Out of the Silence

by Wendy James

  The arguments put forward by the advocates of the bill were not at all silly, but were, unfortunately, extremely dull. It was most perplexing – as if they had already given up. The Solicitor-General who opened the debate rattled on & on about this & that legal matter, until the entire gallery – pros & antis – were loudly yawning! The division of the upper gallery, where we were seated, was very amusing, with the women from each side sitting as far apart as possible, though Vida & her father sat together — like the ‘lion and the lamb’, as one newspaper reported. (Though it is not clear which of the two is the lamb!) Still, it is a terrible shame and, as Vida has said, it is monstrous that the upper house can deny what is so clearly the will of the people. It is almost a certainty that women will be able to vote for the new federal government so surely this vetoing will not – cannot – go on indefinitely.

  The suffrage has already now become yesterday’s news, what with the impending royal visit, but it is to be hoped that V’s new publication will go some way to ensuring that the momentum is not lost; indeed, already another bill is in preparation. I’ve enclosed a few snippets, to give you a feel for the publication. I would love your opinion on it – it is quite a remarkable effort, don’t you think? Vida’s writing is persuasive and informed, and contains a characteristic ‘bite’ where necessary. I have no doubt the magazine will be a great success, and that ultimately – though perhaps it will be by hook rather than by crook – we will get our vote. And you might note, Robbie, on page 5, the little fiction by a certain ‘E.H’? Not of the first order, I know, & rather slight, but be kind, brother dear, it is only a first effort …

  Oh Robbie, I know what you are thinking, and I know that you will be convinced I have not thought deeply enough into my decision and that the old impulsive Bess is again rushing headlong into some crazy scheme. And I suppose from your perspective it could seem crazy: I am engaged to marry a man I barely know, to raise his children, all for the sake of – what? Comfort? Security? Social position? Companionship? I admit to desiring all these, Rob – it is a rare member of my sex who does not. And if I no longer have the luxury of marrying for ‘love’ – surely I can aspire to affection? I beg you will not judge me harshly, but try to understand. And understand, too, that in choosing to accept Mr Tucker I am not betraying Davey – and I know you loved him almost as well as I did – for surely the dead cannot be betrayed. No, my dearest brother, Mr Tucker is not Davey, but then – I’m not that same Bess either.

  With much love,

  Eliza

  THE WOMAN’S SPHERE

  For many weeks while the project achieved today has been slowly forming, I have been tempted to dream of what it would be possible to do if this paper obtained the friendship of even a small percentage of my countrywomen who love their land and know that it will never prosper until their half of humanity has its rights – and performs its duties …

  Maggie

  Gundowring, Victoria

  1888

  I am only a small child, deceptively fragile. And dark – hair, eyes, and, despite Ma’s best efforts with bonnets and whitening lotions, complexion too. Swarthy. ‘Just like your father’s sisters.’ Ma says it often, and always with the same pinched tone and over-my-head expression. ‘Black Irish, as they tell it. Tarbrush, I wouldn’t wonder,’ she says, her voice full of something I can’t quite grasp. I think the word tarbrush is somehow connected to the fierce way she pulls back my hair into a tail every morning. But I have checked the brush carefully and there is nothing special in it, no creams or potions, only a dusty tangle of hair that I can match to each family member, excepting Dad, who uses a special black comb that he keeps in his shirt pocket.

  Despite Ma’s eye-watering exertion my hair has come loose now, somewhere in that long, meandering mile between school and home I have lost my ribbon – a new plaid one bought only last week from Mr Singh. And I’ve left my hat back on the peg board, so my skin’s flushed with heat and exertion, and most probably a slight burn. I will be in trouble, but I don’t know it yet. These things always seem to take me by surprise.

