A mouthful of egg revolved on Mrs Roxburgh’s tongue as she ruminated on the sounds which reached her: hens drooling at their morning work, hornets vibrant inside a wall, a calf which must have been deprived of the teat. After the nurse withdrew, the patient dozed, while the hours twittered away. If she opened her eyes, nothing was so insignificant that it failed to amaze. She would stare at the whorl in a worn floor-board, the necklace of wax on an extinct candle, a pool of light lying thick and yellow as the egg-yolk of earlier, until drowsiness possessed her afresh.
From the heaviness surrounding her she judged that it must have been towards noon when she heard the sound of hooves in the yard, and first one, then a second dismounted rider, who proceeded to exchange indistinct remarks.
Whatever was in store for her she hoped she might acquit herself convincingly.
Spurs were soon ajingle in the passage, which shuddered at the same time with what she had come to recognize as her nurse’s approach.
Mrs Oakes’s honest cheeks were glowing with heat and pleasure, as well as relief. ‘This is Lieutenant Cunningham, dear, surgeon to the garrison. Now we can be sure that you will get the best attention this side of Sydney.’
‘Mrs Roxburgh?’ The young lieutenant’s voice rang out in a determined effort to assert his rank and sex.
The gong sounding in her head so bemused her she could not have denied the worst accusation.
The surgeon picked up her wrist which, by that shuttered light, might have been a scroll of sloughed bark. She could feel him slightly trembling. His practical profession’s abstract side allowed him, while taking her pulse, to display a certain mystical detachment and avoid looking at the patient’s face.
For the moment she was free to investigate her visitor. Where her nurse was red, the doctor was pink, not yet cured by the climate she supposed. There was an edging of white where his neck joined the collar of his tunic. From its glimmering in the darkened room, she took this white band to be skin. It added something unprotected and tender to the young man’s general appearance, and this, together with the deferential, slightly tremulous hold on her wrist, led her to suspect that the lieutenant had never yet experienced passion.
At once she grew ashamed of her thought and looked to see whether her nurse had intercepted it, but the room was too dark, and of course, both her attendants too innocent.
It only now occurred to Mrs Roxburgh that self-knowledge might remain a source of embarrassment, even danger.
‘More light, please, Mrs Oakes.’ It was evident that Lieutenant Cunningham was more at ease with older women and in giving orders to subordinates.
As Mrs Oakes pushed back a shutter the patient winced for the shaft of light which was aimed at her. She might have felt more exposed had she not realized that she must remain a mystery to them: her body, for which they were concerned, was the least part of her.
She lay passive, though one corner of her mouth twitched in the direction of a smile as the surgeon, assisted by Mrs Oakes, carried out his examination.
‘Ticklish, are we?’ The nurse laughed indulgently.
The doctor frowned. ‘Captain Lovell sends his compliments,’ Lieutenant Cunningham delivered the message with a formal earnestness not unmixed with personal goodwill, ‘and is looking forward to hearing your own account of your adventures as soon as your health is fully restored. I shall see to that,’ he assured her, knocking once or twice on her ribs to emphasize his authority, ‘and Mrs Oakes,’ he was polite enough to add. ‘We shall have you on your feet in no time, and bring you down to Moreton Bay.’
Mrs Roxburgh could not envisage it; she cowered. ‘My feet would not stand another journey. They are ruins.’
‘We shall send a carriage. Well, it’s not sprung! But the best we can provide.’
‘Surely we might be attacked by blacks — or worse, escaped prisoners?’
The lieutenant was amused. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll have a military escort.’
Mrs Roxburgh’s distress was not relieved. ‘Shall I have to listen to the prisoners’ screams as they receive the lash?’
Now it was the surgeon’s turn to feel distressed; he had never dealt with a similar situation. ‘You’ll find the Commandant’s a humanitarian, unlike his predecessor, of whom I can see you must have heard.’
‘What became of the predecessor?’
The young man had broken out in a sweat; his golden whiskers could not disguise it. ‘He met with an accident.’
‘Was he murdered? Or simply killed?’
‘Better if you don’t inquire into painful matters which don’t concern you.’
A pulse had begun fluttering in her throat. ‘It does concern me — why the good and the bad are in the same boat — and the difference between killing and murder. Until we know, we shan’t have justice — only God’s mutton for Sunday dinner — those of us who are lucky enough.’
Seeing that she was beside herself, he turned away.
‘Do you play at cat’s-cradle?’ she asked.
Instead of answering, the surgeon produced a selection of medicaments out of a valise he must have unstrapped from his saddle, and after taking the nurse aside, gave his instructions in a low voice.
Then again, in the louder, jollier tones intended to reach the ears of the sick, ‘It’s chiefly a matter of rest, Mrs Oakes, and nourishment. Mrs Roxburgh is lucky in having a very remarkable constitution. She’ll live to a ripe old age, I’d say.’
But Mrs Roxburgh whimpered back, ‘What shall I do with a ripe old age? Without my husband?’
Mrs Oakes sucked her teeth, and clucked, ‘Dear Lord, how pitiful! But it’s only to be expected,’ and the amiable young surgeon joined in, ‘You’ll change your mind, you will see, Mrs Roxburgh. Mrs Lovell herself is organizing a wardrobe. All the ladies are contributing. It will be that much easier now that we know your size and shape.’ He checked himself, again embarrassed, but hurried on towards his departure. ‘You can rest assured, ma’am, of a warm welcome. We had heard of the wreck of Bristol Maid and were shocked to think of what we imagined the loss of everybody else on board.’
‘How did you hear?’ Mrs Roxburgh asked.
In the end, she could not trust (oh, she should have known!) this hitherto amiable, but too glossy, too fulsome young man.
‘We heard from the only known survivor. Of course there may be others still to be discovered, as you have been. I hope there are.’
She looked at him out of eyes which he afterwards failed to describe for the Commandant. ‘All dead. Some of them probably eaten. Only the condemned survive.’
At that the surgeon took his leave, but heard the voice muffled by the door which Mrs Oakes had closed behind them. ‘I ask nothing for myself. Only a pardon for my poor husband. I am the one who has committed the crime. I think he could not believe in me. For that reason, he ran back.’
It was something at least that stout Mrs Oakes was shaking the house in conducting him away from the sick-room, but the voice of darkness continued faintly pursuing the surgeon. ‘Even if Jack is not — destroyed — if he simply lies down and dies — I must give myself up as his murderess.’
That evening the nurse felt so ravaged and exhausted after her duty the night before, as well as the necessary attentions she had lavished on the patient during the day now past, she said to her husband when she had fed him, together with their three voracious sons, ‘I’d take it kindly, Ted, if you’d sit up with Mrs Roxburgh tonight. I do believe I’m at the end of me tether — temporary like,’ she hastened to assure him.
Ted Oakes, a large man, looked so alarmed his wife might have felt justified in congratulating herself had she been harbouring a grudge against him.