A History of Silence (28 page)

Dr Robertson who treated Maud around this time described her in a note tendered to the court as:

…a physical and mental wreck. She was very depressed. She gave the impression of something worrying her mind. She was not a strong woman. There was no evidence of insanity. She was in almost an hysterical condition. I attended her for an acute abscess under the chin, and had to give her a general anaesthetic because of her nervous condition. I considered her condition was due to some mental strain behind it all…I had a conversation with the nurse who merely indicated family trouble.

Another practitioner, Dr Couzens, recalled treating Maud for ‘nervous depression'.

One of my mother's earliest memories, according to my sister Pat, is driving in Nash's car. It would have been a treat, watching the spray fly off the rocks around the south coast, never guessing that the two people sitting in the front have already plotted another future for her.

The trips in the car turn out to coincide with a brief period when Maud and Nash separate. Maud is six months pregnant with Ken, Nash's second child. But something is afoot. There is a change in Nash. He is accommodating and generous. He pays the rent on a cottage for Maud in Seatoun, a beachside suburb in the city's east and provides her with a weekly income. During this sunny period he builds a house at Rona Bay, across the harbour in Eastbourne. At the weekend he turns up to Seatoun bearing gifts—flowers, chocolates. He has in mind a fresh start, one without Betty. Maud, too, has come round. She has already been through the mill as a fallen woman with an illegitimate child. She is no doubt reluctant to strike out on her own with two—and soon three—small children in tow. And since she is about to sacrifice my mother—and herself—to the greater good, she will stick it out. She will try again.

Several months of grace pass and she moves back in with Harry Nash, this time to the Rona Bay cottage to make a fresh start without the provocative presence of my mother, or the shadow of the child's father that was such a torment to Nash.

Perhaps the damage was already done. In Rona Bay, Maud's grief takes a new turn. She is erratic, irrational. Very likely she is suffering from depression. The old wound festers—there's a return to the tit for tat of the bad old days in Newtown. Possibly it is as straightforward as this: if she cannot be a mother to Betty then she will not be a mother to Nash's children.

She punches Nash's twelve-year-old daughter Marjorie, blackening her eye. The child is forced to move in with friends until boarding school resumes. She throws Nash's son William out of the house into a concrete wall. She smashes another window with a bowl of porridge after an announcement from Nash that he is taking Marjorie away to live elsewhere ‘in consequent of her violence'. She throws an iron at Nash who happens to be holding one of the babies; she hurls a music stand at him, she chases him out of the house with a poker, and so on. On the day of the baby's christening she puts a hose down William's back. On Christmas Day she throws a breadboard at Nash and it hits a glass door, smashing it. She then launches at him with a bread knife. The following Easter, on Good Friday 1919 (by which time my mother has been adopted) she attacks William with a lump of wood, driving the boy from the house. She rushes Nash with a carving knife. She chucks pots at him. She beats Marjorie with a copper stick. Marjorie tells of one occasion when Maud entered her room at 2 a.m. and demanded she come out of the house with her. There, after threatening to kill her, Nash, and the babies, Maud broke down and begged Marjorie to get the police. On it goes.

Maud denies most of these charges. Of the attack on the boy she tells the court, ‘he just fell over'. And of the broken window—it happened inadvertently while she was ‘trying to talk to Nash' and somehow the clothes brush flew into the glass…

And yet, tellingly, in one incident after another—in Manley Terrace and in Rona Bay—when the neighbours intervene it is Maud they take in.

There is also plenty of evidence of violence that for some reason didn't trouble the jury. Dr Couzens tells of finding

a mark on Maud's forehead, marks of a kick to the left knee, and bruises on her arms, legs and body as though she had been hit and kicked by some person. She told me at the time that her husband had assaulted her and was responsible for her being in that condition.

Testimony from neighbours in Rona Bay recount Maud ‘crying and trembling and her blouse torn', and seeing Mr Nash man-handling her and pushing her around.

Nash tries to have Maud committed, but after examining her, a doctor in Rona Bay declares there is nothing wrong with her sanity.

Undeterred, Nash urged a builder to come to the house to look at his wife. Sam Fisher thought she must be sick or had had an accident. He told the court Nash acted like a lunatic, rushing ahead of him and urging him on. After Nash disappeared inside, presumably to haul out the mad woman, Maud appeared at the door holding a carving knife. She said to the builder, ‘Look Mr Fisher, this is the one who threatened us with an axe and held it over us since five this morning.' Nash, according to Mr Fisher, did not deny Maud's statement but continued to argue the case of her sanity. ‘Look she is a lunatic,' he said. ‘She is raving mad.'

