Riders In the Chariot

by Patrick White

  “Yes.”

  “Is she a nice lady?”

  “She lives in a shed below the post office and takes in washing.”

  Mrs Jolley breathed hard.

  “I would not of thought that a lady like you, of Topnotch Hall, and all, would associate beneath them. Mind you, I do not criticize. It is not my business, is it? Only I cannot truly say I have ever been on any sort of terms with a lady living in a shed.”

  But by now Miss Hare was too rapt to have been acquainted with any other.

  “Ah, but she,” she told very humbly, “she is the best of women.”

  Miss Hare would remember how she used to listen for the footsteps on the stairs. Very firm, rather heavy, relentless, they had seemed, until time and familiarity drew attention to the constancy of those sounds. Soon the woman lying in the room above could barely endure the tumult of her own emotions as she waited for the door to open.

  It was during a winter of the Second World War that people – at least one or two of them – began to wonder what had become of that old Miss Hare. It was a harmless thought, and so quickly dropped until one morning, running through the frost across what had been the lawn at Xanadu, young Gracie who, of all the Godbolds, had made that place her especial hunting ground, saw something at a window and went and told her mum.

  Although she had not seen much because of the dressing-table mirror jammed against the window, she thought she had recognized a piece of old Miss Hare. And Miss Hare had looked queer. Now Gracie Godbold had never seen a ghost, but if she had she knew it would have looked sort of misty-dirty like.

  So it was natural for the mother, a conscientious woman, to put on her hat and sober coat and go down to investigate.

  Nobody ever heard what emotions Mrs Godbold had experienced in the rooms and on the stairs at Xanadu. Discreet by nature, she was also uncommunicative. But she did at last, by peering and calling, arrive at the cell which contained the survivor, somewhere in the centre of that vast and crumbling comb.

  Miss Hare was lying on a bed of pomp and tatters.

  She said: “Mrs Godbold is it? I have been feeling rather unwell for several days. But hope it will pass with patience. I do not believe in fussing and doctors, because look at the animals. Oh dear, but I become breathless, and it is terribly cold when the frost sets in.”

  “I see,” said Mrs Godbold, and thought.

  She began very soon to do things. Simple, but soothing, as accorded with her own nature. She made Miss Hare comfortable. She washed her at evening, using a crystal basin the Hares had brought from Vienna – was it? – but long ago. She heated bricks and wrapped them in a blanket. And from the shed in which she lived she brought, on that and many evenings after, milk in a little white-enamelled can, a brown egg and a slice or two from an enormous loaf.

  So Mrs Godbold nursed Miss Hare the winter the latter had pneumonia. Many people remained unaware because Mrs Godbold did not talk, and Godbolds were no-hopers of the worst kind, and who, anyway, ever saw or spoke with that old, dirty, mad Miss Hare.

  Yet she reappeared. She had begun, very tentative, supporting herself on the furniture and, like a dog, listening for familiar sounds on the empty stairs.

  “You see, Miss,” said Mrs Godbold. “Soon you will be outside again.”

  “Ah,” said Miss Hare, “then I shall breathe.”

  But quickly looked at her companion’s somewhat flat and pallid face.

  “I shall be sorry, too,” she added, “because you will come to me no more.”

  Mrs Godbold made a little noise that was difficult to interpret.

  Then they glanced together out of the window at Xanadu, on which the mists had begun to hang, so that if it had not been for their own group of solid statuary, the world might have seemed at that hour ephemeral and melancholy.

  For Miss Hare, Mrs Godbold had become and indeed remained the most positive evidence of good. Physically she was too massive, and to some no doubt displeasing: too coarse, too flat of face, thick-armed, big of breast, waxy-skinned, the large pores opened by the steam from her copper. But nobody could deny Mrs Godbold her breadth of brow. She wore her hair in thick and glistening coils, and her eyes were a steady grey.

  As for her existence, that was endless. She knew by heart the grey hours when the world evolves, and would only rest a while to enjoy the evening star. Strangled by the arms of a weaned child, she was seldom it seemed without a second baby greedy at her breast, and a third impatient in her body. She would scrub, wash, bake, mend, and drag her husband from floor to bed when, of an evening, he had fallen down.

  “You will exhaust yourself,” Miss Hare warned.

