The Lost Sapphire

by Belinda Murrell

  Violet gave a start of recognition when she saw the red-brick, two-storey factory belonging to her father, and the large sign painted over the arched doorway: Hamilton’s Fine Gloves and Bags.

  Many of her father’s wealthy friends, who lived on large estates in Hawthorn or Kew, just on the other side of the river, also had factories and businesses in busy Richmond. There were boot factories, furniture-makers, breweries, clothes workshops and tanneries, all surrounded by cramped workers’ cottages and tiny terraces.

  Directed by Sally, Nikolai continued further down Victoria Street, then turned left and left again down a narrow laneway barely wider than the car. It was cobbled with bluestone, and a gutter ran down the centre. A gang of barefooted, grubby young urchins were playing cricket in the lane, using a fruit crate as a wicket, a homemade ball and a bat made from two fence posts spliced together with twine. One girl had crutches and a twisted, withered leg, but she hopped around, chasing the ball with the others.

  ‘Freddy’s out,’ yelled one of the boys as the fruit crate was knocked over by the flying ball.

  ‘I ain’t,’ cried Freddy, refusing to hand over the bat. ‘The motor car put me off.’

  Nikolai honked the horn and the kids reluctantly packed up their game and moved to the side of the laneway, staring curiously inside the yellow Daimler.

  ‘That’s a bloomin’ fancy car,’ called one of the girls with tangled hair, carrying a baby on her hip. ‘Is that Maisie Burke’s sister in the front seat?’

  Violet sank back against the rear seat as the dirty faces peered in on each side, the boys’ faces shadowed by their oversized flat caps. She felt vaguely afraid, although they were only children no older than twelve. Perhaps it was because she could see the hunger in their eyes and gaunt faces. Her father’s luxurious buttercup motor car cost more money than most working families would earn over years.

  ‘Get on with the lot of you,’ Sally yelled out the window.

  The children jeered and taunted, but soon lost interest and went back to their game.

  Nikolai parked the Daimler outside Sally’s family home. It was a tiny timber place, one of a row of six terraces built right on the laneway. There was only a narrow, rickety porch and a low picket fence between the cobbled lane and the front door. The door flew open and a scrawny boy raced out and through the front gate. He was closely followed by a sister and a brother.

  ‘Sally, is that you?’ The boy was wearing a darned shirt and shorts that were too big for him, with clumpy, battered boots and grey socks that had fallen around his ankles. ‘Ma’ll be pleased to see you.’

  Sally climbed out of the car to meet him. ‘How is she, Frank?’ Her voice sounded strained.

  ‘She’s in bed,’ Frank replied. He looked over his shoulder towards the front door and lowered his voice. ‘Ma says she’s fine an’ will get up later, but she’s as weak as a kitten. She just has her head turned to the wall. I made her some tea but she wouldn’t drink it.’

  ‘I’ll come an’ see her,’ Sally said. She leaned in the car window. ‘It’s awfully good of you bringin’ me here. It saved a lot of time.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Violet asked.

  ‘Oh no, miss,’ Sally said hurriedly. ‘I’m sure she’ll be better soon. It’s more ’n likely just exhaustion. Ma works real hard to feed four kids an’ pay the rent, now that me da’s too sick to work. He’s never been the same since the Great War.’

  ‘Should we get a doctor?’ asked Violet.

  ‘That’s good of you, miss, but we can’t afford a doctor,’ Sally replied tersely. She turned to go inside. Her siblings stayed outside, milling around with the other kids in the street.

  Violet felt helpless.

  ‘What would you like to do, Miss Violet?’ asked Nikolai. ‘We have an hour before I need to pick up your father. Shall I take you home?’

  Violet shook her head. ‘No, we’ll stay here for a little while, Nikolai. Then we can give Sally a lift home so she can spend more time with her mother.’

  ‘Very well, Miss Violet.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Outside, the local children continued their game of cricket, with Sally’s siblings joining in. Nikolai sat still, staring through the windscreen, his book beside him on the seat. Of course he couldn’t read while Violet was sitting in the car.

  ‘Let’s get out and stretch our legs,’ Violet suggested.

