The Exiles Read online

  Dedication

  For Hayden, Will, and Eli—

  adventurous wayfarers all

  Epigraph

  Let no one say the past is dead.

  The past is all about us and within.

  —Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Aboriginal poet

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Frontispiece

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Evangeline St. John’s Wood, London, 1840

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  Mathinna Flinders Island, Australia, 1840

  The Tasman Sea, 1840

  Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, Australia, 1840

  Evangeline The Port of London, 1840

  Medea, The Port of London, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Medea, 1840

  Mathinna Government House, Hobart Town, 1840

  Government House, Hobart Town, 1840–1841

  Government House, Hobart Town, 1841

  Hazel Medea, 1840

  Hobart Town, 1840

  Hobart Town, 1840

  The Cascades, 1840–1841

  Hobart Town, 1841

  Mathinna Government House, Hobart Town, 1841

  Government House, Hobart Town, 1841

  Government House, Hobart Town, 1841–1842

  Government House, Hobart Town, 1842

  Hazel Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, 1842

  The Cascades, 1842

  Hobart Town, 1842

  Hobart Town, 1843

  Hobart Town, 1843

  Hobart Town, 1843

  Ruby St. John’s Wood, London, 1868

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Novels by Christina Baker Kline

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Flinders Island, Australia, 1840

  By the time the rains came, Mathinna had been hiding in the bush for nearly two days. She was eight years old, and the most important thing she’d ever learned was how to disappear. Since she was old enough to walk, she’d explored every nook and crevice of Wybalenna, the remote point on Flinders Island where her people had been exiled since before she was born. She’d run along the granite ridge that extended across the tops of the hills, dug tunnels in the sugary dunes on the beach, played seek-and-find among the scrub and shrubs. She knew all the animals: the possums and wallabies and kangaroos, the pademelons that lived in the forest and only came out at night, the seals that lolled on rocks and rolled into the surf to cool off.

  Three days earlier, Governor John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane, had arrived at Wybalenna by boat, more than 250 miles from their residence on the island of Lutruwita—or Van Diemen’s Land, as the white people called it. Mathinna stood with the other children on the ridge as the governor and his wife made their way up from the beach, accompanied by half a dozen servants. Lady Franklin had a hard time walking in her shiny satin shoes; she kept slipping on the stones. She clung to her husband’s arm as she wobbled toward them, the expression on her face as sour as if she’d bitten an artichoke thistle. The wrinkles on her neck reminded Mathinna of the exposed pink flesh of a wattlebird.

  The night before, the Palawa elders had sat around the campfire, discussing the impending visit. The Christian missionaries had been preparing for days. The children had been instructed to learn a dance. Mathinna sat in the darkness on the edge of the circle, as she often did, listening to the elders talk as they plucked feathers from muttonbirds and roasted mussels in the glowing embers. The Franklins, it was widely agreed, were impulsive, foolish people; stories abounded of their strange and eccentric schemes. Lady Franklin was deathly afraid of snakes. She’d once devised a plan to pay a shilling for every dead snake turned in, which naturally spawned a robust market of breeders and cost her and Sir John a small fortune. When the two of them had visited Flinders the previous year, it was to collect Aboriginal skulls for their collection—skulls that were obtained by decapitating corpses and boiling the heads to remove the flesh.

  The horse-faced Englishman in charge of the settlement on Flinders, George Robinson, lived with his wife in a brick house in a semicircle of eight brick houses that included rooms for his men, a sanatorium, and a dispensary. Behind this were twenty cottages for the Palawa. The night the Franklins arrived, they slept in the Robinsons’ house. Early the next morning, they inspected the settlement while their servants distributed beads and marbles and handkerchiefs. After the noontime meal, the natives were summoned. The Franklins sat in two mahogany chairs in the sandy clearing in front of the brick houses, and for the next hour or so the few healthy Palawa males were made to perform a mock battle and engage in a spear-throwing contest. Then the children were paraded out.

  As Mathinna danced in a circle with the others on the white sand, Lady Franklin kept looking at her with a curious smile.

  The daughter of the chief of the Lowreenne tribe, Mathinna had long been accustomed to special attention. Several years ago, her father, Towterer—like so many of the Palawa deported to Flinders—had died of tuberculosis. Mathinna was proud to be the chieftain’s daughter, but in truth she hadn’t known him well. When she was three, she’d been sent from her parents’ cottage to live in a brick house with the white schoolteacher, who made her wear bonnets and dresses with buttons and taught her to read and write in English and hold a knife and spoon. Even so, she spent as many hours a day as she could with her mother, Wanganip, and other members of the tribe, most of whom did not speak English or adhere to British customs.

