Picnic at Hanging Rock

by Joan Lindsay

  Reg Lumley, dank, pompous and half-baked, was a clerk in a Gippsland store, holding Views and Opinions on every subject under the sun from Female Education to the incompetence of the local Fire Brigade. Which of them, thought the headmistress, drumming impatient fingers on the desk, was he going to bring out today? And what could have brought him all the way from Warragul without warning? ‘Good morning, Mr Lumley. I wish you had thought to write and tell us you intended calling today. I happen to be extremely busy this afternoon and so is your sister. Put your hat down on that chair if it’s worrying you – and your umbrella.’

  Reg, who had lain awake half the preceding night picturing himself delivering his ultimatum from a vertical position of authority, reluctantly seated himself on a chair with his umbrella between his knees. ‘I may say I had no intention of calling today, Ma’am, until I received a telegram from my sister Dora late yesterday afternoon. It upset me considerably.’

  ‘Indeed? May I ask why?’

  ‘Because it confirmed my own opinion that Appleyard College is no longer a suitable place for my sister to be employed.’

  ‘I am not concerned with matters of purely personal opinion. Have you any reason for this extraordinary statement?’

  ‘Yes, I have. A number of reasons. In fact –’ he was fumbling in his shiny pockets, ‘I have a letter here – in case you were not in, you know. Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’ She looked up at the clock over her shoulder. ‘If you can tell me what you have to say as briefly as possible.’

  ‘Well, to begin with, it’s all this publicity concerning the College. In my opinion, there has been far too much publicity ever since this – er these – er unfortunate occurrences at the Hanging Rock.’

  The Headmistress said acidly: ‘I don’t recall your sister being mentioned at any time in the Press . . .?’

  ‘Well, perhaps not my sister . . . but you know how people talk. You can’t open a paper nowadays without reading something about all this business. It’s not right, in my view, that a respectable young woman like Dora should be connected in any way whatsoever with crime and all that sort of thing.’ (If young Lumley’s heart could have been exposed to view like the poet’s it would have had graven upon it RESPECTABILITY. Publicity was hardly ever respectable in Reg’s opinion, unless you were somebody frightfully important like Lord Kitchener.)

  ‘Be careful how you express yourself, Mr Lumley. Not crime. Mystery if you like. A very different matter.’

  ‘All right then – Mystery. And I don’t like it, Mrs Appleyard. And nor does my sister.’

  ‘My solicitors are confident there will be a solution shortly, whatever you and your friends in Warragul may choose to think. Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘Only that Dora has told me she wishes to terminate her employment with you, as from today, Saturday, March the twenty-first. In point of fact I have a cab outside waiting to take her away; and if you will kindly tell her her brother is here, and have her pack her bags, the heavy luggage can be sent on later.’

  At this juncture, as he later remarked to his sister in the train, the young man had noticed a strange mottled colour creeping up Mrs Appleyard’s neck under the net collar. Her eyes, which he had never looked at before one way or the other, had gone round like a couple of marbles and appeared to be jumping out of her head. The next minute the old girl had let fly. ‘Phew, Dora, I wish you’d heard her! Luckily I had complete control of the situation and didn’t attempt to answer back.’

  An impartial witness might have observed that the visitor himself had gone a curious shade of waxen green, and was visibly trembling.

  ‘Your sister is a pink-eyed imbecile, Mr Lumley. I should have given her notice before Easter, even without your interference. Fortunately, you have saved me the trouble. You understand, of course, that by her extraordinary behaviour she forfeits her salary for such a breach of contract?’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. However, that can be adjusted later. And by the way, I understand she would like a written reference.’

  ‘I daresay she would! Although any reference from myself, with a grain of truth in it, would be unlikely to gain her a position!’ Her hand struck the blotting pad with such force that it nearly jumped off the desk, at which Mr Lumley jumped, too. ‘I am a truthful woman, Mr Lumley, and if you don’t know it already allow me to tell you that your sister is a bad-tempered, ignorant dunce and the sooner she gets out of this house the better.’ She pulled the bell rope at her elbow, rose from the desk. ‘If you will kindly wait in the hall, one of the maids will bring your sister and you may tell her to start packing her bag at once. If she hurries, you can catch the Melbourne express.’

