that you may reap the reward in the hereafter for enduring a miserable life out here in the bush.
As Ada Thomas and her thin-lipped daughters are their nearest neighbours, Hester and Meg are determined to love their neighbours, even if they should die in the attempt. Liking, let alone loving, the shrill-voiced Ada and her daughters, Jessica decides, is going to take a whole Bible full of Christian charity on their part. If Jack Thomas isnât to be the ultimate prize, she doubts whether even Hester and Meg would bother to go the distance with the three Thomas women.
And if Mrs Thomas and her girls are aware of the plan to snare their only son, brother and the heir to Riverview Station, they certainly donât let on. They accept all the bowing and scraping and smiling as their due, and include Hester and Meg in their larger tea parties. It is obvious they donât consider Hester and Meg up to scratch, but this only seems to make the two Bergman women more in awe of the Thomases.
Hester and Meg admire Ada and her girls blindly, in the way poor people often admire the rich, endowing them with character and intelligence they donât possess. Money, Jessica has discovered, is a clever way to conceal stupidity and meanness in peopleâs personalities. Her mother and sister will tolerate no criticism of the three, although Jessica reckons that the more Hester and Meg kowtow to them, the snootier the Thomas women seem to get.
Whatâs more, she thinks that the three Thomas women are just plain-looking, plain stupid and plain snobs. It should be said in fairness that Hester and Meg arenât the only ones who dare not cross Ada Thomas. Nobody in the parish is prepared to speak out against them or put them in their place. This has allowed them to become the arbiters of all thatâs good or bad in the district and, with Adaâs money, the major dispensers of its charity and goodwill. Not that goodwill has a lot going for it in the Riverina, if Adaâs an example, Jessica thinks.
Ada Thomas is President of the Womenâs Committee at St Step henâs and also of the Red Cross Society, formed in Narrandera after the Boer War. At church and charity she wields her power and uses her two daughters as her gossip and information gatherers.
âThe Three Must-interferesâ is what folks call them behind their backs. Their role, as they see it, is to flush out gossip or sniff out any misdemeanour in the parish and generally to pass judgement on anything or anyone. As a consequence, the sick, the lame and the downtrodden receive only that portion of charity which Ada Thomas decides they deserve, based on their past conduct, church attendance record and pecking order on the social ladder.
The poorest usually get the least. This, in Ada Thomasâs eyes, is as it should be. After all, the workingclass poor set the lowest standards, have the least aspirations and, besides, are accustomed to doing without, so they should not be given false hopes of any large entitlement.
If youâre a family in need of the churchâs munificence you make damn sure you scrub the faces of your children and send them off to Sunday School in clean pinnies and patched knickerbockers. And if the brats donât have boots you brush their hair and wash their feet and cut their toenails, because you can be sure that all will be noted by Winifred and Gwen and reported back to Ada.
Whatâs more, if you know whatâs good for you, you get your own bum into a pew quick smart of a Sunday morning and try to put a penny in the plate. This last observance is in the hands of Adaâs two daughters, whoâve replaced the anonymous black tithe bag with an open plate. They report with clerical accuracy every farthing given and by whom.
Mrs Thomas has let it be known to one and all that she has no charity for godless blasphemers, shirkers and for most of the working-class poor.
âGod is not mocked,â she will
As Ada Thomas and her thin-lipped daughters are their nearest neighbours, Hester and Meg are determined to love their neighbours, even if they should die in the attempt. Liking, let alone loving, the shrill-voiced Ada and her daughters, Jessica decides, is going to take a whole Bible full of Christian charity on their part. If Jack Thomas isnât to be the ultimate prize, she doubts whether even Hester and Meg would bother to go the distance with the three Thomas women.
And if Mrs Thomas and her girls are aware of the plan to snare their only son, brother and the heir to Riverview Station, they certainly donât let on. They accept all the bowing and scraping and smiling as their due, and include Hester and Meg in their larger tea parties. It is obvious they donât consider Hester and Meg up to scratch, but this only seems to make the two Bergman women more in awe of the Thomases.
Hester and Meg admire Ada and her girls blindly, in the way poor people often admire the rich, endowing them with character and intelligence they donât possess. Money, Jessica has discovered, is a clever way to conceal stupidity and meanness in peopleâs personalities. Her mother and sister will tolerate no criticism of the three, although Jessica reckons that the more Hester and Meg kowtow to them, the snootier the Thomas women seem to get.
Whatâs more, she thinks that the three Thomas women are just plain-looking, plain stupid and plain snobs. It should be said in fairness that Hester and Meg arenât the only ones who dare not cross Ada Thomas. Nobody in the parish is prepared to speak out against them or put them in their place. This has allowed them to become the arbiters of all thatâs good or bad in the district and, with Adaâs money, the major dispensers of its charity and goodwill. Not that goodwill has a lot going for it in the Riverina, if Adaâs an example, Jessica thinks.
Ada Thomas is President of the Womenâs Committee at St Step henâs and also of the Red Cross Society, formed in Narrandera after the Boer War. At church and charity she wields her power and uses her two daughters as her gossip and information gatherers.
âThe Three Must-interferesâ is what folks call them behind their backs. Their role, as they see it, is to flush out gossip or sniff out any misdemeanour in the parish and generally to pass judgement on anything or anyone. As a consequence, the sick, the lame and the downtrodden receive only that portion of charity which Ada Thomas decides they deserve, based on their past conduct, church attendance record and pecking order on the social ladder.
The poorest usually get the least. This, in Ada Thomasâs eyes, is as it should be. After all, the workingclass poor set the lowest standards, have the least aspirations and, besides, are accustomed to doing without, so they should not be given false hopes of any large entitlement.
If youâre a family in need of the churchâs munificence you make damn sure you scrub the faces of your children and send them off to Sunday School in clean pinnies and patched knickerbockers. And if the brats donât have boots you brush their hair and wash their feet and cut their toenails, because you can be sure that all will be noted by Winifred and Gwen and reported back to Ada.
Whatâs more, if you know whatâs good for you, you get your own bum into a pew quick smart of a Sunday morning and try to put a penny in the plate. This last observance is in the hands of Adaâs two daughters, whoâve replaced the anonymous black tithe bag with an open plate. They report with clerical accuracy every farthing given and by whom.
Mrs Thomas has let it be known to one and all that she has no charity for godless blasphemers, shirkers and for most of the working-class poor.
âGod is not mocked,â she will
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