The Ivory Rose (13 page)

A shambling horse and rickety cart stood in the centre of the road, its load covered by a tarpaulin.

‘Rabbitoh,’ bellowed the driver. ‘Come and buy your fresh rabbits. Roast rabbit, rabbit stew, fricasseed rabbit for tea tonight. Come and get your fresh rabbits.’

A couple of women, shawls over their heads, emerged from their dark houses to haggle for their rabbit carcasses.

Jemma climbed the steps of her home – or the house that would be her home in well over a hundred years’ time. It seemed strange that the house was so shabby and crumbling when it was a hundred years newer. She knocked tentatively at the weathered front door.

It was answered in a few moments by Molly, still clad in her dirt-coloured skirt and shawl, with her oversized scuffed boots and frayed petticoats.

Molly frowned for a moment and then smiled. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘Hello, Molly,’ murmured Jemma shyly. ‘My mistress, Miss Rutherford from Rosethorne, has asked me to deliver some provisions for you and the other children.’

Molly frowned at the basket over Jemma’s arm. ‘We don’t need that old biddy’s charity,’ she replied stiffly, making to close the door. ‘Ma and I can earn enough to feed the children.’

‘Please, Molly,’ Jemma begged, holding out her hand. ‘Take the bread as a present. Miss Rutherford can afford it – she has so much. Besides, it took me all morning to bake it. I couldn’t bear to waste it!’

Molly grinned at Jemma, a smile lighting up her whole face. ‘Well, if it’s to make you happy, I guess that’s different.’

‘There’re two loaves for you and a jar of dripping,’ Jemma explained, handing the items out of her basket.

‘Dripping,’ cried Molly with delight, smelling the fragrant fat. ‘That will make a nice change from bread and boiled potatoes.’

Connie had explained that her family, like many very poor families, subsisted on a diet mostly of bread and butter, boiled potatoes, bacon, boiled cabbage and peas, tea and beer. There were few vegetables, and meat was reserved for Sundays and holidays. It was no wonder the street urchins looked so thin and rickety.

‘Molly?’ asked Jemma diffidently. ‘Would you mind if I had a peek inside your house? I haven’t seen the place for such a long while; I’d love to see how it looks now.’

Molly looked over her shoulder into the dusty shadows of the hall. She shrugged.

‘Not much to see, really,’ Molly insisted. ‘But Ma’s out delivering shirts, so I guess it’s all right. The little ones are playing in the street.’

Jemma stepped over the threshold, holding her breath. The first impression was the smell – damp, mildewy, greasy and stale. The hall was gloomy, the bare wooden floorboards scuffed and stained. The stairs rose up on the left, leading to darker shadows.

‘This room is ours,’ offered Molly, opening the door to the front room.

In the twenty-first century, this room was Jemma’s mum’s study, painted in pale cream and taupe, with vast white bookcases filled with thick legal tomes and delicate floral paintings on the walls. Elizabeth kept all her files neatly stacked on a wide timber desk.

In 1895, however, the room was living and sleeping quarters to seven people: Molly, her ma and five brothers and sisters. Near the window was a scrubbed pine table with two timber chairs. Stacked on the table were piles of neatly folded white shirts, a sewing basket filled with needles, cotton, buttons and a roll of white cotton material. A single shirt was dropped on the table where Molly had obviously been working on it.

Wooden boxes and crates made up a set of stools around the table, while others created storage cupboards. On the mantelpiece was a tin tea caddy, a chipped blue-and-white teapot, a selection of mismatched china cups and a tattered photograph of Queen Victoria as a young woman.

The only other piece of real furniture was a treadle sewing machine on a small sewing table in the opposite corner. The bedding seemed to be nothing more than a big pile of stuffed sacks and grey blankets stashed against the wall near the small fire grate.

‘Home, sweet home,’ cried Molly, throwing her arms out expansively. ‘It’s not much, is it?’

Jemma stared at the smudged walls, the smoke-stained ceiling, the grimy windows, the clutter on the floor.

‘Do you all really live in just this room?’ asked Jemma, then bit her tongue for her lack of tact. ‘Where do you cook?’

