Christina Kline - The Exiles

Out on the open ocean, the water was white-tipped and choppy. It sprayed in their faces and sudsed over the sides as the small sloop plunged and turned. The captain began putting her to work, untangling the rigging, steadying the tiller while he adjusted the sails. He showed her how to clean the metal grill and nurse the coals to keep the fire going in the cook box. He told her he was assigning her the job of watch stander—when he needed a nap, or a break, she was to keep her eyes open for trouble. She grew to enjoy the work, an antidote to boredom. Her favorite moments were when the captain was asleep. Her senses sharp, she scanned the horizon and stoked the fire.

She began doing these tasks without being asked and he began to assume she would do them. “They say your people can’t be taught, but look at ye,” he said.

When the sky darkened, she pulled the fur cape around her shoulders and gazed up in search of Droemerdene, the bright southern star, allowing herself to close her eyes only when she’d found him.

It was late afternoon when The Cormorant entered Storm Bay and made its way up the River Derwent toward Hobart Town. As they approached the harbor, surrounded by shrieking gulls, Mathinna tied down the bow dock line and the stern line. The captain let out the main sheet, slowing the sloop, and guided it gently toward a mooring. While he did this, she gathered her things, tucked Waluka into the basket, and covered him with the wallaby skin. She changed into a plain white dress with small pleats around the bodice, the one she’d been told to save for their arrival. She’d been barefoot for the entire journey, and the skin on the soles of her feet was as tough as horsehide. Now she slipped on the soft leather shoes. They felt strange, like bonnets on her feet.

Standing on the cobblestones at the wharf, holding her basket, she took tentative steps, trying to regain her balance after so many days at sea. She’d never seen such a swarm of activity. Men shouting at each other, women peddling wares, dogs barking, gulls squawking, horses whinnying and tossing their manes. Bleating goats and grunting pigs. The briny smell of seaweed, a whiff of horse manure, the earthy sweetness of roasting chestnuts. Against the side of a building, a cluster of men in garish yellow-and-black costumes stood toeing the dirt. When she looked closer, she saw that they were chained together.

Hearing the captain’s distinctive laugh, Mathinna turned. He was several feet away, talking with two men wearing red uniforms, muskets slung over their shoulders. He raised his chin toward her. “That’s the one.”

“Ye hardly need to point ’er out.”

“Where’re her parents?”

“No parents,” the captain said.

The first soldier nodded. “Just as well.”

The captain crouched in front of her. “It’s time to hand ye off. These two will take ye where ye need to go.” He lingered for a moment as if he wanted to say more. Then he nodded at her basket. “Glad we didn’t have to eat your possum.”

The seats of the open carriage—horsehair, dyed royal blue—were slippery. Mathinna had to grip the armrest to keep from sliding onto the floor. The horses’ hooves made a slurping noise as they clip-clopped along cobblestones slick with mud. Looking back at the wharf receding into the distance as they jolted away, Mathinna felt more alone than she had ever been in her life. No one in this strange place looked like her. No one.

Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, Australia, 1840

The horses turned down a short drive and lurched to a stop in front of a long, two-story, cream-colored building with blue trim and a wide front porch. One of the soldiers jumped down and lifted Mathinna out of the carriage. Instead of setting her on the stone apron of the driveway, he carried her to the entry stairs. “You’re a proper lady, I’m told,” he said in an exaggerated show of deference. “Wouldn’t do to muddy your hem.”

Mathinna craned her neck to look around. Though she’d never seen such a large and stately building, she felt oddly at ease, as if she were stepping into an etching in a book she’d read with the schoolteacher.

A stout middle-aged woman wearing a gray dress and a white apron and cap appeared on the porch. “Hello, Mathinna,” she said, inclining her head. “We’ve been expecting you. I am Mrs. Crain, the housekeeper. This is Government House. Your new . . . home.”

The schoolteacher on Flinders had a housekeeper, an old missionary woman who made his bed and prepared his breakfast. Mathinna had always ignored her. But she didn’t know the customs of this place. Was she expected to curtsy? She curtsied.

“Don’t waste your fine manners on me,” Mrs. Crain scoffed. “I’m the one should be bowing to you, I suppose. A princess, I hear!” She raised her eyebrows at the soldiers. “Lady Franklin and her fancies!”

Hoisting the steamer trunk on his shoulder, one of them said, “Where d’ye want the lady’s dowry?”

“Drop it at the servants’ entrance. I doubt there’s much to salvage.” Turning back to Mathinna, Mrs. Crain frowned, assessing her. “Come with me. I’ll find a maid to draw a bath. We’ll need to make you presentable before Lady Franklin takes one look and changes her mind.”

The old wooden tub had been a horse’s trough, the housemaid, Sarah, told Mathinna. Rubbing Mathinna’s back and arms with a rough brick of lye soap, she said, “I was instructed to wash ye tip to toe. Mrs. Crain said be quick about it, so there was no time to heat the water.”

Hunched in the tub, her teeth chattering, Mathinna nodded.

“Next is supper, and then you’re to see Lady Franklin,” Sarah said, lifting Mathinna’s arm and swiping the soap underneath. “Mrs. Wilson is the cook. She’s a good sort. Most of us housemaids are here because of her. She was at the Cascades for more’n a decade.”

Mathinna flinched as Sarah squeezed a cold cloth over her shoulders. “What’s the Cascades?”

“Stay still, I have to rinse ye. It’s a prison. They call it the female factory. Horrible place. Though not as bad as Flinders, from what I hear. Now raise your chin.”

Mathinna looked up as Sarah scrubbed her neck. She remembered what the captain had said about the convicts at Port Arthur—that they were ruthless; they’d cut your throat as soon as they’d look at you. She thought of the men she’d seen at the wharf, shuffling along in their shackles. “I didn’t know there were lady convicts.”

Sarah made a face. “We’re hardly ladies.”

Mathinna gazed at Sarah, with her curly brown hair and bright blue eyes, her neat gray dress. She seemed harmless enough, but who knew? “Did you murder somebody?”

Sarah laughed. “Only in me heart.” Wringing out the cloth, she said, “Murderers aren’t allowed out on day release. They pick tar out of rope in their cells all day long. Ruins your fingers. Best reason I can think of not to kill somebody.”

After the bath, Sarah dressed Mathinna in a white petticoat, a pink gabardine dress, and white stockings, and smoothed her hair with oil. When she handed her a pair of stiff black shoes, Mathinna balked. “Ye have to put ’em on. I’ll be in trouble if ye don’t,” Sarah said.

Though she’d dressed in the British style on Flinders, Mathinna had never worn lace-up shoes. She put them on, but Sarah had to tie them.

Before they left the room, Sarah inspected her, pulling up a stocking and adjusting her petticoat. “Miss Eleanor got a lot of wear out of this dress,” she mused, fingering a frayed hem.

“Miss Eleanor?”

“Sir John’s daughter. This is her hand-me-down. She’s seventeen. You’ll meet her soon enough. She’s a plain girl, god bless her, but at least now her dresses come from London.”