Out of the Silence

by Wendy James

  Poor Mother & Father, they must have been stifling yawns and yet they always seemed so enthusiastic, so endlessly encouraging! Sometimes I think I would gladly give up the rest of my life if I could be transported back to those times, just for the shortest while …

  Anyway, enough of that! I’m determined to give Victoria one full year, and if I’m not settled by then, perhaps – just perhaps – I’ll reconsider!

  Letter from Elizabeth Hamilton to her brother Robert

  Dunfermline

  St Martins Place

  South Yarra

  Victoria

  24 June, 1898

  Dear Robbie,

  I do understand your concern and quite sympathise with your desire that I give up all my ‘silly ideas about independence, and being a burden etcetera’, but rest assured dear, that, despite the initial confusion, my future here has been quite happily settled – for the nonce, at least.

  I have taken up a position as general teacher at the Ingleton Preparatory School run by a Miss Vida Goldstein. Mrs Isabella Goldstein, her mother, is a particular friend of Harriet’s and was related in some roundabout way to Harriet’s husband: a second cousin or some such thing. I have it on good authority that Mrs Goldstein was a Miss Hawkins before her (highly unfortunate, according to H.) marriage – and that it was she who introduced Harriet to her dear Stanley. Oh dear, I am rattling on, but these are all essential facts, Rob, if you are to get a feel for my new environment.

  As to money: the payment is rather less than I had expected to receive as a governess, but I can supplement it with individual music lessons to those students who require them. For the moment I will stay on here – Harriet has been very insistent that I do, telling me, ‘It’s such a novelty having a woman for company.’ She will only take a very small sum for my expenses, so I am really quite comfortably established.

  I can feel it over the waves, dear brother – your curiosity about our antipodean cousins – and shall attempt a brief sketch of each. Brief because I have known them only a few months and, unlike you, am not convinced that first impressions are always true. I prefer to give myself a little space to change my mind or modify my opinions if necessary — a measure you too might adopt when you reach my very great age.

  Our cousin Harriet then, if you please. In appearance, short and a little on the stout side. Face round and bespectacled, rather jolly-looking – though this is in no way reflected in her character which, although she is extremely kind, is far from jolly, tending rather more to the acerbic. She is a busy, busy woman, exceedingly taken up with charitable work, and is a committed member of the temperance and suffrage movements. She is a district visitor for the Melbourne Ladies’ Benevolent society, holding a very responsible position that requires her to visit the poor and decide who is and who isn’t worthy of assistance. Cousin Harriet’s household is a little like Aunt Lizzie’s – a veritable den of social consciousness – but happily, in this household my reluctance to participate is tolerated and not taken as an indication of some serious moral deficiency.

  You, of course, know James a little from his time at Edinburgh. He is as straight and earnest as ever, and is a very fine doctor I believe. He has a small private practice and is a resident physician at the Women’s Hospital here, specialising in the ‘complaints of women’. He jokes that he is quite content to remain a bachelor; that his mother and his patients between them provide as many complaints as any one poor fellow could be expected to manage. James is very traditional in his views on almost everything and provides a wonderful foil to his mama. There appears to be very little that they agree on. Harriet, though a proud and affectionate mother, is constantly pecking at ‘her boy’ over his opinions on everything from divorce to infant care; over his dress; his taste in literature, his refusal to embrace her social and moral crusades … and so on.

  In return, James heartily disapproves of all Harriet’s causes and delights in teasing her whenever the opportunity arises — as it frequently does. He seems pleased by my addition to their circle, sees me if not quite as an ally, then at least a force for sense, though I can’t imagine I would ever have the slightest influence over such a formidable woman as Cousin Harriet.

