by Robbi Neal
‘All righty,’ Beatrix said to the mother, ‘I’ll keep your pup as long as you keep paying. On time. I ain’t a charity.’ The mother looked relieved. Beatrix wondered what was really waiting for the mother in Hamilton — it’d be a fella for sure. A fella that didn’t want some other dog’s pup to look after.
‘Up front,’ said Beatrix. ‘I need the first eight weeks right now.’
Those eight coins were the only ones Beatrix Drake ever saw. When she’d had the kid for another six weeks without a brass razoo arriving, she did the only thing she could do in the circumstances and made an application to have the kid committed to the orphanage. She’d hauled herself to the courthouse in Camp Street, dragging the silent three-year-old girl along behind her and waited for three hours on a hard bench in a dreary corridor until a clerk finally yelled out their names: ‘Beatrix Drake and Constance Hardy’. Beatrix took the girl’s hand and dragged her into the courtroom where Judge Murphy sat behind his huge high desk looking down on everything and everyone.
Beatrix had a good mind to give that Judge Murphy what-for for keeping her waiting so long out in the corridor when she saw him at mass the next Sunday without his wig and robe and he looked just like the rest of us. It was a waste of her precious time, it was.
Judge Murphy was absorbed in a mountain of papers when she entered the courtroom and the clerk had motioned for her to sit down in the front row. She’d lifted the girl up onto the bench and looked over at her fella, George, who was sitting with the other coppers who had to give evidence in the other cases. He smiled at her.
The only sound was the child’s sniffling.
‘I’ve heard of this practice of leaving children in the care of so-called nurses,’ Judge Murphy’s voice sliced through the silence, echoed down the corridor and made them all jump.
‘I’m registered!’ she’d said much too loudly and her voice ricocheted around the room. It was as if she was on trial when it should be the girl’s bloody mother.
‘I’m aware of that, Nurse Drake, and in future you should make full enquiries before taking a child.’ The judge put down his gavel and peered hard at her. ‘This practice of leaving children in the care of nurses and not paying for their keep is now the vogue way in the city to have a child placed on the state by negligent mothers who have decided there are more exciting things to do in life than raise their offspring. This isn’t the city and for that I thank God. I don’t want the practice creeping into our community. If I place the girl in care I am condoning the mother’s behaviour and before you know it every mother in town that’s doing it a bit tough or is a bit bored with being at home with children and fancies themselves a bit of a flibbertigibbet is going to be on your doorstep. I’m more inclined to make you her legal guardian,’ said Judge Murphy.
Beatrix looked at George open-mouthed; it had never entered her head that she could be stuck with the kid.
Then Constable George Stephens stood up and certified to her good character and, despite the city influence creeping into the regional town, Judge Murphy made the kid a ward of the state, to be delivered to the orphanage. Beatrix Drake wasted no time in carrying out the judge’s direction and walked straight from the courthouse in Camp Street down to Victoria Street to the orphanage with the kid trotting along behind, struggling to keep up with her.
There would be no risk factor with the Cottingham child. They had money. Beatrix prettied herself up. She put on her Sunday best. Her white shirt with the lace down the middle and her gored A-line navy cotton skirt. She pinned her hair into a tight bun and, even though it was too hot, she put on her jacket. She wanted to make a good impression on the Cottinghams for when they handed the baby over.
‘Of course,’ she said to George, ‘the father is not going to want to keep the baby that killed his wife. It would only be a painful reminder of his loss. I’m amazed he didn’t get rid of it straightaway.’ She grabbed her bag and stood for a moment looking at her fella, splayed out over her bed, the sheets still tangled in his legs. He was plump with satisfaction; she’d done that to him, made him soft with her loving. His white belly wobbled as he sat up against the pillows, and she leant over and kissed the bald spot on his head. ‘You look like a Roman emperor.’
‘Feed me some grapes, slave, and satisfy all my desires,’ he commanded.
