by Sally Rippin
Mary gave a tiny sigh. ‘I wish I was like you, Nell,’ she said. ‘You’ve always been strong.’
‘I’ve had to look after myself, just as you have – I’m not one bit stronger than you.’
‘Yes, you are! Nobody would ever believe you’ve just turned twelve. When you told the Guardians at the workhouse that you were older, it would hardly even have seemed like a fib.’
‘It wasn’t my fib,’ protested Nellie. ‘It was Father Donnelly who told the Guardians I was thirteen. He said to my dada that older girls would have the best chance of getting out of the place. He was right, too, for if the Guardians had known I was only eleven, I’d not be here with you.’
‘And thank goodness you are,’ said Mary, ‘for I’d miss you so much if you weren’t.’
‘And I can’t think how much I’d miss you,’ Nellie replied, gazing earnestly at her friend through the darkness. ‘We must always look after each other, Mary. Goodness knows what could happen to us in Australia. Superintendent O’Leary told me it’s a very peculiar place. He said there are snakes that can poison you to death in a second, and animals that bounce like india-rubber balls.’
Mary shuddered. ‘I’ll always be there for you, Nell, I promise.’
‘And me for you. Never forget it.’
There was a sigh, and a thump, as Peggy Duffy turned over in the bunk above Nellie’s head. ‘Do hush up, you two! Think of us who’s trying to sleep, now.’
‘Oh, hush yourself, Peg!’ retorted Nellie. ‘We’re making no noise at all, and it’s you who’s disturbing the peace with your moaning.’
In the morning the Elgin would be docking at Port Adelaide. And after that, as Nellie knew, all the girls had to find work. She’d heard that there were plenty of jobs for Irish maidservants in the colonies. Perhaps she and Mary could work together! Someone in a fine big house might need two maids just like themselves. She imagined how much fun they’d have. They might even be put to work outside, in the sunshine. Mr O’Leary had said that the weather in Adelaide could be very hot.
Thinking about Mr O’Leary made Nellie remember the Killarney Union Workhouse, which had so recently been her home. She was grateful to it because it had kept her alive when she had nothing but the rags she stood up in, but what a cold, grey, cheerless place it was! Each day was as dreary as the last, with rules that told you when to work, when to eat, when to sleep.
Nellie felt that she would always be haunted by the thin, careworn faces of the women and children there. They were the faces of people who had given up all hope.
She gave herself a little shake and made herself see happy pictures again: pictures of Mary and herself picking apples, throwing grain to hens, running through a flower-filled garden . . .
‘It will be such a grand adventure, being in South Australia,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think so, Mary?’
‘I’d feel much better about it if I knew that only good things would happen to us. The dear Lord only knows where we shall be in a year’s time, Nell.’
‘Oh, let’s make a plan!’ Nellie cried. She loved making plans: they were exciting, and they gave you something to work towards. Nobody could take a good plan away from you. ‘In this country we can do things we couldn’t have dreamed of back in Ireland! Let’s say what we wish for, and then after a year we can see if our wishes have come true. Shall we do it?’
‘Nell, you know I hate to make plans for the future,’ Mary said. ‘It’s such terrible bad luck.’
‘That’s pure nonsense,’ said Nellie. ‘Just cross yourself and say “I know this won’t happen”. That will break the bad luck, won’t it? Come, say what you most wish for.’
Reluctantly, Mary crossed herself. ‘Well then . . . I know this won’t ever happen, but what I want is to be a nursery maid in a great big house and look after little children. I did love the babies at the workhouse. It was cruel that they were stuck in such a place, the poor things, and most without their own mothers to look after them.’ She paused, thinking. ‘Oh, and I wish that I shall never be hungry again, not ever. So what do you wish, Nell?’
‘I’m with you entirely on the bit about not being hungry. But I want so many other things as well. Most of all I want to be part of a family. I miss my own family so much.’
Mary patted her hand. ‘Don’t be thinking about that now. What are your other wishes?’
Nellie sat up a little straighter. ‘Well, I don’t want to be called “orphan” or “workhouse girl” ever again. I want to be only myself, Nellie O’Neill.’
