A Distant Dream

by Vivienne Dockerty

  Outwardly, and mostly to his wife in an effort to keep the poor woman’s spirits up, he boasted of the nice, long sea voyage they’d be having, with plenty of rest, enabling him to take up the tools of his trade again when they got to the other end. Inwardly, he quaked at the notion that the ship might go down or there’d be nothing for them when they got there, though now he had another reason to leave this life behind and find a new one – his little girl. She’d be Molly Filbey when they boarded that ship to Adelaide and Molly Filbey was going to have the best of everything when he and his wife reached the New World.

  Beidh la eile ag an bPaorach. We will live to fight another day.

  Chapter Two

  Sara’s house overlooked a river which flowed past their house and out into the Atlantic. It wasn’t far from the docks, where a vessel bound for the south of England would take the Filbeys to join the migration ship in Plymouth. They were to stay in Sligo for a couple of nights, time enough to say their goodbyes to Sara, Filbey’s cousin, one of Bessie’s sisters and any other members of the extended family who lived around the town.

  Clarence Filbey, no longer a farmer and only called “Filbey” as a term of respect by his wife, had spent the last few miles of their journey from Killala with a worry on his mind. Colooney was known to be a bit of a hard bastard when it came to negotiating the price of a deal, which he could be when he was in the driving seat and you were the poor sod who was waiting for his money. What if he began to haggle over the price of the horse and cart? Colooney hadn’t been particularly generous when taking the small herd of shorthorns, which had been good milkers and had prolific births. He had given them a trivial amount for the geese and hens and had only offered Bessie a paltry couple of guineas when she had shown him some good pieces of furniture from the contents of the sitting room. Luckily, he had a little tucked away, but the extra money for the horse and cart would have made life a whole lot easier. Still, he was better off than the poor buggers they’d passed along the way, struggling to keep to the muddy track with their possessions on their backs or on a wobbly handcart, their kids crying with tiredness and their thin and starving parents looking as if they were at their wits’ end. Colooney had told him in a lowered voice that the soldiers had been sent from Dublin Barracks in order to clear up the sick and the dying and had made the ditches wider to pitch the poor sods in.

  The cost of emigration wasn’t cheap. It might have been, if Clarence had been under thirty five and had one or two children. Then their voyage would have been completely free, underwritten by the government of Her Majesty, but he was fifty two and childless when he’d applied, though he was able to qualify on two counts – he was married and a skilled agricultural labourer. “Agricultural labourer” was not a term he liked to use, as in his opinion running his own farm, though tenanted, made him a farmer. Though if lying got him to where he wanted to go, he was happy to stretch the truth. He did have the option of borrowing money from Sara’s husband, who was a moneylender. It was something that Bessie had urged him to do, when he had told her that they couldn’t afford to travel in a second class cabin. At £25 per person, they could save that money, travel in steerage and buy more land when they got to their destination. At his age and not being used to taking orders, he didn’t want to have to work for the benefit of another. Why should he now be beholden, like he had been to the absentee English landlord who owned all the land around?

  The child awoke as the horse and cart pulled up outside a row of sturdy, brick-built villas. She lay quietly for a moment, her eyes focusing on the cloudy sky, watching as a flock of seagulls wheeled around in the air above. She felt warm in the little nest that Bessie had created, especially as the cat had joined her and was purring quietly at her side. Though she felt sad that Maggie hadn’t come along with her, perhaps she would enjoy a little holiday.

  The sound of angry voices, the squeal from the cat as it was wrested from its perching place, the shrill tones from the woman and shouts of the man, all brought Molly from contentment to alarm. She was whisked into the air, scratching her shin on the side of the wooden cart and then deposited with someone who was wearing a long, black dress covered with a long, white pinafore and had a frilled, starched hat upon her head.

  “Take her somewhere, Bridie, just while we sort this one out,” she heard the woman say. “We’ll be indoors in a minute or so. Perhaps you can give her a drop of milk.”

  Molly sat on the nice girl’s comfortable knee in a place that looked like a kitchen. At least it had a warm fire glowing in front of the chair where they were sitting and the girl called Bridie was dabbing something soothing onto her bleeding shin.

  “Wheesht, Alanna, would yer ever look at this, what have they done to yer? Where have yer come from and dressed like some sort of a marionette from a puppet show? Sure, all ye’d need is a bit of rouge on that poor little face of yours and yer’d be the spit image.”

  Molly stared up at the kind looking girl who looked to be as old as her sister, and gave her a tearful smile.

  “There now, isn’t it good to see that cheerful face, instead of the sad one that yer had on yer before. Yer shin will be as good as new soon and I’m sure I can find yer a cup of milk and one of Cook’s tasty biscuits. Sit there, Alanna and I’ll be with yer in a second.”

  Bridie disappeared into the scullery and was soon back with the promised treats, which Molly ate and drank hurriedly, not having had anything to eat since the biscuit at the Filbey farm.

  A woman with light brown, curly hair that was pulled back in a colourful, woollen bandeau, put her head around the kitchen door. Bridie bobbed a curtsey and asked what she could do for her?

