‘The Architect no sooner sets eyes on a place than he sees how to give it dignity,’ Macquarie tells me. ‘It’s as if, for this work, I have the benefit of another set of eyes — another mind.’
He has begun to value the Architect’s opinions, it seems, above all others. They speak to him of his great cause. To put down the foundations of a civilisation at this most unlikely place he cannot, he says, rely solely on his own and his wife’s whims and fancies.
I have had placed by the window of our bedchamber a cylinder bureau used by our predecessors as a spare drinks cabinet; it’s here that I read, correspond and store my small, yet growing, collection of colonial mementos. When this is done I will oftentimes find Macquarie and the Architect together in the study, along with George Howe, the printer of our Sydney Gazette, and Captain John Piper the naval officer. Each time I enter I am welcomed courteously into the club and directed to a comfortable seat. I remark on the pall of cigar smoke and the open bottles, and after I take my seat the conversation resumes. But I suspect it takes a different course after my entry; certainly there is a shift in the tenor.
I am the odd one out. I will never be excluded from these meetings and yet my presence, I sense, is not so much encouraged as endured. The Architect had vexed Macquarie at our first meeting by inundating us with his expertise. What a torrent he unleashed! Now it enchants my husband. He will come to me some evenings with talk of the Corinthian order and its origins, of triglyphs and architraves and the like. He is much like a student excited by his mastery of some esoteric branch of knowledge.
If I am to have some purchase on the business of improving this colony I will need to find a clear and direct path to the Architect. How interesting that he has become such a power in the colony. What is more he is, I can tell by his longer than absolutely necessary looks, desirous of a stronger bond between us.
As the boats slides along the Parramatta River, a cold dark-green jelly at this hour, there is only the rasping of the rowers’ laboured breath and the rhythm of oars beating the water.
I’m reminded of how in late summer I would now and then take a small rowboat out across the pearly waters of Loch Linnhe and watch the lingering sunset in glorious solitude. Even if bad weather was on the way it seemed to courteously await the setting of the sun; as soon as it dissolved into the horizon, the wind and the water would stir and the storm renew its approach.
That life seems a world away as we push into the secret regions of this land that never ends.
We have visited the outlying towns before but on this occasion, Macquarie tells me, we may find ourselves in regions where no European boot has left its print upon the earth. I am thrilled and a little fearful.
In the inner reaches of the waterway there are no natives fishing in their slim bark canoes; or none to be seen through a veil of light mist. With every few yards the mist lightens. Quite suddenly it lifts on the breeze, departing like a wraith.
A flock of white parrots blushed pink on the underside bursts with a ragged displeased screech from a stand of mangrove.
Something heavy — a turtle perhaps — drops into the water as we pass.
A little later there is a thunderous crash in the forest fringing a wooded island rising to a conical peak.
‘Widow maker,’ gasps the closest oarsman. Noticing my dumbfounded response, he takes another deep breath as he draws through the stroke.
‘Eucalyptus limb.’
A heave at the oar. Another syllabic gasp.
‘They … break …’
Heave.
‘And fall … from high …’
Heave.
‘Worse than … bleedin’ … snakes.’
Heave.
‘Beggin’ … pardon … m’lady.’
The boat pulls into Parramatta — a fertile open place, neatly settled, the soil of the garden plots black, blue hills piling up behind, and all around a dewy green pastoral aspect that puts me in mind of home. Macquarie orders the oarsmen onto the pier ahead of us while he waits, out of some unspoken regimental protocol, until the slower boat carrying the Architect and the rest of the soldiers is almost upon us. It’s then that he nods to the men on the pier. They extend their hands to us.
I take Macquarie’s arm and we move quickly to the horses tethered beside the old Government House; they are a little unnerved by the clamour, I can tell even from this distance. Built in plain Georgian style, the building has been often used by Macquarie on his tours of the growing settlement.
