“Why would anyone do that?”
“Have ye never felt jealousy, Dr. Dunne?”
“You saved this child’s life, Miss Ferguson. I believe you’ve earned the right to call yourself her mother.”
She couldn’t help smiling. She had earned the right, hadn’t she?
“At any rate,” he said, “it would be a convict’s word against mine.”
Back on the deck a little while later, Hazel stood at the railing with Olive and her sailor, holding Ruby in her sling as the ship turned toward the harbor.
They sailed past whalers and a cargo ship and a litter of small boats. Dolphins dipped in and out of the water; white gulls with gray wings cawed overhead. A narrow strip of shoreline sloped into hills of multihued green, with glassy sheets—lakes, Hazel supposed—in the distance. Seals lounging on outcroppings of rock reminded her of the prostitutes who picnicked in Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow in the summer, hiking their dresses above their knees and fanning themselves with newspapers.
Above them, a square flag, half red and half white, fluttered on a mast in the breeze. “To warn the whole island that this vessel is filled with female incorrigibles.” Olive’s sailor grinned.
“Will ye miss him?” Hazel asked her.
Olive swatted him on the behind. “Parts of him, at least,” she said.
From the cove where the Medea was anchored, Hazel could see the busy wharf, and behind it, a tall mountain covered thickly in trees. She watched from the railing as Dunne and two sailors boarded a small boat. Under Dunne’s arm he carried the ledger in which she’d watched him write each day’s account, along with a binder filled with the women’s court records and other documents—including Ruby’s newly filled-out birth certificate.
When the boat made its way back from the pier to the ship several hours later, it held two extra men who turned out to be the superintendent of convicts and a British soldier in a scarlet uniform.
Over the next two days, the convicts were called to a makeshift office on the upper deck where they were catalogued, examined for infection, and quizzed about their skills. They were told that many of them would be sent out daily from the prison on assignment to work in settlers’ homes and shops as housemaids, cooks, flax spinners, straw plaiters, weavers, seamstresses, and laundresses. Others would work inside the prison. Insubordinates would be separately confined.
The superintendent began the assessments. When he called “Ferguson!” Hazel stepped forward.
He ran his finger down the ledger. “Height?”
“Five foot, one inch,” the British soldier said, holding a measuring stick against her back.
“Build?”
“Slight,” he said.
“Age?”
“Seventeen,” Hazel said. Dunne had mentioned offhandedly a few weeks earlier that September had come and gone, and she’d realized that her birthday had, as well.
Freckled complexion. Oval head. Red hair. Wide forehead. Auburn eyebrows. Gray eyes.
“Literate?”
“Somewhat.”
“Trade?”
Dunne stepped forward. “She has an infant, so it is my recommendation that she work in the nursery. She is quite . . . capable.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, and he gave her a smile that vanished so quickly she was the only one to see it.
Twelve hours later, as she stood on the main deck with the other convicts, Hazel gazed up at the moon, as yellow as a yolk in a cast-iron sky. By its light she could make out the phalanx of rowboats waiting to ferry the convicts to shore. The air was damp and cool. The women surged forward as the crew began loading them into boats. “Slow down, ye lot, or you’re never getting off this ship!” the British soldier shouted. “No skin off my nose to keep ye here. A prison’s a prison.”
A light rain began to fall. After some time, Olive came to stand beside Hazel, and, without a word, reached for the baby. She’d learned to anticipate when Ruby was hungry, and often appeared at the door to Hazel’s room just before she woke. Now Olive held Ruby in one arm and deftly unbuttoned her blouse with the other.
“I can’t stop thinking about poor Leenie, tumbling over,” Olive said, looking down at Ruby as she nursed. “I see her in this one’s face and it breaks me heart.”
After a few minutes, Dunne made his way over to them. He brought the Quakers’ bundle, the needle and thread and Bible that Hazel had left in the surgeon’s quarters. “I didn’t know if you wanted these.”
She shrugged. “I don’t have much use for a Bible, to be honest.”
“Maybe you’ll find some use for this.” He handed her his copy of The Tempest.
