Picnic at Hanging Rock - what actually happened?
Picnic at Hanging Rock: Chapter 3 & 18 | Disappearance @ Hanging Rock | Path of Light | Picnic & the Faërie Realm | Faerie in Australia |
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Joan Lindsay
Introduction
Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock was published in 1967 without the author's original final chapter which dealt with events at the very heart of the story, namely, the mysterious disappearance of a party of three schoolgirls - Miranda, Marion and Irma - and their mathematics teacher Miss Greta McCraw. In order to address this unfortunate deletion and the mysterious disappearance, the text presented below comprises (1) the original 1967 published version of chapter 3 - wherein the four women disappear - integrated with (2) the 1966 manuscript final chapter which in turn dealt with the same event. In 1967 that chapter, numbered 18, was censored by the publishers. It was subsequently issued at the request of the now-deceased author in 1987, under the title The Secret of Hanging Rock (Lindsay, Taylor & Rousseau 1987). Lindsay died in 1984, but in 1972 had ordered her literary agent John Taylor to publish the missing chapter upon her death, which he did. In addition, a deleted paragraph from chapter 2 of the original manuscript (highlighted in italics below) is also presented, having been noted by Janelle McCulloch in her Beyond the Rock biography of Joan Lindsay (McCulloch 2018). The events in that chapter were included in chapter 1 of the 1967 issue. Both texts from chapters 2 and 18 are taken from a copy of the original, unedited, draft manuscript in the Joan Lindsay Papers at the State Library of Victoria (Padmore 2019). These texts greatly expand upon the mystical, paranormal aspects of the work as originally written and which lie at the heart of the disappearances. The deletions took place in support of an increased ambiguity desired by Cheshire Publishing junior editor Sandra Forbes. The publishers apparently deemed the mystical elements of the novel to be confusing, rather than defining. By ambiguity, they were referring to the removal of those mystical elements and making the narrative more realistic, straightforward and, in their view, easier for the public at large to digest. In doing so they subverted the author's original intent and presented the world with a work of fiction without any satisfying resolution. Well, unsatisfying to many such as the present author, if not to all.
The original Chapter 18 dealt with events which had only partially been covered in chapter 3, and which definitely left readers wanting to know more. In combining the two chapters (see below), we obtain a greatly expanded version of the episode wherein the three schoolgirls and their teacher disappear, with the assistance of a doppelganger equivalent of the latter. The only major alteration arising out of the integration of the two texts by the present author is related to the internal chronology and the early departure of the young student Edith from the group prior to the three older girls reaching the energy-emitting monolith located upon the upper level of Hanging Rock. There are also some additions to the 1966 section, comprising material included by Lindsay in the 1967 updated version. A brief insertion by the present author of a single sentence references Miss McCraw. This was deemed necessary as circumstances pertaining to her subsequent disappearance primarily appear after chapter 3 in the 1967 edition. As such, her fate within that text is even more mysterious than that of the schoolgirls. A number of small emendations were also made, especially in regards to the variations in tense present within the un-edited original chapter 18.
The present edit was completed by Michael Organ on 10 August 2023, following a period of research into the book, focusing on the mystical and faerie realm elements which had been censored from the original text, and largely ignored in subsequent discussions and presentations. This included the 1975 film directed by Peter Weir, though less so with the 2018 television adaptation which, in being presented over six 48 minute episodes, was able to accommodate more of Lindsay's original narrative content and character development therein.
It is recommended that the present text be read in conjunction with the original edition of the book as published in 1967 and which remains in print. In that reading, chapter 3 can be replaced by the version presented below. In this edited version, speakers - where their identity is ambiguous - are indicated by curly brackets {...}. Endnotes are also included to expand upon elements of the text which support the present author's association of Lindsay's original text with the faerie realm. A deeper discussion of this aspect of Picnic at Hanging Rock is presented here. It is also recommended that the original uncut version of Peter Weir's film be viewed, along with the 2018 television series, as they add greatly to the understanding and appreciation of Joan Lindsay's original creation, especially in actually being filmed at Hanging Rock, the main, un-credited character of both book and films. Finally, it should be noted that the 1987 post mortem publication was received critically by many when it appeared, with assertions that it diminished the version of Picnic at Hanging Rock publically known up to that point. Some also declared that it was not authored by Lindsay, but merely a hoax by the publisher. Both internal analysis of the texts, and subsequent comments by Forbes and others confirm the authenticity of chapter 18.
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[Scene - the 19 schoolgirls, 2 teachers and driver Hussey are travelling along the road to Hanging Rock in a horse-drawn coach (drag). Miss McCraw beings to talk in a strange, unfamiliar manner, having been replaced by a faerie changeling / doppelganger. The coach halts by the side of the road for a brief drink stop.]
{Miss McCraw} ‘Humans,’ Miss McCraw confided to a magpie picking up crumbs of shortbread at her feet, ‘are obsessed with the notion of perfectly useless movement. Nobody but an idiot ever seems to want to sit still for a change!’....
[Hanging Rock comes into view]
{Miss McCraw} ‘.... The mountain comes to Mahommed. The Hanging Rock comes to Mr. Hussey.’ The very peculiar governess was smiling up at him; a secret crooked smile that seemed to Mr Hussey to have even less sense than the words. Mademoiselle, catching his eye, only just stopped herself from winking at the dear bewildered man. Really, poor Greta was getting more eccentric every day!
They were within half a mile or so of the Picnic Grounds when there was an abrupt cessation of the easy jolting pace of the drag, together with a sensation of breaking and slipping, rather like a clock quietly ticking on the mantlepiece that suddenly runs down. The two sisters from New Zealand, remembering the awful stillness of the moment before an earthquake, trembled and clung. From the interior of the vehicle, grown unaccountably dark, Greta McCraw uttered a jubilant croak.
