Intro: These are the first two sections of a verse novella. Told by an English journalist it charts his 60 year friendship with an Australian ‘bluestocking’ and her family, whom he meets on a tour he takes of the British Empire’s Dominions in 1913-14. The work also charts Anglo-Australian relations in the context of the Empire’s decline.
In Our Four Dominions
for Louise Byrne
Pride
‘Proud? Most certainly we’re proud!’
In
this land we’ve a first of everything!’
And
Mayor Moriarty, seed merchant,
escorted
me up, through, down and around
his
suburb’s first town hall.
And
if, as I were to find, his womenfolk
checked
him just one side of humbug,
still
this silly man seemed to prefer them
schooled
and daunting.
Jean surely was.
‘We’ve
a surprise,’ the Mayor seemed pleased.
‘My
most brilliant girl has volunteered
to
enlighten you on what our younger set believes,
and
if our younger set means Jean,
and
Jean believes what Jean believes,
I’m
sure you will be charmed and thus adjust.’
I
had to. For outside his mayoral chambers,
with
a pixie-slight demeanour I sensed would prove
disarmingly
robust, there she was.
And
chaperoned by their municipal chauffer
we
headed to the Boat House where in its Palm Court,
to
an overlay of tea dance numbers
flirtatious
chat commenced.
‘Though
I’ve been introduced as Jean,
you
may refer to me as Minx, father does:
His
Worship being something out of Mr Arnold Bennett,
I’m
something out of Mr H G Wells.
Welcome
to that kind of place where women
in
case you weren’t aware
possess
the vote and our last PM before the last
was
“Affable Alf”.
That kind of place
and
these
kind of women, with Jean forever to remain
this
small and bustling girl with eyebrows raised
and
quizzing sidelong glances.
Attempting
one better to top her catalogue
seemed
my only option.
‘Recall the attribution,’
she
was asked, ‘from our Colonial
Correspondent?
Well
Miss Moriarty, I am he!’
‘Colonial…’
and
the sidelong glance returned, ‘elsewhere may think themselves
in
such a fashion, Australians though are a Commonwealth now,
up-to-date
as can be allowed and when we aren’t…
let’s
make it up!’
Little
‘side’ then in this most pragmatic
of
Dominions, merely an insisting cheek that I,
this
visiting London journalist Should try us
out!
The
very reason I was there.
Dominions
My
uncle, an outward-looking man,
also was my editor. And believing I
wasn’t yet a drab,
and trusting I wrote both wittily and
well
made this proposal.
‘On balance then,’ he stated
(since he loved to state) ‘what quarter
of our globe
seems better blest than where we
British truly reign
yet fairly rule? Reasonable?’ he asked..
‘Very,’
I replied as he arose and pointed
to his map.
‘India,’ he
announced, ‘our jewel…
Africa, our mission…whilst for a spread
of sheer diversity:
Middle and Far East, the South Seas and
the Caribbean. But…’
he paused (since he also loved to pause)
‘what of those partners-in-empire, our
Dominions?
Having learnt so well from us (and
aren’t they us?)
what indeed might we learn from them?’
Knowing
who they were,
he and Britain wished to know who and
what
they truly were. And such would be my brief:
(with backing from certain chaps of
clout
and six months touring our Dominions)to
discover
who indeed and what indeed they were.
Somewhere
my uncle had his list:
those he knew, those he’d met and those
his correspondents:
very chaps of clout in Cape Town and
Melbourne,
Sydney and Auckland, Vancouver and Toronto.
And
though he planned I’d meet them Uncle warned:
‘In ten or twenty years they may or
will
be heading fogey. So as an extra brief
seek out
those men of your age, chaps of the
future,
for both articles and an eventual
book.’
‘And
such if you like Miss Moriarty,’
(how
we enjoyed such fake formalities!)
‘are
the reasons I am here.’
‘Chaps
of clout?’ quizzed and answered Jean.
‘Chaps
of the future? Seed merchant mayors or
seed
merchant mayors-in-training?’
This Sunday
evening though,
might
I be free to visit the Moriartys at their Bella
Vista?
Moriartys
If
Father may have seemed the Minister,
Mother it was who ran the Ministry.
‘Book
us into your calendar,’
he might say.
‘Now,’
she’d fine-tune, since someone
must employ that side of the initiative,
‘let’s arrange those dates…’
She
allowed him though
his MC role: ‘May we present, starting
with our eldest,
HelĂ©na, Jean (you’ve met) Edward (Ted)
Stella and Vera our own Gemini.'
