CHAPTER 8

I staggered back to the hotel, exhausted, bruised and muddy. Mrs Bleeker took one look at me and turned white under her freckles. I told her I had nothing worse than cuts and bruises.

‘But what has befallen you?’

‘Ruffians robbed me. The basket, the waistcoat, the money have gone —’

‘Never mind that. Did they harm you? I will cowhide them with Rodnia’s whip.’

‘I am perfectly well.’ But as I spoke, my head grew dizzy, and I swayed. Mrs Bleeker made me lie down while she fetched a tub and hot water, got me in and out of a bath, dressed me in a nightgown, fed me hot soup, talked to the hotel clerk and told me a doctor would come. And I succumbed gladly, though her rough hands scraped my skin.

Of course she wanted to know all. I told her briefly about the wain ride and my escape.

‘White slavers,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘It happens all the time in these rough mining towns with so few women. They abduct young females and use them for their evil ways.’

That too had been my first thought, but I remembered those names they called me. Bitch, Missus Carroll.

‘They looked for me. They knew my name. And they said they were hired. Who could have hired them? Why?’

She shuddered. ‘Best you don’t know. You have had a miraculous escape, that’s all. I blame myself for letting you out of my sight.’

‘But someone must have told them about me — someone working in the Ballarat theatre, perhaps, or even in the troupe —’

‘Poor child, your experience has robbed you of your senses. There is only one reason men would act so.’

‘Will you tell the police?’

She sighed. ‘I would like nothing better than to bring those rogues to justice. But my husband takes the view that nothing should be allowed to interfere with our itinerary, and here we are about to head off for Tasmania. Moreover, I do not think we should mention this dreadful episode to anyone. It would only upset them. Especially Mrs Stratton.’

‘But —’

‘Hush, dear.’ She pulled the sheets around my shoulders, stroked my forehead. ‘You must try to rest.’

I pushed the sheets off, closed my fists. ‘I was special to them. I was not just any young girl. What is so special about me? What?’

She shook her head, smiled, put her fingers to her lips. At that moment, the doctor made his appearance, and I prepared myself for his probing and pummelling. But soon he pronounced all well: ‘You will have a bonny one, missus. Sleep now.’ And I was alone in the dark.

An enormous lethargy was creeping over me, yet I fought to stay awake. Someone in the troupe had stage-managed the ruffians and the wagon ride, I was more and more sure of it; but who kept this secret, and what was their purpose? Surely not Charlie and his wife, or Mrs Bleeker; all their interests lay in keeping me close and cared for. I had dared to construct a future that glowed and flickered in and out of focus like a magic lantern show. In moments of focus, I saw myself, containing the swelling under my ribs that I was beginning to think of as Belly. I sat with Belly, upright and dignified, against shadowy but solid drapes and furniture. Somewhere in the room, beyond the magic lantern’s focus, was the little door that led to the New World.

Who was it, then, who threatened this future? Could it be Ned Davis? Was there that much malice in him?

Sooner or later, the one with the secret would act again. Then either I would know, or it would be too late. And with that uneasy thought, I drifted into sleep.

When I woke, the dread was heavier in me. I could not recall my dream. I only knew it had been about my brother Robert. He was my eldest brother and he belonged to a much earlier time in my life. Now I see him as more than a bogeyman, I even feel sorry for him: when he was a child, he too must have felt abandoned and betrayed, and he never stopped looking for someone to blame. But when I was young, he was worse at some moments than the cholera. And yet he was my rescuer.

I did not meet him until I was eleven. For years I knew him only as Bobby, a portrait of a serious young man with curly hair. There was a little version of him inside the silver locket Mother had given me, and a larger version on the mantelpiece next to the other strangers, Marian and Beatrice and James and Edward and Margaret and Hubert. They had all gone away to spread the Lord’s word, Mother had told me.

When Bobby came from Nottingham, after Mother and Father were taken by the cholera, he was not Bobby anymore, but Mr Robert Teasdale, Esquire, owner of a fine cotton mill. Most of his curly hair had disappeared. He had Molly spread white powder on the bedroom floors and the stairs, had all the sheets and towels and clothes burned one by one in the stove. Molly and Mrs Utley fed them into the flames with wooden tongs. Then he had the beds and mattresses and shoes taken away in a handcart. While the rectory still stank of charcoal and tar and that strange white powder, Mr Robert had Molly sweep and scrub the floors and stairs and the front steps and path. He turned out the drawers and cupboards, brought in men to pack up the clock and the mahogany table, got Mrs Utley to pack silver and china from the dining-room cabinet. Now the rectory smelled of soap and sawdust.

