The Black Dress

by Pamela Freeman

  But when the 1860 edition came out, I realised that not all of the life of the city was included. Papa’s name was absent from Brighton Street, Richmond. I almost went to Mr Sands to ask why, and then realised. It was company policy not to list the unemployed on the grounds that they moved so often that the directory would be inaccurate even before it was printed. My father was unemployed. The Sands, Kenny & Co. collector of names and trades would have interviewed him and straightaway struck him off the list.

  I didn’t take the directory home, even though Mr Sands said all the staff could have their own free copy.

  The directories had another effect, besides making Mr Sands and Mr Kenny rich. Whenever important people visited Melbourne, some politician or government functionary would bring them to visit the printery. It was my job to show them around and explain what the various machines were for and how the presses worked.

  So it came as no surprise when Mr Kenny called me to escort the Belgian consul, Monsieur Gustave Beckx, around the factory. Monsieur Beckx, Mr Kenny said, had been Honorary Consul since 1853, but had only lately expressed an interest in trading anything other than gold with the colony. He had previously mixed only with the few aristocratic families but was now showing that he was prepared to be entertained by the mercantile class.

  M. Beckx was dark-haired and pale-skinned, around 50, with a smooth, pleasant voice and pale blue eyes.

  ‘So be polite, Mary. He could be the start of our exporting back to Europe. Imagine, a Melbourne company exporting to Belgium!’

  I duly curtsied and very politely showed M. Beckx and his aide around the printery. He nodded, listened intently and nodded again, while his aide took notes.

  ‘Cartes,’ he murmured to his aide, a tall, pink-faced young Belgian with much better English than his consul.

  ‘Cartes,’ meant maps, I knew, so I showed them the large map printing press and some of the engravings as well: Port Phillip Bay, St Francis’s church, the wharf at Sandridge. They were of the highest quality and he nodded approvingly.

  ‘Excellente,’ he said.

  That was all he wanted to see. Then the pair left immediately.

  ‘Oh, didn’t he have an air about him!’ Eileen sighed.

  ‘M. Beckx?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘No, the young man. What was his name?’

  I bit my lip as I realised that M. Beckx had not introduced him, had not, in fact, spoken directly to me at all during the entire visit.

  I shrugged. ‘The Honorary Consul did not deign to introduce us,’ I said flippantly.

  ‘Maybe you’ll get to meet him at the Keogh’s party on Saturday,’ Eileen suggested enviously. ‘What are you wearing, Mary?’

  ***

  I wore one of Aunt Julia’s cast-offs, of course. It was a plain gown, but a beautiful dark green.

  ‘Och, it brings out the lights in your hair,’ Mamma said, ‘and makes your eyes sparkle. You’ve grown into such a bonnie lass, Mary.’

  Whenever Mamma became sentimental her accent grew stronger. I smiled at her. Maybe I did look a little nice. Maggie and I were going to stay with the Keoghs overnight, so we could stay right until the end of the party, and keep dancing. Oh, I loved to dance—almost as much as I loved to ride. I pushed the thought down. Girls who work in shops and have unemployed fathers don’t get to go riding whenever they like. The days on The Plenty when I had my own pony were long gone. I wondered how Mudlark was—he would be getting old for a horse. I remembered the last gallop we’d had...

  ‘Come back, come back, Maria Ellen,’ Mamma said, laughing. ‘You’re a thousand miles away!’

  ‘Not so far,’ I said, but she was right. I had to live in the present—and the present was good enough, with a party about to start!

  ***

  It started as a lovely party. All our friends were there: the Sewards, the Camerons, the Kennys, and the Plunketts. Adeline and I danced together in the reels; she was so lightfooted and delicate it made me feel like a clumsy oaf, but I didn’t care. I so loved to dance.

  The Belgian consul arrived late (‘Fashionably late,’ Adeline whispered. ‘Isn’t his aide handsome!’) and proceeded to make a tour of the room. The women all curtsied and the men bowed. It was hard to tell what his reaction was, his face changed so little.

  ‘You’re so lucky to have met him already,’ Adeline said. ‘I wish I had.’

