this house; it always has: along the tightrope I dare to tread, to remain his favoured one. The one allowed to return to school when Greta was denied her final year. Allowed to attend university, while Greta is imprisoned here. Allowed to remain unmolested, while Greta is â
Damn him to the furthest pit. If there is a child growing in her now, this will ruin her, in every way. She doesnât have my will, my single-minded resolve, my ropeway to the outside world. He has blasted her will, addled her with his brutality, his relentless sneering, his insults, his dismissals â stupid girl; cretinous thing; yellow mongrel; are you listening to me, you vacuous little bitch? Do you have a brain at all in there? So that she is more child than I am, though she is the elder by more than two years. But what can my will do for her now? It seems I am watching a precious ornament fall from a shelf but I am too slow to prevent it smashing. Too slow inside this dream.
Wake up!
And then what? Kill him. Kill him tonight. How? Chloroform. Arsenic. Drench him in paraffin and set him alight.
And have Gret see me hanged. No.
What alternative is there but to keep to the plan we already have? No matter how bad things get, Greta will insist that I do. That I continue with my studies; that I become a doctor and â Youâll never be employed in a hospital, Berylda. No board will ever permit women to practise on the wards, you know that.
What do I know? That he will string me along with my studies, only to interfere with my prospects when I qualify? Make sure I will never be employed? I try to close my mind to him, to his threats, to his games, but they are everywhere here in his domain. I donât know if he will even allow me to return to Sydney. I will have to fight him so hard to get there: charm him, cajole him, perform for him, manipulate with games of my own. And even then, it will be five years, if I commit myself well, before I even complete the degree.
Five more years. No. Greta cannot be subject to this. Five more years at the barest minimum. Uncle Alecâs interference aside, no woman passes the final in Materia Medica first go â the pharmacy examination â that professor is a notorious misogynist and has not let one woman straight through in the five years weâve been allowed to sit for it at all. Five more years is impossible.
Impossible as us ever being able to wrest any of our parentsâ estate from Alec Howell, damn the blindness of that law â the one that says it was remiss of Aunt Libby to not die before our parents. I have asked the âhypotheticalâ of Flo inside half-a-dozen different guises, and the answer has come back from Hoddy and Old Mac the same. Everything that should be ours â Papaâs share in Hartley Shale, our home at Katoomba, Mama and Libbyâs small but tidy fortune in old gold from their parentsâ prospect at Gulgong â itâs all with Uncle Alec, our legal guardian. And isnât he doing such a wonderful job of looking after us, all society says; and now look, the younger is even off to medical school, theyâll toast him tonight. What a man. The trap is tight-laced around us. We canât fight him on this issue, not at all. We will need not only women lawyers and women voters but women legislators to be able to do any such thing. And money: we are essentially penniless but for the scraps he throws us.
We must be made free now. Gret must be freed. Please. How?
If anyone will do it, Ryl, you will do it , she said to me when I left for college at the beginning of the year . It will be all right. Donât worry about me. Youâll be a doctor one day and we will leave. We can return to Echo Point. Simple as that.
I stop at the front door, touch my forehead to the cool timber. Breathe â¦
Prince barks again, just the once, chasing a bird, perhaps. A happy enough sound that returns me to myself somewhat, and turns the handle
Damn him to the furthest pit. If there is a child growing in her now, this will ruin her, in every way. She doesnât have my will, my single-minded resolve, my ropeway to the outside world. He has blasted her will, addled her with his brutality, his relentless sneering, his insults, his dismissals â stupid girl; cretinous thing; yellow mongrel; are you listening to me, you vacuous little bitch? Do you have a brain at all in there? So that she is more child than I am, though she is the elder by more than two years. But what can my will do for her now? It seems I am watching a precious ornament fall from a shelf but I am too slow to prevent it smashing. Too slow inside this dream.
Wake up!
And then what? Kill him. Kill him tonight. How? Chloroform. Arsenic. Drench him in paraffin and set him alight.
And have Gret see me hanged. No.
What alternative is there but to keep to the plan we already have? No matter how bad things get, Greta will insist that I do. That I continue with my studies; that I become a doctor and â Youâll never be employed in a hospital, Berylda. No board will ever permit women to practise on the wards, you know that.
What do I know? That he will string me along with my studies, only to interfere with my prospects when I qualify? Make sure I will never be employed? I try to close my mind to him, to his threats, to his games, but they are everywhere here in his domain. I donât know if he will even allow me to return to Sydney. I will have to fight him so hard to get there: charm him, cajole him, perform for him, manipulate with games of my own. And even then, it will be five years, if I commit myself well, before I even complete the degree.
Five more years. No. Greta cannot be subject to this. Five more years at the barest minimum. Uncle Alecâs interference aside, no woman passes the final in Materia Medica first go â the pharmacy examination â that professor is a notorious misogynist and has not let one woman straight through in the five years weâve been allowed to sit for it at all. Five more years is impossible.
Impossible as us ever being able to wrest any of our parentsâ estate from Alec Howell, damn the blindness of that law â the one that says it was remiss of Aunt Libby to not die before our parents. I have asked the âhypotheticalâ of Flo inside half-a-dozen different guises, and the answer has come back from Hoddy and Old Mac the same. Everything that should be ours â Papaâs share in Hartley Shale, our home at Katoomba, Mama and Libbyâs small but tidy fortune in old gold from their parentsâ prospect at Gulgong â itâs all with Uncle Alec, our legal guardian. And isnât he doing such a wonderful job of looking after us, all society says; and now look, the younger is even off to medical school, theyâll toast him tonight. What a man. The trap is tight-laced around us. We canât fight him on this issue, not at all. We will need not only women lawyers and women voters but women legislators to be able to do any such thing. And money: we are essentially penniless but for the scraps he throws us.
We must be made free now. Gret must be freed. Please. How?
If anyone will do it, Ryl, you will do it , she said to me when I left for college at the beginning of the year . It will be all right. Donât worry about me. Youâll be a doctor one day and we will leave. We can return to Echo Point. Simple as that.
I stop at the front door, touch my forehead to the cool timber. Breathe â¦
Prince barks again, just the once, chasing a bird, perhaps. A happy enough sound that returns me to myself somewhat, and turns the handle
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