A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White Page A

the coast above Gluyas’s. Pa told tales of tokens and witches, which he half-believed, and of the accommodating white witch at Plymouth. If Ellen Gluyas wholly believed, it was because she led such a solitary life, apart from visits to the cousins, flagging conversation with an ailing and disappointed mother, and the company of a father not always in possession of himself. She was drawn to nature as she would not have been in different circumstances; she depended on it for sustenance, and legend for hope. (It could not be said that she was initiated into religion till her mother-in-law took her in hand, and then her acceptance was only formal, though old Mrs Roxburgh herself was intimate with God.)
    It was Ellen Gluyas’s hope that she might eventually be sent a god. Out of Ireland, according to legend. Promised in marriage to a king, she took her escort as a lover, and the two died of love. Pa confirmed that they had sailed into Tintagel. She had never been as far as Tintagel, but hoped one day to see it. Her mind’s eye watched the ship’s prow entering the narrow cove, in a moment of evening sunlight, through a fuzz of hectic summer green.
    She grew languid thinking of it, but would not have mentioned anything so fanciful, not even to Hepzie Tregaskis, her cousin and friend.
    Instead she told, with the extra care a lady’s-maid cultivates, ‘Mamma is thinking of taking in a summer lodger. Don’t tell Aunt Tite. She’ll blame it on us.’
    That Hepzie told her mother was not surprising (she so seldom had anything worth the telling) and her mother did disapprove, because Aunt Triphena disapproved on principle.
    ‘Poor Clara! I never thot to see lodgers under any Gluyas roof—like we’m tinners or clayworkers.’ Aunt Tite had forgot that their father had been a travelling hawker.
    It was one of Mamma’s bad days. ‘No ordinary lodger,’ she gasped. ‘Acquainted with her ladyship. A gentleman of independent means, but poor health.’ Mamma had to wipe her eyes. ‘A change of air was recommended, and simple, nourishing, farm cooking.’
    Aunt Tite laughed. ‘I hope tha’ll knaw, Clara, to take a fair share of the gentleman’s independent means. For sure my brother wun’t knaw.’
    Whenever Mamma met with unkindness she did not exactly cry, she trickled.
    Aunt Tite would not relent. ‘And who’ll tend to the gentleman’s needs?’
    ‘I’m still on my feet, Triphena. And Ellen is a strong girl, and willing.’
    Aunt Tite smiled her disbelief in a plan she had not conceived herself.
    ‘The money will help us out,’ Mamma dared suggest. ‘And it will give the girl an interest to have someone else about the place. A gentleman of scholarly tastes, so her ladyship writes. She sent the letter over by the groom.’
    Aunt Tite composed her mouth, re-tied her bonnet ribbons, disentangled the three gold chains she wore as a sign of importance and wealth, and drove off in the donkey jingle.
    Ellen grew that apprehensive she was all thumbs and blushes in advance. She broke the big serving-dish and had to take it for riveting. She fetched it back only the morning of the day Mr Austin Roxburgh arrived. His luggage impressed those who saw it. Although stained and worn by travel, it still had the smell of leather about it. She stood it in his room, and went from there as quick as she could, leaving him staring out of the window at something he had not bargained for, which might have roused distaste in him. Whatever it was, he looked dejected, as well as fatigued by the journey down.
    Mamma too, was nervous, in spite of her experience of gentlefolk. She could not remember whether she had put the towel and soap. Between them they made a rabbit pie, to follow a soup with carrot in it, and, for added nourishment, some scraps of bread.
    Ellen might have continued apprehensive had the lodger not been hesitant, if it wasn’t downright timid. His conduct lent her courage; until the books stacked in the parlour given over to