The Rocks were permanently fixed in her mind as the setting for acts of horror and depravity and violent death. It was common wisdom that no respectable person, and certainly no woman, should venture near the place after dark. She risked being attacked, robbed, drugged, even kidnapped and forced into slavery in one of the brothels or opium dens. Isobel could not imagine how anyone survived, least of all women and children, in such a hell.
Thankfully, it was still daylight hours when Aunt Louisa and Isobel alighted from their coach on lower George Street. From there they made their way on foot to the house on Gloucester Street. Through the cramped passage of Brown Bear Lane, past the rowdy pub of the same name on the corner, they walked up to Harrington Street, turned right and ascended again by a set of stone steps to Cumberland Place. These thoroughfares were little more than dirt tracks, being scarcely traversable by vehicles, and destitute of all signs of metalling, guttering or drainage. On this hot, sunny day, the air was filled with clouds of fine dust, kicked up by their shoes as they walked. Isobel could imagine these same ‘streets’ quickly turning to mud in a heavy rain.
She was grateful that her aunt had advised her to wear a pair of sturdy boots, though the real reason became clear as soon as they entered the first side street. Isobel’s nostrils were assailed by the most noisome stench she had ever encountered. When she saw human excrement washed up against one of the houses in a stream of brown muck, she gagged in disgust. In one dead-end lane where several houses backed onto a high wall of rock, she could see a line of privies—crude outdoor huts of brick and iron—for the use of the next higher row of houses. Channels and chutes, carved into the rock wall to discharge sewage, were vividly stained where the moist filth had been baked hard by the sun.
Whatever attempts at drainage she could see were in such a state of disrepair as to be useless. Aunt Louisa passed her a handkerchief soaked in lavender water and indicated she hold it to her nose. ‘This will help.’
Some of the dwellings were ancient stone cottages, so unevenly and irregularly built that the doorstep of one residence sometimes approximated to the eaves of another. Whitewashed walls stretched like the ruptured skin of a smallpox victim, blotchy and cracked with disease. Slate-shingled roofs were inevitably broken and patched.
The brick terrace houses were impossibly narrow, with gaunt façades and small hollow-eyed windows. Everything appeared poorly built and in urgent need of repair, rickety and askew: weathered wooden backstairs or slumped guttering and rusting downpipes, or weed-infested backyards surrounded by humpbacked walls. It was a scene nothing short of shocking for a tender soul like Isobel’s. Not even the bleakest passages of Mr dickens’ novels could prepare her for the reality of such squalor.
And yet there was something else that struck Isobel with equal force. As they turned the corner into Gloucester Street, she could hear children singing. On the doorstep of a nearby house, a woman sat, smoking a clay pipe. Her skin was sallow and lined and her face hollow-cheeked but she flashed a smile, through dirty yellow teeth, at the two visitors as they passed. ‘Good mornin’, ladies. Wouldn’t be dead for quids, wouldya? On a day like today.’ Aunt Louisa murmured something gracious in reply.
They passed side alleys where children could be heard whooping and shouting in games of street cricket, leapfrog and horseshoes, and women in aprons swept the stoop or pegged out clothes in narrow backyards. Isobel saw window boxes of hydrangeas, morning glories, pigface. The shutters on the corner store were freshly painted bright green and the sign on the top floor reading ‘CHEAP CASH GROCER’ had been retouched within living memory.
Through the open window of the nearest house, Isobel caught a glimpse of the parlour inside: translucent printed cotton curtains; a rude table; teapot and cups set out on a patterned tablecloth; two wooden chairs and a stool; a single seashell and one polished brass candlestick on the wooden mantel; a black kettle on the hob. The back wall was spoiled by a large patch of damp and its paint had flaked, but overall this domestic scene was one of familiar cosiness and order, even if the furnishings were sparse and the chamber dingy.
As Isobel and her aunt walked on, several inquisitive dogs followed and in their wake came a growing pack of three, four, five, six curious but silent children of differing heights and ages. Isobel wondered if they were drawn to the two strangers for the novelty of their appearance or in the hope of a spare farthing. They were all dressed far too warmly for such a hot day, though two of the boys were barefoot. To Isobel’s surprise, while their clothes were crude and worn, they were quite clean, as were the children’s hands and faces. At this hour of the morning, it was clear they were not in school.