Yes,
let’s meet
the Moriartys: first up their medium
pacer,
middle order, all-rounder of a son who,
beyond even that, was a wag confessing:
‘Surrounded by such girls-and-girls
they’ll say
he’s spoilt, spoilt with all a
lightweight’s faults,
excepting you can trust him:
for if and when a stoush arrives he’ll be
there,
he’ll have to be.’
And
doubtless believing
After saying things like that, one does
things like this
Ted stroked his trim moustache.
‘And
how did you find us Moriartys?’
Mother asked.
I
had an uncle taking pride
in just how many men he knew throughout
the Empire, her husband being a friend of
one of these.
‘I
think we can agree,’
Ted offered, ‘that’s how our Empire’s run.
One sends a cable knowing it’ll be read,
correct?’
And
more than opinions
he seemed to offer his very self as a
small, yet necessary
anchor of Empire: you commenced with Ted,
then his father, his father’s friend, my
uncle and next to him
the Colonial Office, the India Office, the
Foreign Office and
who-knew-what beyond.
‘We’re
so glad to know, ‘ Jean humoured him,
‘your place in the
great-Imperial-chain-of-being.’
‘Do
you play charades?’ a Gemini enquired.
I
had been known to.
‘Then
please return,
return and play!’ her twin kept urging.
‘And
this is HelĂ©na,’ Father intervened,
‘with an accent on her second e, now don’t
forget,
the Empire’s only one. She invented that
when she
was twelve.’ (For he was a man well proud
of all he was connected to.)
‘And
may I book you in?’ HelĂ©na asked.
‘I’ve heaps to be informed upon.’
The
twins re-intervened:
might we make a picnic and watch Teddy
play?
And did I play?
(Always
out first ball, alas.)
We
embarked for dinner, we disembarked
from dinner. Soon, I was told, the
chauffer
would arrive, taking me to the Windsor.
‘See
our guest out will you Jean?’
See
me out? Oh yes Jean would!
Was
her mother thinking that somehow
I might be a man to give an extra meaning
to
this daughter’s life?
Though
what ‘extra meaning’
might she need if the family supplied
enough?
‘I
love my little brother,’ Jean confessed,
‘I always have. But then: ‘So he’s in
college?
So he’s attending university and wishes to
become
Sir Edward Moriarty KC, so?’ And then:
‘I think all snobs are sad and that HelĂ©na
is
the saddest snob of all with not the
remotest brain.
She never went
to varsity whilst I did.
I studied French and wish one day to use
it.
I only read French nowadays, I’ve very few
to speak it with…might you?
‘Alas,’
I let her know,
‘my languages being purely classical, I’ve
missed out
on all this modern stuff!’
With
her look announcing
I can and will both understand and even
enjoy this man
yes Jean liked that!
And
yet
enough of that! She’d to make it known
what kind of friend I would be getting.
‘History,’
(was this some lecture?) ‘still informs me,
although I’m well beyond mere Whig.
You sir see a Roundhead. But what can I,
what will I do about it? Don’t suggest
school mistress,
the very thought of being one and what I
was
at school makes me right glad for all
those girls
I’ll never teach. And never please suggest
the wife
of any famous man. Throughout the
municipality
His Worship’s constantly famous for being
His Worship, and what does that get
mother?
An avalanche of mere good works
with all their attendant tut-tut-tut.
Just give me works; but what?’
The
chauffer had arrived, I too had ‘works’:
seeking out those with their clout who’d
tell me where
we British stood, this corner of the
Empire;
to meet their sons, the future, those I’d
recommend to be
the kind of chaps Britain might rely upon;
and finally to interview four of the men
who ran
this Commonwealth of theirs: the affable
Mr Deakin,
the combative Mr Hughes, the gentlemanly
Mr Fisher,
the rather plodding Mr Cook; nor could I
forgo the luncheons,
dinners and smoke nights, though I sensed
where I’d be
welcomed most, those weeks in Melbourne.
(‘Liberty
’all young man!’ the Mayor,
her father offered, putting forth ‘side’,
if his special, unaffected brand of
‘side’.)
When
I was younger, though hardly that much younger,
night after night entranced by some light
opera soubrette,
I would return to gaze on her alone, and
mouth
milady’s lines.
Unlike
the stage though,
each Moriarty evening was a premiere,
and I’d make my return just to re-discover
what Jean (and even I) might be saying
next.
Name
a soubrette who could announce:
‘From hereafter, year-upon-year,
you men will need us more and yet still
more,
need us and our vote. In those countries
where we’ve
got the vote!’
