The evening passed as it had passed a hundred times before; and having
smoked a pipe at the barracks, Captain Frere returned home. His home was
a cottage on the New Town Road--a cottage which he had occupied since
his appointment as Assistant Police Magistrate, an appointment given to
him as a reward for his exertions in connection with the Osprey mutiny.
Captain Maurice Frere had risen in life. Quartered in Hobart Town,
he had assumed a position in society, and had held several of those
excellent appointments which in the year 1834 were bestowed upon
officers of garrison. He had been Superintendent of Works at
Bridgewater, and when he got his captaincy, Assistant Police Magistrate
at Bothwell. The affair of the Osprey made a noise; and it was tacitly
resolved that the first “good thing” that fell vacant should be given to
the gallant preserver of Major Vickers's child.
Major Vickers also prospered. He had always been a careful man, and
having saved some money, had purchased land on favourable terms. The
“assignment system” enabled him to cultivate portions of it at a small
expense, and, following the usual custom, he stocked his run with cattle
and sheep. He had sold his commission, and was now a comparatively
wealthy man. He owned a fine estate; the house he lived in was purchased
property. He was in good odour at Government House, and his office of
Superintendent of Convicts caused him to take an active part in that
local government which keeps a man constantly before the public.
Major Vickers, a colonist against his will, had become, by force of
circumstances, one of the leading men in Van Diemen's Land. His daughter
was a good match for any man; and many ensigns and lieutenants, cursing
their hard lot in “country quarters”, many sons of settlers living on
their father's station among the mountains, and many dapper clerks on
the civil establishment envied Maurice Frere his good fortune. Some went
so far as to say that the beautiful daughter of “Regulation Vickers” was
too good for the coarse red-faced Frere, who was noted for his fondness
for low society, and overbearing, almost brutal demeanour. No one
denied, however, that Captain Frere was a valuable officer. It was said
that, in consequence of his tastes, he knew more about the tricks of
convicts than any man on the island. It was said, even, that he was wont
to disguise himself, and mix with the pass-holders and convict
servants, in order to learn their signs and mysteries. When in charge at
Bridgewater it had been his delight to rate the chain-gangs in their
own hideous jargon, and to astound a new-comer by his knowledge of his
previous history. The convict population hated and cringed to him, for,
with his brutality, and violence, he mingled a ferocious good humour,
that resulted sometimes in tacit permission to go without the letter
of the law. Yet, as the convicts themselves said, “a man was never safe
with the Captain”; for, after drinking and joking with them, as the Sir
Oracle of some public-house whose hostess he delighted to honour, he
would disappear through a side door just as the constables burst in
at the back, and show himself as remorseless, in his next morning's
sentence of the captured, as if he had never entered a tap-room in all
his life. His superiors called this “zeal”; his inferiors “treachery”.
For himself, he laughed. “Everything is fair to those wretches,” he was
accustomed to say.
As the time for his marriage approached, however, he had in a measure
given up these exploits, and strove, by his demeanour, to make his
acquaintances forget several remarkable scandals concerning his
private life, for the promulgation of which he once cared little. When
Commandant at the Maria Island, and for the first two years after his
return from the unlucky expedition to Macquarie Harbour, he had not
suffered any fear of society's opinion to restrain his vices, but,
as the affection for the pure young girl, who looked upon him as her
saviour from a dreadful death, increased in honest strength, he had
resolved to shut up those dark pages in his colonial experience, and to
read therein no more. He was not remorseful, he was not even disgusted.
He merely came to the conclusion that, when a man married, he was to
consider certain extravagances common to all bachelors as at an end.
He had “had his fling, like all young men”, perhaps he had been foolish
like most young men, but no reproachful ghost of past misdeeds haunted
him. His nature was too prosaic to admit the existence of such phantoms.
Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above him, that in
raising his eyes to her, he lost sight of all the sordid creatures to
whose level he had once debased himself, and had come in part to regard
the sins he had committed, before his redemption by the love of this
bright young creature, as evil done by him under a past condition of
existence, and for the consequences of which he was not responsible. One
of the consequences, however, was very close to him at this moment. His
convict servant had, according to his instructions, sat up for him, and
as he entered, the man handed him a letter, bearing a superscription in
a female hand.
“Who brought this?” asked Frere, hastily tearing it open to read.
“The groom, sir. He said that there was a gentleman at the 'George the
Fourth' who wished to see you.”
