With a clatter of hooves the coach-and-four rumbled along Hokitika’s mile-long Revell Street under the competent hands of its whip. The passengers craned their necks, looking to left and right, taking in the cottages and shops lining the road. The coach came to a smooth halt outside the Golden Age Hotel. The whip was off the box and unloading the luggage before the dusty and weary travellers, backsides aching and stiff from their lengthy melding with juddering seats, had begun to alight.
A ragtag crowd milled around the coach: some meeting friends and acquaintances; others merely curious as to who might have journeyed to the town. All eyes were drawn to a tall, strikingly handsome woman alighting from the mud-splattered vehicle.
‘A good day to you, Mrs Gilpin. I wish you well in your business,’ the driver said, his normal dour tone injected with admiration and enthusiasm. He handed her a hatbox and a small suitcase. If he had hoped for some indication of the nature of Anne Gilpin’s business, he would have been disappointed as she thanked him politely and turned away.
Aware of the curious glances being directed her way, she made for the hotel, acknowledging people’s stares with a pleasant nod. Her erect posture belied the fact that she was tired to the bone. The train trip from Christchurch to Springfield had been uneventful, if unpleasant when smoke from the engine billowed in through the carriage windows. Coughing spasms had erupted on all sides before several passengers had had the good sense to close them.
At Springfield they had caught the stagecoach for the rest of the long and hazardous journey to Hokitika. A fellow passenger’s white-faced comment — ‘I pray to God the brakes will hold’ — as they had fairly flown around the twists and turns of the road on the descent to Otira had set her nerves on edge.
She’d had not a wink of sleep the previous night because of the revelry incited by Mr O’Malley’s stage girls performing at the Bealey Glacier Hotel, where she and the other coach passengers had stayed overnight.
While she would never admit it, the trip had, at times, caused her to pray for a quick, sharp death to avoid having to complete it. It had seemed the coach was soaring through the air with not a solid piece of ground in sight when they’d crossed the bridge in the Bealey Gorge. Part of the Otira Gorge road had narrowed to little more than the width of their carriage. Great cliffs lined one side; the river boiled along the other. A woman travelling with a babe in arms had insisted on alighting and walking behind the coach. Anne would have joined her, had she not been sitting on the river side of the coach.
‘There’s more leeway outside than you’d think. We’re quite safe,’ a male passenger had assured her. ‘He’s a good whip, this driver. Knows his stuff, and the horses could find their way blindfolded.’
Hot and sticky, she longed to strip down to her petticoat, to feel the refreshing coolness of a wet flannel. By the sour smell that had wafted from some of the men on the coach — indeed, one or two of the other women, too — they’d not seen a bath, let alone sat in one, for quite some time. She worried that their stench might have attached itself to her. Smelling like a navvy was not the first impression she wanted to give her new employer.
She entered the hotel, wrinkling her nose at the potent mix of stale odours: tobacco, beer, Macassar oil, ripe male sweat, furniture polish and, underlying it all, lye soap. She hesitated in the foyer, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light before making her way to the bar. Mrs Minnie Cullen, the proprietor, fell upon her with undisguised relief.
‘Ah, now, bless me. You’ll be Anne Gilpin, our new barmaid,’ she said, leading her behind the bar. ‘You’re here not a moment too soon, I can tell you. I’ve not had a moment to myself these past two weeks since our last girl took to her heels and left us in the lurch without so much as a goodbye.’ She pointed to a bare space under the counter. ‘You can leave your luggage and hat there. I’ll show you to your room later, but for now there’s work to be done.’
Anne’s heart sank at the thought of having to postpone her longed-for wash. But she managed what she hoped was a willing smile and, closely watched by Mrs Cullen, proceeded to see to the patrons impatiently waiting for their drinks.
As the night progressed, one man in particular caught Anne’s attention. None too sober when he entered the bar, he kept his own company, and seemed bent on drinking the pub dry. He downed his pints at twice the rate of the other men. Several hours later, his face had taken on the blank, imbecilic expression of the grossly inebriated. Fumbling in his jacket pocket, he pulled out some coins and placed them on the counter. ‘Another one,’ he muttered.
Minnie Cullen, in the middle of serving another patron, looked up. ‘I’ll see to him,’ she called to Anne. ‘Now, Bert,’ Minnie said in a no-nonsense tone. ‘I’ll have five shillings, if you please.’
‘Ah … you’re a hard woman, Mishus Cullen, that you are,’ the man slurred. ‘Don’t know why I don’t take me cush-cushtom elsewhere, I don’t.’
‘Hmph,’ Minnie snorted. ‘You know full well why you don’t. You’ve outstayed your welcome in every other establishment in the town.’
Mumbling under his breath, he felt in his pocket again, pulled out some more coins and flung them across the bar.
‘Thank you.’ Minnie picked up the coins and handed them to Anne. ‘Take these to the front door, will you? You’ll find his wife’s waiting. Agnes Roberts. She’ll be after the money.’
Anne made her way through the crowded bar to the foyer. As Minnie had said, a woman was waiting outside, her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks accentuated by the gaslight. Five children, steps and stairs in height, barefoot and shivering, stood around her.
‘Are you Agnes Roberts?’ Anne asked.
The woman nodded, her eyes not quite meeting Anne’s.
Anne handed her the coins. ‘Mrs Cullen said to give you this.’
‘Thank you,’ Agnes Roberts said quietly, an air of dignity to her bearing that her impoverished circumstances had not managed to eradicate. Noticing Anne’s gaze lingering on her collar, she pulled her shawl tighter, but not before Anne had seen how worn it was and the neatly sewn patches on her bodice.