  Nikolai opened the door for her and tipped his cap. Violet wandered up and down the laneway, watching the children play and examining the tiny terraces, with their peeling paint and falling down fences. They looked like abandoned cubbyhouses.

  Fortunately the stench from the tanneries was fainter here, but Violet could still smell the whiff of coal smoke, mixed with rotting garbage and the outdoor lavatories behind the terraces. A woman sat on the narrow porch of one terrace house, shelling a basin of peas. A baby sat in a push-chair beside her, waving a wooden spoon. Violet called a friendly good afternoon, but the woman only replied with a surly nod.

  The cricket ball skidded up beside her, and Violet leaned down to pick it up. It was made of tightly rolled rags tied with string. Of course a rag ball didn’t bounce, so it had to be bowled on the full. She threw it back towards the wicketkeeper, who caught it easily and hurled it at the fruit crate, sending it flying. The kids threw their arms in the air and cheered.

  Violet remembered her Brownie tucked away in her bag on the back seat of the car. This would be an excellent opportunity to practise using it. She had already taken some photographs when her father was out – of the house and garden, of Romeo and Juliet, but she was keen to try taking some more natural photographs.

  She fetched the camera and took it out of its brown leather case, folding the lens out. For a few minutes she wandered up and down the street, stopping every now and again to practise framing up a shot, even though she didn’t actually take any photographs.

  She moved back and forth, checking the framing through the viewfinder to see if it looked better close up or further away, or as a portrait or landscape shot. Violet fiddled with the shutter, aperture and focus and pretended to take shots, the camera at her waist, holding her breath to keep it totally still.

  Sally’s sister finally noticed what Violet was doing. ‘Look, she’s takin’ our photo!’

  ‘No,’ Violet replied hurriedly. She felt it might be impolite to take people’s photographs without asking permission. ‘I didn’t take any. I was just practising.’

  ‘Oh,’ groaned Sally’s brother, disappointed. ‘I’ve never ’ad my picture taken.’

  ‘Would you like to me to take your photograph?’ Violet asked the children.

  A buzz of enthusiasm rippled through the gang as they crowded around her.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ came a cacophony of exuberant shouts.

  Nikolai moved closer from where he had been waiting beside the car. Violet felt more confident with his tall frame and authoritative uniform behind her.

  ‘So you’re Sally’s brother, aren’t you?’ Violet asked, trying to remember which of the children in the crowd were Sally’s family.

  ‘Yes, I’m Frank, an’ this is my brother Billy – he’s ten – an’ little sister Maisie, who’s eight,’ Frank replied. ‘My other sister Peggy is fourteen, but she’s at work – she just started at Hamilton’s Gloves as an apprentice machinist.’

  ‘At Hamilton’s Fine Gloves? My father’s factory?’ Violet asked, wondering at the coincidence that both sisters worked for him. Frank nodded.

  ‘She didn’t want to go into borin’ old service like Sally,’ Billy explained, jostling for attention. ‘The hours are too long an’ ’ard, an’ Peggy wanted to stay close to help Ma.’

  Violet was a little taken aback by Billy’s brutal honesty. She had never considered that Sally might find the hours as a Riversleigh maidservant long and difficult.

  ‘Oh?’ said Violet. ‘I hope Peggy enjoys working at the factory?’

  ‘No. It ’urts her
back, but Ma says she’ll get used to it,’ Maisie said, a tiny, barefooted girl who looked much younger than her eight years.

  Frank glared at his siblings and their indiscretion. ‘It’s all right. Peggy likes the money an’ most of the workers are nice. I’m goin’ to start work next week too,’ he boasted. ‘I got a job trainin’ as a strainer at Ramsay’s Tannery by the river.’

  Violet was shocked. The boy in front of her was a mere child, with his oversized clothes and snub nose with freckles.

  ‘How old are you, Frank?’ Violet asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be still at school?’

  Frank drew himself up tall. ‘I’m thirteen, but they ain’t too fussy at Ramsay’s, as long as I work hard,’ he objected. ‘I’ll get ten shillings a week to start an’ thirteen shillings after three months.’

  Ten shillings for a week’s work, thought Violet. We’re charging more than twelve shillings for a ticket to our Russian Ball.

