by Ed Hillyer
Tabassa sits himself on a rock, serious as always, smoking the peace pipe with M. Bonval. George Tippahee presents Madame Bonval with the red feather.
GEORGE TIPPAHEE: For your head, the feather of friendship. Mother has told me: George Tippahee, take this present to Marie Bonval, and let Marie receive it with the love of Akotoe.
There could be no mistaking the personage of Aetockoe, Princess of New Zealand. Thrown into the bottom of a sea-chest, locked away in some remote region of Sarah’s heart, sense-memory of her had endured.
MME BONVAL (animated): Akotoe! My God! Do I hear you right? The Princess Akotoe, the wife of George Bruce, is your mother?
George Bruce! The Sneak-thief Sailor, reunited with his Princess…
The playlet named ‘Akotoe’ as the mother of the fictional little savage George Tippahee. The lost child of ‘George Bruce’ and his consort, Aetockoe, had been reimagined a son instead of the daughter.
At this point in the text, the paper of the booklet was curiously wrinkled and worn, as if water-damaged. Even the ink itself was faded.
GEORGE TIPPAHEE (laughing): George my father, Akotoe my mother. Marie is the friend of Akotoe, because Marie receives the feather of friendship with the love of Akotoe, of George, and of Tippahee.
Madame Bonval asks her husband how this is possible.
SCENE XV.
Monsieur Bonval reminds his wife of bulletins concerning the history of the sailor George Bruce and his Princess bride.
MADAME BONVAL: I know their history by heart.
MONSIEUR BONVAL: This island forms part of the kingdom of good Tippahee, father of Akotoe. In coming here, we visit the same, from where the sea captain Dalrymple, who anchored in this region, abducted George and his wife. Tippahee is dead, and, by his decree and the will of the whole nation, his son-in-law George Bruce and daughter Akotoe rule in his stead, and are presently occupied civilising their subjects.
One of the sailors from our ship, escaping the storm, and having swum to the island of Typpayassa, where king George and his queen Akotoe hold court, found help and protection there. The sailor told the royal couple of our marooned family, and set out to aid us – bearing a letter from George Bruce.
Madame Bonval, trembling, takes up the letter.
MADAME BONVAL (reading): ‘George Bruce, king of the Typpayassa islands in New Zealand, and his wife Akotoe, extend greetings and friendship to the minister, Bonval, and his castaway family. If you wish to return to Europe, I will grant you the means: but I hope to convince you, after my own experience, that it is in the simple dress of the children of nature, and far from the luxuries of the great civilised nations, that happiness lies.’
It continued in much the same vein, with copious introductions, politesse, and niceties. Sarah had to lay the booklet aside a moment, and take a much-needed breath.
Madame de Montolieu, writing in 1816, had taken an episode of Druce’s story – presumably from the same original source as his 1810 Memoirs, the tale concerning Aetockoe’s kidnap – and given him his much-wished-for happy ending. Her whimsical playlet was a confection: perfectly suited to delight well-educated young girls from comfortable homes, but surely too sweet for the robust London stage. Yet circumstantial evidence suggested otherwise: to become a children’s toy theatre production, it must have enjoyed at least some level of popularity. Action was usually prerequisite over and above spectacle and exotic scenery. DES PETITS ROBINSON was all talk, with no fighting, no grand procession, nor even any wild beasts. Tastes had changed since those far-off days; the delicacy of the early Romantics curdled, becoming gothic, and dark.
Around 1816, 1817, the craze for toy theatre would have been at its height, William West and his many rivals desperately keen for material. A story already in circulation as a street patterer’s penny blood was as ripe for adaptation as anything else. Examining the jungle scene more closely, Sarah could see it had originally belonged to a different production entirely: tiny voided lettering in the corner read ‘Forty Thieves No.2 – a Grand Oriental Spectacle’. Similar works in a genre en vogue meant certain articles of scenery could be endlessly recycled.
SCENE XVI.