One morning I saw Mr Robert come out of Father’s study carrying something in his hands. I followed him to the parlour. He placed it on the mantelpiece, next to the pictures of Bobby and the other brothers and sisters. I stared at the new picture, a watercolour portrait of a strange lady with a wishy-washy smile and old-fashioned ringlets.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Mrs Teasdale.’ His voice was unusually soft.

‘Your wife?’

Mr Robert gave me a sharp look. ‘It is a portrait of Mother.’

That isn’t Mother.’

My voice must have been loud with scorn. Mr Robert frowned. ‘Mary Ann, you are ill-behaved. Go to your room.’

‘You’re not my master. I won’t go.’

Mr Robert looked as if he would strike me. Then to my surprise, he swept out of the room.

Mrs Utley explained that Mr Robert’s mother, the lady in the portrait, was the first Mrs Teasdale. She had married Father when he was first ordained and had given birth to four boys and three girls. Some years later, she took ill and died, and Father had been so grieved by her death he forbade anyone to speak of her. Very shortly afterwards, he had taken Mother as his second wife.

‘So is that why Mr Robert doesn’t like me? Because I’m not his sister?’

‘Don’t be silly. You are his half-sister, he loves you.’

‘Where are the others? Marian and Beatrice and James and Edward and Margaret and Hubert?’

Mrs Utley’s breath wheezed. She raised her palms as if pushing against the air. ‘Go to Mr Robert, apologise to him. He is your guardian and he knows what is best for you.’

When I found Mr Robert in the study, sitting at Father’s desk, I wanted to knock him from the chair, but I remembered what Mrs Utley had said, gave him a deep curtsey, said I was sorry I had been so wicked, but I had not understood about the two Mrs Teasdales.

‘If you do not understand, you should ask politely. One does not like to see impertinent little girls.’ His voice had the grate of small waves on the shingle at the Thames’s edge.

‘Yes. I did wrong. Please forgive me.’

‘So, Mary Ann.’ He pushed back Father’s chair, his hands behind his head. ‘What is to become of you?’ I understood he did not expect an answer, but my eyes moved to Father’s globe of the earth, and I imagined it thrumming under my fingers.

‘I want to see the world.’

‘Wanting is the sin of covetousness.’

Mr Robert talked on, and I do not remember all his words. His voice was quiet and reasonable, but it grated. He said I should go to a good boarding school in London, a place of discipline. If I did not learn my lessons, if he heard of any more outbursts, he would take me away to a place where they would beat all the pride out of me.

When I was seventeen and about to leave school, I received a summons to the headmistress’s study, and there he was, shorter than I remembered, with more stomach and even less hair.

The headmistress excused herself, said she would leave us together, a brother and sister should have time to talk. As the door closed, I wondered for a moment who this brother and sister could be. Mr Robert stared at me, and I met his gaze steadily; we had not looked upon each other for six years. His head shone like a pink apple. He was the first to break eye contact; he walked around me and I could feel his eyes on me from the side, from behind. When he had completed his circuit and faced me again, he was chewing a thumbnail, a little red in the face.

‘I expected a young lady. But I did not expect …’

‘Are you displeased with me, Mr Robert?’

‘Quite the contrary.’

‘I have turned out well, have I not?’

‘You have turned out splendidly.’ He cleared his throat. ‘At least, that is what your teachers say. You are a paragon, it appears.’

‘I have enjoyed my lessons.’ I looked down modestly. ‘I like the other girls, and the teachers have been kind.’

Mr Robert rubbed his hands together, sat down in the headmistress’s chair, just as he had sat in Father’s chair all those years before. How like Humpty Dumpty he looked. ‘And what is to become of you now?’

I was dizzy with the sense that this scene had played before. I looked round for Father’s globe of the earth, to send it spinning beneath my fingers; but there were only bookshelves, an inkwell on the desk, and the headmistress’s academic gown, a black pelt hanging on the back of the door.

‘I want … I mean, I thought I might teach.’

‘Excellent idea.’ He put his elbows on the desk. ‘Sara and Elizabeth are of an age to benefit from some rigorous instruction. Adam and John are a little wild, but boys will be boys. They need to sit down every morning and attend to their books.’

