We always went for a walk with the governess in the
afternoon, usually along the railway line which ran in front of Raeshaw. There
was only one train a day. Sometimes we would see some rail gangers on a push-me-pull-you
trolley riding along the track to check the sleepers. In the spring it was a
good place for wildflowers: bachelors’ buttons, egg and bacon, bluebells, etc.
If we walked back towards Melbourne we would come to wattle and sheoak trees
planted by Dad I think to where I was convinced there was a fairy ring. I was
very fairy ring-minded right up to the time we left Gippsland and went to live
in Geelong. I used to write letters to them and leave them at the ring and some
kind person (probably Mongie) would leave replies written on gum leaves on the
step outside the sleepout where we younger ones slept. David had his own room
in a small hut outside the house, approached through the vegetable garden I
think. The smell of Cootamundra wattle still takes me back to those walks. The
ring was formed by toadstools spreading spoor ever outwards and had a mossy
floor. Very authentic to my way of thinking!
And again:
I used to write letters to the fairies and leave them
presents of cups made out of silver paper. They used to write back on gum
leaves which was terribly exciting. I remember clearly finding one such note
outside our sleepout door on the step one morning. It said that the fairies
were going away for a holiday but would return some day. Funnily enough our
dearest aunt (Mongie) who had been staying with us, left that day too, but I
never twigged.
There is a reason for these two versions. Twice Mum went through the exercise of committing her childhood recollections to paper, beginning in the early 1990s. Because she mislaid the original notebook, with characteristic patience and determination she sat down not so long before she died and wrote it all again. The two books are remarkably alike, in both content and arrangement. She must have had a very clear memory of what she wrote the first time, or else she followed similar processes of retrieval that led her in essentially the same directions. Still, there are telling differences. The second book contains much that was prompted by conversations with Uncle John, who was by then living back in Melbourne and ailing. It is also more squarely addressed to Nick, who supplied the new notebook. And there are occasional hints that by then Mum was aware that she did not have much time left. The arthritis in her hands was giving her trouble, so the entries are briefer. When the family went for the interment of Uncle John’s ashes under a tree on the edge of the oval at Geelong College, Mum was reluctantly persuaded to take that opportunity to re-visit Raith and 188 Noble Street, the two Borthwick family homes in Geelong:
The day was very successful and I felt that John would have felt at home where he was buried. I hope so. On the whole, though, the hunt through what is now suburbia to find Raith confirmed my belief that, on the whole, it is better not to go back. 188 Noble Street was bad enough, but Raith was quite depressing. It looked so different to what I remember. It was no use asking me for street names as there were very few streets and our address was simply Raith, Herne Hill, Newtown, Geelong. The cypress hedge was intact to protect the house and garden from the tearing westerlies. The cement works at Fyansford was very much smaller and invisible from the garden.
Poor old Mum. She was quite right. It is better not to go back, yet despite her better judgment I usually do.
I have been re-reading Mum’s reminiscences, written about twenty years ago in her neat, self-disciplined longhand. Mostly they concern her childhood in East Gippsland and Geelong, but make for
pretty painful reading. This is not because the contents are other than delightful, though from time to time a measure of wistfulness and melancholy does creep in, but
far more because they remind me how much I miss her, now more than ever. She’s
funny, of course:
Much later during the war when Mongie lived with us for quite
a while at 188 Noble St., Newtown, she organized John and me and our friends
David Salmon and Janet Nicholson in a pretend radio show. We had hours of fun
and it still makes me laugh to remember Janet, well padded with a half-full hot
water bottle concealed on her knee being interviewed as a visiting European
operatic star with a bad case of indigestion.
Mum was mighty tough also. At Raeshaw, when she was no more than nine years of age:
One of our great pleasures was to watch Matt the Italian handyman cut up a sheep. We never witnessed the killing but were allowed to watch once the animal was hung up to be skinned and gutted. I can still remember the colorful sight when all the innards gushed out, steaming in the cold air. It made Anne keen to be a doctor.
