Cold blows the wind, p.1
Cold Blows the Wind, page 1
COLD BLOWS THE WIND
Catherine Meyrick
Courante Publishing
Table of Contents
Title Page
Cold Blows the Wind
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Epilogue
Historical Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Catherine Meyrick
Copyright ©2022 Catherine Meyrick
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. References to historical events, real people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Courante Publishing, Melbourne, Australia.
courantepublishing@gmail.com
Cover Design by Nada Backovic
Cover Photo by Lauren Rautenbach | Arcangel Images
Image: Hobart from the Bay by J. W. Beattie, courtesy of the State Library of Victoria.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
ISBN-13: 978-0648250845
ISBN: 0648250845
This book is written in Australian English, both formal and vernacular, and uses Australian grammar, spelling and publishing conventions.
For
Sarah and Francis
Between 1803 and 1853, approximately 75,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen’s Land; of these, 13,500 were women. Sentences served, many went on to lives of comparative comfort and respectability, far better than they would have had in the British Isles, from where most of them had come. Others did not—their lives and those of their children were marked by poverty and hardship similar to that found throughout Britain at this time. Yet, despite their struggles, in the fresh air and clear light of Tasmania, as Van Diemen’s Land was called from 1856, many retained and passed on to their children a zest for life and a healthy disrespect for the pretensions of their so-called betters that helped see them through the worst of times.
Chapter 1
March 1878
Ellen looked down at her open hand and pressed her lips tightly together. Her palm was reddened by scrubbing that had failed to remove the blacking from the creases. She was supposed to do washing, ironing and, if there wasn’t enough of that, dusting and odd jobs, not cleaning and painting stoves and fire grates. If she didn’t get the black paste off, there would be stains on everything she touched, including Mrs Bryce’s fancy white tablecloths.
Ellen continued to stare down as Mrs Bryce carefully counted coins into her hand. She had given her two shillings extra. Ellen paused—should she say something? Was the old bat testing her?
She slowly raised her eyes. ‘That’s too much, Mrs Bryce.’
‘I am paying you what you are worth, Ellen.’
Ellen couldn’t keep her eyebrows from shooting up.
Mrs Bryce smiled sweetly, as if she meant what she was saying. ‘When Mrs Turner visited last week, she complimented me on the table napkins, not only their whiteness but the way they were ironed and folded. It seems her girl is nowhere near as competent as you are.’ Her pale eyelashes fluttered as she spoke. ‘And when I heard what she was paying her, I thought I should give you a little more.’
Ellen fought against a bubble of laughter. Mrs Bryce was afraid Mrs Turner, or one of her other friends, would lure her away. Mrs Turner was likely paying her girl three shillings more.
As if she could read Ellen’s mind, Mrs Bryce said, ‘Now don’t be getting ideas about leaving here. Most would not be as understanding as I have been. Not everyone agrees with me, but if we don’t give honest work to girls like you, we know what you will end up doing to make ends meet.’
The smug old bitch, she wouldn’t let it go. One day Ellen would tell her exactly where she could shove her job.
She forced a polite smile. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bryce. I’ll be back on Monday. My hands should be properly clean by then.’
Mrs Bryce nodded. ‘Yes, they should.’ She paused, her eyelashes fluttering faster than before, as if she was thinking hard. ‘Rather than employing a new girl to do the fireplaces, you could do them. I want them done thoroughly. You could come in on Fridays.’
Ellen frowned. ‘For the same pay?’
‘No, my dear, I will give you one shilling and sixpence extra, on top of what I have paid you today.’
Mrs Bryce winced as Ellen whistled.
Ellen smiled, genuinely this time. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bryce.’ What she could do with three shillings and sixpence extra! Start getting winter clothes for Billy and perhaps have enough left over for herself.
~
Ellen hummed as she walked along Liverpool Street, stopping to stare into the large windows of Mather’s store and Perkins and Nephew’s with their displays of pretty hats—straw and felt, decorated with ribbons and brightly dyed feathers. She sighed—even with her extra shillings she could never buy one of these. Still, she could buy some ribbon or flowers at one of the cheaper drapers and tidy her old hat. She hugged her shawl tighter, a sharp breeze tugging at her skirts despite the bright sunshine.
She stopped and waited on the footpath as a horse was led out from the blacksmith’s, still dreaming of what she would buy if she could save her extra shillings for a few weeks. Perhaps she could get a new pair of gloves, dark ones that wouldn’t show the stains. She strolled across Barrack Street and moved to the edge of the footpath, thinking to cross to the other side of Liverpool Street.
