Grace Ethel Martyr, and “The blue jar”

by Whispering Gums

 

A post in our series featuring works published in 1924 (or by authors who died in 1924). This post’s subject is a short story titled “The blue jar” which was published in The Australasian’s Storyteller section, on 5 April 1924, and is by the Victorian-born writer, Grace Ethel Martyr.

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Grace Ethel Martyr (1888-1934) was a Victorian-born poet, short story writer and journalist, and is well enough recognised to have entries in AustLit and Wikipedia. She wrote under various permutations of her name – G. E. Martyr; E. Martyr; Ethel Martyr; Grace E. Martyr; and G. Ethel Martyr.

Born in Ballarat, Martyr was the only daughter of James Kent and Grace Flora Martyr. She grew up in Maldon in central Victoria, but spent much of her working life in Bendigo. She apparently passed the University of Melbourne matriculation examination in 1906, but whether she went, I haven’t discovered. AustLit and Wikipedia both say that she was employed by the Bank of New South Wales, for whom her father had worked, for four and a half years, but she left due to ill-health. While working at the bank, she published a collection of patriotic poems, Afterwards and other verses (1918), which she dedicated to her parents, but she did not begin to write seriously until she had left the bank. Zora Cross (writing as Bernice May in The Australian Women’s Mirror) tells how this book was given to her to by Martyr’s cousin who wanted her assessment of it, and it was she, Cross, who encouraged Martyr to leave the bank (though the ill-health part is also true).

Cross writes, in 1928, that

So far, Miss Martyr’s best work has been done in verse. But her true vein is the child story and child-verse. I know of no Australian writer who has so beautifully caught the spirit of the child in verse as she has. And she is that rare writer, the one who never forgets that child-verse should also be poetry.

So, Martyr wrote children’s poetry and fiction, including several stories serialised in The Australasian, but AusLit says that her principal literary output is the poetry she published in The Bulletin and The Australian Woman’s Mirror. This wasn’t all, though. AustlLit adds that as well as her writing, Martyr worked for The Bendigo Advertiser, where she edited the women’s columns and the children’s page, and she acted as the Bendigo social correspondent for several Melbourne publications.

Cross praises much about her work, writing that

She shows inner melody in her verse which is often of a very high standard. Her love of music and nature comes out in her poetry. Like all Australian writers her best work has appeared in the Bulletin.

Martyr was also a pianist, and worked with musicians Margaret Sutherland and William James on various projects, which included their setting her verse to music. In particular, she wrote stories and verses for the 3LO children’s hour, with James setting her verse to music. (William James is best known, perhaps, for the 15 Australian Christmas Carols he composed with John Wheeler writing the lyrics.)

Martyr won prizes at Ballarat’s South Street Literary Awards – in 1918 for best patriotic poem and in 1919 for best original poem. In 1920 she came second to David McKee Wright, from a field of 125 entries, in the Rupert Brooke Award, which was run by the Presbyterian Ladies College for poems on Gallipoli.

Martyr seems to be another example of woman who managed to make a career for herself as a writer, by turning her hand to a wide variety of forms and audiences, but she also died relatively young. She was not completely forgotten, however, because, according to Wikipedia, five of her poems were included in Michael Sharkey’s 2018 anthology, Many such as she: Victorian women poets of World War One.

In 1928, Cross concluded her article saying that:

Grace Ethel Martyr’s work is always getting better, which is surely the best sign in any writer. Time, I think, will prove her to be one of the most sincere writers among us.

Six years later, at the age of 46, Martyr was dead. The report of her death, which was repeated in several Victorian newspapers, is brief but says that:

Miss Martyr’s literary gifts were apparent at an early age, and during the years that followed she established something of value to Australian literature.

The story I’ve chosen for this post is different again from my previous selections, and may not be typical of her best known work. It’s a story of an unhappy marriage, which is told very much from the 1920s perspective that women just need to put up with awful husbands and manage as best they can. But, in this story, a bit of luck comes the wife’s way.

The blue jar

By G. Ethel Martyr.

It had been standing in the pawnshop window for months when Maddy bought it for 9d. Its sides were chipped; and its cracked lid was encrusted with grime; but she carried it home with an unwonted light in her eyes and a sense of pleasure that she seldom experienced.

She had bought the jar for purely sentimental reasons, though no one would have suspected her of sentiment. She knew that her husband would protest vigorously against the extravagance. Jonson’s wages were spent exclusively in the gratification of his own tastes; Maddy was not permit ted to buy herself presents. She knew it was a useless purchase, but she wanted it because it recalled a day in her far-away childhood when someone had shown her another such bowl, and lifting the lid, had let her smell its contents. The fragrance of pot-pourri lingered in her memory still, and clung about the jar she was carrying up to the room on the second floor of the house in which she lived.

On the first floor she stopped to show her newly-acquired possession to Mrs. Flanagan. To that good lady, however, it made no appeal.

“An’ whoy would ye be buyin’ the loike o’ that? What good is ut to ye, will ye tell me now? An’ what’ll himself say to ut, seein’ the state he’s in this day, and him come in from the corner house this minute just?”.

“I seen it in the window, and I wanted it. I dunno what ‘e’ll say. I suppose I can keep somethin’ in it,” answered Maddy doubtfully.

“And what was the price of ut?” “Only ninepence.”

“Ninepence, indade! An’ dear at that.”

“But I wanted it,” repeated the other wistfully.

Mrs. Flanagan softened. “Did ye, now? Then ’twas right for ye to have ut, and good luck go wid ut. Ye get little enough of what ye like, God, knows. But if ’twas me, I’d keep it out of Jonson’s sight; I would that. Sure it’s a pity ye’re not a widow like meself, me gurrl. Then ye’d do as ye liked.”

