Bettany's Book (80 page)

I remembered Felix’s mother. The absconders’ misused woman? Or Goldspink’s?

Now the question arose of what was to be done. I sent one of my stockmen, a reliable Scot from the Border country, the sort of rustic with a lifetime behind him of lonely rides in harsh climates, riding home alone, to give the news, see if Felix were there, and if not, search for him. Should he find the Port Phillip Pass blocked by snow and was concerned for his safety, he was to camp and wait for conditions to improve or for the rest of us to arrive.

I had no choice but to take my flock westwards towards my brother’s, and we started out. I dreamed at night, in the camps in the middle of our flocks, that Felix presented himself with a small wound in his hand, which he presented to me for inspection, and rejoined an expedition in which snow and precipices were the only peril. Even in dreams I did not fear for him as one would fear for someone who abandoned a scene of violence in Van Diemen’s Land or say, Nottingham. A killing so far beyond the Limits of Location was a killing beyond the purview of authority, even if it could be shown to be Felix’s work. We would find him somewhere soon, and all he would need to be rescued from was the weight of maligned Goldspink’s blood.

At my brother’s Broken River station we did not even pause a night. The place looked comfortless, for Elizabeth had departed on her journey to England, taking my little niece with her. I had time for a quick meeting with my father, who though he looked balder and more crooked in the legs, retained a young man’s briskness. ‘You would not believe how the book prospers, Jonathan,’ he assured me, then lowered his voice. ‘Simon is a generous son, but too long a contact with one’s father may become tiresome. I may visit you.’ His eyes flashed. ‘Simon has heard a rumour you console your solitary state with the companionship of a handsome felon. Eh, is it true?’

I stammered, and left him while he was still laughing.

We were all dismayed to find Felix had not returned to Nugan Ganway. That fact diminished the joy of my reunion with Bernard. How much freer, however, could affection be now that I had shown myself I could continue to exist outside her salutary presence. Since Long was particularly full of self-reproach, I needed to take the unusual role of comforter. He is not dead in the mountains, I assured Long. He may be in some town, sheltering with a clergyman.

Within the next day, my less-than-confident guess proved itself correct. A note arrived in the forenoon from the Reverend Paltinglass at Cooma Creek, brought by the sixteen-year-old son of the surveyor there. The note said simply, ‘Bettany, Please come at your earliest chance. There is someone harbouring here who much wishes to see you.’

I knew at once who it was that was ‘harbouring’ there, and after telling Long I might have good news for him soon, I drove the phaeton out, waving broadly and like a man almost jubilant to Bernard.

The Cooma manse looked inviting in last light, and I suddenly found myself asking why I chose still to live in rough-hewn timber and beneath bark roofing. At some cost and with now and then a broken axle, things could be altered. We settlers in these outer regions kept to our slabs and our bark roofs in part as a protest – no one would say, from Westminster to Sydney, whether we had an absolute right to our habitation and the ground beneath it. We paid licences, but our title had not been finally confirmed. It was as if we chose to live in bush squalor in defiance of all those administrations, imperial and colonial, which would not once and for all say, ‘This land is yours.’ But what was lost by taking a chance of something more solid, and four-square, within
which I might pursue with Bernard a new order of life? And if we lost it, by some shift of law – well, government would have a fight on their hands! I would not live any longer in a rawness which had outgrown its charms! It was in part the expectation of seeing Felix which made me dream of such things.

I knocked at the door, unflustered at the idea that Reverend Paltinglass might greet me ambiguously. There had been no ‘Dear Bettany’ in the note, only the curt ‘Bettany’. Paltinglass came to the door himself, in his shirt sleeves.

‘Come in, Bettany,’ he told me.

‘You have Felix?’

‘He is a remarkable boy indeed,’ was all Paltinglass would tell me, as if sinfulness had diminished my need of information. He took me straight away into a small front room. Here sat wide-eyed, fresh-cheeked Felix in a clean shirt provided for him by Paltinglass, and thumbing a bound volume of an illustrated paper with such an intense interest that he did not at first notice me come in. I had to say his name. When he heard me, his hands trembled.

‘Felix, it is good to see you well,’ I told him warmly. But still he said nothing. ‘I didn’t understand why you had to ride away and leave us. We would not have done you any harm at all.’

