‘Oh my goodness,’ said Charlotte. ‘I can’t quite believe it.’
Eliza poured her mother a strong cup of tea and added extra sugar.
‘None of us can,’ said John. ‘Though I suppose we should have been steeling ourselves for the worst. Things did look dreadfully bleak once the General was besieged by the rebels. All the same, it’s a tragedy that Mr Gladstone waited so long to send the relief force.’
‘It wasn’t Mr Gladstone’s fault,’ interjected Eliza. ‘He didn’t want to be involved in the first place.’
John Miller frowned but didn’t admonish her.
‘If only Sir Charles Wilson and his regiment had arrived in time,’ said Amy, referring to their ill-fated attempt to steam up the Nile and rout the rebel forces.
‘They found themselves in a perilous position,’ said John Miller, ‘being shot at from the banks by enemy troops. The only positive occurrence in this sorry tale is their rescue by Captain Lord Beresford.’
‘What has happened to the garrison General Gordon was commanding?’ Eliza asked. ‘Thousands of Egyptian troops, not to mention the loyal local soldiers. Do you think they managed to escape?’
‘I fear not,’ said her father.
‘Then that is surely the greater tragedy. Why are we concentrating on one English general and ignoring the others?’
‘How dare you ask such a question!’ said Joseph, rising from his seat and pacing back and forth. ‘The General’s murder is an abomination. And his killers are an evil, dark-skinned rabble. No gentleman would act like that.’
‘You should not judge them by the colour of their skin,’ said Amy quietly.
‘Are you taking their side?’ asked Joseph.
‘Of course not. I am only recalling the false judgements made about my own husband on the basis of his skin colour.’
‘Charles was a true gentleman, Amy. If I have offended you, I apologise. I did not intend to draw any parallel between Charles and the General’s assassins.’
‘I accept your apology,’ she said. ‘I think we are all a little emotional in the light of this dreadful news.’
Meanwhile, the two boys had retreated to the lawn where they were acting out the beheading of General Gordon.
‘I shall put a stop to their disrespectful behaviour,’ said Amy, standing up and making for the steps.
‘Leave them, Amy,’ said John Miller. ‘They are just play-acting. They do not understand the significance of this event.’
‘Off with his head!’ cried Charlie as he swooped towards James with a dead branch from a tree palm.
Amy flinched at his words.
‘It’s just a line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ said Eliza. ‘I was reading it to them only last weekend. They loved the scene with the Queen of Hearts.’
Amy was about to offer a retort when she remembered her childhood obsession with A Thousand and One Nights, a collection of thrilling tales in which the villains often met a grisly end. Instead, she picked up the newspaper and examined the engraving of General Gordon accompanying the article. After a moment she said, ‘He was a fine style of a man, wasn’t he? A great hero. He will be sorely missed.’
‘His death must be avenged,’ said Joseph. ‘These murderers cannot go unpunished.’
‘I suspect they will soon feel the full power of the British Empire,’ said John. ‘Before I left Sydney I heard that the New South Wales government, under the auspices of the Colonial Secretary, has already tendered military aid. They are awaiting word from London. Should the Imperial Cabinet give its consent, our government intends to despatch a contingent at the earliest possible date.’
Charlotte turned pale. ‘Does that mean Daniel may be required to go to the Soudan?’
‘If he is called to serve, it is his duty,’ replied her husband.
‘But why should we send troops to a foreign land halfway across the world?’ Eliza asked. ‘And what help can they be now? General Gordon is dead. We cannot bring him back. It is too late.’
‘It is never too late to avenge a murderous deed,’ said Joseph, ‘or to quell the insurgents.’
‘But what of Daniel?’ asked Charlotte, wringing her hands. ‘When he joined the army, I never imagined he would have to leave these shores and fight overseas.’
‘There has to be a first time. And he is keen to serve his Queen and Empire,’ said John. ‘It is a noble cause.’
‘It may well be noble to lament General Gordon’s death,’ Eliza interjected, ‘but to seek vengeance is something altogether different. Anyway, it’s not our cause.’
