Not the Same Sky (14 page)

Charles did not answer—he did not exactly understand her inflections. But he did get the girl to promise not to divulge such useless words to the others.

So their cavalcade went through Gunning, showing bits of colour and bonnet here and there.

On the evening of 1 March 1850, the caravan of horses and girls pulled up three miles outside Yass beside the blue river. As they had been rounding the hill down into the beginnings of the town, Charles had pointed it out to them.

‘We’ll stay there tonight and you will have plenty of water to dress for tomorrow.’

But when they came to the river it was not quite so blue as it had looked from a distance. Still, it was water, and easy to approach for washing. Charles let the girls stretch a little while he checked his own belongings, wrote in his diary and put full stops where he had hurried and been careless before. With the help of the horse drivers he then assembled the boxes. Privacy was garnered in whatever way possible, so that the girls could wash, dickey up their faces and make the best possible entrance into the town. They made a lot of noise doing this, filling the air with nervous excitement.

‘Are you ready?’ Charles called, after what seemed like enough time. They came out from behind the makeshift curtains. Some of them looked beautiful, milling around the river, but they wouldn’t have known that. It would have been better to have a room for the washing, and yet maybe this public baptism together was a good way to begin their new lives. Honora patted the dress of the girl beside her.

‘I like your dress,’ she said, as if they had many of them.

‘Are you nervous?’ the girl asked.

This was a more unusual question than might have been expected. These girls had an understanding that they must indeed be nervous, but that mentioning it might not be such a good idea. The other girl might be calm that day, and upsetting this would not be appreciated. But then again, the worst had already happened, so now was the time to hope, maybe? And if that day was a day of hope, it certainly would not be good to be reminded that it was not so for everyone else.

‘I am a bit,’ Honora said, ‘but I would like to be there, not still going to be there.’

She repeated to herself what she’d just said to see if she understood it, to see if it made sense.

The other girl said she wasn’t nervous now. She was busy mapping out love already. After the period of consistent meals, an optimism had begun to shine on her with every rising sun.

‘But I prefer our porridge,’ another said, as if this might be her last chance to be understood.

‘You’ll get used to the other,’ they chorused, comfortingly.

‘I know,’ she agreed sadly.

And the girls set to putting their best foot forward. Bonnets and dresses again strode into the streets. People came to look. The line of girls moved towards their lodgings.

Over the next few days the hiring began. Men and women walked into the room and surveyed what they saw, picked what they wanted. A girl for here in Yass, two girls there, three there, a girl further out. Mr Corliss came into the room. He looked, but only a little, it seemed rude to look too long at girls with bonnets on, most of whom were looking at the floor. Mr Corliss preferred to speak to that superintendent man as a way of doing business.

‘I’ll take Honora Raftery,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Charles said.

He hoped it was the right place for her. Mr Corliss certainly seemed civil enough.

As he did with all the girls, Charles spoke to Honora alone before she left.

‘Is there anything you’d like?’

‘I’d like a dictionary,’ she said. She had been thinking about that in the classes on the boat, but had forgotten until now. ‘And a map,’ she added, remembering the shape of her home.

‘No, I mean at this moment, is there anything you need?’

‘No. I’m all right, I think.’

Honora walked away from the hiring room. She wondered too long about whether she should look back, and by the time she had decided she would, they had crossed the hill and it was impossible to see the barracks.

The following morning Charles felt an emptiness—it was inevitable that some of the girls would have become more a part of the every day than others. He would have to organise some entertainment for himself this evening, something to lift his spirits. He would accept the invitation to the Catholic priest’s house. The man was more cultured and humorous than his Protestant counterpart, and while Charles would find some way to accommodate both, this evening he needed levity.

On the morning, two unwelcome advances for wives had to be dealt with, and this was done swiftly. Charles Strutt’s desires for his girls had to be reiterated. Not every man to arrive with thoughts of marriage would be suitable. More farewells had to be performed, and the number of his charges dwindled. Pastors, priests, businessmen—some fine, some doubtful—were visited and sized up. Two girls went to Ryan’s out at Galong.

‘That’s the best place.’

‘No, I heard he was cross.’

The underground movement of rumour had untold pieces of information already gathered—as if the news flew in on the clouds that passed over them. The numbers dwindled even further. Forty girls had now been hired and fifteen promised. It was time to head off towards Gundagai with the last forty-five.

After disposing of the surplus horses and letting go the men who would no longer be needed, Charles set out. There were the further miles, the further mishaps, and some sore throats in a blazing heat. Through Bowning, Bogolong, Jugiong, and hence to Gundagai, where the hiring began again. One evening Charles wrote in his diary that there were only ten girls left. And some of them were for Wagga Wagga. And then there were four. Soon they too were gone. Charles could not bring himself to record the sentiment of his last farewell.

On his way back through Yass he was alarmed to hear from one of the horsemen at the barracks that Honora Raftery was missing. He rushed to the house of her employer, whom he discovered was also missing. He became deeply concerned. He sent for the cook. Much to his relief she told him that Honora’s master had taken her to visit one of the other Irish girls, having become anxious about the depth of her loneliness, and thinking, correctly, that this visit would reassure her. Charles himself felt reassured by this. Surely these people would be good to her. He would have liked to have seen her, maybe checked what showed in her eyes. Perhaps another time.

