Tamar (8 page)

‘God,’ said Tamar, perching gingerly on the edge of one of the sofas. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to dust in here.’

‘Well, we might yet, if we run out of money,’ said Jane. ‘Be good practice, though, fer domestic service.’ Jane and Sally intended to go into service as soon as they could, while Tamar and Polly, also a seamstress, were looking for sewing positions.

‘Now, ladies,’ said Mrs Barriball as she swished back into the room. ‘Sit down, please, while I avail you of the rules. Which,’ she added, looking at them sternly over the top of her small spectacles, ‘I expect to be adhered to. I run a respectable establishment and there is no place for slovenliness, low morals or unladylike behaviour.’

She seated herself in one of the chairs next to the fire and took a deep breath. ‘First, there will be no gentleman callers. You may have lady friends to visit, whom you may entertain in the parlour, but no gentlemen. There is a strict curfew of nine thirty at night. Second, I expect a high standard of neatness and cleanliness. You will attend to your own rooms but I will supply you with clean linen
on a regular basis. You will do your personal laundry in the laundry at the back of the house. There are chamber pots under your beds, but I would appreciate you availing yourselves of the privy off the laundry whenever possible. Breakfast is at six thirty in the morning and supper at seven thirty in the evening. You will have to provide your own luncheon. No cooking in your rooms, and no alcohol or tobacco.’ Mrs Barriball paused briefly, then continued. ‘You may not be here long as the job market is not what it used to be. I am not out to rob young women of their money, but I charge the going rate for a clean, wholesome, quality establishment, and I doubt any of you has independent means,’ she said not unkindly, glancing at the girls’ worn and plain clothes. ‘But while you are here, I hope you enjoy your stay. Now, do you have any questions?’

No one did, so Mrs Barriball showed the girls to their individual rooms. Tamar’s was upstairs at the front of the house, overlooking Ponsonby Road. The room was furnished with an iron bedstead, a wardrobe and a mirrored chest of drawers on which sat a large china ewer and bowl, and a straight-backed wooden chair in front of a small writing table, on which a
Bible
had been conspicuously placed. There was a large rug in the middle of the floor and several paintings on the walls. It was nowhere near as fussily decorated as the parlour, but it was comfortable. Tamar unpacked her belongings, then went to sit quietly on the verandah, her mind contemplating the events of the last few months and what the future might hold.

The following day the girls rose early, breakfasted, and walked to the end of Ponsonby Road. Mrs Barriball loudly disapproved their lack of chaperone but they politely ignored her. The unpaved road was dotted with puddles and piles of horse dung and before long they were hitching their skirts out of the mud.

‘Me boots aren’t going ter last long at this rate,’ complained Sally. ‘An’ I’ve only got the one pair.’

At the end of Ponsonby Road they spent some of their precious money on a public carriage into the central commercial district around the wharves and lower Queen Street. They wandered about for most of the morning, gazing at the new brick and plaster commercial buildings interspersed with older, less grand wooden shops and premises. Occasionally they passed small groups of Maori sitting or standing in the street dressed in an eclectic range of European clothing. The girls were fascinated and a little unnerved as they had never seen dark-skinned people, especially not with exotically tattooed faces. Tamar noticed some of the women had tattooed chins, whereas the men with tattoos were marked all over their faces. They tried not to stare but their curiosity did not seem to bother the Maori, several of whom waved cheerfully.

‘They’re called
moko
,’ whispered Sally. She pronounced the word to rhyme with cocoa. ‘Mrs Barriball said.’

‘What? Them brown people?’ asked Polly.

‘No. The patterns on their faces.’

‘What do the patterns mean?’ asked Tamar. ‘They’re all different.’

‘Dunno. Why don’t yer ask one of ’em?’ suggested Polly.

‘No!’ replied Sally hastily. ‘Mrs Barriball said if we seen any of ’em we’re ter stay away. She says they’re not civilised.’

The girls walked quickly off, glancing nervously behind them, much to the amusement of the Maori.

By midday the girls had been into almost every shop and marvelled over the fine clothes and goods they expected to be able to afford as soon as they found work. Hungry and with sore feet they frittered away more of their money on lunch at the rather splendid Albert Hotel, smiling graciously at the obviously wealthy women also lunching there, who glared at the girls when they
laughed too loudly. Polly did not help matters by ostentatiously demonstrating her version of upper-class ‘airs’.

