A Distant Dream

by Vivienne Dockerty

“Perhaps yer could stay ‘ere in Willunga.” Clarence’s mind had been racing as they walked, trying to come up with a good enough reason for Aubretia to delay her departure. “I mean, in your delicate condition it would be a difficult journey – if yer don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I have been giving the situation due consideration Mr. Filbey, especially as I have to stay here to hear the outcome of my husband’s inquest and to see that justice for Jackie is being done. There will be the funeral to arrange, and a place found to stay with my children if I were to sell the farm to you. I have a few weeks still before I will need a midwife’s attention, so I thought I would seek accommodation in the city before my lying-in.”

  “You could stay on at the property. I’m sure I could arrange for someone to come and build an additional room for Mrs. Filbey and meself. It wouldn’t be a problem.” He could hear the words flowing from his mouth like a fast moving stream and wondered why he was saying them. Had he gone completely mad? Bessie would have his guts for garters when she heard his plan!

  “Oh, Mr. Filbey.” Aubretia, for all her outward toughness sounded quite flustered and had gone pink in the face with embarrassment. “ No, I couldn’t trouble you to go to such lengths on my behalf. You must put your wife and children’s comforts first. It is quite uncomfortable at the settlement as I know from firsthand experience when we arrived here ourselves seven years ago. I shouldn’t like to delay your family further from moving into a proper home and I am an adaptable character, Mr. Filbey, quite able to face whatever life has in store. In fact before we moved to this village we lived tooth by jowl in a squalid overcrowded building in the city, whilst William worked as a labourer there. Now, perhaps you should be catching up with your wife instead of listening to my troubles. I am sure she’ll be wondering where you are.”

  He would have argued, taken her hands into his and pleaded to be given a chance to make her happy, if not for herself then for the sake of her children, but she was calling to her boys, seemingly astounded at his forwardness and desperate, it seemed to remove herself from his company.

  “Please think about it, please don’t act too hasty – you must think of your children and your unborn child. I’ll walk back with yer, you may still need a little moral support.”

  “As you wish” she said reluctantly, still sounding rather embarrassed, but recovering a little after the boys had hurtled back along the track to join them. “Then you must go back to Mrs. Filbey. As I said, she’ll be wondering where you are.”

  A small crowd had gathered outside the building that housed the police station, when they arrived. They were mostly white; some had come from the settlement and some from the locality, and a couple of Aborigines stood muttering together, seemingly waiting for something to occur.

  “They got the Abbo” a man explained, when Clarence asked why people were standing outside the place, waiting. “The troopers brought him in, caught him at the port. He started running, so they shot him.”

  “Oh no,” cried Aubretia, then hurried up the steps to the verandah and through the open door with little decorum, leaving Clarence to hold her children back from following her. Her face was ashen when she returned to join them and ignoring the questions from those who waited, she grasped the hands of her two worried boys and hurried down to the street. Clarence felt he had no option but to follow, though feared rebuff as she had taken off to the stand of trees again without a backward glance. He caught them up as Aubretia sat under the shade of a gum tree near the creek, crying into the handkerchief she had plucked from her reticule, leaving her children to pat and caress her shuddering body in concern.

  “It wasn’t Jackie” she said between sobs a little later, not looking up at Clarence, when he asked if he could help in anyway. “Though this poor man’s had half his face blown off, I could tell it wasn’t Jackie. Jackie was much younger, a boy really.” Her two boys cried with her in sympathy, whilst Clarence stood there waiting, not sure what to do.

  “They told me the man was running” she said after she got to her feet clumsily and walked to the edge of a creek in order to splash a little water on her teary face. “The shock of seeing the body prevented me from saying that if that was so, why had the damage been done to the poor soul’s face? I saw that the man wasn’t Jackie, but I let them think it was.”

  The older boy, whose name was Bertie, took his mother’s hand protectively, as Clarence stepped forward to try to steady her, as looking weary, Aubretia leant against the trunk of an overhanging tree.

  “I will look after my mother” the eight year old said stoutly, glaring at this newcomer’s intrusion. “I will be the man of the house now my father has gone.”