  The Misses Goldstein who run the school are rather intriguing. The eldest – Vida – is very much the brains behind the scheme. She is about my age – perhaps a year or two older – and a veritable whirlwind who puts even Cousin H. to shame. Like Harriet and Mrs Goldstein she is involved in every possible charitable and socially progressive movement: anti-sweating, penal reform, women’s health, and so on. Vida works with H. at the Try Society (where wild, wayward girls are helped on the road to respectability through lessons in housekeeping, account-keeping, cooking etcetera), and is most especially a particularly active supporter of female suffrage. This despite the fact that her father, Colonel Goldstein (who is somewhat infamous in Melbourne’s philanthropic circles, owing to his involvement in what according to James were some ill-fated, financially dubious, charity schemes), is totally opposed to it! Though Vida is not publicly prominent, she is a particular protégé of one of the most influential and respected suffragists in Victoria – Annette Bear-Crawford – and Harriet is convinced that Vida is destined for great things. I’m not quite sure how she manages to run a school in addition to all her other activities. But run it she does, and it seems to be reasonably profitable, too. She’s quite a remarkable woman and, in defiance of all the bluestocking stereotypes, handsome and fashionable, too.

  Her two sisters, Elsie and Aileen, also teach. Elsie is pretty and girlish (though she is no more a girl than I!) and very light-hearted. She has a dreadfully penetrating giggle and is a terrible ‘gusher’: just the sort of girl I know would set your teeth on edge — she does mine. But the children all seem to like her very much indeed, which is fortunate, as I doubt she has any sense of discipline. She is of an ‘artistic’ and literary bent and does not appear to have such a passion for ‘causes’ as the elder Miss G. – or at any rate not so that they engage too much of her time or energy!

  Miss Aileen is more like her eldest sister. She is a member of numerous committees & societies and this despite her relative youth — she’s only in her very early twenties. She is prim and rather priggish, reminds me a little of Cousin Emily – another young lady who has been blessed with a Christian conscience, yet seems to approve of nothing & no one. At school she is needlessly stern with the little children, in particular the boys, & it is plain she finds it difficult to tolerate their sometimes rowdy enthusiasm. If she had her way they would spend the entire day sitting quietly, reading or sewing, or better still saying their prayers!

  Harriet and the Goldsteins attend the ‘Australian church’ – a local dissenting offshoot of the Presbyterian church, led by the Rev. Dr Charles Strong, who is an active and vocal supporter of all manner of social reform. This seems to be the preferred church of the fashionable and the good with, or so Harriet informs me, congregations sometimes spilling out into the street. Harriet is trying hard to persuade me to attend, but I find that my Sunday mornings spent in the little Presbyterian church that James attends (out of a sense of duty and propriety only: like Davey and so many of these ‘scientific’ men he is an avowed Darwinist) acts as a welcome memorial to home and helps to get me through the week. With my eyes closed I could be back at dear St Marks – though the sermons are not quite as dull as dear Dr White’s they do come close. At any rate, I am rarely required to think!

  My own teaching work is quite satisfying. I am kept busy, but certainly not worked too hard. Ingleton takes boys to the age of twelve, as well as girls, who we take up to sixteen if they do not require matriculation. The classes are small and to my mind the children are very well brought up, though coming from a broad segment of Melbourne society – from well-to-do butchers to parliamentarians’ children.

  I am not teaching the little boys and girls as I had thought, but have largely taken over from Miss Vida – who is always very busy with her social
work – in the instruction of the older girls. There are no more than a dozen, ranging from age thirteen to sixteen – good obedient girls – and I am given a free hand. I thought I should be overcome with shyness, but I must confess that I am pleasantly surprised by my competence in the classroom. We study a goodly amount of literature, some Latin and French, history and music, of course, and a smattering of mathematics. The extent of my knowledge would astonish even you. Happily (for the girls as much as me), I am not required to instruct the young ladies in sketching or painting – a tutor is employed for that purpose.

