Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

Again she thought to hear the cry of that other victim of her brother-in-law’s displeasure, the little mare who, conveniently, had staked herself. Anger and fear conflicted in Ellen Roxburgh, together with relief that herself, the least deserving of the three, was assured of a refuge.

They had reached the door. Garnet Roxburgh handed her down, but made no move to go inside and pay his respects to his brother.

Mrs Roxburgh did not urge him to hold to his original intention; nor did she reveal to her husband, as he carved the lamb, the peculiarly distressing circumstances in which she had recently found herself.

Instead she wrote:

6 April

Walked by myself round the Point. Magnificent views of mountain and river seen by an oppressive light — stormy to say the least. An unpleasant incident on which I do not propose to dwell. Only heartening to know that whatever bad I find in myself is of no account beside the positive evil I discover in others. I do not mean the instinctive brutality of the human beast, but the considered evil of a calculating mind. When I say ‘others’ I mean An Other (and no fiend imagined on the moor at dusk in my inexperienced girlhood).

How fortunate I am in my dear husband who is goodness itself!

At dinner Mr R. was anoyed at the lamb which he found tough. I said it cld be the knife. He agreed I cld be right as indeed I was. The evening we spent together continued uneventful. I was glad of it.

Would call in Dr A. Feel sick and ill. Nothing, alas, for which he would know a medicine.

Later

A miracle ! As we were about to prepare for bed, dear Dr A. arrived with news that a brig ( Bristol Maid I think she is called) had berthed that evening — out of England — and wld sail on the return voyage, in ballast as far as Singapore, thence via the Cape — Home! The good doctor is negotiating with the company’s agent to secure us a passage, though their vessel he says, does not cater for passengers as a rule. Mr R. and I have finished our prayers and kissed each other. We cld of danced!

O Lord, my gratitude will know no bounds, nor will I cease to regret my shortcomings …

The day of days was a grey one splashed with blue, like many others experienced by them at Hobart Town. The Roxburghs were early aboard after hearing from the agent that the master was anxious to take advantage of a wind which augured well for their voyage to Sydney. Dr Aspinall, though not his lady, who was indisposed, accompanied them down to the ship.

Mrs Roxburgh was in something of a dither, counting and recounting their trunks, and visibly experiencing despair while that which contained Mr Roxburgh’s books was temporarily lost. The cabin, although narrow, was nothing to complain about, as yet. There were sights and sounds, all the bustle of departure, to delight travellers who had been delayed against their will.

Captain Purdew, a decent, uncomplicated, seafaring man, had scarce introduced himself to those who were to be his passengers, when Mr Roxburgh broke away from their little group with a cry of what sounded like physical anguish.

‘Here we are, my dear fellow! I was afraid we had offended you, and that in spite of my messages, you would not come. Now, thank God, we may depart in peace, our conscience at rest!’

Garnet Roxburgh’s smile, as he reached the end of the gang-board and stepped on deck, suggested that he had little belief in the brand of sententiousness his brother went in for. He came on offering his hand here and there with the authority of one who considers himself a power in the community, but stopped short of his sister-in-law with such a slight, wooden bow that she alone could have recognized the ironical intent.

‘If you must load yourself with conscience,’ he replied half to his brother.

‘Any plans and moves have been dictated entirely by my health. But I was afraid you might think us ungrateful after accepting your hospitality and kindness.’

Garnet sighed. ‘Nothing is broken!’ It was plain to his sister-in-law how much his brother bored him. ‘Excepting a close relationship — and that, I imagine, rarely mends once fate and distance go to work on it.’

He was looking at Mrs Roxburgh, not so much expecting confirmation as to hold her responsible for the break.

For her the situation was becoming unbearable. Although she could scarcely bring herself to look him in the face, she had to; nor were Dr Aspinall, Captain Purdew, or her husband the slightest help, with their interjections, expostulations, and tenders of advice in the form of maxims and platitudes. The scene as it was written could only be played by Garnet Roxburgh and herself.

Such glimpses as she had of him on this morning of echoes and clinging cold showed him at his best and worst. Dressed in the closefitting green coat with fur collar he had been wearing the day he came to her rescue, his figure showed an elegance of line which would have made him conspicuous anywhere in that primitive Colony. An intolerant, even insolent bearing, more pronounced today, made it clear that he was aware of this. As for the face, it glowed from an extra burnishing by the early morning drive. She had seldom allowed herself to examine his face for fear of being endangered by his looks. Now it almost literally stunned her to think that for a few instants those cheeks had rasped her own, and that the sensuality buried inside her had risen to the surface and wrestled with his more overt lust.

Mrs Roxburgh caught at a rope to steady herself under the weight of her immodest thoughts.

‘Are you unwell?’ he asked without evident concern.

‘Thank you. My health was always excellent.’

Then she softened, in accordance with convention and circum-stance. ‘Isn’t it a pretty scene? A watercolour!’ she pronounced. ‘In Van Diemen’s Land, almost every landscape is a watercolour.’

He said that he had not noticed her taking advantage of it.

‘I am without accomplishments,’ she replied.

Now it was her husband coming to her rescue, or else to deliver the final blow. ‘Garnet, dear boy,’ Austin Roxburgh’s voice began in the key it assumed for affectionate recollections of the past; it made him sound old-womanish, jealous old-womanish at that, ‘I woke in the night, Garnet, and remembered the time your horse threw you — we were both still only boys in our teens — and they carried you home — you were white enough for me to think you dead. I went so cold. I couldn’t imagine how I’d live without you.’

Garnet tried to break the mood by pummelling his brother roughly on the shoulder. ‘And here we are — both alive — and living happily without each other!’

But Austin Roxburgh was not to be denied his ration of sentiment. ‘You remember old Nurse Hayes? She was as alarmed as I. So much so, when you came to, she allowed us a drink of liquorice-water — and accepted a tot herself.’

Garnet Roxburgh was staring at the deck from under his eyelids; his mouth might have formed, and quickly sucked back, a bubble. ‘I remember the liquorice-water. What poison!’

The brothers laughed immoderately as the sun showed from between the ribbons of watery cloud.

Captain Purdew announced that he would soon be forced to put their visitors ashore.

‘And Nurse?’

‘She died, of course. At a great age.’

‘I remember she used to allow us to feel her goitre, as a treat.’

Seeing that it was a moment in which she could have no part, Mrs Roxburgh went below. The landscape which she thought she had begun to hate until on the point of leaving it, was breaking up into brilliant fragments under pressure from the suddenly dominant sun. On the companion-ladder her legs felt weak, her cheeks sticky, which she wiped with the back of a glove; while the voices of the brothers continued rising overhead, wreathing and intertwining as though in the last throes of a rememorative embrace.