  ‘But Mrs Appleyard! I insist on you hearing me out! Surely you want to know my point of view about all this? I mean there are quite a number of people who –’ The door of the study was somehow behind him. Hatless and trembling with suppressed fury Reg stood alone in the hall. Here, in an agony of frustrated oratory and punctured self-esteem, he was obliged to pass the time as best he could, on a highbacked mahogany chair, devising ways and means of retrieving his hat from the study without loss of face.

  Within an hour Dora Lumley had succeeded in compressing her meagre stock of clothing and few personal possessions – a Japanese fan, a birthday book, her mother’s garnet ring – into a wicker dress basket, several bags and brown paper parcels, and was seated beside her brother in Hussey’s cab. It is hardly necessary to add that the cab bowled down the drive under the scrutiny of numerous pairs of unseen eyes. Curiosity has its own peculiar means of expression; the spoken word assisted by raised eyebrows, nods, headshakings and the shrugging of shoulders. On the evening of Saturday, the twenty-first, curiosity at Appleyard College was at fever heat. Despite the restrictive rules of silence, a highly sensitized ear would have been aware of a ceaseless gnat-like buzzing on stairs and landings; the wordless hum of female curiosity aroused but as yet unsatisfied. Ever since Miss Lumley and her brother had been seen driving away together late in the afternoon the weird assortment of hastily packed belongings on the box seat had given rise to the wildest speculation. Was the junior governess actually leaving the College for good? And if so, why such haste? It was generally agreed that it was unlike Miss Lumley to miss a chance of a spectacular farewell. The housemaid was implored to repeat what the brother had said on arrival and how long he was left stranded in the hall. And what Miss Lumley had said when informed by Alice that her brother was waiting below with a cab. All very mysterious and in its way serving as comic relief in an otherwise colourless day: Dora Lumley and her impossible brother having been long ago pigeonholed as figures of fun.

  The only member of the household to show no interest in Miss Lumley’s departure was Sara Waybourne, who had passed the afternoon in wandering about the grounds with a book. Struck by the child’s increasing pallor, Mademoiselle made up her mind to ‘take the bull by the tail’ and ask Mrs Appleyard to send for Doctor McKenzie. Ever since the scene in the gymnasium Dianne had been conscious of a strange new strength. She was no longer afraid of Mrs Appleyard’s individual wrath, now rendered impotent by the impersonal wrath of Heaven.

  There were only five more days left until Wednesday, when the College broke up for the Easter Vacation. After that, Appleyard College would be little more than a bad dream as she lay in her Louis’ arms. Rosamund, glancing across the supper table, saw her sudden smile above a plate of Irish stew and rightly guessed her thoughts. Life at the College without Mam’selle’s endearing presence would be unsupportable. She thought, ‘Why am I here, with all these stupid children?’ and decided to ask her parents to let her go home for good at Easter.

  Not only Sara Waybourne, but Mrs Appleyard was in need of Doctor McKenzie’s attention. She had lost a great deal of weight in the past few weeks and the full silk skirts hung loosely about her massive hips. The flaccid cheeks were sometimes pale and sunken, sometimes mottled a dull red and ‘blown up’ as Blanche
whispered to Edith, ‘Like a fish left too long in the sun.’ The two girls giggled in the shadow of Aphrodite, watching their Headmistress slowly mounting the staircase from the hall. Halfway towards the first landing the Headmistress caught sight of Minnie coming up from the back stairs with a tray, nicely set out with a lace trimmed cloth and Japanese china. She enquired acidly, ‘Have we an invalid in the house?’

  Minnie, unlike Cook and Alice, was never intimidated by Mrs Appleyard. ‘It’s Miss Sara’s supper, Ma’am – Mam’selle asked me to slip up with something, seeing there’s no homework for the young ladies of a Saturday night and the child’s feeling poorly.’

