Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

‘I am surprised’, she said, ‘that at your age you did not re-marry.’ Although younger herself, she could enjoy the prerogative of the married woman to advise her widower brother-in-law.

He snorted somewhat bitterly. ‘Marriage does not always cancel loneliness. And desirable partners have for the most part been whirled off in the dance by others more fortunate.’

Almost poetic, and coming from Garnet Roxburgh it did make her slightly sympathize.

She went so far as to say, ‘Now it is your turn not to believe, but I am sorry for you.’ At the same time she became aware that she had stiffened herself against the motion of her horse.

They must have returned by another way, for there, nestled in a hollow below them, she noticed the homestead, a picture of idyllic landed ease.

Garnet Roxburgh leaned down and stripped the head from a stalk of grass. ‘In any case it will soon be Christmas, and then perhaps you will unbend, Ellen.’

‘You are the one’, she cried, ‘who holds unmerited opinions of others!’

He grinned and threw away the crushed grass-seed. ‘I have invited friends to keep us company. Dear old Austin will love the opportunity of subjecting Dr Aspinall to interrogation on the moral, aesthetic, and scientific development of Van Diemen’s Land, while you, I hope, will take to the doctor’s wife. Maggie Aspinall is a lively and amusing young woman — not altogether appreciated by Hobart Town.’

Mrs Roxburgh confined herself to general murmurs of anticipated appreciation. ‘Is that the river?’ she asked, pointing with her riding-crop.

He looked at her sharply. ‘Why, yes — that is the Derwent — beyond the house.’ He had a certain expression for those he suspected of evading him, which she could not resist turning to catch before it left his face.

‘It has been a lovely outing,’ she said, ‘but I am glad to be home — to describe for Mr Roxburgh all that I have seen.’

As they rode into the yard the same marionette of a servant was waiting to receive their horses.

That night she slept soundly, but awoke once to find tears on her cheeks and pillow, and realized that she had been dreaming of their misfortune, her second, consummate child, of whom they had never spoken again. She was glad to hear Mr Roxburgh snoring beside her; it would have been too painful had he asked her the reason for her tears, and soon, thanks to the fresh air and exercise that day, she was again soundly asleep.

Before long, Mrs Roxburgh was able to record in her journal:

Christmas Day, 1835

At ‘Dulcet’, Van Diemen’s Land

… so little like what we know, I can scarcely take it seriously. Mild, but a sultriness could be preparing to descend upon us. No sign of rejoicing. After all, most of the poor wretches are ‘prisoners’ and what have they to rejoice about beyond the prospect of getting drunk in the course of the day? I would like to talk to them, but there is a gulf between us, and I have lost the art of common speech.

Mr R. gave me a nice kiss, saying he had forgot my present this year. Told him we have each other and need no presents, though I had embroidered him a book-mark.

Garnet R. has not come to life. I am not surprised since last night.

On the Eve the Aspinalls arrived from Hobart Town and we shall be subjected to them while the festivities last. Don’t know why I shld seem to complane. They are in every way aimiable — at least Dr A. who is what one knows from Home as a reliable provinshul physician. I am less sure of his wife. She has a mole above her left eyebrow which I constantly find myself staring at. After we had left the gentlemen to finish their wine, she says ‘I hope you will call me “Maggie”. I am sure we will be great friends.’ In replying I did not commit myself to words, but mumbled a few sounds which she cld interpret any way she chose. Mrs A. understood and was not put out, because this is the way she expects herself and others to behave. She began a great chatter about her friends in town, said I must pay her a prolonged visit and make the acquaintance of all these people, some of them ‘charming’, more of them ‘ridiculous’, while implying that this did not lower them in her esteem. I said I would pay her a visit only if my husband agreed, and again we understood each other. She asked whether I played or sang, and I replied, both a little, but so badly I never performed in public, and for myself only on wet days. She then sat down and went into a few runs at the Dormer piano, and tried out her voice in a rehersal for her audience of gentlemen.

Mrs A. is what passes for pretty. Dark curls ajingle in her livelier moments which occur very frequently. Her cap all French lace and forget-me-nots, and her gown, in which I recognized the fashion of several years ago (not surprising in Van Diemen’s Land) low-cut to show a handsome bust, the bodice trimmed with numerous little pink bows. Mrs A. informed me that the material of her dress was gro de Naples and she had paid a fortune for it.

What with the gentlemen lingering over their wine, the musician and I grew pale with yawns. Mrs A.’s colour returned as her audience arrived in the drawing-room. Mr R. would have liked to benefit from Dr Aspinall’s medical advice, but the dr too far gone. Garnet R. leaned on the piano, all attention, and the lady was soon playing for him alone. I might have left them to it if ‘Maggie’ wld not have thought I was shirking a duty by not staying to pour tea.

I did go out to take the air and stroll a little. The moon was in its first quarter, the river a faint, silver coil in the distance. Often on such a night at Z., a country to which I belonged (more than I did to parents or family) I wld find myself wishing to be united with my surroundings, not as the dead, but fully alive. Here too, in spite of gratitude and love for a husband as dependent on me as I on him, I begin to feel closer to the country than to any human being. Reason, and the little I learned from the books I was given too late in life to more than fidget over, tells me I am wrong in thinking thus, but my instincts hanker after something deeper, which I may not experience this side of death.

So it seemed this Christmas Eve at ‘Dulcet’. I might have grown disgusted with the inhuman side of my nature had I not realized that the music had stopped, and that the vastness was filled only with silence and the call of a single melancholy bird. As I returned in the direction of the house I began to hear voices, muffled at first, in opposition to my night-bird. By such a watery moonlight I cld not have distinguished the forms of those engaged in conversation, who in any case remained the other side of the box hedge. My heart bumped as I trod the uneven ground, and I almost fell by catching a foot in a cow-print which had set hard. Then I heard from across the hedge a hoarse female laughter which conveyed to me the picture of Mrs Aspinall’s throat. Afterwards her words, ‘Oh no, you will spoil my dress! Please, Garnet!’ More laughter as he fumbled (I could not tell for sure, but sure I was). He mumbled ‘Maggie!’ over and over, as drunkenly as one of his despised shepherds. ‘And tomorrow is Christmas Day.’ ‘Should we not go in?’ Mrs A. asked. ‘Your sister-in-law may realize we are gone too long, and disapprove. She seems to me lacking entirely in human warmth, and prickly with moral principles.’ G. R. might have been retching. ‘Ellen is morality itself!’ ‘Then let us — shall we? go in?’ sighed Mrs A. There was the sound of what could have been a man’s hard palm sliding exasperated down a stone surface as they disengaged.

I wld have liked to retire immediately had Holly not brought the tea things and I was forced to preside. When we were at last in our own room I cld not make up my mind how much to tell Mr R. So I told him nothing of what I had not seen, but experienced more or less, from the other side of the box hedge.