The Commandant

by Jessica Anderson

  She brought them back, gave them into Elizabeth’s charge, and warned her that they were to stay in the nursery. ‘He is with our Lord in heaven,’ Elizabeth told them as she led them from the room.

  Henry Cowper arrived soon after. Captain Clunie, he said, would be here presently.

  ‘And has sent me ahead. Am I needed?’

  Madge still lingered in the doorway. ‘You may go, Madge,’ said Frances. When the woman had gone she said to Henry, ‘She will see no one. That is her wish. Should we obey?’

  ‘In the meantime, at least.’

  He sat down heavily, a hand on each of his spread knees, and looked at the floor between his feet. Amelia and Louisa came, having made their own admittance. Louisa was perturbed, and Amelia aghast, at the shrieks now growing in volume.

  ‘I will go in,’ said Amelia.

  ‘As long as we can hear her,’ said Henry, ‘it would be better to do as she says.’

  ‘Oh, but it is too terrible. And we have been told almost nothing, you know. Only that he is dead.’

  ‘Captain Clunie will inform you when he arrives.’

  But unless they were to sit in complete silence, it was inevitable that some of the story would come out.

  ‘He may have got away—I believe he would have—but he put the mare at a jump over a gully. It was only twelve foot or so. She could have done that and much more. But bareback, without her accustomed guidance . . . To be sure, he would have shouted his “hup!” and she must have all but got him across. He must have been able to clutch at some growing thing, and scramble out and run. While she, poor creature . . .’ concluded Henry, with a tired shrug.

  When Captain Clunie arrived, and was engaged at once by Louisa and Amelia, Henry moved unobtrusively to Frances’s side. She sat in the most distant corner of the room, her face swollen and tear-blotched. She was relieved that this condition seemed to have been accepted as natural by the others, even by Louisa, and was alarmed when she saw Henry approach, for it confirmed her impression that he had observed her (by an accidental flash, it seemed) at the onset of her tears.

  He bent over her chair. ‘Her neck,’ he said, ‘was twisted beneath her body. You know what that means? Broken neck? Over in a second?’

  But she knew by the very kindness of his tone, and by the embarrassed deliberation with which he had approached her chair, that this was not so. Out of politeness, and in appreciation of his effort, she nodded her head in acquiescence while at the same time pressing her hands to her mouth to suppress the sobs that continued to rise. For she could see Fatima’s forefeet scrabbling at the loose earth of the bank, while her hindlegs dropped back into space, could see the roll of her eye, and hear her high whinny of terror. She was shocked that she could grieve for the mare, and not for the man, and it was this shock, and her self-condemnation, that made her compose herself at last.

  Louisa and Amelia had gone separately to Letty’s room and had both been dismissed with an upflung hand pushing violently at the air as if against their own bodies. But Captain Clunie did not agree with Henry. ‘It would be most imprudent,’ he said, ‘to leave her alone.’ Frances had gone in, and had been allowed to stay. She stood by the bed and picked up Letty’s hand, admitting her own fraudulence, but glad of its usefulness, for she knew that the marks of strong sorrow on her face had sponsored her permission to stay.

  She had been called to the door once, by Louisa, who whispered that she and Amelia and James Murray were waiting in the drawing room, all of them ready to help in any way, and that the children would stay with them till supper time. She had heard Murray speak to Lucy as he carried her down the corridor, and when she went to the window, and drew aside the curtain, she saw that it was beginning to grow dark.

  She returned to the bed, and since her sister was so still and quiet, she ventured to say softly, ‘Letty . . .?’

  There was no reply, but she now saw that while she had been at the window, Letty had crossed her ankles. Reassured, she sat down again, and although the face Letty presently turned to her was dreadful, so puffed that it looked as if it had been pummelled out of shape, and the eyes that gave it so much of its life were sunken and dull, Frances yet trusted in the decorum of those crossed ankles, the ordered contiguity of the feet.

  ‘It is Sunday,’ said Letty.