He stared into the darker corner of the room.

‘I was not frightened as much of you, Mr Bettany,’ he said. ‘I was frightened of other things.’

Paltinglass said, ‘The lad claims to have had a most extraordinary ride. Isn’t that so, Felix?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell Mr Bettany.’

Felix seemed to feel no pride in the narration. ‘I crossed a range to Bombala. And then again to Cooma Creek.’

‘Perhaps you could tell me what it all means, Bettany,’ the minister suggested. ‘The boy said, when I asked him why he came to me: “Sanctuary”.’

‘Sanctuary?’

‘Yes. In the mediaeval sense. But he would not tell me why he needed it.’ Paltinglass seemed almost amused by that.

‘Confession is not a rite of the Church of England, Mr Paltinglass,’ I told the minister as amiably as I could. ‘Would you mind if I spoke to Felix alone, sir?’

The priest nodded. I have this to say for him: he engaged in no play-acting about whether it was theologically or morally safe to leave Felix in the same room as me. I wanted him gone, however, not least because the loss of Goldspink had not and need not be advertised.

Paltinglass excused himself, and I was left with Felix, with that edginess, uncertainty and embarrassment in the air which I realised was always part of our conversation. From the day I had found him we had been friends, yet had never been easy with each other or comprehended each other’s mind in any but the most superficial way. He had been a potential son to me, but I had kept him at a distance.

‘You said you were frightened of other things. What things?’

Felix lowered his head. ‘Why blood, sir, and the spirit I had let out into the air.’

I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Tell me, Felix. You don’t need to be fearful. Did Goldspink try to attack you?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘No.’ His answer had an air about it as if he were saying, ‘Do your best to ask a question which means something!’

‘Did you strike him? Did you strike Goldspink? None would blame you. But surely, that’s why you fled.’

‘The policeman here in Cooma Creek took me in charge for stealing my horse. That’s because I was black.’

‘You didn’t steal your horse. It was a horse I gave you.’

‘Yes, but Mr Paltinglass set them right,’ he said with a small smile. ‘And once the policeman went, I cried sanctuary!’

‘A man, and a boy, is entitled to protect himself,’ I said. ‘His blood and his gods tell him. You did not need to escape. You needed solely to present yourself to me and say what had happened. In any case, I don’t think you have much to fear now. If Goldspink attacked you …’

He looked at me frankly. ‘Sir, you say “attacked”. You have said it over and over.’

‘I know. I have reasons for that.’

‘I was escaping Mr Long.’

That set me back. Then, ‘Why try to escape dear old Long?’

‘He was in an awful fury. I had never seen such a fury.’

‘
Long
?’

‘He was throwing huge stones in all directions. Whitey saw it and galloped off, whether I wanted or no.’

‘But you must tell me,’ I insisted. ‘If I am to help, you must tell me. Who hurt Goldspink?’

‘I hurt him,’ said Felix, beginning to weep. ‘I found the right branch and beat in his head.’ He wept more, as I held his shoulder. At last, he gathered himself together and delivered a clear line of unaffected narration. ‘I woke early, you see, Mr Bettany, and went out to talk to Whitey, since I felt much happier in her company. Goldspink came from the house, walking softly and said to me that he must talk to me and tell me a secret. He drew me away, and after we walked a little way, I said, “What is the secret, Mr Goldspink? I think we are out of Mr Long’s earshot.” And he said, “By heaven, you speak like the very scholar, son. That Bettany fellow takes the credit for you and, I believe, will show you off occasionally. People even think he is your father. But I shall tell you who is your father. I am your father, sonny. I am your father. I knew your mother. You come from me.”’

The horror of that moment brought a pause, but by swallowing, Felix bravely did his best to shorten it.

‘I remembered some things from my babyhood. I remembered it might be true. I beheld like an infant a blow he directed at my mother. Oh I remember my mother and our first meeting, Mr Bettany. I shall never forget those times.’ He spoke like the veteran of wars, rather than a fourteen-year-old scholar. ‘But I could not bear for him to say he was my father. I felt my heart trying to get out of my chest and my brain … my brain … I could not bear it. And I chose the right piece of fallen timber and struck him. I struck him many times, since I wanted to drive those words back into the earth.’

He howled now, and added as if to a roster of anguish, ‘And why did you curse Mrs Bettany and your son? Why did you sing their deaths?’

