The Soldier's Curse

by Meg Keneally

  On directions from the major, Monsarrat took these instructions to the superintendent of convicts, a stern man named Crow. The superintendent nodded his assent when he read the note containing the request. ‘Take the two who are left from the crew who put it up; hopefully they’ll have the wit to do the same thing backwards,’ he said.

  So Monsarrat procured the services of Frogett and Daines. They would report to the kitchen first thing the following morning, as they had under Slattery. Their erstwhile overseer was being kept busy, as part of a contingent of men sent to guard a group of cedar-cutters working a little further up the river. Spears made from the stalks of grass trees had, in the past, occasionally whistled through the air and found their mark, as a result of which all wood-cutting parties were now well guarded.

  Monsarrat did not, in fact, see Slattery until the following morning, when he had a welcome cup of tea in front of him and was awaiting the crew’s arrival. They would work on the room until midday, at which point practically the whole settlement would attend the funeral of the commandant’s wife.

  Mrs Mulrooney was busy making a large breakfast for Major Shelborne. ‘There’s a lot less of the man than there was when he set off. Hard bush living, and then a shock.’

  The man may hang you, thought Monsarrat, and you’re making eggs for him.

  For a moment, Slattery’s entrance restored a sense of normality. He slammed the door against the wall as he always did, exhorted God to bless all there as he always did, and took his seat at the table as he always did, with a wink and a smile. But the twinkling which marked him out as a capricious, slightly naughty but basically good young man was not in evidence.

  ‘God love you, Mrs Mulrooney,’ he said as she placed a cup of tea in front of him. ‘There’s been precious little of this marvellous stuff recently, first in the bush and now guarding those cedar-cutters. A rough lot they are, too. None of the pleasures of the conversations we share.’

  ‘And I understand that you met your objective, that the land around the new river was just as fine as Kiernan had promised,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘So I’m told. We came upon the major on his way home, so I didn’t get to see the wondrous sight for myself. But I’ll tell you this: I’ve had enough of rivers. Our own one is in a very bad temper at the moment – it keeps complaining at me over the sound of the woodcutters’ axes.’

  ‘It probably wishes you to button your coat properly and brush your hair once in a while,’ said Mrs Mulrooney.

  ‘Actually, Slattery,’ said Monsarrat, ‘you may do me a service, if you would be kind enough. It turns out I am to undo the work which you did, with your two remaining plasterers under my supervision. Perhaps you could accompany me to the sitting room, show me how it’s done.’

  ‘How could I refuse when you use such pretty language, Monsarrat? A shame that you can count the convict women here on one hand, and that you’re reduced to practising your silver tongue on me.’

  Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney shared a look, like indulgent parents of a wayward but mysteriously endearing child.

  So after Mrs Mulrooney had let them into the house proper, muttering inducements at the key as she did so, they stepped into the sitting room.

  Monsarrat had not spent any amount of time there, but now that he looked at the paper – which currently took up about half the wall space of the whole room – he had to admit that Slattery and his crew had done a remarkable job. The joins where one strip of paper met another were barely visible, and where these joins bisected the image of a flower, they were lined up perfectly.

  ‘It’s a fairly simple matter, Monsarrat, even for a shiny-arsed clerk such as yourself. You simply hold a damp cloth over the stubborn parts to loosen the glue, and make sure you take it off slow. We don’t want patches of greenery on a sea of white plaster.’

  ‘And should I breathe while I do so, private?’

  Slattery looked surprised. ‘I’d have thought so, Monsarrat. Otherwise you’d fall over dead, wouldn’t you? Didn’t they teach you anything at that grammar school of yours? We don’t want anybody else going and dying on us, now do we?’

  ‘No, we don’t. And there’s one person in particular who I’d as soon see continue breathing. Have you heard that Mrs Mulrooney is being suspected in Mrs Shelborne’s death?’

