The Black Dress

by Pamela Freeman

  I curtsied and murmured good morning. I found it hard to speak. I so wanted to talk to Father Woods about everything—the children who needed education, my vocation, my situation—and to hear his guidance. But how could I start? It seemed presumptuous of me to announce, ‘God has called me to do your work’, but I felt more with every passing moment, that this was the truth. So I was tongue-tied. A new experience for me!

  Father himself gave me the opening. ‘Miss MacKillop. Do you teach your charges the Catechism as well as the three Rs?’

  ‘Of course, Father.’

  ‘Of course!’ the King cut in. ‘Not only our lot, but all the children on the station. Mary gives up her free time to teach the men’s children.’

  ‘That’s a worthy work,’ Father Woods said. He looked at me approvingly. ‘I wish there were a hundred like you in South Australia, Miss MacKillop. I could save thousands of souls.’

  I raised my eyes to his. Perhaps he could see how his words had moved me, because he said, ‘We should talk more of this.’

  ‘Over lunch,’ Aunt Margaret said immediately. ‘You’ll be coming to us as usual, Father?’

  Father Woods smiled. His face, which had been sombre and intense, came alive—just as intense, but now full of joy. I felt my own spirits lift in response.

  ‘Would I miss a Penola Station luncheon, Mrs Cameron?

  I’m not so foolish. I have a few matters to attend to here, and I’ll be over.’

  ***

  Of course we did not talk over lunch itself—there were too many people and too many other conversations for serious discussion. But afterwards I asked to see Father alone. He assumed I wished to make my confession, and indeed I did, but I wanted even more to explain my interest in his sermon.

  We walked down by the lagoon.

  It was hard, at first, to speak.

  ‘I—Well, Father, I—For a long time, now, you see, I have felt ... I have known that God has called me to the religious life.’

  I expected him to question me, to interrogate me to make sure my vocation was real. Other priests had in the past. At best, I expected a grave nod and a, ‘What makes you think so, my child?’

  Instead, he grasped my hand and shook it warmly. ‘Oh, congratulations, Miss MacKillop. How wonderful for you!’

  I had to blink back tears. It was wonderful, but he was the first person to think so.

  After that I could go on with confidence. Father Woods was so easy to talk to! He listened as though my thoughts were the most important thing to him in the world. I felt much older than 18 years—and much wiser, more responsible.

  I explained my family duties.

  ‘So you see, Father, I am not in a position to enter a religious life.’

  ‘No, no, I see that. And yet, my child, you must be careful that the things of this world do not interfere for too long. Remember the young man who wanted to follow Christ? He could not even return to his family to say goodbye.’

  How often had I read that story?

  ‘But my family would starve without me, Father. I can’t—’

  ‘No, you must do your duty. But at the same time, you must search for ways to do your greater duty at the first opportunity.’

  He fell silent, obviously wrapped in thought. That I could not continue, although I longed to tell him that I thought God had sent me to Penola in order to hear his sermon and so find my life’s work.

  ‘Miss MacKillop,’ he said finally, ‘you may think me precipitous, but I believe that God has sent you here for a purpose.’

  I held my breath. Does he see the same shape to God’s will that I do?

  ‘I believe that God sent you here to begin the great work of educating the ignorant youth of Australia.’

  Perhaps he only means my work as a governess.

  ‘I have a vision,’ he went on eagerly as I remained silent. ‘An order of nuns who go out into their communities, who are not enclosed within stone walls. An order of nuns who will educate the poor, who tend to the needy, who dedicate themselves to poverty—the same poverty as those they help. I have seen such nuns, in France. Inspiring women! They teach the poor, not the rich. They nurse the indigent, not those who can afford hospitals. And they do it from small congregations—in some, no more than six sisters. This is what we need, and God has sent you here to do it!’

  ‘You think I should go to France to become one of these nuns and then return to start a convent in Australia?’ It was an astonishing thought.

  ‘No, no,’ he said impatiently. ‘We must begin our own order right here. In Penola, if necessary.’

