Out of the Silence

by Wendy James

  About Out of the Silence

  WINNER OF THE BEST FIRST AUSTRALIAN CRIME NOVEL, NED KELLY CRIME AWARDS 2006

  I hold Jacky close, fix my eyes on the door and walk as fast as I can.

  ‘Oh, please, don’t run away. Think of your child, if you cannot think of yourself.’

  ‘What we are suggesting is nothing,’ the man mutters darkly, as I pass through the door and into the brightly lit hall. ‘Nothing. Far worse can happen.’

  Far worse.

  I have a baby, two shillings, no reputation and nowhere to go, but even so I cannot imagine what far worse might be.

  Out of the Silence is a stunning debut novel about three Australian women from very different worlds: Maggie Heffernan, a spirited working-class country girl; Elizabeth Hamilton, whose own disappointment in love has served only to strengthen her humanity; and the remarkable Vida Goldstein, the Melbourne suffragist who was to become the first woman to stand for Parliament.

  When Maggie’s life descends into darkness after a terrible betrayal, the three women’s lives collide. Around this tragedy Wendy James has constructed a masterfully drawn and gripping fiction. Based on a true story, it unfolds at the dawn of the twentieth century against the compelling backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement and a world on the brink of enormous change.

  The novel powerfully evokes the plight of women in the early 1900s – not least their limited options, whatever their class and education. However, at its heart this is a story of love – of love gone wrong; of its compromises and disappointments; but ultimately of its extraordinary transformative power.

  “This is a work of intelligence and talent informed by a deeply humane sensitivity.”

  —Sydney Morning Herald

  Contents

  About Out of the Silence

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Maggie

  I

  Maggie

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  II

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  Elizabeth

  Maggie

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About Wendy James

  Copyright

  For Darren – for everything

  History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in … I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all – it is very tiresome.

  Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1817

  Maggie

  Hawthorn, Melbourne

  17 January, 1900

  I’m looking down at this baby’s head, thinking that it’s too big, that it’s not right an infant’s head should be so big, and watching it work away at my breast, when the missus comes in, hems trailing along the floor and never a bother to her that the skirt will need washing earlier than it ought. She stands right in front of me, her hands clasped, eyebrows raised. ‘Maggie,’ she says in that soft way I have got to know so quickly – the very same way she asked me whether I have ever had any diseases of the organisation, whether I drink spirits or take laudanum – oh-so-polite, but no disguising the nastiness beneath. ‘Maggie,’ she says, ‘there’s a gentleman here to see you.’ She looks down at the baby. ‘Has he finished? You can give him to me if he’s had enough.’ There is something in her look as she watches the great bald head bat against my breast, something queer in her expression. As if she’s disgusted, revolted. He hasn’t finished, but she won’t know this and I poke my finger into his mouth quickly, breaking his suck mid-gulp. The babe is shocked and bawls, choking and spluttering, as I pass him over to his mother. He is a great ugly bear of a babe, and greedy – his suck so ferocious that my nipples are chapped and blistered though being well enough practised and, I would have thought, toughened.

  ‘A gentleman to see me?’ I am eager and afraid at once. I think immediately of Jack, that he has found me, that somehow he’s managed it, and just for a moment fancy that everything can be set to rights.

  ‘Not exactly a gentleman,’ she says, ‘A policeman. A detective. He says a little baby was fished out of the river yesterday morning, and they’re questioning any wet nurses employed in the last few days. It seems that once they have disposed of their own offspring, such creatures often find a nursing situation.’ It is little wonder she is unable to feed the infant herself: as his howls grow louder she holds him as far away from her body as she can. She’d probably carry him before her by the scruff of his neck if I were not here to see it. ‘Though why on earth anyone would choose such an occupation …’

  ‘Where is this gentlemen?’ I ask as I button myself up. He’s a dribbly, chucky baby and my shirt is damp in places, but I’m past fussing about such things.

  ‘I’ve asked him to wait in the drawing room,’ she answers, jiggling the boy back and forth in an attempt to stop the row. ‘You’d best go straight away. I haven’t offered him any refreshments – I’m sure his visit will be brief.’

  ‘Maggie,’ this as I start through the door. ‘I hope there’s nothing that you haven’t … You’re the fourth girl we’ve had. This is all so inconvenient …’ Her sigh is audible even through the child’s wailing. ‘It’s just so difficult to find anyone suitable.’

  ‘No, madam,’ I say quickly. ‘My boy’s with his gran, like I told you.’

  Like I tell the detective.

  He is young and thin and very polite, introduces himself as Detective Constable Murray, apologises for the intrusion, offers me a seat. He stays standing when I decline to sit and questions me so gently and nods so agreeably at my answers that I begin to relax. I let myself smile when I give him details of my little Jack’s whereabouts, his appearance – all of which he notes down carefully with his stub of a pencil.

  ‘He’s a little fellow,’ I tell him. ‘Only five-and-a-half-pound born,’ I say. ‘But a tough little lad, and noisy. He’s got a set of lungs on him you’d hardly believe.’

  ‘And dark hair like yourself?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘He’s got no hair. He’s as bald as my grandpa, and such a look of him, too.’

