Meet Nellie

by Penny Matthews

  It’s 1849 and Nellie O’Neill is arriving in South Australia on a ship bringing orphan girls from Irish workhouses. Nellie and her best friend, Mary, have left the famine in Ireland far behind, and are full of hopes and dreams for the future. Nellie longs to learn to read, to be part of a family once more, and never to be hungry again. But with no job and no one to turn to, how will Nellie make her wishes come true?

  Meet Nellie and join her adventure in the first of four stories about an Irish girl with a big heart, in search of the freedom to be herself.

  Puffin Books

  Contents

  1 ON BOARD THE ELGIN

  2 A VERY PECULIAR PLACE

  3 AT THE DEPOT

  4 THE THOMPSONS

  5 THE BLACK BEAST

  6 AT THE BOARDING HOUSE

  7 LOOKING FOR MARY

  8 LESSONS AND MEMORIES

  9 FINDING MARY

  10 GUY FAWKES NIGHT

  11 FIRE!

  12 WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS

  WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE IN Nellie’s Time

  1 A NEW START FOR NELLIE

  Meet the other Australian girls

  ‘PROMISE we’ll always stay together,’ whispered Nellie. ‘Promise faithfully.’

  She had to whisper because most of the other girls in the stuffy, tar-smelling cabin were asleep. Nellie didn’t feel like sleeping. In fact, she’d never felt so wide awake in her life. She sat hunched on the narrow bunk that had been her bed for the last four months, and her best friend, Mary Connell, sat hunched on the bunk opposite. Mary’s pale face, half hidden beneath a prim white nightcap, was barely visible in the darkness.

  Over the creaking and shuddering of the ship Nellie could hear Sarah Ryan’s muffled sobbing. Poor Sarah must be having another bad dream. The Elgin, which was carrying nearly 200 Irish orphans halfway around the world, had seen plenty of nightmares. None of the girls could forget the horror of the Great Hunger, the famine that had killed so many thousands back home in Ireland.

  ‘Of course we must stay together,’ Mary whispered back. ‘You know I’d be scared to death without you.’

  Nellie reached for Mary’s hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of, angel. We survived the Hunger, and we survived the workhouse. We’ve even nearly reached South Australia without being shipwrecked! And now we’re going to work for rich people in Adelaide. No more sleeping in dormitories, no more eating corn mush!’ Such beautiful pictures now formed in Nellie’s head: a warm little bed of her own, and herself sitting in front of a steaming plate of stew, with a pile of fresh soda bread a mile high …

  Mary gave a tiny sigh. ‘I wish I was like you, Nell,’ she said. ‘You’ve always been strong.’

  ‘I’ve had to look after myself, just as you have – I’m not one bit stronger than you.’

  ‘Yes, you are! Nobody would ever believe you’ve just turned twelve. When you told the Guardians at the workhouse that you were older, it would hardly even have seemed like a fib.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fib,’ protested Nellie. ‘It was Father Donnelly who told the Guardians I was thirteen. He said to my dada that older girls would have the best chance of getting out of the place. He was right, too, for if the Guardians had known I was only eleven, I’d not be here with you.’

  ‘And thank goodness you are,’ said Mary, ‘for I’d miss you so much if you weren’t.’

  ‘And I can’t think how much I’d miss you,’ Nellie replied, gazing earnestly at her friend through the darkness. ‘We must always look after each other, Mary. Goodness knows what could happen to us in Australia. Superintendent O’Leary told me it’s a very peculiar place. He said there are snakes that can poison you to death in a second, and animals that bounce like india-rubber balls.’

  Mary shuddered. ‘I’ll always be there for you, Nell, I promise.’

  ‘And me for you. Never forget it.’

  There was a sigh, and a thump, as Peggy Duffy turned over in the bunk above Nellie’s head. ‘Do hush up, you two! Think of us who’s trying to sleep, now.’

  ‘Oh, hush yourself, Peg!’ retorted Nellie. ‘We’re making no noise at all, and it’s you who’s disturbing the peace with your moaning.’

