Mrs Roxburgh confessed she had no appetite, and did not wish to leave her husband, but in the end was persuaded to toy with a breast of chicken on a tray. It would have suited her if she too, might have claimed to be an invalid, but could only enlist her insufficiently injured ankle.
When Garnet Roxburgh knocked on the door he must have heard the things rattle on the tray as she made her escape into the dressing-room beyond. Of the conversation between the brothers she heard not a word, what with the closed door and her deaf ears, but was attracted repeatedly to her own reflections in the looking-glass.
The long wait for Dr Aspinall after Garnet withdrew might have become intolerable had the invalid not been inspired by fits of unexpected gaiety.
When she had read to him awhile from Sir Thomas Browne, he stopped her by saying, ‘An admirably modulated voice, Ellen. Who would have thought that a crude Cornish girl could be made over to become a beautiful and accomplished woman!’
Mrs Roxburgh was embarrassed more by the compliment than the slight. ‘Crude I may have been, accomplished I am not.’
‘When I used the word “crude” I did not mean to disparage you, my dear. It was to your advantage. The crude lends itself all the better to moulding.’ He was caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘In a woman, at any rate. I do not think it applies to a man. Men are too rigid. There is more of wax in a woman. She is easily impressed!’ He pinched her cheek, laughing for his own wit, and might have drawn her to him had they not heard voices approaching.
It was Dr Aspinall at last, bleary from the long drive and an aftermath of brandy supped before leaving, and perhaps also en route. After hearing details of Mr Roxburgh’s attack and making a fairly disinterested examination, the doctor prescribed tincture of digitalis, which he had with him in his bag, and predicted that the patient had years of life ahead of him. Dr Aspinall was of that school of physicians which believes in making the patient happy by encouraging him to ignore his ailment and save his strength for payment of the fee.
Business concluded, the doctor accepted a further brandy and water (at which Mr Roxburgh joined him) and complimented Mrs Roxburgh on her looks.
‘My wife, by the by, sends you her affectionate remembrances and continues hoping you will pay her the promised visit.’
‘Perhaps sooner than she expects,’ Mrs Roxburgh answered with a warmth she might not have expended on Mrs Aspinall previously.
In fact her mind was leaping with the hope which springs from a sudden idea, or inspiration.
Although it was understood that the doctor should spend the night with them to rest his horses, Mrs Roxburgh followed him out into the passage so as to waste no time in broaching her idea.
‘When I said “sooner than she expects”, doctor, it was because it is my opinion that we should leave “Dulcet” as soon as we can find lodgings at Hobart. I am afraid’, Mrs Roxburgh said, and did look most distracted and appealing, ‘that my husband — in his delicate state of health — might suddenly be taken ill again — the next time perhaps fatally. In town he will have the benefit of your immediate attention. I would feel desperate if anything happened — and helpless — here at “Dulcet”.’
Dr Aspinall squeezed her hand and smiled a benevolent, brandy smile.
‘The simplest lodgings, provided they are clean,’ she hurried on, ‘where Mr Roxburgh can regain his strength before the voyage home.’
‘You can depend on me, my dear Mrs Roxburgh,’ the doctor promised, ‘but Garnet will be keenly disappointed.’
‘No doubt,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m sure he is fond enough of his brother not to wish to sacrifice him to his own pleasure.’
The doctor agreed.
After attending to the night-light and performing the ritual of kissing her husband on the brow (when, surprisingly, his lips were raised in search of hers) Mrs Roxburgh retired to the dressing-room, where Holly had made up a bed of sorts on the sofa. She was so weary she accepted thankfully this unyielding compromise, but not weary enough to neglect her duty to the one her mother-in-law had commended: the Divine Being, in old Mrs Roxburgh’s parlance.
Young Mrs Roxburgh kneeled beside the improvised bed, but her knees were too pointed, it seemed, or the carpet might have been strewn with glass, or in worst moments, upholstered like a mattress of rotting leaves.
‘Ellen?’ Mr Roxburgh called from the bedroom. ‘Are you praying?’
She replied yes, but so low he might not have heard.
She locked her hands faster, and screwed her eyes deeper into her skull. She longed to catch sight of old Mrs Roxburgh’s Divine Being, if only as a blaze of departing glory. Perhaps it was her origins which made her believe more intently in the Devil than in the Deity. So tonight her prayers were but vaguely directed, and the shudders took possession of her limbs.
Again Mr Roxburgh called to her. ‘I am in no mood for prayer. I am too tired — too fidgety. I could not succeed in concentrating.’ His voice trailed off in a string of yawns.
Mrs Roxburgh arranged herself upon the sofa, but was unable to sleep. Although she was careful to close her mind to any image which might suggest her fall from grace, such thoughts as she had, trickled out as tears; the wet pillow heightened the fever of her sleeplessness.
Time must have passed, for the pillow-case had dried out, when Mr Roxburgh called, ‘Are you awake, Ellen? I find it impossible to sleep. Come here, would you? I’d like to feel you lying beside me in this desert of a bed.’
She could only obey her sick husband’s whim. ‘But you will be less likely to sleep,’ she warned. ‘We shall disturb each other by our tossing and turning.’
‘I would like to comfort you,’ he said, ‘for all you have had to put up with — married to such a creaking fellow.’
Her body ached, less than her spirit however, as Mr Roxburgh began to demonstrate his love. Perhaps the shock he had sustained that day had melted a tenderness inside him commensurate with the love he had known in theory he ought to feel, and only now saw his way to offering a semblance of it.
Mrs Roxburgh was racked: gratitude was the most she was able to conjure in exchange, and that can quickly turn to the gravel of remorse.
‘Oh, no!’ she protested. ‘Please! I am afraid,’ she moaned as she moved her head from side to side. ‘You may have a relapse.’
But Mr Roxburgh remained gently obdurate: he could not impress his love too deeply on her now that he had been prompted to do so.
Mrs Roxburgh, finally, could only lie, holding her husband’s frail body to hers, and accept his miraculous gift.
After a night which, in retrospect, was less tormented than either of them had anticipated, she wondered whether to share with him the plan she had conceived for removing from ‘Dulcet’ to Hobart Town; when she found herself telling it.
Surprisingly, Mr Roxburgh replied, ‘Yes. I am in full agreement. I expect Garnet’s feelings will be hurt, but it cannot be helped. I’ve taken a dislike to this house. I swear it is still full of Dormers. I’ve heard them moving about overhead, as you claimed to hear, I remember, at the beginning.’
Mrs Roxburgh preferred not to embark on the subject of ghosts, and more practically suggested, ‘Do you think you should tell your brother that we plan to leave?’
‘I could — yes,’ Mr Roxburgh pondered, ‘unless you might do it more delicately. He could hold it against his brother for ever, whereas he can hardly blame a sensible wife for worrying about her husband’s health.’ His decision filled him with all the gravity of self-approval.