  Her voice was husky, scarcely audible; Frances leaned forward in her chair. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I have heard no bells.’

  ‘There have been none.’

  ‘Has there been no service?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On this, of all occasions . . .’

  Frances took her sister’s hand. ‘It was thought better . . .’ The lifelessness of the hand she held unnerved her. ‘It was decided . . .’

  But Letty had caught the suppressed phrase. ‘It was thought better not to let them assemble.’

  ‘Captain Clunie—’

  ‘Lest they waise their voices in joyous celebwation,’ said Letty in soft bitterness.

  But Frances had never heard of the celebration on the death of Bishop the scourger. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I have heard no talk of that.’

  ‘None is needed. Not for me. I saw Madge Noakes’s face. And her neck. She dared, she dared—’ Letty pulled her hand from Frances’s grasp and covered her mouth for a moment. Then she said, ‘She dared, because it was Boylan.’

  ‘Boylan who—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I heard Robert say so, Letty. Only Robert.’

  ‘He wepeats what they all say. And in any case, Boylan is only a name. Be it Jones or Jackson, it is all the same, as long as it was one of them.’

  ‘But,’ said Frances, ‘it was the blacks.’

  ‘The blacks?’ For the first time, Letty showed in tone and face the quickening of calculation. ‘Only the blacks?’

  ‘It is believed that one or more runaways were among them,’ said Frances. ‘But as to leading them, there is no proof of that.’

  ‘But since you mention it, there is talk of it.’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. If you were to see Captain Clunie . . .’

  But Letty had turned her head on the pillow and was looking up at the lace valance of the bed. ‘But it is twue,’ she said slowly, ‘that talk is not pwoof. There is no pwoof perhaps that any were among the blacks.’

  ‘Letty, I will say no more, lest I mislead you. See Captain Clunie. Or Louisa, who has had the whole story from him. My tears,’ said Frances, surmounting a twinge of shame, ‘took me away for part of it.’

  But it was easier to surmount the shame than the pity that recurred when reminded again of the mare’s terror as the weight of her hindquarters pulled her back. Tears flowed into her eyes. She made no sound, but covered her eyes with a forearm.

  ‘You weep for me, Fwances,’ she heard Letty say. ‘But for him, too, I think, as only a monster would not.’

  One day, thought Frances, hiding behind her forearm, perhaps I shall be able to.

  ‘But now,’ said Letty, ‘we must both consider the childwen.’

  Frances knew that Letty would not raise the question of her marriage to Edmund at a time like this, but nor did she imagine that the subject was done with. Under cover of her arm, she reaffirmed her resolution in the matter, and having done so, was able to wipe her eyes with her hand and let it fall with the other into her lap.

  ‘Letty, I beg you,’ she said earnestly, ‘to see Louisa. She and Mr Murray and Mrs Bulwer wait in the drawing room. All wish only to be of use to you. As I do, darling Letty, as far as I am allowed.’

  ‘Why, I will allow you.’

  Frances, making thanks for the allowance with a deep nod, hoped her silence did not hint (not yet) at what would limit her use to Letty.

  ‘I will see Louisa. And you, dear Fwances—�
� Letty reached out and lightly touched Frances’s arm—‘pway take charge of the childwen. Amelia will offer, but we know Lieutenant Bulwer has his intermittent fever. Amelia is too good, and we must not pwesume on her.’ Letty raised herself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. ‘Where are my shoes? And pway, ask Elizabeth to bwing warm water. Madge must not come. On no account, Madge.’

  The official mail by the Alligator had been taken, as was usual, to the commandant’s office in the garden. On the arrival of the boat bearing Logan’s body, the duty to open the mail passed to Clunie, but immediately to come and go through the commandant’s garden seemed too cruelly to emphasise his death, and for this reason (as well as to keep clear of the female turmoil in the house) he had it brought to his little office in the weatherboard cottage. There was not much; he opened it while waiting for Edwards, whom he had called to confer on whether a party should be sent tomorrow into the bush. He himself thought the project hopeless, but Edwards was the only officer of the fifty-seventh left on the settlement; it was a courtesy to ask for his opinion.

