The Exiles

by Christina Baker Kline

  Sitting in the darkness now, prying apart strands of rope, she thought about all the convicts in other cells, each stewing in her own heartache and misery. This place was filled with women who’d had wretched childhoods, who’d been used and deceived, who felt unloved. Who were bitter and spiteful and couldn’t let go of their wounded feelings, their outrage at having been betrayed. Who couldn’t forgive. The truth was, Hazel could stoke her own hot coal until the day she died, but what good would it do? Its warmth was scant.

  It was time to let go. She was no longer an angry child. She didn’t want to carry that burning coal around anymore; she was ready to be rid of it. Yes, her mother had been selfish and irresponsible; yes, she sent her out onto the streets to steal and turned her back when she was caught. She also taught her the skills that would save her.

  The guard, heartless bastard, was right: Hazel was only hurting herself.

  At the end of the fourteenth day, when the cell door opened, Hazel was crouching in a corner. She rubbed her tar-gnarled fingers and blinked into the light. “It’s like the den of a fox in here,” the guard said, hauling her out by an arm.

  The Cascades, 1842

  While preferable to solitary, life in the crime yard was its own version of hell. Hazel joined a line of convicts hunched over stone washtubs along the walls in the gray winter light. The work was endless. Not only were they responsible for scrubbing the prisoners’ clothing; they washed all the clothing and linens for the ships and the hospital and the orphanage. With broomsticks, they fished the sopping linens out of a tub of warm water and dunked them in a tub of rinsing water and then a tub of cold water—three heavy lifts. Standing ankle-deep in the water that overflowed from the tubs, they fed the linens through a mangle, two rollers and a hand-turned crank. Another group hung wet items on half a dozen clotheslines stretched across the center of the yard. Water pooling in the yard quickly turned to mud.

  The women were drenched from morning until night. They shook with chills. Their oakum-ravaged fingers stiffened in the water and bled on the coarse linens. They were not allowed to speak; mainly they communicated through facial expression and gesture. Locked inside stone cells at night for more than twelve hours, they huddled together against the frost like mice in a drain. Twice a day they were berated by the chaplain in a small, dark chapel, separate from the other convicts:

  Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.

  The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

  Some of the women gave in to despair. You could see it in their eyes: a smoky haze. They stopped thrusting their bowls forward or trying to secure a space at the tubs. Every few days one of them was discovered unconscious, collapsed in a heap. When the guards came with food, they’d drag the body to a corner of the courtyard by the heels, leaving it for hours, sometimes days, before carting it away.

  The only way to get through this, Hazel saw, was to just . . . let go. She couldn’t think; she only needed to react. If she thought too much she would be paralyzed with dread, and that wouldn’t do her any good at all.

  Hazel tried not to think of Ruby, alone at the orphanage. She focused her attention on the sopping laundry, the stains and spots, the bar of lye soap in her hand. Warm water, rinsing water, ice water, mangle. As soon as she finished one piece, she started another. She did not retort when provoked by the guards. When she needed to move, she did so stealthily, like a cat. At mealtimes she wended her way toward the gruel without drawing attention. She stayed as quiet as she could. This, she found, was the trick: you didn’t have to react to each little thing. You could just exist. Let your mind simmer over a low fire.

  One morning, a month after arriving in the crime yard, Hazel looked up from the washtub to see Olive coming toward her. She sat back on her heels in surprise.

  Olive grinned. “Ahoy.”

  “What’re ye doing here?” Hazel whispered.

  The guard gave them a sharp look. Hazel put a finger to her lips.

  Olive knelt at the tub. “I needed to see ye, so I whistled at muster. As I figured: three days at the tubs.” She looked around. “Can’t believe I’m back in this shitehole.”

  She glanced at the guard. Hazel followed her gaze. A convict had slipped in the mud, and he was prodding her to her feet.

  “I had to let ye know,” Olive stage-whispered. “Buck’s the reason ye lost Ruby. He got his mate from the ship to smuggle the ledgers to Hutchinson.”

