Mathinna sighed. Lady Franklin had invited her friends’ children to play with her before, and it rarely went well. They did not seem to know whether to treat Mathinna as an equal, or as a servant, or with a wary, forced politeness, as if she were the pet of an acquaintance you might not trust not to jump or nip.

When they were in the garden, Mathinna scampered up a blue gum tree, hand over foot, shimmying across its elephant limbs while the bishop’s daughter, Emily, shivered in the cool air below. Peering down at her through the ragged leaves, Mathinna called, “Climb up here with me!”

“My mama won’t allow it. It’s dangerous,” Emily said, gaping up at Mathinna in her formal clothes.

Mathinna climbed down. “What do you want to do, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to see my pet possum?”

“I suppose.”

“Mama has one of those,” Emily said when Mathinna brought out Waluka. “It’s dead, though. She wears it as a fur around her neck. It still has its tiny black eyes.”

Mathinna tucked Waluka back in her skirt pocket. It was becoming clear that the things that had made her happy on Flinders were considered childish, impetuous, and strange here. A young lady wasn’t supposed to run around barefoot and half dressed, or shout into the air, or climb to the tops of the trees, or have a possum as a pet. From now on, she would keep Waluka out of sight when strangers were around. She wouldn’t talk about hunting muttonbirds. She would stay quiet about her past.

That night, in the darkness of her bedroom, she danced with Waluka on her shoulders as she had on the white sand on Flinders, one hand on his small back to keep him steady. Perhaps, as Lady Franklin said, it would be easier if she could let go of Flinders in her mind—forget her people and their way of life. Perhaps it would make living in this strange place easier. Perhaps she would feel less painfully alone.

Government House, Hobart Town, 1840–1841

The Franklins hosted a boating party for Eleanor when she turned eighteen. On the occasion of Lady Franklin’s forty-ninth, Sir John surprised her with a signed edition of Oliver Twist and a trip to Melbourne. Lady Franklin threw a large formal banquet in honor of Sir John’s fifty-fifth. Mrs. Wilson, with a great show of fanfare, was granted her birthday off, with pay.

The Franklins didn’t know Mathinna’s birth date, and neither did she, so they picked a random date on the calendar: May 18, three months to the day after she’d arrived in Hobart Town. “Mrs. Wilson could make a cake for her, at least,” she overheard Eleanor say to Lady Franklin a few days before. “She’s turning nine. Old enough to notice.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lady Franklin replied. “Her people don’t notice such things. It would be like commemorating the birth date of the family pet.”

But Mathinna did notice. To have been assigned a birth date and then denied the customary acknowledgment felt particularly callous. She woke up and practiced French with Eleanor (who seemed to have forgotten that the day had any significance), ate an ordinary midday meal in the kitchen with Mrs. Wilson, and spent the afternoon roaming the property with Waluka. She kept hoping that she might be surprised with a cake after all, but the hours passed with nothing. Only Sarah, putting away laundry in Mathinna’s room after her solitary supper, mentioned anything about it. “So it’s your birthday, I heard. Nobody says a word about mine neither. Just another year closer to me ticket of leave.”