Mrs Roxburgh, who had lost the inclination for writing in her journal, recovered it:
24 March
Hobart Town
… the house so small, the rooms so narrow, we might feel restricted had we not grown accustomed to ship-conditions on the voyage out. I shld also say, if it was not for relief at escaping from the gloom of ‘Dulcet’! So I am prepared to love our little house at Battery Point, and Mr R. is for similar reasons willing to overlook its limitations. We have the use of two front rooms. One is a dining-room, the other a parlour, or what our landlady likes to refer to as the withdrawing-room. Off this is our bedroom, most fortunately placed, because this will be my withdrawing-room in the event of unwanted callers. Mrs Impey is a small, bright person full of the best intentions. She is the widow of a former officer of the garrison at Port Arthur where she spent some years with her husband. When questioned about Port A. she held forth on its magnificent situation. As for the penal settlement, she says many of the stories are grossly exagerated by those who look for the sensational in life. Mrs Impey, I suspect, is too bright to admit any shadows into her scheme. Asked her whether she had not felt moved to return home after burying her husband. Here she did look a little downcast for one so bright, and said it was difficult for a woman to acquire the habit of making important decisions. Then she cheered up again, said that she enjoyed the society of Hobart Town, and so as not to lead a wholly frivolous life, gave lessons in needlework to selected young ladies of the better class.
26 Mar
Mr R.’s health improves daily. He already speaks of leaving if we can find a berth. We are told we can expect a ship at the end of the month or early next. Will be overjoyed if rumours become fact. Dr A. decided I was looking peeky and prescribed a tonic which I will take to humour him and my husband. I have to confess that my spirits are low, but at a level which no tonic can reach. A wind blows daily off the mountain along streets for the most part empty, in which approaching footsteps often alarm by sounding thunderous. Mercifully G. R. has until now left us in peace, except for the present of a dressed goose and 4 bottles of ‘Dulcet’ wine. Remembering how we ate goose out first night beneath his roof I could not bring myself to touch it. My excuse was that I felt bilious. Mr R. did justice by the goose, and ever since has been chiding himself for ingratitude towards his brother.
That forenoon, when Mrs Roxburgh returned from a fruitless expedition in search of matching buttons, a hooded vehicle with a livery-stable look was standing at the door of their lodging.
She was prepared to pass quickly down the hall and into her bed- withdrawing-room when the landlady darted out from the official withdrawing-room, and pounced.
‘Ah, Mrs Roxburgh,’ Mrs Impey tittered with more than her customary measure of brightness, ‘our friend Mrs Aspinall has called to see you. In your absence I offered her a glass of Madeira and a dish of my little cornflour cakes. Now you will be able to join her. I feared your being delayed might deprive you of the pleasure of her company.’
There was no way out; the landlady’s enthusiasm would have scotched the mere thought of one.
When Mrs Roxburgh entered, she found Mrs Aspinall seated by the window, from where she must have watched her friend’s approach down the hill. It vexed Mrs Roxburgh to know that her unguarded thoughts had been exposed to Mrs Aspinall’s stare; for choice she would have worn an iron mask in the presence of the doctor’s wife.
Mrs Aspinall had adopted a languid air, or possibly the Madeira had imposed it on her, as she wiped from her lips a crumb or two of cornflour cake. ‘I had almost given you up,’ she said. ‘It is not that I couldn’t wait — Heaven knows there is little else to do — but my doctor has a fit if I run up a bill at the livery-stable. Yet it doesn’t suit his pocket to invest in a carriage for his wife’s use.’
Their own dependence on the doctor left Mrs Roxburgh at a loss for a reply. ‘May I pour you a second glass of wine?’ she suggested to bridge the gap.
Mrs Aspinall accepted, since her hostess could not know that it would be her third. ‘Tippling in Hobart Town!’ she said and sighed and giggled all in one. ‘Ah, my dear, you cannot understand! You are of the other world, and pause here only long enough to dip your toe.’
‘Here or there, my life is not so very different. To be sure, at home I have an establishment to run, orders to give, Mr Roxburgh’s friends to entertain, but that is no great distraction. Not that I would care to exchange my quiet life for a more hectic one.’
Mrs Aspinall lowered her eyelids and sipped her wine. ‘Blessed are the docile and easily contented!’
Mrs Roxburgh blushed. ‘Is it so blameworthy?’
Mrs Aspinall flashed her eyes open, as though her purpose were to catch someone out. ‘Have you received, perhaps, a visit from Garnet Roxburgh?’
‘We’ve not seen him since leaving ‘Dulcet’. He and my husband are in touch by messenger, and Mr Garnet Roxburgh contributes most generously to what would otherwise be a monotonous table.’
‘I am surprised,’ Mrs Aspinall said, ‘considering the brothers are so fond of each other. And you, my dear, he praises to the skies!’
Mrs Roxburgh was aware that her hand shook, and what was worse, that a drop of Madeira lay trembling on her lap. ‘I had the impression I was not at all to my brother-in-law’s liking. We have scarcely one viewpoint in common. I am too quiet. He prefers a more dashing style in women.’ She tried to disguise annoyance at her own ineptitude by diverting attention to the stain on her skirt, which she rubbed hard with her handkerchief.
‘You are reserved, my dear, to say the least.’ If Mrs Aspinall’s smile were intended as her most agreeable, her look was purest verjuice. ‘That is where your appeal may lie. Men of Garnet Roxburgh’s temper have a craving for variety.’
Mrs Roxburgh was so embarrassed she could only offer a cornflour cake, which Mrs Aspinall refused.
Holding her head to one side, the latter tried out a wooing tone. ‘Can’t I tempt you to accompany us to a rout?’
‘My husband does not care for large assemblies.’
‘And his health, no doubt, would not allow it if he did. No, it is you, Ellen, I am enticing. Though with the promise of a doctor in attendance, it can hardly be called enticement. Even Mr Roxburgh should approve.’
‘I thank you for the kind thought, Mrs Aspinall. But I am hardly equipped for a social life with the clothes Mr Roxburgh decided I should bring on this visit to the antipodes.’
‘Oh, clothes!’ Mrs Aspinall might have intended to make it sound as though she herself dispensed with them, but changed her tactics on seeing her error. ‘At least you would have the satisfaction of seeing me in one of my familiar rags, while you, my dear, have I don’t know what — the strength of character, I think it is called, which draws attention to itself even wearing a woollen shawl. That, in any case, is how Garnet Roxburgh sees it.’
The implications were so painful, Mrs Roxburgh frowned — painfully. ‘If my brother-in-law is to be present at the gathering you offer, I am less than ever inclined to accept.’
But Mrs Aspinall leaned forward and lightly laid her fingers on a wrist (was she feeling for the patient’s pulse?). ‘You are too sensible, my dearest Ellen! At this rate you will not begin to live.’
The visitor rose, and fell to arranging her curls in their prescribed clusters. ‘Then I shall go on my own — with my doctor — and in my rags — and regret your absence — though not to the extent that poor Garnet will.’