  ‘Frank, perhaps it might be better if you stayed at school,’ Violet said. ‘Then you could get a better job in a few years.’

  Frank looked at Violet as though she were crazy. ‘With Da not workin’, me ma works day an’ night, an’ we still can’t pay the rent. Sally an’ Peggy give all the money they earn, but it’s still not enough. Now Ma’s sick – how’re we to eat?’

  Violet felt sick to her stomach. She had been shocked when she’d seen the photos of the starving Russian children on the other side of the world, but these hungry children were right here – just a ten-minute drive from her grand home on the other side of the Yarra River.

  The children around her were losing interest in the conversation. Talk of how to pay the rent or feed the family was all too common for them. Some began to drift back towards the abandoned cricket game, while others argued over whether to play skipping or hopscotch.

  ‘Let’s take that photograph,’ Violet suggested. ‘But first, tell me all your names.’

  Violet looked up to see the sun’s position and arranged the nine children in the centre of the laneway, the light falling on their faces. The smaller children were gathered at the front, Paddy holding the cricket bat and Freddy the ball. Helen held Bubby on her hip and smiled shyly, while Ruthie with the withered leg stood beside her, trying to hide her crutches.

  ‘Remember, you’ll have to hold completely still while I take the photograph,’ Violet reminded them. ‘If you move, it will be blurry.’

  The children obediently held themselves still. Maisie hid behind her brother Frank, her face peeking out from behind the safety of his protective body. Billy looked solemn, as though he were engaged in the most serious business of his young life. Frank, however, twitched his cap to a jaunty angle and grinned broadly with delight.

  Violet set the shutter speed, aperture and focus, and wound on the film. Looking down through the viewfinder at waist height, she checked the framing and positioning. ‘Maisie, can you just move forward a bit so I can see you? Billy, stand closer to your brother.’

  Maisie shrank further back behind the others, while Billy moved a mere centimetre closer to his brother. Frank put his arm around his little sister, drawing her out. ‘It’s all right, Maisie. It won’t bite you.’

  Nikolai stepped behind Violet and pulled some crazy faces to distract the children. Maisie and Billy forgot their nervousness at the novelty of having their photograph taken and moved forward, giggling.

  ‘Splendid, that’s better. On my count,’ warned Violet. ‘One, two, three …’ She held her breath and pushed the button. She felt a huge sense of exhilaration as she took the photo – she’d done it! – and there were two more shots she was keen to experiment with.

  ‘Can I take some photographs of you playing?’ Violet asked the children, who happily agreed. ‘You might just need to stay still for a moment when I tell you.’

  Next Violet took a photograph of Ruthie bowling, while Frank aimed the bat in front of the fruit case. The other kids gathered around as fielders in the narrow laneway. The last shot was of Maisie and Billy, crouched in the gutter, rolling marbles down the grimy channel towards Nikolai, who was out of the shot.

  ‘Is your father sick as well?’ Violet asked the two siblings.

  ‘It was the Great War,’ Billy said. ‘Ma says he’s got shell shock. He was a soldier, but he lost his arm. When he came home, he couldn’t get work. Now he has funny turns where he trembles an’ gets angry.’

  ‘Ma says it’s the nightmares,’ Maisie added.

  ‘Poor man,’ said Violet. ‘Your father must have had a difficult time fighting in the Great War.’

  ‘Yes, but I wish he’d get better,’ said Billy. ‘He’s been sick for a bloomin’ long time.’

  ‘Ma says it’s habominable,’ said Maisie. ‘He fought four years for his King and country, an’ now he’s treated like dirt.’

  ‘Your ma’s right,’ Violet said. ‘I think it’s abominable too.’

  A minute later Sally came out to call her siblings. She looked surprised when she saw the car still parked and Violet chatting to them. Nikolai by this stage was deep in conversation with the other children. They all had their heads buried under the bonnet of the Daimler while Nikolai explained the various parts of the engine and what they did.

  ‘What’re you still doin’ here, miss?’ asked Sally, confused.

  ‘Nikolai and I decided to stay here and play with the kids while we waited for you,’ Violet explained with a laughing glance at Nikolai. ‘I’ve been taking photographs.’

