The Woman In the Green Dress

by Téa Cooper

  A frown danced across her forehead and she gave a slight shake of her head. ‘Unfortunately I have commitments in Sydney.’

  It had never crossed his mind that she would make the journey. ‘I’m planning a trip to the Hawkesbury. I have an acquaintance I must visit just outside St Albans and I intend to travel by road which I believe is more than adequate and leads directly to the Hawkesbury.’

  ‘Ah. The Great North Road.’ She chewed on her lower lip, her gaze resting on the birds in the window. ‘Something could perhaps be arranged.’

  Would he ever get used to this strange land? Everything was unexpected, not least a woman running her own business. She was offering a proposition, dangling a bait in front of his nose to ensure a series of sales. Sales she had already made, though he had no intention of admitting it.

  His mind tumbled as he imagined a series of rooms housing specimens such as these. The fashion for the art of taxidermy had gathered momentum in the last few years and these were so very different from the myriad hummingbirds and butterflies in glass domes that graced most drawing rooms in Vienna and London. ‘I should very much like to discuss this further, perhaps tomorrow before I leave?’ He pulled his watch from his pocket. ‘We should return to the ball. Supper will be served shortly.’

  ‘I look forward to tomorrow. Nine o’clock would suit you?’

  ‘Indeed it would.’

  ‘Let us make haste.’ He reached for her cloak which lay drooped across a glass-fronted wooden display case housing an intricate skeleton of a huge snake.

  ‘I won’t be returning to Government House. I somewhat overstepped the mark in attending in the first place. I will not deceive you. I am an emancipist and as such I’m not welcome in polite society.’ Her lip curled in a dismissive smile and her strange eyes flared. ‘I was however keen to make your acquaintance and it seemed the easiest way.’

  Any reply stuck in his throat. She’d come to Australia as a convict, her sentence served otherwise she wouldn’t be running a business. A spike of anger raced through him. ‘In that case neither will I.’ The Baron was right. There was much about this country to infuriate a man with a conscience. ‘Perhaps I can offer you supper at my hotel. I’m staying at the Berkeley in Bent Street, not a stone’s throw from here. Sladdin, the clerk, is an admirer of your enterprise.’

  A smile tipped the corner of her lips and she toyed with one of the wrapped lozenges filling a shallow wooden bowl on the desk. ‘Let’s leave it until tomorrow morning. I have work to complete, and if you are serious about visiting the Hawkesbury, logistics to contemplate.’ She walked across the room and unbolted the front door.

  His dismissal.

  He cast one last, long look around the room and with a deal of regret, pulled his heels together and bowed sharply. ‘Thank you, Mrs Atterton for a most interesting evening. I look forward to tomorrow. Guten Abend.’

  In a matter of seconds the front door closed leaving him standing in the street while Mrs Atterton’s shadow doused the lights of The Curio Shop of Wonders.

  Six

  Mogo Creek, Hawkesbury, NSW, 1853

  ‘Charity, there isn’t any tea left.’

  ‘I know. Have to make do with warm milk or water. There’s some lemons on the tree and dried chamomile somewhere.’

  ‘When were Gus and Dobbin supposed to get here?’

  ‘Yesterday if the tea caddy’s empty.’

  Pulling the catgut tight, Della completed the neat row of stitching with a knot. ‘I didn’t think I’d get this finished in time.’ She lifted the bird gently from her lap and laid it on the bench, smoothing the bright feathers, then turned to clear the table of her tools. The earthenware bowl still held the remains of the water and arsenical soap and at her feet lay the strips of cloth she’d used to hold the limbs in place.

  In only two days she’d created another display. The birds were easy and, more often than not, she’d find them herself. Not so the larger animals. Thankfully Gus and Dobbin cleaned the skins and boned the animals, leaving her with the task of building the frames and reassembling them before the skins became too brittle. She flexed her fingers and threw open the door.

  Charity scooped up the detritus and threw it into a bucket. ‘I’ll get this. You sort out your tools. You know where you want them.’

  Della picked up the scalpel and wiped the razor-sharp blade and ivory handle clean before placing it in the pocket in the leather pouch next to the stiletto. These tools would last a lifetime—had lasted Pa’s lifetime, and now they were hers.

