Their Lovell counterpart rippled in the bed with what might have been suppressed giggles. ‘We’re not good,’ said Kate.
‘Miss Scrim thinks we’re abominable,’ young Tom confirmed.
‘Praps we are!’ Totty giggled some more on her own.
‘Nobody is good all the time,’ Mrs Roxburgh allowed. ‘I am not. But hope to learn.’
It sounded so curious, they looked at her, and left soon after.
Almost every morning they materialized in her room. She was perhaps mad, but a harmless diversion, and unlike their parents and Miss Scrimshaw, undemanding. They would stroke her arms, her shoulders, her cheeks, the skin of which, although superficially soft, concealed a rough grain. Had their parents known, they might not have appreciated rituals of such a subtle order that the children themselves would have been at a loss to explain; the pleasures they enjoyed early in Mrs Roxburgh’s bed possibly remained a secret.
The morning after Pilcher’s visit they did not appear. She wondered at it no more than casually while yawning her way into her clothes in the correct order, as she did by now instinctively. She was wearing her muslin with the heart’s-ease pattern, the gift of an officer’s wife who constantly attempted to express her admiration of one whose moral courage and powers of endurance had helped her survive what amounted to infernal trials. Mrs Roxburgh, on the other hand, was made to feel light, frivolous, implausible, when dressed in the earnest young woman’s gift.
As on practically every morning, she took her walk in the garden, the light twirling round her with appropriate frivolity. I am unworthy, it recurred to her, of anybody’s faith, least of all the trust of the children who confide in me.
She looked to see whether somebody might have discovered her secret, and there was the barefoot Kate, her hair and gown transformed by light, walking entranced it appeared, her gaze concentrated on whatever she was holding in her hands.
‘Kate?’ Mrs Roxburgh called, the exquisite child’s purity rousing in her the sense of guilt which was only too ready to plague her.
Kate might have taken fright; in any case her trance was broken.
Upon reaching her Mrs Roxburgh asked, ‘What is it you’re holding?’
‘Nothing!’
The child was carrying the corpse of a fluffy chick, the head lolling at the end of a no longer effectual neck, the extinct eyes reduced to crimson cavities.
‘Nothing!’ Kate screamed again, and flung the thing away from her.
And ran.
It seemed to Mrs Roxburgh that this bend in the brown river, with its steamy citrus plantation, garden beds too primly embroidered with marigold and phlox, and beyond a hedge, cucurbits of giant proportions writhing on mattresses of silt, was designed for revelations of evil, as was the low-built, rambling, deceptively hospitable official residence presided over by the fecund Mrs Lovell and her authoritarian spouse.
Or was she attributing to her surroundings emanations for which her own presence was responsible?
Her speculations made her shiver uncontrollably.
Since the children were started on their lessons, Miss Scrimshaw had come out, and could not help but notice.
She began feeling the guest’s hands. ‘How cold you are, Mrs Roxburgh!’ She fetched a shawl. ‘Do you not feel well? I imagine you could have contracted a fever, exposed as you were to an intemperate climate, and are not fully recovered.’
‘No,’ Mrs Roxburgh answered, ‘I am well. But oh God, I must escape from here!’
‘So you shall. Though it is not a matter of escape. His Excellency is sending the Government cutter, which should arrive any day to take you to Sydney.’
‘I don’t know why I should be pardoned before others who are more deserving.’
‘I would advise you to forget.’ Miss Scrimshaw spoke scarce above a whisper, as though it were an issue which affected only themselves.
She seated her patient in a cane chair, there on the veranda, before leaving for the kitchen offices to order beef tea with sippets; not that Miss Scrimshaw was simple enough to believe in any kind of panacea, but had a respect for conventions which are believed to console others.
While she was gone, Kate Lovell slipped out of the schoolroom, and she and Mrs Roxburgh clung together for a short space.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Roxburgh whispered, ‘yes. I understand. And so will you.’
Kate had run back and Mrs Roxburgh composed herself by the time Miss Scrimshaw returned tasting the bouillon for temperature and seasoning.
Mrs Roxburgh refused her dinner (three o’clock by the Commandant’s repeater) to the distress of Mrs Lovell, who came out to coax and fuss, and draw the cocoon of shawl closer still about her friend’s shoulders.
Surprising in one so innocent, Mrs Lovell suggested, ‘You must not be so merciless, my dear, towards yourself. Whatever is past, you have so much to look forward to. A woman can look to the future, don’t you see? However unimportant we are, it is only in unimportant ways. They will always depend on us because we are the source of renewal.’
Mrs Lovell’s faded looks were illuminated, her harassed manner dispelled by her moment of inspiration. She was so surprised at herself, as well as pleased, that Mrs Roxburgh might have shared her pleasure had she not observed the Commandant emerging from the dining-room.
Captain Lovell was noticeably suspicious of whatever secret his wife and her confederate were enjoying. Over and above the natural jealousy at work in him, he was made impatient by a shred of mutton stuck between his teeth, and yet another duty to discharge.
He informed Mrs Roxburgh, ‘I’ve asked the chaplain to pay you a visit this afternoon. Nourishing food is not everything, is it? Let no one accuse us of not giving thought to your spiritual welfare! You’ll find, in any event, that Cottle is not a bad fellow.’
‘It’s unnecessary, thank you,’ Mrs Roxburgh replied. ‘I mean, I would hate to waste anybody’s time.’
Mrs Lovell gave her friend’s shoulder a push. ‘Oh, go on, Mrs Roxburgh! Again you’re doing yourself an injustice. And Mr Cottle is not the fate my husband makes him sound. It will be good for you, besides.’
She was one of those practical women too distracted by their daily responsibilities to give overmuch thought to religion, but who will recommend a helping of moralistic pudding to any they feel in need of it. Deprived of humour by a sense of duty and his own handsome features, her husband might have disapproved of his wife’s mundane translation of his more sententious advice had he not also been her lover.
As for Mrs Roxburgh, she accepted once more the fate or chains that human beings were imposing on her. It was not altogether weakness on her part: surely her survival alone proved her to be possessed of a certain strength?
None the less, she awaited with foreboding the chaplain’s visit, which was to take place like the second mate’s in Mrs Lovell’s lesser parlour. As the day had been a sultry one the shutters were stood open at evening to admit the faint gasps of a breeze. A coppery light lay to somewhat baleful effect upon the carpet and the furniture. Because of the heat Mrs Roxburgh had not exchanged her muslin for the weeds the chaplain might have expected.
The members of the household were most likely strolling or playing in the shrubberies, or dallying in the kitchen garden, for she was aware of that attentive silence which prevails in houses temporarily abandoned by their occupants. It was not so much the unwanted visit as a sense of rising hostility and emotion which prevented Mrs Roxburgh enjoying what should have been peace and quiet. Through the aching emptiness of martyrized scrub and rutted streets, she became conscious of a thudding from metal being hammered into wood, men’s voices shouting instructions, and at last a deep threnody accompanied by concerted rapping, as of spoons battering on tin plates, but muted by confinement and distance.