The Exiles

The Franklins throw an elaborate party for Eleanor’s 18th birthday, and they also celebrate, with great fanfare, the birthdays of Sir John and Lady Jane. Because they do not know Mathinna’s actual birthday, they choose a random date on the calendar. When Eleanor suggests throwing Mathinna a party, Lady Jane laughs, saying “it would be like commemorating the birth date of the family pet” (186). Mathinna feels slighted by this decision to ignore her importance.

However, Sir John makes up for it by being the only one who “seem[s] to genuinely enjoy [her] company” (187). He teaches her how to play cribbage and often invites her on his walks around the garden to teach her the names of the flowers and plants. One day, he gifts her a cockatoo that Montagu gave him, believing that Mathinna, due to her connection to nature, is the only one who can communicate with the bird and take care of it.

One day, when Mathinna is studying with Eleanor, Lady Jane requests her presence in the curio room. She introduces Mathinna to Mr. Bock, a famous artist who is there to paint her portrait. For the next week, Mathinna sits quietly for him but does not look at the painting in progress, thinking that he will not be able to capture her appearance. Only when he completes the painting and Mathinna looks at it does she realize he has captured something she doesn't even notice about herself—her entire life has become an impersonation: “Her past [is] slipping away” (191), and with it, any sense of her previous self. She can barely remember the language of her people because she has not spoken it in the year she has been gone. Mathinna realizes just “how far she [is] from the place she once called home” (192).

While Mrs. Wilson, the cook, grumbles over the day’s menu, Mathinna sits in the kitchen working on her needlepoint with Waluka draped around her neck. Without Mrs. Wilson’s knowledge, a few drops of lard fall onto the hot coals, and a fire breaks out. Mathinna and Mrs. Wilson work diligently for quite a few minutes until the fire is finally out. As Mathinna helps her clean up the mess left behind, Mrs. Wilson asks where Waluka has gone. Only then does Mathinna notice he is no longer around her shoulders.

Convinced he hasn’t gone too far—because he never does—Mathinna looks in every corner of the kitchen, but cannot find him. Suddenly, she notices the door to the outside patio is open from the smoke. She sees a small white lump laying on the cobblestones. It is covered in wet spit and a trickle of blood. She falls to her knees at Waluka’s body as Montagu’s dog approaches her with a loud growl. She cradles Waluka in her arms and stands as the dog comes closer. When he lunges at her, Mathinna responds with her own snarl, “a guttural howl travel[ing] up through her body until she vibrate[s] with it” (195). The sound makes Mrs. Crain and Mrs. Wilson come out of the house to comfort her, but Lady Jane only stares at her through the window, wondering what the fuss is all about.

For the next few months, Mathinna mourns her beloved pet who had been “her only remaining link to Flinders” (196). The losses in her life have piled up to the point where she can no longer remember who she had been in earlier times. Eventually, she decides to view Waluka’s death as for the best, for now she no longer has to live between worlds.