  ‘Has he been vaccinated?’

  ‘All the babies at the Women’s are inoculated. Poor little Jack, such a ruckus he made. That great sharp thing – it was awful. Cruelty to do such a thing when they’re so new.’

  ‘But all for the best, I suppose. And he’s with your mother now, I hear?’

  ‘No, not my mother. His other grandmother. She’s taken him up to Sydney for a bit. Until we get things fixed up. Money and a place. It’s very hard.’ I wipe away a tear.

  He waits a bit, lets me recover. Then: ‘And the boy’s father?’

  ‘He’s away in Queensland working just at present, and can’t get back for another month or two. We’re planning to get married. He doesn’t even know about his boy yet. Jacky arrived a bit earlier than we’d expected, you see. I haven’t been able to contact him.’

  ‘But your … er … his mother – she’s been helpful?’

  ‘Oh, she’s a good soul. Came to Melbourne soon as she got my letter from the hospital. She’d never even met me beforehand, but came down straight off. I travelled as far as Wangaratta with her and the boy, and then we stayed the night at Allen’s. She took the train from there next morning. She’s been ever so helpful, more than I’d hoped for, considering …’

  ‘Yes, she sounds like a … a godsend. Now Miss Heffernan, if you wouldn’t mind giving me her Sydney address. Just to confirm your sto
ry. We’ve other women to interview, you understand. A number of wet nurses have been hired in the last week or so.’

  ‘The address?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve an address, miss. Do you need to check—?’

  ‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I think I can remember it all right. It’s King Street. Number 204.’

  ‘King Street?’ He waits. ‘King Street where? What suburb? Sydney’s a big place.’

  ‘Oh. She just said Sydney.’

  ‘Aaah. Must be in the city then. And the woman’s name?’

  ‘Mrs Hardy,’ I tell him. ‘Mrs Lillian Hardy. She’s a widow, but her husband was a grocer. He left her fairly well-off.’

  ‘Have you heard from Mrs Hardy since she left?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I tell him. ‘But I’m expecting a letter any day now. She promised she’d write soon as she could.’

  He licks his pencil, makes a note. Looks up and smiles. ‘Good. Thanks for that information, Miss Heffernan. I’m sure we won’t be bothering you again. And I hope everything works out for you and your Jack. He sounds a bonnie little lad.’

  ‘He is,’ I say. ‘He’s a fine bonnie lad, my Jack.’

  I

  Maggie

  Dederang, Victoria

  November, 1898

  First meeting. Not even a meeting – a first glimpse. But it’s enough.

  It’s the middle of November and I’m just back from Yackandandah, where I’ve been helping my Aunt Martha for the month before and the two months after her seventh baby’s arrival. Mostly I’d looked after the other six: ‘Jest take ’em away, love,’ my aunt had said. ‘Keep ’em out of my sight.’ So I hadn’t had to do so much housework, maybe even less than usual, but even though Ma hasn’t been what I’d call welcoming, I’m glad to be back. Glad to be home.

  So, here I am, shopping in Dederang with Doll while we wait for Dad to finish his business. We have errands to run for Ma – shop biscuits, muslin, dates and currants to buy; letters to post. And then I’ve my own money to spend – three shillings Aunty M’s given me for my trouble.

  I’m standing at the counter of Knagg’s waiting for some lengths of satin ribbon to be wrapped (blue for me, plaid for Doll) when my sister nudges me. ‘Look, it’s him,’ she whispers. ‘Frank O’Malley’s new fella, just come down from Sydney. You know, the one I been telling you about. Jack something-or-other. He’s some sort of relation to Mrs O’Malley. Maybe a nephew.’ Doll has been blathering away at me all morning, but I haven’t been paying too much attention. I’ve no idea who she’s talking about, but I follow my little sister’s gaze curiously.

  He’s standing a little further along the counter, his hat in his hand, talking to Eddie Watson. I get a glimpse of laughing blue eyes, an easy smile, wiry dark hair, before he pauses in his conversation, looks directly at me. I turn away quickly without meeting his eyes.

  It’s only a glimpse, but it’s enough. My cheeks are suddenly hot and I’m breathless. I can feel my heart thud too hard and too fast, just as if I’d been running.

  It’s more than enough.

  I wait in the cart outside the smithy while Dad does business. I have only been home two weeks and Ma is back to her usual ways. For a few days it was almost as if she was glad to see me, which meant that she left me pretty much to my own devices, but already I’m half-wishing to be back in Yackandandah. She has sent me into town to give Dad a hand. ‘Margaret is always boasting that she is as strong as an ox, so why not make some use of her – she’s no help to me,’ says Ma, and of course there’s no point in Dad arguing, even though we all know he would rather break his own back than have his daughter do a man’s work.

  So I have come into Dederang with Dad, which would usually be a pleasant enough outing, only I have not been given time to change and am wearing my worst dress – a dingy brown woollen shift made up from an old one of Ma’s. It’s a sight – too short in the arms and so tight across the bust that the buttons are straining at the back. I’m ashamed to be seen wearing it in public, can too easily imagine the catty things that would be said if Selina Rutherford or Mavis Price, for instance, were to see me. So I am doing my best to keep out of sight, which is quite difficult in an open dray and requires some awkward bending and twisting, when who but Jack something-or-other – the very fellow who has occupied a space in my mind for the past few days – should come walking past.