The drag turned sharply to the right, the pace quickened and the voice of practical sanity boomed from the box seat ....
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Chapter 2 [Summary]
[In chapter 2 the group arrives at the picnic grounds around midday, and just after 2pm the four girls begin their walk up the mountain. Miss McCraw leaves the group sometime around 3.30pm, unseen by the rest of the party, who are now all asleep. As they walk beyond the nearby creek they are observed by Michael "Mike" Fitzhubert and Albert Crundall.]
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Chapter Three
The creek had hardly been crossed before the Hanging Rock had risen up directly ahead of the four girls, clearly visible beyond a short grassy slope. Miranda had been the first to see it.
‘No, no, Edith! Not down at your boots! Away up there in the sky.’
Mike remembered afterwards how she had stopped and called back over her shoulder to the little fat one trudging behind.1
The immediate impact of its soaring peaks induced a silence so impregnated with its powerful presence that even Edith was struck dumb. The splendid spectacle, as if by special arrangement between heaven and the headmistress of Appleyard College, was brilliantly illuminated for their inspection. On the steep southern facade the play of golden light and deep violet shade revealed the intricate construction of long vertical slabs; some smooth as giant tombstones, others grooved and fluted by prehistoric architecture of wind and water, ice and fire. Huge boulders, originally spewed red hot from the boiling bowels of the earth, now come to rest, cooled and rounded in forest shade.
Confronted by such monumental configurations of nature, the human eye is woefully inadequate. Who can say how many or how few of its unfolding marvels are actually seen, selected and recorded by the four pairs of eyes now fixed in staring wonder at the Hanging Rock? Does Marion Quade note the horizontal ledges crisscrossing the verticals of the main pattern whose geological formation must be memorized for next Monday's essay? Is Edith aware of the hundreds of frail star-like flowers crushed under her tramping boots, while Irma catches the scarlet flash of a parrot's wing and thinks it a flame among the leaves? And Miranda, whose feet appear to be choosing their own way through the ferns as she tilts her head towards the glittering peaks, does she already feel herself more than a spectator agape at a holiday pantomime?
So they walk silently towards the lower slopes, in single file, each locked in the private world of her own perceptions, unconscious of the strains and tensions of the molten mass that hold it anchored to the groaning earth: of the creakings and shudderings, the wandering airs and currents known only to the wise little bats, hanging upside down in its clammy caves.2 None of them see or hear the snake dragging its copper coils over the stones ahead. Nor the panic exodus of spiders, grubs and woodlice from rotting leaves and bark. There are no tracks on this part of the Rock. Or if there ever have been tracks, they are long since obliterated. It is a long long time since any living creature other than an occasional rabbit or wallaby trespassed upon its arid breast.
Marion was the first to break through the web of silence. ‘Those peaks … they must be a million years old.’
‘A million. Oh, how horrible!’ Edith exclaimed. ‘Miranda! Did you hear that?’
At fourteen, millions of years can be almost indecent. Miranda, illumined by a calm wordless joy, merely smiled back.
Edith persisted. ‘Miranda! It's not true, is it?’
‘My Papa made a million out of a mine once - in Brazil,’ Irma said. ‘He bought Mama a ruby ring.’
‘Money's quite different,’ Edith rightly observed.
‘Whether Edith likes it or not,’ Marion pointed out, ‘that fat little body of hers is made up of millions and millions of cells.’
Edith put her hands over her ears, ‘Stop it, Marion! I don't want to hear about such things.’
‘And what's more, you little goose, you have already lived for millions and millions of seconds.’
Edith had gone quite white the face. ‘Stop it! You're making me feel giddy.’
‘Ah. don't tease her, Marion,’ Miranda soothed, seeing the usually unsnubbable Edith for once deflated. ‘The poor child's overtired.’
‘Yes,’ said Edith, ‘and those nasty ferns are pricking my legs. Why can’t we all sit down on that log and look at the ugly old Rock from here?’
‘Because,’ said Marion Quade, ‘you insisted on coming with us, and we three seniors want a closer view of the Hanging Rock before we go home.’
Edith had begun to whimper. ‘It's nasty here … I never thought it would be so nasty or I wouldn't have come …’
‘I always thought she was a stupid child and now I know,’ Marion reflected out loud. Precisely as she would have stated a proven truth about an isosceles triangle. There was no real rancour in Marion - only a burning desire for truth in all departments.
‘Never mind, Edith,’ Irma comforted. ‘You can go home soon and have some more of Saint Valentine's lovely cake and be happy.’
An uncomplicated solution not only to Edith's present woe but to the sorrows of all mankind. Even as a little girl, Irma Leopold had wanted above all things to see everyone happy with the cake of their choice. Sometimes it became an almost unbearable longing as when she had looked down at Mademoiselle asleep on the grass this afternoon. Later it would find expression in fantastic handouts from an overflowing heart and purse, no doubt acceptable to heaven, if not to her legal advisers: handsome donations to a thousand lost causes - lepers, sinking theatrical companies, missionaries, priests, tubercular prostitutes, saints, lame dogs and deadbeats all over the world.
‘I have a feeling there used to be a track somewhere up there,’ said Miranda. ‘I remember my father showing me a picture of people in old-fashioned dresses having a picnic at the Rock. I wish I knew where it was painted.’ *
* The picture Miranda remembered was ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1875,’ by William Ford, now hanging in the National Gallery of Victoria.
‘They may have approached it from the opposite side,’ said Marion, producing her pencil. ‘In those days they probably drove from Mount Macedon. The thing I should like to see are those queer balancing boulders we noticed this morning, from the drag.’
