from Best Stories Under the Sun 2004
Copyright © Carmel Bird
2004.
All rights reserved.
What
World is This
–
As Revealed In Jane’s Journal and Margaret’s Thoughts
–
ONE
The
Journal of Jane Wordsworth
younger
daughter of
Lady
Charlotte Wordsworth of Carrickvale
Convenor
of the
Ladies’
Committee for the Promotion of the Emigration of Single Women
to
1832
In
the morning, quite early, Sarah and I had the great pleasure of
selecting the fabrics for our new opera cloaks – rose velvet for
Sarah and white cashmere with swansdown for myself. We visited
also the French milliner in
Mama
has explained to us (at great length and in some detail) that
there is a shortage of servants and also of wives within the
society of the Colony, and that these young women, who have
applied for free passage at the expense of the Trust, are
generally without family or marriage portion, and are seeking a
respectable future for themselves within the Colony where they
will be welcomed by the Hobart-town Chapter of the Ladies’
Committee. Sarah and I have imagined that the same young women
must be truly courageous and adventurous, and we were most keenly
interested to meet them and to observe them at close quarters.
We
met first of all Aunt Georgiana and Mrs Jamieson (who is a most
imposing lady, not a little terrifying – Sarah became very
subdued which is of course an unusual state of affairs, causing
Mama to look at her once or twice with concern) in a little
courtyard beneath two enormous chestnut trees which darkened the
afternoon at once and made us long for the open air and freedom
and sunshine of Carrickvale. Then before much time had passed we
found ourselves inside a gloomy building composed it seemed to me
of narrow corridors and hundreds of imposing doors with big brass
handles, all closed. I had the feeling that behind those doors was
a kind of beehive of busy activity, clerks with piles of important
(Sarah said un-important) documents, sorting and scratching away
with their pens and ink, bent over their work with spectacles on
their noses, dead moths in their hair, and worn slippers on their
tapping feet. If we could but open the doors we would discover a
whole world of industry. We hurried on, flowing in a line of
rustling silk and bobbing bonnets behind Mrs Jamieson whose figure
is substantial until we arrived at the Interview Chamber down in
the deepest recesses of the edifice, far far away from the hum and
buzz of London, in a world all its own, in a dark cocoon of
Discussion and Interview and Sorting and Sifting of Persons
Destined for the Colonies.
The
air was hushed, down there, hushed and somehow empty, not
dreaming, not waiting, but stilled. There was an aroma of bitter
oranges. I grew a little afraid and clung to Sarah as we entered
the Interview Chamber proper and took our seats along a green
bench which stretched the length of a mahogany table. On the wall
before us hung a clock, large and round with a brass frame which
had not been cleaned, I believe, for a very long time. It offered
a maritime aspect, and it ticked most audibly, most mournfully in
the sad and silent air, as, one by one the women entered through
another doorway, a dark low door which cut the corner at an angle,
and led, Sarah told me, to stairs which wound down into the cellar
where (who knows how many?) hopeful women wait in expectation of
being called up for the Interview. We saw six of these women in
our morning, and the differences between them were most striking.
All
the women were inmates of the Workhouse, for Mama had quite firmly
decreed that Sarah and myself were not to be witness to Interviews
with those Unfortunates who originated at the Female Penitentiary.
I confess a secret desire to see some of these latter women, as it
is almost impossible for me to imagine Creatures of God’s Earth
more marked by woes and cares than the six women who came before
us this very morning. The oldest one was twenty-five years of age,
the very age of my cousin Alexandra who has so recently married Mr
Davenport. The contrast between dear Alexandra whose complexion is
so fine that it is remarked upon by all who meet her, and whose
hair is indeed the glory of our whole family, and Mary Ann Fiske
was most astonishing to me. For Fiske was suffering from a
twisting of the spine, and showed hands and countenance of such
grimy crinkled and withered aspect it was difficult to look at her
without asking her first to dip her face and hands in the
rain-tub. Mrs
Jamieson, in fact, made a note to speak to the Forewoman in charge
requesting greater attention be paid to the washing of face and
hands before Interview. Her eyes were sad. I would not have wished
Mary Ann Fiske for my servant, although I confess her voice was
gentle enough, and her abilities with needle and thread appeared
to be very satisfactory. She wore a dress of dark stuff, the rips
and tatters of which had been most carefully mended and restored.
Her bonnet appeared to be quite new, and my aunt commented later
that she was of the opinion this had been acquired by means other
than honest. I wondered how one would perhaps steal a bonnet. We,
of course, Sarah and myself, were not called upon to comment at
all. We were simply to observe and later to pray for the wellbeing
of the women who passed before our company. I understand that
Fiske was given a Stamp of Approval by the Committee, and I do
hope and trust that she may find a happier life in
The
youngest woman was she who most drew my interest and attention,
perhaps because she was one year younger than myself, being
fifteen. Her name is Margaret Coffey.
She
was tiny and slender, barefoot, bareheaded. Her hair was thick,
long, untidy and black, and tied up with a rough piece of
chartreuse ribbon which was feathered and frayed from age and use.
