Читать книгу Bloody Colonials - Stafford Sanders - Страница 5

Along the dusty street that runs in front of Government House, a rather impressive couple come sauntering grandly, arm in arm.

These two are dressed to the nines. He in broad-brimmed black hat and tie, dark waistcoat, frock coat with silver buttons, and ruffled shirt-front. She, the taller of the two, looms above him in full-length brocaded and billowing bustled gown, buttoned high at the neck, and topped by an enormous floral hat and ornate frilled parasol. Despite the shade offered by this, both are perspiring visibly, their outfits clearly excessive in the baking South Pacific heat.

As these two very fine personages draw level with the rough stone façade of Government House, the Reverend Staines emerges from behind it. He falters in his step as he catches the gaze of the grand couple, and grins awkwardly and perhaps a trifle guiltily. They saunter to a stop in front of him.

“Good day to you, Reverend Staines” comes the cultured and just faintly European-accented voice of the lady. She is a woman of stature and some beauty, mature and somewhat hardening though it appears. A droplet of perspiration clings to the end of her aquiline nose – down which she looks imperiously at the chaplain as he performs his characteristic gesture of fiddling with his besmirched clerical collar, pulling it up nervously in a manner perhaps symbolic of his constantly faltering struggle to carry the personal burden of its moral responsibilities. He twitches slightly and lowers his head in what he fondly imagines to be a charming, chivalrous posture, but which manages only to achieve the visible status of fawning.

“Ah … good morning, Lady Anastasia … er, Colonel McMurdough”, he adds quickly, though never taking his batting eyes from the lady. “Lovely day for it.”

The lady merely inclines her head in a response of polite and dignified elegance; but the Colonel returns the greeting with haughty blankness upon his rather broad, nondescript face. “For what?”

Anastasia rolls her eyes with exasperation, hissing through clenched teeth to him: “It’s a figure of speech, Montague …”

Her husband nods ponderously in something short of full understanding, figures of speech being definitely not his forte.

The Chaplain now sees an opportunity for further oiliness and flutters his eyelashes with renewed vigour at the lady, as he oozes the double-entendred answer: “For delighting in the delicate beauties of Creation, Milady.”

She raises one eyebrow ever so slightly and smiles, lowering her eyes with an exaggerated demureness of acknowledgment. In the severely limited social environment of the colony, such flattery must be taken wherever – and, more to the point, from whomever - it may.

Colonel McMurdough meanwhile raises his own eyebrow, rather less subtly; but he’s apparently not quite sure whether to be suspicious about the turn of the conversation, or how suspicious to be – such finer judgments of human motivation also not being his forte.

“Indeed”, he finally manages to respond with what he imagines to be the subtlest hint of warning – given that he is not quite certain whether any warning, or how much warning, is warranted.

At this point the Reverend, deciding this banter has probably been pursued as far as he dares, abruptly changes his tone to one more businesslike. “Ah well,” he blurts, “must be getting on. Got a flogging to attend to.”

And rubbing his hands together with barely disguised glee at this prospect, and with no sense of irony at the rather contradictory shift from the delicate beauties of creation to the brutal realities of corporal punishment, he turns to go; but then stops short as he remembers: “Oh, by the way, the ship has come in.”

“Has it now?” responds the lady with a sharp narrowing of the eyes; and her husband reacts a good beat later, still only half way towards taking in the information, speed of comprehension being yet another item in the fairly large catalogue of intellectual skills which, we’re discovering, are not his forte:

“Ah. Indeed.”

To the McMurdoughs, word of the ship’s arrival is something of a double-edged sword. It’s partly good news, carrying the prospect of addition to their livestock, crops and other items helpful to the furtherance of their prosperity - which is, not unfair to say, the paramount consideration for both of them. And then there are those items of expensive furniture, fine clothes, spirits, gourmet delicacies and other trappings of their station. Some of these have been long awaited – Anastasia in particular feeling their absence keenly, being a woman accustomed to the very best that life has to offer.

But the ship’s arrival also carries the possibility of contact from Europe; and they both feel vaguely apprehensive – he rather more vaguely than she – of anything untoward which might have followed them here from the old life, anything they might prefer had been left well behind.

“Good day to you” lubricates the Reverend’s departing bulk, and they half-heartedly return the formality, still partly occupied in exchanging the apprehensive look about the ship’s arrival.

Staines hurries off past Government House – through the window of which, there are figures in animated conversation.

Sir Henry Blythe, second Governor of His Majesty’s Colony of Port Fortitude, sits before a large gilt-framed portrait of himself mounted on the wall behind his enormous oak desk.