  I’m not thinking of my hair now, anyway – at the most it merits only an unconscious brush away from my face. Nor am I thinking of the words Miss Carruthers has said must, on pain of the strap, be correctly spelt by tomorrow. ‘Maggie Heffernan, a big girl like you! You should be ashamed. Why, I’m sure even Netta Parkes can spell most of these words correctly, and she’s only a baby. A disgrace.’ But I’m not thinking about ‘their, great, under, whose’ or any other of those particular words right now. Nor am I thinking of the potatoes that’ll be waiting in a bowl for me to peel and cut when I get home; of the ducks and chooks that will need feeding. And I’m not thinking of any of the things Miss Jeffries at Sunday school has declared to be ‘the proper reflections of a righteous Christian child’, either; of my duties and responsibilities to my mother and father, to my family, the church, to the teacher, to God.

  No. Right now I am concerned with, oh, the same things any eight-year-old child, halfway home on a mild mid-spring afternoon might be concerned with. I am thinking of the tickle that the sun and the breeze between them make on the back of my neck when I move a certain way; of the pudding that has been promised for tonight, the brandy-plumped raisins that are sure to be part of the mixture. I am thinking that I need to piddle. Should I? Or can I hold on? Yes, I squeeze the tops of my legs together a little, then walk carefully for a few more minutes, and the urgency’s gone.

  I am thinking that from this tree stump to the next should be only fifty paces, I counted exactly fifty yesterday, so why has my count already reached sixty today? I’m thinking that I would like to sleep on the good side of the bed from now on. Surely it’s only fair that Doll should take the sloping side – she’s two years younger after all. Tonight I’ll insist, I’ll threaten her (but with what?), if need be.

  I’m thinking that now I’m really too far behind, the boys are out of sight, are probably already home. I’ll be accused of dawdling, of wasting time. I’m thinking that I had better hurry, run, or there’ll be trouble …

  There’s no indication, is there? No sign of what’s to come. I’m thinking commonplace eight-year-old thoughts. The ordinary thoughts of an ordinary girl. This is what I am.

  What I was.

  Coburg Reformatory, Pentridge Prison

  March, 1900

  In prison my days go like this: we are woken by a bell ringing at five which means nothing as I will already be awake, if I have slept at all in the night. Our breakfast, a cup of weak tea and the remains of yesterday’s bread, is passed through the door shortly after and by 6 a.m. we are inspected, which means that we must be dressed for the day and our cells must be tidy. Dressing for the day involves exchanging one set of coarse, ill-fitting garments for another, but somehow it is a pleasant change – our day wear always seems surprisingly clean and neat. The clothes we wear are not as bad as what they are given in the main cell block. Here, they’re plain-coloured and the fabric is harsh, but we are given a bonnet and apron that makes us look presentable if you do not look too close. If it weren’t for the numbers printed on the front of every item, they wouldn’t be so different in appearance from some of my plainest work clothes back home. Slippers are worn inside the cell, and wooden-heeled shoes outside. These are several sizes too big (a circumstance which I do not complain about – it is not so bad as several sizes too small, which some girls must suffer) and I have to walk in a strange shuffling manner to keep them from falling off.

  After inspection (which is carried out by the sub-matron, Miss Garvey, whose temper can never be guessed at – some mornings she is breezy as you like and will give you a smile and tell you your cell is just as it should be; other days it is as if a great cloud hangs over her and you know that no matter how hard you try, nothing will be right and you will be forced to grit your teeth, refold your nightwear, straighten your already perfectly straight apron and re-roll your mattress three or four times until it is to her l
iking), we are taken to the privy to empty our slops, and then there is morning prayers in the chapel, which are always quick and matter-of-fact if Mrs Henderson is in charge, or long, prosy and dull if it is the chaplain, Dr Weekes, who is likely to set us all, the wardresses included, to yawning. In dry weather we are then allowed a half-hour of exercise in the courtyard – we walk back and forth, round and round, in single file, three feet apart. By eight we are at our work, which for us specials is laundry that we must wash and dry, then starch and iron and fold. It isn’t prison laundry that we are washing, but articles sent by hotels and boarding houses. The prison is paid for this work so it must be quickly and carefully done.

