Zenna Dare

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by Rosanne Hawke


  Jenefer

  My instincts were right. Gweniver wrote only Roswyn should know and for the family rift to be mended. Well, Roswyn’s dead but the rift’s been healed — it’s enough. It’s what Gweniver wanted. She just didn’t know it would take 160 years. It would be easy to tell, to feel everyone’s admiration for being able to find out. Caleb’s been taught that reconciliation doesn’t happen until the stories are told and understood, but surely there are some things that only a few know? Nor can I bring myself to tell this part yet. Gweniver’s grief and fear were real and they feel too close, even now; it would be flippant to blurt it all out as if she hadn’t suffered at all. Yet I think Caleb would be proud of me all the same. I hope Gweniver is too.

  Can’t believe Dad and I walked down to church early this morning. This is how it happened. Last night I had a go at him about religion. Gweniver practically said they would never have survived without this faith of theirs. What happened to all that? Was it all just fairy stories like the knockers and mermaids? So I asked Dad. ‘Why don’t you and I believe something, like Steffi?’ And Great-aunt Dorie; she still calls herself a Methodist. Poor Dad. You should have seen him; it was like he was the victim of a hit-and-run truck driver. Guess it was one question he never thought I’d ask.

  ‘I thought you could make up your own mind when you got older.’ Well now I’m older and I have no idea and I told him so.

  ‘Isn’t it your job to offer the option so I can accept or reject it?’

  Dad started scratching his stubble and I knew I’d see the inside of the Uniting Church this morning. I didn’t see anyone from school nor a miracle or golden lights but I did get to see lots of Tremaynes on the Honour Roll: the famous Albert who went to the Boer War and World War One yet managed to return, and a Dickie who died in World War Two. And we sang the same Wesleyan hymn that Gweniver wrote on her last page. Nothing much has changed but that may not be bad either.

  Now it’s Steffi’s birthday lunch. She’s also decided to celebrate the opening of her shed out the back. She’s got a sign over the top: Restored First-Loves. Dad’s been to get Aunt Dorie and in she comes laden with a huge basket, and smelling of purple hair rinse and spray. Caleb’s here too in his best jeans. I catch a look in Aunt Dorie’s eyes as she first sees Caleb. It reminds me of Amy and I stiffen; I’ve learnt these past few months that people’s disapproval affects me more than I used to think, but happily Aunt Dorie is more polite than Amy. The look fades as she sees him playing with the kids. This time he brought something for Kate. She must have shown him her drawings of the mine and the house for he pulls out these special art crayons. Kate’s practically steaming over with creative energy as he shows her how to use them. Hamilton shows Caleb the screeds of stuff Kate has found for him on the ’net about rabbits. ‘Cool. I could do my Ag Science final study with all this research.’ He grins over at me; guess he’s teasing me again. It’s fun watching him sprawled on the floor, the two kids practically on top of him, making sure they get their share of his attention.

  Aunt Dorie is calling to me from the couch to come and sit with her. Now she has this look in her eyes that I can’t quite read. Dad must have told her about Zenna Dare (maybe about church too) for she looks kind of impressed, but there’s a shrewd type of reserve there too. And it makes me wonder what she thinks about it all. The family Bible comes out of the basket first.

  ‘Emily finally remembered.’ There’s no apology that I asked for it months ago. And suddenly I’m looking at Gweniver’s squirly penmanship again. The names of the children that I now know. Baby Rebekah who died. Marriages. There are more photos. The wedding photo. Without fully smiling, Redvers managed to look like the cat that got the cream, and Gweniver — she’s older but there’s the likeness to that beautiful girl who once sang for a queen.

  Aunt Dorie shows me another: two boys staring solemnly at the camera, violins under their chins, bows poised. Wonder what happened to those violins. I voice this aloud.

  ‘Their descendants have them, I suppose,’ Aunt Dorie answers. And I think about the lady in the antique shop; how she made it sound as though we had so many rellies. We most probably do. Think about eight kids having children down five generations. There could be over a thousand of us walking around Adelaide with different names, brushing against each other down Rundle Mall and never knowing we were related. Aunt Dorie wants to see the pages I’ve typed up. Ms East calls them transcriptions. Cool word, eh? I show the folder I’m putting together for History with the illustrations Kate has finished already. Aunt Dorie reads through the one I wrote myself for the introduction — how I thought Gweniver must have felt as Zenna Dare, singing for a queen at Drury Lane. She reads a few of the transcripts, sniffs and tells me I’ve done a lot of good work. Then she hands me this old notebook.

  ‘I think you’ll find this interesting, Jenefer. Emily had it.’

  The book is cloth-bound, sewn, with blank pages. As soon as I open it I can tell it’s the very book Gweniver used to write in, for most of the pages have been torn out. There’s an entry near the back.

