The Day She Cradled Me Page 5

  She is looking at the flowers set on the table. I say how pretty they are, how nice it is to see flowers at this time of year.

  ‘Would you like to take some?’

  I shake my head, but already she is making arrangements to show me her garden. All I want is my room, but instead I am outside and Mrs Fielding is instructing her gardener to prepare some slips from the roots. He wraps them in newspaper, ties them with twine.

  ‘How far are you going?’ he asks.

  Does he suspect?

  ‘Invercargill. By the Express.’ My voice is higher than I would like, and the words sound as though I am hiding two dead babies.

  ‘Should last all right till then.’

  I hold my breath. Does he mean the flowers or the bodies?

  I promised to buy Dean a new shirt and Esther a dress piece, and they will be suspicious if I do not bring them home with me, and I need to behave as though everything is normal so that no one will know and I will be all right.

  I make my purchases quickly and get back to the hotel.

  It is pouring with rain.

  ‘Do you have an umbrella?’ Mrs Fielding asks, watching me closely. I do not know what to say. What did she ask?

  ‘I have parcels at the railway station.’

  Mrs Fielding eyes me strangely and then nods. I take my flower slips and my shawl parcel, and go straight to the stationmaster’s room. I carry the hatbox into the carriage and tuck it under the seat.

  Deep breath.

  I am nearly there.

  It is growing dark as we approach Winton. Esther is not at the Gap Road siding, and I have determined that if I do not see her at Winton I will continue on to Lady Barkly station and drop the hatbox out the train window near our house so I can return later and collect it.

  Though the platform at Winton is not crowded, Esther stands at the back. How she could possibly hope to see me when her face stares at the ground I do not know — indeed, I have virtually to step on her before she realises I have returned.

  ‘Esther. Good to see you.’ It is only half a lie, for the familiarity of her face — no matter how grim — provides me with a little comfort. I put down the hatbox and give her the parcels. ‘Take these over to Mr Moore’s and leave them there. It will be easier for us to walk without them. Tell him I will send Dean later to pick them up.’ She does not move, her eyes flitting down towards the hatbox. I step closer to it. ‘Move now, girl, or it will be midnight before we reach home.’

  She scurries across to the butchery and disappears inside. I am sorry for the harshness of my words but I cannot suppress my panic. Besides, I note glumly, I need to behave as normally as possible.

  The hatbox is too heavy for me and we are less than half the way home. I pass it to Esther with as much indifference as I can muster.

  ‘Christ, this box is heavy,’ she exclaims straight away.

  ‘How dare you take the Lord’s name in vain,’ I say, trying to keep the alarm from my voice. I take a deep breath.

  ‘What have you got in here?’

  She is staring at me blankly. I want to yell, Mind your business. But my fingers close around the bundle of slips I am carrying and it comes to me.

  ‘Bulbs,’ I say, ‘that’s what’s in there. Bulbs, many bulbs, with lots of earth packed round them. Heavy earth. I got them this morning from Mataura.’

  I steal a look sideways. She appears content with my explanation.

  Before long we are in the paddock near the back of the house. It is full of rushes that reach my knees; they will rise well above the box and almost completely conceal it.

  ‘Leave the box here, Esther; it is too heavy to fetch up to the house tonight. I’ll come back and collect it in the morning.’

  She seems about to argue but thinks better of it and drops it to the ground with a thud. Just in time I stop myself from yelling at her to be more careful — after all, the box merely contains bulbs and earth. It is not as though two children are inside.

  Next morning I send Esther to collect the hatbox. I am waiting by the gate for her as she heaves it towards me, then I take it from her and carry it inside to put under my bed. It is padlocked as well as tied with string, so the contents will not be discovered; all the same I am deeply troubled by the knowledge it is there. Two babies. I can scarcely wait to remove them from the house, yet I am terrified to do so.

  Finally Esther has had enough of the little ones and goes for a walk. The children are playing out back in one of the far paddocks. I seize my chance.