  Anyway my dear, I am very pleased to hear that you are having such success in your career as a newspaperman over there – and even more pleased to know that you are so well paid. You should be able to afford larger sheets of paper for your letters now — and perhaps, if this does not overtax your memory or strain your envelopes, you would be kind enough to send copies of your stories to your devoted maiden sister, who will paste them carefully into her scrapbook & properly cherish them. You see, as directed by Aunt Lizzie, I am at last cultivating some proper spinsterly habits!

  With much love,

  Your sister, Bess

  Maggie

  Dederang

  February, 1899

  We have been meeting for six weeks or so, and as far as I’m aware with no one the wiser, when Jack tells me that he’s moving on, for a while at any rate. The work has run out at O’Malley’s, so he’s taken a job further north, near Albury, on a big sheep station. His uncle will take him back, he tells me, when things pick up a bit. It’ll only be a month or two, he says, maybe less.

  ‘What’s a month or two?’ I say, smiling. ‘Albury’s not so far. You could ride over every now and then, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I could …’ he sounds doubtful. ‘But it might not be that easy, Mags.’

  ‘Well, we can write, anyway.’

  He brightens. ‘Write. Yes, we could sort out something, couldn’t we? Without anyone getting to know.’

  ‘And what’s a month or two, after all?’ I say again, louder this time. I don’t cling or snivel or sigh. I’m as breezy as can be. Jack has been gone a week when Ma tells me about a situation in Albury. She has heard that the mistress, a Mrs Brann, is no better than she should be and that none of her girls stay long as she is bad-tempered and hoity-toity and works her girls too hard, and in addition her husband is rumoured to have what is politely termed ‘a weakness’ for a pretty face and to have more hands than a man needs to do God’s work. The pay is not good either and there are only two half days free a week, and then one full a month – so no chance of coming home for a while, Albury being too far to travel for less than a day’s holiday. Even so, Ma says, it is a great pity that neither of her daughters is work-minded, or even capable of thinking of others apart from theirselves, and as it seems certain that no one is likely to take us off her hands in the proper way – Doll being so young for her age and me being so unlikely to attract any fellow with my disagreeable temperament – she cannot see how things will ever get any easier.

  ‘When I was your age I was sending my family half me pay to help out. Going without. You girls, you don’t know what it is to work,’ she says, sighing.

  Ma only mentions it by and by, little thinking that I will consider it for even a moment. So she is certainly surprised when I say that I would not mind it too much. ‘What’s got into you, Margaret?’ she asks. ‘What are you after? It’s hard, unpleasant work and wouldn’t suit a shirker like you. Dorothy would be much better suited, if only she was old enough.’ But Doll is jumping up and down straightaway about how she could not bear to leave home and how could Ma even think of sending her away when it was she who was practically running the house singlehanded and that surely it was Maggie, who was not really of any use at home on account of having no interest in anything here, who should be sent to this woman’s place, she is the eldest and it is her duty …

  And so I am able to leave it to Doll to do all the convincing without having to say too much myself, which I know from experience would only make Ma suspicious.

  Ten days later I am on my way in the buggy with Dad and my box, and a suitably long face (my response to Doll’s cock-a-hoop smile), my ears ringing with Ma’s sweet words of farewell: advice on how to behave and instructions to keep my temper and not to shame the family. As we pull away from the house I cannot help laughing a little at the thought of Ma’s face had she any idea of my intentions, had she known that my half Sundays would be spent not at church as she imagines, but in meeting up with Jack who I writ to straight off I knew I was going. But when Dad (who was at the outset firm that I did not really need to be sent into service again, that things were improving, but who, as always, has been brought into line by Ma) mistakes this laughter for tears and passes me his hanky and says in a voice that is quite choked up that he is not sure how he will get on without his Maggie, I am quickly sobered. There is no real amusement to be had in deceiving my father.

  The position is better than I have expected. Mrs Brann is a right cow by anyone’s reckoning, but luckily so puffed up by her own importance that not only does she employ me as what she calls an under-housemaid, there is also a housekeeper, a cook and a nurse for the two children. So my orders come generally from the housekeeper, Mrs Nolan, who is strict but not so bad, and I have not too much to do with the missus direct. In fact she barely speaks to me – being an under-housemaid I am quite beneath her notice, I suppose.

