Corroboree (62 page)

The
Primrose
leaned against the stiff north-westerly, her timbers creaking like the stays of an elderly woman. Then, across the ruffled waters of the Gulf of St Vincent, he saw the foaming outline of Henley Beach, and the outer harbour; and the masts of all the vessels that were moored there.

As the
Primrose
slowly rounded the point, her sails flapping against the wind, a rocket was fired from the end of the new McLaren wharf; and as soon as she passed the harbour entrance, Eyre saw that the water was clustered with scores and scores of small boats, lighters and bumboats and skiffs, bobbing and dipping, all of them flying bunting and pennants, and crowded from stem to stern with waving and cheering people. There was a sharp crackling noise as Chinese fireworks were let off all along the quayside, and then there was a roar of welcome and approval from the wharf where the
Primrose
would tie up; as hundreds of excited people poured along it from the direction of the Port Road.

‘Well, seems as if they're anticipatin' you,' remarked the
Primrose's
mate, hawking loudly. He himself had never
been further ashore anywhere in Australia than Kermode Street in Adelaide for the British Tavern, or the worst alleys off George Street, in Sydney, for the boozers and the cribs, and he understood nothing of what Eyre had achieved. ‘They're on one button here,' Eyre had heard him say to his captain, two days out of Albany. ‘A fellow like that takes a stroll in the countryside, and they treat him like he's God-Amighty.'

Eyre said, ‘You should be proud of your seamanship, to have got us here on the due date. They sent the
Ellen
on ahead of us, to tell them that we were expected to arrive today, and so we have. So take some of these cheers for yourself, master-mate.'

‘Oh, bung it,' said the master-mate, irritably; although Eyre could tell that he was quite pleased by the compliment.

The
Primrose
was towed in by rowing-boat, and tied up, and from his place up on the poop, Eyre waved his hat and acknowledged the cheers and shouts from the huge assembly below. He saw Captain Sturt standing at the front, looking severe; and next to him a tall man with silver hair and deep-set eyes who looked important, but whom Eyre was unable to recognise. There was no sign of Christopher, nor of Lathrop Lindsay.

As soon as the gangplank went down, Captain Sturt and the tall man with silver hair were escorted aboard by marines; and up to the deck where Eyre was still waving and smiling. Flowers flew through the air and littered the planks all around Eyre's feet.

‘Well, sir,' said Captain Sturt pushing aside some of the blossoms with his shoe. He was wearing a black jacket and a crimson satin waistcoat that was far too tight for him, and although he was grinning he looked particularly displeased; as if he had bitten into an apple and found it unbearably sour.

Eyre carried on waving, and nodding, and smiling. ‘Well, yourself, Captain,' he replied.

‘It seems as if you have made something of a name for
yourself,' said Captain Sturt. ‘Allow me to congratulate you.'

‘I don't think I really deserve your congratulations, do you?' asked Eyre; and Captain Sturt did not fail to miss the sharp double meaning of what he was saying.

‘You have undertaken and completed a great journey of discovery, Mr Walker,' put in the tall man with the silver hair. His voice was deep and rich as plum-pudding, and his chins bulged over his necktie. ‘You have crossed a desert that no white explorer has crossed before. That in itself is worthy of praise.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Eyre, indicating that he had no idea who this gentleman might be.

‘This is Governor George Grey,' said Captain Sturt.

‘Then Governor Gawler is no longer with us?'

‘He returned to England in May,' explained Governor Grey. ‘Let us say that it was simply a matter of having drawn a little too enthusiastically on the London Commissioners. Although, of course, one has to acknowledge that in his short time here he achieved great things.'

Eyre shook hands with Governor Grey; but somehow he and Captain Sturt contrived not to.

‘You must be tired,' said Sturt. ‘Perhaps you would like to come back to my house and take some luncheon.'

‘Yes,' said Eyre, ‘I think I'd like that, thank you. But not right away. First of all, I think a procession is called for. That is, if I have your permission, governor.'

‘By all means,' nodded Governor Grey. ‘It isn't every day that we have such cause for celebration. Today you are Adelaide's most celebrated son, Mr Walker. It is only befitting that we should fête you.'