  17th March 1868

  R would be nineteen today. I pray she is well and happy. Redvers found a snake under the twins’ bed; all sorts of vermin seem to find their way down here. So he is closing off the room the children play in. We have not used it for much else; the older children all sleep together across the hall and the little ones with us. Besides, the room is so cold, and we have a cellar already. No one will find the cottage box now I suppose, although Redvers says if something is meant to be it will be, when the time is right.

  Aunt Dorie is looking at the page. She would have read it. How much does she know? Does she suspect anything about the box? About Roswyn?

  ‘I’m not sure what she was referring to, Jenefer.’ There’s almost a question in her voice but not quite. She’s not as anxious to know as I was. ‘Perhaps R was the little one who died.’

  I nod, even though I can’t imagine that Aunt Dorie isn’t able to add or subtract. Rebekah would only have been eight in 1868. I glance up suddenly and find Aunt Dorie regarding me steadily. Great-aunt Dorie. She’s a widow and childless. She looks just like a sexless old maid, someone who doesn’t have a life. Will some sixteen-year-old look at me when I’m eighty and think I’ve had no life? But Aunt Dorie’s eyes are not lifeless; they still have that calculating look in them. And it strikes me it’s not improbable that she’s caught on after all. It’s possible she had suspicions even before I went to see her earlier in the year. I’ll never find out, of course; if she knows she would never tell.

  In light of this I think it won’t hurt to ask her what the name Roswyn would mean in Cornish. I do and there’s a trace of a smile on those old lipsticked pink lips of hers as she says, ‘White rose, I should think, dear.’ I try and keep the smirk of satisfaction off my face.

  Then Steffi’s calling us to the table and it turns out to be a fun time with Dad showing off as usual; telling pitiful jokes. It’s nice to see Steffi happy; she and Dad holding hands every now and then. Sher Khan only disgraces himself once, as he leaps from Hamilton’s lap across Aunt Dorie’s to the hallway door. Afterwards, when everyone settles down in the lounge with the wood fire blazing, Caleb and I escape for a walk.

  ‘You have a nice family,’ is Caleb’s first comment. I’m impressed because I reckon he’d know. Imagine if I’d never met him, never found out what I know about his family.

  I must have seemed so snobby that first day at school, trying not to show how scared I was. Though Erin told me recently that she knew I wasn’t a snob or I wouldn’t have spoken to Caleb. That had made me think for a while, especially about school and Kapunda. Ashleigh and I get on okay — we have something in common, of course: we’re relatively new — and Erin’s loosened up a lot. Maybe she’s got used to seeing Caleb as someone more than just Tim’s mate. Guess I’ll never know what was bothering her, for I’ve realised it’s not somet
hing she could talk about since Tim is Caleb’s best friend and what if I told Caleb?

  It still seems to take forever to get used to a new place, even if it is friendly and your ancestors were here. And how long does it take to be accepted? I still don’t know. And next year I’ll have to go to uni — will that be a daily train trip or boarding with Auntie Joy? Wonder if Caleb and I will still see each other and if he’ll visit me in the city. Will I even want to come back? So much to think about and we haven’t even

  finished first semester yet; there’s still the drama night, and mock exams to study for. Caleb reckons I should give myself a break. Just like he said, I can’t do anything about Chloe — she has to work it out herself. He reckons Kapunda is the same. So what if it takes ages, he said. You be happy where you are in the meantime. He said it like it was a choice I could make and that it was seriously important.

  We’re walking down to the mine. I still find it weird to think that the place where my triple-great-grandfather first worked is now a tourist trail. There are all these wide pools full of green water. That’s the copper. And dangerous mine shafts. Lots of signs telling what went on and where, but they’re not as gripping as reading someone’s own words, like Gweniver’s.

  Caleb’s holding my hand, and right now everything feels cool. I still haven’t made sense of all that I’ve found out about my family. I know certain facts, like where I come from and that I have more relatives than I ever imagined, even in Cornwall, but it isn’t as simple as that. Who I think I am now (did I ever know before?) seems to be tied up with Gweniver’s and Redvers’ story, but strangely enough, Caleb’s too. And it’s not just the knowing what happened to them, but their happiness, pain and loss has actually become part of me, as though I had to walk through their stories to find out my story is worth something too. There’s more as well. A new picture is forming in my mind about being Australian that I have to come to terms with: that all Aussies weren’t always fair, decent and sticking up for the underdog.

  We climb the mound where the mine chimney is. Caleb bounds up ahead, grinning back at me. I like the way he walks; it’s not a proud sort of confidence as if he owns the place but he walks lightly like he’s a part of where he puts his feet. From up there we can see all the hills; everything green from the early winter rain. We stand there grinning at nothing, arms round each other’s backs, me thinking about Caleb going north in the holidays to the camel races with his boss.

  It makes me wonder if we see the same thing when we look at it, and I think we look too much at the differences. Gweniver’s story has taught me there’s enough the same. Hers is a story that will never end for it lives on in Dad and me, Kate and Hamilton, the Hayes family in Cornwall, and how many others?