  The girl had just reached the door of Sara’s room when Mrs Appleyard, retiring early to her vast bedroom directly above the study, called her back. ‘Kindly tell Miss Sara not to put out her light until she has had a word with me.’

  Sara was sitting up in bed with the gas turned very low, her heavy hair unbraided and falling about her narrow shoulders; and looking, Minnie thought, almost pretty, thanks to a fevered flush and dark glittering eyes. ‘See, Miss, I’ve brought you a nice boiled egg on Mam’selle’s special orders. The jelly and cream is something I pinched for you myself off Madam’s dinner tray.’ A thin arm shot out from under the coverlet. ‘Take it away. I won’t touch it.’

  ‘Now, then, Miss Sara, that’s real baby talk! A great girl of thirteen – isn’t that right?’

  ‘I don’t know. Even my guardian doesn’t know for certain. Sometimes I feel as if I was hundreds of years old.’

  ‘You won’t feel that way when you leave school and all the boys are after you – Miss – all you need is a bit of fun.’

  ‘Fun!’ repeated the child. ‘Fun! Come over here. Close to the bed and I’ll tell you something nobody at the college knows except Miranda, and she promised never never to tell. Minnie! I was brought up in an orphanage. Fun! Sometimes I dream about it even now, when I can’t go to sleep. One day I told them I thought it would be fun to be a lady circus rider on a lovely white horse in a spangled dress. The matron was afraid I was going to run away and shaved my head. I bit her in the arm.’

  ‘There, Miss. Don’t cry.’ The kind-hearted Minnie was horribly embarrassed. ‘Look, lovey, I’ll leave the tray here on the washstand in case you change your mind. Lor’, that reminds me! Madam said to tell you not to turn out your light till she comes in to see you. Sure you won’t try a bit of the jelly?’

  ‘Never! Not if I was starving!’ She turned her face to the wall.

  In a second-class compartment of the Melbourne train Reg and Dora Lumley had talked without ceasing; the sister now and then dabbing at angry tears with interjections of ‘Monstrous! Oh surely not! You don’t say! How dare she!’ as the wayside stations flew past in the gathering dusk. Already the brother was planning ways and means of extracting the full term’s salary, in Reg’s opinion a matter of extreme urgency. ‘Why, Dora, for all we know the old girl may be bankrupt any day – or getting that way.’

  When the train drew in at Spencer Street Station it had been decided that Dora would accompany her brother back to Warragul, there to housekeep for three in the dilapidated cottage of an ageing aunt. ‘In my opinion, Dora, you might do a great deal worse. After all, Aunt Lydia cannot live for ever.’ On which inspiring note they stepped out of the train and boarded a tram to a respectable small hotel in a respectable city street. Dora was filled with admiration for her strongminded capable brother who had even engaged beforehand two cheap single rooms for the night, in the back wing. They were just in time for a late evening meal and after swallowing some cold mutton and strong tea the brother and sister retired exhausted to bed. About three o’clock in the morning an oil lamp, left alight too close to a blowing curtain on the wooden stairs, fell to the floor. The flames began licking up the shabby wallpaper and blistered paintwork. Curls of smoke poured unseen into the street from the staircase window. Within minutes the whole of the back wing was a roaring vault of fire.

  14

  Reg Lumley’s final exit, although perfectly respectable, was accompanied by such lurid flames of publicity that in death the young man took on an almost phoenix-like quality of colourful resurrection from the burning hotel. The Warragul Store where for fifteen insignificant years he had worked and argued and held forth, was closed for half a day on the occasion of the Lumleys’ funeral, a public tribute that might or might not have been appreciated by the deceased, at last unable to voice his opinions.

