He went on alone, pacing slowly, mechanically noting the differences between the sea-birds over the water on his left hand and repeating the eminently sound reasons for his action. At the third repetition two figures crossed the road, laughing, and there were Davidge and West standing before him, dressed in their good shore-going clothes. ‘Why, Doctor,’ said West, ‘I believe we have broke in upon your thoughts.’
‘Not at all,’ said Stephen. ‘Tell me, is the Captain back yet?’
‘No, not yet,’ they said together, and Davidge went on ‘But Adams came aboard just as we were leaving, and he asked after you.’
And indeed Stephen had not been sitting in the cabin five minutes before there was Adams at the door. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘I have carried out your commission. I came away from Mr Painter not ten minutes ago, and on my way down I saw poor Jemmy Ducks, his face running with tears. I hope nothing dreadful has happened, Doctor?’
‘We took the girls to the orphanage.’
‘What, in a country like this? Well,’ – recollecting himself -‘I am sure you know best, sir.
Excuse me, if you please. So as I was saying, I saw Mr Painter, as you told me, and he was most obliging; he found me nearly all the present assignments, records and particulars directly. But I am afraid you will not be best pleased with some of what I have to report.’ He brought out the lists, each pinned to a sheaf of papers, and laid them on the table. ‘Now as for Slade’s friends,’ he said, ‘all is tolerably well. Mrs Smailes was assigned to a man who had served his time, an emancipist as they say here, and who had settled on reasonable good land near the Hawkesbury river; and he married her. Three of the others are on ticket of leave, and work in fishing boats. Only one, Harry Fell, absconded and joined the whalers. Here are the directions of the others.’ He handed Stephen a neat clerkly sheet, names and addresses underlined with red ink, and turned to the next. ‘As for Bonden’s list, I fear the news is not so good. Two never arrived, having died on the voyage; one died here of natural causes; one absconded and either died of want in the bush or was speared by the Aborigines; and two were sent to Norfolk Island.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Far out in the ocean, a thousand miles, I believe. A penal station that was meant to terrify the convicts here into submission. They were so ill-used that they are not in their right minds any more. For the rest, some are still assigned servants and some are ticket-of-leave men. Here are their particulars. But as for Colman, sir, I am sorry to say he has had a very bad
time of it. He would keep trying to escape. Last time it was with three other Irishmen: one of them had heard that if you walked north far enough you came to a river, neither very wide nor very deep, and the-other side there was China, where the people were kind and where you could find an Indiaman to take you home. They were taken by Aborigines, almost dead from hunger and thirst, and brought back for a reward. One of them died from his flogging. Colman survived his – two hundred lashes at twice – and he was to have been sent to a penal colony only Dr Redfern intervened – said it would be his death – and he is to be assigned to an estate along the Parramatta together with half a dozen more. Mr Painter tells me it is reckoned a little better than a penal colony but not much, since the station belongs to a Mr Marsden, a clergyman they call Parson Rapine, who loves having his people flogged, particularly Irish papists. Mr Painter did not think he would last out a year.’
‘Where is Colman now?’
‘In the hospital at Dawes Point, sir, the northern arm of this cove here.’
‘When is he to be assigfled?’
‘Oh, any time this next few weeks. The clerks see to it as they have leisure.’
‘Who is Dr Redfern?’
‘Why, sir, our Dr Redfern. Dr Redfern of the Nore. But you would not remember, sir, being, if you will allow me, too young in the service. The Captain would remember him.’
‘I know there was a mutiny at the Nore in ninety-seven, following the trouble at Spithead.’
‘Yes. Well, Dr Redfern told the mutineers to stick closer together, to be more united; and for that the court-martial sentenced him to hang. But after a while he was sent here, and presently he was given a free pardon: Captain King that was. I served under him in Achilles. They like him here – has the best practice in Sydney – but most of all the convicts.
He always has a kind word for a sick convict; always spends much of his day at the hospital.’
‘Thank you, Mr Adams. I am very much obliged to you for
taking so much trouble, and I am sure no one else could have taken it to such effect.
These are delicate negotiations, and a false note may prove fatal.’ Adams smiled and bowed, but he did not deny it, and Stephen went on, ‘And I am heartily glad that there is such a man as Dr Redfern here. Have you ever seen such a place?’
‘No, sir, I have not; nor ever expect to, this side Hell. Now here, sir, is an account of my disbursements, and here . •’
‘Pray put it up, Mr Adams, and add this’ – passing a johannes
–
‘to whatever may be left, so that if you do not find it disagreeable you may treat Painter and his more respectable colleagues to the best dinner Sydney can afford. Such allies are not to be neglected.’
When Martin came back to the ship that evening he was carrying a wrapper that held John Paulton’s hope if not of fame and fortune then at least of escape, a passage home to a world he knew and freedom to swim in the full tide of human existence.
‘Has the Captain returned?’ he asked.
‘He has not. He sent to tell me he was sleeping at Parramatta. Come below and sit down; and presently we will have supper together. There is no one in the gunroom. That is your friend’s book, I make no doubt?’
‘Well, these are the first three volumes – I must not dirty them or crumple the pages for my life – and all but the last chapter of the fourth. Poor fellow, he is in such pains for his ending, and I fear he will never bring it off without some encouragement. His cousin thinks all fiction immoral. And really, you know, Maturin, this cousin is not quite the thing. Not only is all fiction disapproved, as being false, tantamount to a pack of lies, but neither pepper nor salt is permitted in the kitchen or on the table, as exciting the senses. And poor John is obliged to carry his fiddle out of earshot before he even tunes the strings.
Furthermore, the cousin allows him no actual money – but I am being indiscreet. He invites us to dine on
Sunday and suggests that we might play some piece familiar to us all, such as the Mozart D minor quartet we were talking
about. I pass this invitation on with no small diffidence, since I know my playing is at the best indifferent.’
‘Not at all, not at all. We are none of us Tartinis. Your sense of time is quite admirable; and if you have a fault, which I do not assert, it is that you might sometimes tune a quarter of a tone or less on the sharp side. But my ear is far from perfect: a pitch-pipe or a tuning-fork would have infinitely more authority.’
‘How I hope it is good,’ said Martin, looking anxiously at the novel. ‘False commendation can never have the weight of heartfelt praise. I do not dislike the first page. May I read it to you?’
‘If you please.’
‘Marriage has many virtues,’ said Edmund, ‘and one not often remarked upon by bachelors is that it helps to persuade a man that he is neither omniscient nor even infallible. A husband has but to utter a wish for it to be denied, countered, crossed, contradicted; or to hear the word But, followed by a pause, a very short pause in general, while the reasons that this wish should not be observed are marshalled – it is misconceived, contrary to his best interests, contrary to his real desires.’
‘So I have very often heard you say, Mr Vernon,’ said his wife. ‘But you do not consider that a wife is commonly less well educated, usually poorer and always physically weaker than her husband; and that without she assert her existence she is in danger of being wholly engulfed.’