The Governor's House

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘Only for a few weeks but yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Will that make me Acting Mrs Governor?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘I can hardly believe it’s real.’

  She walked on the broad terrace and looked out at the river below and thought of the round pebbles bruising her bare feet, the rush and roar of surf along Porlock Weir beach. So long a journey. And not yet finished. Not finished by any means. Because there was something she had not yet told Roger. Once again she was with child. Now, she thought, with the new baby and the new house and the change in our lives, we can look forward to a shining future. Ahead of us will be the lovely years.

  She threw out her arms, gathering into herself the splendour of the brilliant sunny day. Her heart was full; tears sparkled in her eyes. She shouted aloud to the sky, the bare trees, to all the shining world.

  ‘These will be the lovely years.’

  SIXTY-TWO

  Joanne

  ‘What are you going to do with the crown?’ Colin said.

  Good question. There were several options. I could keep it and gloat over it in private. I could hand it over to Dr Wiranto or the federal government or the Muar Independence Movement. I could sell it to a rich collector and make myself rich. Or maybe none of those things.

  I explained my dilemma to Colin.

  ‘What do you mean, maybe none of those things?’

  I had already put him in the picture about the nephew of the murdered sultan being entrusted with bringing the crown to Hobart for repair.

  ‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘Who was the crown’s last legitimate owner?’

  ‘Sultan Mansoor?’

  ‘He was a usurper. I said the last legitimate owner.’

  ‘The nephew?’

  ‘Right. The Tengku Makhota or Crown Prince. And what happened to him?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘We don’t know for sure, but it seems pretty well certain they chucked him and his mate over the side while Antares was heading north. If I’m right, the real owner is at the bottom of the Coral Sea. So there would be a certain logic in sending the crown to join him.’

  ‘Throw it into the sea?’ Colin was horrified and rightly so. ‘Something as beautiful as that?’

  ‘Its beauty is certainly an argument against doing it,’ I said. ‘But there’s an even better reason, isn’t there? Those blokes who snatched me in the Walls of Jerusalem. I’ll give you odds they’re still around. If I hadn’t got away from them they were going to force me to tell them what I knew.’

  ‘But you knew nothing.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have stopped them, would it? If they were convinced I did? What’s to stop them having another go? What do you reckon to my chances of convincing them I’d chucked the damn thing in the sea?’

  ‘Not good,’ he said.

  ‘Non-existent,’ I said. ‘So doing it would solve nothing.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I have to take one of the other options.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And while you’re making up your mind?’

  ‘I’ll keep it locked in my safe at the university.’

  ‘Make sure Poxon can’t get to it.’

  ‘Darn right.’

  If he was still hanging around – and he would be, his vulture instincts well to the fore – he might see me lock the box in my private safe. He might suspect but would not know for sure what it contained. He couldn’t get at it to find out, either: I was the only person who knew the combination and as sure as hell wasn’t planning to share it with him.

  It was three evenings later. Colin was working late and uncertain when he would be able to get away.

  ‘I’ll give you a call when I leave,’ he said.

  ‘We’re having Chinese for supper,’ I said.

  ‘Yum. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

  ‘A true romantic,’ I said.

  ‘Robert the Bruce said a Scotsman marches on his stomach.’

  ‘It was Napoleon, not Robert the Bruce. And it was an army, not a Scotsman.’

  ‘It is my belief Napoleon stole the quotation.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget to ring me.’

  Later, as it was getting dark, I stepped outside. The air was warm and still and I sat for a while listening to the waves tumbling against the base of the cliffs. Gulls were heading home to their roosting ledges, their silhouettes black against a sunset sky, their wailing cries like the voices of the tormented dead in the fading light.

  I felt the mass of the house behind me, solid and strong. I felt its connection with the woman who had first arrived on the island one hundred and sixty-five years before and whose ongoing influence on my life proved once again the truth that the dead are always with us. Standing there, not ten yards away, we had talked woman to woman only days ago. She was with me now. I heard her voice in the sound of the waves.

