The Commandant

by Jessica Anderson

  On the land a loud bell began to ring. Frances, who knew the botanical gardens to be cultivated by prisoners, and was prepared to find them hateful, was surprised by their peacefulness, their boskiness and glow. It was the first stage of dusk, when shadows deepen but the light grows for a while more intense. The banana trees, the citrus and figs, the grapevines and cane, all in separate plantations, covered the whole of the sloping bank. The mustered prisoners, half-hidden by foliage, were visible only as an undulating ridge of yellow, a colour that glowed as innocently, against the violet shadows and vivid greens, as the shaddocks and lemons nearer the shore. The glimpses of red—soldiers’ coats—could have been the flowers of Rio, and when she saw, on the crest of the hill, a small octagonal cottage with a pointed roof, she gave a cry of pleasure, and Amelia Bulwer, watching her across the deck, nodded in vindication. The bell had stopped ringing.

  Again they were rounding a long point defined by the windings of the river. The gardens lay on its eastern side, and when they left them behind, and came within sight of the western bank, Frances, like Amelia herself, brought up her hands and clapped them. The row of houses set in gardens, the smoking chimneys, the tall flagstaff and spirited fluttering flag, the barge crossing the river, the windmill on the hill, the cluster of people on the wharf, all this seemed to her the essence of homeliness and familiarity. A long line of yellow, flanked by spots of red, was moving in low billows of dust down the hill from the windmill, and more yellow, this time an irregular block, could be seen on the opposite side of the river, which the barge had now almost reached. But did not labourers all over the world walk home at dusk, and wait for ferries on river banks? To fortify Frances’s impression that the place was much better than she had lately supposed came memories of Sligo, came her knowledge that free men and women, and their children too, could die of hunger while these men ate. For the man lying in the wheatfield the peasant in the Sligo ditch offered himself as counterpoise.

  Now that the cutter was drawing nearer, the figures on the stone wharf, near the neat and solid warehouse, could be defined as a wharfinger and his helpers, two army officers, two women, and two children. One child, a small fair girl, was held in the arms of an old woman in a grey dress and white apron; the other, an auburn-haired boy, stood close by the side of a slender young woman, nuzzling her waist. Frances had no trouble in recognising her sister, for Letty’s curls were still cropped close to her head, and she still wore the kind of soft and high-waisted dress that Frances remembered. Quite unexpected, however, was her slender unencumbered figure. Frances turned to Louisa to remark that Letty must have miscarried, but was forestalled by Louisa making the same remark to Henry Cowper.

  The two officers, both lieutenants of the seventeenth regiment, were soon identified by Louisa (again in a low remark to Henry) as ‘my poor Victor and Amelia’s ridiculous Lancelot’. It was nearly dark now. Lights were appearing in the houses, the wharfinger was lighting his lanterns, and the cutter was drawing close to the wharf, when three men came over the crest of the bank: a young soldier, a man in rough clothes holding aloft a torch, and Patrick Logan. Frances had remembered him accurately. With one glance she confirmed his height, his straightness, and the restless carriage of his head, but she now wondered if the curbed fastidious step, which had become in her mind almost his emblem, was not caused by the gradient and roughness of the ground, for it was nearly duplicated by the soldier at his side. For the rest, the torchlight showed him to be heavier, stronger, older, harder. He jumped down to the wharf and walked alone out of the torchlight to stand behind Letty. Frances looked from his face to her sister’s, and once again felt the weakening flush of fear. She was too much at the mercy of her company, and was about to discover which of her unpredictable selves would advance to meet these two strangers.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Good morning, Louisa.’

  ‘Good morning, Letty.’ With one hand on the back of Letty’s sofa, Louisa bent for an exchange of kisses. ‘I am glad to see you resting.’

  ‘I am ordered to west for an hour each morning and afternoon.’

  ‘Mr Murray’s orders are so sensible,’ murmured Louisa. Madge Noakes set a chair for her and she sat down.

  ‘Thank you, Madge,’ said Letty. ‘How did you find Sydney, Louisa?’

  ‘So-so.’

  But now that Madge Noakes had shut the door, Letty raised herself on the sofa, and Louisa leaned forward in her chair, and Letty’s hair, short, loose, and dark, all but met Louisa’s, which even at this early hour was stiff, red, elaborate, and supported by a huge back-comb.

