The Governor's House

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘I have never been in love before,’ he said. ‘Not like this. I don’t know how to handle it, I suppose.’

  ‘You and me,’ she said. ‘That is all it is.’ The brief estrangement had released words that otherwise she might never have found. She looked at him, eyes shining with tears. ‘To love and be loved. That’s all there is in life. To love and be loved.’

  ‘And that is something we have,’ he said.

  ‘Now and forever. I know you don’t believe in that but it is true. Now and forever.’

  His eyes were roaming around the room. ‘I look at these people. So rich and fat and complacent. And I think of all the others. The ones nobody cares about.’

  ‘You care. The first time we met you called them the lost peoples of the earth.’ She smiled. ‘I think that was when I fell in love with you.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘No more did I, not then. But looking back, I am certain of it.’

  ‘To love and be loved,’ he repeated. ‘I like that. And think you may be right.’

  They stayed at Aberystwyth overnight. Dr Morgan’s brother planned to retire there eventually but in the meantime welcomed Miss Haggard as his tenant. The rent he wanted was excessive but she did not argue. She could afford it and it resolved what might otherwise have been the problem of where she was to stay since Jackson’s Landing was barred to her, at least as a permanent residence.

  ‘I do not like being separated,’ Catherine said.

  ‘No more do I. But I see no alternative. My station will not run itself.’

  ‘I could move to Jackson’s Landing and live with you.’

  ‘No, my dear, you could not.’

  ‘Agnes wouldn’t like it?’

  Uncertainty had put an edge on her tongue. She loved him and thought he loved her. The logical outcome – surely? – was marriage, yet he had spoken of domesticity as though it were an enemy. To marry such a man would tie him to a commitment he might be unable to fulfil. That way lay disaster. Yet what alternative was there?

  Before Mungo had time to answer she put her hand on his sleeve. ‘I am sorry. I had no business to say that.’

  ‘Agnes has nothing to do with it,’ he said. ‘But society has.’

  ‘You don’t give a fig for society.’

  ‘It has rules we have to accept. You want to be accepted by society. I want it for you too. But society will never accept our living together. An ex-convict is one thing but a scarlet woman it will never accept.’

  ‘A scarlet woman? Is that what I would be?’

  ‘Not to me. But to others, yes.’

  She knew he was right. ‘But I may visit you?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if it is too late to return safely?’

  ‘Then you may be obliged to stay.’

  ‘A dreadful prospect, indeed. And of course business may necessitate your visiting Hobart from time to time.’

  ‘As much as once or twice a week, I suspect.’

  ‘And the demands of business cannot be ignored.’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  ‘And if you were forced for business reasons to stay over…’

  ‘I am sure accommodation might be found.’

  On the whole, Catherine thought, things might have been a lot worse.

  When they got back from the Governor’s House Catherine went into the kitchen and gave Mrs Amos a minute-by-minute description of everything that had happened, omitting only the stupid quarrel she and Mungo had had.

  ‘What was His Excellency like?’

  ‘Very gracious.’

  ‘Plenty of food?’

  ‘Stacks.’

  Mr Moffatt was not there. He was a man, after all, with his dignity to consider. But Catherine was quite sure he would hear all about it after she had gone.

  She and Mungo had a final drink together.

  ‘I am going to bed,’ she said and turned her back. ‘Please unhook me, Mungo. I can’t reach the hooks.’

  ‘Anything to oblige, ma’am,’ Mungo said.

  In her bedroom Catherine hung up her gown, took off her other garments and was dressed demurely in her nightdress when Mungo came in. She watched him cautiously. The crisis, such as it had been, was past but had shown how quickly things could go wrong. She never wanted there to be anything wrong between them again but knew that was too much to ask. What mattered was that everything should be right between them now.

  She watched as he undressed and got into bed. He had not snuffed the candle, which was a signal that he might want to talk or make love or both. She waited.

  He turned to her, his face close to hers, but for the moment did not touch her.