And
later:
‘You’ll notice if you haven’t yet,
how my older sister acts like she’s some
maharani?’
(Aspects were noted if hardly that
descriptive.)
‘And you think I’m unmarried…’
(Well I hadn’t.)
‘Poor woman’s set on forgetting just how
old she is
and will become. But can’t. She knows
she’s twenty six
and still hasn’t seen England her England.
That’s why His Worship’s set she’ll go,
and go they will
in ’15, ’16 or ’17, to find herself this
England
or a husband. For me your country may as
well
be Mars.’
Though
at times we talked
of little else.
‘Even
if,’ she proposed, ‘we’re British,
as many think we are and this is a British
world,
it’s far more yours than ours, yours to
accept,
interpret and amend, in particular amend.
Yet this is a world which cannot last,
you’ve doubtless heard
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
and stuck on its less-than-certain edges
we’re the dunes and we’re the headlands.
Aren’t I correct?’
That
currently was part of what
I’d set myself to find.
Here
though was the start
of my credentials: those interviews
arranged and held
with Messrs Deakin, Hughes, Fisher and
Cook.
Smiling I lounged back just a touch and
watched.
‘Well
done,’ she cheered, ‘well done!
An Englishman who understands there’s
something
far beyond mere England in its tepid,
three week
summer!’
Why
spoil this game reminding Jean
she’d no more been there than HelĂ©na had?
It simply underscored all I enjoyed about
her,
as the Colonial Correspondent returned
(most late afternoons now) seeking to
discover
what this Australian bluestocking truly
thought.
‘Since,’
I asked, ‘women in this country vote,
what do you suppose they might want next?’
And
fearing he had made himself her foil,
Jean’s latest innocent mug, their dinner
table paused.
‘Why
birth control!’
‘And
that’s our Minx!’
With embarrassed pride her father beamed,
spluttered,
then continued beaming, egging on Jean
so that she might rise and further rising
rile her mother.
Part
comic, part preposterous,
was this some kind of game certain
Dominion
families played? Well the Moriartys did
and an idea bloomed, oh how it bloomed
Jean’s saying what her father wishes he
could say
except his wife won’t let him…
as yes the wife was riled, riled and
recoiling
‘Oh must you Jean!’
And
being twenty four yes
yes Jean must she must.
As
being twenty six HelĂ©na mustn’t
so she squirmed.
Seeming
as tall as Jean was tiny,
Heléna had those kinds of hands on those
kinds of arms
made for sweeping, know-it-all dismissals;
though she lacked her sister’s sense to
check,
bemused, who or what was right before her.
‘One
really tries,’
Jean had to explain, ‘not to
consider
one’s parent’s conjugal relations.
But with the sheer variety of the
Maharani, me,
Teddy and our twins, something somehow
must’ve happened. And she’s known,
HelĂ©na’s known
since birth, that if an impression’s to be
made
she will be the first to make it.’
Which
Jean didn’t?
Well not with all that throaty bombast
gushing
from her older sister.
‘Shall
we pity her?’ I’d ask myself.
‘Though why? How often does HelĂ©na get her
chance
to seize on any British accent, matching
it with her own
re-fined attempts?’
Yes
pity would’ve been considered,
except Heléna hardly understood her
prattling,
nor would she ever.
‘Yours is a land,’
I tried, ‘that uses space so well:
its broad streets and roads are near to
boulevards.
How old is your city? Less than eighty
years,
so even better everything is new!’
Did
she flinch?
HelĂ©na didn’t need it new, whilst
any praise for
this Dominion proved, like her father’s
pride
(Jean’s too) in how they were forging
their traditions,
foreign and perverse.
‘Ah
yes,’ HelĂ©na itemised,
‘traditions: heat, dust, flies and boors:
mutton breeding,
mutton digesting, mutton-chop whiskered
boors…’
which hardly equated with those I’d met,
the trim-bearded ‘Affable Alf’ Deakin for
one,
who could have strolled straight into the
Asquith Ministry.
‘Out
of date by forty years, HelĂ©na!’
Jean seeing an opening had pounced.
‘Those squatters are either shaved and
civilised by now,
or dead.’
Thinking
I’d understand what she understood
Heléna in reply was tragic:
‘My sister and her most Australian twang,
I know you’ve heard it, I do every day.
What man will respect her if she talks
like that?’
I
wouldn’t bite the bait.
Some men might enjoy this ‘twang’ if
indeed
there was one; some other men, I include
myself,
would near-love her ‘twang’ or no.
