The Fringe of Leaves

by Patrick White

  ‘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.

  Then, on reaching the track, or tunnel, down which Mrs Roxburgh had turned on the second day of her visit, the mare scudded into the forest, the drumming of her hooves muffled by leaves and moss. Sometimes a fallen bough snapped so loud it chilled the heart, while low-hanging live branches forced the rider to lie hopefully along the horse’s mane.

  Mrs Roxburgh must have closed her eyes, when a sudden spattering of light beyond the lids made her open them. She saw they had entered the clearing where she had lain awhile on the previous occasion, and snoozed, and dreamed her obscure dream. As she was frightened then by the dream, something of a frightening nature was again prepared for her. An object to one side of the track caused the mare to whinge, shy, and half-rear as she leaped sideways.

  The rider was not precisely thrown, but slithered free of saddle and stirrup, and landed somehow on one foot before falling spread-eagle on the miraculously soft leaf-mould.

  A hedgehog was trundling in amongst the tree-ferns and other more amorphous vegetation. The mare in her panic had rampaged deeper into the bush, after which silence f
ell.

  Ellen Roxburgh found herself sobbing as the cold sweat trickled down between her clothes and skin. Then she lay, occasionally renewing the handfuls of leaf-mould she clawed out of the ground. The ankle she must have twisted on landing, was throbbing, but not dangerously she felt. In between spasms, relief and silence plunged her into a state of invalid bliss.

  She had scarcely time to enjoy it when again she heard muffled hoofbeats growing louder along the track her mare had brought her, and here was the chest of the blue roan, the rider’s head held alongside his horse’s neck to avoid the threat of overhanging branches.

  The horseman had not yet caught sight of his quarry, but the horse snorted for what must have looked like some vast green bird trailing a disabled wing as it tried to flop its way to safety amongst the ferns.

  ‘Thank God, Ellen! But have you broken something?’ Garnet Roxburgh was so full of disbelief for their having finally met, his voice trembled.

  At the same time a tremulous whinny came from the direction the mare had taken, and Merle appeared by little, furtive, almost repentant steps, and nuzzled first the bit, then the shoulder of the roan cob. The two horses stood squealing back at each other.

  As soon as he had jumped down, it was obvious that Garnet Roxburgh could not make up his mind whether to secure the horses first or succour his brother’s wife. He decided on the horses, seeing them tamed and exhausted by the chase. They were easily caught and tied to saplings a few yards apart; it was Ellen who offered difficulties.

  Unable to hide or resist, she had turned, and was propped against a bank of immature tree-ferns. She was looking sullenly in a direction other than his.

  ‘What possessed you’, he asked, ‘to gallop off alone?’

  ‘Nothing possessed me. I simply rode off on my own, to enjoy a freedom I’ve been denied since I was at “Dulcet”’ she might have added, ‘if not always.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, not altogether humbly, then became more practical. ‘But have you hurt yourself in your fall?’

  ‘It was not a fall. I jumped from the saddle when my horse took fright—and must have sprained my ankle—very slightly—I would say.’

  He was advancing on her. Broken only by the horses easing the bits in their mouths, the silence was thickening round them. She would have continued to cultivate her intention of not looking at her ‘rescuer’, but from glancing along her own bosom, too exposed by the recent crisis, her glance was inevitably drawn to her brother-in-law’s approach.

  Garnet Roxburgh appeared both determined and stupefied, as though moves he might have contemplated making at his leisure had galloped instead to meet him; the resulting collision had perhaps unnerved him.

  On reaching her he fell on his knees on the mattress of rotting compost. ‘Dear Ellen—are you in pain?’ Their relationship should have permitted the sympathy he was offering, but again she was repelled by the hands, lifting her habit, fumbling for her boot.

  It was more than anything sight of her own openwork stocking which roused her to protest. ‘Don’t, please! I’m most obliged. It’s nothing—Garnet.’

  Her mention of his name seemed to loosen his self-control. ‘Oh, Ellen—Ellen!’ By now he would have been grovelling if passion had not more positively extended him.

  What prevented her feeling afraid was to realize she was the one in control. She thought she heard herself snicker, before contempt (for both of them) made her suppress it.

  She was again this great green, only partially disabled, obscene bird, on whose breast he was feeding, gross hands parting the sweeping folds of her tormented and tormenting plumage; until in opening and closing, she might have been rather, the green, fathomless sea, tossing, threatening to swallow down the humanly manned ship which had ventured on her.

  Destroying in a last moaning gurgle.

  But whom? She could imagine the body of a murdered woman lying thus, a bundle of disarranged clothing, the flesh of a thigh half buried in leaves, the gaping corsage. But in this case the victim was a man, whose dead weight she was supporting, until he sighed, or moaned out of the depths to which he had been dragged. It was his choice, however. The real victim would have been Austin Roxburgh if conscious of the train of events. Of all three, she was the one who had suffered least—as yet; for when she freed her mouth from the mouth clamped to it, and lay contemplating the gently stirring fern-fronds above her, they sprinkled her surfeited skin with a fine moisture, and she closed her eyes again for an instant, to bask beneath the lashes in an experience of sensuality she must have awaited all her life, however inadmissible the circumstances in which she had encouraged it.

