Voss

by Patrick White

  As for Judd, he cried for the sufferings of man, in which he had participated to some extent, if not yet in their entirety.

  During the afternoon the leader went in search of the body of the black, which he said they should bury too, but members of the tribe appeared already to have crept up and removed it. So Voss returned, furious with the flies, and the devotion of Laura Trevelyan, which did not allow her to leave him unattended. She was dragging after him, across the stones. And the Christ-picture. He could have shouted.

  But on coming to within a hundred yards or so of the camp, his attention was attracted by the glitter of some substance, that proved to be glass, and in it the needle of the stolen compass.

  ‘Mr Judd!’ he called in triumph.

  When Judd had come, the German pointed to the patch.

  ‘This will obviate the necessity of deciding who will take the one compass.’

  He laughed, but Judd, who had already been tried too sorely, stood silent, looking at the little arrow that was pointing and pointing on the bare earth.

  Since the day was already far advanced, and every man, as the result of the recent disaster, aching as if he had ridden miles over the very roughest country, it was decided not to push on until the following morning. In the course of the afternoon, Judd followed the tracks of the stock, that had wandered in a direction roughly to the south of the encampment, and there found them congregated along the banks of a river, of which the course was in general dry, though there remained a few passable waterholes to which the animals had been attracted. Thin horses stood, easing a tired pastern, humbly twitching a grateful lower lip. One or two surviving goats looked at the newcomer without moving, admitting him temporarily to the fellowship of beasts.

  The man-animal joined them and sat for a while upon the scorching bank. It was possibly this communion with the beasts that did finally rouse his bemused human intellect, for in their company he sensed the threat of the knife, never far distant from the animal throat.

  ‘I will not! I will not!’ he cried at last, shaking his emaciated body.

  Since his own fat paddocks, not the deserts of mysticism, nor the transfiguration of Christ, are the fate of common man, he was yearning for the big breasts of his wife, that would smell of fresh-baked bread even after she had taken off her shift.

  That evening, after the canvas water-bags had been filled against an early start, and the men were picking half-heartedly at a bit of damper and dried meat, Judd approached their leader, and said:

  ‘Mr Voss, sir, I do not feel we are intended to go any farther. I have thought it over, and am turning back.’

  Some of them caught their breath to hear their own thoughts expressed. They were sitting forward.

  ‘Do you not realize you are under my leadership?’ Voss asked, although quite calmly, now that it had happened.

  ‘Not any more I am not,’ Judd replied.

  ‘You are suffering from fatigue,’ pronounced the leader.

  The corroboration of his worst fears was making him firm, bright, almost joyful.

  ‘Go to bed now,’ he said. ‘I cannot allow myself to suspect a brave man of cowardice.’

  ‘It is not cowardice, if there is hell before and hell behind, and nothing to choose between them,’ Judd protested. ‘I will go home. Even if I come to grief on the way, I am going home.’

  ‘I do not expect more of you, then,’ said Voss. ‘Small minds quail before great enterprises. It is to be hoped that a small mind will stand the strain of such a return journey, and unaccompanied.’

  ‘I am a plain man,’ said Judd. ‘I do not understand much beyond that plainness, but can trust my own self.’

  Voss laughed. He sat culling stones out of a little pile.

  ‘So I am going back,’ Judd ended. ‘And I will lead anybody that is of like mind.’

  This was to be the test, then. Voss threw a hateful stone into the darkness.

  At once Turner jumped up, and was straining his throat to utter the words. He was like a gristly fowl escaping from the block.

  ‘You can count on me,’ he cried too quickly, ‘and Ralph will come.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ snapped Angus, ashamed at being stripped naked by such trash, who was, moreover, his friend.

  ‘No doubt others will have made up their minds by morning,’ Voss said. ‘Gentlemen, I will wish you good night. You have several hours. The nights are still cold, and will favour thought.’

  Then he crawled into his tent, and was not altogether ungainly in doing so, it was realized.

  The situation did crystallize, if painfully, under the stars, and by morning each knew what he must confess. In some cases, the decision was too obvious to require putting into words. There would have been no hope for Frank Le Mesurier, for instance, on any course other than his leader’s, and Voss, who had read what was written, would not have dreamt of asking for proof of loyalty. Frank was busy strapping and buckling. Somewhere he had stowed his book, that he valued still, but in which he no longer wrote, as if all were said.

  Turner was gabbling. The prospect of a return to sanity had brought out the streak of madness that is hidden in all men.

  ‘I will not eat, Albert,’ he was saying craftily, ‘and the load will be so much lighter for the provisions we do not have to carry. It is surprising how little a man need eat. I will be the headpiece, you will see. Food, they say, only numbs the brain.’

  Just then, the German came across, and insisted upon a fair division of stores. He and Judd arranged these matters quite naturally and amicably, in the pale morning. Although they were shivering, and their teeth chattering, it was from the cold.

  ‘And the compass!’ laughed Voss, who had become a thin, distinguished, reasonable being.

  ‘There is no need for any compass,’ laughed the big, jolly Judd.

  As Ralph Angus approached them, he was terribly uncertain in his certainty, and in need of that macassar, which provided half the assurance of young, personable gentlemen.