‘We can’t go much further,’ said Miranda. ‘Remember, girls, I promised Mademoiselle we wouldn't be long away.’3
At every step the prospect ahead grew more enchanting with added detail of crenelated crags and lichen-patterned stone.4 Now a mountain laurel glossy above the dogwoods' dusty silver leaves, now a dark slit between two rocks above where maidenhair fern trembled like green lace.
‘Well, at least let us see what it looks like over this first little rise,’ said Irma, gathering up her voluminous skirts. ‘Whoever invented female fashions for 1900 should be made to walk through bracken fern in three layers of petticoats.’
The bracken soon gave way to a belt of dense scratchy scrub ending in a waist-high shelf of rock. Miranda was first out of the scrub and kneeling on the rock to pull up the others with the expert assurance that Ben Hussey had admired this morning, when she opened the gate. (‘At the age of five,’ her father loved to remember, ‘our Miranda threw a leg over a horse like a boundary rider.’ ‘Yes,’ her mother would add, ‘and entered my drawing room with her head thrown back, like a little queen.’)
They found themselves on an almost circular platform enclosed by rocks and boulders and a few straight saplings. Irma at once discovered a sort of porthole in one of the rocks and was gazing down fascinated at the picnic grounds below. As if magnified by a powerful telescope, the little bustling scene stood out with stereoscopic clarity between the groups of trees: the drag with Mr Hussey busy among his horses, smoke rising from a small fire, the girls moving about in their light dresses and Mademoiselle's parasol open like a pale blue flower beside the pool.5
It was agreed to rest a few minutes in the shade of some rocks before retracing their steps to the creek.
‘If only we could stay out all night and watch the moon rise,’ Irma said. ‘Now don't look so serious, Miranda, darling - we don't often have a chance to enjoy ourselves out of school.’
‘And without being watched and spied on by that little rat of Lumley,’ Marion said.
‘Blanche says she knows for a fact Miss Lumley only cleans her teeth on Sundays,’ put in Edith.
‘Blanche is a disgusting little know-all,’ Marion said,‘and so are you.’6
Edith went on unperturbed. ‘Blanche says Sara writes poetry. In the dunnie, you know. She found one on the floor all about Miranda.’
‘Poor little Sara,' Irma said. ‘I don't believe she loves anyone in the world except you, Miranda.’
‘I can't think why,’ Marion said.
'She's an orphan,’ Miranda said gently.
Irma said, ‘Sara reminds me of a little deer Papa brought home once. The same big frightened eyes. I looked after it for weeks but Mama said it would never survive in captivity.’
‘And did it?’ they asked.
‘It died. Mama always said it was doomed.’
Edith echoed, ‘Doomed? What's that mean, Irma?’
‘Doomed to die, of course! Like that boy who ‘stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled, tra … la ..’ I forget the rest of it.’
‘Oh, how nasty! Do you think I'm doomed, girls? I'm not feeling at all well, myself. Do you think that boy felt sick in the stomach like me?’
‘Certainly - if he'd eaten too much chicken pie for his lunch,’ Marion said.
‘Edith, I do wish you would stop talking for once.’
A few tears were trickling down Edith's pudgy cheek.
Why was it, Irma wondered, that God made some people so plain and disagreeable and others beautiful and kind like Miranda; dear Miranda, bending down to stroke the child's burning forehead with a cool hand. An unreasoning tender love, of the kind sometimes engendered by Papa's best French champagne or the melancholy cooing of pigeons on a spring afternoon, filled her heart to overflowing. A love that included Marion, waiting with a flinty smile for Miranda to have done with Edith's nonsense. Tears sprang to her eyes, but not of sorrow. She had no desire to weep. Only to love, and shaking out her ringlets she got up off the rock where she had been lying in the shade and began to dance. Or rather to float away, over the warm smooth stones. All except Edith had taken off their stockings and shoes. She danced bare-foot, the little pink toes barely skimming the surface like a ballerina with curls and ribbons flying, and bright unseeing eyes. She was at Covent Garden where she had been taken by her grandmother at the age of six, blowing kisses to admirers in the wings, tossing a flower from her bouquet into the stalls. At last she sank into a full-blown curtsey to the royal box, half way up a gum tree.
Edith, leaning against a boulder, was pointing at Miranda and Marion, making their way up the next little rise.7
‘Irma. Just look at them. Where in the world do they think they're going without their shoes?’
To her annoyance Irma only laughed. Edith said crossly, ‘They must be mad.’
Such abandoned folly would always be beyond the understanding of Edith and her kind, who early in life take to woollen bedsocks and galoshes. Looking towards Irma for moral support, she was horrified to see that she too had picked up her shoes and stockings and was slinging them at her waist.
‘Oh, Miranda, I feel awful! When are we going home?’
Miranda was looking at her so strangely, almost as if she wasn't seeing her. When Edith repeated the question more loudly, she simply turned her back and began walking away up the rise, the other two following a little way behind. Well, hardly walking - sliding over the stones on their bare feet as if they were on a drawing room carpet, Edith thought, instead of those nasty old stones.
‘Miranda,' she called again. ‘Miranda!’
In the breathless silence her voice seemed to belong to somebody else, a long way off, a harsh little croak fading out among the rocky walls.
‘Come back, all of you! Don't go up there - come back!’
She felt herself choking and tore at her frilled lace collar.
‘Miranda!’
The strangled cry came out as a whisper. To her horror all three girls were fast moving out of sight behind the monolith.
‘Miranda! Come back!’
She took a few unsteady steps towards the rise and saw the last of a white a sleeve parting the bushes ahead.
‘Miranda …!’