  ‘Can you smell it?’

  ‘Smell what?’

  ‘Danger. There is danger coming, Joanne. Be on your guard.’

  ‘Danger? What danger?’

  A breaking wave reverberated sullenly against the cliffs. The sound faded; all was still.

  What danger was she talking about? I hadn’t a clue. What could I do to evade it? I hadn’t a clue.

  Later I walked around the house, touching its massive walls with my outstretched hand. The house was all that remained of the fortune my ancestor had left. Uncle Fred’s Russian investments and the Great Depression had wiped out the rest. My father had had a go at getting it all back again but Dad, bless him, was never the man for the job. When he died we were no better off than when he’d started. He’d managed to hang on to the house, though, and I was grateful for that. With it and my ancestor’s presence I felt complete; without it I would have been lost.

  I went back indoors as the telephone began to ring.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Catherine

  Six weeks after the opening of their new house, the governor-incouncil approved a law close to Catherine’s heart that introduced compulsory education into the colony, the first such legislation in the country.

  In November Glencoe, a horse in which the Mortimers held a one-third share, won the Melbourne Cup. His duties prevented Roger from attending but Catherine was there to cheer it home.

  In December Sir Harry and Lady Black held a farewell ball. Once again Miss Jillibel Atkins was called on to demonstrate her skill. Once again, despite increasing age, she came up trumps. Once again Catherine was resplendent in her new role as wife to the administrator-in-waiting.

  In January, with the arrival of the new governor, Roger relinquished his duties and they left their rooms in the Governor’s House for the last time. No doubt they would still be invited as guests to any functions Sir Reginald and Lady Apsley-Smythe chose to hold – although these were likely to be few; the governor’s wife was said to be even more arrogant than her husband and apparently saw little purpose in mixing with the hoi polloi of what called itself Tasmanian society – but in any case it would not be the same. In the past they had been able to treat the whole house as their own; that would certainly not be possible now.

  Catherine and the new governor’s wife, very different from Lady Black, had disliked each other on sight. Catherine thought she was a stuck-up nobody while Lady Apsley-Smythe, encouraged by Mrs Byfield who after Lady Duffield’s death had returned to her old hostility and whose husband had now been promoted to a post of even greater importance than before, was reported as having expressed the opinion that Mrs Mortimer thought a great deal too much of herself, an opinion that was strengthened when she discovered the woman’s lamentable background. Mrs Byfield reported gleefully to her husband that it was very probable that Lady Apsley-Smythe would draw the line at inviting former convicts to the Governor’s House at all.

  Catherine heard the rumours and did not care. She had preoccupations o
f her own without worrying about the governor’s wife. In March 1869 she gave birth to a daughter. Remembering the bad time she’d had of it with Edmund she had been dreading the ordeal but this time proved different, Sarah being born with minimum fuss and pain at four o’clock in the morning of a day when an intense calm lay over both land and sea. Catherine later thought it was an augury of what was to come because from the first Sarah, quiet and happy, was as different from her brother as she could be. A good thing, her mother thought. Edmund was only six but had not improved in temperament or manner.

  ‘Another four years and we shall be sending him to boarding school in any case,’ Catherine said. Given the location of the house and the difficulty of finding a tutor willing to live in such a remote place they would have no choice. She welcomed that. She loved her son despite everything and hoped separation would give them the chance to become more comfortable with each other.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Edmund was seventeen and Catherine was reading a troubling letter from his headmaster when Mr Moffatt – stooped now, a little grey, but still the loyal friend he had been from the Aberystwyth days – came to tell her that Mrs Arthur Dunstable was asking to see her.

  She put the letter in the drawer of her desk. ‘Please tell her to come in.’

  She stood and took Alicia’s hands in hers. Alicia Dunstable was six years younger than she but looked ten years older. Catherine had always thought her a silly girl but now she looked at her and saw only a woman who had been damaged by Arthur Dunstable.

