The Exiles

by Christina Baker Kline

  Why wouldn’t she believe? Here she was, torn from her family and everyone she knew at the whim of a lady in satin slippers who boiled the skulls of her relatives and displayed them as curiosities. (What people do to each other, indeed.)

  “That’s all in the past,” the captain said. “I’m on the straight and narrow now. When the governor pays your wages, ye jump when he tells ye. And as high.”

  Out on the open ocean, the water was white-tipped and choppy. It sprayed in their faces and sudsed over the sides as the small sloop plunged and turned. The captain began putting her to work, untangling the rigging, steadying the tiller while he adjusted the sails. He showed her how to clean the metal grill and nurse the coals to keep the fire going in the cook box. He told her he was assigning her the job of watch stander—when he needed a nap, or a break, she was to keep her eyes open for trouble. She grew to enjoy the work, an antidote to boredom. Her favorite moments were when the captain was asleep. Her senses sharp, she scanned the horizon and stoked the fire.

  She began doing these tasks without being asked and he began to assume she would do them. “They say your people can’t be taught, but look at ye,” he said.

  When the sky darkened, she pulled the fur cape around her shoulders and gazed up in search of Droemerdene, the bright southern star, allowing herself to close her eyes only when she’d found him.

  It was late afternoon when The Cormorant entered Storm Bay and made its way up the River Derwent toward Hobart Town. As they approached the harbor, surrounded by shrieking gulls, Mathinna tied down the bow dock line and the stern line. The captain let out the main sheet, slowing the sloop, and guided it gently toward a mooring. While he did this, she gathered her things, tucked Waluka into the basket, and covered him with the wallaby skin. She changed into a plain white dress with small pleats around the bodice, the one she’d been told to save for their arrival. She’d been barefoot for the entire journey, and the skin on the soles of her feet was as tough as horsehide. Now she slipped on the soft leather shoes. They felt strange, like bonnets on her feet.

  Standing on the cobblestones at the wharf, holding her basket, she took tentative steps, trying to regain her balance after so many days at sea. She’d never seen such a swarm of activity. Men shouting at each other, women peddling wares, dogs barking, gulls squawking, horses whinnying and tossing their manes. Bleating goats and grunting pigs. The briny smell of seaweed, a whiff of horse manure, the earthy sweetness of roasting chestnuts. Against the side of a building, a cluster of men in garish yellow-and-black costumes stood toeing the dirt. When she looked closer, she saw that they were chained together.

  Hearing the captain’s distinctive laugh, Mathinna turned. He was several feet away, talking with two men wearing red uniforms, muskets slung over their shoulders. He raised his chin toward her. “That’s the one.”

  “Ye hardly need to point ’er out.”

  “Where’re her parents?”

  “No parents,” the captain said.

  The first soldier nodded. “Just as well.”

  The captain crouched in front of her. “It’s time to hand ye off. These two will take ye where ye need to go.” He lingered for a moment as if he wanted to say more. Then he nodded at her basket. “Glad we didn’t have to eat your possum.”

  The seats of the open carriage—horsehair, dyed royal blue—were slippery. Mathinna had to grip the armrest to keep from sliding onto the floor. The horses’ hooves made a slurping noise as they clip-clopped along cobblestones slick with mud. Looking back at the wharf receding into the distance as they jolted away, Mathinna felt more alone than she had ever been in her life. No one in this strange place looked like her. No one.

  Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, Australia, 1840

  The horses turned down a short drive and lurched to a stop in front of a long, two-story, cream-colored building with blue trim and a wide front porch. One of the soldiers jumped down and lifted Mathinna out of the carriage. Instead of setting her on the stone apron of the driveway, he carried her to the entry stairs. “You’re a proper lady, I’m told,” he said in an exaggerated show of deference. “Wouldn’t do to muddy your hem.”

  Mathinna craned her neck to look around. Though she’d never seen such a large and stately building, she felt oddly at ease, as if she were stepping into an etching in a book she’d read with the schoolteacher.

  A stout middle-aged woman wearing a gray dress and a white apron and cap appeared on the porch. “Hello, Mathinna,” she said, inclining her head. “We’ve been expecting you. I am Mrs. Crain, the housekeeper. This is Government House. Your new . . . home.”

