by Carmel Bird
El Niño occurs in the Pacific Ocean. The normally cold surface waters along the coast of Peru and Ecuador, waters that supply the food for the fish, are temporarily replaced by warm water, starving the fish and causing dramatic effects on the climate. El Niño disrupts weather patterns throughout the world, giving rise to higher temperatures in the seas, causing strange storms and floods and droughts in places near and far. Long ago these warm currents seemed to occur at seven-year intervals, bringing violent and drenching rains, but in the twentieth century they became more observably erratic. When Pizarro began his conquest of Peru in 1531 it was a year of El Niño, and the rains meant that there was food and water for the Spanish troops, supplies that would not otherwise have been available. And in 1535, when the waters of the Pacific along the coast of South America were cool and full of fish, Lima, city of church bells and flower bells, was founded.
It is probable the storm that drove the Iris to the bottom of Bass Strait was part of El Niño of 1850–51.
Although she was not a particularly devout woman, Minerva had a fondness for Saint Rose of Lima, patron saint of all the Americas, and could trace her ancestry back to the saint’s brother. She named her first daughter, the daughter of Edward, Rosa, in honour of the saint, and in memory of Rosa Hoffmann, the owner of the blessed wooden box washed up on Puddingstone Island. The rose bushes that Minerva brought from England in pots, watered and nurtured throughout the journey went to the bottom of the sea with poor Edward Hinshelwood and his cases of fossils and insects. His treasured books—The Aurelian by his hero Moses Harris; Maria Sibylla von Merian’s glorious Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium—his drowned books and his drowned heart, locked in the deepest, lightless ocean where the creatures are monstrous-alien, where the plants form feathery shawls of smothering fungi-shape as they sculpt the realms and temples of deepest ringing death.
From the moment Minerva saw a bowl of roses, cream, red and yellow, on a table in the parlour of the Plough Inn, her heart, her spirit, she ever-after believed, began to recover. Some resurrection took hold of her at the sight of those dear flowers, flowers as if risen themselves, risen from the depths of the terrible oceans. In this wild, cold, haunted place far, far from the patios and orange blossoms and jasmine flowers of Lima, the roses appeared to her bathed in a sharp supernatural light, surrounded by a faintly quivering halo of radiant haze. Their perfume breathed memories into the sparse parlour of the inn. These were blooms cut from the garden at Highgrove, the large house belonging to the governor of the Van Diemen’s Land Company, and they were arranged in a simple thick white china bowl, the mixture of their colours creating a specific and mysterious gold, the cheeks of the soft blooms like the dewy skin of youth, of innocence. And as Minerva breathed in the sweetness of the roses, and as her spirit rose, she knew that deep within her another life was stirring.
Rosa Claudina Mean was—and there has never been any secret about this—the daughter of Minerva and Edward Hinshelwood. Magnus accepted Rosa—and Niña—as if they were his own daughters. Before Rosa was born, Minerva and Magnus sought to formalise the bond that had been established between them when they landed on Puddingstone Island, and which had since then grown into an unusual affection and trust.
There is some evidence to suggest that the strange and powerful religious habits that were practised over time by the Means of Skye and their descendants had their origins partly in the fact that Father Burke refused to perform the marriage ceremony for Minerva and Magnus, saying he needed to see the proof of the death of Edward Hinshelwood. And furthermore Magnus was not only not a Roman Catholic, but was hardly a man of any Christian faith at all. Why, Father Burke argued, could not Magnus, for the sake of Minerva and his own immortal soul, simply convert, first of all, as a preliminary measure, so to speak, in expectation that proof of the death of poor Mr Hinshelwood might come to light. But no, he would not. So there were many impediments to the union, in the wise old Irish eyes of Father Burke.