MADAME BONVAL: George, as-tu des soeurs? (George, do you have any sisters?)
GEORGE TIPPAHEE: Sister Georgina, sister Zimee…Bella, and Mani…
Not content merely to change his only child’s sex, the playwright blessed Bruce with many daughters, doubtless intended to wed the Bonvals’ numerous sons. A little scene followed where Monsieur Bonval gave Tabassa a bottle of rum ‘to cement their perfect union.’ Tabassa balanced a child on each of his broad shoulders, and they raised a toast: to the future, presumably, one in which they all lived happily ever after.
Sarah searched around for the figurine of Akotoe, but could not find it.
Beggar urchins had their penny gaffs, for street entertainments such as Punchinello; Wilton’s Music Hall and the like, the yards of galleried inns such as the Belle Sauvage, sometimes held matinee plays suitable for children. In his wanderings, ‘George Bruce’ himself might feasibly have stumbled across just such a production – witnessed a version of his own life’s history in performance – one in which he was returned to New Zealand, the fabled isle of Typpayassa, after all.
Within his Petition Druce had spoken affectingly of the abuse he had suffered daily, called man-eater, devil and traitor, owing to his tattooed appearance. Sarah imagined his astonishment – at seeing aspects of his life played out as they might otherwise have been; on sale in a shop window, as a cut-out toy; or play-acted before an audience of stunted and ragged children on an anonymous corner, somewhere deep in the very lowest neighbourhoods, the likes of which he had sprung from and was now returned to, pilloried and destitute, living on the streets. Would they laugh? Would he cry? Stay and watch? Or flee?
A comedy? If so, Flaxman’s statuettes had stepped down from the façade of the Covent Garden Theatre and swapped places. Druce might not have recognised the mélo-drame – transformed in the French style into a virtual fairytale – as his life at all.
The houses and their windows are nothing but plaster and paint – a series of canvas flats, receding, virtually featureless, all mass and colour reduced to grey-brown shades. Brippoki is himself the only solid element. Soundlessly he sprints through a luminous haze, not knowing where he is headed, nor rightly caring.
The air is still clogged – choked, and choking.
He carries a firebrand in his hand. Horses gathered at a fence float somewhere above, apparently mid-air. Slowing to a jog, for a moment Brippoki thinks he is returned to countryside, then, turning a corner, senses more than sees solemn buildings surround him – more of the same.
He stands at a crossroads. This street or that, it doesn’t matter which.
Making a wrong choice, he faces another dead end. He can only turn around, go back the way he came, try a different angle. This time he comes to a full stop, facing himself reflected in a broad shopfront, neat and orderly. An instant’s distraction, a blinding flash followed by a sharp crack, and click-clack, the shopfront is gone. Instead, he faces the clapped-out and overcrowded muddle of a dealership in marine stores.
Empty belly, burning chest, mind sloshing about in a soup; his head is a billy-pot, bubbling over. The scenery through which he moves is ever-changing, but never really changed.
It begins to rain.
Lambert woke to the growl of distant thunder. He felt hot, in a light sweat. Troubled dreams were torture enough, but waking to absolute darkness in the middle of the night was worse, for it was then that he felt most alone, at the mercy of haunting remorse. For how long had he been sleeping? Had he slept? There was no sense any more of time passing, and only one certainty – hurt. His head, his chest, his throat – so dry – everything.
Everything hurt.
Sarah lay in bed, the covers pulled up over her head. There could be no escape. An improvised belch of flame – enter, stage left, in a Mephistolean puff of brimstone,
Joseph Druce. ‘Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs,’ he said.
Sitting up, she made notes by candlelight, weak and wavering.
Pantomime was a peculiarly English rendition of commedia dell’arte tradition: in juvenile imitation of the burlesques of the London scene, all toy theatre subscribed to it. Studied fully as much as loved when she was young, the traditional entertainment split down the middle. The action opened with a story taken from classical myth, history, or even modern legend, stock characters assigned their various roles – Darling Columbine the heroine; Pantaloon her father; and their servant, Clown. At some point events would reach an impasse, whereupon, hey presto, the hero – there was always a hero – would be transformed into the colourful character of Harlequin, wearing his patchwork of rags. The comedy of the Harlequinade begun, the story would either be resolved, or dissolve into nonsense: it was for the audience to decide which.
