"I have come to tell you this in respect of the wishes of your mother who was my client. You were given such a start in life, young lady. And I have tried my best to steer you right." But this manner was not as his words. His voice was angry. There was something he did not understand at work within him, a rage so great he could not make his hands stay still. He saw himself tear up his parable. It was not symbolic. It was mechanical-the forces of agitation and rage at work. He could not bear this glass church, and yet he could not explain this, or any of his passions to himself. He saw himself, from a great distance, a tortoise-necked man with a quaking voice. He heard himself shout. He saw himself gently escorted from the sloth-house by the man who, he found out later that day, was not a servant at all, but a defrocked priest, the little harlot's lover. 89
Of the Devil
Lust was an insect, a beetle, a worm. It slipped into his belly like the long pink parasites which had thrived in the intestines of the Strattons's pigs, and he had tried to drown it with long clear draughts of tank water, with holy scriptures, with meditations upon hell. John wrote: "He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning."
Of the Devil
In Galatians it is said: "If we live in the spirit, we also walk in the spirit." But the mail from England said that the Reverend Mr Stratton had hanged himself from the rafters of his church while he who had corrupted him, the same Oscar Hopkins, the so-called servant of God, had seduced an honest woman, had pressed his lips against her teasweet mouth and felt the soft curve of her stomach against his loins.
It had been three in the morning. He had come out to draw more water and had found her there, in her Chinese gown. His penis was a hard rod against the softness of her stomach. He felt Satan take his soul like an overripe peach with a yielding stalk.
He kissed her dear, soft lips. He nuzzled her long white neck. He touched and broke away, touched and broke away, moaned and begged his God's forgiveness while the clock in the kitchen struck the hour.
He withdrew from her, made patting motions in the air with long outstretched fingers as if their passion was a silky beast between them that could be soothed and patted into docility. They went into the kitchen and drank tea. They did not discuss this thing, which Oscar, with extraordinary selfcentredness, saw as his responsibility. He did not think, She loves me. He thought, rather, I am seducing her.
They talked earnestly about the glass church, although not of its faults or impracticalities. When his unholy passion rose in him Oscar used fear to still it. He thought of the boat carriage that Mr Jeffris was having built at Mort Bay. Mr Jeffris had described the carriage in the most minute detail, at this very kitchen table and Oscar had listened with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as if it were not a vehicle for carrying a boat, but a gallows or a set of stocks. Mr Jeffris was precise and fastidious. He was pleased to demonstrate this in the design of the boat carriage. The two boats were carried one inside the other, like two spoons. Each was suspended on canvas slings and such was the ingenious nature of the design that neither could ever rub against the other.
The thing that made Mr Jeffris so proud served only to paralyze Oscar. He would be called to travel in a boat.
Dear God, give me hard and difficult things. Give me a rocky path that I may not sin. Mr Jeffris loved to talk of rivers, mountains, trigonometry. He Promised Oscar he would have him delivered to Boat Harbour, and do not fear. There was no risk from drowning. >..;.;.,••<
Oscar and Lucinda
Oscar had not known about these rivers when he talked about going overland. The Hastings, the Clarence, the Macleay, these rivers now snaked through his dreams. They were miles wide, bruised and swollen by the rain.
He was ill with fear at the thing he had begun. When he woke from sleep it was there to meet him, as cruel as death.
He thought: I will drown.
He thought: Dear God, take my soul into Thy safe-keeping.
He thought: I love her. He thought: I am impure. In the kitchen they bit each other, dragged at their faces. They wedged themselves together against the door jamb like two clothes pegs. The Reverend Mr Stratton had hanged himself from the rafter above his pulpit. Wardley-Fish must already be in Sydney searching for his friend who was ashamed and hid from him. He lusted after a woman who loved another.
He thought: God, do not have me lead her into sin.
He thought: There is no God. There is nothing. I do not have to cross these six rivers. I do not have to travel with mad Jeff ris with his cornpasses, his journals, his trained criminals, his dumbbells, his picks, his carpenter, his saddler, his three brass chronometers. I am someone put backwards on a horse and paraded through the bush for ridicule. He was baggage, carried by Mr Jeff ris, his ticket paid by Miss Leplastrier.
But he had promised God he would do this. I Although only because he wished Lucinda to love him. j!i >. Did she not love him? j Did she say so?
No, she did not. She kissed his lips and made them as blue as ink, but when he had offered to marry her, on Christmas Day, she had fled, weeping, to her room.
Why was this?; Because she loved Hasset.
Then why go through this danger, this risk, this crippling fear?. So she would love him. Because he had promised God. So he would not be cast into hell.
If there was no God?
But he had bet there was a God. He had bet on Goodness. He had bet he would be rewarded in paradise. He had bet he would carry this jewel of a church through the horrid bush and have it in Boat Harbour by Easter.
His life was riddled with sin and compromise. Mr Stratton had
A Reconciliation
wrapped a rope around his neck and committed the sin of suicide. God forgive him. He was murdered by Oscar Hopkins's system.
He had posed as a holy man to Wardley-Fish. He had enticed him to Botany Bay and then hidden from him.
He could not love his father enough. He had written "dearest papa" but he had been happiest when he was away from him. He had left this good and godly man to die alone and unloved except by his unlettered flock.
Give me a hard journey, dear God. Deliver me from evil. Lead me not into temptation. And then, inside the scullery, at breakfast, he offered his bruised and swollen lips to Miss Leplastrier, and the devil played the tune, and then he saw, in the corner of his mind, the possibility that the glass church was just the devil's trick. Mr Ahearn was right. It would be too hot. The congregation would curse Christ's name.
90
A Reconciliation
Mr d'Abbs had been to Miss Leplastrier's office on four occasions before he found her, at last, inside. He had come up those three wide sets of stairs four times, rehearsed his little speech four times, but when he found her, on the fifth, the meeting did not progress as he had rehearsed it. His first thought was: Consumption.
Her skin was very pale, stretched; it was shining, slightly blue, translucent. Her eyes seemed overly large, the whites not white but that bluish grey you find in certain porcelains. Her manner, in that bright, hot, sun-drenched room-all the windows open and papers smacking each other on a green felt board, and fluttering under glass-bottle Paperweights-seemed too fast, too frantic to Mr d'Abbs who immediately forgot his speech, which was all to do with the lasting value of
Oscar and Lucinda
friendship, that it should not be thrown away through one simple misunderstanding, but that friendship was what he valued more than anything in life. Except that one might guess that he was using "friendship" when what he really meant was "companionship," this was spoken truly. He had brought her a cribbage board and a signed edition of his friend Hill's engravings of Pittwater. He had intended to make the speech and then give the gifts, but when he saw how she looked he was overcome by thoughts of her mortality, and he pressed the gifts on her without proper explanation of his feelings.