by Whispering Gums

 

A post in our 2025 series featuring works published in 1935 (or by authors who died in 1935). This post includes a short story that was published in the Sydney Mail on 24 July 1924, and is by Australian-born Ruby M. Doyle.

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Ruby Mary Doyle (1887-1943) wrote short stories and serialised novels, newspaper articles including travel and nature pieces, and plays, mostly publishing as Ruby Doyle or Ruby M. Doyle. Much of her writing was published in Fairfax’s weekly magazine, The Sydney Mail. By the 1930s she had, says AustLit, gained a reputation as a writer of some standing. She was also active in the Lyceum Club and the Pioneer Club in Sydney. And yet, there are no articles for her in Wikipedia or the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Doyle was born on the 20 February 1887 in Gunnedah, New South Wales, to Joseph McCormick Doyle, a bank manager for the Commercial Bank, and Annie (née Hooke). She was the first of six children. In 1935, in an article titled “The making of the writer”, Doyle wrote of how she came to writing:

As a child, when I walked through the bush, well behind the family party, every tree seemed an enchanted castle. Birds, butterflies, flowers talked, and I understood them. Imagination — that blessed gift from the gods — had come to me from every side of my family, and finally led me, whether I would or not, into the realm of writing.

According to Kingston, of the Dungog Historical Society, her first published serial was The Dragon, which appeared in The Sydney Mail from 4 June 1913, and was later published in book form as The mystery of the hills. Further stories and serialisations appeared, including The winning of Miriam Heron in The Sydney Mail in 1918, which was published in book form by Edwards Dunlop in 1924. Announcing this new serial in 1918, The Sydney Mail wrote:

She [Doyle] has already contributed to the ‘Mail,’ and has disclosed literary and dramatic ability of a high order. It is gratifying to note that she shows no disposition to ‘write herself out.’ On the contrary, ‘The Winning of Miriam Heron’ reveals that she has mastered the art of construction, and thus gives her readers a better chance than previously to fully appreciate her literary powers.

From 1924 to 1926, Ruby made a few trips overseas – to the United Kingdom, the continent, Canada and America – during which time she regularly submitted travel articles to the Dungog Chronicle. Indeed, on 12 January 1926, that paper, announcing her return home, added that “Readers of the ‘Chronicle had the pleasure of reading many of Miss Doyle’s articles descriptive of her travels, and these were reprinted in many country papers throughout the State.”

Doyle continued to write for local papers through the 1920s and 1930s. AustLit lists over 30 works of hers published over this time. She also tried her hand at playwriting. Kingston writes that her play The Family Tree came second in a competition at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, in 1933, and that the following year, The Man from Murrumbidgee, was produced at the Kursaal Theatre, also in Sydney. My guess is that these are the same play, given The Man from Murrumbidgee is about a status-seeking wife who tries to find “a worthy ancestor” on the family tree.

Doyle’s writing reflects the versatility of the working writer. Her short stories dealt largely with domestic subjects, while her serialised novels included historical stories about the colonial days, and romantic adventure stories. Her non-fiction focused particularly on nature, travel and local history, rather than on social or political commentary. Many of her local history pieces drew on her own family’s long history in the region, and include some delightful touches of humour. There is also some recognition of the original people of the land. Writing in The Sydney Mail 1931 on the town of Gresford, she says that:

Most of the homes in the vicinity bear English and Welsh names — Norwood, Clevedon, Goulston, Camyr ‘Allyn, Caergule, Penshurst, Tre vallyn, etc. The river, named Paterson by the white man, was called Yimmang by the aborigines; one of our poets has written a very beautiful poem, “Ode to the Yimmang,” in which he extols its beauty.

Ruby Doyle was regularly written up in the local Dungog Chronicle, clearly being a person of interest to the community. She went to England, again, in 1935, planning to be away for two or three years. The Dungog Chronicle, reported on 1 March of that year about a farewell for this “gifted novelist”, and named Flora Eldershaw, herself a respected novelist, as a co-guest at the event. This suggests Doyle was known to the literati of her time. Doyle died in England in 1943, having never returned home again. A small obituary appeared in various local newspapers, including The Gloucester Advocate (see under Sources). The obituary noted her three published works, but also commented on her writing overall, commenting in particular that

a keen observer of nature, she had the gift of translating her thoughts on paper in an easy readable way.