Clown, of late, overstressed his part, whereas the drama belonged to all.
As both sneak-thief and sailor, Joseph Druce’s story united what had once been the two most popular genres of theatre great and small – nautical adventure and brigandage – and within a favourite setting, the desert island drama. Meat-hungry stories such as his properly took hold of the public imagination, dominating the London stage, throughout the 1820s – long before Sarah was born, but only shortly after Druce’s death.
Druce was done with the world, but not before the world was done with him.
He suffered for being a man ahead of his time – no longer ignored, but already forgotten – a poor man who very badly wanted to be rich, to have significance, at almost any price. No longer quite so extraordinary, his life was not unique. The same story went on all the time; everywhere amongst those who had no voice, and no one to speak for them – trampled by impersonal history.
And yet, in any society worthy of the term, all persons must possess some measure of significance; must have the right to protest an oppressor’s wrongs. Few claims on the liberality of the nation could be so well founded as those of the British sailor. Instead he received the insolence of office and, spurned, the law’s delay.
Sarah’s pen, as it moved, darkened the page with ink. Line by line her words collided, crossing over. It was too late and she could no longer see straight, let alone think straight; nor do anything right.
She shouldn’t try to rescue a man already dead, just because she could not save one living. Druce’s own crimes were irretrievable, his consummate anger – pronouncing vengeance, of the most dangerous sort – scattershot. According to Emerson, her favourite authority on these matters, feeble souls were drawn to the south or negative pole. They looked at the profit or hurt of the action, and never beheld principle unless it was lodged in a person. They did not wish to be lovely, but to be loved.
This essential flaw in Druce’s character, his weakness, drew her to him as surely as moth to flame. Any conscience on his part could of course be illusion, virtue after her design – the best in his kind were but shadows, and the worst no worse. Lines, words on paper, only gained form from whatever dimension she herself might lend.
‘An insignificant individual as myself…totally forgotten.’
Not totally – the idea was too unbearable.
Sarah reflected at length. The surfeit of events in Druce’s life obscured his essential character. The reverse was true of hers.
It wasn’t so much the dead bodies that made her anxious to avoid graveyards, she realised. What Sarah feared most was the anonymity of the grave – an unmarked plot; no name, just a number; or only a name, undeserving. A life lived without consequence, nor any distinction remaining, of whom the most that might be said was the least remarkable: that she was a drudge who did no one harm – and no good either.
CHAPTER LIX
Sunday the 21st of June, 1868
THE LONGEST DAY
‘Mad from life’s history,
Glad to death’s mystery,
Swift to be hurl’d—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!’
~ Thomas Hood, ‘The Bridge of Sighs’
Sarah scoured the cupboards and prepared breakfast. Lambert, weak as he was, stubbornly refused all attempts to feed him.
She thought she heard him whisper. Sarah proffered a glass of water with which to wet his lips, and leant in close.
‘Did you say something?’ she asked.
‘There is…none righteous,’ he gasped. ‘No, not one.’
The breakfast tray rested on his lap, but to all intent and purpose he was oblivious. Leaving it with him, she went downstairs.
Sarah parted the curtains in the front parlour. They were of lurid, if faded, design – ‘Le Grand Opera’: carnations, roses, and trompe l’oeil repetitions of their own tasselled top sash, kept in place with large coils of amber rope. She hated them, even as she loved and missed the parent whose tastes they preserved.
The carpet was filthy, discoloured with dust and ash. She remembered now: Brippoki had been drunk. He had been sick. She filled a bucket with sudsy water and scrubbed at the stains with a cloth. Other traces came to light. A virtual footprint, angry and dark, showed where he had stood the longest. Sarah roundly cursed her petty economies. By dim candlelight, she had missed the fierce wound to his arm.
