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

equanimity.
    After drawing the comforter tighter at his throat, it occurred to Mr Roxburgh, ‘Do you think you’re suitably dressed—that is to say, warmly enough?’ His ordinarily mild eyes looked almost fierce in consideration of her welfare, or was it, again, only his own?
    ‘Aw, yes!’ She laughed, her arms hugging each other against the apron. ‘We’re used to our own weather.’
    They crossed the road and stumbled on, into the gale, when it had not been her intention to accompany him farther than a stone’s throw from the yard.
    As they were walking recklessly, so they had begun reckless talk.
    ‘This is nothing’, Mr Roxburgh shouted, ‘to anyone who has crossed over by the Swiss passes into Italy—or even the English Channel into France.’
    ‘I was never in Italy’ she would not bother to confess that she had not crossed the English Channel. ‘I was never farther than Land’s End. And Plymouth to the other side.’ She hesitated. ‘It is my ambition to see Tintagel.’
    ‘What an unambitious ambition! Tintagel is practically on your doorstep.’
    ‘I cannot explain, Mr Roxburgh. Some of us are born unambitious, I suppawse’ when their conversation inspired her to soar amongst the black clouds swollen to bursting above them.
    They walked on, heads lowered against the wind, the rooted furze streaming towards them.
    Mr Roxburgh remarked that they were behaving most imprudently, but in the circumstances, could not disguise a certain tone of self-approval.
    ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and will come out of it with nothing better than a soaking.’
    Her improvidence did not prevent her feeling much older, wiser, than this slanted stick of a gentleman. If the storm did burst upon them, she was strong and jubilant enough to steady the reeling earth, while he, poor man, would most probably break, scattering a dust of dictionary words and useless knowledge.
    It was the storm which broke, at that very moment. As the rain lashed out, they gulped down draughts of cold wet air.
    Mr Roxburgh stumbled. ‘How very foolishly’, he protested, ‘a rational human being can behave!’ His skin, she thought, had turned from pink to mauve; his features had grown pinched and transparent.
    ‘Are you ill?’ she called. ‘Mr Roxburgh?’
    Though he did not answer, she felt at liberty to ease her shoulder under his, the better to support and lead him.
    ‘A little,’ she thought she heard. ‘I have these turns, but they pass.’
    Providentially, her strength seemed to increase and cope with a condition akin to that of drunken staggers, as she brought him round on a curve, the wind now driving at their backs, sending her hair ahead of them, together with the tails of Mr Roxburgh’s comforter.
    On the lee side of a collapsed wall, originally built of the flat stones disgorged by a field, she settled her charge, and gave him the additional protection of her own body. She would have wondered at herself if, from being a man, her companion had not become a mission. His hands felt dead inside the knitted gloves. The cap had slipped askew over one fragile temple, carrying a gentleman’s dignity with it.
    She re-settled the cap, and fought to wrest encouragement out of her throat. ‘You must take heart, Mr Roxburgh. You can rely on me to bring you back,’ she almost ejaculated ‘to life’ before recovering herself, ‘ home ’ she substituted; ‘we’ll get the fire lit, and have you a warm meal—in no time’ lame in the end.
    They continued huddling, stacked against each other and the wall, and gradually the rain was pelting less; the wind might have used itself up, or gone on to aim at more distant targets. It was no longer a strain to catch the gist of spoken words.
    ‘At least you have seen me at my worst,’ he said.
    ‘You can’t be answerable for your health, as I knaw from my own mother.’ Thus she tried comforting him, when it was no comfort to herself; she would have liked to see him hale and perfect,