The Governor is attempting in vain to work on various documents relating to an array of colonial management business. He is being frustrated in this endeavour by an expensively-dressed and very attractive young woman who is pressing him in a simpering voice while she toys with a scale model of elaborate buildings and bridges mounted on a table in the centre of the amply-proportioned room.

“Oh go on, Papa,” she whines, “just a little dinner party. It’s so boring here, and it’s been positively ages since we had a dinner party.”

The Governor barely looks up, continuing to write, brow furrowed with battling concentration. He responds with gruff matter-of-factness: “About six weeks, I believe.”

“Yes, well, six weeks in this place is an eternity!” she bleats. “Honestly, it’s a social desert. And anyway, that dreadful ‘Lady’ Anastasia” (the ‘Lady’ is placed by the young woman in the most derisive of audible quotation marks, accompanied by a grimacing parody of a smile) “has had another of hers since then. You don’t want us to be shown up by her, do you?”

The Governor shrugs non-committally at this, not unduly concerned by the finer points of such competition. Frustrated by this lack of suitable response, his daughter half-turns and swats petulantly at the model, slightly dislodging a balsa-wood roof. Finally and irreversibly distracted from his work, and concerned for the wellbeing of the architectural plan, the Governor scrambles to his feet and emerges hurriedly from behind the desk to interpose himself between his colonial vision and its impetuous attacker.

In real life, Sir Henry is considerably less physically imposing than his portrait makes him appear. He is in fact, it must be said, rather short.

“Yes, well my dear Felicity,” he harrumphs impatiently, “it’s a little early to be making socialising quite our top priority.…” He replaces the model roof and plants his diminutive frame firmly between his daughter and the imperilled work “… since I am, after all, supposed to be running a penal colony – with or without the proper degree of loyalty from my subordinates, or anything approaching the requisite level of support from the Colonial Office.”

Now it’s his daughter’s turn to brush aside irritating trifles. “Well,” she retorts with a pout, “you certainly gave me the impression the social life here was a high priority when you went to such lengths to persuade me to come rushing out here the moment I had completed Finishing School. As I recall, you said …”

But her father is mercifully spared the reiteration of his own arguments at that time by a knock at the door.

“Enter!” barks the Governor. And Polly the maidservant comes in, back from her work outside with the pigs and the washing. She curtseys perfunctorily.

“Ship’s come in, Your Excellency”, she informs him.

“Ah.” His eyes sharpen. This is welcome news indeed to Sir Henry: the ship will bring keenly-awaited settlers, troop reinforcements, livestock, goods – particularly some of the finer building materials not available from the limited natural resources of the colony. Especially not from this particularly limited part of it.

His daughter, too, cheers up immediately at the news. “Oh, at last,” she squeals, clapping her hands together with childish enthusiasm, “my pianoforte! At least now I can have some decent music.”

“Indeed you shall,” agrees her father, “and not only that, but some new company as well. Your cousin, our new colonial surgeon, will be on board the …”

But Felicity ignores him, her mind on one thing only. She brushes her father lightly aside and turns to her convict maidservant: “Get some men down there straight away to bring it up at once - and mind they take special care with it.”

“Yes, milady”, mutters Polly, with long-suffering weariness, turning towards the door.

The Governor is long inured to the reality of being unable at the best of times to command his daughter’s attention for more than a few moments. He makes no further attempt to do so - instead returning to more practical matters. “Oh, and send Major Bascombe in, would you,” he directs Polly’s departing form.

He retreats with some relief behind the safety of his desk as the convict girl scurries out, followed by Felicity, who prattles instructions at her to which she is paying just as much attention as she needs, but no more.

“The ship has come in!” “Ah, the ship is in, thank God!” “It has arrived at long last – the ship!” Word now spreads like a forest fire throughout the settlement.

Imagine for a moment the excitement of waiting for a loved one to return from an absence of a day or a week. Or for the arrival in the post of letters from family or friends. Confirmation of new employment. A birthday present. A long-awaited purchase.

Then imagine such anticipation accumulating over several months – and in the absence of any other form of long-range communication. Now we begin to understand the magnitude of impact of the cream sails’ arrival in the bay of Port Fortitude. This ship is a thinly-stretched lifeline. It bears the preservation of life and health, the reuniting of families and friends, and the maintenance of contact with what for many is still thought of as “home”.

Nevertheless, with whatever enthusiasm the ship may be greeted by some, there is at least one of its passengers who will be more than pleased to see the last of it.