  Slattery’s surprise quickly gave way to shock. ‘I’d heard that she had been done away with, or so they thought, yes. But no one said anything about who the guilty party might be. A few of the less kind lads are laying bets. Then there is the curse, of course. Stranger things have happened than that one of our kind might be done away with in that way.’

  ‘I don’t believe in curses, private. Neither, I suspect, do you. But if I did, I would say they were embodied in the person of Captain Diamond. He is determined she should hang.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Mr Monsarrat. Everyone knows she adored the major’s wife, though God alone knows what they found to talk about – Mrs Shelborne being raised with a silver spoon, and Mrs Mulrooney being lucky if she saw one from a distance.’

  Monsarrat wondered whether to mention the article on the deadly nature of green wallpaper, or the green sludge at the bottom of Slattery’s copper. But he felt it might be better, for now, to keep the knowledge to himself.

  ‘Fergal, I have to ask you straight out, and please don’t take offence – do you know of any information which might exonerate our friend?’

  ‘If I did, Mr Monsarrat, I assure you I would be shouting it from the Government House verandah.’

  And such was Slattery’s sincerity that Monsarrat chose, then, to believe him.

  Chapter 24

  Monsarrat went and sat with Mrs Mulrooney while he was waiting for his two charges to appear, and when they did he retraced his steps back into the sitting room. They needed little supervision, having done this work before, and had the paper coming off in great sheets.

  Monsarrat stood by the door, watching, or at least appearing to. He had a sense that Slattery was not being entirely honest with him, but then he often had that sense about the young soldier – it was, perhaps, part of his charm. Of one thing he was certain – Slattery would not allow Mrs Mulrooney to hang.

  He made sure to run his eyes up and down the paper from time to time as it was being stripped away, so that Frogett and Daines knew they were under strict observation. But when half of the first wall was denuded, something snagged his eye.

  ‘What’s that over there, Daines?’ he asked, moving next to the convict.

  Daines gave a silent shrug. If the location of the Holy Grail had been inscribed in the plaster, he couldn’t have cared less.

  As Monsarrat moved closer, he saw that it was writing. Small, not much larger than he himself would employ in the major’s service. And in a language he didn’t recognise: Tiocfaidh ár lá.

  Monsarrat had no idea what the words meant. The ‘ar la’ suggested poorly spelled French, but the first word seemed Celtic to him. He knew the Irish language occasionally employed accents, but there were very few Irish speakers here. Though he had heard Irish convicts speaking in their native language, an English gentleman’s expertise was in Latin and Greek, not in barbarous tongues from across oceans or borders. People like Mrs Mulrooney and Slattery knew a smattering of phrases, but their language had been outlawed for so long that many Irish had forgotten it.

  Whoever had put the words there had done so with a narrow piece of wood or a fingernail. The way the plaster was grooved told him that much.

  He was tempted, for a moment, to call Slattery back and ask what the words meant, see if there was any reaction. But the young man was no doubt well on his way by now, and in any case, Monsarrat would rather know the significance of the words before he started sharing them.

  A short while later, he instructed Frogett and Daines to return to their barracks and ready themselves to attend Honora Shelborne’s funeral. He himself retired to his own hut to wash his face and adjust his cravat.


  Monsarrat felt that appearances always mattered, but never more so than at major church events – weddings, funerals, beginnings and ends. And he didn’t want Mrs Mulrooney to trudge up the hill alone, a pariah. He called at the kitchen for her on his way, and they walked there together.

  ‘I was in two minds about whether I should attend, Mr Monsarrat. If I’m suspected of putting her in that grave, surely there would be people who resent it.’

  ‘Well, would you attend were there no shadow of suspicion over you?’

  Mrs Mulrooney gave him a look which suggested she felt he might have had a recent head injury, to ask such an idiotic question.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘You should do exactly as you would do in the normal run of things. Doing anything else would only attract more suspicion, and you little deserve that which is on you at the moment.’