She was also very good at using plain objects to put her
recollections in order:
Searching in a cupboard for a thermos I find an old green
jug, decorated with the figures from a story by an American (I think), Florence
K. Upton—The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a “Golliwogg.” The spout is
broken but I have kept it because it is a link with my mother who first read to
me the rhyming adventures of Mr. Golliwogg, etc. I experience a minor pang when
I realize that there is no one, now that my sister is dead, who would
experience the same affectionate reaction upon seeing the jug as I do.
Mum’s minor pang gives me a major pang, for I am quite
certain that after she died the old green jug with the chipped spout must have gone to the Salvos, the Brotherhood, or the tip, unless Nick intervened. I remember the jug, and I also remember wondering why on earth she held onto it. Now I know. Having now tracked down the Upton
book, I recognize the cover too, so her copy may still be at Metung. Or perhaps I saw it in Myamyn Street or even at Balmadies, though I recall absolutely nothing
about the text or the plot. I presume it is now banned.
Among the many papers she left behind, Mum kept a photograph album, a souvenir of her beloved older sister Anne (center), who sailed with friends to England aboard the P. & O. ship R.M.S. Strathaird in January 1949. The voyage was long, but leisurely. The ship sailed via Fremantle to Colombo in Ceylon, and on to Bombay, Aden, Suez, through the canal to Port Said, and on through the Mediterranean to Southampton.
Some of the landfalls allowed for sightseeing, as, for example, when Anne spent a day on the beach at the Mount Lavinia Hotel in Colombo (above, left to right: Eve Chauvel, Sue Freeman, Frank and Ena Freeman, and “Betty”), or inspecting the Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill in Bombay, or the Towers of Silence at Kemp’s corner nearby (“where they put the deaders,” as Anne put it). It was an established custom for family, friends, and other well-wishers to wave like mad and even signal from the clifftop at Portsea when ships approached the Heads, and made their final departure from Victoria. In an air letter to Anne dated January 19, 1949, which evidently caught up with her in Fremantle, Mum wrote:
No doubt you found the signaling on Sat. evening very confusing as I believe half Portsea was signaling to friends aboard the Strathaird. Some people were signaling to John Darling with an 8” Aldis lamp, so expect that would cut out all other smaller lights. Alec [Trumble, aged 12] was signaling “Anne B” as hard as he could go, but as far as I can make out, he kept forgetting the letters, having to turn the light on and look them up and start again, so doubt whether it was particularly outstanding. However, hope you saw something. When we were waving goodbye a man knocked my hat off and me nearly out but never faltering, I rallied bravely and waved on. Did you hear us screaming goodbye Anne? Mongie was cheer leader there and a very good one she made too…I’m dying to hear what it’s like and whether you’ve been elected queen of the sports deck.
Anne does seems to have spent a good deal of time on the boat deck playing quoits, but there are also some excellent photographs of her with various young table companions wearing party hats and fancy dress. These were taken by an on-board commercial photographer.
On the back of this one (below), Anne noted: “Whose mother uses Persil? But they all use Pepsodent.”
Evidently Anne took this one of “boat drill” because, she noted, “second from left—our table steward.”
Anne was, of course, young and beautiful. Here she is on the boat deck again, in a little shot simply inscribed “Two Hubba’s.”
Most of Anne’s photographs, however, carry no inscription at all, and very few of the gradually multiplying horde of handsome young male admirers are identified.
According to the brief but lively memoir she wrote towards the end of her life, Granny described the thrill of sailing to England for the first time at the end of 1912. Prior to their departure:
A sewing woman came for a week and made dresses for us all, the day nursery was full of materials and some of us doing the finishings off. In those days the idea was to wear old clothes on the ship and put them through the porthole at our journey’s end. We had masses of luggage, there certainly were six of us, but I think about 50 cases! When we left Sale by train, the station master had some detonators put on the rails which went off with a tremendous bang! I remember catching the boat and Dad being very worried that we would miss it as we went down by train with some friends—the O’Hara Woods and Hal Maudsley among them—and Dad and Mother by train…
The trip was wonderful then as it still is. I shall never forget the night before we got to Colombo, and smelling those lovely scents which came out over the ocean. And then seeing Colombo and the East for the first time. One felt it just could not be true. We had a whole day there and drove to many places including the Galle Face Hotel [above]. There was great excitement after we left Colombo. Two Germans who had joined onto our party, together with the sister of some girls we were at school with, and whom Mother was asked to look after, left the ship, and after a few days a cable came from them to this girl asking her to look in the drawer of a writing desk for papers they had left behind. They were taken, of course, straight to the captain. I don’t know what happened to them, but we were all sure the men were spies!
