Bridie's Fire (8 page)

Bridie discovered that the men had been rioting because a fever was taking hold of their wards, and the bodies of the dying were being left among the living. After the riot, those who fell ill were taken across the fields to the empty cotton mills. Bridie shuddered to think of what it must be like there. No one came back. The faces in the wards changed from one day to the next as the fever-struck were taken away and still more paupers were let in at the gates. Some mornings, the body of someone who had died during the night would be carried out of the dormitory. Bridie heard of a chamber they called the Black Room where the bodies were kept until the corpse-gatherers came to take them away.

Bridie was scrubbing the workhouse steps when the death cart drove up outside, having collected its first load from the cotton mills. She hardly noticed the clatter of wheels as it pulled into the courtyard. It was the silence of the other girls that made her look up. In the grey morning, men were loading dead bodies, emaciated men, women and children, onto the cart like old sacks. The last body they slung into the cart was that of a woman, her dark hair a tangle, her face a sunken white mask. For a long and terrible moment, Bridie was frozen with horror, thinking of her mother, of her face warm and alive but ravaged by the fever. She turned back to her work, wishing she could scrub away the images of the dead that filled her mind.

That evening, before they lay down in the straw, Bridie pressed her face against the cold glass of the window and stared out into the darkness, imagining the big, ugly courtyard and the dark black fields beyond. She tried to make herself feel the fire inside, the fire her dad had told her would never stop burning, but it felt like nothing more than dying embers.

‘What are you looking at?' asked Caitlin, coming up behind her and staring out into the black night.

‘Nothing,' said Bridie despondently.

11

Angel, go before me

Caitlin never missed an opportunity to make things easier for herself and Bridie. Bridie told Caitlin what a fine seamstress her mother had been and how she missed those mornings when they sat in the sun outside their cabin and sewed together. When the Matron came looking for girls to do needlework, Caitlin stepped forward, dragging Bridie along beside her. Each morning they were taken downstairs to sew in a small room alongside several other women and girls. Bridie had a quick, deft hand and could make beautiful stitches but she soon realised Caitlin knew next to nothing about sewing. Bridie covered for her as best she could, leaning across and whispering helpful instructions and Caitlin quickly learnt how to make her needle fly.

When summer came, Bridie heard the potato crop had failed yet again and the queues at the workhouse gates grew even longer and more desperate. Sometimes she would hear the wails of paupers waiting for the gates to be opened. The portions of bread in the workhouse grew smaller, the soup and porridge as thin as water. On hot summer nights, the smell of death and disease lay like a heavy blanket across the girls' ward. Bridie's chest felt tight with anxiety that perhaps the boys' ward was the same and that the fever would take Brandon away. Occasionally Bridie had seen him at a distance, hoeing the ground in the workhouse gardens with other boys, but it was months since they had exchanged a word.

One chill autumn day, nearly a full year after Bridie had first passed through the gates of the workhouse, the men in black frock-coats arrived. The girls had just finished breakfast when the men strutted into the dining hall with the Master of the workhouse like a flock of black crows.

‘All orphan girls aged twelve to sixteen, please line up against the west wall and curtsey to the Guardians,' called the Master. The rest of the women and girls were dismissed.

The Guardians walked up and down the length of the row, stopping now and then to scrutinise a particular girl.

‘Matron, are these girls of good character?' asked one man.

‘To the best of my knowledge,' said the Matron. ‘Some of them haven't been with us long, some have been here more than a year, but they all seem a decent set of girls.'

‘We are only interested in females in good health,' said one of the Guardians sharply.

‘They are none of them ill,' said the Matron defensively.

One of the Guardians stepped forward and addressed the girls in a loud voice.

‘Girls, I have been appointed by the Emigration Board to choose young females of good character and in good health to emigrate to Australia. Who among you would be willing to emigrate to Australia? Step forward, please.'

Caitlin grabbed Bridie's arm, dragging her along. The whole line of girls moved at the same time.