‘Hey, Ellen!’ A voice cut through her daydreams. ‘Come and have a drink with us.’
Damn! She should have crossed the road earlier.
A group of young men stood outside the Rob Roy Inn, jostling each other and laughing. Work was finished for the day or, more probably, they had slept in and fronted up late so they hadn’t been taken on. They clearly had nothing better to do than drink and annoy passing women.
Ellen kept walking. ‘You are joking, Dan Rogers.’
‘Don’t be like that, sweetheart.’ A gangly youth of Ellen’s age slid his arm around her waist.
‘Go to buggery. I’m not your sweetheart.’ She elbowed him sharply and watched for a break in the stream of carts and buggies heading up and down the street.
‘Don’t give yourself airs, sweetheart,’ he sneered. ‘We all know what you’re like.’
Ellen turned, her eyes blazing. ‘You bastard!’
‘You’d know all about bastards,’ he said, a smirk on his narrow ratty face.
Ellen stalked towards him, thumping her hands against his shoulders.
Rogers stumbled back against the wall of the pub.
‘You watch what you say, you little turd. My brothers will be back any day.’
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple wobbling. ‘I’m not scared of them.’
It was Ellen’s turn to smirk. ‘I heard, last time, Will only had to look at you and you pissed your pants.’
She marched away from him, across the street, dodging a pile of horse manure.
‘You showed her, mate.’ The laughter rumbled behind her but, this time at least, it wasn’t directed at her.
~
Ellen slammed through the door into the kitchen, pulling the pins from her hat, her light brown hair tumbling down.
‘Why are there so
many bloody useless loafers in this town?’ She stabbed the hatpins back into her hat and placed it on the battered sideboard alongside her mother’s hat, the pile of her father’s old newspapers and an assortment of other bits and pieces no one could work out where to put.
Mam turned from the stove, a gleam of amusement in her dark eyes. ‘What’s happened, my love?’
‘Dan Rogers and his mates, outside the Rob Roy, giving me lip.’ Ellen ran her fingers through her thick hair and twisted it back into a neatish knot.
‘And you gave them a piece of your mind,’ her father said from behind his week-old newspaper.
Her two youngest sisters, Alice and Jane, sitting at the end of the table, paused their game of cat’s cradle and watched, trying not to grin.
‘I did.’ Ellen raised her chin. ‘No one messes with a Thompson.’
‘No.’ Her father looked over his paper, his hazel eyes fierce. ‘They do not.’
‘And Mrs Bryce,’ Ellen said, pushing the last of her hairpins into place, ‘had me blacking the fireplaces. She said there wasn’t enough ironing today, so it was either do the fireplaces or not get paid at all. Said it like she was doing me a favour.’
‘Money’s money, Ellen.’ Dad lowered his newspaper.
‘But, Dad, look at my hands.’ She held them out. ‘Her and her blasted fireplaces. Next thing she’ll have me emptying her piss pot.’
Her father raised his voice. ‘Language, girl.’
‘You can talk.’
‘I’m an old man—I can say and do as I like.’ He lifted his paper again. ‘You’re little more than a young wench.’
Knowing he couldn’t see her, Ellen poked her tongue out.
Jane and Alice stared at each other, stifling their giggles.
Bessie, two years younger than Ellen, sat by the window, her attention on the seam of the underbodice she was mending.
Her back to the room, Mam stirred the large pot simmering on the stove. ‘You haven’t given her a piece of your mind and lost the job?’
‘No, but it’s beyond me why these old women can’t do their own housework like the rest of us.’
‘You wouldn’t have a job if they did.’ Mary Ann, her elder sister, walked in and dumped her hat beside Ellen’s.
Mary Ann was so damned practical.
‘You haven’t spent the day cleaning fireplaces. Do you know how many fireplaces that house has?’
‘There are days where I think I’d prefer cleaning fireplaces to dusting china dogs and vases.’ Mary Ann pulled a face and said in a plummy voice, ‘That plate is Wedgwood, my dear. It is worth more than you are ever likely to earn in a year.’
‘What’s the point of that?’ Alice asked.
Mary Ann shrugged. ‘It’s pretty, but not much use if you can’t eat off it.’ She raised an eyebrow, grinning. ‘So what are her unmentionables like?’
‘Drawers big enough to make a sail for a clipper.’
‘Show some respect,’ Dad laughed.
‘The table needs to be set,’ Mam called over her shoulder.
Mary Ann looked across at the younger girls. ‘Come on, you two, get on with it.’
Jane spread the cloth on the table, and Alice set the cutlery. Bessie was still sewing, off in a world of her own.