  It had only been a few months since Mathinna’s mother had died. Wanganip had always hated Flinders. She’d often climb the spiny hill near the settlement and gaze across the turquoise sea toward her homeland, sixty miles away. This terrible place, she told Mathinna—this barren island where the wind was so strong it spun vegetables out of the ground and fanned small fires into raging infernos, where the trees shed bark like snakes shed their skin—was nothing like her ancestral land. It was a curse on her soul. On all of their souls. Their people were sickly; most of the babies born on Flinders died before their first birthdays. The Palawa had been promised a land of peace and plenty; if they did as they were told, the British said, they’d be allowed to keep their way of life. “But all of that was a lie. Like so many lies we were foolish to believe,” Wanganip said bitterly. “What choice did we have? The British had already taken everything.”

  Looking into her mother’s face, Mathinna saw the fury in her eyes. Mathinna didn’t hate the island, though. It was the only home she’d ever known.

  “Come here, child,” the governor’s wife said when the dance was over, beckoning with a finger. When Mathinna obeyed, Lady Franklin peered at her closely before turning to her husband. “Such expressive eyes! And a sweet face, don’t you think? Unusually attractive for a native.”

  Sir John shrugged. “Hard to tell them apart, quite frankly.”

  “I wonder if it might be possible to educate her.”

  “She lives with the schoolteacher, who is teaching her English,” Robinson said, stepping forward. “She’s quite conversant already.”

  “Interesting. Where are her parents?”

  “The girl is an orphan.”

  “I see.” Lady Franklin turned back to Mathinna. “Say something.”

  Mathinna half curtsied. The arrogant rudeness of the British no longer surprised her. “What shall I say, ma’am?”

  Lady Franklin’s
eyes widened. “Goodness! I am impressed, Mr. Robinson. You are turning savages into respectable citizens.”

  “In London, I hear, they’re dressing orangutans like lords and ladies and teaching them to read,” Sir John mused.

  Mathinna didn’t know what an orangutan was, but she’d heard talk of savages around the elders’ campfire—British whalers and sealers who lived like animals and sneered at rules of common decency. Lady Franklin must be confused.

  Robinson gave a short laugh. “This is a bit different. The Aborigines are human, after all. Our theory is that by changing externals you can change personalities. We are teaching them to eat our food and learn our language. We feed their souls with Christianity. They’ve surrendered to clothes, as you can see. We’ve cut the hair of the men and impressed modesty on the women. We’ve given them Christian names to aid the process.”

  “The mortality rate is quite high, I understand,” said Sir John. “Delicate constitutions.”

  “An unfortunate inevitability,” Robinson said. “We brought them out of the bush where they knew not God, nor even who made the trees.” He gave a small sigh. “The fact is, we all must die, and we ought to pray to God first to save our souls.”

  “Quite right. You’re doing them a great service.”

  “What is this one’s name?” Lady Franklin asked, returning her attention to Mathinna.

  “Mary.”

  “And what was it originally?”

  “Originally? Mathinna was her Aboriginal name. She was christened Leda by missionaries. We decided on something less . . . fanciful,” Robinson said.

  Mathinna didn’t remember being called Leda, but her mother had hated the name Mary, so the Palawa refused to use it. Only the British called her Mary.

  “Well, I think she’s charming,” Lady Franklin said. “I’d like to keep her.”

  Keep her? Mathinna tried to catch Robinson’s eye, but he didn’t return her gaze.

  Sir John looked amused. “You want to take her home with us? After what happened with the last one?”

  “This will be different. Timeo was . . .” Lady Franklin shook her head. “The girl is an orphan, you said?” she asked, turning to Robinson.

  “Yes. Her father was a chieftain. Her mother remarried, but recently died.”

  “Does that make her a princess?”

  He smiled slightly. “Of a sort, perhaps.”

  “Hmm. What do you think, Sir John?”

  Sir John smiled beneficently. “If you wish to amuse yourself in such a fashion, my dear, I suppose there’s no harm in it.”

  “I think it will be entertaining.”

  “And if it isn’t, we can always send her back.”

  Mathinna did not want to leave the island with these foolish people. She did not want to say goodbye to her stepfather and the other elders. She did not want to go to a strange new place where nobody knew or cared about her. Tugging on Robinson’s hand, she whispered, “Please, sir. I don’t—”

  Slipping his hand from her grasp, he turned to the Franklins. “We will make the necessary arrangements.”

  “Very well.” Lady Franklin cocked her head, appraising her. “Mathinna. I’d prefer to call her that. It will be more of a surprise if she achieves the manners of a lady.”

  Later, when the governor’s party was distracted, Mathinna slipped behind the brick houses where everyone was gathered, still wearing the ceremonial wallaby-skin cape her father gave her before he died and a necklace of tiny green shells made by her mother. Wending her way through wallaby grass, silky against her shins, she listened to the barking dogs and the currawongs, plump black birds that warbled and flapped their wings when rain was on the way. She breathed in the familiar scent of eucalyptus. As she slid into the bush at the edge of the clearing, she looked up to see a geyser of muttonbirds erupt into the sky.

  Evangeline

  I never know an instance of any female convict coming out that I would consider a fair character. Their open and shameless vice must be told. Their fierce and untamable audacity would not be believed. They are the pest and gangrene of the colonial society—a reproach to human nature—and lower than the brutes, a disgrace to all animal existence.

