Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

‘Oh,’ she cried on sighting her renegade friend, ‘you should never venture out unaccompanied at Moreton Bay. If you wish to take the air Mrs Lovell will have them harness the horses to the carriage, provided the hour is a reasonable one.’

‘As you must see, Miss Scrimshaw,’ Mrs Roxburgh pointed out, ‘I have come to no harm.’

Appropriating her friend’s arm the spinster may have remained uncertain. Probably no part of Mrs Roxburgh was actually broken, but Miss Scrimshaw herself had sustained many a spiritual bruise in spite of the toughness of seasoned leather.

‘In any case,’ she said, on guiding Mrs Roxburgh into the safety of the grounds, ‘I am glad you have come. I have good news for you. Your acquaintance is bound to be here this evening. Whatever made him postpone his visit the Commandant will see to it that Mr Pilcher pays his respects.’

Then she looked at Mrs Roxburgh, to receive approval, or to see her suspicions justified by the latter’s reactions. But Mrs Roxburgh did not utter, while her expression remained so withdrawn the face might have been sheltering behind the widow’s veil, which, Miss Scrimshaw noticed, her friend had omitted to wear.

After the profuse dinner customary at the residence the Commandant approached their guest, smiling as though for a secret between them, ‘The individual of whom we spoke will be here by half-past five, I’d say,’ he opened his repeater and frowned at it, ‘or six at the latest.’ He closed the watch, and smiled again, gratuitously it seemed to Mrs Roxburgh. ‘He’ll not shirk his duty on this occasion.’

One of the smaller girls inquired, ‘Is Mrs Roxbry goin’ to whip Mr Pilcher?’

‘What a thing to imagine!’ The mother blushed for her child’s supposition.

‘Then why does he have to be forced?’ wondered Totty.

‘But they’re old friends. There’s no question of his being forced !’

Mrs Lovell was so embarrassed she lowered her voice to inform Mrs Roxburgh, ‘You shall receive him, my dear, in the little parlour.’ Although intended as a kindness, it made the situation darker and stimulated curiosity. ‘There you will be both comfortable and — private. Unless you would care for Miss Scrimshaw to be present.’

Mrs Roxburgh politely implied that she would rather dispense with Miss Scrimshaw’s presence.

She might have wondered how to pass the time before the visit had she not realized the distasteful event must soon take place. So she arranged herself in the little parlour, and hoped that Miss Scrimshaw would not come offering advice beforehand.

The discreet lady had taken her cue, however: when the time came she simply announced, ‘Here is your visitor’ and left them to it.

Mrs Roxburgh had decided not to rise as her caller entered, but did so at once when the moment occurred, for she could hardly condemn an individual whose past was not more dubious than her own.

So here she was, every bit like a gentlewoman afflicted by some nervous disorder, wetting her lips and dabbing at them spasmodically with one of the handkerchiefs provided for her. ‘Won’t you sit down, Mr Pilcher?’ the uneasy gentlewoman invited. ‘I am so glad you have been able to come. This is perhaps the most comfortable chair. Or do you prefer something more upright?’

She winced for the rheumatics in her shoulder, which had not bothered her since her recovery from the inordinate journey, and which no doubt were the result of sleeping naked on damp ground. Of ‘all that’, Mr Pilcher could not have known, although on the other hand he might. There was no knowing what her eyes might have given away.

But the mate did not seem aware of any imposture. His own condition was more important, the inner life he must be living; and then he more than likely saw her as one who would become his accuser.

‘Thank you,’ he said when they were at last painfully seated opposite each other.

Pilcher had aged, to put it kindly. It made her touch her hair, and look for a glass which did not immediately offer itself. He was so thin as to look transparent in places, and even more deeply lined than before. She was not sure, but he might have suffered a seizure.

‘At least one can see’, she said in a tone adopted from some patroness or a mother-in-law, ‘you’re in excellent health, Mr Pilcher. I am so glad — so very glad.’

He hung his head, the hair cropped short, like a convict’s, down to a pepper-and-salt stubble.

He admitted formally, ‘I can’t complain,’ his voice without any of the venom she remembered.

‘I would like to offer you something, but am myself no more than a guest of the house.’ Thus absolved, the great lady dangled a wrist over the arm of her chair.

‘There is nothing,’ he assured her, ‘nothing I need.’

Now that both had done their duty by society, and established their bona fides as far as is humanly possible, Mrs Roxburgh looked at her caller and made the decidedly brutal request, ‘You must tell me all that has happened to you since last we met.’

She meant to encourage her visitor, or anyway, in some measure, but on hearing her own voice was reminded of the black swans encountered while living with her adoptive tribe. It was the same hissing as when the birds arched their necks, and extended their bills, spatulate and crimson, making ready to protect themselves against the intruder.

Although Mrs Roxburgh felt, and must have looked, pale in her black, she wondered how Mr Pilcher found her, but could not tell since he had launched into a narrative.

‘You’ll remember after we put out from the cay — after our attempt at caulking — the storm got up and separated our two boats.’

Mrs Roxburgh realized he did not intend her to answer, but she did. ‘Yes,’ she said gravely, ‘I could not easily forget.’

Like a good navigator, Mr Pilcher would not allow himself to be distracted. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘we was blown south at such a bat I’d not of been surprised had we landed up on a second reef. Particularly with the crew I’d got — all the rawest from Bristol Maid .’

Mrs Roxburgh remembered the hairs bristling on the humps of the bosun’s great toes, but decided against resurrecting the bosun. She saw that Mr Pilcher chose to manipulate the details and the persons in his life, at least since the parting from the sluggish long-boat. She rather envied the mate for having become his own guiding spirit. The details of her life had been chosen for her by whoever it is that decides.

‘Without charts and in such a gale, it wasn’t possible to navigate. I can only say’, Mr Pilcher said, ‘we must of been favoured by Providence.’

Becoming conscious of her stare, he lashed his hands round one of his emaciated knees.

‘We were lucky enough to find ourselves, when the storm abated, off a part of the coast where the pinnace could be easily beached. And glad I was to be rid of ’er. The sea, too. Never no more will I go to sea.’

He coughed, and hid the result in a handkerchief. He could not have been sure whether his audience was frowning at his decision to renounce a vocation, or simply disapproving of a dirty habit.

His voice grated and wavered. ‘From then on, we lived off the land so to say, and times was less lean, though often we went short. You get to hate one another when you’re hungry.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, while thinking that only a man could be so self-absorbed and boring.

But because her mother-in-law had taught her that a lady’s role in life is to listen, she leaned sideways and propped her chin on a receptive hand.

‘Some was for droring lots, to decide which of ’em ’twould be, but I wouldn’t have no part in that.’

‘And what about your companions? Did they favour eating one another?’