  ‘What happened tonight,’ he said. ‘I am sorry for it. It was not your fault or Mortimer’s. I believe I should apologise to him in the morning.’

  ‘Leave it, rather,’ she told him. ‘You’ll only remind him if you do.’

  ‘The fact is I was a thought put out tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Arthur Dunstable.’

  ‘What’s he up to now?’

  ‘He thought he could blackmail me. Said if I didn’t give him more money he would go to the governor and say I’d forced him to write that letter and that you really had stolen the watch after all.’

  Catherine’s heart gave a sickening jolt but her face remained calm. ‘You say he thought he could blackmail you. Did you change his mind for him?’

  ‘I rather think I did.’

  Now he touched her for the first time, running his hand slowly down her arm.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I reminded him that it is possible to get someone killed in this colony for ten pounds. I also mentioned I have many ten pounds.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said I wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘And?’

  He smiled. Now his hand was caressing the side of her throat. ‘I believe I may have frightened him into thinking otherwise.’

  Her breathing was becoming increasingly laboured. ‘And would you? Pay ten pounds?’

  ‘I would pay a lot more than ten pounds to keep you safe.’

  Her wide eyes studied him. ‘I believe you would.’

  ‘You may be sure of it.’

  ‘I am not surprised you frightened him. You are a frightening man.’

  ‘Only when I need to be.’

  His hand had become more venturesome. Catherine sighed and arched her back.

  ‘But not now,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Not now.’

  It was ten o’clock in the morning and they were drinking hot chocolate.

  ‘I heard something at the reception that surprised me,’ she said.

  Mungo put down his cup. ‘And what was that?’

  ‘It appears I am regarded as a great heroine.’

  ‘I would not quarrel with that assessment. But why in particular?’

  ‘It appears I overcame a gang of pirates single-handed in a gallant and ultimately successful endeavour to reclaim the colony’s silver.’

  Mungo stroked his shaven chin and looked at the sunlight dappling the trees outside the window.

  ‘Sometimes one has to gild the lily to convince the listener.’

  ‘Perhaps the lily should be warned.’

  ‘I had not expected the subject to come up.’

  ‘You had better tell me what I am supposed to have done. In case it ever comes up again.’

  ‘There had to be two stories,’ Mungo said. ‘The actual version and the official one.’

  ‘The truth is we stole the silver and offered to give the government half of its own money in exchange for my getting a full pardon,’ Catherine said.

  ‘But officially speaking the government could never agree. It would make it seem they were conniving with piracy.’

  ‘So they were.’

  ‘But could not be seen to be doing so. So an official version of the story was necessary.’

  ‘Which was?�
�

  Mungo smiled as he remembered the agreement he had reached with Rupert Ridgway in the small and cluttered office with its view of the fish ponds and specimen trees that had been planted to beautify the grounds of the Governor’s House.

  ‘The government is bankrupt,’ Ridgway said. ‘You know that, of course.’ He leant forward and poured wine into Mungo’s empty glass.

  ‘There are degrees of bankruptcy,’ Mungo said.

  ‘We cannot pay our bills. Not even our wages. The governor himself is not being paid.’

  ‘That is true bankruptcy,’ Mungo acknowledged.

  ‘That is the only reason we are prepared to consider your suggestion. Even now I believe you are asking too much.’

  ‘One half. A free pardon and no questions.’

  ‘Perhaps you would be willing to settle for one third?’

  ‘Half. And the pardon. Otherwise you will see none of it.’

  ‘I could have you arrested.’

  ‘And where would that get you? There is no proof for any of this.’

  ‘And you are the younger son of the Earl of Merton.’

  ‘So I am.’

  They looked at each other.

  Ridgway threw up his hands. ‘One half, then. And what is the official story? You know as well as I do we must have one.’

  * * *

  ‘The official version,’ Mungo told Catherine, ‘was the one you told me just now. How you overcame a pirate in single combat and drove him off and then found the silver hidden in the forest.’