‘And you are yourself,’ laughed Mary. ‘Who else might you possibly be?’
‘You know what I mean! You know how you hate it, too, when you’re treated like the filth on somebody’s boot.’
‘Well, yes, but I don’t let it bother me. And I’d not waste a wish on it.’
‘Maybe you should let it bother you, for it’s not fair,’ said Nellie with passion. ‘And I still have one more wish. Don’t laugh! – I want to learn to read.’
Mary gave her a wondering look. ‘Why?’
‘You don’t need to read when you’re scrubbing floors or emptying slops,’ said Peggy’s voice from the bunk above. ‘You’re a daft eejit, Nellie O’Neill. Now go to sleep!’
‘Maybe I don’t need to,’ Nellie said, ‘but I want to. My dada could read. He read the Bible to us children every night.’ She thought sadly of the last time she’d seen her father, so weak from hunger and disease. ‘Be strong, Nellie,’ he’d said to her. ‘Don’t let the workhouse break your spirit. Remember that the O’Neills are descended from Irish kings.’
‘I know your wishes will all come true,’ said Mary. ‘You have a face on you that good luck can’t resist.’
‘I hope you’re right, Mary angel,’ said Nellie. ‘And good luck will touch you on the shoulder too, I just know it will.’
The two girls reached forward to hug each other, and then turned around to go to sleep. Soon their journey would be over, and their new lives would begin.
‘POPPEEE!’ came Mother Hangtree’s voice from below. ‘You are to come down immediately. Do you hear?’
‘Not unless you let my brother out of the Darkling Cellar,’ Poppy replied.
Through the leaves Poppy could see the schoolroom below and hear the children practising the chorus of The Bellbird Song. Their clear voices sounded like the wind rustling through the eucalypt forest at night.
Mother Hangtree spoke again. ‘All right,’ she said crossly. ‘I will let Augustus out. But you make him promise never to run away again. He is a bad influence on the other children.’
Poppy smiled. ‘I will, Mother. I’ll tell Gus.’ Then she scampered down from branch to branch as nimble as a brushtail possum.
‘Do be careful, Poppy,’ Mother Hangtree said, anxiously stretching out her arms. ‘I need you in one piece for the concert.’
‘Stand clear!’ Poppy yelled and jumped to the ground.
Mother Hangtree brushed leaves and dirt from Poppy’s pinafore. ‘Goodness me, where are your shoes and stockings, child?’
‘You can’t climb trees in shoes,’ Poppy said.
Even on the hottest days, when the hens lay panting under the bushes and the cows kicked refusing to be milked, Mother Hangtree made the children wear lace-up shoes and stockings. ‘It is not proper, running around like little savages,’ she would say, making a sour face.
She untangled a piece of bark from Poppy’s hair and sighed. ‘Go quickly now. The children are all waiting.’
Poppy picked up her shoes and stockings from behind the tree and skipped to the schoolroom. When Blossom saw her she rushed up and grabbed her best friend’s hand. The other orphans gathered around, full of questions.
‘Is Mother letting Gus out of the Darling Cellar?’ Daisy, the smallest, asked.
‘It’s the Darkling Cellar, not the Darling Cellar, Daisy,’ Bartholomew laughed.
Daisy looked hurt.
‘You should have seen her,’ said Poppy, grinning. ‘She
was so mad her face puffed up like a bullfrog and turned bright purple.’
The children roared with laughter, then quickly turned silent when Mother Hangtree entered the room with Gus following behind.
He looks tired, Poppy thought.
Gus was tall and slender with a mass of thick, dark brown hair. At fourteen, he was the oldest child in the orphanage. Everyone looked up to Gus, especially Poppy.
He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes and winked at her as he took his place in the back row of the schoolroom. Poppy couldn’t wait to talk to him.
‘Come along, children. Don’t stand around gawking at Augustus. Let us continue our rehearsal,’ the Matron said sternly.
