Patrick White - Voss

‘But you know my niece!’ he cried, in some impatience.

Delay always turned him red.

‘It is true, sir,’ Palethorpe admitted, ‘the young lady is known to me. By acquaintance, though, not by scientific study.’

No one could take exception to Palethorpe, with the result that he had got so far and no farther. He was above ambition. The colonial air had not destroyed his willingness to serve a master; both he and his discreet wife were of the doormat class, although of that superior quality which some impeccable doormats have. Sometimes the couple would discuss the feet that used them, or would lay evidence before each other, it might be more correct to say, for discussion implies criticism, and the Palethorpes did not criticize.

For instance, Mrs Palethorpe would begin:

‘I do believe the paisley shawl suits me better than I would have thought. Do you not consider, Mr Palethorpe, the shawl suits me, after all?’

‘Yes, yes. Very well. Very well,’ her husband answered steamily.

For, on this, as on almost every occasion, they were sipping tea. They were both near and far. In each other’s company, the Palethorpes always were.

‘The pattern suits me. I can carry it off. Being rather slim. Now stout ladies, I do not intend to criticize, it is not my habit, as you know, but Mrs Bonner cannot resist a large pattern.’

‘Mrs Bonner is of a generous, one might even say an embarrassingly generous nature. It was kindness itself to hand on the shawl.’

‘Oh, I appreciate it, Mr Palethorpe. It was the height of generosity. Mrs Bonner is of that character which is definitely sustained by generous giving. She is for ever pressing presents.’

‘And after so little wear. The paisley shawl is of the July consignment. I can remember well. Some ladies did consider the patterns a little florid for their tastes.’

‘But tastes do differ.’

‘Even perfect tastes. We cannot deny, Edith, that Mrs Bonner is in perfect taste.’

‘Oh, Mr Palethorpe, do not mortify me! If I was to harbour such a thought. Not in perfect taste!’

‘And Miss Belle.’

‘And we must not forget poor Miss Trevelyan.’

‘No.’

‘Although she is an intellectual young lady, and sometimes rather quiet.’

The Palethorpes sipped their tea.

‘The little girl is grown a pretty child. But serious, one would say,’ Mr Palethorpe resumed.

‘Altogether like, pardon me, like Miss Trevelyan. Which is pure coincidence, of course, for the little girl is not hers.’

The Palethorpes did grow steamy over tea in that climate.

Then Mrs Palethorpe asked:

‘How long is it, would you say, since the expedition left?’

‘I did make a note of it, as of all events of importance, but without consulting my journal, I could not speak with certainty.’

‘I would not inconvenience you,’ Mrs Palethorpe said.

She stirred her tea.

‘That Mr Voss, Mr Palethorpe, I have never asked, but did he not impress you as, to say the least, well, I do not wish to be vulgar, but, a funny sort of man?’

‘He is a German.’

Then Mrs Palethorpe asked with inordinate courage:

‘Do you consider this German is acceptable to Mr Bonner?’

Her husband changed position.

‘I do not know,’ he said, ‘and am too discreet to ask.’

Then, when his wife was crushed, he added:

‘But I do know, from long association with my employer, that Mr Bonner will not see what he does not wish to see, and all Sydney waiting for him to remove the blinkers.’

Mr Palethorpe gave a high, thin laugh, which was full of feeling, therefore quite unlike him.

‘All Sydney? Well, now! Is not that a slight exaggeration?’

‘My dear Edith,’ said Mr Palethorpe, ‘if a person is not allowed some occasional latitude, where will he find his recreation?’

His wife sighed agreement. She did invariably agree, because she was so pleased with him.

Then the Palethorpes continued to sip their tea, themselves a superior milky white, like the cups they had brought out from Home. No coarse stuff. They sat and listened to the rather melancholy accompaniment of their stomachs, and were soon walking in the rain in the neighbourhood of Fulham, their spiritual environment.

No one could take exception to the Palethorpes, which made them the more exasperating, as Mr Bonner realized upon that occasion when he had been hoping for advice. Palethorpe sensed this, he always did, and accordingly was quick to soothe.

Palethorpe said:

‘I do trust the young lady’s health will benefit by a short course of salt-water baths.’

‘It is not her health, Palethorpe,’ answered the merchant. ‘That is, it is, and it is not.’

‘Ah?’ hinted his inferior, with that inflection which derives from superior knowledge.

‘Altogether, I do not know what to make of it.’

Then the merchant went away, disappointed, and leaving disappointment behind.

Mr Bonner took the brougham, which was waiting for him, as always at that hour. After composing his legs for the journey, he unfolded them, and asked to stop at Todmans’, where they robbed him over three pears, beautifully nesting in their own leaves, in a little box. So he sat in the gloom of the enclosed brougham, holding the box of expensive pears, surrounded by their generous scent, gradually even by their golden light, and hoped that the material offering he intended making to his niece would express that affection which might be absent from his voice and looks. He was rather lonely in the brougham.

When they were entering the stone gateway of the house at Potts Point, which was no longer so very agreeable to him, he would have stopped the vehicle, and walked up the drive to postpone his arrival, but his attempts to attract attention were muffled by the upholstery; his voice fell back upon him, and he had not the will to raise the little lid through which he might have communicated with the driver. So he was carried on, unhappily, until there they were, clopping under the portico.

The door was already open.

‘Oh, sir,’ said Betty, the most recent of the girls who had replaced the dead Rose, ‘Miss Laura is taken proper sick.’

The merchant, to whom the effort of extricating himself from the brougham had given a congested look, was still holding his pears. It was a grey, gritty afternoon.

He did not consider it desirable to stimulate the flow of intelligence from this girl, a thin thing in her inherited dress, so he confined himself to uttering a few sounds that could not possibly have been construed as human.

‘Ah, Mr Bonner,’ said his wife, upon the stairs, and less avoidable, ‘I was on the point of sending. It is Laura. She is desperately ill. I brought Dr Bass. He left but a moment ago, most unsatisfactory. That young man, I will have it known amongst all our acquaintance, turned the pages of a book in my presence, to diagnose , if you please. When anyone of experience, when even I know, it is a brain fever. Mr Bonner, I must confess I am distracted.’

Indeed, her rings were scratching him unpleasantly.

Mr Bonner mounted higher on the spongy stairs. The ripe fruit had become dislodged inside the little box, and for all its sensuous perfection, was jumping and jostling as if it had been cheap and woody. He no longer cared for this house; it was since Belle had gone, Belle the golden, who would smell of ripe pears — or was he confused? — on those untroubled days between hateful summer and vicious winter.

‘Well, then, we will send for Dr Kilwinning,’ Mr Bonner heard his strange voice.

‘Oh, dear, you are so good, we have always known.’ His wife was mopping her eyes with a shred of cambric and a handful of rings.