  There are three rooms in the laundry, of which the steam laundry itself is the worst. For with the coppers boiling all day, even if the weather is cool the room is always such a swelter you can hardly breathe. We get damp and sweaty, and there is barely one of us does not have some chest complaint or other. Every now and then, for the benefit of our health, we are given a spell sorting or folding or packing, though this is usually reserved for the older women or them who are too weak, or foolish. The rule of silence is meant to apply even to us specials, but if we are with one of the more kindly wardresses – Mrs Lynch or Mrs Groves, for instance, they are happy to let us chat quietly amongst ourselves, or even sing, which makes the time go much faster. The most pleasant way to spend the day is to be assigned to the clothes lines, for though that is the heaviest work, it is still an extra hour or two outside and if you don’t think too hard it is easy enough to imagine yourself elsewhere. For there are birds and trees and even flowers to be seen, and you can hear the noise of the traffic outside the prison gates, and people passing by and coming in and out. And then, too, they’re ordinary clothes that we’re pegging, clothes cut from soft materials, fabrics that don’t scratch at your skin. It’s a reminder that there is a world outside and that life is going on just the same, even if you are not having any part of it.

  We work hard all morning, with a ten-minute break for elevenses which is another cup of tea – this time with milk – and maize cakes, and once a week there will be scones, which are not so light as they could be but still a treat of sorts, and even more so when there is marmalade or jam. Then we are back working until half after one, when we are taken back to our cells for lunch, which is the best meal of the day here, there always being some stew or other so as the cheap cuts of meat can be used. After that we are all quite satisfied. On Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays there are sweets after, too. These are the best days, even when the pudding is dry or not so sugary as I would like.

  Our dinner break lasts an hour and then we are back to the washrooms for the ironing, which is slow, careful work, as we take pride in doing a proper job and are quite as particular that our shirts are neatly pressed as any Toorak slavey. We go on working until six, with a ten-minute afternoon smoko, and then there are evening prayers and then supper back in our cells, which is usually a soup or sometimes oatmeal or hominy maize. And then there is sewing (powder bags or prison garb), when there are not prayer meetings or some sort of instruction. We are taken back to our cells at eight-thirty and allowed our lights on until ten. This time we can spend as we please, which for me is usually reading. But as we are only allowed improving literature, or to read from the Bible, I am usually asleep well before the lights are put out.

  And this is how life goes on day after day, and there is very little variation. The work I do here is much the same as the work I did in service. I remember that when I woke each morning at Mrs Brann’s the thought of all the chores I had to get through, if I considered them one by one, hour by hour, the endlessness of them, made my head ache. But in prison my head no longer aches at the thought of all the work. The thought of a great pile of laundry waiting to be sorted and washed and mangled and hung and then starched and ironed and folded no longer makes me shudder. I never sigh, exasperated, at the sight of the never-empty mending basket. Now if I sigh, it is with relief. For the more there is to be done, the less time I have to think. Back then there was always the future to imagine, to dream about, when I wasn’t hard at work. Here it is best to keep working, to try not to think too much, backwards or forwards, as there is nothing to be gained either way.

  So, I am certainly not a shirker – rather one of the hardest workers here, and there is nothing but praise for my diligence. It makes me laugh to think how proud of me Ma would be, if only she knew.

  There is a pile of letters that Miss Hamilton brings with her, from people who are writing to support Miss Goldstein’s efforts to have me released. ‘You wouldn’t believe, Maggie dear, the number of people from your home-town who have written on your behalf. You are certainly a popular girl. There are letters from so many people.’ She reads them out to me. They make me laugh and cry at once. They sound as if they were written about another person. At first I am shocked at this harping on about me being somehow simple-minded. I had never heard any talk before of me being dropped on my head as a baby, and have never had the headaches or fits that Ma and others keep mentioning, the only claim to illness I can make being a tendency to hay fever in the spring, which brings on fits of sneezing and itchy eyes and throat. But Miss Hamilton explains that to describe me as weak-minded can only help my case and is not a slur against me; she assures me that it is quite obvious to anyone who meets me that I am not at all simple-minded – quite the opposite. Still, it is hard not to get a little vexed at the tone of some of the letters, even though they are written with the best intentions. Miss Jeffries’ letter in particular puts me in a rage.