There was no answering voice. The awful silence closed in and Edith began, quite loudly now, to scream. If her terrified cries had been heard by anyone but a wallaby squatting in a clump of bracken a few feet away, the picnic at Hanging Rock might yet have been just another picnic on a summer's day. Nobody did hear them. The wallaby sprang up in alarm and bounded away as Edith turned back, plunged blindly into the scrub and ran, stumbling and screaming, towards the plain. On the way she looked up an saw a red cloud, followed shortly thereafter by a view of the partially dressed Miss McCraw, heading toward the Rock.8
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It was happening now. As it had been happening ever since Edith left them. As it will go on happening until the end of time. The scene is never varied by so much as the falling of a leaf or the flight of a bird. To the four people on the Rock it is always acted out in the tepid twilight of a present without a past. Their joys and agonies are forever new.9
Miranda was a little ahead of Irma and Marion as they pushed on through the dogwoods, her straight yellow hair swinging loose as corn silk about her thrusting shoulders. Like a swimmer, cleaving wave after wave of dusty green. An eagle hovering in the zenith observed an unaccustomed stirring of lighter patches amongst the scrub below, and took off for higher, purer airs. At last the bushes thinned out before the face of a little cliff that held the last light of the sun. So, on a million summer evenings, the pattern formed and re-formed upon the crags and pinnacles of the Hanging Rock.
The plateau on which they presently emerged from the scrub had much the same conformation as the one lower down - boulders, loose stones, an occasional stunted tree. Clumps of rubbery ferns stirred faintly in the pale light. The plain below was infinitely vague and distant. Peering down between the ringing boulders, they could just make out tiny figures coming and going, through drifts of rosy smoke, and a dark shape that might have been a vehicle beside the glint of water.10
{Irma} ‘Whatever can those people be doing down there, scuttling about like a lot of busy little ants?’
Marion came and looked over Irma's shoulder.
{Marion} ‘A surprising number of human beings are without purpose.’11
Irma giggled.
{Marion} ‘I dare say they think themselves quite important. Although it's probable, of course, that they are performing some necessary function unknown to themselves.’
Irma was in no mood for one of Marion's lectures.
The ants and their fires were dismissed without further comment. Although Irma was aware, for a little while, of a rather curious sound coming up from the plain, like the beating of far-off drums.12
Miranda was the first to see the monolith - a single outcrop of stone something like a monstrous egg, rising smoothly out of the rocks ahead above a precipitous drop to the plain.13
Irma, a few feet behind the other two, saw them suddenly halt, swaying a little, with heads bent and hands pressed to their breasts as if to steady themselves against a gale.
{Irma} ‘What is it, Marion? Is anything the matter?’
Marion's eyes were fixed and brilliant, her nostrils dilated, and Irma thought vaguely how like a greyhound she was.
{Marion} ‘Irma! Don't you feel it?’
‘Feel what, Marion?’ Not a twig was stirring on the little dried-up trees.
‘The monolith. Pulling, like a tide. It's just about pulling me inside out, if you want to know.’
As Marion Quade seldom joked, Irma was afraid to smile. Especially as Miranda was calling back over her shoulder, ‘'What side do you feel it strongest, Marion?’
{Marion} ‘I can't make it out. We seem to be spiralling on the surface of a cone - all directions at once.’
Mathematics again! When Marion Quade was particularly silly it was usually something to do with sums.
Irma said lightly, ‘Sounds to me more like a circus! Come on, girls - we don't want to stand staring at that great thing forever.’
As soon as the monolith was passed and out of sight, all three were overcome by an overpowering drowsiness. Marion, who had immediately produced a pencil and notebook, tossed them into the ferns and yawned.
Lying down in a row on the smooth floor of a little plateau, they fell into a sleep so deep that a lizard darted out from under a rock and lay without fear in the hollow of Marion's outflung arm, while several beetles in bronze armour made a leisurely tour of Miranda's yellow head.
Miranda awoke first, to a colourless twilight in which every detail was intensified, every object clearly defined and separate.14 A forsaken nest wedged in the fork of a long-dead tree, with every straw and feather intricately laced and woven; Marion's torn muslin skirts fluted like a shell; Irma's dark ringlets standing away from her face in exquisite wiry confusion, the eyelashes drawn in bold sweeps on the cheek-bones. Everything, if you could only see it clearly enough, like this, is beautiful and complete. Everything has its own perfection.
A little brown snake dragging its scaly body across the gravel made a sound like wind passing over the ground. The whole air was clamorous with microscopic life.
Irma and Marion were still asleep. Miranda could hear the separate beating of their two hearts, like two little drums, each at a different tempo. And in the undergrowth beyond the clearing a crackling and snapping of twigs where a living creature moved unseen towards them through the scrub. It drew nearer, the crunchings and cracklings split the silence as the bushes were pushed violently apart and a heavy object was propelled from the undergrowth almost on to Miranda's lap.
It was a woman with a gaunt, raddled face trimmed with bushy black eyebrows - a clown-like figure dressed in a torn calico camisole and long calico drawers frilled below the knees of two stick-like legs, feebly kicking out in black lace-up boots.15
{Stranger} ‘Through!’ gasped the wide-open mouth, and again, ‘Through!’16
The tousled head fell sideways, the hooded eyes closed.
‘Poor thing! She looks ill,’ Irma said. ‘Where does she come from?’17
‘Put your arm under her head,’ Miranda said, ‘while I unlace her stays.’
Freed from the confining husks, with her head pillowed on a folded petticoat, the stranger's breath became regular, the strained expression left her face and presently she rolled over on the rock and slept.18
‘Why don't we all get out of these absurd garments?’ Marion asked. ‘After all, we have plenty of ribs to keep us vertical.’19
No sooner were the four pairs of corsets discarded on the stones and a delightful coolness and freedom set in, than Marion's sense of order was affronted.
‘Everything in the universe has its appointed place, beginning with the plants. Yes, Irma, I meant it. You needn't giggle. Even our corsets on the Hanging Rock.’
‘Well, you won't find a wardrobe,’ Irma said, ‘however hard you look. Where can we put them?’
