Wild Island (51 page)

‘Do you know who that carriage belongs to?' Booth asked, pointing.

Tulip considered, thrusting his underlip forward to show his poor opinion of it. ‘H'eddicated guess—an 'ired lug from The Ship—being as the jarvey's Billy Ryan. Want me ter suss 'oo's 'ad it ternite?'

Bergman, listening too, shook his head. ‘We were interested in the horse.'

Tulip eyed them doubtfully but said no more.

It was midnight before they reached the cottage, and in a few words they agreed Bergman should speak to Billy Ryan. There was no time to say more: Lizzie called Booth away, and next morning, at first light, the couple left to take ferry and coach to Richmond.

Booth did not return to Hobart until the Monday evening three days later. He and Bergman met at the cottage in the early evening and adjourned to a chop-house near the new wharf.

‘The carriage was hired by an elderly widow,' said Bergman. ‘A Mrs Ritchie in Fitzroy Place. She had visitors; it was they who went to the play. Their name was Fairfax.'

‘Ah . . .'

Bergman nodded. ‘I wasn't sure whether to leave it to you or follow it up. But I didn't know when you'd be back, and decided not to wait. I walked up there and asked if I could speak to Mr or Mrs Fairfax.' He smiled. ‘A voice from inside called, “Who is it, Dora?” and out came Mrs Ritchie. Straight as a die, no-nonsense. I said a friend and I thought we'd seen Mrs Fairfax at the play. We had been acquainted with the Fairfaxes in the West Indies, and would like to meet them again.

‘She said they'd gone, and she would certainly not pass their address to any stranger who came knocking—but she'd make the same offer to me as to the other gentleman who'd called earlier. If I would write down my name and address, and a sentence to show my
bona fides
, she would forward it to the Fairfaxes when she next had occasion to write.

‘I did so, and asked whether the other gentleman who had called was dressed in elaborate style. She looked at me for a moment and then said she supposed there was no harm in telling me, as I seemed to know anyway; it was the Constable, Mr Tulip Wright. He claimed to have found a pair of gloves at the theatre belonging to Mrs Fairfax. After that I went to the coach depot and learned the Fairfaxes had travelled to Launceston on Saturday morning. Then I went hunting for Tulip and asked him what he meant by it.'

‘He's one of Forster's cronies.'

‘They've fallen out. Forster owes him money. And Tulip says he doesn't like the company Forster keeps nowadays. Told me he's not against “a bit o' violence in the right place”, but there's some kinds of violence is “downright narsty”. Butcher Wynn's kind, and John Price's.'

‘You believe him?'

‘I don't think he'd have been so indignant about Forster if it wasn't true. He says Forster owes big gambling debts and has chosen to forget the small ones. When I asked Tulip why he'd gone to Mrs Ritchie's, he said he was just curious. But it occurred to me that Tulip could be employed to go to Launceston and look for Fairfax—if St John Wallace agrees, of course.'

He hesitated. ‘There's something else I should explain to you.'

He recounted to Booth what the Carmichaels had said.

‘And you haven't told St John?'

‘No.'

‘He'll have to be told now. We can't leave him in ignorance that Catherine Tyndale is here—which suggests that Rowland is too.'

They walked up to Davey Street, were admitted by Mrs Fludde, and found Louisa at the piano and McLeod standing by the fire. St John was down at the Church, they said. He had eaten dinner with them and then gone to a Church meeting.

Booth and Bergman walked down the hill again as it began to grow dark. Neither made any comment on the strangely domestic scene they had witnessed. They found St John with Dido, locking up the vestry. He opened it again, Dido relit a lamp, and in its golden
light St John's splendid profile outlined itself against the black cassocks ranged on hooks along the wall. They sat on three straight chairs among the musty smell of garments. Dido stood at St John's side, avoiding Booth's gaze, shifting between his good foot and the thick, built-up sole of his club foot. The convict's face was young, unformed, a piece of dough not fully modelled into the detail of a face.

Wallace listened while they explained, let a silence fall before he said, ‘There is no need for Mr Tulip Wright's assistance. I know where Fairfax is.'

Booth frowned. Bergman said, ‘You know? How long have you known? Why did you not say so? I thought you wanted the Arthurites brought to justice? Have you told Mrs Adair?'

Wallace shook his head, smiling.

‘It has been a hard lesson for me,' he said, irritatingly calm, ‘but salutary. After Walker died I was greatly troubled in mind, as you know. But I at last began to understand that I had been wrong about him. He was a dark angel, tempting me. He led me into the belief that I could do good through my own righteousness.' His face took on a sombre expression. ‘Pride, the sin of Lucifer, the greatest sin. Now the Lord has given me this man, one of his lowliest servants, to help me continue my work.'

He laid his hand gently on Dido's shoulder. ‘“Judgement is mine, saith the Lord.” Those who caused Walker's death must be left to Him. Their punishment will be more fitting than anything I, or any court of law, could devise. Even now I can see it beginning. Henry Arthur lying on the brink of death at his brother's house, a ruin of drink and debauchery. Forster ill and floundering in a debtor's mire of his own making; Montagu returning to this island against his will, because for all his cunning he has not achieved the preferment he craves.

