This Golden Land

by Wood, Barbara

  And then Hannah turned the corner from one aisle into the next and what she suddenly saw made her come to a standstill, her eyes wide in surprise.

  As Alice wound her way through the warren of aisles and shelves, she prayed she would find what she needed. Miss Conroy's suggestion that she cover her scars with makeup had proven more difficult to achieve than she had expected. Ladies did not wear cosmetics. There were encouraged to bite their lips and pinch their cheeks before entering a room, but use of pencils and rouge were scandalous for they were the mark of "loose" women. Although some commercial makeup was available, mostly manufactured in France—powders, bases, and waxes containing light, "natural" color—they were prohibitively expensive. Hannah and Alice had gone to the Victoria Theater on North Terrace to inquire among the acting company if they had any cosmetics to sell, but all jealously guarded their secret formulas and recipes. And so Alice continued to go out into the world with her scarred cheek and missing brow, with the bald patch on her scalp and the mutilated ear kept disguised with her own hair and maid's mob cap pulled low.

  When they had heard of a new store in town, announcing "many departments"—a new concept fresh from London—that sold everything from thread to gum boots, Alice wondered if they might carry makeup. As she perused enticing displays of needles and thread, buttons and yarn, tape measures and pins—as she walked down aisles stocked with candles and lamp oil, doilies and soap; garden seeds from England; coffee from Arabia, cocoa from Mexico, tea from India; blankets and basins; hand mirrors and hair brushes; galoshes and sun hats, Alice came upon a large cork bulletin board, "For the convenience of our customers." Calling cards, adverts, announcements, and notices were tacked up, many placed by people looking for employment or offering jobs.

  Alice had once declared she would take any kind of work, but now she was not so sure. She had gone to one interview at a rich man's house near North Terrace where she had been admitted through the rear door and the lady of the house had conducted the interview in the kitchen, asking personal questions for the cooking staff to overhear. The woman's attitude had been haughty and snobbish, worse even than Lulu's, and she had begun to recite a list of prohibitions, should Alice be lucky enough to get the job, when it had occurred to Alice that she would just be entering into another kind of slavery. She had thanked the surprised lady, and left.

  Alice did not know what to do. Since breaking away from Lulu Forchette's grasp, she had felt adrift. For all of her twenty-one years, Alice Starky had been told what to do, what to eat, where to sleep. Not for a single hour in all her life had she been her own mistress. But now she was and she had no idea how to live. "You can be anything you want to be," Hannah had said. But what did that mean?

  Alice paused when a poster caught her eye. It was large and busy, and framed in a fancy decorative border. Large letters shouted: "Coming Soon to Adelaide, One of the New Music Halls So Recently Seen in London!"

  Alice read the words again. Her education was rudimentary, and as she had never heard of a music hall, she made sure she read it correctly. She was able to pick out a few words—magic acts, piano player, musicians, acrobats, jugglers, trapeze artist. One in particular jumped out at her: Soloist singer. "Requirements are fine voice and good looks. Female preferred."

  Alice struggled over the big word at the top of the poster. AUDITIONS. She didn't know what it meant, but she gathered from the rest of the information that it had something to do with entertainers trying out for acts to be performed on a stage. "Salary paid on scale according to talent and popularity. See Sam Glass, proprietor."

  Alice's heart began to race. Was it possible? Her hand went protectively to her scarred cheek, and her fingers fluttered at the ruffled edge of her white mob cap as she pictured the stares of the imaginary audience, deaf to her voice because they were so shocked by her looks. People had told her that when she sang no one noticed her disfigurement. But was it true, or had they only been speaking kindly out of pity?

  As her heart continued to race, and she felt excitement steal through her bones, Alice made a note of the date when the try-outs were to be held. October 10th. Six weeks away. Would she be able to fix her face in time?

  Hannah could hardly believe her eyes as she approached the impressive display of commercial and manufactured medicines. Like most people, she visited a chemist when she needed something for a headache, a rash, or an upset stomach. But it required a prescription from a doctor, and then a visit to a chemist shop, and then there was the waiting time while the ointment or syrup and elixir was made up, and sometimes it could be a long wait if the chemist was busy. These medicines, however, appeared to be already prepared and ready to buy.