‘By God’s grace yourself was delivered to Puddingstone Island. Who knows but by a miracle Edward may be a-waiting on another island? It is possible, probable, my child,’ said Father Burke. ‘We in our un-wisdom are not given to judge until the day we see before our eyes the corpse of Edward Hinshelwood. A widow may, if she so chooses, in the course of time, take a husband; a married woman may not. I must accept your word that yourself and the good Edward were united in the Church of Saint Martin in London, and I may, if I choose, verify your word by correspondence with the clergy of that church. Such knowledge would only serve to strengthen my case. But whichever way we look at the facts, it is clear, my dear Minerva, that you are not free to marry. I am sorry, but it is the law and will of God. It is the way of things.’
Would Father Burke have seen the matter differently if Magnus had been Catholic, some people wondered. Having no real interest in matters religious, in spite of his love of the poetry of the Psalms and the Book of Revelation, Magnus could not bring himself to be converted to the Roman faith, here on this far wild coast, where simply to survive was what mattered most, and where the magic and mystery of the Roman Church mattered less than the way the wind was blowing, less than the time of the high tide or the low tide.
James Garrett, the minister to the Church of Scotland in the area, finally performed the ceremony of marriage in the parlour of the Plough Inn on May fifth 1852. It was not until 1855 that the Church of Scotland at Circular Head had its own handsome dedicated church building, a structure of iron and wood imported from London. This building cost the congregation four hundred pounds by the time it was finished, and Magnus Mean was listed as one of the subscribers. Anyhow, at the time when Minerva and Magnus tied the knot in the parlour of the Plough Inn, the little Mean family was well established on rented land at Skye, a few miles from Cape Grimm. Much later, as their fortunes rose, they were able to buy the land. Rosa was cutting her first teeth, Niña was running around, and Minerva was soon to be pregnant with their son, Magnus’s firstborn, who was to be called Carrillo, a name that would echo down the generations. Nobody was ever able to verify the origins of Niña. The ship’s records listed a Caroline Mary Sweeney, and a Victoria Caroline MacIntosh, and a Lucy Jane Orbell among the married women passengers who were accompanied by children, but the children were not named. Niña could have been the daughter of any of these women. Or perhaps she was the unlisted child of someone else. Most of the passengers were, in fact, young bachelors. Forever the family continued to speculate about who Niña could possibly have been, although she was taken into the family, and joyfully embraced as one of its own. She was a beautiful gift from heaven, a miracle, and that was how she was frequently described in the family narrative, as a miracle.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Secret Chronicle of Virginia Mean IV
‘Whilst I stood gazing on this bloody cliff, me-thought I heard the shrieks of the mothers, the cries of the children and the agony of the husband who saw his wife, his children, torn forever from his fond embrace.’
GEORGE AUGUSTUS ROBINSON, Journals
I open my journal and I have the delicious luxury of saying: So let me see, what shall I write about today? What thoughts, what memories, what hopes, what fears? This is strange, this freedom to think whichever thoughts I choose, to write whatever tale or song or random waltzing thought comes into my head. There was a time, and it was not really so very long ago, when my days were parcelled out in hours of prayer and in spaces of devoted service offered to Caleb, and in working in the signery making the fancy painted heritage wooden signs to sell to people outside the community. I revelled in all the parts of my life and work, and there were days when Caleb and I would walk out to the Temple of the Winds and spend happy hours there alone. Sometimes on ordinary days, in the late afternoons, I would have some long moments where I could reflect and when I could make my personal notes and jottings in my journal. Now, however, it seems that I have all the time in the world. All the time in the world. That is an astonishing
phrase. Father Fox has suggested that I should pour my heart out into this journal, writing whatever strange or banal thought comes flying into my mind. If I wished to write something down, he said, then I should write it.
I never know where to begin, but once I have made a beginning, there is little chance of stopping me. It is for you, Father Fox said, only for yourself, nobody else is ever going to read this journal.