  The schoolteacher on Flinders had a housekeeper, an old missionary woman who made his bed and prepared his breakfast. Mathinna had always ignored her. But she didn’t know the customs of this place. Was she expected to curtsy? She curtsied.

  “Don’t waste your fine manners on me,” Mrs. Crain scoffed. “I’m the one should be bowing to you, I suppose. A princess, I hear!” She raised her eyebrows at the soldiers. “Lady Franklin and her fancies!”

  Hoisting the steamer trunk on his shoulder, one of them said, “Where d’ye want the lady’s dowry?”

  “Drop it at the servants’ entrance. I doubt there’s much to salvage.” Turning back to Mathinna, Mrs. Crain frowned, assessing her. “Come with me. I’ll find a maid to draw a bath. We’ll need to make you presentable before Lady Franklin takes one look and changes her mind.”

  The old wooden tub had been a horse’s trough, the housemaid, Sarah, told Mathinna. Rubbing Mathinna’s back and arms with a rough brick of lye soap, she said, “I was instructed to wash ye tip to toe. Mrs. Crain said be quick about it, so there was no time to heat the water.”

  Hunched in the tub, her teeth chattering, Mathinna nodded.

  “Next is supper, and then you’re to see Lady Franklin,” Sarah said, lifting Mathinna’s arm and swiping the soap underneath. “Mrs. Wilson is the cook. She’s a good sort. Most of us housemaids are here because of her. She was at the Cascades for more’n a decade.”

  Mathinna flinched as Sarah squeezed a cold cloth over her shoulders. “What’s the Cascades?”

  “Stay still, I have to rinse ye. It’s a prison. They call it the female factory. Horrible place. Though not as bad as Flinders, from what I hear. Now raise your chin.”

  Mathinna looked up as Sarah scrubbed her neck. She remembered what the captain had said about the convicts at Port Arthur—that they were ruthless; they’d cut your throat as soon as they’d look at you. She thought of the men she’d seen at the wharf, shuffling along in their shackles. “I didn’t know there were lady convicts.”

  Sarah made a face. “We’re hardly ladies.”

  Mathinna gazed at Sarah, with her curly brown hair and bright blue eyes, her neat gray dress. She seemed harmless enough, but who knew? “Did you murder somebody?”

  Sarah laughed. “Only in me heart.” Wringing out the cloth, she said, “Murderers aren’t allowed out on day release. They pick tar out of rope in their cells all day long. Ruins your fingers. Best reason I can think of not to kill somebody.”

  After the bath, Sarah dressed Mathinna in a white petticoat, a pink gabardine dress, and white stockings, and smoothed her hair with oil. When she handed her a pair of stiff black shoes, Mathinna balked. “Ye have to put ’em on. I’ll be in trouble if ye don’t,” Sarah said.

  Though she’d dressed in the British style on Flinders, Mathinna had never worn lace-up shoes. She put them on, but Sarah had to tie them.

  Before they left the room, Sarah inspected her, pulling up a stocking and adjusting her petticoat. “Miss Eleanor got a lot of wear out of this dress,” she mused, fingering a frayed hem.

  “Miss Eleanor?”

  “Sir John’s daughter. This is her hand-me-down. She’s seventeen. You’ll meet her soon enough. She’s a plain girl, god bless her, but at least now her dresses come from London.”

  In the kitchen outbuilding Mathinna gazed at the enormous stone
hearth, the sheaves of herbs hanging from the soot-blackened ceiling, the bins and pots and pans stacked on shelves.

  Mrs. Wilson, her hands on her ample hips, gave Sarah a hard look. “Did you find lice? Any sign of scurvy?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Fit as a butcher’s dog.”

  Mrs. Wilson gestured for Mathinna to sit at the table, then slid a plate of food in front of her. Mathinna stared at it. Purplish fish, wobbly in its gelatin, and cold white potatoes.

  “Eat up,” Mrs. Wilson said, tying a napkin around Mathinna’s neck. “I don’t abide finicky appetites in my kitchen.”

  Sarah squeezed Mathinna’s shoulder. “Do as she says and be quick about it. I barely have time to take ye to your room before you’re to see Lady Franklin.”

