Marriage of a Medium

MARRIAGE OF A MEDIUM.

Madam’s Third Dip in the Matrimonial Bag
No 3 – Thirty-Eight Years Her Junior
No Cake — No Cards— No Spooks

“I’ve known Dick for just two and a half years, and it’s purely a love match, let me tell you” remarked Madame Marie Annie Christiansen, the Hannan street top-end spiritualistic medium to one of the members of the Kalgoorlie Municipal Council on the eve of her third matrimonial venture.

Madame’s identity requires no lengthy description. She is as well-known locally as the P.O. clock — more so to women kind than the sterner sex. For some three years now her ‘Spiritualistic Hall,” opposite the Federal Hotel, has been well patronised by the ladies. Madame has, year in and out conducted Sunday night seances, and, during the weekdays and nights, has had dealings with a large (and fashionable may be advisedly added) clientele, whose curiosity about domestic matters, affairs of the heart, and business bothers have led them to “consult” her with a view to the elucidation of mysteries.

The “cards” usually a side-line item in the stock-in-trade of fortune tellers and seers— have not been brought into use by Madame Christiansen to help her unravel puzzling problems handed into her by clients. The “spirits,” rather — spookish somethings allegedly flitting about in the precincts of Madame’s curtain-draped hall of mystery — have been depended, upon to clear up and explain things per medium of Madame.

The spooks spooked spuriously, however, when. back in August 1907, they told Madame (in a trance) that the little boy Carr, lost in the bush from the South Carbine mine, Kunanalling would be found dead in an abandoned shaft. Found dead the child certainly was, but the body was discovered under a mulga bush. Madame cannot take offence if the terse and often familiarly applied description of “old lady” is fastened to her. Born in 1843 she was (her parents being of the good old name of Jones), so was 66 last birthday. She displays reticence concerning her first plunge into the matrimonial sea. But she owned a daughter when she first came West (from the East) some ten or twelve years ago, and when Johann Christiansen, a swarthy Dane, was figuring as her hubby ‘Number Two’ in the Jarrahdale timber district eight years ago, the daughter of her first marriage lived with her mother and stepdad.

Christiansen and his wife didn’t hit it happily. They were always quarrelling when a locality bearing the extraordinary name of “Seldom Seen” some five or six- miles from Jarrahdale, was their home. “Seldom Seen” was a sleeper-cutting camp, which was so named owing to the very irregular periods at which any other humans than those cutting sleepers in the district were seen. After living a ‘cat and dog’ life at ” Seldom Seen,” the Christiansens left the district, and it is said the husband has allegedly been dead for some time. Anyway, it was as “a widow” that Madame Marianne Christiansen’s husband-elect thirteen days ago notified the Kalgoorlie District Registrar of his intention to espouse her. He described himself as a miner and quoted his age as 28. Barnett, now Number Three, looks like an unsophisticated colonial youth. His mother was of German nationality. On Monday morning last, before 11 o’clock, Barnett and the bride-to-be attended at the office of the District Registrar (which is also the Clerk of Police and Local Courts) all impatient to be made one.

“We’ve come to be married” said Madame to Mr McGinn who, official to his fingertips, promptly referred himself to the notice of “Intention to Marry” signed by Barnett. “I couldn’t do it today,” McGinn answered, “it can’t be done until a full, seven days period from the day you filled in the notice has expired. Call again tomorrow. Very sorry, Madame (addressing, the about-to-protest bride-elect) but the Law’s the Law — must obey rules. Tomorrow I’ll marry you to Mr Barnett. Good morning! Mind the steep staircase.”

But the anxious bridegroom and his bridal bargain declined to be ‘Good-morninged’ out so ‘red-tapishly’. They figured out dates on the calendar, argued the point, and pleaded with McGinn to stretch a point. They even talked about special fees. But McGinn was adamant. He got high up on his ‘high horse’ and most officially bade the bridal party begone until the morrow. The pleading blandishments of the burly bride (Madame, is almost as many inches around the waist as her years’ number) were futile.

And so the wanted-to-be-made-happy pair had per-force to leave, still two when they had hoped to depart representing but one. The next morning, Tuesday, shortly after 10.30 o’clock, Barnett and his intended reappeared at the District Registrar’s office counter. The office that morning presented a busy appearance. The Police Court had just adjourned, and two or three defendants with fines were paying up, under the aegis of the Court orderly. Several lawyers’ clerks were filing plaints, some dependants on the State-charity were receiving ration orders, and an officer of the Education Department was transacting business. There was nothing suggestive of Cupid about the musty-fusty Court office precincts unless is excepted a pair of woollen baby booties which the facetiously inclined Assistant Clerk of Courts (one name of Rees) had some time since hung up on the “Intention to Marry” notice-board.

The blushing bride had one support, the bridesmaid’s post being filled by Miss A. G. Isard. The heroic bridegroom stood alone. The District Registrar fulfilled the role of parson to the letter (as prescribed by the Act) but did not kiss the bride, nor did the bridegroom as the ceremony ended. The contracting parties signed the marriage certificates in triplicate and the signatures were witnessed by Roland John Pattern Rees and A.G. Isard. As they left the office, fairly beaming with happiness, the Assistant Clerk of Courts gallantly cleared the gangway and remarked

“Good-bye and Good Luck, and we hope to see you back here within a year”

a not altogether ambiguous observation. The bride wore a prune-coloured silk dress faced with ring designs and a modified “Merry Widow” hat. The ceremony was witnessed by a large throng of habitues of the Court office, and employees in the building, among whom were noticed: Cr. E. Ashenden, Messrs. H. Oliver, Clyde Campbell, Tas. William’s, Truant Inspector Fordham, Police Constable McGuinness, Corp Schlatteri and Mesdames Freeman and Dewson. They haven’t gone honeymooning, the Barnetts. They have taken up residence in Kalgoorlie, and Madame does not intend to wholly relinquish her acquaintanceship with her friends of the occult world.