Macquarie rises and strides heavily to a corner of the room, where he stoops to pick up a chair upholstered in midnight blue velvet with gold trim. He could have called the butler to do it, but that is not his way. Placing the chair beside him, he motions for me to sit.
To the Architect, who remains standing, he says, ‘And you … you kept your mind sharpened for the purpose I hope you will be able to serve by sketching — plans and the like.’
The Architect steps forward with a military crispness. He places a black folio on the Governor’s desk, then returns to his former position.
He stirs my curiosity, this minor celebrity aboard the Dromedary, a floating world of criminals.
Macquarie leafs through the folio. ‘Mmm,’ he mutters in a warm bass. And then a little higher, ‘Huh.’ A few seconds later, ‘Well. Well.’ It has been an age since I have seen him this animated. ‘I see you are fond of the classical orders. What else?’ He continues leafing.
The Architect cuts me a covert look.
Macquarie motions for me to lean closer. ‘Elizabeth, come look. The section here is titled,’ he looks up quizzically as I lean over the folio, ‘“Plan for a Growing Town”.’
We fall upon the work. This alert and rather bold convict has seemingly intuited our deepest thoughts. No. More than that. He has given them the shape and form we craved.
Here is a grand Government House crowned by a dome that would have made Wren proud, set in a garden of English trees; there a bridge vaulting from Dawes Point to the echoing northern shore. A keep buttressed by crenellated towers with arrow slit embrasures rises from a shore — harbour or loch, it is difficult to tell. As we turn the pages we behold dizzying wonders. A cenotaph rises from one of the islands we had passed in the centre of the harbour, pyramidal in shape, adorned with monumental sculpture. A villa spreads out from a temple front, forested with statues of gods and goddesses, sibyls and muses.
Macquarie looks up from the Architect’s folio. ‘But how did you …?’ he begins. He looks at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Incredible, don’t you think?’
I intuit the drift of Macquarie’s thoughts. How, with only a sketchbook on his knees and a porthole for light, did the Architect conceive of all this? Why, the man had not seen the colony until yesterday.
‘Imagination,’ answers the Architect, bouncing up and down on his toes. ‘And inspiration. I studied a crude map of the settlement — Péron’s from 1802 — and these ideas, they came to me. And of course I had seven barren months at sea.’
‘Ideas,’ I say. ‘But also a vision for how the settlement might grow — if the wealth that it promises is ever to be realised.’
‘I have made the study of cities — Rome, Byzantium, Damascus — my vocation,’ he offers, addressing Macquarie, now me, now Macquarie again, his movements as precise as a mechanism. ‘Permit me to return with more sketches. I have many.’
The visitor gives a small cough to punctuate the flow of his thoughts. ‘Perhaps a decorative obelisk for the small triangle of park below the residence — the obelisk speaks of eternal Egypt and its mysteries.’ And after a pause: ‘Your residence here. If I may: more light perhaps. More grandeur.’ His eyebrows shoot up as if to say, ‘Yes. Really. I am serious.’ And he goes on quickly, ‘A portico befitting your authority. I would suggest Doric, the first and still most dignified of the classical orders, and, unless Your Excellency has access to a school of first-rate masons taught to handle levels, trowels, plumb rules, chisels and hammers, the easiest to fashion.’
Forgetting his station entirely, the convict steps towards the window with a view of the Cove. ‘And the settlement itself,’ he says with the hint of a West Country burr. ‘It seems to seep inland from its origins between this rise on the east and The Rocks across the water. I see no plan in this arrangement and every reason for the streets to run broad and straight and the town be given,’ he puffs out his chest, ‘a chance to breathe.’ He returns to his side of the desk and folds his arms, awaiting a response.
There may be some approving warmth in my eyes when he shoots a look in my direction, for he goes on eagerly, ‘Why should the streets not in time be flanked by ornate mansions and terraces, flowering gardens, harmonious town squares? The settlement could be planned in one monumental sweep, terminating with a city wall opening onto Gothic tollgates in flamboyant filigree.’ He places his hands firmly on the top rail of a chair reserved for visitors with a higher station than the felonry. And then he leans forward.