  Mathinna choked down a few bites of the bland, slippery food, swallowing quickly to avoid the taste and texture. Then she followed Sarah down a long corridor in the main house, past half a dozen rooms that appeared both overstuffed and strangely empty. Tall silver candleholders rose from pedestals like writhing tiger snakes, blue-and-white china vases bloomed with lilacs, brocaded draperies puddled on carpets. Powder-white faces peered down from gilded frames. The gold and green tendrils of the wallpaper in the corridor reminded Mathinna of the scrolls of smoke the Palawa elders blew from their mouths as they sat around the fire.

  At the end of the hallway, Sarah opened a door that led to a back staircase, and up they went. The walls were bare and white. “The schoolroom,” she said as they passed a room with a chalkboard on an easel, a table and chairs, and a small bookcase. The next two doors were closed. At the second one, Sarah stopped and turned the white porcelain knob.

  In the light from the hall Mathinna could make out a narrow bed covered with a faded red blanket, a tall armoire, and a small pine desk and wooden stool. The room was dark. Following Sarah inside, she went to the window, expecting to find a drawn shade or closed curtain. When a light bloomed behind her, she saw that four wide planks were nailed across the window frame.

  She turned to Sarah in surprise.

  Sarah blew out the match she’d used to light an oil lamp on the wall. “It was Lady Franklin’s orders to shield ye from the view. She read somewhere that natives feel a painful longing for the wilderness from whence they came. That without sight of it, you’ll be less . . . homesick.”

  Mathinna stared at her. “I must live here in the dark?”

  “It seems strange, I know. But perhaps you’ll come to find this room quite . . . restful.”

  Mathinna couldn’t help it; her eyes welled with tears.

  Sarah bit her lip. “Look . . . I’ll leave some candles for ye, but ye must be careful. The last one wasn’t, and he nearly burnt the house down.”

  “Do you mean Timeo?”

  She nodded. “He left only a few months ago.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “Why?” Sarah shrugged. “Lady Franklin tired of him, that’s why.”

  Mathinna considered this. “Where is he now?”

  “Oh goodness, ye are full of questions. I don’t know. Now, come—we need to go downstairs. Lady Franklin is waiting.”

  “Before I take ye in here, I should mention that the Franklins like to collect things,” Sarah told Mathinna as she knocked.

  Mrs. Crain opened the door with a scowl. “You’ve kept the lady waiting.”

  Stepping into the room holding her rush basket, Mathinna gazed around her. There was almost too much to take in. In a curio chest between two long windows, human skulls were lined up by size. On the wide mantel of the fireplace, under glass domes, a snake appeared coiled and ready to strike, spiders clung to branches, a colorful bird swooped in midflight. A wombat, wallaby, gray kangaroo, and pademelon peered out from a glass display case, so lifelike that they seemed merely captive.

  A collection of waddies and spears lined one wall. Mathinna walked closer to get a better look. One of the spears, decorated with a distinctive pattern of ochre and red, was familiar.

  “I was told it belonged to Towterer.”

  Mathinna turned. Lady Franklin was seated in a brown velvet chair, her back erect and her hands in her lap. Her gray hair was parted in the middle and pulled back in a bun, and she wore a burgundy shawl around her shoulders. “Your father, yes?”

  Mathinna nodded.

  “Eventually I’ll donate it to a museum, along with most of these artifacts. No doubt they will help further our study of native life.” Lady Franklin beckoned her with a finger. “I’m pleased to see you, Mathinna. What have you got in that basket?”

  Dutifully Mathinna stepped forward and set the basket in front of Lady Franklin. She peered into it. “My word,” she exclaimed. “What a strange-looking creature! What on earth is it?”

  “A possum, ma’am.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better off in the wild?”

  “He has never lived in the wild. I’ve had him since he was born.”

  “I see. Well . . . I suppose it can stay, as long as it’s healthy. Best keep it away from Montagu’s dog. What else is in there?”

  Mathinna reached into the basket, under Waluka’s nest, and pulled out the now-tangled clump of tiny green shells, easing them into three separate strands. She handed one to Lady Franklin.

  “Ah,” Lady Franklin murmured, holding up the necklace and turning it in the light. “I’ve seen these from a distance. Remarkable handiwork.”

  “It is, madam.”

  “Did you know, Mrs. Crain, that natives spend weeks, months even, finding and stringing the minuscule shells? These necklaces will be a worthy addition to my collection.”

