A Fringe of Leaves (23 page)

She unlocked the dressing-case. There was the excuse of passing time, and incidentally, that of pacifying her conscience, while the light held. She searched through Mr Roxburgh’s papers, letters, his journal, the fragment of a ‘memoir’ (‘it is thought, not action, Ellen, which makes an eventful life, and for that reason—who knows—I may some day begin harvesting the fruits of thought.’) These she could remember snatching up before she left the cabin. She fumbled with the velvet bag which held the few unimportant jewels she had brought on the voyage, and back through the individual documents without laying hand on the object of her search. As she rummaged, it became of increasing consequence to find, to read, to confirm that she had not written more of the truth than can bear looking at. Her breath rasped. In her mind’s eye she saw the vellum-bound volume floating in the tipsy waters of the wrecked saloon, salvaged by her husband at danger to his balance, and finally her own complete equilibrium—if the prize had not already fallen to a member of the crew, or more likely, Mr Pilcher.

As the second mate emerged into the foreground of her imagining, it no longer occurred to her that a storm was raging round a shipwreck. It was clear that the elusive Pilcher, of reserved manner, and colourless eyes to conceal the depth of their vision, had shown by his behaviour and appearance that he was designed to be the instrument of her undoing. Armed with such hints and overt disclosures as the journal contained, he would break his silence, the lines on either side of his mouth opening like wounds healed but temporarily.

In the twilight of the galley she almost warded off an apparition as convincing as it was unreasonable; for there was no reason why her mind should turn to Pilcher, except through the contempt in which she suspected he held her, as well as the suspicion that had they met by a similar light on the Zennor road they might have hailed each other as two beings equally secretive and devious.

Mrs Roxburgh sat locking her hands, which had grown too soft to resist her thoughts. The strength was drained out of her. She wished, and did not wish for the return of Mr Roxburgh, who might be floating, face down, in bilge water.

Her thoughts were inflating into monstrous waves.
My dearest husband …
In the absence of her own regrettable journal, should she open his and pass the time reading from it while there was light enough? She re-opened the dressing-case, which retained something of the original scent of expensive leather with which the English fortify themselves against their travels. Fossicking around inside the bag, her fingers, sliding between the sheets of grained paper, hesitated to advance farther. Would she find herself looking in a glass at a reflection which no amount of inherited cunning and cultivated self-deceit could help her dismiss?

Anticipation of her husband’s portrait of her, whether it proved to be true or ideal, made her whimper softly. She did not think she could bring herself to unveil it—but might before Mr Roxburgh’s return, because the fateful light, her uncomfortable posture, and skewed clothes, were encouraging her to know the worst.

Austin Roxburgh had set out on his journey back to the saloon aware of the foolishness of his desire to retrieve a book even though an Elzevir. It was not a matter of obstinacy, however; he had to prove himself, in the eyes of his wife, the officers and crew. As he left the galley he saw that some of the latter were manning pumps, unsuccessfully he judged from the oaths. They blamed it on the listing of the ship, not on a situation so diabolically contrived that men were becoming as powerless as stone gargoyles.

Then something amazing occurred, the more improbable because, as always, Austin Roxburgh’s vision was not that of a participant. The mizzen mast with all its attachments began to give way before his eyes. It fell, broken, bumping, lanyards torn out by the roots. The canvas leaves of the great tree were carried away, to boil like dirty washing in the surf.

Several of the crew pushed the passenger out of their way as they hurtled to repair what could not be repaired, or to hack off rubbish which might serve as a further hindrance.

Austin Roxburgh considered whether, on returning, he should report to his wife on the incident he had just witnessed. He decided against it, out of respect for her sensibility, and not because his secret already made him feel larger, braver, more important. Thus re-inforced, he continued on his dubious mission.

The day was darkening. Black clouds threatened to release a first volley of the pellets with which they were loaded. A deepening sea gargled hatred at its prospective victims. Somewhere land, that recurring promise, was doubtless hidden, awaiting re-discovery, but Mr Roxburgh did not glance once in the direction of what could only be several degrees less distasteful than vindictive ocean.