  The first seal he broke revealed the confirmation of his own succession, ‘after Captain Logan should have left New South Wales’, to the post of commandant, at three hundred pounds a year, and with the usual allowances and privileges. He had wanted it, waited for it, yet apprehension settled in him like a stone. The covert jubilation of the prisoners was accompanied by an adulation of himself. ‘He’s a good ’un,’ he could almost hear them saying. ‘He’ll be different.’ He certainly did intend to be different, but was fearful of an approval that rose not from deliberation, but merely rebounded from their loathing of another man. The first test of it, he knew, would be his sentence on the men who had refused to touch Logan’s body; they were to come before him in the morning.

  But his pay as commandant would start immediately, for Captain Logan had undoubtedly left New South Wales, and his apprehension was soothed by the fact that this unexpected money would help to offset his wife’s extravagance in the matter of the furniture.

  Now that the confirmation of his appointment had arrived, the mail must also contain an official letter to Logan with the same message. But all he found was a letter addressed to Logan by name, not, as was usual, to ‘The Commandant’. Nor did it bear the official seal. Nevertheless, it was by the hand of one of Macleay’s clerks—the same, indeed, who had written the confirmation of his appointment. After a moment’s hesitation, Clunie opened it.

  Governor Darling had requested him, wrote Macleay, to inform Captain Logan that his illness at the time of Captain Clunie’s leaving Sydney had prevented the circumstance being made known to him, as was intended. He now informed Captain Logan that Captain Clunie was sent with advice of ultimately replacing him, as his presence here was likely to be soon required in consequence of the trial of the editor of the Monitor, and at any rate, before long, to accompany his regiment to India.

  The letter continued with the usual request to give Captain Clunie all possible information and assistance, and concluded by saying that the Governor would have no objection to Captain Logan returning to Sydney for the purpose of making arrangements to leave the colony, but that he had no desire that he should relinquish his present situation one moment sooner than might be necessary to enable him to make such arrangements.

  Clunie’s first thought was that Logan need not have worried, after all. But, like a man who, as he turns away from a friend, sees on his face an ambiguous smile, and sharply turns back to verify it, Clunie had no sooner put the letter down than he seized it and read it again.

  And now he frowned, as the man might do who examines his friend’s composed face and asks himself if he has been misled by fancy. The governor’s wish that Captain Logan should not relinquish his present situation one moment sooner than might be necessary would hardly need stating if it had not been, at some time, in doubt. Or had the doubt been only Logan’s, and this the reply to it? Had Logan sat down, weeks ago, just as a mail was about to leave, and written a private letter, asking for his position, and Clunie’s, to be defined? If he had, the fact that he had not mentioned it to Clunie was a guarantee that there would be no draft of it in his letter book. Clunie would never know.

  Indeed, the one unambiguous part of the letter was the date: October 4th. Clunie had arrived at Moreton Bay early in August. Governor Darling’s explanation of his tardiness was not good enough: other correspondence had taken place during his illness, which, Clunie had learned from the Sydney Gazette, had not been serious. Clunie could not reject the suspicion that only now, when the fifty-seventh was under orders for India, and Logan’s departure from the colony assured, was it safe for the governor to be friendly.

  He wondered what Logan himself would have made of the letter. Reassurance, he guessed, would have been followed by despondency; and a swift and vivid memory of that despondency made him determine that he, at any rate, was not going to bother his head about it further. The only problem it presented now was whether it was private or semi-official, whether it should be given to Mrs Logan or kept with the office correspondence. He thought the former proper, but if she also found it ambiguous, it would fire her grief afresh. Perhaps it was too early to give it to her. He put it aside and began on the rest of the correspondence.

