The Black Dress

by Pamela Freeman

  ‘Well, macushla, that’s better manners than I get out of them.’ Mrs L’Estrange stood in the doorway, sheltering from the cold August wind. ‘Come away in, then. Mr MacKillop, you’ll be taking a meal with us before you go back to Darebin?’

  Papa hoisted the trunk onto his shoulders and trudged up the steps. ‘I’ll be thankful for it, Mrs L’Estrange. The wind might be coming straight from the South Pole today, I think.’

  I took each girl by the hand and followed him.

  ‘Sophie, you show Mary where she’s to sleep,’ Mrs L’Estrange said.

  ‘It’s MISS Mary, Ma,’ Lizzie said. ‘Now she’s our governess she’s MISS Mary.’

  ‘Is she now?’ Mrs L’Estrange winked at me. ‘Well, you take Miss Mary to her room, then. I’ve put you in your old room, Mary, love. Welcome back.’

  I kissed her cheek.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs L’Estrange. It’s like coming home.’

  It was even more like coming home when I followed Sophie up the stairs to my old little room off the verandah. For many months I had slept in that plain iron bed and although I had missed Mamma and the children, I had been very happy—eventually—with Mrs L’Estrange.

  ‘I used to sleep here when I was your age,’ I told the girls. ‘And I’ve stayed in this room for visits, too.’

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ Lizzie objected.

  ‘You were only a baby the last time I came for a visit.’

  ‘ I remember,’ Sophie said. ‘I think—I remember you tickling me.’

  I smiled. ‘I used to do that. You’d shriek with laughter. You were only two. I’m surprised you remember.’

  ‘She’s still ticklish,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘Is she now?’ I moved slowly towards Sophie.

  ‘No! No!’ Sophie shrieked, but she didn’t try to get away as I tickled her and Lizzie joined in.

  The three of us ended up in a giggling pile on the little iron bed. It is probably bad for discipline, but I’ll make them mind me anyway. A little love never hurt discipline too much, I thought.

  I said goodbye to Papa almost shyly. I wasn’t sure what to say. He kissed my cheek and told me to work hard and be a credit to the family. Then he tucked a half-crown in my hand.

  ‘Papa!’ What’s the good of me going out to earn money for the family if you just give it back to me? Really, Papa! But I said nothing.

  ‘You never know when you might need it,’ he said, looking at the ground, shoulders hunched. For the first time, I wondered how he felt, knowing I had to work because he could not provide for us all. At that moment it was impossible to stay cross with him.

  ‘Thank you, Papa.’

  He looked up and smiled, then kissed my cheek again and climbed into the wagon.

  As I unpacked my trunk that evening, I found a note from Mamma tucked under my slippers. ‘I am very proud of my eldest daughter,’ it said. ‘May God bless you and keep you. May the Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin watch over you and guide you. I pray for you every night and every day. Remember that Our Lord will be with you always. Your Loving Mother, Flora MacDonald MacKillop.’ The paper smelt of soap and roses.

  I cried myself to sleep with the letter clutched in my hand, but that night no beautiful lady came to kiss me goodnight. Still, the memory of her comforted me as it had so many times before. I lay awake and wondered what she had meant when she called me ‘one of mine’. I had pondered this many times. I had always wondered if it meant I would become a nun.

  That night I looked ahead at life as a governess. I could have a real effect on my students’ lives. I thought about Miss Stewart. Despite her bigotry, she had inspired me with a love of learning, just as Papa had. I could do the same for Sophie and Lizzie, and for other children. It could be a wonderful responsibility. But how much more wonderful if I was doing the work for God and inspiring a love for Christ at the same time!

  Of course, I was only 14, and wouldn’t be allowed to take my vows until I was 18 at least. A decision about my name in Christ was a long way off. But still, whenever I couldn’t sleep in the cold winter nights over the next few weeks I snuggled down and pondered what name I would take if I ever joined a convent.

  I was reluctant to give up Mary, because of the Blessed Virgin, but novices were supposed to change their name somehow to show they were embarking on a new life, just as a woman changed her name when she married.

  Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart, I decided one stormy night when the sleet tattooed the windows. A humble woman of faith. That’s what I would try to be. Then I laughed at myself for choosing a name before I had even chosen an order of sisters to belong to. Putting the cart before the horse, as usual, my granny would have said. Impulsive, just like your father.

  When the time came for me to actually take my vows, Father Woods talked me out of ‘Mary of the Sacred Heart’. He suggested ‘Sister Mary of the Cross’, and he was absolutely right. God has given me so many crosses to bear in my life. I am so grateful for them. I know that each one brought me closer to Him, closer to sharing the burden and joy of Christ. My understanding of that, at 14, was very poor.

  I feel almost sad when I look back on that 14-year-old, yet I am filled with a great affection for her, too, as though she were someone else entirely. I can’t remember exactly when I first had the idea of becoming a nun. Very early, very early. I remember being eight or nine—not long after Lexie was born—and being very disappointed to discover that nuns didn’t have babies! I loved babies so. But the disappointment was definitely because I wanted both to be a nun and have a baby. At Erindale I became determined that I would be a nun and have babies, or at least look after them and love them like a mother. I think the love the L’Estranges had for their adopted daughters helped me to realise that one need not bear a child to be a mother to her.

  ***

  Life at Erindale was one of the happiest times I have ever known. I visited my family on Sundays, and it was lovely, though a little sad to see them. The other days were wonderful. The mornings and early afternoons were spent in lessons with Sophie and Lizzie. It was satisfying to see them advance in knowledge and understanding day by day.

  In the late afternoons we would walk around the property and discuss natural history. Then the girls would go to their mother for their evening meal and bedtime, leaving me free to study in the library. What a cornucopia! Mr L’Estrange was an educated man who ordered the latest books, as well as having a substantial library of reference works.

  I read history, natural science, theology—it was a feast after the famine of Darebin Creek, where I had already read our books over and over.

  Then I would have a lovely dinner with Mr and Mrs L’Estrange, prayers, and to bed in my little room at the top of the stairs. No worries about money, no responsibilities except teaching (which was as much pleasure as work), and the luxury of studying.

  I had great hopes that I would be able to take the exams to qualify as a teacher as soon as I was old enough. I was enjoying teaching the girls so much, I knew that I wanted to teach in a school—and it was a way I could bring more money into the family. So I studied every night.

  God works in strange ways, Granny used to say, and in this case it was true. Although not long after I came to think that my chance to study for teaching was at an end, the work I did at Erindale got me through the teacher’s examination years later.

  It was certainly God’s doing—at the time I’d had no chance to study and I went into the examination depending entirely on His grace. But what I’d read and learnt at Erindale came back to me as though I’d read it that morning, and I passed the examination easily. God has been very good to me.

  I loved being at Erindale. But after only a year I had to leave. Papa had been unable to make the mortgage payments, so the bank foreclosed on our loan. We lost the Darebin Creek property, just as we had lost every other farm.

  The first I knew of it was when Papa drove out from Grandfather MacKillop’s place—where the family had moved when the ba
iliffs came—to tell me he had decided to move us to Sydney. I was astounded. Leave all our family, our friends, everything we knew. For what?

  All I could manage to say was, ‘But why, Papa?’

  We were in the garden at Erindale, a chill autumn day but sunny and bright. The leaves on Mrs L’Estrange’s European trees were turning colour magnificently. He looked at me and I could see that he wanted to just say, ‘Because I have decided it!’ as he had done in the past at times. Then his eyes lifted to Erindale and I think he was reminded that he had been taking my money to feed the family for almost a year.

  ‘The bank foreclosed. I can’t find work in Melbourne. In Sydney I— we—can start again.’ He spoke shortly. I could see it cost him to speak, but I didn’t much care. How could he have lost the farm? It was the gold rush, for Heaven’s sake! Everyone connected with supplying food to the goldfields was making money hand over fist.

  I bit my tongue. It wasn’t a daughter’s place to criticise her father. And what good would it have done, anyway? The farm was gone, he’d decided to go to Sydney, and I knew that stubborn look on his face. He’d never change his mind because of anything I said.