  “I am used to it,” Mrs Godbold replied. “And am strong besides. When I was a girl we would work in the fields and walk for miles. That was in the fens. Before I came out. Flat country certainly, but it does not let you eat it up all that easy.” She laughed. “We would skate, too, all of us girls and boys; we was nine in the family. We would skate across the flooded country during a hard winter, miles and miles, everything so brittle. The twigs on the hedges looked as if you could have broken them off like glass.”

  Her eyes were suddenly brightened by what she was telling. Solidity in herself seemed to give to the glass twigs some mysterious, desirable, unattainable property of their own.

  Once while Miss Hare was feverish and really very ill she confided in her nurse:

  “I am afraid I may fall and hurt myself on so much glass. Will you let me hold your hand?”

  “Yes,” agreed the other, and gave it.

  She might have severed it if necessary with its wedding ring and all.

  “Gold,” Miss Hare mumbled. “Champing at the bit. Did you ever see the horses? I haven’t yet. But at times the wheels crush me unbearably.”

  Mrs Godbold remained a seated statue. The massive rumps of her horses waited, swishing their tails through eternity. The wheels of her chariot were solid gold, well-axled, as might have been expected. Or so it seemed to the sick woman whose own vision never formed, remaining a confusion of light, at most an outline of vague and fiery pain.

  “Never,” complained Miss Hare. “Never. Never. As if I were not intended to discover.”

  Whereupon she succeeded in twisting herself upright.

  “Go to sleep. Too much talk will not do you any good,” advised the nurse.

  And looked put out, at least for her, as if the patient had destroyed something they had been sharing.

  ‘Oh, but I am ill,” Miss Hare whimpered.

  Mrs Godbold let the silence slip by. Then, ever so gradually, she had ventured on a suggestion.

  “I will pray for you,” she said.

  “If it will do you any good,” Miss Hare sighed. “I hope you will take the opportunity. But leaves are best, I find, plastered moist on the forehead.”

  Then she drifted off, and Mrs Godbold continued to sit beside her for a while. Evening was a perfect silence. The tranquil light interceding with the darkness held for a moment a thread of cobweb in its balance.

  When she was recovered, Miss Hare decided on one occasion to sound her friend.

  “I believe we exchanged some confidences while I was so ill.”

  Mrs Godbold did not wish to answer but felt compelled to.

  “What confidences?” she asked, turning away.

  “About the Chariot.”

  Mrs Godbold blushed.

  “Some people,” she said, “get funny ideas when they are sick.”

  Miss Hare was not deceived, however, and remained convinced they would continue to share a secret, after her friend had returned to carry out her life sentence of love and labour in the shed below the post office.

  That some secret did exist Mrs Jolley also was certain, with her instinct for doors through which she might never be admitted. Not that she wanted to be. Oh dear no, not for a moment.

  “Sounds a peculiar person to me,” she had to comment when her employer had concluded the story of her illness, or such pa
rts of it as were communicable.

  Miss Hare laughed. Her face was quite transformed.

  Mrs Jolley swelled, only just perceptibly.

  “And what will become of her?” she asked, “in that shed, with all those children, and the husband – what about the husband?”

  Had she put her finger on a sore?

  “Oh, the husband comes and goes. On several occasions he has hit her, and once he loosened several of her teeth. He has been in prison, you know, for drunkenness.”

  “Oh yes, the husband!” she was forced to add.

  And she began to sway her head from side to side, in a manner both troubled and grotesque, which gave her companion considerable satisfaction.

  “There is so much evil,” finally cried the distraught Miss Hare. “One forgets.”

  “I can never forget,” Mrs Jolley claimed. “It is always with us, in the daily papers, not to mention the back yard.”

  “I had forgotten,” Miss Hare realized, “until you reminded me of it.”

  “But,” said Mrs Jolley, doing something dainty with a white of egg, “why doesn’t she leave this husband?”

  “She considers it her duty to stay with him. Besides, she loves him.”

  Miss Hare pronounced with difficulty that amazing word.

  “One day, on my way past, I shall give her a piece of advice.”

  “You would not dare!” cried Miss Hare, protecting something breakable. “She is a very sensitive woman,” she said.

  “Squeezing the water out of sheets!” retorted Mrs Jolley.

