Bridie's Fire

by Kirsty Murray

  The reception was held in the big front drawing room. The guests spilled out through the long doors that opened onto the front lawn, where tables laden with the best silverware shone in the afternoon sunlight.

  Late in the day, Bridie was sent to clear the tables. She came around the side of the big house and saw Sir William’s mother sitting in her wicker chair with one of Gilbert’s baby cousins on her knee. Miss Charity was glowing as she farewelled her guests, one hand hooked around the arm of her new husband, Martin Degraves. He was just as tall and handsome as Dora had described him, with straight dark hair and a wide moustache, and every now and then Miss Charity would gaze up at him and smile. They looked like a prince and princess as they stood together with Sir William and Lady Adeline beside them. Gilbert was there too, standing by one of the tables, eating the last of the tarts with his brothers and laughing. He didn’t seem like the bullied youngest brother today. Bridie felt something hard and tight growing in her chest, as if she was standing far away, outside the richness of their world.

  ‘What are you gawking at?’ asked Dora crossly as she passed Bridie carrying a tray loaded with teacups. ‘You expecting me to do all the work? Don’t dawdle!’

  Later that day, when the last of the guests had left and Bridie was back in the scullery with her hands deep in greasy water, she thought of what she’d seen. She tried to make a picture in her mind of her own family all together again, but it was like a gathering of ghosts. Hot tears coursed down her face and dripped into the tepid washing-up water. She forced the ghosts away and tried to conjure a brighter vision. She thought of the little house she and Caitlin would have. There’d be a room for Brandon, ready for him when he came across the sea. And there would be a room where ladies as grand as Miss Charity would come to have their gowns made, and then Bridie would measure and sew and have finest silk between her fingers every day. She saw the needle slip through the fabric, trailing threads of spun silver and gold as she made a dress fit for a princess, and Caitlin and Brandon sitting by the fire of their new home. She pushed the thoughts away and hoisted a heavy black pot into the tub.

  20

  The fate of girls

  ‘Now, girls, no dilly-dallying tomorrow,’ said Mrs Arbuckle. She laid out the baskets they would need for the morning on the kitchen table. ‘I want to be at the market bright and early so we can get to Beaumer in good time. Miss Charity is going to need all our help. Imagine expecting a young thing like her to have all her sisters and Master Gilbert to stay and no servants of her own yet! Just as well Sir William and Lady Adeline and the older boys are going away elsewhere so there won’t be no call for us here.’

  Bridie went to bed tight with excitement. She lay awake long after Dora’s heavy breathing signalled sleep. Tomorrow would be the first time that Bridie had been back to Melbourne Town since leaving the depot. Sometimes Dora was taken along on shopping trips to help, but up to now, Bridie had always been kept busy in the scullery or the kitchen. Bridie knew Dora was jealous that this time Bridie was coming along too. It had taken her a while to realise that most of Dora’s nastiness grew out of jealousy. She was jealous of how fast Bridie learnt everything that Mrs Arbuckle taught them, and jealous when any of her jobs were given to Bridie. And it incensed Dora that Mrs Arbuckle continued to spend so much time trying to ‘save’ Bridie.

  When they reached town the next morning, Mrs Arbuckle led the girls into Flinders Lane and past the pubs where the heady scent of beer flooded into the lane, and then on to her favourite draper’s. Bridie followed Mrs Arbuckle into the shop, where the swish of fabric and the smell of new cloth made her shiver with pleasure. There were jars full of buttons and pieces of card with lace and finery stacked along the counters. In a small glass cabinet was a display of silver thimbles and she gazed at them with wonder and longing. Spools of thread were stacked on long sticks and rolls of cloth were piled up high to the ceiling. Bridie ran one hand over a bolt of heavy red velvet and her whole body tingled. She could just see the outline of a group of girls at work in the back room with great folds of cloth lying across their laps as they sewed, and she sighed with envy.

  The marketplace was teeming with people, and their shouts and the sheer noise of the place made Bridie feel giddy with excitement. Mrs Arbuckle forced her way through the crowds with the big basket over her arm. Bridie followed Dora, pushing a small wheeled contraption while Mrs Arbuckle ordered stallholders to fill it with bags of potatoes, onions, carrots and cabbages. Bridie drank in the whole spectacle of the place, her eye roving from one thing to the next. Suddenly, over to one side, she spotted Biddy Ryan standing by a stall. As soon as Dora’s back was turned, Bridie raced over to talk to Biddy.

