The Quarantine Station

by Michelle Montebello

  Mr Williams pursed his lips.

  ‘If you will excuse me now, I must get my daughter cleaned up for lunch.’

  ‘Of course.’ He returned his hat to his head. ‘I’ll be sailing to Melbourne to conduct some other business. I shall return in two weeks. Perhaps during that time you will recall a little more. It would save me the trouble of meeting with the superintendent.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It was nice to meet you, Gwendoline Van Cleeve,’ Mr Williams said, holding out his hand for Gwendoline to shake.

  She shook it. ‘Nice to meet you too.’

  ‘I will see you again soon. Maybe we can take a little trip to England together.’ He bowed his head slightly in farewell and began to walk away.

  ‘Is she well?’ Rose called out.

  Mr Williams turned around.

  ‘The blonde child. Is she happy?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Mr Williams said with a smile. ‘Despite the circumstances, she is adored by the duchess.’

  ‘And the duke?’

  ‘He is rather taken with her.’

  Rose smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Williams.’

  ‘I will return in two weeks. I trust by then you will come to the right decision.’

  Later that night, as Gwendoline was being tucked into bed by her mother, she asked her again who the mysterious man from the boat was. She had tried asking her on their way up to lunch, but Rose had been vague, then she’d gone back to work at the hospital.

  While her father was collecting wood outside for the oven, Gwendoline turned her eyes to her mother. ‘Who was he, Mama?’

  Rose tucked the covers in firmly around Gwendoline and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘He was a man from England who came to ask some questions.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That’s rather a long story, my darling.’

  ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then?’

  Her mother sighed. ‘I don’t think so. Perhaps when you’re older.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s nothing for you to worry about right now.’

  Gwendoline didn’t understand what her mother was saying, only that her face seemed sad in the lamplight. ‘Mama?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When Mr Williams returns, is he going to take me away?’

  Her mother shook her head resolutely. ‘No. Absolutely not. He will not be taking you anywhere.’

  ‘But why does he want to?’

  Her mother was quiet for a long time. ‘Sometimes, mistakes are made. And people will come along to try to fix those mistakes. But they can be beyond fixing. Some things are better left alone.’

  Gwendoline screwed up her face. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It’s getting late. We will speak of it another time.’

  The door opened and her father walked in carrying logs for the oven. ‘What are you still doing awake, little miss?’

  ‘A man on a boat came from England today,’ Gwendoline said. ‘He said he wants to take me away.’

  Her father’s face paled as he shot Rose a look.

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ she said to him. She smoothed the bed covers with her hands, then kissed Gwendoline’s cheek. ‘Time for bed, my darling. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight Papa.’ Gwendoline rolled over in bed as her mother dimmed the oil lamps and her parents’ voices softened to whispers.

  As she drifted on a current of sleep, she heard them take their conversation outside, the door closing softly behind them. She thought she heard her father say, ‘I knew this day would come,’ followed by her mother’s anguished reply, ‘I can’t lose her, Thomas. I won’t let them,’ whatever that meant.

  As she listened to their muffled voices, images of the boat and Mr Williams and his smart suit and hat skated beneath her eyelids. She was filled suddenly with a number of questions she wanted to ask upon his return—who was he? What was he doing here? Why did he want to take her to England? And who were the Duke and Duchess of Northbury?

  It took some time but she eventually slid into a sea of dreams, not before she vowed to wait by the wharf every day for Mr Williams to return.

  Gwendoline waited by the wharf for the next five days, but she was never given the chance to see Mr Williams or his boat again. On the sixth day, in the dead of night, with one suitcase between the three of them, Thomas, Rose and Gwendoline left the station and never returned.

  Emma

  Present

  The next morning, Emma and Matt ate breakfast, dressed and climbed into his car. Before heading south to Eastgardens, they made a detour to an old brick house in Fairlight, not far from Matt’s.

  He swung into the driveway and switched off the ignition. ‘Want to come in?’