  It made some sense. Papa was no farmer, and had finally admitted it. He’d had no success in finding office work in Melbourne. Mr Campbell, with whom Papa had first been employed when he arrived in Victoria, was in Sydney now. Perhaps, with his help, Papa could start again. In Melbourne he was known as an ex-bankrupt, a political fighter, a failed politician—in short, a disputatious man. In Sydney, with luck, he would merely be Alexander MacKillop, friend of the Campbells.

  ‘But, Mary, you’re not thinking of going with them?’ Mrs L’Estrange exclaimed when I told her the news.

  ‘I have to. Mamma can’t look after all the children on the ship to Sydney, or in a strange city. Papa doesn’t have enough money to rent anywhere good. And she ... she is increasing again.’

  I was being indiscreet. In those days a young girl would not normally have talked about a pregnancy and certainly not in front of a man. Mrs L’Estrange shook her head disapprovingly, but not at me.

  ‘And he picks now to drag her off to Sydney?’

  ‘I think Papa wants to be established there before the new baby is born. You know, Mamma is always healthy through to the confinement, but after Donald’s birth she was so ill.’

  ‘He should go alone, and send for your mother when he has a good job and a decent home to bring her to. He is doing wrong,’ said Mr L’Estrange. It wasn’t like him to make a judgment like that—he was the most charitable of men.

  ‘Well, now, Joseph, it’s Mary’s papa you’re talking about,’ Mrs L’Estrange said.

  ‘And that’s a shame, too,’ he replied, then got up from the table and left the room abruptly.

  Mrs L’Estrange and I sat uncomfortably looking at each other for a moment.

  ‘He’s very fond of you, mavourneen,’ she said. She hesitated. ‘You may not realise this, but it’s because of you we have a family at all.’

  I must have looked surprised.

  ‘When you came to stay with us, when you were a wee thing, we were just realising that we would never have children of our own. Joseph wanted to adopt, but I didn’t think I could ever love a child— really love a child—who wasn’t mine. Then you came, and I loved you so much. I realised I could love an adopted baby the same way. That’s when we got Sophie, and Lizzie after her. So without you...’

  There were tears in Mrs L’Estrange’s eyes, and in mine.

  ‘You would have found your way to it without me,’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Well. I just wanted you to understand that, for Joseph and me, you’re like our own child. You have a home with us for as long as you like, but if you see going to Sydney as your duty, well, I suppose you must do it.’

  ***

  Of course, the Sydney trip was a fiasco. Mr Campbell had no position to offer Papa, and although he introduced him to a number of his acquaintances, the fact that Papa had been out of clerical work for so long told against him. I suppose that was the reason. But perhaps his reputation had preceded him.

  My mother said that there was a prejudice against people from Victoria in Sydney. I tried to believe her.

  We were lucky to have somewhere to stay—Papa’s cousin, Francis McNab, took us in, and true Highland generosity it was, to take in a family with six children for an indefinite stay! But we couldn’t have stayed in Forbes Street forever. The house just wasn’t big enough, even if Papa had managed to find work.

  After only a few weeks, Papa decided—impulsive as ever—that we should return to Melbourne. But by that time we had used up almost all our savings and we didn’t have enough for all of us to go back on the ship.

  ‘I will go back alone,’ Papa announced, ‘find work and send for you.’

  ‘Alone?’ Mamma faltered. ‘But, Alexander—’

  ‘Our friends here will care for you while I am gone,’ he said confidently. It was true we had some good friends, not just the McNabs and the Campbells, but I thought it was rude of us to assume their charity would be so freely extended. We would need not only room and board, but also money.

  ‘Papa—’ I said hesitantly. I knew it wasn’t my place to argue with him, but—‘to leave Mamma alone in a strange city—’

  ‘I won’t be leaving her alone, Mary. You will be with her.’ I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or flattered.

  I’m still not.