‘Oh, Mr Robert, I did not mean …’ I knew of his children from the letters he had written me from Nottingham each Christmas. Every now and then a letter announced a new birth. I would sit reading the letter by the stove in the school basement, wrapped in a shawl, eating my Christmas orange. The other girls had all gone home by then, only a caretaker and a couple of maids remained, and the classrooms were barren expanses of floorboards that creaked with shock at the passing of my feet. He always wrote that Mrs Teasdale was indisposed but there were strong hopes of improvement. Then he wrote how the cotton trade was doing and how his house alterations were going, and hoped that his sister was in good health and remembering their father in her prayers. I would write back promptly with best wishes and many questions, and then would wait eleven months for his next letter.

‘Bed and board in our house,’ Mr Robert continued. ‘You may eat in the nursery with the children. Mutton and gruel and tea, a wholesome diet. Mrs Teasdale must on no account be disturbed. We have a bright little bedroom under the eaves; one can stand upright by the door.’

‘Mr Robert, I have always appreciated your generosity.’

‘And so you should. I have spent a pretty sum on you these last six years. One day off a month, shall we say.’

‘Mr Robert —’

‘Well, I must be quiet, I shall offer you the moon if I go on so, but it is not often I come across such an accomplished young lady.’ That grating laugh again. He got to his feet and resumed his circling.

I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and he lifted one finger. It was the same way Father had lifted his index finger before he spoke his words of wisdom.

‘There is just one thing. Are you tractable?’

‘Tractable?’ A picture came to me of horses straining in harness.

‘I think your education would make you familiar with that word. Tractable, biddable, docile, compliant, governable. A governess should be governable.’ He snickered at his little joke.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘The last time I saw you, you were not tractable at all. You shouted wicked words at me.’

‘I was a child and you were taking everything away. How was I to know I could trust you?’

‘Not trust your own brother?’ He stopped his pacing in front of me and stared close into my eyes — I smelled Worcestershire sauce on his breath. The dark bristles on his chin seemed strange against the smooth surface of his head.

‘You are not my brother.’ He stepped back. ‘I have a brother. He is young and handsome and he has beautiful curly hair, he looks after me, and he doesn’t worry about whether I am tractable.’

‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense.’ Mr Robert hit the desk with his fist. ‘You monstrous ungrateful girl. You want this, you want that, you are all greed and capriciousness.’

‘There is nothing wrong with wanting,’ I protested.

‘Don’t you understand? You are in no position to want anything.’

I glared at him, fingering the silver locket around my neck, half expecting Mr Robert to reach out and pull it away, but he sat down in the headmistress’s chair again. He slumped over the desk, his hand over his eyes. Father had sat in just that pose one night, after a visit to the unfortunate; Mother stood and stroked his shoulder while muttering spilled from his beard. They don’t deserve the Lord, they pawn our gifts for gin. Reek of it, the children too, God damn the whole tribe of them.

‘Perhaps you think I was badly brought up,’ I said in a softer voice. ‘But you must not think badly of Father. I saw how Mother loved him and supported him, even when he could not support himself, when he said bad things …’

‘You take me for a fool. You insult the memory of our father, who never said or did a bad thing in his life. Who was left alone to die.’

‘He did not die alone.’ I could feel the blood draining from my face. ‘I was with him.’

He shut his eyes, put his hands over his ears. I waited for him to listen, I still had so much to say. He began to mutter, with his eyes still shut. ‘Is this what a fine new education does for a girl?’ He opened his eyes, lowered his hands from his ears, stood and made for the door. As he brushed past me, I put my hand on his arm to stay him and he shook it off as if I were a street beggar. Then he turned, raised his index finger again. ‘I have done all I could for you because you are my father’s daughter, but there is too much of your mother in you after all.’

‘I don’t want your job anyway.’

‘Want, want! Go out on your own into the hard world then, Miss Insolence, and see how you like it.’ For a moment he paused, his hand on the door. He would not look at me. ‘I should have thrown you out of the rectory with the boots and shoes.’

From the headmistress’s window, I watched him stride down the pavement, his tall hat covering his baldness, abristle with rectitude. I clutched my hands together to stop them trembling. As Mr Robert receded, thinned, became one dark streak among many under the watery London sky, I felt in my veins the thrumming of Father’s globe.

Not long afterwards, with glowing references from the school, I obtained an interview with the Female Middle-Class Emigration Society, whose good ladies arranged my passage and lent me money to travel to Melbourne, Victoria, and seek a post as governess. Which led me eventually to Matilda, and her papa.

But it was not Matilda and her papa who invaded my head and my dreams at that time, when our tour truly reached the end of the earth, a town called Oatlands in Tasmania, and music drew me into the coach house.