The soldiers stand in groups, packs on the ground, inspecting their muskets, attaching bayonets, giving their sabres one more admiring inspection. The Architect, in an olive-green hunting coat, stands alone, hands behind his back, waiting for an invitation to join us.
The Governor calls to him and extends a welcoming arm.
‘The journey upriver with the soldiers for company,’ he says. ‘It went well?’
‘Nobody spoke, at least not to me. In your eyes, sir, I am a professional man. In theirs, I will ever be a criminal.’
‘Rise above,’ the Governor says blithely, gesturing to the house.
‘What do you say?’ he asks the Architect, who has fallen in beside him.
‘A fine example of a building of its kind, Sir. But I think you would not disagree with me — a little ornament to set it apart? A neat portico is easily done.’
The three of us — I am on the Governor’s arm while the Architect stands at his left — turn from the house to regard the river.
‘And the journey — your impressions?’
‘The harbour is very beautiful at its sea mouth, sir. Blue and wild. But the interior reaches here are a little … estuarine for my tastes.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ says the Governor. ‘But the land is poor by the harbour. If the colony is to ever feed itself, it will need to work this good dark loam. Observe how tall and straight the eucalypts grow on either side of the road inland.’ He gestures towards the low blunt hills in the west.
‘I picture — if I may — the colony many years from now,’ says the Architect, casting a hand before him as if he were sowing seed. ‘I see it ornamented with buildings the height of these woods — higher. Solid dwellings of five or six storeys. The heights pierced by towers, domes and cupolas. All of it in golden Port Jackson sandstone.’
Leaning across Macquarie to eye the Architect, I add with a spirited air, anxious that I be given a voice, ‘The city — if it is ever to become a city — will house its people in dwellings of timber. Not everyone can afford a house of stone.’
‘Ah, but madam,’ he returns, eyes alive with the pleasure of the contest, ‘if I may. Only the brick and the stone will be remembered.’
Stiffening a little, I put in, ‘Surely the only polis built entirely for posterity is … a necropolis.’
‘Ah!’ cries Macquarie, raising his hand like a circus master. ‘A draw.’
And then, after a paternal nod at each adversary, ‘Now time for a truce. Time also’ — he mounts, a little creakily, his chestnut stallion — ‘to be on our way.’
A young soldier comes forward with a grave expression, lays his shako on the ground and helps me into the saddle of a spotted grey mare. We strike up an easy canter along the well-kept road heading west towards the hills, slowing to a walk every few miles to spare the horses. The detachment divides into a forward and a rear group bookending us; the Architect, a little subdued, rides behind Macquarie and me. We are hemmed in by the vaulting forest and diminished, despite our numbers, by it. At least there is a mild autumn sun above — its light scattered by a webbing of white branches — and a reviving freshness on the air. The perfect season for such a journey.
The tall straight trees lining the road are stockinged with frayed bark. I know this species from a few poor specimens close to the town. Most of the large stands near the settlement were felled in the early years for building material or, worse still, firewood. If we had a stand of trees this size at Airds then leg
ends would have gathered around them long ago: a Gaelic champion might have climbed one to reach the clouds and smite a fiery dragon. By my reckoning at least fifty cabers could be hewn from a single tree in this old forest. I stop, dismount, and go to the nearest trunk. I rub my palms across the husk-like ribbons, pick at a red bead of sap like a devil’s tear. I pull at a strip of stringy-bark and slip it into a bag on the saddle: a memento of the journey.
The earliest chroniclers gazed on these eucalyptus forests and pictured a vast and featureless arboreal ocean. I was inclined, at first, to see the landscape with their eyes. I now wonder if there is anything more beautiful in Nature — more resilient, for it endures both fire and drought — than the sinuous white trunks of the eucalypts in the Domain, branches like twists of silver when struck by the morning sun. I wonder at times if, while other trees are raised from seedlings, these are not forged in foundries.
