The Dressmaker

Part 3: Felt (Chapters 19 – 26)

‘A nonwoven fabric made from short wool fibres lying in all directions, which become interlocked with steam, heat and pressure into a dense material. Dyed in plain, clear colours. Used for skirts, bonnets and gloves’ – Fabrics for Needlework

Tilly is distraught and although Sergeant Farrat tries to assuage her guilt, the memories of what happened when Stewart Pettyman died flood back to her. Sergeant Farrat recalls having to send young Tilly away and confesses that he regretted ever having done so. His official police report and, likewise, his eulogy at the funeral simply explain the true love that Teddy and Tilly shared and how Tilly had begged him not to jump in the silo but it was merely a freak accident, a fluke. At the funeral, Farrat berates the townspeople for their narrow-mindedness and reveres Teddy in his unbridled love for Tilly, an outcast. The townsfolk are unconvinced that Tilly should be forgiven and remain hostile toward her.

The days pass and Tilly remains at home as her mother cares for her, exhausted by grief and riddled with guilt and anguish. Unable to stay, the McSwiney family bury their son Teddy and drive on, towing their caravans away from the town of Dungatar forever. Before they leave, Barney sheepishly presents Tilly with their cow for milking and their brood of chickens.

As tensions in the town mount and the residents aggravate each other’s tempers and need for retribution, a new seamstress Una Pleasance arrives, cementing Tilly as an outsider as she is no longer even needed as a dressmaker. Some of the townswomen are nominated to go up to The Hill and request all their half-made clothes back so that Una can complete them. To make money, Tilly agrees to make outfits for the ladies of the neighbouring town of Winyerp. Meanwhile, although Una is a seamstress and can bring together an outfit, she has a terrible fashion sense and her outfits for the ladies are hideous and fail to make the women feel as bewitching as Tilly’s creations had once done. As a drama Eisteddfod approaches, the Winyerp women enlist Tilly to make their costumes for the performance, leaving the Dungatar women to rely on Una creating theirs. But they soon realise they need Tilly to make their outfits as Una is just not good enough and they remove the town insurance money from savings and pay Tilly, who happily accepts on final job for the townsfolk.

Falling suddenly ill, Molly has a fall and dies leaving Tilly on her own in the house on The Hill. She frequently envisions Teddy and her mother and vows to no longer let pain be a curse, but rather a ‘catalyst’ and ‘propeller’ that will push her toward a better life.

Part 4: Brocade (Chapters 27 – 33)

‘Opulent fabric woven from a combination of plain and silky yarns to produce a striking texture on a dull background. Raised floral or figurative patterns, often emphasised by contrasting colour. Used for decorative wraps and upholstery’ – Fabrics for Needlework

Tired of hiding his inclinations, Sergeant Farrat wears a dress and high-heels to the funeral, delivering another touching eulogy and helping to shovel the dirt over Molly’s coffin in the pelting rain. Getting hopelessly drunk and returning to The Hill, Tilly and Farrat begin tossing out all the old records that Molly used to play. In a fluke, a drunken Tilly throws her mother’s radiogram and it smashes into Beula who had been spying on them both. During the night, Beula’s wound festers and days later, Farrat comes upon her with her face mangled by the radiogram. He takes her to the hospital and her lies continue, Beula asserts that she ‘tripped and fell’ but her injuries are permanent. Farrat sends her on a train to Melbourne in a last ditch effort to see a specialist but his sympathy for the meddling woman is at a minimum as he knows she is on her way to a sanatorium. A few days after Beula’s unfortunate accident, Mr Almanac (the town’s resident chemist) drowns and Farrat is left bewildered at the suspicious turn of events.

Meanwhile, Marigold is visited by Tilly who exposes the truth behind her evil husband; that after impregnating Molly when she was young and pushing Farrat to exile the young Tilly when his son Stewart had died, he was also responsible for her difficult employment at the Melbournian fabrics factory. After confronting her husband Evan about the myriad of affairs he has had (the most recent being Una Pleasance) and drugging her into oblivion so that he could continue in his dalliances, Marigold slashes his Achilles tendon with a kitchen knife and lets him slowly bleed to death. She retires to her bedroom, downing the entire bottle of sleeping tonic that Evan would use to sedate her and mixing it with a deadly concoction of alcohol.

Her attempt at suicide was not successful and later, as he retells the incident to Tilly, Sergeant Farrat says he had to ‘commit Marigold’ and was subsequently disgusted at having found ‘drugs…pornographic books, even blue films’ at the residence. A district inspector comes and questions Tilly but she remains unperturbed, ransacking her own house and ‘remodelled[ing]’ it to accommodate her new sewing workshop.

As preparations for the Eisteddfod continue and the townsfolk are embroiled in rehearsing the Shakespearian play Macbeth, they bicker over parts in an effort to take prime spot on the stage. Tilly completes the costumes that she had been paid handsomely to make by the Dungatar citizens and as they pile on the bus to their performance, Tilly first sets fire to her childhood home on The Hill. As she walks through the deserted town, untethering dogs from them collars and releasing horses from their stables, the fire licks up the trail of kerosene she has trailed throughout the main street and consumes the town buildings. Farrat tries to save the closet of frocks he has been keeping secret in Tilly’s home but she has disconnected the water, keen for the whole town to burn to the ground in one foul swoop.

The performance was a disaster, most of the citizens who had major parts had died suspiciously over the last week and those that were left presented a gaudy and comical delivery of the classic production. Winning the Eisteddfod was out of the question. Upon returning to Dungatar, the townsfolk are distraught; their town has been reduced to rubble and the money they had invested for insurance purposes had been spent of procuring Tilly’s services in making the costumes for their ambitious performance of Macbeth.

Meanwhile, Tilly has vanished; the last known sighting of the dressmaker was as she waited, sitting atop her Singer sewing machine, at the train station.