  She fidgeted with excitement. Adeline was a great reader of novels and loved stories about nobles and society. Meeting the consul was like a scene from one of her stories.

  As young girls, we were the last to be introduced to the consul, so everyone was looking at us.

  ‘Allow me to present Miss Adeline Seward, your excellency,’ said Mr Keogh. Adeline curtsied and M. Beckx nodded.

  ‘Enchanté,’ he said, obviously bored.

  ‘This is Miss Margaret MacKillop.’ Maggie curtsied, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed. She had her sniffy look on.

  ‘Enchanté.’

  ‘And you’ll remember Miss MacKillop,’ Mr Keogh said with something like relief. ‘You met her earlier in the week at Sands, Kenny.’

  M. Beckx froze. Every muscle was rigid. Then he turned his back on me and said with disbelief, ‘You expect me to consort with factory girls?’ He walked away, his aide following.

  A blush burned right up my chest and face—I could feel it rise in a red wave—but I felt cold. Everyone was pretending they hadn’t heard, but the buzz of indignation grew.

  ‘Poor Mary!’ I heard Mrs Keogh say, and that was the last straw. I couldn’t stay. Luckily, I was right by the door.

  Adeline reached for my hand, but I slipped past her quietly into the hall, then ran up the stairs to our room. Thank God I’m staying here! At least I have somewhere private to go.

  I threw myself on the bed and cried. He was right. That’s what I was—a factory girl. Just like Sarah and Eileen and Katie. I realised I had been thinking of myself as better than them, because I knew Mr Kenny, because my grandparents and uncles had properties. But I was Alexander MacKillop’s daughter, not theirs, and I was a factory girl. I’d probably always be a factory girl. Now that he’d said it, everyone who’d heard, and everyone they told, would always think of me that way.

  It was a hard way to learn humility.

  There was a knock on the door and Mr Keogh poked his head around it.

  ‘Mary, we’re missing you downstairs,’ he said, kindly ignoring my red face and streaming eyes.

  I shook my head.

  ‘You won’t let that jumped-up son of a—You won’t let an ignorant Belgian ruin a good party, will you? Noone’s having a good time, knowing you’re up here.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Course you can. You’re Alexander MacKillop’s daughter. You’ll face anything rather than have people say you were afraid.’

  Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I should face everyone. After all, I had to do it sometime.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Mr Kenny said.

  I got up and splashed cold water from the washbasin on my face, then dried it and my tears together. Going downstairs was hard, but walking into the drawing room was the hardest thing I had ever done.

  Blessed Virgin, I know a party isn’t something I should be praying about—but don’t let it be too bad.

  When I went through the door there was a hush, then people gathered all around me—not just my friends, but the other guests as well. People I didn’t even know turned their backs on M. Beckx to talk to me. I went from group to group like—like a princess—with Mr Keogh introducing me to the few people I didn’t know.

  My cheeks were hot and my eyes were shining with tears. There is so much kindness in the world, so much love in unexpected places. Thank you, Blessed Virgin.

  A sudden bustle in the doorway drew my attention. M. Beckx, his nose in the air, was leaving. He glared at me across the room, but his aide smiled. One might almost think he was pleased to see the consul discomfited.

  ‘Did
you see that?’ Adeline hissed. ‘He smiled at you. Oh, you are so lucky, Mary MacKillop.’

  I thought so too, though not for the same reason. Then the pipers started a reel. We danced the night away and I doubt anyone gave any thought to Belgian consuls.

  Except for Maggie. When we got back to our room in the early hours of the morning she was still fuming.

  ‘The hide of him!’ she ranted as she brushed her hair with short, hard strokes. ‘The arrogance!’

  ‘Oh, let it go, Maggie,’ I said. ‘I was upset, but it’s over now. And everyone was so kind! He was the one with egg on his face at the end.’

  She chuckled at that, with one of her swift mood changes.

  ‘Aye, wasn’t he? The long-faced piece of nothing. But that aide of his,’ Maggie grew thoughtful, ‘he liked you, Mary.’

  I was startled. ‘Me? Never.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he was ogling you before you were introduced. And he smiled at you afterwards. You saw him!’

