A Distant Dream

by Vivienne Dockerty

  *

  The man, dressed in an unfamiliar uniform, welcomed them aboard at the top of the gangplank, taking a cursory look at their papers, which indicated they were to travel second class and, after assuring them that their luggage would be placed outside their quarters, directed them to cabin number four, which was halfway along the port side of the top deck. He didn’t notice the little girl who had hopped over onto the wooden deck ahead of the couple and if he had, he would have assumed that she was a fully paid recorded passenger, though infants were free if they were under two.

  They were followed by a large and bossy sounding woman who complained that having been allocated a first class cabin, she expected to be greeted by a servant, as that was what had been agreed. It was all very well, but they were doing Adelaide a favour by gracing the place with their presence.

  The woman swept past, her crinoline skirts nearly knocking the trio over in her haste to get to her quarters. She was followed by a thin, nervous looking man. He was wearing a black, three quarter length jacket and black trousers that were pulled in at the waist, tight at the ankle and strapped under the instep of his black, slip-on shoes. He was carrying his black top hat in his hands. Obviously he was a man of substance if they had been put in First Class.

  Their cabin, one of four, two berth and clean with a small table attached to the bulkhead, was not as big as Bessie had expected, though they had a narrow porthole to see through. Clarence, a bit put out now that he had less to spend on his purchase of land, the seed, some tools and a couple of cows to build a herd up with, wasn’t in the mood to hear her niggles and from the look on his face she thought it wise to keep her mouth shut. There was nowhere to store their possessions, other than in their trunks that could be hidden out of sight in the space that had been created under the two single bunks. Bessie, used to sleeping in the big old bed in the farmhouse began to feel claustrophobic.

  “Sure, it’s only for sleepin’ in,” Clarence said, sensing her dismay and wishing for a moment that he was back on the headland above the River Moy, with the sea breeze wafting and a view of the islands in his sight. “There’s the ship’s bell ringing, warning those not sailing to go ashore. Let’s take Molly and wave a fond farewell to the Mother country, then we’ll have some of that cold meat that we didn’t get around to eating before.”

  It seemed that all 112 passengers were up on deck, whilst the small crew was up in the rigging, unfurling the sails or undoing the hawsers for casting off. There were tears from those who had relatives waving from the dockside but most were stoical, as a better life was beckoning for them all. Molly stood alone, watching a flock of seagulls as they wheeled above and listening to the sound of a fiddle playing a haunting tune.

  “So it’s done now,” Bessie said, wiping her eyes with a pretty, lace handkerchief that she had taken from her reticule. “No lookin’ back for any of us, Filbey. Let’s hope this distant dream of yours turns out to be a good one for us all.”

  Chapter Four

  The woman, in her late forties and stern looking, who was to serve the second class cabin passengers during their six months at sea, was standing outside their quarters when they returned.

  “Good morning, Sir, Madam,” she said in a subservient manner, as that was how her superiors had told her to greet the second class passengers. “I am a member of the ship’s crew and one of my duties is to bring along your food from the galley. I have placed a jug of water on the table for your refreshment. Shall I bring you your breakfast now? The cook has provided oatmeal with raisins and perhaps the child would like a little milk.”

  Well, this was something I hadn’t expected, thought Bessie, quite liking the idea of having someone to serve her meals and wondering if the woman would also be willing to do her washing and keep the cabin tidy. “Of course,” she answered graciously. “Thank you.”

  Trades people, Monica McFarland sneered to herself as she walked away, feeling slightly annoyed that she was having to stoop to this kind of employment and serve this type of person, just because the family she had worked for before as a housekeeper for the past ten years had lost their fortune. Though she had felt cheered when the captain, who she was beginning to feel a certain amount of attraction towards, had told her that second class passengers were far more generous with their tips than the first class ones were.

  “Dinner at the Captain’s table this evening, Sir, Madam,” she said, after carrying in three bowls of porridge and a small bowl of raisins, with a jug of milk and dainty white cups and saucers balanced on a tray. “Eight o’clock forward and drinks will be served at seven-thirty.” Still with an unfriendly manner, she picked up Molly’s bonnet that had fallen from one of the bunk beds and replaced the offending article, with a withering look.

  “What are we going to do with Molly?” Bessie whispered, after the woman had issued their invitation and walked away. “I didn’t know that with you payin’ for a cabin, the captain would be wanting to rub shoulders with the likes of us.”

  Exactly my sentiments, thought Monica, as she listened at the cabin door, before knocking for admittance on the next one.

  “And what will I wear?” Bessie continued. “I’ve only got that velvet with the high neck that’s good enough. Oh, I wish I’d known that we were going to have a cabin, Filbey, I would have been prepared.”

  “Give a thought to me,” Clarence said. “I’ve no evening clothes, save my best jacket and trousers for when we went to church in Ballina, but talking of Molly she could be put with the orphan girls down below,; she seemed to like young Hannah.”

  “Well, that’s one thing that can be taken care of, I suppose. I could take down some of the cold meat, an apple and a few leftover biscuits as a bribe.”