Once the initial shock of entering this new world began to wear off, Isobel had eyes to notice such things: happy children, busy housewives, tidy households, well-stocked shops, flowers in pots and window boxes, clean bedsheets flapping in the sunshine. The Rocks was not all crime and vice and horror. People lived here and made a fist of a normal life.
Aunt Louisa knocked at number 52. The door opened and a woman stood blinking into the sunlight. Mrs Pittman ushered them into her humble front room and seated them at a deal table. Isobel noticed that on the bench opposite sat a work basket and a pile of material; the room evidently doubled as a parlour and workshop.
Mrs Pittman had already been recommended for assistance by Mrs Edwards, a former employer and a subscriber to the Benevolent Society. Two weeks ago, Mrs Pittman had attended the asylum on Devonshire Street for an interview where her ‘particulars’—including health, religion, employment history and family circumstances—were recorded. She had also presented all her children’s birth certificates as proof of their legitimacy and their fathers’ names. Aunt Louisa told Isobel she would be shocked how often these documents were forged or women simply made up the existence of marriages and husbands, pretending to be abandoned or widowed. The purpose of this visit today was to verify Mrs Pittman’s claims, inspect the property and ask her a few more questions.
The woman was clearly nervous as there was a great deal at stake in the impression she made on the two strangers. While the Benevolent Asylum had grown dramatically in size, the demands for its services from a swelling population of desperate poor far outstripped its capacity to help. Isobel was quick to realise that the true purpose of this visit was to find excuses to declare Mrs Pittman ineligible.
There was no denying the house was in a terrible, dilapidated condition. Mrs Pittman was months behind on her rent and without some assistance almost certainly faced eviction. But it did not seem that the landlord wasted a penny on keeping the shabby six-room dwelling in more than a barely habitable state. The floorboards in this front room were unpainted and riddled with white-ant damage, only a threadbare rug covering their shame. In the corner near the fireplace, black earth erupted through a hole in the floor. The walls had not been painted or replastered in many years and showed a pitiful mosaic of stains and fissures. While Mrs Pittman prepared tea for her guests down in the tiny basement kitchen, Isobel and Aunt Louisa mounted the narrow staircase to inspect the two upstairs bedrooms.
Mrs Pittman had seven children, four by her first husband who had died in a boiler accident and three by her second husband who had deserted her. Or so she claimed. The bedrooms facing the street had windows so begrimed as to admit only a sickly, sepia-toned light. Two iron-framed beds hid in the shadows, thin blankets pulled up over bare mattresses. An odour of must and damp fouled the room. Isobel saw mouse droppings along the wainscoting. In her usual brisk, no-nonsense manner, Aunt Louisa pulled back the blankets, looked under the beds, rummaged through the trunk that served as a wardrobe, opened the drawers of a forlorn bedside table.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Isobel.
‘Any evidence of a man staying here,’ said her aunt. She held up a collarless, tobacco-stained shirt. ‘Mmm.’
‘How old are her sons?’ asked Isobel, hoping to dispel her aunt’s suspicions.
She knew the reaso
n her aunt was hunting down such clues: as Mrs Pittman was claiming desertion, she would be disqualified for cohabiting with a man. Or even worse, consorting with several men or selling sexual favours. The Benevolent Society looked dimly on ‘fallen’ women engaged in prostitution or bearing children by different fathers—at least, that was its official charter, even if blind eyes were sometimes turned in compassion. But these fallen women were usually segregated from other single mothers inside the asylum as if they might contaminate them with their sin. Simple arithmetic says that more than one person sleeps in each of these beds, thought Isobel, looking around the room. It was likely that at least two of the younger ones shared with their mother. So how could Mrs Pittman possibly conduct intimate relations with any degree of privacy? The thought made Isobel shudder.
Back downstairs, they were introduced to four of the offspring, two boys and two girls, all snotty-nosed and dull-eyed. Mrs Pittman was clearly not managing her affairs as she might have wished. The children were putrid, their faces and hands black with dirt, which she made pathetic attempts to clean with a rag and spittle. After a few dabs, she handed them chunks of bread coated with dripping—a late breakfast or early lunch?