  Honora Shelborne was to be buried in the grounds of what would become St Thomas’s, the church to be built around her. The foundations had already been set, and layers of convict-made bricks were beginning to inch upwards, but the church was for the moment not much more than a footprint. The earth had the advantage, though, of being consecrated.

  She was laid to rest that afternoon in a place which would ultimately be covered by one of the church’s front box pews. She lay opposite Major Shelborne’s predecessor, who had been buried there in expectation of the eventual church after he had succumbed to heat exhaustion.

  As the church would be erected over her, Honora Shelborne’s headstone was flat, and was set at one end of the hole into which she would be lowered, to be slid into place afterwards. It had been hastily carved by one of the settlement’s stonemasons, on instructions from the major, and even Monsarrat had to admire the script. It bore no decoration – as she had needed none in life – and said simply:

  Sacred to the memory of Honora Belgrave Shelborne Beloved wife of Major Angus Shelborne, commandant of this settlement Departed this life 29 June 1825, aged 26

  The Reverend Ainslie, recently returned from Sydney, conducted the service, with a great number of the settlement’s inhabitants, both free and bonded, looking on. There were those, of course, who were cutting timber upriver, or tending the farms or the sugarcane fields, or engaged in work on chained or unchained gangs, and their attendance was not expected. But those convicts who worked at the heart of the settlement, as Specials, overseers, constables and so forth, were all in attendance, as was every member of the regiment who could be spared, and their wives.

  Monsarrat noticed, too, some strong Birpai men, Bangar amongst them, standing some distance off towards the edge of the hill, close to Dr Gonville’s house. He was not the only one to do so. Diamond glared at them, and whispered something in the major’s ear. The major shook his head, looked at the Birpai and nodded.

  The Reverend sought to give the ceremony as much gravitas as could be managed on a building site. Monsarrat was impressed that he included some examples of Honora’s focus on educating the convicts – the man had obviously done some research, which was no less than Honora Shelborne deserved.

  The major stood stiffly throughout the burial, eyes straight ahead. He bent only to shovel a small amount of earth onto his wife’s coffin, a box which looked barely big enough for a child.

  After it was over, the major asked Diamond to supervise the garrison for the rest of the day. He himself retired to his study.

  Monsarrat followed the commandant at a respectful distance, drawing near only when they got close to the study door. ‘Major, can I be of any assistance today?’

  The major paused at the threshold, as though wondering whether Monsarrat or anyone could help him at the moment. ‘No, thank you, Monsarrat. You may return to the sitting room to supervise the wallpaper. I imagine the light will fail by four or so, to the point where you won’t be able to continue. When that happens, have the rest of the afternoon to yourself. I have some important decisions to make.’

  Monsarrat hoped those decisions did not concern the guilt or otherwise of his friend. As he turned to leave, the major called him back. ‘Monsarrat, I know I can rely on your discretion in regard to the manner of my wife’s death.’

  ‘Of course, sir. I have no value without discretion.’

  The major gave a small smile. ‘I was not sure whether it had been made clear to you that the suspicion of foul play is not common knowledge. I wish it to remain so. Only Captain Diamond, Dr Gonville and a very few others are party to the investigation into her likely murder. I know I can trust you to make sure that this number does not increase.’

  Monsarrat was surprised – Slattery had, after all, told him there had been talk, a plausible eventuality in a small settlement. But he’d heard no whispers from other sources.

  Shadow Monsarrat, meanwhile, was urging his host on to an irredeemable act of indiscretion. The letters, the secret spying, the lot: shadow Monsarrat wanted to spew it out, gouts of information that would wash away all thoughts of Mrs Mulrooney’s culpability.

  But Monsarrat had just enough control of himself to realise that such rashness would diminish his utility and credibility in the eyes of the major, and thus his ability to argue for Mrs Mulrooney, should such an argument become necessary. However, he would not waste the opportunity to begin framing his case.