Molly pulled herself up, tall and proud. ‘I told you – we used to rent the whole floor, which had a kitchen, but we couldn’t afford the rent. We cook up a bit of bacon and potato over the fire, or boil up some cabbage.’

Jemma nodded, understanding why Connie was so happy to eat leftovers from Miss Rutherford’s meals.

‘The landlord confiscated most of our furniture to cover the money we owed him,’ continued Molly. ‘Ma had to beg him not to take her sewing machine. It would have been really tough if he’d done that.’

Molly crinkled up her freckled nose.

‘Well, thanks for the bread – I’d better get back to work.’ Molly glanced balefully at the pile of shirts on the table. ‘Ma will expect another shirt finished by the time she gets back.’

‘Do you ever feel sick of all of this?’ Jemma blurted suddenly. ‘Working so hard, struggling to feed your brothers and sisters, living in poverty?’

Molly grinned at Jemma, revealing crooked teeth and a sparkle in her hazel eyes.

‘Course I do,’ admitted Molly. ‘But we have fun too – playing games, telling stories, making up pranks. We’re together, and things’ll get better one day. The boys’ll finish school and get good jobs and make lots of money, and we’ll eat mutton and beef every night. It’ll be grand.’

Jemma grinned back, warmed by the bright optimism in Molly’s tone.

Back out on Breillat Street, the wind whipped around and Jemma paused to adjust her shawl. Over the rustling of the leaves she could hear the faint sound of mewling, like a kitten or a puppy in distress. She listened closely and realised it was coming from next door, from Ruby’s house – or, as it was now, the baby farmer’s house.

Jemma crept closer. She hefted her basket up her arm purposefully to give her courage. Then she pushed the old wooden gate and entered. From long habit, she ignored the formal front door and took the side path, which led around the back. The mewling grew stronger, then a loud wail sounded, setting off a series of other wails and shrieks.

Jemma knocked on the back door, which stood open. No-one answered. Jemma peered around the door and into a large room.

A wave of stench assaulted her nostrils – the pungent ammonia sting of urine; a stale, sickly smell of sour milk
and vomit; a damp waft of wood smoke; the bitter tang of alcohol and an underlying odour of baby faeces. Jemma pulled her apron over her nose to breathe.

The room was dark and hazy, and in the dimness Jemma could make out a dozen boxes and crates lying on the floor. In one box something was moving – Jemma recognised it as a flailing fist. Something wriggled in another box, but most of them were ominously, terrifyingly still.

Jemma stepped into the room and placed her basket on the table. She crept towards the boxes. Each one held a tightly wrapped hump. On closer inspection, Jemma’s fears were realised. Each hump was a tiny baby, swaddled in rags and cloths.

‘What yer doin’ here snoopin’ around?’ barked a voice from the shadows. ‘Who are you?’

Jemma dropped the apron that was covering her nose. Her mind froze, then raced like a torrent.

A woman moved forward, bundled in a crimson shawl and wearing a brightly striped skirt. Her face peered out suspiciously from a frizz of auburn hair.

‘Oh, hello. Ma Murphy?’ gabbled Jemma. ‘My name’s Jemma Morgan. I did knock, but possibly you didn’t hear me? My mistress, Miss Rutherford from Rosethorne, sent me with some bread and dripping. She thought, perhaps, you might need some help with the babies?’

Jemma pulled out a loaf of bread and a jar of dripping as she spoke, offering them out to Ma Murphy.

Ma Murphy sniffed suspiciously. ‘That Missus Rutherford would sooner spit on me than help the likes of me,’ she objected, threatening to spit at Jemma’s feet in retaliation.

‘Oh no,’ proclaimed Jemma quickly. ‘Mrs McKenzie, the minister’s wife, has asked a number of the Annandale ladies to send food to families in the neighbourhood, and my mistress was very keen to participate. She is a strong supporter of the local congregation.’

Ma Murphy took the offered loaf and tore off a hunk of crust, chewing it thoughtfully. She put the bread on the table, then unscrewed the jar of dripping and scraped a dirty fingernail across the surface, licking it tentatively.

‘Well, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth,’ replied Ma Murphy, winking at Jemma. ‘If your mistress sent you here to work, then work you can. This lot should all be changed and fed. It’s tiresome work, but it must be done several times a day.’

