A Novel of Suspense

The Escape of Sir William Heans — By William Hay

It is strange how content most writers are to ignore the influence of the weather upon the feelings and the emotions of their characters, or, if they do not ignore it, to treat it, except in its most obvious manifestations—‘she felt happy because the sun was shining’—‘the dull day served but to heighten his depression’—as something of very little importance, something quite separate and apart. But by ‘the weather’ we do not mean a kind of ocean at our feet, with broad effects of light and shadow, into which we can plunge or not plunge, at will; we mean an external atmosphere which is in harmony or discordant with a state of soul; poet's weather, perhaps we might call it. But why not prose-writer's weather, too? Why page 51 indeed! Are not your poet and your writer of prose faced with exactly the same problem? Can we of this age go on being content with stories and sketches and impressions and novels which are less than adventures of the soul? It is all so wearying, so wearying—this vision of the happy or unhappy pair or company, driving through the exhibition, meeting with adventures on the way and so safe home, or not safe home, at last. How can anything not trivial happen while the author still thinks it necessary to drive them at such a pace? Why will he not see that we would rather—far rather—they stayed at home, mysteriously themselves, with time to be conscious, in the deepest, richest sense, of what is happening to them…. Then, indeed, as in the stories of Tchehov, we should become aware of the rain pattering on the roof all night long, of the languid, feverish wind, of the moonlit orchard and the first snow, passionately realized, not indeed as analogous to a state of mind, but as linking that mind to the larger whole.

In ‘The Escape of Sir William Heans’ Mr. Hay has made the most of a curious and unusual opportunity to exploit this method. The scene of his story is Hobart, Tasmania; the time, between 1830 and 1840, when that place was a ‘thriving’ convict settlement; and the plot—how Sir William Heans, an English gentleman, transported for a crime against society, finds his captivity insupportable and makes three attempts at escape, of which the third is successful. But this simple plot is only the stem pushing up painfully into the forbidden light; from it there grow many dark, intricate branches and ashy fruits; the half-blind little girl, Abelia, clings to it, smothering and pale, like a clematis, and always wandering near there is the old native woman Conapanny, with her hidden bracelet of black hair.

Nevertheless, the figure of Sir William is always the outstanding one, and the author is so faithful to his state of mind that there are moments when he feels that all else that happens is a dream, dreamed by the prisoner as he sat page 52 staring at an opaque glass window, seven by three, and crossed with iron bars. For that which is peculiar to the book is the persistent and dreadful sense of imprisonment. Hobart itself, locked in its pretty harbour and hemmed in on either side by huge tangled forests, is the first of a series of ‘boxes,’ each one a little smaller, a little narrower and tighter than the one that went before. Even the small official society with its convict servants, its precautions against escaped prisoners and its continual gossip about prison affairs is not ‘free’; an innocent gathering becomes a plot, with its victim, its watcher and its spy; they arrange a dance, and in the middle of the dancing a shot is heard, and a whisper goes round that someone has been killed upstairs—nobody knows who….

But the abiding impression is the horrible light in which poor Sir William sees this crude new town, half full of corrupt, filthy men, with its prisons and gaolers, and police patrols and natural defences of giant bush. All is bathed in the unendurable half-light and flicker that comes before a storm: great puffs of wind blow through the book, the sea arises, tossing and shaking—and the storm never breaks. Those who have lived in the Antipodes know such days—days of waiting for the storm to break, of getting up to another day of wind, of watching the strange divided pallor and darkness, of tearing voices, nervous, agitated, shouting against the wind. One feels that at any moment anything may happen—and nothing happens. Until at last when the storm does come its violence is almost a relief—a calm.

So, when Sir William finally escapes, his ordeal and his sufferings in the bush seem quite simple and endurable. We almost lose sight of him before he reaches the Bay, where the little broken-down ship sails in at last to rescue him. The suspense is over, and with it, in a way, everything is over.

It was a moment therefore of intense relief when the ship jibbed about and moved imperceptibly away on page 53 the south-eastern tack. Slowly the sound of the waterfall softened, and slowly the great walls dimmed over the silent pool, and slowly they shrank under the wings and pinnacles of the forests, while these with their thousand shouldering sentinels slowly—very slowly—softened in the smoke of morning.