  In the morning the Elgin would be docking at Port Adelaide. And after that, as Nellie knew, all the girls had to find work. She’d heard that there were plenty of jobs for Irish maidservants in the colonies. Perhaps she and Mary could work together! Someone in a fine big house might need two maids just like themselves. She imagined how much fun they’d have. They might even be put to work outside, in the sunshine. Mr O’Leary had said that the weather in Adelaide could be very hot.

  Thinking about Mr O’Leary made Nellie remember the Killarney Union Workhouse, which had so recently been her home. She was grateful to it because it had kept her alive when she had nothing but the rags she stood up in, but what a cold, grey, cheerless place it was! Each day was as dreary as the last, with rules that told you when to work, when to eat, when to sleep.

  Nellie felt that she would always be haunted by the thin, careworn faces of the women and children there. They were the faces of people who had given up all hope.

  She gave herself a little shake and made herself see happy pictures again: pictures of Mary and herself picking apples, throwing grain to hens, running through a flower-filled garden …

  ‘It will be such a grand adventure, being in South Australia,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think so, Mary?’

  ‘I’ d feel much better about it if I knew that only good things would happen to us. The dear Lord only knows where we shall be in a year’s time, Nell.’

  ‘Oh, let’s make a plan!’ Nellie cried. She loved making plans: they were exciting, and they gave you something to work towards. Nobody could take a good plan away from you. ‘In this country we can do things we couldn’t have dreamed of back in Ireland! Let’s say what we wish for, and then after a year we can see if our wishes have come true. Shall we do it?’

  ‘Nell, you know I hate to make plans for the future,’ Mary said. ‘It’s such terrible bad luck.’

  ‘That’s pure nonsense,’ said Nellie. ‘Just cross yourself and say “I know this won’t happen”. That will break the bad luck, won’t it? Come, say what you most wish for.’

  Reluctantly, Mary crossed herself. ‘Well then … I know this won’t ever happen, but what I want is to be a nursery maid in a great big house and look after little children. I did love the babies at the workhouse. It was cruel that they were stuck in such a place, the poor things, and most without their own mothers to look after them.’ She paused, thinking. ‘Oh, and I wish that I shall never be hungry again, not ever. So what do you wish, Nell?’

  ‘I’m with you entirely on the bit about not being hungry. But I want so many other things as well. Most of all I want to be part of a family. I miss my own family so much.’

  Mary patted her hand. ‘Don’t be thinking about that now. What are your other wishes?’

  Nellie sat up a little straighter. ‘Well, I don’t want to be called “orphan” or “workhouse girl” ever again. I want to be only myself, Nellie O’Neill.’

  ‘And you are yourself,’ laughed Mary. ‘Who else might you possibly be?’

  ‘You know what I mean! You know how you hate it, too, when you’re treated like the filth on somebody’s boot.’

  ‘Well, yes, but I don’t let it bother me. And I’d not waste a wish on it.’

  ‘Maybe you should let it bother you, for it’s not fair,’ said Nellie with passion. ‘And I still have one more wish. Don’t laugh! – I want to learn to read.’

  Mary gave her a wondering look. ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t need to read when you’re scrubbing floors or emptying slops,’ said Peggy’s voice from
the bunk above. ‘You’re a daft eejit, Nellie O’Neill. Now go to sleep!’

  ‘Maybe I don’t need to,’ Nellie said, ‘but I want to. My dada could read. He read the Bible to us children every night.’ She thought sadly of the last time she’d seen her father, so weak from hunger and disease. ‘Be strong, Nellie,’ he’d said to her. ‘Don’t let the workhouse break your spirit. Remember that the O’Neills are descended from Irish kings.’

  ‘I know your wishes will all come true,’ said Mary. ‘You have a face on you that good luck can’t resist.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Mary angel,’ said Nellie. ‘And good luck will touch you on the shoulder too, I just know it will.’

  The two girls reached forward to hug each other, and then turned around to go to sleep. Soon their journey would be over, and their new lives would begin.

  SOUTH Australia was flatter and colder than Nellie had expected, but the wharf buildings of brick and timber looked important enough. The Elgin, tied up in a long line with other ships, seemed exhausted, its sails furled, the water lapping at its sides. Seagulls fluttered and squabbled. They weren’t like the gulls back home. These were smaller, and had wicked red eyes.

