Voss

by Patrick White

  ‘I do not know,’ Mrs Bonner replied.

  For, it was everything.

  ‘It is nothing,’ she choked. ‘It is the dust. It is those dreadful trees, which I can only wish all cut down.’

  Waves of resentment surged through Mrs Bonner.

  ‘It is that Rose,’ she cried, as wind struck its greatest blow hitherto, and sashes rattled. ‘For whom we must all suffer. And cannot receive, in our own home, except our most intimate acquaintance. Because of Rose. And Belle, I am ashamed, must see this everlasting Rose. To say nothing of the young girl in the kitchen, to whom it is an example that could well influence her whole life.’

  ‘There, Aunt,’ said Laura Trevelyan, and produced her own green smelling-bottle.

  ‘Then it is Rose,’ she added.

  ‘I will not deny I am distracted,’ Mrs Bonner sobbed, but drier.

  The younger woman had sat down, and, after she had reconciled her watered silk to the rather awkward little chair, announced with a composure that might have been rehearsed.

  ‘I think, Aunt, that I have a plan.’

  Mrs Bonner sniffed so sharp that her nostrils were cut by hartshorn.

  ‘Ah, dear Laura,’ she gasped. ‘I knew you would.’ And coughed. ‘I believe you have had one all the time, and for some reason that I do not understand, chose to be naughty.’

  The young woman was very grave, yet calm, on her wave of grey silk that she was smoothing and coaxing.

  I do not understand Laura, Mrs Bonner remembered, not without apprehension.

  ‘What is your plan?’ she asked.

  The young woman was taking her time. She was quite pregnant with some idea waiting to be born. She would not be hurt by any precipitate behaviour of others. She was shielding herself.

  And so, she lowered the lids of her mild, yet watchful eyes. At the same time, her engrossed expression did allow her to smile, a smile of great sweetness. Aunt Emmy had to admit: Laura’s face has melted.

  Laura said:

  ‘It is a plan, and it is not a plan. At least, it is the beginning of one, which will grow if circumstances permit.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Bonner, who had hoped for a strong box in which to lock her annoyances. ‘It is not a secret plan, I hope?’

  ‘It is so simple that I am afraid you may not call it a plan at all.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Mrs Bonner begged.

  ‘I cannot tell you, except the beginning of it, because the end has still to come. But, for a start, I have brought Rose down from the attic into the spare room.’

  ‘Into the best room!’ Mrs Bonner hissed.

  ‘She will stay there quietly. I will take her all her meals on a tray. It will be a matter of a few days, by Rose’s calculations. I have engaged a midwife, of good reputation, from inquiries I have made, who lives in a cottage in Woolloomooloo, and whose name, you must appreciate it, is Mrs Child.’

  ‘In the best room!’ Mrs Bonner cried.

  ‘What is all this?’ asked the merchant, who had come in.

  ‘That dreadful woman,’ cried his wife, ‘is to have her … Rose Portion in the best room! Laura has done it, and behind my back.’

  For Mr Bonner, who hated disturbance, awful prospects were opening in his own house. He listened to the sound of dresses. Complexions were accusing him. He was surounded by women.

  ‘Laura,’ he began, seizing any weapon, however blunted, ‘I cannot believe that you have been so thoughtless.’

  Like most people, Mr Bonner cherished the opinion that he alone considered others.

  ‘On the contrary, I have given the matter considerable thought,’ replied the wretched Laura, ‘and am haunted by a similar situation in which I am having my baby in an attic, or worse, in the street.’

  ‘Your baby?’ asked her uncle, in a white voice.

  ‘Laura is suffering from an unhealthy imagination. That is all, Mr Bonner,’ explained the aunt. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear.’

  The young woman had grown very hard inside her murmurous silk of dove grey.

  ‘Lord, give me patience,’ she said. ‘If truth is not acceptable, it becomes the imagination of others.’

  ‘From one who has been treated as a daughter!’ cried Aunt Emmy.

  ‘It is obvious that she prefers to forget,’ added the uncle, who was not as impressive as he should have been; frequently he would find himself bringing up the rear.