‘Toodaloo then,’ she said, and as she left the hot northerly wind grabbed hold of the front door and ripped it from her grasp, slamming it behind her. She walked to Sturt Street, holding hard to her hat, which threatened to fly off, and hailed Jones’s cab, which she couldn’t afford but she wanted the Cottinghams to think she was better off than she was. She didn’t want them to think she needed the child. They had to think she loved it. It would appease their consciences as they handed it over.
Beatrix stood at the gate of the Cottingham house. ‘My, my, my,’ she said. The Cottingham house made her cottage look like one of the Chinese-ie tents that used to pop up on hillsides in clusters like white mushrooms. She and the other children were alternately warned to stay away from those Chinese-ie encampments and threatened with being dragged off to them if they didn’t toe the line: ‘You kids bloody behave yourselves or you’ll be boiled up by them Chinese-ies with the miners’ washing!’
She wiped the sweat from her brow. By God it was stinking hot. She tucked some stray hairs behind her ear, walked up the path and pressed the bronze doorbell. Today her life would change. Today she would set herself up for many years to come.
The door opened and Beth stood looking at her. The girl could look downright insolent if she wanted to.
‘G’day Beth. Haven’t seen you hanging round with Young Colin next door in a while.’ Beth must run rings round that simple boy. Beatrix could read people and this girl was determined to do something. Beatrix couldn’t get a handle on what that something was, but she knew it probably wouldn’t include Young Colin.
‘I been busy helping with the baby,’ said Beth. Beatrix noticed that Beth had turned out a particularly pretty girl with lovely thick dark hair, a face like a pixie and big brown eyes. She must be at least fifteen now. Beatrix stepped into the foyer without being asked and ran her fingers over the ornate hallstand; she’d always wanted one of those. She took in the huge gilded mirror and the family portraits, all looking sternly down on her, the intruder.
‘Come in,’ said Beth pointedly.
Beatrix heard the tone. Beth was cross because she hadn’t waited to be invited and was already well into the foyer.
‘Where the hell did they get a mirror that size?’
‘It’s imported,’ muttered Beth, reaching for Beatrix’s hat.
‘You’re a lucky girl to land a job here, aren’t you, Beth? Lucky you had me to step in,’ she said, holding her hat on her head. She would take it off when she was good and ready. ‘You could be working in a pub pulling pots for smelly miners like those sisters of yours, specially after your ma died and your pa disappeared. This is a lark — all thanks to yours truly.’ That would put the young miss back where she belonged.
‘Can I take your jacket and hat?’ asked Beth coldly, reaching again for the hat.
‘Not yet.’ Beatrix slowly unbuttoned her jacket. Given the heat, she was more than pleased to be rid of it. She took her time, taking the opportunity to have a good look at the place while Beth stood impatiently waiting.
‘This town is full of single miners that’d be happy to have a wife as pretty as you, Beth,’ Beatrix said.
‘I’m quite happy with my Young Colin,’ said Beth.
Beatrix leaned towards her and said conspiratorially, ‘Some girls look like a mallet hit them. I’ve heard that said of Miss Cottingham.’
‘Nurse Drake.’
She turned and saw the Cottingham girl standing in the doorway directly off the foyer.
Blimey, did Miss Cottingham hear what she’d just said? She quickly whipped off her hat and hung it on the hallstand. ‘Well, where’s this beauty of a bub then?’ she said too cheer
ily, trying to smother her previous comment before it could breathe.
‘Come this way,’ Miss Cottingham said.
Beatrix noted that Beth skipped a quick step to wedge herself between Miss Cottingham and herself as though Beth was Miss Cottingham’s protector and Beatrix thought yes, there was something vulnerable about the Cottingham girl, something yearning in her.
The portraits watched Beatrix suspiciously as she followed the two girls past the hallstand, past shut doors, past one door she couldn’t help but notice was boarded over with ugly planks of wood as though a child had clumsily hammered them up.
‘Well, I’m guessing that room’s out of bounds — I suppose there’s a dead body in there, is there?’ she laughed, but the two girls completely ignored her. They led her past the dining room and she tried desperately to peek in on her way past. From the glimpse she got it looked bigger than her entire cottage. She kept following as the two girls led her into the kitchen.