In her boisterous and deliciously patriotic novel From Billabong to London (1914) Mary Grant Bruce borrowed this thrilling episode from Mongie, her niece, and embellished it.
David Linton, his son Jim, daughter Norah and their childhood friend and companion Wally Meadows, sail from Melbourne to Tilbury aboard the Perseus, by the long route via South Africa. War has by this date broken out, and to guard against enemy shipping, the Perseus observes a nightly black-out. However, a few days out of Durban, Norah notices sinister flashing lights coming from a nearby cabin. She, Jim and Wally go straight to Captain Garth. At first two Swedish crewmen come under suspicion, but after an ingenious trap is successfully laid, the German spy turns out to be none other than innocuous Mr. Smith, a businessman who had almost missed the boat in Melbourne :
He broke off, with a shout. “Watch him!”
Mr. Smith had sprung towards the port-hole, a dark object in his hand. Jim was just too quick for him. He caught the up-raised arm. The little man fought fiercely and silently for a moent; then he gave in, yielding what he held with a little sigh. “Pocket-book,” said Jim, examining it…
Beyond the bulky pocket-book which had so narrowly escaped a watery grave, there was little of an incriminating nature to be found on the prisoner. Dixon took charge of any papers in his pockets, and of his keys; and in a corner of the cabin Wally picked up an electric torch—a powerful one, of new and elaborate design.
“Signalling apparatus,” said Dixon, glancing at it. His anger suddenly blazed out. “What do you mean by it, you cowardly hound? Who paid you to sell your own people to the enemy?!”
“The enemy?” said Mr. Smith. “My own people?” He glanced round with sudden pride. “My people are your enemies, and I am one of them. I am a German!”…
According to Captain Garth, recapping with the Lintons post hoc,
“Schmidt is his name—Hans Schmidt. There’s any amount of evidence against him in the papers; the pocket-book he tried to throw out of the port contains much full and true information about our [troop] transports, a complete cipher code of signals, and translations of various other codes. It’s evident that the police were on his heels in Melbourne—that’s why he joined so hurriedly. He covered his tracks well too; made them think he had gone to Brisbane.”
Together, in 1938, our dear cousin slash aunt Mollie Bruce-Pearson (Mongie) and Mum (aged eleven) collaborated on a second work of romantic fiction, which was intended for use on commercial radio. All of the products that they threaded into the plot were of course real, as were certain of the characters such as rasping Dr. Newton, who treated Mongie for the tuberculosis from which she took several hard and painful years to recover. In a way these mad stories—note, for example, Harold’s bizarre diet—belie the various hardships that Mongie and indeed both the Pearson and Borthwick families endured during the Great Depression. At best, they were difficult years, but one can also see that Mum and her siblings gave Mongie great comfort, if not joy. Much earlier, Mongie contrived to deliver to the fairy circle that Mum discovered by the railway line at Raeshaw a series of enchanting letters from the fairies that were painstakingly written out on gum leaves. At around the time when Mongie had to go away to hospital, the fairies announced to Mum that they, too, would be going away for a while, but it took some years before she put two and two together. At eighty-two, Mum can still provide her children, grandchildren, and new great-granddaughter with occasional glimpses of that awestruck little girl, as well as the collaborative authoress of ridiculous radio dramas.
Cynthia and Harold
or
Love will find a way
By M. B. Pearson
A Novel of High Life
For use in Commercial Radio Stations
Chapter I
Cynthia leaped lightly out of bed and skipped to the window.
“Oh! Mama,” she shrilled, “the world is white with snow.”
She made a delightful picture of young womanhood as she stood there in her genuine Myrene Flannelette nightdress (only 1/11¾ per yard, and guaranteed non-inflammable).
“Yes, dear,” replied her mother, Lady Snodgrass, from the adjoining room. “Just right for your ski-ing expedition, or was it hunting?”