Maddy sighed as she toiled up the steep stairs to her dingy room. Widowhood, such as Mrs. Flanagan enjoyed, was a blissful state to which she had never aspired. She thought of it vaguely at times, but always as a prize beyond her reach.

When she entered the room, she saw her husband lying on the bed, in his usual state of intoxication. Contrasted with the fresh air of the street, the atmosphere indoors nearly made, her sick. The window was closed, as always. It had been made to open in the first place, but the previous occupant of the room had nailed it down, and, as his views on the subject of hygiene coincided with those of Maddy’s husband, the nails had never been removed. The same person had tacked a strip of green baize round the edges of the door, so that no intrusive oxygen could creep in from that quarter. The air was foul with the mingled odours of food, stale tobacco smoke, and beer.

Pausing at the door, she looked at her husband fearfully. As he seemed to be asleep, she entered on tiptoe, and, unwrap ping her treasure, dusted and polished it with a corner of her shabby black skirt; then she placed it on the chair near the bed. The table was already littered with a heterogeneous collection of articles-unwashed china, Bill’s reeking pipe and empty bottle, and the like. She looked down at the blue jar, recalling a dim memory of flowers and sun light and scent. Then, as if to justify its presence in the room by making some use of it, she put into it two or three hairpins taken from the knob into which she had screwed her scanty locks. Replacing the lid, she held the blue bowl in her hands, while she looked out through the closed window at the dingy roofs, the tall factory chimneys, and the drifting clouds of smoke. She sighed for the day that had once held hope and sweetness.

A muffled roar and a volley of oaths roused her from her musing. Looking round with startled eyes, she saw her lord and master regarding her with a malevolent gaze. Hastily she put down the jar, and moved toward the door, prepared to seek refuge with Mrs. Flanagan on the floor below. To emphasise his distaste for his wife’s presence, Jonson put out his hand to find a missile. It was unfortunate that the blue jar standing on the chair was the first thing he touched. Maddy heard his menacing tones, and bis uplifted arm, and fled, banging the door after her. But the jar never-reached the door. It struck the gas jet that hung from the centre of the ceiling, and fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces. She heard the crash as she ran, weening, down the stairs.

“An’ what did ye expect, an’ him the way he is?” asked Mrs. Flanagan, when she heard the story. “Wasn’t I afther tellin’ ye this very thing’d happen, not ten minutes ago? Afther all, what’s a bit o’ broken china more or less? Don’t take on so, Maddy: it’ll do ye no good. Ye’ll stop, with me the night, and to-morrow things won’t look so black. The tide’ll turn; it will that. Whoy, wasn’t I married for a matter of thirteen years meself before Patrick was taken, God rest his soul, and look at me now.”

But Maddy wasn’t listening. It used to smell so sweet,” she whispered, crying softly.

“Dry yer eyes, now, and I’ll get ye a cup | o’ tea. The thing only cost ye ninepence, afther all.”

“I know, I know. It isn’t that. I wanted it. I thought it’d bring me luck.”

“An’ so ut will. I feel ut in me bones,” returned Mrs. Flanagan, kindly.

“Not now, not now,” answered Maddy, refusing to be consoled. ‘I thought somehow ‘e might be different —–‘

“Glory be to God! ” exclaimed her friend, piously. An’ ye’ve been married to him these ten years. Different!”

“I thought ‘e might if there was luck in the blue jar,” repeated Maddy, sobbing hysterically. “Somethin’ made me buy it. I thought there’d be luck in it. I seen another like it once, long ago, and it was filled with sweetness.”

‘”Perhaps ut will bring ye luck yet. Maybe it’s not broken after all.”

“But it is, it is. I heard fall.”

“Well ut is up use at all to be cryin’ over it. Pull yerself together.Maddy. You’ll be ill.”

Maddy flung her arms across the table, and hid her tear-stained face. “Let me cry-let me cry. Oh, God, I wish I was dead.”

Mrs. Flanagan turned away from the weeping woman with a sigh. Then, being a practical soul, she put the kettle on the gas, and took down the tea-caddy.

The following morning Mrs. Flanagan went upstairs alone to reconnoitre. Knocking at Jonson’s door, and receiving no answer to her repeated summons, she decided to enter, and see for herself whether or not he was within. She turned the knob gently, but the door was jammed. Gripping the handle firmly, she threw all her weight against the panels. The door responded to the pressure, and, as it burst open, she found herself enveloped, sickened, almost over-powered by the fumes of gas that poured from the room. She gave one swift, terrified glance around, saw Jonson lying sprawled across the bed, and the broken china on the floor. Then, closing the door sharply, she leant back against the banister, sick with horror, gasping for breath, her face white, her eyes wide.

She stared dumbly at the cracked and discoloured wood of the closed door, seeing only what lay behind it-Jonson’s body, the disordered room, the blue china. Panting, tearful, incredulous, she stood, her mind moving slowly, as she recalled Maddy’s story of the broken blue jar. He had thrown it; it had struck the gas jet; it had turned the tap. Maddy’s blue jar, with the luck in it: Something had made her buy it, and now-now it was broken, and the man lay dead beside it.

Shuddering, Mrs. Flanagan crossed herself, and, with a whispered prayer, crept downstairs to tell Maddy.

Sources:

G. Ethel Martyr, “The blue jar” in The Australasian, 5 April 1924
Grace Ethel Martyr, Wikipedia  [Accessed: 3 July 2024]
Grace Ethel Martyr, AustLit [Accessed: 3 July 2024]
Bernice May (aka Zora Cross), “Grace Ethel Martyr”, The Australian woman’s mirror, 2 August 1927 [Accessed: 22 July 2024]
“Miss G. E. Martyr Dead”, The Sun News-Pictorial, 24 December 1934. [Accessed: 22 July 2024]

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