‘In time — when I have trained some young masons in the craft — your squares and gardens will be given a classical air with Ionic columns. The Corinthian reserved for a grand processional way. Elsewhere, Doric. And …’
‘Enough!’ thunders the Governor. ‘You assail me with your schemes. I would counsel a little restraint! Men who have been in my service a score of years do not lecture me in such an unbridled manner.’
The Architect steps back from the chair and for a good three or four beats of a steady heart there is welcome silence.
‘We are strongly pressed for a lighthouse at South Head,’ Macquarie says coolly, ‘and a male convict barrack to house those who now, Foveaux informs me, wander about the settlement without restraint, make mischief among the women, drink themselves senseless on a Sunday. The residence is contained by a mere picket fence; it will require one of stone. So will the Domain. The fortifications at Sydney Cove are clearly inadequate. We are far indeed from France but not so distant that we can escape her ambitions and stratagems if they should bend in our direction. For the moment we are at peace. But tomorrow? Who knows.’
‘But you must,’ I say, ‘give no more thought than is necessary to your station — your crime. Consider this a new beginning.’ It was not so much pity that was aroused in me as a feeling, a very primal feeling, of fellowship.
‘That,’ says Macquarie with a brisk wave as if dismissing a flunky, ‘is all in the past. There will be no talk of it at this house. There is so much to do at Port Jackson that we must use men of ability irrespective of their … their transgressions.’ He breaks off and turns away. ‘I sometimes think that for most men that damnable voyage is punishment enough.’
‘I hope that I might serve as your accomplice in these grand schemes,’ returns the Architect with renewed cheer. ‘I possess a compliant nature.’
Macquarie, I see, is both affronted and amused and quite unsure which emotion has the stronger claim to him. ‘I doubt you are truly the compliant type,’ he says with an expression just shy of a smile. ‘You earned your ticket on the Dromedary for, what was it, forgery, I believe? A canny crime, not so very far from craft — if not for our skill in copying we might never have progressed from the ape. And what, after all, does it mean to ape: to copy.
‘But it is a crime nevertheless,’ he goes on in a blazing tone. ‘Robbery is one thing. But fraud is theft amplified by deception. And His Majesty’s empire cannot run on counterfeited pounds, shillings and pence.’
A deferential nod from the Architect.
‘What the Governor means,’ I say in a mollifying voice with a pointed look towards Macquarie, ‘is that your crime must not, should not, be entirely forgotten. But it is best regarded as a stain on the character, a blemish to be removed with a little … a little scrubbing. And time. Eventually it will out. It is not a sin branded permanently on the soul.’
Looking down at his folio I turn to a page bearing a detailed sketch of an assembly building graced by a colonnade of Corinthian columns. ‘The Corinthian order,’ I say, only half in jest, ‘rises to a crown of acanthus leaves. Let us conceive for Sydney Town an Antipodean order — eucalyptus in place of acanthus.’
The Architect’s green eyes widen. He goes to speak but this time restrains himself. He merely tugs at the sleeves of his fine burgundy coat, puts on a serious face and awaits his dismissal.
I close the folio and return it to him. ‘We are — both of us — extremely grateful,’ I say. On close inspection I calculat
e that he is five or so years my senior. Some twelve years Macquarie’s junior. This convict has reasons aplenty to be worn down by his ordeal, and yet he is not in the least bowed. He has shaved and washed for the interview. He is boldly dressed. But I can tell, too, that he is alone. A wife might have insisted on clean fingernails.
Though his crime is forgery, I tease him, surely he is also an excellent thief.
‘For how else did you manage to pick the lock of my mind? The Governor’s, too? We have talked of improvements to Sydney Town, but you have, it seems, done our imagining for us. We merely entertained notions. You pilfer our best ideas, returning them in a more refined state. You steal our stones and smuggle them back as jewels. A thief, but a kindly one!’
He lowers his head with an expression of gratitude and bows in a rushed manner that is not particularly elegant and not at all courtly. In the gesture there is more feeling — genuine feeling — than form.