‘I am just as sane as you, Mr Fisher,' replied Maud, ‘aren't I?' I said, ‘Well, if you are, go and lay down that knife.' She did so immediately. Then Mrs Nash turned to one of the boys and said, ‘He's been thrashing and knocking us about all morning.' The boy said, ‘Yes, he has.' Nash made an effort to strike him, but the boy got away from him. Just then Mr Downs jumped the fence and Nash was saying all the time ‘how mad she was.' I said, ‘Oh, I think it is you who is mad.'

What a relief to turn to the farmer's letters, which are civil and generous.

Of course, they are written by a man standing before a window fully aware of the destructive power of the woman outside clutching a stone in her hand. If the letters are civil, they are even more careful not to cause offence. O.T. writes to Nash, aka Mr Manley:

…I must apologise to you for addressing your wife by her Christian name, but believe me it was the tone of her letter that made me think she was in dire trouble, and I did not want to shelve the money part, but only wanted to know what really was the matter. I only wish she had explained in her letter and I would have been spared the misfortune of hurting her feelings or yours. I honestly did not want to hurt in any way, and was very thankful to her writing in the way she did. I have worried a lot since I last saw her, but, out of respect for you as her husband and herself, I did not write to her to know if she had got the child adopted. Owing to my father having lost nearly all his money and having given him all spare cash, it is a bit difficult for me to get all I would like to send at the present moment, but if it will help your wife in a small degree I will send £50 next week and another £50 before the end of the year. I will not forget the child later on and will do something for her when she gets older if it is in my power. I would esteem it a favour if Mrs Nash would reply to this, or just put a few words in to show that you are in harmony in the matter. I still have a great deal of respect for Mrs Nash and will always do my best to help her if she should be at any future time without a breadwinner. Kindly let me know if this arrangement will suit you, and I will forward the money early next week, and the second lot as soon as possible, but not later than the end of the year. In reading Mrs Nash's letter I really thought that she wanted to have the child adopted by strangers and will be thankful if it is the arrangement you are proceeding with. Please let me know what the child's full name will be. I promise that I will not forget to help her if it is in my power in eight or ten years. If you can reply to this so that it will come by Thursday's boat please reply direct to me. In concluding I must thank you both, especially Mrs Nash, for the kindness you have shown me. If there is anything in this letter that causes pain I assure you it is quite unintentional. Yours truly,
Owen T. Evans
PS. Please do not write if you cannot send it by Thursday night's boat.
O.T.E.

In court, it has come down to Maud's word against Harry Nash's. On that score she doesn't stand much of a chance. She is a fallen woman. She reeks of opportunism. She didn't marry Nash because she loved him—a black mark—and sacrificing herself in order to give her daughter a name is not like rescuing a saint from the flames. The word of such a person cannot be held in the same esteem as that of a successful man, generous, perhaps overly generous. It would be hard to believe the jealousy that Maud claims has curdled inside him or her testimony that he is ‘a man of very violent temper which he could not control'. It is not easy to believe that he spat in Betty's food and often hit her, or that he threatened to expose the father of the child, or that their frequent changes of address were due to Nash not wanting to remain in neighbourhoods where people knew of his treatment of her.

Ethel Hargrave, who was also paid to look after the children, told the court that ‘Mrs Nash was very kind and good to the children. We planned Marjorie's clothes. I never saw her unkind. Marjorie was rather unmanageable and not too truthful.'

Even the assurances of another one-time housekeeper, Mrs Ashworth, apparently lacked sufficient persuasion:

I had the child, Betty, under my care all the time I was there and no one could have wished for a cleaner child. She gave no trouble. In fact, everyone loved her. She would not go near Nash. I often used to wonder if he had been cruel to her. She would make friends with everyone but Nash.

The court has a deaf ear by the time Maud is invited to explain herself:

About two years after marriage Nash was so cruel to the child, and made me so miserable about the matter, and so ill that under the coercion of Nash I wrote a letter to Mr Evans asking for money to have the child adopted…I kept Betty as long as I could but had to have her adopted as there was no hope…About a month after I came back from Seatoun I had taken Betty to friends to adopt her, and I did not want him to know where she was. He returned from Auckland (on business) and instigated Willie to kick me. I sent Marjorie for the constable. Marjorie's statement is not true. He was so violent to me, and Marjorie willingly went, and as usual I was blamed. It was allusions to Betty's father. Nash told people I was mad. Nash hated Betty and me. I have not seen her since the day of her adoption or heard from her adopting parents.

And here is the bit that I wished my mother could have read or heard for herself: ‘I only did this as last resort as I loved the child…and wanted to keep it and give it a name and bring it up as one of Nash's family as he had promised before marriage.'