Although I am hidden from the eyes of the world for my own safety, Father Fox has a plan to train me for the day when I may go out into society. I fancy I am somewhat like a girl in the nineteenth century in this, a girl who is being re-fashioned in order to be acceptable to others. A girl somewhat like Eliza Dolittle perhaps. Perhaps not. I do not know. I have read the magazines to learn about the world, to learn what I might wear, how to use make-up, and many thousands of other details that go to make up a young woman of my age today. Once upon a time my life was mapped out for me in Skye; now I must map it out myself. It is so strange no longer having a home, having to begin to imagine finding a home, making a home somewhere, at some time in the future. I watch TV which I find completely hypnotising, and there I learn probably almost everything there is to know about the world. I delight in watching movies, of which I have in fact seen many before, for Caleb had his own theatre room and he used to bring in videos which I was sometimes permitted to watch. Caleb—I will not think of him with regret. I try not to think of him but sometimes he breaks through my resolve.
I miss my family so very much. I long for them and I mourn for them. I miss my friends and all the children at Skye. My thoughts move round the community I used to know and I visit people one by one in my imagination, saying hello, saying goodbye. I never imagined it would be like this, so lonely and desolate and cut adrift from love. I am a sad lost remnant of a lost people, forever searching in my broken and bleeding heart for my sisters, forever longing for my home. Forever and forever.
Father Fox and Gilia and Michael say that the wounds I have suffered will heal, that I must heal for the sake of Stella and for my own sake. They never speak of Caleb. He has disappeared from the spoken air.
After the visit to the nuns Vincent drove us out here to the forest in the middle of the night. We did not stop once and it was a long and thought-filled drive. The relief I felt being in the car with Father Fox and with Stella in my arms is something I am unable to describe. I thought back to the terror of the night when I was first brought to Hobart, and the dreadful hours and days I had spent thereafter, and then I felt the warmth and the trust of Father Fox and I wept and I slept, in a kind of relief. When I met Gilia, her hair silvery in the lamplight, her eyes and hands so kind and sweet, I felt myself melt into her body with a sense of love all around me. I trust these people.
I see Gilia looking at me sometimes, and I think that she suspects I have weird thoughts, thoughts of being in heaven with my family. Then I hold Stella in my arms and I know that for some reason we have been given a second chance on this earth. We have a new life in a new and different world. ‘Move on,’ says Father Fox, and he looks at me quizzically, catching glimpses of my soul. The wisdom of our former lives I will hold deep in my mind and heart, and I will move on.
The day of the fire was a sparkling summer’s day. Caleb and his men were occupied setting up the Meeting Hall for the big gathering in the early evening. He had had visions and messages telling him that the time had come, that there was a nuclear holocaust imminent, that the end of the whole world was upon us, and that the people of the light must leave this earth on the fifth day of February. The fire was to be a haven from the nuclear death. But the nuclear holocaust has not yet happened. It has not happened. Everyone with the exception of Caleb and the men, including me and Stella, spent the morning completing the Great Cleansing which had begun two weeks before. Every object from the smallest spoon in the kitchen drawer to the very surface of the roof had to shine like a silver pool in the moonlight. Processions went through the houses, the lanes, the orchards, the pastures collecting every piece of useless thing or scrap of rubbish, taking it to the ground behind the Meeting Hall and piling it up for the burning. Cleansings used to take place every month, but this was the very largest that we had ever undertaken, with brooms sweeping every cranny, dusters polishing every surface so that the whole village shone in expectation of the coming event. A place for everything and everything in its place, everything lined up, straightened up, waiting, ready. We went down to the beach and collected driftwood and dried seaweed and hauled everything up to the bonfires.
In the soft twilight of the final day, Stella and I rode out to Cape Grimm to wait for Caleb. Although it is government land we were always welcome there, considered to be more or less part of the wildlife. There was a great solemnity in the air, an anticipation. I knew what to expect and yet, in a strange way, I did not. I was in a self-induced trance and Stella and I were singing and playing little games. We tied the horse to a post and sat on the cliff and waited, listening to the lovely sounds of the waves down below us, watching the seabirds making their way home. I saw the shy albatrosses in the distance, wheeling like knives in the twilight air, their wings stiff as starch, and I thought sadly again of my father. Whenever I sit on that headland I remember the people who have died there over the years. It is impossible not to think of them, Aborigines and white folk, caught in the tragedy of time gone by, still haunting that place high up above the water on this crinkled lonely edge of God’s earth where the air is pure and the winds hurtle in, bringing dragons from the open sea.