She looked at him with surprise. “It breaks up your set, Dr. Dunne.”
“Perhaps I shall get it back one day.”
“Ye do know where to find me,” she said.
The sky lightened, washing everything in a grayish tinge. Rain fell steadily. From her seat in the rowboat, Hazel gazed back across the water at the ship. It looked small and ordinary from this distance—no longer the terrifying hulk that loomed over her when she’d seen it from the skiff in London. As she sat there, contemplating how far she’d come, she saw a wiry man in shackles being led down the ramp to the boats. Buck, she realized. Following them ashore.
She nudged Olive, sitting beside her. “Look who’s out here.”
“Should’ve murdered him when we had the chance,” Olive said under her breath.
Hobart Town, 1840
Hazel’s legs wobbled when she stepped out of the boat and onto the dock. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d become to the rhythm of the waves until she was on solid ground, unable to find her footing. Afraid of losing her balance and dropping Ruby, she fell to her knees. All around her, women were doing the same.
By the time all 192 women and children had been ferried over and marched across the rickety causeway to the wharf, it was midmorning. Hazel looked at the gulls circling overhead, the fog wallowing on the sea behind them. Listened to the tide ramp against the shore, a low, rhythmic roar. A cool breeze came off the water, twisting up her skirt and winding between her legs. She tucked the blanket around Ruby and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
As they made their way across the slick cobblestones of the wharf, Hazel became aware of a strange whooping noise. A crowd of rough-looking men was moving toward them. Coming closer, they leered at the women, grabbing their skirts, waving hats in their faces, calling them names Hazel had never heard before, even on the streets of Glasgow.
“Look a’ that flash bit o’ mutton! . . . nasty bunters . . . stinkin’ fish drabs . . . moon-eyed hens . . . dirty cracks . . .”
“Droolin’ animals,” Olive muttered, behind Hazel. “Can’t abide that we’re heading to prison instead of warming their beds.”
The women shuffled along, looking down, trying to avoid the muddy puddles in the dirt road, pushing the men back with their elbows. Behind them, soldiers in scarlet uniforms carrying muskets on their shoulders stood watching. “Let’s go, pick it up!” they yelled. The soldiers pushed the women roughly if they got out of line and pulled them to their feet if they tripped and fell, their hands lingering too long on waists and backsides.
Macquarie Street, the sign read just ahead. They trudged up a hill past brown government buildings and a brick church with a black dome and a three-faced clock, women moaning, children pleading, “How much longer? Where are we going?” Ruby, too, was fussing, hungry; Hazel tried to bobble her in the sling. Her own stomach rumbled. They hadn’t been offered anything but hardtack in the darkness before they left. Spoiled by the real food she’d been eating lately, she’d turned up her nose. She regretted it now.
They passed two-story sandstone houses, small neat cottages, lean-to shacks that appeared to have been nailed together in a day. Roses twined up trellises and cherry trees bloomed in shades of pink. The morning air smelled peaty and fresh. Hazel gazed ahead at the high rocky bluffs of the mountain she’d seen from the har
bor, the top of it clouding into sky. On either side of the road were trees with pinkish gray bark that reminded her of shorn sheepskin. She was startled to see birdlike creatures in a fenced-in garden that were taller than humans, with skinny legs and oblong bodies, strutting and pecking the dirt.
After some time, the long parade of women descended into a valley. A weak sun slipped from behind the clouds as they made their way past wooden shanties, a sawmill, a brewery. A group of green birds, massed as thickly as mosquitoes, whizzed through the air above their heads. The mud was deeper here, tamped down by the women at the front of the line but squishy nonetheless. It seeped through the seams of Hazel’s shoes. All of this walking felt strange and unnatural after so many months at sea. Her legs ached and her feet were sore. She was thirsty and needed to pee.
Olive tapped Hazel’s arm. “Look at that.”
In a field about a hundred yards away, a cluster of large brown animals with deerlike faces and rabbity ears stood on their hind legs, staring at them. One turned and hopped off and the others followed, bounding after it like balls tipped from a basket.