‘Down here,’ said Miss Cottingham, opening a green door. Before Beatrix had time to have a good look at the kitchen the girls were disappearing down a spiral staircase into utter darkness.
‘This is the dungeon, is it?’ Beatrix said. ‘You not going to tie me up and murder me or anything are you?’ she tried to sound jokey but truth be told she was getting edgy. These rich folks were just too strange.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ she said when she got downstairs. She slapped her hands on her ample bottom. She was no longer hot. In fact she was rather cool and a shiver ran down her arms. She touched the cold rendered walls, she stomped her feet on the floorboards and the girls both said, ‘Shhhh.’ She looked at the soft glow of the electrical lighting that flickered like fairy lights and cast a blue hue that turned the space into a dream.
‘It’s an underground house, walls, floors, doors, the lot.’
Flickering or not, that electrical lighting must have cost a bloody fortune. My God how the other half live! Just wait till she told George about this. He’d never believe it.
She didn’t bother to hide her gawping; she didn’t wait to be invited. She looked into every room, touched every wall and each piece of furniture until the Cottingham girl took her arm and firmly guided her into the only room she hadn’t inspected. Beatrix saw straightaway that this was the nursery. There was a wooden Noah’s ark and two of each of a menagerie of animals on the mantle. There was a soft goat’s hair rug on the timber floor and a pram in one corner, a bloody expensive-looking pram just like you’d expect, chairs in two other corners, and in the last corner was the bassinet. Beth began folding a pile of clean cotton nappies from one basket and putting them in another basket.
‘It was the only way to keep the baby cool,’ said Miss Cottingham. ‘She seems to really feel the heat just like Mama did. So Papa built her an underground house — like they have in Coober Pedy.’
Beatrix tried to take all this in.
‘Mother mentioned you before she passed away and that’s why I’ve called for you. Of course Doctor Appleby comes by once a month now but he doesn’t tell us how to manage the nitty gritty of looking after a baby.’
‘Where’s your father, Miss Cottingham?’ Beatrix asked. She walked over to the bassinet and peered at the sleeping child that was sucking contentedly on her thumb. She was a scrawny little thing, and snuffled as she slept. Asthma, thought Beatrix, sickly and asthmatic.
‘Mister Cottingham’s at work, he’s left all this to me to organise,’ said Miss Cottingham, and she sat down in the big leather easy chair. ‘And please call me Edie.’
‘Oh, I can understand that — him not wanting anything to do with the arrangements for the child. I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Cottingham,’ Beatrix said, trying to sound sympathetic. Of course he hated the child that had caused his wife’s death, she thought. She’d seen the reaction before in other fathers.
‘Edie, please,’ and the girl held out her hand and so she leant over and shook it awkwardly. What a manly sort of girl, plain and wanting to shake hands as if they were about to conduct business like men.
‘The baby?’ Beatrix asked too quickly and immediately worried she’d given the impression that she wanted to grab and run. ‘Her name, I was just wondering about her name.’
‘It’s Gracie,’ said Edie.
Beatrix held out her hands to pick the child up but Edie surprised her by quickly leaping out of the chair and taking the child in her own arms, holding her to her chest and making cooing noises. It was as if the Cottingham girl didn’t trust her with the baby.
‘Now what I want, Nurse Drake,’ said Edie, glancing up from the baby who was now awake and gurgling in her arms, ‘is for you to teach me all you know about infant care. I know a fair bit about medicinal care, but not when it comes to babies, you see,’ and the girl sat down again, her attention still mainly on the baby in her arms, not realising that it was Beatrix who should be getting her attention so they could work out the particulars. Beatrix had learnt her lesson when it came to arranging the care of children, she was going to make sure every detail was sorted before she agreed to anything; she didn’t want Judge Murphy foisting some kid on her permanently.