  I could feel my old patterns of thought break apart, leaving huge vistas where there had been walls hemming me in. I felt as I used to feel, riding my pony helter-skelter through the bush at Darebin Creek. The blood rushed to my cheeks.

  ‘I couldn’t—’ but even as I said it, I knew I could.

  Father Woods could see it in my face. He was just as flushed, just as excited. ‘You know you can, Miss MacKillop. You know this is what God wants of you.’

  And indeed I did.

  ***

  I still don’t know why Our Blessed Lord picked me. I made so many mistakes! In the early years it seemed we lurched from crisis to crisis. There never was enough money, not even enough to feed or clothe our sisters properly, and there were conflicts of personality that nearly tore us apart. In those years we took on everyone who came to us claiming they had a vocation.

  Later on, I realised that those priests who had gravely interrogated me as to why I thought I had been called had been acting wisely. Not everyone is suited to a religious life and sometimes those who feel most strongly called are the worst suited. One of our early recruits ended her years in a lunatic asylum, poor, sad soul, and the trouble she caused almost ended the Institute before it was properly established.

  If I’d been older, wiser, more experienced, perhaps I would have sieved out those girls who were not suited to be nuns, or managed the inevitable conflicts of personality better than I did. I have to smile. If I’d been older, wiser, more experienced, I wouldn’t have had the ... the gall to do what I did. Sometimes you need inexperience to begin a new venture, for the experienced baulk at the problems they see clearly lying ahead, while the inexperienced go blithely onwards, unaware of the pitfalls in their path. They may fall, but at least they start the journey.

  Well. There is a whirring of wings outside the window as the fruit bats fly over, back to their nesting trees. It will be dawn soon. Forty-eight years of dawns since I discovered my purpose in life. I wonder if I will see another one? I am almost ready, I think, but something is telling me there is more work to do, more memory to live through.

  ***

  Father Woods had to leave the next day, but he promised to write to me.

  It was just as well. I needed time for reflection and prayer. Was I just being carried away by Father Woods’ vision? Was it his enthusiasm, rather than God’s will, that was guiding me?

  As I taught the Dawson children the Hail Mary, I thought, No. This is my work.

  Years later, Father wrote to me, ‘Teaching young children, and by a zeal in the cause, you can save more souls in that way than I can as a priest.’ Listening to Gertie Dawson say her first rosary that morning, I understood that already.

  ***

  One of the fights I had many times with parents was that my insistence that, if Aboriginal children wanted to attend school, they must be allowed on the same basis as the other children. My brother Donald, after he was made a priest, worked in the Northern Territory with Aboriginal people, until his Order moved him for fighting the government to get land made over formally to the tribes for self-governance. Lately, people have assumed that the stand I took on Aboriginal children was at his behest, but they were wrong. It was because of Nancy.

  I smelt Nancy before I saw her for the first time. It was a hot summer with little rain and I was often conscious of my cousins’ personal odours—it reminded me of the drought at D
arebin Creek. But this was beyond anything I had ever encountered, an odour so striking that my eyes watered. Old fat, dried sweat, and something else, a female odour as rank as a possum.

  Ann cried out, ‘It’s Stinky Nancy!’ and the others made faces.

  Around the corner I saw a dark face peer cautiously. Her hair stood out around her thin cheeks and seemed to move in the breeze. But there was no breeze. I wouldn’t have believed a human head could hold so many lice. The hair seethed with them so that I was reminded of the myth of the snake-haired Gorgon, Medusa.

  ‘She just wants food, Miss Mary,’ Alex said. ‘If you get some bread from the kitchen she’ll go away.’

  ‘I am sure she does want food,’ I said. Her little face was painfully thin. ‘Alex, get her some—bread and cheese and some fruit if there is any.’

  ‘Don’t waste the fruit on her!’ Sarah cried. ‘There’s never enough for us and she’s just one of the blacks.’

  Nancy seemed to understand Sarah, for she hung her head and made to disappear. Alex paused at the doorway.

