Bridie's Fire (11 page)

Halfway up a small hill was the immigration barracks, the depot that was to be their home until they were assigned an indenture. A cloud of dust and flies rose up from the square yard at the centre as the girls shuffled around the carts that had brought their trunks from the wharf. They were instructed to assemble in the yard and their names were checked off the ship's list. A small group of girls from an earlier shipload of orphans stood on the verandah of the bunkhouses and watched as the new arrivals were sorted into groups. Bridie was taken aback by their sulky, angry expressions.

Inside the bunkhouse, each of the girl's boxes sat at the end of a single bed. Bridie looked at her own narrow bunk and felt a wave of loneliness. It would be the first time in her life that she'd had a bed to herself, and she wasn't sure she liked the idea.

‘Why are those other girls still here?' whispered Bridie to Caitlin as they knelt before their trunks, folding their cloaks away. ‘Their boat must have come weeks ago.'

‘Maybe no one wants them. Maybe they're wicked girls like Biddy Ryan.'

Bridie felt a ripple of unease. ‘They don't look wicked to me. They just look like ordinary girls,' she said. ‘How can you make up your mind so quickly about whether a girl is good or bad?'

‘Lucky for you, Bridie O'Connor, that I do make up my mind that quick. I knew the first time I clapped eyes on you outside the workhouse that your heart was good, and I've seen nothing to prove me wrong yet. And I knew the first time I saw Biddy Ryan that she was a slattern, and you know her as well as I do now and what do you think?'

Bridie didn't reply.

They took the bunks nearest the door and set their trunks down at the end of the beds. Bridie noticed the name of the smallest girl in the bunkhouse, ‘Honor Gauran', painted on her box. It looked battered compared to Bridie's. Bridie smiled at her but she turned away. That night, all the
Diadem
girls whispered to each other, the rise and fall of their voices like the swelling sea.

Bridie woke to the sound of shouting. Honor Gauran was cowering in her nightgown before the Matron.

‘You filthy brute. We offer you our charity, and you show us your respect with this disgusting behaviour. No wonder your mistress sent you back.'

Honor hung her head. ‘I'm sorry, ma'am. I'll clean it up, ma'am,' she said in a small voice.

Then Bridie saw it: a big puddle on the floor beside Honor's bed. After the Matron left, Honor turned to the other girls, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘I was dreaming of the master. It was the master's fault I come back. The mistress was out one night and I was in my little bed and the master come in and took off his trousers and climbed into my bed with me. I had to hit him to get away and then I ran into the street in my nightgown but he came out the door shouting at me and threw my box into the street. That's how it got the lid broke. All my things strewn across the cobbles.' She sniffed deeply and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘I knows I should have gone to the water closet last night. But I'm too scared to walk about in the dark. I feel scared all the time now.'

Bridie and Caitlin looked at each other and felt answering stabs of alarm.

‘It's all right, Bridie,' whispered Caitlin. ‘It won't be like that for us.'

Everyone grew restless, waiting for their new lives to begin. There was nothing to do in the depot, and the girls hung about idly. Biddy Ryan liked to lean over the fence of the depot and call out to passers-by until the Matron hurried out and shooed her back into the barracks.

One day a whole family of black natives walked past the fence. Their clothes were ragged, as Bridie's and her family's had been when they lived in the hut on the edge of Dingle, and they had a lean and hungry look about them. Bridie had never seen such ebony skin. Their big, dark eyes and the sharp angle of their bones reminded her of the hungriest time in her life. When they looked back at her staring at them through the fence, she turned away.

Every day, some of the girls would leave with their indenture certificates signed and their bonnets tied beneath their chins, but still Bridie waited. There were rumours that the citizens were angry at the presence of the orphan girls, that no one really wanted them and that the newspapers were describing them as ignorant and useless.

At the end of the second week, Caitlin came to tell Bridie she had a place. A draper from Flinders Lane wanted a girl to work in his shop, but only one.

‘Can't you wait until there's somewhere we can both go?'

‘Bridie, sure you're like a sister to me, but no, I can't wait. I'll come and visit you if my new master will let me, and if not, then I'll write to you care of the depot, so you can write back to me, like I taught you.'