  ‘Sit down, my dear.’ To Mr Moffatt she said: ‘A bottle of the best canary and two glasses, if you please, Mr Moffatt.’

  Alicia protested. ‘There is no need…’

  ‘There is every need. Besides, I often enjoy a glass myself at this time of day.’

  Alicia Dunstable sat silently until Mr Moffatt had brought the wine. Even then she said nothing.

  ‘How can I help you?’ said Catherine.

  ‘I am so ashamed,’ Alicia said.

  ‘Is it your husband?’

  ‘Always. I fear he will never change. But that is not why I am here now.’

  Catherine waited. Let her say what she had to say in her own time.

  ‘I fear I have not brought Jasper up as strictly as I should. But a young man needs his freedom. Do you not agree, Mrs Mortimer?’

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘High spirits for the most part but I fear he has been living beyond his means and now owes money all around the city.’

  Catherine had heard that high living was only part of the problem. There had been reports of brawling, a case of robbery in which Jasper Dunstable might have been involved and, most serious of all, a complaint by a servant girl who had been molested on her way home after dark. As he grew older Jasper seemed more and more to be his father’s son. If indeed Arthur Dunstable was his father; there had been rumours about that too.

  ‘How much does he owe?’

  Alicia named a figure. Catherine raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Can your family in England not assist you?’

  A wan smile. ‘My family disowned me years ago.’

  ‘Then how can I help?’

  ‘I wondered whether you might have an opening for him in one of your businesses…’

  ‘As a miner?’ She knew Alicia did not mean that. ‘It is a hard life and the conditions are perhaps not those he is used to.’

  ‘I was thinking more of an office job.’

  Not in a million years. ‘I am afraid we have no vacancies at this time. Has he tried elsewhere?’

  ‘I thought to speak to you first.’

  No doubt she had. Absurd though it was, Catherine felt something for this woman. Alicia’s foolish behaviour had certainly not helped her but her present difficulties had been caused in large measure by the irresponsibility of her abominable husband. Only a week before Catherine had heard that Arthur Dunstable had wagered two thousand guineas on an outsider in the feature race at the Turf Club’s Summer Festival.

  ‘Did it win?’

  ‘Last but one.’

  ‘He placed the bet in cash?’

  ‘Always cash, where Mr Dunstable is concerned. No one in the town will give him credit.’

  She had heard something of the sort as Roger’s nominee on the board of the Hobart Savings Bank. The man was incorrigible.

  She went across to her desk and started to write. When she had finished she returned to Alicia and held out a piece of paper. ‘Here is a draft drawn on the Union Bank. It is for one hundred pounds –’

  Alicia looked suitably overcome. ‘My dear Mrs Mortimer, that is too generous. I would not wish you to think that –’

  Catherine interrupted her. ‘I am happy to help you in this instance because I have some sympathy with your predicament. But I would counsel you to spend it wisely because that is the limit of what I am prepared to do. Do you understand me?’

  Harsh words but they had to be said.

  ‘I understand absolutely. And I cannot express my gratitude –’

  ‘There is no need for gratitude, Mrs Dunstable. I repeat: I am happy to have helped you on this occasion but that is the last of it.’

  She watched as Alicia rode away in her little carriage. The money would clear Jasper’s debts but she doubted that would be the end of Alicia’s troubles. Alicia Dunstable was tied to a husband and a son who in their separate ways seemed destined to bring disaster on her head. Well, Catherine thought, she had done what she was willing to do. She owed the Dunstables nothing and would do no more. Now her concern had to be for her own son because Alicia was not the only one to be perplexed by the behaviour of a delinquent child.

  She took out the letter she had received that day from Edmund’s headmaster and read again what he had to say.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  It was 1882. Catherine had attended the opening of the new Hobart Stock Exchange before returning home to find a visitor waiting for her. Now she sat and stared at Janis Perks, which was the name of the girl sitting on the other side of her desk.