  Some of the orphans were to stay on board until jobs could be found for them. Those like Nellie and Mary who were going ashore now stood on the wharf in small groups, minding their boxes and bundles. Most of them looked confused and lost. Peggy Duffy was comforting Sarah Ryan, who was in floods of tears. ‘We’ll never see our home again, never,’ Sarah was wailing, over and over.

  Well, that was very likely the truth. Nellie looked up at the deep blue sky, so different from the soft pale sky over Ireland. She looked down at her boots, now firmly planted on the packed dirt of the wharf. It was like any other dirt, but it was South Australian dirt. She could hardly get her head around it all. She’d never been out of County Kerry in her whole life, and now here she was on the other side of the world.

  Mary stood beside her, gazing silently at the slow green wash of the sea. Nellie could see that beneath her shawl Mary was holding Vanessa, her old wooden doll. Vanessa had only one leg, and her painted face was almost worn away, but Mary refused to give her up.

  Mary might be fourteen, but in some ways she’s still like a child, Nellie thought. She put a protective arm around her friend, and the two girls huddled together as if sheltering from a sudden freezing wind.

  ‘There’s nobody here to tell us what to do,’ Nellie said to Mary. ‘Perhaps we shall be sleeping on the wharf tonight, with animals bouncing all around us.’ She tried to laugh, but shivered instead.

  ‘What wouldn’t I give for a bit of bread and a mug of hot tea,’ Mary said. ‘I never thought I’d miss the workhouse, but already I do.’

  ‘Ah, but do remember Matron Hogget’s shouting red face,’ said Nellie with a grin. ‘There’s something I’m happy never to see again. The workhouse was hell on Earth, and you know it. Here, I saved this for us.’ She rummaged in her pocket, produced a square of rock-hard ship’s biscuit, and broke it in two, passing a piece to Mary.

  ‘You shouldn’t say “hell”, Nellie,’ said Mary, looking shocked. ‘What would Father Donnelly think?’

  ‘You just said the very word yourself, angel,’ replied Nellie, trying to crack her biscuit with her front teeth. ‘And I won’t tell Father Donnelly if you don’t.’

  She looked over to where the paying passengers were overseeing the handling of their luggage: huge wooden sea chests, brassbound leather trunks, even a piano. The men shouted orders and their wives stood around in their silk dresses and fine bonnets. A tall, thin woman dressed in purple was loudly scolding a sailor who had almost dropped a box on her foot.

  Nellie elbowed Mary in the side. ‘Just look at the face on that one,’ she whispered. ‘I pity the poor soul who has to work for her.’

  And may it not be me, she prayed. She took a deep breath and clutched her bundle to her chest. At least, thanks to the Guardians at the workhouse, she had some proper clothes: a cotton bonnet, two dresses (one of brown cotton and one of grey wool), six shifts, two flannel petticoats and six pairs of woollen stockings. She also had her very own brush and comb.

  Apart from these, she owned a warm red tartan shawl that had belonged to old Maggie Dooley, who’d died of the fever in the workhouse, and a small black Bible, the gift of Mr O’Leary.

  Nellie treasured her Bible, although she couldn’t read a word of it. At the workhouse she’d spent more time sweeping floors than learning to read. Now she was here in South Australia, Nellie vowed she’d change all that.

  Mr O’Leary had been kinder than most of the other workhouse staff. At least he was an Irishman. Many of those in charge were English, and the way they looked at her sometimes had made Nellie burn with shame and anger. She could see in their eyes what they thought of her: another useless beggar girl, another mouth to feed.

  Like all the workhouse children, Nellie had been constantly hungry on a diet of bread and tea, oatmeal and skim milk, and the occasional bit of meat. There was corn mush, too, tasteless yellow grit which gave you the bellyache. But still, being in the workhouse was better than starving to death or dying of the fever. Nellie had seen enough dead people by the roadside to know that she’d have done anything at all to avoid being one of them.

