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.”

In the kitchen outbuilding Mathinna gazed at the enormous stone hearth, the sheaves of herbs hanging from the soot-blackened ceiling, the bins and pots and pans stacked on shelves.