After lunch they explored some of the smaller lanes off Queen Street but soon retreated as they encountered evidence of poverty and misery. They had noticed this on Queen Street as well — the stench of raw sewage, people with their hands out or drunk in public — but the pathetic peddlers selling nothing worth buying and the beggars and poorly dressed, underfed children running about in the cold without shoes or coats seemed more sordid and depressing in the smaller, darker alleys.

‘Reminds me of ’ome,’ Jane muttered. They were shocked and a little subdued. None of them had expected to see such blatant poverty in New Zealand; it was something they thought had been left thousands of miles behind them.

A week later, the girls were forced to admit New Zealand was not the land of limitless opportunity enthusiastically described by the emigration agents. Many emigrants had been attracted by cheap assisted passages, part of Julius Vogel’s scheme to bring emigrants to the new colony, but by the time the girls had boarded the
Rebecca Jane
at Plymouth, the colony was saturated with debt. They had no way of knowing, but they had arrived on the eve of a long and severe economic depression.

In the following weeks Jane and Sally found employment as domestics and both moved out of Mrs Barriball’s boarding house, but Tamar and Polly were unable to find positions. After three weeks, seriously regretting they had spent so much at Mrs Barriball’s, they were forced to move to a less appealing boarding establishment in lower Shortland Street.

The narrow, streetfront house, in dire need of paint and repairs, accommodated ten single women and consisted of a series of tiny bedrooms leading off a dingy central hallway smelling of cabbage and boiled mutton. There was a large kitchen cum parlour at the
far end of the hall, and a small shared bathroom. The privy was an offensive-smelling long drop across a small back yard where a sad and mangy little dog was kept. The accommodation was basic and the boarders provided and maintained their own linen, but it was almost clean and, more importantly, cheap. Polly missed the grand fireplace in Mrs Barriball’s parlour, the vases with the ostrich feathers and the large comfortable bedrooms. She vowed to Tamar on their first night at Shortland Street that she would own a parlour like that herself one day.

The boarding house had a first floor where the landlady and her family lived. The tenants rarely saw them as they had their own entrance, the husband coming and going irregularly as he did shift work on the wharf. His wife, a harassed and angry-looking woman in her thirties, managed the boarding house and looked after their five small children. Tamar and Polly spent their days walking the central commercial area, knocking on doors and asking for work. They stood for hours in long queues of unemployed women, only to be told there was none. They were both running out of money, Polly especially, and were beginning to despair. Their path each morning took them past the ever-growing slum of Chancery Street with its cramped and decaying houses with broken windows and filthy back yards, and they wondered how long it would be before they were forced to live in such poverty.

Tamar knew that if she visited Myrna, her friend would offer to loan her money, if not make an outright gift, but she felt too embarrassed to do this; it was too close to begging, and an admission of failure. It would be even more humiliating to contact John Adams and might encourage him.

In the last week of July, almost two months after they arrived in Auckland, Tamar and Polly were walking up a wet and windy Queen Street when they saw a man place a notice in the window of the premises of Arthur C. Ellis, Draper. They glanced at each other,
then rushed through the door. Inside, the interior was tastefully appointed in polished wood with gleaming brass fittings. An extensive range of fabrics, from the practical to the opulent, was artfully displayed around the walls. At the back was a wide wooden counter with a cash register and several bolts of cloth, and behind it stood the man who placed the notice. He sported muttonchop whiskers and an impressive moustache, and was in his shirt sleeves, wearing a bow tie with a dark grey waistcoat matching his trousers.

‘Ladies,’ he said, leaning forward with his hands on the polished counter. ‘And what can I do for you on this not very fine day?’

‘You have a notice in your window, sir, advertising employment. We’d like to apply,’ said Tamar in a rush.

‘Yes, I do,’ the man replied genially. ‘But I only have one position. For someone who knows fabrics and has experience cutting patterns. Preferably someone with a recommendation attesting to their skills and character.’

