The Commandant

by Jessica Anderson

‘What about?’

  She pushed his hand gently from her thigh and got to her feet. ‘In a hopeless cause. I am going to bed.’

  But he caught her by one hand and held her there. ‘Why hopeless?’

  ‘I was going to speak for Martin.’

  ‘My dear Letty, there’s no need. It’s his first offence. He will be punished as lightly as is consistent with discipline. Can I do more?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Intercede for Bulbwidge and Fagan.’

  The commandant dropped her hand. ‘That is more than three weeks hence. We shan’t discuss it. We were discussing Martin.’

  ‘It is all part of the same thing. If you can’t give mercy, how can you ask it?’

  ‘Why should I ask it for two vicious scoundrels. Say no more on the subject, if you please!’

  He turned as he spoke and went to the window, and when she said, in confusion and wonder, ‘But I meant that then you can’t ask mercy for yourself,’ he gave no sign of understanding her. Perhaps in the noise of the wooden rings passing along the rod he really did lose the sense of her words, and it was only to the sound of her voice that he imperiously said, ‘No more, if you please!’ She did not know, and could not find out. Her habit of subservience to him would not let her launch herself against such a tone, and the exclusion of the moonlight made the room too dark for her to see his face.

  It was so dark indeed that as he led the way from the room she put a hand on his back for guidance. It was when they walked off the big Persian rug on to the bare polished boards that she realised for the first time that his feet were bare. His tread, always so light, was made inaudible by hers, and to hear only her own slithering footsteps gave her a sense of eerieness, of amused shock—amused because she knew by touch that he was, after all, solidly and warmly there. Touching him brought too a renewal of her strength, and in spite of all sadness and doubt, a rise in her spirits. He was walking hesitantly, fumbling for the wall. She put her other hand on his back and slipped both up to his shoulders, where they had better purchase.

  ‘Else I should feel I were following nothing,’ she whispered in the dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Has the Regent Bird sailed?’

  ‘Hours ago, miss.’

  Madge Noakes pulled aside the curtains as she spoke. Strong sunlight entered the room. Frances sat up. ‘I have slept very late.’

  ‘Madam said to let you be.’

  With one hand Frances raised the mosquito net, making a peaked aperture like the door of a tent. Clear sky filled all the window except for a fringe of foliage at the sill—the treetops in the botanical gardens, massively stirring in a slow wind. ‘But by now,’ she said, still dull with sleep, ‘the Regent Bird will be at Dunwich.’

  ‘As good as, miss.’

  ‘Has my sister breakfasted?’

  ‘Has started to, miss.’

  ‘And the commandant?’

  ‘Has gone out hours since. There is water on the washstand.’

  ‘Thank you. I will breakfast in a few minutes.’

  But after Madge went, the window continued to hold her dull attention. She would have gone back to sleep had not the wind, with a sudden gust, blown one branch clear of the mass of trees and moved it to and fro in a wild tossing. The movement brought her to full wakefulness, seeming to shift some irksome weight in her body, leaving her liberated and full of excitement. The branch waved its signal and subsided, but her joy remained. She let the net drop and fell back on the bed, first to put her hands behind her head and smile, then to break into laughter, push the bedcovers down with her feet, and kick and roll about exuberantly in the big bed. For the first time it occurred to her that between a man and a woman there could be something of infantile play. Last night, looking at Letty’s diminished face, she had divined a black area in marriage, an evil, a sort of sorcery; but today in the sunlight, and in the knowledge that her letter to Edmund was irretrievable, she could only think how sweet it would be to roll about in a warm bed in play, to laugh and tumble and bite. She flung up the net, ducked under it, and stood on the mat in the warm wind.

  Only then did she remember Martin. Admitting yesterday’s events with reluctance, she went slowly to the window and looked out. Nobody was visible in the garden, neither Gilligan nor any of the other men, but now, through bushes bordering the path that led upwards to the road, she caught a glimpse of blue, then of white, then, through a larger gap, she saw James Murray. In white trousers, and a blue coat with red facings, and carrying two lilies of a lighter and more gorgeous red, he passed out of her sight towards the door of the house.

