Wild Island

by Jennifer Livett

  Booth waited twenty minutes outside the Governor’s office and was being ushered in by Henslowe, Sir John’s new secretary, when George Boyes’s tall, thin figure emerged from another door and came past him.

  ‘Booth,’ he nodded a greeting, lifting his eyebrows, adding quietly as he passed, ‘Giving away the cabbage crop again? Transgressing with other vegetables?’

  He continued on his way with the sardonic smile he cultivated, but ten minutes later it was clear to Booth that this was no laughing matter.

  There was no sign of Forster, only Franklin and Henslowe, Montagu and a senior man, Asquith, from the Attorney General’s Department, and his clerk. It was Montagu who read aloud the item for investigation: the sale of a vessel built at Port Arthur, ordered by Mr Charles Swanston of the Derwent Bank and Derwent Steamship Company, finished and delivered to him last year. There appeared to be grave objections to the transaction, which might be construed as a deliberate attempt to defraud Her Majesty’s Government.

  The ship had been sold to Swanston’s company for three hundred and fifty-two pounds, ten shillings and tenpence, a price calculated using the convict rate for labour. If it had been calculated using the commercial rate, the cost would have been two thousand five hundred pounds. The question was, had the low price been by error—or design? Mr Swanston had immediately fitted engines and sold it to a friend for seven thousand pounds. Had there been an arrangement by which Captain Booth was paid the difference?

  ‘I strongly object, Your Excellency.’ Booth was on his feet.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Montagu calmly. ‘We must ask, Captain, why you used the convict labour rate in calculating the sale price?’

  ‘Mr Forster instructed me to do so.’

  ‘You have a record of this?’

  ‘No. Mr Forster spoke of it while we were conversing, and I subsequently wrote a letter to him confirming that I would make the calculation on that basis, as he had advised. My letter should be in the files.’ But it would not be, of course. ‘I most vehemently deny receiving any advantage from the sale.’

  But somebody had. Booth’s heart jumped erratically for a queasy minute, during which he wondered whether he was about to have a fit, then it resumed a heavy fast throb. Forster? Who else? Forster had given Swanston the cheap sale in exchange for cancellation of some debt, and he, Booth, had been played for the gullible fool he was. Montagu had no doubt returned from England knowing nothing of it, had found it among the records, and seeing how fishy it would appear to Whitehall, decided to kill two birds with one stone. Stab Booth in the vitals and save his ugly brother-in-law’s neck. No use threatening to resign this time: it would only seem like guilt.

  ‘You have recently bought land at York Plains, Captain?’

  Montagu, having laid his red herring at their feet, was purring quietly behind the desk. ‘And yet until a few months ago your financial state was—straitened, shall I say? You owed a debt to your agent which you have also recently paid?’

  ‘I sold my commission. That alone is the source of my expenditure. Sir. The sale of the ship to Swanston took place last year.’

  ‘Hmm. You might have delayed spending, of course, to defer suspicion.’

  ‘A bad business,’ muttered Franklin. ‘Henslowe, will you note . . .’

  Captain Booth—they were still calling him that—you are required to submit a full account of your version of the sale in an affidavit sworn before a magistrate. It will be forwarded to Lord Stanley in England with other papers in the case.

  Booth walked across the wharves and up into the Battery, blind with more fury than he had ever felt in his life. Forster had turned to him casually after they’d talked about the sale. ‘You’ll use the convict rate of labour in calculating the price, of course.’ And he hadn’t given it an instant’s thought: assumed Swanston had ordered the ship from Port Arthur for that very reason—because it was cheaper than a commercial boat-builder. He walked swiftly down the hill to Sandy Bay where he would be unlikely to see anyone he knew, and strode along the shore for nearly an hour before he turned back. Talk to Bergman, he decided, coming back through Battery Point.

  Mr and Mrs Bergman were not at home, Durrell said. They had gone to visit Mr Duterrau, the painter, who was to give a lecture tonight at the Mechanics Institute. They would dine with him and go to the lecture afterwards. Durrell produced a hand-bill advertising Duterrau’s paper on ‘The School of Athens as it Assimilates with the Mechanics Institution’. He and Billy Knox would go too, after a bite. Had the Captain eaten? Booth, finding himself suddenly ravenous at the aroma of stew, and recalling that he had not eaten for hours, shared their meal and grog. There was distraction in talking to Durrell and carrot-haired, blushing Billy Knox, a former Point Puer boy Booth had recommended for the apprenticeship with Bergman.

