HM Applegate a.k.a. Marie Celeste

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay




SPOILERS!

We all revere and respect authors who are capable of writing book after book, each more incredible than the last, as they build their portfolio of novels. But it is easy to forget the authors who compile all of their brilliance and uniqueness into a single novel, the only novel they ever manage to publish. This is certainly the case with Joan Lindsay and her only novel, “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”

The most odd and striking aspect of this novel is the choice of formatting. The book begins with the climax of the story, then the remainder of the book details the “spreading blackness” of the event’s fallout.

Beginning a book with the climax is an incredibly daring tactic – a tactic that would probably have trouble finding a contemporary publisher, even for a well written novel; however, Joan Lindsay absolutely nailed this book. Each chapter perfectly details a particular twist of the aftermath without being wordy or including useless information about the mystery. Joan Lindsay directly addresses the reader on several occasions, saying that characters will no longer be discussed, or that information is being omitted because it is no longer important to the story. Breaking the fourth wall is another daring tactic that Joan Lindsay used to her advantage.

The structure of the story is phenomenally unique, and the novel is well-worth reading for its technical aspects alone.

Now, to address the story:

I spent an hour mulling over in my mind what I wanted to say about this novel. I enjoyed the novel and knew I would be awarding five stars, but I was unsure as to whether or not I would leave a written review.

The decision to leave a written review stemmed from a line from the book that repeated in my mind over and over. It is the last line of the book: “Thus the College Mystery, like that of the celebrated case of the Marie Celeste, seems likely to remain forever unsolved.”

I decided to do some research concerning the meaning of “Marie Celeste.” My findings on the subject:

Mary Celeste (/səˈlɛst/; often erroneously referred to as Marie Celeste[1]) was an American-registered merchant brigantine which was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. The last entry in her log was dated ten days earlier. She had left New York City for Genoa on November 7 and was still amply provisioned when found. Her cargo of alcohol was intact, and the captain's and crew's personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever seen or heard from again. Mary Celeste was built in Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, and launched under British registration as Amazon in 1861. She was transferred to American ownership and registration in 1868, when she acquired her new name. Thereafter she sailed uneventfully until her 1872 voyage. At the salvage hearings in Gibraltar following her recovery, the court's officers considered various possibilities of foul play, including mutiny by Mary Celeste's crew, piracy by the Dei Gratia crew or others, and conspiracy to carry out insurance or salvage fraud. No convincing evidence supported these theories, but unresolved suspicions led to a relatively low salvage award. The inconclusive nature of the hearings fostered continued speculation as to the nature of the mystery, and the story has repeatedly been complicated by false detail and fantasy. Hypotheses that have been advanced include the effects on the crew of alcohol fumes rising from the cargo, submarine earthquakes, waterspouts, attack by a giant squid, and paranormal intervention. After the Gibraltar hearings, Mary Celeste continued in service under new owners. In 1885, her captain deliberately wrecked her off the coast of Haiti as part of an attempted insurance fraud. The story of her 1872 abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times in documentaries, novels, plays, and films, and the name of the ship has become a byword for unexplained desertion. In 1884, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", a short story based on the mystery, but spelled the vessel's name as Marie Celeste. The story's popularity led to the spelling becoming more common than the original in everyday use.

My first thought was that Joan Lindsay used the incorrect spelling – Marie Celeste – and this made me curious if this was intentional. Perhaps Lindsay is giving us a clue that the much-exaggerated story of the picnic is more interesting than the actual facts of the incident; however, I do not find this to be the case, because of Sara’s disfigured corpse appearing before the Headmistress at the end of the book. Clearly something beyond the realm of rational facts occurred at Hanging Rock.
That said, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the stories of the Marie Celeste and Hanging Rock didn’t quite mesh in a logical sense. It was at this point that I realized that it is not Hanging Rock that is the ghost ship, but Applegate College.

Applegate College is the Marie Celeste. The house lost its crew to mysterious circumstances, was found abandoned by Headmistress Applegate, and renamed and repurposed. It is my belief that Lindsay’s clue to the reader is that HM Applegate conspired with the other teachers, most of whom hated children, to use the picnic as an opportunity to murder a few of the girls, make it look like an accident, thus plunging the college into a panic which would inevitably result in bankruptcy – a bankruptcy that is mentioned several times in terms of the fired teacher not being able to receive her missing salary. HM Applegate mentions that she intends to sell more shares of the college, and it is my belief that she wanted to do this earlier but the picnic story got out of control. She intended to bankrupt the college, thereby committing fraud while knowingly collecting money from the sale of shares and presumably collecting insurance money also. The key to this realization is the death of Sara, whom HM Applegate realized had figured out the truth of the picnic.

Lastly, there remains a true mystery which HM Applegate did not bargain for: the obvious paranormal activity surrounding the picnic and subsequent events. Lindsay seems to be indicating that Saint Valentine is the paranormal force acting on the college, and without any real evidence to deny that or point to another entity, we are left believing that it must have been the Angel of Saint Vincent. It certainly is a mysterious scene when the girls in the gymnasium all have their eyes locked on something as tall as a wall, something which is invisible to the teacher presumably because she was hired after the picnic and was not in attendance.

I have also just learned that the final chapter – Chapter 18 - was removed from the original publication but has since become available as a stand-alone piece. I will read Chapter 18 and report back whether my theories are found true, false, or remain a mystery.




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