The Far Horizon

THE FAR HORIZON

___________________________

Gretta Curran Browne

88

Eighty-Eight Publications

Copyright © 2012 Gretta Curran Browne

First published in 2012 by Eight-Eight Publications.

The right of Gretta Curran Browne to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Patents and Designs Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher and author.

ISBN:   978-0-9572310-4-7

Cover:  Andrew Smailes / The Cover Collection

Eighty-Eight Publications

2
Spencer Avenue

London N13 4TR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Although presented here as a novel, and cloaked in the style of fiction, this story is a true one based on the letters, diaries and documents of Lachlan Macquarie, Elizabeth Campbell, and many of the other people involved.

For providing me with copies from microfilm of relevant documents from the Macquarie Papers, I am deeply grateful to the Mitchell Library in Sydney, as well as to the Archives Authority of New South Wales.

TO

My beloved Ellena

who now lives beyond that far horizon

PART ONE

Chapter One

The college for young men in Edinburgh was private, prestigious and expensive. Scotland’s Oxford, some called it. The grounds leading up to the beautiful grey-stone Georgian building were covered in neatly trimmed green lawns and shaded by massive fir trees. Above its halls and classrooms, young men sat in their private rooms studying every subject from Mathematics to Latin.

On this March morning in May 1808, Drew Alexander sat sloped over his desk in a long lazy daydream; one of his many daydreams about his hero, so distant and aloof in many ways, yet so kind and helpful, and so astonishingly beautiful.

Outside, after one of the fiercest winters Scotland had ever known, the sunshine was unfolding into a mild and bright day, so mild and dry that Drew wondered if perhaps he could persuade his hero to take a walk outside with him, perhaps up to the crags to see if they could spot an eagle. Any excuse would do. Just the thought of the two of them walking together, alone; talking together, alone; made his heart beat a little faster. At eighteen, his earlier fascination had now become so consumable that Drew could rarely think of anything or anyone else.

The door flew open and O’Keefe walked in. ‘I say, Drew, is your friend George leaving us? I just saw him rushing down the stairs carrying a portmanteau.’

‘Leaving?’

The blood rushed into Drew’s cheeks and for a moment he could not speak; then a moment later he was up on his feet and rushing out to the stairs, scattering down them so fast he skidded at the bottom and had to quickly recover himself – but then he was at the front door, staring after the tall young man in a dark blue fitted jacket, showing the firm strong lines of his graceful body, his clean black hair gleaming in the sunshine.

Unable to stop himself, Drew hurtled down the path, calling frantically: ‘George! George!’

George looked back, and then raised his hand in a quick sign to Drew that he must hurry, could not delay.

A moment later Drew was beside George asking in a breathless voice where he was going. ‘You’re not leaving us, George, are you?’

‘No, no.’ George briefly smiled his wonderful smile. ‘I need to visit my father.’

‘Your father?’ Drew still did not know exactly just
who
George’s father was. It could not be the man who occasionally came to visit him here, because his name was Macquarie and he was far too young. A tall and fair-haired man, a soldier, an officer in His Majesty’s army who sometimes arrived still wearing the scarlet jacket of his uniform and at other times dressed elegantly civilian – but George was now twenty, and that man was aged only in his late-thirties at the most.

Apart from that, Mr Macquarie was Scottish and white, and George’s skin was smooth and light brown, like a Spaniard, definitely of foreign blood. But there was so much mystery surrounding George, so much that he refused to discuss, so much that Drew longed to know.

Drew suddenly felt the chill in the air and began to shiver. The sunshine outside his window had misled him – it was still bitterly cold. Yet despite the cold, he noticed that George carried his navy wool cloak over his arm, and had the impatient air of a man who had packed hastily.

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘A week, two weeks, a year – however long my father needs me,’ George said impatiently, ‘but I must go now.’

Drew suddenly grabbed George’s hand in a terrible clasp, wanting to tell him how much he would miss him, fighting back tears in case it showed weakness, which he was sure George would dislike, because despite his beautifully handsome looks, George also had a mature masculinity which so many of the other young men at the school lacked.