‘Even Governor Arthur.' He nodded at Booth. ‘You've told me how, when it came to leaving, Arthur wept—but why did he leave if he did not wish to? He had land, money. He could have stayed as a gentleman farmer, a member of the Councils, contributing to the island from which he'd taken so much. He went back because he
was a prisoner of England's ideas of advancement and his own greed; hungry always for higher rank, greater wealth.'

‘But the crimes of his followers are not matters of private morality,' said Bergman, visibly angry now. ‘They have concealed a violent death . . .'

‘I know what they have done. I met Fairfax, he told me.'

‘Fairfax
told
you? Then why have you not . . . ? If you let their offences pass, you make a mockery of the justice this island is supposed to serve. Many of the wretches imprisoned here are less guilty than the men who sit in judgement on them.'

St John smiled, shrugged. ‘You speak as though wickedness in high places were new, Bergman.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
is a very old question: “Who shall judge the judges?” My business is with God's law, not the human variety. In six months I shall return to England to argue against transportation—when the Huon chapel is finished and the new College is properly begun.'

‘Dido must stay—for the term of his natural life,' said Booth.

The convict ducked his head convulsively, made a gulping noise.

‘He will come with me,' said Wallace, his jaw tightening. ‘Who will prevent it? You, Captain? The Colonial Office has wiped his name from the records. He is dead to them. It is time Louisa went home, too. Her character is weak, she needs guidance.'

‘And Rowland?' asked Bergman. ‘Where is he? Of course you'll write to the Rochesters in England about him, and explain it all to Mrs Adair?'

‘My conversation with him was under the seal of the confessional. Circumstances make it necessary for him to preserve his secret at present. And Mrs Adair is about to sail home.'

On the last day of his leave, Booth joined the Government House party that sailed up to New Norfolk for the Governor's laying of the foundation stone of the new College, dedicated to Christ. Coins were laid underneath the stone, with copies of an oration by Gell in his
several languages. Ten days later, when Lizzie came home bearing a
Colonial Times,
Booth read that the newly laid foundation stone had been jemmied up by ‘a person or persons unknown'. Everything under it was gone. And the
Erebus
and
Terror
had sailed, to spend summer exploring the southern ice. They would return in autumn, April or May.

27

AT THE END OF WINTER
,
IN LATE AUGUST
,
I HAD TOLD LOUISA I
would leave for England. The Mountain had been covered in snow down to the foothills the day I said it, a great white bastion against a blue sky, the bright air as chilly as I believed Bergman now felt towards me. No reply had come to my note. I had not seen him for months. I knew from Louisa that he had been in town for a day or two now and again, which probably meant that he was avoiding me.

I was sitting on the hearthrug in Louisa's parlour, in front of the fire, building a tower of blocks with Thea.

Louisa said, off-handedly, ‘Augusta Drewitt seems to have overcome her dislike of marrying here. She speaks constantly of Bergman these days. She is three-and-twenty, and begins to despair, I suppose.'

My back was half-turned to her; she was sitting in a chair looking through a magazine I had brought her, but the fire would have excused my burning face in any case.

‘Gus and Gusta,' I said mockingly. Then I added that I was tired of waiting for Anna and Quigley, and would return to England soon.

‘You think of your time here as waiting?' Louisa said, interested. ‘Why not think of it as staying on until you are tired of it? I am coming round to that view myself.'

I shook my head, and when I left her I hurried down to the wharf, feeling compounded of fire and ice, frozen on the outside as the cold wind scoured my face, burning within. I discovered the
Lady Dorothea
would sail at the beginning of December and booked a passage. I would be in England by spring, and I was glad of it, I told myself. But the heart is a contrary organ, with a mind of its own, and I discovered mine had put out tendrils and attached them to certain aspects of Hobarton during these three years. No sooner was the deposit paid than I began to think of the friends I would miss, and of saying farewell to my snug little cottage, and how I would never see again certain favourite views through odd gateways and now-familiar trees to the Derwent.

‘You are thirty-seven,' said Mary Boyes crossly, ‘making an excellent living doing what you love—and since Hobartians appear to have an insatiable propensity for having their portraits taken, why on earth are you leaving?'

And there was Nellie Jack. Fifty-nine, a tireless grumbler with a contrary streak, but we managed comfortably together, suited each other. She pottered with old Mr Coombes in the garden, helped out in Ada's shop, fussed over an old stray cat. Bess Chesney had three servants, already one too many. She would take Nellie in, but Nellie would be a fifth wheel, a known charity case—and the cat must be left behind. When I told her I was leaving, her face dropped into a look of weary hopelessness very terrible to me. She nodded curtly and set her mouth to stop it wobbling. All the blows in her life had taught her this: mute resignation to the fates which had so often used her so ill. I had to turn away to hide my own eyes, filling with tears.

I had heard no more about the
Firefly
, a fact Sir John Franklin assured me must mean that it had not been sunk or mortally damaged. ‘Ships are expensive items, Hatty,' he said, ‘news of them is always shared. Word of a wreck goes about like wildfire.' And so I allowed myself to imagine Anna and Quigley, sailing in foreign seas, always expecting to return here, but their coming always deferred by chance or necessity. And every time I looked at the still life painting I thought
of Gus, with irritation, anger, hope, tenderness, sorrow—depending on the day and hour.

In November, a month before I was due to leave, I thought he might be at New Norfolk for Sir John's laying of the foundation stone for the College, but instead I saw Booth.