  He’d passed his trade on to her, not just the stuffing and moulding Ma had done but the careful recreation of each creature, a second life he used to say, immortal. And so she captured their favourite pose, poised in flight or ready to pounce, as though at any moment they would leap back to life and take to the wing. The pliers and file slipped into the pouches and she rolled up the soft leather and tied the cord tight before placing it in the drawer. ‘I hope Gus remembered the wire.’ Without it she wouldn’t be able to mount these latest specimens.

  The rain had cleared and a watery sunshine puddled on the dirt floor as she threw open the shutters and extinguished the candles, letting the sweet air blow through and clear the dust and the overlaying coppery scent of blood.

  Charity picked up a single green tail feather and picked her teeth, scrutinising the three King parrots perched on a dead gum tree. ‘That’s come up a treat, it has.’ She wandered towards the window. ‘Looks like we’re in for another dump.’ As the words left Charity’s mouth a crash of thunder echoed, shaking the walls. She let out a shrill squawk and peered through her fingers. ‘Bloody brilliant timing. Here’s Gus and Dobbin. I’d kill for a cup of tea.’

  With a resounding rumble the heavens opened and Della yanked the shutters closed. ‘I’ll get my cloak. You stay here. They’ll need a hand with the supplies otherwise they’ll be ruined.’

  Della grasped the door handle, tugging against the wind. Heads down, collars up, Gus and Dobbin battled against the storm to free the horses and settle them in the barn. A large gust lifted the canvas tarpaulin covering the wagon and it flew up into the tree, flapping like a demented emu.

  She reefed her cloak from the hook, threw it over her shoulders and battled towards the wagon. The stores would be ruined if the water got into the flour and tea and the thought of wet soggy skins didn’t bear thinking about. She and Charity would have weeks on starvation rations, just the way it had been when they’d first arrived.

  ‘You’re late.’

  ‘Only a day or two. Important business that couldn’t wait.’ Gus threw the words over his shoulder and lowered the backboard, dragging the first of the burlap sacks off the bed of the wagon. She hefted it onto her shoulder and staggered across the yard. The moment she reached the workshop the door flew open.

  ‘Dump it all in ’ere for the time being, we’ll sort it out later.’

  Without bothering to reply to Charity she threw the sack of supplies onto the ground and returned to the wagon for another, ducking as a forked slash of lightning illuminated the yard. Dobbin elbowed her to one side and heaved three sacks into his arms.

  ‘Where are the skins?’

  ‘Stacked under the seats. Huge pile. Cordelia says she’s got a big order. You worry about the supplies. Gus’ll get those.’

  A roll of wire and several boxes neatly labelled; she checked them off in her mind as she picked them up. White arsenic, carbonate of potash and camphor. She’d need some citrus for the arsenical soap. Thankfully the trees out the back were laden and wood ash and animal fat was not in short supply. Hessian bags stuffed with skins lay in a puddle and she tugged them out, slipping and sliding in the quagmire the yard had become.

  The rain fell in great vertical slashes slapping her skin, the yard claggy with mud and rutted from the downpour. Dobbin’s reek of unwashed flesh snatched at her breath. Sensing her distaste, he threw her a morose stare and lumbered off.

  The filthy hem of her dress
clutched at her legs and her boots, weighed down by the mud clinging to the soles, making each step a struggle.

  ‘Got the rest. You get inside.’

  She grunted at Gus and grabbing the boxes in both hands staggered towards the workshop, not daring to run. Without the arsenic, Charity wouldn’t be able to make the soap she needed to preserve the skins or dust the feathers of her recent efforts.

  By the time they’d emptied the wagon Della was exhausted. She slumped against the wall and slid down onto her haunches, her stomach churning from the overpowering reek of tobacco, dung and damp wool.

  Charity rummaged in the pile of goods and pulled out a small sack of tea and one of sugar. ‘I’ll make us all a brew, chase away the shivers, and I’ll knock up some fresh damper.’

  ‘There’s a jar of honey in there somewhere. Go down a treat, ’specially with this.’ Gus produced a flagon of rum from under his coat and thrust it into Charity’s hands. ‘Lace the tea with that.’