  ‘I have decided,’ he said, who had been deciding all night.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Voss, who knew, and who would have let him off.

  ‘I have decided to throw in my lot,’ said Angus, sweating in the cold, ‘to go with Judd. It seems to me questionable to continue any farther into this wilderness. I have enough land,’ he finished rather abruptly, and did not mention the acreage, for this would have been in bad taste.

  ‘You are rich, then,’ remarked Voss, with elaborate seriousness.

  ‘I mean,’ stuttered the unhappy young man, ‘there is land enough along the coast for anyone to stake a reasonable claim.’

  At that moment, his leader, as Judd the convict had become, put his strong hand on the landowner’s arm and asked him to do something.

  ‘All right,’ said Ralph Angus, surlily, but with every intention of obeying.

  He went to do it, and at the same moment gave his life into the keeping of Judd. As the latter’s hands were capable ones, it could have been a wise move, although the young man himself felt he was betraying his class, both then, and for ever.

  All was got ready in quickest time. Nobody could have criticized the almost unbroken smoothness and amiability with which their departure was prepared. When the moment came, however, movements grew abrupt and unnatural. As the two parties were separating, each man remembered how the others knew him far too intimately, with the consequence that nobody experienced any real desire to look back.

  Only Harry Robarts called to his mate:

  ‘Good-bye then, Mr Judd.’

  They had forgotten about Harry, who was, of course, a lad, and a simpleton. Even Judd had forgotten, who had sensed the boy’s affection, while always knowing that he must lose him.

  ‘Ah, good-bye, Harry,’ the convict replied, now that he had been accused.

  When he had cleared a passage in his throat, he added rather furrily:

  ‘You are leaving me. And I would not have expected it.’

  Although
it was not true.

  ‘I would come with you,’ the boy began, and hesitated.

  Then why would not Harry come? There was no reason, except that it was not intended.

  ‘I would come if I wanted to,’ he shouted into his friend’s face.

  And began to dig his heels into the sides of his horse.

  ‘But I do not,’ he cried. ‘Get on, then! Arr, get on! Or I will bust your ribs open!’

  The two parties now rode in opposite directions. With the exception of Harry Robarts, whose fate was tormenting him, the spirits of all were considerably revived. The blackfellow Jackie, who rode still at the German’s right hand, was grinning as he bounced upon his horse’s shambly skeleton. There was a great deal the young native found incomprehensible but, at least, he was not dead. So the invisible rope that joined the cavalcade was slowly broken, and then, in the immediate landscape, nothing remained of the expedition except a small cairn of stones that marked the grave of Mr Palfreyman.

  13

  ALTHOUGH the money he had made was enough to have bought him absolution of his origins, Mr Bonner had never thought to aspire to gentle birth. That was a luxury he left to his wife, who did enjoy immensely both the triumphs and the punishments involved. The merchant enjoyed the money, having experienced the condition of errand lad, of blameworthy assistant, and of confidential clerk to several hard men. Ah, he did love the fortune that rendered him safe, so he considered, from attack by life, for, in the course of living, Mr Bonner had forgotten that the shell-less oyster is not more vulnerable than man. Safe in life, safe in death, the merchant liked to feel. In consequence, he had often tried to calculate, for how much, and from whom, salvation might be bought and, to ensure that his last entrance would be made through the right cedar door, had begun in secret to subscribe liberal sums to all denominations, including those of which he approved.

  Intellectual, to say nothing of spiritual inquiry, was not, however, a serious occupation for a man. He was content to leave it to the women, or to some slightly comical specialist. If he had experienced yearnings of the spirit, he had come closest, though still not very close, to satisfying them by going out and thinning the buds from his camellia bushes, those fine, shiny, compact, inpenetrable shrubs that he had planted himself, and which had increased with his own magnificence. Although their flowers suffered in the end from perfection, and their reliable evergreen charms became a bore as the season progressed, that was really what he liked: the unchanging answer to his expectations. Take his God, for instance. If his God had not been a bore, Mr Bonner might have suspected Him. Instead, his respect for the Divine Will had approximated very closely to the respect in which he held his own. Associated for many years in what he had supposed an approved commerce, it had begun only now to dawn upon the draper that some cruel surprise was being prepared.

  It was his niece, Laura Trevelyan, who had caused Mr Bonner’s world of substance to quake.

  ‘We hope to persuade Miss Trevelyan to try the sea-water bathing.’

  On this occasion he had come round the glass partition, and waited for Palethorpe, his right hand, to close the ledger the latter had been fingering.

  ‘What is your opinion of sea-water bathing, Palethorpe?’ Mr Bonner asked, which was humble, indeed, for him.

  Palethorpe, who had decided early in life that opinions were dangerous, replied rather carefully:

  ‘It depends, sir, altogether, I should say, upon the constitution of the person concerned.’

  ‘That could well be,’ agreed his disappointed employer.

  ‘Without studying the constitution, it would not be possible to express any opinion at all.’

  Palethorpe hoped that he was saved.

  But Mr Bonner churned the cash in his trouser pocket, his good money, out of which Palethorpe was paid, by all standards liberally. The merchant was generous enough, for he hated dispute and discomfort. Now, as was only natural, he felt himself to be cheated of his rights.

  ‘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.’