Nellie's Quest Read online

  Contents

  1 STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN

  2 THE INFIRMARY

  3 HELP FROM A FRIEND

  4 SAYING GOODBYE TO MARY

  5 ON THE ROAD TO THE BURRA

  6 LOOKING FOR THE THOMPSONS

  7 THE MONSTER MINE

  8 A HOME IN THE CREEK

  9 NELLIE’S PARTY

  10 LEAVING THE BURRA

  11 THE ROAD HOME

  Nellie’s Quest

  It’s 1850 and Nellie’s best friend, Mary, is gravely ill. To provide Mary with the care she needs, Nellie must break a promise and go on a quest to find the Thompson family. But will they be able to help? And who will Nellie turn to when her own life is in danger?

  Follow Nellie on her adventure in the third of four stories about an Irish girl with a big heart, in search of the freedom to be herself.

  Puffin Books

  Since Irish orphan Nellie O’Neill arrived in South Australia, her new life hasn’t turned out at all as she imagined. A fire burned down the boarding house where she was a maid for the Thompson family, and they had to move to the Burra. Although Tom Thompson wrote to Nellie, inviting her to join them, she didn’t see the letter until it was too late. Then, because of a terrible misunderstanding, both Nellie and her best friend, Mary, were dismissed from their jobs as servants to the wealthy Lefroys. Now the girls have nothing left but hope …

  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!’

  ‘SO Mary Connell is your friend?’ said the doctor. ‘If you were a good friend, you’d have reported her condition weeks ago. How long has she been ill?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir,’ said Nellie, twisting her damp shawl in her hands. It had taken them so long to walk to the Hindley Street Infirmary, Nellie supporting Mary all the way. Now they were here, it seemed hardly worth the effort. The place smelled of disinfectant and human sweat and misery. It reminded Nellie of the Killarney workhouse where she and Mary had lived back in Ireland. She didn’t like the doctor, either. His voice was cold and precise, like Mr Lefroy’s, and he touched Mary’s thin back with the tips of his fingers as if she was dirty.

  ‘Coughs up blood, does she?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir.’ Nellie turned towards Mary. ‘Angel, you haven’t been spitting blood, have you?’

  ‘Just a little, Nell,’ Mary whispered, shamefaced. ‘I didn’t want to bother you.’

  Nellie went cold with shock. This was worse than she’d feared. ‘As if you could bother me! I’d have done something. I’d have asked Trotty to find someone who could help –’

  ‘It’s rather late for that now,’ the doctor said. ‘Miss Connell is suffering from tuberculosis, a very serious disease of the lungs. It’s clear that in her poor condition she will be unable to work, so we shall have to keep her here for a while. I suppose there’s nowhere else she can go? She has no family?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘No friends?’

  ‘Just me, sir.’ Nellie grasped Mary’s hand. ‘But I’ll do anything I can for her.’

  The doctor smiled thinly. ‘Can you give her a home? A warm bed? Nourishing food?’

  Nellie shook her head.

  ‘So how do you propose to look after her? Do you have any money?’

  ‘Just my last wages, sir. Mary has her wages too. The mistress said it was what was due to us, but it didn’t seem like very much.’

  ‘You were almost certainly underpaid, then,’ the doctor said. He added, as if to himself, ‘It’s a crime, the way these ignorant Irish girls are taken advantage of.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Nellie. Perhaps this man wasn’t so bad after all. ‘But we were already in trouble with the mistress, so I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the doctor. ‘I shall put down Mr Lang’s name as the person responsible for Miss Connell’s admission, and your name as her family contact. Would that be correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Nellie said again.

  ‘How old are you, Miss O’Neill?’

  ‘Fourteen, sir.’

  ‘Are you sure? You don’t look it.’

  ‘I’m sure, sir. I turned fourteen in August, while I was travelling here on the ship.’ But Nellie knew that in fact she had turned twelve, and beneath her shawl she crossed her fingers to show the blessed saints she was sorry for the lie.

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Not at present, sir, but I know I’ll find a job before long. I have plenty of experience now, a lot more than I ever had at the workhouse – and the Thompsons, that is, Mrs Thompson who had the boarding house, the one that burned down, said I was the best kitchen maid she’d ever had –’

  ‘I ask because conditions in this Infirmary are very – ah – basic. Miss Connell can be made more comfortable, but only if she can pay for it. Otherwise she will be treated as destitute. That is, a person with no means of support.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you understand me?’