  *

  The Umpherston, sails billowing in the gusting wind, the bow pushing along through the pounding waves, steered that day along the English Channel with the intention of making the Bay of Biscay by nightfall. If the going was good, the ship would strike out into the ocean, reaching the coast of Portugal in a few days time. Not that its passengers gave a thought to the nautical plans of the captain. Australia, they had been told by the government officials who had signed them up for emigration, was six months away at the bottom of the world. How you would get there, no one knew, unless you were a student of geography.

  Bessie had no such thoughts as she left Molly in the care of Clarence and climbed carefully down the wooden rungs to the deck that was referred to as steerage. She was glad she was wearing a simple gown, having not ever wanted to wear the latest fashions when she had lived on the farm. If she had been wearing a steel ringed undergarment which supported a mass of petticoats under a voluminous skirt like the ones that she had seen lots of women wearing on the dockside, she would have been in a dilemma. As it was, the bottom of her boots felt slippery and she was glad to feel the firmness of the wooden deck.

  It was as if she had been dropped into some kind of underground cavern. No daylight came through any portholes, which made the interior look gloomy and Bessie feel trapped. Mingled with the pungent smell of sweat, there was the tear jerking odour from leftover urine, after a hundred empty buckets hadn’t had a decent swill. There were battered tin bowls and plates, items of cutlery, a large pewter jug and small, thick glasses, sitting upon a long table made from planking with rough-hewn benches. Men sat around looking aimless, smoking pipes, playing some sort of game that involved flipping stones and sipping poteen from small stone bottles. Along the sides of what must have been a hold before it was converted to an emigration ship, a clever carpenter had constructed rows of two tier sleeping compartments which consisted of three single bunks on the bottom of the compartment and three bunks on the top. This was the men’s quarters and these erections took up most of the aft wall.

  The men looked up as Bessie peered into the gloom and one man stirred himself enough to ask her business.

  “I’m looking for the single women’s quarters.” She faltered, as one of the men made a
ribald comment that she hoped she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Tis where they call for’ard Missus. Tis that way.” He jerked a thumb towards the front of the ship. Her heart in her mouth, Bessie picked her way through bags and clothing, skirting the compartments which must have been the married couples quarters, as a few women sat on their bunks nursing their children, until she eventually saw Maura, who was sitting on hers with Hannah.

  “Why, Mrs. Filbey,” she said in surprise. “What brings you to our pleasant surroundings this fine morning?” Bessie hoped the girl wasn’t trying to mock her, but perhaps if she was in Maura’s place, she may have done the same.

  “I thought I might have seen you on the deck with your young charges, taking the air.” She smiled at the girls who were staring at her from their quarters, curiously. “I looked for you, so I did, but you weren’t there. I hope you don’t mind me coming here instead.”

  “You won’t be seeing much of us,” Maura said in a voice full of bitterness. “Steerage passengers are not allowed on deck while cabin class passengers are up there and will only be allowed to do so if the captain agrees.”

  “No,” gasped Bessie. “Surely he’s not allowed to keep you confined to your quarters? I’ve never heard such twaddle.”

  “According to the man who’s in charge of the lot of us, it is for our safety. Her Majesty’s Commissioners have paid for our travel, provisions and accommodation before we take up employment and we even have one of them travelling aboard to check up on us, or so we’ve been told.”

  Bessie shook her head in disbelief.

  “I’ve never heard the like. What happens about your meals, surely someone has to go to the kitchen and here’s you telling me you can only go up on deck with permission?”

  “Each group has to appoint a mess captain. That’s me in our case and I have to go aloft to the galley and bring our food back here. All mess captains have to be accompanied by a member of the crew.” She shrugged. “It’s no point trying to change it and if you tried to, they’d only put you off at the next port. Anyway, you haven’t said why you’ve come to see us. Is it about little Molly? How is the little girl?”

  “Would you believe we’ve been invited to eat with the captain this evening?”

  Maura lifted her eyebrows at this.

  “Yes, I know,” Bessie hurried on. “We were surprised when the woman came with the invitation, but now I need someone to look after Molly, as we’re not sure how she’ll behave. She’s only three years old and she could get sleepy.”

  “None of us would be allowed to come to your cabin; you’d have to bring her here. But would you want the little darlin’ to be sharing a bunk with the likes of us?”

  “Maura.” Bessie did her best to sound reproachful at the girl’s words, as the girl and her charges could be useful on such an endurance of a journey. “I’ll bring some food along that you can share amongst the others. I’ve some cold meat, a bit of pie, some apples and a fruit cake.”

  “A feast compared to the rations we’re expected to eat. I believe we’ll be having a half pound of beef or pork each day and will that be in brine, I ask myself? Other than that we’ll be treated to a bit of oatmeal, a handful of raisins, a small amount of rice, a slice of bread, pickled fish and three quarts of water.”

  “It’s the same rations as we’ll be gettin’, Maura. You must have had the oatmeal and raisins for breakfast like we did.” Bessie was not going to let the girl think that they were living in luxury. “And your blankets appear to be of the same quality as ours.”

  “Ah, but who empties your bucket? We have a rota system to carry the thing up top in steerage.”

