For the Term of His Natural Life

by Marcus Clarke

  “It’s very oppressive, Captain Frere,” said Meekin; “and to a stranger, quite enervating.”

  “Have a glass of wine,” said Frere, as if the house was his own. “One wants bucking up a bit on a day like this.”

  “Ay, to be sure,” repeated Vickers. “A glass of wine. Sylvia, dear, some sherry. I hope she has not been attacking you with her strange theories, Mr. Meekin.”

  “Oh, dear, no; not at all,” returned Meekin, feeling that this charming young lady was regarded as a creature who was not to be judged by ordinary rules. “We got on famously, my dear Major.”

  “That’s right,” said Vickers. “She is very plain-spoken, is my little girl, and strangers can’t understand her sometimes. Can they, Poppet?”

  Poppet tossed her head saucily. “I don’t know,” she said. “Why shouldn’t they? But you were going to say something extraordinary when you came in. What is it, dear?”

  “Ah,” said Vickers with grave face. “Yes, a most extraordinary thing. They’ve caught those villains.”

  “What, you don’t mean? No, papa!” said Sylvia, turning round with alarmed face.

  In that little family there were, for conversational purposes, but one set of villains in the world—the mutineers of the Osprey.

  “They’ve got four of them in the bay at this moment—Rex, Barker, Shiers, and Lesly. They are on board the Lady Jane. The most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life. The fellows got to China and passed themselves off as shipwrecked sailors. The merchants in Canton got up a subscription, and sent them to London. They were recognized there by old Pine, who had been surgeon on board the ship they came out in.”

  Sylvia sat down on the nearest chair, with heightened colour. “And where are the others?”

  “Two were executed in England; the other six have not been taken. These fellows have been sent out for trial.”

  “To what are you alluding, dear sir?” asked Meekin, eyeing the sherry with the gaze of a fasting saint.

  “The piracy of a convict brig five years ago,” replied Vickers. “The scoundrels put my poor wife and child ashore, and left them to starve. If it hadn’t been for Frere—God bless him!—they would have died. They shot the pilot and a soldier—and—but it’s a long story.”

  “I have heard of it already,” said Meekin, sipping the sherry, which another convict servant had brought for him; “and of your gallant conduct, Captain Frere.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Frere, reddening. “We were all in the same boat. Poppet, have a glass of wine?”

  “No,” said Sylvia, “I don’t want any.”

  She was staring at the strip of sunshine between the verandah and the blind, as though the bright light might enable her to remember something. “What’s the matter?” asked Frere, bending over her. “I was trying to recollect, but I can’t, Maurice. It is all confused. I only remember a great shore and a great sea, and two men, one of whom—that’s you, dear—carried me in his arms.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Mr. Meekin.

  “She was quite a baby,” said Vickers, hastily, as though unwilling to admit that her illness had been the cause of her forgetfulness.

  “Oh, no; I was twelve years old,” said Sylvia; “that’s not a baby, you know. But I think the fever made me stupid.”

  Frere, looking at her uneasily, shifted in his seat. “There, don’t think about it now,” he said.

  “Maurice,” asked she suddenly, “what became of the other man?”

  “Which other man?”

  “The man who was with us; the other one, you know.”

  “Poor Bates?”

  “No, not Bates. The prisoner. What was his name?”

  “Oh, ah—the prisoner,” said Frere, as if he, too, had forgotten.

  “Why, you know, darling, he was sent to Port Arthur.”

  “Ah!” said Sylvia, with a shudder. “And is he there still?”

  “I believe so,” said Frere, with a frown.

  “By the by,” said Vickers, “I suppose we shall have to get that fellow up for the trial. We have to identify the villains.”

  “Can’t you and I do that?” asked Frere uneasily.

  “I am afraid not. I wouldn’t like to swear to a man after five years.”

  “By George,” said Frere, “I’d swear to him! When once I see a man’s face—that’s enough for me.”

  “We had better get up a few prisoners who were at the Harbour at the time,” said Vickers, as if wishing to terminate the discussion. “I wouldn’t let the villains slip through my fingers for anything.”

  “And are the men at Port Arthur old men?” asked Meekin.

  “Old convicts,” returned Vickers. “It’s our place for ‘colonial sentence’ men. The worst we have are there. It has taken the place of Macquarie Harbour. What excitement there will be among them when the schooner goes down on Monday!”

  “Excitement! Indeed? How charming! Why?” asked Meekin.

  “To bring up the witnesses, my dear sir. Most of the prisoners are Lifers, you see, and a trip to Hobart Town is like a holiday for them.”

  “And do they never leave the place when sentenced for life?” said Meekin, nibbling a biscuit. “How distressing!”

  “Never, except when they die,” answered Frere, with a laugh; “and then they are buried on an island. Oh, it’s a fine place! You should come down with me and have a look at it, Mr. Meekin. Picturesque, I can assure you.”

  “My dear Maurice,” says Sylvia, going to the piano, as if in protest to the turn the conversation was taking, “how can you talk like that?”

  “I should much like to see it,” said Meekin, still nibbling, “for Sir John was saying something about a chaplaincy there, and I understand that the climate is quite endurable.”

