Captive Wife, The

by Kidman, Fiona

  By now I was getting rich enough and somewhat tired of all the sailing around so I set up house in Cambridge Street in the Rocks district of Sydney and arranged to deal in goods coming off the ships. I had 2 servants. There was the woman Charlotte Pugh who does for me and every now and then I return to the idea of setting up together but she had other thoughts. You wd think she wd have taken up a good offer as she has the 2 children by Samuel Garside who done her wrong. I had too a manservant, the convict called Samuel Browne who helped with unloading when the ships were in port. Samuels must be her undoing for I found them in the alleyway one night her with her skirt around her waist and him up to the hilt.

  Well I said don’t stop for me for neither seemed too keen to carry on and him not knowing where to look. So they was stuck there in the alleyway and I thought I might as well get to see what he has on offer for her. I said come now Samuel and took him by the shoulder so that he must step back and what I saw was nothing much but perhaps it had had a fright.

  Charlotte covered herself up quick though I saw she had a fine head of hair peeking out. I laughed then and said it doesn’t take much to satisfy you Charlotte Pugh. I could give you twice as much but I won’t. It makes a man thirsty seeing another man in the drink but I did not want to mix good seed with bad. Be sure to wipe it clean I said to Samuel.

  But it was enough to send a man off to sea again what with her brats at her heels and the smell of her ripe cunt in the kitchen. Enough to put a man off his tucker. And then she was in the family way again.

  I’m ready to go to sea again I told Captain Underwood for I had heard he was hoping to send the Harriet to sea for sealing in the Auckland Islands. Not that I knew much about them.

  They is far away Underwood told me in the half-light of the Antarctic sea. The cold winds come in off the ice. You need to keep warm and look sharp.

  At least I knew the Harriet. This was a ship I was coming to know as if she was my own. She turned this way and that at my command. I wished that I knew a woman like her. What happened down south is something I must set down here and put to rights although there is some does not have a good word to say for me on the subject.

  Today we hit heavy weather worse than usual. I see that day clearly in my mind. Heavy NW gales with extreme squally wind and rain driven by heavy gusts is what I wrote in my log book that day. We took shelter in the North Arm beneath Mt Raynal, a high peak on that empty land which is bare in the way of the desert I have seen in Australia, but grey and barren like a virgin spinster. The trees, what there are of them, are bent towards the earth. We dropped anchor and it held fast and that was lucky for us. The wind died off although the rain kept falling. Alongside of us comes a boat with 2 men aboard.

  We come off the Sally says the older of the 2, a man I come to know as John Wilson.

  I know a bit about the Sally, it is a schooner that usually trades in timber and coal, but had put out to sea with the idea of quick money without knowing what they was letting themselves in for down there in the south. I know the Sally is sealing in the nearby Western Arm of Carnley Harbour under a Captain Lovatt. He is a good enough man but I do not think he has done much sealing.

  Things is not too good over there said the other man who I find out soon is Mark Shaw.

  You’d best come aboard I said and the 2 men come on board the Harriet.

  So what is the trouble then.

  They tell me the rum rations are cut and the food is bad because they have not put in enough provision. To make matters worse the master was running scared against the wind and they had got no seals to speak of and all they wanted to do was get some work and go home. I was thinking it wd be trouble getting their boat back to the Sally which I wd have to do or my name will be mud but I am glad enough to have the extra hands.

  Well I said to them you’re welcome to stay as I’ve got a man down sick who should never have put to sea and another who doesn’t know how to work. Let’s see what you’re made of, the pair of you.

  So it was not just Lovatt’s boat I had to worry about but now his runaways as well. I began to see myself back inside again and I am a man who must go free.

  Next day part fine weather fresh SSE wind and 5 boats made land. There we found a very promising rookery of seals, as good as any I have seen and not another ship in sight. We clubbed 500 in a very short space of time. I was watching Shaw and Wilson all the time. I could see they did not know how to skin a seal. They stood about looking gormless. I wished I had never clapped eyes on either of them. I wd have done them a favour if I had knocked them off then.

  It came to me then that I wd leave them here. And that is what I did. I took them on board and fed them one more time. I took the ship round by Port Ross which is to the north of the main island and told them they are on their own now. May God have mercy on their souls and I hope as how another ship will pick the pair of them up in which case they wd do well to keep their secrets to themselves another time.

  They should have died there and Wilson did but Shaw got picked up 6 month later, all skin and bone and crawling on hands and knees. That is how the story got around that I am a murderer. Well it would be better that I had done them in. Shaw was all for telling where the new rookery was in exchange for his life and blacked my name.

  Murderer they say when I walk down George Street. Wet behind yon ears I say. People say I am a hard man and wicked with it. But hard men get things done. Next thing when I am back in Sydney I got a message to see Mr Robert Campbell. I am not 1 to get excited but I must say my heart beat fast upon reading his letter. Campbell is the King of the Wharf, the man with the biggest shipping business in all of Sydney, the merchant prince some do call him. This is the man who stopped the redcoat gentry in their tracks, those what made handsome profits from other men’s work in the early days. What they done, these thieving rascals, was go aboard each merchant ship that come to Sydney and buy up all the cargo. Then they sold it for 500 times more to the local people. It took a man like Campbell to bust them. He bought a strip of land that is called Campbell’s Cove and I daresay will be that for all time and built ships that he alone owned. So he could say who could come and go aboard them and it was not redcoats. He has built there his house, a wharf and stores, and he deals in seal skins whale oil and timber not to mention cattle from India sugar tea coffee rice and muslins.

