Bridie's Fire

by Kirsty Murray

  The deck was soon covered with boxes and girls shrieking with excitement as they pulled out their frocks for airing and took out special objects that had been packed away these past months. Some of the girls had managed to cling to small treasures from their homes and Bridie watched as they lovingly fondled the familiar ornaments. The chore wasn’t of much interest to her. She looked into her box of possessions and was amazed at the number of things inside, but she felt no connection to any of them. They were new and crisp and smelt unfamiliar. There was nothing of her family, no memento from her own home, not one thing that made her soul yearn for her old life. Perhaps if they’d let her keep her wooden spoon, or if she’d thought to cut a lock of Brandon’s hair, then the box would stir some feeling.

  Margaret O’Shea sat holding a locket from her mother, with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Ah, but it’s a harsh thing to be sent away from your own loved country and all your own folk,’ she cried. At first her lament was just in a sing-song voice, but soon it turned into a howl and a moment later other girls had joined her, each wringing her hands and wailing at her fate.

  Bridie watched them but she couldn’t make herself feel their sharp grief. She glanced across and saw that Caitlin too was sitting quietly, her hands folded over her skirts, staring out to sea. Bridie tried to push away the fears she’d harboured since the fight with Biddy. Maybe it was true; maybe there was something dark inside herself and Caitlin. Why couldn’t they grieve like the other girls? Was it because they were so black-hearted? It was only when the shrieks of the wailing girls began to echo the length of the ship that a vision of the women of Dunquin around her father’s body came to Bridie, and she felt a wave of grief break over her so powerful that a cry rose up in her throat for all the things she had lost.

  The Surgeon-Superintendent stormed on deck and ordered all the boxes to be shut and put away. In a loud voice, he ordered the girls to be quiet. Bridie wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and began repacking her trunk. When they were lined up to go below again, she glanced into Caitlin’s face and saw it was as still and calm as ever. The fear that everything Biddy had said was true gripped her and wouldn’t let go.

  Eighty-four days after leaving Plymouth they came in sight of Van Diemen’s Land. A ripple of excitement swelled through the decks but it quickly turned to fear as a wild gale blew up from the north-east. During the night, Bridie heard something snap, timber cracking like gunshot fire, and then a shuddering crash as something heavy hit the deck. Sailors shouted and screamed above the roar of the storm and the girls below decks shrieked in alarm. Bridie snuggled closer to Caitlin.

  As the seas grew rougher, a girl cried out that they were being locked below deck and they all heard the sound of the hatches being fastened tight. The ship pitched back and forward and Bridie fought back the image of the ship sinking with all the girls drowning between decks. Some of the girls were crying. Biddy Ryan was sick in her bunk.

  Suddenly, Caitlin’s voice rose up above the creaking timbers and the roar of the sea as she read from her Bible. Even though the lantern swung wildly, making the shadows rush back and forward, Caitlin read steadily. Bridie lay close beside her and focused on Caitlin’s voice, trying to shut out the sound of the bilgewater churning beneath them. ‘Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’ An image came to Bridie, bright and clear, of her family and all her friends at Dunquin, rising out of the ocean; brightest of all was an image of Brandon, walking through the wild sea towards her. With a rush of guilt, Bridie realised she hadn’t thought of him for days. Perhaps more frightening than the storm that raged around them was Bridie’s sudden fear that she had been changed, that as her life became better, her heart was becoming blacker. Then Caitlin slipped an arm around her and hugged her as she read, and Bridie felt the darkness lift.

  The next day when the girls came up for air, they found that the big brown-and-white albatross that had been following them was lying, half-drowned, on the deck. Its long brown wings, large enough to carry a man, and each one longer than the tallest sailor on board, were stretched taut. At first Bridie thought the storm had rendered the albatross flightless, but then a sailor pulled a baited hook from its beak and she realised the bird had been caught. The sailor lashed its beak shut with a piece of string, handling it with rough disregard. The bird struggled to its feet and walked about the deck in distress, no longer the beautiful sky creature Bridie had admired for the whole voyage, but a clumsy, pathetic beast, unable to take to the air. Some of the girls laughed, and a sailor in the rigging looked down and called out that it looked just like the second mate. Bridie leapt forward, tore the string from around the bird’s beak and, using all her strength, heaved the great creature over the side of the ship. The sailor grabbed her by the arm. ‘You brat, it was naught but a bit of fun I was having.’