  ‘He was just trying to make up for the consul’s rudeness,’ I said, shaken. Maggie was rarely wrong about these things.

  ‘Perhaps he’ll call on you at the shop.’

  ‘Oh, no! I wouldn’t want that!’

  ‘But Mary, why ever not? He was lovely—nice, not just handsome.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he—But I don’t want him courting me!’

  ‘There’s no need to get upset about it! If you don’t like him, just let him know. You’ve done that before. But he was nice, Mary.’

  I shook my head, really troubled. ‘It’s because he was nice that I don’t want him to like me,’ I said without thinking.

  ‘That’s ridiculous! Unless—’ Her eyes lit up. ‘Is there someone else?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. Just forget about it, Maggie.’

  ‘I will not. There’s no “of course not” about it. Adeline Seward has three beaus!’

  ‘Adeline Seward’s not going to be a nun!’ I blurted out.

  Maggie sat down plop! on the bed in astonishment. ‘You’re not really? I know we joke about it, about you being so holy and everything, but you’re not really going to—’

  I nodded.

  She was appalled. ‘Wall yourself up in some convent? Oh, no, Mary! You like people too much.’

  I sat down on the bed next to her, a little shaken by her response. It was the first time I had voiced my intentions aloud and I was disappointed with Maggie’s reaction.

  ‘No, not wall myself up. I want to ... I want to find a congregation that goes out and works with the poor.’

  ‘There aren’t any like that.’

  ‘There must be. I’ve heard of nursing and teaching orders in Europe.’

  ‘You’re not going to Europe?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how, or when, or where. I just know this is what I have to do. It feels like I’ve always known it.’

  Maggie sat quietly, absorbing what I had said. Then she put her arm around my shoulder, more carefully than she would have done before my announcement.

  ‘Well, I can see you helping the poor—and Lord knows you know what being poor is like! But Mary, what will we do without you? How will Mamma get by without your help?’

  That was the question I asked myself often, but I had no answer.

  It’s a difficult question for anyone with a vocation. I was not the first to have secular responsibilities that tied me to the world. Christ said to the rich young man, ‘Go sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and come follow me.’ And he couldn’t do it. I’ve heard lots of sermons about how the love of money stopped him, but I’ve always wondered if there were other reasons: a father depending on him to continue the family business? A girl he’d been betrothed to since childhood? Work he’d undertaken that he wanted to see finished? It’s rarely as simple as money.

  Christ also said that those who followed him had to leave father and mother and all relations. I knew I had to do that. The question was when? I was the chief breadwinner. I clung to the idea that the others would grow up and begin to contribute, as John already had. But we were hampered by the fact that the older children were mostly girls, and there were very few jobs available to girls.

  We were hampered, too, by our respectable origins; Mamma had only been reconciled to my job in the shop because Mr Kenny was a friend and had promised to look after me. But she didn’t want any of us to work in manufactories or in sewing sweatshops, or domestic service. I don’t think the rest of the family would have stood for it, either. And not only that—I think our speech and education made us unfit for those jobs in the eyes of the employers. No mistress of a house wants a maid who speaks better than she does!

  Class is an odd and tricky thing. One of the things I like about Australia is that class matters less than it does in Europe—witness the humiliation of the Belgian consul! But even though we talk blithely about egalitarianism and equality, class does matter. And education is the key. It is education that opens doors in this country, not only money. What money mostly does is buy education and put children in the company of others with education.

  The child who cannot read or write will never achieve a ‘respectable’ job, no matter how brilliant their mind. Yet there are many brilliant minds among the poor.

  That’s a hard thing for the ‘upper classes’ to admit. The class system, after all, is tacitly based on the idea that the cream rises. The poor deserve to be poor, is the implication; they are stupid, venal, dirty, brutal. Oh, I’ve heard it so many times! ‘I don’t want my little Susannah (or Jacob or William) to sit next to that charity girl,’ say the Christian parents. ‘One never knows what she might catch.’ And one felt that it was the disease of poverty that was most feared, not nits or fever.

