Molly crinkled up her freckled nose.
‘Well, thanks for the bread – I’d better get back to work.’ Molly glanced balefully at the pile of shirts on the table. ‘Ma will expect another shirt finished by the time she gets back.’
‘Do you ever feel sick of all of this?’ Jemma blurted suddenly. ‘Working so hard, struggling to feed your brothers and sisters, living in poverty?’
Molly grinned at Jemma, revealing crooked teeth and a sparkle in her hazel eyes.
‘Course I do,’ admitted Molly. ‘But we have fun too – playing games, telling stories, making up pranks. We’re together, and things’ll get better one day. The boys’ll finish school and get good jobs and make lots of money, and we’ll eat mutton and beef every night. It’ll be grand.’
Jemma grinned back, warmed by the bright optimism in Molly’s tone.
Back out on Breillat Street, the wind whipped around and Jemma paused to adjust her shawl. Over the rustling of the leaves she could hear the faint sound of mewling, like a kitten or a puppy in distress. She listened closely and realised it was coming from next door, from Ruby’s house – or, as it was now, the baby farmer’s house.
Jemma crept closer. She hefted her basket up her arm purposefully to give her courage. Then she pushed the old wooden gate and entered. From long habit, she ignored the formal front door and took the side path, which led around the back. The mewling grew stronger, then a loud wail sounded, setting off a series of other wails and shrieks.
Jemma knocked on the back door, which stood open. No-one answered. Jemma peered around the door and into a large room.
A wave of stench assaulted her nostrils – the pungent ammonia sting of urine; a stale, sickly smell of sour milk and vomit; a damp waft of wood smoke; the bitter tang of alcohol and an underlying odour of baby faeces. Jemma pulled her apron over her nose to breathe.
The room was dark and hazy, and in the dimness Jemma could make out a dozen boxes and crates lying on the floor. In one box something was moving – Jemma recognised it as a flailing fist. Something wriggled in another box, but most of them were ominously, terrifyingly still.
Jemma stepped into the room and placed her basket on the table. She crept towards the boxes. Each one held a tightly wrapped hump. On closer inspection, Jemma’s fears were realised. Each hump was a tiny baby, swaddled in rags and cloths.
‘What yer doin’ here snoopin’ around?’ barked a voice from the shadows. ‘Who are you?’
Jemma dropped the apron that was covering her nose. Her mind froze, then raced like a torrent.
A woman moved forward, bundled in a crimson shawl and wearing a brightly striped skirt. Her face peered out suspiciously from a frizz of auburn hair.
‘Oh, hello. Ma Murphy?’ gabbled Jemma. ‘My name’s Jemma Morgan. I did knock, but possibly you didn’t hear me? My mistress, Miss Rutherford from Rosethorne, sent me with some bread and dripping. She thought, perhaps, you might need some help with the babies?’
Jemma pulled out a loaf of bread and a jar of dripping as she spoke, offering them out to Ma Murphy.
Ma Murphy sniffed suspiciously. ‘That Missus Rutherford would sooner spit on me than help the likes of me,’ she objected, threatening to spit at Jemma’s feet in retaliation.
‘Oh no,’ proclaimed Jemma quickly. ‘Mrs McKenzie, the minister’s wife, has asked a number of the Annandale ladies to send food to families in the neighbourhood, and my mistress was very keen to participate. She is a strong supporter of the local congregation.’
Ma Murphy took the offered loaf and tore off a hunk of crust, chewing it thoughtfully. She put the bread on the table, then unscrewed the jar of dripping and scraped a dirty fingernail across the surface, licking it tentatively.
‘Well, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth,’ replied Ma Murphy, winking at Jemma. ‘If your mistress sent you here to work, then work you can. This lot should all be changed and fed. It’s tiresome work, but it must be done several times a day.’
She shrugged towards the boxes of babies.
‘First, there’re napkins out on the clothes line that can be brought in,’ directed Ma Murphy, sitting down at the table and carving off a hunk of bread, which she spread thickly with fat dripping. ‘Then the babies can be unswaddled and dry napkins put on to replace the wet ones.’
A trickle of grease dribbled down her chin. Jemma scurried outside to find the clothes line, breathing in deep lungfuls of fresh air. It was a relief to escape the fug inside.