Today’s piece, “The flame”, is an intriguing story about a disgruntled wife, and invites – particularly from modern eyes – a variety of readings.

The Flame

(By Ruby Doyle)

BLUE shadows, the colour of half-ripe plums, were slowly filling the studio. Through the window the setting sun looked like an immense bonfire. For a moment Bryan stared at it, and then could no longer see his picture which had become a moving mass of round black spots. He put down his brushes, crossed to the window, opened it, and stared down at the hurrying crowd. A busy place, the city. Just now Bryan longed for the country. He would write to Mary and invite himself to her charming country home, stay a while, paint rural scenes: cows against a green hill; horses straining at the plough; men in blue shirts and wide felt hats decorated with fly veils. Mary, in her garden, with her boys, Gerard and Phillip. He might even paint Steven, Mary’s husband — if he were not too busy. He looked at his watch — half -past five. Time he stopped work, put his brushes aside. As he cleaned and put the last brush down the door opened, and Mary came in. Pale and weary with travel, yet exquisite and charming as always. Her blue eyes blazed with some unusual excitement; her mouth, drooping, wistful, betrayed the fact that she had been crying.

‘Mary … I was just thinking of you.’

‘Were you, Bryan. That’s queer.’ He drew her into the room, kissed her, wondering why she had not written. ‘Like some tea?’ he asked, as he settled hp in a chair.

‘Rather! I’m famished for a cup. The train was so rough. …’

‘I know . . . those country trains. Nevertheless, I was contemplating a trip up to your place.’

She turned piteous eyes upon him. ‘Impossible, Bryan, I’ve run away.’

‘Run away?’ He stared at her in amazement. He had always thought Mary one of the happiest of women. ‘Why — if you don’t think me inquisitive?’

‘Because I don’t love Steven, and I’m tired of pretending.’

BRYAN sat down beside her, took her hands in his. They were cold as ice, though her cheeks burned as with a fever. ‘This is serious, Mary. Steven’s not a man to be trifled with, and what about your boys, Gerard and Phillip? Who’ll look after them?’

‘Helen will. She’s there now. Steven will feel more satisfied with his sister in charge.’

Bryan sat staring at her. The situation was perplexing. Annoying, too. He had been looking forward to that trip up country, to the opportunity of painting cows against a green hill; horses straining at the plough. Mary had always seemed so contented in her country home. And now she had run away . . . for the silliest of reasons. Because she did not love Steven. Steven, crude with the crudeness of the gentleman farmer, perhaps, but sound to the core of him. What the dickens did she want?

Suddenly Mary began to weep with an abandonment that distressed him. ‘You see,’ she whispered, ‘I just couldn’t stand it any longer, Bryan. The pretence was killing me.’

‘Why did you marry him?’

Mary twisted her handkerchief into knots with desperate fingers. ‘I wanted a home. . . . We never had a proper home . . . living in boarding-houses. I thought I’d be happy in a home of my own . . . that it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t love him.’

Bryan put a match to the fire, and the flames leaped joyously around the kindling wood. ‘But a home isn’t enough, Bryan. . .’

‘You had your children, Mary.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘but they won’t really miss me very much, except Phill perhaps . . .for a while.’

BRYAN crossed to the window and stared out at the sun sinking behind a barrage of grey buildings. The studio was packed now with shadows. Mary, in her chair before the fire, dominated the scene. Mary, still weeping spasmodically. Mary, tired and rebellious. A run-away Mary. He felt he could shake her. If every dissatisfied wife ran away— what a world it would be?

‘Hello, Bryan, boy. How are you?’

‘Hell!’ thought Bryan. ‘I forgot old Dick said he’d look in for tea.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Come in, old chap. Come in. Here’s Mary — down for some shopping. Mary, this is Dick Furness. I’ve mentioned him often enough in my letters.’