Bridie frowned. She'd made small progress at learning her letters. The thought of having to read a whole page of writing made her feel sick, but she couldn't admit that to Caitlin.

‘But why can't you ask the draper to take me on as well?'

‘There's evil talk, saying the orphan girls are a bad and lazy lot and always arguing for their own way. I've heard the Irishmen and the Bishop have called meetings to say we're the best of Ireland, so we have to hold to that and show them it's true and not make trouble. Someone will come and give you a place soon. And then you'll work hard and mind your temper and save your money, just as I will do. How else will we have enough to make our own little home? Don't forget that. You have to hold to that, how we'll take in sewing and have our own place together. I promise we won't lose each other.'

The first night without Caitlin, Bridie lay in bed listening to Honor Gauran crying. After what seemed hours, Honor finally drifted off into restless sleep but Bridie lay awake, staring into the darkness. For a long moment before sleep took her, the new world seemed to be the loneliest place on earth.

16

Beaumanoir

Heat lay in shimmering waves across the depot yard. Bridie sat on the verandah of the bunkhouse with the other girls, fanning herself with her bonnet.

‘Hell couldn't be any hotter than this!' exclaimed Biddy Ryan, shaking her skirts out to cool her legs. ‘This heat's draining every morsel of life from my poor body.'

‘Wishta!' said Honor, darting a glance in the direction of Matron. ‘You're not to be complaining. If they hear you, they'll send you to some terrible master or mistress. They'll tell you it's for your own good, to knock some sense into you.'

‘Then I'll run away, like you did, girl,' said Biddy defiantly.

Bridie was just about to ask Biddy where she'd run away to when Matron stepped out onto the verandah and called Bridie into the Supervisor's office. A big, plump woman dressed in dark clothes was chatting to the Supervisor when Bridie walked into the room. The Supervisor didn't look up from the papers he was signing. Bridie knew instantly they were her papers of indenture.

‘You are a most fortunate girl, Bridie O'Connor,' said the Supervisor. ‘You are to be apprenticed to the household of one of the finest families in Port Phillip. This is Mrs Fairlea, the housekeeper of Sir William and Lady Adeline De Quincey, who will act on behalf of Sir William as your guardian from this day forward.'

Bridie glanced at the dour-looking woman and made a small curtsey.

‘You will learn all the skills needed to be a useful servant, and if you apply yourself and work hard, you will never be without employment and will one day make a fine wife for any man.'

‘Begging your pardon, sir. I don't want to be a domestic. I want to be a seamstress, sir.'

The Supervisor glared at her and coughed, and went on as if she hadn't spoken. He looked down at the indenture papers and spoke in a loud and insistent tone.

‘You are to be paid eight pounds for each year of indenture. At the end of a period of two years, your indenture may be reviewed and the terms of your indenture may vary, but otherwise you are to remain in the house of the De Quinceys until you are nineteen years of age, or until such time that you marry. You will be trained in the domestic arts by the De Quinceys' housekeeper, Mrs Fairlea, commencing your duties as a scullery maid. Your new mistress will be the gracious Lady De Quincey, and you will serve your new mistress faithfully and at all times behave yourself with respect and decorum towards the family during the term of your indenture. The Board, for its charity, expects you to serve your new mistress honestly and obediently, and to be a faithful apprentice in every way. You will be provided with lodging, meat and drink, medicine when required, and all other things but for your clothing. You will be allowed to attend Divine Service of your religion, if practicable, once on Sunday.'

The Supervisor continued to drone on, but Bridie had stopped listening. Seven years before she would be free! Seven years before she would be her own mistress and able to send for Brandon.

‘Please, sir, I'd rather go to a draper's, like Caitlin Moriarty. I've a fine hand with a needle.'

The Supervisor went bright red in the face and leaned across his desk, scowling.

‘Listen to me, young lady. You are extremely fortunate to find someone willing to take you at all,' he said in a harsh whisper, his voice full of suppressed rage. ‘There's not much favour for you Irish girls in Port Phillip. The whole town's crying out against you, so consider yourself lucky for whatever you get and be grateful, my girl.'