The nappies flapping briskly on the line were dry, stiff and yellow. The reek confirmed what Jemma had begun to suspect – the nappies had been hung out to dry without being washed.
Jemma unpegged the dozen nappies and carried them inside, holding them as far from herself as possible.
‘The nappies appear as though they haven’t actually been washed?’ asked Jemma, tentatively.
Ma Murphy snorted. ‘With a dozen infants to care for, I don’t have time to wash the napkins unless they really need it,’ she asserted. ‘I take it you do know how to change a baby’s napkin?’
Jemma shook her head.
‘Some nursemaid you make,’ Ma Murphy scoffed. ‘Well, I’ll show you how to do the first one. I’ll do Charlie – he’s the sturdiest.’
She scooped up a hump from the nearest box and placed it on the table. Swiftly and expertly she unwrapped the swaddling cloth, revealing a thin, pale baby with a bald, egg-shaped head and frail limbs. He was nothing like the plump, sweet-smelling babies whom Jemma had cuddled in her own time.
The cold air startled the baby, who shrieked and squealed, waving his arms around ferociously, his face turning red as a sun-ripened tomato. Ma Murphy undid a huge pin that fastened the wet nappy, hoiked the baby up in the air by his ankles and whipped another nappy underneath in its place. In a moment, the dry nappy was pinned and the flailing limbs tightly swaddled in the dirty, discoloured cloth.
Jemma’s stomach recoiled in horror. The word ‘squalor’ leapt to her mind. She had never truly understood the meaning of the word until now.
‘Easy,’ taunted Ma Murphy. ‘Now I’ll make up the milk while you change the others. Careful not to prick ’em with those pins. The poor little mites don’t like being stabbed.’
Charlie was still wailing pitifully. Jemma picked up another tiny hump and carried it to the table where she clumsily undid the pin and sodden nappy and tried to refasten the stiff, dry one. This baby lay limp and unresponsive, his head swollen in comparison to his tiny body.
Jemma’s heart flipped. Is he dead? The tiny chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. Thank God, he’s still alive.
At the other end of the table, Ma Murphy had a large earthenware bowl with a pouring lip. Into this bowl she sloshed some milk from a pail and water from a jug. She stirred in a cupful of soft, white powder, which Jemma hoped was baby formula but somehow suspected it wasn’t. Ma Murphy took a small brown glass bottle and poured a generous slug into her concoction.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jemma curiously as she tussled with the nappy.
‘Ma Murphy’s special recipe – milk, water, lime and laudanum,’ she boasted. ‘Guaranteed to keep the little angels quiet.’
Jemma shuddered with horror. The baby in her hands felt as soft and floppy as a ragdoll, his head unnaturally engorged, every rib protruding from his body.
Ma Murphy poured the solution into a ceramic bottle with a thick-lipped nozzle. She stuck the spout into Charlie’s mouth and he suckled hungrily, glugging down the diluted potion.
Jemma thought she might be sick. Her head pounded. The reek of filth threatened to overwhelm her.
‘Well, so sorry,’ she apologised hastily, resting the baby back in his box. ‘I must be getting on. The mistress expects me to deliver bread to a few more families yet.’
‘I thought you were here to help,’ demanded Ma Murphy. ‘There’s still ten babies to change and feed.’
Jemma washed her hands at the sink, scrubbing them with the ha
rsh lye soap.
‘So sorry,’ repeated Jemma. ‘I must be getting back or the mistress will be furious.’
‘The youth of today,’ scoffed Ma Murphy. ‘No stamina. No work ethic. No responsibility.’
Jemma grabbed her basket from the table and ran for the door and fresh, uncontaminated air. Tears welled up and trickled down her face, and she smeared them away with her apron.
The state of the babies horrified her. She felt shocked and helpless. There must be something she could do to help them – to save them. She had a vision of snatching up an armful of babies and running with them back to Rosethorne. She imagined what Agnes and Miss Rutherford would have to say about that! What was the right thing to do?