  Then Miss Hare suspected that her housekeeper might ultimately have everybody at her mercy.

  “Nobody who is a believer could fail to derive consolation from her faith,” Mrs Jolley decided.

  “Few could fail to believe in Mrs Godbold,” Miss Hare followed up.

  But feebler. Mrs Jolley had experience of words. Mrs Jolley had her family in a phalanx, her three daughters, and her sons-in-law, to say nothing of the incalculable kiddies.

  “None of all this,” said Mrs Jolley at last, “is what I am used to. I have always moved in different circles.”

  Miss Hare believed it, but also feared.

  “Mrs Flack agrees,” said Mrs Jolley, “that I have been faced with things recently which I cannot be expected to understand or accept.”

  “Mrs Flack?”

  “Mrs Flack is a friend,” said Mrs Jolley, and let fall a veil of sugar from her sifter. “A lady,” she said, “that I met on the bus. And again outside the church. The widow,” she added, “of a tiler who fell off the roof while contracted at Barranugli years ago.”

  “I have never heard of Mrs Flack.”

  “Different circumstances,” continued Mrs Jolley with dignity if not scorn. “Mrs Flack resides in Mildred Street, in a home of her own, with every amenity. Seeing as her husband, the tiler, had the trade connections that he had. they were able to fix things real nice. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell: Mrs Flack’s father was a wealthy store proprietor who saw to it, naturally, that his daughter was left comfortable.”

  “Naturally,” Miss Hare agreed.

  Expected to evoke for herself the apparition of Mrs Flack, her mind would not venture so far. And there the name rested, unspoken and mysterious.

  Indeed, Mrs Jolley, too, became a mystery now. She would appear in doorways or from behind dividing curtains and cough, but very carefully, at certain times. She carried her eyes downcast. Or she would raise them. And look. And Mrs Jolley’s eyes were blue.

  “I was looking for the ashtrays,” Mrs Jolley would explain. “All my girls are smokers, of course. And the trays need emptying.”

  Then she would retire. She was most discreet now and silent.

  Again she would appear.

  “Do you need anything?” Mrs Jolley would ask, or breathe.

  What can one possibly need? Miss Hare used to wonder.

  “No,” she would have to confess.

  She would go on sitting in her favourite chair, which was old but real.

  “Some people are given to one thing and some another,” Mrs Jolley would say, and finger. “Now, we have the Genoa velvets in all our lounges. But Mrs Flack – the lady I was telling you of – she goes for petty point.”

  But Mrs Flack would at once withdraw.

  “Do you need anything?” Mrs Jolley would repeat.

  Miss Hare’s face fumbled after some acceptable desire.

  “No,” she would have to admit, ashamed.

  Then, on one occasion, Mrs Jolley announced:

  “I had a letter.”

  She had followed her employer out to the terrace. It was almost evening. Great cloudy tumbrils were lumbering across the bumpy sky towards a crimson doom.

  “I did not see your letter,” Miss Hare replied.

  “Oh,” she said, “it was at the PO. All my correspondence is always directed to the PO. A matter of policy you might say.”

  Miss Hare was observing the progress of a beetle across the mouth of a silted urn. She would have much preferred not to be disturbed.

  “It was a letter from Mrs Apps,” Mrs Jolley pursued. “That is Merle, the eldest. Merle has a particular weakness for her mum, perhaps because she was delicate as a kiddy. But struck lucky later on. With a hubby who denys her nothing – within reason, of course, and the demands of his career. Mr Apps – his long service will soon be due – is an executive official at the Customs. I will not say well-thought-of. Indispensable is nearer the mark. So it is not uncommon for Merle to hobnob with the high-ups of the Service, and entertain them to a buffy at her home. Croaky de poison. Chipperlarters. All that. With perhaps a substantial dish of, say, Chicken à la King. I never believe in blowing my own horn, but Merle does things that lovely. Yes. Her buffy has been written up, not once, but several times.”

  Miss Hare observed her beetle.

  “Now Merle writes,” the housekeeper continued, “and does not, well, exactly say, because Merle is never one to say, but lets it be understood she is not at all satisfied with the steps her mum has taken to lead an independent life since their father passed on, like that, so tragically.”

  Mrs Jolley watched Miss Hare.