‘You will have free passage,' the man continued ‘and the Board has agreed to pay the expenses to outfit each of you for your new lives in the colony. Upon arrival, you will be indentured to employers.'

‘Have these girls wait outside the Master's quarters for interviewing,' said the man, turning on his heel.

When the Guardians had left the dining hall, Bridie whispered to Caitlin in a low voice, ‘But I don't want to go to the other side of the world.'

‘Do you want to stay here? Or go back to Dingle? Back to your family's graves?'

‘But there's Brandon. I promised my mam I'd take care of him.'

‘You can't take care of him, Bridie. It will be years before you can, and who knows what might happen in that time? He might have to go from the workhouse and leave you behind. If you get discharged, it will only be to go into service with someone and you won't be able to take Brandon with you then either. Don't you understand, girl? You'll never be able to take care of him while you stay in Ireland. The only way you can help him is to leave. He'll get a place when he's bigger, working as a labourer for someone, and you'll be able to send money.'

Bridie said nothing. She folded her arms across her chest.

‘Why would you want me to go?'

‘I don't care if you do or you don't,' said Caitlin coolly, ‘but mark my words, girl, you'll never get this chance again. Free passage! You know, there are girls lining up to get into the workhouse just to be offered a prize like this. If we were in the New World together, we could get good places, save our pennies and then one day get our own little house together and sew together and live like sisters. Maybe one day you could send Brandon the fare and he could come and live with us too.'

Bridie thought of all this as she sat on the long wooden bench outside the Master's office. It had been so long since she'd spoken with Brandon that sometimes she felt as if he too had died, even though she knew that every morning they woke up in the same building. She found herself struggling to think what his voice sounded like, trying to remember his small, quiet gestures and the way he looked at her with his pale blue eyes. The picture that Caitlin had painted, of the two girls in their own little house, made her giddy with desire, but what would Brandon say when he found out she'd abandoned him?

From the moment the girls were chosen for the venture, everything changed for them. They were taken downstairs to sleep in a separate room and preparations for their departure began. There were thirty-two girls from all across Kerry. Some were Protestant and some were Catholic, but all were orphans, and the prospect of the New World held less fear for them than having to make their own way in Ireland.

Bolts of fabric arrived and the girls were set to work sewing new outfits for the journey. Bridie wanted to shout with joy at the feeling of the new fabrics between her fingers. There was calico for their shifts, plaid for their cloaks, flannel for petticoats and yards of cotton for handkerchiefs. There was twilled linen and bright gingham for their aprons, wool and printed calico for their gowns, and worsted and cotton for their stockings. There was so much to be done. Bridie sewed swiftly, finishing Caitlin's work for her when the older girl fell behind. Each of the girls was given a wooden trunk to keep all her things in, with her name on the top. Bridie had never owned so much clothing in all her life.

Prayer books and Bibles were provided as well. Bridie turned the books over and over in her hands. She'd never owned a book before and the small black marks on each page were unfathomable to her, but when Caitlin received hers she immediately crossed over to the window and began reading the Bible, her expression full of concentration. Bridie stood beside her and watched.

‘You can read?' asked Bridie.

‘Yes,' said Caitlin, turning the page without looking up. And then, in a low voice she read, ‘Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.'

Autumn sunlight cut through the small panes of the workhouse window, making Caitlin's pale hair shimmer like spun gold, a halo above her white face. Bridie could almost believe Caitlin was her very own guardian angel.

‘It's from the book of Exodus, in the Old Testament,' said Caitlin, thumbing the pages. ‘You know, the one about Moses.' Bridie shook her head. She knew her rosary and all the prayers and parables and stories of Jesus that her mother had told her, but she knew nothing of the Old Testament stories.

That night, as they lay together in the room set aside for the girls of ‘The Scheme', Caitlin read the story of Moses out loud to Bridie. Some of the other girls crept closer to listen as well, their eyes bright.

Bridie liked to hear that the people were chosen by God, just as the girls were chosen by the Guardians to go to a new land, but her favourite part of the story was when the Red Sea parted and all the people of Israel walked across to their new home.