  I bury the bodies in my garden. I move quickly, trying to focus my mind away from their stiffened forms. The air is cool, and in the moment when they are neither in the box nor in the ground my heart does not beat. If the children should appear, if my husband should return, if —

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I am … planting bulbs, Esther,’ I say, mounding earth over the bodies as quickly as I can.

  She stands motionless, staring at me.

  ‘I had visitors while you were away who disturbed my digging,’ I say.

  The grave is too shallow. The dog will dig them up.

  ‘Put a couple more bucketfuls of soil over the bulbs, would you, Esther?’

  Still she looks at me curiously.

  ‘Keep the frosts from injuring them.’ I turn and hurry inside.

  From behind the curtain I watch as the girl unwittingly completes the burial. Beside her lie the slips still wrapped in newspaper. Pansies, Canterbury bells, roses, carnations. And marguerites. I love marguerites.

  Later, when everyone else is asleep, I return to whisper prayers. In the darkness before God I take the flower slips from the newspaper and gently poke them into the soft soil. A secret marker for those who lie out of sight. I will not forget them. I will not forget.

  I sit up in front of the fire. I can’t sleep. The words of an old ballad I knew in Scotland haunt me. I write the words I can remember and make up what I cannot:

  Little did my mother think,

  The day she cradled me,

  What land I was to travel in,

  Or what death I should die.

  Oh that my father ne’er on me smiled;

  Oh that my mother had ne’er to me sung;

  Oh that my cradle had never been rocked,

  But that I had died when I was young.

  Oh that my grave it were my bed;

  My blankets were my winding sheet;

  The clocks and the worms my bedfellows,

  And oh sae sound as I should sleep.

  At long last, after four days of dread, I awaken to find thoughts of what happened are not my first. Instead I lie in bed as dawn arrives, the body of Punch on one side and Baby on the other. It is my most precious moment of the day, lying beside them, the warm heaviness of their sleeping forms pressed closely to me. I could continue lying here some ten minutes or longer but I have noticed something large crawling across the roof above us. I don’t mind rodents. I have been known to rescue a mouse or two fallen into my husband’s trap, and even rats don’t appal me as they do other women. But if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is now mere yards from my face.

  A weta.

  With a shriek I leap from the bed and snatch the broom from behind the door. I strike at the roof, hoping to dislodge the creature so it will fall and I can stamp on it, but I have nothing on my feet and have to cease banging for a moment.

  ‘Mother? What is it?’ Arthur and Cecil are watching me from the doorway of the lean-to. Esther huddles in the corner. Our dislike of wetas is the only thing we hold in common.

  ‘Ethel,’ I shout, ‘get out of bed. Punch, take hold of Baby. Quickly. Out of the bed before it falls on you.’

  Punch is up in a moment, clutching the still sleeping babe in her arms, and I watch in dismay as the creature scuttles at great pace towards the middle of the ceiling

  ‘That sure is a big one,’ Cecil says, gazing up in awe. ‘Can I keep it?’

  ‘No, you most certainly m
ay not.’

  The weta’s legs are thick and hairy, and it is at the wall now and running down towards the floor.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Mother is trying to catch the weta,’ Arthur tells Dean, then he sits down on the floor to watch.

  ‘Don’t sit there,’ I cry out. ‘What if it runs down and across your legs. Arthur, get up, get up right now.’

  The weta is on the floor and running towards me. I throw pieces of clothing at it to try and smother it, but each time I think I have it captured the wretched thing crawls back out and resumes running. It is coming straight towards me. I am on the chair as fast as I can, though I am certain it is about to climb the chair legs to reach me.

  ‘Charles!’

  It only takes him two steps, and I think he is going to jump on it and save me from this misery, but he bends down to let the weta crawl up his hand and onto his arm, and laughs uproariously.

  I cannot bear to watch. ‘Take it outside. Go on, and right away from the house.’

  Cecil is riveted. ‘Father, let me keep it. Please?’

