Nellie wasn’t going to think about that now; and anyway, she didn’t like the look on the woman’s face. She tore the card up into little pieces.
A farmer in a linen smock gave her a threepenny bit. Then a couple of boys swaggered up. They stood and stared at her, and one of them tossed a chewed apple core at her before sauntering off.
Nellie picked up the core and threw it back as hard as she could. It hit the boy on his hat, and he turned around. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a job!’ he yelled. ‘If you were my sister, I’d disown you!’
Nellie glared at him. ‘If I was your sister, I’d kill myself!’
The boy raised his arm in a threatening gesture. He was a large, solid boy, and there was something in his eyes that made Nellie suddenly afraid. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, she thought, he means trouble, and right now there’s hardly a soul nearby to help. Avoiding the boy’s gaze, she got up and began to walk away, trying to look unconcerned. Crossing King William Street wasn’t easy, for after the rain parts of it were ankle deep in mud, but luckily the boy didn’t follow her.
Breathing more freely now, Nellie stood behind a cart and tried to clean the mud off her boots. While she was doing this, someone grabbed her arm. ‘You should’ve waited for me at the corner,’ Peggy whispered crossly. ‘Never mind. See those men outside the Exchange Hotel? There’s easy pickings for us. All you have to do is faint.’
‘Faint?’
‘Yes – only pretend, you eejit! Just imagine you’re a fine lady who’s laced her stays too tight. I’ll take care of the rest.’
Nellie shrugged. ‘All right, so.’
Moving away from Peggy, she went up to a noisy group of men outside the hotel. Among them were several she recognised as bushmen – bearded men, roughly dressed, with long leather boots and spurs. She’d seen them often in the Burra.
‘A penny for an orphan?’ she called, rattling her tin. ‘A penny for a poor orphan?’
Most of the drinkers ignored her. One or two laughed.
‘I don’t know why we have to put up with these wretched orphans,’ said a red-faced man in a checked jacket. ‘They’re a disgrace – polluting our streets, pestering good people.’ He looked at Nellie with disgust. ‘Get away with you! Leave us alone!’
Ignoring him, Nellie made her way further into the group and stood beside one of the bushmen: a bullocky, he must be, because he carried a coiled whip.
‘A penny for an orphan?’ she called again. ‘A penny for some bread? Have a heart, sir, I’m starving.’ Rolling her eyes, she sagged at the knees and dropped to the ground.
Even with her eyes closed, she was aware of the sudden flurry around her. Someone yelled, ‘She’s fainted – quick, get water!’
A pair of strong arms helped her to sit up, and kind grey eyes gazed into her face. ‘Are you all right, child? Put your head between your knees and breathe deeply.’
Obediently, Nellie put her head between her knees.
‘Can you stand up?’
‘Not with my head between my knees,’ Nellie almost said. She pretended to try to stand, sat down again. Where was Peg? ‘Please, sir, I’m so hungry,’ she whispered.
‘You poor child.’ The man with kind eyes rose to his feet and went into the hotel, coming back soon afterwards with a piece of pie on a plate. ‘Here, get this down you.’
Nellie lowered her eyes, because it made her feel wicked to look into his friendly, concerned face. She bit into the pie. It was steak-and-kidney, rich with gravy. She ate it all in a few gulps.
‘The Lord bless you, sir,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll be fine now.’
The man looked pleased. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said. ‘And do try not to get into trouble. It’s a shame to see a young girl brought so low.’
Nellie curtsied. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘I’ll do better in future, I promise.’
Peggy was waiting for her in a side street. ‘That worked a treat, Nell,’ she said, grinning. ‘Look what I got while your man was being the hero!’ She held out a five-pound banknote. ‘You’d not have thought that bullocky had a shilling to bless himself with, but you can’t tell, can you? While he was feeding you, I was in an’ out of his pocket like a ferret.’ She winked at Nellie. ‘We’re a good team, we are.’