By the time he reached the companion-hatch he was crawling on all fours, not entirely out of cowardice; it was dictated also by sense: the waves which were breaking aft lashed him across mouth and eyes. When he had regurgitated most of what he had gulped, and was again looking out on a streaming world, he felt for a foothold on a ladder which was no longer familiar to him.

In the partial dark of what had been their stuffy but acceptable home, water had continued accumulating. All around, inside the fury of the storm, the sound of contained water could be heard, ominously slithery when more passive, or chopping and splattered as the little ship was swung grating on her stranded keel.

Mr Roxburgh peered through the gloom in his efforts to distinguish the object of his search amongst the general débris, when suddenly ‘
My Virgill!
’ floated into focus on the bilge undulating at his feet. He bent down, and with admirable stealth, as though tickling for an illicit fish, scooped up the book, then almost lost his slippery catch, but snatched it back out of the air, and finally secured it. The sodden book reminded him of another he had once examined, the victim of innocuous local flooding. Mr Roxburgh promised himself the luxury of heroic reminiscence beside a wellstoked fire when restored with his Virgil to the library at Cheltenham.

On deck after his return from the depths he again observed the weckage of the mizzen mast, and was strengthend in his resolve not to mention the matter to his wife. His book he hid inside the bosom of his overcoat, away from the eyes of those who might not have appreciated the purpose of his exploit.

But nobody noticed Mr Roxburgh.

More conscious of her husband’s existence in his absence than by his presence, Mrs Roxburgh sat with her fingers plunged like bookmarks between the pages of his journal, and wondered whether she could summon up the courage to open and read while she had the opportunity. She longed to be told of his love for her, but did not think she had the strength to face his doubts were she to come across any.

She was saved at last by seeing that the light would not have allowed her to discover the worst had she wanted to, so she stood up in groggy gratitude, inclining towards the slope as she had learnt. Desire to read of her husband’s undamaged love was replaced by longing for the sight of land, and there it was, an iron horseshoe, not so far distant, but indifferent to human sentiments as well as the attentions of what appeared from the deck of the stricken ship an ingratiating, white tide.

Mrs Roxburgh struggled as far as the bulwark and clung to it, staring, open-mouthed, seemingly as insensitive and greedy as any gull scavenging offal from a ship’s wake. She actually screeched once, and bowed her head, and retched into the black waves ramming at the sides of
Bristol Maid
.

She was at least delivered from a physical disgust and hopelessness, but the tears began to pour for the image of a husband to whose love she had renounced the right, if not to his knowledge, according to her own conscience. It was her conscience too, which heard his voice calling feebly above the lisp of bilge-water in the darkening, and by now probably submerged, saloon.

In spite of her inner predicament Mrs Roxburgh did notice, if vaguely, the demolished mizzen mast, and vaguely decided not to discuss it with her husband—should he return. As, indeed, he was now returning. He had not yet caught sight of her for the wreckage of mast and rigging. Relief brought with it anti-climax rather than stimulated guilt as she wedged herself into her place between the galley wall and the protective table. As he had left her, so he should find her, beside the closed dressing-case.

Mr Roxburgh was much elated by the recovery of his Elzevir Virgil. (More than anything he looked forward to a re-reading of the
Georgies
at the first opportunity which offered.) Perched on the knife-edged bench he held the book against his stomach for safety. This sodden, and to any other eyes, repulsive trophy had the feel of a familiar and beloved object which assured him of his own reality.

Seated beside him as he nursed his book Mrs Roxburgh was reminded of a doll she had been given. She had swaddled it in clean handkerchiefs. It was her child. She loved it, and cried bitterly when its head was ground to china splinters by a cartwheel.

So they prepared themselves uneasily for night and dreams, when shortly before the descent of darkness a horrendous cracking, a wooden thunder, the downward sweep of impetuous wings flung terror over the passengers’ faces. They did not address each other, but rose simultaneously, and staggered out on deck, into an aftermath of silence. Through the rain which was stinging their eyelids the Roxburghs observed that the mainmast together with its press of canvas had been carried away over the larboard quarter. The crew were dealing after a fashion with a tangle of dangling yards and cordage. The jib-boom hung like a broken pencil.

