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I hijacked Elizabeth Macarthur's story for A Room Made of Leaves. Now, through her letters, she speaks for herself | Kate Grenville
I don’t regret my fictional memoir. But the uneasiness I felt in sharing a false story sent me back to the real letters – which are now being published for the first time
I learned a bit about the Macarthurs at school – John was supposed to be “the father of the wool industry” in colonial Sydney and his wife, Elizabeth, was, well, just his wife. Like all the other women of our past, she was a dim figure in the margin.
Fifty years later I was researching for the book that became The Secret River, and I came across an extract from one of her letters. She’d asked for lessons in astronomy from William Dawes, an officer with the first fleet, but says: “I mistook my abilities, and blush at my error.” That word “blush” made me sit up and take notice. Blushing is the body’s way of announcing some powerful feeling – usually one we’d rather hide. To the mind of a novelist, that blush signalled an interesting possibility about Mrs Macarthur and Lieutenant Dawes.
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