Morgan’s Run

something like English prosperity. One thing he did know: it would never breed a cozy village life, wherein a man tilled a few small fields and pastured a few more, and could walk to the local tavern in half an hour. If this place was tamed, the distances would be enormous and the sense of isolation all-pervasive, from how far away the tavern was to how far away a kindred civilization was.

He liked the feel of it, maybe because he communed with birds, and this was a land of birds. Soaring, wheeling, free. He flew the ocean, they flew the skies. And the sky was like no sky anywhere else, illimitable, pure. At night the heavens spread a sea of stars so dense they formed gauzy clouds, a web of cold and fiery infinity that rendered a man less significant than a drop of rain fallen into the ocean. He loved his insignificance; it comforted him, for he did not want to matter. Mattering reduced the world to Man’s toy, a grief. Richard sought God in a church because he had been brought up to do so, but Donovan’s God could not be so confined. Donovan’s God was up there amid that splendor, and the stars were the vapor of His breath.

Richard woke after sleeping for two hours, curled up and not moving or sighing once. “Have I been out to it for long?” he asked, sitting up and stretching.

“D’ye have no watch?”

“Aye, I do, but I keep it safe in my box. ’Twill come out when I have my own house and the stealing dies down.” His gaze was caught by the sudden appearance of hordes of little fish in the water, striped in black and white with yellow fins. “We have not heard what happened when Lieutenant King got to Norfolk Island-d’ye know?” he asked. A great deal of convict talk revolved around Norfolk Island, which had taken on the allure of an alternative destination kinder and more productive than Port Jackson.

“Only that it took King five days and many trips ashore to find a landing place. Of harbors there are none, just a lagoon within a coral reef beset by surf, and in the end that proved the only possible spot to land. There is one section of the reef is sufficiently submerged to get a jollyboat over. But of flax King could find none, and the pine trees, even if suitable for masts, will never be able to come aboard a ship, as there is nowhere to load them and they do not float. However, the soil is remarkable rich and deep. Supply left before further news was available, but she is to go back soon. Then we will know more. The isle is tiny-not above ten thousand acres in all-and is thickly forested with these giant pines. I am afraid, Richard, that Norfolk Island is no more a paradise than Port Jackson.”

“Well, that stands to reason.” Richard hesitated, then decided to take the plunge. “Mr. Donovan, there is a matter I need to talk about, and ye’re the only one I trust to advise me truthfully. Ye have no personal interest in the way my men do.”

“Speak, then.”

“One of my chatterboxes in Government Stores said too much-Furzer has discovered that Joey Long can mend shoes. So I am going to be without my house guard. I asked Furzer for a week’s grace because we have a few vegetables coming up in our garden thanks to Joey’s labors, and Furzer is a man one can talk business with. I got my week’s grace in return for a share of whatever survives,” Richard said without resentment.

“Vegetables are almost as good a currency as rum” was Donovan’s dry comment. “Go on.”

“While I was in Gloucester Gaol I had an arrangement with a woman convict named Elizabeth Lock-Lizzie. In return for my protection, she looked after my belongings. I have just found out that she is here. I have a mind to marry her, since no less formal way to obtain her services exists.”

Donovan looked startled. “For you, Richard, that sounds sadly cold. I had not thought you so”-he shrugged-“detached.”

“I know it sounds cold,” said Richard unhappily, “but I can see no other solution to our problems. I had hoped that one of my men might wish to marry-most of them visit the women in spite of the Governor’s threat-but so far none of them shows a desire to.”

“Ye’re talking about inanimate possessions in the same breath as a legal union for life-as if the first is worth the second and no different in nature. Ye’re a man, Richard, and a man for women. Why can’t ye simply admit that ye’d like to take this Lizzie Lock to wife? That ye’re as starved for feminine company as most others are? When ye said that ye gave her your protection in Gloucester Gaol, I presume that meant ye had sex with her. I presume ye intend to have sex with her now. What baffles me is how cold-blooded ye sound-noble for the wrong reasons.”

“I did not have sex with her!” Richard snapped, angry. “I am not talking about sex! Lizzie was like my sister, and so I still think of her. She is terrified of conceiving, so she did not want sex either.”

Hands cupping his face, Donovan leaned his elbows on his knees and stared at Richard in consternation. What was the matter with him? All this because of too much pleasure? No! He is a subtle man who gets his own way by being in the right place at the right time and knowing how to approach those who rule him. Not a crawler like most such because he has too much pride to crawl. I am looking at a mystery, but I do have some ideas.

“If I knew the story of your life, Richard, I might be able to help,” he said. “Tell it to me, please.”

“I cannot.”

“Ye’re very much afraid, but not of sex. Ye’re afraid of love. But what is there to be afraid of in love?”

“Where I have been,” said Richard, drawing a breath, “I would not go again because I do not think I could survive it a second time. I can love Lizzie like a sister and you like a brother, but further than that I cannot go. The wholeness of the love I had for my wife and children is sacred.”

“And they are dead.”

“Yes.”

“Ye’re young still-this is a new place-why not begin anew?”

“All things are possible. But not with Lizzie Lock.”

“Then why marry her?” Donovan asked, eyes shimmering.

“Because I suspect her lot is very hard, and I do love her in a brotherly way. Ye must know, Mr. Donovan, that love is not a thing expedience can conjure up. Were it, then I would perhaps elect to love Lizzie Lock. But I never will. We were a whole year together in Gloucester Gaol, it would have happened.”

“So what ye’re proposing is not so cold-blooded after all. And ye’re right. Love is not a thing expedience can conjure up.”

The sun had gone behind the rocks on the western side of the cove and the light was long and golden; Stephen Donovan sat and thought about the vagaries of the human heart. Oh yes, he was right. Love came unasked, and sometimes was an unwelcome visitor. Richard was attempting to insulate himself from it by espousing a sister whom he pitied and would help.

“If ye marry Lizzie Lock,” he said finally, “ye’ll not be free to marry elsewhere. One day that might matter very much.”

“You would advise me not to, then?”

“Aye.”

“I will think about it,” said Richard, scrambling up.

* * *

On Monday morning Richard secured permission from Major Ross to see the Reverend Mr. Johnson, and asked him for permission to see Elizabeth Lock, convict woman in the women’s camp, with the possible intention of asking her to marry him.

In his early thirties, Mr. Johnson was a round-faced, full-lipped and slightly feminine-looking man of carefully episcopal dress, from his starched white stock to his black minister’s robe; this latter garment tended to conceal his paunch, for naturally he did not want to look too well fed in this hungry place. The pale eyes burned with the kind of fervor Cousin James-of-the-clergy called Jesuitically messianic, and at New South Wales he had found his mission: to uplift the moral tone, care for the sick and the orphaned, run his own church his own way, and be deemed a benefactor of humanity. His intentions were genuinely good, but the depth of his understanding was shallow and his compassion entirely reserved for the helpless. The adult convicts he regarded as universally depraved and hardly worth the saving-if they were not depraved, then why were they convicts?

On learning that Richard’s first cousin (once removed) was the rector of St. James’s, Bristol, and discovering that Morgan was an educated, courteous and apparently sincere fellow, Mr. Johnson gave him his pass and provisionally arranged that Richard should marry Elizabeth Lock during next Sunday’s service, when all the convicts