  The boy was taller than Booth now, narrow as a plank, and as stiff and speechless until Durrell drew him into talk about the Huon settlement. They walked together to the hall afterwards, separating at the door when Booth, seeing no sign of Bergman and Harriet, joined St John Wallace and Louisa, from whom he learned that Duterrau was ill. The Reverend Ewing had stepped in at short notice to speak on ‘The Migrating Caterpillar’, and would stay the night afterwards with the Wallaces. He didn’t want to ride three miles back to the Orphan School very late, only to return early next morning for the enquiry into his handling of the school, due to begin the following day.

  When the lecture was over Booth could not have said a word about caterpillars. He was not the only one: there had been loud snoring. The audience began to leave, and Booth would have gone quickly too, but St John and Louisa, forced to wait for Ewing, began speaking to him. In the end they were the last to leave, except for a clerk waiting to lock up and extinguish the lamps lighting the few stone steps outside the door.

  Booth stepped aside to let Louisa and St John go first down to the road. Ewing was behind him. As he stepped down onto the street Booth saw two men approaching: John Price and Stringer Wynn. As they came past, Wynn veered out of his path to collide with St John, shoving with such brutal intent that St John staggered and fell against the building. Wynn grasped St John’s arm in a tight grip and cried loudly, ‘Oh dear, sorry, sir. What ’ave I done? ’Ere, let me get you steady.’

  ‘Let me go. What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ said St John.

  Wynn took no notice. He turned to Ewing, and leering into his face, said, ‘Well, if it ain’t Mister Ewing as well. Mister Wallace and Mister Ewing. Two men of God. Black and white like the soul of a sinner or a pair o’ magpies. Heckle and Peckle both. Ewing takes the little girls and you ’as the boys? Is that how it goes, eh, Wallace?’ Booth was speechless with astonishment: he saw Lizzie’s shocked face and put out a hand to steady her as she backed towards the railing by the steps.

  St John spoke to John Price, ‘Will you tolerate this?’

  ‘Sorry, Wallace, wasn’t listening,’ said Price. He fixed his monocle in his eye and added, ‘What say, Stringer?’

  ‘Quotin’ the Bible, sir. Sayin’ as ’ow you can’t touch pitch an’ not be defiled. Ain’t that so, gen’lemen?’

  Ewing was bent over, gasping strangely. Booth moved towards Wynn, who stepped easily back, grinning, and took up a pugilist’s stance with his fists up. He danced away from Booth, lithe, young, in peak condition, saying, ‘Keep aht of it, Cap’n. Ain’t you in enough trouble? Or so I hear.’

  Laughing still, he danced towards St John and away again, working his fists, taunting, and then came close, suddenly thrusting his right fist to within an inch of Wallace’s chin. Louisa screamed. Wynn stepped back and held up his hands.

  ‘Never touched ’im, ma’am. Jus’ my liddle joke, see? No ’arm done, sir? Leastways, not this time. Not but what there might come a night when it’ll be a different story. A bit o’ sport between us one dark night, eh, gen’lemen?’

  ‘Will you stand there and do nothing, Price?’ said Booth. Three years ago he would have leapt at
this man. He was furious now to recognise in himself neither the will nor the capacity.

  Price pulled at a chain across his waistcoat until a watch emerged, consulted it and said languidly, ‘Must be off. Come along, Wynn.’

  St John seemed about to rush at them as they walked away. Booth restrained him.

  ‘Go to your wife,’ he said. Louisa had sunk onto the steps.

  Booth went in search of a cab, and when they reached the cottage, Mrs Fludde took Louisa to bed. Ewing gulped down two brandies, chattering with shock and outrage, and then staggered off to sleep. When they were alone, Booth said to St John, ‘You will report this, of course.’