She shrugged towards the boxes of babies.

‘First, there’re napkins out on the clothes line that can be brought in,’ directed Ma Murphy, sitting down at the table and carving off a hunk of bread, which she spread thickly with fat dripping. ‘Then the babies can be unswaddled and dry napkins put on to replace the wet ones.’

A trickle of grease dribbled down her chin. Jemma scurried outside to find the clothes line, breathing in deep lungfuls of fresh air. It was a relief to escape the fug inside.

The nappies flapping briskly on the line were dry, stiff and yellow. The reek confirmed what Jemma had begun to suspect – the nappies had been hung out to dry without being washed.

Jemma unpegged the dozen nappies and carried them inside, holding them as far from herself as possible.

‘The nappies appear as though they haven’t actually been washed?’ asked Jemma, tentatively.

Ma Murphy snorted. ‘With a dozen infants to care for, I don’t have time to wash the napkins unless they really need it,’ she asserted. ‘I take it you
do
know how to change a baby’s napkin?’

Jemma shook her head.

‘Some nursemaid you make,’ Ma Murphy scoffed. ‘Well, I’ll show you how to do the first one. I’ll do Charlie – he’s the sturdiest.’

She scooped up a hump from the nearest box and placed it on the table. Swiftly and expertly she unwrapped the swaddling cloth, revealing a thin, pale baby with a bald, egg-shaped head and frail limbs. He was nothing like the plump, sweet-smelling babies whom Jemma had cuddled in her own time.

The cold air startled the baby, who shrieked and squealed, waving his arms around ferociously, his face turning red as a sun-ripened tomato. Ma Murphy undid a huge pin that fastened the wet nappy, hoiked the baby up in the air by his ankles and whipped another nappy underneath in its place. In a moment, the dry nappy was pinned and the flailing limbs tightly swaddled in the dirty, discoloured cloth.

Jemma’s stomach recoiled in horror. The word ‘squalor’ leapt to her mind. She had never truly understood the meaning of the word until now.

‘Easy,’ taunted Ma Murphy. ‘Now I’ll make up the milk while you change the others. Careful not to prick ’em with those pins. The poor little mites don’t like being stabbed.’

Charlie was still wailing pitifully. Jemma picked up another tiny hump and carried it to the table where she
clumsily undid the pin and sodden nappy and tried to refasten the stiff, dry one. This baby lay limp and unresponsive, his head swollen in comparison to his tiny body.

Jemma’s heart flipped.
Is he dead?
The tiny chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly.
Thank God, he’s still alive
.

At the other end of the table, Ma Murphy had a large earthenware bowl with a pouring lip. Into this bowl she sloshed some milk from a pail and water from a jug. She stirred in a cupful of soft, white powder, which Jemma hoped was baby formula but somehow suspected it wasn’t. Ma Murphy took a small brown glass bottle and poured a generous slug into her concoction.

‘What’s that?’ asked Jemma curiously as she tussled with the nappy.

‘Ma Murphy’s special recipe – milk, water, lime and laudanum,’ she boasted. ‘Guaranteed to keep the little angels quiet.’

Jemma shuddered with horror. The baby in her hands felt as soft and floppy as a ragdoll, his head unnaturally engorged, every rib protruding from his body.

Ma Murphy poured the solution into a ceramic bottle with a thick-lipped nozzle. She stuck the spout into Charlie’s mouth and he suckled hungrily, glugging down the diluted potion.

Jemma thought she might be sick. Her head pounded. The reek of filth threatened to overwhelm her.

‘Well, so sorry,’ she apologised hastily, resting the baby back in his box. ‘I must be getting on. The mistress expects me to deliver bread to a few more families yet.’

‘I thought you were here to help,’ demanded Ma Murphy. ‘There’s still ten babies to change and feed.’

Jemma washed her hands at the sink, scrubbing them with the harsh lye soap.

‘So sorry,’ repeated Jemma. ‘I must be getting back or the mistress will be furious.’

‘The youth of today,’ scoffed Ma Murphy. ‘No stamina. No work ethic. No responsibility.’