  “If we had a house to live in, Bertie, darling,” Aubretia replied a little bitterly, clasping the hand of the youngest child too, who was looking at them all in wonder. “We must go back to England and seek shelter with your father’s family.”

  “But not yet,” said Clarence, firmly. “I insist that yer stay on until your infant’s born. I would be a cruel man to let it be any different and I am sure that meself and Mrs. Filbey can be of assistance to yer while yer there.”

  Aubretia nodded weakly and with hesitating steps she allowed herself and the boys to be led back along the track.

  *

  The two girls sat on the fallen trunk of a gum tree which lay in the scrub just outside the settlement. They were hot, sweaty and very dirty, but both were reluctant to show themselves. The woman would probably shout at the sight of them and Hannah knew it would be her fault for letting Molly get into such a state.

  Hannah felt fearful of the woman with her nasty tongue. There had been one like her at the orphanage, no one could do right for doing wrong and only the favourite children went unpunished. The man was nice and was very kind to his daughter Molly, but she wondered what she herself was doing there. Had she been chosen to be their daughter’s nursemaid? If so, she was in trouble, because a nursemaid wouldn’t have allowed her charge to get so hot and dirty.

  “Hungry” Molly said, looking trustingly at Hannah, hoping she had something to eat in her pocket. Her hair which Hannah had tied into a plait with a blue ribbon that morning, was hanging untidily after she had caught it on overhanging bushes when they had rushed along after the excited boys. Her white dress, which she hadn’t been changed since they got off the boat, was looking very grubby. Was it part of a nursemaid’s job to do the washing too? Not that Hannah made a pretty picture herself, as her shabby, green dress, one of two donated to the orphanage, was ripped in places around the calf length hem and one of her heavy, black boots had lost its laces. She hadn’t wanted to rummage in her box in the shelter for a replacement in case the woman came back and found her there.

  “We’ll have to wait,” Hannah replied, used to going hungry when it had been the strongest and the fittest who got to eat where she came from. She was anxious to spy out the lie of the land before she took her charge back to the settlement. “Let’s play a game, Molly, shall we? Let’s pretend we have to find the man who brought us here and not the woman. When we see him we’ll tell him that you’re hungry and he’s the one who will give us food.”

  Molly nodded. She liked the man who had said he was her daddy, though she remembered that her daddy lived in a different place, in a different time, when Maggie was there and her mammy who lay on a palliasse in a corner. She had lain next to the body of her mammy until some people had come with a box and had taken her away.

  A sudden whooping and screeching caused the girls to jump up from the trunk in fear, but it was just the boys crashing through the undergrowth, still energetic in spite of the draining heat. One of them carried a sack and whatever there was in it seemed to be struggling, although it didn’t seem to deter its captor at all.

  “Come, Molly.” Hannah held out her hand and the pair started to run towards the settlement. By arriving together with the hunters and gatherers, it would look as if they had been with them all the time. The smell of cooking as
sailed their nostrils and they watched as a fat, brown wombat was tipped onto the ground at the feet of the waiting women. One of the boys hit the squirming animal across the head with a rock and it lay dazed for a moment until its heart stopped and was still.

  “Where’ve you two been?” asked Bessie, listlessly, from her place on the grass where she had stayed whilst watching the two women prepare dinner. She hadn’t offered to help, as she could see the pair worked in harmony. Her inquiry to the girls was a mild one; she couldn’t summon up the energy to raise her voice. Her head was still hammering, her body clammy, she also felt a little shivery even though the sun was beating down overhead.

  “With the boys, Missus” Hannah replied, whilst Molly hung back, having looked at the poor little animal lying there with a certain sympathy. She could still remember the staring eyes of the dead rabbits that her daddy used to hang on the back of the cabin door.

  “Don’t call me Missus. While we’re in this god forsaken place, you’re to call me Mammy. Go to the shelter and get me the big hat.”

  “Would yer like another mug of water?” Mary asked, coming over with a look of concern on her face at the red, sweating face of her new neighbour. “Do yer not have a better hat than that one? Yer need a shady one, not a bonnet and a straw one is better for you.”