  Hazel’s mouth went dry. “How do ye know?”

  “Buck was here. On a crew building the new cells. He was bragging about it. Thing is, he escaped. Climbed over the wall.”

  “That’s enough, ye two,” the guard called. “C’mon now, up!” he said gruffly, poking the woman in the mud with his shoe as she struggled to rise.

  Olive stuck her hands in the water and sucked her teeth. “Forgot how bloody cold it is.” Splashing loudly, she said, “He’s out there talking revenge to anybody who’ll listen. Says it’s just a matter of when.”

  Hazel thought of the way Buck’s eyes had bored into her as she stood before the captain on the ship, telling him what she’d seen.

  “He wants Ruby. He’s been asking around, trying to find someone to get her from the orphanage.”

  Hazel’s heart seized. “No. They wouldn’t allow it. I’m the . . .”

  Olive tilted her head. “You’re not, though. Are ye?”

  Hazel looked at the stone walls rising all around her. The laundry dripping icicles. The woman still splayed on the cobbles. Buck was out there, trying to get to Ruby, and she was in here. Trapped.

  All day long, muddling the laundry and slopping it into buckets and running each piece through the ringer and dragging it to the clothesline, she turned the situation over in her mind. Lying in the straw in the stone cell that night, she stared up into the dark. Would anyone be willing to intervene? Mrs. Crain? Mrs. Wilson? Maeve? One of the mothers with a child at the orphanage? She thought of how impossible it had been for her to see Mathinna and was overcome with despair.

  The convict women were powerless. The people with power had no reason to help.

  Except . . . maybe . . .

  She sat up, gripped by an idea.

  The next morning, Hazel took the tin ticket from around her neck. Pressing it into Olive’s hand, she told her what to do.

  Six weeks later, when Hazel was released from the crime yard, Olive was waiting.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  The assignables stood in the long, narrow main yard in two straight lines, facing each other. Shifting nervously from one foot to the other, Hazel scanned the faces of the free settlers as they filed in through the wooden gate. At the end of the line was a man in a long black coat, light gray trousers, and a black top hat. His dark hair curled over the collar of his shirt, and he wore a short-cropped beard.

  Once inside the courtyard, he removed his hat and smoothed his hair. Hazel gulped.

  It was Dunne.

  When he looked over at the rows of women, Hazel caught his eye. He raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment.

  A jowly man in shiny leather boots had stopped in front of her. “Ever worked as a cook?”

  “No, sir,” she mumbled.

  “Can you sew?”

  “No.”

  “How’re you at laundry?”

  “No good, sir.”

  “What’s that, prisoner?” the man said loudly, looking around to see if anyone else had witnessed her impudence.

  “I’m not any good at all at laundry. Sir.”

  “Ye never been a housemaid?”

  She shook her head.

  “Useless wench!”

  “How are you at needlepoint?” asked the next person, a matronly housekeeper.

  “Dreadful, ma’am,” Hazel said.

  The woman flared her nostrils and moved along.r />
  Finally Dunne was standing in front of her. She did not dare look up. “Your hair is so short,” he said quietly, moving a step closer. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  Self-consciously, she touched the nape of her neck.

  He cleared his throat and stepped back. “I have a child in my care and need someone to look after her,” he said. “Have you any experience, prisoner?”

  “I have.” She looked up, searching his eyes, but remembered herself. Looking down, she added, “Sir.”

  “Of what sort?”

  “I—I worked in the nursery. Here, at the Cascades.”

  “Do you know how to treat scrapes and runny noses?”

  “Of course.”

  “Crankiness?”

  She smiled. “I am an expert.”

  “I will need someone to teach her to read. Are you literate?”

  “‘You may deny me, but I’ll be your servant / Whether you will or no,’” she said softly.

  He paused. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  She couldn’t help it; she smiled again.

  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dropped it at her feet. She watched it fall, a crisp white pocket square. Bending down, she picked it up and waved it toward the superintendent.

