Wild Island (56 page)

‘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.

Gus spent most of the evening talking with James Calder, joined at various times by Booth, Boyes, Henry Kay and others. He was not called upon to dance, far more men than women being present, but he did have half a turn with Louisa. She had been dancing with McLeod, he said, talking intently until she left him abruptly and moved away. Seeing Bergman, she said, ‘Will you be kind enough, Mr Bergman?'

She was trembling, Gus said, in suppressed rage and near tears, he thought, but when McLeod came up and reclaimed her, she made no objection and danced away with him again. McLeod also took her in to supper, where they continued to talk; urgently, quietly, and not altogether amicably, by the look of it. St John was in a corner with Archdeacon Hutchins and Seymour. He took old Mrs Parry in to supper.

Louisa and St John had come with Archdeacon Hutchins and his wife Rachel in their carriage, and it was planned that these four would
also leave early together, before the other guests finished their supper and the dancing resumed. But when Wallace went to fetch Louisa, she was clearly unwilling to go. For a moment it seemed she would resist, then she followed him reluctantly.

McLeod stood looking after her for a moment, and then he, too, followed. St John led the way off the
Terror
onto the
Erebus
, where a servant stood waiting with the wraps, and when these were resumed, the party entered the covered way leading to the shore. McLeod caught up with Louisa and began to speak urgently with her again. Rachel Hutchins went first onto the board-way, steadied by the Archdeacon. The tide was on the turn and the planking rose and fell underfoot with a queasy half-roll. Louisa and McLeod went in next, followed by St John.

The chief witnesses at the inquest were Mr Tulip Wright and Mr Walter Nesbit, universally known as the ‘Bell-Man'. He was not the town-crier, but the owner of Hobarton's only business for setting up servants' bells in the houses of the well-to-do. He had repaired and extended the old contraption at Government House the previous year, but when money grew tight that summer his trade suffered, and he worked occasionally as a coachman for his friend Mr Broughton. He was yarning with the Archdeacon's coachman when the Archdeacon and Rachel emerged from the covered way.

The Archdeacon helped his wife into the carriage and stood back to wait for Louisa to enter, but she, McLeod and St John were still some way behind. As Louisa stepped off the planking and onto the wharf, she pulled her arm away from McLeod, turned, and struck him across the face. He caught hold of her, St John stepped up to them and McLeod let go of Louisa and said something ‘in a belligerent manner' to St John, Mr Nesbit reported. At that moment a young man appeared from behind the carriages, apparently coming to the aid of St John, while another man also ran in to join the melee. Mr Nesbit thought he recognised this last one as Stringer Wynn, but he could not be certain because a fight had begun and one of the hanging lamps had been knocked into the river.

Nesbit and Tulip Wright could not agree on how long it was—not long—before there was a scream, and a figure toppled and fell into the water between the wharf and the first lighter. A second figure dived in after the first. The military band had started up again to signal dancing would resume, and people were leaving the supper tables, scraping their chairs and chattering in a general movement from the
Terror
back onto the
Erebus
. Mr Nesbit did not believe these events on the wharf would have been audible or visible from the ships.

Tulip Wright restrained Mr St John Wallace, who appeared ready to leap into the water. Wallace was bloody about the head and face from a blow. After a time he ceased to struggle and fell silent. It was his wife who had fallen in, and Dido Thomas who dived after her. The whole incident lasted five or ten minutes from beginning to end. In Wright's opinion no one could have lasted long in that icy water. He believed the two drowned had become lodged under the small boats forming the causeway to the
Erebus
and
Terror
. The verdict was death by misadventure. The bodies were never found.

It was the Archdeacon who prevented what might have been a scandal. He spoke to Tulip Wright, Nesbit, and Billy Gawler, his coachman, promising their silence would be not only honourable, but well rewarded. He then thought quickly, and chose to go straight to Ross and lay the problem before him, rather than the Governor. He told Ross there had been an ‘accident', probably fatal, involving St John Wallace, his lady wife, and a convict. It had better be kept quiet—to protect reputations and ensure no pall was cast over an otherwise brilliant evening.