  Emma chewed her lip. ‘I’ll wait here. Your grandfather has had enough surprises lately without Gwendoline’s granddaughter walking through his door.’

  Matt leant over and kissed her. ‘I won’t be long. He thinks he knows which one we’re looking for.’

  She watched him climb out of the car and trot up the front steps to the door. He let himself in, disappearing into the house.

  Emma leant back against the seat and closed her eyes. They’d hardly slept the night before. Curled up in Matt’s bed, they’d research until the early hours of the morning all they could about the Duke and Duchess of Northbury and their daughter, Lady Eloise, who they suspected was the real Gwendoline.

  But there was still one missing piece of the puzzle. Rose’s 1926 diaries. If they knew her at all, she would have documented her final days at the station, confirming their theory in full. The entries must have been incriminating, for there had been no sign of any such diaries in her trunk in the cottage on the cliff. They could only conclude that she’d taken it with them when they’d fled.

  When Matt spoke to his grandfather earlier that morning, Henry recalled having boxes of his mother’s diaries stored away in his garage, for she had continued to write for many years. Better yet, he recalled one in particular that his mother was fond of keeping close.

  ‘I could never find the key for it though,’ he had told Matt over the phone, ‘so I can’t tell you what’s in it.’

  Matt returned ten minutes later, holding a tan hardcover book in his hand. Emma recognised it instantly.

  ‘Is that it?’ she asked, sitting up.

  ‘I believe so.’ Matt slipped behind the wheel and closed the car door. ‘It wasn’t with her other diaries. It was in with her personal effects—birth certificate, passport, driver’s licence.’

  ‘If it’s as telling as we think it is, it’s a wonder she didn’t destroy it.’

  ‘I don’t think Rose was ever capable of destroying her words.’

  Matt didn’t start the ignition straight away. Instead, he spread the covers of the diary and, as they expected, out dropped the key. They spent the next thirty minutes parked in Henry’s driveway reading from Rose’s diary. In her own words, she detailed her final anxious days at the station.

  An hour later, they arrived at Eastgardens and parked the car across from the aged care facility. It was a warm December Tuesday, the sun bright in a brilliant blue sky.

  Carrying a bouquet of roses, Emma signed the visitors’ book and led the way down the north corridor towards Gwendoline’s room.

  Her grandmother was sitting up in her bed with the covers pulled to her waist. She was staring absentmindedly out the window, looking so peaceful in thought that Emma loathed disturbing her.

  ‘Hi Grandma.’ She leant across the bed to kiss Gwendoline’s velvety cheek.

  She looked surprised to see her. ‘Catherine, dear.’

  ‘It’s Emma, Grandma. Catherine’s not here.’

  Gwendoline shook her head at the mishap. ‘Oh yes, how silly of me. Hello, Emma. You brought me roses.’

  ‘Yes, for our Rose.’ Emma filled a vase with water and arranged the roses in it, then perched herself o
n the edge of the bed while Matt pulled up a chair next to her. ‘Do you remember my friend, Matt?’

  Gwendoline leant forward and squinted, studying Matt’s face. ‘I remember those eyes. Hazel, just like his.’

  ‘You mean Thomas, your father? Matt is his great-grandson.’

  Gwendoline looked delighted. ‘Really? Is that so? Oh, I can see the similarities. Your eyes, your face, your build. Yes, the resemblance is quite extraordinary.’

  ‘Tell us about Thomas.’

  ‘He was such a kind man, a good man. And my mother, Rose, was a beautiful lady too.’

  ‘You also knew them as Jack and Edith Cleveland.’

  Gwendoline fixed her gaze on Emma, squinting again, as though trying to make sense of what she’d just said. ‘Yes. You are quite right. Jack and Edith.’

  ‘They changed their names after they left the station with you in 1926, didn’t they? After Mr Williams’ first visit,’ Emma prodded gently. ‘They were hiding from him.’

  Gwendoline smiled. ‘Goodness, how do you know all that?’