  ‘Don’t go, Nancy,’ I said. I looked at Sarah seriously. This was perhaps the most important lesson I could teach her. ‘Nancy is our sister, Sarah. “Inasmuch as you do these things for the least of my brethren, you do them for me.” Who said that?’

  ‘Christ,’ Sarah whispered, as she blushed.

  ‘Do you think Christ would have begrudged Nancy some fruit?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘So why don’t you go with Alex and pick out the nicest apple we have.’

  She jumped up and ran out, Alex following her. I smiled at Nancy and beckoned her closer, but she would not come past the corner. I could still only see her face and one dark hand, clasping the edge of the building.

  ‘Is there anything else we can do for you, Nancy?’ She shook her head. A louse dropped off her hair and landed on the verandah. It was bigger than any I had ever seen, clearly visible against the grey wood.

  ‘Errk, ooh, disgusting!’ the two young ladies cried out.

  I stared at them. ‘Even that is one of God’s creatures,’ I said, but I confess I said it dryly. It was rather disgusting, but it was clear that Nancy, whoever she was, was poor and uncared for.

  Alex came back with a wooden plate piled with half a loaf and some rather hard cheese. Sarah trailed behind him, empty-handed.

  ‘Cook said I couldn’t have any fruit for one of the blacks, Miss Mary,’ she said defensively.

  ‘I see. Well, Nancy, here is your lunch. Won’t you come and get it?’ Nancy shook her head. I took the plate from Alex and walked over to her, holding it out at arm’s length. As soon as the plate was within reach, she grabbed the bread and cheese and ran, leaving me still holding the plate. I ran around the corner and saw a glimpse of her brown legs disappearing behind the men’s quarters. She was dressed only in a raggedy man’s shirt.

  I had seen native women walk around unconcernedly naked and somehow this was acceptable—there was a dignity to their nakedness not unlike that I imagine was possessed by Adam and Eve before they ate of the fruit. But Nancy, half-clad in a man’s rags, was truly shocking to me. It was neither dignified nor modest, a half-state which hinted at degradation.

  I hadn’t had much to do with Aboriginal people until then. Around Melbourne, they had mostly been wiped out in the early years of the colony by disease: smallpox, pneumonia, venereal diseases, God help them. I knew that Uncle Sandy had a good relationship with the tribe living around Penola. He employed them as stockmen, had ensured that they had access to their sacred places and to permanent water, and had negotiated with the elders of the tribe about spearing cattle. I’d heard terrible stories about settlers poisoning Aboriginal people with strychnine in the flour, or men going out on ‘hunts’, but there had been none of that in Penola.

  When John complained about losing cattle to the blacks, Uncle Sandy said, ‘Why wouldn’t they spear a few cattle, when we’ve driven off the kangaroos and other wild game? They’re hunters, aren’t they? Which would you rather do, John, spend all day tracking down a stringy wallaby that will feed two people, or stroll up to a steer and have a feast for the whole tribe? Don’t you ever forget, lad, this was their land long before we came here. Don’t you forget that you’re only here in Australia because the English landlords came and cleared your forefathers off their own land in the Highlands. You think about that. You think on it long and hard.’

  So the tribe lived unmolested and the men worked for Uncle Sandy when it suited them. But that didn’t explain Nancy. It was my aunt who gave me the explanation later.

  ‘She is the daughter of one of the men and a native woman. The tribe won’t have her in camp, and her father left here long ago. Her mother died when Nancy was about six, I suppose, and since then she’s lived on what scraps the tribe will throw her. When she’s very hungry she comes begging from us.’

  ‘Can’t she be fed regularly, and dressed?’ I asked.

  ‘Try, Mary, and see if she will agree. She never would come regularly for meals that we provided, not even when she was little and her father still lived here. She used to follow him around—he taught her to speak English. But she didn’t want anything to do with the homestead.’

  ***

  Uncle Sandy told me not to worry my head about Nancy, but I couldn’t help it. She had looked so thin and hungry—and surely she was cold in the winters, with no decent covering. I wondered how I would have fared, with no family to love or take care of me. My own family was so large and generous. There had been many times in my life when, without family to care for me and mine, we would have been like Nancy, begging on the streets of Melbourne for our bread.