Frere smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had dictated such
a message, and then frowned in anger at the contents of the letter. “You
needn't wait,” he said to the man. “I shall have to go back again, I
suppose.”
Changing his forage cap for a soft hat, and selecting a stick from a
miscellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his steps.
“What does she want now?” he asked himself fiercely, as he strode down
the moonlit road; but beneath the fierceness there was an under-current
of petulance, which implied that, whatever “she” did want, she had a
right to expect.
The “George the Fourth” was a long low house, situated in Elizabeth
Street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the narrow panes of glass
in its windows, and the ostentatious affectation of red curtains and
homely comfort, gave to it a spurious appearance of old English
jollity. A knot of men round the door melted into air as Captain Frere
approached, for it was now past eleven o'clock, and all persons found
in the streets after eight could be compelled to “show their pass” or
explain their business. The convict constables were not scrupulous in
the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of Frere, clad in the
blue serge which he affected as a summer costume, looked not unlike that
of a convict constable.
Pushing open the side door with the confident manner of one well
acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and made his way along a
narrow passage to a glass door at the further end. A tap upon this door
brought a white-faced, pock-pitted Irish girl, who curtsied with servile
recognition of the visitor, and ushered him upstairs. The room into
which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows looking into
the street, and was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the
candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly from a table
between the windows. As Frere entered, a little terrier ran barking to
his feet. It was evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle
of a silk dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman; and
Frere, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face
with Sarah Purfoy.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Pray, sit down.”
This was the only greeting that passed between them, and Frere sat down,
in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that twinkled with rings.
The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this woman had dealt
gently with her. Her foot was as small and her hand as white as of yore.
Her hair, bound close about her head, was plentiful and glossy, and
her eyes had lost none of their dangerous brightness. Her figure was
coarser, and the white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed
an outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The most
noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned no longer that
delicate purity which they once boasted, but had become thicker, while
here and there showed those faint red streaks--as though the rich blood
throbbed too painfully in the veins--which are the first signs of the
decay of “fine” women. With middle age and the fullness of figure
to which most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that
indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual absence of
moral restraint never fails to produce.
Maurice Frere spoke first; he was anxious to bring his visit to as
speedy a termination as possible. “What do you want of me?” he asked.
Sarah Purfoy laughed; a forced laugh, that sounded so unnatural, that
Frere turned to look at her. “I want you to do me a favour--a very great
favour; that is if it will not put you out of the way.”
“What do you mean?” asked Frere roughly, pursing his lips with a sullen
air. “Favour! What do you call this?” striking the sofa on which he
sat. “Isn't this a favour? What do you call your precious house and all
that's in it? Isn't that a favour? What do you mean?”
To his utter astonishment the woman replied by shedding tears. For some
time he regarded her in silence, as if unwilling to be softened by such
shallow device, but eventually felt constrained to say something. “Have
you been drinking again?” he asked, “or what's the matter with you?
Tell me what it is you want, and have done with it. I don't know what
possessed me to come here at all.”
Sarah sat upright, and dashed away her tears with one passionate hand.
“I am ill, can't you see, you fool!” said she. “The news has unnerved
me. If I have been drinking, what then? It's nothing to you, is it?”
“Oh, no,” returned the other, “it's nothing to me. You are the principal
party concerned. If you choose to bloat yourself with brandy, do it by
all means.”
“You don't pay for it, at any rate!” said she, with quickness of
retaliation which showed that this was not the only occasion on which
they had quarrelled.
“Come,” said Frere, impatiently brutal, “get on. I can't stop here all
night.”
She suddenly rose, and crossed to where he was standing.
“Maurice, you were very fond of me once.”
“Once,” said Maurice.
“Not so very many years ago.”
“Hang it!” said he, shifting his arm from beneath her hand, “don't let
us have all that stuff over again. It was before you took to drinking
and swearing, and going raving mad with passion, any way.”
“Well, dear,” said she, with her great glittering eyes belying the soft
tones of her voice, “I suffered for it, didn't I? Didn't you turn me out
into the streets? Didn't you lash me with your whip like a dog? Didn't
you put me in gaol for it, eh? It's hard to struggle against you,
Maurice.”
The compliment to his obstinacy seemed to please him--perhaps the crafty
woman intended that it should--and he smiled.