The annual concert was very important to Mother Hangtree. This was the day government and church people from Echuca were invited to Bird Creek Mission to hear the children sing. But Gus said the real reason they came was to see if Mother Hangtree was doing her job properly. These people gave her money to run the orphanage. Still, it was an exciting day for everyone – hardly anyone visited Bird Creek, except the bullockies who dropped off supplies of flour, sugar, tea and other necessities.
Mother Hangtree tapped her stick on the floorboards and sat down at the harmonium. ‘Ready, Poppy?’
Poppy nodded.
Mother Hangtree played the introduction to ‘The Bellbird Song’ and Poppy began to sing.
After the rehearsal the children marched off to lunch. The kitchen where they ate their meals was attached to the dormitories. There was a long wooden table with benches on either side, and a big stove. Alice, the cook, had made a pot of soup with vegetables from the garden and loaves of crusty bread.
‘Did the strapping hurt?’ Bartholomew asked Gus as he sat down. Bartholomew was often in trouble, too, for wandering into the bush in search of wild animals. He loved all creatures and would save even a tiny ant if he could.
Gus shook his head. From the look on his face, though, Poppy could tell he was acting brave.
‘Next time I run away, I’m gonna make it out of here,’ he whispered to her.
‘But Mother Hangtree said she’s going to lock all the doors and windows at night so nobody can escape ever again.’ Poppy glanced across at the matron sitting at the head of the table.
Gus leaned towards her. ‘That won’t stop me. I found a secret door, Kalinya.’
Kalinya was Poppy’s Aboriginal name. It meant ‘pretty one’. Gus’s name was Moyhu, which meant ‘the wind’. When each child was brought to Bird Creek Mission they were given an English name. The girls were named after flowers; the boys were given names from the Bible. What Mother Hangtree didn’t know was that sometimes Poppy and Gus still used their Aboriginal names even though it was strictly forbidden.
‘A secret door! Where?’
‘In the Darkling Cellar. I’d never seen it there before because it’s hidden behind some old sacks. I was moving them around so I could lie down. That’s when I saw light coming in through a crack.’ Gus noticed Mother Hangtree glaring at them. He put his head down. ‘Tell you more later,’ he whispered.
After lunch, the children marched back to the schoolroom. The lesson was arithmetic, and while Mother Hangtree wrote numbers on the blackboard Poppy looked at Gus in the back row. He was scribbling something on his slate, which he handed to Bartholomew, who handed it to Blossom, who then passed it to Poppy.
When Mother Hangtree turned to face the class, Poppy quickly hid the slate on her lap under the desk.
The message was in secret code, a code Gus and Poppy had made up themselves.
Po3 Po1 D2 Ka6 D2 Pl4 Pa6 Ka6 E1 E1
Poppy was proud of her idea to use the names of animals. It had taken weeks to learn the list off by heart:
Echidna
Dingo
Possum
Wallaby
Kangaroo
Platypus
Weevil
Emu
Quoll
Wombat
Crow
Parrot
Galah
Koala
Lizard
Frog
Poppy smiled as she deciphered the message.
Po3, third letter in Possum ‘S’
Po1, first letter in Possum ‘P’
D2, second letter in Dingo ‘I’
Ka6, sixth letter in Kangaroo ‘R’
D2, second letter in Dingo ‘I’
Pl4, fourth letter in Platypus ‘T’
Pa6, sixth letter in Parrot ‘T’
Ka6, sixth letter in Kangaroo ‘R’
E1, first letter in Echidna ‘E’
E1, first letter in Echidna ‘E’
WHEN Rose heard the soft tap on her bedroom door, she joined her brother, Edward, in the dark corridor. Apart from the distant sound of Father snoring and a few birds in the trees outside, all was quiet. Edward was carrying his cricket bat and ball, and he grinned at her, his teeth white in the gloom.
They crept down the wide staircase, past the tall stained-glass windows above the landing and out the front door, closing it behind them with a click. Dawn painted the sky a pale pink and dew coated the lawns.
‘Happy birthday,’ Edward whispered. ‘You want to bowl first?’
‘Of course!’ Rose said.
They avoided the crunchy gravel on the driveway and ran around to the back of their huge house, past the stables and down to the farthest corner, where Edward had set up his wickets. He’d promised to play cricket with Rose on her birthday, and this was the only chance they’d have before Mother would wake up and come looking for her.