Eyre went to shake hands with the
Primrose's
captain, and to wave to the crew, and then he slowly descended the gangplank to the wharf, with both arms raised in acknowledgement of the crowd's tremendous applause.

As he had been in Albany, he was lifted off his feet by enthusiastic young swells, and carried shoulder-high along the wharf, while flowers flew all around him, and
fireworks popped off, and so many black top-hats were tossed into the air that the crowd looked for a while like a bubbling, spitting tar-pit.

A carriage was waiting for him outside the port, decked with shrubbery and flowers; and then with seven or eight young men clinging on to the sides, it was driven ceremoniously towards the town centre, followed on either flank by cheering riders and rattling gigs and running children. Eyre turned around and looked behind him, and saw to his amazement and delight that there must have been well over three thousand people following him, hurraying and laughing and waving flags.

At the western end of North Terrace, where the road from Port Adelaide ran at a sharp diagonal into the city, they were met with a fanfare by Captain Wintergreen and his musicians, who had formed themselves into a marching-band, twenty-five strong, especially to celebrate Eyre's arrival. The driver of Eyre's carriage had been told to proceed straight to Government House; and so had Captain Wintergreen; but Eyre shouted to the driver, ‘Left, left, over the bridge!' The carriage turned left and rumbled over the bridge, and behind it came Captain Wintergreen and his band, drumming their drums and blowing their trumpets and clashing their cymbals. Behind them, still cheering, still waving their flags, came the first of the riders who had followed them from the wharf; marines and dragoons and cocky young gentlemen in plumed hats. Then the gigs and the broughams and the rest of the carriages, crowded with Adelaide's prettiest girls, in their yellows and pinks and bright blues, spinning their umbrellas and singing like birds. Then the great rush of people on foot: children and farmboys and clerks and shop-assistants and Aborigines, skipping and clapping and chanting.

‘Now, make for Waikerie Lodge!' Eyre instructed his driver, and with a nod of his head the fellow turned the carriage along the street towards Lathrop Lindsay's house.

‘Why, that's Mr Lindsay's place,' cried one young
Narangy, who was hanging on to Eyre's carriage by the folded-down hood. ‘He's going to be as mad as a cut snake if you parade past him with this lot! He's your worstest enemy; allowing for what he's been saying about you, since you've been gone!'

‘Well, we shall see about that,' Eyre declared. He leaned forward, tapped the coachman on the shoulder, and told him to draw over to the side of the road, and stop. The driver did as he was bid, and then Eyre stepped down from the carriage, and waited while Captain Wintergreen and his marching-band caught up with them. They were playing ‘Sons of Caledonia', one of the most stirring marches they knew, with plenty of drumstick whirling and cymbal-clashing, and their trumpets and bugles were wildly off-key.

Eyre neatly stepped in, right in front of Captain Winter-green, and led the parade alongside the white fencing which surrounded the lawns of Waikerie Lodge, until he reached the front gate. Then he cried, ‘Right—turn!' and held out his right hand, and marched confidently up the path to Lathrop Lindsay's front door.

Every window of the house was flung open; and at every window an astonished face appeared. In the drawing-room window, Lathrop Lindsay himself, in his emerald-green smoking-jacket, his mouth wide open. In the day-room window, Mrs Lindsay, her hair awry, clutching her tatting. Upstairs, in her parlour window, Charlotte, in a sugar-pink afternoon gown.

‘Around the house!' Eyre cried to Captain Wintergreen; and with a flourish of bugles the marching-band split right down the middle into two columns, one parading smartly around the left-hand side of the house, and the other parading around the right. Each of these columns was followed by a stream of cheering, dancing, applauding people, some on horseback, one or two on donkeys, but most of them on foot, swarming and swelling into the gardens of Waikerie Lodge, hundred upon hundred of them, until the house was completely besieged with
people, none of them knowing why they were there, but all of them festive and happy, and ready for a great celebration.

The marching-band appeared from around the back of the house, and formed up on the front steps, marching on the spot, and playing ‘Scotland The Brave'; which in less apoplectic times was Lathrop Lindsay's favourite tune.

‘
Mr Walker
!' screamed Lathrop.

Eyre raised his hand to Captain Wintergreen, and the band died away in a few raggedy hoots, toots, and jingles.