  ‘An unlikely story,’ Catherine said.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that the government wants to believe it.’

  ‘And how does the government explain my having become so rich?’

  ‘Very simple,’ Mungo said. ‘You have been wrongly convicted, wrongly transported, wrongly punished for a crime we now know you did not commit. The government feels it has an obligation to compensate you for the wrongs done to you. And of course to reward you for your remarkable courage in recovering the silver.’

  She looked at him. ‘Will it work?’

  ‘If the governor’s private secretary is telling people it’s true, it must be true,’ Mungo said.

  ‘If you keep on saying it,’ Catherine said, ‘I shall start to believe it myself.’

  FIFTY-ONE

  Three days after the reception Mr Moffatt announced an unex pected visitor.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘He says his name is Snape, Miss.’

  Catherine knew no one called Snape. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He didn’t say, Miss.’

  She was intrigued but supposed it wouldn’t hurt to see him. ‘Please send him in, Mr Moffatt. But stay close.’

  Vernon Snape was little and bristly, with ginger hair and eyes alert to human failings. He was a reporter with the Hobart City Courier and was hot on the trail of what he hoped would be a career-making story.

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Snape?’

  ‘What can you tell me about the ship Antares?’

  His smile said he would eat up the world, if he could, but if he had hoped to throw Catherine off balance he was disappointed.

  ‘Antares?’ she said. ‘The stolen barque whose treasure I located for the governor?’

  ‘That it was, miss.’

  ‘I believe they never found her.’

  ‘They found her, all right. She was captured by a Dutch warship. They questioned the crew before they hanged them.’

  ‘It is likely to have been a sorry saga, I fear.’

  ‘It seems some of them mentioned a woman who had been with them at the start of the voyage but who later vanished.’

  Tension was a sickness in Catherine’s body but her face remained clear, her voice calm. ‘I am sorry to hear it. But why are you telling me this, Mr Snape?’

  ‘Because my informant believes that woman was you. After all, you were there the night Antares disappeared.’

  ‘You are mistaken, Mr Snape. Dr Morgan had died and the authorities decided – very properly, Mr Snape – to hold me in the Cascades while they decided what to do with me. The first thing I knew about the Antares was when they released me.’

  ‘There is talk of a valuable piece of jewellery that also vanished during the voyage. What can you tell me about that?’

  ‘I can tell you nothing. How could I?’

  Snape’s teeth grew sharper as his hunger for scandal increased. ‘You were transported for theft, were you not?’

  ‘A miscarriage of justice for which, as I am sure you are aware, I was later pardoned. And recompensed. I fear you have had a wasted journey, Mr Snape.’ She rang the silver bell that had belonged to Mrs Morgan.

  Mr Moffatt came immediately.

  ‘Mr Snape is leaving now,’ Catherine said.

  The reporter’s teeth would have ripped a throat, had one presented itself. ‘My informant is very sure of his facts, Miss Haggard. I can assure you, you have not heard the last of this.’

  ‘I feel for the unfortunate woman aboard Antares,’ said Catherine in her best lady-of-the-manor voice. ‘Whoever she may have been. Mr Moffatt, please show Mr Snape out. Then I would like a word with you.’

  A minute later he was back.

  ‘That man is going to cause problems if we don’t stop him,’ Catherine said. ‘Mr Jackson has an appointment with Lawyer Hoskins at his offices this morning. I want you to go there and wait for him. When you see him ask him to come here at once. Tell him it’s urgent.’

  Mr Moffatt’s face showed the animation of a stone carving. ‘I’ll go at once, miss.’

  ‘And if Mr Snape tries to waylay you –’

  ‘I shall not say a word, miss.’

  ‘I know I can rely on you, Mr Moffatt.’

  Five minutes later she saw him pass the window on his way to town. Yes, she thought, I can rely on him. And on Mrs Amos and Mungo, and I thank God for it. Because this could turn into a catastrophe if we don’t do something to prevent it.