Ma Murphy’s strangely familiar words echoed in her head: The youth of today. No work ethic. No responsibility …
She thought of Molly sewing all day to feed her five brothers and sisters. She thought of Connie scrubbing pots and blacking hearths seven days a week to support her family. She thought of Ned shovelling manure, weeding garden beds, polishing tack. Her three friends worked harder than anyone in her day could ever conceive possible. Yet they were all cheerful. They rarely complained and they all had a spirit of generosity.
Her mind churning with thoughts, Jemma raced on to deliver the remainder of her bread and dripping. She hoped no-one discovered that she had given away food to Ma Murphy as well as the four families on her list.
Carrying her empty basket and huddling into her shawl, Jemma decided to walk back to Rosethorne along the harbour. The wind whipped up whitecaps in the bay and lashed the trees.
The waterfront of Annandale was a world away from the one she knew. The harbour was polluted with run-off from the abattoir at Glebe Island and the neighbouring soap and candle factories, which boiled down the tallow from the carcasses.
The air was foul with the stench of smoke from boiling vats of lard and animal by-products, and the fresher scent of sap, resin and salty water.
On the Annandale foreshore were numerous timber yards where logs were sawn and milled into beams, weatherboards, pylons, posts, shingles and wood blocks, then transported by boat to other parts of the city. Many of the streets of Sydney were paved with wood blocks from the Annandale timber yards.
Jemma paused to watch the men and boys at work. Small boys, who looked no older than Sammy, dressed in rags with bare feet, pushed overladen carts and trolleys piled with timber. A grey-bearded overseer shouted loudly, whacking the boys across their bare calves to make them move faster. A small boy yelped in pain but scurried to push harder.
Jemma was shocked at the number of children working at such hard labour and the cruelty with which they were treated.
Men swarmed over stockpiles of timber, loading carts, rolling logs and feeding the steam sawmills. Cranes lifted loads of sawn timber onto barges. It was a busy, chaotic scene.
Suddenly, Jemma spied a familiar figure in the distance. It was tall, long-legged Ned, striding towards the timber yard perimeter fence, his jacket pulled close against the wind. Jemma went to call out to him, but something about his manner stopped her.
Ned seemed to be furtive, glancing around swiftly, as though checking for observers. He stopped by the fence and was talking hastily to someone on the other side. A hand emerged through a gap in the fence, passing him something. Ned quickly pocketed the small package and then loped off back up Johnston Street towards Rosethorne.
Jemma followed him back slowly, trying to make sense of what she had just witnessed. What is going on? What had Ned been given? Why did he seem to want to avoid detection?
On Friday afternoon Doctor Anderson came to check on Georgiana’s progress. As before, Jemma stood patiently in the corner, watching over the proceedings. The doctor brought Georgiana a present wrapped in brown paper and string.
‘I thought you might like something to read,’ Doctor Anderson suggested kindly.
Georgiana unwrapped the parcel eagerly. It was a book called The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses.
‘It’s a new collection of bush poems by a writer called Banjo Paterson,’ the doctor explained. ‘Apparently, he’s very good.’
‘Thank you so much,’ cried Georgiana, flicking through the pages.
‘Now, how are you feeling? Have you been sick at all this week? Any headaches?’
The doctor carefully checked Georgiana over, his forehead furrowed with concern.
Georgiana shook her head. ‘Only from boredom,’ she insisted.
The doctor beamed. ‘It’s amazing, you seem to be making a full recovery. I hope this is the last we’ll see of whatever nasty germ has been causing all the problems. I’ll call on you in a few days, or if you get sick again, but I think you should be fine now.’
Georgiana smiled at Doctor Anderson.
Jemma stepped forward to help the doctor pack up his stethoscope and instruments.
‘Doctor Anderson, could I ask you a question?’ Jemma asked tentatively.
‘Yes, Jemma, of course,’ replied the doctor kindly. ‘Is it about your memory?’
‘No,’ Jemma shook her head. ‘It’s about some babies I saw today, who were very skinny but with big, swollen heads. It looked really strange. What could cause that?’
Doctor Anderson sighed and put down his medical bag. ‘Where did you see these babies, Jemma?’
‘There’s a baby farmer, Ma Murphy, who lives in Breillat Street,’ Jemma explained. ‘I took her some bread and helped her with the babies. There were twelve of them, sleeping in boxes. They were very quiet and still. I’m … I’m worried they’re going to die.’