Cynthia, as you may have guessed, was one of those delightful out-door girls who have made Great Britain and the Dominions what they are today. Her days were taken up with sport. Huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, ski-in’, hikin’, and in the evenings dancin’ or playin’ billiards.
Lady Snodgrass, who had entered the room gazed at her fondly. It was not many weeks now since Cynthia had been lackadaisical and wan, and her mother had been at a loss to account for it. At last she had ’phoned Dr. Newton and told him her troubles. He had promptly diagnosed the case.
“Night starvation, Lady Snodgrass,” he rasped. “Put her onto Ovaltine, and you will soon see a change.”
So onto Ovaltine—obtainable at all chemists and grocers—she had gone, and in no time she was radiant with health.
Chapter II
Many men had sought Cynthia’s hand in marriage, but none had touched her heart till the day met Harold Higginbotham out huntin’. From that moment Cynthia had known that her heart was no longer her own, that it belonged to another.
Tall, dark, and handsome, Harold was every inch a man-of-the-world. But strange to say, in spite of his obvious admiration for her, no words of love had ever passed Harold’s lips. Could it be that they were sealed?
However, the friendship grew apace, and the handsome pair were constantly to be seen together, either huntin’, fishin’, shootin’, or ski-in’.
Chapter III
It was riding home from a day with the hounds that affairs took a more personal turn. Cynthia, turning to Harold, said softly, “Mr. Higginbotham, forgive my boldness, but you have such lovely white teeth. How do you account for them?”
“Easily, Miss Snodgrass,” laughed Harold. “You see, I always use Ipana Tooth Paste, and if you want clean, healthy gums, and white, sparkling teeth use Ipana—I-P-A-N-A, available at all chemists. Baby tube 1/2, medium tube 1/6, family tube 6/6.”
“Thank you,” whispered Cynthia. “And what is more,” she added boldly, “I shall tell all my friends.”
It was another day, returning from fishin’ that the friendship seemed to take a still more romantic turn. As Harold helped her over a stile, Cynthia turned to him and murmured timidly, “Mr. Higginbotham, do not think me very brazen, but I would so love to know to what you attribute your magnificent physique and glowing health?”
Harold gazed at his fair companion tenderly before he replied with a throb in his voice, “You shall know, Miss Snodgrass—Cynthia—I attribute my entire well-being to two facts. Firstly my diet. I partake almost entirely of Sanitarium Health Foods—peanut butter—marmite—whole-wheat bread, and raw onions. These are all obtainable at the Sanitarian Health Foods Depot, 146 Little Collins Street, City. Then if I should feel at all out of sorts on awakening I invariably take one of Carter’s invaluable little liver pills, in boxes of 6, 12, 24, and the family size containing 2,000. And secondly, Cynthia,” his manly voice dropped an octave, “I always wear Aertex next the skin.”
“I see,” said Cynthia, flushing prettily.
“Yes,” continued Harold, “Aertex enables the pores to breathe freely, and the skin to act as it should.”
Cynthia gazed at him, her heart in her eyes.
“Oh Harold,” she trebled, “how wonderful you are.”
And so, although no word was spoken, their love seemed to grow and blossom. Till one day as they were returning from a hikin’ expedition, Cynthia turned to Harold as he carried her across a rushing torrent.
“Harold,” she twittered in her innocent way. “You always look such a man-about-town. May I dare to ask you where you dress?
“Certainly, Cynthia,” he replied. “Usually in my bed-room, but sometimes I take my clothing to the bathroom…”
“Oh! Harold,” gushed Cynthia, flushing rosily. “That is not what I meant. I was merely inquiring where you obtained your suits for every occasion?” He gazed at her in consternation.
“How foolish of me,” he throbbed. “I mistook your meaning. I am delighted that you approve my dressing, and let me tell you that you must thank Wardrop my tailor for it. You would be amazed, Cynthia, at the value for money at Wardrop’s. Fifteen guinea suits elsewhere are only 84/– at Wardrop’s, and they have a delightful wool and cotton mixture sports coat with action back for only 12/11. Then their flannel and worsted pinstripe double-breasted office suiting is the last word in toney men’s wear. No-one who shops at Wardrop’s can look anything but manly. And do not forget,” added Harold, “that with every Wardrop suit there is an extra pair of trousers free.”