  It was an hour before Mungo arrived. His boots clattered on the veranda and within seconds he was in the room.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  She told him about the reporter’s visit.

  ‘Who’s been talking?’ he said.

  ‘It can only be one person,’ she told him.

  ‘Arthur Dunstable?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘But what is this business about missing jewellery? Was there anything like that on board?’

  She had not told him about the crown, afraid he might go hunting for it.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say there was or there wasn’t. I mean, how would I know?’

  ‘But how would Arthur Dunstable know, either?’

  ‘It was his vessel. Those two Malays were genuine passengers. Only Arthur Dunstable had the authority to let them board before Antares was unloaded and he would only have done it if they’d paid him well – and told him about whatever it was they needed to keep safe. Neither you nor I knew anything about it, Mungo; I doubt the crew did, either, or I would have heard. The only person who would have known was the shipowner. It has to be him.’

  Mungo draw a savage breath. ‘Arthur Dunstable… I thought we’d scotched that snake but apparently not. Maybe we need to take more drastic action this time, silence him for good.’

  ‘No killing,’ Catherine said. ‘I won’t go along with that. In any case, what matters is not Arthur but how we stop this story getting out.’

  ‘I think I’ll have another word with my friend Ridgway at the Governor’s House. See what he can suggest.’

  ‘Shall we have to pay him much?’

  ‘We shan’t pay him anything. This time it’s not our necks on the line but his.’

  Rupert Ridgway had been tied up all day and the candles were lit by the time he and Mungo Jackson sat down over a decanter of port.

  ‘I fear we have a problem,’ Mungo said.

  Rupert gave a fat man’s laugh. ‘We have a problem?
’ He quaffed his port and eased his tight trousers. ‘I doubt that, you know.’

  Mungo nodded. ‘You’re right. I should have said you have a problem but I thought it charitable to break the news more gently.’

  Ridgway looked at him uneasily. ‘What problem do I have?’

  ‘There is a rumour going round that Miss Haggard was in some way involved in the loss of Antares. That is nonsense, as we both know. Miss Haggard was incarcerated in the Cascades at the time Antares vanished, was she not?’

  Ridgway opened his mouth and then, slowly, closed it again.

  ‘Was she not?’ Mungo repeated.

  ‘I believe that may be correct, yes.’

  ‘As I am sure the gaol records clearly show.’

  Ridgeway licked his lips. ‘I am sure they must, yes.’

  ‘We must both hope so. Since otherwise the Governor’s House could be implicated, could it not? After all, it was at your recommendation that the arrangement concerning her settlement was made.’

  Ridgway’s glass chimed as he replaced it on the table. ‘It would be unfortunate if these scandalous reports were believed.’

  ‘The government implicit in what would be regarded as a criminal act? Fingers would be pointed, Ridgway. And we know who they would be pointing at.’ He topped up his glass. ‘Capital port,’ he said.

  ‘And the source of these rumours?’ Ridgway asked.

  ‘Arthur Dunstable.’

  Ridgway sucked his teeth. ‘That man has been trouble from the first.’

  ‘He was the man who suffered the greatest loss from this business.’

  Ridgway’s throat swelled. ‘He suffered? What about the government? What about the treasury?’

  ‘Treasury recovered half the funds. Dunstable lost everything. And of course Miss Haggard has been his enemy for years. It must be galling to see a woman you hate as rich as Croesus while you are close to bankruptcy.’

  ‘He would have been closer still had he not so fortuitously found that letter from his late uncle.’

  Ridgway stared challengingly across the port but Mungo, smiling, said nothing.

  ‘Dunstable is hoping for a government sinecure,’ Ridgway said. ‘I think I shall have to explain to him that his prospects will not be improved by this type of scandal-mongering.’

  ‘Especially when there is no truth in the story.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Ridgway said. ‘Not one iota of truth.’