of a lady. It was agreed that the following afternoon he would make his way to the guest house, the Prancing Stag.

  The place, like its owner, was small, neat, and did its best to look respectable on limited funds. It was mostly patronised by visiting merchants and the occasional officer, but sometimes some rough trade came through the door. Sophia didn’t discriminate as long as she had proof that they could pay for their board, but she was thinking of changing this practice, given the looks a few of them sent in her direction.

  It was for the benefit of these men that Monsarrat, on entering the parlour, addressed Sophia as ‘my dear’ and moved assuredly around the room, having been briefed as to its dimensions and contents on the short walk to the place. And to maintain the deceit, it was only natural that he should retire upstairs with her as evening began to draw in.

  They did not become lovers that day. Shortly after being admitted to Sophia’s bedchamber, Monsarrat had to sneak downstairs again and out the back entrance to return to his hut by curfew.

  But the following day, the correspondents of Parramatta were disappointed to find their accustomed scribe missing from his perch at the Caledonia Inn. A few of them muttered, and made other arrangements, but most decided to give the man a few days’ benefit of the doubt, in the hopes that he would return shortly.

  The man himself was at that time not in a fit condition to polish the sentiments of the town’s people. He was in a rare state of neither thinking about nor needing words, closeted with Sophia in her bedchamber, his cravat on the floor slowly soaking up the contents of a cup of tea which had been accidentally spilled in his eagerness to discard it.

  In London, Sophia had been a chambermaid in a hotel far grander than the establishment of which she was now proprietress.

  While Sophia was a diligent worker, her brother was in and out of employment, here a labourer, there a streetsweeper. No job lasting long, as his raging thirst inevitably made him late, and not a little violent.

  Sophia, who lived in a small room in the hotel’s subdivided attic, made barely enough money to keep herself alive. She feared daily for her brother, whom she still thought of as the strapping lad who had thrown her over his shoulder, tickled her, played hide-and-seek with her, and told her stories when she was tiny. She worried that one day, not so far in the future, she would hear of him being found facedown in a puddle, or in the Thames.

  The patrons of the hotel, meanwhile, clearly had enough funds to feed an army – why else would they give scraps from their plates to the owners’ mastiff – She reasoned that if you could afford to feed a dog as well as yourself, you could certainly do without that pocket watch, or that brooch. Such items did go astray during travel, after all.

  But coming from a background where treasures were few, and jealously hoarded, Sophia failed to recognise the fact that for some fortunate people, treasures were tossed aside as casually as trinkets. So the brooch she mistook for a minor piece, of little value to its owner, turned out to be an heirloom passed down through the family for several generations, and it was missed instantly on its owner’s return.

  Later that day, Sophia was arrested after being caught trying to pawn the brooch. Within the year she had stepped ashore at Sydney Cove.

  Sophia still hoped to make a marriage one day, and live in respectability, or what passed for it here. But a great many of the men she met seemed to mirror her brother’s liking for alcohol followed by violence. She might be fortunate enough to snag some nice merchant who would turn a blind eye to her past, but if she waited too long her looks would be gone, and she would be left with men who resembled her brother, but without the humanity.

  To guard against this eventuality, Sophia decided to make sure she was always able to provide for herself. She saved the money she made as a seamstress, and on getting her ticket of leave was able to afford a short lease on a well-made but slightly shabby building near the centre of town. She wasted no time in turning it into a cosy if uninspiring guesthouse, setting her rates in the narrow band which enabled a handsome profit without putting the customers off. As she became more profitable, the rooms were dressed in themed colours, and the cream teas were widely acknowledged to be amongst the best in Parramatta. By the time she met the brooding convict, she had been able to buy the building outright, and felt secure for the first time in her life.

  She had had her eye out for some time now for a marital prospect, and felt this young Welsh–French hybrid could make a suitable candidate. He was industrious, and his skill with a pen meant that he would never be out of employment. He did not seem to be overly taken with drink, plying his trade surrounded by the stuff at the Caledonia Inn, but never visibly intoxicated. And she genuinely came to care for him, despite needing to hide her boredom when he recited some of Catullus’s more saucy work.

  For his part, Monsarrat was also indulging in indistinct dreams of respectable domesticity. He saw himself, a respected clerk or perhaps more, maybe a government functionary, maybe even a lawyer if such a profession was allowed to a former convict, returning to the guesthouse each evening, to drink tea on the porch with his wife or discuss the latest political news with some of the more educated guests. He came close on several occasions to broaching the subject of marriage, but wanted to wait until he was able to do so from a position of freedom.

  There were those, however, who would have preferred Monsarrat to get on with it without waiting for his ticket. Churchmen in the colony often turned a blind eye to relationships between men and women which weren’t sanctified by God. They performed colonial marriages between men and women who already had spouses in England or Ireland, reasoning that such a great distance was tantamount to death, and treating the nuptials as those between widows and widowers. And as long as things didn’t get too lascivious or lewd, they also chose to ignore the sin of fornication – making an effort to stamp it out would have consumed every waking hour, and most of the sleeping ones besides.

  The Reverend Horace Bulmer was not amongst these pragmatic clergymen.

  As a convict, Monsarrat was required to attend church on a Sunday. Visibility in the pews was also a prerequisite for re
spectability, so Sophia likewise submitted herself each week to one of Bulmer’s rambling yet emphatic sermons. His favourite topic was fornication and licentiousness, of which he saw evidence every day. Even if his homilies started out on a different tangent, they inevitably snaked their way back to sins of the flesh.

  Monsarrat continued writing letters, but on fewer days than he had previously – he tried to keep two or three afternoons open to visit Sophia. On Sunday afternoons, of course, he wasn’t permitted to work or hang around at an inn, so he tried to squeeze the same amount of business into three afternoons. Rumours began to circulate that the clerk was losing his touch, as the letters became less well formed and the sentiments less elegant.

  His customers did not need to wonder at the reason for his absences. Parramatta, with its connections between each office, workplace, home and farm, enabled gossip to spread rapidly. So word of Monsarrat and Sophia’s arrangement had started to trickle out almost before it was consummated.

  During Bulmer’s rants, Monsarrat would look at the back of Sophia’s dark head and imagine his own beside it. He saw them generously donating to the poor box, and being greeted by other local worthies outside after the service. Perhaps one or two might be invited to the Prancing Stag for luncheon afterwards.

  Along with the rest of the town, the Reverend Bulmer had heard of the guesthouse owner and the convict’s relationship, and he redoubled his efforts to warn the general population of the dangers of fornication. He emphasised the irredeemable moral decay to be seen in those who committed this sin, and seemed to Monsarrat to stare pointedly at Sophia, and then at him.

  Bulmer was a purist. A sin was a sin in his view, and a crime a crime. There were no shadings, no matters of degree. One of the few criteria which he used to distinguish between felons was education. Those who had been exposed to knowledge, whatever their crime, should know better. They clearly must be so deeply mired in sin that their souls were lost and therefore of no concern to him. One of his most emphatic views centred around the treatment of these convicts – the education which should have prevented their offences should not be allowed to afford them a comfortable assignment in government offices. They should be breaking rocks, and their backs in the process.