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have waited, miss,’ Sally replied. ‘I can walk back.’

  Violet shook her head. ‘Truly, it’s no trouble – but what about your mother? How is she?’

  Sally sighed. ‘She’s pretty crook. But hopefully a day or two in bed will fix her right up.’

  Violet checked her watch. ‘We need to go in about fifteen minutes to pick up Father, so you can come with us then. Or if you’d rather stay with your mother, I’ll explain it to Mrs Darling.’

  Sally glanced back over her shoulder towards the house. ‘I’ll come back with you, miss. I’ve just made the kiddies some boiled potatoes for tea, but I want to do a quick tidy up. Ma tries so hard to keep the place spick an’ span, but with four kiddies running riot, it’s turned into a right mess.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll send Frank in when it’s time for us to go,’ said Violet.

  Just before they left, Violet loaded a new film into the camera and set up a family portrait of Sally with Frank, Billy and Maisie against the picket fence outside their home.

  8

  Hamilton’s Fine Gloves Factory

  Nikolai parked outside the Hamilton’s Fine Gloves factory a few minutes before five o’clock.

  ‘I’m going to visit my father,’ Violet announced. ‘I’d like to see the factory – it’s been so long.’

  ‘Very well, Miss Violet,’ Nikolai replied. Sally and Nikolai settled back to chat.

  The factory had lots of tall, airy windows and double-arched doors on the lower floor, which stood open. Violet took a photograph of the outside of the factory. She would have loved to take the camera inside, but she didn’t want her father to see it.

  She tucked the camera away and went through the entrance and into a wide hallway. To her left were the two offices, guarded by a fierce-looking secretary sitting at a long desk in a small anteroom at the front. To her right was the showroom filled with glass cases and display shelves. Violet turned into the anteroom.

  The secretary looked her up and down critically. ‘Yes, can I help you, miss?’ she asked briskly, with the manner of one used to dealing with underlings and nuisances.

  Violet felt momentarily uncomfortable and worried that her hat was crooked or her stockings stained from kneeling in the laneway. She pulled herself tall and projected her voice, speaking in her best Rothbury College accent. ‘Hello. My name is Violet Hamilton. I’m here to visit my father.’

  The secretary’s demeanour immediately became more attentive. ‘Welcome
, Miss Hamilton. How nice to see you here. I’m Mrs Clarkson, your father’s secretary. Let me check if Mr Hamilton is available.’

  ‘Thank you. That would be splendid, Mrs Clarkson.’

  Mrs Clarkson bustled to one of the doors behind her and went into the office beyond. Violet could hear the murmur of low voices, then Mrs Clarkson beckoned for her to come through.

  The office was pleasant, lined with bookshelves. Albert Hamilton was sitting in a commodious leather armchair behind his broad oak desk, talking on the candlestick telephone. A pair of smaller visitors’ chairs were drawn up in front of the desk while a side table held piles of papers and ledgers. On the wall behind him was a large gilt-framed oil portrait of Violet’s Scottish grandfather, Lachlan Hamilton, looking successful and stern.

  It was Lachlan who had started Hamilton’s Fine Gloves in 1870. He had arrived in the colony with thousands of others during the Victorian gold rushes, hoping to strike it rich. His first fortune had been made, not through mining, but from selling tools and clothes to the miners from the back of his travelling horse-drawn dray.

  Later, Lachlan settled in Melbourne with his wife and young family and, with substantial capital behind him, began with a small workshop in the back streets of Richmond, making gloves. As his wealth grew, he bought a large estate at Hawthorn across the river and built Riversleigh in the 1880s.

  With the changes in technology in the early twentieth century, he built this new factory on the main road, expanding his range to include leather helmets and coats for motorcyclists, automobile drivers and aviators. Lachlan Hamilton always had a knack for business.

  ‘Just one moment, Mr Ramsay,’ said Albert Hamilton. He looked worried, covering the black mouthpiece with one hand. ‘Violet. What are you doing here? Is there anything wrong?’

  He looked her up and down. Violet pulled her skirt self-consciously. She had grown so much in recent months that it was a little short. Mrs Clarkson hovered behind her, waiting for orders.