  One display of bottles was topped by a sign that boldly declared, "Absolutely Safe and Healthy Childbirth with No Danger to Mother or Baby!" Hannah looked at the bottles of red liquid, which were labeled, "Dr. Vickers' Anti-Sepsis Compound," and her eyes widened. Had someone found a formula before her father had? The label said nothing other than "use of this miracle compound will guarantee safe and healthy childbirth with none of the dangers and sicknesses that attend such a blessed event."

  She picked up one of the bottles and held it to the light. What was it?

  Uncorking the bottle, Hannah lifted it to her nose. There was no scent. She removed her glove and dipped her finger in, bringing it to the tip of her tongue. No taste.

  She frowned. It was just colored water. How, then, could the label and this big sign make such a preposterous promise?

  Recorking the bottle and replacing it, she scanned the other medicinal offerings which covered the counter top: boxes, packets, tins and bottles of medicines of all kinds—elixirs, nostrums, tonics, and remedies—in liquids, powders, syrups or creams. Crowning one pyramid was a hand-lettered sign that said, "Safer than leeches! No need for unpleasant purging! Avoid doctors' fees! Cheaper than the chemist!"

  Hannah looked at Dr. Brogan's Cure-All. The label promised to eradicate everything from pimples to gout, and also worked as a hair restorer, stomach settler, and menstrual regulator. "A generous dose of cocaine in every teaspoonful, guaranteed!"

  She noticed that some labels did not list ingredients while others boldly promised generous amounts of cocaine, opium, and alcohol. And if a product bore a person's name, it was always preceded by "Doctor" or "Professor."

  Dr. Doyle's Infallible Worm Destroying Lozenges: "They cure where others fail." Prof. Barnard's Health Tonic: "Contains over 60 ingredients including rare snake oil!" Dr. Palmer's Female Pills: "Guaranteed to calm a distressed womb." Swami Gupta's Elixir of Life: "Proven in India! Will definitely eradicate all forms of cancer." Dr. Harrow's Fertility Tonic: "A baby in every bottle!"

  Hannah had had very little exposure to commercial medicines. Bayfield's chemist made up prescriptions from doctors, selling only a few manufactured medicines. Occasionally a traveling salesman would come through the village, selling miracle cures from the back of his wagon, but Hannah's father cautioned his patients against buying such "humbugs."

  A gentleman came up the aisle just then, a thick-set man in a neat black suit and shiny bald head, with a bushy black and gray beard framing rosy lips. He introduced himself as Mr. Kirkland, owner and proprietor of this fine establishment. "For whatever ails a body," he boasted as he waved a hand over the medicinal offerings, "I have the cure."

  "This is most impressive," Hannah said, a bottle of Cocaine Tooth Drops For Children in her hand.

  "Indeed it is! As you can see, these come with guarantees. A chemist can't guarantee that his medicine will work. And these cost a lot less than what a chemist mixes up for you. Save time, too, no going to the doctor first."

  But how, Hannah wondered, could all these medicines promise cures when not even a doctor could? And then she realized: They couldn't. Now she knew why her father had called such products "humbug." They were nothing but fakery. But there was no law against it, and the public, desperate to cure their aches and pains and ills, believed the printed wo
rd.

  Mr. Kirkland pointed out that he carried health books, too. Hannah picked up a manual on "Care of the sick in Home." She turned to the chapter titled, Giving the Patient a Bed Bath. "When patient is too sick to be removed from the bed for a bath, bring basin of soapy water to bedside and, using a cloth, wash the patient starting with the neck, washing as far down as possible. When that is done, start with the feet and wash up as far as possible. When that is done, wash possible."

  She picked up another, Safe Child Delivery, and scanned its contents. "Step One: when the mother goes into labor, send all gentlemen out of the house. Step Two: place the mother behind a privacy screen." Hannah could not believe her eyes as page after page of useless information went by. There were no specific details on how to assist with a delivery, no advice for cases of emergency, and certainly no mention of using clean linens and washing one's hands. The manual was mostly about keeping the mother cheerful and optimistic. "Ply her with plenty of spirits, whether gin or rum, although wine will do."