  Perhaps if I’d been raised in affluence I would have felt the same. I’d been poor too often myself to believe that poor equalled dirty, or poor equalled lazy. Whatever else Papa was, he wasn’t lazy.

  I remember that one father offered to pay good fees to the school (which we badly needed) if his son could sit in a separate, screened-off area, away from the ‘free education’ children. The bishop wanted me to agree, but how could I? How could I teach the children that we are all members of God’s family if I treated one child differently from the rest? How could I say that they are all equal, and equally loved, in God’s sight if they weren’t in mine? I’m afraid the bishop wasn’t pleased, but it wasn’t the first time and it certainly wasn’t the last!

  I start to laugh, again, which really isn’t fair on the sister looking after me. I’m sure she thinks my mind is wandering. I suppose it is. Wandering in time. The procession of young sisters continues. My goodness! I’m amazed at how many there are! It’s a long way from when Sister Blanche and I started it all in Penola.

  ***

  Decisions are sometimes taken out of our hands. I could have stayed at Sands, Kenny & Co. for years, until all my brothers and sisters had grown up and could support Mamma and Papa. But God had other plans. It was while I was working there that my female troubles really started.

  To the family, and to others who asked, I always said that it was the constant pounding of the printing presses that gave me headaches and was bad for my health. Well, that was true. The presses did give me headaches. On normal days I could bear it. But on the days when my courses ran it was intolerable. I would vomit, my sight would darken, and I would shake. The headaches and the cramps that followed were very painful.

  Mr Kenny was very kind. First of all, he pretended not to know what was wrong with me—it would have been unthinkable to have discussed it with him! Then he tried to give me time away from the shop, to sit down in his office and recover after one of my vomiting fits. But it wasn’t fair to him. I was taking his wages and not giving him a full return. Some days I couldn’t rise from my bed to go to work. That wasn’t fair to Mr Kenny or to the other girls in the shop.

  Yet my family needed the money. It was an anxious time for me. I wanted to do t
he right thing, but to leave without having another job in sight was unthinkable. Mr and Mrs L’Estrange had employed another governess for the girls, so that avenue was closed to me.

  But God provides, as Mamma would say. My uncle, Sandy Cameron, visited from Penola around that time and, hearing that I wished to leave Sands, Kenny & Co., immediately invited me to come to Penola to be governess to his children. To live with him and Aunty Margaret, and at a good wage!

  I am sure the hand of God was at work, making me so sick at that time, for although I suffered for many years afterwards with the same troubles, they were never so bad again. God pushed me out of Sands, Kenny & Co. and out to the bush, to Penola, where I would find my life’s work. God is very good.

  I smile at the very tall and gangly novice who is touching my hand and she smiles back, with a hint of mischief, as though we share a secret. She’ll make a good teacher, that one. I sigh. There are so many of them to carry on the work, I can die without any anxiety.

  Not all changes are so easy. Even though I was thankful for Uncle Sandy’s offer, the thought of ‘going bush’ was daunting. Penola was really the back of beyond in 1861.

  1861—PENOLA

  What can I remember? Heat and dust and more heat. The smell of onions and beer and perspiration wafting from my fellow passengers. Three days of it, stuck in the Cobb & Co. coach. Air filtered through the small windows but it was thick with dust from the horses’ hooves.

  My bones ached from the jolting, my hips were on fire from the rattling, my neck had cricks up one side and down the other and my shoulders ached from hanging onto the strap. Yet I was one of the lucky ones. The other travellers—Mr Carter, who was a magistrate, and his clerk Mr Polson—had insisted that I take a corner seat. I was thankful for it. At least I could lean against the side of the coach. The poor men who sat in the middle—they never offered their names and I did not like to ask—were shaken about unmercifully.

  Cobb & Co. had a reputation for speed. Until you have been in one of their coaches you do not realise it is at the expense of the passengers’ comfort. But perhaps it was a blessing. The discomfort kept my mind from apprehension. Uncle Donald had said accusingly, ‘You’re sending the gel to the back of beyond.’ My papa had remained silent. What could he say, since it was his failure to support us that made it necessary for me to travel so far and work so hard.