‘Been playing down the docks again, have ya?’ she whined, and turned apologetically to her guests. ‘They get so dirty ’round the docks.’ She shooed them off like chooks. ‘Now run along.’
It was the plight of the children even more than that of the mothers that inspired Aunt Louisa in her endless labours, she had explained to Isobel. If the children were not rescued from the moral laxness and viciousness of their parents, they would almost certainly end up tainted. The boys usually turned to drink and petty crime, either out of anger and despair or to ‘help’ their family. They sometimes ran away from home, ending up as vagrants or beggars and were often sent to prison, the first leg of their lifelong journey as professional criminals. The girls, who were in greater moral peril, were arrested for drunkenness and profanity or ‘public acts of indecency’. Rates of prostitution were on the rise, especially over in the industrial district of Chippendale where casual workers came and went. And with the alarming increase in unmarried mothers, more and more weak and sickly illegitimate babies were born and perished soon after from starvation.
Mrs Pittman had laid out things for tea. She handed over the milk in a fancy jug. Isobel could not help noticing her own teacup was greasy. She reluctantly took a sip out of politeness but declined the offer of an arrowroot biscuit. This woman could barely put food in the mouths of her children and here she was trying to impress Aunt Louisa with her hospitality and good manners. This absurd ceremony made Isobel feel sick.
‘Now remind me, please, which church you attend regularly, Mrs Pittman?’ asked Louisa, taking out a pencil and Mrs Pittman’s report card from the asylum. The nervous woman answered a battery of questions: about her church attendance, who was her priest, had she relied on charity before now, had she ever used contraception or had an abortion, the history of her relationships with both husbands, had she been beaten, did she drink, did he drink, how much, did she drink at home or out with friends, who were her friends, did she believe in the forgiveness of sins and her salvation through the love of Christ our Saviour, and why had her husband deserted her.
‘Gold!’ Mrs Pittman spat the word out. ‘That’s why!’ Her face was ashen; she looked exhausted from the relentless interrogation. ‘Gold. Him and his mates talked of nothing else these last few months.’ She sighed and pressed her hand to her forehead as if to mollify a persistent ache there.
Isobel wondered if, by this simple gesture, Mrs Pittman had betrayed herself. Was that a bruise blossoming under that hairline? Was that why she clutched at her head so often, because of the pain of an injury? Aunt Louisa had boasted that she had a nose for ‘weak or troublesome’ women who had been hit by their husbands, and was an expert in telling when a woman brushed her hair a certain way or used a bonnet or scarf or heavier make-up to disguise bruises. Her aunt admitted it was not always the woman’s fault. Men gambled, drank, committed crimes and were caught, then returned from prison more violent and unpredictable than when they went in. These were circumstances in which men were more likely to harm their wives. The depression had led to many ugly scenes and tragic consequences. It was frightening all the things that Aunt Louisa knew about the lives of the underclass.
‘We’ve been fighting a fair bit since he lost his job,’ confessed Mrs Pittman, pathetically grateful, thought Isobel, to be unburdening herself of her woes. ‘I bin doin’ some shifts at the bottlin’ factory. On top of my sewing work. But we were pretty skint, if you know what I mean. So when the gold rush come, Peter is like a man converted. He has a new religion. It will save us all: me, him, the children. Praise to almighty gold, our saviour.’
Mrs Pittman sipped her tea. She smiled bitterly.
‘I was not so easy to convert. Refused to join in the hymn to almighty gold! So he left me. Cleans out our bank account and takes off. Where? To Bathurst probably, or Ballarat. Who will ever find him out there on the diggings? Tens of thousands out there. And I’m not alone. This neighbourhood has plenty of gold rush widows.’
The visit had almost finished. ‘The kitchen, Mrs Pittman, if you would be so kind?’