  The convict servant, who had entered with some official papers for the Major, stared at the dainty clergyman, and rough Maurice laughed again.

  “Oh, it’s a stunning climate,” he said; “and nothing to do. Just the place for you. There’s a regular little colony there. All the scandals in Van Diemen’s Land are hatched at Port Arthur.”

  This agreeable chatter about scandal and climate seemed a strange contrast to the grave-yard island and the men who were prisoners for life. Perhaps Sylvia thought so, for she struck a few chords, which, compelling the party, out of sheer politeness, to cease talking for the moment, caused the conversation to flag, and hinted to Mr. Meekin that it was time for him to depart.

  “Good afternoon, dear Miss Vickers,” he said, rising with his sweetest smile. “Thank you for your delightful music. That piece is an old, old favourite of mine. It was quite a favourite of dear Lady Jane’s, and the Bishop’s. Pray excuse me, my dear Captain Frere, but this strange occurrence—of the capture of the wreckers, you know—must be my apology for touching on a delicate subject. How charming to contemplate! Yourself and your dear young lady! The preserved and preserver, dear Major. ‘None but the brave, you know, none but the brave, none but the brave, deserve the fair!’ You remember glorious John, of course. Well, good afternoon.”

  “It’s rather a long invitation,” said Vickers, always well disposed to anyone who praised his daughter, “but if you’ve nothing better to do, come and dine with us on Christmas Day, Mr. Meekin. We usually have a little gathering then.”

  “Charmed,” said Meekin—“charmed, I am sure. It is so refreshing to meet with persons of one’s own tastes in this delightful colony. ‘Kindred souls together knit,’ you know, dear Miss Vickers. Indeed yes. Once more—good afternoon.”

  Sylvia burst into laughter as the door closed. “What a ridiculous creature!” said she. “Bless the man, with his gloves and his umbrella, and his hair and his scent! Fancy that mincing noodle showing me the way to Heaven! I’d rather have old Mr. Bowes, papa, though he is as blind as a beetle, and makes you so angry by bottling up his trumps as you call it.”

  “My dear Sylvia,” said Vickers, seriously, “Mr. Meekin is a clergyman, you know.”

/>   “Oh, I know,” said Sylvia, “but then, a clergyman can talk like a man, can’t he? Why do they send such people here? I am sure they could do much better at home. Oh, by the way, papa dear, poor old Danny’s come back again. I told him he might go into the kitchen. May he, dear?”

  “You’ll have the house full of these vagabonds, you little puss,” said Vickers, kissing her. “I suppose I must let him stay. What has he been doing now?”

  “His wife,” said Sylvia, “locked him up, you know, for being drunk. Wife! What do people want with wives, I wonder?”

  “Ask Maurice,” said her father, smiling.

  Sylvia moved away, and tossed her head.

  “What does he know about it? Maurice, you are a great bear; and if you hadn’t saved my life, you know, I shouldn’t love you a bit. There, you may kiss me” (her voice grew softer). “This convict business has brought it all back; and I should be ungrateful if I didn’t love you, dear.”

  Maurice Frere, with suddenly crimsoned face, accepted the proffered caress, and then turned to the window. A grey-clothed man was working in the garden, and whistling as he worked. “They’re not so badly off,” said Frere, under his breath.

  “What’s that, sir?” asked Sylvia.

  “That I am not half good enough for you,” cried Frere, with sudden vehemence. “I—”

  “It’s my happiness you’ve got to think of, Captain Bruin,” said the girl. “You’ve saved my life, haven’t you, and I should be wicked if I didn’t love you! No, no more kisses,” she added, putting out her hand. “Come, papa, it’s cool now; let’s walk in the garden, and leave Maurice to think of his own unworthiness.”

  Maurice watched the retreating pair with a puzzled expression. “She always leaves me for her father,” he said to himself. “I wonder if she really loves me, or if it’s only gratitude, after all?”

  He had often asked himself the same question during the five years of his wooing, but he had never satisfactorily answered it.

  CHAPTER II

  SARAH PURFOY’S REQUEST

  THE evening passed as it had passed a hundred times before; and having smoked a pipe at the barracks, Captain Frere returned home. His home was a cottage on the New Town Road—a cottage which he had occupied since his appointment as Assistant Police Magistrate, an appointment given to him as a reward for his exertions in connection with the Osprey mutiny. Captain Maurice Frere had risen in life. Quartered in Hobart Town, he had assumed a position in society, and had held several of those excellent appointments which in the year 1834 were bestowed upon officers of garrison. He had been Superintendent of Works at Bridgewater, and when he got his captaincy, Assistant Police Magistrate at Bothwell. The affair of the Osprey made a noise; and it was tacitly resolved that the first “good thing” that fell vacant should be given to the gallant preserver of Major Vickers’s child.