Mary dried her eyes with furtive celerity, controlling her trembling lips to smile at Dick Furness. In a second she was transformed from the desperate run away to a lovely enchantress. Dick Furness’s arrival brought her back abruptly from shadow to light.

‘Lovely and unhappy,’ thought Dick as he studied her. She reminded him of a released prisoner who still fears recapture. Every movement betrayed nervous apprehension, and, at the same time, unconscious coquetry.

He talked to her while Bryan set out his best china and glassware on the round cedar table. The room was furnished with antiques. The chair in which Mary sat was a treasure, low-backed, and curved like a swan’s neck. When Mary leaned back Dick thought he had never seen so lovely a picture. He was entranced.

As Bryan disappeared into his pantry Dick bent down to Mary and whispered, ‘Why have you never come before?’

She smiled in a shy, frightened way, like a child. She was afraid. Afraid of what? She was like no other woman he had ever met. ‘She’s still asleep,’ he thought. ‘Life means nothing to her yet.’

‘Tea’s ready,’ Bryan spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

While Dick and Mary talked he made tea in a squat Wedgewood teapot he had unearthed in a junk shop, and talked briskly to fill the gaps left in the conversation between the other two. Their friendship had progressed rapidly while he had prepared the tea. Well, perhaps old Dick was better suited to Mary than Steven. His thoughts leaped ahead. A pity to lose that country home. He’d miss it himself. But . . . well . . . there it was; she wasn’t happy with Steven.

‘You haven’t answered me yet, Mary,’ Dick spoke with quiet insistence. ‘Why have you been so long coming?’

‘Because … because …’ she murmured, and could not finished her sentence.

‘No reason at all. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re here at last. To-morrow we’ll go to a show— see something together.’

‘Two lumps, Mary?’ Bryan held the silver tongs over the sugar basin.

 She did not hear him. Smiling, he put two lumps in her saucer, and turned away to stoke up the fire.

Presently he’d slip out for a breath of fresh air— leave them together. Mary did not even see him go.

AS the door closed softly behind him, Dick drew two chairs close to the fire. ‘Sit here, Mary,’ he said, ‘and tell me your trouble.’

A little dazed at his audacity she obeyed, leaning her elbows on her knees, her head lowered. ‘I’ve run away,’ she told him . . . ‘from everything.’

‘It sounds serious, Mary.’ There was tenderness in his voice. ‘I should have done it long ago.’ She turned her beautiful eyes full upon him, and made a little gesture of entreaty. ‘Don’t blame me,’ she implored. ‘I . . . I was so tired of pretending.’

He slipped to the rug at her feet, took her hands in his, and kissed them. ‘How can I blame you, my dear, when I’ve been waiting so long for you. You’re like a lovely dream come true.’

‘I was too afraid to run away before,’ she murmured, ‘and then . . . somehow it happened.’

Suddenly she was telling him all. A little trembling story, full of gaps and hesitations. An incoherent story which he must piece together as best he could. As it unfolded he felt sorry, in a way, for Steven. Steven, who had not known how to hold this lovely child called Mary. But he felt more sorry for Mary, trapped by her wish for a home into a marriage with a man she did not love. She had asked so little of life. A home . . . companionship. And Steven had been too engrossed in his own affairs — his cattle, horses, the management of his estate — to realise how he had failed I her.

‘He seemed to forget I was there,’ Mary whispered.

So, after eight years, she had rebelled and run away from the hearth where no flame of love burned bright and comforting. She seemed bewildered at her own audacity, and the magnitude of her adventure. ‘I just couldn’t stand any more of it, Dick, so I’ve come down here to Bryan. I’ll get something to do, of course … some work. Teaching, perhaps. . . .’

‘I shall have something to say about that,’ said Dick abruptly. ‘You’ll get your divorce, Mary. He must give you that.’

SHE turned troubled eyes from his, tried to withdraw her hands. He would not release them. It happened so strangely, this meeting with Dick Furness. Bryan had often mentioned him in his letters; she had wondered what he was like. He had not disappointed her, with his blue-grey eyes, set wide, and the shock of dark hair above his splendid forehead. Somehow he looked like a writer. His charm and bold-ness had taken her heart by storm; his smile would win any woman. She wanted to put her head on his shoulder and cry her heart out. But Steven might come in at any moment, and take her again. Steven, masterful and quiet, as big men often are.