I
was so pleased
I’d met a world that wasn’t an unending
reproduction
of certain men with whom I had attended
school,
or their sisters. Rather it seemed I had
been bred
to tour the Four Dominions and even more
befriend
Jean Moriarty.
If
not Heléna.
For now we were to talk on what she really
knew.
How about my club, wasn’t I the member of
a club?
(Once it had been proposed I be proposed.)
Did I by chance know a duke, an earl?
A marquis, baron, baronet?
I never got a chance to answer since
I must have.
For
now her catalogue commenced:
highwaymen and their saucy wenches,
Hearts of Oak and Drake’s Drum,
the honest toil of simple folk and what
The Bard
had given the world, yes yes she admitted,
almost all ephemera but but surely it
wasn’t about
mere knowing one’s place for no no it was
about order,
an order seeing to it all
flourished, was she not correct?
Then,
as we caught Jean’s eye-rolling and finger-drumming
HelĂ©na pursed a smile’s preliminaries,
pleased she might show a certain toleration
towards a younger sister.
‘So
might you,’
I was asked, ‘have one of these?’
as a hand was lightly flapped in Jean’s
direction.
Did
she mean (she did) that I had sisters?
‘Well
I have two...’
Though
none like Jean,
ushering me down the steps into Bella
Vista’s garden,
who bemused yet seething asked:
‘You see the Maharani, hunkered there on
our veranda,
taking up the white woman’s burden,
staring down the hordes amassing at the
gate?
Of course she’s tried Theosophy, says it
calms her,
but other than ghosts there’s very little
prospects.
Teddy will marry, Stella shall and Vera,
whilst I am certain to remain bluestocking
me.
But HelĂ©na? She’s betrothed you know,
beyond betrothed
to Old Father Thames and Mother England.
I’d call it comic but the comedy’s too
tragic,
call it tragic but the tragedy’s too
comic.
Though be the outcome sobs or giggles
I’m sure we’ll need each other, one day!’
Bluestocking
Oh
no Jean didn’t!
Already seeing herself as some middle-aged
companion to
that vapid sister, what sort of
bluestocking was this?
To rescue her from such a future the
Colonial Correspondent
would fix that!
And
very soon,
one hot afternoon, striding back to the
Boat House
she’s hearing this unedited tumble of
words concluding:
‘Haven’t you potential, Jean? Why stymie
that potential?
Come with me and see the Dominions, the
Dominions
and beyond…’ for more than any Colonial
Correspondent,
Jean this is your suitor announcing:
‘After we wed let’s head to the nearest
liner!’
Not exactly the silliest thing he’d ever
said,
though he’d never be as young as when he
was
proposing that,
‘Liner?’
he hears. ‘Ocean liner?
Ah no we won’t.’ Since she will never
marry.
‘I don’t know why and even more don’t
think
I’ll ever know although…what a scandal,
what a superb scandal we would make.’
No sidelong glancing now, Jean raising her
head
looks her straightest at him:
‘I like you more than any man I’ve met…’
which seems the sort of phrase needing to
end in
but except Jean
(who’s sensing diplomacy’s time
is now) knows any qualifying but
would hurt,
and never adds it. That’s how much she
likes him.
‘So
this,’ I’m hearing,
‘I’ll respond like this: you remain here.
With Melbourne always needing chaps of
clout
we’ll get you introduced; and if our
ladies rarely
seem viragos, still I foresee that kind of
girl
you may require. Who isn’t me. Stay and I
will be the one
reporting on our four Dominions.
We
knew that wasn’t viable.
For it was safe, still safe Chez Moriarty,
where you were cultivated as a very clever
girl,
the family Roundhead. It would take much
more than
this suitor-in-transit to make her what
she wanted to become
(which then neither of us knew).
Though
Jean had commenced understanding something:
‘I’m just starting out. Even if he didn’t
wish to
any man would stifle me. Better this way
isn’t it,
Colonial Correspondent. We may never
agree,
but I believe you understand me. Correct?’
Very
correct.
Though after laying such a temperate siege
to Jean,
Milady of Clout, Milady of the Future,
any girl I might require in this modern
adequate city
would seem passé.
would seem passé.
Bio: After 18 & ½ years teaching poetry at the University of Wollongong Alan is retiring to Melbourne to continue writing & publishing Grand Parade Poets books. His next volume as a poet THESE THINGS ARE REAL appears from Giramondo in 2017.
More sections from Alan Wearne's verse novella In Our Four Dominions will be posted on BM in about six months.
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