  “She’s gone to get it for me.” Bessie jerked her thumb in the direction of the shelter. “I will have another water, my throat’s gone dry with this heat.” She just wanted to sleep. It was the warmth of the day that was causing her to shiver. It was going to take a day or two to get accustomed to it.

  It was alright for these two women, already used to the hateful place, with its dirt and the flies and living a hand to mouth existence. Though if the widow was willing to move from her property in the next few days, she could look forward to a little comfort soon. Where was Clarence? She thought impatiently. He’d get the run of her tongue when she clapped eyes on him.

  “I’s hungry.” Molly had walked over to Fiona who was dishing up stew to eager recipients, whilst Mary handed a mug of water to Bessie.

  “Of course yer are, little one,” Fiona said kindly. “I’ll get yer a bit of something if yer mammy says yer can so. And what about yer sister? What are yer names?”

  “She’s Molly and I’m Hannah” answered Hannah, having dropped Bessie’s hat into her lap obediently then followed Molly, seeing there might be a bit of food going for the two of them. It was obvious that the Filbey woman wasn’t going to stir her stumps and make a bite to eat.

  “And ‘ow old are yer, Hannah, yer look to be the about same age as me eldest?”

  “I dunno, twelve, thirteen mebbe, nobody ever said.”

  She watched with growing dread when she thought of the words she’d just uttered. The Filbey woman would kill her if she had let the cat out of the bag. The woman’s face, looking sad because she always baked a cake to celebrate her children’s birthdays, thought better of questioning her further. There was obviously a mystery surrounding these people who had recently arrived, but being a Christian woman, it wasn’t her place to pry.

  Chapter Ten

  Clarence arrived back at the settlement just as the two women were packing the dirty dishes into a woven willow basket and were heading to a nearby creek to give them a wash. There was no sign of Bessie. It appeared she had gone to the shelter not feeling very well. The two girls looked half asleep as they lay under a tree together, watching the other children playing a game that involved a lot of shouting.

  “Has Mrs. Filbey fed you?” he asked, his own tummy rumbling and the smell of the wallaby stew still lingering in the air. Hannah nodded but told him that it was the nice mothers who had given them food, as their mammy was feeling poorly. Clarence smiled to himself when he heard her words; Bessie had suddenly become a mother to the pair of them.

  “I saw a place that looked as if it were a grocery when I was comin’ up the street,” he said, thinking quickly that if he was to have a reason for leaving the settlement again, he could check on Aubretia at the courthouse. “Hannah, did yer get a bit of cookin’ at the orphanage, ‘cos I don’t think Mrs. Filbey’ll be up to it for a while?”

  Hannah nodded. Hadn’t she always been the one sent to help in the kitchen, even though it was usually to stir the pot of vegetable stew.

  “Good, we’ll go and buy a few provisions for our dinner from the grocery, then we’ll take a little walk and look around. I suppose I’d best have a look at Mrs. Filbey.”

  He saw that Bessie was shivering under a blanket when he crawled into the shelter. He waited for her tirade – hadn’t he just spent some time on his own with the widow? He was going to get it in the neck from his wife. Instead she stared at him anxiously, as she had never suffered a day’s illness in her life other than the ailments of a child.

  “It could be the sweating sickness” she gasped, having worked herself up into a froth, her hand trembling on the mug of water that Mary had kindly packed her off with. “It’ll be this horrible place yer’ve brought me to, full of flies and creeping things and a heat to burn the end of your nose off. It’ll be the death of me, you’ll see, Filbey.”

  “Nonsense. It’s the heat that’s causin’ the sweats, Bessie, bein’ you’re not used to it an’ all. Ireland was a place of mist and rain and mostly coolish weather. Give it a couple of days, rest and drink a lot of water and you’ll be fine.”

  “I need a doctor. I need a priest to say the Last Rites over me. I’m hot and shivery and my body’s on fire. You’ll be sorry that you dragged me here when they’re lowering me into my grave.”

  Bessie began to cry, making Clarence feel like he was the cruelest man on earth for making his wife suffer as she was. And there was him making sheep’s eyes at that young woman while Bessie had been suffering so. Shame on him.

