I lost the letter in rather embarrassing circumstances. We were to dine at Parramatta Government House that same evening and Peter had come in early from harvesting the wheat, sitting down in all his dirt to read the precious missive. I sat beside him, fresh from my bath. And so handsome did my husband look, long legs sprawled in dungaree trousers and frowning over my father’s spiky hand, that I could not resist reaching out to smooth away the frown. He caught my hand to his lips, still reading, and then chancing to look up and reading my face more swiftly than he would ever read the written word, pulled me onto his lap.
We arrived late at Government House as a consequence, and the letter—doubtless caught up in a pile of discarded clothes—was never afterwards found. But Dr. Slipper and his costive head entered our private lexicon from that day forward and became (I blush to confess it) a favorite conjugal joke.
I have to say though, that despite being extremely happy in my marriage, I was not at first very happy living in New South Wales. In my letters home, however, I was at pains to paint an idyllic picture. I praised our farm at Parramatta—the fine prospect of the river, the acres of waving wheat, the orchards and olive trees. I praised the house—the spacious rooms, the new library, the colonnaded verandah. I even praised my pianoforte (purchased at a bankrupt-estate auction by Peter) and the superior concerts we attended at Government House and the superior society to be met with there.
The reality, however, was more complicated. I never recovered, for instance, from my first impression of the town of Parramatta, formed on a hot November morning two days after my arrival. Peter had driven Ruth and myself out to see the farm, and having crossed the little wooden bridge spanning the river he had suddenly stopped the gig and climbed down, taking with him one of the water flasks. On the bank nearby was a great stone, two-storied building—the jail, I adjudged from the bars on the windows—and I saw then that an old man had been placed in the stocks outside. He was crying out for water, his face bright red from the sun beating down, and Peter, after first holding the flask to the man’s lips, had covered his head with his own wetted neckerchief.
I had wanted very much to write to my sisters about this because it so perfectly illustrated Peter’s Christian charity, but I knew not how to describe it without mentioning the stocks or that the old man was a convicted felon. I did not want to confirm them in their prejudices—to portray the Colony purely as a place of correction.
Similarly, I sought to present our farm as an extensive and cultivated estate, not comparable to Pemberley perhaps, but picturesque in its own way and productive. I did not therefore write about the drought that destroyed a third of our wheat crop or how I spent my first Christmas watering wilting rows of vegetables in the kitchen garden. And when I described our new library—the fine craftsmanship of the red cedar joinery—I did not mention that, save for Peter’s agricultural journals, the bookshelves were quite bare. Or that when my own books were at last unpacked and placed upon the shelves I was not at first able to read them (my Wordsworth especially) without feeling homesick.
I ignored too the vulgarity and crookedness of Sydney Town and wrote instead of its beautiful harbor, for despite Governor Macquarie’s efforts to broaden and straighten streets and erect fine public buildings, the place to my mind had an irredeemably raffish air. (There were too many men like Mr. Bushell and too many women like Mrs. Tasker living in Sydney Town.)
But unlike so many of the officers and their wives, I did not talk of returning to the old country. I did not court nostalgia by singing about cups of kindness. Whenever homesickness threatened, I said to myself the words I had said to Peter when first I had agreed to accompany him to the Colony—uncompromising words from the Old Testament Book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” (That Peter was not particularly religious was another of the things I chose to ignore.)
In the beginning though I was quite blind to the beauty of my new home insofar as it did not correspond with English notions of beauty. Two people in particular helped to open my eyes—Cassandra (who came to the Colony some eighteen months after myself and stayed for over a year) and Elizabeth Macquarie (the vice-regal couple being our near-neighbors at Parramatta).
Cassandra was especially struck by the quality of the Australian light, its peculiar clarity, and spent hours painting what I first thought very unattractive subjects: the spindly foliage of the eucalyptus trees and the native people—portraits of naked men with white circles of clay around their eyes and one of a bare-breasted native mother suckling her baby in full view of a congregation of church-goers. Cassandra answered my objections in her usual no-nonsense fashion, saying that she considered the people and plants of the New World to be every bit as beautiful in their way as those of the old, reminding me that the ancient Britons had gone into battle stark naked and painted themselves blue.
Elizabeth Macquarie was similarly impressed by the country’s original inhabitants, considering them to be of open and favorable dispositions. But just as I have never been able to get the better of my fear of convicts, so have I been unable to overcome my mistrust of the native men. I know I have disappointed Peter in this respect, for he has several good friends amongst them and in general feels that they have not been fairly treated. Indeed, one of our worst arguments occurred after I praised Governor Macquarie’s plan to give the natives a Christmas feast in the Parramatta market-place: “He means to feed hundreds of them with roast beef and plum pudding—’twill be just like the miracle of the loaves and fishes.” I had then asked Peter to reconsider joining the Committee for the Civilization of the Natives—whereupon he rounded on me: “’Tis nothing more’n the crumbs from the rich man’s table, Mary. The natives round here can’t even camp on the Crescent. Don’t you understand? They have lost everything.”