Doctor Anderson pushed his spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose and rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache. Georgiana sat up, listening in horror, her quilt pulled up to her chin.
‘It sounds like some of the infants might have fluid on the brain,’ Doctor Anderson decided. ‘It’s caused by being administered strong narcotics, such as laudanum, to keep them quiet. That, together with malnutrition, would cause the babies to die a slow and agonising death.’
‘No,’ cried Georgiana.
‘How can she do that?’ demanded Jemma, trembling with anger. ‘It’s murder – why doesn’t someone stop her? She’s starving them to death.’
‘That’s barbaric,’ Georgiana added. ‘How could such a thing happen?’
The doctor patted Jemma on the arm.
‘It’s complicated,’ Doctor Anderson explained. ‘Infants die all the time. About one in ten babies will die before their first birthday, and nearly one-quarter of children die before they turn five of some illness or the other.’
‘Why do so many children have to die?’ demanded Georgiana, who had never considered how the poor people lived just a few streets away.
Doctor Anderson sighed, stroking his beard with his forefinger. ‘Georgiana, mostly it is ignorance and poverty. Disease is caused by poor sanitation and poor diet. I’m certain many of those deaths could be avoided with proper medical care and nutrition.’
Georgiana shook her head in disbelief. ‘But what about doctors – surely you could save them?’
‘Many parents can’t afford to call doctors, or they wait until it is too late. Or the damage is done to their tiny bodies before the disease takes hold. Many children are just not strong enough to survive the illness.’
Doctor Anderson closed his eyes and continued rubbing his forehead, as though trying to banish the image of sick and dying children.
‘No, but Ma Murphy is deliberately starving these babies,’ Jemma insisted.
‘If she actually strangled or smothered the babies, then it’s easy to prove murder,’ continued Doctor Anderson firmly. ‘But while I’m sure this woman, Ma Murphy, is neglecting the babies, they may not die, or if they do it would be hard to prove the deaths are unnatural.’
Jemma shook her head in disgust. ‘How can you say that?’ she demanded. ‘You’re a doctor. It’s your job to save lives – not make excuses!’
&nb
sp; Jemma ran from the room, her head throbbing.
‘Jemma!’ called Georgiana. ‘Jemma, are you all right?’
Jemma ignored the call and ran down to the cellar to pretend to fetch coal.
On Saturday morning, Miss Rutherford had a migraine and kept to her bed. Agnes spent the morning fussing over her, carrying up pots of chamomile tea, iced water and wet cloths.
Georgiana was up, but Miss Rutherford kept sending messages via Agnes that she was making too much noise – pacing up and down her room, slamming a book, playing the grand piano – so at last Agnes suggested that Jemma take Georgiana for a walk out of the house to give Miss Rutherford some respite.
‘You’re to make sure Miss Georgiana dresses warmly and stays out of draughts,’ Agnes instructed. ‘Don’t talk to any strange men, and don’t go into the laneways. Some of those larrikins have been known to entice well-to-do children into back lanes and steal the very clothes off their backs.’
Jemma nodded, looking attentive, although inside she was bubbling with anticipation at the thought of escaping the chores.
‘Walk up Johnston Street a couple of blocks to Hinsby Park,’ ordered Agnes. ‘It’s not far. Walk Miss Georgiana around the park a few times, perhaps sit in the shade. It would be good if you could keep her out of the house for an hour or so, but be careful not to tax her strength.’
Both Jemma and Georgiana were overjoyed to escape the confines of the house. Connie gazed after them imploringly – she had to scrub Georgiana’s room with carbolic acid to kill any lingering germs.
‘What do you normally do with your days, Georgie – I mean, when you’re well?’ asked Jemma as they strolled up Johnston Street, passing the long row of imposing Witches’ Houses.
‘Well, when Miss Babot was my governess I did lessons most days – British history, geography, botany, drawing, algebra, arithmetic, reading and writing. Miss Babot used to take me on excursions. We’d go by ferryboat over to Manly or catch an omnibus into the city or to the beach at Bondi. That was fun.’
The Ivory Rose Page 13