Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

At sea

she wrote in her improved, but never altogether approved, hand ( at least my dear no one would deny it has its individual character ).

Just now remembered overhearing conversation between Mr Daintrey and Mr Roxburgh discussing his brother Garnet R. Mr Daintrey deciding that G. R., in spite of his looks, spirit, and prospects, showed himself a ‘lost soul’ from birth. Did not fully understand, but felt alarmed lest somebody accuse me behind my back of being ‘lost’. Mr Roxburgh, his mother, Mrs Daintrey, have all professed to find me agreeable and assured me of their approval and love. That wld not have prevented them recognizing what myself has always half suspected from my worst days at Z. It has stuck in my mind like a furze thorn in the thumb. (Had she known, Mrs Roxburgh wld have accused me of morbid thoughts !)

Went on deck early and was intocksicated by a sense of freedom, of pure joy. Gulls approaching, then swooning off. At moments I felt dizzy with the air I swallowed, but sad to think I will never explore this vast land seen at a distance through spray and fog. Captain Purdew bore down wanting to protect me. We smiled at each other more than necessary, because it was almost impossible to be heard, and for want, I suppose, of anything to say. Good, kind, tedjus men make me feel guilty. Perhaps it is Pa’s blood in my veins. I am given to fits of drunkenness without having indulged. Unlike many others, Mr Roxburgh does not bore me I think. I am sure I do not write this out of gratitude. A husband can become one of his wife’s most pleasing habits …

She put it away. The airless cabin had given her a head. Soon she must make up the beds, but would rest a little in the lower berth, overcome by a faintness, or languor, to which the motion of the ship contributed.

Mrs Roxburgh lay, not uncomfortably, except for a slight nausea, in the hollow her husband’s form had impressed on the palliasse, and was encouraged to re-enter her maze.

‘Whenever in doubt, ask, and I shall advise you, my dear, to the best of my ability,’ old Mrs Roxburgh promised after her ‘unlikely’ daughter-in-law had won her respect and affection.

She had a soft, perished neck, and rumbled gently after drinking tea, which she took in immoderate quantitites from forgetting the number of cups she had poured.

Her mother-in-law’s rumbles had calmed Ellen’s initial fright and roused in her a tenderness for the defenceless old thing.

The elder Mrs Roxburgh had not appeared at the wedding, which, conveniently, was ‘far too far’ a pity considering Aunt Triphena had insisted on standing by her niece to show that the girl came of a respectable, not to say substantial, family. The embarrassing question of whether to produce the father had been tactfully settled by nature when Dick was carried off by the drink. In fact, by giving Ellen a fright, it was more than anything Dick’s death which ensured that the ceremony would take place. Mr Roxburgh had caught her on the bounce, so to speak, after a renewal of their correspondence.

Aunt Tite had not been able to resist hinting at the bitter truth. Ellen, in her confusion, was ready to admit it, while none the less grateful to her pale, thin-legged stranger-lover descending from the coach, together with a second gentleman, his solicitor and friend, Mr Aubrey Daintrey. Mr Daintrey was the only member of the Roxburgh faction to attend the wedding and take stock of the background Mrs Tregaskis had provided. If he appreciated what he saw, he gave scarcely a formal sign. Mr Daintrey could not have been colder, steelier (steel with the slight tremor caused by inordinate tension) had he been acting as Mr Roxburgh’s second at a duel.

Aunt Tite, whose charity was only ever skin-deep, showed her generosity by choosing white satin and lace, with satin slippers and kid gloves, for her pauper niece. Hepzibah Tregaskis, as bridesmaid, wore rosebud pink which went with her pretty complexion. The bride, who had spent too much time in the fields, looked the swarthier for her white.

But Mr Roxburgh appeared enchanted. and Mr Daintrey the best man raised a few fairly unrestrained smiles.

Ellen hoped she would not cry. She would love her husband in accordance with what she was promising, and not only out of gratitude.