  They are not a large family, there are only the four of them, but still it is a busy household. Mr Brann is a draper and town alderman and on the up, so there are forever parties of people – ministers, merchants, graziers and the like – to entertain. The spread she (or we) turns out is always fancy and always far too much. Though she’s already well-in, it’s plain even to me that she lays it on a little too thick: the house, the food and especially her voice, which is so plummy I can hardly understand her, except when she forgets herself (generally on account of the children), and some most unladylike language slips out. It’s the sort of language that cannot be taught, only taken in with the mother’s milk, and it shows her for what she really is – common as muck. What Ma would call a mushroom: those folk who spring up in dung overnight.

  The housekeeper Mrs Nolan is not a bad old stick. She’s very proper and respectable, and though she is not what you could call friendly or kind-hearted, as long as I get through my work (she is the sort that looks on shelling peas as taking a rest), she leaves me pretty much alone. The cook, Mrs Fox, is another matter. She’s about Ma’s age and as quiet as they come most of the time, but liable to fly into a terrible violent temper the next. This, according to the children’s nurse, Annie, is on account of her suffering a dreadful Tragedy and having come down in the world. Until just a few years ago she was a well-to-do farmer’s wife (she is obviously much better brought up than the missus), but then her four kiddies were taken in a measles epidemic and her husband went quite crazy and gambled away their property and all their money, and now her pay goes to keeping him in some sanatorium.

  Anyway, the work is not as hard as I had thought, not really so hard as it is at home because there is only the inside work to do and none of the outdoor chores. I am up at five in the morning to get the kitchen fire going, and then help Mrs Fox with the breakfasts – while the family eats we have our own – and then the dining room is cleared, the dishes done and kitchen swept, and then each day I have different chores for the morning (the downstairs carpets are swept or beaten on Mondays and the upstairs on Tuesdays; the silver polished on Wednesdays, and so on). Then there is elevenses, and lunch for the family and the clearing up, and then there are the afternoon chores, and after that dinner to serve … and on it goes. There is only one day I hate especially and that is washday, which here is on Thursday, for not only does it mean an early start – I am up setting the fire before four – but it goes on and on, with us still ironing past ten some nights. But most days there are enough o
f us to make the work go round nicely, and usually once I have cleaned the grate and got the stove ready for the next morning it is only around nine and there’s some time left for a game of cards or a quiet read.

  I share a room with the children’s nurse, Annie Mason, who is a dairy girl from up Wangaratta way, and we have some fun together when we can. We share a room, which is not so bad because at least there are two beds, and at night we read the serials from old copies of The Australasian that the missus hands on to Mrs Nolan. Then, after our lights are out (which is at ten, and Mrs Nolan is strict about this – we have caught her peering under the gap at the door to check we have put out our lamp) we whisper stories about our beaus. Annie has a friend back home, a farmer’s son, but he is younger than her, only seventeen, and they cannot get married until he is twenty-one, so she has gone into service while she’s waiting.

  Annie has the hardest job in the house, for the two girls – Miss Lottie and Miss Sophie, as we are instructed to address them – are the most dreadful little pieces imaginable. They are indulged in every whim and consider themselves to be great ‘ladies’ (though only four and six) and us servants their personal slaves, being encouraged in this by their mother. They give poor Annie a terrible time, calling her names and pinching her and running away at every opportunity, and in general causing trouble between her and their mother, who of course will not believe her darlings could ever do wrong. More objectionable little children cannot be imagined. They do not treat me too bad since I gave Miss Sophie’s arm a Chinese burn in the way taught to me by my brothers and then threatened her with a visit from a Chinese devil if she told her Ma. I tell Annie she should try some such trick, but she is not game, so puts up with their ill-treatment and their temper tantrums.