  That he was here at this early hour, instead of at the Eagle Farm, might mean that Henry Cowper had gone instead, as sometimes occurred, in which case James would be chief medical officer, whose sanction and supervision was needed for all today’s punishments. Frances ran to the wash-stand. She washed, dressed in yesterday’s white muslin, tucked all her hair beneath a morning cap, and made for the dining room with little running steps, tying her wide blue sash on the way.

  James Murray and Letty sat facing each other in chairs pushed aside from the dining table. He was holding her wrist and looking earnestly at her protruding tongue. Tiptoeing with respect, Frances served herself at the sideboard and carried her plate to the table.

  ‘Very good,’ said James Murray at last. ‘I believe you begin to mend. Good morning, Miss O’Beirne.’

  Letty turned again to the table. ‘Fwances, good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, Letty. Good morning, Mr Murray. What a surprise to find you here at this hour.’

  ‘Mr Cowper has gone to the Eagle Farm in my place. Kindly accept this. Tigridia pavonia. I had the bulbs sent from Sydney.’

  ‘And grew it yourself! It is beautiful. The petals are as thin as flames.’

  ‘We are equally favoured,’ said Letty, touching the lily by her plate.

  ‘I have another for Mrs Harbin. She wants it for her sketch book.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Bulwer gets none?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I have only three.’

  ‘So you have depwived yourself.’

  ‘They don’t last long,’ said James Murray, looking wistfully at his two lilies lying on the table, ‘out of water.’

  Letty rang the bell.

  ‘What time does Mr Cowper return?’ asked Frances.

  ‘That depends on how much he finds to say to Scottowe Parker.’ Murray rose to his feet. ‘You have recalled my duty to me. I must leave you.’

  ‘You have so many patients today?’ asked Frances with anxiety.

  ‘There are always enough, Miss O’Beirne.’

  Madge came in. ‘Madge,’ said Letty, ‘put these in water.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said James, relieved and smiling, ‘you will find they do better in water.’

  ‘Tender hearted even for flowers,’ said Frances with a smile.

  After James Murray and Madge had gone, Letty looked sideways at Frances. ‘You were vewy animated with James.’

  ‘He is so gentle and kindly. If my heart were not engaged, I might have had romantic notions about him.’

  ‘So your heart is twuly engaged?’

  ‘This morning I feel that it is. Unless it is simple relief at having acted with firmness, and sent my letter. I can’t swim, I can’t fly, so I can’t fetch it back. It’s gone. The thing’s done. The rest is up to Edmund. I feel as if a burden has been lifted from me.’

  Letty was looking at her sister with slow, almost sleepy curiosity. ‘To be sure, you look happy.’

  ‘So do you, Letty.’

  Letty looked down at her plate. ‘Well, as James said, I begin to mend.’

  Frances did not reply that the improvement was unnaturally sudden, and that last ni
ght she had looked ill. She had observed enough lately to understand that the differences between Letty and her husband had now been resolved. Watching her, Frances thought ‘happy’ not quite a word to describe her. She seemed deeply contented, yet vague, remote. Perhaps she had adopted that distant air to protect her contentment, to keep it private and safe and out of reach of assailment. But of whose assailment could she be afraid, if not of Frances’s? And with some shame Frances confessed that her sister’s fear was justified. She would have assailed that contentment if she could, if only because she did not understand it. It was ridiculous; it was in crazy disproportion to its cause. ‘Is he water?’ she wanted to ask. ‘Is he food?’ But instead she said in an awkward voice, ‘I expect Patrick leaves early tomorrow.’

  ‘Not until nine.’

  ‘How long will he be gone?’

  Letty shrugged. ‘For as long as it takes him to twace his famous cweek. And while he is gone, you and I must kilt up our skirts, and woll up our sleeves, and make all weady for our departure out of this place—me for Madwas, and you, let us hope, to make your home with your Edmund.’