This was the most awful question and I grasped his hands. ‘I did not curse Mrs Bettany,’ I assured him, though I could not assure myself.

He was full of sobs now, and it took a time to comfort him, holding him close. He should not have to occupy such a doomed world, a world of curses and anger. ‘Please, Felix, I did not curse Mrs Bettany or George. George was my son.’ By now, I was adding my tears to his.

‘You punished Goldspink for what he had said?’

‘I did.’

‘With many blows?’

‘With many.’

‘You said Long was angry. Did he add blows?’

‘No,’ said Felix and coughed. He had got beyond his worst fit of woe now. He explained he had gone back to the hut in terror, chased by
Goldspink’s howling spirit, and had saddled Whitey, for he knew he must be hanged …

‘No, not you,’ I assured him, but he brushed that away.

He was mounted on Whitey when Long came running out, grabbed his bridle, and started asking questions. ‘I told him to let me go,’ said Felix, ‘and that I would be hanged.’ That was when Long began throwing stones, not at Felix, but at things, and at the air, and cursing, saying, ‘It was
my
task to punish that Goldspink. It was
my
task!’

The hullabaloo and stone-throwing disturbed Whitey, who darted away. ‘When I had her back in control, I kept on the way, back up the mountain.’

‘Why though?’

‘Away from the mess! Away from it all! From Long’s crankiness too. I wanted to be gone, sir! From that blood!’ And now, though his lips kept moving, no further explanations came. Yet he had a level stare.

Long had lied even to me for the boy’s sake. Long’s story had been designed to create greater doubt about Goldspink’s death than Felix had allowed me. To open up the chance of hands other than Felix’s! Even in Long’s lies there was a flinty honour.

I set in seriously to reassure Felix. I repeated that if ever it were necessary to swear to Goldspink’s malice, many of us would do it. Long would do it as fast as I would. And no one knew anyhow. Some shepherd would bring the tale to Treloar, but Treloar would write it all off to some brawl in the trans-alpine bush, where men might be expected to perish unexpectedly. Sanctuary was a fine idea, but he did not need it. Etc., etc.

‘You can come back with me,’ I told him, ‘and you and Long and I will not speak of this any more.’

‘You have been very kind to me,’ said Felix, looking away again. ‘Everyone tells me so. Mrs Loosely, Mr Paltinglass …’

‘You are a credit to your people,’ I told him.

‘But I wish to go elsewhere.’

I asked whatever for. Of course he was fourteen years. Fourteen-year-old wanderers were not utterly unknown in the towns, in the bush, or at sea. ‘What will you do?’

‘I would like to trade,’ he said.

‘That’s very well, but in what? And you will need capital.’

‘I shall get capital,’ he said, ‘from working on a ship.’

I asked as expected, what ship? Where would he trade?

‘The outside world,’ he said. He picked up the illustrated paper he had
been reading and brought it to me. He pointed to a picture of a tropic harbour. The picture was entitled ‘The Commercial Settlement of Singapore’. There was a further picture of the
temenggong
, the Sultan Tunku Hussein. ‘You see there,’ said Felix. ‘A black man.’

‘And here,’ I said, so that he would not have too idyllic a view of the place, ‘here is the British Resident and the officials of the East India Company having tea.’

‘I might achieve a concession from the East India Company.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sleep on the matter? Do you think you can sleep?’

He nodded. ‘I feel happier.’

I told him I was happy at that.

He said, ‘You stand between what I have done and me.’ But that reflection brought on tears again.

‘We shall sleep in the same room,’ I promised.

We shared the same room, provided, in spite of my moral unsatisfactoriness, by kindly Paltinglass, and Felix seemed to be comfortable, and slept profoundly. In the morning I left him to his illustrated papers and his further studies of Singapore and other places and went for a walk throughout the town, its three longitudinal streets, its four latitudinal. In the early air, the plain timbers of the
Cooma Creek Courier
building still smelled of sap. The question I was dealing with was whether indeed Felix should return to Nugan Ganway. Surely no one would want to prosecute him over this, but he was so open in explaining his guilt that if any inquiries were made, it was clear he would do little to protect himself. I could return him to my hearth and his books and Bernard that very day, but was it as safe to do so as I had been telling him?