‘
Mr Walker
!' screamed Lathrop, again. His face was plum-coloured with wrath.

Those nearest to the house heard him screaming, and cried ‘Oooooh!' in response, like a music-hall audience.

‘
Mr Walker
!' screamed Lathrop, for the third time.

‘
Mr Walker
!' cried the crowd, in huge amusement. ‘Mr Walker! Ooooh! Mr Walker!' And then they burst out cheering and clapping and laughing again, and shouted, ‘Mr Walker! Speech from Mr Walker! Let's hear him! Come on now, Mr Walker!'

Eyre climbed up two or three steps, and raised both hands. There was more applause now, and somebody let off a tremendous chain of fire-crackers, that jumped and spat and frightened all the horses.

‘Listen!' Eyre shouted. ‘Listen!' And at last, still hooting and laughing occasionally, the crowd quietened down. Lathrop stood in his drawing-room window shaking with disbelief and rage, while Mrs Lindsay had clapped both hands over her mouth, as if she were suppressing a high shriek.

‘I have travelled as far north to the interior of Australia as a man can go!' Eyre cried. More shouting, more clapping, and some cries of ‘bravo! bravo, that man!'

Then Eyre said, ‘I have travelled westwards, all the way from the spring called Woocalla to the town of Albany, through desert and scrub, over a thousand miles!'

Now the cheering was so loud that Eyre found it almost impossible to think. His blood was racing and his face was
flushed; and even though he had been given nothing to drink, he felt as if he were intoxicated.

‘I have travelled all that way,' he shouted, his voice becoming hoarse from the strain, ‘I have travelled all that way… just to claim the hand of the most beautiful girl in Adelaide, Miss Charlotte Lindsay!'

The crowd screamed their delight and approval. Hats flew up into the air again, even umbrellas and bonnets, and the band rushed into one of those little pieces called a ‘hurry', which were usually used to accompany a variety player on to the stage, or off again.

Eyre raised his hands for silence once again. Some of the women in the crowd were openly weeping, and two girls and an elderly grocer had fainted, and had to be laid under the wattle-bushes.

‘There is one thing that I must do before I can claim Miss Lindsay's hand, however,' Eyre announced. ‘And that is to ask the forgiveness of her father, Mr Lathrop Lindsay; whom I have caused embarrassment and pain, not just once, but several times; and each time worse than the last. I admit to him that there was a time when I was a brash, ill-mannered, and incontinent young man, and I can only ask that he can find it somewhere in that generous heart of his to forgive me.'

Eyre slowly turned towards Lathrop, and held out his hand, as dramatically as Adam holding out his hand towards God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Lathrop, framed in his window, stared at Eyre in complete horror.

‘Forgive him!' cried a wag, in the front of the crowd. But then the cry was taken up again and again, more seriously, until nearly a thousand citizens of Adelaide were standing in Lathrop's garden, trampling his wattles and his orchids, crushing his carefully rolled lawns, roaring ‘Forgive him! Forgive him! Forgive him!'

Lathrop disappeared from the window and eventually appeared at the front door. Behind him, halfway down the stairs, Eyre could see Charlotte although her face was hidden in shadow. Until he had conquered Lathrop,
however, he didn't dare to look at her. She had meant so much to him for so long that if he were to lose her now, when she was almost within his grasp, he would rather not remember her too sharply.

‘Mr Lindsay,' said Eyre, ‘I come to you today not as an impertinent young clerk who was too ebullient to mind his manners. I come to you as a man who has crossed a whole continent; and who has been matured and humbled by his experiences. I come to you as a man who has nurtured his love for your daughter through indescribable exploits, through starvation and thirst and terrible loneliness. I come to you as a man who is ready to apologise to you; but also as a man who has gained strength, and courage, and also a lasting reputation.'

At that moment, Captain Sturt forced his way through to the front of the crowd. Lathrop was about to reply to Eyre, but whatever he was going to say, Sturt raised a cautionary and advisory finger to him, and he swallowed the words before he had spoken them, as if they were liver-pills. He stepped heavily forward, and stared at Eyre with the expression of a man who cannot believe the persistence of his personal ill-fortune. There was sweat on his forehead, and his lower lip juddered with all the emotion that Captain Sturt had forbidden him to express.