  “Of course I did not tell her half. Because Merle would have created. But you will realize the position it has put me in. Seeing as I am a person that always sympathizes with the misfortunes of others.”

  Mrs Jolley watched Miss Hare. The wind had started up and the housekeeper did not like it in the open. She was one who would walk very quickly along a road and hope to reach the shops.

  “Everybody is unfortunate if you can recognize it,” said Miss Hare, helping her beetle. “But there are usually compensations for misfortune.”

  Mrs Jolley drew in her breath. She hated it on the horrid terrace, the wind tweaking her hair-net, and the smell of night threatening her.

  “At a nominal wage,” she protested, “it is hard lines if a lady should have to look for compensations.”

  “How people can talk!” Miss Hare exclaimed, not without admiration. “My parents would be at it by the hour. But one could sit quite comfortably inside their words. In a kind of tent. Do you know? When it rains.”

  “Your parents, poor souls!” Mrs Jolley could not resist.

  So that Miss Hare was cut. She removed her finger from the beetle, which ultimately she could not assist.

  “Why must you keep harping on my parents?”

  The marbled sky was heartrending, if also adamant, its layers of mauve and rose veined by now with black and indigo. The moon was the pale fossil of a moth.

  “Who brought them up?” Mrs Jolley laughed against the rather nasty wind. “I have always had consideration for Somebody’s feelings, particularly since Somebody witnessed such a very peculiar death.”

  Miss Hare was almost turned to stone amongst the neglected urns, and the Diana – Scuola Canova – whose hand had been broken off at the wrist.

  “Will you please leave me?” she asked.

&
nbsp; “That is what I have been trying to convey,” insisted Mrs Jolley. “No person can be put upon indefinitely. And I have been invited,” she said, “or it has been suggested by a friend, who suffers from indifferent health, that I should keep her company.”

  Miss Hare was gulping like a brown frog. It was not the eventuality that appalled, so much as the method of disclosure, and the shock.

  “Then, if you really intend,” she mumbled.

  Mrs Jolley could have devoured one whom she suspected of a weakness.

  “It is not as if you wasn’t independent before,” she reminded, and smiled. “We could hardly call ourselves Australians – could we? – if we was not independent. There is none of my girls as is not able, at a pinch, to mend a fuse, paint the home or tackle jobs of carpentry.”

  Mrs Jolley had assumed that monumental stance of somebody with whom it is impossible to argue.

  “Perhaps,” Miss Hare answered.

  When all was said she would remain a sandy little girl. Her smiles would weave like shallow water over pebbles.

  “So,” sighed Mrs Jolley, “there it is. I cannot say any more. Nothing stands still, and we must go along too.”

  Then she drew in her breath as if she were restraining wind.

  Or else she could suddenly have been afraid.

  “Do let go of me, please!” she said, rather loud but still controlled.

  “Miss Hare!” she said louder. “You are hurting my wrists!”

  But Miss Hare for her part could not resist the black gusts of darkness that were bearing down on her, and if she did not know the satisfaction of recognizing Mrs Jolley’s fear, it was because she became engulfed in her own; she was removed from herself, at least temporarily, at that point.

  As for Mrs Jolley, night had closed on her like a vice, leaving her just freedom enough to wrestle with the serpents of her conscience. So the two women were thrashing it out on the gritty terrace. The wind, or something, had torn the housekeeper’s hair-net, and she hissed, or cried, from between her phosphorescent teeth.

  Several afternoons a week, after putting on her gloves and hat with eye-veil, Mrs Jolley would not exactly go, she would proceed, rather, to her friend’s residence at Sarsaparilla. Up the hill and into the street, it was not far, but far enough to turn a walk into a mission. How much solider a pavement sounded. Mrs Jolley would stamp and kick until she felt satisfied. The mere sight of a bus passing through a built-up area restored a person’s circulation, as rounds of beef and honeycombs of tripe fed the spirit, and ironmongery touched the heart. So Mrs Jolley would continue on her way, under the lophostemons, as far as Mildred Street. Five minutes from the Cash-and-Carry, with doctor handy on the corner, it was a most desirable address. So Mrs Jolley would proceed, smiling at the ladies in the windows of their brick homes. She might correct the position of a seam or two. Then she would be ready to arrive.