  His message said he wd like me to come to lunch and talk over a business proposition. I told Charlotte she must iron my best shirt with special care. And then she went and burnt it, a triangle like burnt toffee on the right side beneath the collar because she has her mind on other things. Betsy who was there to visit said don’t worry Uncle Jack, for that is what she has taken to calling me ever since the day she and I went out for picking oysters, though she says it with a funny little smile as if she knows something I don’t. I will get you another 1 real quick from Mr Spyer. And she was down the street, lickety split, and back again in less than ½ an hour while I walked up and down. It will never fit I said to Charlotte, she did not wait to ask what size, she will not know. The shirt was perfect, the best I ever put upon my shoulders, and though I was mighty upset and not myself, the girl had made me calm. I went off to see Mr Campbell wondering which knife and fork I should pick up when I sat down to lunch. Which is not the most important thing I know but all of a sudden I was like a lad and shy. My Father wd have known what to do. But there is nothing in the book of words he gave to me that tells you the difference between the fish knife and the 1 for butter.

  Not that Campbell seemed to notice that I was nervous. He took me by the arm as if we was the best of friends and we strolled through his garden and looked at his peacocks. I have heard much about you Guard he said.

  I said who has been talking about me for I am careful who knows my business and he says why Captain Underwood has spoken with high regard for you.

  I said that is all right then and he showed me into his parlour where we partook of a good lunch such as an English gentleman might eat a
nd drank some wine and I watched what he did and it all came to me easily enough.

  I could not at first believe my ears when Campbell said what was on his mind but it was correct, he offered me a partnership with him in a ship called the Waterloo.

  Underwood says you should have enough money for a ½ share he said, which troubled me a little because I do not like people to speculate on what I am worth but I let it pass.

  The ship is a 70 ton schooner, the Waterloo, carrying kangaroo skins, wheat and seal skins between Sydney, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand.

  I said thank you sir, I can oblige you there. And I added that I had heard of the demand for flax and that I knew where I might do some good deals and at that he was very pleased.

  Well he said, it might be that the sailing can be shared around, and you might like to work ashore from time to time. Have you got a good lady?

  I said I am not a married man.

  That is a pity he said. A wife is an asset to any man. What has kept you from the goodly estate?

  I said then that I had not met a woman I fancy well enough at which he shook his head and said well that is up to you but a man in your position should be able to pick and choose.

  In my head I knew I had not told him all the truth.

  After this something happened so big and strange I knew it to be an omen of my future. I was sailing the Waterloo in New Zealand waters. It has turned out to be a tidy ship and much to my liking although it is not the Harriet. Again we carried seal skins from the south, not planning to go ashore, when up comes a strong NW gale near Cook Strait. The waves were green mountains like nothing I had ever seen, they curled and smashed, beat and flayed us, they were big as God’s wrath, and at evening we were driven harder and ever more relentless towards a rocky headland. I had been warned of this place and never thought of seas as fierce and without forgiveness and I thought I was a fool that I had not heeded more the warnings. The Waterloo was carried forward on the crest of a mighty wave. Suddenly we found ourselves in smooth water near the shore of an island.

  It was hard to believe that in the midst of all this wind we should come across a place so calm and still. But it was so. We had found fair haven.

  Later I heard the island is called Arapawa and the place where we had come is Te Awaiti which means The Little River.

  But not for me. It is the place of my deliverance. I will call it always Fair Haven, the name I have bestowed.

  This is the word of the Lord. God Almighty. I was saved.

  In the morning, the storm passed over and I was able to look around me, as a man who discovers a new land might do. We were in a small bay with a wide beach of stones. Over the beach fast flowed a stream of clear water. Up above were trees of many kinds, hard knotted and close together. We climbed the hill. To the south we saw a range of mountains covered with snow like flowing milk. All around us the birds were crying out.

  What I saw then fair blew the breath out of my mouth. In the waters of the bay a pod of southern right whales played near the shore. These are black animals and carry great quantities of oil. I had heard of the right whales coming north from the Antarctic to calve in quiet waters but this was something I never thought to see and it was here right before my eyes.

  I had an idea of how I might go on for the next little while. And in my mind I was seeing the girl.

  She has been in my mind a long time. She comes to me most often on the watch between midnight and 4, when the dawn is just about to break. Sometimes as daylight comes there is a moment I cannot explain, a moment so fast that I never believe I’ve seen it after it has passed. It is like a green flash, a flicker in the sky. I have asked a sailor or 2 if they ever seen it but they tell me no and now I dare not ask anyone except they think me strange. But it is in times like this I think of the girl and that she is growing older. Somewhere someone may be entering her, they will ride her, tearing her apart like a woman ripping open a seam or a man the canvas of a sail. It will happen and she will be lost to me.