  ‘Report it to whom? The Chief Police Magistrate—Forster? His assistant—John Price?’ St John gave a distorted smile. ‘They would call it a misunderstanding. Their word against ours.’

  Wynn had threatened before to horsewhip him in public, he added. And he had received two anonymous letters, destroyed now, because their filthy contents did not bear showing. At any rate, he and Louisa would sail for home in a month, early July. He believed these brutes would not dare anything more in the meantime.

  I heard Booth’s story when he came to see Gus early the following morning, before he returned to the peninsula. I went immediately to see whether there was anything I could do for Louisa, expecting to find her prostrated. It was almost winter, but sunny. She was sitting in a basket chair outside the French windows under a leafless tree, knitting, which I had never seen her do before, wrestling the needles and worsted in the awkward manner of beginners. She held her head slightly to one side in concentration, her thick golden hair carefully looped back, her blue eyes untroubled when she stopped and looked up at me. Little Thea, nearly three, copper curls tied with blue ribbons in two bunches, played on a rug with the cat. She put her face up to me for a kiss and hug. Jane Fludde went out to fetch tea.

  ‘Of course they dislike St John,’ said Louisa calmly, reaching the end of a row and holding the work up to gaze at it with satisfaction. ‘What does he expect? He has let them know he has something against them. Something they would rather conceal. He has hinted it to McLeod, who tells me. St John tells me nothing. McLeod says John Price hates Dido Thomas. He hates all convicts, thinks they get away with too much.’

  Fludde came in with the tea things and Louisa added, ‘Perhaps Edward Rochester was right to be afraid of coming here. This is not England, however much it tries to be. You begin to wonder why we thought some things so important.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Oh, manners, rules. McLeod says society in this colony is in some ways stricter than the Court of London. It has to be, he says, because people are afraid we are so far from England all the rules will break down.’ She rested her knitting in her lap. ‘I wonder if you know how fortunate you are, Harriet?’ she added. ‘To be certain from a child what your gift is, what you want to do. It has taken me so long to find out what I want to do. I don’t want to go back, now.’

  ‘Good heavens, Louisa. What has changed you? What do you want to do?’

  ‘The Adastra changed me, and you, and Mrs Tench, and Jane Fludde, and McLeod . . .’

  She gave me a smile full of meaning. St John and Dido came in then, and I had no opportunity to ask the question again.

  The Magnetic Expedition returned that week. They had found their great ice land, which prevented them approaching within a hundred and fifty miles of the pole. Nevertheless, they had been able to plot the pole’s position accurately, and could prove errors in the American charts, which showed mountains and prairies in places where the Erebus and Terror had sailed across open water. The most spectacular sight had been two mountains on the snowy continent, one a volcano erupting smoke and flame. They had named them Mount Erebus and Mount Terror.

  Planning now began for the great Erebus and Terror ball, perhaps the most famous celebration ever held in Hobart. Souvenir programmes of the great occasion, printed on blue silk, are treasured to this day by some families in the colony. The sight of them still has the power to make me agitated and melancholy.

  The rift with Sophy meant that I did not see her during this time, but I heard the progress of the arrangements from Gus and Calder, who were again assisting with observations at the Rossbank Observatory—and also from Old Mr Coombes and Ada, who reported Arthur Sweet’s gleanings from the Governor’s office. The date was set for the first of June, to allow a month for preparations. Jane Franklin was still in New Zealand, but it was hoped she would be home by then. At any rate, the ball could not wait. The Expedition must soon leave to go to Sydney and New Zealand, and south into the ice again for the spring melt. The ball would be held on the decks of the two ships, as grand and glittering an affair as they could make it, Ross and Crozier declared. It would express their inadequate thanks to the Franklins and all friends in the colony, for the months of entertainment and assistance the Expedition had received.