Polly, who did not have a reference, kept smiling but Tamar saw tears welling in her eyes. In an artificially cheerful voice Polly said, ‘Well, that lets me out, dunnit? I’ll wait outside fer yer, Tamar,’ and turned and quickly left the shop.

‘Oh dear,’ said the man. ‘I hate to see a pretty girl disappointed, but times are hard. So, I take it you have a recommendation?’

Tamar nodded and silently handed him Mrs Tregowan’s reference.

‘I’m Arthur C. Ellis,’ said the man as he read. ‘You are Tamar Deane, I gather? And you’ve had cutting experience?’ When she said she had, Mr Ellis continued, ‘We don’t do garment cutting, but you need to know how it’s done so you can measure the correct lengths. And you also need to know about fabrics so you can advise customers on the drape and fall of curtains and the like. Do you think you can do all that, and operate the register? I see you have your letters and numbers. I need a scrupulously honest shop girl.
I’ve two other assistants, a woman who does the sewing and a boy who works in the storeroom, but you’d be required to do a bit of sewing when we’re pushed. Oh, and you need to be able to lift the bolts of cloth down onto the counter for cutting.’

‘I’m sure I can do all that,’ Tamar replied confidently.

‘Your recommendation says you hail from Cornwall,’ Mr Ellis observed.

‘I do, sir. From just outside Truro.’

Mr Ellis raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought so. I came out almost twenty years ago. Bodmin was my home town. It will be a treat to hear another Cornish voice in the shop. The job’s yours, Miss Deane. We’ll start with a six-week trial and if it works out you’ll be taken on as permanent staff. Does that suit?’

Tamar smiled broadly and said yes before he could change his mind. Mr Ellis told her what her wages would be and her hours of work, and asked if she could start the following Monday. The hours were long with only Sundays off, and the pay unspectacular, but infinitely preferable to nothing. Tamar left the shop feeling as though she were floating six inches above the ground.

‘I got it! I got it!’ she exclaimed to Polly, who was waiting down the street.

‘I thought yer might,’ she replied. ‘An’ yer deserve it. I’m right pleased fer yer.’ And she was. ‘When yer’ve got a bit of money together yer should find yerself somewhere nicer to live an’ all.’

‘But what about you?’ said Tamar, trying to contain her excitement in deference to Polly’s continuing unemployment. ‘We need to find
you
a job. I’m not moving anywhere until I know you’re all right.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Polly replied resolutely. ‘I know ’ow ter take care of meself.’

‘I’ll talk to Mr Ellis on Monday. He might know of something.’

As it happened, Mr Ellis knew of a manufacturer who was
offering outwork on a piece-rate basis. The money was a pittance but Polly, whose finances were almost totally depleted, took up the offer and sat in her room from morning to dusk, sewing 25-pound cloth bags. She was paid two shillings per gross and when she finished a batch, she carted them to the manufactory and collected cloth and thread for the next lot. At the end of each day her eyes, back and head ached, and her fingers were raw and blistered. She hated it but as she could now afford to pay for her room and board she persevered, telling Tamar she was quite happy to do it until something better came along.

Delivering a finished set of bags to the factory one day, Polly was told by a woman smoking a pipe and leaning against the wall that there were positions going for manufactory workers. Polly went straight in and joined the queue. There were five vacancies and Polly was selected to fill one. The pay was low, eight and a half shillings a week, but better than for sewing bags. Conditions in the factory were noisy, dirty and often dangerous and she would be required to work a seventy-two-hour week of six twelve-hour days. After she had been informed she had one of the positions she went outside, sat in the gutter and cried with relief.

Tamar was pleased her friend would be earning better wages but concerned about the conditions in which she would be working. Mr Ellis regularly held forth on the conditions factory workers had to put up with, and how something should be done about it. Tamar felt guilty about her own position, which was positively luxurious compared to Polly’s, and tried to give her friend money whenever she had any extra, but it was always politely refused.

‘I’ve got enough to keep me goin’, luv, thanks,’ Polly would always say. And she did. She was living hand to mouth, and the reality of owning a fine parlour with vases of ostrich feathers was as far away as it had ever been, but she was surviving. She made friends at the factory and, being a social person, the camaraderie
during her days at work made the miserable conditions and poor pay almost tolerable. Most days, anyway.