by Elizabeth Lhuede

Another in our series of posts on authors with works published in 1924.

Poet, dramatist and short story writer G M V Kearney was born Georgina Mary Veronica Doyle circa 1851, the youngest daughter of William Doyle from Bridge, Kilkenny, Ireland. A certified schoolteacher, she was employed as “Mistress of Infant Department” in Penrith NSW in 1880, and a year later married solicitor Simon Kearney. The couple moved west, first to Temora in country NSW, and then to Orange. There her husband became a council alderman, mayor and later Deputy Coroner, while Kearney pursued her literary endeavours. Living variously between Sydney and Orange, both suffered ill health in their later years, Simon dying in 1929 in Hornsby, NSW, and Georgina in 1936, aged 85 years. It appears from Simon Kearney’s obituary that the couple had no children. Throughout her long life, Kearney was well-known in literary circles, and also evidently enjoyed moving in rarified social circles. Her name crops up in the society pages, not only of the provincial Orange newspaper, The Leader, but also in The Sydney Morning Herald, most notably as a correspondent of Lady Jersey, the friend of the daughter of an earl, and a frequent visitor to Government House.

Kearney’s earliest work can be traced back to 1875, with poems appearing under her maiden initials, “G M V D”, initially in the Newcastle Miners’ Advocate and later in The Sydney Mail. Throughout the 1880s, Kearney published prolifically under her married initials, “G M V K”, her verse appearing predominantly in The Temora Star, but also in Truth, Sydney Mail and the Catholic publication, Freeman’s Journal. In 1888, Kearney was reputedly awarded both the silver and bronze medals for English Essays at the Women’s Work Exhibition (judged by Lady Jersey), and, in 1891 took “The Parthenon” prize for one of her short stories. In 1893, two of her pieces were chosen as entries in the Chicago World’s Fair. (So far, none of these works have been traced.) In 1898 it was announced she had received a reply from Queen Victoria’s private secretary for a Jubilee ode she had written, correspondence deemed worth enough to be quoted in full in the “Literary Gossip” pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. Kearney also evidently had an adventurous spirit, in 1898 going down the Lucknow mines to do research for one of her stories.

In the early 1900s, Kearney diversified, turning her attention to writing plays, and she has been credited with being “probably the first Australian woman dramatist to sell a play to an Australian manager … Mr J C Williamson”. The author also wrote for children, her short stories appearing in 1909 and the early 1910s in the Sydney Mail and Sunday Times. In the 1920s, she had verse selected for The Bulletin and The Australasian, and it is these latter that comprise most of the eleven works listed in the AustLit database. She was still writing plays as late as 1928, with her work, “The V.C.”, described as “a story of war and an Australian”.

In 1924, when G M V Kearney was in her mid-sixties, she had four pieces published: a short story for children, “Fruggles”, in Sydney Mail; an anti-war poem, “What Have Ye Done?”, in The Bulletin; and two short stories, “Would it have been Bradley?” and “Withdrawn from the Auction Room”, in The Australian. The latter short story is our selection for this month. Appearing in December, nearly 100 years ago, it is a light-hearted tale of a spinster known to have an aversion to men, and suggests, even for the time of publication, the gentle humour and values of a bygone day.

~

Withdrawn from the Auction Room

by G. M. V. Kearney

We were always delighted when Miss Magee came to lunch. To look at her was to laugh. She regarded the world with happy complacency, and this mood she communicated to everyone who came near her. Her small black eyes in her rather broad face twinkled like twin stars of good humour. Her dark hair had a slight curl in it. In a past generation it would probably have fallen about her face in little corkscrew ringlets. Her voice had a ring of jollity in it. Her figure, of medium height, was stout; her dress was quiet. Everything about her bespoke good-nature. Life’s tragedies were forgotten in her presence.

She and Nelly, my wife, were great friends. Miss Magee lived in a pleasant cottage, rather large, and surrounded by lawns and gardens, in a Melbourne suburb at just such a distance from us as gave her a pleasant drive in a little old-fashioned conveyance, half phaeton and half carriage, that had been her father’s. Of motor-cars she would have none. For her there were but two abominations—motors and men.

“Of course, my dear, your George is different,” she would assure Nelly, and Nelly would laugh contentedly.

Ill-natured women said that Miss Magee had never had a chance to marry. That, they declared, was the secret of her professed aversion from “the men.” But though Miss Magee was now forty, she had once been twenty, and once, perhaps, attractive and slight, though possibly never pretty. So there may have been suitors. Nelly and I knew that Miss Magee had been an only child and a devoted daughter, and had nursed for many years a widowed invalid father. One could picture her sacrificing herself to him and refusing to leave him. Thus there might have been a romance even in the life of Miss Magee.

We only knew that we loved and honoured her, and that her very presence seemed to bring sunshine with it. She seemed as contented with her pretty home, which had been her father’s, as with everything else in life.

Imagine our surprise, therefore, when, turning to Nelly one day at lunch, two or three weeks before Christmas, she said, “My dear, I am sending my furniture to the auction room next Tuesday.”