  It was not pride that made her drown the little dear but she has respectable connections and she did not like to let it be known to them I know she would almost die herself than face her poor father with a little infant, he being rather strict of course and a mother will forgive sooner than a father, and they always advising against the young man made her take it to heart harder than ever. However she is a great flirt …

  To have such a bird-wit as Elsie Jeffries calling me a flirt, which I have never been, and for her to get away with writing such guff about me having been warned off Jack Hardy, when as far as I know there was barely anybody knew that he and I had any connection! I have half a mind to write back and give her a sharp set-down, but of course – as Miss Hamilton points out – she was no doubt trying her best to be helpful, and perhaps got carried away in the course of writing, which is a possibility, Elsie Jeffries having so very little else to carry her away.

  This Margaret Heffernan they are all discussing – in newspapers, letters, statements – surely she is not me. Not Maggie. I imagine her as pale, weak, delicate, easily frightened, forever tired. She would never have the strength to milk a cow, or the stomach to slaughter a fowl when the need arose. She would be too delicate to peel potatoes and too lazy to walk three miles to meet her beau. She would do nothing but lie upon a sofa the entire day, moaning and sighing, and being melancholy. She would dress in greys and browns, she would smile rarely and never have a sharp word or make a smart crack. She would eat like a sparrow and develop a galloping consumption. She would describe herself as having been ‘most cruelly deceived; led astray’. She would be Margaret, Miss Heffernan – never Maggie. She is an unfortunate creature; the type of miss that Jack Hardy would never have bothered with.

  Most months two letters come for me: one from Doll and one from Harry. I must choose between them and the other is held over or sent back. For the first few months I choose to read Doll’s letters, as this is Mrs Henderson’s preference and because I don’t really want to encourage Harry. Doll’s letters are usually full of things that Ma wants related to me without actually taking the trouble to write herself. Doll would not think to tell me, for instance, that Dad is suffering bad from indigestion, which is undoubtedly caused by the ‘great grief and agony’ that now consumes him and the ‘terrible guilt’ he suffers wondering ‘what he did wrong’; or that the year has been a bad one owing to the milk and butter pr
ices not being what they should be; and that they have had to hire two men to do Dad’s work, since he just has ‘no heart for it anymore’, owing to the ‘terrible slump he is in since the dreadful events of last year’. It seems Ma thinks I will have forgotten that Tom has gone off to fight in South Africa (has been driven off, if the truth be known) and that Bill is still trying his luck at the Sandy Creek mine, which is of course the real reason they need the extra men. And that Dad has not had much heart for the work for a long while, though how anyone could stick at it for too long is and always has been beyond me – dairying being the worst of all jobs, as far as I can see. Why they do not take up tobacco, as has been talked about for years, I do not know.

  After Doll’s first few letters I cannot stomach it. I decide to have hers sent back and keep only those from Harry. Soon Harry’s letters become the one thing that I look forward to beyond anything here. He is always so breezy; I am always cheered when I have read his news. And though he always ends up reminding me that his heart is mine whenever I want to claim it, or some such silly guff, his are never serious letters, but are full of news about Mr and Mrs Ralph, or Lizzie and Lucy and the other girls, or Harry’s own latest plan, which changes every time – one week he is all set to buy land in the Riverina, the next he has decided to travel West to investigate opal mining, which he is sure will make him his fortune; the next he has determined to buy a team of camels, the thought of which makes me giggle fit to burst. Camels are the crankiest of animals and I am not sure Harry has even ridden a horse!