  ‘Sir, you may depend on me to hold this information to myself. However, I seek your forgiveness, but Mrs Mulrooney is not capable of the act for which Diamond is investigating her. I do not know who is responsible, and I wish to see them fully and comprehensively punished in this life and the next, but it is not her.’

  The major rolled his lips in on each other, his eyelids descending to half-mast as he weighed what he was about to say. ‘I also find it hard to believe it of her. She doted on my wife from the moment Honora arrived. To be honest, it’s thanks to that woman that my wife’s time in this settlement was as happy as it was. Her disposition is not that of a murderer. I know what makes a murderer, Monsarrat – I have seen enough of them. And she fails what I like to think of as the Cicero test. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that is.’

  Monsarrat had indeed read about the Roman lawyer (whom Catullus had called the most fluent of Romulus’s descendants). He had formulated the central question at the heart of every crime. ‘Cui bono. Who benefits. Yes, sir, you’re right, certainly not her.’

  ‘Nevertheless, Monsarrat, my instincts have been wrong before. I am not convinced of her guilt, but neither am I convinced of her innocence. And unless somebody can come to me with a compelling means through which the poison was administered, which does not involve Mrs Mulrooney, I believe her future is at best uncertain.’

  Monsarrat could think of no safe response to this. He bowed and withdrew to the sitting room, where he had nothing to distract him from his anxiety save the gnarled hands of Frogett and Daines as they scraped the paper off the walls.

  As the sun began to dip, Monsarrat sent the two convicts back to their barracks. He was on his way back to his hut, via the kitchen, when he heard the sound of raised voices coming from the commandant’s office. He decided to hang back, then, in the shadows. Eavesdropping had become second nature to him, as from his privileged perch outside the commandant’s office he had been able to hear much of what transpired within over the past two years. He wondered, for the first time, whether his supervision of wallpaper stripping had more to do with preventing him overhearing things he oughtn’t than with needing a steady person to supervise the labour.

  The door to the office opened then, and Dr Gonville stepped out into the dwindling light. Monsarrat made after him, falling into step beside the surgeon as he headed for the church construction site where Honora lay, and the hospital, dispensary and his quarters beyond.

  ‘Monsarrat,’ said the doctor as Monsarrat drew level with him. ‘Thank you for your message via Donald. I fear we may be paying for my decision not to report the captain at the time.’

  ‘The major cannot be taking Diamond’s word ov
er yours, surely,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘You’ve never been in a battle, Monsarrat. But the major and the captain have, in places the likes of which you and I will never see. It has linked them, as these things tend to do. And the captain, over the years, has taken full advantage of that link, pouring his own brand of misinformation into the major’s ear. The end result is that the major, who is an honourable man, nevertheless sees the captain as the shortest and straightest path to the truth. There was a time when he would hear other views. But I fear his wife’s death has robbed him of equilibrium, so that he clings to Diamond as though the captain was one of those black rocks in the middle of the ocean. Everyone else is a potential obfuscator, and is to be treated thus until proved otherwise.’

  Monsarrat walked in silence for a moment, his fingers unconsciously interlacing behind his back. ‘I presume, then, that he did not fully accept your view that any poisoner would be keen to avoid direct contact with their weapon,’ he said.

  ‘Sadly, no. Diamond, God rot him, pointed out myriad historical examples of poisoners who were only too intimately involved with their victims. You know they sometimes call arsenic inheritance powder and, for God’s sake, the powder of divorce. Used, so it goes, to help nudge along an obstinately breathing relative who happens to be sitting on a large pile of money, or an inconvenient husband. Diamond said it was a woman’s weapon. He said if poisoners were loath to touch the substance, a great many matriarchs and patriarchs would have graced the earth for a few years longer than they did.’

  ‘Surely the major can’t have approved of his conduct with Mercer’s daughter, though,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t, if he fully believed it. But he asked – very reasonably, too – why I hadn’t come forward with it sooner. My credibility with him has been dented, perhaps fatally so. And of course Diamond denied it. May I ask, did you leave him a report on the flogging of young Dory?’