“What in the world,” Hazel breathed. This place was stranger than she’d dared to imagine.
As they marched forward, she became aware of a murmuring from the front of the line, and then, a few moments later, a terrible smell. She looked down: they were crossing a small bridge over a rivulet filled with sewage. Gray rats scurried in and out of the water.
Olive nudged her from behind. “Look up.”
Straight ahead, in the shadow of the mountain, a windowless fortress rose from the earth. At the front of the line a soldier rapped on the huge wooden gate. When it opened, he barked at the convicts and children to form two lines. Slowly, they began to file inside.
A thin, whiskered man in a blue uniform and a woman in a black dress buttoned to the neck stood near the far end of a desolate courtyard. Behind them, three women in shapeless prison garb swept the gravel. One, a woman with braided white hair, stopped her work and watched the new prisoners file in. When Hazel caught her eye, she put a finger to her lips.
Except for a clanging pot and the sound of someone chopping wood in the distance, the place was eerily quiet.
After the last woman entered, and the gate was closed and locked, the whiskered man stepped forward. “I am Mr. Hutchinson, superintendent of the Cascades Female Factory,” he said in a high, reedy voice, “and this is Mrs. Hutchinson, the matron. As long as you are imprisoned here, you will be under our command.” He shifted from foot to foot, speaking so quietly that the women had to lean forward, straining to hear. “Your personal effects will be taken from you and returned when you are released, unless they are deemed too foul, in which case they will be incinerated. Utmost cleanliness and submission are expected at all times. You will attend daily chapel at eight in the morning, after breakfast, and at eight at night, after supper. Lateness and absences will be severely punished. Profanity and smoking tobacco are even graver offenses. It is our belief that silence prevents disruptions and bad influences. Talking, laughing, whistling, and singing are strictly forbidden. If you break this rule, you will be punished.”
Hazel glanced furtively around. The courtyard was damp and shadowed, pocked with puddles. It smelled of mold. The walls rose twenty feet around them. Ruby was whimpering. Her diaper sagged, sodden, and she needed to be fed.
“You’ll be assigned to one of three classes, depending upon your sentence, reports of your conduct filled out by the ship’s surgeon, and our assessment of your character. Assignables—those of you who are well behaved and presentable, and who possess a useful skill or ability—will be accorded the privilege of leaving the premises to work in free settlers’ homes and businesses.”
Olive poked Hazel in the back. “‘Privilege,’” she scoffed. “To be worked like horses and treated like dogs.”
“If you fail to perform your work, show signs of insolence, become intoxicated, or attempt to run away, this privilege will be revoked.” The superintendent spoke in a monotone, his voice droning on. “Crime-class prisoners are employed at the prison, making and repairing clothing and working at the tubs in the washing yard. If you are found guilty of disobedience, profanity, obscenity, insubordination, sloth, or disorderly conduct, your hair will be sheared and you will be placed in a dark cell in solitary confinement, picking oakum until your sentence is served.
“If you become pregnant you may care for your infant for six months in the nursery before serving six months in the crime yard for the offense of unwed pregnancy. Older children will be sent to an orphanage. Mothers on good behavior may be permitted to visit on Sundays.”
Though Hazel knew that mothers and children would be separated, most of the women did not. Their cries and exclamations filled the courtyard.
“Quiet!” the superintendent barked.
Ruby’s whimpering turned into a wail. Olive whispered, “Should I feed her?”
Hazel pulled Ruby out of the sling and handed her over. “You’ll be Ruby’s nurse, then?”
Olive shook her head. “If I do, they’ll make me a wet nurse. I can’t be stuck to babies all day long.”
When at last the superintendent finished speaking, the convicts queued for the midday meal, a hunk of bread and a pint of watery soup. Mutton, they were told, though Hazel tasted only fat and gristle. It was sharply sour, rancid. Despite her hunger, she spat it back in the bowl. For the rest of the afternoon, she stood with the other women in the drafty courtyard, jiggling Ruby on her hip, waiting to see the doctor. She watched as, one by one, they disappeared into a small brick house and emerged in gray uniforms.
