Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

On my returning to the room where Mr R. was studying an account of the colonization of Van Diemen’s Land, he looked up and asked, ‘Did you not find letter-paper?’ I replied yes, but felt I was in no mind after all to write a letter, because what was there to tell, and my head ached. I could only fidget and spin the globe and trace the possible routes of escape from this most hateful quarter …

Garnet Roxburgh remarked soon after, ‘You no longer seem inclined to use the little mare I thought would win you over.’ On several occasions he invited her to accompany him on expeditions which might have proved of interest.

Her husband encouraged her to accept. ‘Go with him if you are disposed to, Ellen. You are not holding back on my account, I hope?’

She answered no, she was simply not disposed to ride round aimlessly.

‘But there’s purpose enough in Garnet’s need to oversee those who are working on his property. You would not be riding aimlessly by accompanying him.’

She wondered how Mr R. would have reacted had she gone off into hysterics.

Instead she had a fit of remorse, and went and kissed him on a dry cheek. ‘I wish I could oblige everybody — myself too.’

Mr Roxburgh hoped she was not becoming capricious.

Once as a girl Ellen Gluyas had set out walking to St Hya’s Well, of which she had heard but never visited till then on account of its being several miles distant. She walked all morning in what was heat for those parts, and tore her stockings on brambles, as well as her flesh, till blood ran. Still she walked in the heat of the day, and came across scarce a human being, only cows staring at her as they chewed. She found the well (or pool, rather) in the dark copse where they told her it was, its waters pitch black, and so cold she gasped as she plunged her arms. She was soon crying for some predicament which probably nobody, least of all Ellen Gluyas could have explained: no specific sin, only presentiment of an evil she would have to face sooner or later. Presently, after getting up courage, she let herself down into the pool, clothes and all, hanging by a bough. When she had become totally immersed, and the breath frightened out of her by icy water, together with any thought beyond that of escaping back to earth, she managed, still clinging to the bough, to hoist herself upon the bank. She sat awhile in a meadow, in the sun, no longer crying, perhaps smiling, for she could feel the skin divided on her cheeks as though into webs as she sorted out the tails of her hair.

For the first time in many years she remembered this incident, and how her presentiment of evil had oppressed her over months, and then come to nothing, or else she had exorcized the threat by immersion in the pool; whereas on this morning at ‘Dulcet’, foreboding became more explicit, almost as though she had heard a whip crack in her ear, or pistol shot. For years, or more precisely, since the training she received from her mother-in-law, she had taken it for granted that her Christian faith insured her against evil, until on Christmas Day doubts came faltering into her mind, even as the chariots of the hosts were charging through the stone arch towards assured victory. Nor could she look for assurance, here in a foreign country, in any of those darker myths of place which had dispersed her fears during her Cornish girlhood.

Instead she was faced with her own vulnerable image, swimming at her out of the mirrors in this ill-lit house, making her wonder whether those around her recognized what was happening to her.

But nobody had; they passed and smiled, or passed and ignored, out of familiarity. This morning there was the collision of pudding basins from the kitchen, and the sound of turkeys, like plucked instruments, from the yard, and lazy men clearing their throats, and Mr R. directing Mrs Brennan in brewing senna tea, which he hoped would cure the constipation he was suffering from.

As soon as she heard Garnet Roxburgh leave on his round of inspection, Mrs Roxburgh called Holly and said, ‘Will you ask Tim to saddle the mare? The day is so fine I must take advantage of it.’

‘But Mr Garnet, m’m, is already gone. Are you allowed to ride alone?’

Mrs Roxburgh refrained from answering a question which a lady born and bred would have considered impertinent, and the girl went to do as she was told.

By the time she returned her mistress was waiting to be hooked into her green habit, and to have the veil secured at the nape of her neck.

Although Holly appeared not to notice, the glass showed Mrs Roxburgh unnaturally drawn, her skin chalky, her lips thin; she moistened the lips inside the veil in which she was encaged.

But Holly, who had troubles of her own, remained unaware of anybody else’s outward manifestations, and only remarked, ‘I do hope the little mare is not too frisky, m’m, from too much oats all these days when you wasn’t using her.’

Mrs Roxburgh’s answer was not intelligible as she was making haste to pass through the house and reach the yard. She remembered also the day Dapple had thrown her and she lost her child. Now at least she was not with child and nobody could blame her for behaving irresponsibly.

As she reached the yard she could hear Mr R. in the kitchen still holding forth on the virtue of senna pods, and the pathos of the inadequate affection she and her husband had for each other worked rather painfully in her.

She swept past, leaving Holly on the step.

‘Oh, m’m, take care of yourself!’ the girl called, as though suddenly caught up into the scheme of things.

When Mrs Roxburgh reached the stable her mount was standing ready, while the groom put in time coaxing the ultimate reflection out of her glossy rump. The mare turned her head and whinnied. Tim smiled, but did not raise his eyelids, fringed almost invisibly with sandy lashes. He gave the impression that he felt he was taking part in a conspiracy.

After she had settled herself in the saddle Mrs Roxburgh lightly struck the mare’s shoulder with her crop, and Merle started cavorting rocking-horse style, but only for a short space, before understanding was re-established between the two of them; the mare arched her neck, let the wind out of her belly, and resigned herself.

If Merle felt she was at her rider’s disposal Mrs Roxburgh had still to decide whether to head for the strong-flowing river with the poplars rearing and flashing on its banks, or to choose the blander pasture-lands outspread at the foot of the mountain.

Her mind was only made up on hearing a voice calling from the direction of the river. She could not distinguish the words, but knew from their tone that they were part of some injunction issued by Garnet Roxburgh. Merle whinnied high, to encourage a prospective companion, and the other horse, today the blue, not the strawberry roan, answered deeper while coming at a trot.

At the same time Mrs Roxburgh put her mare almost straight into a canter. The fields were soon flickering and streaming. In her present frame of mind her civility might not have outlasted her brother-in-law’s company. Had she been wearing spurs, which Mr R. had never permitted, she would have ploughed the horse’s sides; instead she lashed her with the crop three or four times on shoulder and flank.

Exposed to emotions she had probably never encountered before, the innocent creature broke into a gallop, and from that, perhaps with freedom in mind, bolted up the rough mountain road on arriving at the fork. This was what Mrs Roxburgh herself might have chosen, but in calmer circumstances. She had never contended with a bolting horse. Exhilaration turned to dry, breathless anxiety. The mare’s neck had grown rigid as she held her head close to the ground, or alternately, as high in the air as the martingale allowed; while the rider sawed, first tentatively, then in savage desperation at what she remembered as a velvet mouth. Stones were flying around them as the mare’s shoes struck the loose surface of the road. Reverberations prevented her rider from hearing whether Garnet Roxburgh was still in pursuit on his cobby roan.