In a daze, Bridie put all her things in her box and followed the Matron out into the yard of the depot where a cart and driver stood waiting. Mrs Fairlea climbed up beside the driver, while Bridie sat in the back of the cart on top of her small trunk. They drove straight to Market Street, where Bridie followed her new mistress through crowds of fat, red-faced men, shouting out their wares. When Mrs Fairlea had finished her shopping, they climbed back onto the cart, now loaded with boxes of produce and sacks of flour and grain. Bridie sat among the purchases, feeling like an item on Mrs Fairlea's shopping list. They passed by grand houses in East Melbourne and the big, empty government paddock that stretched down to the muddy river. Eventually the cart turned and trundled down a long, dusty road to the banks of the Yarra.

There was a small house, built right on the water's edge, which belonged to the punt-keeper. He was halfway across the river, ferrying a load of cattle. The sun was bright on the water as they waited for his return and Bridie wondered why everything was so harsh and difficult to look at in this country. And where did all the swarms of flies come from?

It was late afternoon by the time they turned onto a gravel drive leading to a big white stone house with wide verandahs running all around it and a balcony on the second floor.

‘This is Beaumanoir, the home of the De Quinceys,' announced Mrs Fairlea, speaking to Bridie for the first time since they'd left the depot.

The cart trundled along the driveway around the side of the building, and into a big coach-house. Inside were two coaches, one small and one grand, with a family emblem embossed on the door.

‘Come along, Bridie,' she said. ‘Pip will bring your trunk.'

Bridie followed her out of the dark coach-house and into the sunshine. The servants' entrance was around the back of the building. They passed into a long kitchen where a woman was working at a big, black stove. Her face was red, and little beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead as she leaned over a cast-iron pot.

‘Mrs Arbuckle, this is the new kitchen skivvy, the Irish girl.'

Mrs Arbuckle glanced across and grunted in reply. Even though she seemed surly, Bridie felt a rush of pleasure at the thought of working in the kitchen, surrounded by food. The room was long and wide with two huge work tables in the middle and pots and pans stacked along deep shelves all around the walls. There was even a big pantry opening onto the kitchen, with shelves from floor to ceiling full of supplies.

‘I'll show you your quarters and then you can start work with Mrs Arbuckle straight away. You're to do as she directs you and make yourself useful.'

Mrs Fairlea led Bridie down a narrow, dark hallway with stone floors. They went up a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a bedroom not much bigger than a cupboard. There was barely enough room to stand between the two narrow beds. A small window looked out over an orchard of young fruit trees and a kitchen garden. Bridie's box was already waiting at the foot of one of the beds.

‘You're to share with Dora, the parlourmaid. You can have five minutes to make yourself ready. Hang up your bonnet and cloak on these pegs on the back of the door, and be back down in the kitchen as quick as you can.'

Mrs Fairlea shut the door behind her. Bridie turned and looked out the window. In the dappled light of the orchard, three boys were chasing each other between the trees. The smallest of them had thick yellow curls that caught the afternoon sunlight as he ran. The two bigger boys grabbed at his coat and pulled him to the ground, where the three of them rolled over and over in the grass, laughing. Bridie could hardly remember what it was like to be like that any more, to simply run around for the sake of a game. She turned away and undid the ribbon of her bonnet. For a few minutes, she sat on the narrow bed, holding her cloak and bonnet, wishing she was out in that orchard with Brandon, playing a game, laughing like a child. She was eleven years old.

17

Gilbert Clarence Arthur
Bloomfield De Quincey

‘Bri-dee,' called Mrs Arbuckle, her voice booming out across the cobbled yard. ‘Where is that wretched child?'

Bridie scowled and wiped her hands on her apron as she trudged back into the kitchen. She'd never known people to use so many dishes just to make one meal. And so many different plates for all the different things they ate! And so many things that they pushed to one side and didn't eat. She scraped the good food into a bucket in the wash-house to be fed to the pigs, but the sheer waste of it made her feel hot with disgust. She looked over her shoulder to check no one was near, picked one of the roast potatoes off a plate and crammed it into her mouth.