“Thank you, Harold,” whispered Cynthia softly. “I shall not forget.”
Chapter IV
It was settled that Lady Snodgrass should give a dinner party to celebrate the conclusion of the huntin’ season. At last the great night arrived, and Mistletoe Manor was agleam with lights and alive with guests, and aglow with gaiety. Harold’s chief rival, Arthur Upcheek, was there looking very sinister, with his sleek black hair and a heavily waxed moustache. Harold himself was a figure of superb manhood in a Wardrop tail coat, while Cynthia was a delightful vision in pale violet tonings, kept glowingly warm by her Wolsley underwear with its soft texture, clinging and yet roomy.
Lady Snodgrass drew Harold to her side on the sofa for a chat, while they waited for Grimes the Butler to announce dinner.
“What charming furnishings you have, Lady Snodgrass,” he said warmly.
“Yes,” she replied, “and all from Maple’s on the lay-by.”
“What is that, Lady Snodgrass?” said Harold with interest.
“Oh, you have not heard of Maple’s lay-by? £2 down, and the balance over fifty years, and your money back if no satisfaction? That wicker whatnot in the corner is already paid for, as are those lamps you see; and the couch or divan we are sharing has a collapsible back, and can be used as a bed when there are extra in the home.” Lady Snodgrass leaned towards Harold.
“Have you never thought of setting up house?” she murmured meaningly. His tanned face was flushed with red.
“You have given me food for thought,” he said.
“Dinner Milady!” boomed Grimes, and the sparkling conversation was transferred to the dining room.
Dinner was over, and the company had reassembled in the drawing-room when it happened. Cynthia suddenly turned to Harold who was at her side.
“Oh Harold, my head, it throbs so, what can it be?” He was not at a loss for long.
“I know just what you need, dear,” he breathed, and, turning to the guests, he thundered, “Has anyone present a box or bottle of Bex genuine A.P.C. for headaches and other disorders?” A glass of water was soon to hand, and Cynthia, dimpling at her lovers, swallowed down the highly recommended sedatives. Then—to the horror of all present—there was a heavy crash as she toppled to the ground…
The next hour passed in a flash as pandemonium broke loose. Dr. Newton was quickly on the spot with a nurse, and he shook his head as he felt Cynthia’s pulse.
“208 to the minute by my Gaunt’s wristwatch, only 37/6 in gunmetal, second hand 2/6 extra,” he said gravely. His diagnosis was an appalling one: “Poison,” he gritted. “Fortunately, I have with me my Dunlop rubber stomach pump, obtainable at all garages within a twelve mile radius of the G.P.O., except at the weekend. So all may yet be well.” He turned sternly to the butler, who was hovering in the rear. “Grimes,” he said, “see that no-one leaves the house.”
Chapter V
An hour later, thanks to her medico’s prompt action with the stomach pump, Cynthia was herself once more. Dr. Newton, assembling everyone in the hall, thundered, “Who is responsible for this folly?”
All eyes turned towards Harold, who drew himself to his full height of 6 foot 4½ in his Buck’s half-hose, 6 foot 5½ in his Doctor Arnold’s health-shoes.
“I am innocent,” he said gravely. Then, turning on his Dunlop rubber heel, he strode to where Arthur Upcheek was standing with his waxed moustache curled in a sneer, and said sternly: “Upcheek, I order you to produce that bottle of Bex A.P.C.”
“And what if I refuse,” rasped Arthur.
“Then I shall take it!” gritted Harold. And grasping his rival by the scruff of the neck he shook him until the bottle crashed to the ground. Darting forward, Dr. Newton picked up the bottle, opened it, and sniffed at the contents.
“Tainted Tablets!” he muttered, shuddering. With a dramatic gesture Arthur drew from his hip-pocket his Hartley’s Our Boy’s Scout Knife, and pulling out the corkscrew, made as though to plunge it in his breast. But his arms were grasped from behind by the ever-ready Grimes, and he was borne struggling from the hall. Cynthia fell into Harold’s open arms.
“My darling,” he breathed, “will you marry me?”
“Yes, Harold,” she murmured, almost swooning.