  "These books and medicines are my biggest sellers," Mr. Kirkland said proudly, clasping his lapels as if he were a politician looking for votes. "Folks come in from the country and buy up all they can. Some farms are so remote that people there never see a doctor. They have to make do for themselves."

  A stranger came up the aisle just then, tipping his rain-soaked bowler hat and saying, "Greetings, friends. Farley Gladstone, at your service." He handed them each a damp calling card, inscribed: Dr. Gladstone, Painless Dentist.

  Gladstone had putty-colored hair, a narrow face and small, feminine hands that Hannah thought would be an asset in his profession. In a thick Liverpool accent, he explained that he had transported barrels of Waterloo teeth to Australia.

  "What teeth?" Mr. Kirkland said.

  "Most dentures are made with the teeth of animals," Gladstone said, speaking rapidly in the manner of salesmen with a pitch, "although human teeth are preferable. But where can one obtain a sufficient supply, with so many people requiring dentures? Other than, of course, those extracted from executed criminals and the destitute who willingly have their incisors and molars extracted in exchange for a few pence. But the Battle of Waterloo proved a boon to dentistry! Fifty thousand young and healthy soldiers perished on that battlefield, but their teeth live on! After being harvested, those teeth have found their way into the mouths of many Britons. And now, because of me, Australians will benefit as well."

  Mr. Kirkland studied the calling card and wrinkled his red nose. "A dentist is it? Then why are you calling yourself Doctor? You're a barber, aren't you?"

  "I am a doctor of dentistry, my good fellow. There is a city in America, a place called Baltimore, that recently opened an actual college of dentistry, the first dental school in the world. We dentists, like surgeons, are breaking away from our barber affiliations and becoming respectable like physicians. So great is my vision of the future in which dentists are addressed as 'doctor' that I embrace the designation myself in anticipation of that future."

  The proprietor sighed and gave Hannah a look as the ebullient "Dr." Gladstone moved on to introduce himself to others in the aisles. "Fancy a dentist calling himself Doctor," Mr. Kirkland said with a shake of his head. "That's what Australia does to people. Gives them ideas."

  As Kirkland walked away, Hannah returned her attention to the display of medicines and books, and she thought of the far-flung homesteads Kirkland had spoken of, the scattered settlers, the isolated families so far from the services of a doctor. And she found herself thinking of Bayfield, and the days her father went out in the buggy, to follow the country lanes and byways as he visited his patients. And an idea so new and perfect sprang into her mind that she found herself suddenly smiling.

  When she saw Alice coming up the aisle toward her, Hannah noticed that, by coincidence, her friend was also smiling. And she realized that venturing out into the storm had been worthwhile after all.

  11

  H

  ANNAH WAS SO ENCHANTED BY THE SHIMMERING COUNTRY-side, she thought it was as if, overnight, the world had been turned into gold by the unseen hand of a magical alchemist.

  She could not stop marveling over the miracle that had taken place. The golden wattle, a native Australian acacia, was in full springtime bloom, producing large fluffy yellow flower heads that were in fact clusters of many tinier flowers, casting green trees and brown bark in gold that shimmered blindingly in the sunlight.

  The whole world in fact, Hannah thought as she guided her one-horse buggy along the tree-lined lane, seemed bursting with new life and fresh color as the rust-red earth of South Australia gave forth an abundance of emerald-greens, deep sky-blues, and flowers ranging from blood-red to canary yellow. Fields of clover, acres of wheat and corn, and vineyards mantled in lush grape vines all swept away to rolling hills where sheep and cattle grazed, and the occasional red-roofed farmhouse stood beneath the sun.

  Riding along the road to the clip-clop of her mare's hooves, Hannah heard the wind in the gum trees, many of which she was now able to identify—the spotted gum, the blue gum, the thin-leaved stringy bark, the red flowering gum, and the mountain ash—and they seemed to be whispering, "Come live with us."