  ‘Louisa, what a welief to have you back.’

  ‘You make it almost a relief to be back.’

  ‘I have had no one to talk to. No one I could twust.’

  ‘What about Mr James Murray?’

  ‘Too young. So young!’

  ‘Do you really prefer his doctoring to Henry’s?’

  ‘Patwick asks me to favour James. He says Henwy is gwoss.’

  ‘Gross indeed! I am often cross with myself for liking him. Was your miscarriage very sudden?’

  ‘Lord, Louisa, it came all in a wush.’ Letty leaned back with a sigh. ‘I believed my hour had come.’ Her sofa was placed to give a view over the garden. She turned her head against its blue silk upholstery to look out of the window, and at once lost interest in everything else. ‘I pwayed as hard as I could,’ she said absently.

  Louisa also looked through the window. Across the wide verandah, through guava trees, could be seen part of the wall, and one window, of the separate building housing the commandant’s office. Behind that window Mr Whyte the clerk would be at work. The window of the second room, in which (it was known this morning on the settlement) the commandant was closeted with Captain Clunie, was not visible from the house, but still Letty continued to stare, her preoccupation and air of anxiety imposing such a waiting hush on the room that Louisa gave a little cough before breaking it.

  ‘I didn’t see much of Captain Clunie on the voyage, Letty, but what I saw I liked. I’m sure Captain Logan finds him congenial.’

  Letty turned as if she had been waiting for it. ‘Louisa, we don’t know.’

  ‘We? Does that mean that Captain Logan himself—’

  ‘Has not had time to find out. Exactly! Last night Fwances and I left them with the port, but in five minutes Patwick joined us. Captain Clunie had wetired!’

  She spoke in such a tone of doom, and brought down both hands, with such finality, on the rug covering her legs, that Louisa could not help laughing. ‘Why should he not retire early? It was a long journey.’

  ‘Ye-es.’ Letty gave a sidelong glance through the window. ‘Indeed, I told Patwick so.’

  ‘But could not convince him?’

  ‘He has been working so hard.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So many on ev’wy vessel.’ With one hand, as thin and delicate as a child’s, Letty settled the ribbons at her neck. She wore a merino dressing gown, so new that it must have come on the Isabella. ‘More than two hundwed last month.’

  ‘I know. Victor says there are more than a thousand now. And the usual shortage of suitable overseers. So of course Captain Logan is overworked, and his mind under stress. He is lucky to have you to soothe his suspicions.’

  ‘You sound as if you are soothing mine.’

  ‘No, my dear Letty. But such feelings do act by contagion. Left to yourself, you would not have been taken aback because Captain Clunie went early to bed.’

  ‘Without explaining his pwesence here? Why a captain should be sent? I believe I should have.’

  ‘But surely the usual letter came with him?’

  More doomed than ever was Letty’s slow headshake.

  ‘Then depend upon it,’ said Louisa, ‘it will come by the next ship. In Sydney they say General Darli
ng is indisposed.’

  But again Letty shook her head. ‘Is Mr Macleay also indisposed?’

  ‘Oh, Letty, Letty! We all know the likeliest explanation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Muddle. Gracious heaven, at this place we are familiar enough with that.’

  Letty’s face cleared. She almost smiled. But in the next second her brows contracted again. ‘All the same, Louisa, a captain subordinate to a captain? It is not usual.’

  But now Louisa refused to do anything but laugh at her. ‘You echo Amelia. And that brings me to the purpose of so early a visit. I wanted to get to you before Amelia.’

  ‘Amelia has alweady been.’

  ‘Then that explains it. Gracious, she must have run over in her nightgown and cap. Did she say anything about Frances?’

  ‘Fwances was pwesent.’

  ‘Oh. Poor Amelia.’

  ‘She did seem distwacted.’

  ‘Where is Frances now?’

  ‘With the childwen. She was eager to make their acquaintance. What have you to tell me about her?’

  But even as she spoke, Letty, as if under compulsion, turned again to the window. Louisa said, ‘Let us begin with your feelings for her.’