  Bessie had no answer to that, seeing as they had a nice, porcelain chamber pot, so she shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’m sure Filbey would do the honours if I were to ask him nicely.”

  *

  The invited passengers who sat at Captain O’Neill’s table, which took up the whole of the area allocated in the forward part of the ship, consisted of a Mr. and Mrs. Trowbridge, a pair in their late forties and three other couples.

  Mr. Trowbridge was a stocky gentleman, clean shaven with the requisite bushy sideburns which were white in contrast with his full head of dark hair. He wore black, knee length breeches, striped, silk stockings, a white linen stock, a black, cutaway jacket and a pair of black, knee length boots. He announced at some point in the conversation that he was a renowned architect and had been invited by Her Majesty’s Commissioners to help plan some of the architecturally designed buildings to be built in Adelaide. His pale faced, brown haired wife, dressed in a plain brown, empire line dress, seemed to be a nice woman. She was quiet, with nothing much to say for herself, though Bessie could tell she was a gentle soul.

  A tall, thin, spare looking man who had difficulty with the height of the ceiling in the saloon and had to stoop a little, was introduced as the ship’s surgeon. Dr.Foley was similarly coiffured and dressed to Mr. Trowbridge, though his breeches were brown buckskin and he wore black shoes. He and his wife Alice, who was dressed in a white, empire line dress in a lawn material, would make the trip to and from the colony and as Alice said to Bessie later, she didn’t mind the journey, as sometimes she would be assisting her husband and so the time would fly by.

  Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson, the husband being of stern eye and unbending views concerning the punishment of prisoners in penal colonies, and was fair-haired, clean shaven, of medium height and had a military bearing. He wore some sort of black uniform jacket with epaulettes, which befitted his status of a senior command in the police force. In contrast, his wife was small, plump and dark-haired, with a tendency to giggle nervously. She wore a magenta coloured bodice with a low neck and wide, elbow length sleeves and a violet, gathered skirt.

  Then of course there were the Filbey’s. They were a little awed at first by the grandness of their fellow passengers, but Clarence, dressed in his Sunday outfit; black, striped jacket, waistcoat and black, ankle length trousers, the signature of a working man’s best, went to a great deal of trouble explaining how his family had owned a lot of land in a corner of Mayo, but as so many of their servants had left for pastures new, they had decided to make a new life for themselves. Bessie, wasn’t wearing the clothes or jewellery that would testify that she was from a wealthy family. She had only been able to don her blue, velvet, long sleeved gown with white lace around the collar of the high neck, and arrange her hair on top of her head in a cottage loaf fashion, but she didn’t feel out of place. None of the women were attired too splendidly or fashionably, except that they were all wearing long-sleeved satin gloves and she wasn’t.

  “Clothes might maketh the man,” Clarence had said, as the couple prepared themselves for what they considered to be a “leg up” in their future position in Adelaide society, by rubbing shoulders with the other cabin passengers, but they knew that it was money that talked in the long run. They might not be dressed in the latest fashions, whatever they were, but his mention of owning acres of land in Ireland and his plans to purchase more of the same, would outweigh the fact that Bessie wasn’t bedecked in jewellery or wearing a fancy gown. Of course, they knew they must try to stop dropping their aitches; it would be better if they could adopt a more refined tone.

  The captain, a man who was more used to carrying slaves in his ship than members of the British middle class, wore a black, shoulder length wig from an earlier century. Being bald he liked to cover up his pate and his long, navy jacket with gold braiding and some sort of ivory toggle fasteners that he had chosen as his uniform, was on the grubby side. Black, flared trousers and plain, black shoes completed his outfit and he made a great show of welcoming them all aboard. He proposed a toast for a “safe and prosperous journey” whilst they all had a pre-dinner sherry, but was loath to mention in the presence of what he considered to be esteemed personages, that two of his guests were missing. His bosun, who he was using as a butler that evening, whispered a little something in his ear and the c
aptain nodded his assent then shooed his man away. Five minutes later, the same couple who had swept past the Filbeys that morning, blew through the door like a sudden gust of wind.

  “You’d think that with you being a representative of Her Majesty’s Commissioners it would exempt us from having to eat our supper with the lower classes and we could have our meal served in our cabin instead.” The woman’s strident voice could be heard floating ahead of her and met the ears of her fellow passengers, which might not have boded well. “I had assumed that First Class meant we would be rubbing shoulders with our class of people, not plebs and artisans.”

  “You didn’t have to come with me Harriet, I am quite capable of carrying out Her Majesty’s orders on my own,” came the meek sounding reply.

  The woman had grey hair which was swept back and secured with elaborate combs. She was in her fifties and of medium height, looked like an angry wasp in a gathered yellow and black striped skirt, with a low, black, satin bodice, rows of jet necklaces and a white, silk, pelisse thrown around her shoulders. She swept ahead of her husband, clutching her black, sequined evening dolly bag as if her life depended upon it. Perhaps she stored her riches within, as the bag never left her wrist that evening, even when she was eating her soup.

  She took out a pair of gold covered lorgnettes and peered through them at the waiting company, who were standing out of politeness, while she waited for someone to announce her and her husband, who was smartly attired in evening dress.