There are few of that species out here. But all the eucalypts share a common feature quite apart from their reviving scent: it is their foliage. Raised into the air by those sinuous branches, the slender leaves join in conversation with the breeze. This is what gives the single eucalyptus its lack of definition and the eucalyptus forest its air of anonymity: it is all of apiece.
*
The night is spent at a property spreading for miles from a timber farmhouse girdled by a wide cool verandah. The land around the homestead has been cleared, although blue-grey forest still cloaks the hilltops. Smoke rises from a red brick chimney. The farmhands curse and shout as they come in for their evening meal. There is the yapping of dogs and the bleating of sheep as they pour into holding pens placed close to the homestead from fear of the native dog — the dingo. The sun has been claimed by these hills by the time we arrive, and a delicious fading light falls around. The luminous sky and the shadowed land seem, for a short while, to have divorced from one another: it is as if they belong to different worlds. But then the light begins to drain from the sky, it joins the earth in shadow, and the world becomes one again.
Our host, a weathered old Scot named Ogilvy, is unlike the Governor in all respects save blood. His wife is a soft and shy Irish woman named Mary, who craves the shadows. Her long lashes beat nervously when we meet. She holds my gaze with an element of discomfort. I note something veiled — fear or shame — in her aspect.
We take tea on the verandah. A maid with a white cap, lean arms and a full upper lip over crowded teeth, brings the pot along with three fine china cups, a tart of apple and a few slices of orange cheese on a plate. She bears her tray towards a side table of roughly planed timbers. There is a tremble of thin muscle as she sets it down. Serving Macquarie first, she seems to falter, perhaps from trepidation, though on reflection the pot may simply have been too heavy for her. There — she pours too much. The brackish tea spills over the cup’s lip. Ogilvy berates the girl harshly. His right hand is raised, his palm open, as if he means to strike.
‘It is no matter,’ I say sharply. I hold his gaze until he lowers his hand. ‘The Governor much prefers his tea without milk,’ I lie.
There is such severity in Ogilvy’s manner towards the servants — and the assigned convicts here seem little more than slaves — that I am left to wonder how he must treat them when no visitors are present to judge. And what of poor Mary?
We reach Spencertown the next day, a miserable string of shacks too far from the fertile land we had passed to ever amount to much. A few families have gathered in the main street to welcome us. The young men have sullenly combed their hair for the occasion; the girls, without caps or bonnets, have tamed their tresses with plaits or pigtails.
‘The rest of the settlers,’ explains a sallow man of some thirty years, whose frame disappears into a bulky coal-black coat, ‘have sold their land to John Macarthur. The wool baron owns half the district. More. Well, the land is suited to sheep, even if the natives have taken a liking to them. But then the natives take a liking to us Christian folk, too. Poor Perceval Chambers took up kangaroo shooting for a sport.’ He turns to spit but catches himself. ‘The natives soon made sport of him. We reckon they took him for a poacher. We sent out a search party. They came back with his bloodied clothes… . Would the Guv’nor like to see them — the clothes?’
‘No thank you. No,’ I put in quickly. I look to Macquarie. ‘Thank you for the offer, though.’
The Governor’s hand reaches into his pocket. There is a rustle of paper. Presently he retracts it without Robinson’s ode, shakes some hands, and asks that the ceremony be abbreviated as we are pressed for time.
Macquarie lays the foundation stone in a small park hemmed by an irregular picket fence, beside a low timber building with a thatched roof and a tattered flag hanging limply from a freshly painted pole. Afterwards the townsfolk join us in a rendition of ‘God Save the King’, their voices adding very little weight or depth to our own. We take tea in the shack flying the flag — its interior neat and tidy though very cramped — as the sallow man, whose name is John Few, and a few thin and large-eyed townsfolk address us, not on the subject of the town’s civic needs but its fears.
‘A small detachment of men such as these,’ Few implores, motioning to the soldiers waiting outside.