  And I know I do not want that to happen. I want to put her on a promise to me. I need to take her away from John Deaves and her mother and Charlotte and her men and all the women who take bad fortune as their due.

  Perhaps there is a name for what I feel. I want a girl who is mine and nobody but me has had her.

  I will teach her with what kindness there is in me.

  I do not want anyone but her.

  Chapter 5

  LETTER TO PERCEVAL MALCOLM ESQUIRE, PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES FROM HIS SISTER, MISS ADELINE MALCOLM, C/- THE RODDICK HOME, MACQUARIE STREET, SYDNEY

  December 1832

  My dear brother Percy

  It is now some years since you have seen fit to reply to my letters, but it is my duty as ever, each month, to write you an account of my life here in Sydney. It has been a difficult few weeks, and I am sure you will have it in your heart to take pity on me, for I have lost my dear good friend Mrs Emmeline Roddick, whom I loved as my life. As you know, I have lived in the Roddick home for close to three years, as the governess of Mathilde and little Austen. Emmeline became weaker and weaker with the chest complaint for which there is no cure, an evil scourge that respects neither gentle folk nor criminals, though no doubt a great deal of it has been carried here on the convict transport ships. She had become as a sister to me, albeit a younger sister, for there was a difference of several years in our ages. Lieutenant Roddick remarked on it when he was home, which is not often of course, because of his military duties which take him away for so much of the time. The poor fellow, he’s always been a devilish sort of man, if I may use such coarse language, but he has a merry way with him when he is happy. I do not wish to sound improper, but I would describe him as a handsome man. His dark moustache, sadly, is now tinged with grey, but it is a full moustache, indicating a sturdy constitution, and he is such a big man, at least six foot four in his stockinged feet. Which I admit to having seen, for he took off his shoes and tiptoed around Emmeline’s bed so as not to disturb her in those last terrible days, when she slept fitfully, only to wake gasping for breath that was beyond her reach. I sat and read gently to her each day, and pressed cold flannels hourly against her forehead, but to no avail, she was gone to us.

  The question of what is to happen to me has not been broached, but I fear that before long I will have to return to Rosewood. What will the servants think, me living here in the same quarters that are occupied from time to time by Lieutenant Roddick? I could, of course, take a room down by the cook’s; it is a bare little space, but perhaps I can make it homely. Besides, Hettie is a coarse creature, a ticket of leave woman. We will just have to see, with poor Emmeline not cool in her grave, it’s too soon to enquire about the arrangements. Someone has to see to the children.

  Your silence suggests that you continue to hold some grievance against me, real or imagined. All the same, your lack of interest in my welfare will not go unremarked for long. Indeed, it has reached my ears that you have not been received at the Governor’s second residence at Parramatta for some time. I do have a number of friends here, through the kind offices of dear Emmeline in the past, and I am frequently received at Government House, although the new Governor Bourke, like dear Lieutenant Roddick, is recently widowed, so he is in mourning. No doubt you will have heard about this; it happened soon after his arrival. His daughter is standing in as his hostess but their receptions are confined to a small circle among whom I count myself one of the privileged few.

  I am aware that you have been petitioning for more acres of grassland, and I can only say, your conduct could rebound unfavourably on you. I would never volunteer information against someone whom I have held so dear all my life, but do not think that questions have not been asked. If I am forced back into lodgings, I am sure that the quality of our familial ties will soon be under scrutiny.

  It is worth noting, perhaps, that the new Governor, Sir Richard Bourke, has greater sympathy with the emancipists than his predecessor. At first I was scan
dalised, but I am beginning to think his attitude may lead to greater harmony in the Colony than in recent years. No doubt, you will have heard that Governor Darling’s departure was fêted by those who support convicts’ rights, with feasting and celebrations. A brass band played ‘Over the hills and far away’ and a huge sign on the newspaper building crowed HE’S OFF, while a fireworks display spelled out the words Down With the Tyrant. I felt myself quite borne away with the excitement of it all and I believe I may have the stirring of a liberal conscience in my breast. But that is what happens when people are dispossessed. How could this ever have come upon me? Of course, I have not shared these thoughts with the Lieutenant, who is a man under orders.

  When Sir Richard arrived, the frenzy was as great, but on so much happier a note; bonfires were lit and the streets illuminated in greeting. You, with your hundreds of convicts working on the farm, cannot hope to go unnoticed. Do not come to me in great remorse when it is all too late, brother.

  Your ever affectionate sister,

  Adie Malcolm

  Part 2

  The Governess

  Chapter 6

  We are happy in noticing the arrival of His Majesty’s Ship Alligator, once more in our harbour, especially after the successful termination of the enterprise in which she has been engaged; the particulars of which, we are now enabled to present to our numerous and respectable Readers.

  It will be remembered that His Majesty’s Ship left this Port on the 31st August, with the Colonial schooner Isabella, having on board a detachment of the 50th Regiment, under her convoy, for the purpose of rescuing from the savage inhabitants of New Zealand, the wife and children of Captain Guard, and the remainder of the crew of the ship Harriet.