Miranda suggested throwing them over the precipice. ‘Give them to me.’
‘Which way did they fall?’ Marion wanted to know. ‘I was standing right beside you but I couldn't tell.’
{Stranger} ‘You didn't see them fall because they didn't fall.’20
The precise croaking voice came at them like a trumpet from the mouth of the clown-woman on the rock, now sitting up and looking perfectly comfortable.21
{Stranger} ‘I think, girl, that if you turn your head to the right and look about level with your waist . . .’
They all turned their heads to the right and there, sure enough, were the corsets, becalmed on the windless air like a fleet of little ships. Miranda had picked up a dead branch, long enough to reach them, and was lashing out at the stupid things seemingly glued to the background of grey air.
‘Let me try!’ Marion said. Whack! Whack! ‘They must be stuck fast in something I can't see.’
‘If you want my opinion,’ croaked the stranger, ‘they are stuck fast in time. You with the curls - what are you staring at?’
{Irma} ‘I didn't mean to stare. Only when you said that about time I had such a funny feeling I had met you somewhere. A long time ago.’22
{Stranger} ‘Anything is possible, unless it is proved impossible. And sometimes even then.’23
The scratchy voice had a convincing ring of authority. ‘And now, since we seem to be thrown together on a plane of common experience - I have no idea why - may I have your names? I have apparently left my own particular label somewhere over there.’24
She waved towards the blank wall of scrub. ‘No matter. I perceive that I have discarded a good deal of clothing. However, here I am. The pressure on my physical body must have been very severe.’25
She passed a hand over her eyes and Marion asked with a strange humility, ‘Do you suggest we should go on before the light fades?’
{Stranger} ‘For a person of your intelligence - I can see your brain quite distinctly - you are not very observant. Since there are no shadows here, the light too is unchanging.’26
Irma was looking worried. ‘I don't understand. Please, does that mean that if there are caves, they are filled with light or darkness? I am terrified of bats.’
Miranda was radiant. ‘Irma, darling - don't you see? It means we arrive in the light!’
‘Arrive? But Miranda .... where are we going?’27
{Stranger} ‘The girl Miranda is correct. I can see her heart, and it is full of understanding. Every living creature is due to arrive somewhere. If I know nothing else, at least I know that.’28
She had risen to her feet, and for a moment they thought she looked almost beautiful.29
{Marion} ‘Actually, I think we are arriving. Now.’
A sudden giddiness set her [Marion] whole being spinning like a top. It passed, and she saw the hole ahead. It wasn't a hole in the rocks, not a hole in the ground. It was a hole in space.30 About the size of a fully rounded summer moon, coming and going. She saw it as painters and sculptors saw a hole, as a thing in itself, giving shape and significance to other shapes. As a presence, not an absence - a concrete affirmation of truth. She felt that she could go on looking at it forever in wonder and delight, from above, from below, from the other side. It was as solid as the globe, as transparent as an air-bubble. An opening, easily passed through, and yet not concave at all. She had passed a lifetime asking questions and now they were answered, simply by looking at the hole. It faded out, and at last she was at peace.
The little brown snake had appeared again and was lying beside a crack that ran off somewhere underneath the lower of two enormous boulders balancing one on top of the other. When Miranda bent down and touched its exquisitely patterned scales it slithered away into a tangle of giant vines.
Marion knelt down beside her and together they began tearing away the loose gravel and the tangled cables of the vine.
{Marion} ‘It went down there. Look, Miranda - down that opening.’ A hole - perhaps the lip of a cave or tunnel, rimmed with bruised, heart-shaped leaves.
{Stranger} ‘You'll agree it's my privilege to enter first?’31
{Miranda & Marion} ‘To enter?’ they said, looking from the narrow lip of the cave to the wide, angular hips.
{Stranger} ‘Quite simple. You are thinking in terms of linear measurements, girl Marion. When I give you the signal - probably a tap on the rock - you may follow me, and the girl Miranda can follow you. Is that clearly understood?’ The raddled face was radiant.
Before anyone could answer, the long-boned torso was flattening itself out on the ground beside the hole, deliberately forming itself to the needs of a creature created to creep and burrow under the earth. The thin arms, crossed behind the head with its bright staring eyes, became the pincers of a giant crab that inhabits mud-caked billabongs.32 Slowly the body dragged itself inch by inch through the hole. First the head vanished: then the shoulder-blades humped together; the frilled pantaloons, the long black sticks of the legs welded together like a tail ending in two black boots.
‘I can hardly wait for the signal,’ Marion said.
When presently a few firm raps were heard from under the rock she went in quite easily, head first, smoothing down her chemise without a backward glance.
‘My turn next,’ Miranda said.
Irma looked at Miranda kneeling beside the hole, her bare feet embedded in vine leaves - so calm, so beautiful, so unafraid.
‘Oh, Miranda, darling Miranda, don't go down there - I'm frightened. Let's go home!’33
‘Home? I don't understand, my little love. Why are you crying? Listen! Is that Marion tapping? I must go.’ Her eyes shone like stars. The tapping came again. Miranda pulled her long, lovely legs after her and was gone.
Irma sat down on a rock to wait. A procession of tiny insects was winding through a wilderness of dry moss. Where had they come from? Where were they going? Where was anyone going? Why, oh why, had Miranda thrust her bright head into a dark hole in the ground? She looked up at the colourless grey sky, at the drab, rubbery ferns, and sobbed aloud.
