The Soldier's Curse (23 page)

For his part, Monsarrat was also indulging in indistinct dreams of respectable domesticity. He saw himself, a respected clerk or perhaps more, maybe a government functionary, maybe even a lawyer if such a profession was allowed to a former convict, returning to the guesthouse each evening, to drink tea on the porch with his wife or discuss the latest political news with some of the more educated guests. He came close on several occasions to broaching the subject of marriage, but wanted to wait until he was able to do so from a position of freedom.

There were those, however, who would have preferred Monsarrat to get on with it without waiting for his ticket. Churchmen in the colony often turned a blind eye to relationships between men and women which weren't sanctified by God. They performed colonial marriages between men and women who already had spouses in England or Ireland, reasoning that such a great distance was tantamount to death, and treating the nuptials as those between widows and widowers. And as long as things didn't get too lascivious or lewd, they also chose to ignore the sin of fornication – making an
effort to stamp it out would have consumed every waking hour, and most of the sleeping ones besides.

The Reverend Horace Bulmer was not amongst these pragmatic clergymen.

As a convict, Monsarrat was required to attend church on a Sunday. Visibility in the pews was also a prerequisite for respectability, so Sophia likewise submitted herself each week to one of Bulmer's rambling yet emphatic sermons. His favourite topic was fornication and licentiousness, of which he saw evidence every day. Even if his homilies started out on a different tangent, they inevitably snaked their way back to sins of the flesh.

Monsarrat continued writing letters, but on fewer days than he had previously – he tried to keep two or three afternoons open to visit Sophia. On Sunday afternoons, of course, he wasn't permitted to work or hang around at an inn, so he tried to squeeze the same amount of business into three afternoons. Rumours began to circulate that the clerk was losing his touch, as the letters became less well formed and the sentiments less elegant.

His customers did not need to wonder at the reason for his absences. Parramatta, with its connections between each office, workplace, home and farm, enabled gossip to spread rapidly. So word of Monsarrat and Sophia's arrangement had started to trickle out almost before it was consummated.

During Bulmer's rants, Monsarrat would look at the back of Sophia's dark head and imagine his own beside it. He saw them generously donating to the poor box, and being greeted by other local worthies outside after the service. Perhaps one or two might be invited to the Prancing Stag for luncheon afterwards.

Along with the rest of the town, the Reverend Bulmer had heard of the guesthouse owner and the convict's relationship, and he redoubled his efforts to warn the general population of the dangers of fornication. He emphasised the irredeemable moral decay to be seen in those who committed this sin, and seemed to Monsarrat to stare pointedly at Sophia, and then at him.

Bulmer was a purist. A sin was a sin in his view, and a crime a crime. There were no shadings, no matters of degree. One of
the few criteria which he used to distinguish between felons was education. Those who had been exposed to knowledge, whatever their crime, should know better. They clearly must be so deeply mired in sin that their souls were lost and therefore of no concern to him. One of his most emphatic views centred around the treatment of these convicts – the education which should have prevented their offences should not be allowed to afford them a comfortable assignment in government offices. They should be breaking rocks, and their backs in the process.

It was hardly surprising, then, that Monsarrat was quickly becoming one of Bulmer's chief obsessions. Unfortunately, the man held some sway in the upper echelons of Parramatta society, so his influence may well have contributed to the only word on Monsarrat's ticket of leave, which made him despondent when he finally achieved it a few months later: Windsor.

Not so far from Parramatta. One could travel between the two twice in a day, and still have several hours to spare. But he might as well have been restricted to the moon. Being caught out of his area would be a secondary offence. Monsarrat was unable to see Sophia again without risking his freedom.

Mrs Mulrooney whitened as Monsarrat described the contents of Diamond's letters.

‘No wonder she seemed so frightened that day in that dreadful water contraption. But surely this seals it, Mr Monsarrat. Diamond has taken her away, all for ignoring his advances.'

‘We are fortunate,' said Monsarrat, ‘that Dr Gonville shares a similar view. The word of a convict and, with great respect to you, a housekeeper might not stand against that of a loyal officer, but adding the voice of a surgeon might make our case.'

‘We've not only to make a case against him,' said Mrs Mulrooney. ‘We've to dismantle the one against me, though no one has yet put it.'

‘Anyone with eyes to see can tell that you're not capable of such a thing, and especially when such an obvious villain can be constructed out of the papers in my pocket.'

No hiding place had presented itself to Monsarrat the previous night in his hut. He had very few personal effects and was unwilling to deposit the precious documents underneath his bedroll, where rats and damp might see them destroyed. But neither did he want to leave them in the major's office, as the man would have a funeral to organise and attend and might not be spending much
time there, leaving the way free for Diamond to search there – Monsarrat had little doubt, now, that these letters were the subject of his recent efforts in the study.

In the end, he had decided the safest place for them was in his capacious pocket, where he could not stop himself fingering them occasionally to ensure they hadn't evaporated.

‘You mustn't worry, really,' he assured Mrs Mulrooney, as she salved her anxiety by making a pot of tea, despite the fact that the two cups in the kitchen were full, and the second ones of the morning.