  ‘When one is unhappy, one does forget,’ Laura admitted. ‘Threats and injustices overshadow all the comfortable advantages.’

  Beyond the window-pane, trees were fluctuating, the brown world was heaving. Even in the nice room, despite the protest of horsehair and pampas grass, the dust was settling on reflections and in the grain of taffeta, or ran with the perspiration, or the tears, on ladies’ faces.

  For, it had grown stuffy, and Aunt Emmy was crying again.

  ‘I do not understand,’ she protested, ‘the necessity to be miserable when one need not be.’

  ‘But we need not, Aunt Emmy,’ cried Laura.

  At times she was very quick, glancing, her eyes glittering.

  ‘Do you not understand the importance of this life which we are going to bring into our house? Regardless of its origin. It is a life. It is my life, your life, anybody’s life. It is life. I am so happy for it. And frightened. That something may destroy this proof of life. Some thoughtlessness. Poor Rose, she does not care a bit about her baby, yet. She will, of course. In the meantime, I must protect it from everyone. Until it can speak for itself. Aunt, dear, if you will only wait to hear.’

  Mrs Bonner sighed.

  ‘I cannot let myself be won over against my reason, Laura. Babies are, of course, very pretty. But.’

  Mrs Bonner had, as yet, refused to visualize this baby, and smell the smell of warm flannel.

  ‘Then I appeal to you, Uncle,’ said Laura, cruelly.

  In argument her hand had become an ivory fist, but she herself was again softening. She had a certain waxiness, observed her uncle, who would walk in his garden in the evening amongst those camellia bushes he had planted as a young man.

  ‘To you, Uncle,’ Laura was saying.

  ‘I?’ exclaimed Mr Bonner, exposed. ‘I, of course, agree with your aunt. Though there is something to be said, one must confess, for your argument, Laura, at least, shall we say, in its general principle. One must applaud the humanity of your viewpoint. It is the allegory that I do not go much on. You know I am a plain man.’

  ‘Then, for goodness’ sake, let us prune my argument of allegory,’ Laura hastened to reply. ‘Let it be quite naked. Let us receive this poor child into the world with love. That is argument enough. Or I will love it, if necessary. As if it had been mine. Let me. Let me.’

  ‘You are overwrought, Laura,’ said Mr Bonner.

  His wife smiled bitterly.

  ‘I am excited,’ Laura agreed, ‘by my great hopes.’

  ‘I do not see,’ began Mr Bonner, who would tire of things temporarily, and was now, in fact, thinking of his glass of rum and water, ‘I do not see how we can help but allow this misguided wretch to give birth to her child under our roof, unless we break the precepts that our religious faith teaches us. As it is too late to effect an arrangement combining the practical with the humane, let us hope that in time the Supreme Being will lead us out of our predicament. I do not doubt we shall find some honest woman who will see the advantage of accepting the child, especially if accompanied by a small consideration. The unhappy mother will be more difficult to dispose of, although, in this also, I am confident we shall be guided to act in a right way.’

  Laura Trevelyan lowered her eyes.

  ‘I do not know what to say,’ admitted Mrs Bonner, uncertain whether to feel offended at her own husband’s defection, or chastened by his magnanimity.

  The poor woman was racked by hartshorn and dampened by emotion. Those little curls, which she still affected from a former fashion, and which rain or sea air always compelled her to revive, had by now lost th
eir necessary frizz, and were hanging upon her forehead like the tails of dead mice.

  ‘I am at a loss,’ she said.

  ‘Dear Aunt Emmy,’ the younger woman consoled, ‘you will recover. And discover.’

  As her collapsed aunt continued to sit with the smelling-bottle in her lap, the niece added:

  ‘I must ask you to replace the stopper in the little bottle, otherwise its virtue will be exhausted.’

  So Laura Trevelyan left the presence of these relations, who were again her good parents. She did truly love them.

  In her condition, she could have loved all men, as, indeed, she would love the baby. She walked through the house protecting her achievement, in her sensuous, full dress of grey watered silk. Of singing silk. Her heart was full. Sitting in the same room with her dull and heavy maid, the mistress did not lose her buoyancy. She was cutting out flannel, making garments for the baby they would have. Her steely scissors flew, and she would gather up snippets of ribbon and braid, and fasten together little, bright bundles of trivial conversation. The maid would listen, but dully. The latter became leaden as her time approached, and she would perhaps have sunk, if it had not been for the trust she put in her mistress.