I leave the office shortly after the Architect, closing the door on Macquarie and his papers. I resist the urge to pursue our visitor. Such an intriguing character. Everything seems quickened — brightened — by his presence.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The walnut bureau at which I write is wide and long and fashioned plainly to the needs of a figure of authority. Though of a robust disposition I feel hesitant in this seat. It is as if the piece of furniture craves something from me that I cannot return, requires a key that I have misplaced or, perhaps, never possessed. In time I will be rid of it. I will have something of my own.
The guttering candles cast a welcome glow around me, while the desk’s extremities dissolve in the room’s shadows. In the time it served Macquarie its busy surface was chequered with correspondence — official dispatches, private missives and reports. Tonight there is only the book of octavo pages, the steel pen and ink bottle beside it, and a filing box with a fine marbled paper surface. The file holds my own treasury — although the word does, I suppose, dignify this repository of papers, clippings, letters and artefacts. The precious letter I am searching for is from the Architect. One of his last and still his dearest — from a time when correspondence was our most intimate bond — it lies towards the bottom of the pile. I extract it carefully, guiltily, as if I am being observed, which of course I am not. It is my conscience alone that surveys me.
The note is written in his distinctive hand, with great attention to the forming of letters. Where for most a letter of the alphabet is merely a brick in the house of meaning, the Architect approached the act of writing with a monkish veneration for the beauty of written words.
Dear Elizabeth,
Do you recall our very first meeting?
I remember it well. An explosion of corkscrew curls — rust and copper — at the half open door. And there you were. Your head was lowered. Your elbows were raised. Your face was flushed as you bundled up that rebellious hair. Then you fixed it with a clasp.
‘I do apologise,’ you said stepping briskly into the room with a lovely girlish sway of the hips and shoulders, long pale arms swinging. ‘I was quite lost in the view of a flock of parakeets chasing a distinctive bird with an utterly individual laugh.’
You were laughing, at that moment, yourself. It was your first morning at Sydney Cove. Mine as well.
You ran your hands across your summer dress. You ran them over your thighs. They pressed against the light fabric. There, suddenly, was feminine shape and form. Such an admirable form! You seemed oblivious to the impression this milkmaid gesture might make on a visitor, especially one as lowly stationed as myself.
The Governor spoke. I spoke a little too much. You spoke very little. But I felt there was — even at our first meeting — the beginning of a compact.
Almost smothered by the steady hum of my own nerves was the impress of your individuality, your dominion over yourself, your dignity. You seemed defined by a bold contour. It was as if nothing else, in the short period of the interview, really existed. There! I have described an emotion as if it were an aquatint. Perhaps it is the draughtsman in me. And yet if you had asked me to describe the colour of your eyes as I sat an hour later, bent over my sketchpad in the whitewashed cottage beside the Tank Stream I permitted myself at that time to call home, I might have answered: brown. Perhaps grey. No, blue-green. In fact they were the colour of an Antipodean winter sky: cold, pale, and pure.
And then there was your lovely voice — refined, markedly that of a lady, with the added zest and vigour of the Scots. Even when you were earnest, forceful, inflamed, I never felt that laughter was far away. Yet there was nothing light or trivial about your effervescence. It was not the mousse of champagne but the force of a breaker. I was caught by it, rolled, thrown, submerged. And then I came up, exhilarated, for air.
For a brief moment, in my dark widow’s house at Gruline, I, too, inhale that wild air.
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It is a still, silken autumn morning when we set out for the interior. The Governor squeezes his ageing form into a cream satin waistcoat and then, with even greater effort, contorts himself into a black parade jacket embroidered with gold. This decorous formality of dress, he feels, is eminently suited to the expedition’s purpose.
Leading us out, a head taller than most of the soldiers, he cuts a fine figure. I feel a touch of pride as those few townsfolk watching our departure smile and wave — a mother reaches down to her sandy-headed child, takes his hand, and waves it for him.
Ah, but pride in the uniform is an old emotion, belonging to a younger self. A year in the colony and I am changing.
A detachment of ten men follows the Governor, sabres glinting coldly in the morning sun when they are drawn from their scabbards for a final inspection.