  Bridie’s cheeks burned in the flush of her rage. ‘The curse of St Martin upon you,’ she shouted, drawing her leg back and kicking the sailor in the shins as hard as she could.

  Later, sent to her bunk again in disgrace by the Surgeon-Superintendent, she seethed at the injustice of being punished for rescuing the albatross. Caitlin came down below deck and sat beside her. She reached over and took Bridie’s hand in hers.

  ‘I know you felt you were doing right, Bridie, but you’ve got to mind that temper of yours. It won’t serve us well in the Colony.’

  ‘But he was doing wrong, Caitlin! That bird never did him any harm.’

  ‘It’s not the point, girl. It’s the same as when you set upon Biddy Ryan. I know you meant to help me, but you have to learn to rein in your feelings. You and I, we’ve talked about how we’re going to make good, how we’re going to get ahead. But if you go losing your temper, getting in the way of other people’s business, then it’s going to be harder. Harder for us to be together.’

  ‘Did your sister have a foul temper? Is that why you left her outside the gate?’ said Bridie, feeling the sting of her words even as they escaped her.

  Caitlin recoiled.

  ‘Bridie, your own sweet mother died in a ditch,’ said Caitlin so softly that Bridie had to lean closer to hear the bitter words.

  In the long silence, Bridie heard all the sounds of the ship about her, the creaking of the timbers, the wash of the sea, the voices of the other girls above deck and the cries of the sailors. And she heard her own breath coming fast and sharp and her heart pounding. Gently, Caitlin reached out and put her arm around Bridie.

  ‘Darlin’ girl, I want you to promise me you’ll try harder to mind your temper.’

  Bridie sighed, and leaned her head against Caitlin’s shoulder.

  ‘When my dad died, staying angry was what kept me and Brandon alive, like it fed the fire inside me. And then when we were at the workhouse, I felt like all the fire had gone out in me. But the sea breeze, it’s like the wind of freedom, Cait, blowing off the new world and making me feel like the spark in me is alive again. Don’t make me promise a lie.’

  ‘I don’t want you to promise for my sake, girl,’ said Caitlin, taking Bridie’s face in her hands and staring hard into her eyes. ‘It’s for your own sake, Bridie O’Connor. How are you going to serve your new master if you let your temper make you battle-mad?’

  ‘I’ll be a good servant to an honest master,’ said Bridie. ‘I can promise that.’

  Now, it was Caitlin who sighed. ‘Let’s pray that the new world is full of honest men.’

  15

  The New World

  It was a bright January day when they sailed into Port Phillip Bay. The country on either side was grey-green, stark and stripped dry in the harsh sunlight. Bridie hung over the side of the ship and stared hungrily at the foreign shore. After all those months at sea, it would be strange and delicious to feel earth beneath her feet.

  Ev
en though the land was only a stone’s throw from them, the girls weren’t to be taken ashore until the following day. Bridie stood on the deck beside Caitlin and stared at the docks of Williamstown.

  ‘They’re taking us to a depot tomorrow. Then folk will come and sign for us, take us to be indentured in their homes and in their businesses,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Let’s pray that we go together,’ said Bridie, full of hope. Caitlin didn’t reply as she bent over the side and stared down into the green water.

  The docks were teeming with men. Margaret O’Shea stood on her tiptoes and stared into the crowds, searching for the cousin she swore was coming to meet her. Bridie heard Margaret squeal with pleasure as a tall man with a red beard approached the dock. Several other girls were met right there on the waterfront, and Bridie pushed down her feelings of envy. One day, she’d be waiting on the docks for Brandon. One day, she told herself.