  “See, I’ll go and ask if there’s a doctor. I’ll send him along and whatever it costs I’ll have him make yer better. I’m sorry Bessie. I thought you’d enjoy a new life in the colony.”

  She snorted and pulled the blanket closer and Clarence ran from the shelter for help.

  “There’s Doctor Poskitt along the street.”

  Clarence came across Joseph, newly returned with Fred from the forage for edible food in the forest. “It’ll be the heat that’s causing it, that and a lack of good food on the emigration ship. Ship’s biscuits are not what they’re cracked up to be, eh Clarence?”

  Clarence agreed hoping that Hannah who was standing nearby, didn’t put the man right, with her coming across in steerage and the Filbeys living in a cabin like lords.

  “I’ll get over there,” he said, shooing the girls ahead of him in case he should have to lie.

  “Yer can’t miss it. The house is on the right of the street. It’s a stone built one just past the Bush Inn and the general grocery; his plate’s on the picket fence.”

  Clarence didn’t know what the plate would be for. Perhaps the wife put out some bread for any beggars that were passing, a plate like they had in the Catholic church on the Sunday whip round, or maybe you put a coin upon it before knocking on the door. He found it to be a brass plate announcing the doctor’s name, when he and the girls stood before the squat, one windowed building. Chimney pots stood erect upon either side of the blue slate roofing, the window pane twinkled under large, ornate, wooden eaves and a verandah built in matching limestone ran along the front of the house, which stood on a large plot of land covered with shady trees. Impressive, thought Clarence, looking back to where a couple of wattle and daub dwellings sat on land nearby that still needed a bit of clearance. A bit of money here if I’m not mistaken, not a doctor who would treat the poor.

  “Can I help you?” A stout woman with a large white apron on, opened the heavy wooden door and peered down at Clarence and the girls, who after he had knocked at the door, had withdrawn respectfully to the bottom of the verandah steps. He felt nervous, not having had any reason to see a doctor in Ireland, being sound of mind and limb. Then he
heard himself sounding like a nitwit, instead of a man soon to be a local property owner.

  “Begging yer pardon Missis, tis the wife who’s ailin’ and in need of a doctor. We’re recently arrived at the settlement. These are me two little girls, so they are.”

  Why was he behaving like some farm labourer in the presence of his lordship at the Big House? He had just sailed halfway around the world in the company of the queen’s commissioner for heaven’s sake.

  “Ah, a fellow Irishman” the woman replied. “We came over here in ‘41, that is Doctor Poskitt and myself did. We had a place in Dublin, but what with all the bother of the dissidents and then my parents shifting off the mortal coil, we decided to semi-retire. We work and play in the colonies and I’m the local midwife.”

  Clarence could feel his inhaled breath evaporate, although the thought crossed his mind that they must have come over from the old country with a great deal of money, if they could afford to build this property with it being on quite a bit of land.

  “The doctor will be back at a quarter past three. He’s over at the Courthouse with the coroner. Some poor man has had his brains blown out, so he’s there assisting the coroner with his report.”

  Aubretia, poor Aubretia. Perhaps he should leave a message for the doctor to visit Bessie at the settlement. It didn’t seem right that the poor, bereaved woman should be all alone when the coroner made his pronouncement. He coughed and put his voice back to his assumed genteel one, the one he had used when talking to Sir Rodney. He was going to be a man of substance soon, maybe even brushing shoulders with these people at social events.

  “I’ll call upon him later then, Mrs. Poskitt. My wife will probably benefit from an afternoon nap and feel all the better for it. I’d hazard a guess that it is heat exhaustion. We’ve recently travelled ourselves from Sligo and as you know we’ve exchanged our cool climes for a hotter one.”

  Mrs Poskitt nodded sympathetically.

  “It happens to most of the people who hail from Europe, especially if they left in winter and arrived here in the summer. Plenty of water will serve her well, that and plenty of rest, though I’m sure these two young ladies run her ragged. Leave your name and I can inform him of your visit when he returns.”