  Major Vickers also prospered. He had always been a careful man, and having saved some money, had purchased land on favourable terms. The “assignment system” enabled him to cultivate portions of it at a small expense, and, following the usual custom, he stocked his run with cattle and sheep. He had sold his commission, and was now a comparatively wealthy man. He owned a fine estate; the house he lived in was purchased property. He was in good odour at Government House, and his office of Superintendent of Convicts caused him to take an active part in that local government which keeps a man constantly before the public. Major Vickers, a colonist against his will, had become, by force of circumstances, one of the leading men in Van Diemen’s Land. His daughter was a good match for any man; and many ensigns and lieutenants, cursing their hard lot in “country quarters”, many sons of settlers living on their father’s station among the mountains, and many dapper clerks on the civil establishment envied Maurice Frere his good fortune. Some went so far as to say that the beautiful daughter of “Regulation Vickers” was too good for the coarse red-faced Frere, who was noted for his fondness for low society, and overbearing, almost brutal demeanour. No one denied, however, that Captain Frere was a valuable officer. It was said that, in consequence of his tastes, he knew more about the tricks of convicts than any man on the island. It was said, even, that he was wont to disguise himself, and mix with the pass-holders and convict servants, in order to learn their signs and mysteries. When in charge at Bridgewater it had been his delight to rate the chain-gangs in their own hideous jargon, and to astound a new-comer by his knowledge of his previous history. The convict population hated and cringed to him, for, with his brutality, and violence, he mingled a ferocious good humour, that resulted sometimes in tacit permission to go without the letter of the law. Yet, as the convicts themselves said, “a man was never safe with the Captain”; for, after drinking and joking with them, as the Sir Oracle of some public-house whose hostess he delighted to honour, he would disappear through a side door just as the constables burst in at the back, and show himself as remorseless, in his next morning’s sentence of the captured, as if he had never entered a tap-room in all his life. His superiors called this “zeal”; his inferiors “treachery”. For himself, he laughed. “Everything is fair to those wretches,” he was accustomed to say.

  As the time for his marriage approached, however, he had in a measure given up these exploits, and strove, by his demeanour, to make his acquaintances forget several remarkable scandals concerning his private life, for the promulgation of which he once cared little. When Commandant at the Maria Island, and for the first two years after his return from the unlucky expedition to Macquarie Harbour, he had not suffered any fear of society’s opinion to restrain his vices, but, as the affection for the pure young girl, who looked upon him as her saviour from a dreadful death, increased in honest strength, he had resolved to shut up those dark pages in his colonial experience, and to read therein no more. He was not remorseful, he was not even disgusted. He merely came to the conclusion that, when a man married, he was to consider certain extravagances common to all bachelors as at an end. He had “had his fling, like all young men”, perhaps he had been foolish like most young men, but no reproachful ghost of past misdeeds haunted him. His nature was too prosaic to admit the existence of such phantoms. Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above him, that in raising his eyes to her, he lost sight of all the sordid creatures to whose level he had once debased himself, and had come in part to regard the sins he had committed, before his redemption by the love of this bright young creature, as evil done by him under a past condition of existence, and for the consequences of which he was not responsible. One of the consequences, however, was very close to him at this moment. His convict servant had, according to his instructions, sat up for him, and as he entered, the man handed him a letter, bearing a superscription in a female hand.

  “Who brought this?” asked Frere, hastily tearing it open to read. “The groom, sir. He said that there was a gentleman at the ‘George the Fourth’ who wished to see you.”

  Frere smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had dictated such a message, and then frowned in anger at the contents of the letter. “You needn’t wait,” he said to the man. “I shall have to go back again, I suppose.”

  Changing his forage cap for a soft hat, and selecting a stick from a miscellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his steps. “What does she want now?” he asked himself fiercely, as he strode down the moonlit road; but beneath the fierceness there was an under-current of petulance, which implied that, whatever “she” did want, she had a right to expect.

  The “George the Fourth” was a long low house, situated in Elizabeth Street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the narrow panes of glass in its windows, and the ostentatious affectation of red curtains and homely comfort, gave to it a spurious appearance of old English jollity. A knot of men round the door melted into air as Captain Frere approached, for it was now past eleven o’clock, and all persons found in the streets after eight could be compelled to “show their pass” or explain their business. The convic
t constables were not scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of Frere, clad in the blue serge which he affected as a summer costume, looked not unlike that of a convict constable.

  Pushing open the side door with the confident manner of one well acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and made his way along a narrow passage to a glass door at the further end. A tap upon this door brought a white-faced, pock-pitted Irish girl, who curtsied with servile recognition of the visitor, and ushered him upstairs. The room into which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows looking into the street, and was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly from a table between the windows. As Frere entered, a little terrier ran barking to his feet. It was evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman; and Frere, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face with Sarah Purfoy.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said. “Pray, sit down.”

  This was the only greeting that passed between them, and Frere sat down, in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that twinkled with rings.

  The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and her hand as white as of yore. Her hair, bound close about her head, was plentiful and glossy, and her eyes had lost none of their dangerous brightness. Her figure was coarser, and the white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed an outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The most noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned no longer that delicate purity which they once boasted, but had become thicker, while here and there showed those faint red streaks—as though the rich blood throbbed too painfully in the veins—which are the first signs of the decay of “fine” women. With middle age and the fullness of figure to which most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual absence of moral restraint never fails to produce.