How long had she been staring at the lip of the cave, staring and listening for Miranda to tap on the rock? Listening and staring, staring and listening. Two or three runnels of loose sand came pattering down the lower of the two great boulders on to the flat upturned leaves of the vine as it tilted slowly forward and sank with a sickening precision directly over the hole.34
Irma had flung herself down on the rocks and was tearing and beating at the gritty face of the boulder with her bare hands. She had always been clever at embroidery. They were pretty little hands, soft and white.35
END
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Commentary
The chapter 18 text derives from Joan Lindsay's original draft manuscript for Picnic at Hanging Rock, written during the southern winter of 1966. It was subsequently excluded from the published version, on the advice of, amongst others, the Cheshire Publishing editor Sandra Forbes. As a result, Lindsay was forced to incorporate a few elements into chapter 3 of the book, mainly in connection with the lead up to the disappearances. That amended and edited version was published at the end of 1967. Some twenty lines of text from the 1966 chapter 18 manuscript were included in 1967's chapter 3.
The text of chapter 18, as publically revealed in 1987, differs slightly in regard to the chronology of events which took place at Hanging Rock on St. Valentine's Day 1900. It also varies in style from the 1967 text as it is an earlier, unedited copy of Lindsay's typed draft manuscript. As such, it had not been polished or tightened up by Forbes' editing, whereby elements such as a consistent voice would have been applied, tense standardised throughout the work, typographical errors corrected, chronological inconsistencies corrected, and formatting applied. For example, the following text is from chapter 18 of the original manuscript:
At last the bushes are thinning out before the face of a little cliff that holds the last light of the sun. So, on a million summer evenings, the pattern forms and re-forms upon the crags and pinnacles of the Hanging Rock.
That same text takes the following form in chapter 3 of the 1967 publication, with a change in tense and slightly different wording:
Until at last the bushes began thinning out before the face of a little cliff that held the last light of the sun. So on a million summer evenings would the shadows lengthen upon the crags and pinnacles of the Hanging Rock.
Due to lack of clarity in regards to some of the conversations which appear in the draft chapter, and precisely who is the speaker therein, the current author has inserted indicators where such is ambiguous, especially in regard to the 'stranger' or 'clown-woman', who is the faerie form (a changeling or doppelganger) of Miss McCraw.
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Endnotes
1. Michael (Mike) Fitzhubert, in a deposition to the police on Tuesday, 17 February, reported on the events he witnessed upon following the party of girls on Saturday, 14 February 1900, after they had crossed the creek at the base of Hanging Rock and walked along a grassy slope towards the first point of climbing. At that point he returned to the picnic ground and left shortly thereafter, prior to any alarm being raised.↩
2. During their journey up Hanging Rock, the schoolgirls pass through three geographically and botanically different sections: (1) the flat, gassed area from the creek to the base of the rock face; (2) up a bushy and rocky slope to the first ledge, wherein they need to provide each other with some assistance on occasion; and (3) up through the various rocks, scattered vegetation and monoliths to the top section of Hanging Rock and a flattish area surrounded by monoliths and crevices. Naturally formed stone arches or passages were considered doors to the realm into which the faeries dwelled. Such were aplenty upon, and within, Hanging Rock.↩
3. In leaving the picnic ground around 2pm, Miranda had stated the following to Mademoiselle de Poitiers, their French teacher: 'Don't worry about us, Mam'selle dear,' smiled Miranda. 'We shall only be gone a very little while.' Despite this, upon final parting, Miranda was seen with a grave look upon her face, as though perhaps aware of what was to come.↩
4. The reference here to the scene becoming more enchanted is related to the increasingly mystical and faerie realm elements present as the group moves further onto the Rock. It directly relates to the concept of glamour which refers to the magical enchantment - the Pied Piper effect - drawing them onwards and deeper into the faerie realm.↩
5. During this initial look down towards the picnic ground from the rocks above, the schoolgirls observe their comrades and teacher below. No reference is given to Miss McCraw at this point, with the possibility that this view is of the group after they had awoken around 4-5pm and observed that the mathematics teacher was not present.↩
6. The last words by Marion to Edith are especially cruel, though an excuse is offered. This cruelty is perhaps affected by the malevolent presence so often commented upon as present at Hanging Rock. It manifests in increasing stress for those affected by it.↩
7. As Miranda and Marion head off from Irma and Edith, without discussion, this is perhaps the first sign of something amiss. Miranda no longer appears to show any inclination to return to the picnic area, and neither does Marion. Nor does she express concern for Edith, who is now extremely upset and sick in the stomach from the stress. When Edith confronts her, Miranda answers with a blank stare, as though bewitched or under the influence of some force, and somewhat strangely looks right through her. She then turns her back, and slides away.↩
8. This is the end point of the original chapter 3. An insertion is made here by the present author in regards to a a red cloud seen by Edith and the fate of Miss McCraw. They are taken from her subsequent sparse testimony to the authorities in regard to what happened after she left her three comrades on the top of the Rock. The origin of the red cloud, or its significance, is never revealed by Lindsay. However, it is clear from later comments in chapter 18 that the stranger subsequently encountered by Miranda, Marion and Irma is a faerie realm changeling version of Miss McCraw, and it is likely that this is what Edith saw as she ran screaming down the mountain. The precise circumstances surrounding the creation of that creature, and the ultimate fate of the teacher, are not provided.↩
9. This paragraph relates to time and its displacement within the faerie realm - an issue of special interest to Joan Lindsay throughout her life. Within the faerie realm time can stand still, or it can move faster or slower than it does in the normal, earthly reality. Time slips can also occur, and did occur with Lindsay, wherein she was able to see events external to her and of the past, present or future.↩