  ‘God be with you, Biddy Ryan,’ she exclaimed, but Biddy stared straight past her. ‘It’s me, Bridie O’Connor,’ she added. ‘Don’t look away like that. Tell me what’s been happening! Did you find a position or were you sent back to the depot, or have they found you a new place since then?’

  Biddy made a little gesture with her head, and hurried away into a narrow laneway. Bridie followed her.

  ‘You mustn’t recognise me. I’m not going back there. They sent me to another situation and I hated it. I’ve hated all of them. I ran away again this last week past.’

  ‘But how are you getting by, Biddy? Have you saved any money?’

  ‘There’s gentlemen who’ll help a girl out, if she does them a little favour,’ said Biddy, smiling archly.

  ‘Biddy Ryan! They had a rally to defend us. Did you hear of that? A thousand Irishmen and the Bishop were in the Town Hall to let it be known that we’re decent girls. Girls like you give us all a bad name.’

  ‘Girls like me!’ snorted Biddy. ‘So it’s better to be a girl like Honor Gauran?’

  ‘Honor Gauran? The little one that wet her bed?’ asked Bridie, confused.

  ‘You know Honor Gauran. You remember her story. She ran away again. Ran away and drowned herself in that filthy river.’

  ‘Drowned?’ Bridie swallowed hard.

  ‘Aye, drowned, and her belly all swollen with the baby she never birthed. You wait, Bridie O’Connor. You’re such a skinny runt of a girl, seems none of them want you yet, but when you’re a woman and the master lays a hand on you, we’ll see which way you jump.’

  Bridie thought of Sir William and then of Gilbert and his brothers and shook her head disbelievingly. She almost laughed. And then she remembered Honor Gauran weeping at the depot.

  ‘Someone should hang that master, or flog him, or punish him somehows; but not all masters are like that.’

  Biddy looked her up and down. ‘That may well be, but I like being my own mistress and that’s what I am, not a little skivvy that jumps when she’s shouted at. I used to think you had a bit of spark in you, Bridie O’Connor, but I suppose I was mistaken.’

  Bridie clenched her fists and turned her back on Biddy. She pushed her way through the bustling crowd, past the fish merchants and the fruiterers, but couldn’t see Mrs Arbuckle or Dora anywhere. She hurried up Flinders Lane. Surely, if she waited by the punts that took passengers across to St Kilda Road, she’d see Mrs Arbuckle pass. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t recognise the woman stepping out of a narrow shop entrance until they were right in front of each other.

  ‘Caitlin!’ she cried.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Bridie O’Connor herself!’ said Caitlin. She looked plumper than last time Bridie had seen her at the depot, and well content.

  ‘So this is the draper’s shop where you work,’ said Bridie, forgetting all her urgency. She peered into the shop enviously.

  ‘Not for long,’ said Caitlin, smiling. ‘I’m to be married this very morning. I got the judge to sign a paper that lets me break my indenture. My husband’s from a town called Hamilton, far down along the coast, and this afternoon we’ll be setting out to his cabin there.’

  Bridie stared at her blankly. ‘But you’re not fifteen, Caitlin,’ said Bridie. ‘You can’t be marrying yet.’r />
  ‘You’re the only one who knows my true age and you mustn’t tell anyone, Bridie. They think I’m all of seventeen. And he’s a lovely man.’

  ‘Have you known him long then?’ said Bridie, fighting down her swelling disappointment.

  ‘A week or so,’ answered Caitlin.

  ‘You can’t know he’s lovely if you’ve only known him a week!’

  ‘He’s been into the shop half a dozen times and seems honest enough. Bridie, this is what I’ve always wished for: my own home. And Daniel can give it to me. This is why you and I came here, remember, to have our own homes.’

  ‘To have a home together. To be our own mistresses, that’s what we planned. So I could send for Brandon.’

  Caitlin sighed. ‘When you’ve finished your indenture, you can come and visit with us. I’ll write to you and then you can come.’

