WHENEVER she walked down Adelaide’s North Terrace, Nellie O’Neill liked to imagine that she was a fine lady in a silk dress. The street was so wide and clean – hardly a pinch of rubbish on it anywhere. Nellie loved looking at the grand new villas with their big gardens, and the promenade, and the newly planted street trees. Best of all was Government House. Almost like a palace, it was, with the Union Jack flying bravely from its flagpole.

Right now Nellie could picture herself, in her beautiful silk dress, knocking on the door of that big stone building. The Governor and his wife would be so pleased to see her. They’d invite her in for cake and hot cocoa, and how lovely that would be! She could almost feel the warmth of the cup in her hands, and taste the sweetness of the cocoa.

But as she made her way down her favourite street on this windy, rainy morning, even the thought of cake and hot cocoa couldn’t make Nellie happy. She was cold and wet. And she and her friend Mary Connell weren’t fine ladies at all, but poor Irish servant girls with no home and no jobs.

Rain swept down, dripping off their cotton bonnets and soaking into their shawls. Mary walked more and more slowly. She didn’t complain, but Nellie could see that each step was an effort for her.

‘Keep your spirits up, angel,’ Nellie said. ‘It’s not far to the Depot. We’ll find work there right away, I’m sure of it.’

‘We have no references from the mistress, Nell, to say we have any skill or experience. How shall we ever find jobs without them?’

‘References are nothing but pieces of paper. I can tell them you are the best nursery maid ever to leave Ireland, and that’s no more than the truth. And you can say that I have a flaming Irish temper to go with my red Irish hair, but I’m a good hard worker all the same.’

Mary shivered as a gust of wind made her stagger. ‘If only I could feel warm again,’ she said, through chattering teeth. ‘Even my bones are cold.’

‘Sure, it’s chilly enough to freeze the tail off a goat. But maybe there’ll be a great big fire waiting for us at the Depot. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing?’

At last they reached the Immigration Depot, the building that served as a hiring house for the Irish orphan girls shipped out to the colony. Nellie saw that there was indeed a fire in the fireplace of the front room, but it was nothing like the cheerful blaze she’d imagined. The gum-tree logs were too green to burn properly, and clouds of smoke made Mary cough till she was so exhausted she could hardly stand.

Nellie looked around her, and her hope that she and Mary would easily find new jobs faded away. The room was already full of girls and young women, most of them crowded on benches that backed onto the walls. There was a strong smell of wet wool and unwashed bodies.

A sturdy girl in a mud-spattered dress stood up to give Mary a seat. ‘The poor thing,’ she whispered to Nellie. ‘It’s a shocking cough she has. Does she have the influenza, do you think, or is it something worse?’

‘It’s just the smoke that’s getting to her,’ Nellie said, carefully lowering Mary onto the bench. ‘There, angel. You’ll be as right as rain in a minute. Take some deep breaths, now.’

The other girl looked at Mary curiously. ‘She don’t look well,’ she said. ‘If it was me, I’d be home in bed.’

Nellie pretended she hadn’t heard, but the girl refused to be put off. ‘So what brings you two here?’ she asked. ‘Trouble with the mistress, was it? They can be devils, can’t they?’

Nellie shrugged. She still couldn’t quite believe that only yesterday she and Mary had lost their jobs at the big house on East Terrace, and she certainly didn’t want to talk about it.

‘I’m a dairymaid myself,’ said the girl. ‘And I’d be one still if my master hadn’t upped sticks and gone off to the copper mines. There’s more money in copper than cows, he said. I’m from Tipperary, and before the Hunger –’

She broke off as the Depot supervisor, Mr Lang, came in, followed by a small group of men and women. Nellie looked at them curiously: would one of them be her new master or mistress?

Mr Lang held up a hand for silence, and several dozen bonneted heads turned expectantly towards him.