We march to the Government wharf, where the Architect, who comes from his cottage by the Tank Stream, will join us. I wear a white bonnet upholstered with my own sprung curls, and a light blue woollen coat to keep out the chill. On our way we pass a miserable chain of convicts trudging like oxen.
‘To where is this group headed?’ I ask Macquarie.
‘By cart inland,’ he replies matter-of-factly. ‘They will leave shortly before us to fell timber. The trees grow taller there, and they are spaced well apart.’
There is a cry of pain followed by a distempered howl, more canine than human. The chains cease their clanking. I pause to look behind. The men have drawn aside from the path. One is down, doubled over. An overseer with a top hat crushed at the crown, as if it has been sat upon, stands in the midst of the group lighting a pipe. We move on.
‘Are the irons ever struck from their ankles?’ I ask. ‘The poor men.’
‘Pity is an indulgence I cannot afford,’ he says, and leaning towards me, in an intimate tone, ‘and nor, my love, can you. It is too costly.’ He straightens. I offer silence, knowing that it will draw him out. ‘Or, rather,’ he goes on, as I expected he would, ‘pity is a coin that must be used sparingly. I made it clear to all at the first muster. Good behaviour brings the richest reward of all: freedom. But there will be no quarter given for a return to crime. Severity is the only answer! Most of the men on the iron gangs’ — he turns to regard the straggling group — ‘have reoffended. Some tried to escape. One of these laggards walked into the bush and returned two days later jabbering like a madman. What’s to be done?’ He shakes his head. ‘A rule of leniency is no kind of rule at all.’
‘So the crimes of the past are forgotten but those of the present bring forth a punishment just short of death. I mean to say, what kind of life is it?’
‘No kind of life at all, I’m afraid.’
The soldiers’ boots grind the dry shale and pebble, though not in regular marching time. Too many empty hours wiled away at cards and they have lost their soldierly form — their regimental pride. Am I the only one to lament this absence of learned rhythm and discipline, to note it at all? It would help if there were a military band that could be relied upon to keep good time. Wheneve
r I hear the band strike up I am reminded of a boat I had once seen sinking on Loch Creran: there is the same combination of helplessness and dread.
At the wharf, all is in readiness. The overseer of Government boats, Barney Williams, a stout red-haired fellow with short arms that pump the air furiously when he walks — and even when he doesn’t — is on hand to greet us. He explains that the Governor and I will leave first, seated aft. Four soldiers will ride at the fore, and convict oarsmen will take us down the river.
I insist that the convicts be unshackled. ‘They will hardly attempt to escape with so many muskets about,’ I say. ‘And at Parramatta there will be a guard.’ I give Macquarie a look and he returns it blankly. ‘You say only the worst are manacled. Are these men of the worst kind?’
Macquarie inclines his head to Williams, a convict he had recently pardoned, and the men are released.
The longer I dwell at this vast distance from home, the more deeply I am struck by the insult of social hierarchy. I have learned more from my conversations with the native, Bungaree, and the convict architect, than from any of the braying officers of the 73rd Regiment of Foot.
We are headed inland to meet with a tribe of reconciled natives, lay the foundation stone of Spencertown, and survey its needs. If not for this last purpose the Architect would have been left to oversee the apprentice masons at the lighthouse. A sufficient quantity of excellent, though rather soft, stone has already been quarried and dressed, and the shapely tower has begun to rise. But he is needed on this expedition, the Governor tells me, for his gift of ‘civic imagination’, and a holiday has been declared on the lighthouse site.
I would have thought the colony’s bard, Michael Massey Robinson, worthy of a berth on the boat to Parramatta; and the presence of the convict artist, Joseph Lycett, would surely be invaluable. Lycett, who has a good eye for the pastoral, could paint some of the scenery, or at least beautify what scenery we happen to find. But we travel light. One of Robinson’s odes has been penned for the occasion and the Governor carries the verses in his pocket while their author stays behind. The Architect has been deemed by the Governor to be Lycett’s equal with a brush; I pray that word of this insult does not reach the ears of that irascible artist.
Mrs. M Page 7
