Under Capricorn Simpson, Helen (1897-1940)
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Under Capricorn Simpson, Helen (1897-1940) A digital text sponsored by Australian Literature Gateway University of Sydney Library Sydney 2003 http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/simunde © University of Sydney Library. The texts and images are not to be used for commercial purposes without permission Source Text: Prepared from the print edition published by Macmillan New York 1938 305pp. All quotation marks are retained as data. First Published: 1937 A823.91/S6131/J4/1 Australian Etext Collections at women writers novels 1910-1939 Under Capricorn New York Macmillan 1938 Book I. I have read that Capricornus, the heavenly Goat, being ascendant at nativitie, denieth honour to persons of quality, and esteeme to the Vulgar. Can a Starre do so by onlie shineing on a Woman in her pangs? Shall Capricornus bind a poore man the world ouer, no part, no Land undiscouered, where hee may shake free? I will not belieue it: nor that Honour (not forfeit) can be for euer hidd by decree of this distemperate Starre. A Limbo For Ladies. (i) THE year, eighteen hundred and thirty-one. The place, Sydney; a city whose streets were first laid by men in chains for the easier progress of the soldiers who guarded them. This city, growing slowly about a population of convicts and soldiers, had at that date no very penitential air. The harbour water, lively with sun; the many windmills, leisurely bestirring themselves; the ships at anchor, hung with marine laundry, ensigns trailing; the smoke of domestic chimneys: all these things contrived to lend Sydney an air of expectancy rather than despair. Maps show where the habitations were gathered; they were not many, though diarists and letter-writers of the period agree that they were tasteful, and showed up cleanly against the dark universal background of trees. “Not,” says one lady, “that I should like it in a picture so well as our softer and more rounded perspective, but in a new place, where one likes to see everything plainly, it is very pleasant.” So much for maps and for prose. Poetry of the place and period lacks, or is not much to the purpose. Still, the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge did, in the year 1823, announce Australia as the subject with which his would-be medallists must concern themselves; and since one of the unsuccessful competitors was William Charles Wentworth, born in the new continent, his descriptions must be allowed to possess some authority. After an account of Cook's discovery, with a digression upon the fate of La Perouse, Mr. Wentworth proceeds: Lo! thickly planted o'er the glassy bay, Where Sydney loves her beauties to survey, And ev'ry morn, delighted, sees the gleam Of some fresh pennant dancing in her stream, A masty forest, stranger vessels moor Charg'd with the fruits of every foreign shore. While landward — the thronged quay, the creaking crane, The noisy workmen, and the loaded wain, The lengthen'd street, wide square, and column'd front Of stately mansions, and the gushing font, The solemn church, the busy market throng, And idle loungers saunt'ring slow among—— Shew that the mournful genius of the plain Driv'n from his primal solitary reign, Has backward fled, and fixed his drowsy throne In untrod wilds, to muse and brood alone. His account almost fills in the picture, which yet needs to complete it a sense that this new country was no mere copy of the old, but had already taken on a character of its own, defiant, tough, indolent; as though the idle loungers of Mr. Wentworth's poem were to be viewed with their hats cocked, pulling in their belts upon hunger with a laugh, and having a loaded pistol somewhere ready about them which they were prepared upon slight occasion to use. There was freedom, derived as usual from slavery. There was money, derived about equally from labour, land, and luck. There were social gatherings, junketings, as there are upon a ship in mid-ocean. And for the whole company of exiles, bond or free, there was hope. It will be seen that Sydney, in the year 1831, may very well serve as setting for a highly-coloured, improbable, and yet simple story. (ii) AT about five o'clock in the afternoon of December 3rd of that year, a ball hoisted upon the south yard-arm of the flagstaff at the entrance to Port Jackson showed that a sail had been sighted, approaching from a southerly direction. Later, a flag with St. George's Cross was run up, signifying that the sail in question belonged to a Government ship, full- rigged at that. Almost immediately after, down came this flag, and was replaced by a Jack. ‘Excitement became evident among the boats in the Pilot's anchorage. At South Head the semaphore began to function, reporting, in a series of jerks and flickers: A Government vessel. Between 2 and 3 leagues S.E. of the Head. To which Fort Phillip, above Sydney Cove, responded in the same lingo: Report all movements of vessel signalized. Is there much sea between the Heads? State all particulars. South Head: This is the vessel expected. Vessel has signalized probable arrival before nightfall. Correct: previous signal should read, vessel does not expect to anchor before morning, owing to lack of wind. Fort Phillip: Confirm. Repeat. South Head: Vessel does not expect to anchor before morning, owing to lack of wind. Fort Phillip: Be more attentive. Despite this rebuke Fort Phillip was not displeased to have twelve hours' respite. In twelve hours buttons might be polished, arms burnished, the fear of God be put into a guard already drilled to unthinking unanimity. In twelve hours some sort of a reception could be arranged, with flags and bunting, down by the Quay; the citizens' enthusiasm was more likely to show itself freely at the beginning of a hot December day than at a similar day's end. There were speeches to be memorized, beavers to be brushed, children's locks to be put in paper; for all this twelve hours was by no means as much time as could be desired, but it would have to serve. The Commandant sent off runners into the town, to the Colonial Secretary, to the President of the Legislative Council, and the Principal Superintendent of Convicts, then sat down, hooking up his close military stock, to an evening meal with his officers, which ended with the health, drunk in Maderia that had taken a six months' roll round the Horn, of the newly-arrived Governor, Sir Richard Bourke—— “And may he not be another of these prigs that we have to foot out of the Turf Club,” said the Commandant as he set down his glass. The Governor at this moment, in a costume by no means conventional, was lying full length on the deck of that interesting vessel from the south, Foxbound, about which the air clung, never stirring. He said to the young man at his side: “The climate's giving us a warm welcome, anyway.” “It's an omen,” the young man returned, “don't build on it. They threw out Bligh, they threw out Darling. For a Governor that's tired of life, I'd say this was a delightful appointment.” “Did you ever hear how they shifted Darling? It was at a Turf Club dinner. They drank his health, all very civil; but when it came to the Jolly Good Fellow that should have followed, the band broke out with ‘Over the Hills and Far Away.’ Darling looked like a sick hen, one of the soldiers told me that was there; sent in his resignation from the Club, and got out of the country soon after. By God, if they'd done that to me I'd have known what answer to make.” “You'd have whistled, ‘Will ye no come back again,’ all on your own.” “I might, if I'd thought of it. It will take more than a couple of fiddlers to get rid of me.” “There's some of this Irish boasting we hear so much about. You'll change your tune when it comes to making a nation out of the scum of England.” “I know plenty about the scum of England. If you can make an army of it good enough to beat Boney, you can make a nation.” “Well, be quick about it. I don't want to be half a century out here making my fortune.” The Governor laughed; and looking at the stars, which kept their places upon the chequer board made by spars and rigging, observed: “I never can get the lie of these upside-down planets into my head, after all these years.” “My idea,” the young man went on, following his thought, “is to benefit by corruption. I can't make my fortune any other way; not by fighting, it's too late for that; not by inheritance, I haven't a relative left that's solvent. As for work — true, you can make money working, but it spoils you for the enjoyment of it. And I won't marry an heiress, the pick of them's gone, the only ones left weigh twenty stone or grow beards. I like reading poetry with my feet on the hob, but it takes money, that kind of innocent life. So all that remains for me is to be the Governor of New South Wales's sixth cousin.” “Why can't you write poetry for a living? Lord Byron, I believe, did very handsomely out of his books.