Nellie wanted to feel glad, but she couldn’t. She wished Peg hadn’t robbed the man who’d helped her. Perhaps he had a sick child, or a pregnant wife. Five pounds was a month’s wages.
She shook such thoughts away. ‘Sure, we deserve that money,’ she told herself firmly. ‘The bullocky has a job, at least, and what do we have? Nothing.’
THE five pounds let them live, as Peggy said, like lords. They bought enough meat and potatoes to last for a week, and lots of sweet treats. Nellie ate peppermint humbugs till her teeth hurt, but nothing could make her happy. Where her heart had been there was nothing but a cold space.
When thoughts of Mary came into her mind, she made herself think of something else. She hadn’t opened Mary’s bundle, either. ‘I’ll do it one day,’ she told herself. ‘When I’m ready.’
What was it she’d said to Mary the last time she’d seen her? ‘There’s nothing so bad that it can’t get better.’ What a lie that was! Nellie now knew that there was nothing so bad that it couldn’t get worse.
At least life was simple. It was just as it had been in Ireland, when every day had brought the threat of starving to death, and all she had to do was stay alive. She didn’t like thieving, though, because it meant taking money from people who might have little more than she did, so she chose to stick with begging. But after two weeks of rattling her tin mug, Nellie realised it was hardly worth the trouble. One day she’d made just five pennies, a farthing and a steel button.
‘You’re not trying,’ Peggy scolded her. ‘It’s not enough to have a face like a coal scuttle. People have to feel sorry for you. Sarah here gets ten times what you do because she looks to be at death’s door.’
‘I pinch myself till it hurts, sometimes,’ Sarah said, ‘and it makes me cry, just a bit. That might work for you too, Nell.’
Nellie couldn’t cry, though. She was afraid that if she started, she’d never stop.
One sunny morning Nellie decided to try begging in North Terrace. ‘You’d get more of the high-class people there,’ she told Peggy. ‘Maybe the Governor himself will stop and give me a silver shilling.’
She made her way to the promenade outside Government House. She’d intended to sit outside the main gate, but when the red-coated soldier on sentry duty waved her on, she seated herself a little distance away. Holding out her begging mug, she looked up with what she hoped was a sad expression at the passers-by.
A gentleman in a top hat and a frock coat gave her two pennies. Then came two wealthy-looking ladies in silk crinolines (nothing) … a butcher’s boy with a tray of meat on his shoulder (a wink and a nod) … a young family (nothing). The family was followed by a long line of Aboriginal children, all dressed alike in dark blue, walking two by two. They must be on their way to school, Nellie thought; and she remembered that once she’d wanted to go to school, too. She didn’t care so much about learning to read and write now.
After the Aboriginal children came a potbellied clergyman swinging a walking stick. At the sight of him, Nellie brightened. Surely a clergyman would give her a threepenny bit, at least! But he hurried past, not looking at her.
‘A penny for an orphan?’ Nellie called, rattling her mug. ‘A penny for a poor orphan?’
An elderly woman stopped and gave her sixpence.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Nellie. ‘May you always have good fortune.’
‘You’d have better fortune if you found yourself a job, my girl,’ the woman said crisply. She walked away, head held high, the flowers on her bonnet bobbing.
The creature, Nellie thought. What would she know about anything? Life’s so easy if you’re rich. She rattled her mug again.
And then –
Nellie hear
d their voices first.
‘Look, that boat don’t belong to anybody,’ a boy was saying. ‘I just want to take it out on the river for a few minutes. Who’s going to know?’
‘Mama will know if I tell her.’ It was a young girl speaking.
‘Het, you wouldn’t tell, would you? Look, I’ll give you something if you keep quiet.’
‘What will you give me?’
‘I don’t know yet. Something.’
Nellie sat up straight, eyes wide, ears alert. Was it possible? Was she imagining it? No, she couldn’t be; for there they were, as large as life: William and Hetty Thompson! They looked older, of course, and William was in long trousers, but she’d have recognised them in a heartbeat. She stared at them, the blood pounding through her veins. Surely they’d seen her! No – they were walking away. What should she say to them? Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth.