  Nellie felt a chill run down her spine. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘This is a dreadful place altogether,’ whispered Nellie. ‘How can I leave you here, angel?’

  The Infirmary was divided into three wards, two of them for male patients and one for women. Nellie now stood at the entrance to the women’s section, with the doctor on one side of her and Mary on the other.

  The look and smell of the ward were shocking even to somebody used to living in a workhouse. At least the workhouse had been kept fairly clean, its floors scrubbed regularly, its walls whitewashed. This place was filthy. Rainwater leaked through holes in the roof and dripped into buckets and bowls set on the floor. The walls were grey and crumbling, splotched with mould.

  The iron beds lined up on each side of the ward were only inches apart. Some of the patients were in bed; others were huddled in groups at the end of the room. Nellie saw an ancient, bent woman smoking a small black pipe, some skinny children aged no more than five or six, and several middle-aged women. She could hear moaning, as if someone was in pain. The moaning rose suddenly to a shriek, making Nellie jump.

  The doctor stopped beside one of the beds. ‘This will be your place, Miss Connell,’ he said.

  Mary nodded, but Nellie looked at the bed in disbelief. There was no pillow, just a thin, stained mattress and one dirty cotton quilt, much used and quite flat.

  ‘Can she have a blanket, sir? Sure, she’ll die of cold with just this poor little quilt over her.’

  ‘Pillows and blankets are an extra cost, I’m afraid,’ said the doctor.

  Nellie took some coins from her pocket and handed them to him. ‘Please get her whatever is needed,’ she said. ‘I can give you more once I’m in work.’

  ‘She will be treated as well as possible,’ said the doctor, putting the money in his pocket. ‘I can arrange for her to have extra milk, and a warm blanket, and medicine.’ He put a hand briefly on Nellie’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about her.’

  Nellie caught at his arm as he turned to go. ‘Sir, how long must Mary stay here?’

  ‘For as long as necessary.’

  ‘And how long might that be?’

  The doctor hesitated. ‘Months, at least.’ He walked away down the ward, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floorboards.

  Months. Nellie plonked herself down on the bed, and Mary sat beside her, and for several long moments neither of them said a word.

  As soon as the doctor had gone, the old woman with the pipe hobbled over and look
ed Mary up and down, her sharp eyes curious.

  ‘Welcome to our fancy lodgings,’ she said. She laughed, blowing out a cloud of smoke, and the laugh turned into a rasping cough which she smothered in her shawl. ‘Whatever ails you, I’ll make it better, which is more’n that quack doctor can do. Pills, potions, poultices – you just ask Lizzie Buckley an’ she’ll deliver. For a fee, you understand.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mary in a faint voice. ‘I’ll remember that, of course.’

  ‘You don’t look too good, my love. Is it your lungs?’

  ‘I’m a little tired, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s what they all say. Next thing you know, they’re pushing up daisies.’

  Nellie heard a burst of crazy laughter that made the hair prickle on her arms. A young woman lunged forward, only to be pulled back by two others.

  ‘That’s Rosie,’ said Lizzie. ‘She’s as mad as a brush, but we have to take her in ’cause there’s nowhere else for her to go.’ She grinned. ‘Lots of the patients end up mad here, so she’s right at home.’

  Mary turned away, her lips trembling, and Nellie put an arm around her. ‘Don’t be upset by her, angel,’ she said. ‘The doctor will look after you, I’m sure. I must go back to the Depot now. Maybe Mrs Terrible’s job is still waiting for me. I’ll come back to visit you as soon as I can.’

  ‘I know you will, Nell.’

  ‘Be brave now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  But Nellie could barely hear the word, and she left the ward with a heavy heart.

  The job had gone, and there were no more employers waiting. Mr Lang was sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. People were no longer keen to employ Irish orphan girls, he said. Too many of them had shown themselves to be unreliable, or lazy, or dirty in their habits.

  ‘I’m not like that!’ cried Nellie.

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Mr Lang. ‘But the fact is that there are very few jobs at present. Do you have a place where you can stay?’

  Nellie felt as if she were floating. There was nothing to stand on, nothing to hold on to. Desperately she tried to drag her thoughts together. ‘Be strong,’ she told herself. ‘Think! Think!’