  ‘Don’t think y’ mother’s too happy about that, boy. Here, I’ll put it on y’ hand and you take it out, there’s a good lad.’

  Cecil and Arthur disappear out the door and I climb back down.

  ‘You nearly broke a good chair,’ Dean says.

  I am kept busy with chores the entire morning, as well as watching to see whether the weta keeps a family somewhere in my roof. After lunch I am about to tidy away the clothing still strewn across the floor when I hear screaming. Punch and Esther are running towards the house and Cecil is close behind them. I don’t need to be told what he is carrying.

  ‘Cecil,’ I shout, ‘drop that weta now or you’ll feel the back of my hand.’

  Punch runs up the steps and throws her little arms around my middle. I hold her and tell her there is nothing to be alarmed by — that it is only an insect and does not want to hurt her, that it is more frightened by someone her size than she should be of it. She looks at me suspiciously, so I promise her an extra portion of rice pud and cream tonight, and eventually she runs off happily, no doubt to tell the others what they will be missing. I turn back to the pile of clothes on the floor and lug them to the bed to sort.

  I am picking up the first shirt and beginning to fold it when there is a knock on the door. Cecil and Arthur, no doubt, here to ask whether they also may be allowed an extra helping of pud.

  ‘You can try,’ I say, walking over to the door and laughing, ‘but there will be nothing for the pair of —’

  ‘Good day, Mrs Dean.’

  Rasmussen.

  ‘Let me introduce Detective McGrath of Dunedin,’ he says. ‘I believe you are acquainted with Detective Herbert of Invercargill.’

  The little ones are gathered behind. Their eyes are wide, and Punch looks frightened.

  ‘Esther, take the children for a walk.’

  McGrath waits until they are out the gate.

  ‘I have come from Dunedin, Mrs Dean, to enquire of you about a baby.’

  My face does not move. I say nothing, for I have been asked nothing.

  He sighs and begins again. ‘We have reason to believe you took possession of a baby at Milburn on the third. Is this so?’

  ‘No,’ I say calmly, ‘I took possession of no baby on the third.’

  ‘Did you, then, make a visit to Milburn?’

  ‘No. I did not.’ Only the station.

  ‘Did you or did you not correspond with a Mrs Hornsby?’

  ‘I did not.’ She used the name A. B. C. At least at first.

  McGrath runs a hand through his hair. ‘The baby’s name is Eva Hornsby. Her grandmother, Mrs Hornsby, is at the Winton Police Station.’

  They can’t intimidate me. ‘I received no baby on the third. I have a baby here that was born in this house. A boy.’

  ‘Did you, Mrs Dean, take a baby at Milburn?’

  I shake my head. ‘No.’ It was on a train between Milburn and Clarendon.

  ‘Mrs Dean.’ Detective Herbert is clearly agitated. ‘Did you receive any baby this month between Invercargill and Dunedin?’

  I am doing my utmost not to panic, but my heart is pounding so hard I think it may explode. I swallow, determined to keep the strain from my face.

  ‘I did.’

  But they can prove nothing. I will be all right.

  ‘Can you say precisely where, when and from whom you received the baby?’

  I have said too much. I clamp my lips shut. Rasmussen knows they will get nothing more, and leaves, but the other two remain to spend the next twenty minutes asking more fruitless questions. Well, they can go back to their stations and perhaps try a little harder next time …

  ‘Mrs Dean.’

  Rasmussen is back, he approaches from the gate. With him is a woman. Hair drawn back, long pointed nose, small accusing eyes. With him is Mrs Hornsby.

  ‘Is that the woman to whom you gave the baby on the third?’

  I am panicked. ‘I do not know this woman.’

  Her beak points directly at me. ‘Yes. That is the woman I gave the baby to.’

  ‘No, you gave me no baby.’

  My eyes fall upon the pile of clothes on the bed, in particular, one tiny dress. Dear Lord, the very dress the child Hornsby was wearing when she was given me.