  To Nellie’s relief, they didn’t have to spend the night on the wharf. She’d already spent too much of her life sleeping out of doors. When the potato crops had failed for the second year running and her family had been thrown off their farm, they’d slept in haystacks and hedgerows for weeks. They’d scavenged what wild food they could find – nettles and dandelions, lily roots; old cabbage leaves if they were lucky. She’d even seen people eating grass. But all that misery was in the past now, and sleeping outside wasn’t the way she wanted to start her grand new life.

  Carts pulled by bullock teams had been sent to take the orphans to Adelaide. The girls sat close together on long wooden seats with their luggage at their feet as the carts lurched over the muddy, pot-holed track. It was eight miles to Adelaide, their driver said, and the journey would take several hours. Sometimes a farm wagon rumbled past them, or a rider went by on horseback. Nellie could only wish that she was on a cantering horse, so that her journey’s end would be closer.

  In the meantime she stared all around her, open-mouthed. What a queer, empty country it was! How strange the few trees were, with their greyish leaves, and how pretty the darting birds with their green and red feathers! She was disappointed that she still hadn’t seen any bouncing animals, though. So far there had only been ordinary sheep and cows and horses.

  The scattered buildings they passed were very much like those back in Ireland – low cottages with thatched or shingled roofs. They passed a couple of little churches, too, and a cluster of shops. A spotted dog followed them, barking, until it grew tired and went back to where it had come from.

  By the time the carts had lumbered down North Terrace to the Immigration Depot, it was nearly dark. The girls were taken to the mess hall and fed with bread and thick lentil soup, carefully doled out of large iron pots. After that, some of the luckier ones were given beds. For many, though, bed was a bench or the floor. Nellie and Mary cuddled up together and covered themselves with their shawls for warmth. Mary soon fell asleep, but Nellie was awake for most of the night, imagining all the wonders she was sure awaited her.

  From early in the morning people came to the Depot to choose servants from among the orphans. It’s a bit like being a cow at a market, Nellie thought, and she tried not to mind the way people looked at her, sizing her up. Some asked questions; most simply stared and moved on.

  The older orphans went first, and the sturdiest, and those who spoke good English. Quite a few spoke only Gaelic. Those who said they had skills in cooking or laundry or farm work were taken quickly. Peggy Duffy was one of these. She’d once worked on a pig farm in Ireland, and she was soon chosen by a dairy farmer from the Adelaide Hills.

  At th
e end of the day there were twenty girls left, Mary and Nellie among them.

  ‘More people will come tomorrow,’ Nellie told Mary, trying to sound hopeful. ‘Mr Lang over there is in charge of the hiring, and he says the girls never all go on the first day.’

  ‘I don’t mind that I haven’t gone yet,’ said Mary. ‘We are still together, and I’m glad to rest for a wee while.’

  Nellie looked at her with concern. Mary was so pale, and although there was plenty of salt meat and boiled rice to eat aboard the Elgin, she had not put on weight. Her arms were as thin as a child’s.

  ‘Shall you keep Vanessa with you?’ Nellie asked, seeing the doll’s battered wooden face peeping from Mary’s bundle of clothes. ‘Perhaps you think you are too old for her now.’

  ‘It’s silly, I know,’ said Mary. ‘But she is all I have from my life before the Hunger. I keep her for good luck. Without her, I’d forget what it was like to be happy, and I don’t want to forget.’ She took Vanessa onto her lap and smoothed the dirty rags she wore.

  ‘That’s a fine memory for you,’ said Nellie. She sat down on a chair next to Mary. ‘My best memory is of my whole family going to the Killarney fair when I was nine. There was a coconut-shy, and my dada won half a side of bacon. And we stayed there till night-time, and there were fiddlers, and Dada played his tin whistle. He did play so beautifully! All of us danced, even Mama with baby Patrick. We had bacon for breakfast ten days in a row.’

  ‘Happy times,’ Mary said with a faint smile.

  ‘And there’ll be more happy times to come,’ said Nellie. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  By midday the two girls were still unemployed, but in the afternoon a man came in to hire a nursery maid for his young children. When Mary was put forward for the job she was so excited that her pale cheeks flushed pink.

  ‘Have you any experience in looking after children?’ the man asked in a cold, abrupt voice.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Mary. ‘I love them. I helped to look after the babies at – at Killarney, you know.’