  Emma exchanged a look with Matt. ‘There are a lot of things we know now, Grandma. Like how an emerald stone meant for Lady Eloise was accidentally placed on another child called Gwendoline. This child set sail for England with the Duke and Duchess of Northbury and the real Lady Eloise was left behind, raised on the station by Thomas and Rose. And we know,’ Emma said carefully, ‘that that child was you. You’re Lady Eloise.’

  Gwendoline fell silent as she turned her head to gaze out the window. Emma was unsure if she’d offloaded too much information too soon, if Gwendoline would experience a sudden rush of painful memories that might overwhelm her.

  She was silent for such a long time that Emma reached for her hand. ‘Grandma, I’m sorry. Did I upset you?’

  Gwendoline swallowed and turned back to her. ‘No dear, I just… I have these memories in my old brain and sometimes I can’t string them together. It’s like a mouse has been nibbling on them. They’re full of holes.’

  ‘Take your time. We’ll get you some water,’ Emma said.

  Matt stood and poured a glass from the jug on the table. He handed it to Emma who passed it to Gwendoline. She took small sips like a child then leant back against her pillow, closing her eyes.

  When she opened them again, she fixed them on Emma with surprising lucidity. ‘You are right. A mishap occurred in 1919 when two babies were accidentally swapped on the night of the hospital fire. The duke and duchess were handed a baby that wasn’t theirs and they took that baby back to England with them. The real Eloise stayed behind at the station, raised by Thomas and Rose. That child was me.’

  ‘When did you find out?’ Emma asked.

  ‘I always knew that Rose and Thomas were not my parents. Rose had maintained that Bessie Briar was my real mother. I suppose she said that because it was the easier story to tell. That was until Mr Williams arrived one day.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘From what I recall, he informed Rose that the duke and duchess were concerned they’d been given the wrong child. He seemed interested in me and told me he’d come back for me two weeks later. I asked my mother about it later that night, but she was evasive.’

  ‘Was she scared?’

  ‘Probably terrified. Thomas too. The child they loved was about to be taken from them. But I was curious. The more they kept from me, the more I craved to know.’

  ‘And that’s who you were waiting for by the wharf? The man on the boat—Mr Williams.’

  Her grandmother nodded with a small smile. ‘Yes, every day I waited for him to return. I had so many questions to ask him, ones that Rose refused to answer.

  ‘I used to lie in bed at night listening to her and my father whisper outside the cottage. I couldn’t always hear what they were saying, but I suppose now they were hatching their getaway plan. They had already lost one child to a stillbirth. They had no intention of letting Mr Williams take another.’

  Emma opened her handbag on the floor beside her chair and retrieved the last diary Rose ever wrote in at the station. ‘We’ve been reading Rose’s diaries. You might recall I told you about them.’

  ‘Rose wrote in diaries? How lovely.’

  ‘Would you like me to read from the entry she wrote the day after Mr Williams arrived? It might help put things into perspective.’

  ‘Yes please. I’d like that very much.’

  Emma flipped through the pages until she found the entry dated the fourteenth of April 1926, the day after Mr Williams arrived and changed their lives forever.

  14th April, 1926

  The boat arrived yesterday, the one that we knew would eventually come but prayed we would never see. It brought Mr Williams to our door, a man in the employ of Somersby Castle, sent to get to the bottom of that night, the one I replay over and over in my head until it makes me weary.

  Not that I am in any doubt as to what occurred. Not now. It became apparent to me when she reached two, when her hair darkened and her eyes turned blue, brighter than any sky, and I knew the Gwendoline we had was not Bessie Briar’s daughter.

  Perhaps I always knew. Perhaps I knew the moment Matron Cromwell slipped the emerald onto Gwendoline’s neck, an instinct I chose to ignore, like the tiniest inkling that something was amiss. I ignored it because I never had anything more to go on.

  But Mr Williams knew it too. He knew it the moment he laid eyes on her, so similar in features to his employers. It won’t be long before he reports his suspicions back to Somersby Castle. That moment down on the cove filled me with ice, like a cold, hard stab of dread to my heart for what had been done and what was yet to come.

