Read Wild Island Online

Authors: Jennifer Livett

Wild Island

First published in 2016

Copyright © Jennifer Livett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone:
(61 2) 8425 0100

Email:
[email protected]

Web:
www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 9781760113834

ISBN 9781952534850

Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design: Alissa Dinallo

Cover image: Elisabeth Ansley / Trevillion Images

TZARA: It means, my dear Henry, that the causes we know everything about depend on causes we know very little about, which depend on causes we know absolutely nothing about. And it is the duty of the artist to jeer and howl and belch at the delusion that infinite generations of real effects can be inferred from the gross expression of apparent cause.

Tom Stoppard,
Travesties

CONTENTS

LIST OF HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

LIST OF FICTIONAL CHARACTERS

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

PART TWO

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

PART THREE

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

List of historical characters

Sir John Franklin
Arctic explorer; Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land (VDL), 1837–44

Jane Franklin
His wife

Eleanor Franklin
Sir John's daughter by his first wife, Eleanor Porden

Miss Williamson
Governess to Eleanor Franklin

Sophy Cracroft
Jane Franklin's companion; niece to Sir John

Mary Franklin
Jane Franklin's companion; niece to Sir John

Henry Elliot
Sir John's young aide-de-camp

Charles O'Hara Booth
Captain in the 21st Regiment; Commandant of Port Arthur Penal Station in VDL, 1833–44

Colonel George Arthur
Lieutenant Governor of VDL for twelve years before Franklin was appointed

Eliza Arthur
His wife

Archdeacon Hutchins
Came to VDL with the Franklins

Alexander Maconochie
Geographer, convict reformer and former naval officer; came to VDL with the Franklins as Sir John's private secretary

Mary Maconochie
His wife

Dr Pilkington
Surgeon to the 21st Regiment in VDL

Lizzie Eagle
Dr Pilkington's stepdaughter

Thomas Lempriere
Commissariat Officer at Port Arthur Penal Station

Charlotte Lempriere
His wife

Dr Cornelius Gavin Casey
Medico at Port Arthur

George Boyes
Colonial Auditor in VDL, later Acting Colonial Secretary

‘Bobby' Knopwood
Chaplain in Hobart Town, VDL, since settlement

John Montagu
Colonial Secretary in VDL

Matthew Forster
Chief Police Magistrate in VDL

‘Mad' Judge Montagu
Judge in VDL; no relation to John Montagu

John Price
Police Magistrate in VDL

Charles Swanston
Director of the Derwent Bank in Hobart Town

Thomas Gregson
Wealthy owner of ‘Risdon', or ‘Restdown', in VDL; later briefly Premier of Tasmania

Picton Beete, Wharton Young and John Peddie
Charles Booth's friends in the 21st Regiment

John Gould
The ‘Bird Man': taxidermist, bird illustrator and collector

Eliza Gould
Artist; wife to John Gould

Mathinna
Aboriginal child taken in by Jane Franklin

Duterrau
Artist

Miss Perigal
Duterrau's sister-in-law

Thomas Boch
Artist and former convict

Tom Cracroft
Brother to Sophy Cracroft; a clerk in Sir John Franklin's office in VDL

Arthur Sweet
Clerk; friend to Tom Cracroft

John Philip Gell
Young clergyman sent from England by Dr Arnold of ‘Rugby' to be Head of the new VDL College

Captain Ainsworth
Later Major; aide to Sir John Franklin; courting Sophy Cracroft

Captain James Clark Ross
Commander of the
Erebus
, Arctic explorer, leader of the ‘Magnetic Expedition' of 1839–41

Captain Francis Crozier
Commander of the
Terror
, Arctic explorer, Ross's close friend and second-in-command of the ‘Magnetic Expedition'; courting Sophy Cracroft

Lieutenant Henry Porden Kay
Cousin to Eleanor Franklin; came to VDL with the ‘Magnetic Expedition'

‘Mick' (Thomas) Walker
Convict who, as leader of seven other convicts, escaped from Port Arthur in a whaleboat in 1839