  Mr. Hutchinson strode over. “Good morning, Mr. . . . ,” he said to Dunne.

  “Frum,” he said. “Doctor Frum. Good morning.”

  “I see you’ve selected Miss Ferguson. For what kind of employment, may I ask?”

  “To take care of a child.”

  Hutchinson grimaced showily.

  “Is that a problem, superintendent?”

  “Well . . . I must warn you, Dr. Frum, that this particular convict may not be the most appropriate choice. She was recently sent to the crime yard for a related offense.”

  “What was it, may I ask?”

  “She impersonated a mother in order to get preferential treatment. To work in the nursery.”

  Dunne gave Hazel an appraising look. “And what does the real mother say?”

  “The real mother? I believe she is deceased.”

  “And the father?”

  “I—nothing is known about the . . . father,” Hutchinson stammered.

  “So this girl—what is your name?” Dunne asked abruptly, turning to Hazel.

  “Hazel Ferguson, sir.”

  “This girl, Hazel Ferguson, assumed the care of a parentless child.”

  “Well, yes. But—”

  “Did she take adequate care of the child?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Were there complaints about her conduct?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “And as superintendent you would know, would you not?”

  “I suppose I would.”

  Dunne stood back on his heels. “Well, Mr. Hutchinson, it is precisely her experience caring for a parentless child that qualifies her to work for me. Her ability to do the job is my only concern.”

  The superintendent shook his head and sighed. “If I were you, I might be concerned about the deceit, sir. The . . . impersonation. There are other suitable—”

  “I think,” Dunne said, “I’ll take my chances with Miss Ferguson.”

  Hazel fought to keep her eyes down and her posture submissive as he made arrangements for the assignment. She felt as if they were conspiring to pull off an escape, or a heist. When he beckoned her forward, she followed him through the wooden gate with her head bowed, like any dutiful convict maid. She trailed him down the street to his dun-colored horse and four-wheeled open buggy, and when he sprang up onto the driver’s seat, she climbed onto the bench behind. Without looking back, he handed her a small parcel, then took the reins. He swatted the horse with a leather whip and they jolted off down the road.

  She opened the parcel. Inside was Evangeline’s ticket.

  It was a chilly day in early spring. A silver disk of sun washed the grasses on the side of the road in a pale white light. Broom-bristle branches reached toward a sky streaked with wisps of cloud. As they made their way up the hill to Macquarie Street, Hazel looked back at the convicts trudging along on foot and riding in rickety carts.

  Dunne flicked the whip again and the horse trotted on, leaving them behind.

  Hobart Town, 1842

  After some time, they turned from the long stretch of Macquarie Street onto a narrower side street lined with small cottages. When they reached a sandstone cottage with a red tile roof and a blue front door, Dunne pulled down the dirt drive. A sign hung on a post in the yard: Dr. Caleb Dunne, Physician and Apothecarie. It felt quite secluded; the house next door was hidden behind a tall hedge.

  Dunne jumped down from the driver’s seat and unbuckled the harness, then freed the horse from its bridle and hitched it to a post.

  “Where is she?” Hazel asked, the first words she had spoken since they left the Cascades.

  He walked toward the front steps, motioning for her to follow.

  Hazel held her breath as she stepped over the threshold into the cottage. Dunne, ahead of her, turned into a room. Her heart racing, she hurried after him.

  And there she was: Ruby. Sitting on the floor, building a tower out of wooden blocks.

  “Oh,” Hazel breathed.

  Ruby looked up, a block in her hand.

  It had been more than four months since Hazel had seen her. She was heartbreakingly older. Her face had thinned and lengthened. Brown curls spilled down her back. She gazed at Hazel for a long moment, as if she couldn’t quite place her.

  “Give ’er time.” A woman’s voice.

  Hazel looked up. “Maeve!” The woman was sitting in the shadows in a rocking chair, holding two knitting needles, a pile of yarn heaped in front of her.