It was decided by Mr Roxburgh and his mother to defer the honeymoon, that the bride might be initiated without delay into the customs she was expected to adopt. So, from living isolated on a poor Cornish farm, Ellen Gluyas entered into temporary purdah in a Gloucestershire mansion, the family having moved from their original Winchester in the hopes that Mr Austin’s health might benefit by the mild climate and polite society at Cheltenham.

At least she rarely found herself alone: there was her gently admonishing mother-in-law; there were the servants. Most terrifying for Ellen Roxburgh was the maid who attended on her rising and her setting.

‘You should put yourself in her hands,’ old Mrs Roxburgh advised, with no more than an oblique glance at her newly acquired daughter-in-law. ‘Vetch will brush your hair, and help you to dress — and un-dress .’

‘But it is not what I’m used to,’ the younger Mrs Roxburgh protested. ‘And what shall I call her? Vetch? ’

‘If that is her name, what else?’

‘But nothing more?’

The old woman preferred to ignore a question which embarrassed her by betraying ignorance of worldly manners in her son’s wife, or else a regrettable perversity, for old Mrs Roxburgh was not unaware that the girl’s mother had been Lady Ottering’s maid.

Vetch was a trim, sour, elderly person who performed her duties according to rule, perfectly no doubt, but with a coldness which disdained one who was imperfection itself.

Ellen Roxburgh learned to lean back and enjoy the hair-brushing; she allowed herself to be dressed and undressed; but on the first occasion when Vetch knelt to peel the stockings from her legs, she put out a hand to stay her.

‘Why, ma’am, I’m accustomed to do what any lady expects.’

‘But I do not expect it. I was never so inactive. And cannot bear anyone to touch my feet. They’re ticklish.’

Though she laughed to encourage her maid, Vetch failed to kindle; a lifetime of service seemed to have damped her responses to life.

Yes, her servants despised her, the young Mrs Roxburgh could tell; they suspected her of wanting them to re-admit her to a society she had forsworn without sufficient thought for the secrets she was taking with her.

Old Mrs Roxburgh, on the other hand, was convinced that this honest and appealing girl could never be admitted to hers except in theory, and her heart began to bleed for her. In an effort to make amends, the old woman relinquished a ruby necklace and a topaz collar. ‘Why should you not have and enjoy what will be yours eventually?’

These were the sweets; the gall was in the copybook, because the mother-in-law was of the opinion it were best to start at the beginning, ‘… considering that your hand is not what one would call cultivated.’

So she was put to forming pothooks and hangers, until coming upon her pupil without her knowledge, the old woman sensed from the tilt of the head and a hunched shoulder the indignity the girl was warding off. Accordingly, they skipped pothooks. She was promoted to simple copying, and invited to compile inventories of linen, plate, and furniture, in spite of the fact that there was no immediate call for such records.

Then there was the journal favoured by old Mrs Roxburgh as a source of self-knowledge and an instrument for self-correction.

20 Aug 1821

I will make a start today at writing in this clean book which I hope not to spoil because I owe it to Them. My life has become all starts in every quarter — and sometimes fits as well if I wld give way to them. I must not complane, I have evrything — a house excepting it is Theirs, his Mother lives in one wing but eats with us, she is very kind. I have cloathes aplenty, servants not all of them necessary or desirable, who do not speak unless spoken to and then not always. I have a Spanish jennet. Mr R. has presented me besides with a pair of finches in a cage, and my little pug Tip, she is merry as a cricket. I ride out in my green habit though not far, Mr R. will not allow it, or I drive my own pony car, or we are driven out Mrs R. and me in the carridge, or chaise if the weather is fair. Freinds greet us, most of Mrs R.’s age. We sometimes call at some grave house and are invited to take a glass of wine or dish of tay. Unless I am spoke to in strange houses I keep quiet for fear of what may jump out of my mouth. But will learn no doubt. They have give me books to read — Bishop Taylor’s Sermons and Miss Edgeworth, and the crib to the Latin poet that Mr R. most loves. Not being able to make much of any of it yet, I sit with my books more often than I read, and look at the toe of my shoe, or watch the wasps trying to get at the pears through the muslin bags, or my little pug to catch her tail. I wish I would dare go inside the kitchen to make some jam, I may yet, and read a book without my eyes ache …