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Edith Horton
The youngest boarder at Appleyard College. Sara Waybourne is small for her age, but what she lacks in size, she makes up for in attitude. Dreamy and defiant, Sara is an orphan whose finances are overseen by a legal guardian, Mr. Jasper Cosgrove. Mr. Cosgrove is not a hands-on guardian, however, and he frequently leaves Sara in the care of Appleyard College during breaks and holidays—much to the dismay of Mrs. Appleyard, who finds the incorrigible Sara difficult and odious. The lonely Sara idolizes her roommate, Miranda, and is devastated when she disappears during the picnic at Hanging Rock. With Miranda gone, Sara struggles to fit in with her fellow students and to make nice with Mrs. Appleyard—she falls ill toward the end of the novel, taking to bed and refusing to eat, and is eventually discovered dead in a hydrangea bush behind the school with her face crushed beyond recognition. Sara’s death is a mystery, and whether she took her own life or was killed by Mrs. Appleyard is left deliberately ambiguous—another of the novel’s mysterious unknowns.
Sara Waybourne Quotes in Picnic at Hanging Rock
The Picnic at Hanging Rock quotes below are all either spoken by Sara Waybourne or refer to Sara Waybourne. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9 Quotes
Sara had just reached the door when she was called back. “I omitted to mention that if I have not heard from your guardian by Easter I shall be obliged to make other arrangements for your education.”
For the first time a change of expression flickered behind the great eyes. “What arrangements?”
“That will have to be decided. There are Institutions.”
“Oh, no. No. Not that. Not again.”
“One must learn to face up to facts, Sara. After all, you are thirteen years old. You may go.”
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Chapter 15 Quotes
The clock on the stairs had just struck for half past twelve when the door of Mrs. Appleyard’s room opened noiselessly, inch by inch, and an old woman carrying a nightlight came out on to the landing. An old woman with head bowed under a forest of curling pins, with pendulous breasts and sagging stomach beneath a flannel dressing-gown. No human being - not even Arthur - had ever seen her thus, without the battledress of steel and whalebone in which for eighteen hours a day the Headmistress was accustomed to face the world.
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Chapter 16 Quotes
To the left, on higher ground, a pile of stones . . . on one of them a large black spider, spread-eagled, asleep in the sun. She had always been afraid of spiders, looked round for something with which to strike it down and saw Sara Waybourne, in a nightdress, with one eye fixed and staring from a mask of rotting flesh.
An eagle hovering high above the golden peaks heard her scream as she ran towards the precipice and jumped. The spider scuttled to safety as the clumsy body went bouncing and rolling from rock to rock towards the valley below. Until at last the head in the brown hat was impaled upon a jutting crag.
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Sara Waybourne Character Timeline in Picnic at Hanging Rock
The timeline below shows where the character Sara Waybourne appears in Picnic at Hanging Rock. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...dreaming of her late husband. She heads upstairs and enters a classroom to check on Sara Waybourne, the school’s youngest boarder. Sara has been held back from the picnic and made...
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By the time eight o’clock arrives, the night has grown dark. The “unrepentant” Sara has been sent to bed, and Mrs. Appleyard, having eaten a large supper of her...
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Chapter 5
...are served at their regular times, most of the girls are too distressed to eat. Sara, who idolized Miranda, is particularly upset.
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...will damage the “prestige and social standing” of the college, and wishes that Edith or Sara had disappeared instead.
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Chapter 9
...on fees due to their parents’ hesitation to pay tuition. One of these students is Sara Waybourne. One morning, Mrs. Appleyard summons Sara to her office and tells her that her...
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...she knows what he means—in Melbourne, people are saying “horrible” things about the school. Spotting Sara—her favorite pupil—looking sad, she asks the girl what the matter is. Sara tells Mrs. Valange...
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On the drive, Mrs. Valange writes a note to Sara and tucks it into an envelope. She gives Tom a little money to deliver it,...
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The other girls blame Sara for Mrs. Valange’s departure after hearing rumors that the row between the art teacher and...
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Sara spends much of her time alone in the room she once shared with Miranda. None...
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Chapter 11
...so do many other characters. Mrs. Appleyard is “bloated and blotched by evil vapours,” while Sara dreams happily of Miranda, her only escape from the slights she faces at school during...
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Chapter 12
In the gymnasium, Irma finds Sara strapped to a board meant to correct posture while Miss Lumley and Mademoiselle lead the...
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...they hear a horrible “rasping cry” from the corner of the room—nobody remembered to unstrap Sara from the posture-correcting board.
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Chapter 13
...return after Easter—much to Mrs. Appleyard’s chagrin, one of the few students remaining will be Sara. She closes the ledger, writes her letters, and goes up to bed.
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The only student uninterested in the scandal is Sara—whose increasing pallor of late has prompted Mademoiselle to ask Mrs. Appleyard to send for Doctor...
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Minnie enters Sara’s room to find her sitting up in bed looking ill. Minnie tries to put the...
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Chapter 15
...downstairs carrying what looks like a small basket. Mrs. Appleyard tells Minnie that Mr. Cosgrove, Sara’s guardian, is expected to come fetch her sometime this morning. Mrs. Appleyard insists that she’ll...
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...presents herself at the door and says she’d like a word with the headmistress about Sara—she watches an “evil wind” cross over the woman’s face at the very mention of the...
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Mrs. Appleyard coldly says that Sara will not be invited back for another term. Her guardian, she says, showed up and...
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...of the maids comes to Mademoiselle and tells her that she needs help clearing out Sara and Miranda’s old room. Mademoiselle follows her down the hall.
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In the room, Mademoiselle finds things in “depressing disorder.” It seems as if Sara has left everything behind—indeed, even her suitcase is unpacked, a detail that Mademoiselle would find...
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...and cannot sleep. She keeps picturing the miniature portrait of Miranda on the mantelpiece—it was Sara’s most treasured possession, and the girl even carried it in her pocket on school outings....
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...of a clock from downstairs. She creeps down the hall and peeks into Miranda and Sara’s old room, now empty. She recalls bending over Sara’s bed, listening to the girl cry...
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...and where. Mrs. Appleyard is having trouble focusing on the conversation—especially when Mr. Whitehead mentions Sara’s love of pansies and suggests planting them to surprise her upon her return.
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...she reads the letter, which is dated two days ago. It is from Mr. Cosgrove, Sara’s guardian, and it explains his intent to come collect her from the college on Easter...
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Chapter 16
...of her inadequate grasp of the language,) describes Mademoiselle’s fears about the situation of one Sara Waybourne.
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Mademoiselle writes that on the morning of the 22nd, Mrs. Appleyard informed her that Sara had been taken away by her guardian—a fact which surprised Mademoiselle, who now fears that...
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...been crushed in—still, the gardener knows from her tiny stature that the dead girl is Sara Waybourne. The gardener scrambles from the hedge and goes up to Mrs. Appleyard’s study to...
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...her gloves. As she climbs higher and higher, she thinks of the missing girls—and of Sara.
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...something with which to kill it. When she turns around, she finds herself looking at Sara Waybourne staring at her from behind “a mask of rotting flesh.” Mrs. Appleyard takes a...
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