An almighty crash sounded from overhead. Almost falling up the stairs, from the landing Sarah heard Lambert raving. She rushed to be by his side.
A teacup shattered before her face, into a score of shards.
‘“The foolish shall not stand in thy sight,”’ Lambert snarled and spat from the bed. ‘“Thou hatest all workers of iniquity!”’
The tray and all its contents, thrown across the room, lay in mulch and in pieces.
‘“The LORD”,’ he shrieked, ‘“will abhor the bloody and deceitful man!”’
Sarah galloped to catch up – David, a Psalm of David. She hesitated to restrain her father, but in that moment he shrank and flamed to nothing, as a tissue torched by fire.
‘“But, as for meee… I will come into thy house”’ he wheedled, his voice high and breaking. ‘“I will come… Lead me, O LORD…make thy way straight before my face.”’
His face, screwed tight, suddenly evened out, losing the worst of its creases. The skin was grey. ‘Arrgh!’ he cried.
Sarah let go the soiled cloth, taking up his shaking fists in case he should strike himself again. Eventually, he quieted.
Wetting and wringing out a fresh flannel in a bowl of cold water, Sarah gently dabbed Lambert’s forehead. His low moan interrupted her anxious ministrations.
He turned, examining her closely with a critical eye, no recognition in his face. She hovered over him, willing him well.
‘“Wellfavoured harlot!”’ he hissed. ‘“Mistress of witchcrafts! Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them! Behold, I am against theeee…”’
Lambert flinched and squirmed in the bed, resisting her touch.
‘“I will discover thy skirts upon thy face,”’ he spat, ‘“will shew nations thy nakedness, kingdoms thy shame. Abominable filth I cast on thee…thee…vile thee… I will set thee as a gazingstock.”’
The hatred in his voice twisted up his features. Were his body not so weak and wasted, Sarah felt certain he meant to assault her. She backed off, shaking. Where was the doctor? She didn’t know what to do!
‘“The daughters of Zion are haughty,”’ said Lambert. ‘“They walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet.”’
He waved his fingers in a grotesque little mime, before curling them into large fists.
‘“The Lord”,’ he roared, ‘“will smite with a scab the crown of their heads, and discover their secret parts…take away their tinkling ornaments… The chains, the bracelets, the mufflers…the bonnets, the ornaments of the legs… the rings, and nose jewels, the crisping pins and the hood, and the veils…all the changeable
suits of apparel…”’
Lips glossy with spittle, his maddened eyes roved the room.
‘“The glasses and fine linen…”
‘“And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink, and instead of girdle a rent, and instead of well-set hair, baldness…instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty!”’
His eyes, screwed shut, worked indescribable pain.
Sarah too darted a look around the room. Any fine touches were remnants of Frances. Reckoning of some kind fuelled his madness: he spoke of her mother, in borrowed phrases of ultimate scorn.
‘“And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground,”’ he wailed.
He opened his eyes again, wet with tears – no longer of rage but of sorrow. A heavy droplet rolled across his withered cheek.
‘Mine,’ he said, ‘is a jealous God!’
The faraway sun gives out light but little heat, a baleful eye fixed on Brippoki’s wayward progress. He wanders out among the ruins, the big empty. Down comes the rain – sharp, like flint. The dust cloud of recent days, settled, churns to liquid mud. It surges along the gutters in great gouts, bubbling into widening pools about clogged drains. The roadways begin to disappear, paving slick with slime – treachery, underfoot.
Brippoki’s senses are on edge. With what light there is subdued, he can barely see five paces in front. The air is heavy, impregnated with sulphur and vitriol.
He straddles the span across the dock on New Gravel Lane, the ‘Bloody Bridge’, in the slang of the neighbourhood.
Dark arch, black flow, bleak prospect – he has returned to the Well of Shadows, very close to that dreadful spot where his wanderings brought him, that first dark time.