‘Ah, it's not only me,' she said. ‘I fret for Fergal too. This business with Dory must've brought his own sorry past back on him.'

Slattery had never discussed his past with Monsarrat in any great detail. It was an unwritten rule of the place: if anyone was unwilling to share details of their past – and there were many who were reticent – they were not pushed.

The extent of Monsarrat's knowledge was that Fergal had grown up in a small village in County Wicklow, the son of a farmer, with innumerable brothers and sisters, before being apprenticed to a plasterer. He found the work unsteady, though, and some of his workmates had fallen to lung complaints of one form or another, so he'd thrown it over and joined the army, where, he said, he could get a decent income, free food, and half a chance of seeing the world outside the village. He'd had no idea at the time, he said wryly, how far outside the village that decision would take him. ‘I have the King himself feeding me now, and giving me a tour of the world besides,' he had told Monsarrat over one cup of tea or another.

So Monsarrat had a line-drawing view of Slattery's background, without any daubs of paint to give it colour or texture. This suited Monsarrat, who had no interest in returning the confidence with tales of London, Exeter and so forth. His friendship with Slattery was based on genuine liking, but was superficial in its way, rooted in their shared predicament of being relegated to this place, their love of banter and tea, and their regard for Mrs Mulrooney. Monsarrat had always appreciated Slattery's generally happy and playful disposition as an antidote to the grim and dour reality of
life in the settlement. If there were dark rabbit holes in the Irishman's past which he occasionally ventured down in moments of melancholy, Monsarrat would prefer not to know of them.

‘I was under the impression,' he said, ‘that Slattery had left his past behind him too, together with whatever horrors it may hold.'

‘And so he has, most of the time at any rate. He's told me often, Mr Monsarrat, that he tries to exist here and here only. But it's still there, you know, waiting to jump up and entangle him. And there's nothing surer to make that happen than having to flog a young man whose story is so similar.'

‘I knew they both came from farming families,' said Monsarrat. ‘But surely that's where the resemblance ends.'

‘Not a bit of it,' said Mrs Mulrooney. ‘You know the reason he was so fond of Dory?'

‘I always thought it was because he had a little spark to him,' said Monsarrat. ‘He didn't look at the world out of dead eyes, the way some of them do.'

‘His eyes are dead enough now,' said Mrs Mulrooney, crossing herself. ‘You're right: that was part of it. But they also both knew what it was like to be dispossessed.'

‘Dispossessed? I thought Slattery decided farming wasn't for him and took an apprenticeship as a plasterer.'

‘Ah, no, that decision was made for him. He plays his cards close to his chest, does Fergal, with information as well as with kings and aces. I thought he had told you all of this.'

‘No, he hasn't. You are Mother Confessor to us both, but we don't compare notes. We don't have much occasion to interact, apart from under your protective gaze in this kitchen.'

Monsarrat hadn't yet mentioned his visit to Slattery's still. He could feel the weight of unshared information building up behind his eyes, but now was most certainly not the time to further burden his friend.

‘Well, I wouldn't have started, had I known that. I'm not one for breaking confidences. But you should probably know, in case I'm not around … I suppose it would be good to know that there was somebody else who understood the young tearaway.'

So Mrs Mulrooney told Monsarrat how Slattery's family had been forced off their land and into a Dublin tenement by a classically greedy lord. His gambling debts had prompted him to ratchet up the rent to levels which were unrealistic, and certainly impossible for Slattery's family. The man had done himself a disservice in the end, losing all his tenants and unable to find others to replace them at such high rates. The ennobled family had slid towards bankruptcy, until some of the daughters were old enough to be sold off to families who wanted aristocratic wives for their sons, families who themselves had wealth but no nobility.

By that time, however, it had been too late for Slattery's mother, who had contracted a disease from the constant exposure to human excrement which was a feature of life in the new dwelling, and died. His father had become a ruinous drunk, and followed her when he became incapable of work, or speech for that matter.

Slattery himself had been at a loss. He was a reasonably bright boy, and had done well enough with learning his letters and numbers. But the only trade his parents had been able to teach him was farming, thinking it was the only one he would ever need. So he went from business to business, offering cheap labour, hoping that if the proprietor liked his work they might consider him for an apprenticeship.

A local plasterer, whose family had been on the land as well but had to leave due to insufficient yields, took pity on the boy. The man was a Catholic, but did fine enough work to be admitted to the grand houses of Dublin in order to smooth the walls and put up the papers that were in fashion at that time. He had seen Slattery in church, and thinking him devout (erroneously, as Slattery went to church for the express purpose of being seen to do so by prospective employers), decided to teach him the rudiments of the plasterer's trade.

Within a short time Slattery was able to plaster a wall as smoothly as any of the man's apprentices, and showed great attention to detail. Slattery was taken on as his apprentice, and the man did his best to teach him his craft.

Slattery had enjoyed the work, and had no problem with his master. But as he saw more of the grand way in which some lived – not his co-religionists, of course, but those who bore more of a resemblance to his family's former landlord – he became impatient. He would overhear tales of their travels to Europe, and wonder whether his village and Dublin were the only two places he would ever see.