George gently withdrew his hand from Drew’s grip, eager to get away from the hurt expression in his friend’s eyes. He had long been conscious of Drew’s feelings for him, but there was nothing he could do to help him, except to avoid him as much as possible. Of course, he was very young, much younger than his eighteen years, so hopefully his schoolboy obsession would disappear with time.

Half an hour later George boarded the Mail-coach. He sat back and looked around at his fellow passengers: an old man pretending to be asleep; a plump matronly woman hungrily eating a fried sausage; a young man reading a book, and a man of middle years with long flowing hair and wearing a red plaid cape who, as soon as the coach started rolling, commenced to entertain his fellow-passengers with a few “gleg” jokes he had recently heard.

Many of the jokes, with their Scottish nuances, George did not understand, but others he did and smiled occasionally, if only in polite response to the comedic man who was working so hard to entertain them on their journey.

Finally he grew tired of it all and turned to gaze out of the window, his mind darkening with the shadows of his thoughts, wondering why Elizabeth had sent for him so urgently.

*

George was so lost in the distance of his thoughts, he was unaware that the young man sitting opposite had lowered his book, and had been studying him carefully for some time, taking in the fine quality of the clothes he wore and the refinement of his manners since he had entered the coach. And then, of course, there was the colour of his skin, which reminded the young man of some paintings he had recently seen of those red Indians in America; except those red Indians in America had not looked red at all, but light brown, just like the young man sitting opposite. There was also something very familiar about him.

‘You’ll aye pardon me for asking, sir,’ said the young man finally in a curious tone. ‘Are you … Scaw’ish?’

George blinked, and looked at his fellow passenger with a slight smile. ‘No, I am not Scottish.’

‘Are you, then … a visitor?’

‘A visitor to where?’

‘To Scawtland.’

George could see that he now had the attention of the other passengers who were listening avidly.

‘No,’ he admitted honestly, ‘I am not a visitor. I am a resident.’

‘Aye, of Edinburgh?’

‘Of Edinburgh,’ George confirmed.

‘Are you a personage of some sort? You have the bearing and manners of a personage of quality.’

George was quite confident that he was indeed a person of quality, but perhaps not quite in the way his fellow passenger meant.

‘I feel I must know you,’ the young man persisted, betraying his own lack of manners. ‘I believe that at some time we musta had your custom.’

‘Custom?’ George was not only perplexed, but was now becoming slightly irritated with the inquisitive young man opposite.

‘Aye,’ replied the young man, pointing to George’s jacket. We are the only “Gentlemen’s Outfitters” in the whole of Scawtland that supplies that particular yarn of cloth. I would know it anywhere. Finest you’ll see this side of London.’

‘Ah.’ George finally understood. ‘You are employed at Mortimers?’

‘Aye, I’m one of the tailors, and I’ve admired that particular yarn of cloth for a long time now, blended with cashmere as it is. That’s why it’s warm but not too heavy, the fine thread of the wool. Aye, indeed, a gleg cloth – one of our best.’

George nodded in agreement. ‘My father introduced me to Mortimers. He believes they are the finest tailors in Edinburgh.’

‘And you?’

‘Oh, I too believe they are the finest.’

Two red spots suddenly coloured the young man’s cheeks. ‘Aye, the best … and it’s my own fond ambition to become the top tailor at Mortimers one day; the head of the workroom.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ George smiled. ‘Especially if you had anything to do with the excellent making of this jacket.’

‘Aye, I did, sir, it’s one of mine. I recognised it after I had taken a good look at it, after you sat down.’ He leaned forward to touch the double-breasted lapels on George’s blue jacket. ‘You see the cut of the corners on the lapels here, sir? I have my own particular way of cutting them, and, aye – that’s one of mine.’

George was not sure what further compliment he should offer the young tailor, who gave him no chance to say anything.

‘And – erm … could I know your name, sir? Seeing as you’re wearing one of my own creations. It would be nice to know.’

‘Jarvis,’ George replied. ‘George Jarvis.’