  ‘You said before that you’d find out where I was and write to me. Six months now I’ve been at Beaumanoir and not a word from you. Wouldn’t the depot tell you where they’d sent me? Why didn’t you write me?’

  Caitlin blushed and stumbled to make an excuse. ‘Well, the days were so busy. There was not time to find you, girl, and besides, you never wrote me either.’

  Bridie felt she was looking at a stranger. ‘But you can’t be marrying, Caitlin. You can’t. There’ll be nothing for me to hope for if you leave Melbourne,’ said Bridie miserably. She felt her eyes prickling with tears.

  Caitlin’s face grew hard and angry. ‘Well, now, you have to make the best of it, Bridie. A few more years, you’ll meet a lovely man like my Daniel and then you’ll have your home too.’

  Bridie scowled. ‘I want it for myself, and I’ll have it for myself and not because I’ve given myself to some filthy stranger.’

  Caitlin slapped Bridie hard across the face.

  ‘My Daniel’s no filthy stranger, and who are you to be talking like that to me?’

  Bridie pressed one hand against her burning cheek. She could feel the sting of the blow vibrating through her long scar. She turned away from Caitlin and ran. She could hear Caitlin calling after her as she pushed her way into the crowd, but she didn’t look back.

  When she finally reached the riverside, she wandered down to where the punts were crossing over the river to St Kilda Road. The sky above was a deep blue, the river beneath yellow as clay. A long thin streak of whitish smoke stretched up into the air above the brickworks on the other side of the river. Bridie stared into the eddying waters and thought of Honor Gauran, floating face down in that water, and she shuddered.

  When Mrs Arbuckle finally arrived, with her basket overflowing and Dora scowling behind her, Bridie knew she was in trouble. How could a day that started so well end so badly?

  ‘That’s the first and last time we’re taking you to town, my girl,’ scolded Mrs Arbuckle as she pushed Bridie ahead of her and onto the punt. When they reached the south side of the river, Dora leaned close to Bridie and pinched her hard on the arm.

  ‘Oww! What was that for?’ hissed Bridie.

  ‘For making me be the one to do all the carrying, you lazy brat.’

  Bridie was made to sit right up the back of the cart crammed between sacks of potatoes and baskets of vegetables. No one spoke a word to her all the way to Beaumer but she was glad of the silence. She stared down at the road as it passed away beneath the wheels of the cart and wished she was travelling far away. For the first time in weeks, she thought of Ireland with such longing that she had to press her hands against her chest, as if to stop her heart from breaking.

  21

  Sea change

  They drove along the Brighton Road, the afternoon sun flickering through the gum trees, and passed through the tiny seaside village of St Kilda before turning onto the beach road. Bridie looked out over the sea and was suddenly filled with longing. The smooth still waters of the bay shone blue and gold in the late afternoon sun. Far away, on the edge of the horizon, she could see the outline of land. She knew it was only the heads of the bay that she had sailed between all those months ago, yet part of her wanted to imagine that the hazy blue peninsula was Ireland – that she could simply cross that body of shimmering water and be home again. All those months since she’d had her last glimpse of Ireland seemed to disappear, as if it was only yesterday that she’d sailed across the tumbling grey Irish sea.

  They turned onto the last stretch of road that led to Beaumer and Dora started squealing excitedly as they came in view of Miss Charity’s house. Bridie thought it looked like a doll’s house. It had whitewashed walls, high gables and bright blue fretwork along all the eaves.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Mrs Arbuckle. ‘Sir William, he’s had it built specially for Miss Charity for her wedding present and part of her dowry.’

  Miss Charity looked flushed as she showed them the kitchen and the little room behind it that they would share for the next few days. Bridie and Dora immediately set to work, unloading the shopping, peeling vegetables and kneading pastry for the evening meal, while Charity sat down with Mrs Arbuckle and discussed what food was to be prepared for the week.

  As Bridie worked a lump of pastry into shape, her knife slipped and the blade nicked her finger. Red blood splattered across the smooth white dough.

  Dora looked up and saw the ruined pastry. ‘You clumsy idiot!’ she shouted, snatching the knife away from Bridie.