  The servant who came in, and whom he expected to announce Edwards, announced instead Mrs Logan and Mrs Harbin. Clunie got quickly to his feet, a hand still on the back of his chair. The man stood alone in the doorway. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir, the sitting room.’

  ‘Oh. Good fellow. When Lieutenant Edwards comes, ask him to wait in here.’

  Clunie entered the sitting room with his head enquiringly cocked, his eyes full of concern. They stood together in the centre of the small flimsy shabby room. Louisa was bare headed but Letty had covered her head with a thin black shawl. It hung about her shoulders and cast dark shadows on her face. He had never seen a woman so changed in the course of a day. After a quick look at Louisa, which she answered simply by directing him with her eyes towards Letty, he turned upon Letty his look of full concern. She extended a hand. He took it as he bowed.

  ‘My dear lady. I would have come to you. You had only to send.’

  She bent her head. ‘Captain, it is more fit that I come to you.’

  Again he looked quickly at Louisa, and again Louisa slid her eyes towards Letty. Letty was holding the edges of the shawl together with a hand beneath her chin; he saw that she was an appellant.

  ‘Well,’ he said, looking about the room, ‘you will sit down. You will take something?’

  But they would neither sit nor take refreshments. ‘Sir,’ said Letty, ‘Mrs Harbin has told me something of how my husband died.’

  ‘As I had it from you,’ said Louisa to Clunie.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and now you wish to know more. It’s very natural. But my very dear madam, don’t you think it wiser to wait?’

  ‘I wish to know only one thing at pwesent, Captain Clunie.’

  ‘I am at your service, of course.’

  ‘I wish to know that he was killed by blacks.’

  ‘He was attacked by a large number of men, Mrs Logan.’ Puzzlement gave his voice a note of enquiry. ‘So most could only have been blacks. What part absconders played we don’t know.’

  ‘If indeed they played any part,’ said Letty.

  ‘What proof is there of it?’ demanded Louisa.

  He looked from one to the other. Their intentions were obviously known to each other; he wished they were known to him. He said, ‘There is the burial, Mrs Harbin?’

  ‘It may have been done by a twibe from the north or west,’ said Letty. ‘Pway, what do we know of their customs?’

  ‘Because we know of none who bury,’ said Louisa, ‘must it be assumed that there are none?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘certainly not.’
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  ‘Apart from the burial, captain, it seems pure surmise.’

  ‘And gossip,’ added Letty.

  ‘My dear ladies, I incline to the same opinion.’ But he still looked puzzled. ‘I wish you would sit down,’ he said.

  Neither of them moved. ‘Captain,’ said Letty in a stronger voice, ‘weports of the matter will go to Sydney, to the governor and to Colonel Allen.’

  ‘Of course. Mine to the governor will go by the Alligator tomorrow. Edwards will send his later.’

  ‘Vewy well, since there is no pwoof that absconders were concerned, I beg you to say firmly that it was done by native blacks, and to leave out all mention of wunaways. Sir, I beg you. To have been murdered by pwisoners, added to what Smith Hall accuses him of—’

  She turned her head aside and put a hand over her eyes. Without hesitation, Louisa took over. ‘And which can now never legally be refuted.’

  ‘Never!’ said Letty. She turned again to Captain Clunie. ‘Oh, sir, if you had a son, would you like him to believe that his father was so hated by the men in his charge that they plotted to kill him, and at last succeeded? To be sure, it is no disgwace to be killed by bwutal and depwaved men. But their depwavity becomes less and less understood. I declare, by the time my boy is gwown, they shall be deemed he’woes and martyrs.’

  ‘Oh, hardly, my dear lady. These are wild thoughts. And you do know—you must—that in an official report it is usual to set out all the circumstances.’

  ‘But not all the surmises,’ said Louisa.

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘And since it is not surmise that blacks were there, I see no reason why I should not say simply that it was the blacks.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I am happy to be of service.’ He could hear Lieutenant Edwards’ voice in the hall. He bowed, and then, since neither woman moved, he said uncertainly, ‘Well . . .’