The other passengers, who had been following the conversation, stared at George and then exchanged wide-eyed expressive glances with each other as if to say now
that
was unexpected – such a very
English
name for one who looked so foreign.

The coach suddenly jolted violently over some large holes in the dirt road and everyone sat back firmly in their seats, giving George the moment to turn away from their curious stares and end all conversation by gazing out at the bleak scenery; and then closing his eyes as if wishing to sleep – tired of being a subject of curiosity – something he had always been in this land from the first day he had landed on the shores of
Belait,
or ‘Blighty’ as the English so badly pronounced it.

*

He was an Arabic Indian, born in the Palace of Surat. His mother had been a beautiful young Moroccan girl, snatched at the age of fourteen from a crowded and noisy street in Tangiers and sold into the slave trade.

His father was one of the many young princes in the palace at Surat who had yelped with delight when he laid eyes on the exquisite young girl who was to be his new concubine; and the fact that she did not understand
gujerati,
and therefore not one word he said to her, made her even more delectable to him.

Their son was born one year later, when his mother was barely fifteen years old.

George had no idea what his real name was, as his mother had always called him her ‘
amir
’ – her prince. It was the only thing she was proud of, highly proud, that her son’s father was a royal prince, albeit of a foreign land and foreign race.

And the prince had looked after them both well, making sure they had the best of everything. George had sketchy memories of his early childhood, none at all until he was aged about five years old, but from that age he had recollections of the kind and lovely Indian
ayahs
who took turns in looking after him; and the jasmine-scented garden he played in, with its high stone walls shading out the fiercest heat of the mid-day sun.

He also still remembered the golden silk of the large cushions he slept on; and
always
… always his mother’s arms clasped tightly around him, whispering to him about the land she had come from – the land and family she longed to return to … somehow, some way … ‘
Morocco … Morocco…’

After six years of her company, the royal prince decided he had suffered enough of her homesickness and had also grown tired of her. He had a beautiful new concubine to replace her now, so she could go back to Morocco and stay there – but not the boy! The boy was his. She could not take him, not to Morocco, not even outside the palace walls.

All this, his mother had told him later, after one of the
ayahs,
a concubine who had become
her special friend over the years, had helped her to smuggle her ‘
prince’
out of the palace and live on the run from all searchers; hiding here and hiding there, travelling across India like a tramp, begging food for herself and her child. And always so desperate to find her way home to the family she had been stolen from seven years earlier.

But she never did find her way home. They had both been captured near the coast road to Bombay by a group of Dutch slave-traders who hauled them aboard a cart, and then a ship, and then sold them to a Dutch slave-trader at the southern port of Cochin – almost a thousand miles away from Surat – and forever away from Morocco.

*

George was eventually brought out of his thoughts by a hand touching his arm. He blinked, and then looked round to see the young tailor smiling at him, his hand held out.

‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, sir, and I hope Mortimers will have the benefit of your custom again.’

The coach had stopped. George had not even been aware of its sudden cease of motion. He nodded at the tailor with a brief smile. ‘Yes, you will,’ he said amiably, and shook the tailor’s hand in farewell.

The other passengers had collected their bits and pieces and were climbing down from the coach. George waited until the carriage was empty and then followed them out, stepping down to be greeted by a sharp wind, gusty and hostile.

He quickly draped his cloak around him, collected his portmanteau from the driver, then without delaying to take any refreshment inside the coach house, he bent his head against the wind and immediately set off on the two-mile walk to the military base, his mind constantly focused on the dark fear that something bad had happened to the beloved man who had rescued him from the slave trade all those years ago in Cochin, the beloved man he always referred to as ‘father’ in the respectful tradition of the East, and not the paternal tradition of the West; although, in George’s heart and mind, Lachlan was both.

*

The house was less than a mile outside the main barracks. Darkness had fallen by the time George reached it, but only one of the front windows glowed with light. Usually they were all aglow, cheerful and welcoming, but not tonight. Yes, something was wrong … very wrong. The urgency of Elizabeth’s summons spurred him faster to the front door.