‘Come now,’ Agnes Roberts said to her children, ‘we must be off.’ She turned. For a moment, one side of her face was fully illuminated by the gaslight. Anne held in a gasp, realising the dark colouring under and around one of the woman’s eyes was a large bruise. She opened her mouth to say — what? Resentment emanated from the other woman in great waves. Sympathy would not help her plight; rather it would rub salt in her wounds.
‘Perhaps I’ll see you again,’ Anne said, instantly wanting to curl with embarrassment at her unthinking remark.
‘No doubt,’ the other woman replied, sombre faced. As she walked off, Anne was aware of her peculiar shuffling gait. A closer glance revealed she was wearing a pair of men’s boots, much too large for her.
It was near midnight by the time the bar was cleared of customers and cleaned. Aching with weariness, Anne followed Minnie Cullen up the stairs and along the passage to a room at the end, which she was to have to herself.
‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a time of it on your first day.’ Minnie opened the door, allowing Anne to enter the small bedroom, made to seem even smaller by the blood-red paper and elaborate white lily frieze on the walls. ‘It’s just that, as I’ve already told you, our last barmaid got herself an offer too good to refuse and took off sudden like. We’ve been rushed off our feet since.’
‘A person must take their chances as they come, I suppose,’ Anne commented, more out of politeness than any real interest. Sinking down on the bed, she ran her palms down the small of her back, easing her cramped muscles. She stared around the room, crowded with a washstand in the corner by the door, a wardrobe on the other side and a small cabinet squeezed in between the bed and the wall. And as if to prove that the landlady was not inclined to let a piece of floor sit idle, a cane chair had been slotted against the wall between the wardrobe and the cabinet.
Minnie Cullen sniffed. ‘’Tis true enough, but a little consideration for others would not have gone amiss. To stay with us a week or two longer until we’d managed to replace her would have helped. But no, first man of means comes calling and off she goes with not a thought for a person other than madam.’
Too tired to think of an appropriate response, Anne gave a sympathetic nod of her head.
Minnie pointed to the washstand. ‘You’ll find the water jug’s full if you’ve the energy to wash, though I’ll be leaving my own ablutions till the morning, lest I fall asleep with my nose in the water.’
She cocked her head, eyed Anne’s dress; in particular the high neckline with its frill resting under her chin. ‘Have you nothing a trifle lower? That’s tidy enough for out and about, but it’s not what my customers are used to.’
Embarrassed at the thought of exposing undue amounts of flesh, Anne put a hand to her breast as if she were already doing so and shook her head.
‘Ah, there’s no need to upset y’self,’ Minnie hastened to add, seeing Anne’s sudden high colour. ‘I’m not expecting you to flaunt yourself; indeed, I should frown upon y’doing so, let me make that clear. But I have to say you look more like a parson’s wife in that dress than a barmaid. Not the best for business.’
Anne looked at the other woman in dismay. She knew her cotton dress, a dark maroon colour, was not as fashionable as satin or taffeta, but it was practical and hard-wearing. She’d not given a thought to its suitability for bar work and even if she had, she could never have afforded to have another dress made.
‘I do have another one,’ she said, ‘but it’s the same as this, save for the colour.’
‘Which is?’
‘Navy — and I cannot afford to buy new dresses,’ Anne added hastily.
‘Ah … well then, I tell you what we’ll do,’ Minnie said. Her gaze narrowed as it swept over Anne’s bodice. ‘We’ll send you off to a seamstress first thing tomorrow and see what she’s able to do with the ones you have. I’ll pay the cost of the alterations and you can pay me back at two shillings a week.’ Turning to leave, she stopped and held up a glass.
‘Nearly forgot — a nightcap I’ve made for you. I have a drop of port myself every night, seeing’s I don’t sleep well without a tipple. But I thought a concoction of ale and brandy with a touch of nutmeg and sugar to sweeten might do you more good tonight, since you’re bound to be feeling the pain of your journey.’ Not bothering to hide a yawn so wide her tonsils were clearly visible, Minnie placed the glass on the bedside cabinet and left the room.
Anne unpacked her case, put her nightshift aside and quickly placed her few clothes in the drawer under the wardrobe. Eyeing the jug on the washstand with relief, she filled the bowl with water and stripped to her bare skin.
It had been an odd sort of evening, and taxing. She’d never done bar work before — would never have imagined herself working in a hotel. Not with her problem. But without a character reference from her previous employer she’d been able to find no other employment. Tonight, she’d not only pleased Minnie Cullen with the speed with which she’d picked up the knack of pouring a pint and totting up the cost of customers’ shouts, she’d surprised herself, she thought with a glow of tired satisfaction.
Enjoying the cool crispness of the flannel on her skin, she took her time washing away the grime of the journey and the stickiness caused by the humidity, something she hadn’t experienced in the much drier heat of Canterbury.
It had been Mrs Looms, the cook at Ashleigh Downs where Anne had previously worked, who had volunteered her for the barmaid’s job at her cousin’s hotel.
‘Shouldn’t let a little thing like that worry you,’ Mrs Looms had said, grinning, when Anne protested her lack of experience. And tonight she’d realised why. It seemed that single women, pretty or plain, were soon whisked off by bachelors desperate for home comforts, leaving hoteliers short of barmaids, and grand folk crying out for maids and the like.
About to climb into bed, her gaze fell on the nightcap Minnie had left. Saliva pooled in her mouth. She reached for the glass and held it tightly. A few drops of the alcohol slopped over the rim of the glass as her hand trembled. A vision of her previous employer’s face, coldly contemptuous as she’d given Anne her marching orders, flashed into her mind. Before she could change her mind, she pushed up the window and threw the contents of the glass onto the ground below.