That night, Bridie dreamed of the journey. She was walking between great columns of water, red as blood and towering hundreds of feet above her. Beside her was Caitlin and ahead all the other orphan girls from the workhouse. Silver fish squirmed in the puddles of red water at their feet and they lifted the skirts of their new dresses to step across, and laughed. Bridie felt her heart beating faster and faster as she hurried between the walls of red seawater to reach the land ahead. They scrambled up the black rocks of the new land and then turned to stare down the long tunnel of waves. She could just make out the figure of a boy, a small boy, running between the walls of water towards them. As he drew closer, Bridie could see it was Brandon, calling to her as he leapt over the writhing fish. And then behind him, the sea began to fold back in on itself. She opened her mouth to cry out to him but no sound came. The roaring of the sea filled her ears as waves crashed down upon the small figure, sweeping him from her. She woke in a cold sweat, her heart pounding. Beside her Caitlin slept soundly but for the rest of the night Bridie lay awake, staring at the play of moonlight on the ceiling, trying to rid her mind of the image of Brandon drowning in a blood-red sea.

12

Land of forever young

Bridie tiptoed up the winding stairs, her body wired, tense. If they caught her, they'd never allow her to go to Australia. They'd probably throw her out of the workhouse, a bad girl like herself, sneaking into the boys' quarters in the dark of night. She moved like a shadow, swiftly, quietly from one doorway to the next. She hoped desperately that the boy drawing water from the well in the courtyard had given Brandon the message that she would come to find him.

She peered into the long boys' dormitory. There were rows and rows of boys huddled together in the straw, a mass of indistinct shapes in the dim moonlight. There was no way of knowing which was her brother. She dropped to her knees and crawled along the boards, peering through the darkness at the humped forms, whispering his name. A small boy sat up and watched her with curiosity. Finally, right near the end of the row, she was answered by a boy throwing his arms around her.

‘Brandon, is it you?' she whispered hoarsely, though she knew that it was. She could hardly make her voice work, the tears were so close. Brandon gently touched her cheek. ‘To be sure, blood knows blood,' he said softly. They knelt in front of each other, their hands gently moving across each other's faces, feeling the familiar features.

‘We're going to run away? That's why you've come for me, isn't it?' asked Brandon with barely suppressed excitement.

Bridie took his hands, entwining her fingers with his, and prayed for the courage to tell him the truth.

‘No, darling boy,' she whispered. ‘I've come to say goodbye.'

‘Goodbye?' Brandon's eyes looked black in the half-light.

Bridie swallowed hard and tried to make what she had to say sound ordinary.

‘I'm going to Australia. Tomorrow we leave for Dublin and then a boat will take us to Plymouth, in England, and then we'll sail right across the sea for months and months to reach the colony.'

‘I never dreamed one of those girls would be you. How can you be leaving me?'

‘You would have left me if the carter would have had you.'

‘I would have made him take us both!'

Though she couldn't see his face in the darkness, she knew as she knew her own heart that his face was streaked with tears.

She moved closer and put an arm around him.

‘I've missed you, Bridie,' he said.

‘I've missed you too. I've missed you every day since we've been parted.'

‘We shouldn't have come to this place,' said Brandon.

‘It was the workhouse or dying in a ditch by the roadside, boyo,' said Bridie, trying to sound stern with him though her heart was breaking. ‘And now I've got this chance, I'll get to the New World and then I'll send for you.'

‘Like Uncle Liam?' said Brandon with a bitterness that she'd never heard in his voice before.

‘Brandon, you know I'll come back for you. You remember the story of Ossian? Remember how our dad used to tell it? How even though the most beautiful fairy princess in all the worlds took him beyond the ninth wave to the land of wine and honey, and loved him forever and kissed him with honeyed kisses, still he never forgot his brothers. And remember how the love of them brought him back to Ireland? I'll be like Ossian, but I'll bring you to me, to the Land of Forever Young, like in the stories except it will be Australia, and there'll be sun-bowers and maybe palaces and we'll have a home there together. We'll have our silver and gold house right there.'