This was an absurd piece of gentility. In a six-room house it was not hard to find the kitchen. Even so, Mrs Pittman pointed down the stairs to the basement below street level. Isobel and Aunt Louisa could barely both fit in the tiny room with its black stove, skillet, pot and kettle on the hob, stained ceramic sink, wooden sideboard, and table made from a packing case on which to prepare food and take a meal. A small curtained alcove served as a pantry, and Isobel watched with shocked disbelief as Aunt Louisa took down bottles, uncorked them and sniffed the contents. ‘You find a lot of cheap and home-made alcohol masquerading in vinegar bottles,’ she told Isobel. ‘did you smell a whiff of something on her breath? I did.’
The visit concluded with an inspection of the backyard, so small that Isobel counted only twelve steps from the back door to the corrugated iron fence, wrapped in the sinuous stranglehold of a choko vine and laden with prickly gourds. Here they made the acquaintance of a trough, a copper, mangle and washboard, a clothesline drooping on a prop, and, down the back next to the alley, the brick shed of the privy.
‘Thank you, Mrs Pittman. You have been most helpful,’ said Aunt Louisa, remembering to smile. ‘The society will notify you very soon about your claim.’
Mrs Pittman’s head hung down. She made an abject figure for contemplation. Her voice was hoarse as she whispered, ‘Can you tell me what you will recommend?’
Aunt Louisa grimaced with alarm. ‘I’m afraid that would contravene our rules.’
Mrs Pittman nodded. She knew that would be the answer. And now she had time to repent her question and wonder if her impertinence would count against her.
Isobel and Aunt Louisa walked back down Gloucester Street. Between the grubby, ramshackle cottages and the handsome brick warehouses, Isobel could see the blue-green waters sparkling in the noontime sun. It struck her how strange it was that this place of so much suffering, disease and pollution was within sight and sound of the harbour’s improbable beauty. A southerly buster would come through here later in the afternoon and stir up the backstreets into a yellow dust cloud but it would not be enough to drive away the stink.
As they walked down Argyle Street and came out near the quay, they could see the forest of ships’ masts above the roofline of the government bond store. Sounds of the working harbour—the ringing of bells, the drumroll of wagon wheels, the shouts of navvies loading and unloading, the shrieking of gulls—drifted up to them.
‘Will Mrs Pittman and her children be accommodated at the asylum, do you think, Aunt?’ asked Isobel in as respectful a voice as she could manage, earnest and eager to learn.
‘I doubt it, my dear,’ replied her aunt, ‘She has the means to support herself but lacks the discipline and will. I suspect sh
e drinks and has more than one male “friend” visit. But she may be willing to put some of the younger ones into our care—for their own good—while she looks for work.’
The coachman approached and directed them to where he had tied up at the Black dog tavern further down the road. They were soon encoached and, with one backward glance at the busy street-scape, Isobel bid The Rocks a silent farewell.
Chapter 22
CHRISTMAS
Isobel had returned from her visit to The Rocks in a state of moral bewilderment, haunted by what she had seen. Wrestling with feelings of guilt and shame, she worked secretly by candlelight in the privacy of her room trying to hold onto her impressions with sketches in her journal: the street children in their raggedy clothes, the sorry rows of houses, the pitiful rooms at number 52 Gloucester Street and poor Mrs Pittman’s anxious, downcast countenance.
If Mr Probius ever deigned to pay a visit to Faulconstone again, she would show him these. Loath as she was to praise her own work or to give in to the sinful impulse of pride, she could not help feeling pleased with these sketches, which seemed to her enlivened by a heightened sensitivity to the suffering of her fellow creatures. Was this just vanity? She hoped not. She found the stark fact of human suffering so confronting that she sometimes struggled to see it as God’s gift, intended to bring us to the love of Christ and our own salvation. Was Aunt Louisa an instrument of God’s love when she denied succour to Mrs Pittman and her children? Was that woman’s suffering not sufficient in God’s eyes?
Isobel’s soul was troubled by such thoughts.
Last week she had visited the Benevolent Asylum with her aunt. An impressive two-storeyed brick edifice designed in a mock Classical style with a grand gable and pillared portico, it was situated on a grant of land on the seedy outskirts of the city, opposite the tollgate at the start of the Parramatta Road and next door to Carters Barracks, which housed convicts, and the Devonshire Street cemetery, which housed the dead.
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