  Bridie stood absolutely still, holding her hand, watching the blood run down her fingers and drip onto the floured board. She stared blankly at the spreading bloodstain but her mind was full of much darker visions. She saw Honor Gauran floating in the murky river, her body swollen with child and with grief. She saw Biddy Ryan and Caitlin Moriarty each choosing to lie with strange men. She thought of her mother lying in the ditch on the other side of Dingle, and all the events that had brought her across the ocean to this doll’s house by the sea. There was no sense in any of it. What had any of them done to deserve their fates? The injustice of it all made her want to shout with rage.

  ‘Are you listening to me, you stupid Irish dolt!’ yelled Dora.

  ‘The Devil blister your hide for you,’ said Bridie in a low, angry voice, like the growl of a cornered dog.

  ‘Don’t you talk to me about the Devil, you Papist slattern. Mrs Arbuckle offered to show you the light and you’re so stubborn, you don’t know what’s good for you. Your whole family are burning in the hellfires and that’s where you’re bound yourself, because not even God himself cares what happens to you!’ Dora turned her back and resumed her task.

  Blind rage and grief whirled inside Bridie. The next moment, she leapt on Dora’s back, tore off her white cap and pulled a hank of mousey hair out by the roots. Dora screamed and turned on Bridie, slapping her hard across the face. A cloud of flour rose above them as Bridie fought back, scratching and biting like a creature possessed, but Dora was too strong for her. She dragged Bridie across the kitchen and threw her against the wall, then bashed her head against the chimney stone.

  ‘Dora! Bridie! What’s possessed the pair of you!’ shouted Mrs Arbuckle, forcing them apart. Blood was streaming down Bridie’s lip and her head ached, but she noticed with some satisfaction that Dora already had one eye starting to swell and a trickle of blood seeped out from her hairline.

  That night Bridie lay in bed listening to Mrs Arbuckle snoring and the heavy breathing of Dora. She’d endured a long lecture from Mrs Arbuckle while Dora sat opposite her, weeping so loudly that Bridie almost felt sorry for her. Bridie heard little of what the old cook said to her. Her mind wouldn’t stop whirling, full of voices and images, of Honor Gauran floating face down in the Yarra River, of Biddy Ryan in the market square; but mostly, it was the angry words with Caitlin that echoed in her head, and she ached with a sickening sense of betrayal. Was this how she had betrayed Brandon – leaving him to find a better life while he had nothing ahead of him but years of enduring the drudgery of the workhouse? All these months, Bridie had tried to keep her mind fixed
on the future, on what lay ahead when she and Brandon and Caitlin would be together under the same roof. And now the dream had come crashing down, as if the lintel had been pulled clean out of her dreamhouse. She thought of the little cottage that had once been her family home, high on the hill above Dunquin, looking out over the sea. Suddenly, Bridie had a deep craving for the ocean, a hunger just to touch salt water and know that on the other side of the world it washed against the rocks of Slea Head.

  Leaving her shoes beneath her bed, she tiptoed out of the kitchen in bare feet and ran across the front garden in the dark. A few lights still shone from the windows of the second floor but Bridie kept to the shadows of the trees. It didn’t take her long to find a path through the scrub and down onto the beach.

  The water lapped around her ankles, sharp and cool. She only walked a short distance before she found a boat. It was tied with a weathered rope to a pole that stuck up out of the sand. In the moonlight, it looked like a small currach, like the ones her father had taken her in as a small child. Almost before she could understand her own actions, she was dragging the boat along the beach and down to the water’s edge. Small waves kissed the timbers of the craft and it glided into the water smoothly. She guided it with her body, one hand holding up her skirts, until the water lapped about her knees. Then she jumped in and pushed the boat further away from the beach with the oar. Her heart surged with happiness, to be out on the water, to be away from her bondage, to be free with no one to tell her what to do and what not to do. She felt wild and strong as she took both oars in her hands and began to row, pulling hard against the tide.

  The shore became a pale bright strip, and then suddenly, the boat began to sway and rock, as if some sea creature had wrapped its tentacles around the prow.

  ‘What are you doing?’ panted Gilbert, as he pulled himself up over the side. ‘This is stealing, this is our boat. I saw you from my bedroom window, running through the garden, so I followed you. I never dreamed you were going to do something stupid like this.’