“Well, there; let old times be old times, Sarah. You haven't done badly,
after all,” and he looked round the well-furnished room. “What do you
want?”
“There was a transport came in this morning.”
“Well?”
“You know who was on board her, Maurice!”
Maurice brought one hand into the palm of the other with a rough laugh.
“Oh, that's it, is it! 'Gad, what a flat I was not to think of it
before! You want to see him, I suppose?” She came close to him, and, in
her earnestness, took his hand. “I want to save his life!”
“Oh, that be hanged, you know! Save his life! It can't be done.”
“You can do it, Maurice.”
“I save John Rex's life?” cried Frere. “Why, you must be mad!”
“He is the only creature that loves me, Maurice--the only man who cares
for me. He has done no harm. He only wanted to be free--was it not
natural? You can save him if you like. I only ask for his life. What
does it matter to you? A miserable prisoner--his death would be of no
use. Let him live, Maurice.”
Maurice laughed. “What have I to do with it?”
“You are the principal witness against him. If you say that he behaved
well--and he did behave well, you know: many men would have left you to
starve--they won't hang him.”
“Oh, won't they! That won't make much difference.”
“Ah, Maurice, be merciful!” She bent towards him, and tried to retain
his hand, but he withdrew it.
“You're a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover--a man who
left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he cared,” he said, with a
galling recollection of his humiliation of five years back. “Save him!
Confound him, not I!”
“Ah, Maurice, you will.” She spoke with a suppressed sob in her voice.
“What is it to you? You don't care for me now. You beat me, and turned
me out of doors, though I never did you wrong. This man was a husband
to me--long, long before I met you. He never did you any harm; he never
will. He will bless you if you save him, Maurice.”
Frere jerked his head impatiently. “Bless me!” he said. “I don't want
his blessings. Let him swing. Who cares?”
Still she persisted, with tears streaming from her eyes, with white arms
upraised, on her knees even, catching at his coat, and beseeching him
in broken accents. In her wild, fierce beauty and passionate abandonment
she might have been a deserted Ariadne--a suppliant Medea. Anything
rather than what she was--a dissolute, half-maddened woman, praying for
the pardon of her convict husband.
Maurice Frere flung her off with an oath. “Get up!” he cried brutally,
“and stop that nonsense. I tell you the man's as good as dead for all I
shall do to save him.”
At this repulse, her pent-up passion broke forth. She sprang to her
feet, and, pushing back the hair that in her frenzied pleading had
fallen about her face, poured out upon him a torrent of abuse. “You! Who
are you, that you dare to speak to me like that? His little finger is
worth your whole body. He is a man, a brave man, not a coward, like you.
A coward! Yes, a coward! a coward! A coward! You are very brave with
defenceless men and weak women. You have beaten me until I was bruised
black, you cur; but who ever saw you attack a man unless he was
chained or bound? Do not I know you? I have seen you taunt a man at
the triangles, until I wished the screaming wretch could get loose,
and murder you as you deserve! You will be murdered one of these days,
Maurice Frere--take my word for it. Men are flesh and blood, and flesh
and blood won't endure the torments you lay on it!”
“There, that'll do,” says Frere, growing paler. “Don't excite yourself.”
“I know you, you brutal coward. I have not been your mistress--God
forgive me!--without learning you by heart. I've seen your ignorance and
your conceit. I've seen the men who ate your food and drank your
wine laugh at you. I've heard what your friends say; I've heard the
comparisons they make. One of your dogs has more brains than you, and
twice as much heart. And these are the men they send to rule us! Oh,
Heaven! And such an animal as this has life and death in his hand! He
may hang, may he? I'll hang with him, then, and God will forgive me for
murder, for I will kill you!”
Frere had cowered before this frightful torrent of rage, but, at the
scream which accompanied the last words, he stepped forward as though
to seize her. In her desperate courage, she flung herself before him.
“Strike me! You daren't! I defy you! Bring up the wretched creatures who
learn the way to Hell in this cursed house, and let them see you do it.
Call them! They are old friends of yours. They all know Captain Maurice
Frere.”
“Sarah!”