Although some of her teeth were darkened, and one was broken, her
smile was truly most beguiling, and her face and hands were small,
soft, and perfectly clean. I tried to imagine how she would look
in a pink cotton gown and a snow white pinafore, and I decided
that she would offer a quite charming appearance – for even in
her dark woollen skirt and shawl she did not look ungraceful. She
spoke briefly, holding her head steady and looking Mama and the
other Ladies in the eye, by turns. Her own eyes were a clear pale
grey, I do confess I have not often seen such pretty eyes. She is,
she explained, an orphan, with no prospects whatsoever, her only
hope, she says, of making her way in the world as a Christian
woman is to travel to the Colonies and take up a position, and
hope to find a good husband among the new countrymen. I had a
vision of a tiny stone church in an avenue of apple trees, and
Margaret was the blushing bride in delicate lace and satin ribbons
with a posy of bright flowers picked from the lanes on her way to
the church. Her husband was a soldier in scarlet coat and
feathered cap. I think it was in fact partly my memory of a
picture in one of my books, a romantic idyll where a poor country
girl finds and weds the good soldier of her dreams.
Are
you quite sure, the Ladies asked her, that you are prepared in
full to leave the places and the people you know and to cross the
seas to an unknown future where life will no doubt be strange and
fraught with difficulties? – for even they, stern matrons as
they may be, were touched by the fragile youthfulness of Margaret
Coffey, and feared for her safety and happiness. She replied:
“The people I know would wish me ill, and the place I live is
the Workhouse.” It was Aunt Charlotte who, after the Interviews,
said: “What hope is there, after all, for the poor little thing
in the Streets of London?” And I thought to myself, what hope
indeed. And so I was persuaded that it was the right and proper
thing for Margaret Coffey to join Mary Ann Fiske and the other
four women as a Female Passenger on board the Princess
Royal when she sails for
TWO
The
Thoughts
of
Margaret
Coffey
As
she Goes
From
the Interview to the Journey to the Arrival in
Up
from the cellar, into the Room of Interview. Sunlight bright in
the window. I am feeling brave and I speak out for myself. Coo,
coo from my shy cocoon. Behind the dark bench three ladies and two
girls. Yellow bonnets, pink cheeks, cherry lips, the girls are
staring, the girls are smirking. Black bonnets, beady eyes, lips
like the beaks of blackbirds, the women. Soft silky gowns of pale
blue cloud, the girls are softly whispering. Crackle and cackle
and big mulberry capes, edged with rustling taffeta, dark blue,
deep wine, the ladies, midnight green, with lockets of gold and
silver and bracelets and rings and heavy, heavy timepieces. Tick
tock ticker ticker tocker. What time is it, what day is it, what
world is this? What is your name and how old are you and where did
you live and who is your father and why do you want to go to
Hobart-Town? Are you healthy? Do you sew? Do you cook, sweep,
dust, polish, carry coals and water? How old? Fifteen? You must be
an orphan. You may get in line and be listed and tagged and
bundled and bullied and bruised and boxed on board the floating
palace for brides-in-waiting, servants in disguise. The Princess
Royal will be sailing soon, billowing, sailing away across the
horizon, across the world, across the waters, the oceans, the
seas. Dangerous journey. The bottom of the ocean is a long long
way, way, way down at the bottom with the fishes. To find a
situation. To find a husband. To find something good in the world.
What world is this? The ship moves out from the known world into
the unknown world, an unknown world floating on an unknown
world-sea. My head spins round, my guts spill out, my legs are
weak, I can not see the land. In my mind I run and run like a
mouse in an attic, flittering, searching for crumbs, for crumblets,
for warmth, for comfort, for safety. The sailors run at me, eyes
wild, their arms around me. In the daylight, in the dark. I run
and I run and I run from the sailors, from the Surgeon. I run to
the Matron. I hide behind her. She drags me out. She hands me to
the Surgeon like a parcel of washing, like a cottage pie, like a
bundle of rags. I am a bundle of rags. The Surgeon uses me like a
bundle of rags. I scream and the ship rolls and I scream and I run
and I fly. I am flying along, rags fluttering, flapping, a broken
insect limping on the deck where the high waves break in the
roaring darkness and the Surgeon gives me to the sailors and the
sailors use me like a broken insect in a bundle of rags and I weep
in the darkness as the ship rolls on, as the sails billow salt in
the afternoon breeze, and hundreds of flying fish leap in the
light. Look, look, the sailors cry, look at the flying fish. They
are a good omen. Look, they say, this one, this girl, she’s our
figurehead, and they throw me up, up, a broken stick in a bundle
of rags in the afternoon sunlight, and I fall like a stone on the
deck. Slipping and sliding. Salt, sea, sun, tears, blood, loud
laughter and a great shouting in my ears. But the wounds heal. I
am whole and astonished and sad. And on dry Van Diemen’s Land I
meet again the self-same ladies in the self-same bonnets and capes
of mulberry rustling and bustling and who are you and what is your
name and what is your age and why are you such a little whore and
how could it be that you are so bad and we have decided to tip you
out and turn you loose and give you the freedom of the streets to
beg your way and whore your way and find your way and may God have
mercy on your soul and we are most highly disappointed in this
cargo of lewd and lopsided women with the limping legs and the
sloping backs and the broken wings of crumpled crazy crack-pot
moth-faced butterfly wishbone sluts. What time is it, what day is
it, what world is this? What world is this?
.............
Return to homepage