  Mathinna felt short of breath. She wanted to grab the necklace out of Lady Franklin’s hand. “They’re mine,” she blurted. “My mother made them.”

  Mrs. Crain shook her head, clucking her tongue.

  Lady Franklin leaned down, close enough that Mathinna could see a few dark hairs sprouting from her chin. “I’m sure your mother would be honored if she knew that the governor’s wife appreciates her trinkets.” She held out her palm.

  Reluctantly, Mathinna handed over the other two necklaces.

  Lady Franklin turned to Mrs. Crain. “I am keen to observe the influence of civilization on this child. Timeo was unable to overcome the unfortunate traits of his race—the lack of self-control, of course, and the innate stubbornness of will and temper that we are witnessing here.” She looked back at Mathinna, evaluating her. “This girl is lighter in color, and her features are more pleasing to the eye. More . . . European. It gives one hope that she might be more acquiescent. That she’ll be able to let go of the past and embrace a new way of life. It is possible, I believe. She’s younger than Timeo. Perhaps more malleable. Do you agree, Mrs. Crain?”

  “If you say so, madam.”

  Lady Franklin sighed. “Time will tell. Take her to her room. I imagine this will be the first night she’s slept in a proper bed.”

  Mathinna had been sleeping in a proper bed since she was three years old—though she would’ve preferred the soft kangaroo skins the Palawa slept on in their cottages. There was little point, she knew, in saying this to Lady Franklin.

  When Sarah opened the armoire in Mathinna’s bedroom, Mathinna was surprised to discover an entire wardrobe of clothing in her size: six dresses in fabrics ranging from cotton ticking to linen; six pairs of stockings, linen caps to cover her hair; three pairs of shoes. Most of the dresses were practical, meant for everyday wear: white and blue checks, small sensible sprigs of flowers, modest stripes. But one was fit for a princess: a high-waisted scarlet satin frock with a pleated bodice and full skirt, two layers of petticoats, pearl-white buttons on the short sleeves, and a black velvet waistband.

  “For special occasions,” Sarah told her. “Not every day.”

  Mathinna stroked the fabric. The satin slid between her fingers.

  “No harm in trying it on, I suppose.” Sarah lifted it over her head. As she fastened the buttons in the back, Mathinna lifted the skirt
and watched it billow down, puffing below the waist and rustling against her legs. Sarah opened the door to the armoire wide, and Mathinna’s breath caught in her throat. Staring back at her was a slim girl with large brown eyes and short black hair in a shimmering red dress. She touched the glass and then touched her own face. The girl inside the glass was her.

  Lying on the hard mattress after blowing out the candle, Mathinna gazed up into the blackness and thought of the green shell necklace around Lady Franklin’s neck. She remembered watching her mother prick holes in tiny iridescent shells, hundreds of them, thousands, to string into necklaces. Wanganip liked to sit under the shade of a blue gum tree, singing as she worked: Niggur luggarato pawé, punna munnakanna, luggarato pawé tutta watta, warrena pallunubranah, punna munnakanna, rialangana, luggarato pawé, rialanganna, luggarato . . .

  As the tune came back to her, Mathinna hummed it aloud: It’s wattle blossom time, it’s springtime, the birds are whistling, spring has come. The clouds are all sunny, the fuchsia is out at the top, the birds are whistling. Everything is dancing because it’s springtime . . . Reaching into the basket on the floor, she pulled Waluka onto the bed. She stroked the ridge of his back, rested her palm between his tiny witchy hands, cupped his rounded belly. He nudged her neck with his wet nose, and she felt tears slide from her eyes, dampening her neck and pillow.

  She missed her mother. She missed Palle. She missed the smell of the smoke that rose from the elders’ pipes as they sat around the fire pit. She had spent her whole life in a place where she’d been free to roam barefoot as far as she pleased, where she could sit for hours on a rock on the hillside watching seals waffle in the surf, moon birds dip and soar in a choreographed whoosh, the sun slide into a glittery sea. Where everyone knew her. And now she was alone in this strange land, far from anything familiar.

  Closing her eyes, she was back on Flinders, threading through wallaby grass on a windy day as it heaved and ebbed around her like waves on the sea, digging her toes into the white sand, running across the top of the hills. Watching embers glow and settle in the campfire on a cool evening, listening to Palle’s languorous voice as he sang her to sleep.