Charles passed the church on his way out of Yass, having begun his journey back to Sydney. He foresaw weddings, christenings, and funerals at the end of what he hoped would be good lives. He wished prosperous and kind times for them. The troubles on the journey back were welcomed—diversions to help him with the necessary shedding of the lives he had now entrusted to strangers. The
Goulburn Herald
had a different story now. Good news of his girls was filtering through. He would post it to Honora Raftery at the earliest opportunity. She would somehow get the new story out.

CHAPTER 17

On the first morning of Honora Raftery’s new life she was woken by strange noises. The kitchen was working itself into a clamor and the cook had decided to allow Honora to start late, but only today. The metal of pots hitting together and the cook’s clearing of her night voice were both making inroads on the natural dawn sounds of outside. Soon the birds would have it all their own way. The sun was still shy, brightening the landscape gradually, throwing light benignly on corners that had darkened for the night, as yet showing no signs of the impending mercilessness that it would burn on people in only a few hours. Honora registered the noise of an approaching horse and shouts from the man on top of it. She knew she would have to rise now. Although she had become worried in the night, she got up and dressed as confidently as she could. She tried not to think of her mother and her father on this morning—the thought of them had more to do with the unveiling of her sleep than anything else, because her mother and her father had never been in this picture, had never seen any of these things out of their small window. They had not known the smells or the colours out here, or ever even had to live in a sustained manner in the language that was now making itself heard from the kitchen and the yard.

Honora walked across to where the kitchen was a little way from the house. She was lucky in her new place, which was modern for its time, the cooking was not done in the open fireplace in the hut where she was sleeping. The distance meant that if a fire started it could hopefully be controlled and not catch on to the entire dwelling and outhouses. It also gave Honora time to step straight forward—a girl could be blown about in life like chaff, but if she managed to walk properly she could catch on to something and it could become a solid thing. The kitchen had a bark roof and the smell of fire and oats was already coming out the door.

‘Good morning.’

‘There you are. It’s the new Irish girl.’

‘Indeed it is.’

‘Well, let’s get started.’

Honora was sent by Cook to collect wood. ‘You’ll see it easily.’

The wood was stacked beside an outhouse that had been built on a slight incline. There was another small hill beside it—she would go up there later to see what she could see. But that would have to wait. She examined the pile—the stack of old twigs and cones and strips of bark, which must surely be for starting the fire in the morning. She carried wood back, huge uneven blocks of it. And that was the right thing to do.

‘Good on you, that will be a help. We needed that. Now here’s soup to be got ready.’

The day went fast, what with getting more wood several times, handing food to Cook and cleaning pots and flat plates where candles were stuck. Honora was sore and tired by evening time. She did not know what time it was when Cook told her she could go to bed.

‘You remember where it is, over there,’ Cook pointed.

Honora trailed her legs across to the hut, lay on her bed and fell into a deep tired sleep, until she heard the horse again and the sound of the man on the horse shouting and the clanging of pots.

It was a week, maybe, before Honora ventured up the small hill. To her great delight she saw the straggled outskirts of Yass town, she had not realised she was so close. It was comforting to know there were other people not too far away. The hills heaped on top of each other, away and away. She could see the main street of the town, the hotel there. Coming along what was now her road, there were deserted houses, perhaps erected by someone for momentary shelter, or perhaps there had been more of a purpose to them and it had not worked out. Now they stood, scattered like fallen leaves, rusted and dried almost rotten, mostly unnoticed, unless a person was ruminating about things and accidentally saw them for what they might have been. Honora looked at them today and remembered the man from the London
Illustrated News
looking at their house. She had seen him take a pencil and draw. She didn’t like it, certain he would not draw it as she would. But it was he who had been sent to draw their house, not her. Florrie did not like it either. But Honora could like these houses. Cook called from the door for more wood. Honora wondered what Charles Strutt might be doing. He had, after all, been a nice man.

CHAPTER 18

Over the last few days Charles Strutt had been visiting and checking on some of the most fearful girls. He called in to Hyde Park Barracks, hoping to find out that none of the girls had been returned, and to see what preparations were being made for the next bunch who were, at this moment, on the sea, not that it was any of his business. He wondered what would befall them. He heard of a court sitting that morning, just down the road, and decided to attend. It would be interesting to see how the law worked in this new place, to see if it would have grown its own necessary variations. Would the men in front of the judge have less fear because what more could be done to them, except of course the flogging. Bad business that, Charles thought.

The first cases being heard were what one would expect to find in a new colony that had on its streets ex-convicts not yet settled properly. Then came the worrying return of orphan girls, thankfully none from the
Thomas Arbuthnot
. The judge dealt with these in a disdainful fashion, showing little sympathy for the girls, but then bellowed at a Mr Arbuckle who was delivering back, with complaint, the girl who was working for him.

‘Mr Arbuckle, this is the third girl you have returned. Am I to believe you are a very unlucky man to have procured three times,
three times
, an unsuitable and lazy housemaid?’ He fumbled and found some papers. ‘Yes, three times.’

Mr Arbuckle made to reply.

‘That was merely a rhetorical question. I do not expect nor desire to have an answer from you. Understood?’

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘Am I to believe that this is your fate in life, such terrible luck, and yet you do not appear to me to be a person of ill fate. So this may lead me to believe it is you who is the problem. Could it be that you are an unreasonable employer?’

There was general laughter in the body of the courtroom. The judge glared and all went silent.

‘So, Mr Arbuckle, I will indeed relieve you of this third girl. And perhaps this is her lucky day. I will also inform the authorities who deal with these orphans that you are not to be given any more. Next.’