‘Dear sister,’ said Joseph, ‘I beg to differ. As a member of the weaker sex, you cannot possibly understand a man’s need to defend his countrymen.’
‘Countrymen? But this is our country,’ said Eliza, waving her hand towards the distant purple hills. ‘Right here under the Southern Cross. And nobody is attacking us.’
‘We are British first and foremost,’ replied Joseph. ‘And the murder of General Gordon is an attack on all of us.’
‘I was born in this colony and so were you, Joseph. I don’t see how you can call yourself British.’
Joseph’s sun-browned face was turning puce. ‘Don’t ever say anything like that outside this family, Eliza Miller. People will denounce you as a traitor to the British race.’
‘Now stop arguing, the two of you,’ said their father. ‘Daniel will do what he is ordered to do. And for my part, I want to see these rebels defeated. Then at least General Gordon will not have died in vain. And I am sorry, my dear,’ he said, turning towards Charlotte, ‘but in joining the army, Daniel understood it wouldn’t always be about parades, dress uniforms and regimental balls.’
John Miller’s words signalled an end to the debate. He commandeered Joseph and the boys for a game of cricket on the lawn while the ladies remained in the shade of the verandah.
For Amy, the conversation had presented a dilemma. On the one hand, she revered General Gordon. He had long been her hero, together with Admiral Nelson and General Washington. In her china cabinet, alongside the blue and white porcelain and the jade statues, stood Staffordshire figures of the two long departed leaders. All the same, she felt sympathy for Charlotte, a mother whose son might soon be heading to Africa to face an enemy who appeared to possess no sense of gallantry. Was the defence of the British Empire and the desire for vengeance really so important that the government would risk sending their troops to face possible death?
Amy had witnessed the precariousness of life and the tragedy of loss when her husband of two months developed a cough and died two days later of diphtheria. Charlotte knew it too, having lost two children in infancy to the same hateful disease, and her foster son some twenty years later. Didn’t Joseph realise that his mother was in dread of losing another child? How could he place Queen and Empire before all else?
As for Eliza and her talk about the Southern Cross, Amy couldn’t help smiling. Eliza was all for the union of the colonies and a great supporter of the former Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, who was now languishing in retirement. But her favourite cause was the fledgling suffragette movement. Ever since her return from France, she had been corresponding with Rose Scott, a country girl by birth, who now lived in Sydney, where she maintained a fashionable salon for poets, journalists and politicians. Like Eliza, she dreamed of forming a right-to-vote league for womanhood. When Joseph had referred to ladies as the ‘weaker sex’, it was a wonder Eliza hadn’t given him a swift jab in the ribs.
There were times when Amy was drawn to the topsy-turvy world that Eliza espoused, where women were able to vote and Australia was one nation. Then again, it might be like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole to a place where no one understood the rules and chaos reigned. Amy knew all too well the dangers of breaking rules. Everything might seem wonderful for a while, but eventually you would be punished. In her own case, the punishment had come swiftly and horribly. Better to leave Wonderland to Alice and abide by the established conventions
.
II
ELIZA
Sunday 15th February, 1885
The cackle of a kookaburra woke Eliza from her sleep. She opened her eyes, saw the grey light filtering through the curtains and realised that it was barely dawn. ‘Go back to sleep, Mr Kookaburra,’ she said under her breath and closed her eyes again. It was the Sabbath. Nobody needed to be out of bed until seven because the church service didn’t begin until nine. In the room next door Amy Chen lay asleep in the bed which had belonged to Charles when he was a boy. Further down the corridor, Charlie was tucked up in Daniel’s old room. It was a ritual for Amy and Charlie to come to Millerbrooke House on Saturday afternoon and spend the weekend with the Miller family. On Sunday evening Joseph would drive them back to town.
The kookaburra was laughing again and this time he had been joined by a partner. Eliza buried her face in the pillow, but she didn’t curse the raucous birds. Quite the contrary. Their morning chorus reminded her she was home, back in Millbrooke, the place she loved most in the world.