10. This is an example of a time slip, wherein the schoolgirls have reached the very top of Hanging Rock and look down to see people searching for them - a process that would occur over the week following their disappearance. In this instance they were looking at future events, whereas just prior to that, whilst on a lower part of the Rock, they had observed contemporary events. Whereas to the schoolgirls on the Rock only a couple of hours had passed, at the most, to their colleagues at the picnic area it was now much later, and to the search parties it was a couple of days later outside of the faerie realm that the schoolgirls were at those moments occupying. This is related to the fluidity of time as mentioned in the previous note, it being a concept strongly supported by Joan Lindsay.↩
11. The language here by Marion is almost alien, as though she is referring to a race of people not her own. This could be explained by the fact of it being a faerie presence which has at this point taken a degree of control of her. There is no precision in regard to the time at which, and the degree therein, the schoolgirls were subject to the influence of faerie. It is obvious at this point that Miranda and Marion are most affected.↩
12. This drum beating is the noise being made by the group searching for those missing on the Rock. It took place during the week following their disappearance.↩
13. This specific monolith is a rock which apparently emanates an energy which causes giddiness, especially amongst Marion and Miranda, and also possess a sentient element which attracts them to it. As they leave the monolith they are also subject to a force which brings on drowsiness, resulting in a deep sleep. It is unclear what period of time passes, though there are references in the text to twilight, which would suggest around 6-8pm as it was late summer.↩
14. It is clear that Miranda is now under the influence of the faerie realm, and/or located within it. Time has stood still, the external twilight is being replaced by an overall brightness, and her perceptions are heightened, as though she were is some enhanced meditative state, or participating in an hallucinogen trip as experienced under the influence of LSD. Lindsay's description is typical of that given by those who engage in so-called New Age practices, or ancient techniques seeking enlightenment, or utilise drugs such as LSD to artificially enhance their states of consciousness, or seek to engage with other dimensions and even enter the faerie realm: Everything, if you could only see it clearly enough, like this, is beautiful and complete. Everything has its own perfection. It is both vague and profound, attempting to describe something that is infinite and perceived within a framework of heightened senses. For example, we are told that Miranda could now hear the beating hearts of her two friends. The use of the term everything as a descriptor is common on such occasions, as the participant feels they can see, and experience, and are themselves everything, like never before.↩
15. This stranger was the faerie realm changeling (doppelganger) form of Miss McCraw. The fate of the real Miss McCraw is not revealed, though it seems likely, from statements contained in the book, that she was taken into the faerie realm shortly after arriving at the base of the Hanging Rock cliff. The process of creating the changeling is not outlined, but Lindsay reveals to us that it was a haphazard process and, as a result, the schoolgirls did not recognise that the stranger was a doppelganger of Miss McCraw, primarily due to the not-so-accurate recreation of facial features, the overall body shape, and the fact that the creature was semi-naked and not as fully dressed as their school teacher usually was.↩
16. This suggests that the creature had broken through some barrier in the faerie realm to reach the schoolgirls. There is no clarity provided by Lindsay in regard to how individuals and entities moved between the normal earthly realm and the faerie realm, though faerie lore provides numerous explanations and examples. Often the journey from normalcy to faerie is a simple one of movement into a light-filled space, where those who enter are not totally aware of what is happening, or of the fact that time and space operate differently within this dimension. They are usually overwhelmed by enchantment, and oblivious to reality.↩
17. Irma at this stage is still cognisant of the strange situation they are in, whereas Miranda and Marion appear to be unaware of it, or accepting of it.↩
18. Lindsay's use of the word husk in this context supports the contention that the faerie realm stranger has been grown, like a plant, and is not human. In faerie lore changeling often only live for a short period and then died. A modern day equivalent is found within the Star Wars universe, where clones are grown on the planet Kameno to become troopers, and as doppelgangers of the Jango Fett template.↩
19. The removal by the girls of the corsets and outer absurd garments at this point reflects the earlier removal of garments by the stranger. Perhaps this is an element of the faerie realm where foreign materials are rejected. We have seen the girls previously remove their shoes and stockings as they journeyed higher upon, and deeper into, Hanging Rock, and became increasingly influenced by the faerie realm.↩
20. This is perhaps the most overt example of the fact that the fate of the schoolgirls and Miss McCraw is now connected to a mystical dimension, which is herein referred to as the faerie realm. Miranda gathered up the corsets and threw them off of the cliff. Yet they did not fall to the ground below but merely remained suspended in the air at the level at which they were discarded. Once again, no explanation is provided for this by Lindsay apart from the statement by the stranger that they are stuck fast in time. This reinforces the other references in the book to time dilation and time slips, reflecting the true life experiences of the author.↩
21. The frog-like croaking voice of the stranger is another link to its animalistic, creature nature. It also harks back to the deleted paragraph from chapter 2 in which Miss McCraw uttered a jubilant croak. It was observed at the time by Mademoiselle de Poitiers and the coachman Mr Hussey that this was strange, eccentric and uncharacteristic behaviour on the part of the mathematics teacher. Perhaps Lindsay is herein indicating to us that the replacement of Miss McCraw by a faerie changeling had already taken place prior to leaving Appleyard College that morning. It would also explain the strange behaviour of removing all her outer garments upon leaving the picnic grounds and heading up Hanging Rock - a behaviour which is otherwise inexplicable.↩
22. Irma's struggle with memory, in this instance something that Miss McCraw had previously said, reveals the strong influence of the faerie realm upon those trapped in it, in that much of their previous life and memory dissipates as part of the glamour / enchantment process which seeks to trap them therein. The reason being, that if there is no memory of the past, then the present and future offered by faerie is more enticing.↩
23. This seemingly nonsensical, though highly logical statement is similar to many of those presented to Alice in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll 1866). For example, when she is confronted by the drug-smoking caterpillar who wants to know who she is, or the King and Queen of Hearts when they argue the cases for and against inevitable beheading.↩