‘I have very little for you young ladies today,’ said Mr Lang. ‘There are only four positions available. Mr Brownrigg from Mount Barker is looking for two dairymaids with experience. And I require a housemaid with a proper understanding of cleaning methods for Mrs Turnbull in Mitcham Village.’

‘There’s a job I could do,’ Nellie whispered to Mary. ‘I could bring a shine to a doormat, so I could.’

‘And finally Mrs Good in Walkerville is looking for a nursery maid. She wants a girl with knowledge of caring for a young baby. Those of you who qualify for these positions, please come forward.’

‘There we go, Mary,’ said Nellie. ‘I told you we’d be lucky! Mrs Terrible for me, and Mrs Good for you. I think Mrs Terrible is that lady standing next to Mr Lang, the one with a face like a turnip. Off we go, then.’

Mary stood up shakily, brushing down her wet, muddy dress, and she and Nellie made their way towards Mr Lang, now seated at his desk. They stood behind the young woman from Tipperary, who had rushed forward as soon as the job of dairymaid was announced.

Several other girls went up to the desk with them, but the rest didn’t move. ‘What’s the point of it, at all?’ Nellie heard one of them say. ‘If you haven’t a skill or a reference you might as well turn to begging or thieving.’

‘There’s worse occupations,’ agreed another. ‘Peggy Duffy got five shillings the other day.’ She giggled. ‘This daft old eejit gave her a shilling, and when he turned away she fiddled the rest out of his pocket. He never felt a thing.’

Nellie was shocked. She remembered Peggy Duffy from the Elgin, the ship on which they’d sailed to Adelaide. What was Peg doing in town, thieving? Hadn’t she found employment in the Adelaide Hills? Maybe she’d fallen out with her mistress, too.

No matter what the reason, stealing from others was a terrible thing to do. Nellie knew that she herself would never fall so low.

‘Name?’ Mr Lang asked, pen poised over the ledger in front of him.

‘If you please, sir, I’m Nellie O’Neill, and I’m after being hired as a housemaid,’ she said. She curtsied quickly in the direction of the turnip-faced woman, and received a faint smile in return.

‘Nellie O’Neill … Nellie O’Neill,’ muttered Mr Lang. ‘I’m sure I remember you.’ He turned back several pages of ledger, and ran his finger down the hand-written columns. ‘Yes! Nellie O’Neill, hired out to Mrs Thompson of Rundle Street on the eleventh of September last year. That would be you?’

‘It would, sir.’

Mr Lang frowned. ‘You are entered here as having taken up the position of kitchen maid,’ he said. ‘Do you have experience as a housemaid?’

‘Oh yes, sir. I can clean anything.’

‘And why are you out of a job, Nellie?’

Nellie bit her lip. ‘It was not my doing, sir. The Thompsons moved to the Burra, and they had no place for me there. After that I found a position with Mrs Lefroy in East Terrace.’

Mr Lang made a note in his ledger. ‘And this is the job you no longer have?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well then, I presume you have a letter of reference?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘The mistress wouldn’t give me one.’

Mr Lang sat back in his chair. ‘Why was that, Nellie?’

‘Um –’

Mary stepped forward, her face very pale. ‘Please, sir, it wasn’t her fault.’

‘And why wasn’t it Nellie’s fault?’

‘She gave up her job, sir, because somebody else was treated unfairly.’

‘And now you expect the Depot to get you out of trouble,’ Mr Lang said irritably. ‘Do you think we have nothing to do but look after young ladies who decide, for some ridiculous personal reason, that they no longer wish to remain in employment?’

Mary was whiter than ever now. ‘No, sir,’ she said.

‘There aren’t enough jobs to go around as it is,’ Mr Lang went on. ‘I trust you understand the position you’re in.’

‘We do, sir. And we’re sorry to be a bother.’ Mary paused, as if about to say more. Then, to Nellie’s horror, she fell to her knees, gasping for breath.

‘Nell,’ she whispered, ‘help me!’