The Poisoned Island (36 page)

“I waited years. Ships came and went, but there was always some reason why I could not get on them and away; either my own cowardice, or the captain was unwilling, or I was away from Matavai Bay when the ship anchored. But finally the
Solander
arrived, and with it my chance. I went down to the ship the day it arrived, and immediately went to see Captain Hopkins to tell him of my wishes. As it happened, the
Solander
was in need of a chaplain, and I offered my services in return for a voyage to England, and the captain agreed.

“I told Henry Nott what I intended. He didn’t say much in reply, but wished me well and begged me to write with news of what I discovered. I gave little further thought to him, although the next day several of the island women came to see me to say goodbye, in the stiff formal way they had taken to speaking to me, and they told me that they’d heard weeping from my mother’s hut the night before.

“When we sailed, I stood in the stern and waved goodbye to my island home, and wondered if I would ever see it again,
and wondered if I cared. It was a terrifying voyage for me, even though I’d traveled between the islands on canoes. I’d never seen oceans or waves the like of those I saw on the voyage to England. And everyone I met and spoke to, I asked about my father. And then I heard about Mr. Graham.”

Harriott looks at Graham with an eyebrow raised, for this is the part of the story he is most astonished by. John Harriott is like most Englishmen of a maritime bent and of a certain vintage; for him, the tale of the
Bounty
has the status of myth, as powerful and resonant as the actions of Achilles for an Athenian general. William Bligh is a specific kind of hero to a man like Harriott: brave, diligent, earnest, a stickler for rules and duty and discipline. If Harriott had captained the
Bounty
he can see no part of Bligh’s behavior which he himself would not have mirrored. To discover, therefore, that his good friend Aaron Graham was instrumental in securing the King’s pardon for one of the mutineers is rather like that same Athenian general discovering that Achilles did not in fact chase Hector down but merely took all the credit.

For Harriott, Heywood’s subsequent success in the Navy—reaching the exalted levels of flag captain, no less, and having had the command of half a dozen ships—is a confused mystery, an insult to simple morals and fierce loyalties. Moreover it reveals to Harriott the truth of English institutional matters. For while Bligh has had to fight to protect his reputation from the smears of those attached to Heywood and even those, Lord help us, friendly to the blackguard Fletcher Christian, Heywood has himself thrived under the patronage of powerful friends. Even Christian himself, it has long been rumored, has made his way back to England for a peaceful life.

Graham looks back at him and almost appears amused at the serendipitous coincidences they are discussing.

“I advised Heywood in his court-martial, Harriott. I was a young lawyer at the time, fresh back from Newfoundland, making my way in the world. As I have said, Heywood’s family were known to me, and they asked me to conduct his legal strategy. We were successful, as you now know. Or at least successful enough to secure a pardon.”

“You
defended
the man,” says Harriott. “A mutineer.”

Graham looks uncomfortable.

“I
advised
him and his family, Harriott, that is all. I did not speak for him during his court martial. And he was only ever an
alleged
mutineer. There was insufficient evidence of his motivation to say he was actively involved. He was only fifteen years old when the
Bounty
left England. A mere boy. He was taken up in the excitement of the events.”

“Excitement, Graham? The men mutinied against their rightful captain!”

“Indeed they did, Harriott. But not all of them mutinied with enthusiasm, and not all of them knew what they were about. I convinced the court-martial that Heywood was caught up in events outside his control, and was too young to do anything other than be taken along with them. I was believed.”

“He was found guilty.”

“By the court-martial, yes. But not by the highest authority. The King pardoned him.”

“For reasons of justice, or for reasons of patronage?”

Graham looks uncomfortable at that, and Harriott sees clearly a truth about his friendship with Graham. The Bow Street man does not hold the same rigid standards of propriety and duty as Harriott does. He lives in a world where acquaintance and social connection are as important to a man’s life as sunlight and rich soil are to a plant’s. Harriott can still
vividly recall the story of the
Bounty
mutiny and remembers how the facts of that case were slippery things, liable to run away from themselves and blend one into another, until the truth of events was as impossible to read as the wishes of a woman. It is that slippery world which Graham inhabits, and Harriott has long known it. He must make his peace with it, or end the friendship forthwith.

Harriott turns back to Nott.

“So you came back to London. Why did you not contact Mr. Graham immediately? Why wait until you were in Coldbath Fields?”

“I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid that he might refuse to help me. I had come all this way and the risk of being denied overwhelmed me.”

Harriott thinks this unlikely. He thinks Nott is lying. He wonders why.

“Why, then, were you visiting Attlee and Arnott?”

“Because they were my friends, Mr. Harriott. They were among the kindest of the crew towards me. Their deaths are painful to me in the extreme. But I did not kill them.”

There is silence while the two magistrates digest what the young missionary has told them. Harriott’s mind is a whirl, but of an abstract kind which doesn’t ask who, what, where and when, but sticks rather on a disbelieving
how on earth?
and gets no further. Nott’s story is epic and preposterous, but has an internal consistency to it which cannot be denied. His age, the dates he gives—he
could
be Peter Heywood’s son.

Or the whole thing could be the fantasy of an ignorant island woman who once lay with a European sailor and spawned a half-breed son. For all they know, Nott’s father could be a Spaniard or a Frenchman or a Portuguese.

And yet he can see in Graham’s eyes, at least, the spark of belief, and it occurs to him that Graham knew Peter Heywood, and perhaps sees some resemblance to his old client in Peter Nott.