  In the previous chapter we witnessed a segment of the pattern begun at Hanging Rock literally burning itself out, five weeks later, in a city hotel. During the week-end of the fire, yet another was gradually coming to a freezing standstill amongst the mountain mists at Lake View. Mike had been nearly a week in town and the Fitzhuberts had returned to Toorak for the winter when a solicitor’s letter, mislaid, had obliged him to spend a couple of nights at Mount Macedon. Albert had met him at the Macedon station with the cob on the evening of Saturday the twenty-first – actually his train passed within inches of the Lumleys, en route for Melbourne. As the dog-cart passed under the now leafless avenue of chestnuts it had begun, almost imperceptibly to sleet. ‘Winter coming early this year all right,’ Albert said, turning up his collar. ‘Don’t wonder all the nobs that can afford to clears out for the winter.’ There were only a few lights burning in the usually brilliantly lit façade of the house. ‘Cook hasn’t left for her holiday yet but the Biddies have gone with the family to Toorak. Your old room’s ready and a fire laid.’ He grinned. ‘You know how to light a wood fire?’ A single light burned dimly in the hall and through the open door of the drawing-room they glimpsed the shrouded sofas and chairs. ‘Not too lively up here, is it? Better eat your dinner and come on down to me at the stables. I’ve got a bottle of grog the Colonel give me the day he left.’ Mike however was tired and dispirited and promised to come tomorrow.

  The Lake View house emptied of the day-to-day presence of its owners was dull and lifeless. It existed only as a comfortable holiday background for his Aunt and Uncle and had no personality of its own. Michael, eating his chop on a tray by the fire, was dimly conscious of the difference between Lake View and Haddingham Hall, whose ivied walls had existed and would go on existing for hundreds of years, dominating the lives of succeeding generations of Fitzhuberts who had at times gone as far as to fight and die for the survival of its Norman tower.

  Next morning the solicitor’s letter turned up exactly where Mike had expected – stuffed into the back of the little drawer in the spare room writing table. It was Sunday, and as Albert had a mysterious appointment concerning a horse on an outlying farm, he passed the greater part of the day in wandering aimlessly about the grounds. About midday the wreathing mists lifted to show a clear view of the pine forest against a pale blue sky. After lunch when the sun came out in fitful primrose gleams, he strolled down to the Lodge and was met with open arms by the Cutlers and regaled with hot scones and tea in the cosy kitchen. ‘And how’s Miss Irma? My, you wouldn’t guess how we miss her about the place.’ Mike confessed that he hadn’t seen her while he was in town, but understood she was sailing for England on Tuesday, at which Mrs Cutler’s face fell in genuine consternation. As soon as the visitor left, Mr Cutler, who like most people who live in close daily contact with nature was aware of elemental rhythms, said mildly, ‘I always reckoned there was something between them two. Pity!’

  His wife sighed, ‘I couldn’t believe my ears when he spoke so casual-like about my poor dear lamb.’

  At twilight Mike had gone down to the lake where the dry rattle of the reeds and bare willow streamers dipping in and out of the little cove (in summer a shaded anchorage for the punt) filled him with a restless melancholy. The swans had disappeared, and the water lilies, whose dark green pads dotted the black sunless surface. The oak where he had seen the swan drinking at the clam shell on a summer afternoon was naked to the sky. In the distance he could hear the little stream tumbling down from the forest under the
rustic bridge. The tinkling music seemed to accentuate the stillness and silence of the interminable day.

  As soon as he had finished his evening meal, he took the hurricane lamp that always hung in the side passage and made his way, in drizzling sleet, to the stable. There was a light in the window of Albert’s room and the trapdoor propped open with a boot for the reception of the visitor. On the table a bottle of whisky and two glasses were set out. ‘Sorry I can’t make a fire up here – no chimney – but the grog keeps the cold out and Cook knocked us up a sandwich. Help yourself.’ Mike thought there was an air of welcome, even of comfort, unknown in his Aunt’s drawing-room. ‘If you were a married man,’ he said, settling down into the broken rocking chair, ‘you would be what the women’s magazines call a Home Maker.’

  ‘I like a bit of comfort when I can get it – if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Not only that . . .’ Like so many things one would have liked to say, it was too complicated to embark on. ‘I’d like to see you in a place of your own some day.’