“You remember Lucy Barnes--poor little Lucy Barnes that stole
sixpennyworth of calico. She is downstairs now. Would you know her if
you saw her? She isn't the bright-faced baby she was when they sent her
here to 'reform', and when Lieutenant Frere wanted a new housemaid from
the Factory! Call for her!--call! do you hear? Ask any one of those
beasts whom you lash and chain for Lucy Barnes. He'll tell you all
about her--ay, and about many more--many more poor souls that are at
the bidding of any drunken brute that has stolen a pound note to fee the
Devil with! Oh, you good God in Heaven, will You not judge this man?”
Frere trembled. He had often witnessed this creature's whirlwinds
of passion, but never had he seen her so violent as this. Her frenzy
frightened him. “For Heaven's sake, Sarah, be quiet. What is it you
want? What would you do?”
“I'll go to this girl you want to marry, and tell her all I know of you.
I have seen her in the streets--have seen her look the other way when
I passed her--have seen her gather up her muslin skirts when my silks
touched her--I that nursed her, that heard her say her baby-prayers (O
Jesus, pity me!)--and I know what she thinks of women like me. She is
good--and virtuous--and cold. She would shudder at you if she knew what
I know. Shudder! She would hate you! And I will tell her! Ay, I will!
You will be respectable, will you? A model husband! Wait till I tell her
my story--till I send some of these poor women to tell theirs. You kill
my love; I'll blight and ruin yours!”
Frere caught her by both wrists, and with all his strength forced her to
her knees. “Don't speak her name,” he said in a hoarse voice, “or I'll
do you a mischief. I know all you mean to do. I'm not such a fool as not
to see that. Be quiet! Men have murdered women like you, and now I know
how they came to do it.”
For a few minutes a silence fell upon the pair, and at last Frere,
releasing her hands, fell back from her.
“I'll do what you want, on one condition.”
“What?”
“That you leave this place.”
“Where for?”
“Anywhere--the farther the better. I'll pay your passage to Sydney, and
you go or stay there as you please.”
She had grown calmer, hearing him thus relenting. “But this house,
Maurice?”
“You are not in debt?”
“No.”
“Well, leave it. It's your own affair, not mine. If I help you, you must
go.”
“May I see him?”
“No.”
“Ah, Maurice!”
“You can see him in the dock if you like,” says Frere, with a laugh, cut
short by a flash of her eyes. “There, I didn't mean to offend you.”
“Offend me! Go on.”
“Listen here,” said he doggedly. “If you will go away, and promise never
to interfere with me by word or deed, I'll do what you want.”
“What will you do?” she asked, unable to suppress a smile at the victory
she had won.
“I will not say all I know about this man. I will say he befriended me.
I will do my best to save his life.”
“You can save it if you like.”
“Well, I will try. On my honour, I will try.”
“I must believe you, I suppose?” said she doubtfully; and then, with
a sudden pitiful pleading, in strange contrast to her former violence,
“You are not deceiving me, Maurice?”
“No. Why should I? You keep your promise, and I'll keep mine. Is it a
bargain?”
“Yes.”
He eyed her steadfastly for some seconds, and then turned on his heel.
As he reached the door she called him back. Knowing him as she did,
she felt that he would keep his word, and her feminine nature could not
resist a parting sneer.
“There is nothing in the bargain to prevent me helping him to escape!”
she said with a smile.
“Escape! He won't escape again, I'll go bail. Once get him in double
irons at Port Arthur, and he's safe enough.”
The smile on her face seemed infectious, for his own sullen features
relaxed. “Good night, Sarah,” he said.
She put out her hand, as if nothing had happened. “Good night, Captain
Frere. It's a bargain, then?”
“A bargain.”
“You have a long walk home. Will you have some brandy?”
“I don't care if I do,” he said, advancing to the table, and filling his
glass. “Here's a good voyage to you!”
Sarah Purfoy, watching him, burst into a laugh. “Human beings are queer
creatures,” she said. “Who would have thought that we had been calling
each other names just now? I say, I'm a vixen when I'm roused, ain't I,
Maurice?”
“Remember what you've promised,” said he, with a threat in his voice,
as he moved to the door. “You must be out of this by the next ship that
leaves.”
“Never fear, I'll go.”
Getting into the cool street directly, and seeing the calm stars
shining, and the placid water sleeping with a peace in which he had
no share, he strove to cast off the nervous fear that was on him. That
interview had frightened him, for it had made him think. It was hard
that, just as he had turned over a new leaf, this old blot should
come through to the clean page. It was cruel that, having comfortably
forgotten the past, he should be thus rudely reminded of it.