  The Sydney escapade sums up so much about my father—the high hopes, the impulsive decisions, the lack of foresight, the reliance on my mother’s ability to cope, the depression when the hopes failed to materialise immediately, the inability to stick at something and work steadily at it. It was the gold rush, after all, and many trades were short of men. If my father had persisted in looking for work—any kind of work—surely he would have found something.

  It’s too late now to wonder if I could have done differently, too. Perhaps if I had forgotten about duty and talked my mother into staying in Melbourne with Uncle Donald and Aunt Eliza, Papa might have gone to Sydney alone. The result would have been the same but it would have been a lot cheaper!

  Probably, though, she would not have stayed. Mamma had such faith in God’s willingness to provide for us—and was proved right over and over again, through the kindness of friends and relations.

  Sydney put a real strain on that willingness, I thought. It was doomed from the start.

  Papa sent for us in September, 1857, and we arrived at Sandridge as soon as we could. We had hoped that Uncle Peter or Uncle Donald would have heard that our ship was due and come to meet us, but no-one was waiting for us when we walked down the gangplank onto the pier.

  ‘Mamma, can I have a biscuit?’ Donald hopped on one leg hopefully. He was four, and hopped everywhere, incessantly. We had learnt to ignore it.

  ‘There are no more biscuits, Donald,’ Mamma said. She exchanged glances with me. There was no more food at all.

  Beside us, the last of the other passengers’ trunks were being unloaded, swung out over the side of the schooner in a rope net and landing with a thud that shook the black planks of the pier. The port of Sandridge was alive with sailors in broad-brimmed hats, with horses and drays, small boats and large ships and the smell of tar and salt in the air. Along the middle of the pier ran the new railway tracks. Soon, the captain had told me, an actual locomotive would push two railway freight cars (like big iron wagons) right onto the pier and they would unload the crates of tinware from the hold. Our arrival would have been exciting if only someone had been there to welcome us.

  Mamma is pale, I thought. The wind was bitter off the sea, straight from the South Pole, and Mamma was tired, with the new baby coming. Donald was hungry already, Maggie and Annie would be hungry soon, and they were all cold. They couldn’t stand around on the wharf forever.

  ‘I’ll go and get Grandfather,’ I announced. ‘He will come with the dray and take us hom
e.’

  Mamma protested. ‘Mary, dear, you can’t go walking all that way. Fifteen miles by yourself!’

  ‘I’ll go too,’ John said. He grinned at me and I grinned in return. I knew he’d rather walk 20 miles than hang around doing nothing until I got back. John always had to be doing things.

  ‘I’ll come too,’ Annie said immediately, but Mamma shook her head.

  ‘No, my dear.’ At 11, Annie was too young for such a long walk. But she always wanted to do whatever I did.

  ‘If Papa had given us money, we could have hired a dray,’ said Lexie.

  There was a silence. Lexie was only seven. She hadn’t learnt that there were some things one did not say. Maggie put her arm around her as if to protect her from anyone’s judgment. Lexie leaned her head against Maggie’s side. Lexie was Maggie’s special sister. She stayed that way, Maggie fiercely defending her from anyone, until Maggie’s death.

  ‘If Papa had had any money, my dear, I am sure he would have given it to us.’ Mamma smoothed Lexie’s hair back from her eyes. Lexie’s brown curls always escaped from her braids. Mamma tucked the corners of her mouth back in as she did when she was nervous or distressed. My heart felt as though it were being squeezed. ‘And if Papa has no money, it must be God’s will. He is testing us for some reason we don’t understand, but if we have faith in Him, everything will be all right.’

  Lexie stared back unconvinced.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Mary?’ Mamma said.

  I nodded. No matter how much I thought this was Papa’s fault and not God’s, I had to back Mamma up. And she may have been right ... look at Job. Mind you, Job didn’t go around picking political fights with the people who might have employed him. I had heard Papa laying down the political law to at least one potential employer in Sydney, and saw that man’s face close off and harden. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You know what Mamma always says, Lexie.’

  In a chorus, the other children answered, ‘God will provide!’ and they giggled. Lexie ducked her head and smiled too.

  ‘God will provide,’ Mamma repeated in her soft Scottish accent.