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘That depends on so much.’

  The sisters exchanged a lightning glance of complicity. ‘So much,’ Letty repeated gently.

  ‘I shall be Mrs Edmund Joyce,’ said Frances with sudden amazement.

  Letty smiled. ‘Always pwovided you make yourself acceptable to his uncle and aunt.’

  ‘Oh, I shall. I mean to.’

  ‘I don’t know what his expectations are fwom his own family—’

  ‘And neither do I,’ said Frances happily.

  ‘—but if he is so weady to let the Annings take him over, I think most of his expectations must be fwom them.’

  ‘Well, I expect so. But pray, don’t worry. All will be well.’ Frances jumped from her chair. ‘Letty! Imagine! I shall have my own mount. I think I fancy a grey. And I believe,’ she said, laughing as if she did not really believe it, ‘that I shall have a silk evening gown. Silk!’

  Again Letty looked at her with that slow curiosity. ‘A gweat change fwom last night.’

  It so closely resembled Frances’s own reflections on Letty that the girl’s face changed to a startled thoughtfulness. ‘Oh, but last night I still could have got my letter back. And of course,’ she admitted, turning her startled look directly on her sister’s face, ‘there was Martin. Letty, you did speak to him about Martin?’

  ‘Martin will be punished as lightly as is consistent with discipline. That is all he would pwomise.’

  ‘But you spoke,’ said Frances, with rough impatience, ‘so all will be well. All must be well.’

  ‘Indeed, my love, it must be. For at this time no more can be done. The thing is like Edmund’s letter. It can’t be fetched back. It’s done. Think of it in the same way.’ Letty rose from the table and took one of Frances’s hands in both of hers, pressing and stroking it as if to cajole her out of her present sober mood into her former merriment. ‘Today you may pwactice at being mistwess of a house. I go to take tea with Amelia. All will be in your charge.’

  ‘I may order the dinner? I may choose the pudding?’

  ‘Of course. But now you must go to the school.’

  Frances ran to the bedroom to dress her hair. At her dressing table she began to sing, but after the first few notes her voice faltered and became self-conscious. With her arms raised and her hands busy with her hair, she looked into her reflected eyes and recognised the reason for the restraint she had suddenly felt. ‘But,’ she argued with herself, ‘Martin is not lying in wait. I may sing. I may do as I please.’

  She knew then that she owed her morning’s mood of freedom and gaiety as much to Martin’s removal as to the finality of her letter to Edmund. As soon as she had thrust the last pin in her hair she got up and went to the window. Gilligan was not there. Tying her bonnet as she went, she ran in fear to the drawing room. From the window she saw Gilligan and another man working near the commandant’s office. The anxiety left her face. She turned and saw Madge Noakes enter the door with polish and dusters. ‘Madge,’ she said, standing straight and smiling, ‘will you first escort me to the school?’

  The woman was looking at her with the same curiosity accorded to her a while ago by Letty. It left in her mind a little rankling guilt.

  From the scullery window she could see Gilligan and two other men in the garden, working peacefully, their hatbrims and trouser legs flapping in the wind. From the schoolroom she had kept a watch on the road, and was sure that Gilligan had not passed by. After coming home she had helped Letty to dress for Amelia’s tea and had then received from her the household keys, but, at her own entreaty, no instructions.

  She was mistress of the house. She had checked the supplies that arrived from the commissary store, she had doled out the tea and sugar to Madge Noakes, had apportioned the beef and vegetables for that night’s dinner, and had ordered the pudding. She had often done these tasks for Letty, but without the consciousness of Letty’s presence in the house they bore a different character, more intimidating at first but ultimately more satisfying. Pressing on against the passive sarcasm of Madge Noakes’s glances, she made several innovations of her own. Big Annie took her cue from Madge and guffawed. Annie, six foot tall and slightly mad, with a pin head and bullock shoulders, was valued for her strength and tractability. Frances found it easy to ignore her guffaws, and equally easy to pass over Elizabeth Robertson’s opposition. Elizabeth chewed her lips and mumbled that they never did it that way.