It was exactly six months since Eliza had returned from Paris, having successfully completed three years of her medical degree at the Sorbonne. Chronic homesickness had drawn her back. She might have coped with a vague sense of longing, but not with the bouts of pain so visceral they would cause her chest to ache.
Last June she had requested and received permission to take a year off and return to Australia. What she didn’t tell her professor in Paris was that the University of Sydney was planning to enrol its first female medical student the following year. Scuttlebutt had it that the pioneering student would be a girl from Bega by the name of Dagmar Berne, who had been undertaking a year of Arts as a prerequisite for Medicine. With the university already anticipating a female enrolment in its most hallowed course, Eliza had seen a chance to join forces with Dagmar and complete the final year of her own degree in Sydney.
But those plans were now being jeopardised by the same by-law, which had required Dagmar Berne to study at least one year of an Arts degree. As far as Eliza could ascertain, it appeared to be an unbreakable rule, even for someone who had already completed three years of Medicine at the University of Paris. She hadn’t given up hope though. Not yet. There were still two weeks before the commencement of Lent term, and she would continue to press her case with Professor Anderson Stuart, the dean of the faculty.
If the worst happened and her appeals were rejected, she would accept her fate and return to France in time for the start of the new academic year in September. The one thing which Paris could offer her that Australia couldn’t was an assured place in the final year of a medical degree. Only a handful of medical schools in the world accepted women. The Sorbonne was arguably the biggest, boasting an enrolment of one hundred aspiring femmes-médecins from around the globe – Russia, America, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Poland and even one from Australia! But oddly enough, only a dozen French women. For a long time Eliza had been unable to fathom why there were so few local girls studying Medicine. After all, she herself had sailed across vast oceans for the chance. Perhaps French girls didn’t have the opportunity to study the sciences at school. That was certainly the case in Australia, where Eliza had been forced to undertake her own scientific education.
Then one day another possibility struck her with such clarity that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t worked it out before. She was meandering along one of the arched passageways at the university, wondering what stories the mediaeval stones could tell, when a male student passing in the opposite direction spoke to her. She couldn’t understand what he said, other than the words doctoresse and femme – which meant he must have guessed she was a medical student. Perhaps he was studying Medicine himself and had seen her in class, though she had no way of knowing. She and her friends didn’t mix with their male peers. Just before the start of each lecture the women would gather in the adjoining cloakroom, waiting to be ushered into the front rows. As soon as the class was over, they would march out, their heads bowed, allowing barely a glimpse of the male cohort. But even though the ladies couldn’t see them, they could hear the muttered insults. It wasn’t all of the men, of course, but a vocal minority. One day Eliza suggested that the women sit among the male students. ‘There are a hundred of us, after all,’ she told them. ‘We could spread out. The sympathetic men won’t mind and the others will be caught off guard.’ Nobody wanted to test Eliza’s plan. ‘You do it first,’ someone said. But brave as she was in most matters, Eliza couldn’t summon the courage.
As she observed the young man’s face, she decided he was really quite handsome with dark eyes and a smart moustache.
‘Pardon, monsieur?’ she asked, aware of her Australian accent.
‘You doctoresses,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘You are not women. You are hermaphrodites.’
Although she wasn’t sure what the last word meant, his tone suggested it was something unpleasant. She gave him a scowl and continued walking briskly along the passage. Back at the dormitory, she looked up ‘hermaphrodite’ in her dictionary. Its meaning shocked her. How dare this silly man call her such a name! Admittedly, she was a bit of a tomboy – she’d never denied that. But she liked pretty clothes when the occasion called for them, and she’d never been a wallflower at the frequent dances held in her home town. In fact, her dance card had always been full – with a waiting list to boot. No wonder French girls eschewed Medicine; to have their womanliness questioned in such a way would be enough to deter even the bravest of candidates.