  Being caught out in this dress is shame enough, but just as he comes by I am squeezed right down the front of the cart, poking about as if hunting for something or other, so he comes upon me unawares and when he asks, ‘Is everything all right, miss? Can I help you with anything?’ I am not expecting it and jump and hit my shin hard on the bench.

  When I have recovered enough to speak, I ask him in my huffiest manner what he thinks he is doing, what sort of a fool is he to come creeping up on a person in such a way?

  ‘My apologies, miss,’ he says, ‘but I wouldn’t say I was creeping – this is a public path, y’know, and there was nowhere else for me to walk. I just thought you might have been in some difficulty, being all doubled over like that …’

  ‘It was nothing,’ I tell him. ‘I had … dropped my glove, is all, and was hunting for it.’ This is so plainly a tale – it is as warm a day as we ever get and there’s not a single glove in evidence – that I add in a tone that Ma would be proud of, ‘Which a person’s got a perfect right to do without being frightened out of her wits by a complete stranger.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have given you a fright, miss, but I don’t really see what else I could’ve done – unless you’d have liked me to send you a note warning you of my intentions.’ His voice and expression are so solemn and sorry that it takes me a moment or two to work out that he’s having a go at me and waiting for me to smile, which I don’t do – not being inclined to let him off so easily.

  ‘Well, it would certainly be a more respectable way to go about things, and far less likely to lead to accidents.’ I sound so straitlaced that it is all I can do to stop myself bursting out laughing. ‘But it’s not really a sensible solution, is it, when you recall that you have no way of knowing who to address the note to, us being perfect strangers to one another, after all?’ I can see he is worried that he has bit off more than he can chew here – his smile disappears and a little frown starts between his eyes – so I give him a hint of a smile to let him know that I know it is just a game we’re playing, and he jumps right back in.

  ‘Aaah, but we’re not, are we?’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘You were in Knagg’s the other day, and church on Sunday, and I’ve been told that you’re Maggie Heffernan, and I’ll bet you’ve heard that I’m Nora O’Malley’s nephew Jack Hardy, come down from Sydney. So you can’t say that we’re perfect strangers, now, can you?’ He’s not smiling, but has gone all serious again and is looking right into my eyes.

  And somehow it’s not a game any longer. It’s like they say in books, and I’m gazing back as if it’s the only place in the world for me to be looking, and for once in my life I’ve got no answer, and no thought in my head for Selina Rutherford, or Dad or even Ma. The only thing I can see, the only thing that matters, is him.

  I’m in the main street of Dederang, where I know everyone and everything, but I could be anywhere. Or I could be nowhere. It would make no difference.

  I’m gone. Lost.

  I hear from Tom that Jack Hardy will be playing for the Gundy boys in Saturday’s match and I am determined to go, though I know it will be a battle to persuade Ma, the cricket being played on a Saturday afternoon and that being the day she has set aside for me and Doll to do the silver. It takes me a while to think up a way and when I finally do I am quite pleased with my cleverness.

  ‘Ma,’ I say, when we are in the kitchen clearing away after Friday night’s tea. ‘Ma,’ I say, innocent as a lamb, ‘Muriel Donnelly was telling me at church the other day that her sister Sarah has taken a bit of a shine to our Tom.’

  Now, this is a
complete fabrication. For a start I have not spoken to Muriel Donnelly since she let on to Mr Williams that it was me who carved his and Elsie Jeffries’ initials into the willow outside the school. But, of course, Ma has no idea of this and her reaction is even better than I had hoped. First, her hand slips on a jug she is drying, which falls but does not smash – an indication of great shock, as Ma is too mean to be clumsy; next her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. She has to close it again, though there must be a whole lot she’d like to say – Sarah Quirk being pretty and respectable enough, but widowed and poor with two babies to raise, and certainly not a suitable match for one of Ma’s darling sons.

  I carry on as if I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. ‘Muriel says the whole family’s making a picnic of it for Saturday’s cricket match – the little ones too. Our boys are playing the Albury lads and it should be a good day. Muriel said that Sarah told her she was looking forward to getting an opportunity to have a bit of a chin wag with Tom.’ This last is a bit of a stretch, Tom being a very serious cricketer and not likely to be distracted from the game the entire day even if Queen Victoria herself was to appear in the crowd, and I wonder as I say it whether I’ve gone too far, but Ma just stands there saying nothing, looking down at the jug on the floor.

  When she eventually picks it up, she dries it as slowly and tenderly as if she were drying a baby. She puts the jug away carefully and then turns to face me with her hands on her hips. ‘Well, Maggie,’ says Ma, ‘we can leave the silver for another week. I’d say there’s enough of that mutton left over to make up a few sandwiches, and there should be time to do a sponge in the morning. It’s about time the Heffernan family got behind the cricket team.’ Her eyes are bright and she is smiling a hard little smile and for a moment I feel sorry for Sarah Quirk. But only for a moment. I’ve more important things to think of, after all.