“What!” we exclaimed.

“I would rather do it that way than have an auction in the house,” she explained.

“But why an auction at all?” I asked.

“Well, the house is rather large for me just by myself, and I think I should like to travel a little.”

“Travel?” Nelly gasped.

“Besides, I don’t want another lonely Christmas.”

“But you needn’t be lonely,” Nelly protested. “Come to us here. You never will come to us at Christmas. Come this time.”

But Miss Magee was resolved.

“But the pony and your little carriage?” asked Nelly.

“Poor Tom will have to go, too,” said Miss Magee with a sigh. “He’s getting too fat, poor little fellow. Perhaps his next mistress will work him harder. It may be better for him.”

We were silent. We looked at Miss Magee in dismay.

“You will not see me again till it is all over, my dear,” she said to Nelly as she bade us good-bye. “There will be so much to do.”

A couple of days later Miss Magee’s furniture was advertised from Messrs. Broughten and Westerly’s auction-rooms for sale.

“It’s true, then,” said Nelly with a sigh. “She really did mean it. I was never more surprised in my life. Weren’t you! How we shall miss her!”

But we did not miss her. A greater surprise awaited us. A few days before Christmas, just before lunch, the little carriage approached the house bearing Miss Magee. Beside her sat a gentleman, almost as plump as she, with a face almost as broad, and small eyes as merry.

We ran out to welcome them. “Why, Miss Magee,” began Nelly, as she alighted.

“Not Miss Magee—Mrs. Brotherton, my dear. This is my husband, Ned. I’ll tell you all about it at lunch, if you’ll let us stay as I used to.”

We were dumb. We looked at Ned. Was he, then, an exception? But Ned only chuckled, and held out his hand. His very laugh was a replica of his wife’s.

We went in to lunch, and Mrs. Brotherton told us the whole story. She had, as we had seen, sent her furniture and effects to the auction-room, and had herself attended the sale. There she met Mr. Edward Brotherton, a widower, who was also tired of his lonely life and his troubles with housekeepers and servants. He, like Miss Magee, had resolved to break up the home which since his wife’s death had been no home to him. He also had sent his furniture to the auction-rooms. There he met Miss Magee. Her jolly laugh attracted him, and they entered into conversation. The result was that Mr. Brotherton’s effects were sold, but Miss Magee’s were withdrawn from the auction-room. “I liked the old house, you know,” she said, “and I thought it would do for both of us, so I just had the furniture brought back again, and we were married, and walked in.”

Nelly and I could think of nothing to say.

“Ned thought we would make a happy couple,” she went on, “and there was nothing to wait for. Neither of us wanted to spend another lonely Christmas, so we just went off to church. We decided we wouldn’t tell anyone till it was all over.”

Mr. Brotherton was soon as great a favourite with us as his wife. We went to them for Christmas, and what a Christmas Day we had! The old villa, lying in sunshine, echoed with our children’s laughter. It seemed hard to decide which were the children, they, or Nelly and I, and Miss Magee and her Ned.

On New Year’s Day they came to us. We stood in the porch watching them that night as the fat pony trotted off with them after a long and happy day. “Tom will have enough work now with those two to carry,” Nelly said with a happy smile as we stood watching them drive away.

But Tom was to have more work yet, for the next year there were three to carry. Now there are six, four little Brothertons, with their father and mother. The little carriage should really be exchanged for a larger, but, somehow, they all pack into it, and Nelly and I can never decide which is the jolliest of the six faces laughing out from it.

But old Tom will not be able to draw it much longer. They will have to exchange him at least for a younger and stronger horse. Perhaps for a motor, for Mrs. Brotherton may yet be converted to the use of motors. She no longer speaks of “the men.”

~

References

“An Australian Catholic Authoress,” Freeman’s Journal, 25 Feb 1893: 14. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115578990 accessed 29/08/24
“An Australian Woman Dramatist”, Sydney Mail 25 May 1932: 22. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/160082022 accessed 29/08/24 [source of photo]
“G M V Kearney”, AustLit ref: http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A5087 accessed 29/08/24
Kearney, G M V, “An Ode for Queen Victoria”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 Jul 1897: 4.
Kearney, G M V. [mistakenly attributed], “The Magpie’s Triumph”, Sydney Mail, 22 Apr 1914: 54. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/158398371
Kearney, G M V (letter to the editor), “Nearly 80 years old: Council’s Lucknow Photo”, Leader, 26 Feb 1930: 4. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/254538725 accessed 29/08/24
Kearney, G M V. Withdrawn from the auction room, The Australasian, 13 Dec 1924: 77. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140766555 accessed 19/08/24
“Literary Gossip,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Feb, 1898: 4. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/14171994 accessed 28/08/24
~
Elizabeth Lhuede has a PhD in Australian Poetry from Macquarie University. In 2012, she instigated the Australian Women Writers Challenge as a contribution to overcoming gender bias in the reviewing of works by Australian women. More recently she has focused on bringing to light the life and works of forgotten Australian women writers.