24. The request by faerie for one's name is a common ruse whereby the revelation results in the empowering of the creature who seeks the information. In this instance no names are given, perhaps because they had been forgotten atby this stage. The process of enticement of the schoolgirls is evident with Miranda and Marion, though less so with Irma.↩
25. This comment by the stranger points to the spirit nature of the faerie creature, and its use in this instance of a problematic physical body.↩
26. The faerie realm is often distinguished by bright light and colour. Herein we are seeing Marion expressing the last vestiges of her connection with reality, as she observes the diminishing light around them, with twilight now evident and the sun disappearing. The stranger responds that there is no need to fear, as the light of the faerie realm - which casts no shadows - is available to them. Irma then expresses a similar concern in regard to the loss of light, but both girls are assured by Miranda that they will shortly arrive in the light!↩
27. Once again, Irma's question reveals that Miranda appears to be cognisant of their ultimate fate, first seen during the moment she said farewell to Mademoiselle de Poitiers and bore a grave look upon her usually smiling and radiant face. And though she may know, she never reveals it. As such, the reader is left with a mystery, despite the information provided by Lindsay in chapter 18.↩
28. The philosophical tone of statements by the stranger are themselves strange. They are vague, and preachy. Lindsay provides no evidence as to their origins. Likewise, the ability of the stranger to physically see the heart and brain of the schoolgirls is an aspect of the wide suite of powers and abilities possessed by creatures in the faerie realm.↩
29. This ability to shape-shift and entice through enhanced physical attraction is one of the skills of faerie, and is seen in a variety of ways within Picnic at Hanging Rock, including in relation to Miranda, and the later transformation of the stranger.↩
30. Lindsay is here writing in 1966 about something which would shortly thereafter become known to quantum physicists and astronomers as a Black Hole - a convex, spherical portal in outer space. To Marion, the hole provides answers to everything, and instils in her a sense of peace. This, once again, in many ways reflects the experience of a person under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, or some natural hallucinogen such as the magic mushrooms of Europe or plant-based mixtures utilised by traditional societies in Australia (viz. Pituri) and the Americas (viz. Peyote).↩
31. The stranger claims the privilege of entering the hole first. This is the final point of entry into the faerie realm, from which the two schoolgirls, and Miss McCraw's doppelganger, will not return.↩
32. The shape-shifting abilities of the stranger are here fully revealed, as elements of its body adopt crab-like pincer features and the rest is flattened to facilitate entry into the hole. It is interesting to remember the earlier chapter 5 description by Irma of Miss McCraw: The McCraw is exactly the same shape as a flat iron!. ↩
33. We can see her the reason why Irma was found a week after the other three disappeared - she was not, ultimately, susceptible to the enchantment of the faerie. Whether she rejected them, or they her, is not known. She did succumb to aspects of faerie, but never totally gave over to the glamour, unlike Miranda and Marion. Her tears reveal, as it had done with Edith previously, the intensity of the emotion felt upon recognition of what was taking place at Hanging Rock, and how it could, and would, result in the loss of her dearest friends. It can also only be assumed that Miss McCraw was similarly susceptible to the enticement offered by faerie, whatever that form took. It may have been invisible, or in the form of a creature, possibly a changeling version of Miranda or perhaps even Marion, her favourite pupil.↩
34. Action was taken by faerie to close up the hole in the ground and divert any searches in that area, though such searches would not have located anything as the disappearance into the faerie realm was a transference into a different dimension to the normal, earthly one.↩
35. After giving up on scratching away the dirt and rock, Irma lay down and went to sleep. She was awaken eight days later when retrieved by Albert and some assistants, though to her it was likely only a couple of hours. She had also been located the previous day by Michael, but once again the passage of time for her was minimal as she was still very much part of the faerie realm and likely unconscious when Michael encountered her. This took place on the Saturday morning a week after St. Valentine's Day. Though he located her, he was not able to totally break through to faerie barrier and, as a consequence, in a semi-conscious state, left her and returned to his camp. He collapsed after writing part of a note which recorded his find. When he was recovered later that day by Alfred he was still semi-conscious, with wounds to his head, and unable to inform anybody of the discovery. Such was the power of the faerie realm as presented to the reader by Joan Lindsay within Picnic at Hanging Rock.↩
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References
Ash, Romy, On the unpublished end of Picnic at Hanging Rock, and other mysteries, Literary Hub [blog], 15 November 2019.
Barclay, Daryl, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay. Episode 1: The Swan Motif, Australian Catholic University, YouTube, 2 April 2020, duration: 33.30 minutes.
Eddy, Cheryl, The original Picnic at Hanging Rock is the dreamiest nightmare ever, Gizmodo: The future is here [blog], 24 April 2018.
Guthrie, Georgina, Discover the secret ending to Picnic at Hanging Rock, Little White Lies [blog], 21 June 2018.
Lindsay, Time without Clocks, Cheshire Publishing, 1962, 224p; ibid., Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2020.
-----, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Cheshire Publishing, Melbourne, 1967.
-----, John Taylor & Yvonne Rousseau, The Secret of Hanging Rock, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1987.
McCulloch, Janelle, Beyond the Rock: The life of Joan Lindsay and the mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Echo, Richmond, 2017, 208p.
O'Neil, Terence, Joan Lindsay: a time for everything, The Latrobe Journal, 83, May 2009.
Padmore, Catherine, 'Personal Exertion Literary J. Lindsay': Joan Lindsay Papers at State Library Victoria, La Trobe Journal, 103, 2019. 28-39
Rousseau, Veronique, The Murders at Hanging Rock, Scribe, Fitzroy, 1980, 192p.
Stackpole, Anne, Dream within a dream: Time in Picnic at Hanging Rock, Anne Stackpole at the Movies [blog], 224 July 017.
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Picnic at Hanging Rock: Chapter 3 & 18 | Disappearance @ Hanging Rock | Path of Light | Picnic & the Faërie Realm | Faerie in Australia |
Last updated: 20 August 2023
Michael Organ, Australia
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