  Slowly I edge towards it, keeping my eyes fixed on their faces. I bend slightly so as not to alert them and snatch the dress, tucking it quickly into the folds of my apron. But I am not swift enough.

  ‘What have we got here?’

  Herbert is in front of me, wrenching my hand and pulling the little dress from my grasp.

  ‘That is it! That is the dress Eva Hornsby was wearing when I handed her to this woman.’

  Rasmussen looks as though he has been promoted. He licks his lips and grins.

  ‘Mrs Dean,’ says Herbert, ‘I now arrest you for murdering the child Eva Hornsby on or about the third of May 1895, at or near Waihola …’

  Please, dear Lord, no.

  ‘Minnie?’

  ‘Dean.’ He is coming from the lean-to. ‘Dean, I am arrested.’ Please help me.

  He does not seem to understand. ‘When will you be home?’ he asks dumbly. ‘Today or tomorrow?’

  I do not answer. It is over.

  Oh God.

  They have finally won.

  The Bruce Herald

  14 May 1895

  A Terrible Crime

  BABY FARMING

  One of the most notorious cases of baby farming known in police annals in New Zealand will come before the court in the course of a day or two. In Australia such cases are more or less of frequent occurrence, but up to the present time nothing of the sort has ever occupied the attention of the police authorities in this colony.

  The first steps taken in connection with the case were by Constable King, our local officer, and to whom great credit attaches for the part he has taken in the matter.

  On Saturday, 4th inst., he heard that a woman had come up from Dunedin by the previous morning’s train, and got out at Milburn station, where she was met in the evening by a Mrs Dean, who took over a baby which this woman had taken up in the morning, both women going in the train from Milburn towards Dunedin.

  When the train was a few minutes at Waihola Constable King’s informant missed the woman Dean, but the woman who had brought the baby in the morning returned by the train the same evening to Dunedin, but she had no baby with her.

  Constable King made enquiries at Milburn on the day he heard of the matter and learned that a woman, who was addressed as Mrs Hornsby, got a telegram at Milburn signed by a Mrs Dean, not to proceed any further as she would meet her there. The telegram was delivered by the Milburn stationmaster to this woman on the train.

  She had a baby with her at the time and she got out on receipt of telegram from the stationmaster. She then went to the house of Mrs Dryden, about half a mile from the Milburn station and said her n
ame was Mrs Hornsby, and claimed acquaintance with Mrs Dryden about twenty-five years ago, but Mrs Dryden says she did not know her then. She told Mrs Dryden that the baby belonged to a woman who was in the Dunedin hospital, and that its grandmother was to meet her at Milburn station that evening to take the child. She remained at Mrs Dryden’s place until she went to meet the train about 4.45 p.m.

  The child would be about a month old and seemingly neglected. It was cold when she brought it to Mrs Dryden’s place, and she did not appear to trouble much about it. Mrs Hornsby, or Homesly, as she was called, told Mrs Dryden that she lived outside the Kaikorai.

  On the 5th inst. Constable King went to Waihola but could find no trace of the woman Dean getting in or out of the train there, but the guard on Saturday night’s train informed him that a woman answering Mrs Dean’s description got into his train at Clarendon on the Friday night (the day on which she took over the baby) and went as far as Clinton, but that she had no baby with her. She stayed at Clinton all night, and went on by the first train next morning to Gore.

  On gaining this much information Constable King sent word to the Dunedin office, when Mrs Hornsby was immediately interviewed by the police. She at once disclosed all her knowledge of the meeting with Mrs Dean at Milburn, together with a quantity of correspondence and a receipt for £10 premium. She also informed the police that Mrs Dean had completed all the arrangements by the time the train reached Clarendon, and that she left the train there.

  Detective McGrath and Mrs Hornsby then proceeded to Winton in order that the latter might identify the Mrs Dean as the woman to whom she gave the child. This she quickly did, and Mrs Dean’s replies not being satisfactory she was at once arrested on a charge of murdering the infant. She was brought before two justices and remanded to Milton, as it was thought likely that the body would be found near Clarendon.