Not knowing to what extent they were at the mercy of chaos the Roxburghs stood supporting each other, and accepted that the rain should drench them. Down it drove, through the last convulsions of twilight, while the ship, although stationary, appeared to be sucked into an inky mangrove estuary, if not the jaws of night.

Captain Purdew’s figure looming at the moment of extinction might have made a darker impression had his voice and attitude not suggested he was putting in a purely gratuitous appearance.

‘Well, she is gone,’ he announced so softly that his statement might have been for himself rather than an audience.

He yawned and the tension left the sea-eroded skin; the once impressive frame gangled and creaked freely inside the clothes covering it. An experience he had half-expected all his life had just relinquished him it seemed, to his immense relief.

There remained, notwithstanding, a duty towards his passengers. ‘Pilcher has made an attempt at launching the pinnace,’ he told in words carefully chosen for polite ears, ‘but the sea is too—’ his voice was lost till he recovered it, ‘
heavy
,’ they heard.

The Roxburghs submitted to his opinion, after which Captain Purdew explained with extreme patience and a degree of natural courtliness, ‘We’re as high and dry on board as a nestful of gulls’ eggs.’ He gently pushed them back into the shelter of the galley, his enormous hands resigned to their own ineptitude. ‘At dawn’, the last of his face soothed them with the information, ‘we’ll try again—and no doubt have better luck.’

Dawn, the palest concept, hung before their eyes during the hours of darkness. The Roxburghs could not sleep, but dozed, perhaps a little, against each other, on the sharp edge of the tilted bench. Their stomachs compressed by irregularity and fright had ceased to be part of their anatomy, so there was no question of their feeling hungry. They were hungrier for the dreams which eluded them soon after leaving their skulls.

Once Mrs Roxburgh all but succeeded in spelling out the evasive word, ‘
G—A—R—N
—u—r—d?’ Her lips were struggling with it, but failed at the cliff’s edge.

At one stage he took her in his arms, and they lay along each other, lapping and folding, opening and closing with the ease of silk, fully enfolded if the coral teeth had not gnashed, they were sinking, sunk.

Mr Roxburgh awoke from some desirable unpleasantness to find his wife steadying him. He was on the verge of losing his balance.

‘Are you well?’ Mrs Roxburgh asked.

There was so little opportunity for being otherwise, her question sounded absurd.

So they dozed.

Captain Purdew’s dawn entered the galley without their noticing. It smudged their faces with grubby shadow and drew from the corners of darkness the cold grey smell of ash parted from the original coals.

When the Roxburghs finally awoke it was to a splashing of voices and water outside. Expectation and sleep had renewed a physiognomy ravaged by dusk, and dismissed the more palpable fears. She sat biting her lips, pale eyes straining to make use of returning vision, while he had recovered something of the languor of his youth, eyelids hung too heavy, too dark, features refined by sickness to an unnatural perfection which almost precluded life. They jumped up, however, with gasps. Scrambling. Uttering.

In the small hours the gale had considerably abated, but the vicinity of the stranded ship remained lathered with a restless foam. Gulls were circling overhead, shrieking, but coldly.

Into this world of cold white light and water, beneath the blue-white of unearthly gulls, stepped Mrs Roxburgh, her skirt lifted to the level at which boot and ankle meet as she scaled the raised threshold of the galley doorway. Her husband followed. Despite an untended moustache and beard, he was still wearing that mask of youthful perfection which sleep had returned to him. If they had been vouchsafed an audience, its hoariest members might have trembled for what amounted, over and above the flaws, to the Roxburghs’ spiritual innocence. But the attention of everybody, of whatever degree of understanding, was engaged elsewhere.

Launched at first light it seemed, the long-boat was bounding and thrashing on the water, still attached by its tackle to the parent ship.

Human voices could be heard shouting, one in particular rising above the others.

‘You’ll stave ’ur in,’ Mr Pilcher accused whoever was responsible, ‘and half of us ’ull be as good as sunk!’