“Show me your hands,” the dour-faced doctor said when it was finally her turn. Hazel set Ruby on a wooden chair and held out her palms. Hands up, hands down. “Open your mouth.” Looking at her papers, he raised a bushy eyebrow. “It says here your child needs a wet nurse.”
She nodded.
“It’s because you’re too thin,” he said irritably. “You convicts don’t take care of yourselves, and others are forced to carry your burden. Who fed her on the ship?”
Hazel knew better than to implicate Olive. “A woman who sadly died.”
“That’s unfortunate.” He made a note in her chart. “It is recommended that you work in the nursery. What are your skills?”
She hesitated. “I was a midwife.”
“You delivered babies?”
“Yes. And I have some experience treating infants’ maladies.”
“I see. Well . . .” He sighed. “The ship surgeon’s report is quite positive. And we are understaffed.” Looking up from her chart, he said, “In the morning, you may walk with the new mothers and wet nurses. I’ll make a note for you to assist in the birthing room as needed.”
“Thank you.” She picked Ruby up and held her against her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he said sharply.
“I’m—I’m taking my baby.”
“No you are not. We will transport this child to the nursery. You may see her tomorrow.”
She felt her heart thudding in her chest. “She has always slept with me.”
“Not anymore. You relinquished that right—indeed, any rights—when you committed your crime.”
“But—”
“That will be all, convict.” Stiffly, he held out his arms.
She hesitated. But what else could she do? She gave him the baby.
He took her as if he were handling a fireplace log.
With one last lingering look at Ruby, who was starting to fuss, Hazel was escorted from the room.
Across the hall, the matron, wearing a pair of long gloves, lifted the hair from the nape of her neck. “No apparent lice,” she reported to a convict scratching notes. “Luckily for you, you may keep your hair,” she said to Hazel.
After being sent to bathe in cold dirty water in a metal tub, Hazel put on her uniform—a coarse gray dress, dark stockings, and sturdy black shoes—and surreptitiously tucked Evangelin
e’s handkerchief in her wide front pocket. The matron handed her a parcel containing another dress, a shawl, an apron, several shifts, another pair of stockings, a rough straw bonnet, and two folded rags. “For your monthlies. If you’re of age,” she said, adding, “Are you?”
“I have a baby.”
“I would not have guessed.” The matron shook her head. “Pity. A young girl like you.”
At seven thirty, when the supper bell clanged, Hazel was so ravenous that the foul-smelling oxtail soup was almost appealing. She gulped it down and hurried to the chapel for the eight o’clock service, where she huddled on a crowded pew with the other convicts in the near darkness, listening to the chaplain harangue them as he banged his fist on the lectern. “Servants, you must obey in all things your masters; not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God!” he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. “You of depraved and vicious habits, given up to debauchery and idleness, must be brought into habits of decency and industry!”
As the words washed over her, Hazel was reminded of the few times she’d dipped into St. Andrews Cathedral in Glasgow to get warm during Sunday morning services. Even at a young age, she’d bridled against all the talk of sin and depravity. It seemed there were different rules for rich and poor, and the poor were always blamed. They were told that only by confessing their sins would they triumph over illnesses, like typhoid, but the streets and water were filthy. And girls and women had it worst, she’d always thought. Mired in the mud, no way to get out.
When the sermon finally ended, the convicts were divided into groups of twelve and herded into cells filled with four rows of three hammocks. There was barely room to move. “You’ll notice two buckets,” the guard said. “One’s drinking water and one’s a chamber pot. You’ll be smart to remember which is which.”
The bare canvas hammocks crawled with fleas. The floor was sticky. The room smelled sharply of urine and blood and feces. When the door clanked shut, the women were in total darkness. Sitting on a moldy hammock, listening to the moans and coughs and sobs around her, Hazel thought only of Ruby, alone in the nursery. Was she wet? Was she crying? Hungry? It was the first night they’d spent apart. She felt bereft without the warm weight of her in the crook of her arm.
The Exiles Page 16