  It wasn’t until Della had settled in front of the fire with her hands clasped around a mug of tea that sensation began to come back to her fingers.

  ‘Why so many skins this time?’

  ‘Cordelia reckons she’s snaffled a really big order, friend of the Governor. She’s out to impress him. That’s why we’re late. Got us all lined up to meet with this big nob at St Albans tomorrow. Take him up into the hills for a spot of ’unting.’

  ‘Why’re you going up there?’ Hopefully the Darkinjung women had moved on; they wouldn’t want the likes of Gus and Dobbin hanging around their sacred sites. Gus and Dobbin hadn’t any time for them. Worse than Charity in fact. She was just scared. Though Della had no idea why. They never caused trouble, were more a help than a hindrance. But for Jarro and his friends, she and Pa would never have seen the animals in their natural habitat.

  The atmosphere in the room shifted. She didn’t miss the whack Gus landed on Dobbin’s thigh as he leant forward and tried to slop some more rum into his tea. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘Nuffink. Drink your tea and shut up. We’ll camp in here tonight. Too wet outside and we’ve got to be off early if we’re going to meet up with the nob.’

  ‘The Captain.’ Dobbin waggled his head backwards and forwards and stuck out his burly oversized chest. He received another belt from Gus, this time around his thick head. He shook Gus’s hand away as if it was a persistent fly and lumbered to his feet. ‘I know. I know. Keep me trap shut.’ He knocked back the rest of the tea and crammed a lump of dried meat he’d pulled from his pocket into his mouth before wiping the back of his hand across his flaccid lips.

  Della shuddered. The man was almost childlike in his simplicity except for the nasty shifty glint in his eye. He was twice the size of Gus and had about half the manners, and that wasn’t saying much. Nothing more than a guard dog. He smelt like a rancid dingo, all sweaty and meaty in his filthy Crimean shirt and festering moleskins.

  Della’s fingers tightened around the door. One minute and she’d be away from them, away from their stench and their belligerence. Without another word, she left the workshop, relieved as the last echoes of their voices died and they banged the barn door shut behind her. Why did Cordelia employ them? Surely there were other men who could do the job, men less aggressive and, heaven forbid, better smelling. The stench of their hunting hung over them like a shroud. Disgusting.

  She slumped down in the chair by the fire, eyeing her filthy brown homespun dress with distaste. She hadn’t worn anything with any colour since Ma and Pa died. Not even mourning black, just brown homespun. What did it matter out at Mogo Creek when there was no one to see? At least she didn’t smell, or did she? She shivered and hunched close to the fire.

  ‘What you need is a bath. Warm you up. Wet through you are.’ Charity dragged the old hipbath out from the corner, manhandled it in front of the fire and filled up the big copper over the fire. ‘Don’t want you catching a chill.’

  ‘I’m not bathing with Gus and Dobbin out there.’

  Charity heaved a plank of timber across the door then moved around the room checking the shutters. ‘Good enough to keep the blacks out so it’ll do for those two.’

  Once Della was settled, up to her neck in warm water, she turned to Charity. ‘You don’t think they’d hurt the Darkin-jung people, do you?’ She lay on her back, her hands behind her head, staring at the rafters and the patterns the flickering firelight threw.

  ‘They’d get them long before they had the chance to do any damage. Creeping around on them bare feet, quieter than bloody diamond pythons and just as dangerous.’

  ‘Pythons aren’t poisonous, Charity, I’ve told you that a million times.’

  ‘It ain’t natural keeping one of them up in the ceiling.’

  ‘He keeps the rats and the mice away.’

  ‘Now, rats I understand. They’ve got sense.’

  Maybe, maybe not. She’d rather have a shed full of diamond pythons, not rats. Especially not the Sydney rats, the ones that came off the ships. At first the physician thought Ma and Pa had contracted their illness from the rats, then he’d changed his mind, blamed the Asiatic cholera that had swept the world.

  She picked up the lump of soap and scrubbed at her skin. Her arms were brown to the elbows but above that her skin was as white as Tidda’s fur and her legs looked as though they were striped. Brown feet and ankles, from walking barefoot with her skirts tucked up, then white again all the way up to her thighs. She slid down in the water and let the warmth slip through her hair.