  ‘Well, do it this way today. Madge, there is scum in the water casks.’

  ‘As in the tank itself, miss.’

  ‘This has not come from the tank. It has had time to settle on the sides. Pray strain the water into fresh casks.’

  ‘Miss, how strain it?’

  ‘Through cheese cloths.’

  ‘Water through cheese cloths?’

  ‘Haw-haw!’ roared Annie.

  ‘Why not? Annie may do it, and then she may scrub the casks and wash the cloths.’

  She left the scullery at a brisk step, inclined to swing and rattle the household keys.

  In the nursery Robert was standing at his desk, still engaged in the task she had set him, while Lucy sat at her small table, scribbling with a pencil in a used letter book.

  ‘No, Robert. Your “cat” is more like “cot”. Let me show you.’

  Robert moved aside to give her room. ‘Aunt Fanny, is Gilligan still in the kitchen garden?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him. Now, see, if you bring the tail—’

  ‘Then Martin cannot yet be flogged.’

  ‘—right down to here, and then give it an upward turn, you have made a correct “a”. Who said he was to be flogged?’

  ‘Papa.’

  ‘Your papa told you that? Are you sure?’

  ‘No. I am wrong. Punished. He said punished.’

  ‘Well, that is a different thing entirely, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, it is different. He could be put in the solitary cell, on bread and water.’

  ‘Bread and wat-er,’ chanted Lucy from her table.

  ‘Robert, Lucy, it is not our affair. Now remember, Robert, the tail of an “a” must make a hook.’

  ‘A hook,’ said Robert vaguely.

  ‘I am writing my name,’ shouted Lucy.

  ‘Make a row of a’s here, Robert.’

  ‘Aunt Fanny, Aunt Fanny, look what I have done.’

  ‘Very nice, Lucy.’

  ‘You are not looking. You are looking out of the window. Look at it. Look.’

  ‘I am. It is very nice.’

  ‘It is a cart.’

  ‘I thought it was your name.’

  ‘No, a cart.’

  When the lesson
was over, and she had handed the children into Elizabeth’s care, and had given her permission to take them into the garden, she went to her room and began to draft a serial letter to Edmund. James Murray’s lily was in a vase on her desk, and during the long dreaming intervals in her writing, she sometimes smiled and touched a petal with her pen, or looked with unfocused eyes into its velvety heart. She knew that she was now employing a great deal of craft and guile in addressing Edmund, but it no longer seemed inconsistent with honesty. She felt the glow her own words created in her as the glow of sincerity. She was manufacturing love. Now and again she went and lay on her bed, with her hands behind her head, staring upwards into the white net and the lace, but presently fresh words would form in her head, and she would leap up and seize her pen again. Once she got to her feet and hurried to the scullery. Neither Madge nor Annie was there, but outside in the garden Gilligan and the two men were at work. She returned through the house, silently mouthing the next words of her letter. But she had hardly begun to write when she heard cries from the garden, a joyful hallooing cry from Robert and Lucy’s shriller but no less delighted voice. The children were rolling down the grassy bank. In a few minutes the cries had penetrated and dispersed her concentration. Letty would soon be home, and would find them hot and excited. She jumped from her desk and took her bonnet from its peg near the door.

  She went into the garden by the back door, and as she passed the place where Martin had stood looking up at her window, the surge of relief she felt was so strong that it entered her limbs and would have impelled her into joyful movement if she had not been troubled at the same time by guilt. Guilt, she realised, had haunted her all day like the sound of an old wooden rattle outside the door of a music room, not loud enough to stop her from hearing the music, but providing all the same an irksome undertone. But now it was growing in volume, and threatening to fracture the music. She would no longer stand it; she would attack it.

  ‘Well, at any rate, he will work no more in the garden.’

  The thought was so waspishly swift, and informed by such defensive spite, that it made her slow her pace, and put a hand to her cheek, and wonder at herself.