And in time, I did come to understand (though my fears, alas, remained) and Peter for his part conceded that some of his anger was due to guilt—the knowledge that his father must have dispossessed many of the local aborigines when first he came to settle in the area. (Mr. Bushell in turn maintained that there was now no turning back the clock: “If the British hadn’t settled here, the Frenchies would’ve, and they’d’ve treated them a damned sight worse. ’Sides, who stands to profit from what I done if not you and yours?” He was much more eager to talk about the injustices he had suffered at the hands of the free settlers: “Those damned exclusionists—those pure bloody merinos—herd of silly bloody sheep. They never let you forget you was once a convict.”)
9.
Perhaps I will never feel completely at home in Australia, although I have gradually grown accustomed to its back-to-front seasons and upside-down stars. I miss England most at Christmastime. While we never kept up the old traditions at Longbourn, it was still the season for fires and good cheer, and it seems very odd therefore to be wishing folk a merry Christmas with the glass reading over eighty degrees in the shade.
Some five months after my second colonial Christmas I received a letter from Elizabeth describing the festivities at Pemberley:
As I write, the house has a full complement of guests—Bennets and Bingleys and Gardiners and Hursts—and for the first time since our marriage, Lady Catherine has condescended to visit with her daughter Anne. Mr. Darcy believes in the old English style of hospitality and this evening (Christmas Eve) we dressed the windows of the great hall with holly, the Yule log was lit, and trestles set up with goose-pies and mince-pies and mead. Afterwards, there was a splendid game of snapdragon with the bowl of raisins and brandy set alight—much to the joy of the Gardiner children and little Bennet (our own Fitzwilliam being yet too young to take part).
Tomorrow we will be twenty-six at dinner, for I have invited our housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, to sit down with us, as well as Mrs. Annesley, the lady with whom Mr. Darcy’s sister Georgiana was used to live in London. (I have a mind to seat Mrs. Reynolds next to Lady Catherine.)
I think of you in your antipodean sunshine, dear Mary, while here we have ice underfoot. Bingley and I braved the weather this morning and went for a glorious walk in the Pemberley woods. Lady Catherine, I know, thought it imprudent in my condition—I have scarce two months to go before my confinement—but it has been delightful to be at liberty these past few days, for Lydia and Wickham have been staying with us since Michaelmas and we begin to think that they will never be gone. But this is quite between ourselves, dear.
These letters at first made me feel low. I calculated it must be at least another two months before news of the birth of Jane’s baby could reach me—before I could be sure she was out of danger—and I could not help wishing that Peter and I might have been part of all the Christmas merriment. The wish, however, was not long-lasting. In England, my marriage must always be seen as a mésalliance and no amount of personal kindness from Jane and Elizabeth or their husbands would ever alter that.
In the event, it was Cassandra who brought news of the safe arrival of Jane’s second son when she came to the Colony in July. She also presented me with a miniature of mother and child, painted when the Bingleys made a visit to Longbourn shortly after the birth. (The portrait is very similar to one of the Madonna and child by Raphael; the blue of Jane’s gown matching that of the Virgin’s robe.) But there was also sad news to be communicated. I learned that Helen had suffered a miscarriage early in the New Year and that for a short while she and George had been estranged. Cassandra explained: “Helen told George about Wickham—about the child—and he took it very badly.” After a pause she added: “But they are now reconciled and I believe their marriage is the stronger for it.”
When Cassandra first came to the Colony, I hoped that she might be prevailed upon to settle. The place suited her, and if she chose to paint naked native men and women or to consort with artists who had once been convicts (forgers for the most part), it was after all nobody’s business but her own. I was hurt though that she chose to live in a room above Bushell’s Emporium rather than with us at Parramatta. She explained it to me thus: “For one short year (I have promised my aunt it will not be longer) I intend to do exactly as I please—paint what I please and be accountable to nobody. If I were to live with you and Peter, that would not be possible, but Mr. and Mrs. Bushell will not care.”
Oddly enough though, Mrs. Bushell did come to care about Cassandra. Theirs was a peculiar relationship, begun in the dilapidations of the Bushell marriage and consolidated over the time it took Cassandra to paint Mrs. Bushell’s portrait. I could never understand it, and beyond saying that Mrs. Bushell had “suffered,” Cassandra did not try to explain.
Ruth opined that her mother would feel more at ease with Cassandra than with myself: “Miss Long ain’t such a fine lady as you are, Mary.”
“I am not a fine lady, Ruth, as I’ve told you many times.”
“Well, why won’t you let me learn you to bake bread then? Like a proper farmer’s wife?”