  The air was sour with the smell of fish and tar. Bridie looked down at her heavy boots flashing out from beneath her long skirt, sidestepping brackish puddles of seawater. It was peculiar to be able to take so many steps in a straight line, to not have to take into account the swaying of the timbers beneath her feet. It made her feel unbalanced.

  The girls were marched to a jetty where some small boats were waiting to take them up the yellow river to Melbourne. Bridie sat quietly in the boat, her hands folded in her lap, but she stared out across the salt marshes in wide-eyed amazement. The whole landscape was drenched with a harsh, raw light. The foliage of the gnarled shrubs was silver and grey and blue-green, nothing like the exotic lush jungle she’d imagined. Further along the river, they passed a strange, tangled clump of trees with leaves that all seemed to hang limply and point down in a way she’d never seen before.

  The river widened and then narrowed as they travelled upstream. As they approached the wharf Bridie caught sight of a jumble of buildings on the north shore, and further up the river, on the south bank, was a crowd of canvas tents – a small town in itself.

  The girls were marched up from the wharf and along a busy street. Bridie had imagined Melbourne as a village no bigger than Dingle, but here was a town as grand as Tralee, with wide streets and tall bluestone buildings, even though it was only a few years older than she was. People stared at the girls as they walked in line up King Street, and Bridie moved a little closer towards Caitlin so their arms touched. Caitlin looked down at her and smiled.

  Halfway up a small hill was the immigration barracks, the depot that was to be their home until they were assigned an indenture. A cloud of dust and flies rose up from the square yard at the centre as the girls shuffled around the carts that had brought their trunks from the wharf. They were instructed to assemble in the yard and their names were checked off the ship’s list. A small group of girls from an earlier shipload of orphans stood on the verandah of the bunkhouses and watched as the new arrivals were sorted into groups. Bridie was taken aback by their sulky, angry expressions.

  Inside the bunkhouse, each of the girl’s boxes sat at the end of a single bed. Bridie looked at her own narrow bunk and felt a wave of loneliness. It would be the first time in her life that she’d had a bed to herself, and she wasn’t sure she liked the idea.

  ‘Why are those other girls still here?’ whispered Bridie to Caitlin as they knelt before their trunks, folding their cloaks away. ‘Their boat must have come weeks ago.’

  ‘Maybe no one wants them. Maybe they’re wicked girls like Biddy Ryan.’

  Bridie felt a ripple of unease. ‘They don’t look wicked to me. They just look like ordinary girls,’ she said. ‘How can you make up your mind so quickly about whether a girl is good or bad?’

  ‘Lucky for you, Bridie O’Connor, that I do make up my mind that quick. I knew the first time I clapped eyes on you outside the workhouse that your heart was good, and I’ve seen nothing to prove me wrong yet. And I knew the first time I saw Biddy Ryan that she was a slattern, and you know her as well as I do now and what do you think?’

  Bridie didn’t reply.

  They took the bunks nearest the door and set their trunks down at the end of the beds. Bridie noticed the name of the smallest girl in the bunkhouse, ‘Honor Gauran’, painted on her box. It looked battered compared to Bridie’s. Bridie smiled at her but she turned away. That night, all the Diadem girls whispered to each other, the rise and fall of their voices like the swelling sea.

  Bridie woke to the sound of shouting. Honor Gauran was cowering in her nightgown before the Matron.

  ‘You filthy brute. We offer you our charity, and you show us your respect with this disgusting behaviour. No wonder your mistress sent you back.’

  Honor hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll clean it up, ma’am,’ she said in a small voice.

  Then Bridie saw it: a big puddle on the floor beside Honor’s bed. After the Matron left, Honor turned to the other girls, her eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘I was dreaming of the master. It was the master’s fault I come back. The mistress was out one night and I was in my little bed and the master come in and took off his trousers and climbed into my bed with me. I had to hit him to get away and then I ran into the street in my nightgown but he came out the door shouting at me and threw my box into the street. That’s how it got the lid broke. All my things strewn across the cobbles.’ She sniffed deeply and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘I knows I should have gone to the water closet last night. But I’m too scared to walk about in the dark. I feel scared all the time now.’