Laplace
Captain of the French exploratory ship
L'Artémise

Mr Aislabie
Clergyman at Richmond, VDL

‘Tulip' Wright
Constable in Hobart Town

List of fictional characters

Jane Eyre
Orphan; governess at ‘Thornfield Hall'

Edward Rochester
Owner of ‘Thornfield'

Adèle
Pupil to Jane Eyre; Edward Rochester's ward

Rowland Rochester
Older brother to Edward

Mrs Alice Fairfax
Housekeeper at ‘Thornfield Hall'; poor relation to the Rochesters

Bertha Mason
Woman from the West Indies, possibly mad . . .

Grace Poole
Bertha Mason's keeper

Harriet Adair
Artist; a widow

Nina
Harriet's stepmother

Gus Bergman
Surveyor in VDL

St John Wallace
Clergyman; cousin to Jane Eyre

Louisa Wallace
His wife

George Quigley
Captain of the
Adastra

Mr and Mrs Chesney Property
owners in VDL; passengers on the
Adastra

Polly and Natty
Their grandchildren

Lyddy
Nurserymaid to Ned Chesney

James Seymour
Doctor; passenger on the
Adastra

Robert McLeod
Newspaperman; passenger on the
Adastra

Mrs T (Tench)
Sailor-woman on the
Adastra

Peg Groundwater
Lodging-house keeper in VDL; an Orkney woman

Nellie Jack
Peg's convict servant

Mrs Parry
Property owner in VDL; friend to Knopwood

Augusta Drewitt
Friend to Sophy Cracroft

Ada Sweet
Shopkeeper; mother to Arthur Sweet

Seth Carmichael
Former convict; landlord of the Eagle and Child Inn at New Norfolk; later a horse-breeder

Dinah Carmichael
His wife

Catherine Tyndale
Wife to a lieutenant in the 21st Regiment when it was in the West Indies

Prologue

READER, SHE DID NOT MARRY HIM. OR RATHER, WHEN AT LAST
she did, it was not so straightforward as she implies in her memoirs. Jane Eyre is a truthful person and her story is fascinating, but some things she could not bring herself to say. Certain episodes in her past, she admits, ‘form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt upon'. When she announces in that jubilant sentence, ‘Reader, I married him', and goes on to describe their quiet Church wedding, she is choosing to ignore the hasty ceremony that had taken place on the ship two months before.

They were married again when they returned to England—to make doubly certain all was legal, to sign their names in the parish records. Why mention that earlier wedding, so sombre, so desperate? In the heaving, creaking old
Adastra
on her way to the colony they never reached, with the fear of imminent death, and the odd little group of witnesses, of whom I was one.

My name is Harriet Adair, and forty years ago on that ship I was Jane Eyre's companion. That voyage also brought me friendship with another intrepid Jane: Lady Franklin. Her husband, Sir John, the Arctic Lion, was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land during the six turbulent years when Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester had good reason to be closely interested in the island.

It is now, as I have said, four decades since that time, and those of us who know what really happened—about the Franklin debâcle, and
the Rochester matter—become fewer each year. Mr Gregson therefore asked me to write my account of those days, which he intended to collate with his own and several others, but he died two years ago, and now all the papers have been passed to George Boyes's son. On the understanding, of course, that they shall not be used while any of those closely involved are still alive. I feel certain now that this will be necessary. Visiting London recently, I found my old friend, Sophy Cracroft, Sir John Franklin's niece and Jane Franklin's long-time companion, copying out Lady Franklin's letters for publication—but she is editing them ruthlessly, deleting whole paragraphs and pages. She destroys each original as she finishes it. Some she burns without copying. When she told me I cried out, ‘How can you, Sophy? This is our history, our lives.'

She gave me one of her steely looks, half amused, half irritated. When she was young, she was slim, almost angular in a way that always seemed to me part of her character, but now in later life she is stout, with plump rosy cheeks that give her a benevolent look. This is misleading; her mind is as angular as ever.

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