  ‘Now that the wind has died, let us take our walk in the garden, Rose,’ decided the mistress.

  And the maid followed, trustingly.

  They would walk in the garden, in the dusk, by mysterious, involved paths that the mistress chose. In the wilder, scrubbier parts of the garden, the skirts of the two women would catch upon the fallen bark and twigs. Sometimes Laura Trevelyan would tear the bark in scrolls from the native trees, and attempt to unroll them before they broke, or she would tear the leaves, and crush them, and smell them, in her hands smelling of ants.

  Then, in the mysterious garden, obsessed by its harsh scents, she would be closest to the unborn child, and to the love of her husband. Darkness and leaves screened the most intimate forms, the most secret thoughts. Soon he will write, she told herself. As if words were necessary. Long before pen had been put to paper, and paper settled on the grass in its final metamorphosis, she had entered the state of implicit trust. In the evening garden, their trusting bodies glimmered together, always altering their shape, as the light inspired, then devoured. Or they would sit, and again it could have been the forms of two women, looking at each other, as the one tried to remember the eyes of her husband. If she could have looked deeper, deeper, deep enough.

  Once she had felt the child kick inside her, and she bit her lip for the certainty, the shape her love had taken.

  ‘Oh, it is cold,’ Rose Portion was moaning. ‘It is cold.’

  Fear compelled her to drag her mistress back.

  ‘On the contrary,’ murmured Laura, ‘it is warm tonight. Far too warm, in fact.’

  But she was returned to her actual body.

  Then the young woman took the stiff, cold hand of her maid, and led her indoors.

  One evening, as Rose Portion was seated by the lamp, picking over some work that she had taken into her lap to pacify her mistress, she looked up quite suddenly. A savage hand had carved the lines deeper in her grey face, which, under light, was more than ever that of a dumb animal.

  ‘Oh, miss, I cannot bear it,’ breathed Rose.

  ‘You shall,’ said Laura, getting up.

  The woman clenched her teeth, until the grey sweat ran in the channels of her face. It was as if the breath were being torn out of her.

  ‘It is time,’ said Laura.

  ‘I do not know,’ Rose replied. ‘At least, it is the pains. I would die if I could.’

  Then Laura sent Jim Prentice with the brougham to fetch the midwife, who arrived shortly, with an infallible knowledge of the world and a leather bag.

  Mrs Child was a small woman with eyes so sharp and black they could have strayed down from amongst the other jet ornaments accumulated on her bonnet. For reasons of policy, she began by ignoring the patient, while enumerating to Miss Trevelyan those articles she would need in the course of operations. And all the time, the midwife was glancing here and there, as if she had been in the furniture trade, instead of belonging to her own particular branch of the conjuring profession. For Mrs Child knew: however discreet the eyes, and modest the behaviour, solid mahogany and figured brocade must be taken into account. So she reckoned up, accordingly.

  Now, when she had removed her bonnet and disposed of her pelisse, the midwife deigned to notice the patient. She ran at Rose, with all her curls a-jingle, and gave her what could have been a pinch.

  ‘You, Mrs Portion,’ shouted this jolly soul, ‘your trouble is a little one, that you will be calling a blessing by tomorrow night.’

  The pregnant woman, who was holding her arms rigid across her belly, gave a long, terrible moan.

  So that Mrs Bonner shuddered, in the little, far parlour, which they seldom used, and where she had hoped not to hear.

  The midwife sucked her teeth.

  ‘There, dear. You must not fight against receiving such a wonderful gift. Woman truly vindicated, as a reverend gentleman once put it. But I do not reckon your time is come, unless I do not know my business, and nobody can accuse me of that. I would say, at a guess, in another two, or three, even, or it could be four hours. Now, miss, would it be possible for me to take some light refreshment? I always dine early, to be ready to give service, seeing as the night air seems to work upon the poor things.’