  Bridie and Caitlin looked at each other and felt answering stabs of alarm.

  ‘It’s all right, Bridie,’ whispered Caitlin. ‘It won’t be like that for us.’

  Everyone grew restless, waiting for their new lives to begin. There was nothing to do in the depot, and the girls hung about idly. Biddy Ryan liked to lean over the fence of the depot and call out to passers-by until the Matron hurried out and shooed her back into the barracks.

  One day a whole family of black natives walked past the fence. Their clothes were ragged, as Bridie’s and her family’s had been when they lived in the hut on the edge of Dingle, and they had a lean and hungry look about them. Bridie had never seen such ebony skin. Their big, dark eyes and the sharp angle of their bones reminded her of the hungriest time in her life. When they looked back at her staring at them through the fence, she turned away.

  Every day, some of the girls would leave with their indenture certificates signed and their bonnets tied beneath their chins, but still Bridie waited. There were rumours that the citizens were angry at the presence of the orphan girls, that no one really wanted them and that the newspapers were describing them as ignorant and useless.

  At the end of the second week, Caitlin came to tell Bridie she had a place. A draper from Flinders Lane wanted a girl to work in his shop, but only one.

  ‘Can’t you wait until there’s somewhere we can both go?’

  ‘Bridie, sure you’re like a sister to me, but no, I can’t wait. I’ll come and visit you if my new master will let me, and if not, then I’ll write to you care of the depot, so you can write back to me, like I taught you.’

  Bridie frowned. She’d made small progress at learning her letters. The thought of having to read a whole page of writing made her feel sick, but she couldn’t admit that to Caitlin.

  ‘But why can’t you ask the draper to take me on as well?’

  ‘There’s evil talk, saying the orphan girls are a bad and lazy lot and always arguing for their own way. I’ve heard the Irishmen and the Bishop have called meetings to say we’re the best of Ireland, so we have to hold to that and show them it’s true and not make trouble. Someone will come and give you a place soon. And then you’ll work hard and mind your temper and save your money, just as I will do. How else will we have enough to make our own little home? Don’t forget that. You have to hold to that, how we’ll take in sewing and have our own place together. I promise we won’t lose each other.’

>   The first night without Caitlin, Bridie lay in bed listening to Honor Gauran crying. After what seemed hours, Honor finally drifted off into restless sleep but Bridie lay awake, staring into the darkness. For a long moment before sleep took her, the new world seemed to be the loneliest place on earth.

  16

  Beaumanoir

  Heat lay in shimmering waves across the depot yard. Bridie sat on the verandah of the bunkhouse with the other girls, fanning herself with her bonnet.

  ‘Hell couldn’t be any hotter than this!’ exclaimed Biddy Ryan, shaking her skirts out to cool her legs. ‘This heat’s draining every morsel of life from my poor body.’

  ‘Wishta!’ said Honor, darting a glance in the direction of Matron. ‘You’re not to be complaining. If they hear you, they’ll send you to some terrible master or mistress. They’ll tell you it’s for your own good, to knock some sense into you.’

  ‘Then I’ll run away, like you did, girl,’ said Biddy defiantly.

  Bridie was just about to ask Biddy where she’d run away to when Matron stepped out onto the verandah and called Bridie into the Supervisor’s office. A big, plump woman dressed in dark clothes was chatting to the Supervisor when Bridie walked into the room. The Supervisor didn’t look up from the papers he was signing. Bridie knew instantly they were her papers of indenture.

  ‘You are a most fortunate girl, Bridie O’Connor,’ said the Supervisor. ‘You are to be apprenticed to the household of one of the finest families in Port Phillip. This is Mrs Fairlea, the housekeeper of Sir William and Lady Adeline De Quincey, who will act on behalf of Sir William as your guardian from this day forward.’

  Bridie glanced at the dour-looking woman and made a small curtsey.

  ‘You will learn all the skills needed to be a useful servant, and if you apply yourself and work hard, you will never be without employment and will one day make a fine wife for any man.’