This was a longstanding grievance: Since marrying Tom and settling at Toongabbie, Ruth was eager to instruct me in housewifery (while at the same time resisting my efforts to turn her into a lady). But our sisterly squabbles rarely lasted long, and the proximity of the Cudlipps’s farm at Toongabbie—a distance of just three miles—was a comfort to us both. We regularly rode together (myself side-saddle and Ruth astride) and this more than anything helped disperse the little megrims and fits of homesickness that were apt to overtake me whenever Peter was away.
I wrote to Jane about these rides, as only a horsewoman could understand (I felt) the pleasure of taking in the country in such a way—the giving up of oneself to one’s surroundings. Riding was how I began to acquaint myself with my new home.
I wrote my most comprehensive letters to Mrs. Knowles. To atone for past neglect, I wrote regularly and minutely. I knew she would appreciate descriptions of butter-churning and bread-baking (I had eventually capitulated), and that she would be pleased to hear how I rose early to practice my music and write my songs. And Mr. Galbraith, I knew, would wish to hear about Peter’s antipodean farming and Ruth’s bee-keeping (Peter having arranged for a hive of European honeybees to be shipped out from Rio de Janeiro).
But I confided my regret that Ruth’s determined rusticities prevented her from mixing with a wider circle of people:
Peter, in contrast, is able to move easily in any company. His passport to such polite society as the Colony affords is undoubtedly his musicianship, but his talents and integrity make him everywhere valued and respected. He is equally at home in the taproom of the Jolly Poacher and the drawing room of Government House. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you and Mr. Galbraith for bringing us together.
As soon as I knew I was with child, I wrote to tell everybody. And I wrote my parents—I could not help myself—that I was presently working on a set of baby caps to which I had affixed rosettes of satin ribbons on the right-hand side (Peter having wagered we would have a daughter upon learning that Mr. Bushell had bet heavily on having a grandson):
I tell you this, my dear parents, not in a spirit of contrariness, for (thank heaven!) we do not have to concern ourselves with an entail, but to illustrate my husband’s regard for my feelings. Truly I may say—to quote Ecclesiastes 7:28 and with no disrespect to Papa—“One man among a thousand I have found.” I am the happiest creature in the world, or perhaps I should say in the New World, for I do not aspire to be happier than my sisters.
I had then crossed out the last dozen or so words—they seemed to smack of the old rivalry and resentment—before beginning a letter to Lydia. (I found letters to Lydia the hardest of all to write—she seldom wrote to me and when she did, it was always the same sad tale: friends with whom they had fallen out or debts they had been unable to repay.) I often wondered whether she still loved Wickham—certainly she no longer referred to him as her “dear Wickham”—and in her last letter she had hardly mentioned him.
Cassandra had left the Colony before I knew I was with child, sailing on a returning convict transport in response to an urgent summons from Mrs. Long. But in the weeks before she sailed, she painted a portrait of the Bushell family—Mr. and Mrs. Bushell senior, Peter and myself, and Ruth and Tom—all lined up on the verandah of the Jolly Poacher.
Nearly eight months after her departure, Peter’s and my child was born—a girl we named Elizabeth (after Mrs. Macquarie) and on the following day a box containing the latest novels and London newspapers arrived—the gift of George and Helen. In it was a copy of Cassandra’s shipboard journal together with her letter. I shall let her have the last word:
I called at Longbourn this morning to find your mother and father walking in the shrubbery, arm in arm. My face must have betrayed my surprise, for your father said: “Perhaps the news did not reach you in New South Wales, Miss Long?” “What news would that be, sir?” “Why, that hostilities have long since ceased.” Whereupon your poor mother assured me that the war between England and France had ended years ago!
They both looked remarkably well, your mother perhaps a little stouter, and when I presented them with the sketch of yourself and Peter on the verandah of the Jolly Poacher, your father said it would make a fine companion piece to the portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy in the grounds of Pemberley.
He then said (quite seriously) that despite some inequality in rank he had never doubted your marriage would be happy and that Peter would use you kindly. He also said that he feared that he had not always used you kindly and I did not contradict him.
Acknowledgments
I’m especially grateful to Suzanne Falkiner for her help and encouragement. I also thank the president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, Susannah Fullerton, for taking the time to read and comment on an early draft. And for helping the book on its way, I thank Mary Cunnane, Nicci Dodanwela, Vanessa Battersby, Tony Rogers, Diana Dasey, and Rick Evans.
About the Author
Photo by Rick Evans, 2012
Jennifer Paynter was born and educated in Sydney. She has previously written two stage plays: When Are We Going to Manly? (produced by the Griffin Theatre Company in 1984 and nominated for the 1984 Sydney Theatre Critics’ Circle award and the 1985 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards), and Balancing Act, produced by the Canberra Theatre Company in 1990 and adapted for radio by the ABC. The author of several anthologized short stories, she lives in Sydney. The Forgotten Sister is her first novel.
The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice Page 34