For a long time she told no one about the encounter in the stone-walled passage. Not until the day she heard a group of students in her dormitory, complaining about the insults they had to endure from the male students. In due course Eliza recounted her own incident. Since most of the women spoke pigeon French with a range of different accents, these conversations, though serious in content, often had a comical note to them. Eliza’s spoken French was amongst the worst, but she could read fluently, thanks to years of translating French medical journals back in Australia. As for understanding what people said, she had picked that up quite quickly. And if she happened to miss something in a lecture, there were always other students who were more than happy to lend her their lecture notes.
‘Hermaphrodite,’ said one of the Americans. ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est? What is that?’
‘C’est un mélange des deux sexes,’ explained a Polish girl. ‘Somebody who has the sexual organs of both sexes.’
‘C’est un androgyne,’ added a Russian student. ‘A person who is neither completely male nor female but both.’
‘How ridiculous of him to speak in that way,’ said the American. ‘And why would anyone say that about Eliza? She looks so feminine with her ringlets and dainty figure.’
‘It is aimed at all of us,’ said a French girl. ‘The men resent our being here.’
‘They are of the opinion that we should have stayed at home and found ourselves husbands,’ said another.
‘Has anyone read Doctor Mackellar’s article called “The Feminine Mind and Disposition”?’ asked one of the English girls.
Everyone shook their heads.
‘Then that is probably for the best,’ she said, ‘lest you discover that a woman who pursues an education is prone to nervous afflictions and an inability to conceive.’
‘What poppycock!’ said Eliza, relieved that for once she could swear without being censured.
‘My father used to tell me I’d overload my brain if I studied too hard,’ said a Dutch girl. ‘But he never made the same remark to my brothers.’
‘My father said I would develop the vapours from reading too much,’ said the girl who had just mentioned Doctor Mackellar.
‘There are misogynes everywhere,’ said the French girl. ‘Is it the same in your country, Eliza?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is . . . with a few exceptions. Mon père n’est pas chauvinist. Pas du tout.’
‘You are lucky that your father approves of you study
ing Medicine,’ said the American girl. ‘Mine doesn’t.’
‘Elizabeth Blackwell believes ladies make better doctors because of our motherly instincts,’ said Eliza, referring to America’s first female doctor, who had become a champion of medical education for women.
‘That makes sense,’ said the French girl. ‘Even though a lady doctor is unlikely to marry and have children herself, she will retain her maternal sentiments.’
‘Not all women are maternal,’ protested the Polish girl, ‘but we are more intuitive. That makes us better at dealing with patients.’
‘I once had a discussion with my best friend,’ said Eliza, ‘about whether a woman can have a vocation and a family.’
‘Do you think it is possible?’ asked the French girl.
‘For some, perhaps,’ replied Eliza. ‘But not for me. I decided long ago to put my calling above all else. Anyway, I do not want to be dependent on a man. I want to live my own life. Like Elizabeth Blackwell.’
‘Just you wait until some dashing young gentleman comes along and sweeps you off your feet,’ said the American.
‘That is what my friend used to say. But I’m an old maid now,’ replied Eliza. ‘Too old for such nonsense.’
What Eliza liked most about Paris was the presence of Professor Louis Pasteur. In the chilly April of 1882, Eliza had gone to the Institut de France to see him make his historic address to the Académie Française. However, she wasn’t allowed inside the domed building where the Académie members had assembled for the occasion, nor did she even catch a glimpse of Pasteur as she waited outside. Still, to be in such proximity to her scientific hero had meant everything to her. As a seventeen-year-old, she had first learnt French by way of translating Pasteur’s scientific papers about bacteriology. Back then, Amy, though barely six months older than Eliza, had been her teacher and together they had deciphered the complicated text as if it were a code. Eliza had been enthralled by the concept of minuscule creatures, invisible to the human eye and capable of spreading disease. Amy, on the other hand, had been terrified by the notion of something unseen and omnipresent, yet capable of killing. As it happened, her fears had been justified. Only a few months later her new husband had succumbed to a disease spread by germs.
The Jade Widow Page 2