  “Welcome. We’ve been waiting for ye.”

  “What are ye doing here?”

  With a broad smile, Maeve reached up and touched her white braid. “Glad to see yours is growing back.”

  “A small price to pay, if it led to this,” Hazel said, tucking a short strand behind her ear.

  Ruby’s attention had shifted back to the blocks. Hazel knelt on the floor and crept closer. When she handed Ruby a block, the girl balanced it carefully on top of her tower.

  Hazel wanted to give her a hug, but she was afraid of startling her. “Clever girl.”

  “Clever . . . mama,” Ruby said.

  “Clever mama,” Hazel said, laughing through tears.

  Dunne stood aside as Hazel inspected his surgery, ran her fingers along his implements, lifted the lids from tinctures and powders and held them to her nose, tasted them on her tongue. After Evangeline’s death, he told her, he’d had enough of convict ships. But it took three more voyages before he’d saved enough to set up a practice. Almost a year ago, he resigned from his post as surgeon on the Medea and bought this cottage on Campbell Street in Hobart Town, with three bedrooms, a shed with a cistern, and a long narrow garden in the back.

  A few weeks earlier, an unsigned letter had been slipped under Dunne’s door, explaining that Buck had exposed Hazel’s lie and threatened to take Ruby. The letter mentioned that Maeve, a midwife, had recently gotten her ticket of leave; if Dunne took Ruby in, perhaps he could employ Maeve to take care of her until Hazel was released from the crime yard.

  Dunne made an appointment with the warden at the Queen’s Orphan School and presented himself as Ruby’s father, Dr. Frum. The warden seemed relieved to release her to his care; she was sickly, he said, and needed medical attention the orphanage couldn’t provide. One fewer death on the ledger was always a good thing. As soon as Dunne saw the child, it was clear to him that she had typhoid. He brought her back to the cottage and set up a nursery in a sunny room facing the garden, then hired Maeve, who lived in a boardinghouse on Macquarie Street. The two of them slowly nursed Ruby back to health. Before long, Maeve was helping out with the details of his practice: organizing surgical implements, stripping cloth into ban
dages, meeting with patients. She wasn’t literate but could remember every detail of a patient’s complaint.

  “I can’t believe how big Ruby has gotten,” Dunne said to Hazel. “These years have flown.”

  “For you, perhaps,” she said.

  The next morning, Hazel stood at the entrance to the Cascades with the other assignables who had ongoing placements. When Dunne arrived, she climbed into his buggy without a word.

  Ruby was waiting on the front stoop when they got to the cottage. “You’re here!” she cried.

  Hazel wanted to shout to the rooftops, to sweep Ruby into her arms. But she didn’t. “Of course I am,” she said nonchalantly, getting down from the buggy. “I promised I’d be back, and here I am.”

  All day long, the two of them played seek-and-find, built fairy houses in the back garden out of sticks and leaves, read stories and drank sweet tea in the kitchen.

  Hazel could hardly believe her good fortune. She would get to spend entire days with Ruby. She would get to be her mother.

  On the floor of Ruby’s bedroom sat a large dollhouse. Dunne had seen it in a shop window, he said, and couldn’t resist. It was three stories tall and had many rooms, with servants’ quarters at the top.

  “Let’s play,” Ruby said to Hazel. “I’ll be the lady. You be the maid.”

  “May I come downstairs, please, madam?” Hazel asked in a high voice, her thumb and forefinger around the doll in the attic. “It’s so dark up here.”

  “No,” Ruby said as the lady of the house. “You must be punished.”

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “You talked too much at supper. And ran down the hallway.”

  “How long must I stay up here?”

  “For two days. And if you are very naughty, you will be beaten with a cane.”

  “Oh.” A cane. Hazel’s heart froze. “But I am all alone. How could I be naughty?”

  “You might spill your porridge. Or wet the bed.”

  “Everyone spills their porridge sometimes. And wets the bed.”