“Then meet me tomorrow night at 6.30 for dinner at the Prince of Wales, St. Kilda, where a splendid four-course meal is obtainable for only 2/6, including soup, fish, joint, and two veg., with sweet or fruit to follow.”
“Oh Harold,” gushed Cynthia, “I shall be there.”
And so it came about, thanks to Maple’s lay-by, that Harold and Cynthia were wed, and lived happily ever after in the rich but “homey” atmosphere of their charming villa. And as they sat amid their tasteful furnishings in the evenings, Harold would often turn to Cynthia and say fondly, “Remember, dear, there’s a Maple’s Store right near your door.”
Mongie, pronounced “Mungie,” and the G is soft, not hard, was a genius with children.
Towards the end of the summer of 1937–38, whilst still recuperating from tuberculosis, Mongie kept Mum busy at Metung—she was not yet twelve years old—by creating “a detective drama,” for radio, entitled Doris and Archie, or, The Mystery of the Headless Woman. The manuscript, which Mongie wrote into an Aero exercise book, was accompanied by illustrations carefully clipped from old copies of the Illustrated London News, Harpers and Queen, etc.
According to the title page, Doris and Archie was “written and unpublished in 1938 by Helen Borthwick (Jun.), aged 9 [sic] (the dangerous age), & Mongie Bruce-Pearson (very jun.).”
In due course, Mongie lent the manuscript to her friend F. H. Legg who actually broadcast it on commercial radio. As she put it: “Lent to Ferocious Hotspot Legg. Why? Because I think he is too light-headed, and badly in need of a little cheap reading. Kindly do not drop butter from the toast or egg from the mouth on the pages.”
The text is enchanting, but achieves its most comic effects through the absurdity and placement of the images. Their absence here is merely a temporary problem, and no worse, surely, than it was for Legg’s Geelong listeners, who must have been delighted, stupified, or possibly both.
Soon after this, Mongie spent some months living in the same nursing home cum boarding house and sanatorium in Croydon where her own Aunt Minnie, the novelist Mary Grant Bruce, was also temporarily residing. Granny took Mum to visit them for a few days during the school holidays some time in the middle of 1939, and Mary Grant Bruce took that welcome opportunity to test on Mum (who was by then twelve or thirteen) the unfinished manuscript of her new novel Karalta. Clearly, however, Mum’s greater childhood enjoyment was in composition and art direction, not editing, nor providing feedback to slightly high-maintenance professionals, no matter how eminent.
Together, Mum and Mongie proceeded to compose a more ambitious work, certainly longer, entitled Cynthia and Harold, or Love Will Find A Way, “A Novel of High Life, for use in commercial radio stations.” Stay tuned, but for the time being Doris and Archie will have to do:
DORIS AND ARCHIE
OR—
The mystery of the headless woman
The Honourable Doris Dillwater was a fine, upstanding type of English girlhood. One of those who look “just right” in whatever they wear, Doris was frequently to be seen yachting at Metung, or on the Trotting Track at Richmond. Very reckless at the wheel of her sports car, she was frequently seen on the race track at Cowes, or golfing at West Geelong.
Her father, Lord Wobblegoose (Honest John to his cronies) had started life as a humble golf professional. Tiring of this, he joined the army and became a well-known frequenter of all the London night clubs, where he was always surrounded with the ladies. He broke all hearts in his mess kit.
His wife, Lady Sybil Wobblegoose, was a well-known society beauty, famed alike for her hourglass waist and her swan neck. In fact, so young and girlish was she that she and Doris were frequently mistaken for sisters.
On coming into the title Lord Wobblegoose (or Honest John) had inherited a magnificent country seat, a Baronial Hall, which he lined with trophies of the chase, a collection for which he rightly became very famous.
Everyone was delighted when the Hon. Doris married that whimsical and well-known Oxford Rugger back, and Cambridge Soccer forward, Archie O’Cedar from Ireland. The happy couple took ship for a happy honeymoon in India.
Returning to England, Archie and Doris settled down in a delightful old-world cottage in the country. Here Doris and her mother, who was a frequent visitor, spent many happy evenings over the wireless, which was always turned full on, as Lady Sybil was a little hard of hearing.