  Letty turned with reluctance from the window. ‘She is my sister. I am willing to love her, but for the pwesent, I confess I find her wather solemn.’

  ‘It is the architecture of her face, she told Amelia.’

  Letty’s eyes, round, bright blue, and set in spiky dark lashes, were often described as ‘starry’, and indeed, amusement almost made them so. She said, ‘Arch-itecture?’

  ‘Yes. One sees what she means. Palladian. Handsome, but rather heavy and official-looking.’

  ‘Tell me what I am.’

  ‘Rococo. What could be more charming? I of course am Gothic.’

  ‘I wish I were Gothic. So womantic.’

  ‘Oh, but I am Gothic that has been imperfectly understood. Commissioned by an Eastern potentate, perhaps, who has added some wrong thing, like an onion dome.’

  Letty laughed so much that she kicked up both feet under the rug, and Louisa, seeing her in such good humour, smiled and said, ‘But Frances’s character doesn’t accord at all with her face. If one can even define her character. She is less like a building than an unmixed pudding. In Sydney she was rather silly. She formed a friendship with the Hall girls.’

  Letty’s face could change in less than a second. She now looked quite stupid, as if such news were beyond her comprehension. She said, ‘Not the daughters of . . . you can’t mean the daughters of . . .’

  ‘Yes I do. Dear Letty, pray compose yourself.’ For Letty, in one movement, had flung off the rug and bounded to her feet. Her dressing gown was indeed new. It had not yet lost its folding creases. Louisa, even while begging her to compose herself, recalled a rumour heard in Sydney: the Logans were said to be in debt. ‘Letty,’ she said, raising her voice because Letty was pacing up and down and gasping, ‘it is not as bad as it sounds. I was too sudden. I wanted to forestall Amelia, who will no doubt exaggerate the matter. I have come to intercede for the girl. She is a girl of good quality. I like her.’

  But Letty, as if she had not heard a word, continued to pace, ‘How could she! That Jacobin—scwibbler—who has accused—my husband—’

  Her pacing had taken her near the door. Louisa rose, crossed the room, and took her by the shoulder. She put a finger to her lips and looked towards the door. Letty raised a hand to her mouth and looked in the same direction. Louisa unloosed Letty’s shoulder and went again to her chair. Letty followed and flung herself on the sofa. ‘All the same, Louisa, murder. That cweature has accused Patwick of murder.’

  ‘Madge Noakes listens at doors. I have seen her.’

  ‘They all do. Madge is the best servant on the settlement. Her clear starching alone . . .’ Letty abruptly sat up, kicked off one slipper, and drew her foot up to the edge of the sofa. She grasped it in both hands and bent to examine it. ‘I am gwowing a corn,’ she said, and in the next second put her chin on her knee and burst into tears.

  Louisa was reminded of Frances’s tears on the Regent Bird. She and Letty wept in exactly the same way: sudden, profuse, childish. Though there was English in them somewhere, and they attended the established church, and had little of the brogue, Louisa sometimes found them very Irish. At other times they seemed unanchored, without national or religious affiliations at all, an odd condition that Louisa believed could be explained by the answer to a single question: by what sacrifice of what principle of his, or of his forebears, had their father become Major O’Beirne of the British army? But that was not, of course, a question one could ask. ‘I don’t believe Frances knows about Mr Smith Hall’s accusations,’ she said. ‘The Hall girls spared her that, and she wasn’t in Sydney for long enough to learn it elsewhere. All the same, she suspects. No, I shall put it like this. She refuses to suspect. But she has an uneasiness, the kind of vague uneasiness that is killed by clear explanation. It will vanish the moment the matter is explained to her—by you, dear Letty.’

  Letty was dabbing at her eyes. ‘I shall explain nothing to Miss Fwances. She may go back to Sydney on the Isabella with Lieutenant and Mrs Bainbwigge. The cutter sails this afternoon. I shall inform her this minute.’

  ‘And what shall she do in Sydney?’

  ‘Assassinate poor Gen’wal Darling. Become a governess.’

  ‘Assigned, if in that order, to the imps of heaven or the heavenly cherubim. And why should either of them have the advantage of her cleverness, when your Robert needs it?’

  Letty laughed, but said, ‘No, Louisa, I am angwy. Why can’t she be more like Cassandwa? Why did Cass have to go to the Indies?’