‘I will give it due consideration,’ says the Governor kindly.
‘P’raps a small fort?’ He pauses, licks his lips and goes on excitedly. ‘Muskets.’
‘Make a case and send it to me,’ says Macquarie. He rises to leave and stoops to pass beneath the door.
It would take a civic imagination far more capacious than the Architect’s to picture anything grand enough in this town’s future to warrant the dignity of good design. I fear it will ever be a stepping-stone to somewhere else. When I voice this opinion to the Governor on the return journey he is not irked, not at all.
He rests a hand on the pommel and pivots in his saddle to ensure there are none within earshot. ‘It sounded very fine as a proclamation, and was named, after all, for one of the few honest politicians of the age,’ he says a little wearily. ‘It looked even finer on a map of the district. But I agree it will take more than walls of sandstone and roofs of slate to entice settlers to venture this far from the protection of the main town.’
Soon afterwards he rides back to the head of the detachment and remains there, encircled by a few red coats topped with shakos. The soldiers turn now and then, like stiff puppets, to converse with one another. But the Governor seems aloof from their talk and somewhat lost: an ageing man with his disappointments. My husband.
It is a slow and dispiriting trek back to Parramatta. Sitting astride the saddle for this length of time, my legs tire and stiffen. Around mid-afternoon the party draws to a halt — there is a commotion of some kind ahead. Riders go forward to speak with two native men, almost entirely naked. They stand with spears and shields by their sides. Both men — an elder with wavy white hair and long beard and a young man with a plaited band around his crown — gesticulate with great animation in the direction we are heading.
They keep their voices low. Whatever they have to say, it is enacted rather than spoken.
When we set off again I spot a haze of flies hovering above a blackened mass in the long yellow grass to my left. A rancid stench hangs on the still air. My horse, unnerved, whinnies and breaks stride.
We are hardly an inconspicuous target — a slow-moving caravan, brightly coloured and elaborately dressed. At any moment, I imagine, a shower of spears might land in our midst. A soldier brandishing a musket while facing a native with a barbed spear or hunting stick has the clear advantage, though surprise will even the odds. I do not like our chances in the event of a spirited attack of the kind visited upon our soldiers in the American war by screaming Iroquois.
A mile or so further on we take a branch of the road. We cling to it for the remainder of the day, climbing into the foothills of a low range with a view over the plain below. The path is narrow, freshly cut but already furred with new foliage. The troops are wary.
In the piercing silence I sense their fear.
Macquarie, with a redcoat on each side, falls back to join me.
‘There is something afoot,’ I say.
He raises a finger to his mouth.
We ride on slowly.
As dusk settles we reach the outskirts of the town. The spirits of the entire party rise at the sight of humble brick cottages held together with mortar of ground oyster — quite as reassuring, in the circumstances, as a Crusader fortress girded with a battlement six feet thick. There is much talk among the soldiers as we dismount and walk on beside the horses. That night Macquarie instructs the publican of a small hotel beside the river to serve the soldiers liberally from his cellars. For a while there is song. But then — and this is a surprise, as I had anticipated more revelry — that other great source of solace, sleep, falls upon them. Fear, after all, is a kind of energy, and these men are spent.
I learn from Macquarie that the two natives, members of a group quite reconciled to the colony, had come out to warn us of an ambush, or the threat of one, if we continued on that path. They joined us at a place where a longer route, though a safer one, cleaves from the main road.
‘We have been fortunate indeed,’ he says, lying in the dark yet quite alert with his troubles. ‘The colony, too. If I had been killed or injured — or you, or indeed any of the party — there would have been nothing for it but to retaliate with a force not yet seen in this place.’ I turn to my side, place a hand upon his chest, his strong heart. He places his own hand over mine. ‘I fear we are,’ he goes on, ‘at war. And our instruments are but two: force and favour. There were already plans to reward this pacified group, but we will make a rare show of it now.’
Mrs. M Page 8