  —James Mudie, The Felonry of New South Wales: Being a Faithful Picture of the Real Romance of Life in Botany Bay, 1837

  St. John’s Wood, London, 1840

  From within the depths of a restless dream, Evangeline heard a knocking. She opened her eyes. Silence. Then, more insistent: rapraprap.

  Thin light from the small window high above her bed cut across the floor. She felt a surge of panic: she must have slept through the morning bell.

  She never slept through the morning bell.

  Sitting up, she felt woozy. She leaned back against her pillow. “Just a minute.” Her mouth filled with saliva and she swallowed it.

  “The children are waiting!” The scullery maid’s voice rang with indignation.

  “What time is it, Agnes?”

  “Half nine!”

  Sitting up again, Evangeline pushed back the covers. Bile rose in her throat, and this time she couldn’t keep it down; she leaned over and vomited on the pine floor.

  The knob turned and the door swung open. She looked up helplessly as Agnes twitched her nose and frowned at the viscous yellow splatter at her feet. “Give me a minute. Please.” Evangeline wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  Agnes didn’t move. “Did ye eat something strange?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Feverish?”

  Evangeline pressed her hand against her forehead. Cool and clammy. She shook her head.

  “Been feeling poorly?”

  “Not until this morning.”

  “Hmm.” Agnes pursed her lips.

  “I’m all right, I’m just—” Evangeline felt a roiling in her gut. She swallowed hard.

  “Clearly you’re not. I’ll inform Mrs. Whitstone there’ll be no lessons today.” With a curt nod, Agnes turned to leave, then paused, narrowing her eyes in the direction of the chest of drawers.

  Evangeline followed her gaze. On the top, beside an oval mirror, a ruby gemstone ring glowed in the sunlight, staining the white handkerchief it lay on a deep red.

  Her heart clenched. She’d been admiring the ring by the light of a candle the night before and had stupidly forgotten to put it away.

  “Where’d ye get that?” Agnes asked.

  “It was . . . a gift.”

  “Who from?”

  “A family member.”

  “Your family?” Agnes knew full well that Evangeline had no family. She’d only applied to be a governess because she had nowhere else to turn.

  “It was . . . an heirloom.”

  “I’ve never seen ye wear it.”

  Evangeline put her feet on the floor. “For goodness’ sake. I don’t have much occasion, do I?” she said, attempting to sound brusque. “Now, will you leave me be? I’m perfectly fine. I’ll meet the children in the library in a quarter of an hour.”

  Agnes gave her a steady look. Then she left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Later Evangeline would replay this moment in her head a dozen ways—what she might have said or done to throw Agnes off the trail. It probably wouldn’t have mattered. Agnes had never liked her. Only a few years older than Evangeline, she’d been in service to the Whitstones for nearly a decade and lorded her institutional knowledge over Evangeline with supercilious condescension. She was always chiding her for not knowing the rules or grasping how things worked. When Evangeline confided in the assistant butler, her one ally in the household, that she didn’t understand Agnes’s palpable contempt, he shook his head. “Come now. Don’t be naive. Until you arrived, she was the only eligible lass in the place. Now you’re the one drawing all the attention—including from the young master himself. Who used to flirt with Agnes, or so she believed. And on top of that, your job is soft.”

  “It isn’t!”

  “It’s not like hers, thou
gh, is it? Scrubbing linens with lye and emptying chamber pots from dawn till dusk. You’re paid for your brains, not your back. No surprise she’s tetchy.”

  Evangeline rose from her bed, and, carefully stepping around the puddle, went to the chest of drawers. Picking up the ruby ring, she held it to the window, noting with dismay how it caught and refracted the light. She glanced around the room. Where could she hide it? Under the mattress? Inside her pillowcase? Opening the bottom drawer, she slipped the ring into the pocket of an old dress tucked beneath some newer ones.

  At least Agnes hadn’t noticed the white handkerchief under the ring, with Cecil’s cursive initials—C. F. W. for Cecil Frederic Whitstone—and the distinctive family crest embroidered onto a corner. Evangeline tucked the handkerchief in the waistband of her undergarments and went about cleaning up the mess.

  Mrs. Whitstone materialized in the library while the children were taking turns reading aloud from a primer. They looked up in surprise. It wasn’t like their mother to show up unannounced during their lessons.

  “Miss Stokes,” she said in an unusually high-handed tone, “please conclude the lesson as expediently as you can and meet me in the drawing room. Ned, Beatrice—Mrs. Grimsby has prepared a special pudding. As soon as you are done you may make your way to the kitchen.”

  The children exchanged curious glances.

  “But Miss Stokes always takes us downstairs for tea,” Ned said.

  His mother gave him a thin smile. “I am quite sure you can find the way on your own.”

  “Are we being punished?” Ned asked.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Is Miss Stokes?” Beatrice asked.

  “What a ridiculous question.”

  Evangeline felt a tingle of dread.

  “Did Mrs. Grimsby make a sponge cake?”