  ‘You are less understanding even than Amelia.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Amelia saw excuses. The girl has been brought up by servants.’

  Letty looked amazed. ‘Louisa, that is twue.’

  ‘And one must also ask who she came out with. Consider that long voyage, all those long conversations. The fellow passengers of a young person are of such importance.’

  ‘Do you know who she came out with?’

  ‘There was a young man. A Mr Edmund Joyce.’

  ‘And he was a Jacobin?’

  ‘Letty, we are very much behind the times out here, so much indeed that it is impossible to assess how much. I don’t think they are called Jacobins any more. However, I know what you mean. I suppose he was, or is. In any case, he wears an open collar.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘I saw him on the street. He looks a gentleman in spite of the collar. He and Frances mean to correspond.’

  ‘In-deed!’

  ‘But of course, these days, that doesn’t mean they have reached an understanding.’

  ‘I know that vewy well. I am not so much behind the times. But all the same . . .’

  Letty’s voice trailed away. She gave a little shrug, and fell into a pensive silence. Louisa could hear the fire crackling in the grate, and from other rooms the sound of children’s voices, women talking, a clink of china, while from a distance came a ringing and clanging that never failed to remind her of the smithy in her native Essex village. ‘He is vewy likely a lawyer,’ said Letty suddenly.

  ‘I can’t think what gives you that idea.’

  ‘They are so often Jacobins. But it is well known that young men forget these gweat weforming ideas when they take a wife. And so will Fwances. Poor Fwances!’ said Letty, as if Frances were very sick. ‘Do you know if he is a young man of means?’

  ‘I have no idea. Ask Frances.’

  ‘I shouldn’t dweam . . . well, if one were tactful.’

  ‘I am sure you will be.’

  ‘I had begun to think of her for James. Doctoring is not smart
, but it is wespectable. And his family is taking all that land in the south. But he has no means, and is a Catholic, and if this Mr Joyce is not . . . well, we shall see. Fwances has beautiful eyes, and vewy good arms and shoulders, and her smallpox hardly show at all. Cass, Fwances, and me. That would be three households to weceive the two little girls at home.’

  ‘One to spare,’ said Louisa, rising to her feet.

  Letty also rose. ‘In case one of us should die. Or—’ she flung out both hands in a gesture of dispersal.

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or anything. Who knows? You are going, Louisa?’

  ‘I must, against my inclinations. Amelia and I live too close. It is too embarrassing to have her commiserate with me about Mrs Luddle. How can she fail to know that Victor shares the woman with Lancelot?’

  Letty folded her hands and gave a moue of sympathy.

  ‘And that they have her at the same time.’

  Letty gave a gasp. ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘Victor told me himself. He is a poor simple creature, but a pig for all that. Though perhaps,’ she added, ‘I now find him rather less simple than before.’

  Letty fluttered her hands. ‘If I could help . . .’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘If I told Patwick . . .’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘He is so stwict,’ wailed Letty in apology.

  ‘Quite.’ Louisa was looking into the mirror above the mantelshelf and touching her hair. ‘The storm of indignation would be boring for everybody.’

  ‘And besides, Luddle . . .’

  ‘Is one of his few competent overseers. Exactly. He must stay, and so must his wife. It’s of no consequence. Let us not add to Captain Logan’s worries. If it weren’t Mrs Luddle, it would be another.’

  Again Letty gave her helpless flutter. ‘Oh, Louisa . . .’

  Into the mirror, Louisa faintly mocked her. ‘Oh, Louisa . . .’ She gave her face a last, reserved look, then turned to Letty. ‘I shall see Frances in the nursery—’

  But now, hearing a man’s voice in the garden, they moved of one accord to the window. The commandant and Captain Clunie had emerged from the office and were walking towards the gate. Captain Clunie was speaking, but presently his slow loud voice gave way to the commandant’s, which was so soft as to be hardly audible to the women. He laughed when he had finished, throwing back his head. Louisa always thought it wonderful how his face, so cold and stoical in repose, could be recast by laughter into this mask of a satyr. It was goatish rather than equine, the Roman satyr rather than the Greek, and like everything else about him, Louisa disliked it.