Imagine the delight of Doris and Archie when a little toddler arrived, whom they called Hilderbrand [sic], after a wealthy great-uncle in India. What a happy home it was, no-one dreaming that stark tragedy lay ahead.
Waking one morning at the usual hour, Archie was horrified to discover that the Hon. Doris was not beside him. Quickly flying to the telephone he summoned the well-known Scotland Yard man, Detective-Inspector Jones. Swiftly on the spot, the brilliant sleuth was quick to perceive that the bed had not been disturbed, the cot was empty, and—most momentous discovery of all—there were footprints on the table. Jones was completely baffled when he found that the chair had not been sat in. Last—and worst—discovery of all, was that of a headless body under the bed, clad with garments identical with those worn by the Hon. Doris.
On being acquainted with the ghastly tidings, Lady Sybil, who was a visitor in the cottage at the time, sprang to her feet in shocked surprise.
Lord Wobblegoose was quite unhinged by the news; ran away from home, joined the navy, and grew a beard.
On being questioned about her daughter’s disappearance, Lady Sybil recalled that she had last seen the Hon. Doris preparing for bed the night previous. Detective-Inspector Jones, cross-examining Lady Sybil on the Hon. Doris’s personal habits, extracted the information that she (Doris) had suffered from nasal trouble as a young girl. Never baffled for long, Jones soon discovered traces of snow in Hilderbrand’s pram.
Taking Archie with him, he hurried to Switzerland, where together they scaled the twin peaks of the Matterhorn and Fatterhorn, but without result.
Refusing to be discouraged, they hurried back to London where the search became feverish. The Hon. Doris’s photograph appeared in every paper.
At last Jones determined to enlist the help of the well-known lady-detective—Ethel Hollowhead—known in the Force as “the Wonder-Kid of Scotland Yard.”
Disguising herself as a simple village maiden, Ethel visited every night-club in London, but in vain. Then taking on the clever disguise of a Lady of Leisure, Ethel spent a weekend in every Stately Home of England, but no result.
Completely outwitted, and in despair at her first failure, Ethel retired from the Force, and took up landscape-gardening.
Unbaffling himself once more, Jones hurried back to the cottage where he made the breathtaking discovery of a towel in Doris’s bathroom, covered with Indian embroidery.
Hurriedly disguising himself, he flew off to India by Air Mail.
Here to his unspeakable delight he discovered Doris, starved, and worn, and in cotton rags, but unharmed amidst India’s teeming millions.
Plied with goodies, Doris soon smiled again, as she told Jones her Tale of Horror.
It appeared that she had been in bed on the night of the 10th when the room was entered by a sinister man (or brute), who had drugged her and her child. Forcing her to make her bed as though it had been unoccupied, he had then placed a headless body under it. Then dragging her child after him, he had placed cotton wool in the pram. (Afterwards mistaken by Jones for snow, a lapse for which he never forgave himself.) Fortunately on their arrival in India, her sinister captor hurried off on a fishing trip, and it was during his absence that Jones found her.
Hurrying home, they were met by a delirious Archie, who gave a huge fancy dress party in Doris’s honour.
Lord Wobblegoose was court-martialed from the navy for swearing. He returned home, and took up golf once more.
Uncle Hilderbrand returned from India quite crippled with Blackwater fever and Boils, shortly died, and left all his money to Doris and her little ones: Cyril, Letitia, Leila, Freda, Maida, Josa, and Wilhelmina (’Mina for short), Walter, Gladys, Cynthia, Gertrude (never very strong), Hilderbrand (stunted from his sinister adventure), and Rose.
While, as for the Hon. Doris and Archie O’Cedar, they just danced their way through life.
The Australian novelist Mary Grant Bruce (1878–1958) was the second daughter and fourth child of Eyre Lewis Bruce and Mary (Minnie) Atkinson Whittakers, the daughter in turn of William and Louisa Whittakers, Welsh pioneers of the Monaro district of New South Wales. Mr. Bruce was a surveyer who migrated to Victoria from Cork in Ireland in 1854; settled near Sale in East Gippsland ten years later, and surveyed Bruce Road, his only monument, which still skirts the Colquhuon State Forest, commencing at a point on the Princes’ Highway that is roughly half way between Swan Reach and Kalimna West, and leads most of the way north to the neighborhood of Tambo Upper. I am afraid that one day someone will feel they have to pave it.