‘Bessie, wake up.’ Mary Ann raised her voice. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t had an accident at Peacock’s the way you wander about in a dream.’
Colour spread up Bessie’s cheeks. ‘I don’t work in the tin shop or make the jam. I pack the tins into crates.’ She walked over and put her sewing on the sideboard. She took out the plates and carried them to her mother. ‘And I concentrate on what I do,’ she added, scowling.
Ellen watched her sister, back at the table now cutting slices from a loaf of bread, her head down, her chin puckered as if she were about to cry. Although she had her mother’s dark eyes, Bessie seemed to lack the fight Mam and the rest of the Thompsons had and, of all the girls, was the one most likely to be bossed about by Mary Ann. There was nothing Ellen could do to help her.
She glanced around the room. ‘How’s my darling boy been today?’
‘A perfect angel,’ Mam said. ‘He’s still asleep in the front room.’
‘I hope that doesn’t mean he will be awake half the night.’
She walked out of the kitchen and into the front room that was both sitting room and bedroom for her brothers when they were at home. Bending over the cot in the corner of the room, she gently crooned to the sleeping child. ‘Time to wake up, Billy boy. Time to have tea.’
Ellen scooped him up, covering his cheeks with kisses as he squirmed and grizzled.
‘Who’s got a wet bottom?’ She bounced him gently. ‘We’d better fix that.’
His napkin changed, she carried him back to the kitchen.
Alice, at eight already a sure hand with her nephew, held out her arms. Ellen placed him on her lap and pressed her nose to Billy’s head, drinking in the blissful scent that was her baby boy.
Alice grinned into Billy’s face as he reached for her nose. She poked his with her finger. Billy blew little bubbles back at her.
Over at the stove, Ellen spooned a small portion of the stew—more potato than meat—into a dish, mashed it with a fork and set it on the table to cool. An apron covering her dark work dress, she slid onto the bench beside Alice and took the child back, jigging him on her knee as he started to grizzle again.
‘You’re hungry, aren’t you, my little darling? Let’s see if this is cool enough.’ She stirred the stew around, tested a spoonful against her lip, and offered it to the baby.
Billy opened his mouth and willingly swallowed it down.
Mam began to ladle the stew onto plates, and Bessie and Jane placed them on the table. Dad put his paper aside as the rest seated themselves on the benches and assorted chairs either side of the table.
Ellen ate a mouthful of her stew, then continued to feed Billy.
‘I wonder where Will is now,’ Mary Ann said.
Dad finished chewing. ‘Out in the middle of the ocean. They can go months without making land. He said this would be a long tour.’
Mam’s eyes shone but she said brightly, ‘George should be home soon.’
They all turned as the front door slammed.
‘Speak of the devil,’ Dad laughed.
‘George,’ the young women all squealed together, jumping up from their seats and crowding around their brother.
‘My, you do smell sweet.’ Ellen stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, Billy on her hip.
‘Of course I do.’ He dumped his kitbag against the wall. ‘I’ve been to the Turkish baths and had a shave. A new set of clothes too.’ He spun in front of her. ‘What do you think of the jacket?’
Ellen ran her eyes over the single-breasted jacket in blue checked wool. ‘Very smart.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘I can still smell whale oil.’
‘Smell or no smell, it pays well.’ He looked around the room. ‘Will not here?’
‘He’s been and gone in the time you’ve been away,’ Dad said. ‘Off on the Emily Downing at the start of the month.’
‘Sit down, son.’ Mam was back at the stove, ladling stew onto a plate. ‘Bessie, cut your brother some bread.’
‘Shove up, Ellen.’ George sat on the bench beside Ellen. ‘I could eat a horse.’
‘No horse in the pot here,’ Mam snorted.
George turned to Ellen, his eyes on the child on her lap. ‘And who do we have here?’
‘Your nephew.’
‘Who’s the father?’
There was silence in the room.
‘You are blunt, aren’t you?’ Ellen said, a twist to her mouth.
‘Well,’ George grinned, ‘I’ve learnt babies don’t just appear on the doorstep.’
‘That mongrel John Collins.’
‘And he didn’t marry you.’ It was a statement not a question.
‘No, and I wouldn’t have him if he was served up on a platter with an apple in his mouth.’
‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’
‘He cleared out soon as I told him. Didn’t give Will or Dad a chance to have a serious word with him.’
‘What’s the lad called?’ He grinned at the boy and took his chubby fingers in his, shaking them gently.
Billy eyed his uncle warily and buried his face against Ellen’s shoulder.
‘William John Thompson.’
‘Not George—I am disappointed.’