‘May I sit?’ asked Beatrix pulling up the only other chair in the room, an uncomfortable wooden one. ‘Are you asking me to move in here as a nanny?’ This was better than expected. She could get out of her rented miner’s cottage with its gaps in the timber walls and the leak over the stove that was turning the cooktop rusty. She could move out of her street where the houses were so jammed together she could hear every word Ginny Eales hollered at Colin Eales Senior when he happened to be in town, usually over his wages and why he always misplaced most of them at the Bunch of Grapes on his way home from work. Moving in with the Cottinghams as full-time nanny would be hard on George but she’d negotiate an afternoon off once a month, and on her new wage she and George could go to a hotel. She’d tell him it was quality not quantity that mattered, which would make him laugh if nothing else. Full-time nanny — that’d have to be worth at least two sovereigns a week.
‘Heavens no,’ said Edie, almost jumping in her chair.
Beatrix was nonplussed for a moment, but then she realised. ‘Oh of course — you want me to take the child in to my place. Either way it’s the same cost.’
‘Heavens no,’ said Edie, even louder, ‘we just need someone to teach us the proper methods of raising a child.’
Then it dawned on her that they were planning to keep the child. Beatrix saw her sovereigns flying out the window (if there had been a window in the room).
‘But you aren’t ever going get a husband with a child under your feet!’ she blurted before she could stop herself.
She saw Edie stiffen. The girl’s face turned stone cold. ‘But that’s hardly your concern, Nurse Drake,’ she said and her chin jutted forward. ‘Besides, what do you suggest I do? Put my own sister in the orphanage?’
Now Beatrix was taken aback. ‘Well, I should take her. I’m sure it’s what your mother God-bless-her-soul meant to happen. That’s why she mentioned my name, I’m sure,’ she said, her voice becoming quieter under the dagger glare she was getting, and she realised that Edie had taken control of the whole situation. This was something Beatrix, who was always the boss, wasn’t used to and she sat up primly in her chair as though in fact she was overseeing everything. Under her breath she muttered, ‘Your dada might be rich but you need me, young lady.’
Beth heard her mutter and glared at her, so she glared right back.
‘Medical knowledge is of great interest to me. I’m fascinated but I also know my limitations, and caring for infants isn’t my area of expertise — yet. We will pay you a worthwhile sum if you will teach me and Beth all we need to know.’ Edie nodded at Beth.
‘Hmmm,’ said Beatrix, biding her time and looking around the room at the carved oak tallboy and the two gold-framed pictures hanging on the wall. One was of Jesus caring for the little children and the other she assumed was a portrait of the
child’s mother as a young woman, which personally she thought was a bit macabre but rich people were odd, everyone knew that, and this lot took the cake. Her mind ticked, counting the possibilities.
‘Now,’ said Edie, ‘what do you think?’ and without giving Beatrix a chance to answer, the girl continued as if she’d known all along that of course Beatrix would take the job because of course she was desperate for the money. ‘The first thing is a shopping list. Mother wasn’t expecting to deliver for some time, you see, and we only have things that a few kind people have lent to us and the things Papa bought for in here.’ At this Beth pulled out a pencil and notepad from her apron pocket.
Beatrix sighed loudly, as if this was such a burden for her given her busy schedule. She dug in her bag and put on her nurse’s cap. The best way to get respect was to look the part. She wriggled in her seat as though she was still considering, thus giving the proper air of authority and letting them know her expertise didn’t come cheaply.
Finally she began. ‘Two sovereigns a week,’ said Beatrix. She saw Beth’s eyes pop open but she ignored her and went on, ‘I’ll come on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday you can manage on your own but you can call for me if need be. Now, for the proper care of an infant you need three dozen nappies, two feeding apparatus, seven matinee jackets, fourteen nightgowns, seven pairs of booties, seven caps, one cot before she is six months old, one perambulator, which I see you have already managed to obtain and a very nice one at that, or is it on loan as well? Four blankets, one cot lay-out, one perambulator lay-out, one bassinet lay-out, one layette, seven baby frocks, one bottle of Doctor Sheldon’s Colic Remedy, one jar of rash ointment, one bottle of Scott’s Emulsion, you can get a free sample if you send them four pence for postage, you’ll need to buy Castlemaine beer for her asthma — yes, she has asthma, I spotted it at once — some Lloyds cocaine toothache drops for when she teethes, and I assume you’ve already got infant formula and an Indian rubber teat or the baby wouldn’t be here with us today. Have you got all that?’