Now the Bruce, Gooch, and Pearson families of East Gippsland were closely bound by marriage. Two of my great-grandmother Sophie Pearson’s younger Gooch siblings each married a different one of Mary Grant Bruce’s: Frank Gooch married Emily Bruce, while Sophie and Frank’s adored youngest sister Mollie married Maxwell Bruce (Max). After Mollie died in childbirth, leaving Max with a baby daughter, Sophie and William Pearson took the baby into their own family, and raised her with their own son and daughters (including Granny). The baby’s name was also Mollie. Eventually she took the additional surname of Pearson (whether she was ever formally adopted I do not know), and became known affectionately to subsequent generations of Pearsons, Borthwicks, and Trumbles as Mungie.
Now, much earlier, in the 1880s, Sophie Pearson’s sister Kate married William Pearson’s brother Jack, and by this neat and not particularly unusual Victorian stratagem the children of all three families were provided with many cousins; a deep attachment to each other, and a powerful attachment to the region of East Gippsland where they all grew up
Beyond these immediate family connections, like the Pearsons, the Bruces were lifelong friends and neighbors of the Borthwick family of Sale and nearby Bald Hills. In 1914, Mary Grant Bruce married her distant Anglo-Irish cousin, Major George Evans Bruce, to whom in London she introduced the whole Pearson family, including her niece Mungie, who was by then in boarding school.
Throughout the extended periods they spent living abroad, George and Mary Grant Bruce corresponded with great-grandmother Ada Borthwick and, after she died, with Aunt Jean and Aunt Kath. During the bleak period of crisis that followed the death in a shooting accident in Northern Ireland of the Bruces’ youngerson Patrick, Mary’s affectionate correspondence with Mrs. Borthwick turned more and more toward breathing exercises, thought-power, table-rapping, and spiritualism.
In any case, it is hardly surprising that the Linton characters in Mary Grant Bruce’s famous series of Billabong novels often resemble various Bruces, Gooches, Pearsons, and Borthwicks, and I have a strong feeling that their fictional property, Billabong, is a fusion of Bonegilla (above), Kilmany Park, and Bald Hills, with plenty of embellishments. Here, for example, is the opening of From Billabong to London, the publication of which coincided with the Pearsons’ extended visit to England, beginning in late 1912:
If you came to the homestead of Billabong by the front entrance, you approached a great double gate of wrought iron, which opened stiffly, with protesting creaks, and creaked almost as much at being closed. Then you found yourself in a long, winding avenue, lined with tall pine-trees, beyond which you could catch glimpses, between the trunks of a kind of wilderness-garden, where climbing roses and flowering shrubs and gum-trees and bush plants, and a host of pleasant, friendly, common flowers grew all together in a very delightful fashion. Seeing, however, that you were a visitor by the front entrance, you could not answer the beckonings of the wilderness-garden, but must follow the windings of the avenue, on and on, until the wild growth on either side gave place to spreading lawns and trim flower-beds, the pine-trees ended, and you came round a kind of corner formed by an immense bush of scarlet bougainvillea, and so found the house smiling a welcome. Very rarely were any doors or windows shut at Billabong. The kindly Australian climate makes the sunlit winter air a delight; and if in summer it is sometimes necessary to shut out heat, and possibly intrusive snakes, as soon as the sun goes down everything is flung wide open to admit the cool evening breeze that comes blowing across the paddocks. Billabong always looked as if it were open to welcome the newcomer.
It was a red house of two storeys, looking lower than it was because of its width and the great trees that grew all round it, as well as because of its broad balconies and verandas. From either side the garden stretched away until hedges of roses blocked the entrance to orchard and vegetable patches. The house stood on a gentle rise, and in front the trees had been thinned so that across the smooth lawn you looked over stretching paddocks, dotted with gum-trees, and broken by the silver gleam of a reed-fringed lagoon. There was no other house visible—only the wide, peaceful paddocks. The nearest road was two miles away, and it was seventeen miles to the nearest town. Perhaps, seen from the front, Billabong might have seemed a little lonely.