  “Just checking on the little girl, Bridie. There’s a bit of an altercation between the carrier and my visitors, so shall we say dinner at half past the hour? Will the child be a nuisance? I can take her from you if you want me to, though Mrs. Filbey has asked me to look out some of Kathleen’s old things, so I’ll be doing that for a while.”

  “No, she’s fine, Madam, she can watch me while I’m dishing up. Cook left everything prepared. Looks as if the orphanage was a little short of clothing.”

  Her employer nodded and it wasn’t until Bessie came to take the child to a bedroom that Molly saw the woman again.

  “They’re probably a little on the big side,” she was saying when Bessie walked into the room, holding Molly by the hand. “I kept them for sentimental reasons, hoping that Kathleen’s children could make use of them, but she turned them down flat, said that her husband was quite capable of providing the clothes for their children.”

  “That’s young women for you Sara, but I’ll be very glad to take them off your hands as they are really quite beautiful. Come Molly, let’s try on this little dress and make you look like a princess.”

  Molly, not sure what a princess was anyway, found herself in front of a cheval mirror, being pushed from side to side, whilst Bessie put a few pins into the hem of the white, muslin dress. Then there was a brown one with white lace on the bodice and a pink, stripy one with a white frill around the neck. Two pretty bonnets, three pairs of pantaloons, white gloves and a pair of shiny, black shoes later, Molly found that she quite liked the idea of being on a holiday.

  “I threw away the rags that the orphanage had dressed her in, that was why she was dressed in my shawl and petticoat. I just need to get her a couple of liberty bodices.” Bessie and Clarence had decided on a simple tale regarding the young child’s origins.

  “There’s a small shop in town that sells just about everything. We can go tomorrow. Would you like me to get Bridie to do the hems later? She’s a very willing girl.”

  Molly had eaten her dinner in the kitchen, with Bessie and Clarence not being sure of how she would behave at a grownup table, so she missed the heated discussion in the dining room. She had been happy in the kitchen with Bridie and was full to bursting with the mashed potato and gravy, a little piece of meat and a few boiled carrots that she had been fed with. Sh
e had been taken to use the lavatory in the yard outside and had made no protest when she was dressed in a long cream nightgown and put into a comfortable bed.

  The day had been a tiring one for all concerned and the couple’s nerves were taut when they sat down for a meal with Sara and Finbar, her husband, a genial man. Bessie, not used to more than a glass of red wine occasionally, something their host had imported from Burgundy, felt empowered to speak her mind.

  “I think Colooney’s a miserable sod, fleecin’ them that has no option than to take what he offers and be pleased about it. I heard say that he is nearly as rich as him that lives in the Big House.”

  “Needs must, dear Bessie,” said Finbar, who was large, with mutton chop sideburns. “You could say that of me. Perhaps people are saying that I fleece the poor by adding interest to the loans I give them, but that is what I do for a living: I’m a money lender.”

  “A bit of a difference, I would say,” said Clarence. “ Yer’ve been in business, father and son, for fifty years. People in Sligo know that yer ‘onest as the day.”

  “Well, you could say that I suppose, though I like to think I’m philanthropic. Anyway, let us make a toast to you both, to a pleasant journey and health and happiness in a new country.”

  He raised his glass, but Bessie’s face was mutinous.

  “A pleasant journey? Six months breathin’ in the smell of someone else’s sweat, livin’ cheek by jowel with a hundred others, listenin’ to other people’s carnal and dare I say it, lavatorial habits and yer want to wish us a pleasant journey? We will probably catch all sorts of diseases and end up in a watery grave.”

  “Nonsense,” Clarence said. “I expect we’ll have to share with around about fifty and I’m sure there will be rules regardin’ such delicate things or the captain wouldn’t allow it. Besides, our fellow passengers will be artisans, people with a useful trade, not just any kind of riffraff. We’ll probably make lots of good friendships on our way.”

  “Did you see those people when we were on our journey over ‘ere?” Bessie was not going to be silenced by her husband’s attempt at diplomacy. “They were raggedy lookin’ people, with their scant possessions tied up in pieces of tarpaulin. They looked hollow-eyed and sickly and we’ll probably be expected to travel across the ocean with them.”

  By this time Bessie was beginning to work herself up into frenzy and started to point a jabbing finger towards Filbey.

  “I have been married to you for nigh on twenty year, yer’ve had the sweat off me brow and total obedience and I have never frittered away a penny of my housekeepin’ on gewgaws or frivolity, but what I do know Filbey, you can be a meanie of a man.”

  Filbey looked annoyed. He wasn’t going to have his wife show him up in front of his cousin and her husband.

  “I repeat Bessie, they will not be the kind of people who will be boardin’ the ship at Plymouth and while I’m on about it I’ll say it again. I am not payin’ out for a cabin: we’ll be needin’ every shillin’ when we get to Australia. Anyway, I think yer’ve said enough. Yer tired and yer’ve been gulpin’ that wine inside yer for the past couple of hours. When we’ve finished ‘ere, I suggest yer go to the room and get some shut eye, we’ll talk about this problem that yer seem to be ‘aving with our travel arrangements at another time.”