There was no way, as an apprentice plasterer, that he would ever go beyond Ireland's shores. And no matter how smoothly he put up the paper, he would never earn the life which these people had been given at birth. He had also heard some speak of young soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the military and thereby been invited into the finest homes, in the hopes, probably, that their valour would rub off on some of those families' sons.

The solution seemed clear, then, to Slattery – travel, and the opportunity to return a hero and be invited as a guest through the doors at the front of the house, rather than entering at the rear as a tradesman. So, like many before him, and dimly aware that he would be serving the monarch of a nation responsible for setting up the system which had robbed his family of their livelihood, he joined the army and donned the red and buff coat which put him on the same level on the parade ground as the sons of wealthy Protestants.

‘He once told me,' said Mrs Mulrooney now, ‘that he might have done the same thing as Dory – had considered it on a few occasions – but an opportunity had not presented itself. He would have seen stealing for the sake of his mother as only a fraction of what his family was owed. He could have as easily been here wearing broad arrows as a red coat and that ridiculous hat.' Mrs Mulrooney did not approve of the dress hats the Buffs wore – tall and cylindrical, with a small brim and a plume sticking out the top. She saw no point to them, and had occasionally threatened to use Slattery's as a duster.

Monsarrat listened to Mrs Mulrooney's tale with astonishment. Slattery had always been light, with enough of the rogue about him to make him interesting, but not enough to make him seem untrustworthy. He had none of the darkness which Monsarrat
would have associated with such a history. He said as much to Mrs Mulrooney.

‘Oh, but he does,' she said. ‘He's uncommonly good at hiding it – I'll give you that. But on one occasion, he got a hold of some sly grog – a terrible thing for those who aren't used to it – and he came hammering on the wall of my room in the small hours. Heaven alone knows how everyone else stayed asleep, or perhaps they didn't, they're just so used to hearing drunkards late at night, but I bundled him into the kitchen, got a slurred promise from him to stay there until I went and dressed. By the time I got back, his head was on the table and he was drooling into those little grooves in the wood. So naturally I had to hit him in the back of the head to wake him up.'

Monsarrat glanced down at the table briefly, then asked, ‘What did he want from you?'

‘I don't know, and I doubt he did. Perhaps he had some vague idea of having me grant him absolution for being taken with drink. I asked him what had got him into this state, and he said he'd remembered that morning it was his sister's birthday. She's dead now, he said. He said an evil man blighted her, and then moved on to the rest of the family. He was cursing the man – he used one of my favourites, actually, wished the fellow's cat would eat him and then the devil eat the cat. He was wailing about it so much that I readied a pail of water to dump over him, just to shut him up – I was greatly concerned he would wake the major and Mrs Shelborne. This was a couple of months ago, you see, before the major left and herself got ill.'

In spite of everything, Monsarrat found himself smiling at the image of a dripping-wet Slattery. ‘And did you carry through on your threats?'

‘As it turned out, I didn't need to. I was well prepared to' – Monsarrat didn't doubt this – ‘but all of a sudden he went deadly calm, and he said he'd come by some information which might help make amends, to allow his mother's soul to lie quietly in her grave, and his sister's too.'

‘What information?'

‘I'm not entirely sure. But he said he'd been helping unload a ship and had found himself holding a packet of letters. He said the address on one of the letters – the place that it was from – showed that while the tree was still standing and rotten to its core, some of the branches might at least be pruned.'

‘Well, that's rather cryptic of him.'

‘Would you ever stop using words like that, Mr Monsarrat? Be a plain-speaking fellow – people will appreciate it.'

‘I do apologise. What I meant was, it's puzzling.'

‘That it is. I pressed him for more information, but he just rambled. He was becoming very difficult to understand then. Kept saying names – I assume the names of his brothers and sisters – and wailing for them to come out and join him here, where there was good farmland to be had. He was really getting most irritating. And then put his head down on the table again, and that was it. Snoring within seconds. I took off his neckerchief and put it under his mouth – if something had to soak up the drool, better that than my table. I went to bed then, and resolved to return to the kitchen a little early so I could send him on his way before he was missed.

‘When I came back a few hours later, he was already gone. He showed up for his usual morning cup of tea, looking a little bit bleary, and begged me to say nothing. He said that men misspeak after strong drink, particularly if they're not used to it. You arrived a short time later, actually. You seemed too absorbed in your own matters to really notice the state of him, although how you could have missed the smell coming off him, I'm not sure.'

‘I probably didn't miss it, as such. I imagine I would have just ignored it – I'm used to Slattery and the rest of the soldiery smelling rather ripe.'

‘Ah, you must never miss things like that, Mr Monsarrat. Even if you just tuck them away at the back of your head, and don't mention them to anyone. Like I've tucked away the fact that you asked me about wallpaper a little while ago, and then stalked off without telling me where your line of questioning was going.'

Monsarrat sighed. ‘I was going to tell you, but you've enough on your mind at the moment, and I didn't want you to worry. It's probably nothing, one of those random connections that seem like they might be significant and turn out to be meaningless.'