  ‘God will provide,’ Mamma always said. And sometimes he provides through human action.

  I walked down to the creek in the twilight after dinner. The mosquitoes were fierce, but I had rubbed my face and hands with citronella oil so did not fare too badly. I wondered how Nancy managed to escape them and realised that this was why she stank of old fat. She greases her skin to stop them biting!

  I found her sitting on a branch of the river red gum that stretched over the creek, swinging her legs and singing a native song. She had a lovely voice, but she sounded sad. I was touched once again by the thin, pinched face. She was as tall as me, yet only half my girth. Her long legs dangled over the creek.

  ‘I used to have a favourite tree I sat in when I lived at Darebin Creek,’ I said. ‘But it wasn’t as nice as this one.’

  She looked at me.

  ‘Sister Mary,’ she said, in a clear voice as pleasant as her singing voice. It gave me a queer thrill. This almost-stranger was the first to ever call me that. Perhaps one day it would be the name everyone knew me by.

  ‘Yes,’ I said and grinned at her, suddenly light-hearted. ‘That’s me.’

  I sat down on the creek bed. ‘You know, Nancy, I have other sisters at home. Maggie and Lizzie and Annie. We share lots of things, especially clothes.’

  She swung one leg over so that she could turn and look at me.

  ‘I have a dress you could have, if you wanted it,’ I said. ‘A present.’

  ‘Present?’ She looked at me with amusement, and I was ashamed. I had assumed she was stupid because she was dirty, but clearly she was intelligent—as I suppose she would need to be in order to survive. It was a good lesson, and one I never forgot when I confronted a new student covered in sores and dirt, barefoot and snotty-faced. Look beyond the dirt to the person. Nancy taught me that in one instant.

  ‘Well, all right, it’s not a present,’ I said. ‘It’s a trade. You come up to the homestead and let me get those lice out of your hair and have a decent meal, and you can have the dress.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t like to see my sister running around half-naked,’ I said.

  ‘Sister?’ This time the disbelief and mockery was clear to hear.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My sister in Christ.’ I looked at her steadily. It was easy
to understand why she didn’t believe me, but I wanted her to know I wasn’t lying or putting on a false face. She stood up on the branch and stared at me, then swung to the ground and walked off.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. She grinned over her shoulder. ‘When I get hungry.’ She laughed and ran off.

  But she came up to the homestead after breakfast the next day. It took us all morning and a full quart of kerosene to get rid of the lice. My aunt’s steel-toothed comb was never the same. The little girls joined in eventually, squashing the bugs as they fell from Nancy’s hair onto the ground. A holiday from lessons was all they cared about.

  After the lice were gone, I brought out the bathtub and set it up behind the dairy. Cold water was no penance in that weather. I envied her the cool sluice as I emptied the buckets over her. Then we dressed her in my old blue dress.

  To tell the truth, I could ill afford to give it to her. I only had three dresses, and one was for Sundays. Still, I had a black wool skirt and long-sleeved blouse. It would acclimatise me to wearing uncomfortable clothes. I’ve never seen a nun’s habit really suitable for Australia’s climate. I don’t suppose they can be.

  But when she was dressed and eating a good meal of mutton stew on the verandah, I didn’t care if I had to wear black wool for the rest of my life.

  ‘It won’t last,’ my aunt said. ‘She’ll tear that dress to pieces until it’s no better than the old shirt.’

  But she didn’t. Nancy came up every day and listened to the lessons on the verandah. I saw her practising her letters with a stick in the dirt and repeating her Catechism under her breath. I gave her some citronella oil and some soap, she and the dress were washed regularly down at the creek. She would sit in her old shirt on the branch while the dress dried. We often talked down there, about my life in Melbourne, about God, about the countryside roundabout. Finally, she said, ‘Sister Mary, you came from Melbourne. Could I go there?’

  ‘You’d have to get a job, Nancy.’