Read Online A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White - Free Book Online

the slaughter of the calf, he would stay on and have a bite of something with them in the evening. It was a custom which did not meet with his mother’s approval. She was for ever searching her son’s face for bad news, and her niece’s for worse. As children they enjoyed a rough-and-tumble, with Hepzie joining in, till Aunt Tite found they had outgrown childish games. They exchanged kisses only in the presence of relatives at Christmas and New Year; nobody could have objected to that. Birthdays, marking the advance towards maturity, were more questionable. On her fifteenth birthday Will had been unable to disguise the pleasure her company gave him; he fumbled at her outside the dairy. Whether she had enjoyed it, Ellen was afraid to consider, for Aunt Triphena’s becoming a too sudden witness.
    ‘I’ll get vex with you, Will, if you act disrespectful to Ellen. She’s as close as your own sister, remember.’
    Will grew moody, took to kicking at the flagstones, and would no longer look her way. Nor kiss at Christmas. Until, on an unofficial occasion, he gave her a cuddle which flooded her with a delight that surprised her.
    It was not repeated. With the advent of Mr Roxburgh she acquired responsibilities. She must look serious and neat. Her head was full of dainty puddings.
    Will inquired on the day they killed the calf, ‘What’s th’ old codger op to—on ’is own—i’ the parlour?’ And chewed off a crust in such a fashion that his naturally handsome face looked ugly.
    ‘He idn’ old,’ Ellen Gluyas reminded her cousin. ‘An’s a scholar an’ a gentleman.’ She was so enraged.
    Pa laughed, and winked at Will. ‘An’ ’as got the girl stickin’ ’er nawse where’t never was before—in books!’
    Ellen went to fetch Mr Roxburgh’s tray from the parlour.
    He seemed to be waiting for her; he looked anxious, and was walking up and down. ‘Ellen,’ he said (he had never called her ‘Ellen’ before) ‘I’ve mislaid the pills which normally stand on the bedside commode.’
    ‘Aw,’ she answered, flushing, ‘they was there this mornin’, Mr Roxburgh.’
    He looked at her so quick and startled he might have forgot the pills. ‘They were , were they?’ He continued gravely looking at her.
    Did he think she had taken something she valued so little? except that he set store by them.
    In the bedroom she moved the heavy marble-topped commode, and found the bottle which had fallen down against the wainscot.
    ‘There!’ she said. ‘I knawed they couldn’ uv gone far.’
    His gratitude forgave her any possible lapse.
    When she took the tray out to the kichen Pa and Will were looking at their plates, the two of them moody by now it seemed.
    The guest outstayed his welcome. The hay was made and stacked. The leaves began to turn, as a warning against early cold.
    Mamma always grew tearful at the approach of winter. ‘And to clean an extra grate! And fetch in wood!’
    But Mr Roxburgh’s cheeks became pink-tinged. He was taking longer walks, in a tweed cap, and a comforter which his mother, he said, had knitted for him. He had even walked as far as St Ives, but hired a fly to bring him back.
    On an occasion when the days were drawing in, the girl remarked, ‘By now you must have seen everything,’ and realized that she dreaded the reply.
    ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘I have, but would like to be better acquainted with what I know superficially.’
    It made her sorry for him: that his life should be so empty, and at the same time, complicated.
    He was setting out on one of his walks. Without intending to encumber him, and in no sense prepared (she was wearing her apron, not even a cap, let alone a bonnet) she found herself bearing him company. The going was rough, for they were headed into the black north, the bushes catching at their clothes with twigs on which sheep had left their wool.
    ‘There’s a storm coming our way out of Wales.’ It was not a rare enough event for her voice to lose its