  But this was only the briefest sensation.

  Still covering her, his fingers plaited into her hair, Garnet Roxburgh was ploughing her cheeks mechanically with his, but a changed tension in his body led her to expect accusations.

  ‘Oh, Lord! What have you done to us, Ellen?’

  She would have preferred to accuse herself and later. ‘I was thrown from my horse, and while I wasn’t in my right mind you took advantage of it.’ Hearing her own defence, she knew it to be insufficient, as well as untruthful, but had to escape from what was becoming an increasingly loathsome situation.

  Propped on an elbow at her side, he was staring at her, his eyes glazed with an insolent scepticism. ‘If that was not your right mind, we shall never know it!’ he declared and laughed.

  While she had to perform, in front of his cynical stare, all the humdrum, the vulgar acts of re-arranging torn clothes, putting up her hair, retrieving by its veil the hat which had rolled amongst the ferns.

  Only when she was again veiled could she feel to some extent protected—from Garnet Roxburgh’s eyes, if not from judgment by herself upon herself.

  However painful her ankle, and ungainly her movements, she must hobble as far as possible beyond physical contact with the one who was less her seducer than the instrument she had chosen for measuring depths she was tempted to explore.

  She reached the sapling to which the now docile Merle was hitched, untied the reins, and succeeded in mounting by making use of a half-rotted log.

  Garnet Roxburgh was sitting up, hands dangling in the space between his knees. ‘We make such splendid lovers, Ellen. Won’t you admit it?’

  She could only have admitted to carrying away a cold, consummated lust.

  ‘Wait at least,’ he called, though not expecting her to follow his advice, ‘and we’ll ride home decently together—not slink in from different directions like a pair of sordid adulterers.’

  Were he determined not to let her forget, she might have assured him how unnecessary it was to take such precautions; she did not think she would ever shed her loathing for either of them.

  Merle needed no guidance: she ambled sweetly down the track, then the road; her gait, the set of her ears, seemed to condone the more uncontrollable passions; provided these are quite spent, there is no call for remorse.

  But her rider was all remorse. She hated the shaggy, inscrutable mountain, the lush pastures with their self-engrossed flocks and herds, the name ‘Dulcet’, whatever had taken part in rousing inclinations she should never have allowed access to her consciousness.

  On the flat road within sight of the house she might have given way to a dry rage, had it not turned to panic, for what she could not yet conceive.

  Her rider’s distress must have communicated itself to the mare; without pressure of any kind, she broke into a timid canter which carried them the short distance to the yard.

  Mrs Brennan had come outside and was pacing with long, uncharacteristic steps, frowning at the sky as though expecting a storm or a revelation, then into the immediate distance, from which, hopefully, a human rescuer might emerge.

  On seeing Mrs Roxburgh she looked terrified and cried, ‘Oh dear, what is it?’ which were Mrs Roxburgh’s own simultaneous words.

  To extricate them from the impasse of a silence, the latter added, ‘Is it my husband?’

&n
bsp; ‘Oh, ma’am, yes!’ It was all waiting for release and would now come tumbling out. ‘Mr Roxburgh has taken a turn. But says you is not to worry when you come. Tim is ridden to town for Dr Aspinall. But we cannot expect them in quite a while—as you know. And must not worry, Mr Roxburgh was definite I should tell you.’

  Dismounting at the block, his wife asked, ‘Surely you haven’t left him alone?’

  The woman wrapped her hands in her apron. ‘The girl is with him, while I come out ’ere to watch for you—and get meself a mouthful of air. My nerves will not stand a sickroom for any length of time.’

  Mrs Roxburgh was forgetting to hobble, when the pain in her ankle returned.

  ‘Ah, what ’as happened to yer, ma’am?’ the housekeeper moaned.

  ‘It is nothing. I twisted my ankle,’ Mrs Roxburgh explained, and made as quick and as natural as she could across the yard and into the house.

  The horse she had abandoned trailed her reins into the stables, whinnying and nosing for oats, whereupon the other occupants set up a commotion and almost kicked the shed to pieces.

  Mrs Roxburgh swept on, and into the sickroom, with a show of authority and concern which impressed Holly, and was none the less genuine. Words of love and compassion had risen to the level at which they must overflow, if self-hatred did not dry them up.

  At least her physical disability forced her to her knees at the bedside, where she soon had possession of the hand which remained a source of amazement: that it had been given to her to hold against her cheek such a parcel of fine bones and thinly veiled, meandering veins.

  ‘It has passed, Ellen, and I feel very comfortable. From experience, we should have nothing more to fear—until next time, that is. Dr Aspinall will give us his opinion when he comes.’

  ‘If only I had been with you!’ Tears gushed out over the hand she was pressing.

  ‘You went riding. Well, I expect it has done you good. We all need our diversions, according to our different tempers.’

  The girl had left them on the mistress’s arrival. Austin Roxburgh was lying raised against the pillows. The habitually tense or querulous lines in his face were relaxed in an imitation of serenity; his cheeks even made a show of colour. Had it not been for signs of fatigue he would have looked the picture of normal health.