  I worry most for Gwendoline. She has spent the entire day by the wharf and I suspect she is awaiting Mr Williams’ return. She asked me about his visit and what it meant. I did not have the strength or the courage to tell her. For what could I have said? That she was swapped. That she was left behind and another took her place. That they are looking for her now.

  How can two children living their lives, loved by their parents, simply be exchanged like a business deal? How does one explain such a process to a young mind?

  To exchange them now seems like a cruel joke. To send them to a new country with new parents and an unfamiliar way of living, so vastly different from anything they’ve ever known. Swapping the children back will not fix the issue but perhaps in the long run, make it worse.

  And perhaps deep down, I am entirely selfish. I cannot let her go. She is our child and I love her as I do Alexander. That makes the decision difficult, the lines between right and wrong blurred. So help me, I have to protect both girls for I am the only one who can do that, even if the decision I make is unpopular.

  I’m doing it for them and for us all.

  Rose

  Emma closed the diary and laid it on her lap. Matt leant forward on his elbows next to her, looking utterly absorbed again in Rose’s words.

  Gwendoline was still lying back against her pillow, her eyes closed and for a moment, Emma thought she’d fallen asleep.

  Then her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. ‘Did my mother write that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘Rose wrote a lot of diary entries. She has books and books of them stored at the station, from 1918 through to 1926. She also wrote many more during her time in North Queensland. Today we discovered boxes of them still exist.’

  ‘She writes with such honesty.’

  ‘All her entries are like this―raw and poignant.’

  ‘That was my mother,’ Gwendoline said fondly. ‘She wore her heart on her sleeve.’

  ‘I’m sure the station would allow us to have them if we asked. I could read them all to you. They really are quite lovely.’

  ‘We can put in a request to Anthony, the station director. It shouldn’t be a problem,’ Matt said.

  ‘Does it help you to understand why Rose and Thomas made the decisions they did?’ Emma asked her grandmother. ‘To leave the station before Mr Wil
liams returned, to change their names and flee with you to North Queensland in the hope of losing him? They loved you as if you were their own child. The idea of sending you away broke their hearts.’

  Gwendoline looked out the window again. ‘I understand now but I didn’t always. As I got older, I put two and two together. The realisation began to manifest into something else entirely—a bitterness, a longing to know the tapestry from which I’d been woven.

  ‘I felt lost and I called them hurtful things. I told them they’d lied to me, stolen me, that the life they’d given me was terrible in comparison with the English one I could have had. They called me Ginny and I shouted that my name was Gwendoline or Eloise, that I wasn’t even a Cleveland. Oh, I was a rebellious teenager.’ Her cheeks coloured. Even though decades separated the now and then, she still looked guilty as if no time had passed.

  ‘I remember saying horrible things to you once,’ Emma said, sheepish too.

  Gwendoline patted her hand forgivingly. ‘You didn’t choose to leave your family, though. They were taken from you. I ran away from mine when I was sixteen. I left them all behind and I never saw them again. It is still one of my greatest regrets.’

  ‘You ran to Sydney and met Grandpa. Some good came from it, at least.’

  Gwendoline grimaced. ‘That’s not quite what happened, as I recall. I went somewhere else first.’ She pointed to her bedside table. ‘Open the drawer and fetch me my book, would you, dear?’

  Emma leant across and opened the drawer of the bedside table. Resting on top of Gwendoline’s underwear was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the book her grandmother had been reading on repeat.

  She frowned. ‘I really need to get you a new book, Grandma. I’ll do it today. I’ll go to the bookstore.’

  ‘The book is just fine,’ Gwendoline said. ‘In fact, my mother gave it to me.’

  Emma lifted it out of the drawer and handed it to her. She didn’t take it, instead gestured for Emma to open it.

  Emma flipped open the front cover and a single photograph slipped out. It was black and white, a shot of a man and woman standing with two teenage girls, one fair with golden curls, the other darker, more alike the two adults. The darker of the girls was shaking the hand of the male and curtsying.