She struggled to her feet. ‘Stop!’ she called. ‘Stop, please –’
Hetty turned, looked at her, and made a face. ‘Walk away quickly, Will,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those horrid dirty beggars.’
‘I’m not a horrid dirty beggar,’ Nellie tried to say. ‘Look – it’s me! It’s Nellie!’ But now her voice refused to work at all.
‘Take no notice, Het,’ William said lazily. He stopped, glanced back at Nellie, and threw her a halfpenny. It landed at her feet. Then he and Hetty went on walking down North Terrace, their voices gradually fading away.
Nellie picked up the coin, and held it tightly. It was still warm from William’s hand.
For months Nellie had dreamed of being reunited with the Thompsons. She’d done everything she could to find them, and she’d never quite given up hope of a miracle. Now, at last, the miracle had happened, and instead of joy she felt only a deep, crushing shame.
‘They didn’t know who I was,’ she said to herself, anguished. ‘All they saw was a poor beggar girl. How could I ever think of being part of their family again? I might have been the dirt on their boots.’
And quite suddenly, sitting huddled against the fence of Government House, Nellie saw herself clearly for the first time since she’d returned to Adelaide. It was like coming out of darkness into the glare of daylight.
Will and Hetty were right not to know me, she thought. Sure, I don’t know who I am either. What would my Mary think of me now? And my other friends – the Camerons and the Trelawneys, Li and Trotty, Edward Strout? I’ve let them all down, so I have, and there’s no excuse for it, none at all. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what am I doing to myself?
Back at the boarding house, Nellie picked up the bundle of things that had belonged to Mary. Slowly she unwrapped it.
There were Mary’s dresses, her cotton bonnet, her boots, her shifts, her little white nightcap. Tucked in among them, dressed in the new clothes Nellie had made for her, was Vanessa, Mary’s old wooden doll. ‘Without her, I’d forget what it was like to be happy,’ Mary had once said. ‘And I don’t want to forget.’
Nellie stared down at Vanessa. Vanessa’s faded painted eyes stared back at Nellie. And at last Nellie burst into great racking sobs. She cried for Mary, and for herself, and for everything dear to her that had vanished from her life.
When she’d finished crying, she felt as if she was slowly waking up from a nightmare. The emptiness had gone, and in its place was a terrible pain. ‘My Mary is dead,’ she said to herself. ‘She’s dead, and I wasn’t with her. I promised I’d always be there for her, and I wasn’t.’
She picked up Vanessa and hugged the old doll very tightly, as if by hugging her she could be closer to Mary. ‘I’m sorry, Mary angel,’ she whispered. ‘I did wrong by you, and now I’ve done wrong by myself. Please forgive me.’
She squeezed her eyes shut, and in her mind she saw Mary’s gentle face. How brave Mary had been – never a word of complaint, never a thought of self-pity. Even when she was dying, she’d put Nellie above herself.
‘I don’t know how I’ll live without you, angel,’ Nellie said aloud. ‘But I’ll try.’
NELLIE went to the kitchen, got a fire going in the cold stove, and made herself a cup of strong black tea. While she was drinking it, she thought very hard. She’d believed that the Thompsons had gone from her life forever, and she’d tried to forget all about them. But maybe they hadn’t gone from her life after all, because they were here in Adelaide, and didn’t that mean she should at least try to see them again?
The beggar girl Hetty and Will had seen wasn’t the real Nellie O’Neill. That Nellie had gone for good. What Nellie had to do now, what she had to do before she started to look for the Thompsons, was to become herself again. And to do that, she needed a plan.
‘You can change your life,’ she told herself. ‘You can.’
First of all, she must find herself a job.
Right, so. Nobody would give a job to someone who looked like a beggar girl, would they? She’d have to make herself respectable.
She washed her face, hands and feet at the back-yard pump, drying them with a piece of sacking, and then she put on her best dress, the Paris voile with pink roses. After cleaning her teeth with a finger dipped in salt, she combed her hair and tied it back with a piece of ribbon she found among Mary’s things. Finally she blacked her battered old boots with some dried-up blacking she found on the kitchen mantelpiece.