  There was that strange enchantment again, redolent of her encounter with the outlaw Jamie O'Brien eight months ago. She had not heard news of him since, but his wanted posters were still up around the city, so she assumed he was still at large. This drive through the country, far from noisy Adelaide, reminded her of that enchanted night. In retrospect it seemed that when she had been in imminent danger of being attacked by a starving wild dog, out of the night a stranger had materialized to rescue her, a man with an exotic accent, weathered skin, tilted smile. Hannah had the oddest notion that it was almost as if Australia itself had come to her rescue in the form of a person, for just those few minutes. Where did Jamie O'Brien disappear to afterward?

  He went back into the red earth and the ghost gums and the never-ending sky.

  Such a romantic notion no longer startled her. Hannah knew she was falling in love with her adopted land. Its uniqueness delighted her. The flocks of white cockatoos flying up from the tops of gum trees. The sudden appearance of an emu, tall and fat, trotting across the track. Kangaroos grazing alongside sheep brought over from England. And signs over gateways identified holdings as Wattle Run, Billabong Station, Fairview Farm.

  They were new signs, Hannah noticed, erected in just the past few years. In Bayfield, the roads themselves were hundreds of years old. One could not pass a farm that hadn't been in a family for generations. The very oaks and glens were steeped in tradition and customs. But here! Cottages with their original coat of paint, not yet re-painted. Fields that had just been planted for the first time. Newcomers arriving to stamp their identity on the land, to make something of this country and of themselves.

  The very newness of Australia captivated Hannah. There would be no gloomy libraries where snobbish physicians could pass unfair judgments on a man who had no title, no lineage. She thought of Neal, who did not know who he was or where he came from—this would be the place for him. A place of new beginnings and fresh starts, where it did not matter what came before, what prior generations had done in this place, where all that mattered was what a man did today.

  She wished she could share this discovery with Neal. And perhaps she soon would. Hannah had finally received a letter from the colonial government in Perth. Neal's science vessel had not been affected by the recent native uprisings, had not in fact yet returned to port from its year-long voyage of survey and exploration, but was due in soon. Perhaps he was already there now, looking for a ship to bring him to Adelaide.

  She saw a turn-off up ahead, a dirt track disappearing among gum trees. A sign by the road said, Seven Oaks Station, with an arrow pointing right.

  Once she had heard that Neal was all right, Hannah had given up the notion of going to Perth to search for him, and had come out to the countryside where she hoped to start
a midwifery practice. The idea had come to her at Kirkland's Emporium, when the proprietor had said the settlers were so far from medical help. Hannah had decided that getting away from the city and its established midwives who so jealously guarded their territories would be just the start she needed.

  She and Alice were staying at the Australia Hotel, a bustling establishment farther along the Kapunda road than where Lulu had lived. It was owned and run by a cheerful widow named Mrs. Guinness who had no qualms about unmarried ladies renting a room. The hotel had been built a couple of years prior, after copper was found in Kapunda and the great ore drays came and went along the country road, filled with men in need of food and rest. A few other buildings had sprung up around the hotel—a dry goods store, feed and farm supplies, a blacksmith. Mrs. Guinness handled the mail that came up from Adelaide for the region, and so farmers and cattlemen frequently tramped up the steps of her hotel for their letters from home.

  Hannah had been out here in the open spaces for five weeks now, trying to get herself known. Each morning she would set out in the rented buggy and, equipped with her blue carpetbag, a map of the district, and a lunch of cold chicken or beef, bread and cheese, and a bottle of sweetened tea, she would cover as much of the countryside as she could, visiting farms and homesteads, introducing herself, leaving her calling card: Hannah Conroy, Licensed Midwife, Trained in London.

  Alice did not go with her. Because Mrs. Guinness had by good fortune needed help in the kitchen, Alice had a job at the Australia Hotel. But in the evenings she rehearsed in Mrs. Guinness's drawing room, to the piano accompaniment of Mrs. Guinness's daughter, because she had her heart set on the auditions at the new music hall. Alice tried out various selections on whoever occupied the room at the time, gauging their reactions to see which song she should choose for her audition. The drawing room audience changed every night, as drovers, cattlemen, and shearers came and went. But all sat spellbound while Alice sang, and all agreed that her voice sounded like spun gold (although one tactless fellow had said within Alice's hearing, "She's beautiful if you don't look at her.").