  From now on there’ll be reminders everywhere. When we head back to the house, I see the white roses, ancient, but they don’t look as straggly as I thought when we first came, more like rambling. Then there’s the pepper tree that I now know my triple-great-grandmother planted. Every time we walk under it Caleb kisses me.

  Postlude

  From: Royal Cornish Library

  To: Jenefer Tremayne

  Subject: Zenna Dare

  Dear Jenefer

  We have come across this article in the recent indexing of some of our newspapers and magazines and saw from our records you were researching Zenna Dare.

  Hope this is still useful.

  Regards

  Lisa Rowse

  The Gentlemen's Magazine

  Reflections of a Theatre-Goer

  October 1849

  Whatever has happened to Miss Zenna Dare? All the world of theatre has been awaiting her next performance. Suddenly we are treated to a nightingale par excellence. The spontaneity of her singing was unaffected, ethereal, and for three seasons we were treated thus. But for a year now, there is no word of her performing again.

  When questioned, Mr. Richard Drew makes no comment. In fact he is uncommonly tight-lipped about Miss Zenna Dare. He was Miss Dare’s manager, and although it is said he enjoys the company of the fair sex, Miss Dare’s obvious integrity added interest to the professional relationship that theatre-goers observed. Indeed it seemed the perfect partnership. Behind stage they were dubbed the wolf and the lamb.

  Miss Ginny Rivers has valiantly filled Miss Dare’s roles and Mr. Drew has recently been seen in the Music Halls with a new protegee, a Miss Lilly Palmer. But Miss Palmer has not yet acquired a happy method of returning from her soaring falsettos. No other

  performance can compare to Miss Dare’s impassioned performance in ‘The Jewess’ at Drury Lane last season. Prince Leopold could not marry a Jewess, even after he had fallen in love with her, and Miss Dare’s farewell song, as the Jewess, before she jumped into the cauldron of oil, was so moving as to have dampened the eyes of all the company present.

  Is it possible that this was truly a farewell to us all by the incomparable Miss Dare? Has she deserted us for holy matrimony or has she some fearful, debilitating disease? We all hope not. London has not tired of Miss Dare, a wistful and tender young lady who can melt hearts with a simple tune. She has been graced by God with talent and could well become this century’s Queen of Song.

  Please return to us, Miss Zenna Dare.

  Sources

  Zenna Dare is a work of fiction. Although a handful of names are mentioned who did live in the mid-nineteenth century (Charles Hempel, Mrs Orchard, Dr Blood, Mr Buchanan, Jemmy Chambers, the Hawke brothers [my children’s ancestors], and Richard Hawke [ancestor of Bob Hawke]), the characters in Zenna Dare bear no resemblance to any character living then or now. Nor is Zenna Dare based in any way on the life of the English actress, Zena Dare, born in 1887.

  Jenefer’s manse is consistent with other buildings built at the time and is based upon the Congregational Manse in Kapunda which is a heritage-listed building. The Bible Christian Manse was not like the manse depicted in this story and was in a different street.

  Since this is a work of fiction the reader may find some dates have been changed; for example, The Bohemian Girl’s opening night was in 1843 not 1846. Also, the poem by William Blake, ‘The Sick Rose’, has been included even though it might not have been known at the time Gweniver lived.

  The poem Richard Drew dedicated to Zenna, inserting her name, is ‘To Jane’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792–1822.

  Descriptions of knockers can be found in Hunt, Robert, The Drolls, traditions and superstitions of Old Cornwall, 1881, Felinfach: Llanerch Publishers, 1993.

  Information about the Ngadjuri people can be found in the work of Warrior, F, Knight, F, Anderson, S and Pring, A Ngadjuri: Aboriginal people of the Mid North Region of South Australia:, Meadows SA: SASOSE Council, 2005.

  A playbill very much like the ‘Sixpenny Entertainments’ can be found in McCarthy, P, Krips, M and Turrell, I, eds, Retrospect 1886, Kapunda: Kapunda High School, 1986.

  A ride north similar to Gweniver’s in Jemmy Chambers’ mail cart with a broken pole can be found in Kerr, M G, Colonial Dynasty: Chambers family of SA, 1980.

  Many old tales about old Kapunda can be found in Memories of Kapunda and District, A Circle of Friends, 1929.

  The full inscription on Joseph Emidy’s grave can be found in the prologue of McGrady, R, Music and Musicians in early nineteenth century Cornwall: the world of Joseph Emidy — slave, violinist and composer, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1991.

  Descriptions of Camborne where Gweniver grew up can be found in Thomas, C, Christian Antiquities of Camborne. Warne, HE,1967.

  Descriptions of Gwennap where Redvers grew up can be found in James, CC, A History of Gwennap.

 

 

 
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