  ‘You are saying your sister has had a boy child and that my son is his father?’

  ‘Yes miss,’ the girl said. She was scruffy, nervous and little more than a child herself, but she had sufficient courage to confront a much older and very powerful woman.

  Catherine smiled kindly but asked, ‘How do I know this is true?’

  ‘She give me a letter what ’e wrote ’er,’ said the girl.

  She dug in the pocket of her apron and produced a crumpled piece of paper. Catherine took it and read it. It was Edmund’s handwriting and its tone left no doubt about the nature of his relationship with this girl’s sister.

  ‘Why have you brought it to me?’

  ‘Cos ’e wouldn’t do nuffin to ’elp ’er. Said it could be anybody’s brat but tweren’t true, she never went wiv no one else. Well, maybe one or two but never properly. Not to give ’er a baby, if you takes my meanin –’

  ‘You say your sister is dead. Have you no parents who can help?’

  ‘Mum run off and Dad don’ wanner know. I’d bring ’im up meself, miss, but I ain’t got no money –’

  Catherine raised her hand. ‘Enough, child. I believe you.’ She thought for a minute. ‘You want me to adopt the child? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘I’m not askin for no charity, Miss.’

  She was an urchin, and smelly. Catherine doubted she had ever seen a bath yet she shone with pride and Catherine thought that this was a child worth saving, if it could be done.

  The girl’s predicament offended Catherine to the core. She had been abused by Obadiah Gregory when she was little more than Janis’s age; in Plymouth she had been forced to trade her body for a better chance of survival. It was years since anyone had dared try anything of the sort with her but these were experiences you did not forget.

  ‘I shall speak to my son,’ she said, ‘and see what he has to say about this business. Where are you living?’

&
nbsp; ‘Wiv Mrs Young, miss, down by the docks.’

  Catherine had heard of Mrs Young and the brothel she ran on the waterfront; in her way Mrs Young was as well known as she was.

  ‘How old are you, Janis?’

  ‘Twelve, miss.’

  ‘And you work there?’

  ‘That’s right. But not like one of them whores, not yet.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  For twelve was not too young for men who favoured child’s flesh.

  ‘Mrs Young says she’s gunna pass me out to a rich bloke.’ Again the flash of pride. ‘I’m valuable, see, that’s what Mrs Young says.’

  ‘Have you given the child a name yet?’

  ‘Sister wanted to call ’im Willy but I don’t reckon much to that meself.’

  ‘No more do I,’ said Catherine. ‘What do you think of the name Philip?’

  ‘Better’n Willy.’

  ‘Who’s looking after him now?’

  ‘The girls, except when they’re busy with customers. They won’t let no one ’urt ’im, miss.’

  ‘Very well. Go to the kitchen and ask Mrs Amos for a drink of milk,’ Catherine said. ‘I shall speak to my son and then we shall decide the best thing to do.’

  She did so. Edmund made no attempt to deny he had been with the girl. ‘But so had half the town, Mother.’

  ‘If you really believe that you’re an even bigger fool than I thought you.’ But she knew he did not believe it; he had always been too careful of himself to risk disease.

  She found Janis in the kitchen. ‘Has she behaved herself?’

  ‘Ponged the place out, that’s what she’s done.’ Mrs Amos had never cared about the sensitivities of others.

  ‘We are going out,’ Catherine told her. ‘But shall be back shortly.’

  ‘You and the girl?’

  ‘I anticipate there will be three of us,’ Catherine said. She turned to Janis. ‘Have you ever been in a carriage?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘Then now you shall.’

  The brothel was in Milk Street, a mosquito-plagued track on the edge of the water. Two shaven-headed toughs lounged outside the door of the rotting house. They carried wooden clubs and gave Catherine a steely glare that she assumed was supposed to terrify her.