Jemma grabbed her basket from the table and ran for the door and fresh, uncontaminated air. Tears welled up and trickled down her face, and she smeared them away with her apron.

The state of the babies horrified her. She felt shocked and helpless. There must be something she could do to help them – to
save
them. She had a vision of snatching up an armful of babies and running with them back to Rosethorne. She imagined what Agnes and Miss Rutherford would have to say about that! What was the right thing to do?

Ma Murphy’s strangely familiar words echoed in her head:
The youth of today. No work ethic
.
No responsibility
…

She thought of Molly sewing all day to feed her five brothers and sisters. She thought of Connie scrubbing pots and blacking hearths seven days a week to support her family. She thought of Ned shovelling manure, weeding garden beds, polishing tack. Her three friends worked harder than anyone in her day could ever conceive possible. Yet they were all cheerful. They rarely complained and they all had a spirit of generosity.

Her mind churning with thoughts, Jemma raced on to deliver the remainder of her bread and dripping. She hoped no-one discovered that she had given away food to Ma Murphy as well as the four families on her list.

Carrying her empty basket and huddling into her shawl, Jemma decided to walk back to Rosethorne along the harbour. The wind whipped up whitecaps in the bay and lashed the trees.

The waterfront of Annandale was a world away from the one she knew. The harbour was polluted with run-off from the abattoir at Glebe Island and the neighbouring soap and candle factories, which boiled down the tallow from the carcasses.

The air was foul with the stench of smoke from boiling vats of lard and animal by-products, and the fresher scent of sap, resin and salty water.

On the Annandale foreshore were numerous timber yards where logs were sawn and milled into beams, weatherboards, pylons, posts, shingles and wood blocks, then transported by boat to other parts of the city. Many of the streets of Sydney were paved with wood blocks from the Annandale timber yards.

Jemma paused to watch the men and boys at work. Small boys, who looked no older than Sammy, dressed in rags with bare feet, pushed overladen carts and trolleys piled with timber. A grey-bearded overseer shouted loudly, whacking the boys across their bare calves to make them move faster. A small boy yelped in pain but scurried to push harder.

Jemma was shocked at the number of children working at such hard labour and the cruelty with which they were treated.

Men swarmed over stockpiles of timber, loading carts, rolling logs and feeding the steam sawmills. Cranes lifted loads of sawn timber onto barges. It was a busy, chaotic scene.

Suddenly, Jemma spied a familiar figure in the distance. It was tall, long-legged Ned, striding towards the timber yard perimeter fence, his jacket pulled close against the wind. Jemma went to call out to him, but something about his manner stopped her.

Ned seemed to be furtive, glancing around swiftly, as though checking for observers. He stopped by the fence and was talking hastily to someone on the other side. A hand emerged through a gap in the fence, passing him something. Ned quickly pocketed the small package and then loped off back up Johnston Street towards Rosethorne.

Jemma followed him back slowly, trying to make sense of what she had just witnessed.
What is going on? What had Ned been given? Why did he seem to want to avoid detection?

On Friday afternoon Doctor Anderson came to check on Georgiana’s progress. As before, Jemma stood patiently in the corner, watching over the proceedings. The doctor brought Georgiana a present wrapped in brown paper and string.

‘I thought you might like something to read,’ Doctor Anderson suggested kindly.

Georgiana unwrapped the parcel eagerly. It was a book called
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses
.

‘It’s a new collection of bush poems by a writer called Banjo Paterson,’ the doctor explained. ‘Apparently, he’s very good.’

‘Thank you so much,’ cried Georgiana, flicking through the pages.

‘Now, how are you feeling? Have you been sick at all this week? Any headaches?’

The doctor carefully checked Georgiana over, his forehead furrowed with concern.

Georgiana shook her head. ‘Only from boredom,’ she insisted.

The doctor beamed. ‘It’s amazing, you seem to be making a full recovery. I hope this is the last we’ll see of whatever nasty germ has been causing all the problems. I’ll call on you in a few days, or if you get sick again, but I think you should be fine now.’

Georgiana smiled at Doctor Anderson.

Jemma stepped forward to help the doctor pack up his stethoscope and instruments.