When she was as neat and clean as she could possibly make herself, she went to the Immigration Depot. It was here that all the Irish orphan girls had been given their first jobs in the colony. In the past she’d applied for work there without success, but maybe this time luck would be with her.
‘Dear blessed saints,’ she prayed, ‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I know you are looking after my Mary now, and she’ll tell you I’m not a bad person. If you help me find a job, I swear to you I will never do a wrong thing again, not ever.’
The front room of the Depot was empty except for three young women, one of them holding a tiny wailing baby. The supervisor, Mr Lang, was seated at his desk, writing. Nellie went straight up to him.
He raised his head. ‘It’s Nellie O’Neill, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘It is, sir, and you’ll not be a bit surprised to know that I’m after a job.’
‘A kitchen maid, that would be? Or is it a housemaid this time?’
Nellie leaned forward eagerly. ‘Either would do, sir. I’ll take anything you’ve got. I’ll feed pigs, or gut fish, or sweep streets, or …’
Mr Lang sighed. ‘I’ve nothing for you, Miss O’Neill. I’m sorry.’ He glanced at his ledger. ‘The only job available is for a nursery maid with experience. You don’t have experience as a nursery maid, do you?’
‘No, sir,’ Nellie said, reluctantly. Then, as she thought how unfair life could be, her eyes filled with tears. ‘But it’s a job my Mary would have liked.’
Mr Lang looked interested. ‘And is Mary looking for employment?’
‘Not at all, sir. She’s dead, sir.’
‘Oh.’ Mr Lang put down his pen. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Nellie. She was unwell for some time, wasn’t she? Poor little girl.’
‘Yes, sir. So there’s nothing for me?’
‘No, there isn’t. But see me again tomorrow. Something might come up.’
Nellie thanked him and walked away, not looking back. Well, she thought, that prayer didn’t work. But to look on the upside, at least it means I won’t have to never do a wrong thing again. And maybe that’s just as well, because I don’t think I could possibly be good all the time. It’s only people like my dear Mary who are good all the time, and those people are as rare as feathers on a cow.
She remembered the wishes she and Mary had made when they were on board the Elgin, waiting to dock at Port Adelaide. Mary had been afraid to look into the future, but all Nellie could see was excitement and promise.
She’d set herself goals, but had she achieved them? A whole year later, she was still a poor workhouse orphan, still unable to read and
write properly, still not part of a family. She had no job, and not much chance of finding one, either. All she owned were a few clothes, a spelling book, and an old wooden doll.
Not one of her wishes had come true. Not one of them. What a blind, foolish, simpleminded eejit she’d been. She’d always thought she was a lucky person, but her luck had certainly deserted her now.
I mustn’t give up hope, she thought. But, oh, it’s not fair! I tried so hard! I did! I did!
As she turned back into Rundle Street, trying not to feel angry and despairing, she heard something. She stopped, and raised her head, and listened.
It was the sweet, haunting sound of an Irish tin whistle.
She followed the thread of sound to a man sitting cross-legged on the dusty footpath outside the Beehive Corner. A hat placed in front of him was already half filled with silver and copper coins. As Nellie came up to him, he began to play ‘The Minstrel Boy’.
The familiar melody instantly made Nellie think of the green hills and patchwork fields of Ireland, and the tiny whitewashed cottage that had once been her home. She stood and listened, the words to the music running through her head:
The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you’ll find him.
His father’s sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
‘Land of Song!’ said the warrior bard,
‘Though all the world betray thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!’
Nellie wasn’t sure what the words meant, exactly. But she knew the song was about bravery, and loyalty, and sacrifice. It was about being Irish, and being proud to be Irish, and defending Ireland from its enemies. ‘You’ll always be Irish,’ Mary had told her, once. ‘Nothing changes that.’
Nellie's Greatest Wish Page 3