The fire leaped up the chimney in rib-bon-like flames that wavered in and out upon each other, and were caught up and merged in bands of purple and green. As they roared softly about the logs a thin layer of grey ash slowly formed into fantastic patterns against the dark wood. Dick Furness drew Mary’s face down to his, and their lips met. Mary felt she had reached the haven she had been seeking, the haven of love. Her troubles had become Dick’s. He would shoulder them for her. She drew his head to her breast, feeling herself an abandoned woman for thus showing her feelings so openly. She did not realise that, from the moment she had met him she had been unconsciously wooing him. Her spirit had been calling his as his called her’s. This hour before the fire, with the flames roaring softly up the chimney, had been given them for all time. The flame of love was theirs, and a great sense of peace. Mary felt, at last, the door of her cage had closed behind her. She was free.

They did not hear the door open quietly — did not see Steven standing in the aperture until Phillip pushed past him and shouted boyishly, ‘Mother! Dad’s bought a new car . . . .painted green. Are you glad?’

He flung himself upon her, a small dishevelled boy the image of Mary. Dick Furness leaped to his feet, drew back into the shadows, became a mere onlooker.

‘Well, Mary.’ Steven drew her up from her chair, kissed her with a husband’s possessive assurance. ‘Why on earth didn’t you wait and come down with us,’ he asked.

‘I’m . . . I’m sorry …’ she faltered. Her eyes flew past Steven and searched the shadows. Just when she thought she had escaped she was back again in her cage. She had not guessed that Steven would be so clever as to bring Phillip. Phillip, who needed her more than any of them.

STEVEN, calm in the knowledge that she was his, smiled down at her, drew her closer. Perhaps he’d been too engrossed in his own affairs. He’d been selfish …. forgetful. Things would be different in the future, or she might flutter away altogether some day.

Dick Furness, watching from his corner, felt furious hatred of the big man. Didn’t he realise she had run away from him? He stepped forward, opened his lips to speak.

‘Where’s Bryan?’ Steven forestalled him.

‘He went out for a blow; he’ll be in any time now.’

‘Tell him we couldn’t wait for him,’ Steven boomed. ‘The car’s outside, Mary? If you’ve finished your shopping we’ll get back home to-night.’

Mary felt herself drawn towards the door, saw freedom fading like a mirage, receding, vanishing.

‘Good-bye. . . . Good-bye ? ‘ Steven boomed in his mellow bass. ‘We’ve forty miles to go. Bryan will understand.’

He stood for a moment in the doorway, an immense man, lion-headed, lion-hearted. Let Mary escape him? Never.

‘Who was that young chap, Mary?’ he asked as he tucked the ‘possum skin rug round her feet and ice-cold hands. ‘

A friend of Bryan’s,’ she whispered. She could not even mention Dick’s name to Steven — Steven, who had thrust her back into her cage.

WHEN Bryan came in an hour later he found Dick crouched over a dying fire, and still dazed at the abruptness of Mary’s departure. She had slipped into his life like a moonbeam and vanished as suddenly. The flame which had leaped to life between them, burned so radiantly, had been vanquished by Steven, formidable as a mountain.

‘Where’s Mary?’ Bryan asked.

‘Gone.’ Dick Furness leapt to his feet and kicked savagely at the smouldering fire, wishing it were Steven. A golden flame shot high, wavered like a living thing in the wind puffing down the chimney, sank back, and was extinguished in a smother of grey ash, as though it had never been.

Sources:

Miss Ruby Doyle, The Gloucester Advocate, 12 January 1943 [Accessed: 14 January 2025]
Ruby Doyle, “The flame“, Sydney Mail, 24 July 1935 [Accessed: 3 February 2025]
Ruby M. Doyle, AustLit [Accessed: 3 Feb 2025]
Maureen Kingston, “Was Ruby Doyle our first local travel writer?”, Dungog Chronicle, 25 August 2021 [Accessed via the NLA eResources service: 3 February 1924]

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