Edward poked at the grass with his bat. ‘It must’ve rained last night.’
Rose laughed as she warmed up her bowling arm, swinging it around and up. ‘Not making excuses already, are you Ed?’
‘Just bowl,’ Edward said.
The ball floated through the air, bounced, and Edward swung at it, clipping it on the edge. It disappeared into the bushes behind him. Rose grinned. She loved bowling her tricky spinners, and even though Edward was older and taller than her, she’d soon get him out and then she could have a turn.
They’d had one bat each when a shrill voice called, ‘Rose! Are you out here? Rose?’ It was her governess, Miss Parson.
Rose wanted to run and hide in the bushes, but that would only get her into more trouble. She handed the cricket ball to Edward. ‘I’d better go before she busts a boiler.’
Miss Parson was waiting near the kitchen door, a scowl on her narrow, pale face. ‘What were you doing out so early?’ she asked.
‘Walking,’ Rose said. She wasn’t in the habit of telling fibs, but surely a small lie to Miss Parson didn’t count. ‘It’s a lovely morning.’
‘Hmph.’ Miss Parson followed her inside and up the stairs. ‘Your mother expects you down for breakfast in five minutes, and your boots are dirty.’
‘Yes, Miss Parson.’
In her bedroom, Rose poured cold water from the flowered jug into the bowl and washed her hands and face, shivering at how icy it was. She used the hand towel to clean her boots, and brushed her dark, unruly hair. There. Surely Mother wouldn’t scold her on her birthday? Miss Parson came in without knocking and Rose glared.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ said Miss Parson. ‘And pull up your stockings. They’re a disgrace.’
Rose yanked them up and heard an awful ripping sound. She looked down at the large hole she’d just made. ‘Oops.’
Miss Parson huffed loudly. ‘Too much haste, not enough care – as usual.’
‘But Sally will mend it in an instant!’
‘And what will you learn from that?’ Miss Parson asked. ‘No, you can sew it yourself today instead of working on your doily stitching. Or I can tell your mother and let her give you a suitable punishment.’
Sewing was already like a punishment for Rose. She’d much rather be outside, climbing trees or digging in the garden. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ she said. Miss Parson followed her down the stairs and went off to the kitchen, wh
ile Rose continued on to the breakfast room, where she spotted a small pile of gifts by her plate. There was no way she’d let Miss Parson ruin her birthday, especially with all those surprises waiting!
The rest of her family was already seated, her father reading the newspaper, The Argus.
‘Happy birthday, Rose!’ everyone chorused.
‘Open your presents,’ Martha said. Rose’s older sister always gave her something small and special.
Mother tapped her plate with a spoon. ‘Eat your breakfast first, Rose. The gifts can wait.’
‘But . . .’ Rose shrugged. It was useless to argue with Mother. Rose took her plate to the sideboard impatiently, ready to choose some eggs and bacon, but there were only kippers and porridge. She hated kippers – even more than sardines – Mother knew that! Tears stung her eyes, but she bit her lip, determined not to cry. She helped herself to porridge instead, and stirred in four big spoonfuls of sugar and some preserved peaches before Mother noticed.
Rose ate quickly and was finally allowed to open her presents. She decided to leave Martha’s until last. Mother and Father gave her gloves and a parasol. Edward’s was shaped like a book, which was what she really wanted, but it turned out to be a box of glâcé cherries. She glanced at him and he mouthed, ‘Sorry.’ That meant Mother had bought the cherries and put his name on the card. Rose put all her hopes into the last gift, the smallest one.
She pulled the paper off and opened the little box. Nestled inside was a tiny gold oval locket engraved with birds. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Rose said.
‘Thank you.’ She jumped up and gave Martha a hug and a kiss, breathing in her perfume.
Martha laughed and smoothed Rose’s hair with her soft hands. She was always dressed so perfectly, her pretty face framed by her swept-up dark hair.
‘What about everyone else?’ Mother said, tilting her head so Rose could kiss her cheek.