  Finbar, who had been listening to Bessie’s berating with surprise as his own wife had never raised her voice in anger since they had married twenty seven years before, felt he must interject on Bessie’s behalf, especially if it would help the situation.

  “I have to say that Bessie may have a point, Clarence. Some of these people are desperate and might have found their fare in a heinous fashion. Only the other day one of the grain stores was attacked, not that the mob got away with it as the British soldiers used their muskets, but even I have to carry a pistol and employ a guard to watch over my office in Ashbourne Street. Perhaps you and I could adjourn to my study later, smoke a pipe and think on the money that might be needed. Do you know how much it will cost you for a piece of land?”

  Clarence was appeased and Bessie, feeling a little ashamed at her outburst, finished their main course, which was a simple meal of roast lamb and vegetables as it was Cook’s day off, and the matter for that moment was forgotten. The subject turned to Molly, as they ate an apple dumpling for dessert.

  “We got ‘er from a destitute children’s home in Ballina” Bessie lied, the couple having decided that this story was a better one, rather than saying they had taken the child from her cot whilst Aunt Tess, the only family Molly had left, was away at the funeral. “Her mother had left her on the doorstep, according to their records, so we don’t have any papers belonging to ‘er. Of course we made a donation, these places can’t exist on fresh air, but as yer saw, I had to dress her in me change of petticoat as the clothes she wore were rags, only fit for the midden as far as I was concerned. I’m really grateful for the clothes yer gave me, Sara. She looks such a little princess.”

  “I was pleased to be of help, Bessie. Like Finbar, I like to be philanthropic too.”

  *

  The bitter wind that could cut a body to the bone, didn’t deter the family from sallying forth along the riverside to the bustling town the next morning. Two liberty bodices and a brown, lightweight coat were purchased in the High Street for Molly along with a couple of personal items for Bessie. Filbey bought a large wad of shag, a coarse type of tobacco that he hoped would keep his pipe filled until they reached their destination.

  They averted their eyes as they hurried along the heaving pavements of O’Connell Street, passing the beggars who were quite vocal if you didn’t put a coin into their outstretched hand. They skirted around a family group who were blocking their way menacingly and kept their reticules, wallets and purses out of any roving pickpocket’s reach. Clarence, not used to shopping, finding it boring unless he was the purchaser, kept a firm grip on Molly, who shivered with fright at the throng of people, carriages and dray carts that were trundling along the busy streets. It was good to arrive at the quiet cul-de-sac, where Sara’s daughter Kathleen lived with her husband, who was a Marine solicitor.

  Molly was taken to the nursery, a noisy place on the second floor of the large, semi-detached dwelling, where three children, two girls and a boy, were playing with their many toys. She sat on a cushion in a corner, her thumb in her mouth, staring at the active trio, who after giving her a moment’s glance, carried on.

  The boy swung on a wooden rocking horse, whooping loudly as if he was a Red Indian; the girls giggled as they walked their pot-faced dolls into the various rooms of a dolls house, one shouting orders at an unseen maid to pick the clothes up from the floor. The nursery maid, who had smiled at Molly when she had first arrived and had been placed on the cushion by Bessie, returned to her chair where she continued her mending, blocking out the noise from her rowdy charges.

  “Lunch time” sang a young woman dressed in a maid’s uniform, coming into the nursery carrying a tray with the smell of something delicious wafting from it. “I’ve brought enough for our little visitor.”

  The children ran across the room to where a couple of small tables and chairs stood, which had been set with a variety of utensils.

  “What have yer done with ‘er, ye wee rascals?” She asked, as she put the tray down on a sideboard.

  “She’s behind you,” the boy shouted, jumping up and down in excitement. Molly got up, ready to run.

  “So she is,” said the maid. “Didn’t she want to join in with your games?”

  “She’s from an orphanage.” The elder of the two girls spoke for the trio, disdainfully. “Aunt Bessie said so when she brought her in.”

  The two maids exchanged glances. It wasn’t their place to chastise their employer’s daughter, but something should be said all the same.

  “She’s still a visitor and we should be her gracious hosts, young lady. Now, Molly would yer ever sit up at the table and have a little soup.”

 
; After a nursery lunch of mashed potatoes and carrots, some sort of mushy pie and gravy, with slices of apple for dessert, the children were taken to the lavatory, then settled down for a nap. Molly lay on a couple of cushions on the floor of the nursery, the children having been taken to their bedrooms.

  “Tis a crying shame,” she heard the nice lady say, the one who had brought in their lunches. “They’ll use her as a servant when they get her out there. All this show of adopting a child and treating her like a daughter. Cailin ag Mor agus Mor ag iarraidh deirce. Anything to keep up appearances. If they’d wanted a child that much, they’d have gone to the orphanage and adopted one many years ago.”

  “Going to the New World, being a servant or not would be better than living in one of them places,” the nursery maid was quick to point out. “She’d only end up being a servant around here, and that would be if she was lucky enough to get a job, like us.”

  *

  It was early the following morning, just as dawn broke over the rooftops, that Molly was put into a hansom cab, alongside Bessie and Clarence, whilst the driver placed their trunks and bags up above.