On the afternoon of the last day there was a feeling of elation among all the people. At midday the last procession set off, singing, wending its way out to the Temple of the Winds. We wound slowly down the main street of Skye. The doors of all the houses were open, the shops were open. All those places that were so soon to be destroyed in the fire when it leapt from the Meeting Hall and went racing up the street. We were inviting the spirit of the universe to enter everywhere, to visit each place as the winds blew through. There was in fact no wind until later that day. Out past the beehives and the poppy fields and onto the heath, up the gentle hillside, with a few sheep standing and watching us. This was part of the last great Feast of the Imagination, we sang of the beauty of the imaginary world and of the world to come.
I walked with Bethany and her little ones, ‘guindilla, guindilla,’ she would call to them, Stella dancing in and out among them. One of the simplest and yet richest of our ceremonies and beliefs is the Feast of the Imagination. I believe we share this teaching with the Shakers of New England, yet we each arrived at the idea for ourselves. Theirs is called the Feast of Love, but it bears a strong resemblance to the Feast of the Imagination. We would process out to the Temple dressed in imaginary robes of gold, beneath them our usual earthly garments. Beside the Temple is an imaginary fountain from which we collect imaginary water in imaginary buckets. Then we remove all our clothing, both imaginary and real, and bathe in imaginary tubs, drinking imaginary juices, eating fruits from imaginary gardens, and cakes from imaginary kitchens while a group of singers intones from the temple, playing on musical instruments made over the years by the fine craftsmen of Skye.
Just as twilight was falling we dressed and robed and returned to Skye, to the Meeting Hall. Everybody except Stella and me filed into the hall in a mood approaching ecstasy. I knew exactly what was about to happen. Everybody knew. So they would have danced wildly round the floor, and then received their wine with the allotted drops of opium, and they would lie down to dream. The children were given strong drafts of a commercial sleeping drug. I did not see any of this, as Stella and I had already left for the clifftop at Cape Grimm. Caleb kissed each person in turn and blessed them. Then he secured the building, lit the fire, and rode off to meet us in preparation for our flight into the sea. The atmosphere of everything before I left was utterly serene and beautiful.
When I told this story on my writing pad, as well as I could, to the inquest I was still in
a trance, or in shock. I wrote very slowly and thoughtfully, measuring every word I wrote, attempting to guess how my words would be interpreted. A woman in black read out my story, a few sentences at a time, and there was a strange and potent silence in the room. My words sailed out of me and onto the paper, and then they ballooned out of the woman in black and drifted about the heads of the people, and hovered in the air. Caleb was not present. I expected him to appear suddenly, of his own power, shining and glorious, but he did not come. All I ever heard about him was that he had been judged unfit to stand trial for murder and had been incarcerated in the Crystal Palace, never to be released. Never to be seen, never to be heard, never to be Caleb ever again.
As time went on, the world did not end. I wish…I wish I could be a child again, walking out to the Temple of the Winds with Caleb on a summer afternoon, breathing the sweet, sweet air of Cape Grimm, running and dancing on the hillside, in and out of the slender columns of the Temple, feeling the bones of the whales with the soles of my bare feet, feeling the bones of the whales along the bones of my spine as I lie on the floor of the Temple with Caleb—making love.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Roses of Highfield
‘The house contains drawing and dining and breakfast rooms, with five bedrooms, one dressing room, kitchen, pantry, store room, cellars and servants’ apartments, with usual offices. It stands in a lawn of three acres. Surrounded by shrubberies and connected with a garden and orchard, comprising an area upwards of two acres.’
THE LAUNCESTON EXAMINER, 17 June 1856