  Everything needful would be done by the ships’ crews, they insisted. The Government House ladies must resign themselves to being honoured guests, untroubled by preparations, merely arriving on the night to gasp and wonder at what the jack tars had wrought. But Sophy and Eleanor, bursting with anticipatory fervour, could not be denied activity. Sailors and servants wore a track up through the garden between the ships and Government House. On the up-journey went bunting, flags and pennants for the ladies’ inspection, laundering and repair. Back down to the ships went cutlery, crockery, chairs, tables, cushions, rugs, mirrors, hairbrushes, pins, lavender water and sal volatile—even the portrait of Queen Victoria which Peter Barrow had given to Jane Franklin. This was to be prominently displayed, framed by small lamps and tasteful greenery arranged by Sophy. There were paper garlands to make, and ribbon favours, and an archway of greenery (by Sophy) to adorn the gangway to the ships. The newspapers warned the hopeful that there could be only two hundred guests; the ships could take no more.

  Sophy was advising Ross and Crozier on the invitations and I could imagine her difficulties. The official party numbered forty at least, leaving only a hundred and sixty for other guests. It was a matter of choosing whom to leave out. Someone would be affronted. The Franklins had made enemies before by handing out invitations and then rescinding them; or by inviting only one half of a couple.

  Bergman and I received no invitation; we had not expected one. The day before the ball, however, there came a handwritten note from Ross, delivered by a sailor, apologising for ‘the unaccountable confusion’ by which our invitation had not been sent. If we could forgive this deplorable mistake, he and Crozier must still hope to enjoy the pleasure of our company. Gus had taken a heavy share of shifts at the Observatory, and I guessed someone had suddenly noticed the omission and drawn it to Ross’s attention. Gus wanted to send an excuse. He did not like crushes, and I could not accompany him; Anna was sinking lower every day. But I argued that it would be ungracious not to go after Ross’s kind letter.

  ‘It will be your last occasion with the ‘Obs Men’ before they sail,’ I said. ‘And otherwise what will you do? Only sit alone by the fire while I’m at the Minto Lane cottage with Anna. Besides, I want to know everything!’

  He gave an amused husbandly groan, but agreed to go.

  Until a few days before this, Anna had still been able to sit in a chair for an hour or two each day. To eat soup and toast by the fire, or look out the window, or receive visitors—Bess Chesney, Liddy and Polly, Father Therry. But the effort had grown more and more laborious, and on the morning before the ball, she was too weak to leave her bed. I walked over to the hospital to leave a note asking James Seymour to come, and on the way I saw for the first time the full extent of preparations for the grand occasion.

  The eastern side of the grounds of Government House had been fenced off for a month; now a new road was revealed: creating a semicircular drive to allow carriages to pass across the front of Government House to reach the Erebus and Terror, which were lashed together side by side at the wharf. The
vehicles could then continue on past the Customs House and back up to Davey Street without turning. The Terror was on the sea side, the Erebus nearest to the wharf, and joined to it by a bridge of small boats with planking laid across them to form a path. As I walked by—one of many curious onlookers—this wooden footbridge was being tented over with canvas to form an entrance arcade the length of a large room and perhaps a yard and a half wide.

  That night, oil lamps were hung at intervals along the interior of this arcade, and Ross and Crozier stood at the entrance under Sophy’s green arch, greeting the guests as they came from the carriages. The deck of the Erebus, sheltered under a spread of sails, was for dancing, its cabins taken over as dressing rooms for the ladies. Supper tables were set on the Terror. The night was fiercely cold but dry, no doubt in answer to fervent prayers rising heavenwards from the latitude of 40 degrees south, like smoke from a great chimney. It was three years almost to the day since Booth had been lost.

  The military band of the 51st Regiment supplied spirited music, the True Colonist noted next day, and after a couple of hours of dancing, the guests repaired to supper. ‘To Mr Walond, the Mess-master of the Barracks, praise was due for the elegant arrangement and decoration of the long tables, and to Mr Gardiner, the confectioner of Macquarie St, loud accolades for the sumptuous provision of viands,’ declared the Courier. Large quantities of champagne were consumed, one reporter noted, but so lavishly was it provided, he added wistfully, that there was likely to have been a good deal left over afterwards. Captain Ross proposed the Loyal Toast and the health of the Lieutenant Governor. Lieutenant Henry Kay proposed Lady Franklin, best of friends, regrettably absent but warmly in their thoughts, and then he toasted the fair Ladies of Hobart Town. Mr Knight spoke to ‘the Navy’, which Captain Crozier answered.