  While Mrs Child was demolishing a nice mutton chop, together with a liberal portion of baked custard, and describing for the benefit of Cassie the details of the more spectacular cases to which she had been called, Laura Trevelyan made the necessary preparations. She was exalted now.

  ‘On the good carpet!’ wailed Mrs Bonner in her distant parlour.

  ‘I have put newspaper,’ replied her niece. ‘At least four layers of the Herald.’

  But the aunt was not consoled. In her isolation, for her husband had remembered a message he had failed to deliver to a friend, and kind Mrs Pringle had carried off their daughter Belle for as long as circumstances required, Mrs Bonner had been reading a sermon, and just now was offering a prayer, for the poor sufferer, which signified: herself. So she passed the evening, in the green-backed mirror, in her stuffy room.

  Then a great cry was shattering all the glass in the house. The walls were falling. Flesh subsided only gradually upon the ridge of the spine, to be shocked further at sound of the midwife bouncing up the stairs like an indiarubber ball. She was a very tough small woman, it seemed, who proceeded to wrestle with life itself for the remainder of the night.

  In the spare room the kindly lamplight had grown inordinately hard. Nothing was any longer hid, nor would the Brussels carpet muffle. The midwife had the woman sitting on an upright chair, from which her solid gown hung in long, petrified folds. Now that the agony had begun, the girl who had willed it was herself stunned into stone. The knot of her hands was carved upon her waist, as she stood in her corner and listened to doom writing upon a slate.

  Only the midwife continued to move, round and about, with the resilience of rubber.

  ‘Hands on the arms of the chair, dear,’ she advised. ‘You would bless me for it, if you only knew.’

  But the woman in labour shrieked.

  A flow of endless time began to fill the room. Laura Trevelyan would have prayed, but found that her mind was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  Even the lowing beast was, in the end, stilled.

  ‘It is the head that is giving the trouble,’ Mrs Child remarked, as, her face averted in considerable delicacy of curls, she fumbled and bungled under Rose Portion’s gown. ‘If you are not an obstropulous little wretch!’

  The mother was beyond caring as she drowned in that sea.

  In spite of her stone limbs, Laura Trevelyan could have screamed with pain. Her throat was bursting with it. They would all be strangled by the darkness, she suspected, when a curious transformation of their faces began at last to take place. Their
livid, living stone was turning, by divine mercy, into flesh. The shutters were slashed with grey. Its thin stuff lay upon the newspapers with which the carpet was spread.

  It is moving, we are moving, we are saved, Laura Trevelyan would have cried, if all sound had not continued frozen inside her throat. The supreme agony of joy was twisted, twisting, twisting.

  Then the dawn was shrieking with jubilation. For it had begun to live. The cocks were shrilling. Doves began to soothe. Sleepers wrapped their dreams closer about them, and participated in great events. The red light was flowing out along the veins of the morning.

  Laura Trevelyan bit the inside of her cheek, as the child came away from her body.

  ‘There,’ said the midwife. ‘Safe and sound.’

  ‘A little girl,’ she added with a yawn, as if the sex of the children she created was immaterial.

  The actual mother fell back with little blubbering noises for her own poor flesh. She had just drunk the dregs of pain, and her mouth was still too full to answer the cries of her new-born child.

  But Laura Trevelyan came forward, and took the red baby, and when she had immersed it in her waiting love, and cleaned it, and swaddled it in fresh flannel, the midwife had to laugh, and comment:

  ‘Well, you are that drawn, dear, about the face, anyone would think it was you had just been delivered of the bonny thing.’

  Laura did not hear. All superficial sounds were swallowed up in her own songs.

  Later, she carried the baby through the drowsy morning to that remote room in which her aunt had chosen to do penance. But Mrs Bonner’s cap had slipped. Day had caught her dozing in a chair. She woke up. She said:

  ‘I knew I would not be able to sleep for the terrible noise. So I sat in the chair, and waited.’

  ‘And here is the baby,’ said Laura, stooping.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Aunt Emmy. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is a girl.’

  ‘Another girl!’

  Mrs Bonner lamented the boys she did not have, and whom, she liked to think, she would have managed and understood.

  ‘We must do the best by her, then,’ she sighed. ‘Until her future has been settled.’