Nothing is said for a while, but after a short time Nott bows his head and, so quietly that Harriott can barely hear it, he begins to pray.

Robert Brown has a comfortable carriage ride to Kew, a time to reflect on the experiment with the leaf, but also to consider what the officer from Wapping has just told him. He takes little notice of what passes outside the carriage window, although it is yet another glorious spring day, and he is heading west, where Westminster puts on its best summer frock and colorful hat and flashes its skirts at the passersby.

He is enormously tired. It was a restless night punctuated by dreams he can barely remember. It is an odd feeling: the old torpor that had been creeping up on him is quite gone, as is the thudding pain in the head. It now occurs to him, as a blackbird screeches in a plane tree to the right of the passing carriage, that his hearing is clearer than he can ever remember it being. But this newfound feeling of healthy well-being is accompanied by a dour handmaiden—this aching tiredness. He probably should not have gone to bed when he did. Only routine had told him to do so. All that met him was
broken rest and disturbing dreams, the details of which have long subsided.

He has with him his sheets of notes from the experiment with the leaf, on which he has also scribbled extracts from Hooke’s lecture. He consults them again, and is struck for perhaps the twentieth time how odd they seem. He has little memory of the effect of the leaf itself, other than sharp feelings of enormous pleasure which he tries urgently to suppress, though he does not know quite why. He sees from his notes that in the immediate aftermath he did remember things: the boat to the island, his father shouting from a staircase. He does not remember those things now, and if they were not written down he would not consider them. He has appended other notes based on Leary’s account of his behavior during the experiment itself, but these are frankly obscure: a great deal about light, and something about the island, and that strange reference to an organism at the heart of things. He thinks of Hooke and Democritus, and wonders whether he has not had some kind of a revelation.

So, he has much to report to Sir Joseph: the effect of the leaf, both during and after its consumption. But also this strange tale the Wapping officer has to tell, of the dead men all holding cups which contained a residue, possibly of some kind of tea. The coincidence is stark and almost certainly no coincidence at all. He had deflected the constable’s questions on this, because he could see no way of answering honestly which did not enormously complicate matters with Sir Joseph. Had the sailors on the
Solander
experimented with the same leaf he himself has taken? But how can they have done so, when it was taken from a tree in Kew?

Ah, but then that tree was taken from Otaheite, was it not? And of course it is obvious. The tree in Kew is a cutting, not
grown from seed. The original tree is still in Otaheite. The sailors must have discovered that tree, and then discovered the effects of the leaf which came from it. He must discuss this with Sir Joseph before another encounter with the Wapping constable.

But he never has the chance. Events rather overtake him.

*  *  *

Sir Joseph is waiting for him in the Dutch House, the elegant structure that sits almost at the river’s edge on the north side of the Gardens. He sits in a small room overlooking the formal gardens of the house and the temporary shed which has been constructed for the
Solander
gardeners. It is quite clear that Sir Joseph is waiting for Brown. There is an unusual restlessness about him, and Banks is not a man who can easily hide his own impatience.

“Well? Anything to report?”

Brown thinks this question very odd, and wonders if Banks knows of his experiment. He thinks back to his last conversation with Sir Joseph, and remembers it was the President, not he, who had brought up Robert Hooke and his experiment with
bhang
. Brown ponders the possibility that he has been somehow manipulated.

He describes the events of yesterday to Banks in full, though he does not mention the presence of his father in his dreams, nor the oddest parts of his leaf-inspired vision: the tree on the island and that intimation of an organism, something within the cells of things themselves. Banks is impatient to hear particularly of the physical effect of the leaf.

“How do you feel now?” he asks.

“I am tired from broken sleep, but other than that I feel quite well.”

“How ‘well’? You are somewhat prone to illness, Brown, I need not remind you. If you can ignore the tiredness, which after all springs from an ancillary effect of the experiment—I speak of your lack of sleep—if you can ignore that, tell me how it is you now
feel
?”

Sir Joseph’s tone is peevish and hectoring, and for a moment Brown toys with the idea of refusing to answer, of asking how exactly this kind of undertaking fits into the responsibilities of a librarian. But, of course, he does no such thing.

“I feel enormously well, Sir Joseph. My head and my hearing are clearer than they have been for a long time—perhaps since my childhood. And I can feel a great energy in my body which perhaps was not there before. Alongside this tiredness, as I have said.”

It is acutely uncomfortable discussing his well-being with his employer, but Sir Joseph seems oblivious to the sense. His eyes are bright with excitement.

“Call my manservant, would you?”

Brown goes out and comes back with the manservant. Sir Joseph hands the servant an envelope.

“Have this sent to Windsor immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

The manservant leaves.

Windsor
.

*  *  *

The two of them go down to the Stove to see the tree. Thoughts are crashing into each other randomly in Brown’s head as he pushes Sir Joseph’s wheelchair, like disconnected particles in a hot soup. He asks Sir Joseph if he might be impertinent enough to wonder what was in the letter sent to
Windsor. Sir Joseph grunts and says all will become clear, irritated by the question but not angered by it, for he seems to be experiencing a childish giddiness which Brown has never seen before.

It is noticeably darker inside the Stove, and it is immediately obvious why. The Otaheite tree is now almost full-grown, or least it would be if it hadn’t outgrown the height of the Stove itself, which, Brown knows, is some thirty feet. The top of the tree is bent over and has begun to spread along the roof of the Stove, obscuring the light from the other plants, which as a consequence look pale and unhealthy, as if their vitality had been sucked up out of the soil and into the tree.