  When she surfaced, Charity was standing behind her, soap in hand. ‘Sit still and I’ll wash your hair for you. If you were living in Sydney, you wouldn’t be getting around like some drudge. Can’t remember when either of us had a new dress. It’s time we went back.’

  She was no beauty, she knew that. Charity was just being kind. There were no mirrors in the house, no glass in the windows but when the sun was right she could see her reflection in the swimming hole. Not a sign of Cordelia’s high cheekbones and smooth pale skin. The only thing they had in common was the strange copper-coloured hair although hers didn’t glow like Cordelia’s, it hung in shanks around her sun-blemished cheeks.

  ‘When I was a girl me hair reached down to me waist. Black as coal it was, until the bloody soldier shaved it all off just ’cos I wouldn’t go below decks with him.’ She ran her hand over her head. ‘Grew back all right though. Cordelia now, she was a different matter.’

  Curiosity aroused, Della rested her shoulders back on the top of the bath and let Charity’s fingers work their magic. She hardly ever mentioned the past but tonight with the house shuttered and warm and Gus and Dobbin camped in the workshop she seemed more at ease. Maybe it was the slug of rum Gus had thrown in the tea that made Charity talkative.

  ‘She had every one of those coves on their toes, moment we set foot on the bloody ship. And then of course soon as we landed in Sydney Town, your Pa was there to meet her. Had no problem getting her assigned to him. Me, I got stuck in the Women’s Factory for bloody ages.’

  ‘But Pa got you out in the end, didn’t he?’

  ‘That he did. Trouble was madam had her foot well and truly in the door with her high-and-mighty nose-in-the-air behaviour and I was packed off to the kitchen. Good man your Pa, not many who’d pack up their life for their little sister but she always called the shots. He just couldn’t say no.’

  She knew that part of the story well enough but she hadn’t known Charity bore such a grudge. Ma often talked about their first few years in Sydney, setting up the shop, making the place their home. She’d brought all her fine linens and precious china and never had the chance to use them. Free or not they were trade and trade didn’t mix with the new settlers who saw Sydney as their opportunity to lord it over their fellow man. Half of them probably had a history far worse than Cordelia and Charity. ‘If Pa was so certain Cordelia was innocent why didn’t he make a stand in London. Get her set free.’

  ‘He tried, tri
ed hard enough. Didn’t get far. That fancy man of hers dropped her right in it he did, shooting through, leaving her to take the blame.’

  Childhood memories drifted through Della’s mind but as always they disappeared like smoke, leaving just the faint afterthought that all was not as she remembered.

  ‘Nuff of this nonsense. Out you come, the water’s cold.’

  Della wrapped herself in the sheet Charity offered and scrubbed herself dry. ‘Did you see the pile of skins Gus brought from Cordelia? I’m going to have my work cut out.’

  ‘There’s a letter from her somewhere.’ Charity delved into the pocket of her skirt and brought out a piece of paper. ‘No, don’t touch it until you’re dry. It’ll smudge.’

  Della pulled her nightgown over her head and tucked the shawl over her shoulders and hunkered down next to the fire.

  ‘Here you are. You have a read of that while I sort out this mess.’ Charity scurried around emptying the water from the tub.

  ‘Aren’t you going to have a bath?’

  ‘What me? No bloody fear, not with them coves in the shed.’ She lifted her arm and gave a sniff. ‘Nah, I’m fine. Tell me what Cordelia says.’

  ‘Oh!’ She sat down heavily and tried to focus on Cordelia’s spidery handwriting. ‘Just the usual. The shop’s doing well and she has an order for some larger specimens. No more birds.’

  A great yawn rolled its way through her body. She was tired, very tired. ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow.’

  Seven

  Sydney, NSW, 1919

  Fleur stepped closer to the handrail and smiled at the soldier leaning over, almost as though he’d throw himself overboard. He dragged in a great lungful of air. ‘Can you smell it?’

  She sniffed, although she had no idea what it was she was supposed to be smelling. It was unlikely she’d ever smell anything again. From the moment she’d stepped aboard the acrid stink of coal smoke from the funnel had coated her nostrils, blocking out everything.